Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása (Good Weather For An Airstrike)
The air was cold against her brown feathers. Almost too cold for her if she wasn’t wearing the flight jacket. The frigid wind from the canyon blew onto her face, rustling and tussling the white and purple fuzz on her face. It chilled her to the bone, but she couldn’t let it show that it was bothering her. Not while she was with the other troops.
“Griffons!” A loud voice boomed, commanding the attention of the entire platoon. Every single soul had their attention focused to the commanding officer. “Today is a beautiful day, a day that will surely go down in griffon history! Future generations of our species will see this as the day we rose from the ashes. This day is ours!”
While standing at attention, the griffon was still shaking. The jacket did nothing to keep her from shaking from the cold, or to keep her from shaking for other reasons. She tried her best to hide it, but her movement caught the eye of the commanding officer.
“Lieutenant Gilda, is there a problem?” the older griffon stared at her with his eyes. His gaze was powerful, almost as if was trying to break the young officer.
“No, Brigadier General Casimir, sir!” Gilda replied, trying to have her voice heard above the loud winds.
The officer moved forward toward the shaking griffon. He inspected her from her talons to her top feathers. He noticed she was still shaking, even gritting her teeth to give the appearance that she was not faulting whatsoever.
A smile appeared on Casimir’s face. He looked toward the other griffons in the line-up. “You see this, platoon? Lieutenant Gilda here is shaking. She is showing that she is anxious about what lies ahead, as she should. Fear is natural, no matter what the task maybe. And today is no different. Today is the day that we move forward and reclaim the glory that Griffonstone once held.”
Gilda breathed a sigh of relief as the brigadier general moved past her. She did not want to incur his wrath again.
“To reach that pinnacle again, we must move forward, we must be diligent and merciless.” Casimir continued his speech to rally the troops as the wind whipped his dark blue feathers around, “And I say to you, we will not mimic our former glory and we will not just copy it. Rather, we will surpass it and usher in a new golden era. I won’t lie to you soldiers, an invasion is not easy, but it is to bring back the honor that our land, no, our species have lost to the sands of time. I hope you understand what we do here today may come at a cost, but it is nothing compared to the scar that runs down our once great society’s face, a blemish that will never be removed. And I ask for you, the best fliers in all of Griffonstone, to be the beginning, the catalyst that will bring in new era of all griffons.”
The young griffon looked out from the side of her eyes. She peered to see her comrades and their reactions to the brigadier general’s words. They were firm and unflinching, hanging on every word as if what he said was gospel. Gilda understood what he was saying was somewhat accurate. Born and raised in Griffonstone her entire life, she had only heard stories of the times when her home was not only city on a hill, but also considered one of the most well-known metropolises in known history. The home she grew up in was little more than ruins. They were unable to even recreate what their home looked like with any original or facsimile texts that exist.
Casimir added one final statement, “I ask you, my griffon kin, to be the ones to give us a future; a future that us griffons can look to with hope. Can I count on you?”
“Yes, brigadier general, sir!” one griffon shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Excellent! Any others?”
More chimed in.
“Sir, yes sir!”
“Yes sir, Brigadier General Casimir, sir!”
The entire platoon joined in a cacophony of pledging allegiance and loyalty to the cause. One griffon, however, remained silent.
“I’m proud to call you my platoon, and I’m proud to see that Griffonstone has the finest air force I could ever ask for. I thank you for you are doing today, Griffonstone thanks you for what you are doing today, and future griffons will know of your deeds today. We leave in fifteen. Dismissed.”
The platoon broke down into chatter amongst itself. Gilda was still silent. In her mind, she was attempting to solve a problem that she knew had no simple answer. She stared forward at the rocky terrain and the dust that was being pushed around by the powerful gusts of wind.
A comrade of hers appeared by her. Her feathers were of an ashy color, giving her the nickname that she was given when she first entered the air force, Soot. “Yo Gilda, you alright? Casimir could have just laid into you if you kept moving like that.” Her voice was bright and sunny, contrast to the grey skies above them.
“Yeah, I’m fine, Soot. Could have been a whole lot worse. Guess I was lucky he went on with that speech,” Gilda tried to breath calmly to soothe her shaking, but her entire body was still vibrating as if she was caught in an earthquake.
Out of her flight jacket, Soot pulled out a muffin, “Did ya eat? We’re gonna need our energy for this mission.”
Gilda looked at the pastry. Her mind flashed back to a memory when she tried her first shot at baking. An absolute disaster, but nevertheless, there was one individual who praised her. Not because it was tasty, but rather because Gilda had tried. She shook her head violently to bring herself back to senses. “Yeah, I ate this morning,” she lied. Her stomach was too upset to do handle any food or drink. In fact, she was surprised she had even gotten out to the cliffs for the meeting.
Soot shrugged at took a bite and munched away on the baked good. The crumbs spurted out of her beak as she spoke, “Think were gonna do this right?”
“I hope….” Gilda trailed off. Her words were weak and hesitant.
The other griffon could easily tell something was not right with her. “What’s wrong? Is it about your orders? I could trade with ya if that will make you feel better.”
“No, no it’s not that,” Gilda started, “It’s just that….I’m….uh….can I ask you something, Soot?”
She nodded, still chewing away at the muffin.
“Do you think this is right?” she asked. Gilda then added on to explain what she meant, “I mean the invasion of Equestria. I know why we are doing it, and it sorta makes sense but….is it the right thing to do?”
The ash colored griffon swallowed the food in her mouth before dropping her expression to one of a serious tone and answering with a question, “So, you’re wondering if what we are doing is actually the right thing to do, if we are in the right with our endgame?”
Gilda silently nodded.
Soot looked down at her partially eaten muffin, her previously bubbly attitude a distant memory. “To be honest, I don’t know what to think anymore.” Her gaze returned to that of her friend and her second-in-command, “I never would have thought I would be in the Griffonstone Air Force, much less a first lieutenant of a platoon, and with someone I completely trust as my partner-in-crime. But here we are. We were given our orders and we are to follow them, even if we don’t completely agree with them.”
“But what about the fatalities? Those that are innocent and caught in the crossfire? Just casualties of war? Because that’s all I am seeing in this task.” Gilda’s voice finally came alive, showing both passion and doubt about the task that lies in front of her. “All I am really seeing is the classic battle of ‘us vs. them’, and we have to win because our side can never be wrong.”
There was a pause. Soot took a moment to understand exactly what Gilda was saying. “I see where you are coming from, Gilda, honestly I do. But you know Griffonstone, the city you were born and raised. Can you honestly say you are proud of such a city? Our home is a mess, and as much as I love it, I’m scared that it’s true that we are a shell of our former selves. The best thing we can create is a new day for us.”
“No matter the cost?” Gilda pushed Soot on, trying to get her show her true colors.
“Where is all of this coming from?” Soot asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I….” Gilda trailed off. She didn’t want to say where she got the idea. “It was from when I was in Equestria, when I hung around ponies.”
“Ponies, huh?” Soot had a bit of a devilish smirk as she took the last few bites of the muffin.
Gilda raised her voice up, “Say what you will, but those ponies have something we don’t: compassion. They won’t start going around claiming that the only way to be the best is to cause violence and destruction, just as we are ordered to do!”
“Compassion, huh? The same emotion that brought empires down in the past?” Soot crossed her front limbs.
“A little goes a long way.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I would say being around those ponies turned you into one of them, almost a straight up copy. You aren’t a changeling, are you?” Soot was joking with the last statement, but with her tone and demeanor, Gilda couldn’t tell the difference.
“No! I’m no a changeling!” Gilda bit back bitterly. She lowered her voice as she explained, “I admit, those ponies did change me. I guess they taught me that selfishness isn’t going to get you far. And that goes for an entire society and not just an individual. And these orders they gave us. I mean, it just seems insane.”
“But orders are orders.”
“A full on invasion? That’s the way we are going to bring in the ‘new golden age’? Is it too much for us to simply swallow our pride and just ask Equestria for help?”
Soot retorted quickly and aggressively, “And why would Equestria help us?”
Gilda grew silent for a moment. She then softly replied, “Because they too have been in dire straits like ours before.”
A silence fell between the two griffons and the rift between them seemed to stretch farther and farther by each passing second.
“Gilda, you’re my second-in-command and I need to know that I can trust you. Can I still trust you with this mission?”
She didn’t answer immediately with words. However, she did give a light nod followed by words, “Yeah.”
Soot gave a small smile to her comrade, one of comfort. “We’re going to get through this. Things are going to be okay.”
“Do you really believe that?”
She didn’t answer her. The two stood in silence. The brigadier general’s thunderous voice brought them back to reality: “We begin launch in five!”
A talon was raised up toward Gilda. Soot was making direct eye contact with her, “Gilda, we’re still griffons in arms?”
She gave a weak smile back and raised her talon up to meet hers, “Yeah, I guess we’ll always be griffons in arms.” They clenched each other’s talon tightly. Both were afraid to let go, knowing it might be the last time they smile together.
The platoon started getting into formation, lining up as they had previously trained numerous times before. The rows of griffons were ready to leave at Casimir’s signal. The wind howled and blew about, but Gilda was still shaking for other reasons than the cold.
Soot turned to look at Gilda next to her, “Having second thoughts?”
“Always,” Gilda sighed as she looked out from the cliffs toward their target, covered in grey skies. She then made a sarcastic comment, “It’s certainly good weather for an airstrike.”
END
