The Brightest Light Casts the Longest Shadows

The shield that I had cast was perfect in every way. A work of art, created using science to maximize the force while minimizing the energy required to maintain it, perfected by thousands of hours of practice in the arcane arts and almost a decade of advanced magi-

“Come on out of there. No need to try fighting us.” Boss cut off my internal monologue.

The bushes were torn apart and more than a few branches fell out.

“Come on. Move it.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.”

A moment later a pair of saddle bags were chucked out. They reached the apex of their arc at the tree line, then fell onto the path. Doc and Boss both quickly took a few steps back.

“Anything else?”

“Yeah.” The mare's voice called out before a sheathed knife joined the bags. “Alright. I’m coming out.” There was a short pause before the mare spoke again. “Curse it.” Torn leaves, needles and branches flew from the trees and landed on the path.

A gryphon, no- gryphoness, pulled herself from the woods and onto the path. As soon as she saw us she began speaking rapidly, like a filly hyped up on too much sugar. “Who-wee you have no idea how hard it is to get out of bushes. Way more than it takes to get in, let me tell you, I thought I’d never get free. Hey, I think it’s snack time, anyone, anypony I guess, want a snack?” She looked down at her bags and the smile fell off her face. “Oh, I guess I can’t get them with that knife there, I don’t even know why I have the knife, anypony want it, it keeps getting in my way.” She sighed, then perked up. “Oh well, guess we’ll just have to wait, come on new frien-”

“Shut up.” The gryphoness was cut off by Boss who she quickly and sharply saluted as she shut her beak. After a moment Boss spoke again. “What are you doing here and what do you want?”

The gryphoness remained silent.

“You can talk now.”

The smile returned to the gryphoness’ face. “Thanks for letting me-”

“To answer the questions.” This time it was Doc who looked more than a little annoyed as he tried to focus on his magic.

“Oh… okay… well... uh... I’m... here because… because… because, well, I don’t know… I just woke up here… with these things… bags… now I’m just trying to get back to my fam-" She hiccuped.  "-to my family.”

Any hint of joy fell off my face, we were too similar. I knew that she was probably kicked out of her clan by her family. They were most likely the ones who took her and dumped her to get rid of the embarrassing and inconvenient child. My circumstances were different though; I knew why I had been exiled, I had a choice to either accept exile or not, and, most importantly I at least had some knowledge of the world. The gryphoness though, she was far too innocent, she didn’t even understand why she was here.

My anger began to boil over. Whomever this gryphoness’ parents- if I ever meet them they’re gonna need- I will make them ble- calm Twilight, calm.

Boss looked like she was ready to cry. Unless it was interference from the spell -which I highly doubted- I could see tears welling up in her eyes.

Doc stood up and looked to the sky. After almost a minuet and without any discernible sign he lowered his head and released the charge in his horn. “Boss.”

“Yeah?”

“The area’s clear. She the only one nearby, I’d say probably a scout, we can dispatch her or take her with. There is no immediate threat nearby, but I’d rather we not let run away.”

Boss nodded. “Good. But Doc.”

“Yea?”

“You are not in charge, you don’t get to make decisions. Not unless you want me to have a conversation about your behaviour with Two when she gets back.”

Doc nodded slowly. “Yes ma’am.”

“Good.” Boss turned to the gryphoness. “You, in the front. We’ll be watching, you try anything and I’ll drop you so fast your little wings’ll break when you try to spread them. Understand?”

The gryphoness nodded with a great big smile on her face. “Yes. Thank you so much.” The gryphoness rushed forward, front legs extended and wrapped Boss in a great big hug.

After getting over my shock at the gryphoness’ actions I dropped my shield and pulled the two pegasi to their hooves.

___ ______ ___

I stood next to Doc as we started out at the river. The dying sun’s light sparkled off its surface and formed little reflections and rainbows that danced around. The river’s close bank way maybe fifty body lengths away. Over our heads the mass of dark grey storm clouds continued to creep along. Perhaps a trick of the light, but they seemed to be moving faster now that the sun was along the horizon.

I sighed.

Doc looked away from the river. “You okay?”

I shrugged. “Just tired. Been a long day, haven’t had any rest since…”

“…”

“… you know…”

He nodded. “Yeah… I try to get used to it, but…”

“… you never do?”

“… eventually… it happens eventually… but even then it's…”

"Finicky."

“Yeah.”

I looked back to the river. Doc did too.

Its swirling waters and the gentle sound of water over the rocks was no longer as mesmerizing as it was just a moment ago. Without its sound actually changing the river's babbling changed, it was no longer the gentle whispering and gurgling of the water flowing over the rocks, but a harsh grinding of the water and rocks against each other.

I twitched, but kept looking.

I’m not sure what I was looking for; perhaps I was hoping to have my annoying and troubling thoughts washed away like the leaves floating in the river.

I blinked.

The river kept flowing past us.

Doc sneezed.

The river didn’t stop.

I blinked again.

The river kept-

“I’m gonna head back to the cabin.”

Doc nodded. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll head back in a minuet.”

I nodded in understanding. As I walked away I heard a splashing sound.

I smiled to myself; Doc was enough a gentlecolt to wait until I’d left, but practical enough to not have to hide himself when he was alone.

When I got back to the cabin One and Three were already setting up a fire outside. The gryphoness, whose name I still hadn’t learned, was watching them idly.

Her front legs were bound together loosely at the ankle joint, not enough that she could walk, but enough that she could move her legs a little. Her wings were bound to her side with a belt.

While still firm and tight the bindings looked like they had been placed on her with her consent and with a desire not to hurt her. Certainly, they were much looser and more comfortable that those on the brothers. The two pegasi were lying on the ground, tightly bound and tied together.

Boss looked up when I entered the clearing. “Hey. How are you?”

I put a small smile on my face. “I’m fine, and how are you?”

“Good. Almost got the fire started and we should be cooking in fifteen. Where’s Doc?”

“He’s gonna catch up in a moment.” I watched as Boss gently blew on the lit tinder. The flames sputtered for a moment, but the instant she stopped blowing they erupted into an even larger fire. “You need help with anything?”

Boss shook her head, then started nodding. “Ya’ know, I actually do have something that you can do.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, if you wanna just pop into the cabin, there'll be a stove in there. I’ll have Doc bring in some wood when he gets back, but if you could just get the ash cleaned out we can actually be warm tonight.”

___ ______ ___

Three hours later and with the benefit of hindsight perhaps suggesting that I clean a part of the cabin was a bad idea. I had taken that to mean 'clean the entire cabin'.

“It looks like you killed somepony in here.” I looked around the room trying to find the mess and was both slightly offended and slightly concerned that her first choice for a simile was to compare me to a murderer. After a long, awkward moment she elaborated. “When you kill somepony you clean up the area; get rid of blood stains, hoof prints, the body, that sort of thing.”

While I was still in shock Three chuckled and jumped onto one of the six beds ringing the room. “This’ll probably be the cleanest room I’ve ever slept in and I had maids growing up.”

Doc flopped onto another bed. “Yes Three, thank you for reminding us that unlike us your parents were wealthy industrials and that you had maids to take care of your every need and desire. Every need and desire that is, until you decided to run away to ‘have an adventure’ because your life was boring; because they protected you, fed and watered you, gave you love and comfort, tried to make sure you could live a good life, made sure your dumb mistakes were covered up… ungrateful brat.”

I tried to intervene. “Uh. Hey, let’s not get host-”

“Oh you think I’m a brat?”

“Hey can we-”

“Yeah I do. You could go back any time you want, yet you’re down here making your parents worry about you with every breath they take.”

“Oh yeah, right, ‘cause I can just go to my parents and say ‘Hey I’m home. It’s the criminal son. How’s the business?’ What kind of dumb ped-”

“Oh sure, because we all know they won’t welcome you back in and just cover it-”

“SHUT. UP.” The two arguing ponies went quiet and even though it wasn’t directed at me my ears folded back, Boss had quite the set of lungs. After taking and releasing a deep breath she continued. “Alright. Let’s try to treat each other with a little decency, or at the least not argue with each other. You two opposite sides of the room. Either of you tries anything and I will drag you out to the river, shove your head into its bed and slowly drown you. Any objections?” Seeing none she turned to the door. “Good. Now let’s get to bed. I’m taking first watch, Three I want to talk to you.” They both stopped in front of my bed. “When’s Two gonna be back?”

“Before morning, prolly an hour or so after midnight. I know she likes to fly during the day when she can see better, but she’s still pretty good at night flying. She said she’d be back as soon as she took care of ‘er and the associated paperwork. Even with the added weight 'nd including breaks it’d be ten or so hours from the city.”

Boss nodded. “And did she deal with it?”

Three nodded. “Once you and feathers shook hooves I sent up a blue flare.”

“Her response?”

“Two hours later I got it, green, so all’s good. She’d’ve left about an hour later, otherwise I’d’ve she’d of sent another flare... by the way I'll need more blue flares soon.”

“We'll take care of it. Anyway, how long ago was that?”

“Nine hours, so she should be back in about two hours.”

Boss took a few steps away from my bed. “I'll wake you when she arrives. If she’s not here by three I'll wake you, and come morning if she's not back, we'll search for her.”

Three leapt into the air and spread his wings. He glided down onto his bed. “I’ll see you in less than four hours.” He raised his blanket with a wing. “Hey, Boss.”

“Yeah?”

“If she isn’t here by morning d’you wanna have me head up to the city and check it out? That way I can run an overflight and see if she crashed anywhere along the way, it'll also get me to the city faster so we can eliminate the most likely reason for her going missing."

Boss nodded. “Sure, if she's in the city at least we'll know what happened, maybe pay her bail, and if she crashed you should see some evidence.”

Three nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. Night.”

“G’d night. See you in a few hours.” Boss snuffed out the candle.