Heroes of Atria

King Dawn approached the massive wooden wall of the capital city of the Griffon Kingdom with a small band of his royal guard.

"Halt." a deep voice commanded from the right side of the door. "All ponies, even the King himself, needs a reason to enter the great city of Taladeth."

"I've come by demand of the peace treaty. I require audience with Lord Glik." King Dawn's voice boomed towards the griffon, dwarfed by his presence.

"Where is the Queen?"

"The Queen did not feel safe coming here due to recent incidents. She urged me to do the same, but I'd rather cross my wife than a foreign leader."

The griffon nodded. "Understood. The Griffon Legion has accepted your presence to the kingdom." The twin doors to the city slowly began opening. "Remember, though you are a foreign dignitary, you will be under the ever watchful eye of the Griffon Legion. Do nothing wrong, and nothing bad will happen."

"Understood, and thank you." Dawn saluted the gatekeeper, who saluted back.

"Enjoy your visit and may peace remain between the kingdoms."

Dawn walked through the front gate and headed down the wide open path straight to the heart of Taladeth, Glik's castle. "Stay close to me, I don't want them getting suspicious." The Griffon Kingdom has definitely fallen a few steps on the economy scale since the treaty. Every single griffon stared as Dawn and his guards passed, and every single one seemed starving. Even through this crowd of curious eyes, Dawn couldn't shake the feeling that someone else was watching him.

When they arrived to the lobby of the castle, Lord Glik was already there, waiting for them. He appeared finely dressed, the only griffon with any sort of luxury in the entire city, and he had quite a lot of it. There was a scar on his face that kept his right eye permanently shut, and his beak was bent, wounds from the Great War ages ago. A testament to the longevity of his kind. His entire body was dirt brown except for his brilliantly kept white head. "Ah, Dawn! My guards informed me of your appearance. To what do I owe this occasion?" his voice was slightly nasally.

"Glik, I've come to ask about these old world griffons."

"Come again?"

"Several of my citizens have reported seeing griffons, like the kind that fought in the Great War."

"As in, fully brown, tufts of feathers on the heads that kind of look like ears, and serrated beaks?"

"Yes. Perfect description."

Glik paused for a moment. "Honestly I can't say I've had any reports of them recently. Maybe a couple decades ago, but they were all hatchlings."

"Well, a chunk of my subjects have been killed by mysterious reasons."

"Go on."

"These deaths line up with reports of sighted griffons, the old world kind."

"Go on."

"That's it, what information do you have to provide on this?"

"All I can say is that it is possible a defector group has split apart from my kingdom and to be breeding them, but I've never had reports about such activity."

There was an awkward pause as the two mulled over what the other was saying.

"Well," King Dawn eventually continued, "is it possible that an old world griffon somehow came to be, legitimately?"

Glik scoffed. "Impossible."

"How so."

"We've established an extremely elaborate process of selective breeding. When a female griffon lays a clutch of eggs, she brings them in. You see, when a griffon egg is laid, it has a certain amount of feral instinct in it. We use advanced technology to remove all of the feral instinct from all but one egg, and inject it into that one. We then smash it. With no feral instinct being saved, nobody can create their own ferals."

"What are the odds that a clutch goes unchecked?"

"Zero. We heavily reward every griffon that reports a clutch laying or even a pregnancy. Not only this, but we keep close tabs on our griffon's behavior and we can tell when that happens very easily."

"What about the feral egg hatching?"

"Again, zero. I have twelve separate officials working on the breeding process at any given time, and I spent most of my free time watching this."

"I see. Has any griffon shown signs of resilience to this?"

"Well, most are visibly upset by the smashing of the eggs, and I understand why. But really it has to be done and they all know it's for their own safety. We've occasionally let ferals hatch for testing. No matter the amount of feral instinct in a griffon, it's impossible to reason with them, even communication is difficult. Two eggs worth of instinct is enough to make them completely berserk, five eggs worth makes them next to impossible to even restrain."

Dawn sighed, clearly disappointed in the trip. "My most trustworthy royal guard has told me that he saw a griffon fly away with the corpse of a pony firsthoof. The pony apparently said something about griffons before passing out to blood loss caused by a giant wound. Are you telling me that his quite detailed report is a lie?"

"I guess it may be possible, but surveillance on my kingdom covers every square meter. There's nowhere a defector group could even breed ferals. Census reports line up perfectly with birth certificates and death certificates too. Well, within about 20 or 30, we lost some files in a fire about 70 years back. Since then we've kept four different copies of everything in different locations kept secret from any griffon that doesn't need to know. The odds of unannounced ferals is so minute it might as well not even count."

"This is in clear violation of your citizen's basic civil rights!"

"Is it truly worth preserving the rights of an unhatched chick if it means endangering hundreds of innocent civillians?"

"I understand." Dawn thought for a moment. "Thank you for your cooperation Glik."

"It's the least I could do for the stallion who took my eye."

"May your kingdom prosper."

"And yours."

King Dawn and Lord Glik bowed to each other before Dawn signaled to his guards that it was time to leave.

When the band of guards and the King stepped back into the throne room. Either side was lined with ponies colored a very dark purple with black manes and tails, identical to the Royal Guard in all ways except color. Queen Dusk was still sitting on the throne when the King had returned.

"Dawn?" she asked, "It's ten at night, what are you doing up? Shouldn't you rest for the daytime?"

"I spoke with Glik. I have reason to believe he is withholding important information from me."

The Queen eyed her lover up and down accusingly. "Okay, and?"

"All guards have permission to kill a griffon on sight inside the kingdom."

Queen Dawn was taken aback. "What? Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"Are you hearing yourself right now?"

"We cannot risk any feral griffon attacks. Any griffons that are housed in the kingdom will receive a 24 hour warning for evacuation before anything can happen to them. After that time period, all guards have permission to use whatever force necessary to get them out of the Pony Kingdom, even killing them if need be. Non-residential griffons receive four hours. If any griffon so much as thinks about attacking a pony, they will be killed on sight."

A heavy silence fell upon the throne room.

Dawn was serious.