Silvery claws

Assistance

Chapter 3 – Silvery claws

The Griffon emperor grins as a female servant feeds him fresh grapes. Things are looking good for him, very good. The Griffon army could take over several smaller villages and a few small cities without many casualties. And just yesterday, they were able to overwhelm the defensive military forces in Baltimare, making this the first big equestrian city in control of the Griffon empire. Things are almost going to well. On top of that, these weird anomalies seem to weaken the ponies magical abilities. His scout squads and spies informed him about that matter and since the griffons could invade Baltimare so easily, there surely must be some truth behind it. Because under no circumstances would the Equestrian princesses just hoof over this important city without a proper fight.

One thing bugs the emperor though. His spies informed him about a weird bipedal creature. It was spotted in the Badlands, apparently living in a castle of his own. The worst part is, that Princess Celestia herself was spotted visiting said creature. Now, it is hard to believe for the emperor, but according to his spy’s, there was a blinding light spotted in the Badlands right when the princess was visiting this strange bipedal creature. It was brighter than the sun itself and wiped the desert clean of its vegetation. Albeit vegetation not really existing there to a bigger degree, said event was apparently still extremely powerful.

The emperor grabs another grape from his servant’s claw and swallows it without even considering chewing. He turns his gaze towards a big gryphon standing next to the emperor’s side, wearing a stoic expression on his face. He has a big scar right under his left eye and his frame was very muscular and wide. The rough and strong look is completed with his sharp claws, looking like metal blades from the distance.

“Silverclaw.” The emperor addressed the bulky gryphon next to him.

“Yes, my lord?” The strong gryphon answers immediately, loyalty embedded deep in his low voice.

“This ape-creature. You must deal with it. Under no circumstances can we allow that Celestia gains any military strength due to any potential alliances, is that understood?

Silverclaw nods, a small grin forming as he looks down towards his sharp claws. He’s going have some fun with them soon. Something he’s going to look forward doing again. His grin grows wider.

“Of course. Consider it done by tomorrow, my lord.”

Silverclaw opens the balcony doors and leaps into the sky with his strong wings, his claws shining in the golden sunlight as he heads towards the Badlands.

Joseph’s head feels like it went through a blender, hell and back as he opens his eyes and tries to get up. He is unable to move. A heavy but soft white object is pinning him against the forest ground.

“The fuck happened ughh…”

He rubs his eyes and notices the white alicorn directly on his chest, knocked out with a sore bulge on her head, right next where her horn starts. She snores silently and drools over the human’s face while muttering something in her sleep about a fiery bird stealing her precious slices of cake.

“Eww! Bloody disgusting!Why does shit like that always happen to me?”

The human struggles and tries to shove the mare off his body. Quite a task when you are simply too exhausted. The struggling mess below the princesses’ body finally wakes the mare up. Celestia holds a hoof onto her sore head and groans.

“By Luna’s moon. Where am I?”

Celestia opens her eyes and immediately gets greeted by a grumpy human face, covered in slimy saliva. Her saliva. Celestia’s eyes widen as she recalls what happened and she springs immediately to her hooves, an embarrassed and worried expression on her muzzle.

“Oh, dear! I’m so sorry Joseph.” Celestia looks to the left and right and notices the human’s backpack laying on the forest ground. Its contents sprayed all over the place. She sees a towel, which Joseph must have kept in his backpack, laying in the forest leaves. She quickly grabs hold of it and uses it to clean off the mess she produced on the human’s grumpy visage.

"Please excuse me. This should never had happened. I don’t know why but somehow my magic got drained and I couldn’t teleport properly. It m-must have been due to an anomaly nearby!" Celestia didn’t even notice herself stuttering a little and just trotted in place as she explained herself.

Finally looking down again, she offers a hoof towards the sore human laying on the leafy ground. He grasps it and pulls himself onto his feet, using his hands to dust off his now dirty and torn clothes. Joseph then wipes the remaining saliva from his chin with the back of his left hand.

“Let’s just not talk about it okay?” Celestia nods and smiles a little sheepishly.

"Okay. Let’s evaluate our situation. We flew with your sorcery-carriage. Dropped the nuke. It exploded and almost roasted us alive. Aaaand we teleported right into a forest with no clue where we are. Great! Just Great!”

Joseph walks in a circle and groans in annoyance. “For fucks sake, I can feel my migraine creeping up on me again…” He then squats down and holds his head in his palms.

Celestia steps forward and holds a hoof on Josephs shoulder. He looks up to her, eying her now smudgy coat and dirty wings. Leaves and smaller twigs are tangled inside her now less wavy mane.

“Joseph, the worst thing we could do in this situation is panic. You should relax.” Celestia exclaims in a relaxed and gentle tone. "Besides, you should be thankful for this 'old hag' who saved your sorry flank."

Joseph, after swearing a little to himself, finally calms down and agrees. Celestia opens her dirty wings and flies into the air where she hovers in place and looks out for her castle. She spots it in the far distance and soars back towards the human, informing him about which direction they should hike towards. The pair walks through the forest, not talking much while Joseph plays around with a damaged compass, apparently not fully trusting his alicorn companion. Understandable, if we take into consideration what just happened with her magic carriage just an hour ago.

After a while the pair reaches a cobblestone path and the humans mood raises tremendously as he notices an inn in the far distance.

“I’m off. See ya’ Princess!”

He speeds towards the direction of said inn and smiles in content as he admires the western style Saloon. He walks through the entrance doors without a care and strolls towards the bar, completely ignoring all the stares he gets from all ponies sitting inside. The country music abruptly stopped as he reached the bar and waits for someone to take in his order. He looks to the left and right and immediately notices that several ponies, especially mares, stare at him.

A middle-aged female pony trots up to the counter and raises her eyebrows at the strange creature in front of her.

“Well hello there. What can I get for ya’ exotic stallion?” She says with a western accent while leaning against the counter, rubbing a beer-glass with a white towel.

Joseph chokes a little on a bit of spit and narrows his eyes. It is true though. In this would he could be considered exotic. But hearing this from pink and winged pony is weird. Like really weird.

“Just a pint of beer please. I’m on transit and…”

The human feels a nudge on his side and notices a black pony with bat wings staring up towards him, while licking her fangs. The human raises his eyebrows high as his brain realizes a mix breed between a pony and a bat stares at him in a sultry way. He prays to all gods listening, hoping that he will get his beverage immediately, so he can leave this weird inn as soon as possible.

“Uhm. Yes?” The human asks, tilting his head slightly to show his annoyed state.

“How about we both take some drinks and rent one of these rooms over there? You seem like an exotic stallion and I’m in need for some fun. I won’t accept a no anyways, so you better behave.”

Josephs brain felt like it just got soaked in vodka lit on fire. A pony-bat-creature, reaching half of his height, asks him out to do weird, kinky and non-consensual bat-sex. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, clearly not able to think properly anymore. He just wanted to get a bloody pint of bear for fucks sake. But apparently, once again, he was not allowed to enjoy the simplest things in life.

“Leave him in peace at once!“ A familiar, feminine but strong voice halls trough the inn.

All eyes suddenly are turned towards the entrance. All but the bat pony’s. She just sighs and grins at the human in front of her who is still trying to supress the fact that this is just happening.

“And pray tell why I should even listen to you hmm?” the bat pony exclaims a little reluctant, still grinning at her prey in front of her.

Joseph turns towards the direction where the voice came from and sees an angry Celestia walking towards the bar. She has aa fiery look in her eyes and her dirty wings are flared, almost knocking down some glasses as she walks past the tables, but no one dares saying anything about it. The bat pony finally looks at who dares challenging her. Her pupils shrink at an instant.

“Because If I were you, I would be more reconsidering of what escapes my muzzle. Because if you won’t, I will torch your house down to its mere foundations with you inside, is that understood?!” Celestia’s eyes seem like they could pierce trough metal and her waving mane and tail could be mistaken for a raging fire.

All muzzles in the inn hit the floor at what just happened while the bat pony whimpers in fear, her tail between her legs.

“I-I I’m sorry Princess! I-I-I It won’t happen again.”she whimpers some more, and her voice gets very quiet, filled with fear. “P-Please don’t send me to the moon…”

Celestia huffs and nods. “I’ll think about it. King Joseph, let’s go. I don’t want to be late for dinner at the palace.”

“Uhm, s-sure Celestia. Whatever you say.”

Joseph grabs the pint, puts a few bits on the counter and throws an apologetic smile into the crowd of ponies. “Seems like I am needed somewhere else. See ya’ peeps!” He quickly exits the inn and sees Celestia in the distance walking away. Apparently, she did not see the need to wait for him, so he jogs after her.

“Celestia, wait!” He reaches her and tries to get her attention, which he fails to do as she just continues walking her gaze locked forward into the distance.

“The fuck just happened back there. I mean I appreciate it and all, but seriously? That poor thing was terrified and probably shit her pants if she would wear any.”

Celestia stops walking and looks up to him, her facial expressions difficult to read since she trained her poker face over the last two millennials quite well.

“’Poor thing’ you say? Joseph, may you tell me how the gender roles exactly work where you are from?

“Uhm well. Males or females are not superior to the other gender. At least that’s how it is where I am from. Why you ask, Princess?”

“Celestia sighs and runs a hoof through her flowy mane.”

“Sadly, things aren’t always sunshine and rainbows in Equestria. Many societies on our small planet still believe in a gender role, which places the female above the male. Males still face many hardships and just recently got their proper rights. Stallions and Mares are by law equal now, but not all mares see this law as a necessity. In addition to that, there is the 1 stallion to 3 mare birth ratio, which makes it even harder for stallions to step up for themselves.”

“Wait. Are you saying that this creepy, barely one-meter tall bitch, wasn’t joking and actually wanted to fucking rape me?!” The human almost shouts in disbelief.

Celestia looks towards the cobblestone road under her hoofs and nods sadly.

“I can’t be one hundred percent sure of course, but it seems like that would have been the case.”

"Seeshh… That’s bloody fucked up!” He looks over to Celestia and notices her shamefully looking at the ground. “Well, we should have shoved the nuke down her throat instead of dropping it over the desert, now shouldn’t we?"

The human grins and ruffles the princesses’ wavy mane while chuckling. Celestia tries to hide her smile and smacks Joseph's hand from her head with a whip of her horn.

“Joseph! This is a most important matter and should not be joked about.”

Joseph quickly pulls his hand back and laughs. "Owww. Hey that hurt! Watch out where you swing that pointy horn of yours!” Celestia just rolls her eyes and the two continue to walk along the path again.

After a long trek and a train ride, the pair finally arrives at Canterlot Castle where Celestia gets greeted with a lovely verbal assault as the two enter the dining halls.

"Celestia! What took thee so long?! Our troops spotted an immense explosion in the Badlands! We..."

Princess Luna immediately stops talking when she realizes what state her sister and the weird human king are in. Celestia’s coat is covered in brown smudges and the tip of her horn is scorched as if someone held a candle under it while she slept. King Joseph is looking even worse. His face and arms are bruised, and his clothes torn in a few places. The look is finished with exhausted expressions on her sisters’ muzzle and Josephs face.

"What on Equs happened to thee, sister? Did the gryphons attack thou? Did thou slip on freshly wiped marble floor again?

She eyes the two carefully. If the lunar princess is concerned about her sister’s companion, she is hiding it quite well.

"Language Luna" Celestia ignores her questions, walks towards the couch and lets herself fall onto it, leaving no room for the human behind her. He mutters something about a certain alicorn having too much cake and then falls to his knees, where he embraces the feel of the soft and comfy carpet. It is the perfect substitution for a bed. Something he really needs right now.

The human rolls onto his back and stretches his arms and legs, laying there onto the floor like a half-butchered sea star.

"Princess Luna. I'll give you the short version."

The human sighs and then takes in a deep breath before answering quickly.

"Celestia asked for help. I demonstrated how my help would look like with a huge bloody bomb. She thought it was lit and bought one. Afterwards she dropped it from her flying carriage and BOOOM. 10'000 Tons worth of TNT blow up on our asses, almost killing us. She teleported us out right before we could be vaporized though. Cheers on that.” The human underlines his story with a thumb up towards the lunar princess as he stares towards the castle ceiling.

Luna stares towards Celestia, not sure whether this is a bad joke or not. Reports informed her about the explosion in the Badlands near the whitetail woods. Apparently, the fireball was more than two hundred meters in diameter. Simply impossible, the lunar Princess thought to herself. As if this weak and crude human could unleash the power of such magnitude. On top of that she tends not to trust strange creatures who appear out of nowhere and claim unassigned territory. Unassigned territory in the Badlands. He surely must be up to no good.

When Celestia looks up at her sister she can only give her a sheepish, halfway apologetic smile before she closes her eyes and collapses on the comfy couch.

“S-Sister!” Luna trots towards the couch and nearly treads on the human laying on the carpet in front of it. She grabs Celestia’s flank and shoulder and shakes her back and forth. “How can you fall asleep when Baltimare is in the claws of the Griffon emperor! Have the senses taken leave of thee?!”

Celestia just groans and rubs her sore head. "Let me take a quick bath and then we will discuss our plans with some tea and cake. I really need some cake right now."

Author's Note

this charpter was brought to you by...

Make sure you eat cake on a daily basis. cheers.

Actually, don't do that. Eating severe amounts of cake can lead to hearth problems and trombosis inside your veins. Contact your local doctor for further information. Cheers