Feathered Hearts - Continuation and Chronicles

Chapters

0: Prologue (T-rated)
1: A Griffon's Journey
2: Alien Arrival
3: Lost in Translation
4: Promotion or Punishment
5: Clashes of Culture
6: Hall of Heroes
7: Council of Crows
8: Expulsion or Asylum
9: Intrigue and Aftermath
11: Ties that Bind (R-rated)
13: Explanations and Epiphanies (M-rated)
14: Feathered Heart (M-rated)
11: Ties that Bind (T-rated)
12: Lockdown Lifted (T-rated)
13: Explanations and Epiphanies (T-rated)
14: Feathered Heart (T-rated)
15: Aftershocks
16: Guns and Roses
17: Best Laid Plans
18: Bolt from the Blue
19: Shadows of the Past
20: The Cloven of the Sun
21: Know Thy Enemy
22: Know Thy Ally (M-rated)
22: Know Thy Ally (T-rated)
23: Enter the Ibex
24: Battle of Bale - Prelude
25: Battle of Bale - Part 1 (M-rated)
25: Battle of Bale - Part 1 (T-rated)
26: Battle of Bale - Part 2
27: Escape to Aricia - Part 1
28: Escape to Aricia - Part 2
29: Battle of Lake Languid, Part 1 - Unlikely Allies (T-rated)
30: Battle of Lake Languid, Part 2 - Hold the Hill
31: Battle of Lake Languid, Part 3 - Change of Fortune
32: Arrival at Aricia
33: Reunions (M-rated)
33: Reunions (T-rated)
34: Gilda vs Cipio
35: Through the Eyes of Another (R-rated)
36: Love in War (M-rated)
35: Through the Eyes of Another (T-rated)
36: Love in War (T-rated)
37: Queen's Gambit - Prelude
38: A New Day (M-rated)
38: A New Day (T-rated)
39: Forging of Friendships
40: Council of War - Part 1
41: Council of War - Part 2
42: Council of War - Part 3
0: Prologue (M-rated)
10: Rest and Recovery (R-rated)
12: Lockdown Lifted (R-rated)
10: Rest and Recovery (T-rated)
29: Battle of Lake Languid, Part 1 - Unlikely Allies (M-rated)

0: Prologue (T-rated)

Soaring high above the foothills of the Foal Mountains on the strength of her broad, brown-feathered wings, Grizelda Behertz—called Gilda by those who knew her—felt her lithe half-eagle, half-leonine form shiver as she spotted the silhouettes of the moderately-sized houses in the distance; their dark forms contrasting sharply with the piercing rays of the Celestial sunrise that appeared in the east.

Her shivering wasn’t because of the weather, which the ponies carefully controlled to the point of obsession. While it was the Running Of The Leaves Season—a rather ridiculously long name considering the Gryphons just called it Artumnus—and a step closer to Winter, the frosty predawn temperatures were not the reason for her discomfort. She was, after all, a sky griffon of the North; even the freezing bite of the wind was no match for her thick coat and feathers.

No, her discomfort was a product of the town itself—Ponyville. It was a quaint little settlement in the Sovereign Realm of Equestria, situated in the foothills of the mountain range where the Equestrian capital city of Canterlot was located. From her position, she could see the river that cut through the center, the big red building that served as its town hall, all the equally colorful houses with bright yellow roofs, and the outlying farms dominated by a giant apple orchard.

She had visited the town before only once, and it was not a pleasant memory. She’d lost her best friend, and with her, the only reason she had to stay in Equestria. The years had passed, and so many things had changed since then. She'd even made peace with that former friend, fighting back-to-back in the air against a mutual foe.

After her stormy and admittedly misspent youth, all was now well in both her personal and professional lives; she was content with what she had and what she was. Yet the trepidation of returning here remained. Was that the reason why she hadn’t stopped by the town yesterday, making an excuse that the travel had exhausted her?

Gilda stared at Ponyville from her hover for a few more seconds, with no answer springing to mind. Were the memories of her hurt still too raw? Did she fear encountering ponies who remembered her? Or was she too afraid to even think about it, even after fighting a war and facing down death a thousand times over?

In the end, she turned her back on the town, reminding herself sharply that she was no longer the immature and insecure eagless she was then. Her powerful wings flapped with practiced gracefulness as she soared higher and higher towards the overlooking foothills that built towards the distant Foal Mountains.

As dawn broke over the misty hillocks with an orange glow that touched their peaks first, her eagle-sharp eyes shifted from left to right, trying to find the cavern where they set up camp. It took her a moment, but she soon spotted it: wisps of red-orange embers, dancing inside an open maw almost a kilometer away.

The wind shifted as her wings began to fold the air around it. With a powerful push of her sky griffon wings, Gilda dove for the opening at breakneck speed; her eyes narrowing as she weaved through the clouds with expert ease—expertise she’d gained in both races with Rainbow and battles for the survival of her very race and nation. Before she knew it, she was at the mouth of the cave.

Smiling, she spread her large wings outwards, immediately causing the air to drag her back hard. The wind resistance slowed her descent enough to plant her claws on the rocky mountain ground, sparks flying from stone as her talons skidded across the surface. Her momentum was still pulling her forward as she shifted her body without difficulty, her hind paws moving diagonally as she then slid to a stop.

With such an entrance and her wings spread out, she was the very image of a graceful griffon: mighty, majestic, and “just plain awesome” in the words of the one she was returning to.

The first thing she heard was a series of sharp clapping sounds, causing her to cock her head slightly, like those damn griffon models she absolutely hated. Then again, she couldn’t really begrudge it, either—her companion, her chosen mate, was a special circumstance. She never really had a problem being a bit girly for him.

“Nice entrance,” he said, reminding her instantly of how his deep and throaty voice always sent a thrill through her. “I’d give it a 9.5. Have to dock you a couple points for low degree of difficulty and not quite sticking the landing. You also dragged your tail a bit.”

“Who asked you?” She growled in mock ferocity even as she felt a touch of flush build in her cheeks. She’d never really understood why she liked his teasing when she hated it from everyone else, but coming from him, it was somehow endearing; a mark of deepest affection. Trying her best to ignore the feelings his mere presence brought her, she approached the makeshift lodgings they had built the previous day.

The cavern that sheltered them from the cold was a former dragon hoard, though Gilda was certain it had been long abandoned. If it wasn’t, their stay would have been short indeed when the dragon got back. She had checked the whole place before they set up, and whatever wealth had once been there had long since been looted; there was nothing remaining except strong and ancient stone.

The camp, she noted again, was definitely different from the usual griffon setup, which usually consisted of a few dry twigs for the fire, firegems, and leaves for bedding. The basic materials were still there, though some additional amenities were needed because of her mate.

At the center of the camp was a small fire contained within a hastily constructed fire pit. The usual one-time use firegems were missing, instead replaced by human tools. Her mate called them fire-starters, which only consisted of two parts. One was the ‘flint lighter’, which was a simple-looking metallic stick with a wheel at one end. It could cause sparks with a simple flick of a finger—or claw, in her case—and unlike firegems, it was also reusable. The second were termed ‘fire-tabs’; little cotton knotted ropes that caught fire quite quickly, even when wet.

These tools were far more usable and much more simplistic than the off-at-times firegems that needed a vial of liquid magic or a strong impact to work. It was thus no surprise when the ‘fire-starters’ had almost single-handedly replaced the traditional magical gems back in the Griffon Kingdom. These had, in turn, become popular on the human world of Earth for providing a ready source of light even when their usual methods of powering lights—electricity, they called it?—were absent.

Also, instead of the usual leaf bedding, there was a tent in place. But unlike pony tents, which were costly and required magic, this one was far simpler, using one of those refined strong aluminum frames as its skeleton. How humans developed them were beyond her, given it usually took a team of unicorns or griffon metalworkers—called blackbirds—to refine the lightweight metal to a usable form, and even then, it was generally far too soft for most purposes.

The humans also developed interesting fabrics that they used to cover the tent. Her mate called it ‘nylon and other stuff’. It was thin, but it kept the insides toasty warm even if she didn’t quite like the smell. While it seemed impossible to accomplish without magic, it was unimportant in the end. After all, the tent was big enough for both of them—wasn't that enough?

Speaking of her mate, there he was, sitting by the fireplace and stoking the flames as he prepared to make breakfast. Since the cavern and the fire were more than comfortable, he was not wearing the gold-yellow and red hooded jacket, pair of brown pants and thick ‘steel-toed’ boots that made up his typical traveling attire. Instead, he wore short pants and that thick fur vest she had given him as a gift some time ago, showing off his well-muscled golden brown arms.

She remembered a time not long before when she was so busy with her military duties that it was hard to get enough free time to hunt animals for their fur. Worse, she had the bad luck of only starting the search a month before his birthday, when she desperately wanted to be able to present a coat made for him. She failed, but her gift was enthusiastically received nonetheless, and judging by the wear-and-tear, he wore it nearly every day.

It was just another reminder of why she loved him.

Remembering made her neck and face feel warm, and it wasn’t because of the flames. Approaching him, she laid her kill down next to the campfire, licking the blood off her beak before she faced him.

It didn’t show while he was sitting, but he was a tall, bipedal creature and unless she reared up herself, she’d only stand as high as his chest. The brown skin of his face was muted by the low intensity of the fire, but it made the white teeth of his smile much easier to see. Approaching him, she nuzzled his neck affectionately. He rubbed his cheek on her neck in turn, his teeth nibbling at the sensitive surface she wouldn’t bare to any other griffon, making her throat involuntarily trill.

“Morning, Gilds,” he greeted.

“Morning, Marco,” she answered back. She settled down on her haunches beside him, and he automatically grabbed a brush from his pack and began to groom the lion half of her body, smoothing out the fur and removing a few specks of frost. She groaned with pleasure, her spine arching with the brush’s passing.

“Nice catch. You need me to skin it for you?” her mate asked. It took her a moment to realize he was talking about her kill.

“Not unless you want some,” Gilda replied distractedly. While she had discovered a far greater appreciation for how humans prepared meat—who would have thought cooking it could make it taste better?—griffons were more than comfortable eating it without any preparations. Plus, skinning the kill herself was quite an enjoyable task, letting her be the predator she was.

“Eh, thanks, but I’ll stick with eggs and sausage. This jerky’s good, too,” he said as he placed a cast-iron pan on the fire to let it start heating.

Gilda rolled her eyes. “You’d really pick that mush and a piece of dry and briny meat over my fresh kill?” she asked, and this time, her reaction wasn’t entirely feigned—it was always something she’d say every time he’d eat the ‘jerky’ on their travels, which was what he called the dried and salt-preserved surplus griffon military rations they’d procured. Surprisingly, they had been a hit with their human guests, who found them close to snacks they enjoyed back home.

And, as always, he would give his usual smile as a reply. She looked at him for a second before turning away, with a fake huff. “I can’t believe you actually like that stuff. Humans really are masochists. The whole lot of you are weirdos.”

Her unperturbed mate just chuckled. “I don’t see why you’re complaining, Gilds. Especially if...” He let his words linger as he slowed down his brushing in a particularly sensitive spot near her shoulder. Gilda hiccuped a squawk of surprise and pleasure before she cuffed him with her wings.

“Stop that!” she ordered him, feeling her face flush.

He backed off, but only barely, keeping his efforts tantalizingly near the erogenous zone at the base of her wings. “If I wasn’t weird, would I be able to make you feel this good?”

She felt her face flush harder, trying to stop her twitching wings from going erect. “Oh, just shut up and brush me.”

“Only because you asked so nicely…” He gave a sound that was surprisingly close to a feline purr. And brush he did. Up and down, back and forth; his hands steady as he worked a rhythm of even strokes. They were very practiced motions, honed by months of repetition. Gilda always enjoyed his grooming ministrations, even when he wasn't initially that good at it. Thank the Ancestors that he was such a fast learner, at both that and...

Satisfied, she tapped his leg with her wing, signaling him to stop before he got too amorous. With the pressure off her coat, it was time to return the favor. She walked behind him and draped her forelegs over him, her claws lightly scraping through the fur vest as she rubbed her neck and beak over his head, shoulders and scruff. She closed her eyes and lost herself as she breathed in his scent deeply, finding it as pleasantly warm and spicy as always.

Her stomach suddenly rumbled. Her eyes flew open as she felt her cheeks heating up, from embarrassment this time. She suddenly felt his fingers glide over her feathered neck, his lips kissing her throat.

“Sounds like you’re as hungry as I am. So go eat, Gilds. And thank you.”

Gilda gave a very fake huff of annoyance, and immediately stalked her kill near the fire. Before she dug in, she looked back at him for a moment; her eyes shifting.

“Are you sure you don’t want...?” she motioned to her kill.

“I’ll be okay with the jerky for now,” her mate replied with an easy smile. “Save me some slices and I’ll do them up as steaks tonight. Besides, with Ponyville so close, I can get some potatoes, too.”

“Ugh, Ponyville,” Gilda spat out before she began to eat her breakfast ravenously, tearing meat off the bone with her beak.

“Hey, slow down, Gilds! I don’t want you to choke,” he advised with a laugh.

Gilda rolled her eyes as she ate her meal. Still, choking to death was a much better prospect to her than going to Ponyville. Who knew; maybe it would convince him to let someone else represent him. “Better to choke now before I enter that Ancestor-forsaken town,” she muttered between swallows of fresh flesh, not bothering to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “Why did I agree to come here, again?”

“Because I have to meet up with the town council to finalize and secure the new trade routes, while you volunteered to escort me as the Kingdom’s military liaison. You also claimed you wanted to protect me from amorous ponies,” he replied, chuckling as he cracked some eggs into the pan.

“Claim, nothing! I’m definitely going to protect you from those in-heat dweebs,” she replied through a mouthful of meat.

“Funny, weren’t you the girlfriend of one of them?” he teased, earning him a hiss and a swat with a wing. “Honestly, Gilda, I don’t think they’re that bad.”

She licked her beak clean before facing him again. Her mate wasn’t afraid of a little blood, but had told her that he was still a bit unsettled seeing it on her. Oh, the things she would do for him. “Not that bad? They’ve actually built companies to hire out male humans for sex with mares!”

He laughed loudly at the reminder. “Okay, you got me there, but I still say it wouldn’t be that bad. Haven’t you been reading those articles in the Manehattan Post? Sounds like mares really go for human guys, given how few stallions there are. And besides, it’d be nice to have some additional affection.”

As soon as those words left his mouth, Gilda stopped eating. Her neck straightened; her eyes narrowing. The tone of his voice indicated that he was teasing, but the idea of having to share him? Her thoughts began to zoom around her head. When she imagined seeing him with those stupid ponies or even other griffons, her blood began to boil.

“Additional affection?” she asked in a low, deathly quiet tone.

“Well, sure! I mean, a man can never get enough, you know! And neither can pony mares, if those articles are any indication. Wonder if they’re as fun in bed as the author says?” He made a show of being deep in thought, considering the question carefully.

A low leonine trill vibrated from the deepest confines of her throat, echoing throughout the cavern. She turned, leaving her breakfast on a flat stone near the fire, and stared straight at her mate, who was wearing a goofy smile on his face. He was egging her on and she was playing right into his wings—er, hands—but she didn’t care. How dare he imply that she should share him! Wasn’t she enough?

Her hind paws kicked up a bit of dirt behind her before she pounced him, her wings spread to make her look as intimidating as possible as she knocked him to the ground and stood over him. Her talons bit lightly into his shoulder, sharp enough to cause him to yelp, but not enough to pierce his flesh. She would not hurt him, but he needed to be taught a lesson!

Far from alarmed, he put up no resistance even though he had proven himself more than capable of offering it, letting her pin him on his back. She settled her haunches on his thighs, staring at him for a few seconds before her claws moved towards his vest. She then slowly kneaded them on the furred surface, a little rougher than her earlier actions.

“Okay, okay!” Her mate stiffened at her aggression, yelping quietly as her beak darted quickly and bit him on his neck, more sharply and painful than the usual nibble of affection. She wouldn’t let him up, though. Using her claws to force him down, she slowly traced the outline of his shoulders, nipping in particular places, feeling satisfied every time he gave a half-muttered apology. “I give! I give. Can’t a guy even make a joke?”

“You are mine, Marco Lakan!” she whispered harshly at his ear after a fifth bite. She earned only a weak affirmation, so she bit again, earning another yelp. “Now say it!”

“I’m yours,” her mate replied agreeably, then spoke more clearly and emphatically at the look in her eyes. “I’m all yours, Grizelda Behertz.”

“And don’t you forget it,” she said, her throat growling low.

“Swear to God,” he replied, with his arm moving and positioning itself perpendicular to his prone form, palms facing upwards from the ground, open. A human gesture, she had learned long before.

“Swear to me!” Gilda ordered, now settling on all fours, letting her full weight rest on top of him. She could feel their shared warmth; feel his beating heart beneath his chest as she deeply inhaled his scent, his body intermingling with hers once more. She lowered her face; her beak almost touching his nose, internally smiling as she felt him squirm under her weight.

It was an ages-old gesture of griffon dominance; a lesson to show him her displeasure. A normal griffon response was to expose their neck in a sign of trust and submission. Instead, he kissed her on the beak. Gilda stared at him, her eyes crinkling. Later, her face followed.

“Ugh, whatever,” she muttered, trying to force the smile from her face with an uninterested tone. She stood up off him, letting her mate sit up. She then rubbed her neck on his back and over his shoulder. “For teasing me like that, you owe me some preening.”

“Preening, or preening, Gilds?” Marco asked meaningfully, a little lust entering his tone as he began to give soft kisses on her feathery neck. Gilda felt like she was struck with lightning, her breath catching and spine stiffening.

“What do you think, dweeb?” she whispered huskily, sensing her passions rise along with her wings.

His only response was more feathery kisses against her beak, chin and neck, sometimes with a little tongue. His hands moved with precision as well, one towards her neck, massaging it with his digits, while the other rubbed her sides and the more sensitive areas of her shoulders with practiced motions.

She sighed happily and finally surrendered to his efforts, baring her own neck while lowering herself on top of him. As affairs quickly turned more intimate, all she could think of was the time they had spent together, and the unlikely means by which they had initially met and bonded.

It was an impossible tale, one almost worthy of the sickeningly sappy romance novels the ponies favored crossed with the heroic griffon legends of old. A tale that was not always happy, but one she would remember for the rest of her life.

By my Ancestors... she thought as she felt her pleasure build to its inevitable outcome. How did I get so lucky?

1: A Griffon's Journey

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

2: Alien Arrival

Author's Note

This chapter is a heavily edited, expanded and updated version of the first half of so of Feathered Heart: Chapter 2 You are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original.

Thanks go to my prereading crew of AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire, and SIlverblade5, whose inputs and edits make my works far better. Appreciated, gang!

2: Alien Arrival

Gilda growled as she shoved her left foreleg in the appropriate opening of the crow-begotten torture device they called a dress uniform.

The damn dark-blue vest was supposed to make them look presentable, but all it did was make her angrier by the minute. She had spent almost half an hour trying to make her wings fit through the provided openings only to realize the foreleg sleeves were coming up far too short, pinching her at the joints and riding up uncomfortably towards her elbows.

That was annoying enough. But even once she finally got the tunic on around her forelegs—an exercise that was another ten-minute struggle—she had to secure it using a pair of darker-shaded straps that were looped around her arms and torso in strategic locations, tightening around her shoulders and even grinding uncomfortably against the base of her neck where her flight muscles extended.

The dress uniform didn’t fit, but the Guard garrison’s Quartermaster proved to be useless when Gilda showed up wanting a replacement. He simply laughed at her complaints, telling her that the dress uniform fit exactly as per Kingdom’s standards. She later learned from those griffons who had worn it before that it was designed to purposely annoy the wearer, as its uncomfortably constricting fit gave the griffon wearing it an angry, battle-ready look—scowled eyes, ruffled feathers, and twitching wings.

In that, she admitted it served its purpose perfectly, as she found herself ready to tear something apart from the not-so-simple process of putting it on. In truth, she’d probably have felt more embarrassed if she was in Equestria. Ponies, after all, were convinced from their experience with pegasi that twitching wings were a sign of sexual arousal. While not completely false, they failed to remember that for griffons, a pair of twitching wings far more often meant that said griffon was angry and ready to attack.

At least it didn’t fully impede her forelegs, though it certainly constricted her movement; she couldn’t understand the logic behind making them look battle-ready if the uniform itself limited their ability to fight. Her forelegs finally fitted, she donned her shoulder armor, polished to a mirror shine and gleaming proudly, over the dress uniform with a practiced motion.

Checking the straps of her dress uniform one last time, Gilda stretched her wings, making sure she could actually still fly with the stupidly tight vest. Finding that she could, even if she didn’t have full range of motion, she walked towards the exit, leaving her bare quarters behind. It consisted of only straw bedding, a small closet, and a stone desk, but it was still far more than she’d had for previous rotations, when she’d be lucky to be sharing a room with only an entire three-decade Turma.

She stepped outside, and her eagle eyes quickly narrowed to pinpricks as the bright sun momentarily blinded her. Once they adjusted, she quickly scanned around. She was currently in the fourth level of Arnau, and the griffons there moved around at a hurried but purposeful pace; the air smelling of freshly baked bread.

She sighed, feeling so sick of the aroma that had permeated the whole city since yesterday. She knew she should have been glad; maybe even proud that Arnau was fully prepared to greet the humans. Instead, she still felt nothing but apprehension regarding their presence, and judging by the tension she could sense from the griffons around her, she wasn’t the only one.

From ruffled feathers to twitching wings to curt conversations, the entire city seemed less festive than restive, not knowing either what their soon-to-arrive alien visitors would look like, or what would happen when they appeared.

Walking towards the edge of the level’s battlement, she met a few guards patrolling the merlons surrounding the area. She began to shout the clearance code but they immediately complied before she completed it, most likely recognizing her and giving her leeway.

A bit unprofessional, but then again, Gilda was grateful that they were not trying to be obstructive at a time she was in no mood for it. Dashing towards a free crenel, she leapt off and spread her wings wide, letting the air catch her as she took flight.

Gilda smiled as the wind hit her face, feeling some of her discomfort-caused anger receding as she reentered her element. The smell of bread was fully ignored as she flapped harder, letting her climb higher. She was almost stopped by two patrolling Guards in the fifth level before she shouted the code and they let her be.

Knowing she didn’t have the proper clearance to ascend any higher towards the royal palace where the Queen resided, she stayed at that height, admiring the splendor of their capital city, wondering how the humans would perceive it before she slowly glided towards the western entrance, where her decade had been posted.

As she descended, she could see the busy bustle on the third level, which was primarily designed as a commercial area. It had minimal residences but numerous shops, eateries and Inns set atop slabs of smooth, gray stone. The large central auditorium of the level was being cleared as tables, barely mid-torso high, were set down in rows. Some griffons, she noted, were setting torches for light as they occasionally did when large numbers of ponies were present, usually for state visits from the pony Princesses.

Apparently, humans couldn’t see that well in the dark, belying yet again their supposed status as apex predators.

She was almost at the first level when she was hailed by Fortrakt. He was waiting in the middle of a landing point, an upraised stone stage filled with soft soil, smiling. He was early, which was not surprising given he prided himself on his punctuality. He was also dressed in a blue vest, and while it looked snug, his smaller frame made it a far better and less awkward fit than hers.

“Nice dress uniform!” he greeted her with a wide smile, giving her a mock salute—she wasn’t owed a real one as even though she had a higher rank than him, she wasn’t an officer. “You finally look like a proper Griffon Guard!”

Gilda landed at an angle and didn’t slow down, letting her momentum deliberately carry her into a slide. Dirt flew as she twirled around, hoping to cuff him with her wing as she passed, but he ducked out of the way. Still, she got the last laugh as Fortrakt got caught from all the scattered dust that billowed in his direction. She watched him cough for a moment as she snapped and spread her wings before folding them on her sides.

“Really, cub? You’d think with all my armor, I look a lot more like a proper Griffon than you do,” she replied with a smirk. Fortrakt rolled his eyes and coughed one last time before he approached her. The two jumped off the platform and began to walk side-by-side to the gate.

“All it takes is time, something that old and past-their-prime griffons like you are lacking!” He chuckled, ducking as Gilda tried to cuff him again. “One day, I’m going to get my shoulder plates and braces. And then you’ll realize the fundamental difference between us, Decanus,” he addressed her by her Auxiliary Guard rank.

“Oh, and what is that, Gladio?” she returned the favor, emphasizing his lower status.

“That I make the armor look good.” He all but preened.

Gilda snorted, which shortly turned into a loud laugh that got the attention of a few griffons and ponies walking amongst them. “Cub, while you’re trying to entice an eagless with your spit-shined plates, I’d be behind a stone desk, ordering you to get my drinks.”

“Yup, like any old griffon. Sit behind the table and look important while letting the younger ones run the show,” Fortrakt countered with his tongue out. Gilda tried to think of a retort, but she had to admit, she flew right into that one, reflecting that just two years earlier, she would have immediately tried to fight him in wounded pride. Now, though, she continued her trek in silence as Fortrakt smiled, reveling in his small victory.

Arnau’s first level housed a lot of farmers, both Caleponian and griffon. Unlike the upper levels, the residential buildings were widely spaced; built more from wood than stone. It reflected the high number of Caleponians living there, as most of the houses were decorated with plants or had a small garden that they tended. There were some foals and fillies laughing about, sometimes playing with griffon cubs while wearing leather claw gloves.

They passed a statue of Ardanius of the West, a faceless griffon hero that once held fast against the invading forces of King Sombra, sacrificing himself to defeat the former Dark Lord of the Crystal Kingdom and throw his army back into the sea. He wore heavy armor, but his visage was not known because the thwarted and infuriated King had ordered his likeness purged from all memory and had the magical power to do it.

His sculpture stood on its hind legs, supported by the large diamond-shaped shield it held with one set of talons, while the other gripped a large war-hammer. It was used as a model for the Fortis Knights; earth griffons with smaller wings but stocky bodies able to carry and lift heavy loads. While it looked extremely impressive, Gilda still favored the Wind Knights that were meant to rule the air, as befit the sky griffon she was.

Thinking of the Wind Knights, Gilda was surprised when she spotted a number of them landing on the rampart on top of the Western Gate. From her distance, she could make out the leathery hide underneath their enchanted golden armor plates. Their armor was far lighter than the Fortis Knights as it was designed for maximum maneuverability, and the crossbows hanging on their flanks were meant to be used in aerial combat. Some were even bringing them forward, letting them rest on the raised stone platforms, ready to be aimed down the western road.

“Did I miss something?” Fortrakt asked, confused as he watched them take defensive positions. “I thought we were just greeting them!”

“Just letting the apes know that we’re taking them seriously.” A new voice answered him.

Gilda and Fortrakt glanced to their right, quickly spotting the voice’s owner; a female sky griffon with a dark grey lynx-like coat and very pale, falcon-like feathers. She was dressed like Tribune Cipio of the South, attired in a leather-like hide with metallic greaves on her throat, shoulder and sides. Unlike the Southern Tribune, however, her chain was made of silver, indicating her additional authority was to command Talons.

Fortrakt immediately saluted, letting his enclosed claw bang on his chest as he easily exposed his neck in deference. Gilda followed closely, though a bit more stiffly.

“Good morning, Tribune Narada,” Fortrakt greeted her with a smile.

“Greetings, Tribune.” Gilda did the same, though with less enthusiasm than her partner.

Narada saluted back, her neck stiff and unmoving. She gave Fortrakt an approving smile, but gazed at Gilda coolly.

“I’m glad to see you here, Decanus Behertz,” the Tribune declared somewhat dryly. “After our meeting three days ago, I was half-thinking you wouldn’t show up.”

“As an Auxiliary Guard soldier, I shall fulfill my assigned duties to the Kingdom, sir,” Gilda replied neutrally, surprising herself by succeeding in keeping the disappointment and distaste from her voice and body language.

“Indeed? That is very professional of you, Decanus,” Narada answered in approval. “The Kingdom appreciates your efforts, even when they involve tasks you don’t like. Such devotion to duty will be remembered.” With a parting nod, she took her leave.

Fortrakt looked at the retreating Tribune before he turned to Gilda, who said nothing. “I thought you were joking when you said you were going to talk to the Tribune about taking a leave of absence,” he told her, a note of respect in his voice.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Gilda muttered, looking away.

“So, the Tribune didn’t approve your leave, eh?” Fortrakt asked with a smirk. “Dare I inquire what happened when you asked?”

“What do you think, dweeb?” Gilda’s eyes narrowed as her mind went to the conversation.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

“What do you mean ‘no’, Tribune?” Gilda asked.

The Tribune looked up from behind her desk in annoyance. “Is there something wrong with your brain, Behertz? ‘No’ is a very simple word.”

“With all due respect—”

“And by that you mean ‘Kiss my tail, Tribune?’” Narada asked, her right eye growing slightly bigger than her left as said tail lashed behind her, thumping audibly on the floor. “I expected far better of you than such a last-second request with no justification beyond an obvious distaste for our visitors.”

Gilda shifted uncomfortably as she stood at attention, recognizing she was on the verge of severely overflying her accumulated goodwill and overtaxing the Tribune’s patience. “No, sir. But I just thought—“

“Thought nothing, Behertz! The answer is no! Even if I’d granted you leave before we learned the humans were coming, I would have rescinded it—we had to recall all soldiers on leave to make sure we had sufficient strength to secure the city, given the high stakes and the number of visitors involved.

“But even if not, Her Majesty wishes that all soldiers be present on this historic day, as both a show of strength and a statement of Gryphon solidarity. Be assured you can take your well-deserved leave later—if, that is, you convince me this visit was just an aberration and perform to my satisfaction in the days to come!” she stated in a warning tone.

“But for now, your request is most emphatically denied, and if you wish it fulfilled later, I suggest you give me no further cause to doubt your devotion to duty! Is that clear, Decanus?”

“Clear, sir.” Gilda came to attention and saluted, biting her tongue to make sure she didn’t say something more she’d quickly and sorely regret.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

“I bet you left her office with all your feathers ruffled like a fledgling,” Fortrakt continued, his smile growing. “You were probably thinking of telling her off.”

Gilda sighed. He was right, and yet... “I do not want to talk about it,” she repeated.

“Well, I hate to say I told you so, but I did,” Fortrakt continued. “I mean, what were you thinking? Just three days before one of the most important and historical visits to the Kingdom, and you decide to…”

“Dweeb.” Gilda rolled her eyes as she mentally tuned out his incessant yammering. She could have pulled rank on him to make him shut up, but she didn’t, knowing he’d just see that as another victory. Walking stiffly and official-looking towards the gate, she spotted the other Auxiliary Guards soldiers of her Turma clamoring around the area, also attired in dress uniform while talking amongst themselves.

Some were even conversing with Fortis Knights, whose armor pieces were tinted gold as opposed to the straight silver of the Talons. It wasn’t just for appearances; their armor was much stronger both in terms of steel and protective enchantments, as befit the Kingdom’s elite. They had their heavy shields and enormous war hammers secured at their sides; ones Gilda could barely heft but they could swing with ease.

Then there were the silver-armored Talon regulars with black dress uniforms as opposed to the blue of the Guard sitting along the wall as well, their spears set lazily against the vertical surface. She even spotted a single violet-attired Magus Knight meditating, hovering in the air with her levitation magic alone while her staff floated lazily in front of him, spinning slowly.

Ancestors, she thought. All the separate service branches of the Kingdom’s armed forces were present short of the Navy, including the Talons, all three types of Knights, and the Auxiliary Guards. Then a pulsing thrum overhead made her realize she’d been wrong there too, as the GKS Jeyenne came into view along with her three escorts.

Comprising the capital defense group, the airships took position over the arrival route of the human convoys, able to either fire a salute from her numerous Minotaur-made ballistae or turn them on the air and road routes into the city. The quartet of heavily armed airships represented the Kingdom’s ability to project power both within her own borders and over them, if she desired.

Tribune Narada wasn’t kidding, she granted with some renewed respect. The Kingdom really was taking greeting the humans seriously, even if she still didn’t understand why.

“Isn’t this overdoing it?” she asked Fortrakt as they took position with their Turma near the entrance of the gate.

The younger griffon looked at her and shrugged. “Well, if these humans are the apex predators of their world as these Equestrians claim, then they should understand a show of force is a sign of respect,” Fortrakt replied. “Besides, we don’t want to give an impression that we’re pushovers, right?”

“Maybe. It just seems like we’re showing too much of our capabilities before knowing theirs. If they do decide to fight us, they’d have the advantage.”

A few guards’ feathers fluffed, their eyes shifting to Gilda’s and Fortrakt’s direction. “Excuse me, Decanus—but are you two talking about the apes?” asked one of her decade’s younger Spears.

“Yup!” Fortrakt replied with a smile. “We’re just wondering if they’re really worth all this trouble.”

“They might be. I heard they were the only sapient creatures of their world,” a tiercel member of her decade interjected. “That means they’re warlike since they probably wiped out all their rival races to be on top, just like we did the Yaks.”

“I heard they didn’t kill off anyone and didn’t have any rival races,” One of her decade’s three Gladios replied.

“Really? Even the crows know that’s stupid! We live with a bunch of Ponies and Zebras and Ibexians and Harpies and even Abyssinians. But you’re telling me that they live on their world alone?” the tiercel retorted.

“That’s what the ponies are saying,” the eagless shrugged.

“Then you’re an idiot for believing them!”

The eagless’ feathers ruffled as her tail lashed and eyes narrowed. She quickly jabbed her fist into the tiercel’s neck, delivering a near-mortal insult that got a few ooohs from the crowd. “I’m starting to think I’ve had you cleaning the latrines too long,” she muttered with a hard tone, then grinned evilly. “Or maybe you might need to clean a few more!”

“And here we go,” Gilda sighed as the discussion suddenly became louder and was no longer confined to her decade as more griffons, Guards, Talons, and even some Knights, joined in the conversation, arguing amongst themselves regardless of service or relative rank.

“Yup, here we go.” Fortrakt nodded, his eyes rolling. He watched as the large group began to shout out their points. Some were already butting heads. “See, this is exactly what we need—to show the humans that we’re willing to fight, even against ourselves!” he shouted the last part loudly, but was largely ignored.

The bickering reached a point that a nearby Talon Centurion authorized the setting of a duel ring, around which soldiers from the different branches began to form a loose circle; those planning to fight stripping off their formal uniforms and meticulously shined armor so as not to mar them. In the center, there were griffons pitted against opponents of their choosing, engaging in full-contact sparring as occasional wagers were made on their outcome.

It was a normal state of affairs in the Kingdom’s military, serving the dual purpose of allowing a safe way to settle grudges between soldiers, or just generally let them release some tension and let off steam, as she’d heard ponies say, so they could later focus on their jobs and the real enemies.

Gilda herself had participated in a few of them, winning a match or two before losing out when a much stronger or better-skilled opponent bested her. Today, though, she was happy just to watch, if for no other reason than that she didn’t want to take off her dress uniform for how hard it would be to get back on.

Bets were made in both gems and duties; ones that even the older centurions joined in. For the moment, no one cared about rank or the impending human arrival as the action opened with her tiercel Spear and eagless Gladio fighting with the latter winning easily, though she relented on the threat of more latrine duty.

She was swiftly and soundly beaten by a Talon Second Spear in the next match, however, and before long, the ring was being dominated by an imposing Fortis Knight Centurion named Brutus, who mowed through his first five opponents before he was outmaneuvered and submitted by a female Wind Knight First Spear, to Gilda’s delight.

She won two more rounds before getting overconfident and falling to a far more experienced Optio; an earth griffon tiercel who was second in command of his Century and embarrassed her by outfighting her in the air.

For nearly twenty minutes, there were cheers and shouts, jeers and laughter as ranks and services were forgotten in favor of simple fighting skill. But it didn’t last. Just before the Talon could face his third opponent, a shout rang out from above:

“All soldiers stand to! The humans are coming!”

The cheers instantly ceased as the duel ring fell silent. The Talon Centurion, the highest-ranked griffon present, turned his eyes towards the patrolling griffons in the rampart above the gate. “Confirm!”

There was a pause before a Wind Knight Decurion exposed his head from above, looking down at the gathering. “Three more confirmations! The human convoy is approaching!”

The Centurions were the first to stand. The lead centurion, a female griffon with vibrantly hued red feathers—Gilda suspected they were dyed, which was strictly against regulations—took note of the others and faced the soldiers.

“Griffons! Stand to and stand proud!” she bellowed as every griffon instantly snapped to attention, combatants hastily pulling their armor back on and occasionally cursing as they found it just as difficult as Gilda had. But with the help of their comrades and the use of special brushes to remove dust and restore metallic gleams, they were presentable again within a minute and entered formation.

The duels forgotten, all present were shortly dressed and ready, necks straight, ready to receive orders. Satisfied, the senior Centurion continued his instructions. “Form up with your centuries! You have already been briefed on what to expect. Centurions and Decurions will advise you on your formation. Remember to give the apes a good impression, but even in the face of hostile threats, take no action without orders! Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir” everyone shouted their reply with a simultaneous salute and then dispersed.

“Summon the Tribune!” the lead Centurion shouted, her voice clear even amongst the bustle. Gilda couldn’t hear the rest as she and Fortrakt fought through the crowd. Auxiliary Guards were positioned at the very back. They weren’t front-line soldiers or specialized like the Knights, but they were the last line of defense in case the others were overrun.

As Gilda took her place, she watched as the Knights began to converge in their own groups. Fortis Knights were gathering in the gate, securing their helmets and shields. It was the normal state of affairs, as the Fortis Knights were always at the forefront of both attack and defense.

The Talons joined them soon after, as was proper given the two branches often worked together. According to Kingdom military doctrine, the Fortis Knights would act as shock troops on the attack, breaching ground defenses for the far more numerous Talons to exploit.

They also worked in close coordination with the Wind Knights, who positioned themselves behind the Talons on the high ground of the merlons and other battlements; it was their job to control the skies above and take care of any airborne threats, while also performing sudden strikes and deep penetration raids against surface targets behind enemy lines.

Sky griffons like Gilda, they were able to fight from the ground, but that was not preferred given their weaker bodies—a hard-learned lesson of the long-past Gryphon-Pony War was that sky griffons could take ground but not generally hold it against a determined earth pony counterattack. If they were sent to seize a position, relief in the form of earth griffon support had to follow quickly, or it was reasonably certain they’d be driven off.

She next spotted two Magus Knights take to the sky and settle right with the Wind Knights on top of the Western Gate, bracketing it. That, too, was hardly surprising; Magus wanted to be in the air so they could use their ranged attacks more effectively, which included elemental assaults like fire, ice, or especially lightning. They were typically assigned to units in pairs, redoubling their effectiveness for having one able to act as a shield and the other, the sword.

Speaking of swords, in ages past, griffon soldiers had been equipped with scimitars as a matter of course. But though swordsgriffonship was—and remained—a revered fighting art, to use them properly took time and training, and nowadays, only the best soldiers, like the Wind Knights or the secretive Ravens, wielded them. In contrast, spears were easy enough to master and quite lethal, and the much more general use of steel claws than had been known in Imperial times allowed griffon soldiers to fight far more naturally and instinctively with minimal training.

As they scrambled into formation, Gilda’s throat gave out a harsh trill when she felt someone brush her wings. She looked around, but with the crowd moving, it was most likely an accidental brush-up and she couldn’t identify the griffon responsible.

Just as well, or she’d probably have slammed them into the nearest wall.

Calming herself down, she began to push through the thick crowd. She lost Fortrakt for a moment before she saw him ahead of her, his talons waving at her. With one last effort, she pushed through the claustrophobic crowd and joined her fellow Guards in the rear ranks.

“Took your time, Behertz,” Giraldi, a large male earth griffon with metal shoulder pauldrons, greeted her. He was a First Spear, the ranking enlisted of her century; and despite his demonstrated skill, he was an easy-going griffon with nearly two decades of experience in the Guard.

“Why, Giraldi? Am I missing an invasion yet?” Gilda replied with a sly grin. Both bared their throats, Gilda exposing hers a degree more, while they saluted each other with a solid bang of their shoulder plates.

His eyes narrowed in mock warning—there were few superiors Gilda would feel comfortable teasing like this, but he was one. “If these apes are hostile and pass our defenses, I’m going to see you eat those words, Decanus.”

“Won’t happen, First Spear,” Gilda snickered. “I’ll just act as any Guardsgriffon under your command would—stand back and let you fight them alone, lest I mess up my dress uniform.”

Giraldi guffawed, as did the rest of Gilda’s decade. Shaking his head, he shouted a command for the Guardsgriffons to form up around him; he ordered them to assemble into three Turmas, three decades deep. Gilda would have loved to have been further up in the formation, but as she lacked seniority, she and Fortrakt were stuck in the middle with the second turma on the ground behind the gate, probably a good seven rows from the front line.

From her position, her eagle-eyes swept through the gate, and shortly locked on to a series of small dotted figures moving through the skies. She could reasonably guess it was an air coach; maybe a six-seater, pulled and carried by five sky griffons. That wasn’t the only thing she noticed. A rising column of dust was also present in the distance, probably caused by ground coaches. They would be pulled either by griffons or Caleponian earth ponies, and judging by the amount of powder they’d kicked up, they were coming in big numbers.

Five minutes later, Tribune Narada arrived, marching down the ranks of readied soldiers. Satisfied, she turned and stood calmly in the front line, watching the approaching shadows. The Talons and Fortis Knights stood proudly, unwavering, as five more minutes passed and the air coach finally came into view.

It was a boxy wooden structure with lines extending outwards to connect to the harness of the four sky-griffons carrying it, and escorted by an entire century of green-armored Paladins in a defensive formation. As they began to descend between the bracketing airships, Gilda was surprised that not just the escorts but the carriers themselves were Paladins instead of mere Talons or even elite Knights, meaning whoever was inside was probably influential, and thus accorded both maximum honor and protection.

The lead shouted an ‘all-clear’ command, most likely for the Wind Knights spread out at the rampart—Gilda could imagine the anxious soldiers raising their crossbows and getting ready to fire—before they landed smoothly about ten paces from the Tribune.

They landed a bit awkwardly, with the Paladins carrying the coach showing signs of fatigue—no surprise, given they’d flown their guests all the way in from Loondon, which was a long way to fly for even the most conditioned Wind Knights. Still, when they saw the Tribune, they immediately saluted. The lead Wind Knight then addressed her, though the exact words escaped Gilda.

She could guess they were formalities, trying to get everything clear and out of the way. Whatever was said, Narada nodded, and the lead Wind Knight approached the side of the air coach. He rapped his claw on the door once, made some announcement she couldn’t hear, and then opened it.

The first one to step out was an older earth griffon, clothed in Equestrian-made clothing that softened his hardened features, though he carried himself with the same proud stance befitting his heritage. Even from far away, Gilda recognized him as Salva Strenus, the Griffon Kingdom’s Ambassador to Equestria. And following him was…

Despite the fact she was supposed to be standing at attention with her gaze fixed straight ahead, she stared. For whatever she’d been expecting was anything but the creature she beheld.

How could she describe them? The human that emerged looked far too different from any primate she’d ever seen to be even remotely considered an ape. It was a tall, bipedal being that wore clothing similar to an Equestrian business suit for a stallion, though it was far more plain than the more ornate offerings the ponies came up with.

It consisted of grey slacks and jacket offset with shined brown hoof coverings and accented with but a single splash of muted red on its necktie—a garment that always struck her as completely dweeby to say nothing of utterly impractical in battle for how easy it could give an opponent the ability to strangle you.

More humans soon followed, but these, near as she could tell, were dressed far more casually. The first that emerged wore simple white covers below the neck, short-sleeved and exposing two pale lanky limbs—arms, like a dragon or Diamond Dog, she assumed—covered with what she could just see was very fine hair that struck her as utterly useless against the cold of the north.

Those same lanky limbs ended with something that resembled Minotaur paws, complete with spindly digits that looked both too weak to lift and too dull to scratch. Its legs were hidden under slightly blotchy blue coverings and there was some sort of covering on its hind… paws? Hooves? Which jutted out far more than pony or even griffon equivalents would.

Its face had some hair on its chin, two small eyes, a short but prominent snout, a short tuft of unruly brown hair on top of its head, and two ears she could only call petite, leaving her wondering how well they heard at all. Not that griffons were ones to talk, given their nonexistent external ears, but their internal ones were very good, leaving them able to hear the barest of whispers in the wind.

She watched the more formally attired human talk to the Ambassador, noting that its face expressed emotions as richly as any Equestrian pony did. As he did so, five more humans came out of the coach and they all had different skin tones and hair color. There were even two humans that seemed to be shaped slightly differently than the others, with wider hips and bulky expansions on their chest. Gilda wondered how they fought with those in the way, then wondered in turn how such oddly shaped and ungainly creatures could fight at all.

The Ambassador guided the humans towards the Tribune with a sweeping motion of his foreleg. They talked, and then the business-suited human offered its arm, hand open, towards Narada. The Tribune took a moment, before the Ambassador gave a nod, and she grasped the human’s forearm to shake it in a mutual gesture, one griffons used but ponies did not like for making them vulnerable to predator talons.

The ground then vibrated as the unmistakable clip-clop sound of horseshoes announced the arrival of the rest of the convoy. Well-dressed Caleponian earth ponies pulled large ground coaches, long wooden boxy wheeled structures, not unlike the wagons ponies favored, with seating capacities of twenty griffons.

When they came to a stop, the doors popped open, and the humans inside pushed themselves out and quickly went to a loose line formation. These members of the alien race looked larger and stronger, and were all dressed the same, in strange, splotchy green uniforms over which sat some kind of bulky vest—given the sameness of their attire, were they military? And was that vest, therefore, some kind of armor?

Fortrakt’s thinking tracked hers. “By their build and manner, I’m guessing those are human soldiers. What’s your count of them?” he whispered beside her, breaking her train of thought.

“Let’s see…” Gilda did some clumsy mental arithmetic. So far, one coach had almost thirty humans—a tight fit by any measure—and with seven or eight coaches visible, taking into account the humans were likely bringing some form of gear and luggage, she guessed they numbered around… “I’m thinking two centuries strong. You?”

“My headcount is around one hundred eighty. Odd, considering I see eight coaches. Shouldn’t that be around two hundred forty? I could be wrong.”

Gilda didn’t doubt Fortrakt’s numbers, as he was far better at math than she. Still, she shook her head over his inexperience. “Your headcount is probably right. The extra coaches are most likely human supplies.”

“Ah, got it. Still, Ancestors, these creatures are tall. Somewhat colorful, I guess. All earth tones, ranging from pale pink to ebony skin, and look at the manes on top of their heads,” Fortrakt muttered. “I noticed most of them are wearing identical clothing. Green with different colored patterns plus those odd vests… uniforms and armor, maybe?”

Gilda gave a slight nod. “That’s my guess as well. Hard to say what’s normal for them, but they look fit enough to be soldiers.”

Fortrakt hummed thoughtfully. “I’ll give them credit—they came in force. I’m counting at least thirty non-uniformed humans. That’s about five soldiers assigned per human? Wow. Ponies usually send only what, fifteen guards for five diplomats? Even Celestia doesn’t rate more than a couple Turmas of Guardsponies.”

He was right, and Gilda had to admit the humans were putting up quite a good projection of power, even by griffon standards. Still, she didn’t see how they were apex predators or could fight griffons, unless…

“Those black tubes that are slung over their shoulders and strapped to their sides. Weapons?” she wondered aloud.

“Makes sense if they’re soldiers,” Fortrakt replied with a nod. “I have no idea how they’re supposed to be used though. No blades, no bows, and no quiver of arrows? I guess they’re some kind of blunt weapons.”

“So these humans evolved their fighting through close combat?” Gilda paraphrased. “Seems unlikely for such vulnerable forms.”

Fortrakt snickered. “Ancestors, if they fight standing up in lines like we do, they’ll be wiped out by our spears and crossbows. We wouldn’t even have to use blades or claws on them.”

Gilda was about to warn Fortrakt that underestimating the enemy would get any soldier killed when Giraldi harshly whispered, “Quiet on the line!”

Fortrakt shut his beak and the rest of the muttered conversations around them fell silent, giving Gilda a little more time to contemplate the strange human weapons before she noticed that some of the non-uniformed humans that rode the air coaches were grouping together.

She also noticed one particular human, who didn’t immediately join the others. It was instead talking to the uniformed humans, getting some reaction. Gilda noted that it wore a grey top and blue leg covers. It also had brown-colored skin and cropped ebony black hair. It then turned its eyes to Arnau, and its lips broke out in a… smile?

Yup, it was a smile, showing two rows of off-white teeth. For being predators, Gilda thought their canines were much too small. The way the ponies talked about them, she’d have thought they’d be more impressive. Then again, sharp teeth, no matter how small, tended to make ponies nervous, she recalled with a grin.

She noted instantly that the human seemed quite impressed at seeing Arnau. Pride welled within her to see his awestruck reaction, though she didn’t understand what he was doing when he removed a small rectangular object and pointed it towards the city, holding it in the air. She then looked towards the other non-uniformed humans, seeing if their expressions matched his; she was gratified to see that they did. Some were even pointing out its white walls to each other, their heads nodding as they spoke in low tones.

It took a moment, but the non-uniformed humans (from both air and ground coaches) finally grouped together. Gilda’s eyes were once more on the brown human who was walking towards its compatriot, one with pale skin and short curly red hair. The two approached and each of their hands slapped together, producing quite a strange sound of sharp, escaping air before they talked in an animated fashion before joining the rest of the group. Even as a visibly annoyed human Ambassador spoke to them sharply and motioned them to follow, leading them to the city gates, they wouldn’t stop talking.

Now that the humans were approaching, Gilda made sure her posture was straight. She kept her face impassive as the group passed her, even though she couldn’t see much through the first six rows of griffon soldiers. Still, she was close enough to both hear and scent them; the first thought that formed in her mind as she caught an initial whiff of their odor was that they didn’t smell as bad as she thought, given her past experience with apes.

Sure, they had that tell-tale musk of having traveled an enormous distance, which was common to any creature that spent too much time in air or ground carriages, but it was in no way offensive to her. Underneath it was an earthier but not unpleasant spoor that had some strange appeal; for as good as they smelled, a darker part of her mind wondered how they actually tasted.

“Will you look at that! Steampunk airships! They’re right out of Final Fantasy! And check out the city! It’s just like Minas Tirith!” the brown-skinned human declared to its red-haired companion as they stopped in front of Gilda’s formation and looked around, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they could be easily overheard by griffon ears, even with the low voices they were speaking.

Steampunk? Final Fantasy? Gilda repeated the unfamiliar terms to herself, having never heard their like in Equestria. The speaker’s voice was masculine, she noted even as she further wondered what ‘Minas Tirith’ was. Was the speaker male? Did humans even have genders? Or did they just reproduce asexually like Timberwolves were said to?

“Marco, can you shut it? No one wants to hear your lame opinions,” another human, a short-haired one with those odd protrusions on its chest area, declared in a feminine voice. Female, then? If so, it made sense the protrusions would be her mammary glands, even if they were very awkwardly placed. From her proficiency in Equish, Gilda also noticed that the human’s tone of voice indicated some sort of annoyance; maybe even anger. She was… frowning.

“Girl, what is your problem?” a second (presumably) female human asked her, raising her voice slightly.

“You know my problem—it’s him! So stop being a dumbass already, Marco. Ooh, lookie lookie! They’re like some stupid video game or movie from twenty years ago! If you like Ring Lords so much, go buy a Lego set! Next thing you know, you’ll be asking those griffons for a sword and armor so you can play some stupid character.”

“Stupid, you say?” The male—Marco, was it?—just smirked. “I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn! I wield Anduril, Flame of the West! Do you want to see it, my dear Gimli?” and he ended it with a thrust of his… hips? Gilda’s right eye grew a bit bigger. Was he…?

“Ugh, you’re a pervert, Marco!” the annoyed human (Gimli?) declared. “A total perv!”

Fotrakt’s throat was making an odd sound. Gilda was sure he was stifling laughter, an assessment confirmed as he nudged her with his foreleg. “Wow. I really like this human!” he whispered.

“You would,” Gilda muttered with a roll of her eyes. She watched as the other female suddenly guffawed, earning a warning glance from the human ambassador and an irritated glare from the angered Gimli before she stormed away from this ‘Marco’—or was it Aragorn, son of Arathorn?. Her facial features looked quite… mashed, for the lack of a better term, and for supposedly apex predators, they didn’t seem to have much of an ability to bite.

The human with the earthy red hair then approached Marco/Aragorn. “Marco, man, one of these days Dana’s going to bust your balls.”

“If she can find them,” the female human with long yellow hair declared with a smirk as she crossed her forelegs over her bulky chest. But far from amused, that earned a squished-face reaction from the two males.

It looked like they winced, Gilda decided, if the way the humans displayed emotions was the same as the ponies. She had a guess of what ‘balls’ might mean, but kept it to herself. If it referred to what she was thinking, then humans had entirely different terms for various gender attributes than either griffons or ponies used.

“Tara!” the red-haired human declared in a sharp but low voice. Gilda was reasonably sure Tara was the yellow-haired female’s name.

“Oh, come off it Chris, I didn’t mean it that way!” a chagrined Tara quickly corrected. “I was just saying she couldn’t find her own ass with a map and a flashlight, much less someone’s scrotes. Besides, ‘Ring Lords’? Christ Almighty. The books have been out there for something like sixty years, and the movies are available in 4K! There is no way she should have gotten the name wrong! So someone tell me again why the hell she’s here on this trip anyway, embarrassing us in front of the griffons? She’ll probably act worse than in Equestria.”

Her voice then turned high pitched, trying to mimic the Gimli human. “‘Oh, why is there no internet? Where’s the room service? Why can’t I get a good steak? Why are their toilets just holes in the floor? Oh, disgusting, they are naked! I can see their schlongs!’” she said in a deliberately bad imitation of the other female’s voice.

“Come on, she ain’t that bad,” Chris replied in an equally low voice as he scanned the rows of griffon soldiers, making Gilda wonder again if they knew that they could be heard, and that there were griffons who understood the Equish language they spoke.

“Chris, dude, I love you, but I have to agree with Tara,” Marco replied, at least momentarily more interested in the city before him than the griffons guarding it. “She has no charm, skill, or purpose in life except to get on our nerves, rile up twitter mobs and run up dinner bills. But all that aside? I’m sure she’s a wonderful human being!” he seemed to deliberately raise his voice enough for Gimli to hear him, earning a glower from her as she stuck close to the Ambassador.

Gilda highly doubted that, sensing some echo of her younger self in the departed Gimli. Please tell me that I wasn’t that annoying and obnoxious? she silently begged her Ancestors as Gimli looked ready to stalk back over to Marco and challenge him to a duel on the spot.

“You only agree with me because I have a nice ass,” Tara declared with a smile and a raised voice of her own, causing Gilda to blink—that was the second time Tara had mentioned donkeys. Apparently, Gimli couldn’t find hers, and Tara had a nice one. Wait—was having a donkey part of their culture? Did that mean they had slavery, which was an institution both ponies and griffons had abandoned a millennium before? It made no sense if the ponies were claiming humans were the sole sapient species of their world.

“Well, it is a very fine ass, no doubt,” Marco agreed in what she could only describe as an exaggerated manner, positioning himself slightly to... was he leering at the female human’s rear? Gilda’s eyes narrowed—he was! Her thoughts of donkeys evaporated when she saw him look exactly like a pervy griffon, one that was unbelievably brazen in his display. It immediately caused Gimli to turn away in disgust, abandoning any intention to go back to him.

Gilda could understand her reaction. She felt her hackles rise, and she sensed from some sounds of ruffling feathers that she wasn’t the only one. Such things were reserved for mates in griffon society, and in private places at that—griffons were not voyeurs; they most certainly did not openly leer at the hindquarters of other griffons!

“Wow... this guy is a pervert,” Fortrakt whispered, though there was a tone of admiration in his voice.

“If he does that to me, I’ll rip him open,” Gilda muttered, to some equally muttered sounds of agreement from the other eaglesses around her.

“Well, in fairness, he was just admiring her. I mean, that human female does havea nice rear end… for a biped!” he hastily added at the looks he got, not just from Gilda, but from the rest of the griffons around them.

Marco continued, unaware of Gilda’s antagonistic thoughts, “Dana’s only here thanks to her Senator daddy,” Marco said, looking a bit… disgusted? And that was interesting—humans had senators too? So Gimli (or Dana? She wasn’t sure. Human names were definitely weird) was the daughter of someone important?

Human hierarchy dynamics were still unclear to her. She didn’t want to assume that this Marco was of a lower standing, but if he was, his blatant disrespect towards Gimli, especially in public and under foreign scrutiny, annoyed her far more than the idea of him simply being perverted. Granted, she had met a lot of arrogant offspring of entitled nobles both in the Kingdom and in Equestria, and she also granted that with a few notable exceptions, the lot of them were nothing more than immature cubs. But if this Gimli really bothered Marco, why didn’t he just challenge her to a duel and get it over with?

Probably only talks big. Bet he’s actually a coward, Gilda thought harshly, her eyes narrowing towards the brown-skinned human.

“I just hope she doesn’t annoy the Griffons too much,” Marco said and then, perhaps sensing her stare, looked directly at Gilda for a moment. He hid it well, but Gilda caught him shivering for just a second. She felt triumphant and hardened her gaze. “Gotta say, they look ready to eviscerate us at a moment’s notice,” he said under his breath, which was useless against griffon senses.

Gilda couldn’t suppress a smile. Yup, he’s just a coward.

As they went on their way, they were followed by a few uniformed humans—presumably their armed escorts. Gilda was glad for the distraction. She’d rather take a closer look at their weapons than think about that Marco. Then Fortrakt nudged her. She stared at him, annoyed. “What?”

“Maybe my Equish is rusty. But what in the crows is a four-kay?” Fortrakt asked. “Or a ‘final fantasy’? Or a flashlight?”

“No idea.” Gilda shrugged. “I never heard those words before either. Probably some human things.”

“Ah.” Fortrakt paused. He opened his beak, then closed it again and grinned.

“What?” Gilda asked.

“Humans are weird. Fun, but weird.”

“Then you can have them,” Gilda groused. “Me, I’ll just be happy when they’re gone.”

3: Lost in Translation

Author's Note

This chapter is a heavily edited, expanded and updated version of the latter half of Feathered Heart: Chapter 2 You are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original.

Thanks go to my prereading crew of AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire, and SIlverblade5, whose inputs and edits make my works far better. Appreciated, gang!

3: Lost in Translation

“I’m really hungry,” Fortrakt muttered as he stood with her at their guard post, reaching back to rub his belly with his talons. “So why are we in this shift and not the earlier one? I bet Schultz is eating up all the meat right now. He’s probably laughing his flanks off, maybe even trying to eat everything and leave nothing for us.”

“Schultz? That overweight oaf? He hears nothing and he knows nothing except food,” Gilda rolled her eyes, to some snickers from her next two nearest decade soldiers. “They should have made him a chef, not a Second Spear.”

“Great. So once he’s had his fill, there’ll be nothing left for us, then,” Fotrakt groused.

“I’m pretty sure that the Kingdom ordered quite a large amount,” Gilda replied dryly, not letting her eyes off the tables set in front of them, watching the present humans. Their orders were to simply stand guard and observe, but to take no action unless the humans attacked the Queen—which even after that short time, she found highly unlikely given it would quickly result in all assailants dead, courtesy of the Queen’s personal mage and red-armored Praetorian Guard—or they were ordered by Giraldi or some other authority to do something else.

“You think so?” Fortrakt asked dubiously.

“I know so. And not even Schultz’s enormous appetite could eat it all. We’ll have our share when our shift is over. Until then, stop salivating like a starved cub and stand straight, Gladio!”

Fortrakt harrumphed. “I’m not salivating.”

“Sure you weren’t. And besides, I thought you weren’t a fan of cooked meat?” Gilda pointed out.

“Well, yeah, I mean, I don’t really prefer cooked meat, but I’m so hungry, I’d eat anything now!” His stomach audibly grumbled to emphasize the point.

“Tough. It’s your own fault,” she reminded him with an amused smile. Fortrakt hadn’t eaten lunch, saying he wanted to save his stomach for a savory meat dinner, and he was now feeling it. Ever since he was assigned with the rest of her decade to stand guard over the dining hall, he had spent most of his time with his eyes closed, beak slightly open as he took deep breaths, as if trying to absorb the aromas in the air. “Next time, at least have a snack.”

It was nearly evening by then; a few hours had passed since the humans arrived. Their Ambassador and his entourage had been given a tour of the city while Gilda, Fortrakt, and other Guards in Giraldi’s unit were assigned to stand guard around the prepared receiving area. The air now smelled of wood smoke and roast as apparently, the humans preferred cooked meat instead of raw.

Once more, the Kingdom had accommodated them, leaving Gilda starting to think again that the whole deal was a bit one-sided. But as a mere Decanus in charge of but nine other soldiers, she knew her opinion counted for little with either the Queen or the rest of the Kingdom’s leadership as she took in the scene in front of her. From the way the seating arrangements were done, she knew which humans were higher in their hierarchy by how close they were sitting to Queen Molyneux.

The Queen herself looked regal and confident in her elevated chair at the end of the central table, draped with Royal Blue cloth under a gilded hide that had been polished to a shine. Her feathers were dyed and styled in dark blue and orange, and she had golden feathers dipped in diamond dust adorning the sides of her crown, giving her head some additional sparkle.

On her left sat Salva Strenus, her Ambassador to Equestria, who had acted as liaison to the humans and escorted them to the Kingdom all the way from the Portal. Along his left side, in turn, were the humans, the nearest being the human ambassador—what was his name? She heard it once but couldn’t remember; it was too unlike either pony or griffon names to easily recall—who clasped forelegs with the Tribune, followed by the rest of their diplomats and civilians, including Marco. On the Queen’s right were the High Lords and Ladies, all dressed in white cloth secured with golden buttons on their shoulders.

Gilda took one last look towards Marco, who was sitting beside the red-haired Chris. Both were done eating and were talking animatedly with each other; the female Tara then joined in a few moments later. Gilda narrowed her eyes as she observed them. She still didn’t like him, but at least the brown ape was behaving.

The surrounding tables were occupied by griffon and human soldiers; the latter rotating in Turma-sized units to eat every half-hour or so. According to a passing Wind Knight, the bulk of the human soldiers rode out with the ground coaches and traveled two-fifths of a league away from the city.

They were apparently building their own encampment, which Gilda hoped to visit and see with her own eyes. When asked about the diplomats and the non-uniformed humans, a Fortis Knight advised that the humans had reserved a place for them and their armed escorts to stay somewhere on the Third Level, which contained the markets, hotels, and entertainment areas.

Gilda was now definitely sure those black tubes the human soldiers brought were weapons, given they carried them even during dinner. So far, they only seemed comfortable enough talking amongst themselves, though they did give some of the griffon soldiers a look; their gazes especially setting on the Wind Knights with their scimitars and crossbows.

They were... raucous, was how she could best describe them. Not violent, though. They hadn’t once made any overly aggressive move or gave off any hostile signals that she could detect. Their body language was similar if not identical to ponies, and though there were almost certainly some nuances she was missing, they were loud and spoke in obnoxious tones.

She couldn’t tell their ages, and between their identical uniforms and short-cut manes, a whole lot of them looked alike to the point she was having trouble telling them apart except where skin tones were concerned. But given their brashness was definitely something she associated with youthful griffons, she was certain they were generally quite young, and they seemed to denote rank by the darker stripes on their sleeves.

“Hey!” Fortrakt called out.

Gilda blinked. She looked at her partner, who was staring at her, his head signaling her to move. She was about to ask why when she saw a very happy-looking Schultz and the Guard soldiers who were about to relieve them emerge from the canteen, fresh from their meal.

“There’s our relief! Come on, Gilda, I’m hungry!” Fortrakt all but begged with a fresh rumble of his stomach.

“Alright, alright,” Gilda muttered as the replacement decade arrived and she simultaneously exchanged salutes with their Decanus, the latter to the same depth as befit their identical ranks. “Come on, Guard, fall out and let’s go eat!” she called out to not just Fortrakt, but the other eight members of her decade, who quickly and eagerly did so, chatting amicably amongst themselves.

A short trip later, they were in the temporarily built pantry; a designated eating area for soldiers, which was filled with tables of uncooked meat. At the sight of it, Fortrakt was in awe.

“Ancestors bless us,” he declared, and Gilda was hard-pressed to disagree with the sentiment.

Without preamble, he immediately rushed towards a free seat, leaving Gilda behind. She just snorted and looked around for a moment, seeing a few Talons and Knights around, most likely not appreciative of cooked meats. It took her a moment, but she found a seat next to a male Wind Knight, cleaved off a slice of a freshly killed flying boar (or at least it had been when the preservation spell was applied) with a blade set in the table for the purpose, and then tore off a piece with her beak.

It was blessedly bloody and fatty, and for the first time, Gilda allowed herself to think that maybe the arrival of the humans wasn’t so bad after all.

“Would you give it a rest already?” Gilda declared to Fortrakt as both of them walked out of the pantry. She tried to sound scolding, but she couldn’t keep the smile out of her face as she watched Fortrakt continue singing.

Dinner had been festive—in Gilda’s opinion, far more so than the one with the humans. A few minutes after she had sat down, fresh kegs of mariner rum were opened and someone broke out a lute and began to pluck strings in tune with a lot of common songs the Gauntlet taught: battle songs to keep morale and marching tunes that staved off boredom.

Fortrakt himself had sung together with a young female Talon, who seemed to laugh at all his jokes. Things had gone well enough that he finally asked the eagless if she would be available for a Round; a day where they could ‘spar’. To his delight, she had said yes, and now he was irrepressible.

“March off to the land of ice and snow, where only the bravest griffons go...” Fortrakt continued to sing a marching song, joined in by the rest of the very happy decade, some of whom were leaning on each other and swaying heavily, gorged on meat and drunk on rum.

“Over land and sea, by blade and bow, rule the skies and the ground below!” they rejoined, then looked expectantly to Gilda, waiting for her to sing the next stanza.

But her beak stayed closed. “Come on, Decanus, join in already!” Fortrakt invited.

Gilda rolled her eyes. “No, Gladio, I won’t make a fool of myself. I already had a bellyful of spontaneous singing during my time in Equestria,” she recalled to an eruption of laughter from her soldiers, to which she then formally dismissed them with an admonishment to sober up, and to make sure they were on time and presentable for roll call the next morning. “Any soldier who is late or unkempt gets latrine duty for a week!” she added, to which her decade only chuckled, in too good a mood to be bothered.

Before leaving, her youngest Spear then teasingly asked her if she’d ever participated in pony singing, to which she responded with an angry glare that silenced him but only caused his smile to broaden as he walked off.

Fortrakt waited until they were gone before speaking again. “Always so strict, Decanus. Maybe you need a pad-warmer to help loosen you up,” he suggested with a glance back at the other two departing griffons of his three-soldier Fuga, who Gilda had already noted seemed to have picked up his casual manner and willingness to tease her. “How about that Wind Knight you sat beside?”

She stopped short and turned to him. “Cub, the sun will melt all the snow in the North before I let you start playing matchmaker for me,” Gilda told him. “Besides, that Wind Knight had a mate. He was wearing a colored primary that wasn’t his.”

“So? I bet you can take her out, and claim him as your own!” he gave her a playful nudge in the side, away from her wing feathers and flight muscles—he’d at least learned his lesson not to touch those, even teasingly.

“Right. Because we don’t know if they’re Uxorem. Or maybe they are just Desponsata and either way, challenging her may just insult him,” an unamused Gilda replied. “Or maybe we don’t live in Imperial times anymore and it’s considered dishonorable to poach mates from other griffons?”

“Oh, come on, Gilda. You have to live a little!” Fortrakt shook his head as they exited the building and headed for the barracks. “For the five moons I’ve known you, I haven’t once seen you spend time with anycreature else. Five moons, and I haven’t seen you even try to look for a tiercel. Or maybe it’s because you’re into eaglesses instead?” Gilda narrowed her eyes at him, and he raised a single set of claws in defense. “Hey, nothing wrong with it if you are.”

“Maybe you ought to worry about your own romantic pursuits before you worry about mine. Or did you forget that I could tell that Talon eagless all your most embarrassing stories? How about I start with the time you tried to impress Giraldi with how fast you could arm your crossbow but then loaded a bolt backwards?” she suggested with a smirk, causing Fortrakt’s cheeks to flush. “That was the best laugh I’d had in months. Or maybe I should tell her how you had a little accident during an afternoon combat drill after you ate too much at lunch?”

Fortrakt looked at her with narrowed eyes and huffed. “You play dirty, Decanus!”

“Only when you get condescending, cub,” Gilda smirked.

Before Fortrakt could reply, they heard someone speaking Equish, and not with Caleponian accents. Gilda and Fortrakt immediately crouched, claws out as they spotted three figures walking towards them. The low lighting made it difficult to discern their features from afar, even with their eagle eyes, but as they approached, Gilda recognized one of them.

“Great,” Gilda muttered darkly as she realized that Marco, Chris and Tara were making their way to them, with the brown-skinned human looking a bit... ruffled.

“Cool!” Fortrakt rejoined in Equish, leaving Gilda wondering where he’d picked up that particular pony vernacular.

Their presence went initially unnoticed by the three humans. “Come on, Marco, just ignore her,” Chris declared in what Gilda took as a consoling voice.

“I’m trying,” a clearly unhappy Marco muttered in a forlorn tone. “I left her alone at her table, hanging out with you guys. And what does that Whiskey Tango brat do? She rubs it in my face where they placed her!”

“Whiskey Tango?” Tara asked, confused.

“It means ‘white trash’. He learned it from his Marine friends,” Chris replied with a frown, giving Gilda two more unfamiliar terms to catalog.

White trash? Marine? She knew the latter was a word used by Equestrians in relation to the ocean, but she had no idea how that context was valid here.

“Swear to God, Marco, you hang out way too much with them. Besides, Dana’s a damn brat,” Tara declared, and that word Gilda knew. “She knows how to push your buttons, and she really likes doing it. When you react, she’s just going to do more of it.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t mind her going at me, but she was insulting you guys too,” an unhappy Marco replied, raising Gilda’s estimation of him slightly—at least he was loyal to his friends, unlike Rainbow Dash.

“Yeah, well that’s—hey, Marco! Look!” The red-haired human started pointing one of his spindly digits towards Gilda and Fortrakt.

Tara looked a moment before she smiled. “Marco! Marco! Here’s our chance!”

“Chance for what?” Fortrakt asked with a low whisper.

“We’re about to find out,” Gilda answered with a baleful stare at the brown-skinned human leading the group as they approached.

“Hi, there!” Marco greeted with an upraised paw as Gilda and Fortrakt waited, the former disdainfully and the latter expectantly. “Uh, do you two speak our language?”

“Sure do!” Fortrakt answered. Gilda had thought of pretending otherwise to make them go away until his junior partner spoke up in Equish on their behalf, making her want to cuff him, hard.

The human just gave a slightly nervous smile. His eyes flitted between Gilda and Fortrakt repeatedly, the former guessing he recognized her irritation. “Cool! I was just, uh, wondering... me and my friends were hoping to take a few pictures with you guys? I hope that’s okay?”

“We’re not all males,” Gilda replied shortly in the same pony tongue they spoke, but she still winced to hear it—her Equish sounded quite rough after not speaking it regularly for several years.

She was understood, though. Her statement even earned a laugh from Tara, though much to her growing annoyance, Marco didn’t seem to be discouraged. His smile got even larger as he looked at his female friend.

“Oh you like that, eh?” he asked his female companion.

“Hell, yeah!” Tara replied between her guffaws.

“To be fair, she’s right, Marco,” Chris said with a smile. “They aren’t all ‘guys’.”

Marco responded by sticking his tongue out at both of them before he coughed. Turning back to the griffons, he nodded. “Okay, uh… we’re not trying to offend either of you, I swear! As I was saying, my friends and I were wondering if it was okay if we took pictures of ourselves with such fine and majestic griffons.”

Before Gilda could tell him where to shove it—that was easily the corniest and most condescending thing she’d ever heard!—Fortrakt lit up. “Of course!”

“Fortrakt!”

“Oh, come on Gilda,” Fortrakt replied back in Aeric, nudging his head towards Marco encouragingly. “He called us fine and majestic specimens. That’s a compliment, right? They’re trying to be friendly, so surely you can stand taking a picture with him?”

Marco took a step forward and then knelt down as Gilda stared at him, apprehensive. What was he doing now?

“We come in peace,” he declared as behind him, Gilda noticed Chris grimace as Tara buried her head in her talons—apparently, they found whatever he was doing as annoying and clumsily offensive as she did. “Look, I’m really sorry if calling you a guy offended you.” He then made a loose fist with his blunt talons. “Friends?” He bumped it gently on the side of Gilda’s throat.

There was a sudden sound of air being sucked in as Fortrakt froze and Gilda’s eyes shrank dangerously, her feathers instantly ruffling in warming. Marco’s eyes widened as he wisely backed away as quickly as he could.

“Holy crap, she looks pissed,” Tara declared, moving fractionally behind Chris.

“What the hell, I thought you said bumping them with your fist was a friendly greeting?” Marco asked.

“I swear, that’s what the Ambassador said,” a suddenly-nervous Chris replied, taking a step back of his own.

Fortrakt blinked. He stepped in front of Gilda, looking between Marco and Chris. “Hold on a minute. What do you mean by... bumping with the fist?” he asked in Equestrian.

Chris looked at him warily. “Um, I kinda asked your Ambassador what’s the best way to greet griffons, and he mentioned that the younger ones seemed to bump each other with their fists as a greeting.”

“Bump fists… oh! You mean like this?” Fortrakt slowly approached the still apprehensive Marco, who comically still had his enclosed fist held out, and the griffon bumped his own fist to the human’s. “The younger cubs will do that, sure—we think they picked it up from ponies—but older griffons prefer to clasp forelegs.” He reared back to demonstrate the gesture by clasping his forelegs together, then offered his right foreleg with his talons open.

Marco stared at it, but finally duplicated the gesture, grasping Fortrakt’s foreleg only to hiss sharply as avian claws dug in slightly to his soft skin. “Ow…” he said, flexing his dull talons while looking at the red welts that were rising. “Yeah, I think we’ll stick to fist bumps. Forearm clasps with your claws are probably not a good idea on bare skin. We either bow or shake hands, for the record, depending on culture.” He showed the latter gesture by example with Chris, making Gilda realize he meant the same gesture that the human Ambassador had greeted the Tribune with.

“Oh… sorry. I was trying to be gentle.” It was Fortrakt’s turn to apologize as Chris and Tara could only stare, their expression utterly dumbfounded. “I’m sorry for the earlier misunderstanding, but the Equestrian Ambassador is really old,” Fortrakt explained, which earned a hard nudge from Gilda—respect to elders was very much a thing in griffon society, doubly so in the military. “What? He is! He probably didn’t know that it was called a fist-bump.”

“Okay... so what the hell did I do, then?” Marco asked, rubbing the scratches on his arm while still staring at Gilda warily.

Fortrakt chuckled, though Gilda didn’t know what he found so funny. “You basically insulted her. It’s… well, a griffon thing. Jabbing a griffon in the neck like that is saying they’re stupid or submissive, and is taken as an invitation to fight.”

“Oh!” A worried Marco backed away fractionally from a still-ruffled Gilda, who slowly relaxed. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t know, I swear.”

Gilda sighed and nodded. “Fine,” she muttered in Equestrian, plodding forward to stand to his right, close enough she could more fully smell him—they’d apparently bathed before dinner, she noted, judging by the undertone of soap and some other cleaners over his usual earthy smells, which she still didn’t want to admit she found strangely pleasant. “If you want a picture, we’ll give you one. Let’s just get it over with before there are any more misunderstandings.”

“Nice!” Fortrakt exclaimed as he also walked up to Marco, standing next to the taller human on his left side.

“Alright, game on!” Marco declared in relief. “Would you do the honors, Chris?”

Game on? Gilda wondered, but even given the opportunity, she declined to ask what it meant, deciding it was just an invitation to even more conversation she wasn’t interested in.

“My pleasure.” Chris took out a black box, and Gilda hesitated for a moment. Whatever the red-haired human was holding, it was not the camera she had come to recognize. And with all the black metallic weapons the humans held, a suspicious thought entered her mind.

“Wait—what’s that?” she asked, warily motioning with her beak to the object.

Chris, who was removing a cap that was covering a tube that extended outwards, paused and blinked. “It’s a camera.”

Fortrakt’s eyes widened. “A camera? I thought...” he blinked. His beak opened and closed slightly. “I... wow. I thought they’d be bigger. Gilda talked about how they even had a stand and big light bulbs and all.”

Tara chuckled. “Oh my God, yeah. Equestrian cameras, you mean? I swear, I thought we’d stepped back in time sixty years. We stopped using those kinds of cameras ages ago. Show them by taking a picture of the building, Chris,” she directed.

“You got it!” Chris then pointed the camera away from them, up towards the Grand Hall and clicked a button, causing the object to emit a bright flash. He then turned the back of the box towards them to show them… a glowing image of the picture they’d just taken, the detail so fine Gilda couldn’t even make out the individual grains. “There you go.”

“That’s incredible!” Fortrakt marveled aloud, to Gilda’s great annoyance—why did he keep encouraging them? “How does that even work? Does it use film like pony cameras?”

“Nope. We don’t use film now,” Marco chimed in from above them. “Well, most people don’t, anyway. It’s hard to explain, but basically, we can take hundreds, even thousands of photographs with these cameras and then print them out later.”

Chris showed them some of the other pictures he had stored by making lateral movements with his talon across the flat glowing surface of the camera’s rear, causing the existing picture to be replaced by an earlier one with each motion.

“Amazing!” Fortrakt muttered in renewed awe. Gilda was grudgingly impressed as well, but she didn’t want to show it—maybe the ponies were right and humans really were technologically superior? But if so, why were the weapons of their soldiers apparently melee? Before she could think about it too deeply, Chris was already pointing the lens at them.

“Smile!” the ginger-haired human invited.

Gilda was about to give a very forced smile when she felt a touch at the base of her shoulders, where her flight muscles were present. It was an extremely sensual spot, something she knew pegasi had as well, and on contact, she felt jolted, like a lightning bolt had just lit up her spine and wings—she had never been touched there, in all her life!

Her eyes narrowed and her breath caught, fire bursting from her cheeks and stomach as she stared at Marco, who she interpreted as grinning like a depraved and indecent idiot; his hand and arm ever-so-casually caressing one of her most intimate erogenous areas.

There was a flash of bright light and, for a moment, she was blinded. In that moment, her thoughts took a far darker turn—Marco, the human she had determined to be a perverted coward... was now taking advantage of her? He was groping her!

Tired after a long day and uncomfortably constrained by her dress uniform, all logical thought processes were cast aside as she immediately shifted her whole body to her side and announced an attack with an outraged roar.

Without further warning or preamble, she jumped him as another flash of light burst out again. But she ignored it as she reared up to grab the offending human by his shirt front. She then threw him down to the ground hard, her beak open to trill out a battle-cry as she stared into his features, including unnaturally wide eyes. She could feel him shiver as she held him down, his mouth opening in shock and face contorting in sheer terror; she could all but smell his fear.

She raised a set of talons to deliver a set of punishing slashes to his face, but before she could do anything, something slammed into her hard from the side. She was forcefully thrown off the human and was then pinned down beneath another griffon’s considerable weight and strength. She immediately began to defend herself, her hind claws out attempting to rake his midsection and her wings trying to find an angle she could escape from.

“Gilda! Stop!” Fortrakt’s voice sounded in her head clearly as he got leverage on her and pinned her to the floor with his weight and wings, holding her down despite the damage he was taking. Even with his advantageous position, he was still only barely able to restrain her, trying to hold her back long enough to allow the humans to escape.

When she continued to snarl and struggle, threatening to throw him off, he finally cuffed her hard, like a parent to a cub, to snap her out of it. “Enough!” he shouted again in Aeric, raising a closed set of talons to deliver another blow if needed. It took her a moment, but she finally fully registered his presence and stopped. Her heart slowed back down and the flames began to recede from her cheeks and stomach, but only when she was still for a minute did a clawed-up Fortrakt let her go, his dress uniform torn with some lines of blood visible through them.

Once released, Gilda immediately flipped upward with a thrust of her wings and hips, scanning the area with her still-dilated gold pupils. The humans were gone, though she could see their shadowed figures fleeing at their rather feeble top speed into the distance. Despite their hasty departure, she could still smell him; still feel his offending paw on her back. Part of her wanted to give chase, a hunt for the thrill, while another wanted never to see him again, willing him as far away from her as possible.

Unable to reconcile the conflicting feelings in her head and body, she began to scratch the stone ground with her claws, trying to do away with the ugly urges and the stiff feelings in her wings. “Bucking degenerate dweeb…” she resorted to the nearly-forgotten pony invective.

“Crows take it.” Fortrakt sighed, continuing to block her way to him even as he licked one of his arm wounds. “Gilda, it was an accident—he touched me there too! He wasn’t trying to grope you; he was just trying to be friendly but had no idea what he was doing!”

“Sure he was.” Gilda grunted skeptically. That was all well and good for a mister nice griffon like him, but he wasn’t an eagless feeling a male presence—worse, an uninvited and alien male presence—where it didn’t belong.

“You saw how afraid he was—do you really think he would have done it deliberately if he knew?” he asked her pointedly. “By the Gods and Ancestors, you could have just grabbed his arm and explained it—you didn’t need to go all to crows about it!”

“I know,” Gilda replied with an edged tone, only to find that despite his explanation— which she knew perfectly well was true—she wasn’t calming down. Ancestors, she still wanted to chase Marco. Maybe it was the too-tight dress uniform that made her aggressive, or maybe it was the adrenaline still surging through her, but she wanted to confront him one more time; have a more decisive conclusion without Fortrakt getting in the way.

“Your wings and tail tell me differently,” Fortrakt stated as he continued to watch her warily, noting the former twitching and the latter lashing, but Gilda just stared at him. “Ancestors, I can’t believe he got you so easily. You weren’t like this when I got too forward with your wings!”

“That’s because I drove you through a table,” Gilda replied stiffly. Her body shook, wanting to release the tension that was built up inside her but finding no ready outlets. “And also because I didn’t have this stupid dress uniform on.” She shook again, trying to calm down her stiff wings, but they wouldn’t subside. “Crows take it.”

“Come on, Gilda,” Fortrakt said as he turned away from her, perhaps trying to spare her further embarrassment. “Let’s just head back to the barracks and report this to Giraldi. I’ll tell him what happened. Hopefully he’ll understand, and then we can get these damned dress uniforms off and get some sleep, okay?”

“Right,” Gilda nodded, though she found her eyes drawn once more towards the direction where the humans had run off.

But her attention was quickly diverted as Fortrakt snapped his claws together repeatedly, producing a sharp sound that got her attention. “Just let him go, Gilda. That human won’t bother you again. You scared the droppings out of him and I’m sure he’s going to do his best to avoid you from now on. It won’t happen again, so just forget about him, okay?” he asked, his wings flared for flight in case she didn’t, and he had to chase after her.

Gilda sighed and nodded, feeling her remaining anger start to ebb. Then, to her own surprise, she chuckled. “Look at you, Gladio. You snare an eagless for a Round and then you go acting all mature? You’re either bucking for promotion, or had too much drink earlier.”

“Well, drink or no, someone has to be the adult here, Decanus.” Fortrakt replied with a slightly forced smirk, no longer acting even slightly inebriated. “Excuse me if I’m just trying to keep my superior from doing something we’ll both regret!”

She exhaled sharply, feeling a strong sense of chagrin for the first time at having to be saved from herself by an underling. “And to think, the only thing it took for you to grow a sack was to get a yes from a Talon,” Gilda declared as she walked towards their destination, worried she wouldn’t have her rank for much longer—three years of work had just gone to the crows over one grabby, culturally ignorant ape. “You’ve grown up, cub. Really grown up.”

Fortrakt uttered a sound; a mix of disbelief and sputtering before he finally found his voice. “Oh, piss off on the flattery, Miss ‘Assault-The-Alien-Guest’,” he replied somewhat tersely as he followed her steps, though he continued to keep carefully between her and the direction the humans had fled. “I probably just lost her—why would a Talon associate with some low-ranked Guard soldier who was implicated in an attack on diplomatic visitors?” he groused, and she fell silent, worried he was probably right.

“You know, they’ll either bust us both back to Spear, or maybe even throw us out of the Guard and into the mines for this. And just for that, I’ll pray to the Ancestors that you’re going to be stuck with that brown-skinned human, one way or another!” Despite his worry—which she now shared—he found his sense of humor again.

Gilda smirked. “Hah! Like that will ever happen,” she retorted to steady her own still-raw nerves. Me, hang out with that ignorant and offensive human? I’d sooner reconcile with RAINBOW DASH!

4: Promotion or Punishment

Author's Note

This chapter is a heavily edited, expanded and updated version of the first half of Feathered Heart: Chapter 3. You are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original.

Thanks go to my prereading crew of AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire, and SIlverblade5, whose inputs and edits make my works far better. Appreciated, gang!

4: Promotion or Punishment

When Gilda and Fortrakt reported the confrontation between her and the brown-skinned human to Giraldi, he had reacted with some alarm and agreed it had to be reported up the chain of command immediately. He did so even though he understood her reaction once Fortrakt explained what had happened, saying that other griffons had reported the human civilians could be annoyingly ignorant of griffon culture and customs at times.

Still, the fact remained that her attack on their human guests might have caused a diplomatic incident, and she thus expected a severe reprimand at the bare minimum, whether written or verbal, the next day. There was even a chance that Fortrakt was right and she’d find herself thrown out of the Auxiliary Guard on her tail. And worse, she might drag Fortrakt down with her.

Thus, she wasn’t too surprised when she and Fortrakt were ordered to report to the Tribune’s office early the next morning. Nor was she surprised by Giraldi’s presence, given he was her Century’s ranking enlisted and had made the initial report.

What did surprise her was the presence of the Ambassador to Equestria, to say nothing of the coy gleam in Narada’s eyes that completely belied her stern expression.

“So, Decanus Behertz… it would seem you did your level best to further relations between our two races last night,” she began ominously, her claws clasped in front of her.

“He groped me, sir,” she stated as she stood at rigid attention before the Tribune, Fortrakt at her side. “Whether he meant to or not, he groped me. I admit I overreacted, but I was tired and hurting from wearing my dress uniform all day, and that action pushed me over the edge.”

“And do you really think that’s an excuse, Behertz?” she asked, to which Gilda wisely remained silent. “We should all be glad for the quick action and cool head of Gladio Gletscher, without whom this incident could have been far worse.”

“With respect, I wasn’t going to kill him, sir,” Gilda felt compelled to offer. “Scare the droppings out of him? Yes. Make him bleed and break the offending paw? Probably, to make sure the lesson took. But not kill him.”

“I believe you. Or else we wouldn’t even be having this conversation,” she said, studying Gilda closely. “Nevertheless, it would seem some form of action is called for. So just what do you propose I do that would both satisfy human concerns over the safety of their civilians, and the Kingdom’s need for discipline in their soldiers?”

“Whatever you wish, sir. I attacked a human guest who was acting in ignorance, and very possibly ruined any chance of an alliance or trade agreement between us. I deserve whatever I’m given, so all I ask is that you not punish Gladio Gletscher for this incident. As you say, he kept this from becoming far worse,” she finished as Fortrakt gave her a surprised and grateful look.

“So you’re taking full responsibility for your conduct, then?” Ambassador Strenus prompted, speaking up for the first time.

“I am,” she confirmed, closing her eyes tightly for a moment. “Even if it gets me dismissed from the Guard.”

“I’m pleased to hear that,” Narada nodded slowly at her statement, “but it will not be necessary, Decanus. This meeting was a test, and you passed it. Your devotion to duty and willingness to accept responsibility are two traits the Kingdom values in its soldiers as much as battlefield valor. And thus, it’s time to give you more of that responsibility, which in my mind, is at least a year overdue.”

She then reached into her desk and pulled out several new pieces of armor and insignia, placing them on the granite surface before Gilda and Fortrakt. There were two sets; one for each of them, and their eyes went wide when they recognized what they represented.

“Ancestors Past…” her partner proclaimed in wonder as his gaze roamed over the top of the stone surface before Tribune Narada.

His eyes were gleaming and Gilda couldn’t blame him—the new armor pieces before him included a metallic shoulder plate and another pauldron, still leather but bearing an insignia of a spear crossed with a single feather. They indicated he was jumping two full ranks, skipping over Decanus all the way to Second Spear, making him ranking enlisted of the Turma.

On Gilda’s side, by contrast, was a pair of new metallic pauldrons and foreleg vambraces to replace her leather ones, an improved leather vest that would be difficult but not impossible for blades or bolts to penetrate… and a thin metal chain made of iron links.

She stared at the latter balefully for a moment, wondering again if this was some sort of trick or another test. But it didn’t alter its form under her gaze—it was indeed a Command Chain; one that could only be worn by the lowest level of junior officer the Kingdom possessed—a Decurion. Its presence meant she was receiving far more than a jump in rank; it was a sign that the Kingdom wanted her as not just a soldier, but a leader of them, acting with authority that went even beyond her new station. But why?

“Stand proud, soldiers of the Kingdom.” Tribune Narada, behind her table, declared. Both Gilda and Fortrakt immediately stood to attention as two pairs of griffons, one on each of the Tribune’s sides, grabbed the armor pieces with their beaks and presented them to the two newly promoted soldiers—it was a very old and perhaps unnecessary tradition, but it had never been abandoned by the tradition-worshiping Kingdom.

“For superb service to your Queen, to the Guard, and to your Century, this armor is well-earned. Accept them and your new ranks with honor!”

Before an astonished Fortrakt could reach for his new armor, Gilda spoke, holding up a wing to forestall him. “Is this a joke, Tribune?”

Fortrakt gave her a stunned look, but Gilda’s eyes were squarely on her superior officer.

Giraldi, who was standing beside Narada, smirked slightly. “Come on, Behertz. Don’t want your uppity team leader calling you ‘sir’?” he asked. He was quickly silenced when Narada gave him a glare.

“Is there a problem, Behertz?” the Tribune asked more coolly, looking back at Gilda. “It is a long-overdue honor, given you have served with distinction for the past three years. If it hadn’t been for your lack of a sponsor, you would have been given these over a year ago. So I would think you would be overjoyed to finally receive them.”

Gilda chose her next words carefully. “Tribune, I mean no disrespect. But I came in here expecting severe punishment, not promotion! I simply don’t understand why my actions last night would lead to a rather—” Gilda looked at the armor pieces offered to her, then back to her superior “—lucrative outcome, jumping me and my partner two entire ranks. It is completely unheard of, sir.”

“She isn’t wrong.” The Ambassador chuckled in his characteristic baritone; a deep, rich sound that emanated from his throat and lungs. “Might as well tell her, Tribune.”

Tribune Narada looked at the elder griffon with a frown, but nodded. “Very well. This was going to be part of your briefing, but I’ll tell you now.” She faced Gilda and Fortrakt. “You are not the only ones who feel at fault for what happened. As of this morning, Ambassador Strenus received a formal apology from the human ambassador for last night’s altercation. In it, he blamed not us, or even you, but their own civilians for the incident.”

Fortrakt frowned. “But that wasn’t their fault, sir. It was nobody’s fault. They were just trying to be friendly and didn’t know what they were doing.”

“I agree. But it turns out that Humans are a bit sensitive in matters such as these,” the Ambassador clarified for the Tribune. “Not unlike ponies, really. They seem rather invested in making this ‘first contact’ work. Having spent some time with the humans in Equestria, I believe their logic on the move was to preemptively address any potential issues that could result from this incident.

“So, they issued an apology, and asked that we provide some escorts for their civilians to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Gilda frowned, still making no move to accept her new armor. “That doesn’t explain the promotions, sir.”

“We were getting to that, Behertz,” Narada replied with more patience than Gilda would have normally given her credit for. “For with this apology comes an excellent opportunity.”

“I have spoken with my human counterparts,” Ambassador Strenus continued for Narada. The Tribune, in turn, let him speak. “I suggested that to make sure the incident does not repeat itself, we would have the parties involved… reconcile and work with each other.”

Gilda’s eyes widened. “Reconcile?” she repeated, feeling a sudden sense of dread.

“We’ve made arrangements with the human Ambassador, and he has agreed to my proposal. Accordingly, you two are now assigned as escorts to the human civilians involved in the incident,” Strenus further explained.

She couldn’t see how Fortrakt reacted, but Gilda’s expression turned to one of distaste. “So we are to be human cub-sitters then?” she asked, trying and not succeeding from keeping an annoyed tone from her voice.

“In a manner of speaking.” The Ambassador chuckled while Narada just smirked, leaving Gilda wondering if she was being punished after all. “That was the proposal we presented to the humans. For what better way to foster friendly relationships than to have the parties involved during last night’s perfectly understandable but avoidable altercation come together to settle any misunderstandings?”

Gilda could think of several far more satisfying ways to do so, most involving a duel and ending with the ignorant and intrusive human thoroughly thrashed, but she held her tongue.

“The civilians are being housed with the soldiers and Ambassador, under the former’s protection. Accordingly, we’re making you the military liaison to their Turma of soldiers here in the city, and to make sure you can meet them on equal terms, you require an equivalent rank as their Turma’s commander. Or as close as we can get.”

Gilda scowled. This time, she opened her beak to protest, but the Ambassador gave her no chance, his eyes gleaming. “Of course, that was the story we gave them. Your jobs, Decurion Behertz and Second Spear Gletscher, are to observe them.”

Fortrakt blinked. “What do you mean by that, Ambassador?”

“Lest you both think this is some complicated and backwards form of punishment, it in fact presents an excellent opportunity to gather information on them,” Tribune Narada clarified. “While doing your duties, we want you to watch them closely. Learn everything you can about their culture, their outlook, their technology and their weapons… basically, anything and everything you can glean from them.”

Gilda exchanged a look with Fortrakt, noting from his troubled expression he seemed to have reached the same conclusion as her. “In other words, you want us to spy on them?”

“Not the word I would use. But yes,” the Ambassador confirmed.

“No offense, Ambassador,” Gilda began slowly, “and forgive me if I speak out of turn, but this makes no sense to me. We have known about the humans for three years. So why are my partner and I only now being assigned to a task that should have been done long ago by the Council of Crows?” she said in reference to the Kingdom’s centuries-old intelligence service.

“Behertz!” Tribune Narada began to scold her, but the Ambassador’s left wing flared slightly, signaling Narada to pause.

“Decurion Behertz has a valid question, Tribune. And to answer, while this may be hard to believe, the short answer is that the Council of Crows was completely unable to examine humanity,” the Ambassador stated. He lowered his wing as he looked towards Gilda and Fortrakt.

“As to why, in the first year after contact, we had no way to observe them, given they remained on their side of the portal. Equestria invited the humans into their country, but they demurred. The excuse was that they were taking precautions—that they were making sure that no diseases would easily spread from their homeworld to ours and vice versa, which at the time seemed a reasonable enough concern—especially given they were getting over a recent pandemic.

“But while I never voiced it, I suspected there was more to it. It was only during the year after that they finally started coming in through the portal the Equestrians made.

“It may surprise you to know that despite being one species, they do not have a royal line, or any single system of governance. They came under one banner called the United Nations, but apparently that body has little real power, only functioning as a glorified debate society where consensus is nonexistent. It exists mostly to air grievances that don’t get resolved.”

Gilda had the thought that such an arrangement sounded suspiciously like the Gryphon Senate, but she didn’t voice it as the Ambassador began to pace in front of them. “Far from being unified, these humans reside in many separate countries, each with their own form of government, and have an incredibly wide range of different cultures and passions. What this means is that we are dealing with a very complex species with outliers that go beyond any of the other races we have fought and befriended. Yet those complexities themselves remain almost completely unexplored.

“Granted, we have discovered some core similarities they all share; physical weaknesses and capabilities. However, if our history tells us anything, it’s that our enemies and allies constantly evolve to cover whatever weaknesses they have developed. And from what little we’ve learned of these humans… they have had constant practice on that end.” His expression turned troubled.

“Constant practice, sir?” Fortrakt asked before Gilda could.

“Indeed. They are far from the biggest or strongest beings on their planet. Nor do they have any sort of natural weapons or magic, and yet they are indeed the apex predators of their world. Lacking natural rivals, they have fought many wars amongst themselves, including two that apparently engulfed their entire world and slew many millions.

“Such casualties would be catastrophic here. And yet, far from wiping themselves out, they thrive. For though millions die, they number in the billions.”

He stared at them, letting the incomprehensible numbers sink in. “Even aside from what we have learned of their surprisingly violent history, that alone means they are absolutely not to be trifled with, and we underestimate them at our peril.”

Gilda and Fortrakt looked at each other again. The former reflected that Ambassador Strenus was an old-fashioned griffon, whose rise to power was not through politics, but by his stalwart reputation built by his many years of service as a veteran soldier and leader. So if he was giving these humans very high praises, she immediately sat up and took notice.

Gilda was not much for reading undertones, but Strenus’ words were clear—the humans were potentially dangerous foes that, if met on the battlefield, would have to be fought with as much strength as the Kingdom could muster. “Then if I may speak bluntly, sir… you are saying that we must prepare to meet them as enemies as well as allies.”

“What I am saying is we need much more information than we have, in order to make informed decisions and act appropriately in our dealings with them,” the Ambassador clarified carefully, leaving Gilda in some admiration of his diplomatic tact—the arts of indirection and understatement were ones she completely lacked. “Information that can only be gleaned from direct interaction with them on a more… personal level.

“Lest I give you the wrong impression, make no mistake, Decurion—we want them as friends, not foes. I have high hopes that an understanding will be forged, and your assignment can further that goal. At the same time, we must be cautious and have… contingencies in case things turn sour.

“By observing them closely, you can supply the Kingdom with the knowledge to help us in either instance. Make no mistake; this is a critically important assignment we are offering you two. For the Kingdom and all Gryphons everywhere, will you accept?”

Gilda and Fortrakt took a moment, drinking in the old ambassador’s words and request. And then, with a glance and nod to each other, the two saluted with a solid bang, thumping their claws to their old armor for the final time.

Strenus nodded with a smile. “The Kingdom appreciates your service,” he declared. “Reap the rewards of your dedication, Gryphons of the Kingdom, and accept your new armor.”

Fortrakt moved first, removing his left pauldron and replacing it with the metallic shoulder plate. He gave the securing belts a hard tug as his claws moved towards the second pauldron, swapping it as well. Gilda then removed her leather braces, exchanging them for the metallic replacements. Once she secured them around her forelegs—a snug, but not uncomfortable fit, and she was relieved to feel that they had a leather barrier so as not to grind against her limbs—her claws shot towards the vest.

She snapped her beak in annoyance when the soldier presenting the vest came forward to help her, making him wisely back away as she finally donned the new leather chest protection without assistance. After that, she swapped out her leather shoulder pauldrons with their metal replacements, which bore the insignia of a single talon. However, she would not touch the chain.

“Is there something wrong, young Behertz? I would have thought you would be delighted for that item to be included,” Strenus asked.

To Gilda, his tone and expression were more curious than scolding. “I appreciate the promotion, but I do not believe I will need a Command Chain for this assignment, Ambassador,” she replied carefully.

Giraldi snorted, though only for a second before Narada gave him a look, while Strenus just smiled. “Do you honestly feel that way, or are you afraid of shouldering the additional authority that comes along with this Chain?” he asked, continuing when Gilda didn’t answer.

“Your new assignment will have you responsible for the safety of our guests. The Command Chain will assist you in that. That it is made of simple iron indicates you act with diplomatic authority. An authority you may very well need.”

“How so, Ambassador?” Fortrakt asked before Gilda could.

“By keeping the humans safe.” Tribune Narada was the one that answered. “You may not know it, but humans arriving in force have gotten a lot of soldiers talking. We’ve been having reports from the Centurions and Decurions that the younger soldiers have been wanting to test the new species’ mettle directly.”

“Not only the soldiers, Tribune,” Giraldi added. “Even among the populace, there’s been talk of wanting to wrestle with the intelligent apes.”

Tribune Narada’s face scrunched with exasperation, but Strenus just roared with laughter. “Griffons will be griffons,” he said rather jovially, chuckling a few more times before he shook his head. “Still, let’s not try and ruin this. The humans are concerned about the safety of their civilians, who I understand are not generally trained fighters outside of their soldiers.

“Her Majesty has directed that they be given protected status to preserve our negotiations with them. Accordingly, on the direction of the Queen, the Prefect of Arnau has decreed as of dawn this morning that humans are off-limits for challenges from civilians,” he mused. “So now we must also do the same for the military. Tribune, could you issue orders that fighting the humans, or challenging them, would be grounds for severe punishment, up to and including confinement?”

Narada nodded, her talons plucking a quill from its sheath. “As the Queen wishes, sir.” She dipped it in ink and began to scratch out the order on a fresh sheet of parchment. “It will be disseminated immediately and read to all soldiers by midday.”

Gilda closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. When she was sure the Ambassador or the Tribune would not speak, she asked, “So this Command Chain is meant to give me power to stop trouble before it rears its ugly beak?”

“It is also a test,” Narada replied as she finished writing the order, and then passed it to an aide to transmit. “If you wish to know why you have at long last been promoted, it’s because you finally got your sponsorship. Somegriffon important has commended you, suggesting that you have great potential as a leader.”

Gilda blinked. That was… surprising. Her mind began recalling names; potential griffons who had enough clout to have their commendation listened to. Tribune Scipio sprang immediately to mind, though if it was him, he’d have recommended her to the Wind Knights as he knew that was her aim. The other names that occurred to her were far less likely, and she found herself unable to guess. “Who, sir?”

The Tribune waited a beat before answering. “Your sire.”

Gilda’s eyes narrowed. “That must be a mistake.”

“I assure you it is not. Amalrich indeed sent the commendation. Your sire is strict, but not unfair. He recognizes your determination and devotion to duty, and he has reciprocated. He still cannot recommend you to the Wind Knights, where I know your true desire lies, but he believes you have earned an officer rank. I, in turn, believe you have earned the command chain your new duty requires.”

Gilda looked towards the Ambassador, the Tribune, Giraldi and Fortrakt in turn. It seemed every griffon’s eyes were on her as she considered the words, then closed her eyes and nodded. Slowly and hesitantly, she took the chain and placed it around her neck, sitting back to fasten it behind her with the clasp that instantly locked the two ends together. Once done, she fell forward back to a sitting position, and then rose to all fours, standing at attention again to present herself.

The griffons that presented the armor pieces, all Narada’s aides, immediately fell back in line to the sides of her office. The Tribune stood on all fours and walked towards the newly minted Second Spear and Decurion, nodding at their new appearance before giving them a salute—promotion was the one instance where a higher rank would salute a lower one, as a simple measure of respect for having earned it. Gilda and Fortrakt returned it instantly, then bared their throats deeply in turn.

“Stand fast. Both of you honor the Kingdom,” Narada declared. “Now serve with distinction.”

“For Queen and For Realm,” Gilda and Fortrakt gave the ritual reply as one, saluting one final time.

Gilda, Giraldi and Fortrakt exited the office a few minutes later, leaving the Ambassador, Tribune and her aides behind.

There wasn’t much ceremony afterwards; just the Ambassador offering them a foreleg clasp and wishing them luck before they were sent forth on their new assignment. It was just a few minutes later before the trio of griffons found themselves walking the worn stone streets of the sixth level, towards the edge of the battlement wall.

As they neared their destination, Gilda couldn’t feel anything but the additional weight of her newest armor and the cold metal of her chain around her neck. The latter felt unnaturally heavy, as if it was trying to drag her to the ground. Every ten steps or so, she’d look down at her neck just to see if the chain was still there, half-hoping that maybe this was all just a dream and she was in fact being thrown in the mines. Which she almost found preferable at that moment.

“No matter how many times you look, the Chain is still there, sir,” Giraldi declared without looking at Gilda or even pausing on his steps.

“Don’t call me that,” Gilda replied dully.

“Can’t do, sir. You’re an officer now, and I’m just a lowly First Spear,” Giraldi replied, the amusement unmistakable in his voice. Gilda grumbled but didn’t look back, trying to avoid griffons walking in the opposite direction.

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you, Giraldi?” a jovial Fortrakt ventured, in too good a mood after his unexpected promotion for Gilda to drag him down.

“What, by having a younger upstart be promoted over me to be my superior?” Giraldi chuckled. “Oh, Ancestors, yes! Instead of having one more beak depending on me for direction, I get to lean on them instead! Such are the joys of a simple soldier.”

Gilda dashed three steps forward before she turned to face him, her eyes narrowing at the older griffon. The two tiercels stopped in their tracks, recognizing her unhappiness. “Are you really okay with this, First Spear?” she asked, tugging at the chain with a talon. “You’ve been in the service far longer than I have. If anyone deserves this opportunity and chain, it would be you, Giraldi!”

“Well, I don’t have a distinguished sire like you, Behertz,” Giraldi replied with a chuckle, only to wisely stop when the eagless’ eyes narrowed and her wings slowly spread open. He quickly bared his neck and turned formal. “Sorry, sir. Just trying to make light of the situation.”

Gilda deflated, reminding herself not to take out her fears or frustrations on him. He was one of the Turma leaders she liked and respected, after all. She may have needled him once in a while; even joked on occasion that his mild demeanor and the lack of flaunting of his position made him only slightly superior to her, but it had been all in good fun.

But here he was now, deferring to her and even saluting her. That finally clinched it; the whole situation was real and there was no escaping from it. “Please don’t call me that,” she muttered in defeat, and this time, Giraldi obeyed.

For a minute, there was silence as they continued on, at least until they arrived at a cross-street. Fortrakt and Giraldi looked at each other, while Gilda stood there, looking lost. Fortrakt looked a little unsure before he mock-coughed, gaining the attention of his two superiors. “By the way, Giraldi, where are we supposed to meet the humans?”

“They have a Turma-sized force staying at the Winged Hall Inn. According to Ambassador Strenus, we’re supposed to meet them there in five minutes. The humans leased the place and posted their soldiers in front, so regardless of the new orders, do us all a favor and try not to start any fights,” he suggested dryly.

“No promises,” Fortrakt replied, his voice still jovial. “If my partner and superior officer charges in, it is my duty as a lowly subordinate to follow.”

Gilda raised her head to stare at Fortrakt. Sensing her mood, he instantly turned impassive; his face devoid of any emotion. However, as she turned to continue walking, she could hear him instantly break his bearing again to chuckle softly with Giraldi. They clearly weren’t going to stop making light of the situation. And they weren’t going to stop jabbing her with jokes, at least behind her back.

Strangely enough, she didn’t feel mad at them—the opposite, actually. Maybe it was the fact that they were taking all this in stride or that they were still comfortable enough around her to make jests? Whatever it was, it somehow lessened the weight the chains seemed to have.

Crows, Gilda thought, what would the Ancestors say that I needed those two to cheer me up after getting such a reward?

As they approached the rampart, Gilda gave the signal towards the Guards posted on the battlement. They recognized her and very casually signaled back a reply. However, as Gilda got closer, they did a double-take, hastily baring their necks and thumping their talons to their chests when they saw her new armor and command chain, recognizing her sudden elevation in rank.

Far from gratified, Gilda could only sigh at the display—it would be a while before she would get used to soldiers saluting or greeting her in deference. “Dweebs.” Not wanting to think about it, her wings spread as she took a running leap through the crenel and off into the cool morning air, trying to find some solace in flight.

Narada’s office was located high on the sixth level, so it was expected that the party would be greeted by at least one aerial patrol on their way down. She gave one a signal, and the patrolling Guards moved easily out of the way as they made it back all the way to the third level without further incident. The three griffons aimed for a landing platform there, and once their claws and paws were safely on the ground, Gilda studied their surroundings before she flexed her wings, folding them on her sides.

There were a lot of griffons and ponies on the receiving and festival areas of the third level—far more than usual, actually. Gilda guessed that their presence was most likely because of the human visitors, filling up the hotels that existed there. The Kingdom rarely got visits from foreigners, with Equestria being the only one to visit every year to mark the Armistice. They would dispatch a dignitary, be it a Duchess or Duke, or a member of the Royal Family itself in the form of one of the four Alicorn Princesses or the two unicorn Princes.

They had cooler relationships with most other neighboring nations. They were on decent terms with Saddle Arabia and their vassal states of Graze, Steedgypt and the Ottomares in southeast Aresia, engaging in trade but little in the way of diplomacy. It wasn’t so much personal as societal—the two sides liked each other’s wares and markets, but they also casually disdained each other, either due to their markedly different cultures or the predator/prey dynamic. They also did extensive business with the Minotaurs, who provided much of their machinery but were in the end just a small island nation who dealt with everybeing who could pay their price.

They were at least honest in their business dealings, even if their rates were steep. In contrast, the Kingdom had good reason to distrust some of their other neighbors. They were in an ongoing cold war with the Ibexian Ascendency to the east; a longstanding rivalry that was marked by yearly skirmishes over the Pearl Mountains that marked their border, and had occasionally erupted into outright warfare over the centuries.

The Kingdom had likewise once fought a war with a dragon clan they had previously allied with during the invasion of Equestria, and then kept almost all dragons at wing’s length even after defeating them—a preference that was fairly easy to enforce given most of the dragon lands were almost half the world away. There was a clan who lived in the volcanic islands off the west coast of the Italon peninsula who had briefly been allies in the post-Imperial struggle against the forces of Dragon Lord Diabla, but seven centuries later, trade and contact between them was minimal.

On the other wing, the Zebrican Confederation to the south of the Servalanian Sea was too loose a union to present a united government they could negotiate with, and the griffons never really got along with the various Diamond Dog tribes, even when they’d been allies of convenience back in Imperial times. The Abyssinians were less an independent race than well-paid stewards to the Saddle Arabians, as they made excellent spies, servants and sentries who kept rodents from consuming their graineries.

And then there were the Changelings, who were in hiding and the Kingdom had no formal contact with anyway. But nor did any other nation; they were in disfavor with pretty much every race of the world at that point following the failed attack of Chrysalis’ hive on Canterlot. Though it was understood that they possessed many different hives who saw each other as rivals and acted independently of each other, the griffon nation had never trusted them even going back to Imperial times, when they sided with Equestria during the war.

All that left of their neighbors were the avian Harpies, who were little more than clan-based brigands who raided unprotected shipping and were almost impossible to pin down. So all in all, Gilda somewhat grudgingly admitted, the Kingdom could use a few new allies, and she was increasingly coming to think that the new arrivals did have something to offer.

Add the fact that these arrivals were also a newly discovered species from an entirely different world wielding very exotic technology, and it was understandable why the third level looked as busy as it did.

Walking past a few more shops, Gilda, Giraldi and Fortrakt spotted the Winged Hall Inn. Its design was definitely griffon in aesthetic, using smoothed white stone walls and hard edges. All in all, it looked more like a small castle than an inn. As they approached, Gilda could see a few human soldiers posted at the front gate; their black metal tubes slung over their shoulders and held at an angle in front of them.

They also seemed to have borrowed some wooden barriers that the Peacemakers used to cordon off an area, turning them into a temporary barricade that discouraged anygriffon from going in.

As they approached, one of the human soldiers raised a hand. Gilda wondered if it was a signal of some kind, but then she realized that she had no idea what their signals meant. A part of her worried what would happen if her ignorance could cause a misunderstanding that sparked some sort of conflict, just as had happened with Marco the previous night.

Maybe as a regular Guard, the thought wouldn’t have crossed her mind so easily, but now? Gilda looked down at the Command Chain again. She had responsibilities now. Her actions would now be scrutinized and could have outsized consequences. Once again, she felt the weight of the chain dragging her down, still uncertain whether she wanted it or was in any way worthy of it.

As it turned out, she didn’t have to worry as the human soldier explained his intent loud and clear. “Halt! Identify yourself!” he ordered in Equestrian.

To Gilda’s relief, Giraldi took a step forward. “Let me take care of this,” he whispered, to which the eagless nodded gratefully. The older griffon then turned back to face the human and replied in Equestrian, impressing Gilda when he did so without much of an accent.

“Giraldi, First Spear of the Auxiliary Guards under Centurion Batz. I am escorting Decurion Behertz and Second Spear Gletscher, as per arrangements made by Ambassador Strenus and Ambassador Goldberg.”

Gilda tried to get into a relaxed stance, but when she heard the discussion between the two human soldiers behind the one Giraldi was addressing, she stiffened.

“Behertz? That’s the one who took down Marco.” One of the soldiers whispered—apparently, the humans really didn’t know that griffon hearing was good enough to pick up their muted conversations at that range. “Which one is she?”

“He said the griffon was a female. You want to go check?” his partner whispered back in a tone she could only describe as amused.

“What? Shit, no way, dog. I don’t want to get the same treatment Flip-Boy got.”

“Why not? You didn’t mind getting smacked by that chick you hit on in Okinawa.”

“Yeah, well, she just slapped me, and she wasn’t a two hundred-pound mythological creature who could fly and had man-shredding talons,” he rejoined. “Look at them. Marco got off easy if you ask me.”

The very mention of his name got Gilda to close her eyes as she reminisced about the previous night. She began to feel lightheaded and fire spread out from her stomach. The memory of his touch spilled forth embarrassment and anger she had yet to settle, even with a fitful night of sleep. Her mind began to wander, her imagination feeding her the brown human’s image pinned down on the ground, his eyes wide in fear.

“Gilda,” Fortrakt called out in a warning tone, derailing Gilda’s train of thought. Her eyes snapped open as she looked at her partner, now her subordinate.

“What?” Gilda asked, somewhat shortly.

“Your wings are stretching,” Fortrakt pointed out in a low whisper of his own. “Am I going to have to tackle you again?”

Gilda took a deep breath. She reminded herself again that she was now not just a soldier, but an officer of the Kingdom—that she had to control herself. Giving out a sharp exhale, she shook her head, willing her wings to sheath themselves. “I’m fine,” she insisted, even if she wasn’t sure herself.

Fortrakt looked like he was about to say more but Giraldi and the human soldier stopped conversing. The former then looked at Gilda, and she was mentally chagrined when he saluted her.

“Sir, you are cleared to go in. This is Sergeant Robert Reyes,” Giraldi introduced, his Equish faltering slightly with the rank. “He’ll lead you to Lieutenant Nantz”—the older griffon had difficulty in both pronouncing the rank and title this time—“who will introduce you to your new charges. Know that he is the commanding officer of this turma-sized detachment and bears roughly the same rank as you, so treat him as your equal.”

Gilda hesitated before she saluted back. “Thanks, First Spear,” was all she said.

The older griffon nodded. “Good luck, sir,” he whispered as he passed. He then went on his way, walking a few paces away before spreading his wings and taking flight. “If you need me, I’ll be outside with the Turma.”

The human soldier that greeted them took a step forward. “Decurion Behertz?” he asked, his eyes looking towards Gilda.

“Yes,” the eagless replied as her eyes did a quick study of the uniformed human.

He looked a bit different from the rest of the soldiers; his green-patterned uniform was slightly modified with cloth wrapped around his neck, yet somehow it didn’t seem out of place. On further inspection, Gilda was finally able to actually look at the human’s face from this close without emotion running through her.

To her surprise, she found him neither wholly alien nor ugly. His face was symmetrical; his facial structure quite similar not to only ponies, but also griffons. The top of his head was covered with some kind of hat that appeared to be made of the same mottled fabric as his uniform, with a short brim. His cheeks were sharp, his nose melding well with them in the center. He gave her a smile, his lips reminiscent of a pony’s (though smaller) while his teeth had a more predatory feature to them, with visibly sharp canines. His eyes, while not large, were sharp and piercing, fully ranged in emotion and alive.

Then there was his scent—somewhat sweet and not wholly unpleasant, which struck her as really odd. Even when ponies used griffon soaps, they still smelled like ponies. The humans just smelled… good.

“Sergeant Reyes, Third Marine Division,” the human introduced himself, thankfully ignorant of the thoughts running through her head. “Come this way, please.”

The collection of soldiers at the entrance gave way as Reyes led them in. A lot of them greeted the sergeant by his name despite his title, which sounded like a position of command. He wasn’t saluted, though. Granted, she had no idea how high the rank of Sergeant was, so she kept quiet as she and Fortrakt were led through the entrance of the Inn.

The first thing Gilda noticed was that the Winged Hall’s interior was very well-lit, with the firegems burning brighter than usual in their wall sconces. It was also in very sharp contrast compared to the outer, more Gryphon-based design—the inside was best described as posh; painted in softer colors with a hint of silver. There were some small picture frames or paintings hanging around, while the windows were draped with curtains, making it clear that the hotel was intended less for griffons than foreign visitors who preferred softer and gentler surroundings.

There were still griffon touches, though. Wooden and occasionally stone furniture was spread around in the form of long benches and tables. Some of those tables had vases, though instead of the flowers that the ponies would use, they contained more practical river-polished rocks and colored sticks that didn’t require the constant care and tending that came easily for earth ponies but not so readily for griffons.

Other tables had simple griffon art like small stone sculptures, while beneath them, the floor was covered with a very Zebra-styled carpet—a highly stylized flower with multi-colored flying petals in a red backdrop—that was enchanted to quickly shed dirt and moisture, making it easy to clean.

Sergeant Reyes walked the two griffons through the halls. Fortrakt looked absolutely amazed by the opulence while Gilda was less impressed; some of the hotels she had visited in Equestria were far more sophisticated. She was more interested in the human soldiers that they passed, noticing that quite a few of them were no longer armed with the long metal tubes. They did wear elaborate belts, though, which held various tools at their hips. She couldn’t even begin to guess their function, though she did note the largest and most prominent one appeared to be sheathed like a blade and have its handle exposed for rapid access by his right set of talons.

As they moved towards the stairs, Gilda found the silence a bit unnerving. Thinking of taking a stab at fostering friendly relations, she decided to try talking. “You certainly have a lot of soldiers present here.”

Reyes turned his head for just a moment, before he continued looking forward, not breaking stride. “We’re not soldiers, Decurion,” he replied. “We’re Marines.”

Fortrakt blinked. “Wait, you’re not soldiers?”

“Nope. A proud Marine of the Corps,” Reyes answered, his tone a mix of amusement and pride. “Always faithful; always forward. Ready for all and yielding to none. First to fight and fall. We also serve as guards for our nation’s diplomats.” The two griffons looked at each other in confusion—Gilda still knew of no Equestrian definition of the word ‘marine’ that was valid in this context—but remained silent as they passed through another corridor. A few steps later, Reyes stopped by a large door, opened it, and led them inside.

Judging by the size, Gilda thought it was a conference area, though the long rectangular stone table that would normally be located in the center was pushed off to one side of the room. The room itself was divided into two halves, each with neat rows of chairs facing the long table with a narrow walking space in the center. At the far end of the room, Gilda spotted three human males, two in uniforms and the other in a formal suit, similar to what Ambassador Strenus would wear in Equestria.

It was then it occurred to her that she hadn’t seen any human female soldiers. Did they not have them? Or did they prefer male soldiers for the same reason Equestrians did—they made much more effective peacekeepers when around a mostly-female population?

Regardless of the answer, Reyes led them to an upper floor of the three-story structure. The three walked in single file until they passed through the walkway. Gilda and Fortrakt positioned themselves, standing formally in front of the three humans while Reyes came to what seemed their equivalent of an attention pose, and saluted.

It was quite different from how the griffons did it, but the motions were similar. With a quick snap of his arm, he raised his fingers to touch the brim of his hat. It was actually quite reminiscent of a Guardspony salute, but far sharper given their stretched-out talons. Once the honor was returned, the human Sergeant introduced them. “Gentlemen, this is Decurion Grizelda Behertz and Second Spear Fortrakt Gletscher, our new civilian escorts and Kingdom military liaisons.”

The man in the suit came forward first, his arm extending. “Very glad to meet you both. I am Ambassador Goldberg.” Gilda extended her foreleg as well, grasping the human’s hand with her claw as he gave it a bit of a shake, taking care to not grasp too hard. He went towards Fortrakt next and both greeted each other the same way. “I am quite happy that both our races are taking necessary steps to make sure any misunderstandings will be stamped out, as we build towards a relationship that is mutually beneficial for all of us.”

Gilda blinked, wondering if all diplomats were so wordy regardless of their race. Taking a neutral approach, she gave him a nod. “Of course, Ambassador.”

The Ambassador nodded happily, his smile somewhat infectious for Fortrakt who was sporting a similar grin (though not as wide, given the beaks). The human diplomat took a step back as the two marines stepped forward as well.

“First Lieutenant Jason Nantz,” one of the humans, male, with a hard-faced expression, cropped blonde hair, and sharp blue eyes, introduced himself as he extended his arm to offer not a pawshake, but a forearm clasp. Though surprised, Gilda took it, noting his uniform fabric was quite thick and tough, keeping her talons from easily getting through to what felt like a large forearm beneath. “Commander of the Ambassador’s diplomatic guard. We are responsible for his safety, as well as that of all human civilians in the city. And this is my second in command: Staff Sergeant Stafford.” He motioned to the other human beside him.

Stafford, another male, had a much softer and darker face, his brown eyes smiling as his lips curved upwards. “Heyo,” he greeted. While he extended his arm, his fist was closed, surprising both griffons. They bumped fists together.

“Lieutenant Nantz is the commanding officer overseeing guard duties here in the Winged Hall,” Goldberg began. “He’ll get you introduced to Mister McClain, Miss Fields, and Mister Lakan. You both will be in good han—er, claws,” he corrected himself at the last second, using the griffon term. “I would rather take you myself, but I seem to be quite busy nowadays and have a meeting with your Senators soon. However, I do hope you enjoy your stay.”

“Thank you, sir.” Gilda didn’t mind his departure. Diplomats, whether griffons or not, always appeared busy, and given how much they seemed to enjoy being wordy, it was usually best for them to be needed elsewhere. “Be assured, we will carry out our duties as directed.” The Ambassador gave a smile and left, leaving the two griffons with the three marines in the room.

Moments passed and Gilda half-wondered why they still hadn’t moved. Assessing the three marines, she noticed Nantz was contemplating something. After a few seconds, he crossed his thick-looking arms and asked: “Which one of you was directly involved in the altercation last night?”

Gilda blinked, but stepped forward. “That would be me, Lieutenant,” she replied. Nantz looked at her and she felt the force behind his stare. She stood her ground. “Is there a problem?”

“Yes. I’ll be frank, Decurion—I’m not comfortable with your presence here.” Gilda’s beak opened, but before she could say anything, Nantz continued. “While Ambassador Goldberg maintains that this ‘improves relations’, I do not agree with transferring three civilians from my care to yours. And knowing that you attacked one of those civilians last night concerns me even more. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t let you anywhere near him.”

Gilda had the thought that if it was up to her, she wouldn’t go anywhere near him either, but before she could voice it or any other response, he held up a hand to forestall protests as a griffon would their wing. “Yes, I know what happened, and I agree that Lakan was in part to blame for it—he clearly wasn’t paying any attention during the griffon etiquette and culture classes we took before coming here. Nevertheless, I have serious reservations about this arrangement.

“Now that said, I am a soldier under civilian authority, so I will obey the Ambassador’s orders. I’ve heard good things about the Kingdom from the Equestrian side; they say that griffon soldiers are as professional as they,” he noted, leaving Gilda wondering by what standard Equestrian soldiers were professional.

In fairness, she’d heard they’d been rapidly rebuilding their military to reestablish their old service branches, including a Navy, Army and Aerial Corps after the complete failure of the Royal Guard to defend Canterlot during the Changeling invasion. But even two years later, she couldn’t imagine they were that far along in it, and wasn’t convinced they would be any more useful than the previously mostly-ceremonial Guardsponies had been.

“I’ve also recently heard that the Kingdom’s authorities are announcing that any griffon who provokes or attacks a human will be punished.” Nantz nodded in approval, but then his eyes narrowed.

“However, actions are considerably louder than words. Be warned, Decurion—if there is to be a repeat performance of last night, I will personally deal with the aggressor, and my soldiers will use all necessary force to stop them. So let me make this very clear: If you have a problem with Marco Lakan, or with any soldier or civilian under my command or care, then you will come to me, and I will deal with it. Do not attempt to resolve it yourself. Do we have an understanding, Decurion Behertz?”

Gilda looked at the human for a moment. His speech was consistently neutral in tone but there was an undercurrent of a threat and a definite harshness in his words. He looked quite tough too; his arms were massive and his chest was impressive.

A part of her wanted to challenge him in order to test him, as well as establish who would be dominant. Another part toyed with answering with an equally aggressive reply, but she couldn’t find a suitable one—at least, not one that wouldn’t make her look unprofessional or needlessly hostile.

To her relief, she was spared a decision when Stafford spoke up next. “What Lieutenant Nantz is trying to say is that we all want to set clear boundaries, in order to prevent any further misunderstandings and to make sure there won’t be another incident like last night. We’ll extend you a measure of trust, hoping whatever happened between you and Marco Lakan will be out of your systems.” In direct contrast to the human officer’s stern manner, he gave an easy smile.

“We promise to be fair, and not automatically side with our civilians. So if Lakan’s going out of his way to stir up trouble, please just report it to us, and not… well, take matters into your own hands. We can deal with him or any other issues you have, up to and including returning our civilians to our world.”

“That is appreciated.” Gilda nodded, noticing that Stafford’s wording and tone had softened Lieutenant Nantz’s words significantly, which made her suspect why the two humans were together. She had seen some officers and enlisted do the same when trying to motivate or order the soldiers under their command; one would take a more professional, harsher stance, while the other would be more understanding. “And to answer your question, yes,” she further replied to Nantz, her head nodding. “We understand each other.”

“Good,” Nantz declared. His face then softened somewhat. “I admit, though… I’m surprised Lakan thought it would be a good idea to lay a hand on a griffon soldier,” he noted with a tone of amusement, causing Gilda to take note again of the term ‘hand’, guessing it was what they called their forepaws or talons.

“He does seem to have a knack of getting into trouble, sir,” Reyes replied with a wry tone. “And remarkably, he was not drunk this time.”

Nantz and Stafford chuckled while the two griffons looked at each other, somehow feeling they had just stumbled into a private conversation. But the feeling didn’t last long as Nantz gave Reyes a nod.

“Well, he’d better not again, or I’m going to have a hard time convincing Goldberg not to send him home. As expectations should now be clear, let’s get this show on the road, as we say. Sergeant Reyes, escort Decurion Behertz and Second Spear… Gletscher, was it?” he asked, his Aeric accent somewhat thick.

Fortrakt nodded, with Gilda noting approvingly he had—quite properly—remained silent through the meeting, letting her take the lead as his superior. “Alright. Sergeant Reyes, please escort them to Mister McClain and company. Introduce them and stick around at least long enough to make sure Marco survives it.”

“Roger that, sir,” Reyes replied with a grin. He then turned and faced the griffons. “Come on, let’s get you two started. Please follow me.”

As they passed through the narrow walkway but before they made their way out the door, Gilda took one last look at Nantz and Stafford, both watching them steadily as they left. Departing, she and her escort moved through the corridors of the Winged Hall Inn, completely silent until Reyes led her and Fortrakt to the stairs, where he spoke up again.

“Just so you both know, the L-T doesn’t mince words and will be quite frank when talking to anyone. So don’t take it personally.”

“Ell-tee?” Gilda repeated the odd phrase.

“L-T. Two letters. Short for Lieutenant,” Reyes explained.

“Oh. Well, to be honest, I can actually appreciate his candor,” Gilda replied truthfully as they reached the top of the stairs that led to another hallway. “He spoke his mind and made clear his feelings. I respect that.”

“Good. However…” Reyes trailed off, stopped walking and turned around, facing Gilda, and for the first time, his eyes narrowed dangerously. “He was wrong about one thing. If you hurt Marco in any way, you’d be dealing with me first. And believe me when I say you don’t want that.”

Gilda’s eyes narrowed in turn as Fortrakt looked between the two somewhat nervously. “The way you word it seems a bit more personal,” she ventured.

“He’s my friend. And I would take it very personally,” he replied easily but pointedly, resting his hand on the top of one of his hip-mounted tools.

That confirmed it as some sort of weapon to Gilda, but she kept the thought to herself. She then looked at the unafraid human soldier—marine, she corrected herself, even if she still didn’t understand the term—for a moment and gave him a quick nod, noting instantly that humans seemed as big on friendship as ponies. Seemingly satisfied, Reyes continued to lead them on, passing through a number of doors before they stopped near the far end of the eastern corridor.

The marine was about to knock on the door when his eye moved towards a corner. A contemplative expression crossed his face for only a second before he motioned Gilda to approach with a curling motion of his blunt talons. Curious, she did so, and was about to speak when Reyes made a pair of gestures—one was a halting motion with his paw (hand?) she immediately recognized the meaning of, while the other was a single talon held vertically before his lips, which she could only assume meant to be silent.

Reyes knocked on the door with the joints of his talons, which she noted became quite hard and prominent when he curled them into a fist, resulting in a very sharp rap. “Who is it?” came the response from a familiar voice; one that caused Gilda’s blood and temper to start rising again, forcing her to choke back the memories and near-murderous desires she’d had the night before.

“Marco, dude, it’s me,” Reyes replied in a friendly tone, a mischievous smile gracing his face as he winked at Gilda. “The L-T talked to Goldberg. You’re clear, man. No griffon babysitter for you!”

Gilda's eyes widened as she exchanged a startled glance with Fortrakt. Reyes was deliberately lying? Why?

“No shit?” Marco replied, then exhaled audibly. “Holy crap. You hear that, Chris? I just dodged a bullet!”

“Great, Marco,” a masculine voice came from further in the room, almost inaudible and flat in tone. “Pity, too. You need to apologize to her.”

“Lay off, dude! I didn’t know it was wrong!”

“Didn’t know?” Tara’s voice echoed unsympathetically. “I’m more curious as to why you thought it might be right? You’d already pissed her off by thumping her neck, so I can’t imagine anything more stupid than turning around and thinking it was okay to put your paws on a couple alien predators like they were a pair of pet cats!”

“Yeah, yeah…” Marco muttered, his voice getting louder as his human footfalls approached the door. “I was an idiot—I get it, okay? Since I don’t wanna get ripped to shreds, I ain’t gonna do it again. Hey, Reyes, want to come in? Or are you on duty?”

“On duty, but I got some time to spare,” Reyes declared, and then whispered to Gilda, “Okay, Decurion. If you want a little payback, just stay right in front of the door and put your meanest face on.” The marine winked, his smirk now a full-blown smile as he took out a black rectangle and made some hurried motions on it.

Gilda had stayed with Rainbow Dash long enough to spot a prank in the making. She too smiled, immensely liking the idea of frightening the brown-skinned human, eagerly imagining his reaction to her. She immediately took on a fierce and angry look, and found it wasn’t that difficult, given she just had to think back to the previous night, letting her headfeathers go ruffled. “Why? What do you have in mind?” Reyes asked amicably as Gilda deliberately crouched low and flared her wings like she was about to pounce.

“Uh, Gilda?” A concerned Fortrakt called out in Aeric, watching the scene warily.

“Relax, Fortrakt,” she replied in Equish just loudly enough for Reyes to hear her, wanting to make sure he understood her intent. “I’m not gonna attack him; I’m just gonna scare him. And have a very good time doing it.”

“Well, I loaded up Warrior to my laptop,” Marco replied with a slightly nonsensical statement before Fortrakt could reply. “We were gonna watch it after breakfast.”

“I can’t stay for a movie, but breakfast should be good,” Reyes replied as he stepped back and pointed his camera at the door and clicked it, though there was no flash or whirring noise this time.

Gilda heard the tell-tale signs of the door being unlocked. Reyes was already stifling snickers, while off to the side, a bemused Fortrakt seemed to have finally caught on to what was happening. “You humans have a very odd definition of friendship.”

When the door opened, Gilda saw him again, this time in more detail. Ebony black hair cut short. Soft-looking cheeks and darkened lips, almost blending with his skin color. A rather slight build compared to the human soldiers. Dark brown eyes that were warm and friendly, at least until he saw her.

His expression went slack for a second before his cheeks drained of color and his eyes widened dramatically with… pure terror as he beheld her poised form like he would a grass lion about to pounce. Yes, the expression was the same as with ponies and griffons.

The predator part of her felt no little satisfaction knowing that he recognized her. And in turn, feared her. “Hello, Marco Lakan,” she greeted him with a low growl, not quite able to suppress the smile that broke out around her beak, finding herself immensely gratified by his reaction—so much so, in fact, that she felt some of her unresolved anger at him recede, to be replaced by a heady feeling of pure dominance.

“I’m your new escort. So if you don’t want to get ‘ripped to shreds’, then don’t ever touch me or any other eagless again uninvited,” she warned him from her crouch, holding her threatening pose for a beat longer before rising again and pulling her wings back against her sides. “Remember that, and we’ll have no issues.”

“Putang ina,” Marco muttered in a language she’d never heard, having to steady himself by propping his foreleg against the door frame while his face was suddenly covered with a sheen of moisture and his legs threatened to buckle. His eyes then wandered towards Gilda’s left, where he saw Reyes, holding up his odd rectangle and smirking. “Robbie, you evil asshole!”

Robbie? Gilda thought, looking at Reyes.

“Aw, man, you should have seen the look on your face!” Reyes declared with a tone that she last recalled from Rainbow Dash following one of their more successful pranks, thinking this would have been worthy of the practical jokes they used to play. “Your eyes just about bulged out of their sockets!” he turned the curious rectangle to show him—not an image, but a moving picture that played back the entire scene with sound, letting her hear her own voice! It did seem too high-pitched, though.

Chris then came into view around the corner of the short corridor, his expression curious. “What the hell is going on?” Marco replied by side-stepping and showing Chris who was at the door. The red-haired male blinked, looked from Gilda to Fortrakt to a grinning Reyes, and then at Marco again. “Oh. Guess Reyes got you good, didn’t he?” he asked with a smile.

“See for yourself!” The Sergeant passed Chris the device, who broke out in a huge grin as he played the scene a second time.

“Wow. Now that’s worth posting on YouTube when we get back home!”

“My only friend, stabbing me in the back,” Marco muttered in a tone Gilda found reminiscent of the Senators and some Equestrian nobles. “Et tu, Reyes?”

“Sorry, buddy. It was too good an opportunity to pass up,” an unrepentant and still grinning Reyes said as Gilda could only blink at the unexpected use of an Aeric phrase. “Nicely done, Decurion.”

Despite her surprise, she bowed her head in acknowledgement and great gratitude. “Thank you for the opportunity and for trusting me, Sergeant. I needed that.”

“What’s with all the commotion?” a feminine voice called out as Tara appeared as well. When she saw Gilda at the doorway, she turned her head slightly, an amused smile and understanding look gracing in her human feature. “Oh. Good one, Reyes.”

“Dude, I still have time to shut the door and we can all make a run for it out the window,” Marco muttered.

“Wouldn’t help,” Gilda instantly answered, still grinning triumphantly. “You wouldn’t get far. You’re three stories up, and we can fly a lot faster than you can run.”

“Oh, yeah. That makes me feel a whole lot better!” He grabbed some kind of flask and took a long draw of it.

“Marco,” Chris and Tara said reproachfully as one. “You heard her. She and her partner are here to escort us, not attack you again. And you do owe her an apology,” the latter reminded him.

“Fine, fine.” With some reluctance, Marco stepped back and motioned Gilda, Fortrakt and Reyes inside. “Look, Miss—er, Decurion, I’m sorry, okay? I was just trying to be friendly and I had no idea it was wrong.”

She studied him for a moment, uncertain if he really meant it given how much he was fidgeting and fumbling through his apology. “Then do us all a favor and please don’t ever try to be friendly like that again,” she warned him, letting the barest of edge into her voice.

“You got off easy, thanks to my partner here. Any eagless worth their wings would have torn you up for touching them there. Or worse, their tiercel bondmates if you did it in sight of them.”

“Don’t worry,” he promised her with a second swallow of his drink; her nose just then picked up the aroma of some exotic alcohol. “I swear I’ll never lay a paw on you again!”

5: Clashes of Culture

Author's Note

This chapter is a heavily edited, expanded and updated version of the latter half of Feathered Heart: Chapter 3. You are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original.

Thanks go to my prereading crew of AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire, and SIlverblade5, whose inputs and edits make my works far better. Appreciated, gang!

5: Clashes of Culture

Gilda yawned, scratching her chest as she finished packing her rucksack with her few possessions, preparing to move out of the barracks. Her headache, which began that morning, was persisting, and the latest developments were not helping.

When they reported back to Tribune Narada after their first day in the company of the humans, she informed Gilda and Fortrakt that they would be moving into the Winged Hall Inn to stay with their new charges. Ambassador Strenus had advised her that his human counterpart had found some free rooms where the two griffons could stay, and they “were invited” to avail themselves of the offer.

It wasn’t technically an order, but coming from Narada’s beak made it so.

The Tribune was also quite busy, swamped with written complaints in regard to her announcement forbidding any fighting with humans earlier that day. So, she told Gilda that whatever she and Fortrakt had to report, they could put it in writing and submit it to her tomorrow.

The parchment sheet lying in front of Gilda remained blank. It was not because she was lacking on any material to write about—quite the contrary, she reflected somewhat ruefully. It was just the first day; they’d had nothing more than an introduction, meet and greet followed by some food and a human movie. And yet, she had already learned a great deal about humanity from both.

Certainly, their food preparation was interesting enough—though she’d never admit it to Fortrakt, their ‘bacon’ treatment of slim strips of flying boar was surprisingly tasty for being pan-fried and slightly salted, as were the eggs for having been fried in the rendered boar fat after—and they’d been promised more examples of human fare later. That they called themselves apex predators without being able to eat raw meat seemed incongruous at best, but at least she could say that they were definitely carnivores and had learned to work around the restriction.

Though odd, their education of humanity had only truly begun in earnest with the movie Marco had shown them, once they’d cleaned up breakfast. It was simply called Warrior, which was undoubtedly a title that would entice any griffon. But it was in fact a human film that centered around the lives of two estranged human brothers. It was an eye-opener on many levels, not just for the story, but for how they were able to watch it.

The box with the lens was what she could only describe as a very advanced projector, but instead of using film, it was connected to that light-blue rectangular human machine. Marco had tinkered with it a bit, unfolding it while Fortrakt watched over his shoulder from a hover. The Second Spear had an awestruck expression as Marco explained to him in slightly nonsensical terms what he was doing, which if memory served Gilda correctly, never left the young tiercel’s face for the entire day.

When asked later, her partner could only describe the machine as some sort of ‘magical window’. Marco had also connected black boxes to it, which he explained were speakers; something Gilda had not expected to see in such small sizes.

Curtains were drawn before the movie played, projected directly against a smooth white wall, which they removed the mounted pictures from to provide a uniform background. As for the movie itself, Gilda’s first impression was that it was… clear. Very clear. She’d normally have expected some sort of fuzziness around the sides of the film; maybe some black spots or general graininess. And considering how small the speakers were, she was also surprised by how smooth and sharp the sound was.

The film itself showed a fair amount of the human world called ‘Earth’, or at least the nation from which most of the humans hailed. It also showed a window into human social and family interactions, delving into a bit of their culture. Once she’d gotten over her surprise at how crisp the projection was, Gilda could barely believe the images she saw, most notably the glittering waterfront city that figured prominently in the story’s climax. It consisted of a long sandy beach fronted by towering buildings made of stone, glass, and many multicolored lights.

The movie itself had taken nearly half an hour more than its actual running time to play. The reason was that it had taken her and Fortrakt a while to comprehend everything they saw, much of which required some explanation. More than once the movie was ‘paused’; the picture freezing in mid-motion while the three humans answered a question or explained some aspect of the film their griffon viewers found confusing.

To begin with, their society had ‘cars’, which were personal chariots of some kind; self-propelled machines she could only describe as miniaturized locomotives. When she’d been unimpressed by what she was told was their typical speeds or amount of cargo, which seemed to travel somewhat slower and haul far less than a griffon air coach could, she was informed that they were just vehicles for individual transport—that there were other, far larger and more specialized ones for hauling families or even what amounted to a mobile dwelling.

“Do humans travel by air?” Fortrakt had then asked, and was quickly assured that they did, through ‘airplanes’ that ranged from small to giant and could travel at speeds far in excess of even the fastest sky griffons, or the military airships the Kingdom’s Navy used. Unfortunately, such vehicles were never shown, and the only information she was able to glean on that front was that dirigible airships existed in their world but were not widely used.

But how, then, did they keep control of the air in war or give support to surface units without airships? Or was the air simply not a battlefield to them, given their wingless forms?

She didn’t press the question, for fear of prolonging the too-frequent pauses and potentially giving away that they were trying to get information from their hosts. Deciding there would be plenty of time to explore the subject more later, she focused more on what she saw of human society instead. The movie demonstrated that human culture could be at least roughly described as a vague cross between griffon and pony societies, with most of their members taking after the far more peaceful and social ponies while also having some number of specialized warriors like the griffons.

They were clearly not all taught fighting as griffons would be, but learning it seemed to be a personal choice.

Most of the humans in the film spoke Equish, which humans actually called ‘English’. Gilda found it particularly odd that the two languages were arguably identical, with the exception of a few expressions. Most, but not all, she reminded herself—at least once, she thought she heard a language she identified as some form of Sponyish, which had been spoken by mules and burros who hailed from Mexicolt.

She found that strangely disquieting—that they spoke one language from Tellus was odd enough, but now two? Does some part of human society speak the griffon tongue as well? she couldn’t help but wonder with a glance at their human hosts, suddenly worried it wasn’t safe to speak Aeric around them.

Still, she couldn’t deny that the movie had held her interest well; the pauses for explanation becoming far less frequent towards the end as they watched the surprisingly compelling story unfold. It culminated in a series of very physical and even brutal duels as the two human brothers inevitably collided in single combat, meeting in the championship bout of a fighting tournament as the story reached its emotional end.

There were at least a few scenes that gave her some insight on how humans waged war. One of the brothers was a former Marine, and the movie did show a glimpse of what looked like human soldiers taking cover from a spray of incendiary bolts fired from repeating crossbows, accompanied by a water rescue involving a metallic vehicle that looked like some exotic and highly advanced variant of a Minotaurian tank.

To her disappointment, there was not much to see of actual warfighting; just what looked like an army encampment in a desert where exclusively male soldiers were housed—which, despite speaking the same language, was a complete reversal from how the female-dominant ponies did things.

The military aspect was actually secondary to the primary story, but given the primary story’s theme, she concluded that Fortrakt was correct in his assessment: humans did seem to specialize in close-quarters combat.

Gilda’s mind went back to the very stylized bouts and “Mixed Martial Arts” fighting tournament the movie had centered on, ending with the climactic battle between the two brothers; each determined to win the tournament to take home the prize money for reasons that were anything but selfish.

Their story and motivations, she noted, had been only slowly revealed over the course of the movie. The two brothers had been well-acted—not overacted, as the typical Kingdom theatre troupe would do, but realistically portrayed—and the moviemakers had taken pains to make clear that each had their own crippling character flaw and a very good reason to dislike the other.

They learned late in the film that the younger brother was a former Marine who had deserted his unit—a capital offense in the Kingdom’s military—but that he’d also done so to take care of his best friend’s mate, whose death had left her without her partner and a means to support their cubs. She’d been disposed to dislike him both for that and his seemingly uncaring attitude to everyone around him, only to later learn that everything he did was to help his former comrade’s family.

In contrast, the older brother had seen fit to lie to his mate about their financial situation and what he was doing during the evenings after his teaching job—humans apparently used large and well-lit classrooms populated by several dozen students, she noted in passing—fighting in what Gilda gathered were some very shady matches for money.

But he, too, was doing what he thought he had to in order to provide for his family, and though she didn’t appreciate his willingness to lie about it or his wife’s initial refusal to accept that he was fighting—what griffon would ever mind a mate who fought well?—she granted that he, too, was trying to act honorably in the end, and had eventually won her over.

She’d also be lying if she hadn’t related to the two brothers’ severely strained relationship with their father, feeling an echo of her own innumerable issues with her sire within them. Much like hers, their father demanded perfection and didn’t take well to any perceived failings among his multiple offspring, but unlike hers, he was at least trying to make amends for what she gathered was a past involving too much drink, taking it upon himself to train the younger son personally.

And yet, though the dynamic between them was certainly interesting, what fascinated her most of all were their bipedal fighting styles. It seemed to center on shallow kicks, blunt force foreleg strikes, and some surprisingly well-developed grappling arts. The younger brother rarely had to resort to the latter—he had been an incredibly instinctive fighter who was just sheer speed and raw fury; so wickedly fast he could floor you in one blow and who initially advanced through the tournament bouts with ease.

The older brother, however, was a far less gifted but more… nuanced fighter who lacked the raw speed and striking power of his younger sibling, but he made up for it with pure toughness and relentlessness as well as some excellent takedown techniques. He simply refused to back down even in the face of what seemed a vastly superior opponent; he could take massive amounts of abuse while waiting for an opening to apply a visibly painful submission hold that could break a limb or worse. More than once, he turned a bout he’d been losing badly on its head in a matter of seconds, converting certain defeat into stunning victory.

She found herself rooting for him hard as he faced arguably the most dangerous fighter short of his younger brother, perhaps because his monstrous opponent spoke Ibexian. That was something guaranteed to raise the hackles of any griffon, given the Kingdom’s longstanding rivalry with the aggressive goat-like race on the other side of the Pearl Mountains.

Wait—that meant there were now at least three Tellusian tongues that humans actually spoke!

While the younger brother usually walked away unscathed from his matches, the older one ended up increasingly bruised and battered, yet always unbowed. And at the end, when the two finally faced off for the championship, each needing the prize money as badly as the other…

They hadn’t held back at all. In fact, they’d gone at each other with their proverbial claws out, taking out a lifetime of abuse and betrayal, both real and imagined, on the other. She cringed when she remembered a particularly notable scene where the younger brother received a dislocated shoulder halfway through the final bout. But then she watched in disbelief as he simply wouldn’t give up, refusing to surrender despite the pleas of his older sibling; fighting on despite his visible pain with his unwounded arm alone.

She couldn’t help but grimace at the memory. As it would cripple their flight muscles, and thus their all-important wings, most griffons wouldn’t even be able to stand up on all fours with such an injury, let alone on just two legs to continue fighting. And yet the grounded, wingless humans showed that they could.

If she had to guess, it was most likely due to their bipedal nature and the way they expertly coordinated their bodies in combat, used to balancing on two legs as they were. Gryphons could stand upright for short periods by flaring their wings for stability, but without their use, they were badly unbalanced and could be knocked over quite easily.

They moved with an agility I’ve rarely seen, Gilda thought as she finished packing, reviewing the events of the movie in her head. And it wasn’t just the movie, either. Reyes’ finger coordination, the way they twist their bodies in subtle motions... She recalled the former twirling an item artfully around his blunt talons, or just being able to snag the small object right out of the air when it was tossed to him.

Gilda swiped the air with her right set of talons, trying to remember how the humans used their arms to jab or swing their enclosed fists forward against their enemies. They’d also fought with padded gloves, not too dissimilar from what griffon cubs used when playing with pony foals. The only possible reason to do that would be for safety—because their bare fists were far more dangerous to each other; their visibly hard and protruding knuckles hitting with the potential impact of a thrown brick. It was then the words of Ambassador Strenus came back to her:

They are not the biggest or strongest beings on their planet. Nor do they have any sort of natural weapons or magic. Yet they number in the billions!

Gilda found herself nodding slowly at the statement. Because they have constant practice. When properly trained, their bodies are very injury-resistant and quite flexible. While they don’t have real teeth or talons, they have rock-hard areas like their fists, elbows, and knees. They can even launch powerful kicks with their hind paws, which have long reach and can do real damage to an unwary opponent.

And yet, the extent of their fighting abilities didn’t end there. Even without their striking surfaces, they can just wrap their limbs around you and use the leverage of their well-balanced bodies to put you in painful holds and locks, Gilda recognized, unconsciously tapping her throat as she remembered some of the human fighters going for chokeholds, attempting to cut off the flow of blood to their rival’s brains.

All in all, it presented a slightly unsettling picture to her, and even allowing for movie-making hyperbole, she concluded that maybe the humans weren’t as weak as they looked.

All of which was lost on Fortrakt. Once the movie was done, he’d had no end of additional questions, completely giddy over what he had seen. Aside from asking about their ‘MMA’ and if the fight depictions were accurate—he’d been delighted to be told they generally were—he’d been the most curious about the stylized skin art they saw on many of the fighters, wondering aloud if they were some kind of “human cutie mark earned by victories in battle?”

The humans had laughed at that, explaining that they were in fact “tattoos”—special inks injected under the skin by trained artists with an endless series of tiny needle pricks.

“Injected? Needles?” The thought made Fortrakt visibly cringe, and Gilda wasn’t much better. She’d had some blood taken when she enlisted, in case they needed to externally generate replacement blood or organs following severe battle wounds. It had been a brief procedure but had hurt badly, and she couldn’t imagine willingly letting somecreature do that to you. “But doesn’t that… hurt?” he further asked; she well imagined Fortrakt was remembering the same thing.

“Oh, yes. It hurts like hell when you’re getting it,” Tara confirmed somewhat ruefully, and then pulled back the top of her garment to reveal a previously hidden tattoo on her left shoulder.

It took the form of a stylized flower; Gilda had the thought that even if it wasn’t a cutie mark, it could have passed for one on a pony hip. “This one took two hours to do, and believe me, that was enough—it feels like a burning knife and you have to hold still despite the pain. I was only able to make it through by listening to music the whole time,” she recalled with a grimace. “And before you ask, the skin is itchy and irritated afterwards, but that subsides after a few days.”

“So... two hours of pain to get a single tattoo?” Fortrakt paraphrased dubiously.

“Only for one this small,” she chuckled. “These things are basically works of art, and the larger or more intricate they are, the more time you need. Those bigger and more complicated ones in the movie can take several sessions of four or five hours, done over a period of several months. They’re not cheap, either—at least, the good tattoo artists aren’t. But once a tattoo is there, it’s pretty much permanent, though it does get a bit fuzzy around the edges. Honestly, I need to get this one touched up.”

She then sat with her back facing Fortrakt and invited him to touch it, so he could see it didn’t feel any different than her regular skin. He stammered and blushed hard, looking to Gilda for help; she responded with a smirk, enjoying his discomfort.

With some difficulty, he reminded Tara she was instructing him to touch what for a griffon was a very intimate area.

She giggled at his stammered explanation, as did Marco and Chris. “It’s not the same for us. It’s okay, really. Go on and give it a try.”

“Dude, she’s letting you touch her!” Marco teased him with a grin, giving him an affectionate tap on the chest safely below the neck—he’d learned his lessons about where not to touch griffons, at least. “We should be so lucky!”

“Uh… okay?” With a second glance at Gilda, whose smirk deepened but gave him a nod of assent—who was she to deny him a thrill?—he reached up somewhat tentatively to brush the blunt backs of his talon tips over the tattooed area, to the cheers and a high-hoof exchanged between Marco and Chris.

Though flustered, Fortrakt didn’t remove his digits when she didn’t jerk away. “Wow—it really doesn’t feel any different! And your skin is so soft…” he further realized, placing more of his digits against the area to touch it further before catching himself and drawing back quickly with a fierce blush, to more teasing.

Afterwards, Marco had informed them that if they liked that movie, he had literally hundreds more they could watch. He’d then invited a giddy Fortrakt—and by extension, Gilda herself—to come back to see some of them, promising they had an endless array of movie themes that ranged from the same sappy romance she so disdained among ponies to outright action and fantasy films.

Though she wasn’t as eager to accept the offer as Fortrakt, who she wondered if even remembered what they were supposed to be doing, she recognized the potential benefits of taking the invitation. As much as her junior partner was enjoying their time with his new human friends, she couldn’t deny their utility to their intelligence-gathering mission as her mind went back towards the first film.

If just one had granted them a veritable fount of information in regard to human society, how much additional insight could they gain by viewing more of them?

She gave a low, annoyed trill while she rubbed her eyes with a set of talons, feeling forced by her own sense of duty into spending more time in the presence of Marco and the other humans. The latter she didn’t find too objectionable, but unfairly or not, she still associated them with the former.

And the former she still had severe issues with, even given the sorely needed chance by the surprisingly understanding Marine Sergeant for some payback. I can’t make this decision over Marco! she told herself with her thoughts for what seemed like the hundredth time, trying to still her twitching wings and lashing tail.

But then again, did she even need to? For how valid a window into human life would those ‘fighting and fantasy’ movies be? Equestrian cinema tended to show exaggerated and/or idealized versions of pony society; never mind their dweeby romance films that were invariably some variation of a powerful mare swooping in to save an endangered stallion, winning his affection and loyalty for life. But such stories were pure fantasy and not reality; she and Rainbow had seen a few over the years and had a very good time mocking them.

Rainbow… her thoughts went back to her former friend again, wondering what she was doing these days—other than performing for human and Tellusian audiences alike, that was. To her great disgust—and if she was being honest with herself, a measure of envy—Gilda had learned that Rainbow Dash had gained a measure of fame for not only performing the Sonic Rainboom, but for being one of the first ponies to cross over to Earth.

In fact, for being one of the first ponies they’d ever seen, she was now known on sight to humans—attention Gilda was sure Rainbow was only too happy to have. And thus, Gilda had been very careful not to tell anygriffon—or now anyhuman—that she had been friends with her, not wanting to draw attention to herself or be bombarded with painful questions about how she knew her.

But the hits just kept coming. For Gilda had also learned Rainbow Dash had fulfilled her foalhood dream to join the Wonderbolts, given her face was plastered all over the advertising posters when they came on a goodwill tour of the Kingdom.

It was crow-damningly hard for Gilda to forget about her when she saw a full-color picture of her on every street corner.

In truth, maybe even that wouldn’t have been so galling to her but for the fact that her own dream of joining the Wind Knights remained unfulfilled, while the ex-friend who had unceremoniously and unfairly dumped her had realized all her heart’s desires.

There’s no justice… she thought for the millionth time since learning the news, suddenly wondering if the way she felt about Rainbow was the same way the two human brothers looked upon each other; each believing the other had wronged them.

It stung, but at least it didn’t provoke the sheer rage in her it used to; just a dull ache deep in the pit of her stomach.

No, the only rage she felt now was over Marco, leaving her wondering what it would take to fully relieve it. All of which brought her back to the question of how she was going to deal with him, and whether to take the invitation to watch more human cinema if it also meant being around the brown-skinned human more.

Her wings twitched and her talons curled, digging into the floorboards as she recalled his hand resting on her flight muscles again. She knew he didn’t mean anything sexual by it, but she couldn’t help it. Her blood still pumped hard when she pictured him; she still had a strong urge to stalk him.

To pay him back for taking such an intimate and uninvited sensual liberty with her, even unknowingly.

She exhaled sharply, trying to restrain her surging temper again. It was so strange—she had never had someone get under her feathers so deeply or quickly. Not even the crow-begotten pink pony mare, who Gilda held responsible for breaking up her friendship with Rainbow all those years ago, had raised her hackles this much.

She didn’t want to see him again, for whenever she did, all she could see or feel was his hand on her flight muscles. Even without him present, she still felt a ghost of the sensation. She couldn’t seem to shake it, and she admitted she was afraid of what she might do to him if they were alone, and neither Fortrakt nor anygryphon else was there to stop her.

“You’re a soldier of the Kingdom. So by all your Ancestors, stop acting like a crow-damned dweeb, Gilda…” she ordered herself under her breath, willing her wings and tail to still. She was an adult and a military officer now, not some stupid tiercel teen who couldn’t control his emotions. She still didn’t want to take the offer, but a more rational part of her realized that ignoring it was not only stupid, but outright treasonous for throwing away such an easy opportunity to learn.

Needing a distraction, she looked back at her blank and waiting page of parchment, beginning to gather her thoughts. There were so many things to write about, and whether she wanted them or not, there were far more days with the humans to come.

“Crows take it…” Deciding the night wasn’t getting any younger and her nerves weren’t getting any less raw, Gilda closed her eyes for a moment before she grabbed a quill, dipped it in ink, and began to write.

“Duty comes first. I’ll figure out how to deal with you later, Marco Lakan...”

The next day, Fortrakt and Gilda were guided to their new rooms at the Winged Hall Inn by Sergeant Reyes, unconnected with the human quarters but in the same general area and level.

Though far more modest than the dwellings that the humans had received, they were considerably more comfortable than her bare barracks quarters. Gilda now had a room with an actual bed, a bigger closet, and her own bathroom with a tub and shower.

Though she would have appreciated the chance to soak in it for an hour and preen—a luxury she definitely didn’t have back at the barracks—the two griffons didn’t have much time to unpack or enjoy their new amenities as the trio of humans were scheduled to examine the farmlands and fields outside Arnau.

Somewhat surprisingly, the three civilians weren’t just diplomatic baggage, as she’d sometimes heard other griffons refer to nobles or other elites that glommed on to diplomatic missions for mere visibility. They were there because they had an actual job to do, explaining that they were tasked with analyzing griffon mines and farmlands to see what opportunities existed in the area for human agriculture, mineral collection, and trade.

Meeting them outside the Winged Hall Inn, Fortrakt and Gilda began to guide them towards the Southern Gate, though Gilda made sure to keep on the side of them away from Marco. Tara had brought along some metallic tools and a blank booklet made of white human paper as well as a strange writing tool; the latter two she called a ‘notepad’ and a ‘pencil’, respectively. But Chris simply had one of those magic windows he called a ‘tablet’.

Marco, though, looked like he was ready for battle. He brought a small pack that strapped around his shoulders and made soft clinking sounds every time he moved. Around his waist was a belt that held a lot of familiar tools, but miniaturized and optimized for human paws—er, hands, Gilda corrected her own thought, wondering if humans also had a separate name for their digits. If not talons, what were they?

His arsenal included a shovel, a hammer, and what looked like some sort of pickaxe. The two males wound up sticking together—Marco explained that he’d be at the fields collecting soil samples while Chris talked to the steadholders and Caleponian farmers there, to determine what crops grew best in the sandy soil. Tara, on the other wing, wanted to go to places with higher ground.

Gilda had Fortrakt stay with the two males to keep herself away from Marco, though she somewhat reluctantly agreed that they’d change shifts every hour to give them time to be with both. She couldn’t help but note that though he definitely wanted to be around Marco more, Fortrakt also seemed excited at the idea of being alone with Tara later.

She couldn’t help but wonder if he was taking a more personal interest in her after being allowed to touch her the previous day. But it was a question for later, and perhaps something she could tease him about when she was in a better mood. Just glad to be away from Marco for a while, the still-annoyed eagless spent the better part of that hour helping Tara move herself and her tools to the tops of hills and rock formations.

The human eagless—woman, she corrected herself, finding that an odd term for a female—was absolutely specific on where she wanted to work and had a perfectionist attitude; one that reminded Gilda very much of her sire. Fortunately, she wasn’t anywhere near as overbearing, and she also didn’t dismiss Gilda’s efforts out of wing when they weren’t immediately to her satisfaction.

In fact, the normally talkative human female turned unusually quiet as she worked with her tools. The only time she spoke was when she’d recite numbers out loud, writing them down on the notebook. Gilda assumed they were some form of measurements but didn’t ask.

And then abruptly, she started and looked up. “Oh, God!” Tara suddenly declared, making Gilda snap back to alertness as well.

“What’s wrong?” Gilda asked, scanning the area for danger but not seeing any. She wasn’t sure what to make of the exclamation—an invocation to a God? What God? What was human religion even like? There had been some odd but prominently placed symbols in the movie she’d ignored, as well as a reference to what sounded like divine figures she didn’t recognize. But not wanting to prolong the conversation, she hadn’t asked about them.

“I’m so sorry,” Tara apologized, then explained at Gilda’s questioning look. “I’m sorry if I’ve been rude. I didn’t mean to ignore you, I swear.”

Gilda relaxed—of the three human civilians, Tara was the easiest for her to be around, at least, either because she was female or because she seemed the most sensible and stable of the three. “You were busy. I understand.”

“Really? That’s a relief. I swear, I’m not snubbing you or anything, I just tend to stay really quiet when I’m working.”

Gilda nodded. “I don’t begrudge you for being a hard worker. I respect that a lot, actually, since I’ve had to work really hard myself.”

“It doesn’t always get you what you want, though,” she noted, somewhat ruefully. “So has it gotten you to where you want to be?”

“Not yet,” Gilda admitted, her tone turning subdued. “I want to make the Wind Knights—they’re our most elite sky gryphon soldiers, similar to what I gather your Marines are. I can’t do it right away, but I’m patient and willing to work for it. Which believe me, I wasn’t always.”

“Soldier, huh?” Tara mused. “It’s a career I can’t imagine choosing. I’m just not cut out for it—most humans aren’t, really. So, what’s it like to be in the military?” she wanted to know.

Gilda gave her a curious look. “Why do you ask?”

Tara adjusted her tool again; a three-legged metallic construct with what looked like a pony spyglass on top. “Well, it’s a little silly, but I just don’t understand the appeal of it. Chris told me he had wanted to enlist in the Army when he was a kid, though he eventually decided on being a scientist instead. Then we have Marco who was quick to befriend the Marines with us, so I...”

Tara fell quiet again, once more absorbed in her work as she examined a rock through her spyglass. Gilda found it funny how she just lost her chain of thought like that, but she remained quiet as the human female worked. She even found herself thinking back on Tara’s words, only belatedly realizing she may have given out unnecessary information in regards to the Kingdom’s military.

But before she could worry about it further, she spotted a figure taking flight in the distance. A sharp trill then cut through the breeze, which she instantly recognized as coming from Fortrakt.

Time to change shifts already? Damn. She grimaced, knowing she was now going to have to hang around Marco again. Fine. Let’s just get this over with…

“Tara,” Gilda called.

“Hmmm?” was Tara’s reply.

“Fortrakt and I will be changing shifts. Please stay until he arrives, alright?”

Tara nodded and went back to look through the spyglass. “No worries. I’ll be here,” she replied, writing something down in her notebook once more.

With a strong beat of her large brown wings, Gilda took flight, meeting Fortrakt halfway. “I left them over at the western fields,” the tiercel declared once she was in hearing range.

“Marco’s got a lot of glass vials and is taking samples of everything. Chris was talking to the steadholders and some of the Caleponians, using his magic tablet to record them,” he related. “Did you know that those tablets can also take pictures? Humans have got some really neat stuff!”

“Maybe you can ask your new best friend to teach you how to use them,” Gilda replied dryly, then pointed towards the southeast area she’d just left. “Tara’s over there, near the small creek. I’m not sure what she’s doing, but she’s got some sort of spyglass.”

Fortrakt blinked, his raptor eyes staring off in the direction that Gilda was pointing. “Yes, I see her. And you know what? Maybe I will ask him how their stuff works!” With those words, he took off towards Tara, leaving Gilda to shake her head as she followed her partner’s directions and moved towards where Chris and Marco were, though not in as much of a hurry as Fortrakt was.

Gilda sighed as her thoughts went to Marco yet again. She knew she was going to have to confront the brown-skinned human at least one more time before she could clear whatever anger she still harbored for him, or all their encounters were going to be as uncomfortable as this one. But as now was not the time, she carefully checked her emotions, reminding herself again that he had acted in ignorance.

Despite her deep-seated feelings, she found it increasingly silly that she was holding onto a grudge for so long. It was, after all, quite clear by then that Marco had meant nothing untoward by his touch; his mortified reaction to having it explained confirming it. She also thought back on how amicable he was to her yesterday, and how he had been the first to extend his human paw in friendship towards her.

But she’d slapped it away, unwilling to forgive and forget so easily—maybe in that sense, she really wasn’t any different than the two brothers of the movie, who were both unable to see or accept things from the other’s point of view until the very end.

It was then Fortrakt’s words came back to her, and she felt a measure of admonishment. When all was said and done, she really was acting like a stupid cub. The human male was trying to be friendly and make amends to her. So maybe it was time to sheathe her claws?

Her entire train of thought vanished when she spotted Chris, a bit far off, running at his rather meager top speed through the fields. Thinking that was strange, her eagle eyes saw the very clear panicked expression he had. Sensing something was wrong, she took a series of strong, broad strokes, racing towards him through the air.

As she came into range, she folded her feathered limbs to her sides, making her dive down fast and hard in a move she’d learned from her time with Rainbow. Flaring her wings at the last second to arrest her descent, she landed before him and skidded to a stop. Her sudden appearance made the red-haired human recoil in fear for a moment, at least until she spoke.

“Chris? What’s wrong? What happened?” Gilda asked.

“Decurion!” he exclaimed through panting gasps, bending over to put his hands on his knees. Catching his breath, he then pointed behind him, speaking in clipped tones. “Marco! In trouble! Help him!”

“Crows,” Gilda cursed with a leonine hiss as she flapped her wings upwards, creating a small dust cloud in her wake. In the air again, her eyes scanned forward, trying to see what the stupid brown ape had gotten himself into this time. “Follow me!” she directed, taking flight again—she didn’t like leaving Chris alone, but it sounded like Marco was in immediate danger.

She confirmed it quickly. After a few seconds of flight, she saw the brown-skinned human surrounded by two younger griffons, who encircled him in a predatory pincer movement designed to take down grounded and cornered prey. Though it was two against one, they seemed strangely wary, and it was only then that she noticed Marco was holding some sort of dark metallic stick.

As she closed the distance, he kept shifting his legs just like the fighters in the movie. His head moved back and forth as he slowly backed away, trying to keep the two griffons encircling him in sight; she could see a glitter of sweat on his arms and forehead. And was it the sun, or was he bleeding?

It was then she realized—he’s FIGHTING them?

Beating her wings harder to increase her speed, she rocketed herself towards the endangered ape, trying to reach him quickly, but she was too far away to prevent one of the griffons from finally attacking him. The tiercel of the pair leapt at him with a slash of his talons, leaving Gilda certain it would result in the human being wounded or worse. But to her surprise, he dodged the swipe and brought his arm holding the stick upwards, hitting the male griffon hard on the head.

The force of his blow was surprisingly strong, judging by the way the tiercel recoiled and stumbled hard, but then the human made a mistake—as he raised his rod high to deliver a final blow, his eyes were on the stunned and stumbling earth griffon, not on the tensing sky griffon eagless sneaking in behind him.

Gilda’s guts clenched as she pounced on and pinned Marco down, face first in the dirt as she knocked the metal stick away. Victorious, the female griffon then grasped the human’s neck with her talons from behind and ordered him to submit in Aeric, in a move that threatened to rip open his throat and called for the opponent’s submission.

Still too far away to assist, and feeling strangely frantic over the fate of the human male, relief washed over Gilda at the realization that the eagless wasn’t looking to kill him. All Marco had to do to end the attack was expose his neck to admit defeat, not unlike how the human movie fighters “tapped out”, repeatedly drumming their fleshy talons against their opponent’s body to indicate their surrender.

She’d quickly figured out that they did that to end the bout and prevent whatever lock they were in from resulting in crippling injury to a pinned limb. But he’s not a griffon! Gilda reminded herself, and her stomach suddenly felt heavy at the realization that Marco might not know the griffon signals for that.

Her growing alarm giving her extra speed, she accelerated her approach further as despite his vulnerable position, Marco continued to forcefully resist, arching his back hard to try and get the eagless off. But he didn’t have enough heft and all that accomplished was to annoy her. In response, she flared her wings for balance while raising her other set of talons, preparing another blow aimed at the back of his head.

She had no idea if he could withstand a hit like that and wasn’t about to find out. Blindsiding her, Gilda grunted as she slammed into the other eagless from the flank and bowled her over. Momentum was on her side, and the other female easily gave way; the impact leaving Gilda rattled but not shaken. The force was enough to dislodge the offending eagless off the human, eliciting a surprised feminine squawk.

The griffon was just a teenager, Gilda realized as she pinned Marco’s attacker down; no older than she’d been when she’d had that awful day in Ponyville years earlier. For a moment, Gilda thought there would be more resistance. But once the eagless’ eyes identified her captor’s armor and the diplomatic Command Chain around her neck, she immediately went limp and exposed her neck in submission. It was a wise choice given she was facing not just a soldier, but an officer; one with the added authority to order her arrest and punishment.

But before Gilda could ask her what in the name of her Ancestors she thought she was doing, a masculine tiercel shriek filled the air. It was the trilling call of a frightened cub pleading for help from his parents, and her eyes widened as she turned her head and looked behind her.

Even with the source of the cry unquestionably being a griffon, she had expected—even feared—that she would see the male griffon hurting Marco. She was sure she would see him pinned down again, fighting uselessly against his opponent.

Instead, what she beheld was Marco on top of the trembling tiercel, who was on his belly while Marco was sitting on top of his hindquarters, crouched over and reaching beneath the tiercel’s rapidly twitching tail. That was incredible enough, but what was even more shocking was the fact that the griffon was spouting apologies in Aeric, his tone one of sheer panic.

“N-No! Please! Don’t cut them off! Don’t cut them off! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please let me go!” the tiercel begged repeatedly, tears streaming down his feathered cheeks. His feathers were ruffled and his feline tail twitched hard while he repeatedly bared his neck, desperately signaling his submission.

But Marco wasn’t giving any indication that he was accepting the griffon’s surrender. There was something quite lethal in the way the brown-skinned human looked at the downed griffon. He didn’t speak Aeric, but he seemed to understand the plea for mercy well enough as he began speaking in both Equish and another unfamiliar tongue, his tone low and quite menacing.

“Sige, gumalaw ka, punyeta ka. You attacked my friend! So give me a good goddamned reason why I should let you keep them, you fucking piece of griffon shit…”

“Marco…” Gilda didn’t know what was worse—the death glare the human was giving the tiercel, or the fact that his hands were right between his hind legs, holding something. Judging from the increasingly panicked shouts and pleads, to say nothing of the griffon’s visibly shaking body, Marco was probably holding a blade or something sharp against his dangling malehood, threatening to relieve him of it and leaving the poor tiercel scared out of his mind.

Before she could think of what to do next, there was a rustle as she saw an increasing number of earth ponies and griffons appearing, apparently trying to figure out what the commotion was about. Relieved to find some backup, Gilda gave a signaling squawk, earning the immediate attention of one of the griffon Guard soldiers, who was probably assigned to watch ponies on another field.

She was another eagless; a young soldier fledgling fresh from the Gauntlet given her youth and the fact she possessed only the single pauldron on her left shoulder. When she saw Gilda, wearing an officer’s armor and a diplomatic command chain, she immediately saluted and bared her neck hard, standing to rigid attention.

“Yes, sir?” she asked hesitatingly.

“I am Decurion Grizelda Behertz. On my authority, Get the Peacekeepers here, now!” Gilda ordered.

“By your command!” She gave a ritual answer as she saluted, and then off she flew, leaving Gilda wondering again if she was ever going to get used to that, and worried that she was starting to like it. Putting the thought aside for now, she slapped the manacles from her belt on the eagless’ limbs, and then asked Marco to let the tiercel go. But he refused, not about to let the male earth griffon up despite his crying sobs and translated promises to never bother them again.

Thankfully, the Guard griffon came back quickly with a good number of Peacekeepers in tow. Her new command chain granting her the authority to direct them, Gilda immediately ordered them to detain the eagless she had cuffed and the tiercel—who was still pinned and crying freely at that point—for questioning.

It took a while with the latter, though, as Marco still refused to let him up until he was assured that Chris was safe and they wouldn’t let the tiercel go. In the end, it wasn’t until his red-haired friend came back and gently asked his fellow human to release his captive that the brown-skin human relented.

Once the two griffons were sent away—the female hobbled and the male completely broken, barely able to walk and still wracked by squawking sobs—Gilda shooed the onlookers away, and then approached the two humans, who were huddled together in a somewhat isolated area. Upon closer inspection, she spotted some fine crimson lines streaked across one of Marco’s arms from where talons had grasped him.

There was also some bruising appearing on his face and other arm not unlike she’d seen in the movie—the movie makeup artists had apparently gotten that detail right—and although Marco looked spent and subdued after his earlier eruption of anger, he at least seemed to be in control again.

Approaching them, her attention landed on the small shovel Marco was holding, if not outright clutching. He wouldn’t let go of it as Chris sat beside him, patting his shoulder and repeatedly asking his fellow human if he was okay.

Marco didn’t reply except to mutter something unintelligible in the strange tongue again, eventually saying in Equish that he was fine so long as Chris was. She then noticed that Chris was holding the same black metallic stick that Marco had been using as a weapon before he lost it.

“Okay. It’s over and done, so would you two mind telling me what happened?” Gilda asked gently. “I’m going to have to make a report about this, and I need your side of the story.”

Marco looked at her numbly for a moment but stayed silent. Noting his mood, Chris was the one that answered. “There isn’t much to say. We were taking rock and soil samples and doing nothing but minding our own business when those two griffons approached us.”

Gilda nodded. “And then?”

“Does it matter?” Marco muttered, his eyes on the ground.

Gilda looked at him sharply, pulling out a roll of parchment and quill she was using for taking notes, following it up by placing a small ink jar on the ground and uncapping it. “Yes, it does. The Peacekeepers are going to question those two griffons. I’m responsible for you, so I need to know what happened,” she said as she dipped the quill in ink and laid the parchment on a flat stone.

“What’s the point? You know Goldberg’ll spin this one against me anyway,” Marco muttered.

“No, he won’t,” Chris replied, his voice surprisingly hard, giving Marco’s shoulder a squeeze. “It wasn’t your fault, Marco. At least, not this time.”

“Like that’ll matter,” Marco answered dully.

“It will if I have anything to say about it,” Gilda spoke up, surprised to find herself standing up for the brown-skinned human. “Now please explain what happened here.”

Marco and Chris glanced at each other again before the latter spoke. “Well, they flew in and started speaking Lat—er, I mean, your language,” Chris continued dully; when Gilda looked closely, she noticed he was shaking slightly, too. “When Marco told them we didn’t understand, they said in English, ‘Fight’.”

“It was ‘You, me, fight’, actually,” Marco corrected. “Pretty rough English, really.”

“Yes, well, not every griffon is well-versed in Equestrian,” Gilda reminded them somewhat shortly.

“Really?” Chris looked up at her. “You and Fortrakt seem to speak it well.”

“That doesn’t mean we all do.” Gilda sighed, not wanting to explain that her knowledge of Equish stemmed from growing up in Equestria, or the fact that the Gletscher family was from the more temperate parts of the Northern Region. Such areas had lots of Caleponians that helped them produce enough food during the short growing season, in order to minimize importation from the Southern Region, and thus knowing Equish was more or less a necessity for him.

“It’s unimportant right now, so please—those two griffons will be questioned soon, and we’ll need to have your side of the story ready,” she implored them again, her quill poised.

Marco looked at her for a moment. Then he sighed, his gaze resigned as he gave her a short nod. “Fine, for all the good it’ll do. Like Chris said, we were just out here minding our own business when they showed up wanting a fight. We told them no and tried to make that clear. Chris said something in Latin and turned his back on them. That’s when they swarmed him.”

“Latin?” That wasn’t the first time she’d heard that word, though she hadn’t been able to figure out the context from its earlier usage.

“I said ‘Nos pugnare non vis. Exite’!” Chris explained, causing Gilda to blink hard—that was pretty rough as well, but he knew the griffon tongue? “And that’s when you went kamikaze and attacked them with this!” Chris finished, tapping the black metal stick he was holding against his open palm. “Honestly, Marco—what the hell were you thinking, using this to attack two big winged cats with beaks?”

“Dammit, dude, they came at you with their claws out! Just what the hell was I supposed to do?”

“You could have called for help! That’s what she’s here for! And since when did you start carrying a weapon?” a still-rattled Chris spoke quickly.

Marco looked at Gilda for just a second before he went back to looking at the ground. “Two days ago.”

Both Gilda and Chris looked at Marco for a moment. The former felt strangely flattered as the latter recovered first. “Okay, but still, you came at them with just a bloody baton? There were two of them! With talons! They could have fucking eviscerated you! Or just picked you up high into the air and dropped you! Did you have a death wish? I mean, of all the stupid, idiotic things you could have…”

Gilda’s eyes glazed as she listened to Chris rant on, waving his arms about, driving the point home on how he felt Marco’s actions were absolutely brainless. For his part, Marco just accepted the abuse, giving his friend a roll of his eyes and a ghost of a grin.

Blocking him out, Gilda found herself nodding as she pictured the scenario they described. If what Marco said was accurate, then it was clear enough what had happened—two young griffons in their late teens, probably young enough (like her at their age) to be both sufficiently brave and stupid to ignore the military and civilian edicts announced yesterday, had decided they’d test their alien visitors and thus came to the two humans looking for a fight.

Whether their objective was a simple thrill or hoping to make a name for themselves as the first griffons to challenge humans, they couldn’t speak Equestrian well and Marco probably made the mistake of speaking in simpler terms. ‘No fight’ was most likely misinterpreted, as was Chris’s subsequent reply in broken and barely understandable Aeric.

In fact, in some ways, the latter was even worse—by poorly dismissing them in their own tongue, the two griffons thought that Chris was not only insulting them by mangling their language, but claiming that he was too strong for them and that they weren’t worthy of fighting. Turning his back on them must have exacerbated the situation further, flaring their teenage tempers by making them think that the human was claiming that they were weak and not worth his time.

She sighed and rubbed her eyes. Just like two nights earlier, it was yet another unnecessary clash resulting from a crescendo of cultural misunderstandings, and as she wasn’t involved in it directly this time, Gilda found herself feeling a much greater measure of sympathy and appreciation of how they came about.

So maybe I can forgive Marco a little more readily now? she asked herself, only to still feel an undercurrent of anger towards him. “Okay, I can make a report about this,” Gilda suddenly declared, cutting Chris’ tirade short as she finished writing. She then rolled up the scroll and passed it to the ranking Peacekeeper, directing her to pass it up her chain of command.

“As you know, Tribune Narada just announced yesterday a new policy of disallowing any aggression between griffons and humans. While it seems this involved yet another escalating series of misunderstandings, they still started the fight. I don’t see that either of you were the aggressor here, and given that you both tried to de-escalate, if rather clumsily, the two of you will most likely be cleared of any wrongdoing.”

Chris exhaled sharply, his shoulders sagging. “Oh, thank God.”

Gilda gave him a reproachful look. “Which is not to say you didn’t provoke some of their reactions. I can see now we’re going to have to seriously educate you two on Griffon culture and body language. And Chris? If you’re going to speak Aeric, or ‘Latin’ as you call it, I’d suggest getting a lot better at it first.”

He looked chagrined. “I didn’t think it was that bad.”

“Trust me, it was,” Gilda informed him bluntly. “The first thing you need to know about us is that we Gryphons revere our culture, including our language, and we tend to take it personally when it’s spoken sloppily. If you like, Fortrakt and I will give you lessons in speaking it,” she then offered, to which Chris nodded slowly but remained silent.

“They spoke our language sloppily, too. Was that okay?” Marco asked, somewhat snippily.

“No, but you’re the visitors, not the hosts,” she reminded him with strained patience, biting off an initial inclination to snap back at him. “You’re also not a pair of teens with more stupidity than good sense like those two were. So do yourselves a favor and don’t speak it again until you speak it a lot better.”

“Don’t worry,” Chris mumbled. “I guess I wouldn’t be well-received in ancient Rome, either…”

Though she didn’t get the reference, Gilda then looked at Marco. She expected some sort of relieved expression to cross his face at the news they were likely to be held blameless, but it remained blank. “I have to say, you did a decent job holding them off,” she declared, scarcely able to believe she was complimenting him. But there was also no question in her mind that he deserved it, for doing what Rainbow hadn’t. “And all to defend a friend? I approve. I admit, I may have misjudged you, Marco Lakan.”

Marco looked at her, his expression still numb despite the compliment. “Yeah. Thanks,” he replied unemotionally.

Gilda could only nod, recognizing he was suffering from at least a minor amount of battle shock; she’d suffered the same after she’d been bullied into her first real duel many months earlier, which was as close to actual combat as she’d ever been. For a few seconds, the three were silent until Gilda pointed towards the shovel. “Still, I have to ask—why did you go after him with that?”

Marco blinked. He looked at where her talon was pointed before replying. “Oh. Well, uh, I lost my baton, and this was the only thing I could reach. The griffon was dazed enough that I could get in close to knock him down, then pin him by sitting on him. When I did, I kinda just reached in and… threatened to cut that griffon’s... well, sac, with it.” He grimaced as he spoke.

“With a shovel,” Gilda repeated dubiously. “And he didn’t notice?”

“Well, like I said, he was dizzy from being hit with my baton. I got him down, and then I remembered my brother sticking a spoon in my neck, tricking me to think he held a knife. Back when we were stupid kids,” Marco said with a shrug. “I just about pissed myself then, so I thought maybe it could be the same here. He couldn’t see what I was holding without twisting around, but when he started to, I dug it in deeper and froze him. That’s when he started squawking.”

“Squawking? He was sobbing!” Chris corrected. “My Latin may be rough, but he was begging you to let him keep his balls!”

“So you tricked him,” Gilda realized with a moment of genuine amusement as she wrote a second report to pass up to Tribune Narada herself. “But how could you be sure it was going to work?”

“I couldn’t. The griffon was speaking Latin, and I didn’t understand what he was saying. So how did you?” he asked Chris.

“Because I took classes on it in college. It’s a dead language in our world, as the society that originally spoke it faded out a thousand years ago. I never thought I would actually be speaking it for real one day!” Chris added in a note of disbelief. “I’m serious, though—he begged you for mercy, Marco! He really thought you were going to cut his balls off.”

“Yeah, well, I was just trying to scare the shit out of him and keep him in place. It shouldn’t have worked, but I guess I sold it well enough that it did.” He shrugged and then looked up to see Gilda staring at him.

For a moment, she said nothing, not even questioning the strange label they’d repeatedly applied to the griffon tongue, or what they meant by a ‘dead language’. The next, she was laughing. Her reaction only confused the humans further as the pair glanced at each other in bemusement, then looked back to her.

“What?” Marco asked. “Why is this funny?”

“With a shovel,” Gilda replied with a shake of her head, still snickering. “With a small, crow-begotten shovel, you made a fully grown griffon beg for mercy and cry for his mother? And it wasn’t even a war shovel! Unbelievable.”

“Okay, seriously, what?” Marco asked in a measure of annoyance.

“You know what? You’re not bad, Marco Lakan,” Gilda decided, an actual smile gracing her face in his presence for the first time. “Not bad at all. Whatever punishment he gets, that tiercel will never live this down.” She shook her head again, then turned and walked off to direct the Peacekeepers to summon a healer for Marco. “With a shovel,” she declared as she continued laughing, then finished writing her latest report.

Tara and Fortrakt arrived a few minutes later. The younger griffon was initially confused, but when he saw the wounded Marco, he insisted on bringing the humans back to the Winged Hall himself. He seemed to be taking the attack personally, later confiding to Gilda that he blamed himself for leaving them unprotected, even briefly, in his eagerness to see Tara again.

As it turned out, their wounds weren’t deep or bad enough to need a Magus Knight—"I could treat it, but it’d be a waste of magic and it might have deleterious effects for such shallow scratches,” an eagless mage said upon examining them.

But they still needed at least some treatment, which Marco got when he was checked by a human medic—whom they called a “corpsman”—back at the Inn. After being given some form of salve and a bandage to keep the injured area clean while it healed, he was then summoned to Lieutenant Nantz’s office along with Gilda to explain what had happened.

Though initially disposed to blame the affair on Marco given his “uncanny ability to attract trouble and piss people off”, the human officer had been swayed by Gilda’s backing, noting that if she of all griffons was defending him, then he really wasn’t at fault. He then promised to pass her report up his chain of command with a recommendation that there be no punishment, but he also warned Marco that Ambassador Goldberg would be unlikely to let a second incident involving him go.

Marco could only nod ruefully in response, thanking the Lieutenant—and Gilda herself—for their efforts, even if they ended up being fruitless. He then retired with Chris and Tara to their quarters, escorted back by Reyes and Fortrakt.

Only after the humans were secure in their hotel suite did Fortrakt return and finally ask Gilda for the full story of what had happened.

So Gilda explained.

By the time she was finished, Fortrakt laughed even harder than she did.

6: Hall of Heroes

Author's Note

Welcome back to Feathered Heart, folks! What you see below is the first entirely new content written for the story in nearly five years, fitting between chapters 3 and 4 of the original story:

TFeathered Heart

The exploration of the Gryphon Kingdom and the love between a human and a griffin. While securing trade routes, Gilda reminisces how the humans arrive, the trials they face together, and the one who stole her heart. Set in the Gentlemanverse.

Demon Eyes Laharl · 139k words · 1,622 51 · 21k views

Thanks go to fellow Gentlemanverse writer AJ_Aficionado, as well as Silentwoodfire and Silverblade5 for their prereads, which included many comments and edits. Hope you enjoy!

—Firesight

6: Hall of Heroes

Gilda was starting to wonder if becoming an officer had already irrevocably changed her, or if her new command chain was somehow enchanted to make her less impulsive and more mature.

As she faced the griffon and human Ambassadors in the latter’s office at the Inn, she found herself standing up for Marco repeatedly, even emphatically. This, despite her earlier dislike of him and her own lingering desires to settle things with him, which increasingly were less about stalking him and slashing his face than sitting him down and making clear she was still not happy with him.

Even after his occasionally clumsy attempts to make amends, and his honorable attempt to defend his friend, she still didn’t fully like or trust him. But nor could she just stand by and let him be slandered by the obviously biased human Ambassador, who had called her in after he and Strenus had interviewed Marco and Chris separately in the presence of Lieutenant Nantz.

That, at least, she could justify to herself. She’d already had that happen to her once before, when Rainbow refused to stand up for her after she’d gotten mad for being made the butt of an endless series of pranks. Remembering the sting of it, she had vowed to be better about such things if the time ever came, and she found herself on the other side of it.

She just never thought it would be over an alien ape whom she still had severe issues with.

But in the end, she couldn’t help it. Though her sense of gryphon honor might have been a bit stunted from her upbringing in Equestria, she refused to let the brown-skinned human be held responsible for something that was not his fault—especially when he’d only been defending a friend.

So she gently brushed aside all of Goldberg’s probes and thinly veiled suggestions that she recommend Marco be shipped back through the portal, on the grounds that he was “endangering the amicability of their ongoing trade negotiations” through his “unfortunate habit of regrettable incidents with civilian and soldier populations alike.”

Though increasingly annoyed by his needlessly wordy and transparently dweeby attempts to sway her, she stood fast and kept her voice level, keeping her irritation confined to an occasional tail flick as she continued to insist there was no valid reason to expel him, regardless of whatever issues she’d had with him previously.

In truth, she was impressed with herself for her steadfastness in the face of such pressure, knowing that she’d likely have lost her temper over it just a year or two earlier. She wasn’t sure if it was more adulthood or the command chain she now bore that had mellowed her, but either way…

Or maybe I’m just getting old like Fortrakt says, she inwardly admitted when their attention wasn’t on her. I call him “cub” even though I’m only three winters out of my teens? Guess after being abandoned by my friend and being told no repeatedly by father, I had to grow up quick, she grudgingly conceded, as much as she hated to give any credit to her sire or her missteps in Equestria for helping her to mature.

Such thoughts were best saved for later, however, as they had no end of questions for her. In the end, after additional deliberations behind closed doors, Ambassador Goldberg relented. He allowed Marco to stay, but insisted that all human soldiers and civilians receive ‘intensive cultural sensitivity training’ to prevent such mishaps from occurring again.

With his attention on Gilda, she knew he didn’t see Lieutenant Nantz grimace and rub his eyes behind him. But after the human Ambassador had departed in what she took to at least be a slight huff, Nantz summoned Gilda to his improvised headquarters to discuss matters ‘officer to officer’ with her.

“Now that our betters are gone, let’s work this out without any personal agendas or diplomatic doublespeak, shall we?” he suggested with a slightly exasperated grin and an arched eyeridge, offering her some coffee in a bowl when they arrived at his office. Though not her favorite drink, she accepted it graciously, at least after he gave it a strong measure of cream and sugar. If nothing else, she was gratified that he had the same reaction to the interview process as she had.

Once they’d downed half their mug and bowl, he sat down behind his desk and asked for her advice, as a griffon officer, on how to keep his civilian charges safe without provoking resentment or causing more trouble with the Kingdom.

To her surprise, they ended up chatting openly and amicably for the better part of an hour. It was a far more pleasant conversation in which they bounced ideas off each other, though she surprised him when she agreed with Goldberg that the three needed much more instruction on griffon culture. “It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea for your Marines to receive it as well,” she further mused.

When asked why, she explained that both incidents could have been defused at the start if Marco and Chris had simply known basic griffon gestures, behavior, and body language.

“Challenge and duel rules, taboo talk and touching… These are things every griffon knows, so we expect visitors to the Kingdom to learn them as well. When somecreature doesn’t… well, bad things can happen, like yesterday. Or three days ago.” Her wings flared slightly and tail twitched once for emphasis, letting him see her feathers were still ruffled over the initial incident with Marco.

Nantz studied her closely for a moment. “I don’t need to take your training to tell you’re still pissed at him over that,” he noted. “I can well imagine you don’t like being around him right now. And yet, you stood up and defended him.”

She looked up at the taller human officer. “Whatever issues I may have with Marco Lakan, they do not affect the performance of my duty. And regardless of my feelings for him, I’m not about to let him be punished for defending a friend,” she said emphatically, but then blinked hard and had to stifle a grimace—she’d meant to say feelings towards him, not for him!

If Nantz picked up on her slip of the beak, he hid it well. “That’s very professional of you, Decurion. I approve.” He gave her a respectful nod. “Very well. I can’t argue with what you’re saying. We got some cultural training from your Ambassador before we came, but I guess it wasn’t enough.”

“I’m not surprised,” she said without thinking, then caught herself. “I mean that with all due respect to Ambassador Strenus, he’s been away from the Kingdom for so long that he’s forgotten some of his own culture—he actually gave your civilians some very bad advice on greeting griffons,” she recalled, her feathers ruffling again before she forced them to still. “I don’t actually blame him for that, though. The same thing happened to me when I was away from the Kingdom for a few years.” Or twelve...

“Understandable,” he said with a nod at her. “That being the case, can you and Second Spear Gletscher give us some classes? Civilian incidents are bad enough, but the last thing I need is one of my Marines getting into it with another griffon over some misunderstanding. That would be a whole different level of bad,” he noted somewhat mildly, to which Gilda, though not relishing the idea of additional duty, agreed.

In the end, they decided to both carry out the training and to cancel any more field forays for Chris, Tara and Marco until the classes could be given and security procedures could be “improved to ensure civilian safety.” Though somewhat formally stated, Gilda gathered that the Lieutenant wanted to send some of his own soldiers along for the ride the next time they went out again, in which case the training had to be given sooner rather than later.

It would take some time to arrange, though, and in the meantime, the three were not to leave Arnau, and not to leave the Inn except under escort and close supervision. That being the case, Gilda asked for permission to take Chris, Tara and Marco on a private tour of the Kingdom’s Hall of Heroes, located on the city’s fifth level, that afternoon.

“Consider it part of their cultural training,” she replied when he asked why. “If you want to know who we are, you can start with who we revere. And besides, I really don’t want their impressions of the Kingdom to be defined by being attacked by a couple dweeby teens looking for a chance to fluff their chests and flare their headcrests,” she told him with a roll of her eyes. “In short, Chris and Marco saw some bad parts of our society. So, let me show them the good.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Nantz replied. “But what about—”

“And if you’re worried about their safety, don’t. As it’s in a restricted area for being only two levels below the Royal Palace, that area is well-guarded by elite Paladin soldiers, and we won’t make the mistake of allowing them to be separate again.” She anticipated his question. “I promise that Second Spear Gletscher and I will keep them together and safe.”

“Sounds secure, but are you sure I can’t send a few of my Marines along?” he asked, to which Gilda emphatically shook her head. “If you’re worried about a show of force, I could order them to just wear their day uniforms and leave their weapons behind.”

“Thank you, but no. Armed or not, the Paladins would not appreciate it,” she informed him, referring to the Queen’s green-armored and well-trained protectors that were at least roughly analogous to Equestria’s Royal Guardsponies in function, but far more competent at their jobs. “As the Hall of Heroes is considered sacred ground, uniformed foreign soldiers are not allowed there, even as unarmed bodyguards.”

“They wouldn’t make an exception for guards attached to diplomatic guests?” Nantz asked.

“No. They take their duties quite seriously and do not make exceptions except on direct order of the Queen, who has issued none,” she explained, to which he relented. “But that said, you can also be sure they’d act promptly to protect such guests, especially foreign dignitaries. That’s why I can promise that Chris, Tara, and Marco would be safe there.”

“Understood. In that case, you have my blessing,” he decided, then turned contemplative. “I assume Chris and Marco will behave themselves after their close calls. Especially Chris, given that from what you say, he set off the attack by trying to speak your language.”

“It wasn’t just that, but yes. He tried, but very poorly,” she confirmed with a wince. “His accent and inflections were all wrong. I offered to give him lessons, but after his… experience, I’m not sure he’d be willing to try speaking Aeric again for fear of making a griffon angry.”

“I can imagine,”the Lieutenant acknowledged with a nod, but then he smirked. “Ego sum etiam operantes in taberna dominus ad me Aeric ope. Quid sonat? Numquid melior illo?” he asked her out of nowhere.

She blinked hard and looked up at him in surprise. “Non perfecta, sed multo melius,” she replied, and meant it—he’d even gotten the squawk on the leading Ts and the slight trill on the vowels passable, if not perfect. “Not bad at all, Lieutenant. You still need some work on the proper amount of hiss for the S sounds and selecting which syllables to stress. You’re also missing the beak clacks on the Qs and Cs, though I’m honestly not sure how you can fix that without beaks of your own. May I ask where you learned our language?”

“I took it at the U.S. Naval Academy as my foreign language requirement,” he replied with a grin. “It became much more popular to take once we learned there was a large nation on Tellus that still spoke it. You don’t speak it the same way we did since you’ve got all these additional sounds involved, but Merlina Marcus, the daughter of the Inn’s owner, has been helping me in the evenings with the intonations.”

“I see,” she replied neutrally, though inwardly she was worried—still spoke it? So, they’d been studying the races and languages of Tellus for years? That was troubling—it suggested that humans had been conducting their own intelligence gathering long before the Kingdom had been able to start, putting them at a potential disadvantage in both diplomacy and warfare. And why was he attending a ‘naval’ academy if he was a Marine?

Wait—did that mean they had a Navy? But how, if they didn’t have military airships?

She didn’t know, but it was all excellent fodder for her next report to Tribune Narada. She would also have to have a chat with the Innkeeper’s daughter, to see what other information she might have divulged to them. Perhaps she thought she was just being a good hostess, but Gilda was increasingly concerned that the humans were gathering as much intelligence on griffons as they were trying to do on humans.

“Overall, you’re getting there, Lieutenant, but I’d encourage you to keep practicing. And I extend the same offer to you as Second Spear Gletscher and I did to Chris—we would be willing to help teach you.”

“Thank you. I may well take you up on that,” he told her, getting up from behind his desk to walk around the front. “Thank you as well for your time and counsel, Decurion. This has been a very productive meeting.”

“My pleasure, Lieutenant.” They clasped forelegs, and then stepped back and saluted each other simultaneously in their own manner, as befit their roughly equal ranks. “By your leave, the Second Spear and I will take Chris, Marco and Tara out after midday.”

By the time their talk concluded, it was nearly lunchtime, as the rumble of Gilda’s belly shortly reminded her. Walking with Reyes, he asked her if it was true they were going to have to sit through another “cultural training session” again. She told him yes, but as she would be giving it, she promised it would be very direct and to the point.

“I don’t know what training you had before, but it shouldn’t take more than half an hour to relate everything you need to know. Trust me, I don’t have any more interest in spending all day stuck in a seminar than you,” she told him with a slightly pained smile, to which he smiled and fired her a respectful salute.

Arriving, she found Fortrakt already there and Marco quite tense, awaiting the decision on whether he could stay. She saw he relaxed fractionally when it was just herself and Sergeant Reyes that entered, perhaps guessing that if he was actually being expelled, Nantz or even the Ambassador would have come to tell him personally.

“You’re good, buddy,” Reyes told him with a grin and an odd gesture of making an enclosed fist except for his opposable talon, which pointed up. “All thanks to the lady here.”

She gave him a reproachful look. “That’s Decurion, Sergeant,” she reminded him, to which he only grinned and flashed her another salute. After returning it, she detailed what had happened in the morning’s deliberations, and the decisions that had been made.

Though disappointed to learn that they wouldn’t be allowed back out into the countryside for a bit and not looking forward to more training, even Marco agreed they probably needed it. “Once bitten, twice shy…” he admitted, and though Gilda hadn’t heard that particular idiom before, she at least guessed the meaning of it.

Lunch consisted of fruit and thin slices of sausage they piled between pieces of bakery bread they’d bought the previous day. Sausage was sold in the markets as it was considered something of a starter food for weaning cubs or restoring strength after a serious injury or illness, and it amused her at least mildly that humans considered it valid fare for healthy adults as well.

But she accepted it amicably. She was certainly well-used to eating sandwiches from her time in Equestria, and at least unlike most of those, these had meat on them. They’d even brought along some Equestrian condiments to dress up the bread a bit. As far as that went, she preferred mustard, but noted Fortrakt seemed to greatly enjoy the mayonnaise once he’d tasted it, slathering it on his bread.

The humans ate it on their sandwiches along with some salad greens and slices of artisan cheese they’d bought a couple of days earlier. They then washed it all down with brewed tea and juice, though she noticed Marco poured a small amount of liquid from his flask into a mug of the latter.

When Fortrakt asked what it was, he was told it was Buffalo Whiskey, a drink that was even rarer to griffons than the heavily tariffed thestral wines. “Wow! I’ve heard that’s really strong! We don’t have any relations with the Buffalo and they don’t export their stuff. Can I try some?” he asked hopefully.

“We’re on duty, Second Spear,” she reminded him. “No drinking.”

“Come on, Decurion! I’ve never had it! Just a sip?” he suggested hopefully, to which she rolled her eyes, but nodded.

He coughed hard when he took a small spoonful in his beak, his eyes watering as it burned the back of his throat. “By the Ancestors…” he croaked out, having to quickly pour some water for himself as the humans and Gilda could only laugh. “That’s good stuff! Could I have some more later…?”

Once lunch was finished, Gilda told the three to clean up and dress nicely, instructing them to treat their visit to the Hall of Heroes the same way they would if they were being brought before the Queen herself.

“It’s both a museum and a monument. They contain the statues and stories of those griffons—and non-griffons—we revere, so we ask that you accord them due respect by not appearing slovenly,” she explained with a pointed look at Marco. She’d gotten some sense of the range of human attire from formal to informal by then, and he certainly fell hard on the latter end of the spectrum.

“That means no torn-up jeans, Marco,” Tara chided him, pointing a blunt talon at his splotchy blue leg coverings. “You’re going to a museum, not a backyard barbecue.”

“Yeah, yeah…” he said somewhat grumpily as the three went to their rooms to shower and change clothes, while Gilda and Fortrakt retreated to their own quarters to hastily groom and pull on their dress uniforms for the second time in a week. Though still an annoying process, she got it on a little easier this time, maybe because wearing and moving in it for the better part of the day of their arrival had loosened it up a bit.

“Not bad, Decurion,” Fortrakt said as he greeted her outside, straightening her left steel shoulder pauldron slightly, to her annoyance. “But I still say that I make this uniform look good. Especially with all my new armor!” He struck a pose.

“Yeah, and I still say that while you’re trying to impress Tara with your spit-shined plates, I’ll be sitting behind a desk, ordering you to get me a drink.” She deliberately baited him with her earlier comment, wondering if he’d catch what was different in his eagerness to get the better of her again.

“Yep, just like any old griffon. Sit behind the table and—” he blinked hard as he caught up with her statement mentally, his wits a half-second slow. “Wait—Tara?” He instantly went flustered. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You know perfectly well what it means, cub,” she said as she smirked at him. “Like it isn’t as obvious as a crow against the snow that you’re interested in her.”

He blushed and his tail twitched hard. “No, I’m not!” he initially insisted, only for Gilda’s knowing grin to grow. “Well, maybe… I-I mean, yeah, she’s kinda interesting. But she’s not an eagless!” he finally managed. “Come off it, Gilda—why the crows would I want her? It’s not as if she could fight a mating round or anything!”

“No, but she let you put your claws on her shoulders to check out her ‘tattoo’,” Gilda pointed out, her smirk growing as his blush intensified. “Your skin is so soft…” she then pantomimed in a deliberately bad imitation of his voice. “Sounds serious to me! So should I send out the wedding invitations? Or maybe I should just tell that Talon eagless you scored a round with that the date is off?”

“Don’t you dare!” he exclaimed in Equish to some glances from the Marine sentries stationed down the hall, but then he looked away. “Look, uh… she’s just… different. Marco’s cool, and I love all his toys, but she’s really warm and friendly and open and…” he trailed off uncertainly, unwilling to voice whatever he’d been about to say.

“And she lets you touch her nice soft shoulders without so much as a single spar or talon slash,” Gilda guessed, relishing the look on his face. “Fine, whatever. All joking aside, I won’t order you to stay away from her, but you’d best fly carefully, Second Spear. We’ve already got enough complications with the humans; crows know we don’t need anymore!

“And besides, you really don’t know how she’d react to your interest in her, or how humans in general would. Never mind other griffons. And never mind that we’re here on an assignment, remember?”

She had the distinct pleasure of seeing him speechless and unable to come up with a retort. “Yes, sir,” was all he could say, deflating and falling in silently behind her as they walked back down the hall towards the human suite.

Ten minutes later, they were exiting the Inn to some snickers from the Marines at the front, who seemed especially amused at the sight of Chris in a business suit and Marco dressed at least somewhat up.

“Wow, a collared shirt and slacks? You look almost civilized! So who died, flip-boy?” one of the lower-ranked ones called out, she judged from the fewer stripes on the thick fabric of his sleeve—she really did need to learn more about their rank structure and insignias, she had the passing thought.

Flushing, Marco then threatened to withhold further ‘fun stuff’ from them if they took his picture “out of his proper attire”, to which they pulled out their cameras and began snapping away as Chris and Tara could only laugh.

In contrast, Tara earned what she could only describe as a series of openly appreciative and even leering looks as she passed them, dressed in a bright red business suit with a black ‘blouse’ beneath that looked like it could have come from a high-end clothier in Canterlot.

Though no connoisseur of human fashion, even Gilda could see that it showed off the curves of her feminine form quite well, especially with her skirt not quite coming down to her knees. She also wore stylized black shoes that raised her heels and had an odd bag with her, not unlike a side-mounted satchel that griffons often used, except this one was slung over her shoulder.

“It’s not for you, but I hope you enjoyed the show, boys,” she told them with a wink and mock salute as she passed the male Marines, putting what looked like some additional sway to her hips and strut to her step.

For his part, Fortrakt was awestruck at her altered appearance, and the sheer confidence she radiated. “You know, maybe I will cancel that date…” he said under his breath in Aeric beside her, leaving Gilda wondering if he knew he’d said it out loud.

But she let it go, deciding it would provide endless hours of entertainment teasing him over it later. She then escorted their guests through the commercial district of the third level and the high-end residences of the fourth, heading all the way up to the fifth level—a trip that would take her less than a minute by air, but nearly half an hour by ground.

They had to pass the sentries to reach the fifth level, which was where the Paladins took over from the Auxiliary Guard patrols, but her command chain and recognition code got them past that as well. The three humans were, however, instructed to surrender their ‘recording devices and other exotic magical items’ before they were allowed in, with the sentries explaining that by order of the Paladin leadership, they didn’t want any of the upper levels recorded.

The three humans did so reluctantly, parting with their tablets and smaller rectangular objects. “Uh… will we get them back?” Marco had to ask before surrendering his.

“I’ll put it this way—if you don’t, there will be diplomatic issues,” Gilda announced emphatically, making sure the Paladin leader heard her and noted her diplomatic command chain. “I promise they will be here, untouched and unexamined for you to pick back up when we return,” she told them, her tone making clear to the green-armored guards it was an order.

“By your command,” the slightly annoyed Paladin Decanus promised, her feathers ruffled at having to take orders from an Auxiliary Guard eagless when it was normally the other way around. Nevertheless, she obeyed, baring her throat and saluting, placing the items in a sealed container to store with a tag in a secured room.

Once past the guards, they reached the fifth level proper, which was home to various monuments, governmental offices, and museums. Before long, their objective was in sight—the Hall of Heroes; the largest museum in the entire Griffon Kingdom.

“Damn…” Chris said as he saw the massive columnar structure, taking the form of a large granite monolith carved like the city out of the mountainside itself. He reached for his pocket, presumably to get his picture-taking device, only to remember it was gone. “That’s impressive.”

“If you think it’s grand from the outside, wait until we go in!” Fortrakt said, delighting in their astonished expressions. “You’re going to love it!”

“We will… as long as we don’t wear out our welcome,” Gilda noted, then stepped in front of the three humans so their attention was on her. “So listen up, all of you. Here are the rules, and they must be obeyed at all times: no yelling, no touching of the statues or other exhibits, no running and no flying while inside—okay, the last doesn’t apply to you,” she remembered too late with a grimace.

“You’ll also see green-armored Paladin Guards with spears stationed at intervals as sentries; do not bother them. If they—or we—give you an instruction, obey immediately, and do not get separated. I promised Lieutenant Nantz we’d keep you together at all times. So are we clear?” she asked the three.

“Yes, Mom,” Marco groused slightly; Gilda might have been more annoyed but for the fact she knew she was sounding like a mother talking down to a litter of cubs. “We get it. May we go in now?”

Though uncertain if he really did, she nodded and led them up the steps, passing through the open doors to enter. If the three had been amazed by the outside, they were utterly awestruck by the inside, and even Gilda couldn’t help but feel a great swell of pride at their open-muzzled expressions.

It was as she remembered it from her only other visit as a cub so many years earlier; an enormous Hall with a high ceiling carved entirely out of granite, sometimes stained with dyes or embedded with gems to provide highlights or to mark paths and corridors. It was lined with reverently rendered statues of the great gryphon heroes of the past, with one every ten paces and Paladin guards stationed along the walls every fifty, accompanied by massive murals on the high walls and skylight-studded ceiling showing notable scenes from Gryphon history.

Each historical figure was depicted life-sized in shiny black stone, often with their weapons and armor, and laid behind them in a line towards the wall were a series of granite-mounted exhibits explaining their lives and deeds—explaining to visitors exactly what made them worthy of appearing in the pantheon.

“Whoa…” even Marco’s moodiness seemed to vanish as he took it all in, his brown eyes sweeping back and forth repeatedly. “This is incredible!”

“You said it! But it’s not just griffons—there are ponies in here, too?” Tara pointed at a large equine form much further down the Hall.

“That’s a Saddle Arabian, but yes,” Gilda confirmed. “We honor all those who served us in war and peace, even those belonging to other nations and races. And yes, even if those races were former—or in some rare cases, future—foes.”

“Kinda like General Lafayette, then…” Chris mused as they explored the first few life-sized statues, and the exhibits that accompanied them. When possible, their actual tools, clothes, armor and weapons were displayed, encased in crystal to preserve them for, if not eternity, at least as close as griffons could manage. Some even had one or more of their primary pinions preserved, rotating at eye level in a magical stasis field.

“General who?” Fortrakt asked.

“A foreign military leader who assisted my nation in our War of Independence,” he explained. “He has an entire plaza named after him in our capital city.”

“Oh,” Gilda’s partner answered. “So do you have anything like this in your nation?”

“We have plenty of monuments, but not like this!” he told them, looking to a gratified Gilda like he didn’t know where to go or what to examine first.

“Not even close. These sculptures are exquisite,” Marco admitted, his hand going for his pocket, only to remember—again—that his picture-taking device wasn’t there. “That black stone isn’t granite. What are they made of? Obsidian?” he guessed.

“Solid onyx,” Gilda replied, earning a low whistle from Chris. “A semiprecious stone here that’s easily sculpted and holds magic well, so it can be enchanted to repel both dust and any attempt to damage them. If you try to pull one down or so much as scratch them, you’ll get shocked into unconsciousness, and find yourself facing some very angry Paladins when you awaken.”

“Seriously?” Chris took an involuntary step back from a statue he’d gotten within a single pace of.

“Seriously. You’ll then be hauled before a civilian tribunal, facing charges of desecrating a national monument. If you’re lucky, you might get off lightly by spending just a couple years at hard labor in the mines,” Gilda informed them with a smirk.

“Really,” Tara said dryly, taking out a pad and pencil to start sketching what she saw—she’d already checked with the door guards that photos weren’t allowed, but drawings were. “Considering the past couple years, we could have used some of that back home…” she muttered darkly as they passed a statue of Adolphus, a hero from the war with the Kirin Imperium. An upright earth griffon leaning on his war hammer with his wings flared, he stood about half a head taller than the humans around them, his unit’s pendant fluttering from the staff.

“I hear ya.” Marco then raised a hand to touch his statue at the shoulders, causing Paladin heads to turn and their eyes to narrow. “Onyx, huh? It’s beautiful! And he looks so perfectly rendered…”

Before he could reach it, Gilda seized his foreleg and held it in an iron grip, digging in her talons slightly to emphasize her next words. “Don’t… touch!” she warned him in no uncertain terms, reflecting that was the first time she’d touched him since his hand had been on her flight muscles. “Especially not there!”

“Ow!” he exclaimed, causing her to relax her grip, but only fractionally. “What’s the big idea? I wasn’t going to damage it! So what did I do wrong this time?”

“You even have to ask? Never mind the fact that I already told you all exhibits are strictly paws-off, but you were about to put your hands on that tiercel’s shoulders! So how do you think that would have looked to our not-so-friendly green-armored guards?” she asked him quietly but heatedly, not immediately releasing him.

Marco cringed as he took her meaning. “Like… I was molesting the statue of a male gryphon hero?”

“Now you’re learning, Marco,” Gilda smirked, finally letting his arm go. “So if you don’t mind, do us all a big favor and keep your crow-damned paws to yourself!”

“You heard her, Marco,” Tara spoke up, her tone only partly teasing. “Please don’t get us in trouble again because you can’t stop being grabby.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled, shoving his hands hard into his pockets and standing a safe distance back.

A few minutes later, they encountered the first pony of the exhibit. Chris had been practicing reading the placards below each sculpture, and his eyes went wide at what he found. “Whoa! It says she’s… Firefly?” he translated in astonishment.

“Close. She’s Firehawk,” Fortrakt corrected with a grin, pointing with a talon at the syllable he’d gotten wrong. “Firstborn daughter of Captain Firefly. A quarter-century after the War with Equestria ended, she volunteered to join a private army being sent to defend a remote gryphon colony on the Cheetahean Peninsula against the Ibexians, who claimed the entire area belonged to them and threatened to go to war if regular military forces were sent there. Can you translate the rest?”

“Uh… yeah.” Chris did so with some difficulty. “It says she came to serve the Kingdom over her own mother’s vehement objections, risking assassination attempts and death duels from former Imperials to do so—and all because she wanted to forge her own name and destiny apart from her famous mother.”

“Wow. I like her already,” Tara said, now rapidly sketching her. “I take it that she succeeded?”

“You could say that. It says here she ended up saving them more than once from Ibexian and dragon attacks. She stayed even after the colony was secured and ended up founding a separate colony of pegasi there called the… Sevastoponians?” he stumbled slightly over the pronunciation.

“You got it,” Fortrakt confirmed with a grin. “In fact, her descendants are still there along with the colony, around five millennia strong, and they still defend the peninsula against the Ibexians. I’ve met a couple. They’re part of the Kingdom so completely now that they’ve acquired hardier bodies, eat meat, and they don’t even speak Equish anymore.”

“Wow…” was all Tara could say as she let Fortrakt guide her to another hero, listening intently as he described each in turn.

So it went for the next hour as they slowly worked their way further in. The deeper and closer to the center they got, the higher the well-cleaned and well-shined granite floor was raised, step by step, until they reached a large circular dome at the museum’s heart.

“Welcome to the Chamber of Champions,” Gilda said as they gaped anew at the massive hemispherical vault, at the center of which sat a large map of the Kingdom over which flew the Gryphon Flag. Surrounding it were a score of additional onyx-sculpted figures, all facing outwards in an arc, forming a symbolic defensive ring against the nation’s foes. “Here are the greatest gryphon heroes of all time, whose deeds were so enormous and far-reaching that they echo down through the ages. Those gryphons—and others—without whom we might not be here today.”

“As she says! Welcome to the Hall’s inner sanctum, my human friends, where our most famous heroes reside!” Fortrakt invited them all forward grandly, then led them to the first statue in line.

“This is Ardanius of the West”, her junior partner said reverently as they stared up at the pedestal-mounted tiercel. “One of our earliest heroes. A millennia and a half ago, he thwarted King Sombra when he tried to expand the Crystal Empire overseas, attempting to invade The Isles of Eagleland as a prelude to conquering the whole of Aresia. But Ardanius rallied the gryphon clans living there and repulsed him quite bloodily, sacrificing his life to throw the evil King’s armies back into the sea.”

“Interesting. But how come he has no face?” Marco asked in confusion, staring at his sculpture’s blank features and only generalized griffon form.

“Because Sombra got so angry at his defeat that he cast a spell to purge both his name and face from all griffon memory,” Fortrakt detailed, to a series of surprised looks. “But it only half-worked. His magic was strong enough to make us forget his appearance, but not his name or his deeds!

“So we don’t know what he looked like, but we know exactly what he did. Sombra tried to make sure we couldn’t remember. But all he did was make sure we’d never forget,” Gilda added, standing up a little straighter as she spoke.

“Not bad,” Chris granted. “Have to say, I like a nation that reveres their history and heroes. It’s certainly nice to see.”

“You mean yours doesn’t?” Fortrakt asked in confusion.

“Don’t ask. So, who’s this eagless?” Tara asked next. She’d definitely been favoring the females, Gilda couldn’t help but notice.

“Lady Arnau,” Gilda answered, reflecting somewhat ruefully that of all the things she thought she’d ever do, being a tour guide for alien visitors was not among them. “The gryphon for whom this city is named. The great leader and defender of the Gryphon race, who unified our fractured society in time to defeat and destroy the Cloven of the Sun.”

“The who?” Marco prompted.

“Don’t ask,” Gilda echoed with a warning glance at Fortrakt before he could answer. “It’s not important. All you need to know is that they tried to wipe us out and got wiped out in return, thanks to her.”

“And this griffon? He looks really important with that cape and chain.” Marco stepped to the next tiercel in line.

“Unquestionably, he was. This is Prelate Salvio Gaius,” Gilda detailed. “He was arguably the greatest griffon military mind of all time. Said to be a strategic genius on par with the pony Sun Master himself, he completely reversed the course of a war we were losing to the Elder Rams, and he was later the commander of all Imperial forces during the war with Equestria. He was so brilliant he even came up with a plan that successfully caged Celestia herself and very nearly overthrew her—not once, but twice.”

“But he didn’t,” Marco pointed out needlessly. “And from what we know, the Empire wasn’t exactly the good guys back then. Even the earlier exhibits we saw seem to admit that. So why is he here?”

“Because we don’t lie or make excuses for our history, whether good or bad,” Gilda said, a little more sharply than she meant to when Rainbow’s face flashed through her memory again. “Sorry. Continue,” she invited Fortrakt.

Though giving her an odd look, he did so. “Oh, it’s true that he had some issues. By some reports, he went slowly insane over the years of war from the enormous pressure he was under, to the point that he had to be… removed,” Fortrakt said carefully with a glance at Gilda. “He didn’t survive the war, but his strategies and the reforms he instituted to the Kingdom’s military did. They later saved us.”

“What do you mean?” Tara asked, staring up at the statue’s visage.

“I mean that a decade after the war, we were attacked by the army of Dragon Lord Diabla, who sought revenge for the death of her father, the dread Dragon Lord Kalator, during the war with Equestria,” he clarified.

“Blaming the Kingdom for losing not just him but half their clan by luring them into a fight with Celestia they couldn’t win, she sought to burn the rebuilding but still-vulnerable Kingdom to the ground. It was Prelate Gaius’ reforms, well-thought contingency plans and accurate analysis of her army’s strengths and strategic weaknesses which saved us, enabling a joint pony-griffon force to put an end to her and her army.”

“I don’t know. It says here that his forces committed atrocities against pony civilians, including hostage taking of stallions and summary execution of resistance fighters?” Chris summarized the Aeric text on one of the displays. “He doesn’t sound like a very nice guy, or a genius if his final campaign ended in defeat.”

“No creature’s perfect,” Gilda replied with a shrug. “Just like every other being in this room, or on this planet—and yours as well, I’m sure. You and I have the benefit of hindsight while Gaius had nothing but an uncertain future to stumble through as best he could.

“He was trying to win an incredibly bitter and bloody war that he saw as critical for the survival of not just the Empire, but our very race, and he served his nation faithfully and honorably—until, perhaps, the very end. A few bad deeds or lost battles don’t erase his many achievements or change the fact he saved us more than once. Wars aren’t won by good character, you know.”

“I get that, but—”

“No buts, Chris.” Gilda shook her head. “If you want a paragon of virtue, I promise you’re not going to find it in the military, or even in this room. Take it from me—if you demand perfection of all your friends and idols, then you won’t have any friends or idols left,” she added with a note of bitterness. Will you ever learn that, Rainbow? she called out mentally to her former friend.

“I guess there’s some truth to that…” Chris muttered.

“Some? There’s a ton of truth in there! Wish certain folks would learn that back home,” Tara remarked in renewed anger as her pencil began scratching harder at her latest sketch. Then she caught herself, realizing Fortrakt was staring at her in some concern. “Sorry, it’s just that… never mind.”

“And this one? Chris stopped beside yet another sculpture of gleaming onyx, which depicted a very strong and sleek-looking griffon tiercel in full battle armor with crossed swords over his back. “From what I read earlier back in the main hall, he looks like a…” he trailed off, seeming to Gilda like he was struggling to remember the term.

“A Talaeus. Our most elite warriors, sometimes referred to in Equish as Red Talons. Correct. This is Prelate Layan Kaval,” Fortrakt said reverently, then stepped back and saluted him, along with Gilda. “Adjutant and successor to Salvio Gaius, he was a Talaeus commander who is said to be the greatest gryphon warrior who ever lived. He was as close to unbeatable as there is! More than once he took down a full-grown dragon, and he could even fight wing to wing with Captain Firefly herself!”

“Huh,” Chris said as he took pains to read the text. “It says that when the Empire fell, he returned the battle-hardened army he now led to Aresia and drove out the Ibexians, who had invaded to take advantage of depleted griffon numbers after four years of war, serving his new Queen as faithfully as he had the Empress?” He looked to Fortrakt for confirmation.

“Well-read, Chris. That was a perfect translation! He was also instrumental in both defeating Diabla and cementing our alliance with the ponies after, as he left the military following her defeat and served as Ambassador to Equestria for the next thirty years. Hey, did you know my clan traces our bloodline back to him?” he asked them all wistfully.

“Oh, please.” Gilda rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Fortrakt? Half the Kingdom claims lineage to him! Even though he only had three cubs.”

“And eight grandcubs. All of whom were magnificent fighters as well!” He didn’t get any less excited. “And then there’s his mate…” Fortrakt led Tara to another eagless flanking him, this one as large as a lioness. “This is Marquis Kamilya Ampok. Go on, Chris, read her story!” he invited eagerly.

Chris did so, though it took him a minute to translate and absorb it all. “Holy shit…” he used the human invective again, which Gilda found confusing—what in the crows was holy about excrement?

“This is incredible. It says here that she had a wing crippled in combat with the Elder Rams and was left only barely able to fly, but she was still all but unbeatable in a fight, rising to the rank of Legate? That’s roughly equal to a Major General, from what I know.”

“Impressive, but is that all she’s here for?” Marco asked in some confusion. Gilda noted that he was afraid to approach the sculptures, keeping his hands in his pockets. “Doesn’t seem like enough.”

“Not even close. She’s here because she disobeyed Imperial orders she found dishonorable and refused to renounce her actions afterwards, even when faced with execution by being brought before the Empress herself! Though she was spared, her name was shamed, and she spent the next twelve years at hard labor in the mines, surviving it alive and unbroken despite innumerable deprivations and assassination attempts.

“And then when the war with the ponies came, she declined amnesty and an offer to join a Talaeus team being put together to counter the pony Bolt Knights, saying she would rather die in the mines than fight for an Empire she no longer found honorable.”

“Whoa…” Marco stared up at her in awe. “Sounds like she had some serious balls.”

Gilda had figured out by then that ‘balls’ was a human euphemism for a male sac; what the ponies would term ‘horse apples’. She found she much preferred the human term but kept the thought to herself as Chris went on.

“There’s more. She later escaped to lead an internal uprising against the Empire that eventually overthrew it, restoring the Kingdom that the Empire had usurped a century before. She then negotiated the end of the war with Equestria on behalf of the new Queen and eventually married Layan Kaval there, gaining the title of Marquis and never leaving his side. He once said that she was the only eagless worthy of him, not just for her considerable skill in combat but for her superb intellect, enormous honor, and sheer force of will.”

“In short, she set right many wrongs and restored honor to the gryphon nation,” Gilda summarized. “In short, she defined honor and set the example for every generation to come. She’s not perfect, but she’s probably as close as you’ll find in this room to a true paragon of virtue, Chris,” she noted to him.

“Nice,” Tara said, staring up at her statue, scratching a quick sketch of her as well. “She sounds like my kind of girl. I wish I could have met her.”

“You and me both,” Gilda agreed, wondering if she could have done any of that in the famous eagless’s place. Well, definitely not a couple years ago…

“You know, this is all really interesting, but it strikes me that every single individual we see here is a military leader or warrior. Aren’t there any artists or scientists or any other, more peaceful professions represented?” Chris wondered aloud. “I only ask because I’m a scientist myself.”

“Oh, there are, but one thing you’ll find about our history is that we’ve had to fight constantly to keep our borders and even our very existence,” Fortrakt replied as they walked to the next statue. “Historically, we’ve been surrounded by a lot of hostile races, so it’s only natural that military service figures prominently.”

They then stopped beside a statue of a much smaller gryphon, who was only half the size of most of the other tiercels in the room, belying the twin swords on his unarmored back. “But if you want a hero who did as much for the Kingdom in peace as well as war? Then here’s your gryphon.”

“Gavian… Ravenoff?” Chris read the inscription. “But he’s so small!”

“Small in stature, but very large in our history,” Fortrakt said in a tone of pure reverence. “Of everygryphon here, he’s my favorite. I’ve been in here like twenty times, and I always go into his personal exhibit hall,” he said with a nod towards the back wall, where the tiled line from Gavian Ravenoff’s sculpture led to his individual exhibit room.

“Twenty times, Fortrakt?” Gilda smirked. “That’s not obsessive at all.”

“Well, some of us like to know our history, Decurion!” he huffed. “I know we can’t do all the individual hero exhibits in a single afternoon, so why not show them his?”

“Fine,” Gilda agreed, if only to shut him up for a bit—he’d been talking nonstop ever since they’d come in. “You know, I had no idea you were so dweeby about these things, cub.” She couldn’t resist a tease, even in the presence of the humans.

“And I had no idea you were such an old and grumpy crow about them!” he promptly retaliated, to some snickers from their human guests as they took the walk over, following the path set in the floor.

When they arrived, they found a large and well-lit antechamber dedicated to his life, with many paintings beside which Aeric text explained the scenes. There were also two impassive Paladins stationed inside, standing to either side of the entrance, casting a wary eye over their human guests as they entered but making no move against them.

The first thing that caught their attention was not the paintings, or the Paladin guards, but a centerpiece exhibit Illuminated by a shaft of sunlight spearing through the ceiling. It was a pedestal upon which sat a single large diamond, floating in the air and slowly rotating, gleaming and glittering in the sunbeam. Below it, encased in clear crystal was a small set of Talaeus armor clearly fitted for him, and a single scimitar with two diagonal red stripes across the base of its blade, under which was…

“Wait—is that a brush?” Chris pointed down at it.

“You got it! You like to draw, Tara? Well, Gavian Ravenoff was an artist,” Fortrakt explained, sounding to Gilda like a giddy cub. “His story did not have a happy start. He was abandoned by his parents for his small size, and forced to steal and scavenge from age six. Unwanted and uneducated, he ended up joining a gryphon raider gang out of desperation and was captured by the ponies during an attack on one of their border bases.”

He went on quickly, not giving Chris the chance to read the placard that contained the story he was relating; Gilda gained the distinct impression that her junior partner knew it all by heart. “The Empire then tried to kill him, but the ponies protected him, so he defected and threw his lot in with them. They fed, educated and trained him, and they found him so honorable and eager that he was later adopted as a son by the base’s commander—Firefly herself!”

“By Firefly?” the three humans chorused incredulously—they’d apparently learned all about her during their time in Equestria, she noted.

“I know, right? He later wrote that the ponies let him know friendship and family for the first time, and he loved them all because of it. Then when war came, he openly sided with Equestria and fought against the Empire using a hybrid combat style he’d invented with the help of the ponies. He fought at his adoptive mother’s side in many early battles, later helping to train pony troops and liaise with Imperial dissidents—at one point, he even induced an entire Auxiliary Guard unit to defect!

“Though considered a traitor by many, even by some to this day, he was a gryphon through and through, saying later he wanted to see the Empire he so hated overthrown ‘so cubs and nations would not suffer as he and Equestria had’. He became an emissary between our two nations after the war; an example to both sides that the other was not as bad as they’d been told. Some say he’s the first true friend between our races.”

“Okay. But where does art come into that?” Tara seemed subdued at the story, which Gilda had only remembered bits and pieces of until Fortrakt refreshed her memory.

“Because he was not just a warrior, but a completely self-trained artist who later ran Celestia’s famous art academy in Canterlot, and once his griffon citizenship was restored over objections by Queen Jeyenne, he came to the Kingdom to establish such schools here!

“He single-wingedly rekindled interest in our lost arts and re-founded all our abolished artisan guilds! Painting, sculpting, theatre, even cooking—he brought it all back a century after the Empire had expunged it! You’re looking at one of his two swords, and one of the actual brushes he used to paint—his other sword resides at his monument at the Royal Art Academy in Canterlot. In fact, several of the large ceiling murals you saw outside were his!”

“Not bad. But wait—I thought you said he fought against the Empire? But in that picture, he’s fighting a pony!” Tara pointed out as she stared at a very detailed painting on the wall behind them. It showed a battered and bleeding Gavian—he had leopard hindquarters and falcon feathers—in what looked like Cloudsdale, facing off with an equally injured but far larger pony pegasus stallion wearing wingblades around whom electricity crackled.

It looked to Gilda like they’d been dueling to the death for some time, with Gavian in a two-legged pouncing crouch poised to draw his sword in a rapid slash; the text beneath it explained that it depicted the duel’s end, when he was about to meet—and defeat—his opponent’s final attack.

“He’s fighting a demon,” Fortrakt corrected sharply, his emerald eyes narrowing and voice turning ice cold. “His opponent is the pony known as Thunderbolt.”

Their guests blinked. “You mean the Equestrian war hero?” Chris asked as Gilda stayed carefully silent, not certain she wanted to speak up on the subject for reasons both personal and professional.

“I mean the Equestrian war criminal,” Fortrakt corrected, an angry edge to his voice that Gilda had never heard from him before. “He may be a hero to the ponies, but he’s nothing more than a mass murderer to us. He hated gryphons and swore to slay any he saw on sight. He slaughtered hundreds of civilians, even cubs, and he didn’t care!”

“A pony did that?” Tara gave him a disbelieving look.

“Yes, a pony! Powered by bloodlust and all but invincible in combat, even our best soldiers and assassins couldn’t stop him. But Gavian Ravenoff—who at the time was but a small gryphon only sixteen years old—could! Armed with only a single sword and his own unique fighting style, he defeated him in single combat!”

“Huh? But he’s so small! How’d he manage that?” Chris asked, still staring at the painting.

“We can show you!” Fortrakt promised, leading them towards the sunlight-illuminated crystal on a pedestal in the center. “Read the inscription, Chris!”

“Uh…” He did so, squinting at the placard beneath the rotating gem, and then blinked hard. “If I’m interpreting this correctly, it says this crystal contains the actual memories of a disguised ‘Raven’ witness to his duel with Thunderbolt? And invites visitors to witness those memories in turn to understand how great his deed truly was?” he translated dubiously as Fortrakt nodded vigorously. “But that doesn’t make sense. What’s a ‘Raven’? And how do you ‘witness’ someone else’s memories?”

“Like this!” Not waiting for permission from Gilda, who was already having some serious reservations of whether it would be a good idea, Fortrakt went to the mounted crystal holding recorded memories and reared up to pass his talons over the shaft of sunlight that illuminated it. The room then went dark as the firegems lowered their illumination level and the skylight above closed, followed by the gem itself beginning to glow. “See for yourself!”

“What do you mean?” Marco asked, staring at the gem warily.

“Exactly what I said!’' Fortrakt replied eagerly as the glow of the crystal intensified and began to project a moving image into the air. “What you’re about to see is a memory recording of their duel taken from the early days of the war, seven centuries old.” Startled, their human guests then hurriedly backed away to watch as the diamond began projecting the sounds and sights of that night, as seen through the eyes of an anonymous eagless.

“I’ve seen this more times than I can count, and it never gets old! You’re going to love this! So just sit back and watch what some say is the greatest duel victory in all of gryphon history…”

7: Council of Crows

As the duel between Gavian and Thunderbolt unfolded, Gilda was surprised by how rapt it held not just the attention of their human guests, but her own.

Given she’d already seen it once during her previous visit, she couldn’t fathom it would be that compelling to her. But as a five-year old cub, she hadn’t really been able to comprehend what was happening or what was said, other than that there was a pony and griffon fighting for reasons she didn’t understand, and that they spoke with funny words and accents.

It was also hard for her to follow, watched through the eyes of an eagless who’d temporarily turned herself into a pony as a means of disguise—something she had far too much pride to ever do, never mind the fact that polymorph potion was unavailable to the general public.

And that one time she and Rainbow had gotten hold of some by breaking into a Cloudsdale potion shop didn’t count, given they’d been sixteen and soused on stolen zap apple cider—a controlled substance in the Kingdom whose possession was illegal given its inhibition-shattering effects—at the time.

She could just barely remember that they’d found the potion in a secret compartment in the back, and then drunkenly decided to use it to switch races on a mutual dare. Unfortunately, she’d been so inebriated she couldn’t recall what they looked like or what it felt like after; only that they’d been discovered by the shop owner passed out in the backroom.

Worse, she’d been left very achy and sick for the next several days, suffering a severe hangover and magical withdrawal symptoms from the exotic cider and transformation potion after.

It had all earned her and Rainbow a three-day stay in the hospital followed by probation from a Cloudsdale Juvenile Magistrate for breaking and entering, as well as illicit magical substance possession. He sentenced them to community service at the Weather Factory cafeteria, which meant everything from peeling potatoes and carrots to cooking Cloud Creole and other lunches for the workers.

But such memories were quickly lost as the duel began. This time, she comprehended everything she couldn’t before, from an initially frightened Gavian’s appearance before a hostile crowd—she never dreamt she’d hear such vile invective hurled by ponies, even those from seven centuries past—to the pitched blade battle that followed between two incredibly overpowered opponents.

It was watched over by Captain Typhoon, the then-Commander of Celestia’s Royal Guard and a minor legend in his own right. But he did not take part in the duel, which was fought strictly between Gavian and Thunderbolt. They were both astonishing fighters, each moving at speeds and wielding abilities that would even put characters in certain Neighponese mangas she’d seen to shame.

While Thunderbolt came about his otherworldly abilities naturally, Gavian had them imparted by something odd the Captain did to him; the latter had delivered a series of sharp taps with his hooves and wingfeathers to Gavian’s body just before the duel began. Whatever it was, it instantly boosted Gavian’s combat abilities from merely elite to extraordinary, with the Captain boasting to a shocked Thunderbolt that all he’d done to the young tiercel was release his “full fighting potential!”

If it had been described that way to her before, she would have thought it way too corny even for one of those Neighponese comics. But to see it happen, it proved anything but. She also thought she wouldn’t identify that much with Gavian Ravenoff, who was a small pony-raised griffon who liked to paint—on the face of it, he sounded really dweeby, after all.

But she’d been wrong on all counts. It was an utterly surreal experience seeing it, and not just for watching it through pony eyes—the scene was darker than it would have been simply because pony night vision wasn’t as good as those of gryphons; the colors seemed a little off to her as well—but because she found herself doing something she never had before.

Actively identifying with and rooting for another griffon.

She knew the outcome, and yet her heart still raced and chest swelled with pride as she watched Gavian Ravenoff continually parry not just Thunderbolt’s blades, but his barbs. The duel quickly became as much of wits as of steel, and as the battle wore on, Gavian gradually turned both forms of attacks back on Thunderbolt. Before long, the larger stallion was visibly frustrated and uncertain, finding himself thwarted and even the crowd slowly turning against him as Gavian’s honor—Gryphon honor—shone through and won them over.

What got Gilda the most, though, wasn’t the stunning blade battles or even the war of wits that Gavian ultimately won, progressively shredding Thunderbolt’s tortured logic and goading him into his final, fateful attack—an attack in which he struck the larger stallion down mid-charge with a blindingly fast sword draw.

It was his painful past that struck a rare chord in her heart; she could hear the agony of being unloved and unwanted in his archaically-accented voice, as he explained how he’d been abandoned by his parents at age six for being too small.

For the simple crime of being unable to meet their standards for what a mighty griffon should be, they’d left him to fend for himself in a hostile world he was far too young to survive in. But survive he did, scavenging from trash piles and stealing to live until the ponies found him.

His abandonment was an utterly unthinkable act now, and yet, even as he hated the Empire for allowing it and sided with the ponies who finally gave him the acceptance and education he craved, he never renounced his race or heritage, standing fast as a proud gryphon in the duel.

In the end, Thunderbolt fell, but so did Gavian as his injuries overcame him and he collapsed to the cloud surface of the city, completely spent. She had no idea what the Captain of the Guard had done to him to enable him to fight at such a high level and great speed, but he’d done so. The playback ended with a voice narration explaining that he knew the pony Captain’s power-boosting technique could kill him even if Thunderbolt didn’t, but he went through it anyway for the sake of his race and own wounded spirit.

For as confused as she was over it as a cub, it was impossible not to be affected by it as an adult, leaving Gilda feeling a great swell of pride at the show of honor and impossible battle feat. As the memory projection faded and the firegems came back up, she found herself trembling as Fortrakt stood tall and proud beside her, staring at where the now-absent scene had been with fire in his eyes.

It was only then she thought to check on their human guests. “So, that was it! The greatest duel in gryphon history! What did you guys think of…?” Fortrakt trailed off as he looked back and saw their faces; his expression falling as he beheld theirs.

Far from awed, their audience had sat down heavily on a nearby bench intended for viewing it; Tara was shaking while Chris had to loosen his tie; his brow wet with sweat.

“Súsmaryosép!” was all Marco could say at first, making an odd crossing gesture across his chest. “Dude, that was fucking brutal!”

“And it was real…” Chris shivered, grasping Tara’s hand in what seemed like a gesture of reassurance. “It looked like something out of a movie, but it wasn’t. That really happened?” he had to ask again.

“It really did,” Gilda confirmed warily, then glanced over at Tara, who had buried her head in her other hand while Fortrakt watched her and worried. “What you saw were actual memories of the duel, pulled directly from the mind of the gryphon present—a rather invasive and unpleasant magical procedure, by the way, but one she acceded to for the sake of history.”

“Are you okay, Tara?” Fortrakt asked her, looking like he wanted to approach her but was afraid to; Gilda could well imagine he was worried that he’d accidentally upset her.

She took a shuddering breath before speaking, taking her hand back from Chris to wring it in her lap. “Yeah, just… I didn’t believe you, but Thunderbolt really was as bad as you said. Lord above, I never thought I’d hear such awful words coming from a pony. Let alone one who could toss lightning around like a fucking wizard!”

Fortrakt looked like he didn’t know what to say or do as she visibly shivered again; he moved up and extended his wing slightly like he wanted to drape it over her in what for griffons and pegasi would be a protective gesture. She was about to warn him not to, but he stopped before she could, realizing as she did that it might not be welcome. “Christ almighty, I’m not sure I wanted to see that. I’m afraid that’s going to be giving me nightmares for a while. And worse, even after all that hate and all those crimes he admitted to, Thunderbolt wasn’t killed?”

“No, but he should have been!” Fortrakt’s concern was instantly replaced with anger, his hackles raising and tail lashing. “Gavian spared him, like you saw, at the Pony Captain’s request. He recovered to fight in the newly-founded Bolt Knights, who later became the Wonderbolts.”

“So the Wonderbolts really did begin as a military force,” Marco mused; Gilda could only guess that they'd learned that during their time in Equestria but hadn't quite believed it. “To watch their performances, you’d never know it now.”

“Yes. We generally see the original Bolt Knights as not just worthy foes, but outright heroes for later helping the Kingdom in the Dragon Lord Diabla War,” Fortrakt explained. “But for his innumerable crimes against our race, Thunderbolt is the only one of them who isn’t honored by us.”

“But… then how can the ponies possibly consider him a hero?” Tara asked incredulously.

“Because his war crimes were nothing compared to ours.” Gilda found she could stay silent no longer. “Because his good deeds outweigh his bad. Because he was far more than what you see here. And because he had every crow-damned reason in Tellus to hate us.”

Fortrakt looked up at her sharply; even the Paladins seemed to perk up and take notice of her statement. “What did you say?”

“You heard me,” Gilda said firmly, reflecting that she never thought she’d be in a position where she was defending ponies to other griffons. But she’d spent too much time in Cloudsdale to not know the story by heart.

“This exhibit ignores some important context. What it doesn’t tell you is that just three days before this duel happened, the War with Equestria began. On that day, Imperial forces launched a surprise attack, sending over two millennia—that’s two thousand—elite soldiers and assassins to strike Cloudsdale, where Thunderbolt had spent the last twelve years living in peace as a simple flight instructor for young pegasi.

“Their objective was to destroy the pony weather factory… and to kill all its civilian workers,” she emphasized, pinning Fortrakt with a stare. “You want to know how anypony could think that way, Tara? Well, the better question is, how could he not for what hewitnessed just three days earlier—an Imperial massacre of unarmed pony civilians?”

Fortrakt stared at her in shock while the Paladins were frowning. “But—”

“But nothing, Fortrakt! You know what he did, but you don’t know why he did it!” She switched to Aeric and took on a scolding tone, not caring if Chris could understand her. “But I do. I lived in Cloudsdale for years and saw his statue every day in front of the entry hall at the Junior Speedsters camp!

“That’s how I know he was far more than the war criminal you claim—he’s there because he taught probably hundreds of pegasus foals to fly, and he later almost single-wingedly repulsed the Imperial attack on the weather factory, saving several centuries of civilian lives!

“And if that’s not enough, it may interest you to learn that even Gavian Ravenoff himself forgave him. Or did you not know there’s a series of pictures he painted of Thunderbolt in battle on the walls surrounding his monument at the Weather Factory?”

Fortrakt’s beak fell open and seemed to have trouble working for a moment. “But… that’s a lie!” he tried to claim. “You take that back!”

“What did you just say?” Her eyes narrowed dangerously—there were few things that could ruffle a griffon’s feathers faster than being accused of dishonesty. The Paladins knew it too, instantly turning their full attention on the pair. “I’ve seen them!”

“There will be no fighting here,” the eagless of the pair warned them ominously in Aeric. “If you wish to duel, take it outside.”

But Fortrakt ignored her. “You’re making that up! Or maybe your time in Equestria addled your mind as well as your sense of gryphon pride!”

“Okay, you are really asking for it, cub…” she warned him, her wings twitching hard.

“I could say the same to you, old crow!” He stepped closer, a desire to duel growing in his eyes. “Now take it back!”

“That will do!” the tiercel Paladin warned, thumping the back of his metal spear on the ground with a sharp sound that echoed through the antechamber. “Step back, both of you!”

“Enough,” Gilda said with a trilling growl, holding up a halting wing towards the Paladins even as she felt intense ire at somecreature other than Marco for the first time in several days. “Like he said, that will do, Second Spear. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re making a scene, so shut your beak and keep it closed. I’ll let it go only because of them, and because it’s clear you don’t know what in the crows you’re talking about.”

“What do you mean I don’t know? I know every word in this exhibit!” he tried to claim while to her relief, the Paladin pair held off at her gesture, granting her the chance to defuse the situation.

“Then you only know half the story! You say Thunderbolt was a war criminal? Well, if you tally it all up, he only inflicted a fraction of what he suffered! By the time of that duel, he had witnessed not one, but two gryphon-committed atrocities that resulted in several millennia of dead pony civilians! So I’ll say it again—as far as I’m concerned, he had every crow-damned reason in Tellus to hate us! And repay us!”

“But… but that was the Empire, not the Kingdom!” Fortrakt sputtered as the two Paladins glanced at each other again, this time in doubt and distaste over Gilda’s statement. “And that didn’t give him the right to—”

“I said but nothing! Never mind that there was no Kingdom then, put yourself in his wings, Fortrakt! Could you make that distinction between the Empire and griffons after seeing not one, but two griffon-committedslaughters of everything you loved and everypony you cherished?” she challenged, going nose to nose with him and tapping his chest with a talon.

“I know I couldn’t. And if you claim you could, then you’re either a liar or a far more forgiving gryphon than me!”

His wings and headfeathers flared indignantly; for a moment she saw a fresh desire to duel in his eyes. “Save it. We are not fighting here, and not in front of our guests. If you want to challenge me, then do it when we’re not around them and you’re thinking clearly. You are way out of line right now, so by my order, lower your hackles and stop acting like a stupid cub, Fortrakt! You’re attracting Paladin attention and scaring our guests.”

He looked up like he had just remembered where they were, seeing them staring back at him warily; the two earth griffon Paladins stationed in the room had already taken a step towards them, ready to arrest them both on the spot if they started to fight.

To her relief, the sight of them instantly chagrined him. “Yes, Decurion,” he replied, then forced his wings and tail to still as he bared his throat, switching back to Equish. “M-my apologies to everycreature here. I got a little too intense, there.”

“You think?” Gilda said derisively, turning to the Paladins to bare her throat. “My apologies to both of you as well. We’ll be leaving now.”

“I think that would be for the best,” the higher-ranked tiercel replied, still poised to intervene. “We don’t wish to arrest either of you, Decurion, or cause trouble with our honored guests. But our standing orders to prevent violence and damage to the exhibits supersede such concerns, and even your command chain.”

“Understood,” she said shortly. She then turned to Chris and spoke slowly, trying to make sure he could understand her ‘Latin’ speech. “Sorry about that. If you don’t mind, I would greatly prefer that you not repeat what I just said to your friends. As you can see, it’s still a sore point between our two races, even seven centuries later, and I don’t want too much known about my time in Equestria. Never mind why.”

It took him a few seconds to process her words; as she watched, he closed his eyes and carefully sounded out the sentences to make sure he understood her request.

In the end, he nodded once. “Intelligo,” he replied passably,then shook his head when asked by Marco to explain the conversation, saying only that they’d started speaking Latin because it was a private dressing-down. “Don’t worry, it didn’t involve us.”

“S-Sorry…” A trembling Fortrakt then apologized again, stepping forth to bare his throat hard, doubly so in Tara’s direction. “I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that I love that story and duel so much, but… I guess I didn’t think that you might not.” He slumped as he spoke.

“Hey, we get passionate about certain subjects, too,” Chris told him with a wan grin. “And it’s clear you love this one. Still, I think we’ve had enough,” he decided. “Speaking for myself, I’d like to leave now. You’ll understand that this has… been a lot to take in.”

“Leave now?” Fortrakt went crestfallen. “But there’s still so much more to see! You asked about Firefly before? She’s there!” He pointed out the door to the far end of the chamber, where Firefly and her sister Wind Whistler were displayed side-by-side in the line of champions.

“Fortrakt…” Gilda said warningly, regretting more than ever that she hadn’t stopped her junior partner from showing the humans the duel when she’d had the chance, or at least made far clearer what they were about to see first. “You heard them, and the Paladins. We’re done. If they feel up to it later, we can come back to finish the tour another time.”

“Thank you,” Tara told her, getting up to leave. “And Fortrakt?”

He froze. “Y-Yes?”

“Look, um… I don’t blame you for showing us this, but next time? Please make sure we know what we’re about to watch. Let us decide if we want to see it. Because this time… I don’t think I did.”

Every one of Fortrakt’s golden feathers drooped along with his tail. “Promise…”

The walk out of the Hall was made in silence and under the watchful gaze of the Paladins, as was their descent to the fifth level gate.

After they had retrieved their picture-taking items from the gatekeepers—she was at least pleased to see that the Paladins had obeyed her orders, as the box they were in was still magically sealed when it was brought out—they started to perk up again, at least slightly as they walked through the high-end residential district of the fourth level, with Marco asking if such sword skills as Gavian Ravenoff demonstrated were common among modern griffons.

“Nope. Never swung a sword in my life—unless you count being a cub and pretending a stick was one,” Fortrakt admitted, his tone wistful again. His earlier despondency and dark mood had vanished quickly once they exited the Hall into the late afternoon sun, though Gilda noted he was carefully keeping his distance from both her and Tara. She didn’t blame him for that, given she didn’t want to be around him just then, either.

“Believe me, I’d love to learn, but short of joining the Wind Knights, I’d have to set aside a couple of years to train, to say nothing of a few thousand Aureus to buy a proper scimitar from a professional ‘blackbird’—that’s our term for metalworkers,” he added as an aside. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll find the time when I retire as Auxiliary Guard Praetor with a full pension.” He closed his eyes and smiled.

“Sure you will. Right after I get appointed Prelate.” Gilda rolled her eyes. “To answer your question, Marco, the Kingdom doesn’t generally train soldiers in sword arts any longer outside of elite units. The reason is that although our scimitars are quite powerful, they take too much time to master.

“The average soldier fledgling can be taught to use spears, shields, and steel claws much quicker. That was actually one of the reforms Prelate Gaius implemented during the war with the ponies,” she further noted, going on to say that only the Wind Knights still generally used them, along with—it was rumored—the modern Ravens.

“And who are the ‘Ravens’?” Chris asked. “That… memory video? The inscription said we would be watching the duel through the eyes of one.” He made a face as he voiced his initial sentence, making her think he found the term very strange to say.

She and Fortrakt exchanged a look before answering. “The Ravens are a secret millennia-old griffon warrior society,” Gilda answered carefully, regretting the slip.

“Warrior? Try assassin!” Fortrakt corrected despite her warning look. “Nogryphon—or excuse me, nobody knows who they are, but it’s said they act to protect the Kingdom from the shadows, taking care of internal and external threats to the griffon race that conventional means cannot defeat. They’re supposed to be expert spies and masters of stealth and swordplay.”

“So… they’re basically sword-wielding assassins? You make them sound like griffon ninjas,” Marco mused, a smile on his face that suggested he liked the idea.

“Ninjas?” Fortrakt blinked.

“From all reports, they basically are.” Gilda recognized the term from some Neighponese comics she’d perused in the past, even as she was surprised that the humans also knew it—and then she wondered in turn why she was even surprised anymore. “Believe it or not, it’s said the ponies used to have such a group, too.”

“Sounds right out of a video game series we know. Okay, so are we considered a threat?” Chris suddenly worried as they descended the steps to the third level, to which Gilda gave him a look.

“Don’t practice dark magic, plot to assassinate the Queen, plan to release some all-consuming curse or organize a cabal to try to overthrow the Kingdom from within, and you won’t have to worry about them,” she answered with a smirk. “That’s the kind of thing they deal with.”

“I never thought I’d hear the words ‘dark magic’ or ‘curse’ spoken unironically,” Chris gave another shiver. “And what about alien visitors? Are the Ravens watching us now?” He looked around nervously.

“Even if they are, you’d never know,” Fortrakt said with a smile. “It’s not worth worrying about, Chris. But getting back to the original question, the point is that even though it’s not generally practiced any longer, swordsgryphonship is still a revered art.” He wisely changed the subject. “There are plenty of combat schools that teach it, and sometimes formal duels are still fought with scimitars. Hey, do humans have sword arts?”

“Yes. Of many different kinds from many historical cultures, but they’re no longer that useful and few practice them now,” Chris said simply, though his tone remained subdued. “Old swords tend to be collector’s items and go for big money. Hey, Marco, do you have any movies involving swordplay?”

Marco gave a chuckle. “Maybe one or two… dozen,” he finally said. “I can think of a couple our friends might like. Maybe we’ll watch one tonight. How about The Princess Bride? It has swordplay and I think we could all use some lighter fare after how intense that show was.”

“Think I’ll pass,” Tara said dully; unlike the others, she hadn’t perked up at all. “It’s a good movie, but I don’t think I’ll be in the mood for anything tonight, including company. In all honesty, I just want to go back to my room and be alone for a bit.”

“Seconded,” Chris said as they started their next descent. “Sorry, guys. Like Tara said, we don’t blame you for showing us that, but… we just weren’t ready for it and it’s going to take us a while to absorb. What about you, Marco?”

“Me? I’m fine, but if you guys aren’t…” He nodded slowly. “Guess I’ll just hang out with Reyes and the off-duty Marines tonight. You’re welcome to hang out with us if you want, Fortrakt. And you too, Decurion,” he hastily added.

“Thanks,” Fortrakt said, his tail having gone low again as he blamed himself anew for showing them the duel. “I’d like the chance to meet them more informally. And if you have another movie, I’ll watch it. What about you, Decurion?” he asked warily.

“I’ll pass,” she replied in clipped tones, planning to take the chance to strip off her tight and itchy dress uniform and soak in the tub her room at the Inn offered, giving herself a proper preening before writing her next report over a private meal. She also decided it would probably be best to keep her distance from Fortrakt for the time being, lest their tempers flare again over their earlier confrontation.

“Enjoy yourself, but remember your duty, Second Spear,” she admonished, reminding him to keep observing and spare enough attention to be able to write his own report.

“Right,” Fortrakt said shortly as they descended to the third level on their way back towards the Inn. They stopped just long enough at a convenient market stall to grab some barbecued boar and fresh hot rolls from one griffon-run stand, followed by roasted potatoes with other vegetables from a Caleponian one since none of them were in the mood to make dinner.

As they reached the Inn, the Marines started to crack some jokes at Marco’s expense again, only to stop short as they saw the dazed looks on their collective faces. The sentries then asked if anything was wrong or they needed help, to which they only shook their heads and continued inside without another word or glance.

As they reached the third floor and parted to go to their respective rooms, the last thing Gilda saw of the humans or Fortrakt was the latter giving her a glower before he followed them into their suite.

Early the next morning, Gilda and Fortrakt stood at attention in their regular uniforms in Tribune Narada’s office, in the presence of her and Ambassador Strenus again.

They had come to review their latest reports, submitted as they entered, though this time, the aides of the Tribune and Ambassador were not present. In their place was a new figure; an earth griffon eagless Gilda had never seen before, dressed in such finery that marked her as a member of a Senator’s staff.

“At ease,” Tribune Narada invited after they entered and saluted. They both relaxed, but only fractionally. “Greetings again to both of you. Just two days into your task, you have already obtained an exceptional amount of interesting information on our visitors—far more than I honestly thought possible. To this point, you have not only proven yourself worthy of your new ranks and assignment, but you have done yourselves and the Kingdom proud—a minor incident at the Hall of Heroes yesterday notwithstanding.” She raised an eyeridge at them.

“Thank you, sir,” Gilda and Fortrakt chorused; the former sensing and awaiting the inevitable but.

It was not long in coming as Strenus spoke next, even if it wasn’t over the subject she thought. “But still more is needed, and that is why our guest is here. Decurion Behertz and Second Spear Gletscher, this is Talia Tarseus, chief Succursum to Senator Pilius, who you may recall is head of the Senate’s Ipsum for Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs.”

“A pleasure,” Gilda offered a greeting and foreleg clasp on behalf of both of them—the other eagless wasn’t in the military, so she didn’t rate a salute regardless of how highly ranked a civilian she was—sensing that it shortly wasn’t going to be any pleasure at all. So, we’re being greeted in private by a Senatorial aide? There is no way in either the pony or griffon underworlds that this ends well...

“That’s her official position. But unofficially,” Narada spoke up somewhat unhappily, “she is a Senior Sparrow for the Council of Crows, charged with compiling information on humanity for use by the Queen and her advisors in negotiations with the humans.”

Despite their attention stances, Gilda glanced sharply at the new eagless for a moment—the Council of Crows was the Kingdom’s intelligence service, whose agents were called Sparrows. Though their title was not that of a particularly large or powerful bird, it was meant to convey that they were outwardly ordinary and unassuming griffons who others would not notice. And for her to reveal herself…

Then SHE’S the dweeb who set this whole spying ball into motion? Gildaguessed, keeping her features carefully composed. Crows take it. The only reason she’d be here is if she wants more from us...

“Indeed I am. It is my pleasure to meet you as well, Decurion Behertz and Second Spear Gletcher. My apologies for not introducing myself sooner, but we wanted to test your dedication to duty and the quality of your data first,” she explained as she read through their latest reports with a practiced eye.

Her presence, while not physically intimidating, was still unsettling to Gilda. Her expression didn’t convey any outward emotion whatsoever; if anything, her lowered and slightly hooded eyes as well as her nonchalant posture gave her the appearance of an out-of-place accountant. And yet, her deliberate, even didactic manner of speech, to say nothing of the intensity with which she studied the documents, gave Gilda the impression this eagless was not one to be trifled with. And that a griffon crossed her at their peril.

“On the latter, at least, we have been quite pleased. Your information thus far has been most helpful to our efforts to compile intelligence on the humans, if still incomplete. It is regrettable you have not yet been able to obtain any information on their strange weapons, but perhaps it is a little much to ask after only two days.”

The eagless was just messing with her now, Gilda was certain. Of course she’d have expected her and Fortrakt to go above and beyond for such a vital mission! As such, her pointing out the difficulty of the task was little more than a backtaloned insult; her dry delivery and emotionless manner of speech notwithstanding.

“Still, I am given some pause to wonder if your reports and efforts are being colored by… personal feelings,” she continued with a glance at Fortrakt as she scanned his latest report, who kept his face carefully composed. “Your latest offering seems a little too enthusiastic, Second Spear.”

“Well, I admit I had a good time last night, but I still related what I learned,” he answered carefully, his eyes looking slightly tired, leaving Gilda wondering how late he’d been up the night before hanging out with Marco and the Marines. “If I conveyed the first part along with the second, I’m sorry, but it’s still all there.”

“Forming personal bonds with an intelligence target is a dangerous sentiment for a field operative,” she admonished him, though she never rose to the level of showing anger. “That minor matter aside, we congratulate you both on your skill in obtaining this intelligence. Especially you, Decurion. Your analyses are refreshingly insightful and thorough—in fact, far better than most of my Sparrows in the field.

“But I fear I cannot fully praise you, given your rather glaring error in judgement yesterday.” She betrayed her first hint of emotion by waggling a disapproving foretalon at Gilda; her head shifting fractionally to one side, and then the other.

Gilda blinked. “My error?” She quickly reviewed her actions in her mind, but found no issues—aside from almost getting arrested over her near-duel with Fortrakt, that was. She looked up at Strenus and Narada, their unhappy expressions leaving her wondering if she and Fortrakt were yet going to be in trouble over it.

“If this is about what happened in the Hall of Heroes, I take full responsibility,” Fortrakt spoke up, clearly thinking the same thing.

“It is not,” she replied immediately. “That is between you and the Tribune, and not something the Council of Crows cares about. Simply put, Decurion, your order to the Paladins to secure and not allow the human recording devices to be touched while they were in the Hall of Heroes was a mistake. It was a golden opportunity for us to examine those items more closely while they were away from them, but you denied us the chance,” she explained while Gilda frowned.

“As your order bore the weight of your diplomatic command chain, it meant that the Paladins would not surrender them to us without a direct order from the Queen or a senior enough Legatus, neither of whom could be reached in enough time.”

Understanding dawned on Gilda, but despite the other eagless’s unnerving gaze, it came with no regret. “Sorry, but not sorry,” she replied, her eyes narrowing at the realization that the instructions to the Paladins to deny recording hadn’t only been a security measure—it had been at least in part designed to separate the three humans from their magical devices to allow for their covert analysis by the Council of Crows.

“My instructions were intended to preserve their trust with us, and their entire delegation’s trust with the Kingdom. Never mind that I find such tactics dishonorable, but you could have easily damaged their devices, in which case they would know that we lied to them! And they would never trust us again after that.”

“Let us worry about that,” Tarseus said in some strained patience. “And we thus ask that you rectify that error by helping us to get our talons on those devices. We wish to pass them to our magic labs and arcane theorists for analysis, so make some excuse for the humans to leave them behind again on your next trip into the city.”

“No,” Gilda replied emphatically, putting some growl in her voice. “It’s bad enough that you’re asking me to spy for you, but now you’re asking me to break their confidence and trick them? I will not do that, and if you insist, I will refuse the assignment. Even resign if I must.”

“She speaks for me as well!” Fortrakt added heatedly. “Sorry, but I can’t help it if I like them, Senior Sparrow. Regardless of our differences in cultures, they’re open and friendly and they trust us. And besides, between the amiability of their soldiers and the… reaction of their civilians to seeing the recorded duel in the Hall, they’re anything but bloodthirsty,” he recalled with a pained grimace. “So, with apologies, I just don’t see them as a threat to us.”

The spymaster looked at Gilda and Fortrakt as if they’d lost their minds, all pretense of disdainful detachment suddenly cast to the crows. “Then you are a fool, blinded by what I can only see as your wonder at their technological toys. Tell me, has it occurred to either of you that such things could be turned to more military ends?”

“It has,” Fortrakt answered evenly before Gilda could, though a single lash of his tail betrayed his growing annoyance, “and it’s also occurred to me just standing here now that the Council of Crows seeks less to protect ourselves from this new race than use their ‘toys’ to gain an advantage over our neighbors.”

“Toys which could all be acquired through trade anyway,” Gilda finished before the Senior Sparrow could retort, giving her junior partner credit for a far larger pair of ‘balls’, as humans called them, than she had previously. She then turned to Strenus and Narada, pointedly speaking past Tarseus.

“With respect, Tribune and Ambassador, you gave me this rank and command chain telling me that it was to help the Kingdom, and I accepted them on that basis despite my severe reservations at taking this assignment. If you will not allow me to use them honorably and in the ultimate spirit of furthering an eventual alliance with this new race, then I will return them to you right now!” She raised her talons to her neck to remove it.

“Hold, Decurion,” Narada spoke up, raising a halting wing before Gilda did something she couldn’t take back. “In my view, Senior Sparrow Tarseus, her points are well-taken. And in any event, they are my soldiers, not yours to command. I will not direct them to do such a thing, and I know them both well enough by now to realize they would not obey such an order anyway.”

“Nor will I,” Strenus spoke up, his eyes angry. “I cannot help but note, Senior Sparrow, that you did not come to me seeking an order to override the Decurion’s—I assume because you believed I would not give it, so you instead tried to go over my wings. In that, at least, you were correct—I would not. I am perfectly willing to gather information about the humans to help further the safety and security of the Kingdom, but such interests are not served by antagonizing them or giving them good cause to distrust us.

“And I must concur with the Second Spear’s assessment—it is starting to sound to me like the Council of Crows is concerned less about forming a new friendship with the humans than taking advantage of them!”

“Friendship.” Tarseus rolled her eyes. “You really have been hanging around the ponies too long.”

“Which has taught me of its strength,” Strenus replied immediately and cooly. “I have also been around the humans for far longer than you, so believe me when I say we want them as friends, not enemies. Accordingly, I must side with the Decurion and Second Spear in this matter.

“As lead negotiator of this effort, I will not approve of any actions that potentially undermine our ongoing negotiations with the humans. And as the Decurion says, attempting to steal their technology when they might conceivably give it to us following successful diplomacy would certainly qualify.”

“Friendship doesnot defend the Kingdom, nor empty promises of peacefully acquiring vital technology in the vaguely distant future. Especially against those threats we cannot foresee,” Tarseus replied, dropping her veneer of civility.

“But since you seem to believe my motives are selfish and lacking in honor, I am authorized to say that the Crows have heard rumblings of a growing danger to the Kingdom. We believe there is an internal threat we cannot yet identify. There have been too many disappearances and odd but fleeting magical signatures that coincided with humanity’s arrival here,” she detailed. “And thus, we believe they might have something to do with it.”

“So in other words, the Council of Crows is jumping at shadows again?” Narada paraphrased scornfully. “Like I haven’t heard that once or twice. Or a couple dozen times before.”

Tarseus pinned her with a stare. “The Ravens are investigating it as well,” she replied, causing the Tribune to fall silent. “And I remind you that they don’t involve themselves unless they think a threat is real.”

“Be that as it may,” Strenus said with a flick of his tail, “and regardless of the timing, I fail to see how humanity would be involved. Or that even if we got our talons on their technology, that we could decipher and turn it to our ends in enough time for it to matter. So, you’ll forgive me if I’m thinking that this talk of a potential threat to the Kingdom is much more an excuse than the reason.”

“Agreed,” Tribune Narada said as Gilda couldn’t help but smile, instantly upping her estimation of the Ambassador by several levels. “Like Behertz, I agreed to this arrangement because I thought the motives behind it were both sensible and honorable. Based on what I have heard here, I am no longer certain that is the case.

“I am willing to allow the Decurion and Second Spear to continue this assignment in its intended spirit, but only if we receive assurances that they will not be ordered to act against their honor and the mutual interests of our races. And only if they agree to continue, knowing what they now do.”

Gilda and Fortrakt glanced at each other, each asking the same question. When the former saw her partner give her a terse nod, she voiced their answer. “If we can have the same assurances… then we will. But make no mistake—the moment I am ordered to violate the trust of our guests is the moment I quit and tell them everything. Good luck getting any information or exchange of technology from them after that.”

“The Decurion speaks for me as well!” Fortrakt spoke up forcefully, leaving Gilda wondering if he’d resolved his anger at her the previous night. “And with regards to my ‘emotional attachment,’ Maybe I do like their ‘toys’. Maybe I even like them. But that doesn’t change the fact the humans have become my friends, and I will not dishonor myself and the Kingdom by taking advantage of that friendship.”

“I see…” Tarseus glared at them. “You are correct that I do not have the authority to command you on this matter, but be assured that others do. We Sparrows remain ever vigilant and dedicated to the defense of the Kingdom. So be assured, this isn’t over yet.”

“It is for now,” Narada replied coolly, “and I expect you to tell your masters that my soldiers are not theirs to order about as they see fit. Now leave my office, Senior Sparrow Tarseus, before I summon my sentries and have you thrown out.”

The flight back from the Tribune’s office was spent in silence between Fortrakt and Gilda.

So was their landing on the third level and walking to the Inn’s entrance, and their subsequent return to their quarters for some minor grooming before beginning their latest day with the humans.

Gilda had initially greeted him with nothing more than a mutually terse nod and tail flick before going into the Tribune’s office, noting his emotions were still as raw as hers over their near-duel the previous day. They had set it aside to deal with the intelligence agent, but they were now alone with each other—and their unresolved anger—again.

After the Senior Sparrow had been escorted out, they’d had a long talk with Tribune Narada about the incident at the Hall of Heroes, which had been reported by the Paladins. They’d both apologized for their role in it, if not necessarily to each other, and though Gilda could tell the Tribune wasn’t fully convinced, she’d let it pass.

But only after a severe reprimand. “I can only let this go because it did not result in your arrest. But if it happens again, I won’t be able to brush it under the bed straw,” Narada warned them both. “You are soldiers of the Kingdom who were given a great and grave responsibility, so kindly act like it!

“You will keep your trivial personal disputes to yourselves, and you will not let them affect the performance of your duties again,” she ordered them through narrowed eyes. “Mind your tongues and your tempers at all times, especially in front of our guests. We need to present a united front to the humans, and such needs are not served when they see our soldiers squabble.”

“Yes, sir,” they both accepted her sharp rebuke, leaving Gilda feeling like she’d just been scolded by her sire. Except she respected Narada far more than her father, so the admonition stung far worse.

The Tribune’s words were still ringing in her ears as she exited her quarters again to find Fortrakt waiting for her. Well, one of us has to say something, she finally decided, and it may as well be me. I kept waiting for Rainbow to make the first move, and never once considered that maybe I should be the one to do so. In that case…

Mentally steeling herself, she opened her beak to speak. “Second Spear? About yesterday—do you still want to challenge me?” she asked him. “Because if you insist on it, I’m sure we can arrange it through the Tribune later, away from our guests.

He stopped short at her question, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath before exhaling it slowly. “No,” he finally said. “I’ve thought about it, and you were right—I was way out of line yesterday. I called you a liar to your face for no other reason than that you said something I didn’t want to hear.

“Never mind the fact I nearly got us both arrested, I scared our guests, and worse, I may have hurt them, so you had every crow-begotten reason to chew me out over it. If I dueled you over that, then I really would be just a stupid cub. So instead…”

He stood up straight before Gilda and saluted her crisply, beginning to speak formally. “I fully and unreservedly apologize, Decurion. My behavior was inexcusable yesterday, and I know it. On my honor as your subordinate and a soldier of the Kingdom, I will accept any punishment you impose.”

“That’s very mature of you, Second Spear,” Gilda said approvingly. “Apology accepted, and don’t worry—I won’t punish you. There’s no point, because I know that seeing our new friends hurt was punishment enough,” she told him, to which he closed his eyes tightly for a moment. “You saw you were wrong and said you were sorry, so that’s good enough for me.” See how easy that was, Rainbow?

“Thank you, Decurion.” Fortrakt relaxed in relief. They then turned to each other and clasped forelegs before stepping back and saluting, not as subordinate to superior, but as two soldiers and longtime partners rediscovering their mutual respect.

“It’s Gilda when we’re alone.” She invited him to address her informally again to indicate it was okay to resume their usual back-and-forth banter. “So… what happened with the humans last night? Did you ‘hang out’ with them like Marco invited?” she asked as they began to walk down the hall towards the human civilian suite.

“Sure did,” he said, his beak breaking out into a smile at the memory. “I went with Marco and we found a bunch of their Marines off-duty and out of uniform in one of the meeting halls. They were doing everything from reading to playing card games to betting money and various duties on wrestling matches—not unlike our duel rings, now that I think about it.

“Their matches were actually pretty rough—they even invited me to join in, but I declined because of the prohibition against fighting humans. And did you know they even have games they can play with each other on their devices? But I couldn’t play them because my talons don’t seem to work on their magic windows, and their quill-like ‘stylus’ you could use on them was too small for me to grip without dropping.” He shook his head in disappointment.

“Huh,” Gilda said, wondering what kind of game you could play on a window. “That’s weird.”

“I thought so too, but the games looked really fun! They also used their windows to show me some ‘videos’ they liked—I asked to see some more fighting matches like in that Warrior movie, so they showed me a few real ones, and it turns out that the film wasn’t far off in depicting them. And you won’t believe the variety of music they have!” he recalled, his tone turning wistful. “I really liked some of their ‘metal’, which was the name for this one genre that was popular. Neither we nor the ponies have anything close to it.”

“I’m so glad you had a good time.” Gilda rolled her eyes. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you to take the chance to ask about their gear? Or weapons?”

“Actually, it did,” he replied easily. “But they told me they weren’t allowed to say anything about them. I dropped the subject because I didn’t want to make them suspicious and ruin their company. But they did show me their combat knives!” he recalled, perking up again.

“Oh? And how were those?”

“Very nice! They let me hold one. It seemed very sleek and well-made, with good balance and several different cutting surfaces. It wasn’t a perfect grip for my talons, but I could manage. I asked if I could have one, but they said they’d have to get permission first.” He shrugged. “They also asked to see one of ours, so I said I’d bring a couple of mine by later.”

“Not bad,” she conceded, wondering if the Council of Crows might relent if they could at least examine a human blade. “And did they ask you anything?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact. They were curious about our history and some of the things they’d heard—like if it was true that we’d once gone to war with the ponies or that we fought before rutting. Then they asked to see me take flight close-up, so I did—I think they were honestly amazed that I could not only fly, but hover,” he recalled with a chuckle.

“Later on, they asked a little more about me, about the Kingdom, and about how our society worked. One even asked me if I had a ‘girlfriend’.” He blushed slightly but smiled at the odd term, whose meaning was obvious enough. “I told them no, but that I had my eye on one, and hopefully a round with an eagless on my next day off. When I said that, they whistled and congratulated me on having a ‘hot date’.”

Her grin broadened. “Nice way to split feathers, cub. Did you tell them that the one you had your eye on wasn’t the eagless?” she teased, delighting in his fierce blush.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but no. And don’t worry—I didn’t say anything sensitive.” He quickly changed the subject. “It was all about our basic history, society and anatomy.”

“Anatomy?” Gilda snickered. “What, did you offer them to show them yours if they showed you theirs? Didn’t think you were into that, Fortrakt!” she offered with a lopsided grin.

“Decurion!” he exclaimed with an intensified blush. “Of course not! They just wanted to know what was off-limits for eaglesses after what you did to Marco! I didn’t ask to see them unclothed! Though Marco might have offered to show me some pictures of naked human females…” he recalled with a suddenly nervous air.

She gave him an askance look, not sure if she felt more distaste or some mildly morbid curiosity at the offer. “And did you take it?”

He blushed hard but answered. “No, because they started teasing me. I was also afraid that if I did, I might start thinking of Tara and…” the rest went unspoken except for his fierce flush.

“Right.” She rolled her eyes again, but then smirked. “Because there’s nothing more exciting to a twenty-year old tiercel than seeing some wingless female ape with chest-mounted teats.”

“Oh, go soak your head in a piss bucket,” he casually insulted her, which Gilda took to mean they were friends again. “Or are you just feeling left out? Next time, I’ll try to arrange it so you’re there when we really do compare our equipment!” he offered evilly, earning a laugh. “Just be sure to keep your wings down and eager eagless eyes off us then!”

“I’ll try to contain my excitement,” she snickered as they reached the door of the human civilian suite and knocked.

* * * * *

They were invited in immediately. But when they entered, they found Chris, Tara and Marco silent and slightly hollow-eyed while nursing mugs of coffee around the cooking fire; the three having barely touched their breakfast.

If Fortrakt had been hoping that Chris and Tara were better after a night’s rest, he was quickly and sorely disappointed. “Uh… are you three all right?” he asked in concern.

“Fine,” Chris mumbled, not looking up at them.

“None of us slept well,” Tara admitted, her glassy gaze fixed on the fire. “I was having nightmares all night. That duel we saw… I couldn’t stop seeing it. Seeing him.”

“Him? Him who?” Fortrakt asked, staring at her in concern.

“I mean, I kept dreaming about Thunderbolt,” Tara shivered and wrung her hands as all of Fortrakt’s golden feathers drooped. “Kept hearing all those awful things he said. Kept seeing him try to kill that poor cub. And when I told him to stop, he turned on me!” she shivered. “He started firing lightning at me, and then…” She trailed off, her eyes going distant.

“Then what?”

“I… I don’t know,” she finally said, clutching her head for a moment. “It’s all a blur and I can’t remember. But something happened and then the dreams stopped. That’s the only reason I got any sleep at all.”

“I wasn’t much better,” Chris replied. “I kept having nightmares of Ravens and ‘dark magic’. Dreamt I was being interrogated by griffons, who yanked my most embarrassing memories out of my mind and proceeded to play them before an audience. Then they put them all on display in the Hall of Heroes as an example of humanity’s depravity!”

“Sounds awful, but I’d still prefer that to mine,” Marco mumbled as he picked at his food. “I kept dreaming about the statues in the Hall of Heroes coming to life...”

Tara stared at him. “Well, that doesn’t sound so—”

“And coming after me when I wouldn’t stop touching them,” he cringed to admit, as Gilda watched, his hand began to shake as it held his mug. “I couldn’t help it—no matter how many times I was told not to, I kept touching their wings, their shoulders—all the stuff I shouldn’t!

“And then that big tiercel sculpture you stopped me from touching yesterday finally had enough. So he grabbed me by the head, pushed me down and told me if I was going to keep touching him there, then I could just go ahead and—” he caught himself. “Never mind. Let’s just say the pucker factor was high.” He pulled out his flask and took a long draw on it.

“The wha—?”

Before they could answer Fortrakt’s confused question, the door to the suite opened in back of them without so much as a knock. They heard human footfalls, and it wasn’t Reyes, Gilda immediately realized, since the gait was shorter and the steps were lighter.

She had just enough time to register them before Dana appeared out of the short hallway and strode up to them, not waiting for an invitation to do so.

“Well, look who it is,” the dark-haired female smirked as she stopped before them. She was holding up one of the human recording devices, this one with a gray case. “The Three Stooges, making undeserved friends and causing enough trouble that you should all have been thrown back through the portal days ago.”

“Get out of our quarters, Dana,” Chris said shortly. “We’ve had a rough couple days, and we’re really not in the mood.”

“Can I help you?” Gilda asked politely, even as she sensed that politeness was not going to be effective against this second human woman. “I don’t know what the rules are in your world, but in ours, you don’t come inside an abode unless invited.”

“I’ll go wherever I please, griffie,” Dana said disdainfully, causing Gilda’s eyes to narrow. “Unlike these three, I’m a VIP and I don’t need permission for anything. I get an entourage of guards wherever I go, and doors get opened up for me instantly.”

“V-I-what?” Fortrakt asked.

“Very Important Person,” Marco all but growled. “Though right now I’m thinking more of a Very Insulting Pussy.”

Dana glared at him. “Fuck you too, Marco.”

“In your dreams, Dana,” he replied sullenly. “Whiskey Tangos like you don’t turn my head. Now kindly get out of our room. And preferably out of our lives.”

“Or you’ll what, ‘Flip-boy?’” she stood in front of them with her recording device raised, her use of the term causing Marco’s jaw to clench. “I don’t know what ‘whiskey tango’ means, but if you lay a finger on me, I’ll have you hauled back to Earth and thrown in prison so fast your heads will spin. Chris there can only barely justify his presence, but you and Tara shouldn’t even be here!”

“Back at you, Dana,” Chris said as Marco’s hand clenched harder on his coffee mug. “They at least have some usable skills other than acting like an entitled brat and badmouthing folks on Twitter. You’re only here because of your Daddy.”

“I’m here as a personal observer to a Senator, who just happens to be my Daddy,” she said smugly. “And trust me, I’ll have a few things to say when I get back. I hear you three went to the Hall of Heroes yesterday. I hadn’t been there yet, and I can’t believe you were given a tour before I was!

“So wherever you’re going, I’m just going to invite myself along this time,” she announced like she was an entitled griffon noble, making Gilda take an immediate and intense disliking to her. “Just hope you don’t embarrass us again, Marco, or lash out at a VIP like me. Because that’ll be three strikes, and you’re out.”

The tone of her voice made clear to Gilda that she was fully planning to provoke him until he did, and a glance at Fortrakt told her he’d reached the same conclusion. And worse, she thought for a moment that Dana had succeeded when Marco clenched his fists and started to stand up, only to be stilled by a hand on his arm.

“Marco… don’t,” Tara warned. “She isn’t worth it. Don’t rise to the bait. She’s recording this because she’s trying to get you in trouble.”

“Listen to your girlfriend, Marco,” Dana said with a smug grin. “Even if your Flip-boy dick’s too small to do anything for her.”

Marco gave a very griffon-like snarl and stood up; Gilda guessed from the context that Dana had just insulted his stature—something that would earn an immediate reprisal from any self-respecting tiercel.

“Enough,” Gilda spoke up again, stepping between them to forestall an attack. “With respect, Miss Dana—you’ll forgive me if I don’t know your last name—you cannot give them orders, or us. We are their escorts, and we will decide who and what we see. Now I will ask you politely to leave.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong, griffie. I can go wherever I please. And I’d advise you not to do anything except exactly what I say. Like that blond bitch says, I’m recording this, you feathered freak!”

Gilda flared her headcrest and gave a very feline hiss. It was the first time she had encountered a human who deliberately insulted her, and she didn’t appreciate it at all. “If you were a griffon, or I wasn’t forbidden to fight humans, you’d be facing a duel right now,” she warned, knowing that just a year earlier, that wouldn’t have stopped her.

“Too bad I’m not one. I’m the daughter of a human Senator with diplomatic immunity, and you can’t touch me, griffie. None of you can! If you do, that’s the end of your stay and careers. Trust me, I’ve made a habit of ending them back home.”

Though she had no idea what the human female meant by that, Gilda sensed her smoldering temper threatening to surge into white-hot rage, her feathers ruffling hard and wings starting to flare in ire. “Fortrakt, get the human sentries,” she instructed as she lowered her head and allowed her crestfeathers to flare in warning. “Get them now, before I do something we will all regret,” she instructed in very strained tones.

“Gilda…” He warned her, watching her warily.

“Heia!” she ordered him again in Aeric, but Dana moved to block the entire entryway, ensuring Fortrakt couldn’t push past her without having to shove her aside.

“Don’t touch me, griffie,” she warned with a smirk. “If you do, I’ll claim assault. That’ll be three incidents between griffons and human guests, and I’ll demand you get your flank thrown in prison. Or the mines, I think it is here. You can’t do a damned thing to me without causing a ‘diplomatic incident’,” she said as Gilda could only grind the two halves of her beak together, feeling trapped.

“You know what, Dana? You’re right. They can’t,” Tara agreed as she slowly stood up from her seat, rubbed her face, and then walked right up to the other human eagless, getting in her space. “But I can. Final warning: Get the fuck out, or else.”

“Or else what, blondie?” Dana challenged with a sneer, turning her recording device on the other female.

Tara’s blue eyes flashed. “This!” She curled her talons into a fist and socked Dana right in the mouth with it in a blow that would have done the fighters in Warrior proud, sending her sprawling and her device flying away.

“Ecce!” Fortrakt exclaimed in Aeric as Gilda and the others stayed still, frozen in momentary shock.

Her smugness instantly gone, Dana suddenly looked on the verge of crying as she found herself on the ground, her eyes unfocused. “You… you fucking hit me?” She raised a trembling hand to her bloodied mouth, her eyes going wide as she saw it come back red. “Do you know what my father will do to you? You’re gonna spend the rest of your life in prison for this!”

Far from afraid, Tara hauled Dana back up and punched her hard in the stomach, causing her to double over. It might have stopped there, but Tara continued her assault, next throwing Dana against a wall and pinning her with her weight, bending her arm backwards behind her in a very painful-looking lock. She shrieked like a cub and called for help, only to be silenced when Tara banged her head sharply into the wall.

“Sorry, little girl, but your daddy isn’t here now—he’s an entire dimension away, and he can’t help you! So you listen to me, you entitled little twat—don’t you ever threaten my friends like that again! Chris and Marco are way too nice to hit you, while Gilda and Fortrakt are too professional to! But sorry, bitch—I’m not.”

Tara then grabbed her by the shirt collar and dragged her to the entrance, bodily throwing her out the open door into the hallway with enough momentum that she hit the opposite wall and bounced back.

“So, still think you’re untouchable, Dana?” Tara mocked her, making a show of rubbing her hands together with a series of loud slaps, standing over her fallen opponent triumphantly. “Too bad being a twitter terror doesn’t count for shit here!”

“You… bitch…” Dana got out, still clutching at her stomach as her lip bled heavily onto her shirt front. “I’ll get you expelled and jailed for this!”

“Yeah. Me and only me!” Tara proclaimed as she pulled Dana up one final time and head-butted her directly on the crown of her head, knocking her cold. She then released her limp form, letting her slump unconscious to the floor as the human sentries came running up, attracted by the noise of fighting. “Damn, that felt good…” she said, her eyes glittering as she rubbed the growing bruise on her forehead.

Gilda didn’t know what they’d been expecting, but the sight of Tara standing over a fallen Dana was probably low on the list as they stared at her crumpled form in surprise. “Is there a problem, boys?” Tara challenged them as they lowered whatever weapons they were holding.

“If you want to know what happened, Miss Entitlement here barged in, insulted all of us, and deliberately tried to get us to attack her so she could get us expelled—even our griffon guests. Here’s your evidence.” She retrieved and passed them Dana’s device, whose face was now cracked.

Despite that, it still worked. They played back the recording she’d been making, and though Gilda couldn’t see it, she once again heard their voices replayed. The two sentries glanced at each other as Reyes came up. They showed him the recording as well, causing the Sergeant to look up at Tara in surprise, and what Gilda recognized was no small amount of respect. They called back to Lieutenant Nantz for instructions, asking Tara to wait there as he detailed two more sentries to carry Dana to their makeshift infirmary.

“Holy fuck, Tara. Where’d you learn to do that?” an awestruck Marco asked her after they’d departed.

“I grew up in a family with three older boys,” she said shortly, making an odd motion with one set of talons over an enclosed fist that resulted in a sharp crackling sound. “So I had to learn to roughhouse. And then I had to deal with drunk and handsy patrons as a bartender while I was putting myself through school. It was a pretty seedy pub, and sometimes they didn’t get the message until you smashed their fingers by slamming a full drink mug on them or decked them. And if that didn’t work…”

She made a motion like she was grabbing something big at her feet. Rising back up, she held her arms like she was holding something at an angle in her talons and made an odd motion with the upper set of them, like a rapid pump. “So yeah, I have a low tolerance for that crap. She’s lucky I didn’t do it earlier. I might not have done it here, but I guess I was on edge after all my bad dreams last night, and her taunting us pushed me over the edge.” She rubbed her temples, the bump on her forehead growing.

“And if they decide to return you to Earth on grounds of assaulting her?” Chris asked. “Dana wasn’t lying. She could get you thrown in prison.”

“Then I’ll just request asylum with the Kingdom,” Tara said easily. “At this point, I think I’ve decided they’re more my speed anyway.”

“Wow…” Fortrakt stared up at her in awe. “You’d really do that?”

“Would I really stay with a race that doesn’t put up with such stupid bullshit? That allows me to smack anybody who insults me and my friends like that without being hauled off in handcuffs? Hell yes, I would!” her eyes flashed and she smacked one fist into the palm of her other hand.

As Fortrakt heard her declaration, his surprise gave way to an expression of pure worship, watching as Tara simply stood with her arms crossed and her head held high with a very satisfied expression on her face as Dana was carried off.

And then Gilda heard him take a surprised and ragged breath.

Turning, she saw his cheeks flush and eyes go panicked for a moment, darting about and scanning frantically for an unblocked open door. Not finding one—Chris and Marco were standing in the entryway to theirs—he hurriedly backed up, his wings and tail twitching as he pushed his hindquarters into a convenient corner.

Gilda wasn’t initially sure what that was about, but his actions went unnoticed by Chris and Marco. “I think we all would!” Chris said with a broad grin, clapping Tara’s shoulder affectionately. “Girl, we owe you one.”

“If this was back home, we’d buy you drinks!” Marco added eagerly. “Just wish I could be there when Nantz and the Ambassador see that video she took. Talk about digging your own grave!”

At that moment, Reyes came back and told Tara that Lieutenant Nantz wanted to see her in his office immediately, along with Gilda and Fortrakt. “He’s probably gonna have to go to the Ambassador with this one,” the Sergeant said apologetically. “Understand, ma’am, that I’m not even remotely angry at you for hitting her—she’s been calling the Marines ‘pigs’ among other choice terms—but I don’t get to make the call on what happens to you.”

“I understand,” an unrepentant and still immensely satisfied Tara said. “Lead the way, Sergeant.”

“My pleasure,” he said with a respectful nod, instructing her to go with two more sentries.

“Be sure and tell us how it all went,” Chris told her. “We’ll have lunch ready when you return.”

“Deal,” she said, hugging them both. “Thanks for your support. All of you,” she added with a nod of acknowledgement at Gilda and a slightly huddled Fortrakt.

“N-no problem…” he answered easily, though Gilda could hear a strong note of tension in his voice.

With things happening so quickly, she wasn’t sure what was causing it, but didn’t have time to consider it just then. “Well, duty calls. The Lieutenant asked to see us, too. So let’s go, Fortrakt!” Gilda instructed.

“I, uh…” Despite her order, Fortrakt didn’t move; his eyes darting from Gilda to the humans and back. Sensing his distress, she looked at him more closely, taking in everything from the flush on his cheeks to his pleading expression to the way he had backed himself into a corner, using the walls to pin his slightly flared wings and frantically twitching tail. “Yeah, sure. In a minute.”

Understanding dawned on her, along with a knowing grin. Though taking pity on him, she also decided she’d have some fun with him; for just a moment, she found herself wishing Rainbow was there so they could taunt him together, trying to one-up each other with an endless series of innuendos.

And best of all, griffons had some puns on the subject that the humans weren’t likely to know.

“So, what’s the holdup, Second Spear? I know your feathers were ruffled and you now need some serious preening—” that was a griffon euphemism for foreplay that flew right over the heads of the humans but caused Fortrakt to visibly flinch—“but your wings will have to wait since we need to present our side of this to the Lieutenant first. And who knows? Since she thanked you, maybe you can teach Tara to properly groom them later,” she further suggested with a deliberately casual air.

“But th-that’s… I…” Fortrakt’s wings flared another two inches at the idea of her hands roaming his feathers and flight muscles.

But Gilda didn’t relent, having way too much fun, and in too good a mood after seeing Dana given some very griffon-like justice. “Look, you want to help Tara, right? Well, the sooner we get this cleared up, the sooner you can take her somewhere you’d like,” she suggested easily to another shuddering breath, leaving her wondering what means of mating Tara her words had made him fantasize about.

“Maybe you can go out to the markets with her, Chris and Marco. I’m sure you can find something special for her to taste—you know, some thick and meaty griffon treat?”

His eyes began to glaze as his mind settled firmly into the fantasy before he blinked and shook his head sharply. “S-stop it...” he begged in Aeric, starting to shake.

She could all but see him vividly imagining it no matter how hard he tried not to. “Stop what? I’m sure Tara would greatly appreciate you coming for her. I mean, it’s not hard—” she paused long enough to make sure he heard the emphasis on the two words and whimpered, leaving her trying very hard not to laugh as she finally went for the kill.

“After all, you’ll just have to stand directly in front of her as you testify to the Lieutenant. Let her see for herself just how professional and honorable a griffon you are!” she finished with no little relish. “I’m sure she’d be very impressed by what you show her!”

“Decurion…” he all but hissed out the word, flushing harder and shrinking back further even as his wings spread wider against the not-quite constraining walls, threatening to go fully erect right in front of the confused humans. He switched to Aeric and spoke quickly, probably hoping he was saying the words too fast for Chris to understand them.

“Will you please stop teasing me? You know why I can’t go with you!” He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, giving her the distinct impression that between her endless innuendoes and the lurid fantasies of Tara they fed, his loins were all but ready to burst. “By all the crows of the Kingdom and for the love of our Ancestors, stop cracking jokes and get me out of this!”

She considered continuing the torment despite his plea—this was, after all, an enormously rare opportunity; one she and Rainbow would have never let go! But as much as she enjoyed teasing him, she didn’t want to humiliate him. And besides, she would have endless opportunities to tweak him further over it later, once they were alone.

“Fine,” she relented, still speaking in Equish. “We’ll go on ahead. Take care of your business, and then report to the Lieutenant’s office to testify on Miss Fields’ behalf.”

“Y-yes, s-sir…” he all but squeaked, giving her a grateful look as she led the group away. Once they turned the corner and he was out of sight, they heard him race off. Unable to fly because his wings were too stiff, she heard several thumps as he half-stumbled, half-ran down the hall towards his quarters; his increasingly flared wings audibly scraping the sides of the corridor as he sprinted.

“Okay, so what was his problem?” Reyes asked once the sounds had receded, ending with what sounded like a distant tumble; it brought yet another smile to Gilda's face as she imagined how stiff and stilted his movements were in his state.

“Oh, he just had to use the latrine. Very urgently,” Gilda covered, though she never lost her smile. “Poor timing, but it happens. Sorry about teasing him over it. I like him, but he’s way too fun not to embarrass occasionally.”

“Latrine…” Marco muttered, throwing an odd look back over his shoulders in the direction Fortrakt had gone. “From the way he was acting, I half-thought that… never mind. Okay, so once we’ve got Tara back, what are we doing this afternoon?” he wondered aloud to Chris.

“I don’t know.” Chris shrugged, but then he grinned. “Or maybe I do. As a celebration for Tara smacking down Dana and as an apology to our hosts for allowing themselves to be insulted while putting up with all our alien idiocy, we should treat these two to something special.

“Fortrakt said he wanted to try more of our cooking, so how about we head for the markets like Gilda suggested? Get what we need to do up some fried chicken and trimmings for them? I’ve been kind of wanting to try their rum, too.”

“Oh, I am so up for that!” Marco agreed with a broad grin as they continued down the hall. “That’d be perfect for dinner and a movie! Just hope we can find something to use as frying oil…”

“I noticed the meat markets had some kind of lard for sale,” Chris pointed out. “That should do nicely, and we don’t need a full fryer, just enough to put a couple inches of oil at the bottom of the pan. So, I’ll handle the bird, and you do the side dishes.”

“You got it!” Marco’s eyes lit up. “See if I can improvise some Kilawin. Or since we’ll have the cooking oil, maybe some Lumpia…” He mused aloud, turning thoughtful as they continued to walk down the hall.

“Well, if you guys are gonna make all that, then I might just have to check on you a couple times tonight. Gotta make sure there are no lingering troubles after the catfight, after all,” Reyes remarked with a twinkle, leaving Gilda with another odd term to catalog. She might have asked about it but was still savoring her assault of innuendoes on Fortrakt, wondering how big a mess he was about to make of his own fur and feathers in his room.

“Of course, Sergeant,” Marco agreed with a conspiratorial grin as they walked on. “We’ll save some pieces for you.”

While they were talking, Chris turned to Gilda and spoke in a low voice. “Uh, Decurion? About Fortrakt…” He paused for a moment, like he was rehearsing something in his head. “Uh… Erat ille... excitatur?” He at least tried to trill the vowels more.

“Sic,” she answered with a broad grin, then spoke slowly so he could understand each word. “Ipse est magnopere cordi eius.”

“Really? Wow…” Chris answered once his mind had caught up with the translation. “This is gonna be interesting.”

“That’s one word for it,” she agreed, even as she snickered. You’re such a dweeb, Fortrakt. You’ll never see ME creaming myself over some upright walking ape!

Author's Note

Well, there are you, folks. No April Fool's joke here, unless you count what Gilda did to Fortrakt! I admit I might have pushed the T-rating a bit there, but there's nothing explicit, just a lot of rather gleeful innuendo from Gilda, so I think I'm safe.

One note about Dana. She disappeared from the original story completely after chapter 4. I checked, and she wasn't mentioned even once from chapter 5 onwards. I don't know if DEL was planning something for her later—for all I know, she was going to be turned into a Cloven host so Marco could get to blow her brains out—but here, I'm giving a reason for her absence, and helping to make Fortrakt even more enamored of Tara in the process.

For those who haven't read my Firefly series but are curious about the duel and events described at the start in the argument between Gilda and Fortrakt, you can find them all in Into the Storm: The Flight of Firefly. I will say without much humility that Into the Storm is one of the best war epics on Fimfiction, and Gavian's duel with Thunderbolt is probably the most epic single combat scene I've ever written.

TInto the Storm: The Flight of Firefly

Before the Wonderbolts, there were the Bolt Knights. And before Rainbow Dash, there was Firefly. The story of Rainbow Dash's ancestor, the founding of the Wonderbolts, and the outbreak of the Great Pony/Gryphon War.

Firesight · 421k words · 213 8 · 3.6k views

The Battle of Cloudsdale is detailed over the course of four chapters starting here, while Gavian's Duel with Thunderbolt ends the second book of the magnum opus, in Rally and Recover: To Save Two Souls. Give it a try, folks. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Thanks go to prereaders AJ_Aficionado, Silverblade5, and Silentwoodfire; the latter of whom suggested Fortrakt pop a raging hard-on over Tara, so you can thank or blame him accordingly. I greatly enjoyed bringing that to life, and I won't promise not to have it happen again! :rainbowlaugh:

And don't worry--Gilda will get hers in due course, including Fortrakt getting her back for this. :coolphoto:

8: Expulsion or Asylum

It had been nearly three hours since the confrontation between Dana and Tara, yet it seemed to Gilda that they were no closer to determining their fate.

While Dana remained in the Marine infirmary with a severe concussion, some internal damage and a broken tooth—for which she was being treated by not just a Marine ‘Corpsman’, but also a Magus healer—they had finally pulled both Ambassadors out of the ongoing trade negotiations to discuss the incident and determine what to do with the two human women.

Goldberg and Strenus had seen the video Dana had taken by then. Watching it elicited an angry reaction from Strenus but a far more troubled and nervous one from Goldberg, who initially tried to blame Tara for the whole affair. He wanted to expel her instead of Dana, even suggesting he should also expel Marco for “being a bad influence” on her, blaming him for “inducing her to act irrationally” and worried “he might cause others to do the same.”

Gilda couldn’t believe he was trying to hold them responsible for the whole ugly affair when they’d been anything but the aggressors; in her mind, Tara had done nothing wrong by responding as a griffon would to Dana’s provocations.

Her opinion of the human ambassador dropped further by the minute as first Lieutenant Nantz, then Staff Sergeant Stafford, and finally Sergeant Reyes spoke up, each saying the same thing: that Dana had been nothing but trouble, and for the good of Marine morale as well as the success of the trade mission, she needed to be sent home.

And yet, Goldberg still refused to let go of the notion that Tara or Marco was at fault. He resorted to increasingly tortured logic to justify his position, to the evident exasperation of not just Strenus, but his own security force officers and soldiers.

Through it all, Gilda waited patiently for her chance to speak beside Fortrakt. He had arrived at Nantz’s office thirty minutes after she did, looking a little dazed but far more composed; his chest feathers and belly fur had clearly been hastily washed and groomed to judge by their matting and the smell of soap in the air. She’d greeted him with a sly smile when he arrived, causing him to flush again, if only briefly.

“So nice of you to come, Second Spear,” she told him under her breath in Aeric as Nantz interviewed Tara, watching Dana’s video a second time. “I was beginning to worry you’d fallen in love with your own talons.”

“By the loins of my Ancestors, I swear I’ll get you back for this,” he promised her in a whisper as they sat on the floor behind Tara, waiting to be called upon. “I’m starting to think you like to see me suffer.”

“If I did, you’d still be stuck in that corner. And how are you going to ‘get back’ at me, cub? By making me fall for a human, too?” she snickered. “Good luck.”

When the time finally came to offer up their perspectives, she and Fortrakt were in agreement—Dana needed to be expelled before she caused another human/griffon incident.

“She’s lucky Tara went after her before I did,” Gilda admitted to the Marine officer. “Consider this part of our cultural training, Lieutenant: you don’t insult a griffon to their face unless you fully intend to fight, and you don’t get to back out from that fight without losing all face and honor. Even then, the average griffon would be far more likely to thrash you then let you go.”

“I’ve learned that much, at least,” Nantz granted. “And yet, you did show restraint, Decurion, even in the face of Miss Carraway trying to provoke you. I don’t think she truly understood the danger she was putting herself in.”

“She doesn’t understand anything except her own entitlement,” Tara spoke up from her seat in front of Nantz’s desk; being the one civilian in the room, she didn’t wait to be called upon. “And sorry, but I’m not sorry for disabusing her of it.” She made a fist and wrapped her other set of digits around them to produce another crackling sound, causing Fortrakt’s face to flush slightly and wings to twitch anew.

But this time, he’d relieved enough of his internal tension to not be in danger of uncontrollable arousal, leaving Gilda wondering how long he’d been pent up to react the way he had. Bet he’d been saving himself up for that Talon eagless… she guessed with another grin, intending to tease him further over it later.

The interview with Lieutenant Nantz concluded, they’d ended up having to wait for another hour before Goldberg and Strenus could pull themselves out of a meeting at the palace and return to the Inn, where the interrogation process started all over again. The same individuals were then interviewed in the same order, forcing Gilda and Fortrakt to wait their turn once more.

Finally, after another ninety interminable minutes had passed, Gilda was called upon. Instead of reciting the same events that everyone had already seen from the video, she explained things in terms of griffon culture, emphasizing that what Dana had done was very dangerous in the Kingdom.

That it was very likely to result in an attack regardless of the prohibition against fighting humans, which was designed to prevent challenges to them, but not challenges from them.

“… It is thus my recommendation that for the good of both sides and for the success of the ongoing trade negotiations, Miss Dana Carraway should be expelled from the Kingdom.” Gilda made her statement as wordy as she could, even though she hated the taste of such noncommittal and indirect terms on her tongue.

Speaking her mind had never been a problem, but putting it into properly polite diplomatic terms was; she could only begin to imagine what Rainbow would think if she could hear her now.

“As she has, from all reports, shown no respect to either her hosts or even her fellow guests, it is my considered opinion that the interests of neither side are served by her staying in the Kingdom, where she might potentially cause a far more dangerous diplomatic incident than this one.” In other words, she’s a crow-damned idiot who’s going to get herself or another human killed! Send her home, NOW!

“I see. A very well-reasoned statement, Decurion. And your opinion, Second Spear Gletscher?” Strenus called on Fortrakt next.

“Nothing to add, sir, except that I do not feel that Tara Fields should face any punishment for this incident.”

“And why is that?” an obviously unhappy Goldberg asked as Tara sat quietly behind them.

“Because she responded as any griffon would to such a provocation. I don’t know the standards of human society, but by those of the Kingdom, no crime was committed,” he pointed out. “Miss Carraway insulted not just Miss Fields, but her friends. That would earn an automatic attack from any griffon.”

“He’s right,” Ambassador Strenus confirmed, still swathed in his formal attire of a maroon tunic with cape, though the latter was hourglass-shaped to ensure his wings weren’t covered. “No magistrate here would impose punishment for such a thing, as long as it didn’t escalate past a simple duel to submission.”

Goldberg stared at him. “So you’re saying that griffons can’t take an insult? I have to deal with them all the time back home.”

“We can take one just fine,” Fortrakt answered before Gilda could. “I insult the Decurion here all the time. The difference is, she knows I don’t mean it personally, and we griffons enjoy verbal sparring in order to sharpen our wits as well as our claws.”

“But there’s a difference between friendly banter, and attempts to wound,” Gilda picked up the chain of thought from there. “Miss Carraway clearly meant to wound. She was trying to provoke a reaction that she could then use as grounds to get her fellow civilians expelled. And all because she couldn’t stand that they got to see something before she did,” she added in a tone of contempt, her eyes narrowing.

Goldberg shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I admit her actions were ill-thought and unhelpful. But nevertheless, we do not equate words with attacks in our society.”

“Bullshit,” Nantz said under his breath, leaving Gilda wondering why humans had made cursewords out of so many different sources of excrement.

And this time, from a bull? What, do humans have Minotaurs in their world, too?

He didn’t speak quietly enough that Goldberg didn’t hear him, as the human ambassador turned to glare. “That will do, Lieutenant. Regardless of your feelings on the matter, I expect you to show due restraint, as should my entire security force.”

“With respect, Ambassador, we’ve already told you that she’s insulting my Marines, too,” Nantz replied shortly. “With great and infuriating regularity, according to my subordinates. And near as we can tell, she does so in front of others—including griffons—for no other reason than to show that she can.”

“Sticks and stones, Lieutenant Nantz,” Goldberg replied, leaving Gilda no idea what that particular idiom was supposed to mean. “Regardless of what she may have said, she has neither disrupted your duties nor these negotiations. Just because you don’t like her is not grounds to expel her.”

Gilda had the thought that he should apply that logic to his dislike of Marco, given how hard he tried to pressure her to recommend his expulsion earlier, but she held her tongue as the humans argued.

“It has nothing to do with me not liking her, sir,” Nantz said in strained patience, standing at bipedal attention before the Ambassadors. “It has everything to do with her attempting to cause trouble wherever she goes and believing herself above the rules. And as for not disrupting negotiations, I would think that insulting our griffon escorts would also be seen as an insult to our griffon hosts… sir.”

“The Lieutenant is correct,” Strenus spoke up. “An assault on our soldiers, whether verbal or overt, is taken as an assault on the Kingdom as a whole. And refusing to hold her to account would be taken as… what is the Equish phrase? Insult to injury. Our negotiations would not be able to proceed.”

Goldberg looked up at him in surprise. “You would seriously terminate our negotiations over one minor incident involving a single civilian observer? And just when we’re starting to make progress?”

“Yes. Because Miss Carraway has severely and repeatedly slandered not only her fellow civilians, but spoke contemptuously towards her griffon escorts. As the Second Spear has already said, insulting one’s appearance, standing and masculinity are fighting words and instant grounds for a duel in the Griffon Kingdom, Ambassador Goldberg,” Strenus explained patiently to his human counterpart.

“We do not look kindly on those who insult our soldiers or abuse our hospitality, and I am honestly surprised that you would not recognize this. Or make excuses for her behavior.”

Goldberg was clearly not happy at the bind he was being placed in, for which Gilda had no sympathy. “I understand your concerns, Ambassador. But please understand in return that her father has a certain… influence… with our current political leadership. If I send her back, they are very likely to recall me. And dismiss me.”

“And if she stays, she may well get your entire delegation expelled,” Strenus replied evenly. “How would that look to your leadership if you not only return with no treaty, but a newly hostile nation because you refused to hold your own to account?”

“That would be the end of your career as well, Ambassador,” Nantz reminded him. “But then again, if you dismiss Miss Carraway and then return with a treaty, perhaps that would allow you to withstand such pressure as her father could bring. Successfully negotiating the first trade agreement with a non-pony Tellusian race would be a nice feather in your cap, don’t you think?”

“Your opinion is duly noted, Lieutenant. But as you are a soldier and not a diplomat, you have no say in this matter,” Goldberg replied in irritation as he rubbed the sides of his forehead. “So I will thank you to not offer advice unless I ask for it.”

“Ambassador,” Nantz was starting to get angry. “As you say, I am merely the commander of your personal security detachment, so I have no authority over you, and you are free to ignore my advice. But I would also be remiss if I didn’t give it.

“So I’m telling you—again—that Miss Carraway is causing enough trouble that our mission is being put in jeopardy. None of my Marines like her, and you’re risking far worse incidents than what’s already occurred if she stays. She has amply demonstrated that she has no respect for anything, including our objectives here.”

Goldberg sighed and sat back in his chair heavily. Another minute passed before he spoke again. “Very well. It seems I have no choice—for both Miss Carraway and Miss Fields. As the latter assaulted the former, I’ll send her back as well to face charges and be tried under our laws,” he decided without looking up at Tara, making Gilda respect him even less for being unable to say it to her face.

“No!” Fortrakt spoke up sharply before Tara could. “By griffon standards, there was no crime committed! She responded as any griffon would to an assault on her honor and that of her friends!” His vehemence earned a surprised but grateful glance from Tara, who’d looked ready to explode at Goldberg’s statement.

“But she’s not a griffon. And there was no declared duel.” Goldberg pointed out weakly. “Aren’t their rules around that?”

“There are,” Gilda answered, speaking through a clenched beak as the human Ambassador’s arguments got ever more desperate and dweeby. “But she already ran afoul of them by making clear she was trying to avoid one. You don’t get a pass on duel-provoking behavior just because you can’t be made to fight one.”

“But in the eyes of my society, she wasn’t the aggressor—Miss Fields was!” Goldberg pointed directly at Tara, who’d been sitting silently but angrily to that point. “Enough! We’ve wasted far too much time on this, and my decision is final! Both will be expelled, with Miss Fields facing charges of assault.”

“In that case—Ambassador Strenus? I formally request asylum in the Griffon Kingdom,” Tara spoke up for the first time in twenty minutes, causing everyone to look back at her in surprise.

“What?” the human Ambassador’s normally pink cheeks turned very red.

“You heard me. I will not be punished for something no griffon would, especially since Dana was trying to provoke an attack! I simply obliged her, and I’m not sorry.” She crossed her arms and glared at Goldberg. “And you know, Ambassador, you really don’t seem to care about what happens to me as long as you can save your standing back home. But the Kingdom does,” Tara pointed out mildly. “Even my escorts care, so yes—I think I’d much rather stay with them, now.”

“I see…” Strenus considered the request with the barest hint of a smile. “Understand, Miss Fields, that I cannot grant asylum to you myself—only the Queen can. But I will certainly petition her on your behalf.”

“Ambassador! If it would help her case, then I volunteer to appear before the Queen to speak for Miss Fields!” Fortrakt offered eagerly, making Gilda stifle a grimace and then silence him with a glare. Turning to face him, she saw that Tara gave him another surprised look, followed by a slightly more askance one.

You’re such a dweeb, Fortrakt! You know, if she hadn’t figured it out already, she certainly knows you’re interested in her NOW! Gilda didn’t say out loud as she hastily stepped forward.

“My apologies to all present for speaking out of turn. What my junior partner is trying to say is that both he and myself have come to greatly respect Miss Fields. We would thus be willing to submit testimony in support of such a petition, whether that means a written statement or being brought before the Queen directly,” she quickly amended Fortrakt’s offer, just catching Tara’s amazed gaze falling upon her next before she turned back to face the Ambassadors.

Never thought a few years ago that I’d be the one to keep their head while another griffon nearly loses theirs! Or maybe it’s not THAT head that’s speaking for him… she stifled the passing thought.

“Noted, Decurion. You may certainly sign your names to her petition, but I do not think a personal appearance will be necessary,” Strenus said diplomatically despite the annoyance in his eyes, leaving Gilda guessing that he was thinking—as she did—that Fortrakt was not the best candidate to be brought into the Queen’s court.

“But… but she can’t ask for asylum!Do you know how that would look back home?” Goldberg sputtered.

“That is not my concern,” Strenus answered shortly; Gilda noted that even his patience seemed severely strained at that moment over his human counterpart’s intransigence. “I represent the interests of the Griffon Kingdom, and I expect you, in turn, to represent the interests of your nation—not a lesser official to your leadership, his daughter, or your own standing. So since you seem unable to do so, let me put it simply, Ambassador:

“If you wish our trade negotiations to not only proceed, but succeed, then you must remove Dana Carraway from the Kingdom forthwith while allowing Tara Fields to stay. If you are not willing to honor us by respecting our rules and reciprocating our hospitality—rules that Miss Fields did not break but Miss Carraway certainly did—then in the eyes of not just the Queen but the entire Griffon Kingdom, you will not be worth an agreement. Or analliance.”

Goldberg sat back heavily again, his expression that of a caged and cornered animal. “This is not an easy choice…”

“Actually, it’s a very easy choice, Ambassador,” Nantz said mildly, crossing his arms. “So with all due respect, kindly grow a pair and send Miss Carraway home… sir.”

* * * * *

With those words, the two Ambassadors dismissed everyone to continue to talk privately, with Dana released to the custody of Gilda and Fortrakt pending the decision reached. They were told to keep her in her suite, though, where Tara exchanged hugs with her friends. She took pains to also thank Gilda and Fortrakt for speaking up so forcefully for her as well.

“I’d hug you both if I wasn’t afraid of touching something I shouldn’t,” she told them with a slightly anxious smile; Gilda wasn’t sure if she noticed the fierce blush erupting on Fortrakt’s cheeks again. She could tell how badly he wanted to accept the offer, but he declined, saying he wouldn’t celebrate or accept any thanks until it was certain she could stay.

Or did he turn it down because he’s afraid of getting turned on again if she touches him? Gilda wondered as they ate a light lunch of a few sausage slices and salad greens again, though she quickly found that everycreature was too nervous to eat much. In truth, Gilda wasn’t sure why she felt so anxious over Tara’s fate, given she didn’t have the emotional attachments to her that the others did.

Then again, maybe now I do? The more Gilda thought about it, the more she realized that after several days around the human female, she genuinely did like her, finding that Tara compared favorably to Rainbow’s best qualities but without her worst faults.

To her surprise, she felt an increasing affinity and even some feelings of friendship for her, conceding somewhat grudgingly that maybe Fortrakt had good taste in females after all.

At least in terms of personality and general character traits, she hastily amended her thought, uncertain how Fortrakt believed his interest could be returned by Tara given the obvious compatibility issues.

I mean, never mind a mating round, but how could he even rut her, given she seems to have such a fragile form...?

After another long but interminable wait, the decision came down mid-afternoon, delivered in person by an elated Lieutenant Nantz—Dana Carraway was leaving the Kingdom. Despite that, Gilda was somewhat disgusted to learn that Strenus gave Goldberg cover by getting him a signed and sealed expulsion order for Dana from Queen Molyneux herself, leaving him no choice but to act on it if he was to continue his trade mission.

Nor could Goldberg touch Tara, as the Queen also granted her asylum request “for acting as any honorable Gryphon would in defense of her friends and hosts,” meaning Tara was released from house arrest; free to come and go as she pleased. The Queen’s proclamation was then read by Nantz aloud to the off-duty Marines in their recreation room, who whooped and cheered loudly, exchanging what for ponies would have been a series of high-hooves.

Several then asked to shake Tara’s hand for ‘decking’ Dana, which she obliged; one low-ranked Marine even jokingly fell to one knee like she was royalty and asked her to marry him!

Gilda had to restrain Fortrakt from stepping forward in immediate challenge at the display, grabbing the rear of his pauldron straps to yank him back. “He’s joking,” she informed him in Aeric forcefully, and Tara’s unoffended reaction confirmed it.

“Sorry, Private, but I’m already wedded to my work,” she told him in amusement, then glanced over her shoulder at Gilda and Fortrakt. “And I’m starting to think I might have another suitor, anyway…” she added under her breath just loud enough for Gilda and Fortrakt to hear; whether she meant to be overheard or not, Gilda turned to see Fortrakt cringe and flush anew.

“So, is the round with that Talon eagless officially off?” Gilda asked him in Aeric with a sly smile as Tara accepted an offer to take pictures with the Marines.

“It just might be…” he admitted as he sat back heavily, his expression a mixture of hope and dread. But before Gilda could say anything else, the Marines invited them, Chris and Marco into the picture as well. They asked them to bracket Tara as her friends and escorts, instructing the two griffons to sit to either side of her in front.

Gilda noted with satisfaction that both Marco and the Marines actually gave her space, with the ones nearest her folding their arms to make sure they didn’t accidentally touch anything untoward. But that didn’t stop Tara from resting a hand on the back of her head as the camera flashed, safely above her flight muscles, and then dropping down to give her and Fortrakt each a sudden and simultaneous hug with her arms to the same area.

“Thank you both,” she told them again as the Marines laughed at their startled reactions; Marco looked equally surprised at the display while Chris just smirked at Fortrakt’s renewed blush. “I don’t know how, but I promise to repay you both for sticking up for me later…”

Tara’s release from custody was accompanied by a massive release of tension from her friends as well.

For as unhappy as they’d been when they woke up, Chris, Tara and Marco were suddenly in far better spirits. Being informed that Tara would be allowed to stay had instantly brightened their mood and outlook, even more than learning of Dana’s ordered expulsion. After waiting for a short but sharp rain shower to pass, they set out again for the markets, seeking the ingredients for whatever their latest culinary concoction was.

But they went only with Fortrakt this time, as Gilda elected to stay behind and work on the notes she would be using to lecture the Marines and civilians during their upcoming cultural training session. For as much as I’ve teased him today, it wouldn’t be fair to deny Fortrakt some time around Tara, either!

She still had to hammer out the remaining details with Lieutenant Nantz, but it was looking like she would have to give the class no less than three times; once for each of their decade-sized ‘squads’ as they rotated off-duty. And possibly more times than that as different turma-sized ‘platoons’ were rotated into Arnau from their countryside camp.

Join the Auxiliary Guard! Be a proud gryphon and defender of the Kingdom! She recalled an enlistment scroll posted on the recruitment hut as she wrote, reflecting ruefully that it hadn’t mentioned anything about giving classes on basic gryphon societal rules to culturally backwards alien apes.

And on that point, she was beginning to wonder if their ways were already starting to rub off on her.

Normally, I’d be angry at any griffon who touched or hugged me without permission like Tara did, tiercel or eagless, even if it wasn’t in a bad area. So why was it okay from Tara…? She still wasn’t sure.It wasn’t just the human female being superficially similar in temperament to Rainbow, who was even less keen on overt shows of affection than Gilda herself had been as a bad-tempered teenager.

Maybe it’s just that coming from Tara, it felt like genuine affection and didn’t seem like she was taking any sort of liberty? Guess she’s not actually into eaglesses, whether griffon or her own kind. Then again, neither am I! she nodded to herself, some minor experimentation with Rainbow years earlier notwithstanding.

Gilda grimaced at the sudden memory, which was unpleasant to recall on not just one, but two levels. Never mind that I don’t like being reminded of how close we once were, but trying to be intimate that one time just felt really weird and awkward, and neither of us knew what in the crows we were doing anyway.

Maybe we were just too young and inexperienced, but it left a bad taste in our beaks—no pun intended—and the only other time I tried getting it on with an eagless was even worse, she further winced as she continued to write, recalling a rather forced and alcohol-fueled encounter with an eagless mail courier she’d met in Nova Ocelota not long after Rainbow had dumped her, when she was seeking solace from her pain and loneliness.

It had the exact opposite effect, and it was so awkward and unpleasant I had to skip town after. Can’t imagine that it’d be any different for me now, either!

Whatever the answer, by the time she finished her work and returned to the civilian suite close to evening, the three humans and Fortrakt had already returned to the Inn. They had bought an array of goods, most notably a trio of large upside down and freshly killed chickens—not her favorite bird, but one the humans were apparently used to—that Fortrakt and Marco immediately set about to plucking and prepping.

To his credit, Marco was apparently far less squeamish about butchering the birds than his two companions; he did so with gusto and with Chris’s blessing while the latter prepared a pair of what he termed ‘mixes’.

The first was to be a batter made of “flour, plus a little salt, pepper, garlic and paprika,” according to Chris himself, and one was a ‘marinade’ designed to impart flavor to the meat before cooking by soaking it for a set period of time; the pungent and not entirely pleasant odor of vinegar suddenly hung in the air as he prepared it.

“So how are you going to make fried chicken without buttermilk?” Tara asked him, looking over his shoulder with a mug of steaming tea in her hand. “Every recipe I know says you first soak the chicken pieces in it overnight.”

Soak meat… in butter and MILK? Gilda made a face, unable to fathom that such a thing would turn out well. Then again, I couldn’t fathom half of what I’ve seen or done the past few days...

“By going old school,” Chris replied as he uncorked a bottle of Thestral wine and added it to the flour mix, followed by a series of goose egg yolks. “This is an old 18th century recipe I learned from this guy on YouTube. And honestly, it’s some of the best fried chicken I’ve ever had.

“It still does require you to marinade the chicken for a couple hours in citrus juice, vinegar and spices, but we’ll get around that with smaller pieces and cutting into the meat. That’ll expose more surface area to the fluid and speed the absorption process,” he explained as he began to whisk it all together.

“Spoken like a true scientist,” Tara teased him. “Sure I can’t help?”

“Nope! You’re the guest of honor tonight, Tara. So you just sit back and let us take care of everything,” he instructed her with an affectionate clasp of her shoulder, briefly drawing Fortrakt’s envious eyes as he continued to help Marco.

Once Chris was done with it, he poured the rest of the thestral wine into bowls and mugs for everycreature to try. Gilda had personally never understood the allure of the non-sweet wines the bat-ponies brewed, though she granted they were surprisingly smooth and mellow, having just enough alcohol in them to have a calming effect on her while she waited for dinner to be served.

Still prefer pony cider to this, though… she didn’t voice the thought as she inspected the clear and slightly golden liquid in her bowl, eying the keg stamped with the seal of Sweet Apple Acres in a corner which they’d taken out of the closet earlier that afternoon.

Much as I hate to admit it, maybe my tastes still run towards sweet from all my years in Equestria? I blame you, Rainbow! she inwardly groused as she began making some small talk with Tara, finding that after the events of the past day, she wanted to learn more about her.

* * * * *

Though Marco had offered to show her and Fortrakt some additional ‘videos’ while they were waiting for dinner to be served, Gilda found that she was too interested in the unusual cooking process for the vinegar-and-citrus-soaked chicken pieces to be distracted.

While Fortrakt helped Marco make a pair of side dishes that seemed to involve boar meat, eggs, and some crispy noodles as well as an array of minor vegetables, she watched closely as Chris continued the chicken preparation.

After being chopped up and spending half an hour soaking in the ‘marinade’, as Chris called it, he melted an entire large block of lard into the cooking pan until it formed a clear and bubbling pool at its bottom. He checked the temperature of the melted fat repeatedly with an odd device, nodding in satisfaction when it reached his desired heat.

The chicken pieces were then removed from the first bowl of liquid, shaken off, and subsequently rolled through the second, which was the consistency and color of slightly thin cake batter and completely coated the meat. It did not look or smell particularly appetizing to her as it was then added to the oil in the pan, hitting with a very loud sizzle and large amount of spatter that caused those nearest to jerk back, including an over-curious Fortrakt.

The meat was fried in batches, first on one side and then the other, before being transferred to a rack away from the heat to drain the fat. To her surprise, the smell of cooking chicken had been undeniably tempting despite the odd and unappetizing array of ingredients used.

They combined with the hot lard to produce an undeniably appealing aroma, and Fortrakt agreed, judging by the way he kept sniffing the air and hovering dangerously close to the pan. The finished product looked like no chicken or cooked meat she’d ever seen, with the batter turning golden brown and very crispy; nothing at all like the state it had initially entered the oil.

But even then, it wasn’t enough for Chris. As the chicken cooled, he then plucked some sprigs of parsley—an Equestrian garnish Gilda roundly detested for its pungent aroma, unpleasant flavor and ability to taint all that it touched—into the oil as well, frying it for several minutes more.

He then extracted it and crumpled the now-crispy leaves onto the chicken, giving it some greenish flecks, though he did leave a couple pieces clean of it at Gilda’s insistence.

Even the other two humans were skeptical at the treatment, but Chris was insistent that it worked as Marco finished his two side dishes. He used the same hot lard Chris had to fry some batter-dipped hard-boiled eggs, while he also tossed some form of noodles with cooked meat and vegetables—a strange hybrid salad which he then splashed with some form of improvised dressing.

“These are tokneneng and a pork pancit from my homeland. I promise you’ll like them,” Marco informed them with a grin as the plates were finally passed out, with each receiving a single fried goose egg and a serving of his noodle dish as well as two pieces of the strangely cooked bird.

“Cheers, everyone! To friends, old and new!” Chris raised his mug of thestral wine in toast.

The gesture was returned by bowl and mug, and then Gilda, though still very dubious, plucked a single piece of chicken in her talons. She sniffed at it several times before closing her eyes and biting into it with a surprisingly loud crunch.

She’d been prepared to have to force it down, but she paused as the taste and texture hit her, not in disgust but in surprise—it was superb!

That’s the tastiest, juiciest meat I’ve ever HAD! And from FRYING? Gilda still couldn’t believe it as she quickly realized her reaction was shared by Fortrakt, who took a small bite, blinked, and then took a much larger one, staring at the piece he held in pure wonderment.

“By the Ancestors, that’s…” the rest went unspoken because his beak was shortly full and expression blissful as their human hosts laughed.

* * * * *

Half an hour later, Fortrakt sat back heavily, wearing an expression of pure contentment as he licked his talons clean of chicken-flavored cooking grease. “By the Ancestors, that was amazing! I never knew frying meat or eggs could taste so good…” he granted with an affectionate pat of his belly, only to abruptly belch out his beak. “Sorry…”

“Yeah, well, it’s good, but it’s also about the unhealthiest way you could cook something, so it’s just an occasional thing for us,” Chris told him with a grin as he cooked the last chicken in the remaining lard, which was reserved for an expected visit from Sergeant Reyes later. “Maybe we’ll try feeding you two a properly seared and seasoned steak next time. If we can find a good analog meat for it, anyway.”

“And for dessert… the best of both worlds!” Marco put a plate of varied griffon pastries followed by the cider keg on the table. He then yanked a protruding cloth tab from the keg bottom, causing a muffled splash and boiling sound. “This is what we’re promised is the ‘best dang cider in all Equestria!’” he affected a familiar accent that immediately gave Gilda a series of very unpleasant flashbacks.

“Thanks, but I think I’ve had enough alcohol,” Tara demurred as she patted her lips with a cloth napkin from beside Gilda. “I now stick to a strict two-drink limit, given what you may recall happened the last time I exceeded it?” She grimaced, and Gilda caught winces from Chris and Marco as well.

“It’s okay, Tara. This isn’t hard cider. You weren’t there, but the mare we got the keg from said this was their best non-alcoholic and ‘non-special’ brew—whatever the hell that last part means,” Marco said with a shrug as he picked it up to rotate it so the sealed tap was facing outwards.

“Not special? But the keg says that it’s their ‘special reserve’,” Tara pointed out with a soft talon aimed at the stylized Equish letters burned into the barrel.

“It does? Huh, I don’t remember seeing that before, but I guess I wasn’t looking, either.” Marco shrugged. “Chris and I initially wanted their hard cider. But when I told her where we were going to take it, she said that griffon customs wouldn’t let their alcoholic or ‘special’ cider into the Kingdom—something about an unfair trade advantage or running afoul of ‘really dumb rules about certain ingredients’.”

“She’s right,” Fortrakt confirmed. “The Kingdom tends to impose tariffs or outright bans of certain pony products, especially alcoholic ones, in order to protect local distilleries and Caleponian produce prices.

“The reason is that the ponies can generally make them much more cheaply and quickly than we can,” he further explained, leaving Gilda guessing that the reason he could recite that so easily was that his clan was heavily involved in cross-ocean trade with Equestria.

“Really? Had no idea. So anyway, she gave us this keg instead, which she promised was their best non-alcoholic brew.” Marco shrugged. “Seems stupid given we could spike it ourselves, but there you are. She also said to drink it hot, and that pulling the strip would activate a mulling crystal at the bottom of the keg, there. Said it would heat it up and really enhance the spices.”

Gilda thought about asking them about the mare, but then thought better of it as steam began to seep out around the seams of the barrel. If It’s who I think, then I REALLY don’t want to know…

“Well, it certainly smells good…” Fortrakt granted as his nose twitched, and even Gilda was surprised to find the aroma alluring. “Though it does seem a little pointless if there’s no alcohol.”

“Like I said, we could always spike it!” Marco suggested with a smile, holding up and waving his flask of buffalo whiskey, to which Fortrakt’s green eyes lit up. “You had trouble drinking this straight, but how about diluted?”

“Yes! Definitely!” Fortrakt nodded eagerly, waiting for Marco to break the seal on the keg tap. He did so with a flourish, sending a stream of brown liquid into Fortrakt’s drink bowl.

“Before adding any liquor, better try it first, Fortrakt. Make sure that mare didn’t lie just to sneak it through customs,” Gilda told him, as despite her pretensions of honesty, she didn’t trust any of Rainbow’s friends.

“Yes, sir,” he groused, but obeyed, taking a long sniff of the steaming liquid before dipping his beak in. “Whoa… I don’t taste any alcohol, but even straight from the tap, it’s really good! Some nice spices and bite, and whoever that mare was, she’s right—it’s better heated. Try some, Decurion!” he implored her.

“Fine, whatever,” Gilda said a little more shortly than she meant to, not wanting to give any credit to a friend of Rainbow. But once a second bowl was poured for her, she took a sip and blinked. “Huh. Not what I was expecting.”

“That’s Gilda-speak for ‘I like it’,” Fortrakt teased, earning a glower.

“Well, if even Miss-Call-Me-Decurion likes it...” Marco rejoined with a grin as he filled a mug for himself, taking his first sip and then staring down at it in surprise.

“Grabe! That mare wasn’t lying. I think that’s the best cider I’ve ever had, hard or otherwise. I’m not sure what’s in it, but it’s got enough flavor and crispness that I don’t think it needs anything else!” He decided as he put his flask away, pouring out mugs for Tara and Chris in turn.

“Cheers, folks.” He said as he served them. Chris tried his mug first, sniffing at it with his prominent nose before taking a long draw on it.

“You’re right. That’s damned good,” he granted as he put the mug to the side to continue cleaning. “Okay, we’ve had our dinner, and now we have our dessert and cider. So, what are we going to do for a movie tonight?” he wondered aloud as he started on the final set of dishes.

Marco downed his entire mug and began to refill it before answering; Gilda wasn’t sure in the light of the still-flickering cooking fire given his darker skin, but it looked like there was a slight flush to his cheeks.

“Well, we could do another action flick with swordplay, like was suggested yesterday. But you know what? I think Dana’s expulsion calls for a very special celebration. Since it’s only us adults here, I could always show our guests some very hot X-rated action! Maybe even some high-quality hentai!” he suggested with a lopsided grin.

Tara looked up at him sharply from where she’d been eating a pastry, her cider mug still untouched. “Are you crazy? We are not showing them porn, Marco!”

“Porn?” Fortrakt echoed in some confusion, looking up from his bowl. “You used that word before. What does it—?”

“He means he could show you and Gilda movies centered around humans having sex.” Tara rolled her eyes, causing Fortrakt’s to go wide in turn. “Just take my advice—don’t. I don’t know what stuff he has, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.”

“Hey, come on girl! If you’re worried about quality, I don’t do skanky! I’ll have you know that my stuff is nothing but the finest of filth!” Marco announced grandly, tapping on the lower half of his device as Tara just rolled her eyes again.

“Knowing some of what you like, that doesn’t exactly fill me with faith, Marco,” she said dryly as she picked up her own mug for the first time and took a large gulp, blinking once. “Wow. You guys weren’t kidding. That’s really good…”

Chris turned to Gilda from the sink, caught her eye and winked. “Well, I think it’s a good idea, Tara—since we’re receiving cultural training from our hosts, it’s only fair that they get some in return! I’m sure it would be very educational to them!

“No doubt a strapping young soldier like Fortrakt here wouldn’t mind seeing what a naked human female looks like, or the many ways they can mate!” he suggested with a second wink at Gilda, who gave him an evil grin back.

“Uh…” Fortrakt blushed hard and nearly dropped his bowl, earning a stifled snicker from Gilda and a facepalm from Tara. “Th-thanks, but I’ll pass. I really don’t think I’d be comfortable with that,” he explained awkwardly, fidgeting slightly as he gave another furtive glance towards Tara, followed by a far more pleading look towards Gilda.

Her smile grew at his reaction. She was sorely tempted to announce they would watch whatever ‘porn’ the brown-skinned human had, just to see her junior partner squirm and perhaps even be forced to hide his hindquarters again. But that would mean she would have to watch it as well, and she couldn’t fathom that she would find the sight of furless apes rutting even remotely titillating. Or anything other than incredibly uncomfortable to outright nauseating.

Thus, she gave the response that Fortrakt was praying for. “All joking aside, I’ll pass as well,” Gilda confirmed. “With apologies, you’ll understand that there are certain things I really don’t care to see.”

“Well said, girlfriend.” Tara smiled and offered her a fistbump with her blunt talons. Gilda returned the smile and gesture, recognizing the odd title as a term of endearment. “The more I know you, the more I like you.” The human woman tipped her mug to Gilda in respect, and then brought it up to her mouth.

“Likewise, Tara. It’s good to know somecreature—er, somebody—does,” she quickly corrected her sentence to the preferred human usage; her thoughts going back to Rainbow yet again as she dipped her beak into her bowl a second time. Tara, Gilda had already noted before, had some characteristics in common with her former friend, including a take-no-guff attitude as well as a certain assertiveness she very much respected.

But unlike Rainbow, she stood by her friends through calm and gale, even when they screwed up. By her own statement, she’d taken it upon herself to beat up Dana to make sure that her friends wouldn’t bear any blame for it—to make sure that only she would get punished, and not them.

Huh. You know, I guess I really do understand Fortrakt’s attraction to her, Gilda granted with her thoughts as her tongue licked out to clean the cider from her beak. She’s not only got the mindset of an eagless, but she’s the kind of friend that Rainbow SHOULD have been… “For what it’s worth, Tara, I think you’d make a very good griffon.”

“So I’m now an honorary eagless? I’m flattered,” she said with a smile and a nod of respect. “Wait—does that mean I have to walk on all fours now?”

“And be naked, too,” Marco reminded her with a wink, earning a return look from Tara that was, to Gilda’s eyes, equal parts annoyed and amused. “Come on, Tara—you’ve been granted asylum in the Kingdom, remember? Well, since you’re now an honorary griffon, it’s time to start acting like one!”

Though Gilda would have taken offense, Tara’s reaction was far more tolerant. “So now you want live porn? Then you’re going to have to offer me something a lot stronger than cider, Marco,” she informed him as she took another long draw on her mug. “And quite frankly, I don’t think the Decurion here cares to see it.”

“You got that right,” Gilda confirmed with a roll of her eyes as she took another drink of her own. She glanced over to Fortrakt, noting he was now listening to the conversation with very keen interest; she gave him a glare to make sure he didn’t speak whatever heady thoughts he was suddenly having.

“So that’s a no to human porn from you, too? It hardly seems fair, Gilda,” Marco addressed her as he finished off his second mug of cider. “I mean, we get to see you guys naked all the time, but you still haven’t seen us unclothed!”

“Then feel free to strip down right here, Marco.” Tara instantly turned the tease back on him before Gilda could think of a retort, holding up her smaller rectangle to record him as Dana had done earlier that morning. “Go on. I’m sure all our friends back home could use a good laugh! By the time we go back through the portal, we’ll have an entire playlist of your escapades in Equestria… and now here!”

“Et tu, Tara?” Marco made a show of putting on a pouting look, causing Gilda to blink again at the casual use of an Aeric phrase. “Mocking me again! Are you sure you’re not secretly Dana in disguise?” He raised a foreleg to his head in a manner reminiscent of one of Rainbow’s only slightly-less-dweeby friends.

In response, she gave him a level look over her second mug of hot cider; to Gilda’s eyes, there seemed to be a beginning of a flush on her pale cheeks as well. “I’ll put it this way, Marco—I know Dana was wrong about your ‘flip-boy dick’ being unable to satisfy.” Her arched eyeridge quickly gave way to a sultry gleam. “I may not remember much else about that night, but I do remember that. So, feel free to show us all.”

“Don’t tempt me, girl,” Marco motioned with a hand down his body, turning as if to present himself in offering. “Or tempt yourself!”

“Uh, do you two need a room?” Chris asked mildly, though there was also a sudden edge to his voice. “Or just a lot of liquor again? You may not remember everything that happened that night, but I sure do! I had to clean up after both of you when you got sick, and then get you over the hangovers after!”

“No,” they both answered with a sudden chagrined air and an accompanying grimace. “We learned our lesson, Chris.” Tara added.

“I should hope so,” he replied mildly. “Because that was nearly the end of our team and our friendships.”

“Wait—Tara? You mean… you and Marco?” Fortrakt reached the same uncomfortable conclusion that Gilda did, with the latter instantly lowering her opinion of the two humans by several notches.

I thought Tara had taste. But to be with HIM? She wasn’t sure why she felt a sudden sense of envy to go along with her disdain.

“Trust me, my griffon friend, we’re not proud,” Marco replied ruefully.

“It was a drunken fling nearly a year ago, following a celebration over Marco getting his citizenship,” Tara said shortly, rubbing her forehead at the memory. “It should never have happened, but one thing led to another—or more correctly, one drink led to another—and we both deeply regretted it the next day.”

“Why? He wasn’t any good?” Gilda wasn’t sure why she had voiced her guess out loud.

“Gilda!” Fortrakt exclaimed, but Tara answered anyway.

“He was fine, at least from what I can remember. I know I enjoyed it while it happened. But I did not enjoy what came after.” She rubbed her eyes again, taking another long draw on her cider as if to fortify herself.

“You said it. The physical hangover from all the liquor we had was bad enough. The emotional hangover was worse,” Marco confirmed, taking another hard swallow of his own. “No joke—it felt like a knife to the stomach after. We couldn’t be around each other for the next week, and it was hard to even look at each other for the next month. We nearly had to stop seeing each other entirely after that.”

“That bad, huh…?” Fortrakt asked; Gilda recognized that he was trying very hard to sound casual.

“Like Chris says, it nearly cost us our friendship, and it took time to overcome. We eventually just decided to treat it as a one-time thing, and to never do it again,” Tara explained. “We may still tease each other over it, but that’s more to say we’re okay with it now rather than that we want to do it again. Believe me, we learned our lesson. In the end, we—by which I mean all three of us—make much better friends than lovers.”

“You said it,” Marco agreed, clicking his mug gently to hers like a fistbump. “Though in fairness, I haven’t been with anyone else since then… well, except my porn,” he mused, and this time, it was definite to Gilda—he was getting a flush on his cheeks.

“TMI, Marco,” Tara said with another roll of her eyes. “Why did we start talking about this again?”

“Because you said my ‘flip-boy dick’ was good enough for you,” an unrepentant Marco reminded her with a twinkle. “You started it, girl.”

“Then I’m finishing it,” she replied coolly, though the sultry gleam in her gaze didn’t quite disappear. “I think we’re making our guests and Chris uncomfortable, so let’s stop talking about it.”

“Yes. Let’s,” Chris said shortly before Gilda could, throwing back the remainder of his mug for emphasis. “You two at least have some pleasant memories of that night. For what you put me through, I don’t have any.”

“No, it’s okay…” Fortrakt was processing all he heard with some difficulty, struck speechless by the revelation.

Watching him carefully as he hurriedly gulped down the contents of his bowl and then went for a refill, Gilda found she was relieved that he was so dweeby. For a more aggressive tiercel might have issued an immediate challenge upon learning that a friend had bedded an eagless he now desired, whether there was a prohibition against fighting humans or not.

“One question, though, and I’m sorry if it’s a stupid one—what does ‘flip-boy’ mean? I mean, it seems like everybody keeps calling you that, Marco…” Fortrakt then asked, surprising Gilda when he got the usage of everybody right the first time.

All three humans exchanged glances again before Marco answered. “It loosely means ‘Filipino boy’—I’m a Filipino, as I come from an island nation called the Philippines.”

“The Philippines…” Fortrakt repeated, while Gilda tried to remember why the name was vaguely familiar. “That’s near where the portal to your world opened, right?” she was instantly reminded.

“Yes. But the point is, there are certain… connotations to that term that aren’t nice. Understand, I don’t mind hearing it from the Marines or Tara here, because from them, it’s meant affectionately. But coming from Dana… it was a slur,” he explained through narrowed eyes; Gilda had the distinct impression that if he had a tail, it would have lashed.

“A slur? Like some ponies calling us ‘chickenhawks’?” Fortrakt guessed as he started into his second bowl of cider.

“Yeah. And if you want to know what she meant by ‘flip-boy dick’, there’s a certain stereotype about people from my region having a small… you know.” He growled, motioning down his body again.

“Which he doesn’t,” Tara replied emphatically, leaning back against a wall.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Gilda replied evenly, quickly recovering her respect for the human eagless. In truth, she was amazed that Tara had not only remained friends with him after all that, but even felt compelled to defend his masculinity.

She also found that upon reflection, she couldn’t really hold it against them anyway. If she was being fair, such circumstances as they described weren’t unknown in the Kingdom; many were the tales told of rounds and rutting sessions between griffons of much different ranks or stations that should never have happened, but did due to a great deal of inebriation.

Rounds and rutting sessions that tended to be, just like Marco and Tara, deeply regretted after. Crows know I had the same thing happen to me with that Nova Ocelota eagless. What was her name again? Owlia Accipiter…? she recalled with a fresh grimace, suddenly remembering keenly the uncomfortable look on the other female’s face as she realized how inebriated—and utterly inexperienced and emotionally needy—Gilda truly was.

In the end, Gilda was certain Owlia had gone through with it more out of politeness and pity than anything else, with neither of them enjoying it and each making a flimsy excuse to part quickly the following morning.

But that had been in civilian life. When it happened between soldiers in the same chain of command in the griffon military, it often led to both parties being severely disciplined. They were typically docked rank and pay for violating the Kingdom’s strict policies against soldier fraternization, followed by one or both offenders being transferred out for their corrosive effect on morale and obedience to orders.

So I guess I can’t begrudge it, given it happened to me and my reaction was to leave town entirely. Even now, I can only imagine how I’d feel if I woke up in bed with, say, Fortrakt after a drunken roll in the bed straw, let alone with a human. Let alone with MARCO! she could scarcely imagine. Even if he does smell nice, is well-endowed, can cook, and honorably defends his friends…

Gilda blinked hard, startled by the unexpected swing in her thoughts. “So, about this movie you wanted to show us…?” She decided it was best to change the subject, not wanting to think about human mating in general or Marco’s malehood in particular any more than she had to. How did we get on these topics again? she wonderedas she finished off her first bowl of cider and passed it to Tara to refill.

“Oh, right! You said you had movies with swordplay, Marco? Well, I’d like to see one!” a relieved Fortrakt requested eagerly, apparently satisfied that Marco was no threat to his interest in Tara.

Marco looked only too happy to oblige him. “Your wish is my command, my griffon friend! So, let’s see… swordplay…” he mused mostly to himself as he sat down at the desk in front of his glowing window, beginning to make a series of swiping motions with a finger against the surface.

“Well, as previously offered, there’s The Princess Bride, though that’s as much a comedy as an adventure. There’s also the Lord of the Rings series, which has tons of sword battles, and then there’s Gladiator, Braveheart, The Last Samurai, The 13th Warrior, 300… or for a more modern look, maybe the Kill Bill movies?”

“Scratch Samurai, and Kill Bill,” Chris spoke up immediately as he finished cleaning up and closed the cabinet on the scrubbed and dried dishes. “We can’t show them those.”

“We can’t? What do you mean we—?” Marco trailed off as Chris made an odd gesture with a hand, curling most of it into a fist except for his opposable talon and the one next to it, which he kept extended and pointed forward as he raised it to point at Marco, then twitched it sharply upwards. Understanding then dawned on the brown-skinned human’s face. “Oh, right. The rules.”

“Rules?” Fortrakt said in confusion, having no more idea what the gesture meant than Gilda.

Marco, Chris and Tara all looked at each other. It was the latter who spoke first. “There are certain things we’re not allowed to show you,” she explained carefully. “Not by our choice, but it was one of the conditions we agreed to in order to come here. To be honest, they would probably have banned Marco from bringing his movie collection if they knew what was in it. And looking back, we were skirting the rules just by showing you Warrior.”

“I don’t see why. I mean, they didn’t actually—"

“Marco!” Chris and Tara snapped before he could complete his sentence, causing him to blink.

“Right. Sorry. Guess I’m not thinking clearly.”

“There’s a first,” Tara teased, earning a snicker and fistbump from Gilda.

“Fuck you too, Tara,” Marco rejoined in a far more playful tone than Dana had used when speaking that phrase; Gilda had guessed by then that fuck was a rather severe human oath involving a very coarse and vulgar term for rutting. “Oh, wait—I already did!”

He gave her the same suggestive thrust of his hips he had when Gilda first saw him outside the air carriage the day of their arrival—had that really been nearly a week ago? It seemed like a small eternity since then—but this time, she found herself at least somewhat less offended by it, now that she knew him and the circumstances behind it better.

“Down, boy,” Tara replied with a waggle of an extended blunt talon. “Don’t make me get out the squirt bottle.”

“Squirt bottle? With the way this conversation’s been going, we need a fire hose!” Chris replied acidly. “What is with you two? Will you please get off it? I am not going through that again!” he downed the remaining half of his cider mug and then pointedly stepped between them to refill it.

“Seconded,” Gilda quickly concurred. “As amusing as this has been, I think Fortrakt and I have heard enough.”

“Right,” Tara agreed, sitting down on a low lounge sofa beside a discomfited Fortrakt. “Sorry, guys. Not sure where all that came from.”

Despite the latest exchange, which resulted in a renewed flush on Fortrakt’s cheeks, Gilda’s interest was piqued—from what they were saying, there were things the humans didn’t want griffons to see?

But what would those be? Less desirable parts of their society? Then she remembered that Fortrakt had said the Marines told him they weren’t allowed to discuss their weapons with him. Could this restriction have something to do with that?

If so, it could only mean there would be something in the mentioned movies that might indicate what those weapons actually were, and how they worked. But why bother if they’re just blunt weapons like we guessed? Unless…

She realized two things at that moment as she took another swallow of cider. First, that there was really only one possible reason for it—a reason that would likely upend all their earlier assumptions—and second, that the humans were likely playing the same spying game with the Kingdom as the Council of Crows was doing with them.

Guess I didn’t give them enough credit, and neither did the Kingdom. They’re definitely not as dweeby as they first seem… she somewhat grudgingly conceded as she licked her beak clean again after her latest dip into her cider bowl, wondering only in passing why the edges of her vision seemed to be turning pink.

It would all be in her next report, but until then, she lounged out and settled into a floor pillow as the projector was readied again. Tara sat to her right, while Fortrakt—once he determined where she was sitting—put Gilda between him and her, sitting to her left. Which Gilda didn’t actually mind, given that he gave her separation from Marco in turn.

“Let’s watch The Princess Bride,” Tara said as the question was posed of which remaining movie to watch. “I think Marco was right when he suggested it yesterday. After how intense the last couple days have been, we could all use some lighter fare. And some serious downtime.”

“Sold,” Chris said as he prepared some popcorn over the embers of the dying fire they’d also imported from Equestria. Once it was ready, he drizzled it with melted butter and salted it before passing it out to everycreature, splitting it into several large bowls to share between them. “Now we’re ready. Marco, will you do the honors?”

“My pleasure,” he said as the firegems were lowered to nearly no illumination. He then made a series of additional taps and motions on the bottom of his clamshell portal device, causing the projector to begin to glow and project an image of what looked like a title page, accompanied by the sound of a coughing cub.

“Enjoy, folks! It’s a family-friendly fantasy adventure with a strong measure of both swordplay and humor. And Chris, could you pour me another mug of cider…?”

Author's Note

And here we go, folks. This is the lead-in to the coming M-rated side story, which both my muse and all my prereaders seem to demand that I work on next. Those of you who have followed my other stories, including The Lawyer and The Unicorn and Nightmare Night, have probably already figured out what's in that cider, and what effects it has. Indeed, as the last section has probably made clear, it's already begun to take hold!

I'll spoiler the synopsis for those who don't want to know. Lest anyone thinks I'm being unoriginal, it's the origin and purpose of the cider that's the surprise. I'll simply say up front that the keg they currently possess is not the one AJ sold to them. :ajbemused:

Suffice to say, there's some major intrigue at play here, which will be important going forward. Due to the side effects of the special reserve cider, the events of the coming night will not be remembered much, if at all, by our Feathered Hearts Fivesome, which will enable the main story to proceed more or less normally—until, that is, much later in the tale. Events that will be explored fully in the first arc of coming side story, which will be tentatively (but I think appropriately) titled Feathered Hearts: Eros.

I've already told my side story plans to my prereaders to their acclaim, but with apologies, the rest of you will have to wait. :twilightsmile: I intend to release the side story along with the next regular story chapter to provide a gateway to it, as you'll get to see the immediate aftermath of that night, and then can go back and find out what led to it.

In the meantime, hope you enjoyed this chapter! Thanks as always go to AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire, and Silverblade5 for delivering very prompt prereads and a number of comments/suggestions/corrections. You guys were pretty enthusiastic about this one, and it showed!

9: Intrigue and Aftermath

Author's Note

Well, folks... this chapter has been ready for a couple weeks, but I was saving it for the side story launch. If you want to know what happened after the last chapter and before this one, which takes place a couple days later, come check out the newly published adult action of Feathered Hearts: Eros:

[Adult story embed hidden]

For those of who haven't heard, that's the M-rated side story I've spent the past six weeks writing for Feathered Hearts! You'll find tons of varied erotic action, and if you're not interested in clop, there's also plenty of worldbuilding and some interesting information about all our favorite characters as well.

If you don't care to read it? Then you don't have to. I'm writing this such that the side story, though canon to the main story, is a self-contained entity only barely remembered here... for now. This chapter describes the aftermath of it, and just how those events happened.

For anyone who thinks I just shoehorned it in, be assured I didn't. :twilightsmile: Intrigue is afoot, and what happened was not only anything but a natural occurrence, but there were some not-so-nice motives in bringing the events of the side story about. Events that didn't work out the way the perpetrators hoped. This chapter will show how the side story happened and why, including who did it and what was intended to occur. :rainbowdetermined2:

There is no sex here, but there are some suggestions of what *might* have happened in the side story. If you want to know the true events? You know where to go! :rainbowwild:

Thanks go to AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire and Silverblade5 for the prereads. This chapter was very popular with them, and I hope with all of you! Read and enjoy, both this and the side story!

—Firesight

9: Intrigue and Aftermath

“Ugh…” Gilda moaned as her gold eyes fluttered open, only to quickly snap shut again at the painful level of light in the room. She felt both chilled and feverish at the same time as a shiver of cold passed through her body, even under whatever blanket she lay beneath. “Where am I…?”

“Easy there, Decurion,” a male human voice speaking Equish broke into her thoughts—the Marine healer?—as she felt the blanket being pulled up further over her. “Just lie still. You’re going to be fine.”

“Fine?” Gilda echoed. She sensed something was wrong with her, but she wasn’t sure what; she tried to raise her head only for it to fall back to the pillow beneath it almost instantly, a series of aches and shivers suddenly shooting through her like she’d last felt when she was down hard with the feather flu. “What… happened?” She switched to Equish as well.

“A long story,” Gilda then recognized Tribune Narada’s voice, etched with a rare note of concern. “And one we were hoping you might yet be able to shed some light on. Welcome back, Decurion. You’ve been unconscious for nearly two days now.”

“Two… days?” Gilda said in disbelief through her very pasty beak, trying but failing to pull together her last memories as she struggled to focus her eyes and raise a foreleg. “But why am I…?”

She was finally able to see and immediately wished she couldn't, finding there was a long, thin tube running into her foreleg just above her talons, where her fur had been shaved from a small area. It was thin, clear and flexible, held to her bare skin with some kind of odd adhesive strips. And at the point it met her arm...

A wave of nausea shot through her as she realized what was happening—they were pouring fluid into her body… through a needle in her foreleg!

She had to stifle an abrupt urge to vomit and faint, suddenly feeling in danger of falling right off the low table. “Get… that… thing… out of me!” She tried to reach over to rip it out, only to be firmly restrained by a pair of human hands on her weakened foreleg and torso, which held them fast.

“Lie still!” she was ordered again by the human healer. “I’m sorry, Decurion, but for now, it has to stay. When we found you, you and the others were so badly dehydrated we had to get fluids into you quickly, and then leave them in to keep you hydrated afterwards while you were unconscious,” he explained shortly, not letting go.

“It’s not going to hurt you… unless you rip it out. It’s there for a good reason. If you don’t want to see it, I can hide it, at least.” He began to wrap the area with a soft bandage made of some form of stretchy fabric. “When you feel ready, we can try feeding you some soft foods and fluids, but until you can eat and drink on your own without throwing it back up, the tube stays.”

“Crows take it…” Gilda groused, realizing she was too weak to remove it anyway.

“I thank you for your care of my stricken soldiers, Staff Sergeant Cullen,” Narada acknowledged. “With your permission, I would like to speak with her privately now.”

“I’m afraid I can’t permit that, Tribune,” he replied apologetically. “Orders from the Captain. We are not to allow her or your other soldiers to be interviewed without him present.”

“Then please summon him,” she requested somewhat shortly, not used to having her wishes denied. But the Inn was what amounted to a foreign consulate, and thus, she had no jurisdiction over those inside it—not even her own Auxiliary Guard soldiers. “As well as the Ambassador and Senior Sparrow, if you would.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied to a startled look from Narada. The odd address also caused Gilda to blink as he nodded to a sentry, who pulled out some form of communication device and spoke into it.

Ma’am? Gilda repeated the Equish word, which as far as she knew, was a pony form of address used strictly for female teachers or managers. Never heard it used on a military officer! She could scarcely imagine Narada’s response to being called that by a griffon, imagining latrine duty would be the least of the punishments she would impose.

Several minutes later, Ambassador Strenus entered, followed by another Marine officer—a higher ranked one than Nantz, to judge by the two silver bars on the side of his immaculately creased uniform shirt lapels as opposed to the single silver bar the Lieutenant had. He was wearing the same kind of tool-equipped utility belt seen on the Marine sentries standing at the door of the makeshift infirmary, who were now in what she assumed was full battle armor, armed with the longer black tubes that the ones outside were equipped with.

He was a tall human with fair features and a more weathered face than Nantz, with hair nearly as blonde as Tara’s. He looked a bit more trim in comparison to Nantz’s bulky arms, giving Gilda the impression that the difference between the two physically was somewhat akin to that between Earth and Sky Griffons—one being stronger and the other being swifter.

Her thoughts were cut short as he spotted Narada first and went up to her to introduce himself.

“Greetings, Tribune. I’m Captain Miles Moran, overall commanding officer of the Ambassador’s Marine security forces.” He gave her a human-style salute and then offered his hand for a forearm clasp. “I believe we met once before, on the day of our arrival.”

“Yes, I recall,” Narada replied as she returned the honor and the offered greeting. “I am truly sorry for the circumstances, Captain, though I do thank your soldiers for their professionalism in taking such good care of my griffons. As I’m sure you’re already aware, this is my subordinate, Decurion Grizelda Behertz.” She motioned to where Gilda lay, who turned over just enough to offer a shaky salute, wondering if she’d ever feel anything but weak again.

He returned the salute crisply with a straightened hand and talons held at an angle to his forehead. “A pleasure, Decurion. You have my sympathies and sincerest apologies for what happened. But now that I’m here, I can at least report that on one point, you are very much praiseworthy.”

“Oh?” Narada said with a glance up at him.

“Yes. You will be happy to know, Tribune, that even under the influence of whatever unholy magical cocktail she drank, she was conscientious of her duties, as she took great pains to write a report on… something she learned about us. We found her report scroll on a desk in the civilian suite, carefully rolled up and sealed, awaiting delivery to you.

“With apologies, we had to confiscate that report, as it contained not just some rather... lurid personal perspectives on the events of that night, but what we consider sensitive information.”

“I… did?” Gilda blinked. “Am I really… that dweeby…?”

“I see…” Narada said with the barest hint of a smile. “Well, I think that could be forgiven.”

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Decurion,” Ambassador Strenus greeted her next. “It may interest you to know that Second Spear Gletscher and the three civilian humans are in worse shape than you. You’re only the second to wake up, after First Spear Giraldi.”

“Giraldi?” Gilda blinked hard. “Why is he here?”

Strenus and Narada exchanged a glance. “You don’t remember?”

“No…” She grimaced again, finding the effort to recall the night’s events painful as well as unfruitful. “Should I?”

“Before I answer, what do you last remember?” Narada asked her carefully.

“Uh…” Gilda struggled for a second time to focus through the chills, pain and pastiness she felt, but to little avail. She could recall dinner, the keg of cider, some teasing of Fortrakt—had he gotten excited and accidentally exposed himself? Or had she just imagined it?—and the first part of some dweeby movie for human cubs. But after that…

“We had dinner and were going to watch a movie… wait. Did Giraldi come by?” she seemed to vaguely recall. “I think I remember seeing him… and Lieutenant Nantz…”

“And Merlina Marcus?” the Captain broke in with a sudden edge to his voice. “The Innkeeper’s daughter?”

“Uh…” Gilda’s eyes squinted painfully again, finding her headache worsening as she tried to focus through her pain and the foggy haze that surrounded that night. “I think so… she was with… Nantz?”

“You could say that.” The human officer visibly winced at the term she used. “Anything else?”

“No…” she admitted at some length, finding her memories simply disappeared into a deepening pink haze the further into the night she probed, as if gradually enveloped by a thick Loondon fog. “What… happened?”

“This happened,” the human healer replied, holding up what looked like a wooden barrel rib from a keg. “The cider you drank.”

“Cider?” Gilda echoed uncomprehendingly. “But it wasn’t—”

“It wasn’t alcoholic, no. But it was made from zap apples,” Strenus informed her, causing Gilda’s eyes to go wide. “I assume from your time in Equestria that you know its effects well.”

Gilda blinked and groaned as suddenly much became clear. “So that’s what the pink in my vision was…” she belatedly realized, then recalled its effects on everycreature. “Ancestors above, do I… want to know what I did?”

“I’m afraid we can’t say,” Narada said shortly. “You and Fortrakt were seen leaving the human suite late that night by Marine sentries, who said you appeared quite inebriated and were ‘slobbering over each other’ like you were going to rut. We then found you late the next morning after failing to report for duty, passed out in a pile with each other in the Second Spear’s room.”

Gilda had to stifle a renewed urge to vomit up the nonexistent contents of her empty stomach, and not just from the needle in her arm. “Please don’t tell me I rutted Fortrakt! Ancestors above, he’s… way too dweeby for me…” She coughed hard at the end of her statement, to which the human healer offered her a bowl of cool water.

“Good to see the Gilda we know and love is still there, Decurion,” Narada said with a hint of a smile as Gilda tried to drink from the bowl. She managed a single sip of water with some difficulty, but found her stomach turning over from even that minor amount of liquid.

“We don’t know what happened between you two. But we do know what happened to you,” Strenus answered carefully after a glance at Narada. “The Council of Crows analyzed the cider you drank, and found it was not only made with zap apples, but also spiked with a potent Equestrian aphrodisiac potion the ponies call ‘Fruitful Fields’,” he informed her.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but it’s a strictly regulated prescription magic used by pony herds to increase fertility and interest during estrus, to be used only by herds whose mares are having trouble bearing foals. It’s designed to be equally effective on both genders to facilitate mating for those who want to conceive, and it even works well on humans, it seems. It's available through the Kingdom’s pharmacies for limited use by the Caleponians.”

Gilda was aghast. “Chris, Tara and Marco… fed us that?”

“Don’t blame them. There’s no way they could have either obtained such a potion or added it to a sealed cider barrel themselves. So somecreature else must have done it,” Strenus replied angrily. “Typically, only small doses of that potion are prescribed, given its potency and highly addictive nature. But what all of you got was a lot more than small.”

“And worse, its effects were then redoubled by the zap apples, which are known to catalyze and boost all forms of magic, including spellcasting and alchemy,” Narada finished. “The effects in this instance… I’m sure you can well imagine.”

“I don’t have to imagine it. I’m living it!” Gilda could only groan again, wishing she could manage some more water, and worse, feeling a renewed craving for the cider itself; she was further stunned when she felt a sudden wish to be rutted as she lay fallow on the table before them, in what she guessed was an ongoing but very unwelcome aftereffect of the fertility potion. “Gah! Crows take it…”

“It would have been preferable if they did,” Narada replied dryly, even if she had no idea what Gilda was actually thinking. “The question before us now is, how did that spiked cider get inside the Kingdom’s borders, and to what end was it brought here? Even under diplomatic escort, it should have been confiscated upon arrival. Customs should have detected it as contraband magic.”

“But only if it was there when they arrived,” a new voice broke in, though this one was a far more unwelcome one. “Greetings, Decurion Behertz. How do you feel?” Senior Sparrow Tarseus asked as she entered the room, looking more than a little haggard and sleepless. She was greeted with a terse nod by Strenus and Narada, and narrowed eyes by Captain Moran, giving Gilda the impression they’d already met.

“Like I just fought a mating round with a Minotaur…” she groaned. “And I’m afraid I might have.”

“Well, I can at least assure you there were no Minotaurs present that night,” the Senior Sparrow offered a mild joke, only to receive an unamused glare back. “On the subject of how they got the cider, the short answer is—they didn’t.

“We’ve already contacted the ponies through the Equestrian Embassy. It would seem the mare who sold them the cider is a friend of Princess Twilight Sparkle, who investigated this matter personally in the presence of one of our embassy agents from Canterlot. She—and he—sent us a full accounting of their findings that I received not ten minutes ago.”

“Twilight Sparkle?” Moran broke in. “I met her in Equestria. Among other things, she seemed to be a very earnest and… thorough mare.”

“I suppose that’s one word for it,” the Senior Sparrow said shortly. “Her reports and articles are usually drowned in irrelevant details, but that’s unimportant right now. According to both her and our agent, the mare in question swore ‘on the graves of her parents’ that she didn’t sell the human civilians zap apple cider, and her receipts seem to confirm it,” she conceded grudgingly.

“Receipts can be faked. Can this mare be trusted?” Captain Moran asked.

“Princess Twilight promised us she can. The mare also gave our agent an earful when he suggested that she deliberately gave them the wrong cider so she could slip it through customs, in hopes that griffons might gain a taste for it.

“She took particular offense at the notion that they’d spiked it with some ‘danged dangler dandelion’”—that was a pony term for a naturally occurring aphrodisiac they had, Gilda recalled—“claiming that ‘our cider don’t need no help’ and ‘anypony who thinks I’d foist that on somecreature I just met in hopes of making them get it on with a griffie don’t know me at all!” she quoted directly from the report, even managing a passable Gnashvillian accent.

“Such refreshing bluntness from an Equestrian pony? I like her already,” Narada approved with a grin.

If it’s the mare I’m thinking, then I’m surprised she didn’t buck whatever griffon accused her of lying clear into the next pony province! Gilda had to stifle a smile of her own despite her aches and chills. She didn’t care much for Rainbow’s friends, but at least that one had the muscle to back up her muzzle.

“I’m glad you did, because she definitely didn’t like our agent. When pressed further, she informed us that she could find out who the keg in our possession was really sold to. She said that each keg had a serial number on it—in not one, but two places.

“It turned out whoever procured the keg doctored the number on the outside to the one she’d originally sold them, but not the one on the inside,” the Senior Sparrow further explained. “That’s cleverer than the ponies usually are, so we broke apart the keg to get the real serial number, which was burned into the wood on the inner bottom of the empty barrel, and sent it to her.”

“And…?” the Ambassador prompted again, to which she unfurled another report scroll.

“It turns out that keg was sold just two weeks ago… to a Saddle Arabian trade merchant and information broker who does business with multiple intelligence services, including ours.

“Zap Apple Cider is considered halal and thus legal in Saddle Arabia, so whoever hired him knew he could purchase and transport it. We tracked him down in Loondon, and—once we paid his fee—he said he was contracted by a zebra stallion to purchase and then deliver it to a certain secluded point in the city, where it was picked up by unknown agents.”

“And he agreed to this… why?” Moran wanted to know, tapping his fingers on the tray beside Gilda as he listened to the report.

“Because he’s a merchant who is frequently paid to make purchases for others without asking questions. It makes him valuable to all sides but disposable to none, for to kill him would be to instantly alert other factions that some business he did was dangerous and cause it to be uncovered,” she explained with a shrug.

“Sounds like a real piece of work. I don’t suppose you asked him why he thought he was buying it?”

For the first time, the Senior Sparrow looked annoyed. “Hard as it may be to believe, we in the Council of Crows do know our business, Captain. He says he wasn’t told what it was for, which is hardly surprising, but he assumed it was for simple smuggling of Equestrian contraband to underground Zebrican alchemy rings in the city—not an unlikely assumption, given such smuggling is not that rare an occurrence.

“Unfortunately, we could trace it no further than the drop point, though it now seems clear this was intended from the start to find its way here.”

“To what end?” Ambassador Strenus wondered aloud.

“We cannot say. Perhaps—”

“Theft of human technology, and an attempt to thwart an alliance between humans and griffons,” Moran answered instantly. “Hard as it may be to believe, we in the American military know our business as well, Senior Sparrow. It’s clear that this was a deliberate attack on my people… and yours.”

“Attack? There was no attack!” the Senior Sparrow replied.

“No, but there could have been, and there was certainly a security breach,” Strenus pointed out angrily. “Zap apple overdose typically results in one of two outcomes among griffons—sex or violence, depending on what their mood and internal urges are at the time. This could have been an attempt to cause griffon soldiers to attack, rape or even slay their human civilian charges,” he noted, turning troubled. “The consequences of which could have been disastrous.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Captain Moran replied as Gilda listened quietly, increasingly uneasy.

Ancestors above—he’s right! If I had still been mad at Marco… she didn’t want to think as Moran went on.

“If that happened, my Marines might have been forced to kill said griffons to protect the civilians, and at an extreme, a battle might have then erupted between our two sides,” Moran echoed Gilda’s worried thought. “That would be the end of any potential alliance or trade agreement. And in the ensuing chaos it could have caused, it would also provide excellent cover to steal some of our technology and weapons—which, no thanks to your Council of Crows, has already happened.”

“What do you mean?” Tribune Narada asked.

“I mean that we have just discovered there were intruders present in the Inn that night, and we’re certain they took several sensitive items from us.”

The Senior Sparrow’s sleepless eyes narrowed. “With all due respect, there is no evidence of intruders, Captain.”

“No evidence?” Narada gave the derisive reply that Gilda wished to before she or the human Captain could. “Then how in the name of our Ancestors did the keg get switched without a break-in?”

“We don’t know when the switch of the keg was made,” Tarseus answered in some exasperation. “It could easily have happened before they arrived here, in transit.”

“So they just plucked it out of their air carriage in flight?” Narada pointed out dryly.

“Or at the point it was loaded or unloaded, or when the baggage was delivered to the Inn,” she replied in strained patience. “Trust me, it’s my job to think of these things.”

“We trusted you already, and you’re amply proving right now that we were wrong to do so,” Moran replied acidly. “I am not suggesting to you but outright telling you that there were magically shrouded intruders present in the Inn that night.”

She stared at him like he was crazy. “Captain Moran, I would remind you that you are not familiar with Tellusian concealment and illusion spells, but we are. We know how to detect and counter them, and I promise you that the Council of Crows has applied that knowledge to keep the Inn under surveillance and prevent intrusions the entire time you have been here.”

“Oh, really?” the human Captain asked in a contemptuous tone, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Yes, really. So no matter what else you may think of me, be assured that nocreature could enter the Inn without us knowing, magical shrouds or no.”

Moran stared at her before replying, the anger on his face growing. “And be assured, Senior Sparrow, that we did not rely entirely on your Council of Crows or the Kingdom’s military in securing our Inn from such intrusions. We did our homework before coming here, including regarding what illusion and concealment spells were available. They’re good but not perfect, and we found a gap in them we could exploit.”

“Exploit?” Gilda was certain Tarseus thought the human officer was bluffing.

“Yes,” the Captain growled. “Understand, Senior Sparrow, that we are less than pleased to discover that you were actively spying on us, and worse, using your own military liaisons to do so. I will be discussing this with Ambassador Goldberg later, and the only reason I am sharing information with you now is that we need your help.

“We know that the culprits behind this attempt on the lives of our civilians succeeded in breaking in and stealing some of our technology and weaponry, as I have reports of multiple missing items from the platoon stationed at the Inn following their presence. We want you and the Council of Crows to get them back, immediately.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I do not take orders from—"

“Your anger is understandable, Captain. And I’m sure the Senior Sparrow will exert every effort to recover them.” Strenus cut Tarseus off sharply and gave her a warning look. “Especially after I deliver my report to the Queen. I’m sure she will be most interested to hear that the Council of Crows prioritized espionage over the safety and security of our guests, and the soldiers who so faithfully guarded them.”

“Indeed we will,” she said shortly, her beak tight; Gilda couldn’t help but smile despite her continuing weakness and withdrawal symptoms, glad that somecreature was putting the arrogant eagless in her place. “Though it would help, Captain, if you would tell us exactly what items they took, and why they are so dangerous.”

The Captain’s eyes narrowed; even in her mentally weakened state, Gilda could spot the clumsy attempt to gain intelligence. “We will give you true-size pictures of the items, but that is all. Get them back, and do not attempt to analyze them first,” he warned. “The items are dangerous to those untrained in their use. And be assured, we will know if they have been examined or tampered with.”

Tarseus clearly did not like the corner she was being backed into, for which Gilda had no sympathy. “We will make every effort to find those responsible, and to get your property back.”

“Oh? And just how do you plan to do that?” he asked in a tone suggesting to Gilda that he was waiting for the Senior Sparrow to flail her wings just a little more.

“We have our ways,” she said shortly, then switched to Aeric. “Know, Ambassador, that we are already in contact with the Ravens, who are attempting to pick up the trail of the miscreants.

“But as there are many potential suspects from foreign intelligence agents to simple petty thieves hoping to sell such exotic items on underground markets, the scent is rather thin. It would help if we had a starting point, which I doubt our guests can provide,” she mocked them openly, to which Moran looked at her, eyes narrowed.

He then spoke to her in perfect Aeric, causing her to start. “Then let me relieve you of that doubt, Senior Sparrow. We can give you a starting point. We know there were intruders present that night because we captured an image of the culprits right through their magical shrouds.”

Tarseus looked up in surprise, which quickly turned to sneering doubt. “Very well, I’ll humor you, Commander. How?”

“It’s Captain. And as to how…” He pulled out one of the human portal devices. “We have had the hallways where our soldiers and civilians are billeted under constant camera surveillance, in addition to our armed sentries. Not long before sunrise, those sentries saw Second Spear Gletscher and the Decurion here walking down the hall from the civilian suite in a drunken manner.”

“And what of it?” Tarseus asked impatiently.

“This is what our visible cameras saw,” he said, showing them a playback of Gilda and Fortrakt walking armorless down the hallway, rubbing wings lewdly and laughing; even exchanging a series of lover’s licks as Fortrakt only half-jokingly mounted her at one point, causing a red-cheeked and giggling Gilda to push back against him as the Marines in the picture looked on in some distaste.

Watching it, Gilda’s cheeks flushed as red as they were in the image. “That can’t be me…” she was certain, wanting to kill whoever depicted her like a total dweeb slobbering over her own subordinate. “I don’t care how drunk on that crow-cursed cider I was, I would not have gotten it on with him!” she further protested, wishing she could also lose her memory of seeing herself like that.

To her surprise, the human officer turned sympathetic. “It wasn’t you,” he assured her. “I know because that was just a visible image. Which brings me to the subject of the flaw in your illusion and concealment spells, and how we know that’s not real. For you see, we have a second set of cameras that can see not light, but the very heat of living bodies—something those spells do not mask.”

“Body heat? You mean like dragons?” Tarseus spoke up. When he stared at her for a moment uncomprehendingly, she explained: “They can see heat, too.”

“I don’t know about that. But now look at this video from a heat-seeing camera down the same hall, recorded during the same time as the first.”

With another few motions of his fingers, a new video was placed side by side with the original, causing everycreature present to blink and stare. Not just at the second playback itself, which clearly depicted heat in terms of a spectrum of colors with blues being cold and reds to yellows being hot, but at the markedly different scene it showed.

The two images were slightly offset, as if taken from the opposite hallway ceiling edge at the same distance. Gilda might have been more amazed by the exotic technology and image, but for the fact that the heat-based picture did not show two figures walking down the hall.

It showed four!

The two in back, which did not appear in the visible images, appeared to be griffons, even if only their rough outlines could be made out—herself and Fortrakt?—suspended in the air by what had to be a magical aura and being carried along behind the lead pair of creatures. They were in the same locations and stances as her and Fortrakt were in the eyesight-based picture, but they took decidedly different forms.

The two magically disguised imposters were four-legged quadrupeds like her and Fortrakt, but they were otherwise anything but griffon. Their stocky outlines showed them to be wingless ungulates slightly larger than the average pony, but with a longer snout and two long, back-curved antlers on their heads. The latter shone brightly to the heat-sensing camera, which was to be expected as magical nexuses like horns and staves tended to warm up when large amounts of magic were being cast.

Their clothes, coats and facial features could not be made out in a purely heat-based image, but even depicted as they were, their race was instantly obvious to Gilda and every other griffon present; she felt an intense rage building within her even despite her continuing withdrawal symptoms as Captain Moran tapped the screen once to freeze the playback, showing their true forms clearly.

“Ibexians!”Gilda spat out the word, then coughed hard even as her temper flared into white-hot fury. “They did this to us!” she managed before another coughing fit erupted and she had to fall silent again.

Originally an alpine-dwelling race whose birthplace was rumored to be the rugged terrain of the Pearl Mountains, the Ibexians were a flightless but physically powerful and magically adept race. Their cloven hooves gave them uncanny climbing abilities that meant they could easily scale even the sheerest cliffs, enabling them to seize whatever high ground was available, as well as granting them a sharp striking surface they could use in combat to good effect.

And that was to say nothing of an array of powerful magics wielded by their twin horns, especially the much larger ones on the male of the pair; it was rumored that they were in fact a distantly related race of the Elder Rams, who had nearly not just defeated but annihilated the Gryphon Empire two decades before the War with Equestria.

“So, are you still going to claim your security was perfect and you kept out intruders, Senior Sparrow?” Moran inquired dryly. “Because it certainly looks to me like your nation’s biggest adversary just pulled off a successful infiltration and heist!”

“So it would seem…” Tarseus admitted wanly, starting to squirm under the angry gazes of all present as it became clear how grave her failure of duty had been. “We knew the Ibexian Ascendency had taken an interest in the arrival of humans, but I was told we had all their agents under surveillance and would know if they tried anything.”

“Then you were told wrong,” the Captain said in a prize understatement. “And now it appears they escaped cleanly with some of our technology, using the night’s events as a distraction—events they no doubt caused to give themselves cover! So just what do you plan to do about it, Senior Sparrow?”

As Gilda watched, the visibly flustered Tarseus had to pause long enough to gather herself. “We will find them, of course. Only the highly-trained ‘Capricorn’ adepts of their state security service, the Конклав Козерога, would have the skill and resources to carry out such an audacious operation.

“Thank you for supplying us with such surprising intelligence, and I must congratulate you on successfully analyzing magical strengths and weaknesses despite your unfamiliarity with such arts. We have much to do if we are to catch them, so If you would be so kind as to leave this image with us…” She reached for the portal device.

He yanked it away and gave her a printed copy of the image instead, all but shoving it at her along with several images of the missing items—one of their black hip-mounted L-shaped weapons, several larger and smaller portal devices, and what appeared to be a detached, crescent-shaped metallic object with a quill pen beside it to provide scale.

“You have your starting point, Senior Sparrow. You get one chance to make this right—find those fucking mountain goats and get our items back intact, or I will recommend to Ambassador Goldberg that this trade mission be abandoned as it seems your Council of Crows was less concerned about securing us than spying on us,” he warned her over crossed arms. “We trusted you. And you betrayed that trust.”

The Senior Sparrow’s tail lashed once before it stilled again. “Your anger is noted. But your attitude is unhelpful, commander. In ordering your surveillance, I was acting in the interests of the Kingdom, not my own.”

“I told you already, it’s Captain. And my attitude is that three of my civilians and two of my Marines lie gravely ill in what I can only consider an attempt to manipulate their minds with various illicit substances, in hopes of causing a rape or murder attempt that would in turn cause a battle to break out between my Marines and griffon soldiers!

“My attitude is that all this was both foreseeable and preventable if you just did your crow-damned jobs!” he told her in Aeric again, impressing Gilda with his use of the griffon invective.

“He’s right, Senior Sparrow.” Strenus spoke up again, his tone dark. “And you may be assured I will be saying as much to the Queen.”

“I am in agreement. And you may also add three of my finest soldiers to the casualty list,” Narada added angrily as at the Captain’s command, the Senior Sparrow was then escorted by a Marine sentry to the door. “I share your ire, Captain.”

Despite her sympathy, he looked at her coolly. “I am sorry for your soldiers as well, but I am also less than pleased that you allowed your liaisons to spy on us, Tribune. We can discuss that later, but for now, I expect your troops to protect the Inn properly, and to keep the skies above it clear.

“This is an embassy, so I want it secured as such—I will not have any more spying through skylights, or griffons landing on balconies. As of this moment, I want no unauthorized griffons or any other airborne race approaching within one hundred wing paces of the roof. Understood?”

“It will be done,” she replied with a bared throat. “I will be more than happy to meet you at your convenience, Captain. I do request, however, that you first allow me the chance to speak to the Decurion privately.”

His eyes narrowed. “In hopes that she recalls what she reported on?”

To her credit, Narada didn’t flinch from his accusing tone. “So that I may inform her of all that we know happened to her—which, you will understand, might be rather embarrassing to be shared before others—and then ask her if she wishes to continue in her assignment.”

“That choice will be mine, Tribune,” he reminded her. “I will leave, but your conversation will be recorded, and as you have already learned, I speak your language fluently.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go offer my personal apologies to the Inn’s owner. And hopefully convince him not to demand a duel with Lieutenant Nantz for deflowering his daughter!” he all but snarled as he stalked out of the room, leaving the pair behind under the watchful gaze of the well-armed Marine sentries.

Gilda noted they were now wearing odd reflective goggles over their eyes that hid them. There was also some kind of secondary tube mounted to the bottom of their weapons at the ends, emitting a strange purplish light.

Maybe something that allows them to see heat like those cameras? So they can spot any more disguised Ibexians? Gilda guessed as she watched him leave, but lacking answers or the ability to think about it too deeply, she turned her head back towards Narada.

* * * * *

“Their Captain is my kind of commander. Direct and to the point,” Narada admitted after Captain Moran had departed.

“He tolerates no doublespeak and spotted the Senior Sparrow’s ploys quickly, letting her trap herself with her own claims before he brought his war hammer down and crushed her defenses. In truth, I rather like him. He is not only refreshingly open in his opinions, but he seems a cunning warrior who only reveals his true strength at an opportune moment—the perfect military leader. I do believe he would make a very good griffon.”

“I would too, if I didn’t feel so awful…” Gilda replied. “I’m sorry if I don’t get up, Tribune, but I can’t stop shivering and everything aches. And worse, I think I was… taken. Somewhere I would not have chosen!” she felt a sudden puckering sensation beneath her tail, loathing the slight but strangely pleasant tingling that accompanied it.

The Tribune grimaced, but offered at least a weak chance that Gilda was mistaken. “It might just be the withdrawal symptoms from the potion and cider. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, it’s very similar in effect to the feather flu—body aches and chills, as well as a low fever. Just be grateful I quickly realized something was amiss, or you might have died of dehydration and withdrawal symptoms.”

“Believe me, I am… but how did you know?” Gilda asked.

The Tribune gave a wry smile. “When you and Fortrakt didn’t show up to give your daily reports and receive a briefing, I inquired with the Inn as to where you were. I was then told the two of you had been seen by the human soldiers walking drunkenly down the hallway acting like you were ‘in love’—by which they meant acting like newly bonded Uxor,” she clarified as Gilda made a nauseated face.

“As I could not fathom such a thing taking place between you two, even under the influence of alcohol, I was certain something was wrong. That’s when I advised the humans to break into the rooms. From what I was told, they found both of you severely ill and immediately rushed you to their healers. So be sure you thank them as well as me. I do not envy you that tube, but there is no denying it saved your life. It is how they are able to both nourish you while stepping down the dose of the fertility drug and cider gradually—by feeding it all to you through it.”

“I’d thank them if it wasn’t for this crow-damned needle in my arm!” Gilda answered with another round of coughing. She pulled her blanket more firmly up over her form as she huddled and shivered violently, hating the feeling of being so weak and helpless. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about it! So, uh, you said you wanted to inform me of what you knew…” she recalled. She then shivered again, and not entirely from the chill she felt. “Do I even want to know what I did?”

“With regards to you and Fortrakt, I cannot say. In truth, we know little of what happened, aside from what was observed by civilians and soldiers from the outside,” she replied. “All I can tell you is that First Spear Giraldi was observed undressing, caressing and then outright rutting Tara Fields through the skylights before an enrapt audience of griffons.”

“They watched?” Gilda was aghast. “What in the crows was the matter with them…?”

“Because it would seem they were affected, too. We believe that the steam from the heated cider also went up the exhaust pipes and saturated the stagnant air over the Inn last night, where dozens of griffons had gathered over the scent of the strangely cooked chicken. The initial dose was low, but they stayed bathed in it long enough that the effects over time were… predictable.” She blushed again.

“I regret that discipline among our outside troops broke down completely as more and more griffons were affected; as soon as soldiers were sent to chase off the observers, they, too, were caught up in it quickly and ended up in various rooftop… affairs.

“As a result, the healer houses are now filled with griffons being treated for minor injuries and moderate withdrawal symptoms, and half your old turma has been lost to duty until they recover.”

“Injuries?” Gilda repeated uncomprehendingly. “From what? Mating rounds?”

The Tribune hesitated before answering, but did so anyway. “Some, but more from attempting with each other what they saw the human female doing with Giraldi.”

“Voyeuristic dweebs… if I’d been there, fumes or no, I would have chased them off. But you said Giraldi was seen with Tara?” she blinked, finding at least one stray memory trying to click into place.

“Yes. And he was found in the human suite after.” Narada’s blush intensified. “Unconscious and aroused while in a rather compromising position with the humans.”

Gilda blushed as well. “But why was he there instead of outside with the Turma?”

“He was there at your direction, Decurion.” She showed Gilda a signed order penned in her own talonwriting directing Giraldi to remain in the human suite overnight for the ‘safety and security’ of Tara Fields. “As this happened early in the night, I was hoping you might recall why you issued this order?”

Gilda tried, but failed again to remember. “I wish I could tell you…” she finally admitted with a groan. “I just… don’t… know.” And I’m not even sure I want to…

“Not surprising,” Narada noted, not pressing the matter further. “This is exactly why zap apple items are illegal in the Kingdom—they are not only addictive, but they both remove inhibitions and suppress all memories of it after—except in the case of Lieutenant Nantz and Merlina Marcus,” she corrected. “They had enough to rut, but not enough to forget.”

“Nantz rutted… Merlina?” Gilda was shocked. “But she can’t even fight a round!”

“Apparently, the human males don’t care about that, finding her very desirable for her innocence and exotic plumage. Nantz himself has been removed from the Inn to the camp outside the city, for his own safety from Merlina’s sire,” she explained. “By all reports, he’s mortified by what he did, but Merlina has been caught twice trying to leave her recovery room to go to him. Mating round or no, she appears to now be very taken with him.”

“Damned… Ibex…” Gilda coughed out again. “If I find them, I’ll kill them!”

“I sympathize with your sentiments, but as this appears to be the work of some of their most skilled and dangerous adepts, I would suggest that you leave that to the Council of Crows and Ravens,” Narada advised. “And in the meantime, take comfort in the fact that in many ways, their plans not only failed, but turned on them badly.”

Gilda gave her a confused look. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean, Decurion, is that as the Captain and Ambassador said, they hoped to cause violence and conflict that would derail any possible alliance between us, and perhaps even result in open warfare between our races. They further hoped that their role in it would remain invisible, and that we would simply blame the ponies for selling them that cider.

“Instead, it would appear that the opposite happened—that all present merely became exceptionally amorous and those griffons who observed humans mating were quite taken with them. You know how zap apples work, so you should also know that that would not have happened if our two sides had not already bonded.

“Cold comfort though I know it is, it would appear that instead of driving us apart, they brought us closer together, proving us culturally compatible as well as natural allies. And as a bonus, the Ibexian machinations were revealed, meaning the humans will now have cause to ally with us against them.”

“Natural…” Gilda coughed again as she echoed the word. “With respect, sir, there was nothing natural about any of this!”

“I must disagree. The groundwork was there, in the form of friendships made, and mutual respect already gained,” she pointed out. “Even under the influence, this would not have happened unless an interest and attraction was already there. That the humans were found unharmed—mostly—is evidence of that.”

Gilda groaned, hating to concede the logic even as she internally acknowledged the Tribune had a point. So… this happened because we liked them? Even me on MARCO? she asked herself, only to feel another shiver of distantly remembered pleasure pass through her.

Shunting aside hard in her head what it might mean, she focused on her own actions again. “It’s still not an excuse. By all the crows of the Kingdom, I should have known what was happening. Because I’ve had zap apple cider before in Equestria,” Gilda reasoned, grimacing less from the memory of withdrawal pains she’d suffered than who she’d been with when it happened. “Ancestors above, I knew the effect was familiar, but I didn’t care.”

“Which is exactly what zap apples do,” the Tribune reminded her. “Enhance your sensory perceptions of everything while slowly stripping you of your inhibitions. Cider made with them is so delicious that you keep drinking more and more of it, imbibing in an endless cycle until you have no inhibitions left.

“For griffons, that typically has two outcomes, as the Ambassador said—violence or sex. No doubt the Ibexians were hoping for the former, but would settle for the latter—particularly if it resulted in a human civilian being torn up in a forced mating round. And yet, that didn’t happen,” she pointed out again. “The Marines are being rather tight-beaked about what they found regarding Giraldi and the three humans, but… it would seem that whatever occurred was quite mutual.

“Thank the Ancestors…” Gilda acknowledged. “If this had been just two days ago, I might have tried to kill Marco instead of…” Her thoughts trailed off as the barest hint of a sensual memory tugged on her, only to quickly disappear back into the pink haze of the night.

“Exactly,” Tribune Narada confirmed with a hint of smile. “So I think we can safely assume that you like him now.”

Gilda could only groan again. “You’re right about it being cold comfort. You wanted to know if I can continue in this assignment? I don’t think I can. I don’t know if I can even look at them after this!” Gilda related, thinking she suddenly understood what Tara and Marco had been talking about when they said they’d had trouble being around each other after their drunken fling.

And they at least knew what happened AFTER! I still don’t have any idea, except… She nearly grasped another memory of Marco, only for it to turn into mental vapor again.

“If it makes you feel any better, I know how you feel. I had my own experience with zap apple cider during a vacation in Equestria not too many years back. I tried it in a Las Pegasus resort over the pony New Year celebration and its effects proved rather… liberating.” Narada blushed. “So if you were feeling bad about whatever you may have done, know that I woke up the next morning in the company of a rather amorous adolescent dragon, who I still see occasionally to this day—information I will thank you not to spread around.”

Despite her state, Gilda couldn’t help but giggle. “At least you know what happened, Tribune. I don’t. And I’m not sure I want to.”

“You have me there,” the Tribune admitted. “But at least we know you were not at fault. That you tried to fulfill your duties even under the influence. And that contrary to Ibexian hopes, you did not hurt your charges, which I remind you again can only mean you had bonded with them.”

“I guess…” she grudgingly conceded, only for her mortified feelings to turn to worry. “Chris, Tara and Marco—how are they doing?”

“Still unconscious, and they must remain that way for some time. Unused to such potent magicks, the humans are now suffering from doubly severe withdrawal symptoms and are thus being kept asleep for their own sake. Unfortunately, their injuries are not entirely limited to that. Tara Fields has talon scratches all over her back, including some rather deep cuts,” she explained shortly.

Gilda froze where she lay. “She was made to fight a mating round?” She couldn’t believe that even a cider-soaked Fortrakt would have forced her to do that.

“Thankfully, no, or it is likely she would have been torn up far worse. Her wounds appear to have happened in the throes of passion, due to a… rather unusual mating position,” the Tribune said with an intensified flush. “She would have had to be belly to belly with a griffon to have her back marked up like that.”

“Belly to belly?” Gilda made a face. “Who would do that? Giraldi? Fortrakt?” she wondered, trying but failing again to remember anything that happened.

“Likely. But Giraldi doesn’t remember, and I can’t imagine Fortrakt would either once he wakes up. His symptoms among the three of you were the worst—he apparently got a larger dose of the cider, or was simply more susceptible to it. Giraldi has awoken, but perhaps wishes he hadn’t as he promptly got berated by his Uxor—not for cheating on her, but for not testing his latest eagless properly.

“Despite that, he wanted to make sure Tara was safe—he remembered going to her, but not what happened after and thus feared he had hurt her. As near as we can tell, he didn’t, as the talon patterns do not match his.”

“So it was Fortrakt...” Gilda guessed. “He’ll never forgive himself for hurting her. What about Chris and Marco?”

“They’re physically uninjured except for a beak nip or talon prick here and there, but like Tara, are being kept unconscious for their own sakes,” she replied. “We are still stepping down the dose of that crow-begotten concoction even more slowly than you to wean them off it gradually. It will likely be at least another two days before they are safe to awaken. But in time, they should be fine. At least physically.”

Gilda groaned. Barely got to know Marco, and now I nearly lost him… the surprising thought crossed her mind.

“Crows take it. So now what?” she asked her superior. “Am I just supposed to lie here and do nothing but wait for the withdrawal symptoms to pass with this evil and ugly needle embedded in my arm?” she held up her bandaged foreleg again, just glad she couldn’t see what it was hiding or she might have tried to rip it out anew.

“I’m afraid there’s little else you can do,” the Tribune said apologetically. “Just know that you are not in trouble with me or the Kingdom, and that I am in fact impressed by your devotion to duty, even under the influence as you were. I know not what you discovered, but it must have been important for you to see fit to write it down even in the middle of… whatever activities you found yourself in,” she said carefully, causing Gilda’s flush to deepen.

“I will not ask you to explain it, as I know you cannot, and I have no particular wish to earn the ire of Captain Moran before I speak with him again. So for now… rest and recover, Decurion.” She laid a motherly set of talons on Gilda’s chest. “I will return later, and I Iook forward to seeing you well again.”

“That makes two of us…” Gilda groaned. “Thank you for your concern, but with respect, Tribune, I’d like to be alone now.”

“Of course,” Narada replied with a nod. “If you wish, I’ll see if I can find some reading material to distract you with?”

“Sure.” Gilda shrugged weakly. “It’s not like there’s anything else I can do…”

Two story tracks are available from here. You can either follow the T-rated one, or the M-rated one. Just click the appropriate link below:

—Firesight

===> next: Chapter 10 (M-rated)
===> next: Chapter 10 (T-rated)

11: Ties that Bind (R-rated)

Author's Note

Hey, folks. As part of the story being boosted to M-rated, welcome to the new R-rated chapter 11 as part of the M-rated chapters 10-14 story track! If you prefer the original T-rated one, go here:

11: Ties that Bind (T-rated version)

Chapter Contains: Gilda fantasizing about and accidentally exposing Tara, Tara doing some minor teasing of Gilda in return.

Original Author’s Note follows:

Well, folks... it’s been a long and rather fun journey for me through the first new material that Feathered Hearts has seen in many years, and I hope you’ve enjoyed them as well. This completes this set of bonus chapters, and now it’s back to editing and updating the original material.

Regardless, this chapter was designed to transition back to the main story, merging the new material with the older stuff. Doesn’t mean you won’t be hearing more about all this stuff, just that the main story now proceeds.

If you recall from the original Feathered Heart, the first Cloven attack happened at the end of chapter 5—only two chapters away from where I left off, given this takes place between chapters 3 and 4 of the original story. I imagine I’ll add enough new material to extend chapters 4 and 5 into three or four updated chapters, but either way, be watching my blog for info on when they post.

Thanks as always goes to my prereading crew of AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire, and Silverblade5, who all seemed to have good time in the google doc comments of the story draft. Next up will likely be a new chapter of Feathered Hearts: Eros, so be following my blog for news of that and any updated chapters that may get posted.

11: Ties that Bind (R-rated)

Four days into her recovery, Gilda was finally starting to feel more herself again.

With more food and a growing appetite, she was no longer forced to take frequent rests or naps. She was even able to fly for up to fifteen minutes, though she was still a long way from being back to full strength or stamina.

She kept herself and Fortrakt busy with additional reports and observations of human medicine, which they found Staff Sergeant Cullen far less reticent about discussing than their weapons. He’d not only answered their questions patiently—far more so than he typically was with the Marines he served with—but had even gone so far as to relate some slightly sickening stories of exotic injuries and diseases he had treated in the course of his career.

She couldn’t help but note that he seemed to almost relish in relating tales of the latter, far too many of which seemed to be the result of sexual encounters between the male Marines and human women in distant lands.

Sexually Transmitted Infections? Gilda’s thoughts echoed the odd phrase the Marine healer used with a glance at an equally befuddled Fortrakt, trying to think if there was any equivalent to such things among griffons—or any other Tellusian race, for that matter. She’d heard of Sexually Transmitted Curses, but they were said to be very rare and not very potent, propagating their magic and effects by compelling copulation.

They’d barely been mentioned in passing at the Gauntlet, and that was only to make sure soldiers were able to recognize the influence of foreign magic on them and seek treatment. But since all Tellusian races had a typically strong resistance to being influenced by mood-altering enchantments due to their own innate magic, the effects of such curses were said to be weak and often barely noticeable, and thus they typically fizzled quickly after minimal spread.

Which begs the question as to why the cider hit us so hard… Gilda thought with a grimace, only to quickly realize the answer: that it didn’t force you to do anything you didn’t want to do; it just brought out your innermost desires and enhanced them to such a high degree that all your inhibitions were stripped away.

Great. So that means I WANTED to have sex with humans? She couldn’t help but make a face, wondering what she saw as attractive in any of their furless, wingless bipedal forms. Okay, maybe I do like Tara’s attitude. But her BODY…? The thought gave her pause as her mind once again tried and failed to find memories she simply couldn’t reach.

Seeking some distraction from her suddenly drifting thoughts, Gilda wondered for a moment why the Marines were so bereft of sex that they felt compelled to seek out foreign females. But once again, she guessed the answer almost instantly:

Unlike griffon soldiers, all the human Marines were male.

With no eaglesses among them, I guess that’s the only way they can ‘chase tail’… she wasn’t sure where the phrase came from, or why she envisioned a mustachioed human in a brown uniform with gold stripes on his shoulders saying it. Or why it was quickly followed by fleeting images of explosions and flames.

Regardless of the answer, it made for a good cultural observation in her latest intelligence report, but Gilda found herself spending more text focusing on how they treated battle wounds. On the one wing, human healers couldn’t rapidly heal injuries or bone fractures like the griffons could with the spellcasting of Magus Knights, which would seem to put them at a marked disadvantage in quickly restoring their soldiers to active service.

But unlike them, they could restart stopped hearts under certain circumstances, induce sleep and completely deaden pain without any magic, effectively treat the wound infections that could bedevil the best Magus healers if not caught quickly, and even replace entire lost limbs with mechanical constructs that allowed for similar if not equal abilities to the appendage they replaced.

It was all intriguing but also a little disturbing, especially for how much their medicine seemed to involve cutting and needles. But with Senior Sparrow Tarseus having not returned while she tried to track down the missing Capricorn Adepts and Ambassador Strenus still in Saddle Arabia, the only griffon they could present their reports to was Tribune Narada.

“I don’t know whether to find this more impressive or appalling,” the Tribune concurred as she read the latest report on watching Doc Cullen treating an accidental blade wound.

He had begun by first deadening the area with a series of wince-worthy injections of something he called ‘lie-dough-cane’—it had been all Gilda could do not to look away, to the apparent amusement of Cullen and the Marine being treated, who pointedly showed her up by not flinching at all as the needle pierced his skin repeatedly—before closing the wound not with magic, but with a thin but strong thread using a series of what she could only describe as seamstress stitches!

She’d only barely been able to watch it while Fortrakt, his stomach still unsettled, had to leave the room entirely before he threw up his lunch. His departure elicited a laugh from the Marines, who remarked that for a race as into fighting as griffons were, they seemed oddly squeamish about certain things.

The only human she hadn’t seen during that time was Ambassador Goldberg, who, she had been told by a scornful Sergeant Reyes, stayed ensconced in his chambers behind multiple layers of Marine and griffon security while the trade negotiations remained suspended, pending the outcome of the crisis with the Ibexians. He not only remained inside, the Marine noted in some contempt, but he had ordered his food and drink magically scanned by griffon mages before eating it.

So it turns out he’s the coward I originally thought Marco was, Gilda kept the thought to herself as she and Fortrakt walked down the hall together towards the infirmary where Chris, Tara, and Marco remained bedridden. A useless and entitled idiot with no ability to fight his own battles. Wonder if he was a griffon noble in a previous life?

To little surprise, the Ibexians were still resisting turning over the items they stole and the adepts who stole them, though according to Tribune Narada, the Council of Crows was more convinced than ever that it had been a rogue operation—that there was some kind of power struggle going on behind the scenes of the Ascendancy, whose clearly stressed Saddle Arabian ambassadors kept asking for more time.

Regardless, the search for their spies continued throughout Arnau. Though the Ravens had been unable to apprehend the elusive Capricorn Adepts, who were said to be their equals in the espionage and assassination arts, they were having some success unraveling their spy network; they had captured and interrogated at least four of their contacts and cleared three safehouses, slowly denying them sanctuary.

“They’re running out of places to hide. My guess is, once they’re out of options, they’ll try to placate us by returning some of the stolen items while keeping the rest hidden, or simply scatter them throughout Arnau as a distraction to keep the Ravens busy while they attempt to slip free of the city,” Tribune Narada had noted when Gilda and Fortrakt had shown up to deliver their reports the previous morning. “But with the entire Kingdom looking for them and multiple magical fields ready to send up flares upon sensing Ibexian spellcasting, it won’t work.”

Seeking to increase the pressure on the Ibexians further, the Kingdom had moved a dozen additional Talon legions and two airship flotillas into range of the Pearl Mountains, threatening the Ascendancy with outright war if the Adepts and the items they stole were not surrendered.

The Ibexians had responded in kind by reinforcing the border with additional grand legion-sized ‘armies’, as they called them, along with an uptick of their customary belligerence and bluster. But even Gilda could pick up the slightly shrill and worried tones in their public proclamations, as they found themselves trapped in a situation of their own making.

Though Gilda found herself secretly hoping for war, the Marines would not be joining them. They’d been able to get word of the situation and what caused it back to their homeworld, dispatching messages through the Equestrian embassy, who then relayed it and the subsequent reply through the portal in Equestria.

The response they got back three days later was very simple: stay out of any conflict and be ready to evacuate if war erupted. The trade mission and scientific examination of Kingdom lands were otherwise on hold until the crisis was resolved, at which point the negotiations and field studies could resume “at the discretion of the Ambassador and his security chief” —meaning Captain Moran.

He had warmed up to Gilda and Fortrakt somewhat, perhaps seeing how much the other Marines liked them. But that only went so far, given he’d pulled Gilda aside at one point and said he still wasn’t comfortable with them being around the civilians, especially after all that had happened.

“The feeling is mutual,” she told him tersely, but then explained that she’d decided to stay for the same reason she’d given Fortrakt—that she felt responsible for what happened and that she refused to give the Ibexian Ascendancy any victory at all from their evil operation.

“I guess I can respect that,” he finally conceded. “And my Marines seem to like having you around as well, even if I don’t understand why.”

“I mean that in the best possible way, Decurion. You take pride in your nation and duty—just like us. You also care for Chris, Tara and Marco—just like us. We really appreciate the willingness of you and Second Spear Gletscher to fight for them. And speaking of Gletscher, he’s just plain likable. He’s a good young soldier who wants to do right by us, never mind the fact he’s also a fun and earnest kid who likes our stuff.”

Moran stared at him for a moment. He initially looked like he was going to reprimand the Sergeant for speaking out of turn, but instead he simply nodded. “Well said, Staff Sergeant. I will trust the judgment of my subordinates in this matter, Decurion, as they’ve had much more exposure to you than me. But I still want you to give cultural training sessions to my Marines, as recommended by First Lieutenant Nantz.”

“Yes, sir.” Gilda suppressed a grimace, as did Reyes from beside the Captain. “I’ll see to it within the next week.”

At least Chris, Tara and Marco are awake, she reminded herself as she exited. They had finally regained consciousness the day before, causing Fortrakt to excitedly summon her to their bedside. The three all awoke within minutes of each other, once whatever strange potion the human medic was using to keep them asleep was withdrawn.

She arrived to find Captain Moran and Sergeant Reyes present; she’d seen the latter doing some form of calisthenics in the halls and Marine ready areas as he tried to regain his strength, running two-legged laps in the corridors of the Inn.

“Right on time,” Staff Sergeant Cullen said in satisfaction, glancing at the complicated clock he seemed to wear around his wrist. “You two took about sixty hours, so I figured it’d be double that for them, given we were stepping down the dose at half the rate.”

“Well done, Sergeant. Are they alert? Can they hear us?” Moran asked.

“They should be able to.” He nodded down at their stirring forms, all business around his Captain. “You’ve been waiting for this all day, so would you like to do the honors, Second Spear?” He invited Fortrakt forward, who immediately perked up.

“Yes! Thank you, Staff Sergeant. Chris? Tara? Marco? Can you hear me?” Fortrakt beseeched them, though they only weakly turned their heads towards him.

“For...trakt?” Chris spoke first; his voice weak and speech slurred. “That… you?”

“It’s me, Chris. Gilda and I are here,” he promised, though he kept most of his attention on Tara, whose eyes were only barely beginning to flutter.

“Oh… hey, Gilda!” Marco reached a hand towards her, though he was seemingly too weak to hold it up as it fell halfway. “I forget… did you like… midway?”

“Uh… sure. It was fun,” Gilda said placatingly, even though she had no idea what he was referring to. Midway… to what? She tossed a confused glance towards Fortrakt, who gave her an equally bemused look back. She wasn’t sure why the Marine Captain looked up sharply and exchanged a worried look with Cullen, or why she had a sudden but fleeting image of strange metal birds and fiery explosions, but she put the question aside for later as Tara murmured something unintelligible.

Fortrakt tried to explain what had happened to them in his typically dweeby way. But the three humans were so groggy and out of it from their long sojourn into unconsciousness and the remaining cider in their systems that they didn’t fully comprehend his words. Not even when he told Tara in no little shame that he was responsible for the scratches on her back.

“But…” Tara only looked confused when Fortrakt offered his apology, turning her head towards him as she lay on her stomach to keep pressure off her healing wounds. She visibly grasped for her memories, only to find them falling through her mental talons like so much sand in a failed attempt at recollection—one Gilda was only too familiar with by then. She wasn’t certain why the human woman’s gaze fell on her for a moment, only to go unfocused again as a sharp shiver passed through her.

“So cold… where’s… Giraldi?” she suddenly asked out of nowhere, causing Gilda to freeze and Fortrakt to stare at her in confusion.

“He’s recovering at home with his Uxor—I mean, wife,” Gilda spoke up quickly, wondering how she was going to convey the First Spear’s words without Fortrakt hearing. “He wishes you well.”

“Such a sweetie… he’s not… in trouble... is he?” she suddenly worried, her eyes staring off into the distance like she was trying to remember something again, but before Gilda could think of another safe reply in the presence of Fortrakt, Chris spoke up.

“Wait… what happened to us? Was it… my chicken?” he wondered aloud, his thoughts visibly sluggish and words slurred, not remembering that he’d been told the answer just two minutes earlier. “Was the choice of wine wrong? Did I use too much lemon? Or too little clove?” he worried, trying but failing to sit up.

“Your chicken was great, buddy. It was a hit with our hosts, too,” Reyes promised as he laid a hand on Chris’s shoulder, gently pushing him back down. “It wasn’t your food; it was the cider. Some fucking Ibex spiked it with some really nasty stuff.”

“Ibex…?” Chris repeated uncomprehendingly, then raised his arm to focus on the tube running into it, only to groan. “I… hate… needles…”

“You and me both,” Gilda agreed before Marco spoke next.

“Wait... why are we lying here?” he wondered again as he set eyes on Gilda, which lit up in recognition like he didn’t recall seeing her just moments earlier. “Oh! Hey, girlfriend. Did I do good? Did you like the movie?” he asked her.

Girlfriend…? Do good…? She couldn’t even begin to wonder before Staff Sergeant Cullen, at a warning look from the Captain, stepped up.

“I’m sorry, Decurion and Second Spear. But as you can see, there’s not much point in talking to them right now. If you two were any indication, it’s probably going to be another day or so before they’re lucid enough to remember much of what they’re told,” he explained apologetically.

“But—” Fortrakt’s headfeathers drooped as he stared longingly at Tara, whose skin was pallid and golden mane had visibly dulled.

“But nothing. When the two of you first woke up, there was still enough cider in your system that we had to keep reminding you of what we’d said for a while,” Doc Cullen—to her surprise, Gilda was starting to attach the Marine nickname to him rather than his rank—said to them in some rare sympathy. “They’re just not going to remember much right now. Don’t take it personally.”

“Right,” Fortrakt slumped in defeat. “May we stay with them?”

“With apologies, I’d rather you didn’t,” Captain Moran told them over crossed arms. “I appreciate that you want to be there for them, but you’ll understand that in this state, I’m afraid they might say something we don’t want them to.”

“Understood,” Gilda replied placatingly, guessing that whatever Marco had been trying to ask her about, they recognized it even if she didn’t. “You heard them. Come on, Second Spear.” Gilda began to gently pull him away. “We’ll visit again tomorrow.”

“It’s okay. I’ll stay with them for you,” Reyes promised them both. “Since I’m still officially on medical leave, it ain’t like I got much else to do right now.”

When Gilda and Fortrakt reported to their briefing with Tribune Narada the following morning, she gave them some surprising news:

The Ibexian Ascendancy had backed down.

Their leadership had issued a formal apology “to Humanity and all Gryphondom” through the Saddle Arabian Embassy in Arnau, blaming a “rogue and overzealous cell of the Capricorn Conclave for the unconscionable assault on an embassy and its guests.”

The Adepts had been ordered to surrender but thus far had not, nor had there been any indication that the message had been received by them despite a placard containing the declaration being posted on every street corner in the capital, along with a series of coded phrases they were told to use.

“They’re supposed to come out of hiding, but they haven’t. Either they don’t believe we’ll allow them to live after this, or the coded phrases we were told to use ordered something else entirely,” she mused. “Regardless, it looks like war is averted, and even if they don’t surrender, the Ravens believe they’re closing in and will have them within a day anyway.”

“A pity,” Fortrakt growled. “For making me hurt Tara, I was really looking forward to fighting them.”

“You may yet get the chance. It remains possible the Ibex are still trying to cover for smuggling some human technology back. They might surrender one or two adepts and a few of the items while another one tries to slip free,” she mused. “But after being excoriated by the Queen herself over their misplaced priorities and failures of security, I’m pretty sure the Senior Sparrow and Council of Crows will not be allowing it.”

They’d flown back to the Inn after that, and to their mutual credit, they made it in a single hop instead of having to repeatedly rest, in a further sign that they were recovering their strength. Upon being admitted by the Marine guards, who were now all wearing the strange goggles they’d had their inside sentries don, they’d gone immediately to the infirmary to check on the civilians.

This time, Gilda was gratified to see, they were recognized quickly and greeted far more eagerly. “Gilda! Fortrakt!” Marco called out to them first, his voice much clearer than before. “They’re here, guys.”

“Wait—were you two here yesterday?” Tara asked in some confusion, still lying on her stomach beneath a blanket. “I think I remember you coming by…”

“We were there, Tara,” Fortrakt assured her, sitting by her bedside. “And we’re here now.”

“Thanks, but… why are we here again?” Chris asked aloud, then he visibly shivered. “Why do I feel so cold? Why am I so horny? And why do we all have eye-vees?” he wanted to know next, glancing and then wincing at his arm. “Dammit, Doc, I hate needles!”

“You’re as bad as the Decurion,” Doc Cullen teased as he wrapped the area like he’d done for Gilda, earning a glare. “As for what happened…” He nodded off to the side, where Captain Moran had been waiting for them to arrive before offering his explanation.

It took five minutes, this time delivered in refreshingly blunt and direct terms by the Captain himself, though he very carefully avoided specifics or any mention of Giraldi being with Tara.

Gilda had been fearing how they would take the news, even sanitized. But by the time he was finished, the three humans looked more befuddled than disturbed.

“So… a bunch of Russian mountain goats switched our cider and then spiked it?” Chris was finally able to comprehend. “With some magical cocktail that made us all want to fuck?”

“They were hoping for something a lot less fun to happen, but yeah,” Reyes told them from their bedsides as Fortrakt and Gilda kept a respectful distance. “They got me and Lieutenant Nantz with that shit too, when we came by for a share of your chicken. But since we only had a couple mugs of it, we were able to get off it quicker. Didn’t mean we weren’t affected, though.” He rubbed his eyes.

“Yeah? So who’d you screw, Robbie?” Marco wanted to know from the next table over, though Gilda noticed he carefully avoided looking at her.

“Just some griffon girl we’re calling Cock Lover,” Cullen said with a smirk.

“For the last fucking time, her name was Kaiko Louvre,” Reyes said sullenly, eliciting a smile from Gilda. Though no longer ‘horny’ as the humans called it, she found she still liked the idea of him being sexually dominated by an eagless, even if it wasn’t her. “A bunch of griffons were affected by cider steam that went up the exhaust pipes—they’d gathered over the Inn attracted by the smell of your chicken, Chris. She, uh, pounced me when I made the mistake of going out on a balcony and being seen. And pretty much forced me to screw her.”

“Really?” Marco gained an odd grin as he visualized it, and even Gilda was surprised to find herself momentarily fantasizing about it, imagining herself seducing and dominating the human male in the other eagless’s place. “Uh… congratulations?”

“Not the word I’d choose. The better question is, who’d we screw?” Tara wanted to know from her bed. “I just remember doing something with Nantz…”

“Nantz?” Everycreature echoed incredulously, especially Fortrakt, whose eyes flashed.

“Couldn’t help it…” She groaned and turned her head away in shame. “Got so horny so fast… knew it was wrong but couldn’t stop. Is he okay? Wait—is Merlina?” she wondered, suddenly worried, and was clearly not encouraged when everycreature fell silent.

“Merlina?” Chris and Marco chorused. “Who’s that?” the latter asked.

“The Inkeeper’s daughter,” Moran patiently explained. “She’d been giving him language lessons when he was off-duty. They had the cider too. You can guess what happened.”

“No!” Tara exclaimed as she raised her head, only to lower it again in mingled weakness and dismay. “No… It’s my fault.”

“What do you mean it’s your fault?” Chris called out in confusion from his bed.

“Because…” As Gilda watched, the human eagless visibly slumped where she lay. “Because I can just remember that I gave him the idea to screw her. I couldn’t help it! That poor girl. I’m so sorry.” She sniffled, struggling to raise her talons enough to cover her face in shame.

Nobody spoke up again until Reyes did. “Look, Tara—you weren’t the only one who ended up not in their right mind over this, believe me,” he told her as Gilda stayed carefully quiet. “Nobody’s blaming you or anyone else here for what happened—well, except maybe Merlina’s father. He wants to duel the Lieutenant over this, but Merlina herself isn’t upset at all. In fact, she keeps trying to go to him even though she’s still sick.”

“Still my fault. I was so weak.” Unable to raise her arms enough, Tara buried her head in her pillow to hide her face.

“Tara, if you could have resisted it, you would have done what no other human—or griffon—could in all of Arnau,” Gilda felt compelled to speak up, stifling a strangely compelling urge to lay a reassuring wing over the human female’s back or worse, a set of talons on her wingless shoulder.

“It was meant to be irresistible. It was meant to cause us harm, or worse, make us harm each other. That didn’t happen, but it was an attempt by the Ibexians to destroy any potential alliance and steal human magic before either could be used against them. They failed, and now the Kingdom is ready to go to war with the Ascendancy over this.”

“And we’d join them if we were allowed to,” Reyes added angrily, only to be silenced by a look from Moran.

“Great. And is that supposed to make me feel better? Knowing that two entire nations are ready to fight over us?” Tara asked despondently.

“Tara, I know we’re still having trouble remembering things, but were you listening to what they just said?” Chris asked heatedly before having a violent coughing fit. He waited until it subsided before he spoke again, accepting a sip of water from a mug that made him look as ill as Fortrakt had been when he first tried some. “God almighty, they tried to kill us, girl! And hoped it’d be blamed on the griffons!”

“Ganon ba,” Marco muttered to himself. “Sorry, I’m still wondering what we did? I feel so sore, and I don’t know what’s from the withdrawal and what’s from…” He shivered and pulled his blanket tighter around himself.

“I wish we could tell you, Mister Lakan, but we really don’t know,” Moran said with a worried glance at Gilda. “All we do know for sure is that the Second Spear and Decurion here were found in the former’s room, dragged there by the Ibex. As for the rest of you…” he visibly chose his next words with care. “The rest of you were found unconscious the following morning, suffering severe dehydration and withdrawal symptoms in your suite… along with First Spear Giraldi.”

“Who?” Chris asked.

“The First Spear of our unit,” Fortrakt offered helpfully, only to receive uncomprehending looks back from everycreature except Tara, whose eyes got distant and cheeks flushed.

“Never heard of him.” Marco groaned, but then his brow furrowed and he squirmed slightly, his rear rising fractionally into the air beneath his blanket for a moment. “Or have I…?”

“Giraldi… why is that name familiar?” Tara wondered, not recalling that she’d asked for him by name when she’d woken up. “It feels like… I know him?”

You could say that… Gilda kept the thought to herself with another nervous glance at Moran, praying to the Ancestors that Tara didn’t remember enough to blurt out what had happened in front of Fortrakt.

But then her brow furrowed. Wait—if Tara remembered Giraldi then but not now, maybe they actually recalled some of what happened when they first woke up! she realized, wondering if she could discern anything from their odd questions and the cryptic phrases they spoke.

Okay, then—what did Marco mean by ‘Midway’? And why did Tara look at me when Fortrakt apologized for the talon scratches? She didn’t know, but then realized something else. Crows take it… even if Tara did remember before, this means she no longer recalls what happened with Giraldi, and there’s no way to keep that secret indefinitely. How are we going to tell her? And more to the point, WHO is going to tell her?

She groaned at the answer that suggested itself. It can’t come from Fortrakt since he doesn’t know and wouldn’t take it well. And it shouldn’t be Giraldi, or who knows how she would take it with him standing right there. For anycreature else to tell her might be humiliating to her, especially with her friends or the Marines around. She’d need someone she likes and trusts to tell her when she’s alone…

Gilda slumped at where her logic was leading her. So it sounds like the only one who might be able to tell her without too much additional trauma… is ME! She grimaced, already dreading it as the three began to grow visibly tired again, their mental processes and responses becoming noticeably more sluggish.

She wasn’t the only one to detect it. “With respect, sir, I think they’ve had enough,” Staff Sergeant Cullen told his Captain. “They’re getting better, but they’re still at 20% cider strength. They need rest and another day to be completely weaned at this point.”

“Understood, Staff Sergeant. You heard him, Second Spear and Decurion. You can come back later in the afternoon, when they’ve recovered a little energy,” he offered, gently herding them out.

“Great. Another entire day of laying here doing nothing but thinking about sex,” Chris groused, to which Marco could only groan his agreement.

“I’ll take it over dying. Thanks for coming by, both of you. But Gilda? Fortrakt?” Tara called out to them before they exited.

Both stopped in their tracks and turned back to her. “Y-Yes?” Fortrakt answered nervously.

The human woman looked to Gilda as if she was struggling to find words for a moment. “I just wanted to let you know that whatever happened… I don’t blame you. And I don’t hate you.”

“Seconded,” Marco added as his eyes began to flutter again. “Hard to hate you for something we don’t even remember happening...”

Later that afternoon, Gilda ordered Fortrakt to the markets to buy some fresh fruit and other soft foods for their guests, who Staff Sergeant Cullen said would be released sometime the following day.

They would certainly need a stocked icebox, given they wouldn’t be able to leave their suite while they regained their strength and things were still uncertain with the Ibex. But she had an ulterior motive in mind in sending him on the errand, wanting to clear him out so she could speak to Tara alone.

The ponies may think friendship is magic, but there’s nothing magical about doing a friend’s duty to reveal upsetting information! she inwardly groused, wondering what Element of Harmony was supposed to assist in a task like this. Honesty? Loyalty? Kindness?

Explaining her intentions to Staff Sergeant Cullen, he moved Tara into a side room, ostensibly so he could check her injuries in private.

Once she was there, he admitted Gilda and told the surprised sentries to leave. When they objected, he showed off a new black metal object she hadn’t seen before. It was slightly longer than the standard ones wielded by the Marine sentries and appeared to have not one but two vertically aligned tubes.

It also had no crescent-shaped object hanging from the bottom, though it did have the mounted cylinder that cast a purplish light; she noticed it seemed to cause her white feathers to glow slightly as the beam passed over her.

“Stay posted outside. And don’t worry—any Ibex that comes in here is dead,” he promised them as he hoisted and patted the weapon, fitting his shoulder and arm through the long strap to keep it fastened to his body.

Gilda looked at him when she realized he intended to remain in the room. “With respect, Staff Sergeant—”

“Sorry, Decurion, but I have to stay. By Captain Moran’s orders, there has to be at least one sentry around at all times, and if the Captain himself isn’t available, I have to be present for all conversations. For what it’s worth, I already know what happened, so you won’t be embarrassing her any further by telling her in front of me.”

“Right,” Gilda said unhappily as he took station in the corner to oversee the room, giving the space a sweep with the beam of his light before moving the odd weapon back into what looked like a ready position.

“Tell me what?” Tara asked in confusion, her blue eyes flitting between Gilda and the Marine healer. “What’s this about, Gilda?”

Gilda took a deep breath before beginning, her rehearsed speech already slipping from her memory now that it was time to give it. “We don’t know what happened in the suite between us. But we do know something that happened to you. Sorry to pull you aside like this, but I figured you really wouldn’t want it explained in front of Chris and Marco….”

* * * * *

Gilda spent the next five minutes telling Tara about what happened to her early in the night—how she’d been seduced and rutted by her century’s First Spear in front of an audience of outside griffons.

She had been terrified of how the human female would take it, knowing her initial inclination to receiving the news would be to lash out at the bearer with tongue if not talons. But instead, either due to her much different temperament or simply remaining subdued for feeling so weak and still under some influence of the cider, Tara Fields simply listened quietly as the tale was related, not speaking until Gilda was done.

To her relief, Staff Sergeant Cullen remained silent the whole time, not cracking any jokes as he’d done with Sergeant Reyes—clearly, he made a distinction between the Marines of his unit and the civilians they were supposed to protect.

“Gods above…” was all Tara could say at first after Gilda had finished, leaving her wondering about human religion and what deities they had again. “You’re serious? Me and… Giraldi? And he did me in full view of other griffons?” Her expression shifted constantly as her emotions rapidly oscillated between what Gilda could only describe as variously fear, intrigue, worry, and even a measure of wonder; for a moment she seemed to shift sensuously on the improvised bed.

“Yes,” Gilda confirmed. She closed her eyes, wondering if she was being even remotely honorable in telling the human female about this instead of one of her other friends. “I’m sorry, Tara. I spoke to him a couple days ago. It turns out he remembers a little of it, and for whatever it’s worth, he asked me to tell you that he didn’t regret it. And that he hoped you didn’t either.”

“It’s a little hard to regret what I don’t remember,” she said with a sigh. “I can’t recall any of it, and yet… I somehow know you’re right. It happened.” She stared off past Gilda, her gaze focusing on the far wall. “But he didn’t give me these slashes?”

“No,” Gilda confirmed with a glance at Cullen, who nodded. “His splayed talons are too big for the marks you got. Considering how rough griffon mating can be, that means he was very gentle with you. But Fortrakt clearly wasn’t. Please don’t blame him, Tara. He hates himself enough already.”

“I already said I don’t. And tell him not to worry about the damage to the tattoo. I was planning to get it redone anyway,” the human woman reminded Gilda, her voice subdued, but then she turned her blue eyes on Gilda’s gold ones again. “So why are you telling me this instead of him?”

“Because Giraldi’s with his Uxor—I mean wife—and as for Fortrakt, he doesn’t know about the two of you,” Gilda said carefully with another glance at Cullen, who grimaced. “Reason being, you know how he feels about you. So if he finds out Giraldi was with you, he’s liable to challenge him to a duel. And probably lose badly.”

Tara closed her eyes and sighed. She had finally regained enough strength to pull her arms up enough to pillow her head on them, staring at Gilda over them. “I don’t want a bunch of griffon guys fighting over me, Gilda. Especially not those two. And you’ll forgive me if I really don’t like the idea of two nations fighting over what happened to the three of us, either.”

“Griffons and Ibex have been at each other’s throats for a long time, Tara,” Gilda reminded her. “The Ascendancy tried to kill you and your friends. As our honored guests, the Kingdom takes that very seriously.”

“So do we, Miss Fields,” Cullen spoke up for the first time. “I can safely speak for all the Marines when I say we’re livid over what happened. You, Mister Lakan, and Mister McLain—you’re our friends too, you know. So are the griffons, including the Decurion here. If we were allowed, we’d be more than willing to join the Kingdom on this one and show those fucking goats why they don’t ever mess with Marines. Unfortunately, we already got word back that we’re to stay out of any conflict,” he explained in some disgust.

“Thanks, Doc,” Tara acknowledged with a slight nod. “And honestly? I’m glad. I don’t want to see anybody hurt or killed over us, whether it’s the Marines or griffons, including Gilda, Fortrakt, or Galen,” she said, but then blinked hard. “Wait—Galen? That’s Giraldi, right? How did I know his first name?”

“Then I guess you do remember a little,” Gilda offered with a wry grin. “I imagine he’ll be very pleased to know you recall it. And for the record, Tara? A griffon would only offer their first name to a very good friend. Or lover.”

“Oh, really?” Either from the remaining cider in her system or from a simple appreciation of irony, Tara’s grin got something close to sultry and she raised her head up slightly, enough for the blanket to fall partially off her shoulder enough to reveal a corner of her nearest human mammary. “Well, since you and I are now calling each other by our first names, I guess we’re friends or lovers now, too, huh?”

Tara reached out to Gilda a set of her soft talons as she spoke, her tone only partly teasing as Gilda couldn’t help but notice that by moving her arm, she’d bared even more of her leftmost breast. Its soft curve drew Gilda’s gaze at least briefly to it; for a moment, she found herself with a surprising wish to see more of the oddly alluring chest-mounted mass.

But the thought was lost as she took Tara’s hand. “All joking aside, I appreciate what it took for you to tell me this, Gilda. Thank you.” She squeezed Gilda’s talons for emphasis; Gilda wasn’t certain but thought she felt a gentle tug towards the human eagless for a moment.

“Well, I can’t say I was looking forward to it, but it just felt like it would be easier to hear coming from a friend.” Gilda smiled as she stepped forward slightly and squeezed the human appendage back, sensing Tara’s feminine scent growing stronger in her nose. “And yes, we’re friends, Tara.” But lovers…?

“And I’m glad,” Tara told her with another slight squeeze and tug of her talons that moved Gilda another quarter-pace towards her, but then looked at her oddly as a memory likewise stirred from deep within Gilda again. She still couldn’t reach it, but it seemed to find a focus in not just Tara’s scent and soft skin, but the small corner of her human breast just visible beneath her extended arm. “You’re a good griffon, Grizelda Behertz.”

Gilda smiled somewhat sadly; she sat even closer but still felt compelled to look away. “Thanks, Tara. Though there’s at least one pony back in Equestria I wish you’d tell that to.”

Tara’s sultry gleam abruptly turned angry and she gave a sound not far removed from a pony snort. “Oh, yeah? Well, next time you see her, you can tell that ungrateful and disloyal ‘Dashie’ from me that—” she trailed off in surprise as Gilda gaped at her. “How do I know that name?”

“I…” For the first time, Gilda was feeling severely anxious over something other than informing Tara of what happened with her and Giraldi, and worse, Tara’s scent in her nose was somehow only feeding it. How DOES she know about Rainbow!? Did I tell her during that night? But why would I, even drunk on that sex-spiked cider? Unless—she froze at the idea that suddenly occurred to her, her eyes drifting back to the exposed area of Tara’s mammary again.

As she stared at it, she had a sudden and very vivid image of first baring it with her beak, and then her talons cupping it, finding her claws flexing as if they held it. Her mouth went dry as she felt her wings start to splay and her eagless teats begin to tingle low on her belly.

And then she swallowed, very hard. “Tara… hold still for a second,” she instructed; her voice shaky as she reached up to pull the blanket away from Tara’s back.

“What? Why?” Tara asked but didn’t stop her, a flush in her cheeks growing as she watched Gilda move closer.

“What are you doing, Decurion?” Doc Cullen asked in a warning tone.

His voice snapped her out of it, making her immediately back off when she glanced back to see he looked ready to intervene, his hand poised over one of the tools on his belt. “I have to… check something,” she explained weakly as she stepped back, her legs suddenly feeling as shaky as they had when she had first gotten up from her sickbed, but for a far different reason. “Staff Sergeant Cullen, could you please remove her bandages for a moment?”

“Uh…” Cullen looked uncertain. “Is that okay, Miss Fields? You’re almost due to have them changed anyway.”

Tara didn’t answer right away, turning her head to look up at Gilda; as their gazes met, the latter realized that they were reaching the same conclusion. “You really think that…?” The rest went unspoken as her human cheeks began to redden further.

The pull of Gilda’s buried memories grew steadily stronger, urging her forward. “I do…” she admitted, stunned to feel a strong surge of outright desire for the first time since she’d been fully freed of the potion addiction. “And there’s only one way to find out.”

“Find out what?” a confused Cullen asked, looking back and forth between them.

“Please remove my bandages, Staff Sergeant,” Tara requested, her voice tense. “And let her check the talon scratches. She isn’t going to hurt me. Or them.”

“I don’t get it, but okay,” Cullen said as he shifted his metal tube onto his back. He gently peeled off the adhesive strips that kept the soft woven fabric in place, before carefully removing the bandage. “For what it’s worth, the slashes are looking a lot better than they were, though your flower tattoo will need some repairs. So now what?” he asked them both, his eyes glancing back and forth between them.

Gilda knew he was likely to learn something she did not want getting out, but found her need to know overrode all such concerns. Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward despite her shaky legs and splayed her talons to their maximum width. She then hovered them over the marks on Tara’s back, only to gasp in shock and dismay when she saw what she somehow sensed she would:

The separation of the talon scratches perfectly matched the width of her splayed claws!

Reeling, she yanked her talons away, only to snag the blanket right out of Cullen’s hands in her haste. She stumbled backwards in shock with the fabric caught in her talons, tugging it all the way off the human woman to reveal the soft and sensuous curves of her naked form to Gilda’s wide and darting eyes.

Curves that Gilda instantly realized from sight alone that she was very much familiar with. And had very much loved. Ancestors forgive me, it wasn’t Fortrakt Tara was with… she realized as Cullen turned to stare at her in shock, but her eyes were fixed on the deliciously fleshy flanks of Tara’s bare rear. By all the Crows of the Kingdom, it was ME!

“Gilda?” Tara called from where she lay. “Was it… did we…?”

“I… I…” Gilda couldn’t finish before she felt an unreasoning wave of fear overtake her, along with a strong and nearly irresistible surge of recalled passion for the human female. She still couldn’t remember what they’d done, but she could somehow recall in that instant every feminine curve of Tara’s form, including the addictively pillowy softness of her human breasts and flanks against her talons.

It was quickly followed by feeling phantom caresses of Tara’s deliciously dexterous hands as they returned the favor to her eagless body, and for a moment, Gilda swore she could even recall the delicious cider-soaked scent and taste of her human nest!

Her talons flexed hard at the remembered feel of her friend’s soft and supple body beneath them, and her tongue darted out as if to taste her again. Her heady thoughts suddenly piling one on top of another, her wings began to rise along with her tail, and she even felt her nest and teats starting to engorge and fiercely tingle.

Feeling faint, she found herself ready for a moment to step forward and put talons on the human woman all over again, wanting to experience and pleasure her friend’s exotic eagless body for a second time. But a wave of sheer panic took hold of her, and she began to back away slowly, towards the door, stumbling again on the blanket still caught in her claws before she tore it free and took flight.

“Gilda, wait!” Tara called after her, but Gilda didn’t stop or look back. Unable to accept what she was feeling and terrified of what she so desperately wanted to do, she fled the room, bolted down the hall and ran out of the Inn, taking flight for the Auxiliary Guard barracks as soon as she was able.

Tribune Narada regarded Gilda coolly as she stood before her superior, drumming her talons on her stone desk. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t understand this sudden change of heart, Decurion. After demanding to remain in your posts with the humans, you now want a transfer?”

“Yes, sir,” Gilda replied, still standing at stiff attention.

“To an Auxiliary Guard combat unit near the Pearl Mountains?” she said dubiously.

“Yes, sir.”

“And you don’t want to tell me why?”

“No, sir.”

The drumming of her talons got louder as Gilda’s recalcitrance grew. “Have you told Second Spear Gletscher or the humans about this?”

“No, sir,” she admitted, closing her eyes.

Narada studied her a moment longer before she shook her head. “Request denied.”

Gilda’s beak dropped open. “But sir—”

“Must I repeat myself, Decurion?” the Tribune’s eyes narrowed. “After fighting for days to stay in your post, you just up and change your mind on a whim. You’ve offered me not a single justification for it, particularly after learning that the human soldiers and civilians actually want you and the Second Spear to stay. This makes no sense, and I’m not going to approve your transfer to an Ascendancy-facing combat unit until you give me a damned good reason as to why.”

Gilda’s beak opened, then closed, then opened again. “It’s personal, sir.”

Narada’s eyes narrowed again and there was a sharp flick of her leonine tail. “Do you honestly think that’s going to fly with me, Decurion? Especially when just about everything should be personal for you with regards to our human guests now?”

“No, sir.”

Narada’s tail lashed hard, and her tapping talons turned into a partially clenched fist that dragged painfully loudly on her stone desk. “Decurion, I have much better things to do right now than play word games with you, so out with it! Either tell me what sparked this nonsensical request or get out of my office so I can write my deployment orders in peace!”

Gilda closed her eyes, mentally bracing herself. “Very well, sir. I will explain. But as the matter is highly personal, I respectfully request that none of your aides or sentries be present.”

“Denied. They’re here in case of an Ibexian assassination attempt as a prelude to war. Be assured that by my order, they will not say a word about what they hear,” she said with a pointed glance to the guards and aides around them, who nodded once. “Now cut the angsty teenager routine and tell me why you’re here before I have you thrown out of my office!”

Gilda feared her next request was certain to result in an outright explosion from her superior, but with no other way forward, she voiced it anyway. “Then… may I write my reason, sir?” she asked, struggling to keep her voice from trembling as Narada’s quill snapped in her grasp when her fist clenched around it. “By my most revered and sacred Ancestors, I swear you’ll understand why I’m so reluctant to speak it when you read it!” she hastily added, trying to placate her superior’s smoldering temper with a very crisp salute.

Narada regarded her coldly for a moment, before pushing a fresh quill and blank sheet of parchment at her along with an ink jug. “You are severely trying me, Decurion! But very well. Out of morbid curiosity, I will indulge you. But you’d best have a very good reason for this infuriating behavior, or I will not be happy.”

“I do, sir.” Realizing the Tribune’s patience was at an end, she grabbed at the pen and parchment and began writing out her reasons on the rear of the Tribune’s desk. She took no time to choose her words carefully but simply explained in terse sentences what she had learned from her meeting with Tara, praying it would be enough and Narada wouldn’t share it with anygriffon else.

Two minutes later, Gilda passed her the note and stood back to rigid but trembling attention as Narada accepted it with an impatient swipe of her claws. She scanned the note once, blinked, and then read it again a second time, much more carefully.

She studied Gilda closely for a moment as she crumpled up the note and dropped it into a metal can beside her, where the piece of parchment was instantly incinerated by the charm the can contained, reducing it to ash. It was normally used for classified communiques that required their destruction upon receipt, but she’d seen fit to use it for this note as well.

She then grabbed a communication gem out of her desk and spoke into it. “Decanus Nydia, report to my office immediately,” she instructed, then set her eyes back on Gilda, not speaking until the summoned griffon arrived.

There was a knock at the door, followed by a female voice when the visitor was admitted. “Decanus Nydia reporting as ordered, sir.” Gilda could just hear the thump of talons in salute.

The honor was returned quickly. “Greetings, Decanus, and thank you for answering my call promptly. By my order, please cast a shroud of silence over me and the Decurion here. I need to speak to her privately about a personal matter.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, and though Gilda never saw the Magus in question, she felt a wave of magic wash over her followed by seeing a shimmering field descend, enclosing the two of them in a translucent but distorted bubble.

“Very well, Decurion.” Narada’s voice had become, if not more gentle, at least less impatient; the magical chamber producing an odd echo effect like they were in a wide cavern. “I now understand why you didn’t want to explain this in front of other griffons. But I’m still at a loss as to why it changes anything.”

Gilda broke her bearing long enough to give her superior a disbelieving look. “With all due respect, sir, how in the crows am I supposed to be around Miss Fields or her friends now, knowing that I both rutted and injured her?” she asked, sparing a glance outside to see the Magus in question. The bubble tended to distort sight like you were seeing through a bumpy glass surface, making it impossible to discern what was happening on the other side of it, but she could just make out that the Magus had the headfeathers of a red-tailed hawk.

“Is that the only reason?” Narada challenged, lacing her Talons as she leaned forward in her sitting position with her elbows on her desk.

“What other reason do I need? By all the crows of the Kingdom, sir, I can’t even look at her now without thinking about it—without memories of crows-know-what trying to rise up even despite the cider! I know I injured her, but I find I still want to be with her again! And even if I didn’t, it doesn’t matter! Knowing what we did is always going to be in the back of my mind whenever I’m around her!”

“So in other words, you now know how Second Spear Gletscher felt when he believed he hurt her?” The Tribune pointed out dryly, causing Gilda to blink hard. “He didn’t quit. So why should you? And by the way, have you told him that he’s not responsible for Miss Fields’ injuries?”

Gilda had to look away at the question. “No…” she admitted, squeezing her eyes tightly shut as she realized how it sounded. To say nothing of how it felt. “I’m sure Miss Fields herself will tell him.”

“I see. So instead of facing him—and her—you’re running away? And maybe hoping to kill a couple Ibexians to assuage your guilt?” she paraphrased in some contempt. “I expect far better behavior from you than falling to pieces over a drunken fling that wasn’t your fault, Behertz. Even Gletscher realized he was acting like a crow-damned fool over hurting her—after a few choice words from me. Why can’t you?”

It undeniably stung, being compared unfavorably to Fortrakt. “Even if that fling was with an alien female whose race the Kingdom is courting? Even if I’m afraid I might try to be with her again? That I might hurt her again?” she asked wanly, cursing herself for feeling a strong sense of remembered sensual desire to go along with her pain.

“What were the answers to those questions for the Second Spear, and why would they be any different for you?” the Tribune instantly challenged, her tone short. “And is that really the reason you want this transfer? Because unless I miss my guess, all I’m hearing right now is an eagless scared to death of what happened and what she’s feeling. Scared to death that she might not just do it but enjoy it all over again, cider and fertility potion or no.”

Gilda slumped at the undeniable answer that she sensed from the depths of her very being, where her hidden and deeply buried memories of that night kept calling to her like a growing rumble of thunder from an approaching storm. “I don’t feel I should be guarding somecreature I may be emotionally compromised around, sir!” She tried a different angle.

“And your solution is to flee to the frontier and hope to lose yourself in combat, potentially getting yourself killed in a war that may yet start over what happened to you?” the Tribune summarized in some contempt. “This isn’t an act of bravery, Behertz. This is one of pure cowardice. Of turning tail and fleeing!”

The words were a slap to the face, which Gilda had no doubt was the intention. “With all due respect, sir, I’m offering up my life to avenge what happened to us! How by all our Ancestors is that cowardice?” she couldn’t stop her wings from flaring slightly in anger.

“Because what you’re doing is trying to hide from your feelings and guilt! What you’re doing is a selfish act designed to save you pain by caving to your fears! And I’m sorry, but I’m not going to let you do it!” she snapped back. “You once told me that you left Equestria to flee a broken friendship and later regretted it. Then tell me, Decurion—how is this not doing the same?”

Gilda’s jaw dropped open as she made the comparison herself and came up with the undeniable answer. By all the crows, she’s right… She felt her anger and fear turn into a deep sense of shame. This is what I’ve always done—up and fled when a relationship ended badly. I did it with Rainbow. I did it with that eagless in Nova Ocelota. And Ancestors forgive me, I nearly did it all again over TARA!

She deflated, hard. “Sir… as I think about it, you are correct on all counts. I offer my sincerest apologies for my dishonorable conduct and cowardice. You are absolutely right that I am acting out of fear, which has little to do with hurting her. I therefore respectfully withdraw my transfer request.” She stood back to rigid attention.

“Granted. But Decurion…?”

“Yes, sir?” Gilda froze, expecting a final reprimand.

She got one, though it was far milder than it might have been. “Emotional reactions do not become you, or a griffon soldier. I will let it pass only because I had the same thing happen to me once many years ago, when I got into it with that dragon.” She reached into her desk and pulled out a small lockbox, releasing its seal spell with a pressed talon to pop it open and pull out a picture of her lounging with a gold-scaled and red-tailed adolescent drake.

“His name is Crimson Comet. He was the one I ended up with after too much cider at a Pony New Years’ celebration in Las Pegasus. I couldn’t face him for a long time after, either, until he eventually sought me out. It was hard having to face him and explain why I fled, never mind the fact that he’s 120 years old and could tell me in exact but gentle terms why I’d been wrong to do so,” she recalled, turning a mood Gilda had never seen from her before—regretful.

“In time, I was able to accept what happened and indulge myself with him again, without any guilt or liquid help. When I finally did—it turned out that being over a century old, he’s a very experienced lover and dangerously good at fighting griffon mating rounds—all I could do was slap myself with a wing for spending so many months in denial. So learn from my mistake, Decurion, and do not cut yourself off from Miss Fields and her friends, or Second Spear Gletscher.”

Emotionally spent and feeling completely cowed, Gilda could only nod her understanding. “I thank you for your time and indulgence, Tribune. I offer my sincerest thanks, and with your permission, I will return to the Inn to make my apology to Miss Fields.” She turned to leave, intending to step out of the bubble.

“Granted. But Decurion?”

“Yes, sir?” she turned back as the Tribune’s expression became stern again.

“Regarding Crimson Comet—If you say a word about him to anycreature? Then I’ll not only bust your rank back down to Fledgling but assign you latrine duty for a year! Is that clear?” she warned.

For the first time since entering, Gilda grinned. “As the ponies say… crystal clear, sir!” She came to attention and saluted again.

The flight back to the Winged Hall Inn was easier than it had been before, Gilda realized with some amazement, but she still felt her stomach clench as she reentered the building and immediately went to the infirmary.

“You came back,” Tara said in some wonder after Cullen had transferred her cart to an adjacent room again and then shooed the sentries away, though he still insisted on standing guard himself with his different and slightly larger metal tube, once again donning the same goggles as the guards he replaced. “I was afraid you might not.”

“At first, I wasn’t going to,” Gilda admitted in shame as she returned to Tara’s bedside, though she took pains to keep a respectful distance this time. “I tried to request a transfer. Fortunately, the Tribune told me I was acting like a crow-damned fool over you. And she was right.”

Instead of scolding her or making fun of her as Rainbow might have done, Tara smiled. “Hey, I know how it feels to be afraid of facing someone again,” she replied wanly, enduring a fresh shiver from her withdrawal symptoms, making Gilda throw a second blanket over her from a folded pile of them. “I said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t blame you—or Fortrakt—for what happened. And the fact that these slashes came from you doesn’t change that.”

“It sure changed it for me,” Gilda admitted in pain, feeling forced to look away again. “All this time, I thought Fortrakt was being a smitten idiot over you. And now the weight’s on the other wing. I’m very sorry for injuring you, Tara. I can’t imagine I meant to.”

“If you meant to, I’d be in a lot worse shape than this, don’t you think?” Tara pointed out dryly. “That’s what the Ibex wanted, from what you guys said—for you to rape or kill us, right? Well, that didn’t happen. And if these scratches are all they got out of that tainted cider, then I’m gonna laugh at them.”

“I’m glad you can, Tara. Because it’s no laughing matter to me.” Gilda hung her head. “And if I stay in my post around you, what’s to say it won’t happen again? What’s to say that I won’t hurt you again?”

Tara considered her words carefully before speaking. “You know, Giraldi didn’t hurt me despite how big and strong he is, and with a little more experience, I’m sure you won’t either,” she pointed out, then grinned at Gilda’s surprised look.

“Yes, I’ve recalled a little more. Maybe the cider’s not as effective on us, but I keep getting these flashes of memory wafting up, especially from early in the night. Nothing about you yet, though. Pity.” She gave a wistful sigh, then grinned again. “For the record, I’ve been with a couple girls over the years, but neither worked out.”

“Me too,” Gilda admitted without thinking, then started and looked over at Cullen, whose face was as impassive as a soldier at inspection. “So what do we do now?”

“I don’t know, and I probably shouldn’t be asking myself that while there’s still some cider in my system,” Tara decided as she propped herself up slightly on Gilda’s side, and this time Gilda was certain that the human woman had deliberately done it to show tantalizing hints of her chest-mounted mammaries. It worked as Gilda internally swallowed and found her eyes drifting over them, restraining another impulse to step closer.

“But we don’t need all the answers now, you know. Just like with me and Marco, let’s give it some time and distance—after I’m off this fucking fertility potion and can think with a clear head again, that is,” she glanced up at the upside-down bag feeding her arm tube with a wince.

“You’ll be off it by tomorrow, Miss Fields,” Doc Cullen promised. “And my lips are sealed regarding what was said here.”

“Thanks, Doc. Maybe things will change once I’m off that juice, but right now, I don’t feel the same regret with you or Giraldi that I did with him. That might mean it’s safe to pursue this further. If so, it can be a one-time thing, or it can be an ongoing affair if that’s what we—yes, we—decide. But for now, just stop feeling guilty and let it go, Gilda. It happened, and there’s no sense beating yourself up over it.”

“And you really think it’s that easy?” Gilda felt an odd sense of deja vu as she suddenly heard an echo of both Giraldi’s advice and Fortrakt’s anguish within her. By all my Ancestors, I will never, EVER tease Fortrakt for falling for a human female again! And I still don’t know what may have happened with Marco, either… one mental crisis at a time, though!

“Easy? No. I learned that the hard way with Marco. But it’s not impossible. Look—I don’t know what happened that night, and neither do you. But those talon slashes on my back weren’t made in anger. It’s pretty obvious it was the result of mutual passion, don’t you agree?”

She pantomimed the action that would have produced them with her own blunt talons, arching her spine in feigned pleasure while her fingers splayed, causing her soft claws to dig into an imaginary back. “That means that whatever we were doing, we enjoyed it… right?”

“I…” The action caused Gilda to flush and her wings to start to splay as her own psyche responded with the undeniable answer; for a moment she was sorely tempted to ask Doc Cullen to leave so she could apologize to Tara for injuring her properly.

Tara noticed her reaction and gave a sly grin, clearly enjoying the effect she was having on her griffon friend as she raised herself up a little more, propping herself on her elbows to allow the blanket to slide halfway down her back and let Gilda see the top half of her impressively large breasts. “You know what, Gilda? I’ll call these scratches marks of affection from a lady I like, and I’ll wear them proudly. In an odd way, they’ll make sure that even if we don’t remember that night, we’ll never forget it, either.”

Gilda smiled at the heartfelt declaration of forgiveness and friendship, choking back an uncharacteristic urge to both rut and cry. You hear that, Rainbow? THIS is how a friend acts when you buck up! “Thank you, Tara. By all my Ancestors, I swear I won’t ever forget this.”

“I know you won’t, Gilda. I already know you’re the kind of girl—eagless—that keeps their word.”

For a moment, she looked to Gilda like she was all but ready to invite her to explore her human body anew. But then she glanced up at the upside-down bag and Doc Cullen as if to remind herself that they weren’t alone, and that she didn’t know how much of her urges were due to the remaining cider in her system.

Sighing, she settled back to the cot, pillowing her head on her arms again. “But do me a favor and let me tell my friends and Fortrakt about this. I already got Doc here to promise he wouldn’t say a word, and he won’t unless ordered otherwise.”

“If the Captain tells me to spill it, I’ll have no choice,” he warned. “But aside from that? Like I said, my lips are sealed, Decurion. I don’t want to hurt or embarrass Miss Fields here, so the other Marines won’t hear one word about this from me.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Tara told him with a grateful nod. “And Gilda? Let’s take care of things sooner rather than later. So please find Fortrakt and tell him I’d like to speak with him privately.”

Gilda wasn’t privy to the conversation that followed. But she thought it best to remain just outside the infirmary in case Tara wanted to talk to her again in Fortrakt’s presence.

But she was never summoned, and the door to the infirmary remained closed. They sure are taking a while. Is that good or bad? She wondered as she waited for nearly half an hour outside the room for him to emerge. When he finally did, he looked equal parts dazed and despondent, if not outright devastated.

“Second Spear?” she called to him in Aeric when he didn’t look up. “Are you okay?”

“What do you think?” he replied forlornly in the same tongue. “And before you ask, she told me everything.”

“Everything…?” Gilda held her breath.

“Yes, everything. I guess I should be happy it wasn’t me who wounded her. I guess I should be jealous and angry at you for doing it! And I should be completely furious at the First Spear for getting her first! And yet, all I feel right now is… numb.”

Well, that’s better than I thought he’d take it, she granted, even if she wasn’t certain that it was an improvement. “For what it’s worth, Second Spear, I don’t know how I feel about all this either. And I don’t know what I can say.”

He looked up sharply at her. “What is there to say? This not only means that you got to be with her, but so did the First Spear! And just what am I supposed to do now? Challenge each of you?” he threw up his wings in disgust.

“Don’t worry. Even if I wanted to, she already told me not to—that she doesn’t want us fighting over her. So there’s nothing for it. Whatever happened, I wasn’t part of it. And it’s obvious by now it’s dangerous for us to be with them anyway. You hurt her in the throes of passion, so what’s to say I wouldn’t?”

The only response Gilda could think of was a weak one, but lacking options, she used it anyway. “You don’t know you weren’t part of it. You don’t know what else might have happened, and neither do any of us.”

“Oh, right. And just who else was there, Decurion?” he asked derisively. “You? Despite what the Ibex depicted of us in that crow-damned ‘video’, we wouldn’t rut no matter how soused we were because we don’t like each other like that! So just who does that leave for me? Chris? Marco? Giraldi?” he scoffed, causing Gilda to fall silent. “You really think that I’m a tiercel-tucker, or that they are?” he exploded, his wings flaring in full fury at her in a display that would have instantly resulted in a duel if she didn’t feel his pain so keenly.

Noticing he’d attracted the attention of the Marine sentries at the door, Fortrakt took a deep breath and quelled his anger, forcing his wings and headfeathers to furl. “Crows take it, Gilda. All I wanted was Tara. And all I could take from that night was the certainty that I got to be with her, however briefly. But now? Even that is denied me.” He hung his head as his wings and tail drooped.

“Fortrakt…” Gilda trailed off as she realized she had no idea what she could say to him.

“Save it. It feels like this entire last week has been nothing but the Gods themselves mocking me. And I’m tired of it, Gilda. I’m a Second Spear, but apparently, not even the second choice of my dream eagless. So if you and Giraldi want her? You can have her. I won’t pursue her any longer. I’m through being hurt,” he told Gilda as he stepped past her, not looking at her.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to do two things. First, I’m going to write my daily report on what I’ve learned about human concepts of friendship and forgiveness, and then I’m going to write a letter to that Talon eagless asking if she still wants to have a round when I’m fully recovered.”

“Will you be staying in your post?” she had to ask. “I wouldn’t blame you if you left now, and I’m sure the Tribune wouldn’t either.”

“I don’t know yet,” he replied sullenly, stopping but not looking back at her. “At a minimum, I’m going to ask the Tribune for immediate leave when I report tomorrow. You’ll understand if I need to be away from everything for a bit.”

“I understand.” Gilda bowed her head, feeling a deep measure of pity for him. “Listen, if there’s anything I can do—”

“Haven’t you done enough?” he snapped at her irritably before catching himself. “My apologies for my behavior, Decurion. I respectfully ask that I have this evening to myself. You’ll understand if I need time to… to just deal with everything.”

“Of course,” she said as she watched him leave, wondering why restoring one set of friendships meant she had to hurt another. So, is this your ‘Magic of Friendship’, ponies? she asked herself unhappily as he departed for what she feared might be the last time. Because right now, it sure doesn’t feel magical at all...

To Gilda’s great surprise, Fortrakt was waiting for her at Narada’s office the following morning when she arrived to deliver her report and receive her daily briefing.

More to the point, he seemed in far better spirits, answering the Tribune’s questions crisply. Having presented himself well, his request for leave was granted, but he asked for it to be delayed for one day so he ‘could see his new friends out of the infirmary’ and escort them back to their rooms.

When Gilda somewhat anxiously asked what had happened on their way back to the Inn—five days after leaving the infirmary herself, she had regained over half her stamina, she was happy to see—he replied that he’d sought out Giraldi at his cliffside home and had a long talk with him in the presence of his Uxor.

“I think he first thought I was there to challenge him,” he admitted with a chuckle—the first time she’d heard him laugh since before they ended up poisoned by the potion-spiked cider. “But I told him that I needed to understand why he did what he did, and why I should accept it. As it turned out, he didn’t remember everything, but he remembered enough. And we ended up having a long talk over some larded scones, a jug of good rum and a bowl or two of dried meats and cheese.”

“Then what did he tell you?” Gilda asked, but he only shook his head.

“With apologies, Decurion, that’s personal. But he said some things that really made me think. And seeing him with his Uxor and cubs… well, that gave me a whole new perspective on him. I see now why Tara liked him. He’s a really good soldier, sire and lover—just an all-around good griffon.

“And you know what? Maybe that’s why he was the best tiercel for her. Seasoned and able to give her the first time with a griffon she needed. As much as I hate to admit it, being inexperienced meant I would be clumsy and probably accidentally hurt her. But he knew exactly what he was doing, and what she needed,” he granted as they landed in front of the Inn, folded their wings after checking that their surroundings were clear, and then walked up to the Marine sentries to request entry.

After passing their purple tube-mounted lights over Gilda and Fortrakt to no noticeable effect, they were allowed passage, though they both heard some whispered asides from the human pair as they passed that were enough to make them blush.

Clumsy and inexperienced… Gilda repeated the phrase as they ascended the stairs to the second floor. That’s probably exactly how I ended up hurting her! Sorry, Tara… she mentally apologized again, still amazed that the human woman had forgiven her so easily when Rainbow had dumped her for less.

And given that, do I dare be with her again? She didn’t know, but regardless of temptation, she also wasn’t about to even entertain the idea of finding out until Tara had fully recovered from her addiction. Now that she’s off the cider and potion, she might not be interested at all! Gilda found the idea more than a little depressing. Then again, my desires seem to be coming back, so why not hers…?

They arrived in time to find Chris, Tara, and Marco being helped up out of their cots. Their “eye-vees” were already removed to Gilda’s great relief—even after her own experience with it, she was afraid she might pass out at the mere sight of seeing them pulled free.

They were greeted warmly by the three, who were struggling to stand, having already dressed in some light clothes for the trip back. Tara leaned heavily on Doc Cullen for support at first, while Marco waved off help as he struggled to gain his feet.

“If you want, you can ride on my back, Chris,” Fortrakt surprised Gilda by offering him a lift, as he seemed to be having the most trouble of the three keeping his balance. “Don’t worry, I can support you. Just be careful of my wings, okay?”

“Oh. Thanks,” Chris granted as Fortrakt knelt before him, though the red-headed human seemed to blush slightly to Gilda’s eyes. “Ride ‘em… griffie?” he suggested to the others with a grin, earning a snicker back as he settled in somewhat gingerly to his uncertain mount. “Just take it slow and easy, would you? My stomach’s still not okay.”

“Lucky. Don’t suppose I could get the same treatment, Gilds?” Marco suggested with a lopsided but hopeful grin.

“It’s Decurion. And in your dreams, Marco Lakan.” For the first time in many days, she felt some of her old attitude resurface.

“Ouch, Marco. Shot down again, huh?” Tara teased, to which Marco made a show of staggering back like he’d been struck by a crossbow bolt.

“Even on my deathbed, I can’t win the favor of my fair lady!” he over-emoted like he was part of a Kingdom theatre troupe, eventually accepting the help of Sergeant Reyes to make it to their suite. For her part, Tara accepted the aid of Doc Cullen, and Gilda couldn’t help but feel a momentary flash of jealousy when she kissed the taller Marine after making it to their room, saying it was for all the help he’d given them.

“Just doing my duty, ma’am,” he said graciously, though the smile on his face suggested he was going to be savoring her favor for a while.

When they got in and got settled, pausing long enough to sip at some of the juice Fortrakt had purchased for them, they started looking around for their possessions, only to realize not all of them were there.

“Putang ina! Those fucking Ibex! They took my laptop!” Marco announced in disgust after searching all over the suite and in his room. “I paid twenty-eight hundred bucks for that!”

Bucks? Gilda guessed from the context that was some kind of currency, as she couldn’t imagine they were selling ibex males or whitetail stags, particularly since the latter’s isolated and slightly xenophobic nation in the northeastern interior of the Equestrian continent would not take enslavement well.

“It ain’t just you, buddy. My phone’s gone, too!” Chris groused as he returned from his room to search the couch pillows. “And I can’t find my field equipment bag!”

Tara came back next, keeping her balance by leaning on the wall as she walked. “I just checked my room. It isn’t just electronics—my books are missing! I also can’t find my sketchpad or my earphones! Those fucking mountain goats cleaned us out! They took everything!”

“Not everything.” Marco visibly relaxed as, with some help from a surprised Fortrakt, he moved a couch aside to check a hidden compartment under the floor. “Good news, gang—I guess the shroud spell worked. Our other stuff is still here.” He removed a hidden panel in the floor with a burst of magic—an unsealing spell? —and then pulled out a small nondescript chest, opening it just enough for the taller humans to look inside. “See?”

Both Chris and Tara relaxed. “Thank God,” the latter said as Marco put it back in its hiding place. “If they’d gotten hold of those…”

“Those? Those what?” Fortrakt tried to peer over the top of the chest, but Marco closed the lid.

“Just some stuff we’re really not supposed to have brought,” Marco said carefully. “Sorry, buddy, but we can’t say what it is. Because we’d be in big trouble with everybody if they knew.”

“What he said. And it’s okay, Tara. Even if they did swipe them, they couldn’t use them or get very far with them,” Chris smiled thinly, then turned to a confused Gilda and Fortrakt. “Just like the Marines, we had the ponies magically protect our stuff before coming to the Kingdom. The apprentice of Princess Twilight herself, Starlight Glimmer, cast the spells once we explained what we needed.”

“Who?” Gilda exchanged a glance with Fortrakt. Starlight Glimmer? Never heard of her, but I also haven’t been paying much attention to the news out of Equestria lately. And just what’s so important that an alicorn princess who’s also a friend of Rainbow Dash would need to get involved?

“Starlight Glimmer. Personal student and Magus to the Princess, which is kind of odd given the Princess can already cast some incredibly intricate and powerful spells. Interesting mare with a bit of a checkered past. She was liaising with us while we were in Canterlot, and she actually seemed to like the fact that we brought some stuff we weren’t supposed to,” Chris detailed with a chuckle. “I don’t get how it works, but if the stuff her spell is cast on is magically probed or taken too far away from their owners—us—the enchantment is triggered.

“It’ll send up a massive magical flare that Starlight said every griffon magus ‘within thirty leagues’ would sense instantly. The intensity of the flare would also disable the magic of any nearby mage by overloading their casting tool, whether it was a horn or stave or something else,” Tara further explained. “The items would then automatically teleport back to us, and if unable to do so, would self-destruct by melting or burning. That was our way of making sure none of our toys or tech would get stolen.”

“Really? Wow,” Fortrakt said in some amazement. “I’m no Magus, but that sounds like a pretty complex incantation.”

“I’ll, uh, take your word for it. I think the Marines did something similar, only with different parameters. In their case, from what some of the younger Marines let slip, Princess Twilight herself cast the spells,” Chris concluded.

“Nice,” Gilda granted, suddenly gaining a sly grin even as she wondered what they were hiding. So that’s why Captain Moran wasn’t surprised that the Ibexian adepts hadn’t left the city—he knew they couldn’t without triggering the enchantments. And that’s also why he warned us not to examine their equipment, she realized, relishing being able to tell the Senior Sparrow about them later—she didn’t know what magical tricks the Council of Crows had up their wings, but she was reasonably certain that they weren’t smarter or more magically adept than Twilight Sparkle.

“Wait—how far away would they have to be removed for the beacon to go off?” Fortrakt asked excitedly. “The Ravens might be able to use that to narrow the search!”

“Well, we can’t speak for the Marines, but since we didn’t want it to be triggered accidentally just because we left a bag behind at a restaurant or something, we asked for five miles and a thirty-minute delay,” Marco said apologetically. “That’s why we didn’t complain much when the Paladins asked for our stuff before entering the Hall of Heroes.”

“Great. So that only encompasses most of Arnau,” Gilda’s excitement quickly ebbed after she mentally translated the distance into leagues. “I don’t suppose this ‘Starlight Glimmer’ gave you a way to trigger that magical flare remotely?”

“Unfortunately, no. She said that in order to keep the enchantments hidden, its magical shroud had to be opaque in both directions, only reacting to an attempt to breach it. That’s probably why they couldn’t leave the city, though,” Chris mused, echoing Gilda’s earlier thinking. “The Ibex detected the enchantments and their nature. They didn’t want to leave without our stuff but also couldn’t without figuring out how to deactivate the spells. They weren’t able to, so they’re stuck now.”

“I guess so,” Marco said as he pulled out a separate, smaller portal device from his bag. “They also didn’t get my backup hard drive or tablet—guess there was only so much they could carry at once. I can still play movies, music and other videos off this, but I don’t have my full library and it’ll be a little slower to respond.”

“That’s something, I guess,” Tara granted, sitting down tiredly on the right-side couch. “I’m still too queasy to eat, too weak to walk, and I don’t want to sleep after being out for days on end. Looks like we won’t be leaving for a while. So, what should we do?” she asked them all.

“I don’t know,” Chris admitted, slumping down on the leftmost sofa in defeat—whatever state the room had been left in, Gilda noted had been tidied up by the Caleponian cleaning staff, leaving her not wanting to imagine what mess they’d left them with and what they’d been thinking as they cleaned up the aftermath of the night. “Any thoughts, Marco?”

“Just the usual one.” He shrugged, turning on his backup device. “Guess we’re stuck here for a while and have to make the best of it. No fancy food or even going outside until we’ve recovered more, too. Our options are limited, and that being the case, how about we watch a movie…?”

13: Explanations and Epiphanies (M-rated)

Author's Note

Hey, folks. As part of the story being boosted to M-rated, welcome to the new M-rated chapter 13 as part of the M-rated chapters 10-14 story track! If you prefer the original T-rated one, go here:

13: Explanations and Epiphanies (T-rated version)

Chapter Contains: Fortrakt explicitly recalling what may have happened between him, Chris and Tara the night of the cider, Fortrakt being openly aroused including splayed wings and a brief glimpse of his griffon ‘spear’, hot and heavy action in a stairwell between Marco and Gilda with plenty of petting and making out including Marco’s cider-enhanced cock being exposed; the chapter ends with imminent sex between the two.

Original Author’s Note follows:

Well, folks, as much as I’d like to keep working on this, I have to stop for a bit—the reason is that I’ve been promising for a while that I’d return to Unleash the Magic, which I typically do as fall hits in the leadup to Nightmare Night’s Halloween setting and story anniversary. So I’ll leave you with this final chapter for now, and I hope you’ve enjoyed both the new and updated content. Hard to believe, but just a couple more chapters and this revamped story will be as long in terms of word count as the original! :pinkiegasp:

Time for the now-standard boilerplate: This chapter is a heavily edited, expanded and updated version of the middle third of Feathered Heart: Chapter 4. As always, you are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original.

Be advised there’s a great deal of suggestive content here, in the form of Fortrakt recounting what he thinks happened to him the night of the cider, and things getting hot and heavy between Marco and a sorely aroused Gilda at the end.

It will lead directly to a new side story chapter or two, as yet unwritten, that the next main story chapter will assume the events of but otherwise skip over. I’ve tried to keep it T-rated as much as possible, as I’d rather the adult stuff stay in the side story, but it may cross the line slightly in a couple places for purposes of narration. Apologies if so.

This chapter got rave reviews from my prereading crew of AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire, and SIlverblade5. Thanks as always for all the comments and edits, guys! And thanks to all readers for the well-wishes during my recovery from my latest sleep apnea surgery. If you want to know what they did to me, look up “Midline Glossectomy”. Preferably away from any mealtimes if you want to browse pictures of it. :pinkiesick:

—Firesight

13: Explanations and Epiphanies (M-rated)

“Deal,” Gilda said as she, Chris and Tara agreed to talk to Fortrakt and Marco, respectively.

But before Chris or Tara could reply, she heard a click of metal followed by Fortrakt’s and Marco’s voices coming from the entrance to the pantry. “And we’ll start right now...” Gilda added as she heard the door open, a rush of cool air from within it heralding the return of the two males.

“Wow! Your homeland really has that many types of fighting styles?” Fortrakt asked in amazement as he held the door open for Marco, who backed through it like he was carrying something.

“Yup,” Marco replied as he carefully stepped through the opening with an array of ingredients for dinner; it mildly amazed Gilda that humans could walk backwards on two legs like that. Then again, it still mildly amazed her that they could walk upright at all given their slightly gangly forms.

“It’s mind-boggling, really. We’re a small island chain with a limited population, but we came up with all this just to resist being invaded and occupied by colonial powers—not always successfully. We’ve got styles for blades, blunt objects, and even an array of grappling arts, some of which we’ve borrowed from the various invaders we’ve had over our history. They all take years to master.”

“And you say you’ve learned three of them?” Gilda could hear the wonder in Fortrakt’s voice, but she could only wonder in turn why the human tiercel hadn’t shown any of them—or any combat ability at all—when she’d attacked him.

Marco laughed. “I wish. I’ve only dabbled in Yaw-Yan, which is a powerful striking art, and I learned a little Dumog for grappling. The only art I really studied intensely was the Kali style, which is a weapons-heavy art where I learned how to use that baton—it’s very good at teaching you to use sticks, staffs, blades, or whatever blunt object might be at hand. Got several years of instruction there, and it’s so popular that a lot of modern militaries use it to train their soldiers!

“That was definitely something I am good at… or at least, was good at.” Gilda heard Marco sigh. “It happens when you stop practicing. And though it was useful against punks in pubs in the seedier areas of Cavite, I’m not sure yet how much good it would actually be against a full-grown griffon as opposed to those two teens I fought earlier. Particularly since I can’t even beat Sergeant Reyes with it yet.”

“So is that the reason why you’re doing these morning workouts?” Fortrakt asked as Marco released his armfuls of ingredients onto the counter—he and Chris had been alternating making meals, slowly introducing them to various human foods. “To practice?”

“Partially. But all I get is Robbie poking a training knife at my ribs and pretending to slash my neck, saying” —Marco deepened his voice to mimic Reyes’s quite accurately— “‘You’re dead. Dead. Dead. Dead again’.”

“Well, that actually sounds like training,” Fortrakt replied with a smile before seeing the rest of the group staring at them. “Uh, we’re back?”

“And dinner will be ready in an hour…?” Marco felt compelled to add, but his smile dropped as he saw the looks on their faces.

Gilda felt the eyes of Tara and Chris fall on her. She paid them no mind, instead looking intently at Fortrakt, taking in his silly grin. She then turned towards Marco, who yet again averted his gaze to avoid her eyes.

Feeling jilted anew, a soft trill of annoyance escaped her throat as she stood up and walked towards Fortrakt. “Let’s go, Second Spear,” she declared with a glance at Chris and Tara. “We need to talk.”

“Uh, okay?” A confused Fortrakt answered. “And go? Go where?”

“Out,” was all she would say as she left without another word, walking past Marco without looking at him.

“Yes sir,” he said obediently as he followed Gilda to the exit, then downstairs and out the front door of the Inn.

“Uh… have I done something wrong?” Fortrakt was confused as they took flight up to an isolated late afternoon cumulus cloud and sat there, staring down at the city.

Instead of replying, Gilda answered with an observation; the stronger wind ruffling her feathers at that altitude: “You’ve been hanging out with Marco an awful lot.”

“And… is that a problem?” he asked warily. “I really like him. Never mind all his toys and ‘videos’, he’s a really interesting human.”

I really like him too, even if I can’t for all the crows figure out why... she wanted to say, but put the question aside to do what she promised her other human friends she would. “And what about Chris and Tara? You like them too, don’t you? We’re supposed to be liaising with all three of them, but you’ve barely spoken a word to them lately. They have noticed. And they’re a little hurt.”

His cougar tail and golden eagle feathers drooped. “It’s nothing personal,” he muttered. “It’s just…”

“Just what?” she asked when he trailed off, but Fortrakt didn’t reply despite opening his beak and closing it again repeatedly. “Did something happen over your leave? Look—I didn’t ask you how things went with that Talon eagless, because I didn’t want to tease you over it. Didn’t want to hurt you if your first round went badly on top of everything else that’s happened.”

“And I appreciate that, Decurion. Very much,” he said cautiously. “But you didn’t have to worry. For the record, my leave went fine and my mating round with Decanus Kesi Tralia went well—very well, in fact. We ate, we talked, we sparred, and then we rutted, enjoying not only each other’s company but some good label rum afterwards. And she was not only satisfied, but she even invited me back for another round later.”

The corners of Gilda’s beak turned upwards. “Well, congratulations, cub! That means she found both your fighting and physical prowess worthy. You should be proud and feel like a true tiercel. So why are you acting unhappy? And what does that have to do with avoiding Chris and Tara?”

“Well…” His green eyes went evasive for a moment. “I know it sounds strange, but two things happened when I was with her. First, I’m not sure how, but I’m... bigger than I was.” He flushed as he spoke, and so did Gilda. “I’m thinking all that fertility potion in the cider somehow enhanced me. And if it did that to me? Then it probably did it to all of us,” he told her. “Have, uh, you noticed any changes?”

“Do I look like I have a spear or sac that can be measured?” Gilda asked dryly, but she suddenly flashed back to a topless Tara, remembering how she said her ‘bra’ suddenly seemed too small for her ‘boobs’.

And come to think of it, mine almost seemed like they were bigger, too… She felt her teats start to tighten, but she wasn’t sure if it was more due to thoughts of the human eagless or the cold air at that elevation. “So that’s the reason you’re avoiding Tara? You’re worried you’re too big for her now?”

He gave her an incredulous look. “No, of course not! Why would that matter if I already said I wasn’t going to pursue her? No, Decurion. There was something else that happened.” His eyes went distant.

“What?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “If I tell you, will you please promise not to tell them?” he beseeched her. “I don’t know how they’d take it.”

She gave him an odd look but nodded. The Tribune kept what I told her about me and Tara secret when she didn’t have to, so it’s only fair that I do the same for him, right?

“If you want to know why I’m avoiding them… it’s not because I don’t like them. Just the opposite, in fact. It’s because whenever I see them right now, I...“ He gave a shiver that she wasn’t certain was more fearful or sensuous. “I’m having flashbacks, Decurion. To that night.”

Gilda looked up sharply. “You remember what happened?”

“I’m not sure...” he hedged, his cougar tail twitching twice in indecision before he continued, “but I think so. And I also think I was wrong—that I was part of whatever happened that night.”

Her gaze at him went askance. “If you’re not sure, then how do you know?”

“I don’t,” he admitted, running his talons through the feathers on his chest in a frustrated gesture. “But I also can’t ignore what happened during one of my later rounds with Kesi.”

Gilda stared at him. “What does that have to do with this?”

“It triggered my memories,” he explained, his eyes going distant as he looked past her. “Maybe…?”

“‘Maybe’?” Gilda echoed in some exasperation. She was starting to appreciate how annoyed Tribune Narada had gotten at her when she’d been trying to get Gilda to explain why she wanted a transfer, because getting answers out of Fortrakt was proving about as pleasant as plucking itchy old feathers from her head.

“I mean, I don’t know that what I recalled was real!” He threw up his foretalons in frustration. “Everything was going fine with Kesi. We fought and mated as proper gryphons—not once, but twice. Everything happened exactly as it should—we wrestled, we rutted; she came, I came. And yes, before you ask, it was very enjoyable. But then, while we were lying together afterwards, she said she wanted to try it with herself on top, sitting up and straddling me belly-to-belly like she’d heard human females did. So I said yes, and when she did…” He shivered. “I saw her.”

“Her? Her who?”

“Tara. I saw Tara,” he explained, turning slightly away—was he trying to hide his excitement from her? “I saw Tara sitting on me in place of Kesi, belly-to-belly and taking my spear in her nest! By the Ancestors themselves, I swear she was there, as clear as you’re standing here before me now!” His voice trembled as his words started coming quickly.

Though she didn’t want to throw cold water on what sounded like a fervently wished for but forlorn fantasy, Gilda felt she had to point out the obvious. “Well, that doesn’t mean it actually hap—”

“And I didn’t just see her in that instant, Decurion. I felt her body. Heard her voice. Smelled her scent.” He shivered, and this time, he was forced to turn away from her fully to conceal his erection. But he couldn’t hide his wings splaying into full arousal as she watched, causing her to blush; she even glimpsed the tip of his erect organ when it came briefly into view.

“I have never had a dream or vision, erotic or otherwise, be so intense and involve all my senses! And by the Ancestors, she was so beautiful! My greatest fantasy made real! But then...” He shivered again and clutched himself as he faced away from her.

“But then…?” Gilda had no idea what to make of his sudden shift of mood. Shouldn’t the possibility that he was with Tara make him happy? She was surprised to feel a moment of jealousy—not over the idea that he’d been with Tara, but over his described vision of her. By all the crows, for as much as I still want her, why can’t I have one of those?

He visibly swallowed. “And then, I could feel another set of talons on me that weren’t hers! A voice in my ear… belonging to Chris! He was behind me, and… b-beneath me.” His voice dropped to a whisper as he clutched himself all the harder even as his wings splayed wider.

Understanding dawned on Gilda. She knew the implications instantly, and suddenly, what Chris had said about remembering things that seemed impossible or some form of wishcasting made sense, as did his reluctance to talk about what happened. Could it be because he’s a tiercel-tucker? Then, does he remember this, too? she wondered, but had little time to consider it before Fortrakt charged ahead.

“And when I realized that, I not only f-felt him inside of me, but I came instantly!” He buried his head in his talons in shame, turning fully away from her to hide what she assumed was a very rigid spear. “By the Ancestors, I’m no tiercel-tucker! Why would I have allowed that? Why would I have enjoyed that? W-was the cider so strong that we would rut anycreature? Or am I really…” he couldn’t finish the sentence.

“And you really think all this happened?” Gilda had to ask, even as more and more of what he detailed seemed to line up neatly with what Chris had said—and, she noted somewhat warily, what he hadn’t said. “Even with all that cider, it seems… unlikely.” But no more so than the idea of me with Tara before it happened. And wait—if this really occurred and Tara was with him at that time, then by all the crows, who was with ME?

She realized instantly that left only Giraldi and Marco unaccounted for. And of them, the only one I’m actively fantasizing about is... she swallowed hard, and for a moment, she thought she was about to get as aroused as Fortrakt was thinking about him again.

But Fortrakt’s plaintive cry snapped her out of it. “I don’t know… that’s just it; I don’t know!” He reared up and raised up his forelegs to the sky, as if to cry out for answers from The Ancestors themselves; for a moment she caught a glimpse of the end of his erect organ and went wide-eyed as she realized how big it had to be to be seen at that angle.

“Did it really happen? Or did I just imagine it because I wanted it to have happened? Crows above, that’s just as bad when it comes to Chris! Why am I so turned on by this? Did he…? Did we…? And was Tara really…?”

His wings and tail slumped as he buried his head in his claws again, his excitement ebbing as quickly as it had come. “I’m sorry, Decurion. I know you must think I’m being a total ‘dweeb’ over this, but it’s just been too much for me to deal with. So I guess I’ve been dealing with it… by not dealing with it.”

“By not being around them?” Gilda suggested in a gentler tone, even as she was increasingly worried about what implications this had for her. And I definitely can’t tell him that Tara undressed for me now, either…

“Yes! I stay with Marco because he’s safe to be around, near as I can tell. I not only like him, but he’s good for distraction and doesn’t seem to trigger any memories for me. But whenever I’m around those two…” He shivered again, more violently as his wings splayed even harder; she couldn’t see his spear from behind him but could well imagine it was rapidly surging back to full rigidness from the thoughts running through his head.

“I swear to the Ancestors that I can see, hear and smell them all over again! That I can feel my spear deep inside Tara… and Chris just as deep inside me! I’m terrified that I’ll not only get turned on again but want to do it all over again! Even though I don’t actually know that it happened in the first place!” he finished, then turned his head just enough for Gilda to glimpse his haunted eyes while still hiding his hindquarters.

And then he deflated, hard, his wings suddenly going slack. “So how am I supposed to deal with that, Decurion? I think I’d rather be plunged headfirst into an unwinnable war than have to figure all that out, not even knowing if it’s real!”

They ended up talking on the cloud for another twenty minutes, trying to work through what happened and what to do, including whether it would be best for Fortrakt to request reassignment for fear of being emotionally compromised and unable to discharge his duties properly.

And he’s not the only one who might have to make that decision! Gilda worried that she’d have to go back to Narada herself if it got to the point that she couldn’t be dispassionate around Marco or Tara.

But to his credit, and completely unlike her, his first instinct had not been to flee—whatever else Fortrakt Gletscher was, he was no coward, and he refused to just up and quit his post in the face of his fears. “Like the Tribune said, I’m a soldier, not a sniveling cub! What kind of griffon would I be if I just up and abandoned my sworn duty to protect two good friends over this?”

In the end, after she told him that Chris and Tara were speaking to Marco just as she was speaking to him, he decided it was time to face his fears and talk to the pair directly. But when Gilda asked if he wanted her there, he shook his head, saying that it was between them. That “for the sake of their friendship,” he owed it to them to tell them what he knew, no less than Tara had when she had explained to him what had happened with Giraldi and Gilda.

“It was your duty to tell Tara about Giraldi, and her duty to tell me about both him and you. So it’s my duty, now, to tell them about this,” he ultimately decided, standing up straighter even though she could see both the determination and dread in his young eyes. “May the Ancestors guide me. And may our friendships survive the trial.”

She could tell he was afraid, but also resolute. “You really have grown up, cub,” she told him, not in the air of a superior to a subordinate but an older sibling to a younger one. “You had a successful first round only to learn something frightening, but face your fears and do what friendship and honor requires? Then I don’t care what anycreature says—you are a true gryphon, Fortrakt Glescher.”

He smiled, if somewhat wanly. “Thank you, Grizelda Behertz. And you are not only an officer I gladly follow, but a true friend.” He came to attention and saluted. And even though she was hardly given to overt displays of affection, she not only returned his salute, but feeling genuinely sorry for all he had been through—and worse, some of the things she had put him through—she hugged him, hard.

As they stayed in their embrace for several seconds, she sensed his scent and touch trying to stir another memory within her, but it was fleeting, and she couldn’t grasp it. “Listen, if you want me to talk to Marco first—” he began to offer, but she shook her head.

“And that’s my duty,” she said shortly, releasing him from the hug though she still felt strangely compelled to leave her paw on his chest. “Go on ahead of me, Second Spear. I’ll give you some time to talk to them. I’ll follow later and see you at dinner.”

“By your command,” he said obediently, but didn’t move right away. He stared down at her talons touching him for a moment before blinking and shaking his head, stepping away from her to take flight for the city below.

Gilda stayed on the cloud for another fifteen minutes, lost in thought, considering how she was going to approach Marco but finding no satisfactory answer. Even as the cloud slowly dissolved from right under her talons with the setting of the sun, fading with the loss of daytime heating that fueled the updrafts which sustained it, she didn’t move; the words of Marco’s friends echoing through her head.

“He’s not that spiteful or simple-minded.”

“Talk to him.”

Gilda squawked out an annoyed tone as she shifted position to stay on the fading cumulus, its edges becoming diffuse. She wanted to remain up there, alone with her thoughts for just a little longer. She hoped to reach some resolution, but it didn’t help. No matter how badly she wanted to, she could not get the male human out of her head, nor resolve the badly conflicted feelings she had for him.

Worse, the more she thought about him in the privacy of an isolated cloud, the more she got turned on, and before long she found herself growing excited and pleasuring herself anew to the same fantasies of him as before. By the crows, this is really getting bothersome! part of her tried to protest as she got off to the strangely insistent visions for the second time that day. But once again, it brought her no real respite, leaving her feeling both physically and emotionally unsatisfied.

And she didn’t see any way to change that. For what was the point of talking to him? If it was true that his cold demeanor was due to some silly wounded male pride over events neither he nor she had any control of or could even remember, how was talking to him supposed to fix that? And if it couldn’t be fixed, why couldn’t she just forget about him to concentrate on Tara, who she had far fewer qualms about being interested in?

She didn’t have any immediate answers, but with the dying cloud now fading to a few wisps, it could no longer support her, so she took flight, diving from its remains, tucking her wings to quicken her pace. The increasing rush of cool air and delicious feeling of speed—she would at least grudgingly admit Rainbow had given her that particular addiction, which she didn’t mind one bit—helped settle her mind and restore her awareness to the here and now.

Facing the west as it did, Arnau was bathed in fading orange rays as she landed on a third-level platform not far from the Inn. The great city at sunset was a striking sight as it slowly began to glow with pinpricks of light, softer than the cold glint of the nighttime stars; it was her favorite time to fly as the sun’s rays faded and the moon rose in its place. More than once she’d simply hovered high above the city to watch as one by one, each house from the Eastern Gates began to glow as they turned on their firegems; the Caleponian households brighter than the griffon ones due to their inferior night vision.

However, that did not detract from the beauty of seeing it at that height, even if she couldn’t fully appreciate it just then. Not with a potentially awkward talk with Marco still to come.

Maybe Chris and Tara are right—there’s nothing that will even potentially fix this except finding Marco and talking to him, she decided as she turned her dive into a glide when she neared the same altitude as the city’s fifth level, a minute later. If Fortrakt can find the courage to do it, why can’t I?

Landing on a third-level platform, she took a moment to scan her surroundings as she’d been trained to do, only folding her wings when it was clear. Walking back towards the Winged Hall Inn, she was greeted once more by two low-ranked Marines who let her in only after she had been scanned with their violet lights—what did they do? She had heard them referred to in passing by the Marines once as “black lights”, which made no sense given they were purple, and the whole term seemed a complete contradiction anyway—and had answered a challenge from the sentries to their satisfaction.

Regardless of the answer, all of it was necessary to ensure she was Decurion Grizelda Behertz and not another griffon—or worse, an Ibex—in disguise. Passing their inspection, Gilda walked through the artificial barricade and made her way through the Inn’s lobby, towards one of the two stairwells that flanked it.

The wall-mounted firegems were starting to increase their illumination with the dimming of the sun through skylights, as they normally did in the evening; she passed a few armored Marines coming to relieve their compatriots, which would allow the latter to eat and otherwise go off-duty.

She received some greetings and even a few salutes, but she didn’t pay much attention to them until a more familiar voice was heard.

“Good evening, Decurion.”

Gilda looked up to see Staff Sergeant Stafford approaching with something he called a ‘clipboard’ and a writing utensil humans called a ‘pen’, even though it looked nothing like the quill pens griffons used. Then again, she had first mistaken it as a ‘pencil’. This was another thing that she found odd with humans; they seemed to make more than one tool to do the same job.

“Staff Sergeant,” Gilda returned his proffered salute, carefully mastering her still-roiled emotions and trying not to think about Marco for a moment. “On patrol?”

“Just reviewing our new security protocols, ma’am,” he said, causing Gilda to start at his using a form of civilian female address on her. It wasn’t the first time, by far, but it never got any less jarring. She decided then she would include a note about that in her upcoming cultural training seminars, explaining that griffons didn’t use that form of address for female officers in the military. “Captain’s orders.”

“I see,” Gilda replied, though she really didn’t. She’d noticed before that they seemed to be putting more devices in strategic and occasionally hidden locations, but she couldn’t discern their purpose. Nor did she particularly care just then.

“Getting flight time before dinner, I take it?” Stafford asked as he continued to inspect his checklist. “We can already smell one of Mister Lakan’s latest culinary creations being cooked. In truth, we’re rather envious of how well you all eat.” He favored her with a smile.

Gilda smiled back. She hadn’t enjoyed everything they’d been served—as far as she was concerned, it was very hard to equal the exquisitely fatty yet crispy flavors of Christopher’s fried chicken—but it certainly had been interesting fare and had shown them the many unexpected ways cooked meat could be made to taste good.

It also helped that both Chris and Marco seemed to be making it a competition to see whose food would be enjoyed by Gilda and Fortrakt the most; even Tara had made an attempt at cooking some ‘pork chops’ of flying boar she found a bit too dry. “Wings need some stretching. And being cooped up in a room for an hour or so isn’t good for a sky griffon like me,” she offered carefully.

“Makes sense. I noticed that young Gletscher was with you earlier. Another aerial workout for the two of you, then?”

Gilda shook her head. “Not this time. I had to discuss something soldier-to-soldier with him.” That’s true enough, right?

“Considering how close he sticks to Mister Lakan, it’s understandable why he might need a talking-to.” Stafford chuckled. “It’s become a running joke with us how easily Marco gets into trouble, no matter where we are.”

Gilda forced a smile on her face when she heard Marco’s name, though it was belied by a sudden flick of her tail, less from anger than exasperation and confusion. Part of her wished she had spoken up earlier in front of Marco to clear the air then. Even if the outcome wasn’t going to be favorable, maybe it would have at least eased her doubts and given her a good reason to stop sexually fixating on him?

Or maybe he would have just gotten defensive and felt embarrassed about being called out in front of his friends, she reminded herself. No, this has to be something we discuss alone and—

“Is there a problem, Decurion?” Stafford’s sudden question jolted Gilda from her thoughts. “You look troubled.”

“No problem at all,” she replied as neutrally as she could, trying to still her twitching tail.

But to her frustration, Stafford proved too perceptive; he noted her body language and frowned. “Is Mister Lakan still bothering you? Because I’ll inform the Captain if he is.”

Gilda sighed and closed her eyes. “No, that won’t be necessary, Staff Sergeant. Marco Lakan isn’t making any trouble for me.” At least, not in the way you’re thinking...

Stafford continued to stare at her for a moment before he gave an unconvinced nod, firing her a respectful salute. “Alright, I won’t keep you, then. Enjoy your dinner, Decurion.”

“Thank you.” Gilda returned the honor before the two went their separate ways. Ascending the first flight of stairs to the second floor, she passed and greeted a few more Marines before she ran into Sergeant Reyes, who she knew generally came off-duty around that time. He had stripped down to splotchy shorts and an olive-hued ‘t-shirt’, as he’d heard them call it, stretching his legs as he prepared to run laps in the halls. He was also wearing one of their utility belts and an armored vest, maybe because he wanted the extra weight to train with?

He saw her and smiled. “Good evening, Decurion. I take it you’ve more or less recovered if you’re doing your usual nightly flights?”

“And you as well, if you’re doing all this training—in armor, no less,” she noted, looking him over. It was hard for her to tell beneath his clothes, but he seemed to be not so much more muscular as more wiry-looking now. “Dare I ask how it’s going with the First Spear?”

“Humbling,” he said simply, rubbing his eyes. “But at least I’m making some progress. He can still put me down pretty easily most of the time, but once in a while I surprise him. Even managed to pin a foreleg and tap him out earlier today—that was a first.”

“Oh, really?” Gilda grinned—unlike Fortrakt, she would have no qualms whatsoever about teasing Giraldi over being bested by a human. Or the Sergeant over what it might mean. “Then I take it you’re getting to the point you might be able to give an eagless a good round?” she asked him point-blank with a smirk in front of two on-duty sentries, who smiled.

“I haven’t decided that!” he said somewhat shortly and with an angry glare at the pair, only to slump slightly. “But yeah, I also want to have the option. To be able to put up a good match and even fight a duel over her if I have to. And if you two spread that around, I’ll have you on mess hall duties for a week!” he warned the pair of armed sentries, who didn’t lose their conspiratorial grins.

“Understandable,” Gilda nodded with a grin of her own, only for her mood to drop again. “But on an unrelated matter… May we speak privately, Sergeant?”

“Uh… sure,” he said agreeably, leading her down the hall, out of what she assumed was earshot of the pair—griffons or even ponies could overhear conversations at that range easily. “What’s up?”

“It’s Marco,” she said, deciding she would avail herself of the opportunity to get more advice and information on him. Or was she just trying to put off talking to him a little while longer? “He’s avoiding me, and I’m not sure why.”

Reyes stared at her for a moment. “Given the way you two started, I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“That was then,” she said, letting her feathers ruffle and still as she recalled their initial meeting. “He’s redeemed himself to me—mostly. But ever since he woke up and left the infirmary…”

“He’s been giving you the cold shoulder,” Reyes guessed, teaching Gilda yet another new human euphemism. “Okay. Well, please forgive me for asking, but before I can guess at an answer, I need to know—did something happen between you that night? Are you and Marco an item now?”

Though she’d never heard that usage of ‘item’ before, the meaning was clear enough. “What makes you say that?” she asked, not quite keeping a defensive note from her voice.

“Because I’m not stupid, Decurion,” Reyes replied, one of his eyebrows rising. “So is that the real reason why he joined my morning training? Am I going to hear about a mating round between you and him?” he asked, his gentle smile at least somewhat toning down the teasing tone of his words.

Gilda hadn’t thought of that, and she couldn’t help but flush as she suddenly wondered if the Sergeant could be correct—was that the reason?

“Short answer—I don’t know what we did.” She groaned, rubbing her head with a set of talons. “I’m not lying; I still don’t remember. But maybe he does, given his behavior. I’m told by his friends that Marco may feel humiliated by something that happened that night. Something I did but don’t even remember doing,” she replied honestly, amazed that she could discuss such a matter with the human male so openly.

But then again, he had already been open with her about his eagless encounter, so why should she do any less? “To make a long story short, Chris and Tara think that I may have… e-mas-cu-rated him.” She screwed up her beak a bit at the odd word.

“Emasculated,” he corrected with a chuckle, then leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms as he considered her. “Well, I’d normally joke and say you’d have to let him buy you dinner first before you rip his clothes off like that eagless did to me. But honestly, I think that’s off-base.”

Gilda blinked—what did that mean? “Off-base?”

“Wrong,” the Sergeant clarified. “As in, I don’t think Marco feels humiliated by you. I’d say from his behavior that if anything? He likes you but feels unworthy of you.”

“Unworthy?” Gilda echoed in disbelief.

“Yep.” Reyes smiled. “I remember a particular conversation I had with him after some daring junior officer swooped in and saved his ‘flank’.” He winked as he used the pony term, which had gained some favor among griffons as well. “And you know what he said? ‘Man, Robbie, I wish I was half as awesome as Gilda’.”

Gilda’s beak fell open into a dumbfounded expression that even an uninitiated human could understand. She found herself speechless for a few seconds before she finally closed it again to voice a single word. “No.”

“Yes,” Reyes replied with a chuckle. “Swear to God, whether the human or griffon ones. Once the shock of the fight wore off, he couldn’t stop singing your praises. It was Gilda this; Gilda that. I think you earned quite an admirer that night. He really does like you, Decurion. And he wants you to like him.”

“I don’t believe you,” Gilda muttered as she turned away, her tail twitching in agitation even as she had a sudden giddy hope that all her inexplicable feelings for him weren’t so forlorn after all. “How could that be? He’s done nothing but avoid me for the past week. Most days he barely even talks to me. And now you’re saying it’s because he likes me?”

“And if you’re afraid it would just make things worse, take it from me that Marco’s a good, but complicated guy. Even occasionally an idiot, but at least a well-meaning one. There’s a reason the Marines like him, and it ain’t just because he supplies us plenty of porn.”

He pointed towards the next flight of stairs at the end of the hall that led to the third floor. “So all joking aside, Decurion—if you want to know what’s going on, then go find him. Just corner him and don’t give him the opportunity to hide behind someone else. Clear the air with him properly and don’t automatically assume that he’s avoiding you for this or that reason. I think you’ll be surprised at what you learn. And if, after all that, I'm wrong, and he gives you grief?”

He smiled thinly. “Then I’ll be sure and punish him properly at his next workout and chew his ass out like he’s a raw recruit just off the bus at Parris Island—that’s where we do our version of your ‘Gauntlet’, before you ask.”

She smiled at the thought, then offered him a set of curled talons as she’d learned the Marines didn’t salute when out of uniform. “Thanks, Sergeant.”

“My pleasure. And if it’s not too personal, let me know how it goes either way.” He bumped her talons with his fist; not for the first time she noticed the striking surface of his knuckles was nearly as hard as rocks.

“Promise,” she swore as she took her leave, wondering where and how she could ‘corner’ the brown-skinned human.

Reaching the stairwell at the end of the corridor that led to the third floor, she turned the corner to find Marco sitting on the stairwell landing with his legs resting two risers down, his head in his hands. At the sound of her approach, his head rose up and his brown eyes met her gold ones, widening slightly in what she could only presume was anxiety as their gazes locked.

“Oh… uh, hey, Gilds,” Marco greeted her, his voice subdued.

“Hey,” Gilda greeted back, her tone much sharper than she wanted. Marco grinned nervously in response. Shaking her head slightly, she took a breath, trying to relax. “I thought you were cooking dinner.”

“Ah, yes, well…” He paused, visibly grasping for words. “Chris is tending it. I, um, was actually hoping to speak with you. Fortrakt already came by, so I figured waiting here was the surest way to make sure I bumped into you.”

“Okay,” Gilda replied, sitting several stairs lower to keep her distance. She was doing her best not to let her feathers ruffle or tail twitch for fear of scaring him off—he’d certainly learned such signals of griffon unhappiness well by then. “I’m here. So speak.”

Marco scratched the nape of his neck. His mouth opened for a moment before he closed it as his eyes wandered towards the floor. Gilda could barely keep herself from trilling in impatience and annoyance before Marco finally spoke up.

“I guess I just want to say that I’m sorry.”

Gilda felt her shoulders relaxing but forced herself to look stiff and unmoving. Her eagle eyes narrowed as they gazed at Marco accusingly, eliciting a nervous chuckle. “Then why have you been avoiding me?” she asked, pointedly not accepting his apology. Despite that, she was impressed that she was able to keep her tone level, even as her insides churned with ever-more roiled emotions. “For stuff we don’t even remember happening?”

“You’re really gonna make me spit it out? Fine,” Marco sighed, running his hand through his mane of black hair. “Because I think I do remember one or two things that happened. And I’ve been having a hard time dealing with it.”

Just like with Fortrakt… “Okay. And…?” She held her breath. “Were your friends right? Did I somehow humiliate you? Make you feel like less of a ‘man’?”

He flushed. “You didn’t...” He seemed to shrink back a bit in the same manner Fortrakt had when he talked about Chris. “But… that’s a whole different crisis. Look, the reason I’m here is I just got a talking to from Chris and Tara. They told me I was acting like ‘a fucking idiot’ over you. And as Tara reminded me, it’s not the first time.”

Gilda rolled her eyes. “Ah, so that’s why you’re apologizing. Your friends called you out,” she said in some contempt even as she reminded herself that she’d asked them to do exactly that. Still, she couldn’t help but feel anger that he needed a strong shove in her direction before he did so. Then again, hadn’t she?

“Well, not only,” Marco replied, starting to squirm where he sat under the intensity of her stare. “I… okay, look, this is going badly, and I have no idea how to say this.”

This time, an annoyed trill did escape Gilda’s beak; one that made Marco immediately stiffen. “I’m not going to sit here listening to you sputter and stammer, Marco Lakan. If you’re going to say something, then say it! If you can’t, then come back to me once you can.” As she made a move to walk past him and go up the stairs, Marco stood up and blocked her way.

It was a gutsy move on his part, as that was normally tantamount to inviting a griffon to fight.

“Wait! Hold on.” He held up his palms in a halting manner against her glare and low growl. “I want to fix this, Decurion! I really do! I’m just—” he sighed again “—I just need to find the right words. And no matter how well I speak it, English isn’t my first language. I have to translate my thoughts as I go.”

Gilda exhaled slowly, trying to release some of her tension. She sat before him in a neutral pose on the landing this time, keeping her wings and feathers furled, finding herself with equal urges to flare them in anger and excitement. “Okay,” she said with far more patience than she felt, wondering again why she was actively fantasizing about him when their interactions seemed to always be awkward.

“Oh… okay,” he replied, smiling nervously as he seemed to do when he felt anxious. A short-lived laugh escaped his lips, but he immediately stopped it at her impatient stare. “Um… okay. Okay, I’m just saying okay. Alright. Look, I know that I’m not the easiest guy to like. When I first met Chris, he and I had arguments over religion. With Tara, it was politics. The point I’m making is that I never would have thought that after a year, they would be my two best friends. At this point, I’d go to war for them. Hell, I’d go to war with them.”

“You’ve already proven that to me,” she reminded him. “That’s why I decided you weren’t as bad as I first thought—you defended Chris without hesitation, even facing down two hostile griffons with nothing more than a metal stick. By griffon standards, that was a very honorable thing to do,” she reminded herself as much as him.

“Thanks. But that’s just it.” He sighed heavily. “I always seem to give a bad first impression to people I meet. In the end, it usually stays that way. For every Chris or Tara who gets over that first impression, it seems like I get five or six others who don’t—Ambassador Goldberg’s an example of the latter. So when I screw up really badly with someone, I tend to just avoid talking or hanging out with them for fear of making things worse.”

“So that’s why you ignored me?” she guessed. “You thought I was still mad at you? Over what happened with the cider, if not you accidentally groping me that first night you arrived?” She let her feathers ruffle in reminder even as she found herself half-wishing he’d put his human paws on her in such a manner again.

“Kinda,” Marco replied, eyeing her warily. “I thought you were over me being an ignorant idiot that first night, but I wasn’t sure. And as for the cider stuff, I didn’t know how you felt about it. I didn’t even know what you remembered.”

“Nothing,” she said shortly, but then looked away as she once more felt a memory trying to rise up within her, only for it to infuriatingly bump up against a hidden barrier again. “Nothing but a strange certainty that we did something.” Why, by all the crows, would I be constantly fantasizing about you unless we did?

“We did,” he confirmed with a sudden swallow and sheen of sweat, abruptly unable to meet her eyes, though Gilda felt a wave of weakness and heady excitement shoot through her at the confirmation. “So then if I have to tell you just what I remember doing, I was afraid you’d hate me even worse than before.”

She gave him an odd look despite her suddenly pounding heart. “Why? Over something we had no control over and few memories of?”

“Those few memories are enough. And I’m still scared you might tear me up over them?” he cringed to admit.

“And you really think I wouldn’t have then?” she challenged him, chancing a step towards him, needing to vent but also not wanting to scare him off. “Look, Marco—no offense, but you’re not that character in Braveheart or one of the fighters in Warrior. You’re not strong or skilled enough to overpower me—at least, not yet,” she hastily added on seeing his hurt look.

“The point I’m making is, there is no way in all the Crows you could have raped me or otherwise forced me to do anything I wasn’t willing to. And as much as I hate to admit it, the way that crow-cursed cider works is to bring out a griffon’s—or anycreature’s—deepest desires and remove all inhibitions about enacting them! So, if I was still mad at you—or if I got mad at you while under its influence…”

She had to look away again as Marco swallowed hard. “Well, the Ibex would probably have gotten what they wanted. But instead? I guess I let you have me. I guess that I wanted you to have me.” She was surprised that it felt far more liberating than painful to admit. “I was interested in you. Be honored.” And even if I don’t quite understand why, I still am…

“Honored…” he repeated the word. “Then you really do like me!” he realized in further wonderment.

But instead of confirming it, she gave him an exasperated look. “Well, you’re making it a little difficult by acting like a damned dweeb, but yes,” she replied dryly, making him cringe. “If you want to know why, it’s because you can cook, you can fight, and you’ve proven repeatedly you’ll stand up for your friends. Any one of those is considered honorable to a griffon, and having all three of them makes you worthy of friendship to most griffons—especially me!” she exclaimed as Rainbow’s face flashed through her head again.

“Thanks. But just friendship?” he had to ask. “I admit I’m still learning about griffons, but, uh... don’t you have to earn the right to ‘rut’ through a mating round?”

She stared at him. Why had he just asked that? “Usually, yes.”

“But that’s just it. I didn’t…” He slumped again. “You know, most human guys would be delighted to land a lady they think is normally way out of their league, but that’s not what I feel at all. If you want to know why I’m avoiding you, it’s because, well... it feels like I cheated with you. That I didn’t do anything to deserve you. That I only got my hands on you because we were both under the influence,” he explained forlornly.

“And for the record, that’s the biggest reason I’m training now,” he forced himself to admit. “It isn’t just to make sure I can deal with another attack. Just like Robbie with that eagless of his, I want to be able to win you properly, on your terms and not because of that ‘crow-cursed’ cider.”

Gilda was struck speechless by the admission. She dimly noted that Sergeant Reyes had been improbably right in his guess that Marco’s behavior stemmed in part from feeling unworthy of her. But that mattered less to her at that moment than the realization that the brown-skinned human well and truly wanted her, but only if he could have her on griffon terms.

Only if he could have her on her terms!

Ancestors above… so he feels that whatever happened, he didn’t earn me, and now he wants to correct that by proving himself worthy as a griffon would? By all the crows of the Kingdom, nocreature has ever offered that to me before, she thought in wonder, and she was surprised to feel a sudden and very strong surge of not just appreciation but outright desire for the brown-skinned human.

A surge that brought color to her cheeks and threatened to start her wings flaring right there in front of him, not in anger but in intense excitement that all her previously unwelcome fantasies of him suddenly had a very strong and acceptable justification. And by my Ancestors, nocreature has ever HONORED me like that before!

Her reaction was not lost on Marco, who stared at her and smiled—not slyly, which she would have hated, but shyly, like he was afraid of embarrassing her.

“Wow… you really seem to like that?” he observed cautiously, causing her flush to deepen and wings to widen in response. The latter began to steadily rise up right there in front of him despite her weakening mental efforts to restrain them, announcing her arousal to the world. “I mean it, you know! I swear, what I want most of all is to deserve you!”

The heartfelt assertion sent another wave of pure passion cresting through her that left her feeling lightheaded and shattered her remaining resistance, leaving her suddenly and quite keenly aware of his presence and scent. “I know…” she barely croaked out as her disobedient wings flared rapidly to full attention, revealing her reaction to his fervent declaration with a sensual display she would have teased Fortrakt about endlessly, had it happened to him just a couple weeks earlier.

Still staring at him, she had an incomprehensible but overwhelming urge to not only show herself but outright offer herself up to him right then and there! She knew it was both ridiculous and even potentially dangerous for who might see them and what it might mean, not just to themselves as a couple but their careers and relationships with their friends.

And yet, here and now, she couldn’t help it—she wanted him to see what he’d done to her; turning her on as no male ever had.

And he’s wrong… she somehow sensed just then as her dilating pupils flicked to the rapidly growing bulge in his pants that would have made even the best-endowed griffons proud; her flared feathers becoming instantly and exquisitely sensitive, ready to receive a lover’s touch. It wasn’t just the cider that made me do it—he did something else that really turned me on that night. Something that REALLY won me over… but what?

As if in response, the image of red-caped and shield-wielding humans flashed through her head again followed by the persistent vision of metal birds diving on a strange seagoing ship through a hail of incendiary arrows. Their presence and several strong measures of music she could somehow hear in her head sent more excitement than she could ever remember coursing through her, cider or no.

She didn’t know if it was flashbacks from her still-buried but now-boiling memories of that night driving her, each a self-contained bubble that rose and burst against her mental barrier with a release of, if not the actual recollection they contained, the feelings and emotions that accompanied them.

Tolerant amusement at his interest giving way to the simple enjoyment of being admired.

The undeniable thrill of being seen as desirable turning slowly but surely into a simple wish to reward.

The delicious feeling of dominance giving way to a very surprising surrender.

The delight of finding out just how compatible humans and griffons truly were.

She didn’t know what acts accompanied those emotions, but she desperately wanted to find out.

To feel it all again.

To know it all again, and this time remember it fully!

Unable to restrain herself any longer, she reared up hard and lunged at him, shoving him against the wall of the landing; her claws landing on his shoulders and ready to tear his clothing off right there—to bare him fully so he could pleasure her properly with his spear as well as the soft but sensuous talons she’d been endlessly fantasizing about.

In response to her aggressively amorous act, a surprised but sorely aroused Marco reached up to embrace her and locked his soft lips with her hard beak. His eyes went wide and breathing became labored as he began to caress her lower flanks and back while clutching her to him, letting her feel his hardness against her belly.

A passionate trill escaping her beak as they began to kiss more frantically, she willed his hands higher towards her flight muscles as her talons began to dig into both his pants and the thin fabric of his shirt, ready to rid him of his constraining clothing by ripping it to shreds. She restrained herself just enough to find his zipper and pull it down with the end of a talon, finding that the thin undergarment he wore beneath had a wide opening in front through which she could swiftly find and free his surging spear.

Careful to keep the tips of her claws off his sensitive flesh, she found and pulled his phallus free, glancing down in great satisfaction and amazement to see it growing further, quickly stiffening in her grasp. Enamored of both its size and erotic shape, to say nothing of the wave of human musk that seemed to be coming off him in waves, she pushed her surprisingly sensitive belly against it, rubbing herself against its length as Marco’s hands finally reached her flight muscles and immediately began fondling them in an action she had once attacked him for. But now…?

But now, she trilled her pleasure as her wings reached maximum rigidity, wanting him to touch and caress each pinion in turn.

But he never got the chance as the sound of approaching and quite rapid human footfalls broke into her fevered thoughts; the sight of Sergeant Reyes entering the stairwell from below snapped her out of her sensual reverie. He began to charge up the first flight, taking them three at a time until he looked up and his eyes widened, spotting the intertwined pair and stumbling to a halt as he reached the landing, barely a body length away from them.

“Oh. Uh… hey, Robbie,” Marco offered wanly, still caressing her for a moment before he let her go, allowing a mortified Gilda to push back from him and hastily drop back to all fours. “Gotta say, you’ve got perfect timing!” he cupped his hands hard over his open pants.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be, Sergeant?” she all but growled at him even as her wings remained flared, not giving him much room to pass. She did so even though she wasn’t sure if she was more relieved or angry that he had interrupted them, given how ridiculous the idea of rutting Marco right in the middle of an open and frequently traveled stairwell was!

“Uh… sorry,” he said, panting lightly as he recognized their intent and looked away. “Didn’t exactly expect to find you two here.”

“It’s okay. We really shouldn’t be doing this out here anyway,” a still-flushed Gilda pointed out, looking up to the open skylight over the stairwell through which patrolling griffons could occasionally see in. “It’s not private and anycreature from Marine sentries to the cleaning crews may pass.”

“Y-yeah… sorry,” a flustered Marco replied, still cupping his hands over his open pants. “Maybe this isn’t the best place to talk.”

Reyes gave a smirk. “If you can call that talking. Just remember that tomorrow morning is still on, Flip-boy. We’re working out at dawn, and if you pussy out, I know where your room is,” he threatened, though the twinkle in his brown eyes belied his tone. “I don’t care if your dick’s wet; I’ll drag you right out of bed with her if I have to.”

“In that case, I’ll be sure to wear my steel underwear,” Marco replied flippantly, impressing Gilda that he was still able to make jokes, even caught in a compromising position.

“Oh, har, har, you little brown prick,” the Sergeant said with a mock sneer.

“Undoubtedly bigger than yours, Robbie. Wanna compare?” Marco instantly rejoined, moving his hands away so the Marine Sergeant could see his impressive stature. His spear instantly responded by falling from its vertical to a nearly horizontal position, bouncing slightly in the air as it reached the limits of its range of movement. It reached out from his body the length of at least nine and a half uncias, which was a size that would more than do any griffon proud.

The Sergeant swore violently at the sight of Marco’s erect spear standing proudly before him. “You well-hung fucker! Looks like the cider did an even bigger number on you than me!” he admitted in a mixture of outrage and envy, his eyes lingering on the massive shaft for a moment.

“Jealous, Robbie?” Marco teased with a languid stroke of his erect organ.

“Dammit and damn you! Well, as much as I’d love to engage in a cock-measuring contest for the Decurion’s benefit, I’m getting the distinct impression from her that I should make myself scarce,” Reyes noted wryly as Gilda continued to glare at him, the knowing grin on his face growing as he carefully eased himself around her erect wings.

“Your impression is correct, Sergeant. So if you’ll kindly be on your way…?” she encouraged him with a low warning trill and ruffled feathers, to which he grinned and fired her a mock salute.

“Yes, sir! I’ll be off, then. You two have fun and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Or if you do, I’d at least go somewhere a bit more private than this.” He resumed running upstairs with a wink that caused them both to flush and Marco’s spear to twitch.

“Considering what he’s done…” Marco noted as he hastily smoothed out his clothes, leaning back heavily against the wall as he gave a heavy exhale, trying to will enough of his excitement away that he could stuff his human organ back in his pants. “Sorry, Gilda. That hit out of nowhere.”

“My fault. Not yours,” Gilda managed through a still-racing heart, stunned by the intensity of emotions and sensations she’d felt—was that what it had been like for her, that night? “Sorry, Marco,” she further offered, though she found she couldn’t stop stealing glances at his stature even as it started to go at least slightly flaccid without losing much of its size.

“Don’t be!” he told her, taking a step towards her that only caused her cheeks to grow hotter. She couldn’t help it, looking at his aroused organ from nearly eye-level as she was, finding it’s closer proximity meant she could also smell its masculine scent more strongly. “But, uh… maybe Robbie’s right and we should continue this conversation elsewhere?”

“Right,” she agreed shortly, realizing that whatever happened, there was no turning back—that with the way she was feeling, and the way he clearly was as well, they had to get this out of their system soon or it was going to happen later at a far less opportune time and place.

“Then sheath your spear and come with me to my quarters, Marco Lakan. Dinner can wait while we discuss this matter, man to eagless.” She stepped in front of him and drew her tail between his legs before raising it high over her back, beckoning him to follow with a flick of her tassel against his chin to fall in behind her.

To her great gratification, she heard him take a ragged human breath as he felt the contact and beheld her display, she could all but feel his hungry gaze eyeing her eagless opening as she ascended the first few stairs. “Love to! But, uh... I’m not good enough to fight a round yet!”

She glanced back at him from the top of the stairs and grinned, taking pains to make sure her tail was raised enough that her sex-swollen nest was still displayed. “And I’m not asking you to—at least, not yet. You said you wanted it on my terms, right? Well, don’t worry—it will be.” She grinned evilly at the thoughts and ideas now flowing freely through her head, stopping her walk just long enough for him to bump into her from behind and stumble, feeling his newly rigid organ bounce off her flank.

“You’re right that you haven’t earned all of me yet, but for honoring me like this, you’ve earned enough, Marco Lakan,” she promised him as she resumed a rapid walk forward towards her room at the other end of the hall. Her sky griffon wings scraped the sides of the broad corridor as he quickly steadied himself and began hurrying to catch up; she could all but feel his hungry eyes on her, ogling her flared wings and feminine features as he hurried along, his spear still hanging out his wide-open pants front.

“Enough?” He repeated dumbly as his breathing became harder and far huskier. “And, uh, how did I honor you?”

“You’ll see. And to borrow a phrase I remember from somewhere… it will not be quick. But you will enjoy it!”

14: Feathered Heart (M-rated)

Author's Note

Hey, folks. As part of the story being boosted to M-rated, welcome to the new M-rated chapter 14—the long-awaited true first time between Gilda and Marco! If you prefer the original T-rated version, go here:

14: Feathered Heart (T-rated version)

Chapter Contains: Gilda x Marco, including everything from wing and teat play to oral, anal, and trading dominant positions; hints of belly breast growth on Gilda. Bonus scene of Gilda mercilessly teasing Reyes to the point of pulling out his cock and stroking it, doing so to reward him while using her actions as an enticement to get him to be with his own eagless.

Note that the trailing section of the original T-rated chapter has been moved to the start of chapter 15, since it would be completely anticlimatic to keep it here.

Original Author’s Note follows:

And here you go, folks. I named this chapter after the original story because, well, this was the scene the story never got to and we never got to see—Gilda and Marco finally consummating their feelings for each other. I don’t know when DEL was planning for it to happen, and I can’t even say I was planning to have it happen this soon myself. But as so often occurs in my writing, the story itself decided it wanted to go in this direction and dragged me along for the ride.

Can’t say I mind! It’ll make things more interesting going forward, needless to say. And it will not be without difficulty or consequences, both anticipated and unexpected. You’ll start seeing some of the former next chapter as the coming of the Cloven is now fast approaching. And when that happens? Suddenly all this petty stuff they’re worried about won’t mean shit when you’re fighting for the survival of yourself, your friends, and your nation.

Thanks very much to AJ_Aficionado and Silverblade5 for prereads, and I’d like to welcome aboard commenter ASF to my prereading team. The more the merrier, and I appreciate you all taking time out of your day to read over my chapter drafts. :eeyup:

And of course, the standard boilerplate: This chapter is a heavily edited, expanded and updated version of the second half of Feathered Heart: Chapter 4, borrowing in particular a lot of dialog from it. As always, you are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original.

14: Feathered Heart (M-rated)

Gilda barely remembered the walk down the hall to her suite that followed.

In fact, she was barely aware of anything other than her still-surging desires, only dimly noting that there were no Marine Sentries in the hall ahead of her and Marco. They even reached the door of her suite almost without incident, given her flared wing had accidentally scraped a picture right off the wall, sending it plummeting.

Despite his own distraction, Marco had caught it before the glass covering could shatter against the stone floor. It earned a laugh from both as he carefully reset it on the wall, giving her a spectacular side view of his human phallus as it extended well outward through the opening of his pants.

It was as she at least distantly remembered it—a surprisingly smooth shaft with good balance between length and girth with only a minimal taper towards its moderately flared head; it even had a slight upward curve that she supposed more closely conformed to the internal nests of human females. Unlike a griffon spear, it didn’t have the bulbed structure in the base nor a noticeable sheath it deployed from, instead simply dangling off him directly from where it hung over an impressive set of human apples.

She supposed those had been also enhanced by the cider, and the first thing she did after she finally got the door to her suite unlocked and opened to admit him was to rear up and shove him against a wall again, licking his face while she grasped the top of his ‘jeans’ and yanked two sides of his ‘fly’ hard apart.

Something audibly broke as the lapel-like halves around his open seam spilled open, allowing her to shove the garment down to his knees before shifting her talons around to his rear. She squeezed his fleshy and slowly firming flanks just as hard as he was groping her flight muscles, his efforts making her trill and her muscles quiver.

He didn’t linger on them long, however. He returned the favor of undressing him by yanking hard at the various knots and straps of her armor, tugging at them repeatedly in his haste to get the protective pieces off her. But to his credit, he slowly succeeded in baring her—she was sure he didn’t know that removing a griffon’s armor was tantamount to inviting mating, but certainly didn’t mind! —as Gilda pushed his pants all the way down to the floor with her foreleg, not caring in the least that her splayed claws were punching holes in the thin fabric.

She got his shirt pushed up to his chest just as her pauldrons were tossed aside and her vambraces followed swiftly; he then made a motion not unlike the one Tara did to remove his shirt to reveal his more chiseled male human chest. It was all she could do to hold still and not help him as he then fumbled with the fasteners of her leather cuirass at the sides of her torso, but with some increasingly frantic efforts, he succeeded in removing that as well, leaving her as completely naked as he was.

Through it all, his dangling spear bumped her in the head repeatedly as he leaned over her, which she was sure was deliberate. So she turned the tables on him by opening her beak to take its entire length within her maw, downing it as easily as she would a whole fish. He gave a squawk-like sound as he all but fell into her to feel the softer interior folds of her mouth and tongue envelop his erotic organ. But she supported his weight with ease while keeping the sharper edges of her beak safely away from his sensitive flesh, only allowing the very tips of both her upper and lower mandibles to lightly contact him.

He began to recite a mingled string of human curses and invocations to deities as her mouth milked him—or at least the parts of it she could understand given he lapsed into his native tongue at least twice—suckling it not unlike a teat and even occasionally tilting her head up enough to rub the prominent head of his phallus against the smooth inner surface of her beak. It was an act of oral pleasure that she’d never performed before—or even thought of performing before! —but given how easily it came to her, she suddenly wondered if she in fact had done it during the night of the cider.

But whatever the answer, she reveled in the feeling of his spear inside her and his own desperate cries of pleasure as he couldn’t help but give shallow thrusts into her, bent over enough that his head was lying on her middle back.

As the flow of clear fluid from his engorged and fully engulfed organ began to grow stronger to the point that she could both taste it and feel it running down her throat, she realized from his shaking and groaning that he was close to climax, which was quickly confirmed by Marco himself as he half-tried to pull out of her, saying in very strained tones that even for as good as it felt, he didn’t want to waste himself on her beak.

But she didn’t relent her efforts, deciding this was a perfect chance to show a little dominance and tease him further. “If you want to save yourself for other parts of my anatomy, then be a good griffon and show you have discipline, Marco Lakan…” she said around her mouthful of human meat.

“Fuuuck….” But unable to pull out, he simply retaliated by reaching beneath her belly to find and fondle her teats. His efforts elicited a startled squawk of his own as Gilda’s beak fell open further, her tongue relaxing at the unexpected stimulation of the sensitive nubs. Finally recovering some of his focus, it was suddenly all she could do to stay standing as he expertly worked them, finding the edges of their strangely prominent mounds to squeeze and stroke them before working her teats directly between two soft digits, just as Tara had taught her to do.

She did say it felt even better to have them touched by others! Gilda ruefully realized as she swore her mammaries were swelling in his cupped talons, causing her to be in danger of collapsing to the ground to feel his soft and fleshy fingers on them. “Crows take it…” she suddenly couldn’t stop him as his shaft slipped from her beak with a string of mingled seed and saliva still connecting it to her tongue, all her attention suddenly fixed on parts of her anatomy she’d never once thought as sexual.

At least, not before Tara had taught her differently.

“Gotcha…” he said in satisfaction as he knelt before her and began massaging her flight muscles instead, leaving her barely able to stand as he attacked them mercilessly. Within seconds, his strangely practiced touch left her leaning on him heavily as she realized she was now on the verge of her own orgasm—from teat stimulation and wingplay alone!

“So, what was that you were saying about discipline, Decurion…?” he teased her further as he began to gently push her onto her back and she couldn’t stop him, realizing that once she was laid down with her wings erect, it became very difficult to get out of it, and worse, her plans to dominate him were about to go out the skylight.

The Skylight! Her eyes went wide when she glanced up to realize that they’d never hit the opacity control, meaning anyone could see in—though given they weren’t directly under it, a griffon would have to be perched right beside it on the opposite side to see them.

“M-Marco…” She pointed with a shaking talon at the ceiling, but he didn’t see the gesture, too intent on gently laying her down on the plush rug of her floor. “W-wait…” she tried again only to be silenced as his hands passed through her wingfeathers next, making her trill anew.

“Wow… even the barbs of your feathers are stiff!” he noted in amazement as he tweaked each of her pinions with a single digit in turn, sending fresh waves of rapture through her and squawks she was unable to bite off. “Your wings really are like tits! Not that I’d neglect your real ones…” he added as he set her down gently on the floor and sat back up, staring down at her excited eagless body in wide-eyed amazement. She opened her beak to speak but couldn’t as she saw his hungry gaze all but devouring her female griffon form, her eyes flitting up to the ceiling and back.

He first set his sights on her leonine hindquarters, grasping her legs and spreading them wide to get a close look at her swollen and glistening nest. “Maganda ang… you’re a gorgeous griffon, Gilda…” he then said in awestruck voice, causing her cheeks to flush further even as her eyes kept darting upwards to the ceiling. “So beautiful… so strong and sensual… you’re every eagless fantasy I’ve had since coming here made real!”

She trilled again at the flattery, which she would have previously thought was unbelievably corny and dweeby if she’d heard it said by a stallion to a mare in a pony romance movie. Her eyes closed in pleasure only to snap open again at renewed worry at the open skylight, scanning the ceiling window anxiously. But she couldn’t see if anycreature was outside given it was lighter inside than out, and by rights, nocreature should have been there given the prohibition on flying nearby or landing on the roof Moran had ordered enacted after the Ibexian incursion.

But somehow, even the idea of being witnessed only added to her excitement, and then as she watched, he moved his gaze further up her belly at her four erect teats, each capping a shallow mound the size of nearly half the orange melons—cantaloupes, they were called? —she occasionally enjoyed eating for breakfast.

“Grabe! You’ve not only got tits, but actual boobs now, Gilda! And they feel exactly like Tara’s!” he marveled as he began to feel them up again. He gave each of her two sets attention in turn, caressing the outside of them while rubbing his thumb talons against the prominent nubs that capped them.

“Tara…” For a moment, her eyes glazed as her focus shifted to the human woman, recalling getting to see her massive mammaries, which still dwarfed Gilda’s. Thank the Ancestors we pulled back in time, because then I might not have been able to be with Marco! Please don’t be mad, Tara… she mentally called out, hoping she’d be okay with what was happening now.

For a moment, her racing heart skipped a beat when she thought she saw a weak shadow pass the skylight but also didn’t know if it was just a trick of the light, given she couldn’t really see out of it past the inside glare. And then she couldn’t give it any more mind as he positioned himself to enter her nest, making her entire body tense in anticipation.

Unable to push away given her stiff wings were so rigid they left her pinned on her back, her beak dry and agape as she saw him poised to take her helpless form, she found she couldn’t quite tell him to stop. But wanting to preserve at least one point of dominance and griffon tradition, she held up both sets of her talons in a halting gesture she’d seen humans use. “No! Wait!” Gilda finally found her voice. “Marco, wait! Not there! Not yet…”

For a moment, she didn’t think he’d heard her, and she also knew that in the state she was in, she wouldn’t stop him if he did it anyway. But to his credit, he halted with his tip poised before her. “Huh? Why not?” he asked huskily, her head raised just enough thanks to her arched wings that she could just see his phallus throbbing hard before her open slit.

It took a moment before Gilda could speak, and another moment more before she could muster enough will to get out the words. “Because… I want to save that for later, when you can fight a proper round,” she finally managed, finding she had to force out the words. “I want you to have something to work for. A reason to train!”

He stared at her in disbelief. “I don’t need a reason except that I want to be in better shape for you! That I want to be at my best for you!”

She gave another trill and sensuous squirm at the reminder that he was trying to be worthy of her as a griffon would; The simple honor of his fervently delivered words causing the muscles of her nest to contract, sending a small spurt of nectar leaving her slit and onto his waiting organ. More of it was squeezed out to ooze down her anatomy towards her other opening, which puckered hard when the thick liquid reached it.

“And that’s exactly what you’ll be doing,” she told him, unable to quite keep her nest from winking at him as a pony’s would. The sight caused his hips to give an involuntary buck and his spear to briefly brush the lips of her opening, giving a flick to her clit.

She swallowed another squawk as she nearly climaxed on the spot. “You said you’d do this on my terms, right? That’s one of them. My nest is off-limits to your spear until you can beat me in a mating round. But you can use my beak or otherwise touch me to your heart’s content. You’ve more than earned the rest of me.” She licked her beak again in anticipation of him finally finishing in her mouth, wanting his seed in her somewhere!

Marco looked crestfallen for a moment, still holding his erection almost forlornly before her open entrance. “But—” he looked longingly at her sensuous slit for a moment, which he saw all but grasping for his shaft despite her best efforts to restrain it. But to his credit, he nodded and pulled back. “You’re right. I promised we’d do this your way. I can’t put my ‘spear’ in your ‘nest’, then. But you know, you didn’t say I couldn’t…”

His words trailed off as he reached down to spread her lips with his fingers, inserting one and then two digits inside her. And this time, she couldn’t keep herself from climaxing hard at the surprise intrusion, releasing a teenage-sounding trill of pleasure she knew Fortrakt would endlessly tease her for if he heard it. But she couldn’t help it as her entire spine arched and her body went rigid, coating his fingers with her fluid.

Her body wracked by at least a dozen waves of rapture as he again exclaimed something she couldn’t make out through the sound and sensation of rushing blood; she rode his fingers until the orgasmic spasms finally subsided. “Holy shit, girlfriend…” she was finally able to make out as she fell back to the floor panting out her open beak, finally opening her eyes to see that Marco was licking her juices off his fingers, marveling at both the amount and the taste. “You wanted this bad!”

“You have no idea…” she told him, her blush deepening as her breathing was still coming quick. “I’ve been fantasizing about you for days, Marco Lakan.”

“You have?” He looked shocked as his phallus twitched hard in his lap. “You’re right; I had no idea…”

“I was hiding it well. But I couldn’t help it. Every time I thought about us being together the night of the cider, I…” she felt her nest start to engorge further. She emphasized her words by reaching down to rub one of her own teats before him with one set of talons while the other caressed the greater mass of its mammary. She was gratified to see that he watched her pleasure herself raptly. “And you can thank Tara for teaching me this, by the way.”

“Tara…?” he said dumbly as she hefted the mass of her newly mounded mammaries, suddenly guessing that the enhancement effects of the fertility potion affected eagless teats as much as male spears. She watched in some fascination as they wobbled happily on her belly, wondering if they would subside again afterwards and half-hoping they wouldn’t if they would always feel this good.

“Tara. After I found out I was with her, I couldn’t stop thinking about her, either. In fact, we nearly rutted again earlier today, while you were in the pantry with Fortrakt. We started talking about sex, then she took off her shirt so I could see her ‘boobs’, and we both got turned on. Please don’t be mad.” She decided that if they were going to be mates, she had to be honest about her other interests.

But far from being upset, he gave another muffled phrase in his native tongue as his spear seemed to swell further. “Not at all…” he quickly assured her, joining her efforts by working her bottom pair with his hands, leaving her closing her eyes in pleasure to feel all four of her teats stimulated at once. “Because imagining the two of you together has been one of my favorite fantasies! You two are so much alike it’s scary…”

Her eyes went wide at the declaration and she was struck speechless for a moment, excited at the idea that maybe if Marco was willing, she could be with Tara, too! But she didn’t have much chance to relish the thought before her new human lover cupped her two lowest mammaries in his hands and seemed to be seeing how far he could squeeze them up, causing her to shiver at the stretching of the surprisingly sensitive flesh. “Nearly a handful now. They feel really good, but not quite big enough for a proper tit job…” He seemed disappointed for a moment, leaving Gilda no idea what he meant or what he found at all inadequate about her.

But then his expression brightened again and the gleam in his eye turned excited and even something close to evil. “Pity. But that’s okay. Because there’s plenty more of you to play with…” he said with an almost malicious glee as he reached down to insert two fingers into her slit again, moving them around within her. She stiffened and squawked again at the fulfillment of her earlier fantasy that he probed her with his fingers. But the motion he used was different this time, moving his digits in circles within her as he seemed to gather up a large gob of her own eagless nectar from her nest.

He then removed them, letting her see how turned on she was by how coated they were, and then lowered them to her again, brushing his fingertips over her entrance. “So I can’t use your nest? That’s fine by me. Because you said I could use the rest of you…” He hesitated before her, enough so that she almost thought he was scared of whatever he was planning to do for a moment.

But he took a deep breath to steel himself and then lowered his fingers to press them directly against her anal orifice, where he began to rub the entrance of it, eliciting a surprised squawk.

Gilda felt a strong and very erotic electric shock go through her at the unexpected contact, sending a ripple of rapture up her spine that caused her tail to automatically flick itself aside further, giving him more access to her body. “H-hey!” she tried to protest but felt frozen in place as he continued to slowly insert a single slickened finger and wriggle it within her, stretching the surprisingly sensitive flesh to slowly loosen it.

“What’s wrong, Gilda? You didn’t say I couldn’t take this…” Marco pointed out in a slightly shaky and supremely excited voice as his soft talons continued to probe and pleasure her alimentary tract, which just like her teats she had never known could be so sensually sensitive, leaving her beak agape and tail twitching.

Her body belying the denial she was trying to voice when her nest winked hard and her wings stiffened further, she found herself writhing at the irresistibly illicit pleasure of it, trying desperately to bite off a fresh trill. At least unlike with her teats, she knew that some griffons did enjoy this kind of stimulation, but they were said to almost always be tiercel-tucking males, not eaglesses like her!

“Oh, so you do like this?” Marco realized in relief and heady excitement. “You know, I don’t remember much about that night, but I do know I did this to you before. And that you loved it!” he declared as once she had been loosened enough, he inserted a second finger, causing her eyes to bulge further and her spine to arch harder, leaving her only able to paw weakly at her lower belly, trying but failing to reach low enough to pleasure her own slit.

Despite her own undeniable pleasure, she managed at least a weak ruffle of her feathers and warning trill. “By all my Ancestors, if you get me off like this, then I swear to the crows that I’ll order Giraldi to take your tail in retaliation!” she threatened, not certain how she knew he’d do it quite gladly.

To which Marco took a shuddering breath. “Is that a promise…?” he answered weakly, his cock spurting slightly onto her slit and clit, which he rubbed with his left thumb while leaving the talons of his right human hand to continue to spread her sphincter muscle further. “Because I remember a little of that, too!”

He emphasized his words and acceptance of her threat by inserting a third soft digit into her. The intensified intrusion and the redoubled pleasure of it caused her to climax again, singing her enjoyment even louder than before while suddenly wishing that there was an audience at the skylight to watch them.

He kept his fingers as deep inside her as he could while she experienced her second crashing wave of rapture, even more powerful than the first. And this time, it came at the expert talk and touch of the human tiercel who had so thoroughly claimed and dominated her, turning the table on her when she’d initially thought to dominate him!

And it wasn’t over yet, she realized, as she came to her senses for a second time to find him positioning his impressive spear before her body once more. But this time, it was pressed squarely into her fully lubed and loosened sphincter. She barely had time to register its presence before he parted the loosened opening with surprising ease, her body yielding to him so readily it made her think they’d done this before.

And maybe we HAVE! She gaped again, helplessly pawing at the air as she suddenly felt for a moment that the very breath had been stolen from her lungs as his spear slowly slipped deeper into her depths, eliciting a ragged breath from Marco himself as he worked his organ halfway into her, holding her legs up as he leaned over to get a better angle against her. When he found it, he began to thrust slowly, driving his shaft deeper an uncia at a time.

“Ancestors above…” was all a beak-clenched Gilda could say she felt herself being filled with his phallic flesh, which was wider at its base than all three of his fingers and easily more than twice as long given his cider-enhanced stature. And yet, she took it all, feeling not just its heat and hardness but even the throb of his pulse within it against her inner walls; her body clamping down on it to squeeze and milk it.

“Hesusmaryosep!” Marco rejoined in another phrase from his native language. “You’re so hot and tight… feels so good…” he said as he began to roll his hips forward more quickly to claim her tail properly, hilting his entire length within her with just a few more increasingly powerful thrusts. “Not gonna last long, girlfriend…” She could hear the growing tension in his voice, feel his arms slip beneath her to massage her slightly elevated wingbase, propped up from the floor by the sheer rigidity of her wings.

“Don’t hold back! Give it all to me!” Gilda commanded him as her talons flexed at the air and even her hind claws splayed in his grasp, resisting the urge to grab at his back for fear of hurting him like she had Tara. So she dug them into the rug beneath her instead, deliberately snagging them to make sure she wouldn’t wound him in her passion. “Take my tail, Marco Lakan! Claim me! Make me your eagless now!” she all but ordered him as he obeyed with a series of heavy grunts and increasingly powerful thrusts that rocked her body repeatedly, the enormous ecstasy the act brought driving her quickly towards climax again.

As she reached it, she thought she saw pink and tasted cider on her tongue for just a moment, but it was quickly forgotten as she came for a third time with a powerful trill to feel his orgasm erupt within her. She could keenly feel his spear spurting against her inner walls, flooding her insides with hot and sticky human seed. The sensation left her crying out in passion and he called to an unknown deity again, arching his spine inward to deliver his essence as deep within her as his impressive endowment would allow, leaving her both amazed and delighted that she was somehow able to take it all without discomfort.

Gilda clamped down on his spear hard during the entire process, trying to squeeze every last drop of fluid from its length as his frantic thrusts finally started to slow. She found her own pulses of pleasure beginning to wane as well, sensing her spine starting to slacken. She might have passed out for a moment, she wasn’t sure, but she finally opened her eyes again to find them staring up towards the skylight, deciding that if anycreature had been there, she wouldn’t begrudge them the show, staring down in wonder at the human male she held in her arms.

Marco’s breathing was only starting to slow, and his organ remained rigid within her as he recovered his senses, looking up at her and managing a smile. “So? Did I do good, girlfriend?” he repeated the words he’d initially said to her on waking up in the infirmary, to which she could only stretch down to lick his slightly sweaty head, finding its salty taste as pleasing as his wonderfully earthy and spicy scent.

“You did. But…” Grinning evilly herself for a moment as she realized her wings had slackened enough to allow for movement again, she wrapped both her forelegs and hindquarters around his form and rolled backwards still holding him, not stopping until she had reversed their positions with him on the rug and her sitting above him looking down, his human spear still deeply embedded within her.

“Nicely done, Marco Lakan. Just like Tara on Giraldi, you dominated me even without a mating round! But now it’s my turn. And this time, we do it my way…” she announced as he looked up at her in shock, taking a ragged breath in renewed excitement to see her eagless body poised above him.

She waited until her presence and their flipped positions had fully dawned on him before she began squeezing his spear and lightly pistoning her hips until he was fully hard again, which only took a few seconds, reaching down to pin him to the floor by his shoulders with her talons.

“If this was good enough to get Giraldi off, then it’s good enough for you, too,” she announced as she sat back enough to let him see her in full display above her with taut teats and painfully erect feathers. “Like what you see, Marco Lakan?”

He answered with a buck of his hips into her, sending a fresh surge of unlikely anal pleasure up her spine. “Kantutin mo’ko…” he used a new phrase on her as he tried to raise his arms but couldn’t with her talons pinning him. “I’m yours, Gilda.”

“Here and now, you are.” She leaned in enough to give him a nip on the ear, deciding it was an oddly attractive piece of human anatomy, taking the opportunity to explore his human body in greater earnest. She ran her talons lightly over his soft and strangely fragile skin, noting that there was a very thin line between pain and pleasure for him.

Noting also that he had a small pair of his own chest-mounted teats—did this mean human males somehow shared the nursing duties for their cubs? Gilda lightly pinched and rubbed them gently between the sides of two talons just as Tara had taught her. She was rewarded by a muffled groan from Marco, feeling their small nubs turn hard and sensitive just as she had learned hers did when they got excited. It left her grinning at his reaction, thinking for a moment that learning about that previously unknown sensual sensitivity alone had made meeting humans worth it.

To her surprise, it was the same For Marco. “Jus ko! I didn’t even know I had that sensitivity…” he admitted , focusing with some difficulty onto her chest, though he had to crane his neck to do it. Seeing that, she reached over him to grab his discarded pants and shirt, balled them up and slid them under his head.

“And neither did I until Tara showed me…” Gilda reminded him, reaching back to pleasure the topmost left of her own teats before him as she continued to work on one of his with her right set. His hands finally free, they flew to her flight muscles and began to stroke them, causing her efforts to falter and the muscles themselves to quiver.

“Not… fair…” she said as she felt herself falling forward and had to brace herself with her talons planted to either side of his head.

“All’s fair in love and sex, girlfriend…” Marco said triumphantly as he reclaimed the lead. “This is what we call ‘topping from the bottom.” He ran his fingers through the flight feathers he could reach, causing each to release a sharp burst of pleasure as his soft digits sampled them, quickly driving her towards orgasm for a fourth time.

“Damn you, Marco Lakan…” she managed through a gritted beak, finding the tables turned on her yet again, suddenly wondering if it was a talent of all humans to be able to dominate their mates despite their weaker forms and even a submissive mating method. First Tara did it to Giraldi, and now Marco is doing it to ME! “Damn you to the crows!”

“I really don’t think you mean that, Gilds…” Marco teased as her arching spine forced Gilda to lean back and shift her bracing talons behind her, fully bearing her white-feathered chest and tawny-furred belly to him. He quickly availed himself of the latter, finding her topmost teats and groping them happily, squeezing the greater mass of them while rubbing his thumbs into their erect and exquisitely sensitive teats. “Call me crazy, but I think you like being felt up and fucked in the tail!”

She couldn’t answer as his practiced efforts elicited a fresh series of schoolgirl squawks she was very glad other griffons couldn’t hear. Her hips began to move of their own accord, in time with his building upwards thrusts, rising and falling in opposite motions to his. She thought she was going to lose her balance for a moment but he steadied her with his hands on her hips, holding her in place as her unused nest sat nearly over his navel, drooling onto his furless belly.

She couldn’t speak any more after that, lost in both the pleasure of the act and the doubly taboo nature of it, from rutting anally without a mating round to using such an unheard of mating method—one that had her dominant and submissive all at the same time!

Ancestors, what kind of creatures ARE these humans? she asked herself as she felt her fourth climax coming quickly, fueled as much by seeing his form beneath her as feeling his phallus buried deep in her rear. They have no magic and no natural defenses! By rights, they should be of no interest to us! So how is he doing this to me? How can they reduce proud and powerful griffon soldiers to simple sex toys, sitting atop them with their spears sunk in our sphincters, ready to climax on command?

She didn’t know, and no longer cared as she arched her head back and cried out, announcing her sensual conquest to her Ancestors yet again.

Night had fallen over Arnau hours earlier and dinner remained uneaten. And yet, Gilda found herself completely disinclined to leave her bed or eat.

Her armor and the tattered remains of Marco’s clothes were still strewn about her suite in a trail from the door to the bed; in hindsight, she’d been mildly amazed they’d finally been able to make it there after multiple rounds of rutting on the carpet and taking a shower together after.

Thankfully, she had been able to slap the skylight’s opacity control crystal with a wingtip by the time they’d made it to her bath, which sat beneath it. It also surprised her in hindsight that they had encountered no sentries or cleaning crews along the way to her room, given there were usually at least a couple pairs of the former posted in the corridor and her wings were splayed wide for all to see.

But she wasn’t about to question their good fortune. In the end, they had rutted continuously for nearly three hours, unable to get enough of each other. They were also helped by the fact that Marco found his recharge time was nearly instant; the stature of his human spear seemed to increase further with each subsequent act along with her eagless mammaries, which quickly became a favorite object of his affection.

She was more than willing to surrender them to his endlessly groping soft digits. In turn, Gilda took great pleasure that he endlessly enjoyed the simple act of touching and exploring her while she, in turn, found she couldn’t get enough of his smell or taste—of his wondrous talons working her or the surprisingly practiced sensual techniques of his tongue as he later performed oral sex on her, bringing her to climax twice more.

She loved his earthy scent and the deliciously sweet and salty sweat he produced, to say nothing of how he made her feel! He let her be dominant as few griffon males would, all the while playing some surprisingly stimulating music off of his small portal device that only aroused her further.

It was all exquisitely pleasurable, to say nothing of immensely enjoyable. And now, three hours later, they lay intertwined, staring up through a still-darkened skylight into the starry sky; the twinkling lights not too dimmed by the city ones.

They were both disinclined to move, but hunger and thirst were starting to get the best of them as Gilda both felt and heard her stomach growl. “You know, we really should get back to the suite and eat. Even though I’m sure your dinner is quite cold by now,” she told him as she laid her head against his bare chest, nuzzling one of his smaller male teats.

“Eh, Chris will keep it warm. And besides, we could always order room service,” he pointed out, laying a set of soft talons on her feathered head. It was a minor intimacy compared to all they’d already done, but one she found she liked every bit as much as the more major acts they’d performed, for the simple sense of appreciation she felt from him.

“They don’t cook their meat,” she reminded him with a contented trill, finally feeling well and truly sated. “And Fortrakt is probably wondering what in the crows happened to us.”

“Unless he ended up in bed with Chris and Tara,” Marco pointed out between caressing her chest with his other hand, only half-jokingly. “You said he was going to have a chat with them—the same kind of chat we did?”

Gilda blinked at the image, then chuckled and shook her head, reaching up to run her talons gently through Marco’s mane of dark hair. It was very fine, she noted, but he kept it clean and reasonably well-groomed. “As fun as it is to think about, I doubt it. We were ready. But given how much trouble he was having with the idea that he’d been with them both, I really don’t think that he was,” she said at some length.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said with a sigh, reluctantly pushing off her to sit up on the bed. “Guess it’s past time we get back to them. So how are we going to explain this?”

“With the truth,” she told him firmly as she sheathed her still half-stiff wings as much as she could, rolling to her side so she could sit up and lay her talons on his shoulders, leaning on him from behind. She knew the humans didn’t consider that an erogenous zone, but griffons did, and it still produced a heady feeling within her to so freely fondle them. “We don’t hide this from them any more than I did from you that Tara tempted me. To do so would be dishonorable.”

“I doubt we could anyway!” Marco chuckled as he swung his feet over the side of the short bed and rubbed his face with his hands, leaning back into her slightly. “They know me too well. They’ll probably guess what happened the instant I step inside the suite. But what about the Marines? I trust Robbie to keep a secret, but the rest…” He trailed off in worry.

“Given how they tease him over his own eagless encounter, I imagine they’d be okay with it. I’m not sure about the Captain or Ambassador, though.” Or Tribune Narada… she suddenly fretted.

“Fuck Ambassador Goldbrick,” Marco all but growled, leaving Gilda wondering what the altered name meant. She guessed it was some kind of slur, but she’d never heard the term before. “And as for Captain Moran, he’s hard but fair. I don’t think he’d be happy, but I also don’t think he’d want us expelled over this.”

“He still doesn’t quite trust us,” she reminded him as she stood up on the bed and hopped down to the floor, starting to collect her scattered armor pieces. “And he’s got good reason not to. We were spying on you, after all.”

“True. He may think you seduced me to gain information or something,” he mused as he began gathering up his clothes, but at her offended look, he quickly threw up his hands. “Hey, don’t blame him, or me for suggesting it! That’s a tried-and-true espionage technique on Earth.”

“And here as well,” she relented as she located her vest and began to pull it back on. Though considered dishonorable in the Kingdom, the Ibexians certainly recruited less-reputable griffons to do it, and she was sure the Council of Crows had resorted to it repeatedly in return to gain intelligence over the years.

“What about your own superiors?” he suddenly worried as he pulled on his torn-up jeans, which she’d broken the clasp on in her urgent efforts to get them off. It took some effort, but he stuffed his stature back inside it, though he couldn’t zip himself up until his half-erect organ fell more flaccid, still poking provocatively out the ‘fly’. “Will they be okay with this?”

“Leave that to me,” she said with a sigh as she secured the buckles on her leather cuirass and tightened the straps, trying not to look at him for fear she would get excited again. By all the Ancestors, she still wasn’t ready for this to end! But she reminded herself that there would be other opportunities, especially once he was finally able to fight a proper round with her.

But that lay at an uncertain point in the future, and in the meantime, there were far more immediate concerns that she had to address. She wasn’t looking forward to telling the Tribune, and she could scarcely imagine what Senior Sparrow Tarseus would say.

Not that I care what she thinks. But Narada… “If worse comes to worst, I’ll resign so I can stay with you. I’m sure Captain Moran wouldn’t mind having a griffon civilian advisor around.” She didn’t think it would come to that, but if it did...

He stopped dressing to stare at her in awe; his spear suddenly surging back to full erection to the point that it popped the clasp at the top of his pants, which fell open around his human phallus. “You’d really do that for me?”

Staring at the exotic spear that had already given her so much pleasure, she asked herself the same question—was she really willing to give up her career and dreams of one day joining the Wind Knights for this one human? —and smiled at the answer she received, deciding he’d shown her a simple but powerful honor, to say nothing of treasures of the heart far more valuable than simple battlefield glory.

“I would, Marco Lakan.” She allowed her wings to stiffen in response again; a riposte to his own erotic display.

“Wow...” was all he could say as he allowed his jeans to fall back off him and stepped out of them again. Meeting her halfway, he dropped to his knees and began exchanging licks and kisses with her once more. His hands even began to roam her wings and flight muscles again, starting to tug her still-loose armor off before they reluctantly pulled back at the sound of Gilda’s growling stomach, earning a laugh from each as they resumed redressing.

“One question, though, and I’m sorry if it’s a stupid one. Just how did I honor you earlier?” Marco asked.

She smiled. It would have been a stupid question coming from a griffon, but it was somehow utterly endearing coming from this brown-skinned human, whose body and mind she now knew well.

“By trying to make amends. By elevating me above you. By making all this effort to train just to make yourself more attractive to me. By wanting to prove yourself to me on my terms—by wanting to have earned me,” she recited easily, but then her mood turned a mixture of enamored and exasperated. “And by having an uncanny ability to both piss me off and turn me on, often all at the same time.”

Marco could only grin sheepishly in response as he buckled his belt to secure his pants, though it still bulged over the only half-flaccid organ within. “What can I say? It’s an ‘uncanny’ talent I have. But it usually backfires. For the record, the only thing I regret with you now is getting off to such a bad start,” he recalled with a sigh; his remaining excitement quickly ebbing.

“Listen, I’m sorry again for avoiding you. I guess I did it because I didn’t want you to be one of those people—well, griffons—who’d come to hate me.”

“By not talking to me and treating me coldly,” Gilda said deadpan as she buckled on one of her steel pauldrons next. “What a wonderful plan to get a griffon ‘girlfriend’.”

Marco visibly winced as he sat down to pull on his socks, still waiting for his spear to fully subside before he tried closing his pants over the top of it. “Okay, if you put it that way… then yeah, I was being stupid about it. I’d make a joke by saying it worked, except it really didn’t until we started talking. Honestly, though, it’s the truth. I mean, we’d already got off on the wrong foot—or paw. I broke your boundaries so badly that first night that you were ready to rip my balls off. And yet, just a few days afterwards, you swooped in to save me and Chris.”

“It was my duty,” Gilda reminded him, now working on her second pauldron.

“I know, I know,” Marco replied as he found his ruined shirt. “But that doesn’t mean I still don’t feel grateful. Even more so after talking to Fortrakt. He explained to me that those two griffons weren’t going to kill me, and that the worst thing they would have done was knock me out. And Chris told me how quickly you took to the air to find me. You basically could have waited until they were done mauling me before you came in to do your job, and nobody would have faulted you. Hell, I don’t even think that I would have.”

Gilda’s mouth opened but before she could speak, Marco raised a single finger, laying it on her beak in what she could only guess was a shushing gesture.

“I know you’re going to say you’re not like that. And believe me, I know you're not—especially after everything we just did! Listen, Fortrakt respects you a lot, and so do Chris and Tara. They were talking my ear off because I’ve been treating you coldly ever since waking up.

“But I’d gotten to see you in action by then, and no matter how turned on it made me, I also thought you were so far above me that there was no way you’d be interested in me. I know now I was wrong,” he recited in some shame, then held up a paw to indicate he wasn’t finished yet.

“I also know you tried to patch things up with me after you swooped in and saved the day, and I know that it must have taken something out of you to do so. I’m slow, but I’m not stupid. And as foolish as it seems now, I really thought that after all that happened and given what little I remembered of that night, it was just best to keep my distance. That given how wild those few memories were, you’d feel more comfortable if I didn’t bother you more than strictly necessary.”

“That’s not how griffons do things, Marco Lakan,” she told him as she tugged the straps of her shoulder armor taut, checking herself in the mirror to make sure they were on straight. “We don’t hide our feelings, especially from our friends and mates.”

“Humans, unfortunately, have a bad habit of doing just that,” Marco recounted ruefully as he was finally able to secure his pants with his belt instead of the garment’s broken clasp. His words made Gilda flash back to the movie Warrior, recalling how both protagonists had kept things from their friends and family to the detriment of all.

But she didn’t have time to consider what that might mean for human society before Marco went on. “Then for what it’s worth, and as incredibly obvious as it seems right now… I really like you, Decurion Grizelda Behertz. Both as a soldier and… well, an eagless. I’ve wanted to get to know you better from the start, but I was terrified of fucking things up further along the way.

“So, since I didn’t say this before… thank you for all you’ve done for me—done for all of us. Thank you for saving me and Chris. Thank you for putting up with all my alien idiocy and for… well, everything that happened between us that night, because I know full well that you wouldn’t have allowed it except for that spiked cider. And I know now that I hurt you even more afterwards by giving you the silent treatment. You didn’t deserve that. So please accept my apology.”

He bowed his head in contrition, but Gilda immediately stopped him. “No. Don’t bow,” she instructed as she reared up on her hind legs, flaring her wings for balance as she rested one set of talons on his chest—and how odd that she didn’t have a second thought about doing it! —while her right foreleg went to his head, halting it mid-dip. Marco stopped and his eyes focused on her in confusion. After a moment, he stood straight as Gilda went to all fours again.

“Uh, okay,” Marco muttered, his tone confused. “Um, did I get that wrong or something? I thought it was a sign of respect. I saw griffons bow before your Queen.”

“In other words, we only bow before either Queen Molyneux herself or a member of her line. We would also bow if brought before foreign royals like the pony Princesses. But I’m not a pony Princess or a griffon royal, so don’t ever bow to me. Not even if you feel grateful or because you want to apologize. It gives me an honor I don’t deserve. And if you’ve learned nothing else about us, I hope you’ve learned by now that griffons consider it dishonorable to assume a rank or station we do not have.”

“Damn. And here I thought I could show you how sincere I was—other than all the sex, of course.” Marco chuckled, earning a wry grin back. “Uh, okay, then how do I—?”

“I’ll cover all this in the cultural briefing tomorrow, but I think in this situation… baring your neck would be the most appropriate action. When you don’t want to rut me instead, that is,” Gilda replied with a wink.

“Baring your neck… oh! You mean, like how the other griffons greet you outside of a salute?” Marco recognized with a smile as she nodded. He then bared his neck and held it, though a little too slowly and deeply for her. “How’s that?”

“Not that much,” Gilda said patiently. “Don’t exaggerate or force it—just do it. It shouldn’t be a strain on the neck or feel unnatural.” He corrected himself by trying it again, and this time, she nodded her satisfaction.

“There. Perfect. In the future, know that it’s appropriate to use for everything from indicating respect to an outright apology. It’s also a sign of submission you can use in place of ‘tapping out’ during a duel or spar. In fact, I’d recommend you do so when going against griffons, since they won’t instinctively know human signals.”

“Meaning, I could have just done that when pinned by that teen griffon and been fine.” Marco sighed somewhat ruefully as he straightened his neck. “Okay, forgive my ignorance—again—but I have to ask: what does baring your neck imply?”

“That’s a bit complicated,” she admitted as she finished refastening her command chain behind her head, realizing she’d best come up with a succinct answer before she started giving her cultural training sessions the next day.

Marco raised one of his furred eyeridges. “More than this?” he motioned between the two of them, a human man and a griffon eagless; the closest analogy Gilda could think of at that moment was the pair of them trying to pick their way through a minefield of lightning-charged clouds laid by pegasi in the fog—one of the nastier tricks the ponies had employed against griffons during their war seven centuries earlier.

“You’ve got me there.” Gilda grinned, finding his mildly teasing expression and words oddly comforting. A small chuckle escaped her beak, which caused Marco to break out with a silly smile. It quickly became infectious, and her chuckle soon transformed to soft laughter with a broad smile gracing her face.

“You have a nice smile, Gilds,” he told her, kneeling before her to cup her face and kiss her. “You should show it more often.”

“No way! I have a reputation to uphold,” she replied in mock severity as she rebuckled her vambraces, then stood up straighter before him, a uniformed soldier again. “I accept your apology, Marco Lakan—on the condition that you not avoid or ignore me any longer. That you come to me if you have questions and don’t just assume something out of ignorance. And that you tell me if something’s wrong or bothering you. Griffons don’t hide things from their mates.”

“Deal,” he said, offering his talons to bump, and suddenly the pair stood there awkwardly for a moment. “So, we’re mates, then…?” he had to ask.

“I guess we are,” she chuckled, amazed at how easy the admission was, but then her stomach grumbled again. “I’m hungry, and your friends and Fortrakt are probably wondering what in the crows happened to us. We really should be getting back to the suite now.”

“Yeah, I’m hungry too. Kind of odd they didn’t come looking for us, though…” he mused as he finished dressing; she reared up to give him a parting kiss and a gentle nip to the neck. “So, um… after we eat, can I stay the night with you?” he asked hopefully, only to go slightly crestfallen when she shook her head.

“Tempting, but no. I’m still a soldier, and I still have a job to do. Once dinner is done, I have to write my nightly report and then go over my notes for the seminars tomorrow. Just talking with you now has reminded me of a couple things I still need to add to them,” she said with sigh.

“Like how your beaks don’t preclude oral and that you love being on top?” he suggested with a lopsided grin, earning a swat of her wing against his backside in lieu of cuffing him on the head as she usually did with Fortrakt.

“All joking aside, I still have duties to perform, and I don’t get to put them off for sex. And besides, don’t you have morning workouts with Sergeant Reyes? Shouldn’t you be getting to bed early after all the energy you expended here?” she reminded him with a raised eyeridge of her own.

“Eh, a cold-water dump will be a small price to pay for spending more quality time with you,” Marco replied with a smile as he secured his shirt as best he could, hiding the torn tail in his pants and using a collar button to at least partially cover another long rip at the top.

“Ah, so your intentions are suddenly clear,” she deadpanned as she walked past him. “You only apologized because you wanted to rut.”

“Well… not only,” Marco replied with a wry grin of his own. “That was definitely a bonus, though.”

“Then you got what you wanted. Let’s go, Marco Lakan,” Gilda declared in an all-business air, walking to the room exit. “I’m hungry, and we might still need to save Fortrakt.”

“Right behind you, Decurion. So, uh, I guess we’re cool now, right?” Marco asked.

“Nope,” was all Gilda said, trying not to let another grin break her beak.

That stopped Marco short. “Wait, what?”

“I accepted your apology, but remember that you haven’t earned me fully,” she reminded him. “You said you wanted to prove yourself worthy to me on griffon terms? I’ll hold you to that. It’s like I said before—you can touch me, but you don’t get to truly breed me until you best me in a mating round. So my nest remains off-limits to your spear until then.”

“But—” She silenced him with a single swish of her tail, holding it high for a moment to give him an eyeful of her eagless attributes before she lowered it again.

“I let you have me twice, Marco Lakan—once under magical influence and once by choice. But next time, we do things properly. So by my order, train and train well if you want to have all of me,” she instructed him again, dangling her tail tassel in his face for additional enticement. “Because griffons do not hold back!”

“Yes, ma’am…” came his awestruck voice, but this time, she let the mistaken form of address pass as they walked down the hall. Unlike their previous trip, they passed two pairs of Marine sentries whose eyes were unreadable behind their goggles, but who gave them odd looks at what she could only assume was the dazed expression on Marco’s face and the rips visible on his clothes.

“I think Flip-Boy just got some griffie tail…” Gilda heard one whisper to his partner after they passed, to which she could only smile. But just as they rounded the corner of the hallway to arrive at the entrance to the civilian suite, Sergeant Reyes exited the room with a bowl full of steaming meat stew whose delicious smell made Gilda’s stomach rumble; doubly so since her energy needed replenishment after all the intense lovemaking.

He saw them and smiled, leaning back into the same nook that Fortrakt had originally hid his hindquarters in when he’d gotten excited. “So, I take it you two had a good ‘talk’?” he asked with a lopsided grin and wink as he recognized their contented expressions. “Or do I need to punish him at morning training tomorrow, Decurion? Because you know I will!”

“Gee, thanks, Robbie…” Marco only half-groused as Gilda grinned evilly for a moment.

“As fun as that would be to watch? No. And thank you very much for talking with me, Sergeant. It turned out you were right on all counts.” She bared her neck at him and then turned back to her left. “See, Marco? That’s the kind of thing you bare your neck for—gratitude, deference, or apology.”

“I’ll remember that,” he promised as Reyes listened in some bemusement while eating his stew.

“Uh, no idea where that came from, but do I have to bare mine back?” Reyes asked, to which Gilda shook her head. “Oh, okay. And for the record? When I was jogging, I cleared out the sentries from the hall ahead of you. I was trying to keep you two a secret, though I’m not sure how much good it did since I’m sure they saw you just now.” He nodded back down the hall where Gilda could still hear the sentries whispering to each other about her and Marco.

Nevertheless, she smiled at the thoughtful gesture, deciding that Reyes deserved some thanks of his own. “I see. I’ll cover all this at the cultural training seminar tomorrow, but no, it’s not necessary to bare your throat in return. All you have to do, Sergeant Reyes, is put that stew down for a minute,” she all but ordered, a gleam growing in her eyes.

Camera, she mouthed at Marco with a wink, deciding that since Reyes had pranked Marco when she first arrived at their suite, it was only fair to help her new mate return the favor.

“Uh… okay.” Though confused, the Marine Sergeant did so carefully, setting his steaming bowl down on the floor before standing back up; Marco used the opportunity to surreptitiously pull out his smaller portal device from his back pants pocket and make several quick motions on it. “Now what?”

“This,” she said as she reared up and shoved the surprised Sergeant into the corner of the nook so she could rub her cheek against his and give him a light lick, keeping him trapped there until she let him go. “Thanks for thinking of us. Thanks for the advice. Thanks for being Marco’s friend, and thanks for whipping him into shape… with the emphasis on whip.”

Reyes needed a moment to recover from his surprise and the pinned position he suddenly found himself in. “You’re welcome. But, uh… Decurion? You’re kind of giving me flashbacks to getting pounced by that eagless on the balcony…” he warned as he flushed and squirmed uncomfortably, though he made no move to resist or throw her off. Which he probably could at that point, if he could now hold his own against Giraldi.

“Oh?” Gilda glanced down his body and grinned at the sudden swelling she could see below his belt; her gaze growing sultry again. She might have been appalled that she was being so flirty or open with her affections now, except for how much she was enjoying herself—enjoying the idea that she could potentially turn on and dominate any human male she wished.

Reveling in both the feeling of power and her mood still soaring from her earlier experiences with Marco, she decided to take the tease further. “Don’t get too excited, Sergeant. After all, you belong to another eagless, not me.” She poked him gently in the chest with a talon before lightly trailing it down his belly, stopping it tantalizingly near the growing bulge beneath his pants; she could smell his surge of excitement and feel his body tense.

“B-but I h-haven’t—” he started to say, only to be silenced by Gilda’s deliberately low and lustful trill, which she was certain he’d heard before from the other eagless the night of the cider.

She might have left it there. But both out of a desire to reward him and truly repay Marco for the prank both she and Reyes had played on him all those weeks earlier, she couldn’t resist letting her talons trail down the rest of the way over his crotch. Surprised at how easy the act came to her, she caressed the bulge in his pants with the palm of her forepaws while reaching inside the seam to start releasing the fasteners, which she quickly determined to be a series of large buttons instead of a zipper.

Despite the pressure they were under from both the entry of her talons and his impinging organ, they released quickly, causing the seam to open further to the point that she could pull his spear fully free, right out of his undergarment and the patterned pants he wore over it. It wasn’t quite as big as Marco’s, perhaps due to his imbibing less cider, but it was still substantial enough to satisfy an eagless easily.

She grinned at his shocked and sorely aroused expression as she began to squeeze and stroke it, finding herself delighting in the illicit act as he visibly struggled not to hump her grasping talons while his own remained clutched hard on the corners of the nook.

“I’m not your eagless, Sergeant. But I do consider it my duty to remind you of what you’re missing with her. So by my order, you will fight that mating round with Kaiko Louvre. You will duel her. You will defeat her. And then you will rut her repeatedly! Consider it your duty as a soldier serving a diplomatic delegation to help establish good relations between our races.”

She heard him take a ragged breath and felt him shiver at her words as she gave his hardness another squeeze, releasing him only long enough for her to slip her talons lower and reenter the wide-open seam to gently grasp his apples. Finding and fondling them to a weak whimper from the sorely aroused Sergeant, she pulled them free of his pants next as she silkenly whispered her next words into his ear, using a seductive tone of voice she’d never thought herself capable of. “Consider it your duty to bury your spear in her nest.”

This time, he wasn’t able to stop his hips from bucking once, trying to thrust his rigid human hardness right into a phantom eagless. “Y-Yes, ma’am...” he said through a suddenly dry throat, his gaze unfocused until he looked past her and gaped as his brown eyes widened. “Goddammit, Marco, stop recording this!” Unable to reach him, he tried to cup his hands over his exposed erection.

“Payback’s a bitch, Robbie.” She turned to see him holding up his smaller portal device with an evil grin, repeating the same words Reyes had said to him upon playing his prank on him three weeks earlier. “Aw, man, you should have seen the look on your face when she shoved you into the corner and pulled out your dick! I’ll be showing this to Chris and Tara shortly, but maybe I should play it for the entire platoon? And I’m sure Captain Moran would be very interested to see it!” he suggested with great glee.

“Don’t you dare!” Reyes exclaimed loudly, uncharacteristically flustered as he looked down to see his ‘dick’ still held and stroked in Gilda’s taloned grasp, causing him to give another groan and involuntary thrust. “And Decurion? W-with all due respect, would you please let me go before I…” The rest went unsaid, but a nervous glance down his throbbing phallus showed what he was afraid of. His organ was oozing not just clear fluid but the start of the more cloudy kind; some of which had already run down the front of his spear to coat the side of her talons.

To his mingled disappointment and relief, she released him and dropped back to all fours, finding herself staring his human phallus in the face. “As you wish, Sergeant. But do give Kaiko Louvre my warmest regards when you rut her,” she couldn’t resist adding with a wink, eliciting another ragged inhalation as he saw Gilda lick her talons clean and felt her breath wash over his throbbing flesh.

Eyeing his spear from only an uncia away, Gilda considered orally pleasuring him until he came, but decided against it, not wanting to steal that particular pleasure from the other eagless. Leave him keyed up and ready for more, and I’ll bet he’ll seek her out as soon he can! “Given your obvious virility, strength, and stature, you should have no trouble satisfying her. Either in battle or in bed.”

“But for the record, my ‘brown prick’ is still bigger, Robbie,” Marco teased.

“F-fucker…” was all a still-shocked and flushed Sergeant Reyes could say in retort as Marco just laughed.

“Thanks for the heads-up, Gilda. I got it all on video!” he announced, still snickering as he pocketed his device. “This will be blackmail material for life!”

“You’re welcome. Now that you have your revenge, let’s go eat, Marco Lakan,” she said casually as she turned on her heel to leave a fully-erect and exposed Reyes behind, letting her rising tail pass its tassel over his human sac and spear as she began to walk away. “It may just be because I’m so hungry, but your stew does smell really good.”

She took pains to keep her tail held high as she headed for the door of the suite, eliciting another muffled curse and a sound that sounded like an urk! from the rapt Marine at her erotic display; she took great pleasure in the certainty that he was trying hard not to climax at the mere sight of her just then.

“Thanks, but it smells like Chris added some spices he shouldn’t have. It better not have been curry, or we’re gonna have words…”

Since the next chapter in story order is the T-rated chapter 10, click on the link below to be taken to chapter 15:

—Firesight

===> next: Chapter 15

11: Ties that Bind (T-rated)

Four days into her recovery, Gilda was finally starting to feel more herself again.

On the one wing, human healers couldn’t rapidly heal battlefield injuries or bone fractures like the griffons could with the spellcasting of Magus Knights, but unlike them, they could restart stopped hearts under certain circumstances, induce sleep and completely deaden pain without any magic, effectively treat the wound infections that could bedevil even the best Magus healer if not caught quickly, and even replace entire lost limbs with mechanical constructs that allowed for similar if not equal abilities to the appendage they replaced.

It was all intriguing but also a little disturbing, especially for how much their medicine seemed to involve cutting and needles. But with Senior Sparrow Tarseus having not returned while she tried to track down the missing Adepts and Ambassador Strenus still in Saddle Arabia, the only griffon they could present their reports to was Tribune Narada.

“I don’t know whether to find this more impressive or appalling,” the Tribune concurred as she read the latest report on watching Doc Cullen treating an accidental blade wound.

She’d only barely been able to watch it while Fortrakt, his stomach still unsettled, had to leave the room entirely before he threw up his lunch, eliciting a laugh from the Marines after he’d departed.

The only individual she hadn’t seen during that time was Ambassador Goldberg, who, she had been told by a scornful Sergeant Reyes, stayed ensconced in his chambers behind multiple layers of Marine and griffon security while the trade negotiations remained suspended, pending the outcome of the crisis with the Ibexians. He not only remained inside, the Marine noted in some contempt, but he had ordered his food and drink magically scanned by griffon mages before eating it.

So he’s the coward I originally thought Marco was, Gilda kept the thought to herself as she and Fortrakt walked down the hall together towards the infirmary where Chris, Tara and Marco remained bedridden. A useless and entitled idiot with no ability to fight his own battles. Wonder if he was a gryphon noble in a previous life?

In the meantime, the search for their spies continued. Though the Ravens had been unable to apprehend the elusive Capricorn Adepts, who were said to be their equals in the espionage and assassination arts, they were having some success unraveling their spy network; they had captured and interrogated at least four of their contacts and cleared three safehouses, slowly denying them sanctuary.

“They’re running out of places to hide. My guess is, once they’re out of options, they’ll try to placate us by returning some of the stolen items while keeping the rest hidden, or simply scatter them throughout Arnau as a distraction to keep the Ravens busy while they attempt to slip free of the city.” Tribune Narada had noted when Gilda and Fortrakt had shown up to deliver their reports the previous morning. “But with the entire Kingdom looking for them and multiple magical fields ready to send up flares upon sensing Ibexian spellcasting, it won’t work.”

The Ibex had responded in kind by reinforcing the border with additional grand legion-sized ‘armies’, as they called them, along with an uptick of their customary belligerency and bluster. But even Gilda could pick up the slightly shrill and worried tones in their public proclamations, as they found themselves trapped in a situation of their own making.

The response they got back three days later was very simple: stay out of any conflict and prepare to evacuate if war erupted. The trade mission and scientific examination of Kingdom lands were otherwise on hold until the crisis was resolved, at which point the negotiations and field studies could resume ‘at the discretion of the Ambassador and his security chief’—meaning Captain Moran.

He had warmed up to Gilda and Fortrakt somewhat, perhaps seeing how much the other Marines liked them, though he’d pulled Gilda aside at one point and said he still wasn’t comfortable with them being around the civilians, especially after all that had happened.

“The feeling is mutual,” she told him, but then explained that she’d decided to stay for the same reason she’d given Fortrakt—that she felt responsible for what happened and that she refused to give the Ibex any victory at all from their evil operation.

“I guess I can respect that,” he finally conceded. “And the Marines seem to like having you around as well, even if I don’t understand why.”

“It’s because they’re our kind of griffies, Captain,” Staff Sergeant Stafford spoke up without prompting, then held up a pair of placating paws at the look Gilda gave him over the slightly insulting nickname. “I mean that in the best possible way, Decurion. You take pride in your nation and duty—just like us. You also care for Chris, Tara and Marco—just like us. We really appreciate the willingness of you and Second Spear Gletscher to fight for them. And speaking of Fortrakt… he’s just plain likable. He’s a good young soldier who wants to do right by us, never mind the fact he’s also a fun and earnest kid who likes our stuff.”

Moran stared at him for a moment. He initially looked like he was going to reprimand the Sergeant for speaking out of turn, but instead he simply nodded. “Well said, Staff Sergeant. I will trust the judgment of my subordinates in this matter, Decurion, as they’ve had much more exposure to you than me. But I still do want you to give cultural training sessions to my Marines, as recommended by Lieutenant Nantz.”

“Yes, sir.” Gilda suppressed a grimace, as did Reyes behind her. “I’ll see to it within the next week.”

At least Chris, Tara and Marco are awake, she reminded herself as she exited. They had finally regained consciousness the day before, causing Fortrakt to excitedly summon her to their bedside. The three all awoke within an hour of each other, once whatever strange potion the human medic was using to keep them asleep was withdrawn.

“Right on time,” Staff Sergeant Cullen said in satisfaction, glancing at the complicated clock he seemed to wear around his wrist. “You two took about sixty hours. So I figured it’d be double that for them, given we were stepping down the dose at half the rate.”

“Well done, Sergeant. Are they alert? Can they hear us?” Moran asked.

“Yes! Thank you, Staff Sergeant. Chris? Tara? Marco? Can you hear me?” Fortrakt beseeched them, though they only weakly turned their heads towards him.

“For...trakt?” Chris spoke first. “That… you?”

“It’s me, Chris. Gilda and I are here,” he promised, though he kept most of his attention on Tara, whose eyes were only barely beginning to flutter.

“Oh… hey, Gilda.” Marco reached a hand towards her. “I forget… did you like… midway?”

“Uh… sure. It was fun,” Gilda said placatingly, even though she had no idea what he was referring to. Midway… to what? She gave a confused glance at Fortrakt, who gave her an equally bemused look back. She wasn’t sure why the Marine Captain looked up sharply and exchanged a worried look with Cullen, or why she had a sudden but fleeting image of strange metal birds and fiery explosions, but put the question aside for later as Tara murmured something unintelligible.

“But…” Tara only looked confused when Fortrakt offered his apology, turning her head towards him as she lay on her side to keep pressure off her healing wounds. She visibly grasped for her memories, only to find them falling through her mental talons like so much sand; Gilda wasn’t certain why the human woman’s gaze fell on her for a moment, only to go unfocused again as a sharp shiver passed through her.

“So cold… where’s… Giraldi…?” she suddenly asked out of nowhere, causing Gilda to freeze and Fortrakt to stare at her in confusion.

“He’s recovering at home with his Uxor,” Gilda spoke up quickly, wondering how she was going to convey the First Spear’s words without Fortrakt hearing. “He wishes you well.”

“Such a sweetie… he’s not… in trouble, is he…?” she suddenly worried, her eyes staring off into the distance like she was trying to remember something again, but before Gilda could think of another safe reply in the presence of Fortrakt, Chris spoke up.

“Your chicken was great, buddy. It was a hit with our hosts, too,” Reyes promised. He laid a hand on Chris’ shoulder, gently pushing him back down. “It wasn’t your food; it was the cider. Some fucking Ibex spiked it with some really nasty stuff.”

“Ibex…?” Chris repeated uncomprehendingly, then raised his arm to focus on the tube running into it, only to groan. “I… hate… needles…”

“You and me both,” Gilda agreed before Marco spoke next.

“Why are we lying here…?” he wondered again as he set eyes on Gilda, which lit up in recognition like he didn’t recall seeing her just moments earlier. “Oh. Hey, girlfriend. Did I do good? Did you like the movie…?” he asked her.

Girlfriend…? Do good…? She couldn’t even begin to wonder before Staff Sergeant Cullen, at a warning look from the Captain, stepped up.

“I’m sorry, Decurion and Second Spear. As you can see, there’s not much point in talking to them right now. If you two were any indication, it’s probably going to be another day or so before they’re lucid enough to remember much of what they’re told,” he explained apologetically.

“But—” Fortrakt’s headfeathers drooped as he stared longingly at Tara, whose skin was pallid and golden mane had visibly dulled.

“Right,” Fortrakt slumped in defeat. “May we stay with them?”

“It’s okay. I’ll stay with them for you,” Reyes promised them both. “Since I’m still officially on medical leave, it ain’t like I got much else to do right now…”

When Gilda and Fortrakt reported to their briefing with Tribune Narada the following morning, she gave them some surprising news:

The Ibexian Ascendancy had backed down.

“A pity,” Fortrakt growled. “For making me hurt Tara, I was really looking forward to fighting them.”

“You may yet get the chance. It remains possible the Ibex are still trying to cover for smuggling some human technology back. They might surrender one or two agents and a few of the items while another one tries to slip free,” she mused. “But after being excoriated by the Queen herself over their misplaced priorities and failures of security, I’m pretty sure the Senior Sparrow and Council of Crows will not be allowing it.”

This time, Gilda was gratified to see, they were recognized quickly and greeted far more eagerly. “Gilda! Fortrakt!” Marco called out to them first. “They’re here, guys.”

“Wait… were you two here yesterday?” Tara asked in some confusion. “I think I remember you coming by…”

“We were there, Tara,” Fortrakt assured her, sitting by her bedside. “And we’re here now.”

“Thanks, but… why are we here again…?” Chris asked aloud, then he visibly shivered. “Why do I feel so cold? And why do we all have eye-vees?” he wanted to know next, glancing and then wincing at his arm. “Dammit, Doc, I hate needles…”

“You’re as bad as the Decurion,” Doc Cullen teased as he wrapped the area like he’d done for Gilda, earning a glare. “As for what happened…” he nodded off to the side, where Captain Moran had been waiting for them to arrive before offering his explanation.

It took five minutes, this time delivered in refreshingly blunt and direct terms by the Captain himself, though he very carefully avoided specifics or any mention of Giraldi being with Tara.

Gilda had been fearing how they would take the news, even sanitized. But by the time he was finished, the three humans looked more befuddled than disturbed.

“So… a bunch of Russian mountain goats switched our cider and then spiked it?” Chris was finally able to comprehend. “With some magical cocktail that made us all want to fuck?”

“They were hoping for something a lot less fun to happen, but yeah,” Reyes told them from their bedsides as Fortrakt and Gilda kept a respectful distance. “They got me and Lieutenant Nantz with that shit too, when we came by for a share of your chicken. But since we only had a couple mugs of it… we were able to get off it quicker. Didn’t mean we weren’t affected, though.” He rubbed his eyes.

“Yeah? So who’d you screw, Robbie?” Marco wanted to know from the next table over, carefully avoiding looking at Gilda.

“Just some griffon girl we’re calling Cock Lover,” Cullen said with a smirk.

“For the last fucking time, her name was Kaiko Louvre,” Reyes said sullenly. “A bunch of griffons were affected by cider steam that went up the exhaust pipes—they’d gathered over the Inn attracted by the smell of your chicken, Chris. She pounced me when I made the mistake of going out on a balcony and being seen.”

“Really?” Marco gained an odd grin as he visualized it. “Uh… congratulations?”

“Not the word I’d choose. The better question is, who’d we screw?” Tara wanted to know from her bed, lying on her side to keep her bandaged back wounds from chafing. “I just remember doing something with Nantz…”

“Nantz?” Everycreature echoed incredulously, especially Fortrakt, whose eyes flashed.

“Couldn’t help it…” She groaned and turned her head away in shame. “Got so horny so fast… knew it was wrong but couldn’t stop… is he okay? Wait—is Merlina?” she wondered, suddenly worried, and was clearly not encouraged when everycreature fell silent.

“Merlina?” Chris and Marco chorused. “Who’s that?” the latter asked.

“The Inkeeper’s daughter,” Moran patiently explained. “She’d been giving him language lessons when he was off-duty. They had the cider too. You can guess what happened.”

“No!” Tara exclaimed as she raised her head, only to lower it again in mingled weakness and dismay. “No… It’s my fault.”

“What do you mean it’s your fault?” Chris called out from his bed.

“Because…” She visibly slumped, even where she lay. “Because... I can just remember that I gave him the idea to screw her. I couldn’t help it. That poor girl… I’m so sorry…” she sniffled, struggling to raise her talons to cover her face in shame.

“Still my fault… was so weak…” Tara rolled onto her stomach to hide her face and her shame.

“Tara, if you could have resisted it, you would have done what no other human—or griffon—could in all of Arnau,” Gilda felt compelled to speak up. “It was meant to be irresistible. It was meant to cause us harm or worse, make us harm each other. That didn’t happen, but it was an attempt by the Ibexians to destroy any potential alliance and steal human magic before either could be used against them. They failed, and now the Kingdom is ready to go to war with the Ascendancy over this.”

“And we’d join them if we were able to,” Reyes added angrily, only to be silenced by a look from Moran.

“Great. So is that supposed to make me feel better? Knowing that two entire nations are ready to fight over us?” Tara asked despondently.

“Ganon ba…” Marco muttered to himself. “Sorry, I’m still wondering what we did? I feel so sore, and I don’t know what’s from the withdrawal and what’s from…” He shivered and pulled his blanket tighter around himself.

“I wish we could tell you, Mister Lakan, but we really don’t know,” Moran said with a glance at Gilda. “All we know for sure is that the Second Spear and Decurion here were found in the former’s room, dragged there by the Ibex. The rest of you…” he visibly chose his next words with care. “The rest of you were found unconscious the following morning, suffering severe dehydration and withdrawal symptoms in your suite… along with First Spear Giraldi.”

“Who?” Chris asked.

“The First Spear of our unit,” Fortrakt offered helpfully, only to receive uncomprehending looks back from everycreature except Tara, whose eyes got distant and cheeks flushed.

“Never heard of him.” Marco groaned, but then his brow furrowed. “Or have I…?”

“Giraldi… why is that name familiar?” Tara wondered, not recalling that she’d asked for him by name when she’d woken up. “It feels like… I know him…”

But then her brow furrowed. Wait—if she remembered him then but not now, maybe they actually recalled some of what happened when they first woke up! she realized, wondering if she could discern anything from their odd questions and the cryptic phrases they spoke.

Okay, then—what did Marco mean by ‘Midway’? And why did Tara look at me that way when Fortrakt apologized for the talon scratches? She didn’t know, but then realized something else. Crows take it… even if Tara did remember before, this means she no longer recalls what happened with Giraldi, and there’s no way to keep that secret indefinitely. How are we going to tell her? And more to the point, WHO is going to tell her?

She groaned at the answer that suggested itself. It can’t come from Fortrakt, since he doesn’t know and wouldn’t take it well. And it shouldn’t be Giraldi, or who knows how she would take it with him standing right there. For anycreature else to tell her might be humiliating to her, especially with her friends or the Marines around. She’d need someone she likes and trusts to tell her when she’s alone…

“Understood, Staff Sergeant. You heard him, Second Spear and Decurion. You can come back later in the afternoon, when they’ve recovered a little energy,” he offered, gently herding them out.

“Great. Another entire day of doing nothing but laying here,” Chris groused, to which Marco could only groan his agreement.

“I’ll take it over dying. Thanks for coming by, both of you. But Gilda? Fortrakt?” Tara called out to them before they exited.

Both stopped in their tracks and turned back to her. “Y-Yes?” Fortrakt answered nervously.

The human woman looked as if she was struggling to find words for a moment. “I just wanted to let you know that whatever happened… I don’t blame you. And I don’t hate you.”

“Seconded,” Marco added as his eyes began to flutter again. “Hard to hate you for something we don’t even remember happening...”

Later that afternoon, Gilda ordered Fortrakt to the markets to buy some fresh fruit and other soft foods for their guests, who Staff Sergeant Cullen said would be released sometime the following day.

The ponies may think friendship is magic, but there’s nothing magical about doing a friend’s duty to reveal upsetting information! She inwardly groused, wondering what Element of Harmony was supposed to assist in a task like this. Honesty? Loyalty? Kindness?

Explaining her intentions to Staff Sergeant Cullen, he moved Tara into a side room, obstinably so he could check her injuries in private.

Gilda looked at him when she realized he intended to remain in the room. “With respect, Staff Sergeant—”

“Sorry, Decurion, but my orders say I have to stay—there has to be at least one sentry around at all times, and if the Captain isn’t available, I have to be present for all conversations. For what it’s worth, I already know what happened, so you won’t be embarrassing her any further by telling her in front of me.”

“Tell me… what?” Tara asked in confusion, her blue eyes flitting between Gilda and the Marine healer. “What’s this about, Gilda?”

* * * * *

“It’s a little hard to regret what I don’t remember…” she said with a sigh. “I can’t recall any of it, and yet… I somehow know you’re right. It happened.” She stared off past Gilda, her gaze focusing on the far wall. “But he didn’t give me these slashes?”

“I already said I don’t… and tell him not to worry about the damage to the tattoo, either. I was planning to get it redone anyway,” the human woman reminded Gilda, her voice subdued, but then she turned her blue eyes on Gilda’s brown ones again. “So why are you telling me this instead of him?”

“Because… Giraldi’s with his Uxor—I mean wife—and as for Fortrakt, he doesn’t know about the two of you,” Gilda said carefully with another glance at Cullen, who grimaced. “Reason being, you know how he feels about you. So if he finds out Giraldi was with you, he’s liable to challenge him to a duel. And probably lose badly.”

Tara closed her eyes and sighed. “I don’t want a bunch of griffon guys fighting over me, Gilda. Especially not those two. And you’ll forgive me if I really don’t like the idea of two nations fighting over me—over us—either.”

“Thank you, Doc,” she acknowledged. “And honestly? I’m glad. I don’t want to see anybody hurt or killed over us, whether it’s the Marines or griffons, including Gilda, Fortrakt, or Galen,” she said, but then blinked hard. “Wait—Galen? That’s Giraldi, right? How did I know his first name?”

“Oh, really?” Either from the remaining cider in her system, or from a simple appreciation of irony, Tara’s grin got something close to sultry. “Well, since you and I are now calling each other by our first names, I guess we’re friends or lovers now, too, huh?” Tara offered Gilda a set of her soft talons, her tone only partly teasing. “All joking aside, I appreciate what it took for you to tell me this, Gilda. Thank you.”

“Well, I can’t say I was looking forward to it, but it just felt like it would be easier to hear coming from a friend.” Gilda smiled as she took the human woman’s talons gently in her own. “And yes, we’re friends, Tara.”

“And I’m glad,” Tara told her with a slight squeeze of her talons, but then looked at her oddly as a memory likewise stirred from deep within Gilda again. But even though she still couldn’t reach it, it seemed to find a focus in Tara’s scent and soft skin. “You’re a good griffon, Grizelda Behertz.”

Gilda smiled somewhat sadly. “Thanks. Though there’s at least one pony back in Equestria I wish you’d tell that to.”

Tara’s sultry gleam abruptly turned angry and she gave a sound not far removed from a pony snort. “Well, next time you see her, you can tell that ungrateful and disloyal ‘Dashie’ from me that—” she trailed off in surprise as Gilda gaped at her. “How do I know that name?”

“I…” For the first time, Gilda was feeling severely anxious over something other than informing Tara what happened with her and Giraldi. How DOES she know about Rainbow? Did I tell her during that night? But why would I, even drunk on that sex-spiked cider? Unless—she froze at the idea that suddenly occurred to her.

And then she swallowed, very hard. “Tara… hold still for a second,” she instructed; her voice shaky as she reached up to pull back the blanket from Tara’s back.

“What? Why?”

“What are you doing, Decurion?” For the first time, Cullen looked ready to intervene, his hand going to one of the tools on his belt.

She immediately backed off. “I have to… check something…” she explained weakly, her legs suddenly feeling as shaky as they had when she had first gotten up from her sickbed. “Staff Sergeant Cullen, could you please remove her bandages for a moment?”

“Uh…” Cullen looked confused. “Is that okay, Miss Fields? You’re almost due to have them changed anyway.”

Tara didn’t answer right away, turning her head to look up at Gilda; as their gazes met, the latter realized that they were reaching the same conclusion. “You really think that…” the rest went unspoken.

The pull of Gilda’s buried memories grew steadily stronger, urging her forward. “I do…” she admitted, stunned to feel a sudden sense of outright desire for the first time since she’d been fully freed of the potion addiction. “There’s only one way to find out.”

“Find out what?” Cullen asked, looking back and forth between them.

“Please remove my bandages, Staff Sergeant,” Tara requested, her voice tense. “And let her check the talon scratches. She isn’t going to hurt me. Or them.”

“I don’t get it, but okay,” Cullen said as he shifted his metal tube onto his back. He gently peeled back the adhesive strips that kept the soft woven fabric in place, before carefully removing the bandage. “For what it’s worth, the slashes are looking a lot better than they were, though your flower tattoo will need some repairs. So now what…?” he asked them both, waiting, his eyes glancing back and forth between them.

Gilda knew he was likely to learn something she did not want getting out, but found her need to know overrode all such concerns. Taking a deep breath, she splayed her talons to their maximum width and then hovered them over the marks on Tara’s back, only to gasp in shock and dismay when she saw what she somehow sensed she would:

The separation of the talon scratches perfectly matched the width of her splayed claws!

Ancestors forgive me, it wasn’t Fortrakt… she realized, reeling as she yanked her talons back while Cullen turned to stare at her in shock and Tara instantly guessed from her reaction what she’d found. By all the crows of the Kingdom, it was ME!

“Gilda…?” Tara called from where she lay, unable to see. “Did you…?”

“I… I…” Gilda couldn’t finish before she felt an unreasoning wave of sheer panic overtake her, along with an incomprehensible surge of remembered passion for the human female.

“Gilda, wait!” Tara called after her, but she didn’t stop or look back. Unable to accept what she was feeling and terrified she was about to get uncontrollably and very obviously aroused, she fled the room, bolted down the hall and ran out of the Inn, taking flight for the Auxiliary Guard barracks as soon as she was outside.

“Yes, sir,” Gilda replied, still standing at stiff attention.

“To an Auxiliary Guard combat unit near the Pearl Mountains?” she said dubiously.

“Yes, sir.”

“And you don’t want to tell me why?”

“No, sir.”

The drumming of her talons got louder as Gilda’s recalcitrance grew. “Have you told Second Spear Gletscher or the humans about this…?”

“No, sir,” she admitted, closing her eyes.

Narada studied her a moment longer before she shook her head. “Request denied.”

Gilda’s jaw dropped open. “But sir—”

“Must I repeat myself, Decurion?” Her eyes narrowed. “After fighting for days to stay in your post, you just up and change your mind on a whim. You’ve offered me not a single justification for it, particularly after learning that the human soldiers and civilians actually want you and the Second Spear to stay. This makes no sense, and I’m not going to approve your transfer to an Ascendancy-facing combat unit until you give me a damned good reason as to why.”

Gilda’s beak opened, then closed, then opened again. “It’s personal, sir.”

“No, sir.”

Narada’s tail lashed hard and her tapping talons turned into a partially clenched fist that dragged painfully loudly on her stone desk. “Decurion, I have much better things to do right now than play word games with you, so out with it! Either tell me what sparked this nonsensical request, or get out of my office so I can write my deployment orders in peace!”

Gilda closed her eyes, mentally bracing herself. “Very well, sir. I will explain. But as the matter is highly personal, I respectfully request that none of your aides or sentries be present.”

She studied Gilda closely for a moment as she took the note and dropped it into a metal can beside her, where the piece of parchment was instantly incinerated by the charm the can contained, reducing it to ash. It was normally used for classified communiques that required their destruction upon receipt, but she’d seen fit to use it for this note as well.

There was a knock at the door, followed by a female voice when the summoned griffon entered. “Decanus Nydia reporting as ordered, sir.” Gilda could just hear the thump of talons in salute.

“Greetings, Decanus, and thank you for answering my call promptly. By my order, please cast a shroud of silence over me and the Decurion here. I need to speak to her privately about a personal matter.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, and Gilda, though she never saw the Magus in question, felt a wave of magic wash over her followed by seeing a shimmering field descend, enclosing the two of them in a translucent but distorted bubble.

“Very well, Decurion.” Narada’s voice had become, if not more gentle, at least less impatient; the magical chamber producing an odd echo effect like they were in a wide cavern. “I now understand why you didn’t want to say anything in front of other griffons. But I’m still at a loss as to why this changes anything.”

“Is that the only reason?” Narada challenged, lacing her Talons as she leaned forward in her sitting position with her elbows on her desk.

“What other reason do I need? By all the crows of the Kingdom, sir, I can’t even look at her now without thinking about it—without memories of crows-know-what trying to rise up even despite the cider! And even if they weren’t, it doesn’t matter! Knowing what we did is always going to be in the back of my mind whenever I’m around her!”

“So… instead of facing him—and her—you’re running away? And maybe hoping to kill a couple Ibexians to assuage your guilt?” she paraphrased in some contempt. “I expected far better behavior from you than falling to pieces over a drunken fling that wasn’t even your fault, Behertz. Even Gletscher realized he was acting like a crow-damned fool over hurting her—after a few choice words from me. Why can’t you?”

It undeniably stung, being compared unfavorably to Fortrakt. “Even if that fling was with an alien female whose race the Kingdom is courting? Even if I’m afraid I might hurt her again?” she asked wanly, cursing herself for feeling a strong sense of remembered sensual desire to go along with her pain.

“What were the answers to those questions for the Second Spear, and why would they be any different for you?” the Tribune instantly challenged, her tone short. “And is that really the reason you want this transfer? Because unless I miss my guess, all I’m hearing right now is an eagless scared to death of what happened and what she’s feeling. Scared to death that she might do it all again, cider and fertility potion or no.”

Gilda slumped at the undeniable answer that she sensed from the depths of her very being, where her hidden and deeply buried memories of that night kept calling to her like the barest rumble of thunder from an unseen storm. “Never mind the fact I might hurt her again, I can’t be guarding somecreature I may be feeling emotionally attached to, sir!” She tried a different angle.

“So your solution is to flee to the frontier and hope to lose yourself in combat, potentially getting yourself killed in a war that may yet start over what happened to you?” she summarized. “This isn’t an act of bravery, Behertz. This is one of pure cowardice. Of turning tail and fleeing!”

“Because what you’re doing is trying to hide from your guilt! What you’re doing is a selfish act designed to save you pain! And I’m sorry, but I’m not going to let you do it!” she snapped back. “You once told me that you left Equestria to flee a broken friendship. Then tell me, Decurion—how is this not doing the same?”

Gilda’s jaw dropped open as she made the comparison herself, and came up with the undeniable answer. By all the crows, she’s right… She felt her anger and fear turn into a deep sense of shame. This is what I’ve always done—up and fled when a relationship ended badly. I did it with Rainbow. I did it with that eagless in Nova Ocelota. And Ancestors forgive me, I nearly did it all again over TARA!

She deflated, hard. “Sir… as I think about it, you are correct on all counts. I offer my sincerest apologies for my dishonorable conduct and cowardice. You are absolutely right that I am acting out of fear. I therefore respectfully withdraw my transfer request.” She stood back to rigid attention.

“Granted. But Decurion…?”

“Yes, sir?” she froze, expecting a final reprimand.

“Emotional reactions do not become you, or a griffon soldier. I will let it pass only because I had the same thing happen to me once, years ago, when I got into it with that dragon.” She reached into her desk and pulled out a small lockbox, releasing its seal spell with a pressed talon to pop it open and pull out a picture of her lounging with a gold-scaled and red-tailed adolescent drake.

“In time, I was able to accept what happened and indulge myself with him again, without any guilt or liquid help. When I finally did—it turned out that being over a century old, he’s a very experienced lover and dangerously good at fighting griffon mating rounds—all I could do was slap myself with a wing for spending so many months in denial. So learn from my mistake, Decurion, and do not cut yourself off from either Miss Fields, her friends, or Second Spear Gletscher.”

“Granted. But Decurion?”

“Yes, sir?” she turned back as the Tribune’s expression turned stern again.

“About Crimson Comet… if you say a word about him to anycreature? Then I’ll not only bust your rank back down to Fledgling, but assign you latrine duty for a year! Is that clear?” she warned.

For the first time since entering, Gilda grinned. “As the ponies say… crystal clear, sir!” She came to attention and saluted again.

The flight back to the Inn was easier than it had been before, Gilda realized with some amazement, but she still felt her stomach clench as she reentered the Inn and went immediately to the infirmary.

“You came back,” Tara said after Cullen had transferred her cart to an adjacent room again and then shooed the sentries away, though he still insisted on standing guard himself with his different and slightly larger metal tube, once again donning the same goggles as the guards he replaced. “I was afraid you might not.”

“At first, I wasn’t going to,” Gilda admitted in shame as she returned to Tara’s bedside. “I tried to request a transfer. Fortunately, the Tribune told me I was acting like a crow-damned idiot over you. And she was right.”

“It sure changed it for me,” Gilda admitted in pain. “All this time, I thought Fortrakt was being a smitten idiot over you. And now the weight’s on the other wing. I’m very sorry for injuring you, Tara. I can’t imagine I meant to.”

“If you meant to, I’d be in a lot worse shape than this, don’t you think?” Tara pointed out dryly. “That’s what the Ibex wanted, from what you guys said—for you to rape or kill us, right? Well, that didn’t happen. And in fact, if these scratches are all they got out of that tainted cider, then I’m gonna laugh at them.”

“I’m glad you can, Tara. Because it’s no laughing matter to me.” She hung her head. “So if I stay in my post around you, what’s to say it won’t happen again?”

“Me too,” Gilda admitted without thinking, then started and looked over at Cullen, whose face was as impassive as a soldier at inspection. “So, what do we do now?”

“I don’t know, and I probably shouldn’t be asking myself that while there’s still some of that cider in my system,” she decided as she moved slightly sensuously on the bed. “But we don’t need all the answers now, you know. Just like with me and Marco, let’s give it some time and distance—after I’m off this fucking fertility potion and can think with a clear head again, that is,” she glanced up at the upside-down bag feeding her arm tube with a wince.

“Maybe this’ll change once I’m off that juice, but right now, I don’t feel the same regret with you or Giraldi that I did with him. That might mean it’s safe to pursue this further. If so, it can be a one-time thing, or it can be an ongoing affair if that’s what we—yes, we—decide. But for now, just stop feeling guilty and let it go, Gilda. It happened, and there’s no sense beating yourself up over it.”

“Easy? No. I learned that the hard way with Marco. But it’s not impossible. Look… I don’t know what happened that night, and neither do you. But those talon slashes on my back weren’t made in anger. It’s pretty obvious it was the result of mutual passion, don’t you agree?”

She pantomimed the action that would have produced them with her own blunt talons, arching her spine in feigned pleasure while her fingers splayed, causing her soft claws to dig into an imaginary back. “So whatever we were doing, we enjoyed it… right?”

The action caused Gilda to flush and her wings to start to splay as her own psyche responded with the undeniable answer.

Tara noticed her reaction and gave a sly grin. “You know what, Gilda? I’ll call these scratches marks of affection from a lady I like, and I’ll wear them proudly. In an odd way, they’ll make sure that even if we don’t remember that night, we’ll never forget it, either.”

Gilda smiled at the heartfelt declaration of forgiveness and friendship, choking back an uncharacteristic urge to cry. You hear that, Rainbow? THIS is how a friend acts when you buck up! “Thank you, Tara. I won’t forget this.”

“I know you won’t, Gilda. I already know you’re the kind of girl—eagless—that keeps their word. But do me a favor and let me tell my friends and Fortrakt about this. I already got Doc here to promise he wouldn’t say a word, and he won’t unless ordered otherwise.”

“If the Captain tells me to spill it, I’ll have no choice,” he warned, speaking up for the first time. “But aside from that… my lips are sealed, Decurion. I don’t want to hurt or embarrass Miss Fields here, so the other Marines won’t hear word one about this from me.”

Gilda wasn’t privy to the conversation that followed. But she thought it best to remain there just outside the infirmary in case Tara wanted to talk to her again in Fortrakt’s presence.

But she was never summoned, and the door to her room remained closed. They sure are taking a while… is that good or bad? She wondered as she waited for nearly an hour outside the room for him to emerge. When he finally did, he looked equal parts dazed, despondent… and devastated.

“Second Spear?” she called to him in Aeric when he didn’t look up. “Are you okay?”

“What do you think?” he replied forlornly in the same tongue. “And before you ask, she told me everything.”

“Everything…?” Gilda held her breath.

Well, that’s better than I thought he’d take it, she granted, even if she wasn’t sure it was an improvement. “For what it’s worth, Second Spear, I don’t know how I feel about all this either. And I don’t know what I can say.”

The only response she could think of was a weak one, but lacking options, she used it anyway. “You don’t know you weren’t part of it. You don’t know what else might have happened, and neither do any of us.”

“Oh, right. And just who else was there, Decurion?” he asked derisively. “You? Despite what the Ibex depicted of us in that crow-damned ‘video’, we wouldn’t rut no matter how soused we were because we don’t like each other like that! So who does that leave for me? Chris? Marco? Giraldi?” he scoffed, causing Gilda to fall silent. “You really think that I’m a tiercel-tucker, or that they are?” he exploded, his wings flaring in full fury at her in a display that would have instantly resulted in a duel if she didn’t feel his pain so keenly.

Noticing he’d attracted the attention of the Marine sentries at the door, he took a deep breath and quelled his anger, forcing his wings and headfeathers to furl. “Crows take it, Gilda. All I wanted was Tara. And all I could take from that night was the certainty that I got to be with her, however briefly. And now... even that is denied me.” He hung his head as his wings and tail drooped.

“Fortrakt…” She trailed off as she realized she had no idea what she could say to him.

“Will you be staying in your post?” she had to ask. “I wouldn’t blame you if you left now, and I’m sure the Tribune wouldn’t either.”

“I understand,” Gilda bowed her head, feeling a deep measure of pity for him. “Listen, if there’s anything I can do…”

“Of course,” she said as she watched him leave, wondering why restoring one set of friendships meant she had to hurt another. So is this your ‘Magic of Friendship’, ponies? she asked herself unhappily as he departed for what she feared might be the last time. Because right now, it sure doesn’t feel magical at all...

To Gilda’s great surprise, Fortrakt was waiting for her at Narada’s office the following morning when she arrived to deliver her report and receive her daily briefing.

“Then what did he tell you?” she asked, but he only shook his head.

“With apologies, Decurion, that’s personal. But he said some things that really made me think, and seeing him with his Uxor and cubs… well, that gave me a whole new perspective on him. I see now why Tara liked him. He’s a really good soldier, sire and lover—just an all-around good griffon.

“And you know what? Maybe that’s why he was the best tiercel for her. Seasoned and able to give her the first time with a griffon she needed. As much as I hate to admit it, being inexperienced meant I would be clumsy and probably accidentally hurt her. But he knew exactly what he was doing, and what she needed,” he granted as they landed in front of the Inn, folded their wings and walked up to the Marine sentries to request entry.

Clumsy and inexperienced… she repeated the phrase as they ascended the stairs to the second floor. That’s probably exactly how I ended up hurting her! Sorry, Tara… she mentally apologized again, still amazed that the human woman had forgiven her so easily when Rainbow had dumped her for less.

They arrived in time to find Chris, Tara and Marco being helped up out of their cots. Their “eye-vees” were already removed, to Gilda’s relief—even after her own experience with it, she was afraid she might pass out at the mere sight of seeing them pulled free.

They were greeted warmly by the three, who were struggling to stand, having already dressed in some light clothes for the trip back. Tara leaned heavily on the Staff Sergeant for support at first, while Marco waved off help as he struggled to gain his feet.

“Lucky. Don’t suppose I could get the same treatment, Gilds?” Marco suggested with a lopsided but hopeful grin.

“It’s Decurion. And in your dreams, Marco Lakan.” For the first time in many days, she felt some of her old attitude resurface.

“Ouch, Marco. Shot down again, huh?” Tara teased, to which Marco made a show of staggering back like he’d been shot by a crossbow.

“Just doing my duty, ma’am,” he said graciously, though the smile on his face suggested he was going to be savoring her favor for a while.

“Putang ina! Those fucking Ibex… they also took my laptop!” Marco announced in disgust after searching all over the suite and in his room. “I paid twenty-eight hundred bucks for that!”

Bucks…? Gilda guessed from the context that was some kind of currency, as she couldn’t imagine they were selling whitetail stags, whose isolated and slightly xenophobic nation in the northeastern interior of the Equestrian continent would not take enslavement well.

“It ain’t just you, buddy. My phone’s gone, too…” Chris groused as he returned from his room to search the couch pillows. “And I can’t find my field equipment bag!”

“Not everything…” Marco visibly relaxed as, with some help from a surprised Fortrakt, he moved a couch aside to check a hidden compartment under the floor. “Good news, gang—I guess the shroud spell worked. Our other stuff is here…” He removed a hidden panel in the floor with a burst of magic—an unsealing spell?—and then pulled out a small nondescript chest, opening it just enough for the taller humans to look inside. “See?”

Both Chris and Tara relaxed. “Thank God,” the latter said as Marco put it back in its hiding place. “If they’d gotten hold of those…”

“Those? Those what?” Fortrakt tried to peer over the top, but Marco closed the lid.

“Just some stuff we’re really not supposed to have brought,” Marco said carefully. “Sorry, buddy, but we can’t say what it is. Because we’d be in trouble with everybody if they knew.”

“Really? Wow,” Fortrakt said in some amazement. “I’m no Magus, but that sounds like a pretty complex incantation.”

“I’ll take your word for it. I think the Marines did something similar, only with different parameters. In their case, from what some of the younger Marines let slip, Princess Twilight herself cast the spells,” Chris concluded.

“Nice,” Gilda granted, suddenly gaining a sly grin even as she wondered what they were hiding. So that’s why Captain Moran wasn’t surprised that the Ibexian adepts hadn’t left the city—he knew they couldn’t without triggering the enchantments. And that’s also why he warned us not to examine their equipment, she realized, relishing being able to tell the Senior Sparrow about them later—she didn’t know what magical tricks the Council of Crows had up their wings, but she was reasonably certain they weren’t smarter or more magically adept than Twilight Sparkle.

“Wait—how far away would they have to be removed for the beacon to go off?” Fortrakt asked excitedly. “The Ravens might be able to use that to narrow the search!”

“Well, we can’t speak for the Marines, but since we didn’t want it to be triggered accidentally just because we left a bag behind at a restaurant or something… we asked for five miles and a thirty-minute delay,” Marco said apologetically. “That’s why we didn’t complain much when the Paladins asked for our stuff before entering the Hall of Heroes.”

“I guess so…” Marco said as he pulled out a separate, smaller portal device from his bag. “They also didn’t get my backup hard drive or tablet—guess there was only so much they could carry at once. I can still play movies, music and other videos off this, but I don’t have my full library and it’ll be a little slower to respond.”

“I don’t know…” Chris admitted, slumping down on the leftmost sofa in defeat—whatever state the room had been left in, it had at least been tidied up by the Caleponian cleaning staff, Gilda guessed, not wanting to imagine what mess they’d left them with and what they’d been thinking as they cleaned up the aftermath of the night. “Any thoughts, Marco?”

Author's Note

EDIT: The mods have granted me permission to post all chapters to the main story! So Google Docs are no longer needed! :yay:

Feathered Heart v2.0 - For Readers

12: Lockdown Lifted (T-rated)

Author's Note

Welcome back, folks! After six all-new chapters, it’s finally time to resume editing the original story, and thanks to the decision of the mods, I can finally post these revamped original chapters directly to the main story instead of storing them off-site on Google Docs!

This chapter is a heavily edited, expanded and updated version of the first half of Feathered Heart: Chapter 4. As always, you are not only invited but encouraged to check out the original. Be advised there’s at least one brief area of suggestive content here, but nothing that exceeds a T-rating.

This chapter seemed to go over well with my prereading crew of AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire, and SIlverblade5. Thanks as always, guys! And without further ado, enjoy.

—Firesight

12: Lockdown Lifted (T-rated)

A full week after their release, Gilda was happy to see that Chris, Tara and Marco were finally starting to seem more themselves.

Just like her at that stage, their appetites had improved and their energy was starting to return in earnest, even though they still tired a little too easily and didn’t wander much further than a trip to the market under escort—something that was only possible given the crisis with the Ibexian Ascendancy appeared to have ended.

Faced with imminent capture and possible execution for the attempt on the lives of the humans and their griffon escorts, their elusive Capricorn Adepts had indeed surrendered, but not to the Ravens or any other griffon authority. They had instead taken refuge in the Saddle Arabian embassy and were refusing to obey orders from their government, saying they would only give up the location of the items they’d stolen upon a signed guarantee of amnesty from Queen Molyneux herself and safe passage to the Ascendancy.

To that end, they’d revealed the location of a small cache of human gear, where the Council of Crows found Tara’s ‘backpack’, which contained her books and sketchpad as well as her magnification spyglass. However, the more important items, including the portal devices and human weapons, remained hidden; the adepts had even gone so far as to forcibly wipe the memories of their contacts to make sure they wouldn’t be discovered.

Despite the attempt at extortion, the Queen openly stated that she had no intention of acceding to their demands. Her latest posted proclamations declared that “the Gryphon Kingdom will not agree to anything under duress” and further insulted the Adepts by stating that “their dishonor is only exceeded by their cowardice.” Unable to enter the embassy to get them, she had ordered the Kingdom’s security forces to simply wait them out until they could get the less-than-happy Saddle Arabians to expel them.

It unquestionably put the latter in a bind, as unlike the Kingdom, Gilda knew that Saddle Arabia wanted good relations with the Ascendancy; a major trading partner who paid richly for their goods as well as passage to their ports on the Marabian Sea. But nor did they wish to antagonize the Kingdom, who kept the Harpie pirate clans in check who might otherwise harass their borders and raid their shipping.

“I don’t see any way out for them,” Tribune Narada had responded when Gilda asked that morning if the Ibexian Adepts could yet slip free of the trap. “Never mind the Council of Crows, Ravens and Paladins, but the entire populace of Arnau is after them. I’m having to deploy extra Auxilia around the Saddle Arabian embassy to keep the protests peaceful and angry griffons out.”

“They should be angry,” Gilda grated, gratified that griffons as a whole had taken the attack on the humans as an attack on all of them. “So why are the Saddle Arabians sheltering them?”

“Because they’re between a storm and a gale right now. They don’t want to upset either side, and are currently in some rather urgent talks with the Ascendancy, whose leadership continues to insist the Adepts are not obeying their orders. For whatever it’s worth, the Council of Crows thinks they’re telling the truth but doesn’t know why.”

“Then they should have no objection to the Saddle Arabians surrendering them,” Fortrakt pointed out with a sneer. He had come back from his two-day leave that morning somewhat distracted but in a generally good mood, leaving Gilda guessing that his first-ever round with the Talon eagless he asked out weeks earlier had gone well.

“Unless they know the Adepts can spill information they don’t want revealed,” Narada pointed out dryly. “Information like past operations, who gave them the order to attack the humans and steal their gear, their contacts among the criminal underworld of Arnau… even if they’re not obeying orders, the Ascendancy has plenty of reason to keep them quiet and try to negotiate their return. For this reason, Ambassador Strenus remains in Saddle Arabia for now, but he hopes to return in two days’ time. Negotiations with the humans will restart then.”

“So where does that leave us?” Gilda asked. “With respect, it’s been over two weeks since the attack, and it looks like the odds of war are ebbing—pity,” she couldn’t help but add with a growl, flexing her talons against the floor. “Can we let their civilians out of house arrest, yet?” She wasn’t happy about having to keep them inside the Inn, doubly so since they were starting to go what she’d heard ponies refer to as stir-crazy as their energy and appetites returned.

“You may,” Narada said, presenting a signed and sealed order for them lifting the restriction. “But they are to be kept together and escorted at all times by both of you when outside the Inn, and you are to inform our outside forces of your intentions so they can be shadowed.”

“By whom? The Council of Crows?” Fortrakt asked grumpily. They had not seen the Senior Sparrow in days, for which Gilda was glad; she’d been told earlier by the Tribune that Talia Tarseus had been informed by no less than the Queen that if she wished to keep her post, she would not rest until the Ibexian assassins and their stolen human equipment were found.

“No. I am told by my contacts that after the failure of the Council of Crows to do their jobs, the Ravens will protect them now. If all goes well, you’ll never see them, but they’ll be watching and will intervene if necessary. Needless to say, do not inform the humans about this.” She raised an eyeridge at them both.

Gilda exchanged a startled glance with Fortrakt. She felt a slight chill go through her at the idea that the Kingdom’s most skilled and lethal warriors short of the mythical Talaeus were going to be watching over them from here on out. I don’t need to be ordered not to tell Chris, Tara and Marco about this, though. Don’t want to make them even more paranoid than I am right now!

“What about continuing to gather information on them, given they now know we were spying?” Gilda had to ask. “I have no objection as long as we make their protection our top priority, but it’s a little more difficult now. Their Marines like us, but Captain Moran still seems suspicious of us. He tried to get us dismissed as liaisons, but the human ambassador overruled him.”

“I would be both surprised and disappointed if he did not,” the Tribune said easily. “In their Captain’s place, I would do no less. Fortunately for us, their Ambassador seems resentful of implementing advice from his soldiers. In that, at least, he is not unlike our own elites,” she mused with a shrug. “Regardless of his reasons, you will continue to gather whatever information they will grant you, but from here on out, be open about your intentions. Perhaps the ponies have it right and the humans will give up more to friendship than to subterfuge.”

Gilda agreed with the statement, though she wondered how Narada would take the news that the civilians were hiding a mysterious cache of items. The morning after learning about the protective enchantments on their gear, they’d discussed over breakfast trying to use them to capture the adepts by simply taking the three humans far enough outside of Arnau that they’d trigger the spell parameters. But in the end, they had decided against it for three reasons.

First, they weren’t in any shape to travel for several days as they continued to convalesce. Second, as Marco somewhat ruefully pointed out, they would have to take their hidden chest with them lest its enchantment be triggered by distance—Gilda was surprised to learn they’d done just that for their initial field foray where Chris and Marco had been attacked, where it had been concealed in Tara’s backpack. Regardless, this would result in them likely being instantly expelled by Goldberg when they were forced by a no-nonsense Captain Moran to reveal its contents—whatever it was, they were worried it might even affect Tara’s asylum claim.

And third, it would likely get Twilight Sparkle’s apprentice, Starlight Glimmer, in trouble back in Equestria, given she’d helped them smuggle the items into the Kingdom even knowing what they were, casting the spells without her mentor’s knowledge.

“There’s also the fact that the Marines haven’t tried this already given Twilight Sparkle probably did something similar for their gear,” Tara added. “Whatever their reasons, if we reveal what we had done to our stuff, they’d have to do the same, and that might force them to give up more information than they want. I just don’t think we’d be helping them—or us—by doing that.”

In the end, they’d decided to keep things quiet, swearing her and Fortrakt to secrecy. “Much as I want my laptop back and those fucking goats served to me with curry sauce, it’s not worth the expense of being kicked out of the Kingdom and hurting Robbie or Tara here in the process,” Marco decided with a sigh, explaining that Sergeant Reyes alone among the Marines knew what they’d brought and had helped them smuggle it through the portal initially.

Although Gilda didn’t like the idea of keeping things from the Tribune, she and Fortrakt agreed to stay silent unless she thought it was in the Kingdom’s interest to tell. We’re keeping stuff from them, so I guess it’s only fair that they be allowed to do the same, she decided as the Tribune dismissed them to begin their latest day with the human civilians.

They saluted and parted with her after that, taking flight for the Inn; she’d been flying extra wind sprints in her off-hours trying to recover her lost wing strength and stamina. She wasn’t there yet, and neither was Fortrakt, but if she were to guess, she would say they’d recovered around 70% of their pre-cider stamina.

They weren’t the only ones exercising. Once he’d felt able, Marco had started to avail himself of the human exercise equipment the Marines had brought—some padded benches and old iron weights, mostly—and began working out alongside them. He was being drilled by Sergeant Reyes, who was in turn being trained to fight griffons in his off hours behind closed doors by Giraldi, who’d received special permission from the Tribune to do so.

“I won easily at first, but he is quickly getting better at our bouts. He is not as strong as me physically, but his body has some surprising heft he is learning to use to good effect,” Giraldi commented to them when she asked about it. There’d also been at least one private meeting between him and Tara in Doc Cullen’s presence, which Tara would only say had been ‘amicable’ and that anything otherwise stated was between the two of them.

Whatever they discussed, the meeting left her deciding she would start working out as well, understanding by then that the griffons she was going to be living among valued strength and fitness. This had in turn induced the slightly overweight Chris to start exercising alongside his friends, not wanting to be left out and perhaps shamed by what he found to be an inferior physique.

Their workouts, when she was allowed to see them, consisted of a mixture of repetitive movements with the weights or simply their own bodies designed to build strength quickly, usually overseen by Reyes when he was off-duty.

Sometimes they struggled with weights and movements that would be ridiculously easy for a griffon, like when they attempted to push off the floor with their forepaws while keeping their legs and back straight. Other times they did things that would be very difficult for a griffon, like hanging their entire wingless body off a bar and pulling themselves up with the strength of their forelegs alone. Only Marco could do the latter at first, while Tara and Chris could barely hang off the bar.

A curious Giraldi found he could do a few ‘reps’ of it with great difficulty, as griffons weren’t used to supporting their weight without their wings by the use of their foretalons alone. But Gilda and Fortrakt could barely manage one “pull-up” as the Marines showed they could do a dozen or more at once, even with the weight of their armored vests.

“Our bodies are built for lifting,” Reyes replied when a panting Chris complained that he couldn’t heft the weight he was given. “Now, lift!”

They’d also learned that unlike griffons, who could simply flare their wings and splay their feathers wide into the air to rapidly vent excess heat, humans cooled themselves off through sweat, leaving them glistening and their clothes soaked through in places. The odor it generated was a bit pungent but not unpleasant; there was a distinct spoor to it that told her their sweat was salty, leaving Gilda wondering idly if it would be good to lick.

And so it went. Lacking much else to do except eat and watch their human charges workout, they’d filled the rest of the time with more movies. They’d seen perhaps a half-dozen human films courtesy of Marco’s ‘backup’ device; some centered around fighting and some not. The latter had included a rather interesting film called “Apollo 13” that showed some impressive human technology—the rumors were true; they had actually traveled to their moon!—and how they’d recovered from an accident that endangered the lives of their ‘astro-knots’ through ingenuity and resourcefulness.

It had been both shocking and fascinating seeing the wingless humans float in the air of their ‘spaceship’; they had been told that it was because they were somehow weightless. She had known that the air got thinner the higher you ascended, but it never occurred to her that there was a point it became an airless void in which flight was impossible and gravity did not exist.

A realm the humans called ‘space’ that they had somehow learned to travel through using massive pillars of fire and small ‘capsules’ that maintained an atmosphere for them. But they could only survive in them for as long as their air and food lasted, and their supply of the former had been limited by their crippled ship.

There were some things of military interest in it, including the massive ‘helicopters’ that could hover and pluck their returned voyagers out of the ocean they’d landed in, and glimpses of giant metal ships. The latter kept sparking slightly nonsensical images of metal birds in her head that seemed strangely sourceless; she could only guess they were related to her still-missing memories of their lost night.

Even after all this time, neither she nor Fortrkat could remember much; the best she’d been able to recall from the night was not sex, but an odd flash of memory regarding an army of red-caped and quite chiseled humans wielding spears, shields and swords.

“300!” Chris and Tara chorused in recognition when she’d wondered aloud what it meant.

She was tempted to ask if they could watch it again, but she hadn’t yet. She knew she was being dweeby, but she also wasn’t certain what she was more afraid of: That it wouldn’t spark any additional memories of that night…

Or that it would.

She’d even pulled Marco aside at one point and asked him what ‘Midway’ meant, to which he froze and stammered, leaving her initial guess that the reason he was so nervous was because it was something sexual.

“It’s another movie…” he finally admitted, visibly choosing his words with care; she had noted earlier he kept refusing to meet her eyes and seemed to be otherwise avoiding her. “I guess I showed it to you guys under the influence, but, uh… I really shouldn’t have. I can’t say more. And before you ask to see it, I don’t have it or that 300 movie Chris and Tara mentioned you remembering any longer. They were on my laptop that the goats stole, but not my backup device.”

She let it go then, her mind turning as Marco made an excuse to leave her presence, saying he was overdue for another workout with Sergeant Reyes.

So, there’s something in that ‘Midway’ movie we’re not supposed to see? I’m guessing it’s related to those ‘rules’ they keep talking about. Meaning it reveals something about modern human weapons or warfighting, she guessed. Nothing for it, though. Wonder if that movie was what I was trying to report on that night? She still couldn’t believe she’d been so dweeby as to write a report while she’d been in the middle of…

To her great frustration, she nearly grasped a memory again only for it to once more slip free of her mental talons, crumbling like a clump of wet sand. Whatever it was, it caused a sudden rise of arousal within her, for which she quickly excused herself to visit the latrine lest her rosy cheeks or surge of scent gave her away.

“Crows take it…” she muttered to herself. It had happened repeatedly around Marco and Tara; the latter was certainly understandable to her but the former…?

Ancestors above, what did we DO? And why is Marco avoiding me? she still had no immediate answer, and no way to find out the former.

But the latter?

She decided she would attempt to resolve it after they watched their latest movie.

The thrum of bass was subtle, mixing well with the soft sound of the trumpets as Gilda watched the crowd murmur amongst themselves. Two onlookers wearing peculiar hoods watched anxiously as a male human, clothed in red, spoke out.

“The prisoner wishes to say a word.”

The crowd, initially antagonistic, began to murmur “Mercy”. The lilting music started to ascend, getting louder as the prisoner, a rugged-looking human with long hair, struggled to take a final breath; his muscles twitching as he gathered what little strength he had left. His death close but defiance unbowed, his throat expanded as he shouted a single word:

“FRREEEEEEDDDDOOOOOOOMMMMMM!”

Gilda would have found the whole scene quite moving despite it being so incredibly brutal. Even if the prisoner was not of her species, she felt she could respect the human just from his sheer audacity of staying strong in the face of the most barbaric torture. They had him strangled, mangled, and if Chris was telling the truth, even removed his sac, yet he did not beg for mercy. It was so odd to see how similar humans and griffons were in a lot of regards, yet strangely different at the same time.

Of course, Fortrakt had to ruin the moment. Ever since he saw the humans in the movie riding what he called ‘huge, ugly ponies with very large muzzles’—unintelligent Terran horses, they were told—he hadn’t stopped giggling. Honestly, there were many things in the movie he found funny (like the odd Equestrian accents the ‘Scottish’ and ‘English’ humans had; he’d clearly never been to the Pony town of Trottingham or visited Shetlandia between the Celestial and Lunar Seas) but it was the horses they rode that definitely got to him.

Most of the time, he was trying to muffle his beak with his claws, but he was fighting a losing battle. Every so often, she’d hear a snort of air, and a few moments afterwards, loud giggling if not outright cackling.

And now, here it was again. When the human prisoner shouted his last cry, a sharp snort escaped him and Gilda closed her eyes for a moment, counting the seconds before she heard Fortrakt laughing.

“Sorry, sorry!” Fortrakt apologized placatingly as he began to retreat away. It was a smart move, given Gilda had already thrown a sofa pillow at him and she was seriously considering throwing the round table, which had Marco’s backup portal device, speakers and projector on top of it, next.

Marco chuckled from where he was sitting. “You’re really tickled by the horses, eh?”

Fortrakt snorted again. “Can’t help it… they look so ugly and funny!” This time, his laugh afterwards was unrestrained, causing Gilda to release a sharp sigh. Even with the film depicting the human prisoner being beheaded, her immersion and mood were shattered and she lost interest, turning on Marco in annoyance.

“You just had to remind him,” she muttered.

A ghost of a smile touched Marco’s lips before he looked away from her gaze. It was an act that was getting a little too familiar these past few days, as was the irk of irritation his obvious aversion to her generated. It caused Gilda to narrow her eyes as Marco began to once again ignore her.

“Come on, dude,” he began, lightly tapping Fortrakt on his chest with the tips of his blunt talons. “Let’s go to the pantry and get dinner started. Think I promised you we’d try some Caldereta next….”

As the two made their way to the other room, her junior partner’s laughter faded to silence. Without the distraction present, Gilda tried to focus on the film but found it impossible. As the movie ended with the band of ‘Scottish’ heroes doing one last charge against their enemies, her thoughts again strayed towards Marco, causing her wing to twitch and feathers to ruffle slightly.

“You okay, Gilda?” Tara asked; she’d learned along with the rest of them that ruffled feathers indicated annoyance and anger. “You’ve seemed a bit moody of late. Are you still having trouble dealing with what happened that night?” she guessed.

With effort, Gilda forced her feathers to furl. “It’s not that, it’s…” Gilda looked towards her, wondering for a moment if she should speak her mind. While she toyed with the idea of just brushing it off, with Marco gone, it was the perfect opportunity to get some answers from his friends. “Honestly? Yeah, a little. It’s frustrating not being able to recall it. But that’s not what’s bothering me right now.”

“Then what is?” Chris asked her from his couch. He’d been careful not to talk about anything he remembered, she’d noted, though she wasn’t sure if she was imagining that he kept throwing odd glances Fortrakt’s way.

Steeling herself, Gilda took the proverbial plunge, feeling like she was diving off a cloud into a deep but narrow ravine. “Is it just me, or is Marco avoiding me?”

Instead of answering, Tara turned her gaze towards Chris, as if to ask if he wanted to answer. Gilda watched with some fascination as the male human sighed and mumbled, running his hand over his head to brush his red hair back before finally speaking.

“So you noticed too, huh?” he asked, his tone neutral. He’d been suffering the worst under the intense workouts Reyes was putting them through, walking very stiff and stilted after them. But to his credit, he hadn’t given up and was starting to show the beginnings of more sinew on his previously weak frame.

“It’s a little obvious.” Gilda couldn’t see how anycreature who wasn’t blind could fail to notice. It had started the second time they’d seen them awake in the infirmary; he’d looked at her once, flinched, and then never locked gazes with her again.

Since then, he seemed to be doing his best to avoid her; even going to lengths his friends said he normally never would. The first of his twice-daily workouts were at dawn; they had him eating breakfast with the Marines before Gilda and Fortrakt could arrive from their morning briefing with Narada—a slightly bemused Chris had mentioned that Marco was never one to rise before the sun. And even when she was around, he behaved neutrally to outright cooly towards her, sticking closely to Fortrakt while generally not looking in Gilda’s direction.

Adding to her moodiness was the strange certainty that something had happened between them that night; more due to a feeling than any flash of memory that fed it. There was no direct evidence of it like there was with Tara, and yet, the idea alone kept sending a thrill through her; that she’d somehow allowed him access to her.

And when she asked herself why she would be even remotely interested in the brown-skinned ape—and she increasingly found herself sharply rebuking her own thoughts for assigning him that insulting label—she surprised herself by coming up with several possible answers, from his ability to cook (griffons who could do so well were seen as artisans and thus worthy of respect) to his honorable actions to defend Chris.

To say nothing of the fact that he had honored her by bringing the weapon he used, a steel baton, for use specifically against her.

She was certain he did it by accident. He didn’t know enough about the Kingdom’s culture to realize that a weapon brought against a gryphon conveyed a good measure of respect. While she granted it was an old tradition—and yes, he used it against another griffon instead of her—she couldn’t help but feel a bit… flattered, which only added to her frustrations and conflicted feelings. Especially as she acknowledged that there were valid reasons for her to like him.

But rut him?

“For what it’s worth, I know how you feel,” Tara broke into her thoughts. For a moment, Gilda thought the human eagless was opting out of the conversation and leaving the room, but instead, she made her way towards the kitchenette and grabbed a pot from a machine that emitted a familiar bittersweet smell.

“How do you take your coffee, Gilda?” Tara asked.

“With extra sugar and cream.” I don’t even know how anycreature could want it black!

“Coming up.” Tara stirred two mugs and a bowl before laying them on a tray, bringing them to the table. She gave the latter to Gilda, who sniffed and found the coffee more sweet than bitter, which was how she liked it. “It’s not just you, Gilda. Fortrakt’s doing the same to me and Chris. Honestly? The way those two are acting around us is just like Marco did around me after we had our little fling.”

“You just had to remind me of that…” Chris groused as he accepted his mug. “When I close my eyes, I can still smell the vomit from that night.”

“Sorry, Chris,” Tara grimaced. “It wasn’t our finest hour as friends. But with regards to Marco and Fortrakt, I don’t know… maybe they just regret it?”

“I’m not so sure. It’s hard to regret what you don’t remember,” Chris replied, holding his mug in one hand while rubbing his temples with the other.

“Unless that’s what he regrets,” Tara pointed out idly. “Marco really did want to befriend you, Gilda. And maybe he thinks that’s all out the window now.”

“Maybe,” Gilda granted as she dipped her beak in her bowl. “It’s definitely frustrating not knowing. But as for Fortrakt, I think he’s avoiding you because he doesn’t want to be hurt again.”

“Understandable,” Tara said with a sigh. “It wasn’t fun telling him that you and Giraldi got to be with me.”

“So he thinks that means he didn’t. It was hard on him, Tara,” Gilda said, taking another slurp.

“He doesn’t know that…” Tara trailed off as she visibly tried to recall the later events of that night again, only to sigh as she yet again failed. “And neither do we.”

“It doesn’t matter. He feels like he wasn’t the first or second choice of you, and that’s a hard thing for him—for any young tiercel—to accept.”

“Just like the guys back home…” The human woman sighed as a glance at Chris showed him with a pensive expression. “Guess we’re not that different after all. But didn’t you say he was going to be with some eagless on his leave?”

“Yeah, but I haven’t asked him about it. I was worried that if it went badly, it might set him off,” she explained, reflecting that had his round occurred before that night, she wouldn’t have hesitated to tease him about it. But now…?

But now, it’s just hitting too close to home, and I really don’t want to hurt him further, she decided, finding her feelings towards him had turned something close to sisterly.

“You seem very quiet, Chris,” Tara changed the subject. “Something on your mind?”

“Oh! Uh… no,” he stammered slightly as Gilda looked up to see he had gone flustered. “Or, well... nothing important. I was just, uh, thinking what Dana would have done if all this happened while she was still here.”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Tara’s eyes narrowed along with Gilda’s, who reflected that it had been a very good thing that Dana had not been present that night, or the Ibex might well have gotten their wish that a griffon murdered a human. “Far as I’m concerned, she’s just a bitch in designer clothing.”

“’Bitch’? You have diamond dogs in your world?” Gilda asked at the odd use of the term.

Tara blinked, her expression bemused. Then she laughed, to Gilda’s mild annoyance..

“‘Bitch’ is a term of insult,” Chris explained. “It roughly means a very mean, stupid or unpleasant person. It’s used mostly for women with a bad attitude, but not always.”

“Ah.” Gilda nodded as she sipped from her bowl, mentally adding another term to her growing catalog of human cursewords. “From what little I saw of her, that certainly does describe Dana. Crows know I was ready to tear her up after insulting me to my face.”

“And we wouldn’t have minded one bit,” Tara replied, taking another sip from her cup. “She did nothing but cause trouble and act like an entitled brat. But she’s gone now, thank God.”

Chris sighed. “At least you don’t have to deal with her any longer, Tara. I will when I go back home. I half-expect I’ll return to find I no longer have a job.” He turned pensive again.

“Hey, you could always stay in the Kingdom with me!” Tara said with a grin.

“Don’t tempt me.” He gave her a rueful look. “But the thing is, I can’t. I’ve got personal and professional obligations back home that I can’t just throw away.”

“Yeah, I understand. I guess I’m lucky. There’s no professional obligations for me other than a few classes at the university I was TA’ing—that stands for Teaching Assistant, Gilda—but I’m going to have a hard time explaining this to my parents.” Tara turned downcast. “At least my brothers might think it’s cool. I imagine they’ll want to come visit. I’m worried Dana will turn her attention on them, though, to try to get back at me.”

“Is she really that petty?” Gilda asked, even though she thought she already knew the answer.

“Yes,” the two replied thinly, their eyes narrowing before Tara continued for both of them. “She made it a sport of ruining people back home for ridiculous reasons, and she could get away with it because of her daddy and that she championed online mobs. I mean, come on—she’s only here because she’s well-connected.”

“A little hypocritical of you to say that,” Chris replied with a sly smile, to which Tara rolled her eyes.

“Okay, maybe I do have to thank a certain someone—” she gave Chris a mock glare “—for pulling strings, allowing me and Marco to accompany him to an alien world in the first place. So do I want to know how you did it?”

“You’re welcome, Tara,” he said, pointedly ignoring her latter question, though his sly grin did seem to grow. “Well, I do admit that having two of my friends with me sounds much better than being accompanied by random strangers. It also helps that both you and Marco have enough qualifications to justify your presence, particularly given we complement each other well.

“You’re working on your master’s degree in Geology while Marco’s a soil specialist. That pairs well with me being about plants and climate when we’re trying to figure out what minerals can be mined and what crops we can grow here.”

“Exactly,” Tara said, crossing her arms over her chest. “In other words, Marco and I have some usable skills for what we’re supposed to be doing here. A privileged bitch like Dana? Not so much.”

Before Chris could reply further, Gilda asked, “What do you mean by ‘privileged’?”

“Her dad’s a Senator,” chorused Tara and Chris. There was no follow-up explanation afterwards, as if their single sentence alone would suffice. And oddly enough, for Gilda, it did.

Given how the typical cub of a Senator acts here—entitled and bratty like everycreature else is beneath them—guess it’s yet another example of how uncannily alike our societies and culture are, she decided as a stray memory suddenly clicked.

“Dana… oh! Gimli!” she suddenly exclaimed, causing the other two to look up in confusion.

“Huh?” Chris asked, his face and hand frozen in mid-sip.

Gilda chuckled. “Sorry, I just remembered something. When you three first arrived in Arnau, Marco started spouting some nonsense about a sword, and then I got really confused over your names.”

Chris snorted and almost spilled the contents of his mug, while Tara’s laugh came unrestrained.

“I’m sorry,” Tara said at Gilda’s slightly peeved look, which quickly melted away—just like with Rainbow before their friendship ended, Gilda had a very hard time staying angry at Tara for anything. “I guess that was a bit confusing to anycreature watching.” She surprised Gilda by using the griffon term.

“Very. I mean, Dana started berating Marco when you first arrived in Arnau, right?” Gilda recalled. “And then Marco called her ‘Gimli’?”

“Yup,” Tara chuckled and grinned. “So at a guess, you thought that was actually her name?”

“Uh... well, yes,” Gilda began, which elicited a fresh series of chortles from Tara followed by a flush from Gilda’s cheeks. “Can you blame me, though? I couldn’t figure out why she got called Dana at one point and Gimli at another. All I could figure was that one was a title or rank or something. It didn’t help that Marco also identified himself as ‘Aragorn’.”

“Yeah,” Chris nodded with another chuckle. “Sorry to have confused you, and sorry to laugh. ’Gimli’ and ‘Aragorn’ aren’t ranks or titles; they’re characters from another movie series we know. I guess we should show it to you eventually—if Marco’s still got it on his backup hard drive, that is. But honestly, he was just trying to annoy Dana enough to make her go away.”

“By making thrusting motions with his hips towards her or ogling Tara’s flank?” Gilda replied with a pointed look. “I get why he did that now, and I also get that you’re okay with it, Tara. But that didn’t exactly endear him to everygriffon watching.”

“I guess not. But It worked, didn’t it?” Tara countered. “She left.”

Gilda snorted. “Yeah, it worked, but it really painted Marco in a bad light with not just me, but pretty much every eagless there.” She remembered all the ruffled feathers around her. “It convinced me he was a pervert. It was part of what set me off that night when he touched me—I thought he was trying to grope me.”

The two looked up, no longer laughing. “I didn’t even think of that,” Chris granted somewhat ruefully. “Yeah, based on what we know now, I guess it wouldn’t exactly endear him to the average griffon.”

“Still worth it just for getting rid of her,” Tara grumbled. She punched a fist into the palm of her other hand, like she still seemed to do whenever she thought of the other female. “For the record, we tried to be nice to Dana at the start, but she threw it back in our faces. Didn’t want anything to do with us.”

“It wasn’t just us, either—even when we were back in Equestria, she did nothing but complain,” Chris added. “Honestly, I admire the ponies for not losing their temper over her. It wasn’t their fault they didn’t have TVs, satellite, or social media.”

“Maybe, though I think Starlight Glimmer might have gotten back at her for us that one time,” Tara smirked. “Remember at the Grand Galloping Gala, when Dana suffered that little wardrobe malfunction after she was rude to us? The strap of her gown broke while she was getting her picture taken with Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis. She flashed a boob at everyone.”

“Just as the cameras clicked, too.” Chris grinned at the memory. “Starlight winked at us after that.”

Okay, I really want to meet this mare! Gilda decided. Seems like she not only had Rainbow’s sense of humor, but also stood up for her friends! “Sounds embarrassing. But what’s a ‘boob’?” Gilda asked, even though she strangely sensed the answer, which Tara then confirmed by squeezing one of her chest-mounted mammaries. “Oh. I take it those aren’t supposed to be seen?”

“As a matter of modesty, no,” Tara confirmed with a glance at Chris. “But also as a matter of practicality. If they’re large, they tend to flop around a bit when they’re not secured by special undergarments called brasseries, or bras.” She pulled aside the shoulder of her shirt to reveal a strap, tugging on it gently to make clear that was what she meant.

She then shifted slightly uncomfortably. “And I’m starting to think I might need some new ones. I’m not sure why, but mine have been too tight ever since…” The rest went unspoken except for the blush of her cheeks and a furtive glance at Gilda, who blushed back.

“Interesting…” Wondering what they looked like—and part of her even wondering what they felt like!—Gilda found herself eyeing the prominent mammary mounds from just a foreleg’s length away, watching in some fascination as the hidden teats that capped them visibly engorged under her scrutiny from beneath the shirt the human woman wore. She dimly noted that neither Chris nor Tara said anything as she stared, as if waiting to see what she would do; she wasn’t sure, but she thought Tara tugged on her shirt to show off just a little more of her flesh.

Her head drifting closer as she swore for a moment she could all but see and feel them again—again?—she didn’t realize what she was doing until she leaned far enough forward that she spilled coffee from her bowl and then fumbled it onto the floor, causing its porcelain to shatter on the stone surface and all present to flinch at the sharp noise.

“Crows take it…” she growled, the moment broken, getting a dishtowel to wipe up the mess after throwing the broken pieces of the bowl into the trash. Not finding another one—they were overdue to wash dishes—she grabbed a mug instead and filled it from the coffeepot, deciding it would be best to sit further away from Tara.

“So… why is hiding those a matter of modesty?” Gilda had to know, covering up her embarrassment and suddenly heady thoughts with a fresh question. “I only ask because, well... Griffons don’t hide themselves.”

“Well…” Tara squirmed slightly as Chris blushed hard against his normally pale cheeks. “What you have to understand is, they’re considered sexual. Our breasts are an erogenous zone, and as such, they’re considered attractive by our men.” She spelled it out, eliciting an intensified flush from all present. “For many guys, the bigger the better, too. They’re placed to catch the eye, and in most human cultures, you only show them when you’re being... intimate,” she explained carefully with another glance at Chris, who was pointedly looking away.

“I see…” Gilda couldn’t shake the feeling that she had asked these questions before and that she already knew their answers. She couldn’t fathom why she would be attracted to teats—certainly, she’d never seen her own as anything sexual! And yet… “So this ‘Starlight’ embarrassed Dana by showing her teat to everyone,” she summarized.

“Yes. But in all fairness, I can’t entirely blame her for her bad attitude. Dana didn’t take well to being disconnected,” Chris replied, quickly changing the subject. “That’s understandable, given we had some issues, too.”

“Maybe…” Tara muttered, taking what seemed to Gilda a very deliberate sip of her coffee to cover her thoughts. “But come on, Chris—we were specifically warned that Equestria didn’t have a lot of human conveniences. I mean, I miss home too! I miss dabbling on Facebook and playing Minecraft; I miss going to movie theaters—at least when they’ve been open—and going online to troll my favorite Reddit forums! Have I acted like a spoiled brat, though?

“And look at Marco—Goldberg’s been riding his ass this entire time, but have you seen him bitch and moan?”

Facebook? Minecraft? Gilda filed those words away, also noting the use of words like ‘bitch’ and ‘ass’ in a different context. But before she could ask about them, Chris spoke up.

“Point. All I’m saying is she had some valid reasons for being… whiny.”

Tara snorted but kept quiet while Gilda encased the mug in front of her with her claws. She delicately lifted it to her beak and slowly tilted it, careful not to spill. “I understand that she came here through family influence, but it sounds like she was just making herself miserable here. Why would she even come to this world, then?” she asked as she took a cautious sip.

“For the prestige of it,” Chris answered. “it would get her more attention and acclaim when she came back. She might even be called to testify in the Senate before her father. She’d get plenty of good press and publicity along the way, which she could then parley into greater influence in the… social circles she travels in,” he finished carefully.

Gilda sensed there was more he wasn’t saying, but she’d figured out by then that of the three, Chris tended to be the most circumspect about things and least likely to say something he wasn’t supposed to. “Okay. So why did the three of you want to come here, then?” she asked next, genuinely curious as to the answer.

“Well…” Tara paused as she took another sip of her coffee. “Speaking for myself, I just wanted to escape home for a bit and do something different. It was also kind of a fun thing to think about; being a pioneer in traveling to an alien world…” Her voice trailed off as she looked up at Gilda, surprised to see her drinking from a mug in her talons instead of a bowl. “Okay, how do you do that?”

“Do what?” Gilda asked, taking another sip. When Tara pointed at the cup, she understood. “Oh. Well, it takes some practice, and the right-sized cup. I had to learn how when I lived in Equestria since they use big mugs that their hooves can hold.

“These are fine, since these rooms are meant to be used by any species from ponies to Minotaurs, but I can’t do it when the mug is smaller than my beak is wide. So kindly don’t serve me anything in a teacup.” She grimaced slightly at the memory of snapping hard at a pony waiter when that had happened in Rainbow’s presence back in Cloudsdale.

“Huh. So that’s why the mugs are larger than back home,” Chris noted. “Not that I’m complaining. Big cups of coffee do me just fine.” He emphasized the point by taking a long draw on his mug.

“Yeah. But getting back on topic? About Marco,” Gilda reminded them. “Why is he avoiding me?”

“Have to be honest. I’m not sure,” Tara told her. “The one thing I can promise is that he doesn’t dislike you. If he did, he’d just insult you or make you uncomfortable like Dana.”

“Unless he’s afraid Gilda would tear him up,” Chris pointed out. “That wasn’t an issue with Dana.”

“I don’t think so,” Tara replied with a shake of her head. “Trust me, I’ve seen him. He came by the bar I used to work at, and he’s no coward—I saw him do it to guys he didn’t like, too. Guys much bigger than him.”

“Yeah, well, he was probably carrying then,” Chris said dismissively.

“Without a permit?” Tara challenged.

“Like that ever stopped him,” Chris said with a roll of his eyes. He then turned to Gilda, who was giving him a quizzical glance. “By ‘carrying’, I mean carrying a certain class of weapon. For reasons I’d rather not get into, that’s illegal in a lot of places back home.”

Though Gilda knew that was something worth exploring for her daily reports, she didn’t care as much about that as continuing the chain of thought on Marco. “He was carrying a weapon before. Am I wrong to think he’s carrying one now?” she challenged them, to which they remained conspicuously silent. “Fine, you don’t have to tell me. If yes, then from what you’re saying, there’s some other reason he’s ignoring me.”

Chris sighed heavily. “You’re right. If I were to guess, it has something to do with that night. Maybe he remembers something. Or thinks he does.”

“Thinks he does?” she echoed uncomprehendingly.

“I know it sounds weird. But speaking for myself, I keep having these flashes of memory that… well, seem too fanciful to be real,” he told them. “I keep imagining I did things—we did things—that seem impossible.”

“Like what?” Tara asked, giving him an askance look.

“Never mind,” he said shortly, his lip tight. “What I’m trying to say is, I have these memories and I don’t know that they’re real. I literally can’t tell what’s fantasy and what’s reality—I’m worried my brain just filled in the blanks with what I wanted to have happened.” He shifted uncomfortably again and conspicuously put his hands down over his lap, still holding his mug.

“But the point is, if Marco’s anything like me? Seeing you is causing him to recall stuff he finds uncomfortable or just confusing—stuff he doesn’t even know actually happened. I admit I’m just guessing, but that might be what’s making him act this way.”

“I see…” Gilda said carefully, searching her own memories to see if the discussion had sparked any fresh recollections, only to find it hadn’t.

“Do you remember anything else from later in the night, Gilda?” Tara asked her, half-hopefully. “Because I still don’t.”

She could only sigh and shake her head sadly. “Nothing but flashes of that one movie,” she replied, though she once again glimpsed an incomprehensible vision of metal birds diving on a strange seagoing ship from which a hail of incendiary arrows erupted. She thought of asking them about it, but decided it was too nonsensical and fanciful a vision to possibly be real. “But why would that make him uncomfortable?”

“Because he may have memories of himself doing things he wouldn’t normally do otherwise,” Chris answered cautiously. “And he may feel emasculated by it.”

Gilda blinked. “Emasculated?” she repeated the odd term, rolling the word on her tongue. “What’s that?”

“Ah, crap, how are we supposed to explain that,” Tara muttered. Her hands moved slightly in a circular motion; her expression one of deep thought. “Um… in the context of what Chris was saying, it means that Marco may feel less of a man—a tiercel in griffon terms—based on something he remembers happening.”

Gilda considered that for just a moment before the ridiculousness of the idea crystalized. “That’s insane,” she muttered. “Come on, Tara—he thinks he’s not a true male? Just a couple days before that whole evil Ibex plot, he held off two griffons with just a blunt weapon and even had one praying for his Ancestors to save him! How can he feel inadequate as a tiercel—as a man—after that?”

“It’s one of those… human things,” Chris answered cautiously, visibly suppressing a shiver at the memory of his close calls. “It’s a bit complicated, I’m afraid.”

Gilda stared at him for a moment before smirking. “Are we pressed for time?”

Tara smiled in response, taking another sip from her mug. “Well, then… the easiest way I can explain it is that it has to do with our culture. One aspect of human history is that most of our societies are patriarchal—male-dominated. There’s debate on why this came to be, but a lot of theories center on the primitive development of our species.”

“Which is?”

“Well, to put it simply, in tribal times, the more physically powerful males hunted for food, providing for their family and the community.” Chris placed his cup down on the table as he spoke. “The females, in turn, mostly stayed at home, protecting, feeding and rearing the children.”

“You make it sound so sexist, Chris,” Tara said with a chuckle.

“Don’t go all social justice on me, Tara.” Chris rejoined with a wink, leaving Gilda guessing there was a joke she wasn’t getting, having no idea what the odd turn of phrase meant.

“I admit I’m just guessing right now, but based on… well, something that happened during our fling last year, he might feel like he’s not living up to what a man should be.”

“Do I want to know what happened?” Chris asked warily.

Tara hesitated but answered, choosing her words with care. “The memory’s hazy, but… let’s just say he wasn’t exactly on top at one point.”

“TMI, Tara.” Chris grimaced, causing the two to fall silent.

Gilda had a guess as to what she meant, based on what she’d heard Tara had done with Giraldi while under the influence from some of her old Turma who had witnessed them. Then… I might have done the same with Marco...? She searched her mind again, but even with a possible hint, no scraps of memory rose to the surface. If that’s the case—and I have no idea if it is—I’d have trouble dealing with such a strange mating method after, too!

She took a moment to think back on what she had learned. “So to paraphrase what you’re saying… as human males are built to be stronger than females, they tend to take it badly when they’re overmatched or dominated by one?”

“Oversimplified, but basically correct,” Chris replied carefully. “It’s a throwback to our more primitive times. Nowadays, most of our food is grown, harvested or herded. There aren’t a lot of cultures back on Earth that still hunt for provisions, so the notion of men providing food is a little outdated. However, the patriarchal nature of our world hasn’t completely faded.”

“And Marco’s from a country with a strong patriarchal culture, so… that’s kind of hard-wired into him,” Tara finished, then took another sip from her cup. “How about griffons? Are you guys patriarchal? Or matriarchal, like the Equestrians?”

Gilda looked up at the sudden change of subject, swirling the contents of her mug with a talon to spread the cream out further. That accomplished, she shook her head. “Neither. Tiercels and eaglesses are almost exactly alike in terms of overall abilities. Males can be a bit stronger, but not enough for it to matter in most instances, especially since most of our fighting takes place in the air. Speed and skill tend to count a lot more in combat with us than raw strength, so our two genders are considered equal in capability.”

“Well, except an eagless can get pregnant,” Tara pointed out with a wry grin.

“Of course,” Gilda replied, returning the smile. If somecreature else made such an obvious statement, she would have been annoyed, but she simply couldn’t be mad at Tara. “But the point is, neither male or female griffons enjoy any real advantage over the other. Both can hunt and wield weapons; both can farm, fight, or mine. Any differences in strength are generally due less to gender than bloodline or sheer force of will.”

Chris looked up. “What do you mean by bloodline?”

“Well, for us, bloodline is mostly ancestry,” Gilda explained. “There are some families that are built to be stronger or faster, and used arranged marriages with other clans to emphasize those traits further. If I remember my history lessons correctly, that was a big reason why there are now sky griffons, earth griffons, and more importantly, mage griffons.”

“We learned that early on. Couldn’t help but note you seemed to have the same three types as ponies,” Tara said. “Earth pony, pegasi, and unicorns?”

“Not exactly,” Gilda replied with a shake of her head. “There’s an important difference between the ponies and us. The United Tribes of Equestria is made of three distinct subspecies—actually four, if you count the bat-ponies.”

“Bat-ponies…” Tara murmured, then shivered. “I saw a couple of them in Canterlot. Bat-wings, sharp teeth and cat-eyes on a pony body are just…” She shivered again. “You don’t have bat forms, do you?”

Gilda blinked at the strange question. She’d always thought of the thestrals as being slightly comical-looking herself; she knew they had a reputation of being both skilled hunters and fierce fighters, but she didn’t believe it.

Predatory ponies? Now THAT’S a lot more funny than horses, Fortrakt! she mentally told him. “There are some highly questionable legends of bat-griffons in our ancient past, but… no. Even if they existed before, they don’t today,” she reassured her human friend.

“But the point is that unlike the different races that comprise the ponies of Equestria, earth, sky and mage griffons are all the same species. But their bloodlines are… specialized to fit their lands of origins. For example, the Western Ports and Northern Mountains needed strong fliers, so most sky griffons you’d meet can trace their lineages to those places.

“In contrast, the Eastern Plains and Southern Farmlands needed griffons that were faster or stronger on the land, so the origin of earth griffons can be traced to there,” she further explained. “It wasn’t just griffons, either—the same thing happened to the Caleponians and Sevasteponians once they settled here. It didn’t take many centuries for them to start becoming distinct from Equestrian ponies, both culturally and physically. They’re not a different race, but they’re definitely a new bloodline.”

“Interesting,” Chris muttered, placing his hand beneath his chin. “How about mage griffons?”

Gilda finished her drink before she replied. “Nogriffon knows their origin. In the old days, magically gifted griffons were considered gifts by the Ancestors; revered for the many miracles they could perform. They could quickly heal sickness and wounds, bless pregnant eaglesses so they’d safely give birth, and even help grow crops.”

They were also the most valued soldiers in the griffon military as they could rain fire and lightning down on their opponents from a safe distance, but Gilda felt a bit uncomfortable revealing that to the humans.

“Wow. You learn something new every day,” Tara mused, staring into her mug as she considered Gilda’s words. “Is there any obvious way to tell you apart? Earth griffons like Giraldi seem to be generally larger, but not always.”

“Unlike with Equestrian Ponies, it’s not so obvious,” Gilda granted. “With sky griffons like me and Fortrakt, you’ll notice that we have a thicker coat and feathers so we can survive the cold winters of the north. Our wingspans are larger and our eyesight is better—you can tell us apart in flight fairly easily. We basically fly far faster and longer than earth gryphons, and in combat, our preferred weapons are steel claws and crossbows.

“On the other wing, earth griffons have stockier frames to carry more muscle. They can only fly a few dozen leagues, but are much stronger; their great strength means they excel at ground combat and can carry heavier weapons like shields and war hammers.

“And as for mage griffons… well, I guess the best way to know if they are mage griffons is if they carry a stave. One of their unique characteristics is that they can be either an earth or sky griffon. Their abilities tend to be hereditary, but not always—mages have given birth to non-mages and vice-versa.”

Chris nodded. “Okay, that explains bloodline. But I have to point out, it sounds a bit predestined to me. So far, from what I’ve seen in the Kingdom, griffons value strength. Does that mean if you don’t have a strong bloodline, you won’t be able to... I don’t know, raise your station or something?”

Gilda was impressed at the observation. “That was actually true in ancient times. Before the unification of our lands, griffons were loosely separated into four distinct tribes: the Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western territories. They each had their own Tribal Lords called the Blessed, revered by those beneath them because of their strong Lineages.

“Of course, that all changed when the griffon tribes united under one banner. Our Primo Basileus, King Fortis Primus, established that instead of promoting griffons for their ancestry, they’d be promoted by their merits, acts, and will to self-improve. He believed that hard work, dedication, and loyalty were traits that would prove to be stronger and far more useful to the Kingdom than bloodlines.”

“Huh,” Tara interjected. “That’s very forward-thinking.”

“And now-backwards thinking for us,” Chris muttered under his breath.

“Maybe it was until the Empire took over,” she said, wondering what to make of Chris’s statement; she was getting the distinct impression that the humans were unhappy about the way things were going back home. “Then the idea of strength became all-consuming, and gryphons who didn’t meet Imperial standards of what a mighty gryphon should be were cast out of society as unworthy. As you learned at the Hall of Heroes, Gavian Ravenoff was such a gryphon,” she noted.

“Right,” Tara said somewhat shortly. “Abandoned by his own parents at age six for being too small?”

“Exactly. And I’m sorry to say, he wasn’t the only one to suffer like that. Even if they survived, those such as he had few options in life and often ended up joining criminal raider gangs out of desperation. Not because they were bad—well, some were—but because there was nowhere else they could go.”

“Sounds awful. So how did all that change?” Tara asked.

“Well...” Gilda considered what she knew of their history. “First and foremost, the Empire had to be overthrown, as it was at the end of the Great Pony/Gryphon war. Once it fell and the Kingdom was restored, our older, more honorable and more pragmatic values could reassert themselves.”

“What values were those?” Chris asked, making an odd gesture of rubbing his chin with his soft talons. They produced a slightly raspy sound; she’d noticed before that the human males seemed to grow the moustaches and beards she’d seen on some ponies over time.

“Once again, you have to go back to the founding of the original Gryphon Kingdom for the answer,” she noted, marveling that she was giving what amounted to a classroom lecture when it used to be that she hated going to school. “Before he became our Primo Basileus, King Fortis was a tiercel from a very unremarkable family and ancestry. He was, however, a griffon in possession of a particularly strong will and sharp mind.” Gilda stretched out a bit as she spoke, lounging out on the sofa beside Tara.

For a moment, their proximity seemed to spark a memory, but once again, it faded except for an odd feeling of tightness in her teats; she covered up the sudden surge of sensations their increased sensitivity produced by charging ahead with her explanation, trying to distract herself.

“His path to power was not easy. A lot of his early memoirs were mostly in regards to favoritism towards ancestry and lineages. When he came to rule, it was by default. At the time, the griffons were at war with an enemy that used our own reverence of bloodlines against us, destroying all of the Blessed along the way and nearly bringing down the entire gryphon race. What King Fortis established from the ruins was a system where griffons like him wouldn’t bow down to others just because of ancestry.”

“Huh,” Chris muttered in what she interpreted to be a degree of wonderment. “So bloodlines are unimportant now?”

“Well, not entirely,” Gilda admitted, her tail flicking once as she thought of her father; she used her anger and resentment at him to force her more lurid thoughts back to bay. “We still have to establish our family tree, and gaining officer ranks without battlefield experience generally requires sponsorship from established figures with good bloodlines,” she explained, deciding to leave out that her own sire was such a griffon.

“But it in no way affects our standing in society. Normally, every griffon starts out in the lowest position and gets the opportunity to grow—to make themselves useful to the Kingdom. In return for your hard work, the Kingdom rewards you—in the case of the military, with higher rank, and better weapons and armor.” She tapped one of her metal pauldrons for emphasis.

“Now I get it,” Tara said in some amazement. “So the amount of armor a griffon gets determines your rank! That’s why Fortrakt doesn’t have as much as you!”

“It’s the other way around, but yes,” Gilda confirmed. “When you graduate from The Gauntlet and enter the Kingdom’s military as a Fledgling, you get a single leather pauldron for your left shoulder. After a year of serving and learning, you’re considered a seasoned enough soldier to receive your first true soldier rank, which is Spear, earning a second pauldron for your right shoulder.

The next rank is Gladio. It’s the first rank where you command other griffons, leading a three-soldier Fuga—I spent a year as that, getting my first leather vest. Later, I was promoted to Decanus, which meant I commanded a ten-griffon Decade, getting leather foreleg protection added to the ensemble,” she recalled.

“And so it goes from there. Second Spears get their left pauldron upgraded to a metal plate. First Spear gets the same on the right shoulder, and after that are officer ranks, of which I hold the lowest level. Decurion means I could command a Turma of three decades. I get a stronger vest plus my leather foreleg pieces upgraded to metal vambraces,” she nodded down to where hers sat snugly on her forearms. “After that would come things like improved helms and flank protection, and when you rise high enough, steel chestplates.”

“And that command chain…?” Tara inquired, pointing a soft talon at where it ringed Gilda’s neck like a loose collar. “I get that it grants you additional authority, but I still haven’t figured out what the rules of it are.”

“It was confusing for me at first, too,” Gilda chuckled somewhat ruefully, remembering how she had repeatedly failed to recite the rules of them during inspections at Gauntlet training. She had ended up getting chewed out on top of receiving additional and generally distasteful duties ranging from cleaning the latrines to cooking endless sheets of barely edible scones.

“The first thing you need to know is that there are five types of command chains—six if you count the one worn by a Prelate, which is our highest military rank. To be one means you command the entirety of the Kingdom’s armed forces and wield authority second only to the Queen herself. We don’t currently have one, though.”

“Why not?” Chris asked.

“Because they’re generally only appointed in times of war or great danger. Outside of that, the Praetors, or service heads, command at the Queen’s direction,” she recounted.

“But as for the chains… we’ll start with mine. This is a diplomatic command chain, denoted by being made out of iron.” She hooked it with a talon briefly; she’d at least been pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t uncomfortable or chafing. It means that I act with diplomatic authority. I can use it to give orders to local security and military forces in furtherance of diplomatic goals… which in this case, is to protect you and help the trade negotiations,” she explained, waiting until they nodded before she continued.

“Understand, there are limits to what authority it grants me. I can’t command regular military forces with it like the Knights or Talons, but I can give orders to internal security forces like the Paladins or Auxiliary Guard. Any orders I issue using the chain’s authority can only be overridden by the Queen or a senior enough Legatus—our word for Ambassador—but that authority is not absolute or unquestioned.

“If I pull Paladin or even Guard soldiers away from their duties, crows know I’d best have a damned good reason for it, or I would be in trouble later on.”

“Interesting…” Chris said. “Then you can issue orders to ranks higher than the one you hold?”

“To a point, yes. But I really don’t want to do that unless I have to. That’s liable to result in a duel, or at least some very uncomfortable scrutiny after.”

“I think I get it now. So what are the other types of command chains, then?” Tara asked.

Gilda organized her thoughts before replying. “Well, remember how I said I can’t command regular military forces? There are other chains that grant that. A Talon chain, which is made from silver to mimic their armor color, grants you the ability to command Talon units—they’re our Army, basically, and our biggest service branch. That’s sometimes issued to Guard or Paladin commanders for purposes of streamlining chains of command. My Auxiliary Guard Tribune, Felicia Narada, was assigned one for the arrival of your delegation so she could more efficiently deploy forces around Arnau.

“There’s also a Knight chain, which is gold like their armor. But that’s given much more rarely, given that the Knights are the elite wing of the Kingdom’s military; they can normally command all the lesser branches. On rare occasions, you’ll see one given to a Talon commander to whom Knights are attached but a more senior Knight officer isn’t available.

“There’s also a copper chain used for military officials to be able to command civilian security forces like the Peacekeepers. That’s sometimes given to Talon or Auxiliary Guard commanders when there’s a need to work closely together. And then there’s a cobalt chain given to allow higher-ranked officers from Peacekeeping forces to command the Auxiliary Guard.”

“What about your airship navy?” Chris recalled. “Is there a chain for that?”

“Oddly enough, no, because there are practically no circumstances when lesser services should be commanding them,” she replied. “In terms of service hierarchy, they’re second only to the Knights. Airship battlegroups and flotillas either operate independently, or are assigned as support to Talon units under Knight command.”

“Odd, but okay. And you said there was one for Prelates?” Chris asked next. He was now leaning forward towards her from where he sat on the sofa.

“Yes. That chain contains links of all types, to show that such a gryphon wields authority over all security and military forces in the Kingdom. That gryphon would be allowed to make and execute war strategy on behalf of the Queen, and the post would normally only go to a masterful military mind like Salvio Gaius.”

There was a moment of silence as the humans seemed to absorb everything Gilda had said. The first reaction came from Tara, who chuckled. “Oh, wow. That’s really interesting. Marco is so going to wish he was here. He gets massive boners when it comes to military history and culture.”

“I didn’t need that image, Tara,” Gilda winced, earning a chuckle, and this time, for a moment she swore she did glimpse Marco’s malehood in her memory. But just like Chris, she had no idea if what she recalled was real—a large, smooth shaft with a slightly flared, tulip-like head and darker ring halfway down?—or if her mind was just making it up to try to fill in the infuriating gaps in her memory. “But I guess It shouldn’t surprise me that he’s into military stuff, given how much he seems to enjoy showing us fighting movies.”

“You’ve no idea,” Chris chuckled. “He loves visiting military history museums and exhibits. When we went to Cloudsdale, his insatiable curiosity over Equestrian military history and culture got him in some trouble there. And now, he yammers nonstop about what new thing he learned from Fortrakt when you guys aren’t here.”

Hearing Marco’s name suddenly reminded Gilda of the original reason the conversation took place. Her expression must have shown, because Tara stopped smiling.

“Look, Gilda, about Marco—” Tara was cut off by the eagless.

“He feels that I humiliated him, culturally if not sexually,” Gilda decided. “His ‘manhood’ is wounded, and that means that it doesn’t matter what I do next.” She slumped slightly, surprised to feel a moment of hurt.

“I really don’t think that’s the whole reason he’s ignoring you,” Chris declared, finishing his coffee. “I’ve known Marco for a good while now, and while Tara was right about him growing up in a strong patriarchal culture, he’s not that simple-minded. So if you really want to know? Ask him. Talk to him.”

“Or if you prefer, we will,” Tara offered, then crossed her arms over her chest and raised one of the curious curves of hair they had over their eyes. “On the condition that you also talk to Fortrakt and ask him why he’s avoiding us.”

“Deal,” Gilda agreed, though she wasn’t looking forward to it that much. “And we’ll start right now...” she added as she heard the door open to herald the return of the two males from the pantry.

13: Explanations and Epiphanies (T-rated)

Author's Note

—Firesight

13: Explanations and Epiphanies (T-rated)

“Deal,” Gilda said as she, Chris and Tara agreed to talk to Fortrakt and Marco, respectively.

But before Chris or Tara could reply, she heard a click of metal followed by Fortrakt’s and Marco’s voices coming from the entrance to the pantry. “And we’ll start right now...” Gilda added as she heard the door open and felt a rush of cool air from within it to herald the return of the two males.

“Wow... so your homeland has that many types of fighting styles?” Fortrakt asked in amazement as he held the door open for Marco, who backed through it like he was carrying something.

“And you say you’ve learned three of them?” Gilda could hear the wonder in his voice, but she could only wonder in turn why he hadn’t shown any of them—or any combat ability at all—when she’d attacked him.

“Partially. But all I get is Robbie poking a training knife at my ribs and pretending to slash my neck, saying”—Marco deepened his voice to mimic Reyes’s quite accurately—“‘You’re dead. Dead. Dead. Dead again’.”

“Well, that actually sounds like training,” Fortrakt replied with a smile before seeing the rest of the group staring at them. “Uh, we’re back?”

“And dinner will be ready in an hour…?” Marco felt compelled to add, but his smile dropped as he saw the looks on their faces.

A soft trill of annoyance escaped her throat as she stood up and walked towards Fortrakt. “Let’s go, Second Spear,” she declared with a glance at Chris and Tara. “We need to talk.”

“Uh, okay?” A confused Fortrakt answered. “And go? Go where?”

“Out,” was all she would say as she left without another word, waiting for him to fall in behind her.

“Yes sir,” he said obediently as he followed Gilda to the exit, then downstairs and out the front door of the Inn.

“Uh… have I done something wrong?” Fortrakt was confused as they took flight up to an isolated late afternoon cumulus cloud and sat there, staring down at the city.

Instead of replying, Gilda answered with an observation; the stronger wind ruffling her feathers at that altitude: “You’ve been hanging out with Marco an awful lot.”

“And… is that a problem?” he asked warily. “I like him. Never mind all his toys and ‘videos’, he’s a really interesting human.”

“And what about Chris and Tara?” Gilda challenged. “You like them too, don’t you? We’re supposed to be liaising with all three of them, but you’ve barely spoken a word to them lately. They have noticed. And they’re a little hurt.”

His cougar tail and golden eagle feathers drooped. “It’s nothing personal…” he muttered. “It’s just…”

“Just what?” she asked, but Fortrakt didn’t reply despite opening his beak and closing it again repeatedly. “Did something happen over your leave? Look—I didn’t ask you how things went with that Talon eagless, because I didn’t want to tease you over it. Didn’t want to hurt you if your first round went badly on top of everything else that’s happened.”

“And I appreciate that, Decurion. Very much,” he said cautiously. “But you didn’t have to worry. For the record, my leave went fine and my mating round with Decanus Kesi Tralia went well—very well, in fact. We ate, we talked, we sparred, and then we rutted, enjoying not only each other’s company but some really good label rum afterwards. And she was not only satisfied, but she even invited me back for another round later.”

“Well…” His green eyes went evasive for a moment. “I know it sounds strange, but two things happened when I was with her. First, I’m not sure how, but I’m... bigger than I was.” He flushed as he spoke, and so did Gilda. “I’m thinking all that fertility potion in the cider somehow enhanced me. And if it did that to me… then it probably did it to all of us,” he told her. “Have, uh, you noticed any changes?”

“Do I look like I have a spear or sac that can be measured?” Gilda asked dryly, but she suddenly flashed back to Tara saying her ‘bra’ suddenly seemed too small for her ‘boobs’. “So that’s the reason you’re avoiding Tara? You’re worried you’re too big for her now?”

“What?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “If I tell you… will you please promise not to tell them?” he beseeched her. “I don’t know how they’d take it.”

She gave him an odd look, but nodded. The Tribune kept what I told her about me and Tara secret when she didn’t have to, so it’s only fair that I do the same for him, right?

Gilda looked up sharply. “You remember what happened?”

Her gaze at him went askance. “If you’re not sure, then how do you know?”

“I don’t,” he admitted, running his talons through the feathers on his chest in a frustrated gesture. “But I also can’t ignore what happened during one of my later rounds with Kesi.”

Gilda stared at him. “What does that have to do with this?”

“It triggered my memories,” he explained, his eyes going distant as he looked past her. “Maybe…?”

“I mean, I don’t know that what I recalled was real!” He threw up his foretalons. “Everything was going fine with Kesi. We fought and mated as proper gryphons—not once, but twice. Everything happened exactly as it should—we wrestled, we rutted; she came, I came. And yes, before you ask, it was very enjoyable. But then, while we were lying together afterwards, she said she wanted to try it with herself on top, sitting up and straddling me belly-to-belly like she’d heard human females did. So I said yes, and when she did…” He shivered. “I saw… her.”

“Her? Her who?”

Though she didn’t want to throw cold water on what sounded like a powerful but almost impossible fantasy, Gilda felt she had to point out the obvious. “Well, that doesn’t mean it actually—”

“And I didn’t just see her in that instant, Decurion. I felt her body. Heard her voice. Smelled her scent.” He shivered, and this time, he was forced to turn away from her fully to hide his excitement. But he couldn’t hide his wings splaying into full arousal as she watched, causing her to blush.

“But then…?” Gilda had no idea what to make of his sudden shift of mood. Shouldn’t the possibility that he was with Tara make him happy? She was surprised to feel a moment of jealousy—not over the idea that he’d been with Tara, but over his described vision. By all the crows, why can’t I have one of those…?

Gilda fell speechless. She understood the implications instantly, and suddenly, what Chris had said about remembering things that seemed impossible or some form of wishcasting made sense, as did his reluctance to talk about what happened. Could it be because he’s a tiercel-tucker? And does he remember this, too? she wondered, but had little time to consider it before Fortrakt charged ahead.

“And when I realized that, I not only f-felt him inside of me, but I came instantly!” He buried his head in his talons in shame. “By the Ancestors, I’m no tiercel-tucker! Why would I have allowed that? Why would I have enjoyed that? W-was the cider so strong that we would rut anything? Or am I really…” he couldn’t finish the sentence.

“And you really think all this happened?” Gilda had to ask, even as more and more of what he detailed seemed to line up neatly with what Chris had said… and, she noted somewhat warily, what he hadn’t said. “Even with all that cider, it seems… unlikely.”

“I don’t know… that’s just it; I don’t know!” He reared up and raised up his forelegs to the sky, as if to cry out plantitively to The Ancestors themselves. “Did it really happen? Or did I just imagine it because I wanted it to have happened? Crows above, that’s just as bad when it comes to Chris! Why am I so turned on by this? Did he…? Did we…? And was Tara really…?”

His wings and tail slumped and he buried his head in his claws again, his excitement ebbing as quickly as it had come. “I’m sorry, Decurion. I know you must think I’m being a total ‘dweeb’ over this, but it’s just been too much for me to deal with. So I’ve been dealing with it… by trying not to deal with it.”

“By not being around them?” Gilda suggested, her voice more gentle, even as she was worried about what implications this had for her.

“Yes! I stay with Marco because he’s safe to be around, near as I can tell. I not only like him, but he’s good for distraction and doesn’t seem to trigger any memories for me. But whenever I see those two…” he shivered again, more violently. “I can feel and see them all over again. I’m not only terrified I’ll get turned on again, but worried I’ll want to do it all over again, even though I don’t even know that it happened in the first place!” he finished, then turned his haunted eyes on Gilda.

“So how am I supposed to deal with that, Decurion? I think I’d rather be plunged headfirst into an unwinnable war than have to figure all that out, not even knowing if it’s real!”

To his credit, and unlike her, his first instinct had not been to flee—whatever else Fortrakt Gletscher was, he was no coward, and he refused to just up and quit his post in the face of his fears. “Like the Tribune said, I’m a soldier, not a sniveling cub! What kind of griffon would I be if I just up and abandoned my sworn duty to protect two good friends over this?”

In the end, after she told him that Chris and Tara were speaking to Marco just as she was speaking to him, he decided it was time to face his fears and talk with the pair directly. But when Gilda asked if he wanted her there, he shook his head, saying that it was between them. That “for the sake of their friendship,” he owed it to them to tell them what he knew, no less than Tara had when she had explained to him what had happened with Giraldi and Gilda.

“Thank you, Grizelda Behertz. And you are not only an officer I gladly follow, but a true friend.” He came to attention and saluted. And even though she was hardly given to overt displays of affection, she not only returned his salute, but feeling genuinely sorry for all he had been through—and worse, some things she had put him through—she hugged him, hard.

For a moment, his scent and touch stirred a memory just as he’d described with Tara, but it was fleeting and she couldn’t grasp it. “Listen, if you want me to talk to Marco first…” he began to offer, but she shook her head.

“And that’s my duty,” she said shortly. “Go on ahead of me, Second Spear. I’ll give you some time to talk to them. I’ll follow later and see you at dinner.”

“He’s not that simple-minded.”

“Talk to him.”

By the crows, this is really getting bothersome… part of her wanted to protest. For what was the point of talking to him? If it was true that his cold demeanor was due to some silly wounded male pride over events neither he nor she had any control of, or could even remember, how was talking to him supposed to fix that?

Maybe Chris and Tara are right—there’s nothing that will fix this except finding Marco and talking to him, she decided as she turned her dive into a glide when she neared the same altitude as the city’s fifth level, a minute later. If Fortrakt can find the courage to do it, why can’t I?

Facing the west as it did, Arnau was bathed in fading orange rays as she landed on a third-level platform not far from the Inn. She took a moment to scan her surroundings as she’d been trained to do, only folding her wings when it was clear. The great city at sunset was a striking sight as it slowly began to glow with pinpricks of light, softer than the cold glint of the nighttime stars; it was her favorite time to fly as the sun’s light faded and the moon rose in its place. More than once she’d simply hovered high above the city to watch as one by one, each house from the Eastern Gates began to glow as they turned on their firegems; the Caleponian households brighter than the griffon ones due to their inferior night vision.

However, that did not detract from the beauty of seeing it at that height, even if she couldn’t fully appreciate it just then. Not with a potentially awkward talk with Marco still to come.

Walking back towards the Winged Hall Inn, she was greeted once more by two low-ranked Marines who let her in only after she had been scanned with their violet lights—what did they do? She had heard them referred to in passing by the Marines once as “black lights”, which made no sense given they were purple, and the whole term seemed a complete contradiction anyway—and had answered a challenge with a countersign, which they changed every day.

Regardless of the answer, all of it was necessary to ensure she was Decurion Grizelda Behertz and not another griffon—or worse, an Ibex—in disguise. Passing their inspection, Gilda walked through the artificial barricade and made her way through the lobby, towards one of the two stairwells that flanked it.

She received some greetings and even a few salutes, but she didn’t pay much attention to them until a more familiar voice was heard.

“Good evening, Decurion.”

“Staff Sergeant,” Gilda returned his proffered salute, carefully mastering her still-roiled emotions and trying not to think about Marco for a moment. “On patrol?”

“Just reviewing our new security protocols, ma’am,” he said, causing Gilda to start at his using a form of civilian female address on her. It wasn’t the first time, by far, but she did find it jarring, and decided she would include a note about that in her upcoming cultural training seminars explaining that griffons didn’t use that form of address for female officers in the military. “Captain’s orders.”

“I see…” Gilda replied, though she really didn’t. She’d noticed before that they seemed to be putting more devices in strategic and occasionally hidden locations, but she couldn’t discern their purpose. Nor did she particularly care just then.

It also helped that both Chris and Marco seemed to be making it a competition to see whose food would be enjoyed by Gilda and Fortrakt the most; even Tara had made an attempt at cooking some ‘pork chops’ of flying boar she found a bit too dry. “Wings need some stretching. Being cooped up in a room for any length of time isn’t good for a sky griffon like me,” she offered carefully.

“Makes sense. I noticed that young Gletscher was with you earlier. Another aerial workout for the two of you, then?”

Gilda shook her head. “Not this time. I had to discuss something soldier-to-soldier with him.” That’s true enough, right?

Or maybe he would have just gotten defensive and felt embarrassed about being called out in front of his friends, she reminded herself. No, this has to be something we discuss alone and—

“Is there a problem, Decurion?” Stafford’s sudden question jolted Gilda from her thoughts. “You look troubled.”

“No problem at all,” she replied as neutrally as she could, trying to still her twitching tail.

But to her frustration, Stafford proved too perceptive; he noted her body language and frowned. “Is Mister Lakan still bothering you? Because I’ll inform the Captain if he is.”

Gilda sighed and closed her eyes. “No, that won’t be necessary, Staff Sergeant. Marco Lakan isn’t making any trouble for me.” At least, not in the way you’re thinking...

Stafford continued to stare at her for a moment before he gave an unconvinced nod, firing her a respectful salute. “Alright, I won’t keep you, then. Enjoy your dinner.”

He saw her and smiled. “Good evening, Decurion. I take it you’ve more or less recovered if you’re taking your usual nightly flights?”

“Oh, really?” Gilda grinned—unlike Fortrakt, she would have no qualms whatsoever about teasing Giraldi over being bested by a human. Or the Sergeant over what it might mean. “So in other words, you’re getting to the point you might be able to give an eagless a good round?” she asked him point-blank in front of two on-duty sentries, who smiled.

“Understandable,” Gilda nodded with a grin of her own, only for her mood to drop again. “But on an unrelated matter… may we speak privately, Sergeant?”

“It’s Marco…” she said, deciding she would avail herself of the opportunity to get more advice and information on him. Or was she just trying to put off talking to him a little while longer? “He’s avoiding me and I’m not sure why.”

Reyes stared at her for a moment. “Given the way you two started, I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“That was then,” she said, letting her feathers ruffle and still as she recalled that night. “He’s redeemed himself to me—mostly. But ever since he woke up and left the infirmary…”

“He’s been giving you the cold shoulder,” Reyes guessed, teaching Gilda yet another new human euphemism. “So forgive me for asking, but in order to answer, I need to know—did something happen between you that night? Are you and Marco an item now?”

Though she’d never heard that usage of ‘item’ before, the meaning was clear enough. “What makes you say that?” she asked, slightly defensively.

Gilda hadn’t thought of that, and she couldn’t help but flush as she suddenly wondered if he was in fact correct—was that the reason?

“Short answer—I don’t know what we did,” she groaned, rubbing her head with a set of talons. “I’m not lying; I still don’t remember. But maybe he does, given his behavior. I’m told by his friends that Marco may feel humiliated by something that happened that night. Something I did but don’t even remember doing,” she replied honestly, amazed that she could discuss such a matter with the human male so openly.

But then again, he had already been open with her about his eagless encounter, so why should she do any less? “Chris and Tara think that I may have… e-mas-cu-rated him.” she screwed up her beak a bit at the odd word.

“Emasculated,” he corrected with a chuckle. “Well, I’d normally joke and say you’d have to let him buy you dinner first before you rip his clothes off like that eagless did to me. But honestly, I think that’s off-base.”

Gilda blinked—what did that mean? “Off-base?”

“Wrong,” the Sergeant clarified. “As in, I don’t think Marco feels humiliated by you. I’d say from his behavior that if anything? He likes you but feels unworthy of you.”

“Unworthy?” Gilda echoed in disbelief.

Gilda’s face scrunched to a dumbfounded expression that even an uninitiated human could understand. Her beak fell open, speechless for a few seconds before she finally closed it again to voice a single word. “No.”

“Yes,” Reyes replied with a chuckle. “Swear to God, whether the human or griffon ones. Once the shock wore off, he couldn’t stop singing your praises. It was Gilda this; Gilda that. I think you earned quite an admirer that night. He really does like you, Decurion. And he wants you to like him.”

“I don’t believe you,” Gilda muttered as she turned away, her tail twitching in agitation. “How could that be? He’s done nothing but avoid me for the past week. Most days he barely even talks to me. And now you’re saying it’s because he likes me?”

“Like a teenage boy around a girl he crushes on but thinks is too good for him, yep,” he said, and put that way, Gilda realized that it did make sense. “That’s my guess. Still, maybe I’m speaking out my rear. So if you really want to know… talk to him,” he suggested, more seriously. “And if you’re afraid it would just make things worse, take it from me that Marco’s a good, but complicated guy. Even occasionally an idiot, but at least a well-meaning one. There’s a reason the Marines like him, and it ain’t just because he gives us plenty of porn.”

He pointed towards the next flight of stairs at the end of the hall that led to the third floor. “So seriously, Decurion—go find him. Just corner him or something. Don’t give him the opportunity to hide behind someone else. Clear the air with him properly and don’t automatically assume that he’s avoiding you for this or that reason. I think you’ll be surprised at what you learn. And if, after all that, I'm wrong, and he gives you grief?”

She smiled at the thought, then offered him a set of curled talons as she’d learned the Marines didn’t salute when out of uniform. “Thanks, Sergeant.”

“Promise,” she swore as she took her leave, wondering where and how she could ‘corner’ the brown-skinned human.

“Oh… uh, hey, Gilds,” Marco greeted her, his voice subdued.

“I guess I just want to say that I’m sorry.”

Just like Fortrakt… “Okay. And…?” She held her breath. “Were your friends right? Did I somehow humiliate you? Make you feel like less of a ‘man’?”

He flushed. “You didn’t...” He seemed to shrink back a bit in the same manner Fortrakt had when he talked about Chris. “But… that’s a whole different crisis. Look, the reason I’m here is I just got a talking to from Chris and Tara,” he muttered. “They told me I was acting like ‘a fucking idiot’ over you. And like Tara reminded me, it’s not the first time.”

“Well, not only,” Marco replied, starting to squirm where he sat under the intensity of her stare. “I… okay, look, this is going badly, and I have no idea how to say this.”

It was a gutsy move on his part, as that was normally tantamount to inviting a griffon to fight.

Gilda exhaled slowly, trying to release some of her tension. She sat before him in a neutral pose on the landing this time, keeping her wings and feathers furled. “Okay,” she said with far more patience than she felt.

“Oh… okay,” he replied, smiling nervously as he seemed to do when he felt anxious. A short relieved laugh escaped his lips, but he immediately stopped it. “Um… okay. Okay, I’m just saying okay. Alright. Look, I realize I’m not the easiest guy to like. When I first met Chris, he and I had arguments over religion. With Tara, it was politics. The point I’m making is that I never would have thought that after a year, they would be my two best friends. At this point, I’d go to war for both of them. Hell, I’d go to war with them.”

“We did,” he confirmed with a sudden swallow and sheen of sweat, abruptly unable to meet her eyes. “So then if I have to tell you just what I remember doing, I was afraid you’d hate me even worse than before.”

She gave him an odd look. “Why? Over something we had no control over and few memories of?”

“Those few memories are enough. And I’m still scared you might tear me up over them?” he cringed to admit.

“And you really think I wouldn’t have then?” she challenged him. “Look, Marco—no offense, but you’re not that character in Braveheart or one of the fighters in Warrior. You’re not strong or skilled enough to overpower me—at least, not yet,” she hastily added on seeing his hurt look.

“The point I’m making is, there is no way in all the Crows you could have raped me or otherwise forced me to do anything I wasn’t willing to. And as much as I hate to admit it, the way that crow-cursed cider works is it brings out a griffon’s—or anycreature’s—deepest desires and removes all inhibitions about enacting them!

“So if I was still mad at you—or if I got mad at you while under its influence…” She had to look away again as Marco swallowed hard. “Well, the Ibex would probably have gotten what they wanted. But instead? I guess I let you have me. I guess that I wanted you to have me.” She was surprised that it felt more liberating than painful to admit. “Be honored.”

“Honored…” he repeated the word. “Then you really do like me,” he realized in further wonderment.

“Well, you’re making it a little hard right now by acting like a damned dweeb, but yes,” she replied dryly, making him cringe. “If you want to know why, it’s because you can cook, you can fight, and you’ve proven repeatedly you’ll stand up for your friends. Any one of those is considered honorable to a griffon, and having all three of them makes you worthy of friendship to most griffons—especially me!” she exclaimed as Rainbow’s face flashed through her head again.

“Thanks. But just friendship?” he had to ask. “I admit I’m still learning about griffons, but, uh... don’t you have to earn the right to ‘rut’ through a mating round?”

She stared at him. Why had he just asked that? “Usually, yes.”

“But that’s just it. I didn’t…” He slumped again. “You know, most human guys would be delighted to land a lady they think is normally way out of their league, but that’s not what I feel at all. If you want to know why I’m avoiding you, it’s because, well... It feels like I cheated with you. That I didn’t do anything to deserve you. That I only got my hands on you because we were both under the influence.

Gilda was struck speechless by the admission. She dimly noted that Sergeant Reyes had been improbably right in his guess that Marco’s behavior stemmed in part from feeling unworthy of her. But that mattered less to her at that moment than the heady realization that the brown-skinned human well and truly wanted her, but only if he could have her on griffon terms.

Only if he could have her on her terms!

So he feels he didn’t earn me, and now he wants to correct that by proving himself worthy as a gryphon would? By all the crows of the Kingdom, nocreature has ever offered that to me before, she thought in wonder, and she was surprised to feel a sudden and very strong surge of not just appreciation but outright desire for the brown-skinned human; a surge that quickly brought color to her cheeks.

A surge that threatened to start her wings flaring right there in front of him, not in anger but in excitement. And by my Ancestors, nocreature has ever HONORED me like that before!

Her reaction was not lost on Marco, who stared at her and smiled—not slyly, which she would have hated, but shyly, like he was afraid of embarrassing her.

“Wow… you really seem to like that?” he observed cautiously, causing her flush to deepen and wings to widen in response. The latter began to steadily rise up right there in front of him despite her weakening mental efforts to restrain them; announcing her arousal to the world. “I mean it, you know! I swear, what I want most of all is to deserve you!”

The heartfelt assertion sent another wave of pure headiness through her that left her feeling lightheaded and shattered her remaining resistance, leaving her suddenly and quite keenly aware of his presence and scent. “I know…” she barely croaked out as her disobedient wings flared rapidly to full attention, revealing her reaction to his fervent declaration with a sensual display she would have teased Fortrakt about endlessly had it happened to him just a couple weeks earlier.

She had an incomprehensible but overwhelming urge to not only show herself, but offer herself up to him right then and there! She knew it was both ridiculous and even potentially dangerous for who might see them and what it might mean. And yet, here and now, she couldn’t help it—she wanted him to see what he’d done to her; turning her on as no male ever had… again?

And he’s wrong… she somehow sensed just then as her dilating pupils flicked to the rapidly growing bulge in his pants that would have made even the best-endowed griffons proud; her flared feathers becoming instantly and exquisitely sensitive, ready to receive a lover’s touch. It wasn’t just the cider that made me do it. He did something else that really won me that night. Something that REALLY turned me on… but what?

As if in response, the image of red-caped and shield-wielding humans flashed through her head again followed by the persistent vision of metal birds diving on a strange seagoing ship through a hail of incendiary arrows. Their presence and several strong measures of music she could somehow recall sent more excitement than she could ever remember experiencing coursing through her, cider or no.

Tolerant amusement at his interest giving way to the simple enjoyment of being admired.

The heady thrill of being seen as desirable turning slowly but surely into a simple wish to reward.

The delicious feeling of dominance giving way to a very surprising surrender.

The delight of finding out just how compatible humans and griffons truly were.

She didn’t know what acts accompanied those emotions, but she desperately wanted to find out.

To feel it all again.

To know it all again, and this time remember it fully!

Unable to restrain herself any longer, she reared up hard and lunged at him, shoving him against the wall; her claws ready to tear his clothing off right there—to bare him fully so he could pleasure her properly with his spear as well as his soft but sensuous talons.

In response to her aggressively amorous act, a surprised but sorely aroused Marco reached up to embrace her and locked his soft lips with her hard beak. His eyes went wide and breathing came labored as he began to caress her lower flanks and back while clutching her to him, letting her feel his hardness against her belly.

A passionate trill escaping her beak as they began to kiss more frantically, she willed his hands higher towards her flight muscles as her talons began to dig into the thin fabric of his shirt, ready to rid him of his constraining clothing by ripping it to shreds.

But the sound of approaching and quite rapid human footfalls broke into her lurid thoughts; the sight of Sergeant Reyes entering the stairwell from below snapped her out of her sensual reverie. He began to charge up the first flight, taking them three at a time until he looked up and his eyes widened, spotting the intertwined pair and stumbling to a halt as he reached the landing, barely a body length away from them.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be, Sergeant?” she all but growled at him even as her wings remained flared, not giving him much room to pass. She did so even though she wasn’t sure she was more relieved or angry he had interrupted them, given how ridiculous the idea of rutting Marco right in the middle of an open and frequently traveled stairwell was!

“Uh… sorry,” he said, panting lightly as he recognized their intent and looked away. “Didn’t exactly expect to find you here.”

“It’s okay. We really shouldn’t be out here anyway,” a still-flushed Gilda pointed out, looking up to the open skylight over the stairwell through which patrolling griffons could occasionally be seen. “It’s not private and anycreature from Marine sentries to the cleaning crews may pass.”

“Y-yeah… sorry…” a flustered Marco replied. “Maybe this isn’t the best place to t-talk...?”

“If you can call that talking. Just remember that tomorrow morning is still on, Flip-boy. If you pussy out, I know where your room is,” Reyes threatened, though the twinkle in his brown eyes belied his tone. “I’ll drag you right out of bed with her if I have to.”

“I’ll be sure to wear my steel underwear then,” Marco replied flippantly, impressing Gilda that he was still able to make jokes, even caught in a compromising position.

“Oh, har, har, you little brown prick,” the Sergeant said with a mock sneer.

“Undoubtedly bigger than yours, Robbie. Wanna compare?” Marco instantly rejoined, his hands going as if in offering to his badly strained belt.

“Fucker. You know, I’m getting the distinct impression I should make myself scarce,” Reyes noted wryly as Gilda continued to glare at him, the knowing grin on his face growing as he carefully eased himself around her erect wings.

“I’ll be off then. You two have fun and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Or if you do, I’d at least go somewhere a bit more private than this.” He resumed running upstairs with a wink that caused them both to flush.

“Considering what he’s done…” Marco noted as he hastily smoothed out his clothes, leaning back heavily against the wall as he gave a heavy exhale. “Sorry, Gilda. That hit out of nowhere…”

“My fault… not yours...” Gilda managed through pants, still stunned by the intensity of emotions and sensations she’d felt—was that what it had been like for her, that night? “S-sorry…”

“Don’t be!” Marco told her, still showing signs of strong arousal from his flushed face to the prominent bulge in his pants that caused her to blush anew, looking at it from nearly eye-level as she was. “But, uh… maybe Robbie’s right and we should continue this conversation elsewhere?”

“Right,” she agreed shortly, realizing that whatever happened, there was no turning back—that with the way she was feeling, and the way he clearly was as well, they both had to get this out of their system or it was going to happen at a far less opportune time and place.

“Then come with me to my quarters, Marco Lakan. Dinner can wait while we discuss this matter, human to eagless.” She stepped in front of him and drew her tail between his legs before raising it high over her back, beckoning him with him to fall in behind her.

To her great gratification, she heard him take a ragged breath as he felt the contact and beheld her display, she could feel his eyes following her as she ascended the first few stairs. “Love to! But, uh... I’m not good enough to fight a round yet!”

“And I’m not asking you to—at least, not now. You said you wanted it on my terms, right? Well, don’t worry—it will be.” She grinned evilly at the thoughts and ideas now flowing freely through her head, stopping her walk just long enough for him to bump into her from behind and stumble.

“You’re right that you haven’t earned all of me yet, but for honoring me like this, you’ve earned enough, Marco Lakan,” she promised him as she reached the top of the stairs and resumed a rapid walk forward towards her room at the other end of the hall. Her sky griffon wings scraped the sides of the broad corridor as he quickly steadied himself and began hurrying to catch up; she could all but feel his hungry eyes on her, ogling her flared wings and feminine features.

“Enough…?” He repeated dumbly as his breathing became harder and far huskier. “And how did I honor you?”

“You’ll see. And to borrow a phrase I remember from somewhere… it will not be quick. But you will enjoy it!”

14: Feathered Heart (T-rated)

Author's Note

Can’t say I mind! It’ll make things more interesting going forward, needless to say. And it will not be without difficulty or consequences, both anticipated and unexpected. You’ll start seeing some of the former next chapter as the the coming of the Cloven is now fast approaching. And when that happens? Suddenly all this petty stuff they’re worried about won’t mean shit when you’re fighting for the survival of yourself, your friends, and your nation.

Also, be advised there is some suggestive content and teasing here as we open in the aftermath of sex, but it’s mild.

14: Feathered Heart (T-rated)

Night had fallen over Arnau hours earlier and dinner remained uneaten. And yet, Gilda found herself completely disinclined to leave her bed or eat.

Her armor and the tattered remains of Marco’s clothes, which she’d been very ungentle about removing, were strewn about her suite in a trail from the door to the bed; she’d been mildly amazed they’d actually been able to make it there rather than her throwing him to the floor and taking him the instant they got inside.

Thankfully, they had retained just enough of their senses to slap the master opacity control on the room skylights to make sure nocreature could see in. It also surprised her in hindsight that they had encountered no sentries or cleaning crews along the way to her room, given there were usually at least a couple pairs of them posted in the corridor and her wings were splayed wide for all to see.

But she wasn’t about to question their good fortune. In the end, they had mated not once, not twice, but three times, unable to get enough of each other. They were also helped by the fact that Marco found his recharge time was nearly instant; the stature of his human spear impressive and—she was told by him—expanded over what it was before, just as Fortrakt had described.

He endlessly enjoyed the simple act of touching and exploring her while she, in turn, found she couldn’t get enough of his smell or taste—of his wondrous talons working her or the surprisingly practiced sensual techniques of his tongue. She loved his earthy scent and the deliciously sweet and salty sweat he produced, to say nothing of how he made her feel! He let her be dominant as few griffon males would, all the while playing some surprisingly stimulating music off of his small portal device that only aroused her further.

Though she had denied him the rights to rut her properly without winning a mating round—she wanted him to keep having motivation to train, after all!—Marco had found a… loophole around that restriction she might have been more than momentarily annoyed at, had it not felt so incredibly and unexpectedly good. And when she half-seriously threatened to order Giraldi to give him the same treatment in retaliation, he’d only gotten more excited.

It was all exquisitely pleasurable, to say nothing of immensely enjoyed. And now, three hours later, they lay intertwined, staring up through a still-darkened skylight into the starry sky; the twinkling lights not too dimmed by the city ones.

They were both disinclined to move, but hunger and thirst were starting to get the best of them as Gilda felt her stomach growl. “You know, we really should get back to the suite and eat. Even though I’m sure your dinner is quite cold by now,” she told him as she laid her head against his bare chest, nuzzling it.

“Eh, Chris will keep it warm. And besides, we could always order room service,” he pointed out, laying a set of soft talons on her head. It was a minor intimacy compared to all they’d already done, but one she found she liked every bit as much as the more major acts they’d performed, for the simple sense of appreciation she felt from him.

“They don’t cook their meat,” she reminded him with a contented trill. “And Fortrakt is probably wondering what in the crows happened to us.”

Gilda blinked at the image, then chuckled and shook her head, reaching up to run her talons gently through Marco’s mane of dark hair. It was very fine, she noted, but he kept it clean and reasonably well-groomed. “As fun as it is to think about, I doubt it. We were ready. But I really don’t think they were,” she said at some length.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said with a sigh, reluctantly pushing off her to sit up on the bed. “Guess it’s past time we get back to them. So how are we going to explain this?”

“I doubt we could anyway!” Marco chuckled as he swung his feet over the side of the short bed and rubbed his face with his hands, leaning back into her slightly. “They know me too well. They’ll probably guess what happened the instant I step inside. But what about the Marines? I trust Robbie to keep a secret, but the rest…” he trailed off.

“Given how they tease him over his own eagless encounter, I imagine they’d be okay with it. I’m not sure about the Captain or Ambassador, though.” Or Tribune Narada… she suddenly fretted.

“He still doesn’t quite trust us,” she reminded him as she stood up on the bed and hopped down to the floor, starting to collect her scattered armor pieces. “And he’s got a good reason not to. We were spying on you, after all.”

“True. He may think you seduced me to gain information or something,” he mused as he began gathering his clothes, but at her offended look, he quickly threw up his hands. “Don’t blame him, or me for suggesting it! That’s a tried and true espionage technique on Earth.”

“What about your own superiors?” he suddenly worried as he pulled on his torn-up jeans, which she’d broken the clasp on in her urgent efforts to get them off. “Will they be okay with this?”

“Leave that to me,” she said with a sigh as she secured the buckles on her leather cuirass and tightened the straps. She wasn’t looking forward to telling the Tribune, and she could scarcely imagine what Senior Sparrow Tarseus would say. Not that I care what she thinks. But Narada… “If worse comes to worst, I’ll resign so I can stay with you. I’m sure Captain Moran wouldn’t mind having a griffon civilian advisor around.” She didn’t think it would come to that, but if it did...

He stopped dressing to stare at her in awe; showing sudden and very obvious signs of excitement again, even after three figurative—if not literal—rounds. “You’d really do that for me?”

She asked herself the same question—was she really willing to give up her career and dreams of one day joining the Wind Knights for this one human?—and smiled at the answer she received, deciding he’d shown her a simple but powerful honor, to say nothing of treasures of the heart far more valuable than simple battlefield glory. “I would, Marco Lakan.” She allowed her wings to stiffen in response again; a riposte to his own erotic display.

“Wow...” was all he could say as he dropped to his knees and began exchanging licks and kisses with her once more. His hands even began to roam her wings and flight muscles again, starting to try to pull her armor off before they reluctantly pulled back at the sound of Gilda’s growling stomach, earning a laugh from each as they resumed redressing.

“One question, though, and I’m sorry if it’s a stupid one… just how did I honor you earlier?” Marco asked.

She smiled at that. It would have been a stupid question coming from a griffon, but it was somehow utterly endearing coming from this brown-skinned human, whose body and mind she now knew well.

“Listen, I’m sorry again for avoiding you. I guess I did it because I don’t want you to be one of those people—well, griffons—who’d come to hate me.”

“By not talking to me, and treating me coldly,” Gilda said deadpan as she buckled one of her steel pauldrons next. “What a wonderful plan to get a griffon ‘girlfriend’.”

Marco visibly winced as he sat down to pull on his socks. “Okay, if you put it that way… then yeah, I was being stupid about it. I’d make a joke by saying it worked, except it didn’t until we started talking. Honestly, though, it’s the truth. I mean… we’d already got off on the wrong foot—or paw. I broke your boundaries so badly that first night you were ready to rip my balls off. And yet, just a few days afterwards, you swooped in to save me and Chris.”

“It was my duty,” Gilda reminded him, now working on her second pauldron.

“I know, I know,” Marco replied as he found his ruined shirt. “But that doesn’t mean I still don’t feel grateful. Even more so after talking to Fortrakt. He explained to me that those two griffons weren’t going for the kill, and that the worst thing they would have done was knock me out. And Chris told me how quickly you took to the air to find me. You basically could have waited until they were done with me before you came in to do your job, and nobody would have faulted you. Hell, I don’t even think that I would have.”

Gilda’s mouth opened but before she could speak, Marco raised a single finger, laying it on her beak in what she could only guess was a shushing gesture.

“But I’d gotten to see you in action by then, and no matter how turned on it made me, I also thought you were so far above me that there was no way you’d be interested in me. I know now I was wrong,” he recited in some shame, then held up a paw to indicate he wasn’t finished yet.

“I also know you tried to patch up things with me after you swooped in and saved the day, and I know that it must have taken something out of you to do so. I’m slow, but I’m not stupid. And as foolish as I know it was now, I really thought that after all that happened and given what little I remembered of that night, it was just best to keep my distance. That given how wild those few memories were, you’d feel more comfortable if I didn’t bother you more than strictly necessary.”

“Humans, unfortunately, have a bad habit of doing just that,” Marco recounted ruefully. His words made Gilda flash back to the movie Warrior, recalling how both protagonists had kept things from their friends and family, to the detriment of all.

But she didn’t have time to consider what that might mean for human society before Marco went on. “Then for what it’s worth, and as incredibly obvious as it seems right now… I really like you, Decurion Grizelda Behertz, both as a soldier and… well, an eagless. I’ve wanted to get to know you better from the start, but I was terrified of fucking things up further along the way.

“And I know now that I hurt you even more afterwards by giving you the silent treatment. You didn’t deserve that. So please… accept my apology.”

He bowed his head in contrition, but Gilda immediately stopped him. “No. Don’t bow,” she instructed as she reared up on her hind legs, flaring her wings for balance as she rested one set of talons on his chest—and how odd that she didn’t have a second thought about doing it!—while her right foreleg went to his head, stopping it mid-dip. Marco stopped and his eyes focused on her in confusion. After a moment, he stood straight as Gilda went to all fours again.

“Uh, okay,” Marco muttered, his tone confused. “Um, did I get that wrong or something? I thought it was a sign of respect. I saw griffons bow before your Queen.”

Gilda sighed, realizing she had to add one more item to an already lengthy list of topics to discuss at her cultural training seminars. “It is. And they did. But they did it because it was the Queen—bowing is something gryphons reserve exclusively for royalty,” she explained patiently. “In other words, we only bow before either Queen Molyneux herself or a member of her line. We would also bow if brought before foreign royals like the pony Princesses.

“But I’m not a pony Princess or a gryphon royal, so don’t ever bow to me. Not even if you feel grateful or because you want to apologize. It gives me an honor I don’t deserve. And if you’ve learned nothing else about us, I hope you’ve learned by now that griffons consider it dishonorable to assume a rank or station we do not have.”

“Damn. And here I thought I could show you how sincere I was—other than all the sex, of course.” Marco chuckled. “Uh, okay, then how do I—?”

“Bare your neck… oh! You mean, like how the other griffons greet you outside of a salute?” Marco recognized with a smile as she nodded. He then bared his neck and held it, though a little too slowly and deeply for her. “How’s that?”

“That’s a bit... complicated,” she admitted as she finished refastening her command chain behind her head, realizing she’d best come up with a succinct answer before she started giving her cultural training sessions the next day.

“You have a nice smile, Gilds,” he told her, kneeling before her to cup her face and kiss her. “You should show it more often.”

“No way! I have a reputation to uphold,” she replied in mock severity as she rebuckled her vambraces, then stood up straighter before him, a uniformed soldier again. “I accept your apology, Marco Lakan—on the condition that you not avoid or ignore me any longer. That you come to me if you have questions and don’t just assume something out of ignorance. And that you tell me if something’s wrong or bothering you. Griffons don’t hide things from their mates.”

“Deal,” he said, offering his talons to bump, and suddenly the pair stood there awkwardly for a moment. “So, we’re mates, then…?” he had to ask.

“Yeah, I’m hungry too. Kind of odd they didn’t come looking for us, though…” he mused as he finished dressing; she reared up to give him a parting kiss and gentle nip to the neck. “So, um… after we eat, can I stay the night with you?” he asked hopefully, only to go slightly crestfallen when she shook her head.

“Tempting, but no. I’m still a soldier, and I still have a job to do. Once dinner is done, I have to write my nightly report and then go over my notes for the seminars tomorrow. Just talking with you here now has reminded me of a couple things I still need to add to them,” she sighed.

“Eh, a cold water dump will be a small price to pay for spending more quality time with you,” Marco replied with a smile as he secured his shirt as best he could, hiding the torn tail in his pants and using a collar button to at least partially cover another long tear at the top.

“Ah, so your intentions are suddenly clear,” she deadpanned as she walked past him. “You only apologized because you wanted to rut.”

“Well… not only,” Marco replied with a wry grin. “That was definitely a bonus, though.”

“Then you got what you wanted. Let’s go, Marco Lakan,” Gilda declared, walking to the room exit. “I’m hungry, and we might still need to save Fortrakt.”

“Right behind you, Decurion. So, I guess we’re cool now, right?” Marco asked.

“Nope,” was all Gilda said, trying not to let a grin break her beak.

That stopped Marco short. “Wait, what?”

“I accepted your apology, but you were right that you haven’t earned me fully,” she reminded him. “You said you wanted to prove yourself worthy to me on griffon terms? I’ll hold you to that. It’s like I said before—you can touch me, but you don’t get to truly rut me until you best me in a mating round. So my nest remains off-limits to your spear until then.”

“But—” She silenced him with a single swish of her tail, holding it high for a moment to give him an eyeful of her eagless attributes before she lowered it again.

“I let you have me twice, Marco Lakan—once under magical influence and once by choice. But next time, we do things properly. So train and train well if you want to have all of me,” she instructed him again, dangling her tail tassel in his face for additional enticement. “Because griffons do not hold back!”

“Yes, ma’am…” came his awestruck voice, but this time, she let the mistaken form of address pass as they walked down the hall. They passed two pairs of sentries whose eyes were unreadable behind their goggles, but who gave them odd looks at what she could only assume was the dazed expression on Marco’s face and the rips visible on his clothes.

“I think Flip-boy just got some griffie tail…” Gilda heard one whisper to his partner after they passed, to which she could only smile. But just as they arrived at the entrance to the civilian suite, Sergeant Reyes exited the room with a bowl full of some kind of steaming meat stew that made Gilda’s stomach rumble; her energy needing replenishment after all the intense lovemaking.

He saw them and smiled. “So, I take it you two had a good ‘talk’?” the Sergeant asked with a lopsided grin and wink as he recognized their contented expressions. “Or do I need to punish him at morning training tomorrow, Decurion? Because you know I will!”

“Gee, thanks, Robbie…” Marco only half-groused as Gilda grinned evilly for a moment.

“As fun as that would be to watch… no. And thank you very much for talking with me, Sergeant. It turned out you were right on all counts.” She bared her neck at him then turned back to her left. “See, Marco? That’s the kind of thing you bare your neck for—gratitude, deference or apology.”

“I’ll remember that,” he promised as Reyes listened in some bemusement while eating his stew.

“Uh, no idea where that came from, but do I have to bare mine back?” Reyes asked. “And for the record? When I was jogging, I cleared out the sentries from the hall ahead of you. I was trying to keep you two a secret, though I’m not sure how much good it did given they just saw you now.” He nodded back down the hall where Gilda could still hear the sentries whispering to each other about her and Marco.

Nevertheless, she smiled at the thoughtful gesture. “I see. I’ll cover all this at the training seminar tomorrow, but it’s not necessary to bare your throat in return. All you have to do, Sergeant, is put that stew down for a minute,” she all but ordered, a gleam growing in her eyes.

Camera, she mouthed at Marco with a wink, deciding that since Reyes had pranked Marco when she first arrived at their suite, it was only fair to help her new mate return the favor.

“Uh… okay.” Though confused, he did so carefully, setting his steaming bowl down on the floor before standing back up; Marco used the opportunity to surreptitiously pull out his smaller portal and make several quick motions on it. “Now what?”

“This,” she said as she reared up and shoved the surprised Sergeant into the wall so she could rub her cheek against his and give him a light lick. “Thanks for thinking of us. Thanks for the advice. Thanks for being Marco’s friend, and thanks for whipping him into shape… with the emphasis on whip.”

Reyes needed a moment to recover from his surprise and the pinned position he suddenly found himself in. “You’re welcome. But, uh… Decurion? You’re kind of giving me flashbacks to getting pounced on the balcony…” he warned as he flushed and squirmed uncomfortably, though he made no move to resist or throw her off. Which he probably could at that point, if he could now hold his own with Giraldi.

Gilda glanced down his body and grinned at what she saw; her gaze growing sultry. She might have been appalled that she was being so flirty or open with her affections now, except for how much she was enjoying herself—enjoying the idea that she could potentially turn on and dominate any human male she wished.

Though she was sorely tempted to take the tease further—he’d certainly earned some affection from her for as much as he’d helped not just her, but all her new human friends—she relented out of a simple sense of honor if nothing else.

“Don’t get too excited, Sergeant. After all, you belong to another eagless, not me.” She poked him gently in the chest with a talon before lightly trailing it down his belly, stopping it tantalizingly near the bulge beneath his pants; she could smell his surge of excitement and feel his body tense.

“But I do consider it my duty to remind you of what you’re missing with her. By my order, you will fight that mating round with Keiko Louvre. You will duel her. You will defeat her. And then you will rut her repeatedly. Consider it your duty as a soldier serving a diplomatic delegation to help establish good relations between our races.” She silkenly whispered her next words into his ear in a trilling tone of voice she’d never thought herself capable of. “Consider it your duty to bury your spear in her nest.”

She heard him take a ragged breath and felt him shiver, his pants bulging even harder. “Y-Yes, ma’am...” he said through a suddenly dry throat, then looked past her and blushed harder as his eyes widened. “Dammit, Marco, stop recording this!”

“Payback’s a bitch, Robbie.” She turned to see him holding up his smaller portal device with an evil grin as he repeated the same words Reyes had said to him upon playing his prank on him three weeks earlier. “You should have seen the look on your face when she shoved you into the wall! I’ll be showing this to Chris and Tara shortly, but maybe I should show it to the entire platoon? And I’m sure Captain Moran would be very interested to see it!” he suggested with great glee.

“Don’t you dare!” Reyes exclaimed loudly, uncharacteristically flustered. “And Decurion? With all due respect, would you please let me go before I…” the rest went unsaid, but a nervous glance down his body showed what he was afraid of.

“As you wish. But do give Keiko Louvre my regards when you rut her,” she couldn’t resist adding with a wink, eliciting another ragged breath. “Given your obvious stature, you should have no issue satisfying her,” she said with an approving nod to his bulge.

“But for the record, my ‘brown prick’ is still bigger, Robbie,” Marco teased.

“F-fucker…” was all a still-shocked and flushed Sergeant Reyes could say in retort as Marco just laughed.

“Thanks for the heads-up, Gilda. I got it all on video,” he announced, still snickering as he pocketed his device.

“You’re welcome. Now let’s go eat, Marco Lakan,” she said casually as she walked right by a still-sorely aroused Reyes, letting her tail brush over his chest and chin as she passed. “It may just be because I’m so hungry, but your stew does smell really good.”

“Thanks, but it smells like Chris added some spices he shouldn’t have. It better not have been curry, or we’re gonna have words…”

Another day, another report… Gilda thought as she rolled up the sheet of parchment that contained her latest list of deductions and observations of the humans, tying it neatly with a thin red ribbon and imparting the wax seal that had come with her command chain. The latter wasn’t just to keep it from unrolling, it was to keep the message secure; its internal enchantment would destroy the missive in a puff of fire if it was opened without the counterpart unsealing spell in the possession of Tribune Narada.

If things went badly the next morning, she knew it might be the last report she ever wrote as a soldier. But she was also at peace with it, finding herself with not a shred of doubt or regret over the time she had spent with Marco.

She smiled at the still-fresh memories despite the fact her writing talons were aching; understandable given she had been penning the report for the past hour. It was not just for Narada, but shortly, a returning Ambassador Strenus to go through.

It had been very lengthy, given all that had happened in the past day. She had opened by admitting that she was now in a relationship with Marco Lakan, but by choice this time—the Tribune’s likely going to find out from Captain Moran anyway, so best for me to tell her directly before she learns it from him.

Even though some of the details were probably needlessly lurid, she outlined all that had led to it, noting in particular that human males seemed to instinctively wish to prove their worthiness to females—and some even seemed to greatly enjoy being dominated by one. In that sense, they were completely unlike Equestrian ponies where the females courted males, or even griffons, where both genders courted the other equally.

He honored me in several very deep and direct ways, so I rewarded him as an eagless should, she took pains to say in the letter, attempting to preempt any accusation that she was emotionally compromised or had suffered some aftereffect of all the cider and fertility potion.

She was, however, starting to suspect that those aftereffects did exist, given two confirmed increases of male stature. And that was to say nothing of her later flirtiness and teasing of Reyes, who she worried might take it out on Marco the following morning.

She chuckled and shook her head at the thought. No, he’s not like that. Still, I’d best be present for his morning workout, she decided then, setting her alarm crystal back an hour—it was keyed by outside light level; you could set it to audibly vibrate when before-dawn twilight was reached—to make certain she would be there.

Though she didn’t look forward to the Tribune’s reaction to reading her account, she had also made sure she couldn’t be accused of otherwise neglecting her duties. She had written down everything she could remember from the movie as well as her conversations with Chris and Tara in regards to human history and culture, including the presence of large unintelligent horses used as war mounts, and the interesting evolution of at least one part of their government from what appeared to be an absolute monarchy.

The movie they watched earlier was, according to Chris, a historic retelling of real events with some major embellishments, but more or less accurate to the barbarity of the time—the human ‘dark ages’, they called them; you had to go nearly two millennia into the past, well before the Great Unification, to find its like in griffon history.

And yet, comparing the society the film depicted with the modern one found in Warrior, it struck her as strange that humans evolved warfare using close range fighting and weaponry. unicorn-style longbows and even primitive crossbows had been used to good effect in the movie, so surely they understood the utility of long range weapons in war? Why, then, would they have discarded them in favor of pure melee arms?

Or had they…?

Gilda shook her head. Now was not the time to go off on another tangent, especially given she had just finished her report. Sleep was certainly needed given her earlier energy expenditures and the double-helping of the delicious meat stew that was now settled happily in her stomach—Marco had outdone himself with it, and whatever ingredient Chris had added certainly hadn’t been bad, despite Marco’s mild grousing—but she found her mind was just too active to rest.

Chris and Tara had been okay with learning about them—Marco had been correct, they had guessed from their long absence and simply seeing Marco’s state what had happened—offering up congratulations to them both. Gilda had even accepted a heartfelt hug from Tara that left the young eagless fantasizing about the human female on top of everything else.

Have to say, I think I’d be willing to be with her again, too… She licked her beak at the thought, only to shake her head sharply. But definitely not now. Not only would it hurt Fortrakt, but Marco and I don’t need any more complications. She’s an honorable eagless, so I’m sure she realizes that as well as me.

She looked outside her room window, drinking in the sight of the starry skies above, which somehow looked more beautiful and inviting than ever. Maybe it was just the lingering afterglow of her time with Marco, but her musing thoughts vanished as she imagined the cool rush of the wind. She found herself yearning for the night skies; doubly so as she’d missed her evening flight. Being with Marco and earning the Diplomatic Command Chain she now wore had certainly changed things, but some would always remain the same, like her love for the sky.

Exiting the room, Gilda closed her eyes as she was hit by the sudden brightness of the hallway. It was brighter than a griffon was used to but still considered dim by the humans. Like ponies, they had much weaker eyesight than griffons—was that simply a byproduct of their smaller eyes?—and they tended to crank up the brightness of firegems placed around the area. Thankfully, not so bright that it would be blinding for her, though she was sure the bat-ponies that Tara inexplicably feared would find them painful.

After her eyes adjusted, Gilda found herself staring at Fortrakt’s door. She almost knocked on it, intending to ask if he wanted to join her before she remembered that Tara had said he wanted some time to himself.

Her guess had been right that unlike with her and Marco, his discussion with Chris and Tara had not led to anything untoward. In fact, by the time she and Marco returned, Chris and Tara did not care to discuss it beyond confirming they had spoken, while Fortrakt himself had already left the suite out of awkwardness and a need for distance.

Of course, that meant he didn’t yet know that she’d been with Marco, but she didn’t think he’d take the news too badly this time, given Marco wasn’t any object of affection or desire to him.

As she proceeded down the hall, she saw a few Marines, both on-duty and off, walking past; they greeted her with either ‘Decurion’ or ‘Ma’am’ in addition to a salute if they were in uniform. As the guard had been changed by then, she had no idea if the new sentries knew about her and Marco yet, though she couldn’t discern any change in their reactions to her from what she’d seen just hours earlier.

Even if they don’t know, they will by tomorrow, she knew, remembering something she’d once heard about how the only thing that traveled faster than news was gossip. It’s going to make giving the cultural training seminars interesting, to say the least!

Still, despite the complications it portended, and even the possibility that she was about to lose her post over getting involved with Marco, she was mildly amazed at how well she’d settled into her new rank and authority.

It had certainly helped that the humans’ somewhat informal attitude was much better than the stiffer regards other griffons gave her. She swore to the Ancestors that whenever she went outside, every tiercel and eagless in both the military and security services were baring their necks and saluting towards her as if she was going to call in the crows on them if they didn’t.

She sincerely hoped she would get used to it as time passed by. Or will I even need to after tomorrow? she wondered and worried as she exited the Inn.

As she passed by the front gate, she spotted the three goggle-wearing Marines that stood guard. Their long black-tubed weapons were pointed downwards, hanging loosely from the straps though their mounted purple lights were aglow; she noticed then that they seemed to make the granite ground beneath their feet sparkle; tiny crystals embedded in the rock fluorescing intensely from whatever strange energy the violet lights fed them.

Before she could wonder again what the nature of the lights were, one of the Marines—two stripes meant he was a ‘corporal’, if her memory served—addressed her. “Good evening, Decurion. Out to fly again?”

“Yeah, but not for long. Just gonna clear my head. You can expect me back in an hour or so. And yes, I know the latest password procedure,” she assured them before they could ask. It was one of the new security procedures they’d implemented after the Ibexian adepts infiltrated the Inn, as they’d apparently gotten past a couple checkpoints in disguise by overhearing the simple sign/countersign challenges they’d been using previously.

The new procedure was that it wasn’t just a simple password they required now—when challenged, you had to give a proper response based on whether it was morning, afternoon or evening, inside or outside, day or night (determined by whether any part of the sun was above the horizon), whether the challenge phrase had an even or odd number of words, and even if the Marine or griffon challenging you was standing to your left or right.

Thus, there was no single response that would satisfy any given challenge, nor could you come up with the correct answer using a scrying spell or any other remote mind-reading magic the Ibex and other races were sometimes known to employ. Even knowing the password procedure was no guarantee of finding a good reply; especially if you weren’t good at speaking Equish—which few Ibex were.

Answering correctly required you to step down a decision tree and come up with an Equish word quickly that matched the desired parameters—for example, if it was morning, outside and night, like it would be when she returned, then her reply was required to have the letters M, O, and N; an odd number of words in the challenge phrase meant she had to reply with a sentence that had an even number and vice-versa.

The final part of the procedure was that a challenge from her left meant she had to end with a word containing the needed letters plus the last letter of the first word spoken, while a challenge from the right meant her first word had to contain the needed letters plus the first letter of the last word spoken.

It was a difficult procedure to follow if you weren’t already well-versed in it. Fortrakt and Gilda had practiced doing so extensively while they’d been convalescing; by the end, they’d been having a very good time trying to stump the other with difficult letter combinations and even paragraph-sized challenge phrases that made it difficult to count the words and determine whether it was even or odd.

The Marines, fortunately, kept it reasonably simple with challenge phrases that generally ranged from two to five-word sentences, but if you couldn’t come up with a correct reply within six seconds, you were either detained or denied entry.

Once past the barricade the humans had built, she dashed towards the battlements, squawking a clear signal for the griffon guards posted nearby before she took off from a crenel, flapping her wings as the cold night air took her into the starry skies. She climbed a few levels up, meeting and passing at least two patrolling griffons before she reached the fifth level, high enough that she could float almost lazily just by keeping her wings spread as she enjoyed the nighttime view of the glittering gem that was the Kingdom’s capital city.

This was how she’d start her flights, and it was always her favorite part. Granted, it wasn’t sunset, which was her favorite time of day, but it was still a striking sight to see the city lit up like that; a glittering jewel against the slopes of the Falcine mountain range. Admiring the view—maybe it was just her continuing good mood, but it looked more beautiful than ever to her—she basked in it for a few more minutes before starting a workout by flapping her wings, hard.

Dashing forward in the air, she started an intricate sequence of rolls and dodges, sometimes folding her wings to her side to accelerate before spreading them out to abruptly change angles, trying sharp turns that would allow her to dodge bolts and move through confined spaces in a hurry.

It was something she’d gotten good at as a teen, just having to keep up with Rainbow on their improvised obstacle courses. Of course, she’d never been Rainbow’s equal at that given pegasi were much more agile to begin with, possessing an uncanny ability to grab hold of or push off the air itself.

She next dove towards the fifth level—the highest level she was allowed to come within a hundred wing paces at night without heightened clearance she did not have—descending towards a landing stage and, without pause, dashing perpendicular to the battlement as some patrolling Paladins watched but did not interfere.

Her breathing became ragged as the muscles of her legs sprinted tirelessly while they pounded on the unforgiving stone ground, working herself to nearly exhaustion—she still wasn’t back to full stamina, though she was close—before she reached a new crenel and took flight again.

She repeated her fort-runs twice over the next half-hour before deciding she’d had enough and returned to the Inn.

“Greetings, Decurion. The bricks are splintered.” The Marine to her left said as she presented herself to them; their violet lights causing her to squint slightly as they passed over her eyes. The strange light also made her normally brown wing feathers glow brightly with a slightly violet-tinted white hue—now that was an interesting effect! But she didn’t have time to contemplate it as she mentally stepped down the password procedure quickly but carefully:

Even number of words… morning, outside, night, and the first letter of his last word was S… she cataloged quickly before coming up with a reply.

“So summon a damned mason,” she answered within three seconds, earning a snicker and even some impressed clapping as they let her pass.

Her response didn’t have to make sense; it just had to have an odd number of words and end with a word containing the letters M, O, N and S. But coming up with a reply that did make sense given the constraints earned a strong measure of respect and could be considered an accomplishment. Reentering the inn, she thought she might have been getting more odd looks from the Marines than before as she went upstairs to her room, but also couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just her imagination.

Though she was dirty from her earlier exertions, she found she didn’t want to bathe just yet; still able to scent some of Marco on her. It brought a smile to her face as she climbed into bed and quickly nodded off, deciding again that whatever happened to her tomorrow, the day had been 100% worth it.

That regardless of what happened to her, it was a day she would remember for the rest of her life.

Gilda was jolted out of her sleep barely three hours later by the sound of the crystal alarm on the nightstand vibrating hard in its casing, emitting a shrill sound that normally made her want to smash it. Groaning slightly—it seemed like she’d just gone to bed!—she rolled over slowly as her memories returned to her, grinning as her mind caught back up with the previous day’s events.

She was tired, but not unhappy, though she knew she was going to have to steal some extra hours of sleep eventually to make up for the ones she’d lost. But she’d endured far worse during her Gauntlet training, so she rolled out of bed, doused herself in the shower to both clean up and wake up, and gave herself about five minutes of grooming before heading downstairs to the meeting suites they were now using as training rooms.

She was met by a few Marines along the way, and though she found herself watching carefully for any sign of being treated differently—a stare, an odd question, or a simple smirk—she couldn’t detect any. Instead, they greeted Gilda as they always did, with a smile and salute, admitting her to the Marine recreational area on the second floor once she’d answered the latest challenge of the sentries outside.

She picked out the voice of Sergeant Reyes quickly as she entered.

“—isn’t too bad. Legs still sore, Flip-Boy?” she heard him ask as she walked down the short hallway towards them; she could hear the sound of some hefted weights and grunting that accompanied it.

“Not as bad as yesterday.” Her heart rate spiked in excitement and even a little anxiety as she heard Marco’s voice—she didn’t have any regrets about the previous day, but did he?

“Speak for yourself. My arms are killing me,” Chris replied as she turned the corner to the cleared-out suite, which was now empty of furniture except for various exercise equipment; barbells, benches, and at least one large hanging bag the size and weight of a boar she’d seen them practice punching with their bare fists.

“Good. That means you need to increase your reps and hang time off the pull-up bar,” Reyes remarked unsympathetically. “And you still hit like a girl. So we’re going to start you on some bag work.”

“Now I resent that, Sergeant,” Tara told him with a mock glare. “Or do I have to deck PFC Ricardo again for trying to grope my butt while I was on the pull-up bar?” she asked mildly, causing Gilda’s eyes to go wide, then narrow.

“And you hit harder than most of my Marines.” He turned to her with a grin, not seeing Gilda enter. “Don’t worry. He’s already been hauled before Captain Moran, and I also threatened to tell Giraldi what he’d done. I didn’t, but after Doc patched him up, they sent him to the encampment outside the city to keep that idiot safe from him.”

“And from me,” Gilda announced her presence with an angry trill, one that caused Marco to grin and Reyes to stiffen. “One of the Marines groped you, Tara? Good thing I wasn’t here.” She flexed her claws meaningfully as the rest of the Marines in the room grimaced.

“Appreciate the thought, girlfriend, but I fight my own battles,” she said with a wink, dressed in shorts and a tight-fitting shirt. “It was two days ago, and trust me, he already regrets it, if for no other reason than that the rest of the boys let him have it after me,” she said to some snickers from the male Marines around her.

“I’m sure,” Gilda replied, furling her feathers as she was reminded again of why she liked Tara. “Hope you don’t mind me sitting in on this workout, Sergeant.”

“As long as you don’t try to tease me again,” he replied in a jovial tone, though he fidgeted slightly. Chris and Tara smirked while Marco snickered, the latter earning a glare. “And just for that, Flip-boy, we’re going extra hard today.”

Gilda heard him groan, followed shortly by Chris and Tara. “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” Reyes declared, suddenly all business again. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about what retarded reasons the three of you had when you decided to sign up for morning training, but you did. That means you freely gave me all the rights to make sure I un-fuck you. So stop bitching and moaning! When I say more reps, you say how many. When I say jump, you say how high!”

“Really? How many? Wow, Robbie. Are you trying to become some sort of drill instructor?” Marco asked, his tone teasing. “Are we your first recruits?”

Reyes didn’t reply; for a moment, there was nothing but silence. “Listen up, all of you,” the Sergeant spoke after what seemed an uncomfortably long pause, in a voice so soft that even Gilda had to strain to hear. “What you’re experiencing during my morning training is nothing compared to what Marine boot camp has to offer.”

The three instantly fell silent, perhaps recognizing they’d overstepped. “I… of course,” Marco muttered apologetically.

“I’m sorry Robbie, I didn’t mean to—” Tara added as well.

Reyes cut them off with a wave of his soft talons. “I know, I know. Look, I’m not mad at any of you. I just don’t want to give you the wrong impression about what it takes to build a Marine. Of what it takes to make it in the Corps.”

“Not that I’d want to go through it, but if I were to ask you to describe boot camp… how would you?” Chris inquired as he began running in place lightly. He’d lost some of his paunch and gained at least a little more sinew on his skinny limbs by then, though he was still well behind the well-muscled frames on the other Marines.

“In one word: chaotic,” Reyes replied, earning some rueful nods from the other Marines in the room as they continued their own activities. “You come in on a bus with just the clothes on your back, nervous and jittery as fuck. They start screaming at you the moment the bus pulls to a stop at Parris Island, and it only gets worse from there.

“First thing they do once they’ve got you off the bus is herd you into groups and usher you inside where they shave your head, strip you down to your skivvies, and give you identical uniforms with no name tags, stripping you of all individuality. And while this is going on, you got a bunch of DIs yelling constantly at you; in your face about how worthless and useless you are as they tell you what not to say or do, how to march, and to always toe the line.

“And Recruit Reyes has to show the DI his left shoe, his right sock, and it has to be done any day now. They’ll scream if you’re too slow, stick even just one toe out of line, or even just look funny. And that’s just the first hour of the first night.”

Gilda listened intently as Reyes continued to enumerate a list of what he had gone through when he was a recruit. In many ways, she could relate, having gone through the Kingdom’s all-service Gauntlet when she joined the Auxiliary Guard.

She’d had her share of bad moments there, especially early on when her temper and attitude issues got her into repeated trouble; they had come down doubly hard on her given all the time she’d spent in Equestria.

Still, she’d made it all the way through, just like Reyes and the other Marines in the room. Given that, she could easily appreciate what the Sergeant was saying. Strength through unity and discipline was the bedrock of the Kingdom Military as well, after all, and she found herself amazed again at how alike their races were culturally despite how different they were physically.

“Oh wow,” Tara muttered. “What’s the point of some of those orders, though?”

“To give a recruit a sense of what it would be like if he was in a war zone,” Reyes explained as he helped Chris stretch his legs. “Take it from me after two tours in Afghanistan that war is nothing but chaos. A stabilizing factor in such a situation is basically orders given by the higher-ups. Orders that allow Marines to do something rather than sit on the ground with their thumbs up their asses, waiting their turn to be killed. It also teaches brotherhood—that you can depend on the Marine next to you. That you, in turn, are expected to do the same for him or her.”

“‘The Marine Corps teaches family values’,” Marco muttered. “You told me that back in Equestria.”

“Yeah, well, you should know I rarely talk out of my ass,” Reyes replied with a smile, and Gilda found herself finally starting to understand that ass was a human slang term for a rear end.

“Huh. And here I thought Marines were knights in shining armor, swinging swords and slaying dragons.” Tara teased as Gilda blinked.

They have dragons in their world? And wear Equestrian-style armor? Even after all the time she’d spent with them, she was getting dizzy from the turns the talk was taking.

“Ha! You should know I put on my shiny armor everyday I’m in the Corps, Tara. Oorah!”

“Oorah!” The other Marines in the room echoed as one.

Marco chuckled. “Heh. Oorah! Though I have to ask, Robbie—for as hard as you’re working us, are you recruiting us?”

Reyes laughed straight from the belly. “Are you serious, Flip-boy? Who’d want to recruit you?” he asked, though there was a twinkle in his eye.

“Ouch!” Marco replied as the other Marines snickered while Chris and Tara looked at each other and oooed. “Dude, that hurt. Are you saying I’m not good enough?”

“Considering that I already have you three whining about my morning workouts because it doesn’t have the air-conditioned rooms, fan-equipped treadmills, fruit shakes, or all that tight female ass jiggling in your face? Yeah. Hell, I can’t see that you could even handle a little bit of boot camp.” Gilda heard Reyes laugh again. “Shit, Marco, I bet you just want to pop your cherry.”

Gilda blinked at yet another unfamiliar term. ‘Pop’ his cherry? What did that mean?

“Uh, for your information, I already have,” Marco replied somewhat smugly.

“We all have!” Tara added to a sharp nod from Chris as the pair continued through their respective warm-up routines.

Whatever they were bragging about, Reyes was unimpressed. “The fuck you three did. Firing a rifle downrange doesn’t count,” the Sergeant retorted before he caught himself, giving a quick glance towards Gilda as Tara looked up sharply and Chris visibly grimaced, like they recognized the slip. Despite that, or maybe because of it, Reyes charged ahead. “There’s a lot more to combat than that.”

Gilda felt her heart stop. She didn’t know what a ‘rifle’ was, but ‘firing’ down a ‘range’ definitely indicated some sort of distance weaponry. Then they DO have them! she now knew beyond any shadow of a doubt. And it wouldn’t make sense that they’re hiding them from us, because they’d need to get at them quickly if they need them, whether for use against us or the Ibex. Wait—could it be those black tubes they’re all equipped with?

She kept her face carefully impassive as she watched and listened, her mind turning. And what does it mean that they’re not using anything we even remotely recognize as distance weaponry? If they were using primitive bows so many centuries ago, what type of ranged weapons have they advanced to by now?

“Good morning, Decurion.”

Gilda almost jumped at the sound of Captain Moran’s voice, which held the same cool tone she’d first heard from him when he informed Tribune Narada that he wanted to discuss Fortrakt and Gilda’s spying with her. For a moment, her wings flared in a fight-or-flight response; she found she was ready to both defend Marco or take wing and flee as she instantly realized there was only one possible reason he’d be there.

Stilling her emotions and bracing herself, she turned and came to attention as she found herself face-to-face with the intimidating human Captain flanked by two fully armed Marines, offering him a thump of her right set of talons to her chest.

The Captain, however, wasn’t impressed by the offered honor, only perfunctorily returning the salute as he stared down at her in a manner she could only describe as baleful. “My apologies if I startled you, Decurion Behertz. And sorry to pull you away, but I want to see you in my office, immediately.”

He was giving her an order like he was the Tribune herself, and even though she wasn’t under his command, she found herself inclined to obey it as surely as if the Tribune had issued it. “Of course, Captain. If I may ask, is this about—”

“It is about exactly what you think,” he cut her off hard, addressing her in clipped tones over crossed arms. She internally cringed even as she quickly recognized that he was trying not to say it out loud—did that mean the other Marines didn’t know, and he was trying to keep it secret? “And we need to talk.”

That immediately got Marco’s attention. “Sir, I’d like to come too and—"

“This is none of your concern, Lakan,” The Captain said in a clipped voice that brooked no argument or backtalk, his glare and sharp tone instantly silencing him as surely as it would one of his actual subordinates. “I’ll send a Marine for you later if I want to chat, and the same goes for you, Sergeant. In the meantime, as you were and feel free to continue your workout. For now, I need to speak to the Decurion in private.”

“And after that?” Marco asked anxiously, causing the rest of the room to hold its collective breath; even Reyes suddenly looked nervous, Gilda noted.

The Captain gave him a withering stare before replying. “And after that, we’ll see.”

15: Aftershocks

Author's Note

Welcome back to the story, and the start of a three-chapter runup to the Cloven War! The three chapters will be released in rapid-fire, each published 2-3 days apart starting today and ending with the opening volleys of the Cloven attack. Consider it an early Christmas gift, folks. 🎄

As always, thanks go to AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire, Silverblade5 and ASF for prereads, and as always, the standard boilerplate applies:

This chapter is a heavily edited, expanded and updated version of the first third of Feathered Heart: Chapter 5, borrowing in particular a lot of dialog from it. You are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original if you haven’t already, as it inspired many of my own works.

Note that there is a suggestive remark or two in here, but nothing that would push past a PG rating.

EDIT: The chapter has been updated with some additional text and detail to accommodate new content in earlier chapters with the story’s M-rated update. But there is still nothing here exceeds a PG rating.

15: Aftershocks

In the end, she decided not to, if only for the sake of the Sergeant. She was surprised to find that she didn’t regret that either, given that he had more than earned it for his advice and assistance. There was also the fact that her ultimate objective in teasing him was not to claim him for herself, but to entice him to be with his own eagless again. I expect that he’ll seek you out now, Kaiko Louvre! she thought with a grin, though she also mentally apologized to the other female for putting talons on her desired tiercel.

But even without discussing Reyes, she still had plenty to talk about with regards to Marco. Even though some of the details were probably needlessly lurid, she outlined all that had led to her encounter with him, noting in particular that human males seemed to instinctively wish to prove their worthiness to females—and some even seemed to greatly enjoy being dominated by one. In that sense, they were completely unlike Equestrian ponies where the females courted males, or even griffons, where both genders courted the other equally.

She was, however, starting to suspect that those aftereffects did exist, given there were now three confirmed increases of male stature following poisoning with the potion-spiked cider. And that was to say nothing of its potential influence on behavior, including her teasing of Reyes, who she worried might take it out on Marco the following morning.

Or had they…?

Chris and Tara had been okay with learning about them—Marco had been correct, they had guessed from their long absence and simply seeing Marco’s state what had happened—offering up congratulations to them both. They’d also been delighted by the ‘video’ of her tease of Reyes that followed; Tara had even congratulated her on both dominating him and ‘taking him to the edge’ so effectively, leaving him unspent and ready to rut his own eagless in turn.

“You left him longing for his griffon girl? You really are an eagless after my own heart, Gilda,” Tara then told her, giving her a heartfelt hug to the neck that left Gilda fantasizing about the human woman on top of everything else.

Have to say, especially after what nearly happened after the movie yesterday, I think I’d be willing to be with her again, too—especially since Marco likes the idea of it! She licked her beak at the thought, only to shake her head sharply. But definitely not now. Not only would it hurt Fortrakt, but Marco and I don’t need any more complications. She’s an honorable eagless, so I’m sure she realizes that as well as me.

She looked outside her room window, drinking in the sight of the starry skies above, which somehow looked more beautiful and inviting than ever. Maybe it was just the lingering afterglow of her time with Marco, but her musing thoughts vanished as she imagined the cool rush of the wind. She found herself yearning for the night skies; doubly so as she’d missed her evening flight. Being with Marco and earning the Diplomatic Command Chain she now wore had certainly changed things, but some things would always remain the same, like her love for the sky.

She sincerely hoped she would get used to it as time passed by. Or will I even need to after tomorrow? she wondered and worried as she exited the Inn.

She repeated her fort-runs twice over the next half-hour before deciding she’d had enough and returned to the Inn.

Even number of words… morning, outside, night, and the first letter of his last word was S… she cataloged quickly before coming up with a reply.

“So summon a damned mason,” she answered within three seconds, earning a snicker and even some impressed clapping as they let her pass.

Though she was dirty from her earlier exertions, she found she didn’t want to bathe just yet; still able to scent some of Marco and even Reyes on her. It brought a smile to her face as she climbed into bed and quickly nodded off, deciding again that whatever happened to her tomorrow, the day had been 100% worth it.

That regardless of what happened to her, it was a day she would remember for the rest of her life.

She picked out the voice of Sergeant Reyes quickly as she entered. “—isn’t too bad. Legs still sore, Flip-Boy?” she heard him ask as she walked down the short hallway towards them; she could hear the sound of some hefted weights and grunting that accompanied it.

“Not as bad as yesterday.” Her heart rate spiked in excitement and even a little anxiety as she heard Marco’s voice—she didn’t have any regrets about the previous day, but did he? Or did Reyes after her tease of him that followed?

“I’m sure,” Gilda replied, furling her feathers as she was reminded again of why she liked Tara. “Pity, though. I would have loved to let him ‘have it’ myself. Oh, and I hope you don’t mind me sitting in on this workout, Sergeant.” She couldn’t resist giving him a wink.

“As long as you don’t try to tease me again,” he replied in a jovial tone, though he fidgeted slightly and seemed to be having trouble looking at her, to a knowing grin from Gilda. For their part, Chris and Tara smirked while Marco snickered, with the latter earning a glare. “And just for that, Flip-boy, we’re going extra hard today.”

Gilda heard him groan, followed shortly by Chris and Tara. “Are you serious?”

“Really? How many? Wow, Robbie. Are you trying to become some sort of drill instructor?” Marco asked, his tone teasing. “Are we your first recruits?”

Reyes didn’t reply; for a moment, there was nothing but silence. “Listen up, all of you,” the Sergeant said after what seemed an uncomfortably long pause, speaking in a voice so soft that even Gilda had to strain to hear. “What you’re experiencing during my morning training is nothing compared to what Marine boot camp has to offer.”

The three instantly fell silent, perhaps recognizing they’d overstepped. “I… of course,” Marco muttered apologetically.

“I’m sorry Robbie, I didn’t mean to—” Tara added as well.

“Not that I’d want to go through it, but if I were to ask you to describe boot camp… how would you?” Chris inquired as he began running in place lightly. He’d lost some of his paunch and gained at least a little more sinew on his skinny limbs by then, though he was still far behind the well-muscled frames on the other Marines.

“First thing they do once they’ve got you off the bus is herd you into groups and usher you inside where they shave your head, undress you down to your skivvies and then give you identical uniforms with no name tags, stripping you of all individuality.

“And while this is going on, you got a bunch of DIs—that means Drill Instructors, Decurion—yelling constantly at you. They’ll be up in your face the whole time screaming about how worthless and useless you are as they tell you what not to say or do, how to march, and to always toe the line,” he explained, causing everyone’s smile to drop.

“In boot camp, you as an individual no longer exist. There’s no me, my, I, or Roberto Reyes, former star soccer player in high school passed over for an athletic scholarship by all his favorite Division 1 schools. There’s only Recruit Reyes, whose prior accomplishments mean nothing. And Recruit Reyes has to show the DI his left shoe, his right sock, and it has to be done any day now. They’ll scream if you’re too slow, stick even just one toe out of line, or even just look funny. And that’s just the first hour of the first night.”

Still, she’d made it all the way through, just like Reyes and the other Marines in the room. Given that, she could easily appreciate what the Sergeant was saying. Strength through unity and discipline was the bedrock of the Kingdom’s Military as well, after all, and she found herself amazed again at how alike the human and griffon races were despite how different they were in appearance.

So I guess Giraldi was right—we’re compatible both physically and culturally! she couldn’t help but note.

“Oh wow,” Tara muttered. “What’s the point of some of those orders, though?”

“To give a recruit a sense of what it would be like if he was in a war zone,” Reyes explained as he helped Chris stretch his legs. “Take it from me after two tours in Afghanistan that war is nothing but chaos. The main stabilizing factor in such a situation is orders given by the higher-ups. Orders that allow Marines to do something rather than sit on the ground with their thumbs up their asses, waiting their turn to be killed. It also teaches brotherhood—that you can depend on the Marine next to you. That you, in turn, are expected to do the same for him. Or her, since we do have a few female Marines now.”

“‘The Marine Corps teaches family values’,” Marco muttered. “You told me that back in Equestria.”

“Yeah, well, you should know I rarely talk out of my ass,” Reyes replied with a smile, and Gilda found herself finally starting to understand that ass was a human slang term for a rear end.

“Huh. And here I thought Marines were knights in shining armor, swinging swords and slaying dragons.” Tara teased as Gilda blinked.

They have dragons in their world? And wear Equestrian-style armor? Even after all the time she’d spent with them, she was getting dizzy from the turns the talk was taking.

“Ha! You should know I put on my shiny armor everyday I’m in the Corps, Tara. Oorah!”

“Oorah!” The other Marines in the room echoed as one.

Marco chuckled at what Gilda guess was some sort of cheer. “Heh. Oorah! Though I have to ask, Robbie—for as hard as you’re working us, are you recruiting us?”

Reyes laughed straight from the belly. “Are you serious, Flip-boy? Who’d want to recruit you?” he asked over crossed arms, though there was a twinkle in his eye.

“Ouch!” Marco replied as the other Marines snickered while Chris and Tara looked at each other and oooed. “Dude, that hurt. Are you saying I’m not good enough?”

Gilda blinked at yet another unfamiliar term. ‘Pop’ his cherry? What does that mean?

“Uh, for your information, I already have,” Marco replied somewhat smugly.

“We all have!” Tara added to a sharp nod from Chris as the pair continued through their respective warm-up routines.

“Good morning, Decurion.”

That immediately got Marco’s attention. “Sir, I’d like to come too and—"

“And after that?” Marco asked anxiously, causing the rest of the room to hold its collective breath; even Reyes suddenly looked nervous, Gilda noted.

The Captain gave him a withering stare before replying. “And after that, we’ll see.”

Gilda couldn’t remember the last time she felt so anxious as she followed Captain Moran back to his office.

Her heart was beating hard in her chest as they neared their destination on the second floor; it was all she could do not to let her tail twitch. She knew it was dweeby, given the Marine Captain couldn’t actually do anything to her, but she found herself reacting to what she assumed was her coming interrogation over Marco as if she was about to be scolded, if not excoriated, by Tribune Narada herself.

Not helping her nerves was the fact that he had two fully armed Marine sentries stationed to either side of the door as she entered, and two more in the back of his office. One was even equipped with a brand-new type of weapon she hadn’t seen on the Marines before, as the burly human possessed a much larger and more menacing black metal object with a significantly thicker and oddly-shaped block affixed beneath its tubing.

So if those things really are distance weapons… how do they work? And why does that block remind me of something? Her mind began to turn, trying to compare it to any weapon she knew of or had seen. It was then she made a pair of connections, and mentally cuffed herself for not having thought of them before. By the crows… if that’s what they are, then those weapons are far more dangerous than we could ever imagine!

But she could spare it little thought then. Following Captain Moran into his office and doing her best to ignore the looks she was getting from not just him but the five other humans in the room, she stood at attention before his desk as he walked around it and sat down.

Staff Sergeant Stafford was there as well, looking unhappy as he stood at a relaxed attention stance with his legs slightly apart and hands clasped behind his back—she’d heard them refer to that stance as “parade rest”?—while the Captain poured himself some coffee but made no move to offer her any as Lieutenant Nantz had. Instead, he sat down and pursed his human hands.

“You know why you’re here, don’t you?” he opened.

“I do,” she answered, wondering if the show of strength and refusal to show her any courtesy was in fact an act of intimidation—one she’d seen griffon officers use in the past against their own subordinates, including her. “But if we’re going to discuss it, then I would respectfully ask that it be in private.”

His pale blue eyes narrowed. “You don’t make demands here, Decurion. And I suggest you answer my questions promptly and fully if you don’t want to be marched out of not just this office, but out of the Inn entirely.”

Gilda’s feathers ruffled slightly as her gold eyes narrowed in turn; her anger starting to override her anxiety. She was uncertain why he was suddenly acting so hostile—he’d been a bit suspicious of her, certainly, but he hadn’t let that stop him from treating her respectfully, either. “With due respect, Captain, it was a request, not a demand. In any event, I am an officer of the Griffon Kingdom’s military, not one of your subordinates. So, I will thank you to not speak down to me as one.”

“With due respect to you, Decurion, we are not equals in rank, and you are inside a foreign consulate I am responsible for the security of. And based on what I now know, I am very close to declaring you an unacceptable security risk to my civilians, and my mission here.”

“That does not give you the right to punish or expel me, sir. Only the Ambassador can,” Gilda replied smoothly even as she felt her ire rise further; suddenly glad she’d made sure to study the Kingdom’s rules of foreign embassies well. “And I further remind you that mistreating a diplomatic liaison would be taken as an insult to not just me, but the entire Griffon Kingdom.”

“Oh, don’t worry. As I’ll be taking this up with the Ambassador and your Tribune shortly, I’m sure you’ll be expelled and punished by them soon enough. But know that if you were one of my Marines, I would already have disciplined you severely for so brazenly breaking fraternization rules. To say nothing of potentially compromising our security.”

She broke her bearing long enough to give him a glare. “And know that if you were my commander, I’d be very close to challenging you to a duel right now for extreme personal disrespect and exceeding your military authority,” she warned him evenly, letting her feathers ruffle again; her reaction caused some motion from the Marine sentries, who hefted their black tubes slightly.

“That’s an empty threat, given you’re forbidden from challenging humans,” he instantly pointed out.

“As is yours to expel me, given you have no authority over me. So spare me the posturing and get to the point, Captain! I didn’t think you’d be happy with me, but I also didn’t think you’d treat me this badly. And if you’re not willing to speak to me in private, then at least speak to me in ‘Latin’ so your Marines won’t understand.”

He glared back at her, but gave her a curt nod, addressing her in fluent Aeric. “Very well, Decurion. To begin with, despite the best efforts of Sergeant Reyes, I’m afraid that you and Mister Lakan were seen last night. Not just by the third-floor sentries, but by the cameras we’d installed in the stairwells.”

He turned around one of the portal devices to face her, which showed a video of her and Marco starting to make out on the third floor stairwell landing—she had no idea they’d put cameras there! By all the crows, I didn’t see them at all—how were they hidden? She thought somewhat frantically as her cheeks flushed. And did they also record what happened with Reyes...?

“To this point, only the on-duty monitoring staff knows about these, along with the sentries you passed later. Thus far, I have ordered them not to spread that information around, but I’m no fool—orders or no orders, that information will get out eventually. And what do you propose I do then?”

Gilda closed her eyes, then opened them again. “Then let it get out,” she told him evenly. “I won’t hide what I feel for him. To do so would be dishonorable. And I don’t plan to stop being with him, either. Even if that requires me to resign my post.”

For the first time, the Marine Captain looked caught off-guard. What had he been expecting me to say? she wondered, but she had no chance to consider the question before he returned his expression to a glower and charged ahead.

“I can well imagine you will, given all the information he’s undoubtedly spilling to you. So, tell me, Decurion—do you truly like him? Or are you just sleeping with him to gain more intelligence on us for Talia Tarseus and the Council of Crows?” he asked her directly, leaning over his desk.

Even though Marco had warned her that the Captain might believe exactly that, Gilda’s feathers ruffled and her wings splayed in anger; she gave a growl that would have earned a severe reprimand and punishment if she’d done so in the presence of Tribune Narada. “Do not associate me with her!”

Despite her display of ire, the Captain continued. ”And why shouldn’t I? We know perfectly well you’re gathering intelligence on us! And no doubt Mister Lakan provides the perfect opportunity to do so. That being the case, why wouldn’t you sleep with him?”

Though terming sex “sleeping with him” was an euphemism she’d never heard before, she took the meaning quickly. “I ‘slept’ with him because I like him, sir! Because he honored me as no griffon ever has! And with regards to intelligence gathering, why by all the crows wouldn’t we?” she immediately and vehemently countered.

“When you first arrived, we didn’t know anything about you, including whether you’d be friend or foe! Did you seriously expect us not to try to gather such information for the safety and security of the Kingdom? If memory serves, you complimented me on carrying out my duty to gather information before! So only now is it a problem?” she challenged him directly.

“So you admit you are an agent for the Council of Crows?” he continued to needle her instead of answering her, causing her feathers to ruffle harder. “I see you don’t like that. The truth hurts, huh?”

“The truth, sir, is that I despise Talia Tarseus! I blame both her and the Council of Crows for failing to do their duties and allowing the Ibex in! You said it yourself when I woke up—they were more interested in spying than security, and they used us without telling us their true intentions! I just didn’t realize how badly until after that attack.” Well, at least it doesn’t seem like he knows about my teasing of Reyes. He’d probably have said so by now if he did!

“Then why didn’t you quit? And why are you still spying?” he asked her, watching her reaction carefully. “And why would you be sleeping with a total ‘dweeb’ like Marco Lakan if not to gather information? A scrawny kid like him hardly strikes me as your type!”

Despite her growing anger, Gilda was starting to get a sense he was deliberately provoking her, perhaps to see if he could get her to slip up and make a damaging admission. But as she had nothing to hide and no reason to lie about Marco, she answered immediately and heatedly, leaning her head towards him as she spoke. “Because I am loyal to him, sir—just as I am loyal to the Kingdom! You can call it spying if you wish, but all I’m doing is reporting my observations on human culture and equipment. No more and no less.”

“Equipment? With special emphasis on our weapons?” he guessed immediately.

“Of course! Wouldn’t you?” she asked him in annoyance—why was he being this confrontational? “We’ve never seen their like and we don’t know what they do! Would you honestly expect us not to try and figure them out?”

“And have you?”

She stared at him in disbelief. “Do you seriously expect me to reveal that?”

“You will if you want to stay in your post,” he informed her coolly. “I offer you this deal, Decurion. I’ll let this pass—if you report to me as well as your Tribune. And among other things, that means that you run all your reports by me and allow me to censor them before you pass them along.”

Her stare turned into an outright glare as her respect for him evaporated like snow under the spring sun. Had he just asked her to betray her own side? “If you are telling me to turn traitor, then to borrow a phrase I’ve heard Marco and your Marines use, you can go fuck yourself… sir.” She spoke the sentence in Equish to make sure Staff Sergeant Stafford and the sentries understood her; the former visibly grimaced while she couldn’t read any reaction from the latter.

He smiled thinly, switching back to Equish in turn. “Nice. Well, I can think of one way we can settle the question of spying and whether Lakan’s now selling us out. Give me your latest report to the Tribune. Let’s see if he told you anything sensitive you’re now passing along.”

“Sorry, but you can’t,” she told him, swallowing her temper yet again—if he was a griffon, she would have already issued a challenge, demanding he answer for the assault on her honor and that of her mate. “Even if I agreed to get it, you can’t read it because I used my diplomatic seal on it. That means if it’s opened without the counterpart unsealing spell in the possession of Tribune Narada, the message it contains will be destroyed.”

“Just bring it,” he instructed again tersely, perhaps thinking she was bluffing.

“No. It is confidential, and if you break into my room to get it, I will report that to Ambassador Strenus and Tribune Narada. That will be seen by both as a breach of confidence, and a new diplomatic crisis will ensue.”

“Not my problem. Do it, or I will order these fine gentlemen to escort you right out of the Inn.”

She lowered her head and flared her wings hard. “You do not have the authority to expel me, or give me orders, Captain,” she warned him again, amazed she could keep her voice level when she’d once exploded in a roar at far lesser provocations back in Ponyville. “Following your instructions is a courtesy, not a duty for me. You know perfectly well that I do not fall under your chain of command, and I know perfectly well that only your Ambassador can expel me.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be taking this up with him and the Tribune soon. I don’t expect you to stay here after that,” he promised over crossed arms.

“Then do so. In the meantime, I still have duties to perform, and I intend to carry them out to the letter until ordered differently by Tribune Narada or another griffon authority. I will leave if they or your Ambassador instruct me to, but not you! Now, if there is nothing else, there’s somewhere I need to be.” She turned on her tail to leave the room.

“Get back here! I haven’t dismissed you!” he stood up and snarled as beside him, Staff Sergeant Stafford looked decidedly unhappy at the direction the conversation had taken.

“And I don’t care! You can’t order me to do anything!” she shouted back, out of patience with the obtuse human officer. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I would like to get back to watching Marco’s workout, and get ready for my first cultural training sessions—sessions I strongly suggest you attend as well, since it seems you need some remedial instruction in basic griffon honor!”

He looked up sharply and stood up to his full height. “If you were my subordinate, you’d be arrested and thrown in a cell for that!”

“And if you were my superior, you’d be facing me on a duel field right now for slandering my mate and demanding dishonorable actions!” she instantly retorted, then very deliberately turned on her heels to leave; she wondered if he understood just how grave a sign of disrespect it was for her to show him her back. “We’re done here. Good day, Captain,” she dismissed him, stalking out the door between the two sentries.

* * * * *

Gilda was still seething as she walked back down the hall towards the improvised gymnasium located near the center of the second floor, and the presence of the two armored and unsmiling Marines escorting her didn’t help her mood.

Though Captain Moran couldn’t order her to do anything, he could order her shadowed wherever she went; the clearly unhappy escorts told her tersely when she asked them to leave that they had instructions to accompany her and deny her access to any sensitive areas.

She wasn’t sure how that changed anything, given she and Fortrakt hadn’t been allowed entry to the Marine ready areas or wherever they monitored their cameras before. But there also wasn’t anything she could do about it short of lodging a formal protest with the human Ambassador, whom she worried was now going to use her confrontation with Captain Moran as the excuse he needed to finally expel Marco.

Crows take it… she thought again, wondering if the other Marines were going to follow the Captain’s lead and start treating her with far more hostility—and worse, treat Marco badly if they believed the pile of crow droppings Moran was spouting about him giving up information to her for sex.

As if in response to her unspoken worry, Stafford caught up to her when they were halfway to the suite the Marines were using as a workout area, presumably out of the Captain’s earshot.

“Listen, Decurion—I know you’re upset with the Captain right now, but please understand where he’s coming from. He’s trying to juggle political and military concerns, and believe me when I say he’s had some really bad experiences with trusting locals in the past. I’ll try to talk with him after he’s cooled off a bit, but for now, please don’t antagonize him further.”

“That’s up to him,” Gilda grated out. “I don’t care where he’s ‘coming from’, you don’t ever ask a griffon to betray their mate, or their own side!” she all but snarled out the words.

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t be pissed. But you should also understand he was deliberately provoking you. Trying to see from your reactions if you were really a spy.”

“Then he succeeded,” she answered with a low trill and freshly ruffled feathers. “I am beyond ‘pissed’ right now, Staff Sergeant. I don’t care what he thought he was doing, there was nothing honorable about his words or actions!”

“He’s a good soldier and officer, and trust me, he’s no coward—he’s seen his share of combat,” Stafford said. “He isn’t doing this just to make you mad. Put yourself in his place—how would you react to the news that one of your civilians was sleeping with a foreign soldier of a nation you already knew was trying to gain intelligence on you?”

That made her relent, if only very grudgingly; she had to take a deep breath and exhale it slowly before she could speak her next words. “Point taken.”

“Thanks for understanding. Look—he may not like you, but speaking for the rest of the Marines, we do like you, Decurion,” he reminded her. “We don’t want to lose you or Gletscher over this, even if we don’t get why you’d like Lakan.”

She gave him a look. “You don’t have to ‘get’ it, Staff Sergeant. You just have to accept it. And make sure your Marines understand that from here on out, I will take an attack on Marco Lakan as an attack on me.”

“Oh, we believe you,” he assured her with a glance back at their escort, whom she was pointedly ignoring. “We know what you do to people who piss you off. Do me a favor, though—tell Sergeant Reyes I’d like to speak to him privately after he’s done with Marco. Tell him that it’s in regards to the Captain.”

“Fine,” she said, trying to settle her still-simmering temper as they reached the entry to the makeshift gym. “And as I respect you, Staff Sergeant, I apologize for putting you in the middle of this.” She bared her neck to him, wondering if he understood the gesture by then.

“Don’t worry about it. Comes with the post,” he replied with a slightly wan smile. “I’ll do what I can. But just in case I don’t see you again, it’s been an honor and a privilege, ma’am.” He came to attention and saluted her crisply as they reached the door of the gym.

“Thank you, Staff Sergeant.” His words having at least somewhat eased her anger and anxieties, she returned the salute with a thump of her claws against her chest, then offered him her talons for a forearm clasp. “I’ve enjoyed working with you as well.”

When Gilda presented herself for entry at the improvised gymnasium again, she was told by the sentries that Chris, Tara and Marco were no longer present there. Though initially worried that meant she’d missed their entire workout, she was advised that they’d simply moved it to the Inn’s outside playground for cubs located in the interior plaza, towards the back.

Thanking them, she informed her escort that she was going there whether Captain Moran wanted her to or not, to which they glanced at each other and nodded, following her down the hall.

Answering the challenge of the outside sentries, who fortunately let her out—she half thought they wouldn’t if the Captain instructed them not to, believing she would flee once she could take flight—she exited the Inn to find Fortrakt was there, in the middle of what appeared to be a sparring session with Marco.

They were grappling in a sand pit located in the center of the Inn’s outside recreation area. It was for cubs to play in and adults to spar in, as that was a favorite way for eaglesses and tiercels alike to burn off tension or settle minor disputes. The playground itself consisted of a series of small structures and aerial obstacles that could be climbed on by the cubs of ground and airborne races alike; there were even a bin full of leather balls of various sizes for cubs to play games with in the air or the sand.

Fortrakt’s presence was certainly a surprise, as was the fact he was sparring with Marco. Her junior partner was wearing thick leather mittens to sheath his talons while Marco himself was stripped down to wearing nothing but his shorts and a pair of leather forearm braces. The latter appeared to have been borrowed from Fortrakt, who had stripped himself of his armor pieces for the purposes of the duel.

She didn’t blame him for that, as to spar in armor in a sand pit was to invite that sand to get trapped beneath the armor, becoming very abrasive and grating. It appeared they had been at it for some time given Marco’s ragged breathing and thick sheen of sweat; he was unarmed while Fortrakt had a single sheathed blade strapped to his side.

“How’d it go?” Tara asked under her breath as Gilda reached her. They watched the pair of males circle each other in the sand pit; Marco at a low two-legged crouch with Fortrakt in a four-legged one. The human appeared to be in some kind of guard stance not too dissimilar from what she’d seen in Warrior, with his legs spread wide and arms raised with his uncurled fingers positioned to protect his head, ready to block a blow from Fortrakt’s talons.

“Don’t ask,” Gilda replied shortly to a worried look as she sat down beside the human female, whose still-heavy breathing, she guessed, was slowing from having completed her workout just a few minutes earlier. “I’ll explain later. In the meantime, how’s he doing?” She motioned with her head towards Marco.

“Don’t ask,” Tara answered right back over crossed arms. As if to emphasize her words, Marco stumbled slightly in response to an attempt by Fortrakt to knock one of his legs out from under him with a swipe of his talons, only barely pulling it back in time. “It’s his first time trying to grapple an actual griffon. And so far, he’s doing… poorly.”

“I see…” Gilda felt her heart sink a bit at the realization that Marco really wasn’t anywhere near ready to fight a mating round with her, wondering if she might try training him herself. Probably not a good idea… she granted with a small smile, able to easily imagine such affairs rapidly turning more intimate even if they didn’t mean them to. I’m his motivation, so let’s not chance giving him anything unearned...

Her thought trailed off as Fortrakt’s gloved talons came in fast, almost a blur, towards Marco’s side. If unsheathed, they would have stabbed the human right in the ribs; perhaps even penetrated and punctured his lungs. It still hurt, though, judging by Marco’s short but sharp cry as he moved away from Fortrakt; his arm protecting his side against the fresh welts that were forming there. Welts she noticed he now had in several places all over his body, from his forelegs to his face.

“Dead,” Fortrakt declared, taking a few steps back to put space between him and Marco, sparing a brief glance and nod over to Gilda but otherwise not reacting to her presence—did that mean he didn’t yet know about her and Marco? Instead, he looked from her over to Reyes, who gave him a satisfied nod.

The Sergeant, who was overseeing the training outside the improvised duel arena, looked sharply at Marco. “What the hell, Flip-boy? You’re getting worse, not better! These last couple times, you’ve been moving even slower!”

“Aw, come on, Robbie! You’ve had me sparring non-stop for twenty minutes already!” a panting Marco replied, glaring at his Marine friend. He was covered head to toe in sweat, and his legs were visibly trembling. “They’re taking their break. Why can’t I take mine?” he motioned over to Chris and Tara as he spoke.

“Because they’ve already finished their sets, and you know the rules,” Reyes said unsympathetically over crossed arms. “They’re the same rules I use when training with First Spear Giraldi—we don’t stop until you score a solid hit.”

Sitting outside the improvised duel arena, Gilda could see Marco closing his eyes; his lips thinning. Despite her lingering anger at Captain Moran, she found it both fascinating and funny watching his expression change. She could tell that he was irritated, angry at his friend and at himself, and frustrated at the situation he found himself in.

So I guess Reyes wasn’t lying about today being extra hard, Gilda thought with a grin. Still, she wondered when they’d finish as the sun would shortly be rising over the top of the mountain peaks behind them. As much as she was enjoying seeing Marco shirtless and sweaty again as Reyes put him through his paces, she and Fortrakt had their daily meeting with Captain Narada soon.

Also have to remember to tell Reyes that Stafford wants to speak with him, she reminded herself, but she didn’t want to interrupt Marco’s training session to do so.

“Come on, Robbie. At least give me my baton?” Marco pleaded, his voice weary.

Reyes shook his head. “No chance. This spar simulates a situation when you’re unarmed.”

“I’ll never be unarmed,” Marco countered before glancing once at Gilda, slightly ruefully, who grinned back. “Not anymore…”

“You can never be too sure when it comes to combat situations,” Reyes replied. “If you lose your baton, you need to know how to defend yourself without it.”

Gilda found herself nodding in agreement. The Gauntlet had hammered home that point to her, giving all recruits basic training in every weapon in the Kingdom’s arsenal and talon-to-talon combat lessons at the same time—her favorite had been when she’d gotten to fire a repeating crossbow, which were normally only wielded by the Wind Knights. She opened her beak and squawked softly to get Marco’s attention. “Listen to Sergeant Reyes, Marco. Remember the attack in the fields?”

“Not a fair comparison. I was fighting against two-to-one odds,” Marco replied as Chris grimaced.

“Not my point,” Gilda said sternly. “You lost your weapon during the scuffle, remember? Things like that happen in combat. The Sergeant here is only trying to prepare you for it.”

Marco sighed, then shook his head. He pointed towards the sheathed knife on Fortrakt’s side, worn on a belt strapped around his back. “Okay, but come on—he’s got a knife on him!”

“Yes, he does,” Gilda agreed with a coy grin. “And he hasn’t even used it.”

“Exactly my point!”

“Marco, stop wasting time,” Reyes declared deadpan over crossed arms, earning an immediate glare. “Just land one solid hit and we’ll call it a morning. You can shower and eat then.”

“Yes, come on, Marco,” Fortrakt goaded. “I have better things to do than watch you flop around like a freshly caught fish!”

Marco looked surprised, then hurt as he stared at Fortrakt. “Wha—? Dude! Harsh!”

Her partner’s confused look got Gilda chuckling. “Fortrakt didn’t say that to put you down, Marco,” she quickly clarified, finding her moodiness at least temporarily receding the more of the bout she watched. “It’s the griffon way of telling their opponent that they can do this. Insults get the blood pumping faster than praise. He wants you to put forth a better effort, and he knows you can.”

“Really? You’re just trying to motivate me?” Marco asked Fortrakt, who nodded immediately. The human conceded with a sigh, then crossed his arms over his chest. “Look, dude… I’m flattered, but you’re a trained soldier and a four-legged predator! So how am I supposed to beat you, unarmed and protected with only leather arm braces?”

Reyes answered before Fortrakt could. “You have to figure that out. Just remember, Marco, this isn’t the pansy-ass spar at the local dojo you're used to. This is a combat simulation, so no bowing and all that stupid shit. If I can take Giraldi, then you can take Gletcher here. So you step up and you go to fucking work. Now, come on!”

Marco frowned, his expression deep in thought for a moment. When he faced Fortrakt, a spark appeared in his brown eyes, leaving Gilda wondering if the human male finally had a plan in mind.

The two combatants approached the center of the improvised ring. Fortrakt lowered his forequarters and arched his back, ready to pounce, while Marco stared at him steadily.

Reyes gave the two a look before nodding, slicing the air between them with his arm. “Okay, let’s go to war!” he announced grandly, causing Gilda to immediately flashback to the Warrior movie.

Fortrakt was about to charge in when Marco extended his hand forward with his palm outward; a call for a stop. Oddly enough, it was the same signal griffons would use, except it would be done with a wing.

Surprised, Fortrakt slackened his stance. “What is it?”

“Look, Fortrakt, are you sure you can’t just… I don’t know, stand still while I hit you once?” Marco asked.

Fortrakt rolled his emerald eyes. “Come on, Marco, you know I can’t—”

Before he finished the sentence, Marco made his move as his long hind paw kicked up the loose sand from the pit towards Fortrakt’s unprepared face. The tiercel tried to immediately cover up, but it was too late. He screeched as he moved away, eyes closed and watering, his forelegs swiping blindly in front of him.

To her surprise and great satisfaction, that was all the advantage Marco needed as he quickly stepped in. He used his hands to guard his head while his elbows flared outwards as he moved, weaving in and out through the tiercel’s blind and clumsy strikes. Marco’s borrowed forearm braces protected him from any lucky hits as he penetrated Fortrakt’s defenses, deftly using his hard elbows to deflect his opponent’s forelegs out of the way.

Smart, but not enough, thought Gilda with a grin. Soon as Fortrakt recovers his vision, he’ll put Marco down immediately…

But then Marco did something that surprised her. He grabbed Fortrakt’s extended foreleg, twisted it in a rather painful looking angle, and drove the tiercel down towards the ground, eliciting a startled squawk. His position now dominant, Marco used his legs to pin his griffon opponent in place, freeing his hands to reach towards Fortrakt’s sheathed knife. In one quick motion, Marco drew it and drove the flat of the blade towards the side of Fortrakt’s exposed neck.

“Dead,” Marco declared, his chest heaving again.

Reyes nodded. “Finally. Then we’re done here. Hit the showers and I’ll see you at breakfast.”

Marco eased away from Fortrakt, who recovered quickly. Standing up on all fours, he blinked and rubbed the remaining sand out of his eyes as he turned to a sheepish-looking Marco.

“Sorry,” her new mate muttered apologetically. Was he actually embarrassed by his victory?

“Sorry about what? That was a great move,” Fortrakt replied with a grin.

“It was?” Marco blinked as he offered the knife back to Fortrakt, hilt-first. “But I tricked you!”

“Nah, keep it,” he said amicably as he began to pull his armor back on. “You earned it. And you didn’t do anything wrong by tricking me. Deception is part of war.”

“He’s right, Marco,” Gilda spoke up. “We griffons may be big on honor, but we’re not going to lose a war over it, either.”

“It don’t matter if you win by an inch or a mile,” Chris spoke up in a deliberately deeper and oddly-accented voice that suggested he was quoting someone. “Winning’s winning.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not driving hot rods and I don’t have a stunt double, Chris. And are you sure, dude?” Marco asked Fortrakt, starting to recover his stamina. He looked at the blade, turning it over repeatedly. “I mean, this is closer to a bolo than a kitchen knife.”

“I’m sure. It’s a combat knife, and I’ve got three more of them,” Fortrakt replied with a grin, removing the blade’s sheath and its belt to pass to him. “I’m not going to miss one.”

Gilda stood up from her sitting position, walking towards the ring. “Not bad, Marco,” she said. “A few more bouts, and maybe you’ll be ready for me.” She let her eyes go hooded for a moment.

“Don’t tempt me, girlfriend,” he shifted slightly uncomfortably despite his grin, as the others smirked and Fortrakt blinked. “I’m not there yet.”

Before she could reply, Chris spoke up. “Okay, now that training is done, want to watch Lord of the Rings afterbreakfast?” He asked out of nowhere, leaving Gilda guessing he was eager to change the subject. “It’s another fantasy swordplay adventure, and a really good one, three movies long.”

“And by watching it, you’ll finally understand who Marco was referring to that first day when he mentioned Gimli and Aragorn,” Tara added with a smirk, pulling on some kind of thicker hooded garment against the morning chill.

“Sure,” Gilda replied, hoping they’d get the chance. “But we’ll have to do it a bit later. Fortrakt and I have our morning meeting with the Tribune to attend. And there’s a good chance Captain Moran is going to want to talk to me again.” She suppressed a grimace.

“Uh… want me to come?” Marco asked again.

“We all will if you want,” Tara instantly spoke up, to a sharp nod from Chris but to Fortrakt’s evident confusion.

“Uh, are you in trouble, Decurion? Why would you need to—"

“Actually, your meeting with the Tribune is happening right now,” Staff Sergeant Stafford’s voice was heard, equal parts resigned and apologetic as he approached the group. “At the request of Captain Moran, the Tribune has come here. She’s ordering the immediate presence of you and Second Spear Gletscher in the Captain’s office, and she instructs you to bring your daily reports.”

Gilda closed her eyes and sighed. Crows take it… she’d wanted to tell Narada herself at their morning meeting so she couldn’t be accused of hiding it, but this meant the Captain had told her first. “Very well. Inform her that we’ll be along presently…”

Ten minutes later, after a brief detour to her room—she was pleased to see that they hadn’t broken in, at least, given her rolled-up report scroll was still there and undisturbed—and then being told to wait outside while they interviewed Fortrakt first, Gilda found herself back in Captain Moran’s office standing at attention beside a still-befuddled Fortrakt, who pointedly did not even look at her when she entered.

He might be mad at me, she worried, if this was how he found out about her and Marco. She could only guess the others hadn’t told him because they thought it proper for both her and Marco to do so. And though she certainly understood their reasoning, she now worried he was going to be angry with her for keeping that from him.

To say nothing of a glowering Tribune Narada herself, who spoke first this time from where she sat in front of the Captain’s desk.

“So, Decurion… from what the Captain has shown me, it would seem you’ve been taking your duties as a diplomatic liaison a little too seriously,” she began ominously in Aeric as Gilda could only flush. She couldn’t see the reaction from Fortrakt to her right, staring straight ahead as she was, but she couldn’t worry about him just then.

“As you apparently sought to hide this fact from both me and your partner, I am having a very hard time finding a reason why I shouldn’t fulfil the Captain’s request to order your removal from the Inn here and now.”

The threat of being separated from Marco hanging in the air, Gilda chose her next words with very great care. “With respect, sir, it was my intention to tell both you and the Second Spear at our morning meeting. If you don’t believe me, then I simply request you read my report,” she answered crisply, holding out the scroll. “It’s all there.”

“Is it, now?” the Tribune asked dubiously as she snatched it out of her talons. “The Captain here seems to think that you’re simply ‘sleeping’ with him as a means to gain intelligence. Ludicrous though I find that idea, I’m also having a hard time comprehending why you would have any interest in him after all you’ve been through, and without any influence of the cider this time!”

“Then I once again ask that you read my report, sir,” Gilda answered evenly, knowing that this time, she was on firm cloud. “I explain everything within it.”

“I will read it as well,” Captain Moran said.

“That depends,” the Tribune immediately replied. “This is a confidential communique, Captain. You do not have the right to demand it. If I find it appropriate to share, I will.”

“And if you don’t, I will take that as a sign it contains sensitive information, and that Marco Lakan divulged it to her,” he warned. “If that happens, I will recommend to Ambassador Goldberg that he be shipped home. And I don’t expect he’ll be able to ask for asylum like Tara Fields.”

“We will see,” the Tribune replied shortly, then pulled out an enchanted gem, pressing it into the wax. The latter turned color from green to gold to indicate the incineration charm Gilda’s diplomatic seal contained was deactivated, at which point Narada unrolled the scroll and scanned through it quickly while facing away from Moran.

When she was through, having seemingly read it over twice, she looked over Gilda again, at least somewhat mollified. “Very well, Captain. Though highly personal in places, I see nothing of particular sensitivity or interest here, nor any evidence that Marco Lakan said something to her that he shouldn’t have.

“It is also clear to me that the Decurion was not lying when she said she intended to tell me about her and Mister Lakan at our morning meeting, since I would have read it then. But you be the judge. As you wanted to see it, here it is.” She slid it on the desk before him, then took position between Gilda and Fortrakt, sitting as they stood at attention.

The former took her posture as a sign that the Tribune was going to stand by and defend her two soldiers, for which Gilda was relieved and grateful. She was still worried about the reaction of a still-silent Fortrakt, however, scarcely able to imagine what was going through his head just then.

Will he be jealous? Or angry that I didn’t tell him, even though I really didn’t get the chance to? Maybe even mad that not even Marco did?

The Captain studied her report for several long minutes; she guessed that even though he spoke Aeric well, reading it might still have been slower for him. Especially if he was trying to read through her pengryphonship, which wasn’t the cleanest script. She’d certainly gotten better in the course of writing reports throughout her military career, but it still was a bit rough in places.

The Tribune waited for two minutes before addressing him in Equish. “Satisfied, Captain?”

Instead of immediately replying, Moran looked up and drummed his talons slowly on the desk as an impatient griffon would. “Though there are several pieces of information in here I did not need to know, it would appear that you are correct. Marco Lakan did not divulge anything untoward to her while being intimate—though there’s no guarantee he won’t do so in the future, and I’m worried about these movies he’s showing them.

“I also admit I’m... surprised at some of these observations, which I would have thought were obvious from the start. Never mind what,” he quickly added, switching to Equish as well.

“Did I lie, sir?” Gilda prompted him, even if that was speaking out of turn. But the Tribune did not rebuke her. “Was anything I told you in our earlier meeting false?”

He drummed his talons several more times before answering. “Very well, Decurion. Either this is a very elaborate deception with an attempt to present a believable backstory—one I do not give you or your Council of Crows enough credence to attempt—or you simply do like Marco Lakan for reasons I still cannot even begin to fathom.”

Gilda barely suppressed a growl at the backtaloned insult. “I don’t give a crow’s worth of droppings whether you fathom it or not, sir. Gryphons don’t lie about such things, and neither will I.” She then turned to the Tribune, speaking far more respectfully. “And with respect, sir, I think that report also shows that I have not let what happened interfere with my duties.”

“We will discuss that later,” Narada said in clipped tones. “In any event, Captain, I believe you owe my subordinate and Marco Lakan an apology. You jumped to some very questionable, and I daresay dishonorable conclusions, insulting her and her mate in the process. Such insults would be grounds for a duel in our culture, and I would hope the Decurion’s cultural training lessons would include some instructions about that.”

“They will now,” Gilda grated. “I’m waiting, Captain.”

He looked up sharply. “Then you can keep waiting. I will not apologize for acting on perfectly reasonable security concerns, especially given all that has already happened! I do not trust you, Decurion, or this... situation!”

“But those concerns have been answered,” the Tribune pointed out in tense tones, her eyes narrowing in turn. “Though I can’t say I’m entirely pleased with her, the Decurion demonstrably isn’t spying, or ‘sleeping’ with Marco Lakan to gain information. I also know her well enough to trust that she will not divulge any to him, in turn.”

“Not spying? Then what do you call all this?” he motioned to the report.

“Observing,” Narada responded instantly before Gilda could, “so that we may better understand you as a race and culture before accepting you as allies. We would be remiss not to, and I find it very hard to believe you would not do the same in our place. If you still doubt the Decurion’s integrity, it may interest you to know that both her and the Second Spear here declined requests from the Council of Crows to help them steal some of your devices.”

“Oh, really?” That only made him more suspicious, not less. “And why didn’t you?”

“Because they were telling us to lie, sir!” Fortrakt spoke up for the first time. “Because they were asking us to take advantage of our new friends and violate our personal honor in pursuit of political goals!”

“Just like the Pentagon…” Staff Sergeant Stafford mumbled before being glared silent by Moran, leaving Gilda no idea what he was referring to by the name of a five-sided object.

“It is as the Second Spear says. It may further interest you to know that in the aftermath of that incident, I offered them the opportunity to resign their posts. But they declined, wishing to remain with their charges out of a sense of duty to them,” the Tribune confirmed.

“A likely story,” the Captain grumbled aloud, gaining Narada’s immediate ire as Gilda exchanged a startled and angry glance with Fortrakt.

“So now you’re accusing me of lying?” The Tribune’s feathers ruffled. “Captain Moran, I strongly suggest you mind your tongue, as you are now in very thin air with not just me, but the entire Gryphon Kingdom!”

“So now you’re going to claim you are the aggrieved party here, Tribune? After we already caught your side spying and after the Ibex assault you allowed on our embassy? I remind you that your Council of Crows has still not caught the adepts or retrieved our missing items! For all we know, they’re already in possession of them and examining them as we speak! So what reason do we have to trust you?”

Gilda couldn’t see Narada’s expression, but she could well imagine the glower she was now wearing. “If they had, I would have heard about it from my contacts. And told you of it right after I informed the Queen of their duplicity, at which point Talia Tarseus would be put in chains and brought before her, facing execution for defying her will,” she replied with severely strained patience.

“But the overzealousness of the Senior Sparrow and Council of Crows notwithstanding, we have acted in good faith, Captain—may I remind you that we nearly went to war with the Ibexian Ascendancy over what happened! But I am currently having severe doubts whether you are.”

Moran leaned forward towards her. “I have given you and your liaisons ample opportunity to prove your good faith, only to have it repeatedly thrown in my face. First by their spying, and then by seducing our civilians! Her actions make no sense except as an intelligence gathering activity, and I want her removed from this embassy before she compromises our security again!”

“That will do!” Narada’s angry reply erupted before Gilda’s could, her wings flaring hard. “I will not allow you to sit here and slander my soldiers, Captain! If there is discipline to be meted out, I will do so, and if you had issues with Decurion Behertz, your first move should have been to come to me, not her!

“In any event, despite your claims, she has done nothing wrong that I can see. It is true we do not allow sexual relationships within a chain of command, but there is no such chain here! As long as she does not allow it to affect the performance of her duties, I see no issue with it.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. Because it’s the perfect opportunity for Behertz to gain all the intelligence you could ever want!”

“Captain Moran…” Narada made a low growl Gilda had never heard from her before. “She has demonstrably not done that, as her own report shows! Nor has she shown any indication she cannot continue to carry out her diplomatic duties! Be assured that if I thought she was emotionally compromised over this, I would pull her out myself!”

“‘Emotionally compromised’?” he echoed incredulously. “I don’t care about her, I care about Lakan! He’s a young kid who doesn’t know what he’s doing and is probably just happy to get some exotic tail!”

“Enough!” Gilda growled and took a step forward before Narada’s upraised wing blocked her path. “Tribune Narada—as the Captain has refused an apology multiple times, I hereby request an exception to the prohibition against griffons challenging humans! For slandering me and insulting my mate, I demand satisfaction!” She exploded in raw temper, causing the sentries to raise their weapons and Fortrakt to tense like he was going to tackle her again.

But this time, the Tribune stopped her with sheer force of will and the intensity of her warning glare. “Get… back…” she ordered Gilda in no uncertain terms, not turning back to the Captain until she’d done so.

“I admit, Captain, that I am tempted to grant her request. Be assured, she is reacting exactly as a griffon should to your ill-thought words and accusations! They are gross affronts to her honor—and mine as her commander!”

“I don’t give a crow-flown fuck about your ‘honor’, Tribune. I only care about stopping a spy!”

“She is not a spy!” Narada snarled, then stepped forward to lean her head right over his desk. “To this point, you have given me no cause to doubt your competency or character, Captain Moran. But right now you are showing an appalling disregard for our culture and customs; one that will reflect badly on both yourself and the ‘mission’ you claim you are trying to fulfill!

“I strongly suspect that were I to divulge this discussion to the Queen or a senior enough Legatus, your diplomatic mission here would be immediately terminated. Or at least could not continue until your removal from command.”

“My removal?” Moran snarled again. “I took personal command here after this embassy was invaded to make sure it was secure! And at this point, removing her is part of securing it!” He pointed directly at Gilda.

“Excuse me…” Without prompting, Fortrakt stepped forward, ignoring the stares and outright glares on him. “I realize I am speaking out of turn, but with the greatest respect, Captain and Tribune, you’re just talking past each other right now, and not getting anywhere.

“For the record, this was a surprise to me, too! And though I admit I’m a little hurt that I wasn’t told about the Decurion and Marco Lakan before this—” he paused long enough to give Gilda a momentary glower before turning his attention back to Captain Moran—“I don’t doubt her intentions are honorable, and I have no wish to see our good relations and all the work we’ve put into creating them descend into rancor.

“So with the utmost respect, I would suggest that both sides withdraw to cool off for a bit before resuming this discussion.” He came to attention as he spoke.

“And I must agree, Captain,” Staff Sergeant Stafford spoke up for the first time from Moran’s right. “With due respect, this is not helpful to either side. We’re not making progress; we’re just pissing each other off right now.”

“You are not in command here, Staff Sergeant,” Moran told him icily, to which his subordinate came to stiff attention. “When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.”

“Whether you want it or not, I would be remiss to not give it, sir,” Stafford replied with surprising force, still staring straight ahead while maintaining a rigid attention stance. “As your acting second in the absence of First Lieutenant Nantz, it is my duty to keep a cool head and point out that you are acting contrary to our objectives. Having been here from the start, it is my considered opinion that our hosts do not deserve this treatment or your suspicion. And that you do owe an apology to Decurion Behertz, sir.”

“Are you quite through?” Moran glared at him, leaving Gilda no doubt he was planning to punish Stafford for backtalk later.

“No sir, I am not. Having known the Decurion for the past four weeks, I am satisfied that she means neither us nor Marco Lakan any harm,” he answered evenly, causing Gilda’s estimation of him to rise even as that of the Captain fell.

“In my view, sir, you are applying your past experiences to them. But the Kingdom is not a failed state, and the griffons are not Iraqis or Afghanis! As near as I can tell, they are open in their intentions and do not wish us ill. It is a mistake to treat them as such, and to do so reflects poorly upon both you and our mission here!” he said quickly, seeing Moran’s scowl.

“I would suggest, Captain, that you listen to your subordinate… as I will to mine,” a still-ruffled Narada broke in, causing Fortrakt to exhale slightly and release some of the tension he’d been holding in.

“I have no wish to act in anger over such a sensitive matter. So I recommend we reconvene later, in the presence of Ambassadors Strenus and Goldberg, who are now holding their first meeting since the Ibexian crisis began. Let them hear both sides and decide what to do. I will abide by their decisions… if you will agree to do the same.” She lowered her head again.

“I answer to Ambassador Goldberg only,” Moran replied shortly through clenched teeth. “But as I can see any further talks now are pointless given your side’s intransigence in this matter, I will await the Ambassador’s pleasure...”

16: Guns and Roses

Author's Note

Welcome to the second of ~~three~~ four leadup chapters to the start of the Cloven attack, folks. :rainbowdetermined2: Current plan is to launch the third one on Thursday, and the fourth on Saturday.

I’ll say here and now that we’re going to take a different route getting there than the original story had, for reasons that should become clear at chapter’s end. As always, thanks go to AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire, Silverblade5 and ASF for prereads, and as always, the standard boilerplate applies:

This chapter is a heavily rewritten version of the middle third of Feathered Heart: Chapter 5, borrowing not much more than a little dialog from it. Regardless, you are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original if you haven’t already, as it inspired many of my own works.

As before, there are one or two suggestive remarks in here, but nothing that would push past a PG rating.

16: Guns and Roses

Gilda was quickly coming to realize that being with Marco Lakan bore far more potential complications and dangers than she had thought. And worse, those potential complications were coming from both sides.

An hour after her talk with Moran, she found herself back in the Auxiliary Guard barracks on Arnau’s fifth level facing interrogation again, this time by Tribune Narada. But when Gilda arrived there with Fortrakt, the Tribune ordered them to wait outside while she wrote a note to summon Ambassador Strenus, who had only returned from Saddle Arabia the previous night.

That gave them at least some minor chance to finally catch up a bit while the Ambassador made his way there. While waiting, Fortrakt told Gilda he was just as taken aback at the hostile treatment they’d been given by the previously neutral Captain, though he also admitted he had a degree of anger of his own at her for not telling him she was now with Marco.

“It only happened last night, Second Spear, and it hit like a bolt from the blue! What did you want me to do, wake you up in the middle of the night just to tell you that?” she challenged him irritably.

“You were gone when we got back! If you’d been there, you would have learned then! I’m sorry your talk with Chris and Tara didn’t go well, but it’s not my fault you left!” She further reminded him, causing him to fall silent. Though tempted to ask him about that talk, she didn’t, deciding she didn’t want to chance upsetting him when she needed all the support she could get.

Narada finally invited them in five minutes later. Though the Tribune was less than pleased at the surprising turn of events—“So, first you attack Marco Lakan, then you resist being around him, then you try to flee after finding out about being with Tara, then you skip over her to be back with him? Have I missed anything, Decurion?” she inquired acidly at one point—she was at least satisfied that Gilda was serious about him, deciding further that she really couldn’t hold it against her subordinate given her own whiplashing desires over Crimson Comet at a similar age years earlier.

She also said she wasn’t convinced that Gilda could still carry out her diplomatic and intelligence-gathering duties dispassionately in the face of her feelings for Marco, to which Gilda pointed to her observation-and-conclusion-rich report as proof that she could.

That might have been the end of it if Talia Tarseus hadn’t shown her face in Narada’s office for the first time in four weeks, to the surprise and annoyance of all. Despite the Tribune’s efforts to keep it quiet, word had somehow reached the Council of Crows of Gilda’s indiscretions, and far from unhappy, the Senior Sparrow was almost giddy at the news.

“Ancestors above, this is perfect!” she had exclaimed upon rapidly scanning Gilda’s latest report. She looked like she had aged five years since Gilda had last seen her, as she and the Council of Crows had spent little time sleeping while pursuing the Capricorn agents and trying to track down their caches of stolen human gear. “Marco Lakan should be much easier to gain intelligence from now! Perhaps he will even be willing to divulge information about their black metal tubes!”

Gilda’s feathers ruffled hard, the remark leaving her ready to explode after an already-tense morning—just like Captain Moran, the Senior Sparrow wanted her to act dishonorably, but unlike Moran, she wanted Marco to betray his oath of secrecy as well?

Thankfully, a familiar and far more welcome voice stayed her tongue. “I am certain that Decurion Behertz is less concerned about that than the possibility Marco Lakan is about to be sent home.” Ambassador Strenus quickly broke in from behind her, entering the Tribune’s office for the first time in weeks. “Greetings to you all.”

“Welcome back, Ambassador.” Tribune Narada smiled in obvious relief, baring her throat at him in lieu of a salute. “As the Ibexians have backed down, I congratulate you on a successful mission and being able to resolve this crisis without bloodshed. Was your stay in Saddle Arabia enjoyable?”

“Not especially,” he said with a thin smile. “The Ibex are never easy to deal with, couching everything in terms of doublespeak and turning even the simplest of negotiating points into a contest of wits and wills. And not helping matters was that the Saddle Arabians were far too placating to them, in my view, after the Ibexian intelligence agents—or excuse me, their honored diplomats—threatened to enact harsh trade tariffs if they sided with us.”

“Charming,” was all Gilda could say as her feathers stilled, very glad to see him along with Narada and Fortrakt. “It’s good to have you back, Ambassador.” She offered him a bared throat and forearm clasp, her mood instantly brightening.

“Likewise,” he agreed with a warm smile, returning the latter. “Be assured I have kept up on your daily reports as forwarded to me by the Tribune, and I find them as informative as they are intriguing. I am also quite pleased you have overcome your initial poor beginnings with Marco Lakan to have bonded with him, though I admit I am rather surprised by the circumstances.” He raised an eyeridge at her.

“As am I, sir,” she granted with a slight blush. “It wasn’t exactly planned. It just… happened.” She squirmed a bit.

Despite her discomfort, he smiled more broadly. “Planned or not, it bodes well for our respective races to learn that we are both socially and sexually compatible. And I am impressed by Marco Lakan’s instinctive understanding of griffon honor, even if he knew not what he was doing by arming himself against you and simply wishing to win you as a gryphon would,” he noted, nodding towards her report.

“Though the Senior Sparrow here may see this in terms of gathering intelligence, I see it far more about establishing and furthering good relations between our races. I suspect you will be but the first of many such pairings. Or do we already have another one? Have you taken a human lover among your civilian charges as well, Second Spear?” He gave Fortrakt an askance but wry look.

“No, sir, I have not,” Fortrakt answered somewhat stiffly despite the teasing tone. “And though I wish the Decurion and Marco—I-I mean, Mister Lakan well, nor do I plan to, given the… difficulties involved.” He offered no further comment than that, leaving Gilda wondering just how badly things had gone when he spoke to Chris and Tara. He’d at least seemed okay to be in their presence while sparring with Marco, though then again, she’d never seen him look at or even speak to them.

Better ask Tara about what happened later, Gilda decided. If, that was, she was allowed to by Captain Moran, who had barred her from seeing not just Marco but all three civilians. She knew he had no authority over Tara since she’d been granted asylum, but Gilda also didn’t trust him to respect that.

“I thank you for your kind words and understanding, sir,” she bowed her head towards him, “though I fear it will all be for naught if Ambassador Goldberg uses this as the excuse he needs to finally expel Marco.”

Strenus turned solemn and nodded gravely. “Be assured, I will be discussing the matter with him this afternoon. I will do what I can, but ultimately, I cannot intervene in human affairs, except insofar as they affect griffon ones. His fate will be decided by their Ambassador.”

“This does affect griffon affairs,” the Senior Sparrow spoke again, her mere presence causing Gilda’s ire to rise anew. “He almost certainly has information on their strange weapons, and perhaps he might share it in exchange for his own offer of asylum.”

“So, you want him to act dishonorably?” Narada spoke up before Gilda could, giving her a warning look.

But Tarseus was unperturbed. “Call it what you wish. But the Council of Crows is not picky about where intelligence comes from.”

“I can promise you, Talia Tarseus, that the Queen would not exchange asylum for information,” Strenus said mildly, though the warning tone that underlay his words was heard loud and clear by Gilda. “For she knows well that anycreature that does such a dishonorable thing once is very liable to do it again, against our interests later.”

“My thoughts exactly,” the Tribune concurred. “But that said, she might approve of asylum to allow Mister Lakan to remain with Behertz.”

Gilda’s heart leapt, only to sink as Ambassador Strenus thought about that, only to shake his head. “Unfortunately, I think not. I am certain that such an arrangement would negatively impact the negotiations, and lacking friends, we desperately want this new alliance and trade agreement to improve our defenses and crop yields—never mind their weapons; their agricultural improvements and cattle herds alone could feed the entire Kingdom easily!

“We indulged their Ambassador once, giving him political cover at home for expelling Dana Carraway. We would have a far more difficult time providing such cover here, especially when they believe Marco Lakan might spill their secrets.”

Gilda closed her eyes, reflecting that everything that seemed so perfect the previous night had in fact complicated things far more than she ever thought possible, and worse, it might have been the final feather in the wing that got Marco expelled. The Ambassador was right; she didn’t see any way around the simple fact that Marco’s defection to the Kingdom—well, what else could she call it?—would be seen as a gross betrayal by both Moran and very possibly the Marines themselves. Unless…

She blinked at the sudden idea that occurred to her. Unless I take away his ability to divulge those secrets? I’m still not completely certain, but…

“With respect, Ambassador and Tribune, I think I may be able to relieve Marco Lakan of that burden,” she said, closing her eyes again to steel herself. If I’m wrong… she didn’t want to think. “It’s not in my report, because I only made the connection this morning. But I believe I know what secrets they’re hiding, and what those strange metal weapons of theirs actually are.”

All eyes instantly turned on her; Ambassador Strenus seemed intrigued while to Gilda’s annoyance, the Senior Sparrow went something close to giddy.

Tribune Narada's reaction, however, was far more measured. “You have information in regards to the odd human weaponry?”

“Yes, sir,” Gilda replied, taking a deep breath. “As you know, me and Fortrakt have been reporting on the black tubes and the variations we have seen.”

“Indeed I do.” Narada grabbed a scroll Gilda recognized as one of the previous day’s reports, written in Fortrakt’s surprisingly practiced script. “From what you’ve said before, you've seen at least three variations.”

“Make that four,” Fortrakt corrected. “One standard model, one with a thicker tube wielded by their doctor, a longer model I glimpsed partially disassembled that appeared to be propped on some kind of stand, and just today, we saw what looked like a heavier version with a bulky block hanging beneath its belly.”

“It’s the last I find the most interesting," Gilda interjected. “The one with that square block at the bottom that the Second Spear noted. I kept thinking I’d seen something like it before. It was only after I left the Captain’s office that I remembered where. And if I’m right, then we were wrong—very wrong—about what they were from the start.”

“Then what about them, Decurion Behertz?” Narada’s voice sounded both intrigued and impatient.

Gilda organized her thoughts carefully before speaking, trying to make sure all her observations could be supported by evidence. “Sir, I believe that all the black metal tubes that the Marines are carrying are not melee weapons as we first thought… but are in fact highly advanced ranged weaponry.”

“Ranged weaponry?” Narada echoed, glancing at Strenus before looking back to Gilda. “We’ve seen no indication of that, Decurion. They have no arrow quivers that we can see, nor any drawstring or other recognizable mechanism to fling projectiles.”

“Our mages have also detected no magic on them other than what we believe to be some powerful Equestrian-made wards to deflect magical probes—by their potent aura signature, we believed them to have been cast by one of the Pony Princesses themselves, making them very difficult to defeat,” Talia Tarseus added in some disgust, her excitement ebbing as quickly as it had risen. “There was no casting mechanism detected on them either, meaning they do not launch magical beams or bolts. So how can you possibly conclude they are ranged weapons, Decurion?”

“Yeah, how?” Even Fortrakt was giving her an odd look.

“Observation,” Gilda replied. “I initially thought that their weapons were far too cumbersome to wield in a melee setting, but after I’d been around them a bit, I assumed that human fingers could compensate for it—that the various protrusions of their weapons were meant as striking or swinging surfaces.”

Narada raised her claw. “Excuse me, Decurion, but what are ‘fingers’?”

Before Gilda could reply, Strenus answered for her. “Fingers, my dear Tribune, are humanity’s blunt yet nimble talons. Though not hard or sharp, they are very dexterous and can manipulate even small objects with ease.”

The Tribune nodded her understanding. “I see. Continue.”

“Thank you, Ambassador,” Gilda acknowledged with a bared throat toward Strenus before she turned back towards Narada. “As I said, I initially thought that their fingers would be more than enough to compensate for the weapon’s cumbersome form. But I now realize I was wrong.

“After observing how humans move and fight—and even how they would fight a griffon, thanks to the Second Spear sparring with Marco Lakan—I have concluded that the weapons are not designed for close combat. I believe Fortrakt and I have submitted regular reports in regards to the human ‘films’ we’ve been shown, Tribune?”

“Yes, you have,” she replied somewhat impatiently. “Their subject matter is certainly diverse, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, the first film we’ve watched, Warrior, showcased modern human civilization in a country called the United States of America, which is the parent nation of the Marines present,” Gilda said. “A later movie we watched, Braveheart, was a historical re-telling of a far older civilization in another country called Scotland.”

“And the point of this is… what?” Talia Tarseus asked irritably, to which Gilda gave her another glare.

“The point, Senior Sparrow, is that while Warrior showed how modern humans can fight effectively with no weapons in single combat, Braveheart showcased how early humans actually foughta war! Among other things, they rode—”

Fortrakt suddenly chortled hard, which got the attention of everygriffon else in the room. Gilda gave him her harshest stare, while Narada and Strenus looked annoyed.

“Do you find something amusing in this discussion, Second Spear Gletscher?” Narada asked mildly.

“Nothing, sir,” Fortrakt replied immediately, clearing his throat repeatedly. He then stayed completely silent. Gilda ignored the urge to cuff him with her wing but settled on rolling her eyes.

“As I was saying, Braveheart showed us that early humans waged war almost exactly the same way we do! They had melee weapons quite like ours in that they used swords, spears, and shields. In matters of mobilization, they rode large beasts of burden—unintelligent Terran Horses—to maneuver their forces more quickly.

“And just like us, their warfare was not limited to close quarters. They in fact used bows and arrows to strike from distance, much like Equestrian unicorns, and they even wielded a very primitive version of our crossbows designed to defeat metal armor.”

Strenus stroked his chin. “Interesting. I can certainly see them manipulating Equestrian-style longbows with their fingers. Their bipedal forms would make them easy to wield without unicorn magic, as standing on two legs would leave both sets of foretalons free to level the bow and pull back the drawstring. But you say they also used crossbows? That they invented a weapon similar to ours?”

“Similar to ours in the very distant past, yes,” Gilda confirmed. “Single shot and very slow to reload, requiring mechanical aid to do so. I emphasize that they were very basic designs. We might have last used ones like them a full millennium ago, when we battled the invading army of Nightmare Moon.”

“Interesting,” Narada granted. “So if they were using them then, why aren’t they using them now?”

“But that’s just it!” Gilda exclaimed. “And this brings me back to the other film, Warrior, which is set in the modern human setting.”

“And how is that relevant?” Tarseus asked.

Though Gilda didn’t want to acknowledge the Senior Sparrow’s question, her query was a valid one. “I can’t help but note that the difference in living standards between the two films is very drastic. Building designs turned from painfully primitive to incredibly sophisticated. From stone castles transforming to metal and glass towers that seemed to reach the sky; from riding beasts of burden to mechanical carriages that could enable them to travel by ground and air at high speed. By the crows, they’ve even been to their moon now!” she reminded them.

“Impossible,” the Senior Sparrow said dismissively. “We heard that rumor from the Equestrians, but dismissed it as a pile of crow droppings given the incredible distance and difficulties involved.”

Gilda gave her a look. “Whether you believe it or not, I’m satisfied that it happened, Senior Sparrow. And that goes to the heart of the argument. They’ve advanced incredibly far over the past millennium in all other areas of their society, so why not in weapons and warfare? Why would they have regressed back to using simple melee arms after effectively wielding bows and arrows?” she asked pointedly, waiting for them to process the question and reach the only conclusion possible.

“With everything else they have, it’s unthinkable that they would have done so. If they had ranged weapons like crossbows before, it makes no sense at all that they’re not using them now… unless they got something better to replace them. I think that ‘something’ is those black tubes they all carry.”

“Then… you think those tubes of theirs are in fact extremely advanced crossbows?” Narada sounded very dubious.

“No, sir,” Gilda shook her head. “Though the way they grasp their weapons bears a passing resemblance to how we hold our crossbows, I don’t think they’re that at all. I think they’re far more powerful and dangerous. And the reason is…” She took a deep breath before voicing her conclusion. “I didn’t make the connection until this morning, but I finally figured out what their metal tubes—and particularly that big, mounted block—remind me of.

“With regards to the former, I believe they’re what amounts to miniaturized naval ballistae, firing tiny metal balls.”

It was several seconds before anygriffon spoke again as all present processed her claim; a glance behind Narada showed that even her aides and sentries appeared uncertain. “So in other words, they’re tiny cannons firing equally tiny cannonballs?” Strenus summarized doubtfully.

“But how would those be useful?” the Senior Sparrow challenged, her brow furrowed as she tried and failed to visualize it. “I admit I’m no expert on naval affairs, but I know that even for practiced gunnery teams on airships, reload time for a single ballistae is very slow! And the explosive gem dust needed to propel them is very difficult to refine and store.

“It’s extremely volatile, and you would not want to keep that on your body given it’s been known to spontaneously ignite. Or worse, the detonation could be triggered remotely by hostile mages.”

“As much as I hate to say it, I agree with the Ambassador and Senior Sparrow, Decurion,” Fortrakt spoke up again, his tone serious. “Even if you’re right, that doesn’t seem very useful. I mean, sure, they could conceivably fire one destructive volley with them like an airship broadside, but after that? We could cut them down before they reloaded with a hail of crossbow bolts and then quickly close to finish them with spears and steel claws. They’d get no chance for a second volley and their weapons would be effectively reduced to melee.”

“Unless their weapons are not single shot,” Gilda said quickly, having already anticipated the objection. “And that’s where my second piece of evidence comes in. Tribune—I know this is a difficult request, but may I ask that a repeating crossbow with a loaded drum be brought to your office?”

Narada looked startled, and Gilda certainly understood why. Such powerful weapons, which were generally Minotaur-made, were highly restricted and very dangerous to those untrained in their use; as a result, they were tightly controlled and only issued in rare instances outside of wartime as an assassin could use one to slaughter an entire roomful of unwary griffons. “On what grounds?”

“To show you why I believe the human weapons are repeating as well.”

“I don’t get it, but okay.” She gave the order to an aide, who obtained her the required release document. She signed it and added her personal seal, which would be needed to unlock the Auxiliary Guard armory vault where they were stored.

Even with orders issued promptly, it took ten minutes to retrieve from the well-guarded vault. It was then delivered to the office with an escort of guards, where it was placed on the well-polished and highly reflective surface of Narada’s stone desk before them.

“Very well, Decurion. Here it is. Now without touching it, what did you want to show us?”

“The quiver.” She pointed at the barrel drum which stored scores of individual bolts—she believed the count was sixty per standard drum—in a connected coil, which was visible through the housing.

It wasn’t the newest model, but as arguably the most powerful individual armament in the Kingdom’s arsenal, it was still an intimidating sight. Gilda also couldn’t help but note the weapon had the head of a goat, which meant this particular crossbow had been used in combat against the Ibexians and had drawn blood at some border skirmish with the Ascendency in the past. “I didn’t think of this until I saw that big block hanging beneath their latest weapon, but I believe that’s what the block is—an attached quiver drum. I think it’s the container for the cannonballs!”

Nogriffon said anything while they considered her statement. “You know, I think you’re right, Decurion…” an impressed Fortrakt said at some length. “I think that’s it. It would explain everything—their secrecy, why they don’t want to show us certain movies, why we didn’t recognize them as distance weapons… even why their soldiers and civilians won’t discuss them with us! I mean, if they were just melee, then what’s the point of hiding that?”

“Heh. Humans come in force, and they even have their civilians remain vigilant for any information gathering? Equestrians were never this fun!” Strenus didn’t laugh so much as roar.

“Well, I’m not convinced,” an unsmiling Narada replied despite the Ambassador’s mirth. “I’d have to see these ‘quivers’ for myself. And if that’s what they are, why haven’t we seen them on their other weapons?”

“Perhaps, like us, they use repeaters in only a very limited manner, issuing them to just one or two soldiers per Turma?” Talia Tarseus suggested. “You did say you only saw the one.”

“No…” Fortrakt said as he moved closer to the repeater before an escort sentry stopped him—the weapons were so restricted they weren’t even allowed to approach within two body lengths of them. “No, Senior Sparrow. I think Decurion Behertz is not only right, but that all their weapons have those quivers. We just didn’t recognize that’s what they were until we saw this latest version of their metal tubes.”

“All of them?” This time, it was Gilda’s turn to be dubious.

“Yes, all of them! I can show you what I mean. With respect, Tribune, could I trouble you for a quill and a piece of parchment?” He came to attention and bared his throat as he spoke.

Though confused, Narada granted the request as the half dozen escorting sentries looked on in some bemusement, having only entered the room mid-conversation while not being allowed to stray from the crossbow’s side. Ignoring them, Fortrakt accepted the writing implements, moved to a side table and then dipped the pen in an ink jug.

He used the top of a cabinet as a drawing surface as he began to rapidly sketch something. Within half a minute, he had produced a passable depiction of one of the black tubed human weapons—their basic model with the three protuberances below. The smaller two seemed to be grips as there were noticeable indentations for their fingers, but the larger one in the middle…

Though she’d never known him to have an artistic flair, Fortrakt produced a surprisingly accurate sketch. He took pains to depict the human weapon properly, from its rough dimensions to the position of the three underhanging protrusions; it was only then Gilda realized that the largest of the set took the same rough mid-weapon location as the drum did for the crossbow.

“Just as a bolt drum contains a coil of crossbow bolts, I think that these long, curved rectangles are the quiver drums for their standard weapons! I grant they’re too small for a coil of bolts, but if we’re talking about miniature cannons, then maybe ‘bolts’ isn’t what they contain so much as stacks of metal balls…?” Fortrakt suggested somewhat tentatively, filling the object with a pile of them.

“Remarkable…” Narada said as she studied the design. “Could that be it?”

“By the Ancestors…” Even Talia Tarseus seemed fascinated. “If this is true, then our arcane theorists were looking in entirely the wrong direction. We certainly considered that the tubes could be some form of distance weapons, but as we kept trying to associate them to crossbows, we found no usable parallels to our own. We should have instead been considering that they could be cannons.”

“The more I think about it, the more I believe you’re on to something, Decurion,” Strenus said in some wonder. “Tribune, did we ever experiment with miniature naval ballistae for individual soldier use?”

“Yes. Both we and the Minotaurs did, well before the beginning of my career,” Tribune Narada confirmed. As she spoke, she went to a magically sealed cabinet and used her command crystal to unlock it, ruffling through the files it contained. “We even produced a few prototypes some eighty years ago, which were demonstrated before then-King Malachia. But they proved almost completely impractical and useless.”

“Why?” Strenus and Fortrakt chorused.

“Because the problems they presented were myriad, from agonizingly slow reload times to difficulties in storing small amounts of highly volatile explosive crystal dust that would be used to propel the balls down the tubes as our naval cannons do,” Narada explained as she removed a single sheet of parchment from the cabinet.

“Worse, unlike our naval cannons, the amount of the crystal dust required for even a single firing was very precise—too little and the cannonball would not have enough force to be damaging or travel far, but too much and the tube might burst, exploding in the soldier’s grasp. The latter could be helped by making the cannon tube thicker, but doing so made it weigh so much that it was all but impossible to heft and aim by all but grounded earth griffons.

“They were also quite hard to maintain and could mechanically fail in other ways without constant cleaning and tending, which was difficult for soldiers in the field. Here is a design picture of the prototype, plus a focus on the projectile firing mechanism.” She laid the sheet of parchment on the table before them.

“By the Ancestors… how does that even work?” Fortrakt wanted to know.

“Not important, though its complexity is part of its impracticality,” the Tribune replied. “Even aside from that, you will note it is quite large—far too large to be easily carried or wielded in flight, and it proved almost impossible to aim accurately from the air.

“Even fired from the ground, their accuracy was suspect, having range barely better than a crossbow… though I’m told the Minotaurs did solve that particular issue by carving spiral grooves into the inside of the tube, imparting the small cannonball a stabilizing spin. In the end, they incorporated that discovery into some of their regular ballistae, which they then sold to us and now equip our airships, and even certain of our siege engines.”

There was another long pause. “As I look at this now, I do see a resemblance to the human tubes. Could the Decurion be right and they are in fact a successful version of a potential class of weapon we long abandoned?” Strenus wondered again. “If they made it work, we could too! So why did we not pursue this further?”

Tribune Narada opened her mouth to speak again, but this time, Talia Tarseus beat her to it.

“Because as the Tribune said, such small cannons seemed to offer no real advantages to soldiers given their bulky size and maintenance requirements, difficulties in reloading, dangerous propellant, total impracticality in air combat and very poor rate of fire compared to crossbows. They were also quite loud, like our cannons, meaning soldiers could not strike stealthily with them. Thus, the idea was abandoned in favor of other research avenues.”

“What avenues?” Fortrakt asked. Gilda didn’t expect an answer, but the Senior Sparrow gave one anyway.

“It is hardly a secret that we are researching crossbows that fire magical bolts instead of real ones, which would—in theory—give even our standard soldier weapons far more power and range. They are called ‘bowcasters’, and they would even enable our soldiers to fire far more quickly, if not as fast as our repeaters,” she explained, her tail twitching in excitement. “But all that might be unnecessary if we could duplicate the human ones! If we could just get our wings on even one of those tubes—”

“No!” everygriffon chorused.

“No. We will not steal them, Senior Sparrow, or we will validate their Captain’s suspicions and lose any chance to acquire them legitimately through trade,” Ambassador Strenus said flatly. “And before you plan to examine any human gear the Ibex stole and you subsequently find, I remind you that the Queen has ordered all stolen property found to be returned to the humans immediately. So you will.”

Talia Tarseus ruffled her feathers at the insinuation. “I know my duty, Ambassador, as does the entire Council of Crows. We would never disobey the Queen.”

“If I thought you had, I would have already reported it. To both the Queen, and the humans,” Tribune Narada replied coldly. “In any event, this weapon has served its purpose. By my order, return the repeating crossbow to its vault,” she instructed the guards, further ordering them in no uncertain terms not to speak about what they’d heard.

Once they had saluted and departed, she turned back to Gilda, standing up to bare her throat in a rare show of respect. “I must congratulate you, Decurion, on this remarkable insight. Your conclusions ring true to me, and it is certainly made clear you are more than capable of carrying out your duties, even with the potential… complications that Marco Lakan offers.” She blushed slightly as she spoke. “As long as that does not change, be assured you have my support to continue in your post as diplomatic liaison.”

“Thank you, sir. But I fear it is not up to you.” Gilda bowed her head and clenched her beak in worry.

“Perhaps not. But I assure you, I will speak to the Captain again,” the Tribune promised, “and do my best to make him see reason.”

“And I will speak to the human Ambassador this afternoon,” Strenus added. “We will do what we can, but even if unsuccessful… know that you have done the Kingdom a very great service, Decurion Behertz. And I will see that you and Second Spear Gletscher are rewarded for the veritable dragon’s hoard of information you have bequeathed us.”

“Thank you, sir,” she nodded and bared her throat, wondering if that meant another promotion, or—if she was very lucky—finally getting her long-desired posting to the Wind Knights. But here and now, the only reward I want… Marco’s face flashed through her mind again.

“I thank you for your kind words, but with respect, Second Spear Gletscher and I are due back at the Inn shortly, Tribune and Ambassador. I am scheduled to give my first cultural training seminar to the Marines at the top of the hour. If, that is, the Captain allows me to give it.” Her feathers ruffled anew.

“If he doesn’t, then I will give it in your stead,” Narada replied instantly. “I’ll be there regardless to make sure the Captain attempts no further insults or intimidation tactics with you. Hopefully my presence will make him behave. But if not…”

Her eyes narrowed and feathers ruffled even harder than Gilda’s. “If not, then I may well decide to drop the restriction against dueling humans so I may challenge him myself.”

“…which brings us to our next topic: concepts of griffon honor,” Gilda announced to the Marines in attendance at the first of three cultural training seminars she was giving that day. They were sitting in ordered rows in the improvised classroom; two ‘squads’ of thirteen Marines pulled from the six present at the Inn—Captain Moran had reinforced the contingent with a second ‘platoon’ following the Ibex invasion, allowing for doubled patrols and sentry counts.

As it turned out, the only reason she was permitted by the Captain to give the session was that Ambassador Goldberg and his staff were not available, ensconced in negotiations for the first time in three weeks that Ambassador Strenus was belatedly returning to.

Not helping her mood was that Captain Moran not only continued to treat her coldly, but he denied her permission to speak to Marco, and further ordered him confined to quarters pending his chat with the Ambassador. He clearly expected Marco to be expelled, and worse, clearly hoped he would be—along with her.

“I expect this will be your last appearance before my Marines. No tricks or funny business, Decurion. I will be watching you.”

“Good. I also suggest you listen to the presentation, Captain. Maybe you’ll learn something about griffon honor,” she needled him while Narada frowned.

“And I will be watching you, Captain Moran,”the Tribune then warned him in turn.“And know that if you continue to treat my soldiers so suspiciously, it will be reported. And it will reflect badly on not just you, but your entire mission here.”

“I won’t start anything unless she does,” the unimpressed Captain replied as a clearly unhappy Staff Sergeant Stafford stood stiffly behind him. But this time, he did not speak up; Gilda didn’t even want to think about what reprimand or punishment he’d already received for speaking out of turn earlier.

But as Fortrakt reminded her gently afterwards, there was nothing she could do about it for the time being, and he further told her to remember that both Ambassador Strenus and Tribune Narada would be speaking up on her behalf.

“I’m not happy about any of this either. But we’ve got most of the Marines on our side even if their Captain isn’t, so let’s not endanger that by taking it out on them,” he advised her quietly while she stopped back at her room to get her notes, escorted by four armed Marines in front and in back the whole time.

Their brief discussion left her wondering how he had become the voice of reason, and how he was repeatedly able to shake off his fears and even a succession of body blows to his young psyche. But unable to talk to him more than briefly, she put the question aside for later.

The seminar had begun promptly at the start of the 11th hour with the human troops coming to attention as she entered. Gilda was surprised but pleased to see Tara there, sitting in the back where she could watch the whole room; her angry glare focusing on the back of Captain Moran’s head. She gave the two griffons only a terse nod as they entered, leaving Gilda guessing that the human female had already confronted Captain Moran over Marco and Gilda’s treatment earlier, to no avail.

Gilda also couldn’t imagine that Moran was happy about her presence. But as Tara had asylum, he had no authority over her, and short of her expulsion from the embassy—which would likely leave his Marines in near-open revolt, given they all liked her and she was the only female human present short of the far older and less desirable ones on the Ambassador’s staff—he tolerated her presence there, pointedly ignoring her steady glare.

Just hope I can talk to her later. But if this is my last duty here, so be it, she decided, vowing to perform it as well as possible.

She began her lessons by explaining the basics of griffon body language and behavior rules, putting special emphasis on what not to touch or do, using Marco’s actions the first night as an example. She’d even used a slightly uncomfortable Fortrakt to show directly what was strictly-off-limits, pointing to his wings, flanks and flight muscles in turn.

“Or put in terms you guys might be more familiar with, touching griffon wings or shoulders is tantamount to groping a girl’s boobs,” Tara offered directly. “The difference is, I might deck you. But a griffon might gut you.” She smiled unpleasantly.

“She exaggerates, but not by much,” Gilda confirmed with a glance at Fortrakt, who grimaced. “I wouldn’t have killed Marco Lakan for that transgression, but I would have broken the offending talons if not for my partner, here.”

“So shoulders are off-limits even on griffon males?” One of the Marines asked.

“Even on males,” Fortrakt confirmed before Gilda could. “We take personal space very seriously—the Decurion once threw me through a table for violating hers! So, don’t ever touch us in a familiar manner unless you’re in private and you’ve earned the right.”

“And how do we do that?” one of the Corporals asked. “We’re kind of afraid to be friendly after what happened to Flip-boy—er, Mister Lakan.”

“By being honorable,” Gilda said simply. “By word and by deed. Marco Lakan made every effort to make it up to me, and further showed his quality by being willing to defend his friend. Thus, he redeemed himself and established his honor in my eyes.”

She saw some glances between the Marines that indicated they were trying to figure out how Marco had parlayed that into being her lover, but she didn’t address it just then. She instead went on to explain that griffons were an intensely loyal race that valued personal honor above all, glaring at Captain Moran as she did so. “To that end, you never invite a griffon to betray that honor, or you invite a duel that may indeed be to the death.”

That had led to her next topic—an in-depth discussion of challenge and duel rules, with some of the more adventurous Marines asking if it was true griffons dueled before mating.

After exchanging a glance with Fortrakt and even Tribune Narada, who could only smirk, she confirmed it was.

“What you refer to is called a ‘mating round’, or ‘Round’ for short. Perhaps my partner would care to explain them, given he’s fought a few recently?” Gilda then asked with a smirk of her own, causing Fortrakt to flush but step forward to the sound of snickers. His reaction left her in some amusement despite her still-smoldering anger at Captain Moran, as her junior partner was forced to field a series of rather probing and occasionally embarrassing questions.

But to his credit, he answered them all patiently. In response to being asked why griffons considered mating an occasion to fight, he explained that mating rounds were a ritual test of warrior worthiness in which you did not hold back, designed to build passion by getting the blood pumping.

“There is nothing more stimulating to us than a contest with a worthy foe,” he went on to say, though the reaction to that seemed a mixture of intrigue and distaste.

“So the griffies aren’t Romans, they’re freaking Klingons…” she heard one Marine mutter under his breath, leaving her wondering what human nation that was.

But she could ignore the remark, given it was not directed at her and she didn’t understand the reference anyway. But then she heard whispering from the Marines in back regarding her and Marco, wondering how he could possibly have fought her, or why she’d be interested in him given his almost assuredly small ‘dick’.

It was another human euphemism she’d heard often enough by then to guess it was a slang term for a male spear, though she had no idea where such an incredibly lame and dweeby nickname came from. She might have ignored that as well—how little they knew!—but then the other Marine suggested that maybe since griffons were half-feline, they were poorly-endowed to begin with, and thus, Marco’s small stature was perfectly sized to her.

The remark earned another stifled snicker followed by an angry glare from Gilda, who very deliberately let her words trail off and her feathers ruffle hard.

“Decurion…” Fortrakt called to her warily—he’d heard the insult, as had Tribune Narada, who watched Gilda carefully but did not intervene as she proceeded to stalk down the aisle to pin the two Marines with a stare, her wings partially flared in anger.

“Here’s your next lesson in griffon senses and honor, Private Munoz and Lance Corporal Shriver—we may not have visible ears, but as predators, we can hear the barest of whispers in the wind! So look at me right now, all of you—this is what an angry griffon looks like!” She added a trilling growl to her words; she was gratified when she saw their cheeks pale as she bore into their smaller eyes with her narrowed gold ones.

She held her stare for a few seconds more before speaking again, making sure her ire was obvious, and her next words would be driven home. “Let me say right now that the rumors are true—I am with Marco Lakan. Why is none of your crow-damned business, but as you are still ignorant of griffon culture, I will state this once, and one time only:

“To insult the stature or honor of an eagless’s mate is to insult that eagless herself,” she warned not just the pair of Marines, but them all. “We brook insults to neither ourselves nor our partners. Accordingly, you will not slander him again in my presence! So to borrow your own phrase… is that fucking clear?” she snarled at them both.

“Ma’am, yes ma’am!” they said as one, which only made her angrier.

“And by all the crows, stop calling me ma’am! I’ve already told you twice that griffon officers are called sir, regardless of gender!”

“Yes, ma’—I-I mean, sir!” they stammered before Gilda pinned them with another stare.

“Under normal circumstances, your apology would not be sufficient. If you two were griffons, you would now be facing a challenge you could not back away from without losing all face and honor. For slandering my mate, I would demand satisfaction in the form of a duel! The terms of the challenge would be a fight to submission, which can mean anything from a simple surrender by bared neck to ending the duel by breaking a limb!”

“Decurion…” Narada’s warning voice rang in her ear.

“Unfortunately, as the Tribune reminds me, I am not allowed to challenge humans, but that doesn’t mean I can’t invite you to help give me a demonstration. So then… would either of you like to volunteer?” she asked them pointedly, to which the pair sat stiff and silent.

“I thought not,” she allowed herself a smile at having cowed them; the feeling of dominance over the human soldiers furling her feathers and wings.

She then smiled as a sudden idea occurred to her. “You know, for the record, Marco Lakan bested Second Spear Gletscher over there in a training spar. He also held off two griffons at once with a single metal stick. So at least I know he can fight, unlike the two of you.” She couldn’t resist tossing forth the insult and was rewarded by a flush on one face along with a clenched jaw on the other.

“Oh, you don’t like that? Well, if you two want to challenge me for insulting your ability, there’s no prohibition against that,” she suggested slyly. “But then again, you really shouldn’t, since I can tell just by looking at you that you couldn’t beat me or satisfy me! After all, to answer your earlier question, I just about promise that ‘Flip-boy’ is far bigger than you both!” She dug her talons in deeper.

“I can vouch for that,” Tara said with a smug grin from where she watched in the back, listening over crossed arms. “I’ve seen him. She’s not lying, boys.”

All eyes then turned on the two Marines Gilda was provoking, whom she saw looked ready to explode. So she fanned the flames further. “But that’s okay. After all, size isn’t everything to a griffon—honor and warrior ability are! But then again, you’re clearly lacking in those as well, as I can already tell that the two of you have neither!” She got in the taller one’s face.

“Okay, enough!” a red-cheeked Lance Corporal Shriver stood up. “You are not comparing me to him! So you want a challenge, griffie girl? You got it!” He smacked a fist into his other palm loudly like she’d seen Tara do.

“Sit down!” Moran ordered sharply. “In case you idiots can’t tell, she’s deliberately provoking you! She knows she can’t challenge you, so she’s trying to get you to challenge her! We are not here to fight griffons!”

“No, you’re here to learn about us,” Gilda replied instantly, her grin growing. “And the first thing you should learn is that if your Marines want our respect, Captain, you have to show that you’re willing and able to fight us!”

“I couldn’t have said it better,” the Tribune agreed. “And better yet, this will provide a perfect opportunity to demonstrate how we conduct duels.”

“I said sit down!” Moran ordered Shriver again. “Sit down, or be on kitchen duty for a week!”

“Too late,” Narada replied with a grin before Gilda could. “Your subordinate issued the challenge, Captain. You could order him to rescind it, of course, but the loss of honor holds. I’ll make sure that all griffons know that you wouldn’t allow your soldiers to so much as answer an insult when we stood up for you over an actual assault. At that point, you will lose all respect, and be seen as unworthy of the troops you lead.”

She then smiled almost sweetly. “I daresay that would reflect very badly on you, Captain Moran. In fact, I daresay that such an order would be seen as so dishonorable that the negotiations could not continue until you were relieved of your post.”

He glared at her. “This is blackmail…”

“This is how we do things. So step forth, Lance Corporal Shriver,” the Tribune invited with a grin; a smug Gilda noticed that Tara’s smile got broader while a glance behind her showed her that Fortrakt had buried his head in a set of talons.

“My pleasure!” Shriver said, deliberately cricking his neck while also shaking out his limbs a bit to loosen them. “Don’t worry, Captain. I’ll show her what a real man is!” An improvised duel circle was then cleared for the pair.

Gilda’s grin got wider even as she lowered her head. “Well, ‘real man’, I would normally say that Marco Lakan should answer that insult himself, but as he is not here, I will stand in his stead! So the first question we must settle is—what are the terms of the duel?”

“Terms?”

“What is the manner of combat, what is the stopping point, and what do you wish from her if you win?” Narada clarified. “You can demand a duel with blades or bare talons. You can order both sides to strip their armor and fight with bodies alone. And in victory, you can ask for just about anything—within reason. Just be careful not to demand something too dishonorable or degrading, or you might earn a second duel with potentially lethal terms later. We’ll cover those next.”

“Oh, okay! In that case, let’s go hand-to-hand, all armor off! Duel is to knockout or surrender! All I want is to try fighting one of those ‘mating rounds’ with you! If I win, I’ll show you what a real man is!” he claimed again to a mixture of groans and cheers.

Though her feathers ruffled and tail lashed, Gilda caught Tara’s gaze for a moment, who rolled her eyes hard before giving her a sharp nod, followed by a very evil grin—a grin she shortly shared. “Very well, Lance Corporal Shriver. Before we can duel, I must accept your terms, and I do! But in return, if you lose, you will publicly apologize to Marco, and myself.”

He stared at her. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. I could make it more humiliating, but I want this to be a lesson, not a cause for revenge! There are, however, a few more formalities that must be observed first. So if you would, Tribune?” Gilda asked politely with a bared throat in Narada’s direction.

“First, it is important that all duels must be witnessed,” Narada explained as the two faced off on opposite sides of the circle. “To that end, at least two witnesses must be present, with at least one allied with each duel participant. This is to prevent either side from later claiming an illegal assault or refusing to uphold their side of the bargain because they lost. Both the terms and the duel itself must be witnessed. So, who will stand with Lance Corporal Shriver?”

“I will!” Private Munoz offered, standing up. “Show that griffie who’s boss, buddy!”

“Very well. And I will serve as second for the Decurion,” Narada said before Fortrakt or Tara could, earning a surprised and grateful bared neck from Gilda. “Now as per the terms of the duel, remove your armor and all weapons.”

“Fine by me!” Shriver announced as he stripped off his uniform shirt and utility belt to bare his broad chest, flexing it for show as Gilda swiftly removed her armor—she was amazed at how naked she felt without it now; she’d been a soldier for so long!—then watched as the large human male took an almost four-legged ready stance at the edge of the circle with a single set of talons flexed hard against the ground, like he was going to push off it.

He gazed upon her almost lasciviously and grinned. “For the record, I was a linebacker in High School, griffie. If I can take down a running back, I can certainly take you down!””

“You can try.” Though Gilda had no idea what a ‘running back’ was, she grinned back and took her own combat stance, lowering her forequarters and flaring her wings for flight—not that she could fly in the room, but she could use her wings for balance and rapid shifts of stance. “Very well. All that remains now is to call the start of the duel and remind you of the duel terms—to knockout or surrender! And know that if you wish to surrender, simply bare your throat, Lance Corporal.”

“Ain’t gonna happen,” he promised as Moran saw the proceedings unfold in impotent anger while Tara came near the edge of the duel circle to watch closer, her arms crossed and smile one of lazy anticipation. “Now let’s go!”

“Very well. As I am the Decurion’s second, we need a neutral party to officiate. Would you do the honors, Second Spear?”

Fortrakt looked less than happy about the request and the direction things had taken, but he obeyed nonetheless. “Yes, Tribune. As I am officiating, I am required to remind all parties that this duel is to knockout or surrender only—that exceeding these terms results in duel forfeit and being dragged before a magistrate on illegal assault charges which may result in weeks of imprisonment or hard labor in the mines! Do both sides understand?” he gave the ritual question, to which Gilda nodded while Shriver just sneered a smile.

Fortrakt then closed his eyes, seemingly offering up a prayer to the Ancestors, perhaps that this wouldn’t go as badly as he feared. “Then on my signal… combatants! Fight!” he made a slashing motion with talons vertically between them, then stepped back out of the way as Shriver sprang at her not unlike a pouncing cat, charging her at a low crouch like a Minotaur.

But if he was going to act like an attacking Minotaur—which despite whatever delusions the human Marine had, he was nowhere near as big or strong as—then she would simply treat him like one. With a single sudden lateral thrust of her wings, she sidestepped him and then attacked his ankles, knocking the nearest one sideways in midstride, and the Marine instantly off-balance with it.

She then grabbed his flailing hind leg in one smooth motion and yanked it towards her, sending him sprawling; he wasn’t able to recover his balance or raise a guard before Gilda was on him, slamming him hard to the ground; her talons clenching his biceps and beak poised to rip out his throat. “Surrender,” she ordered with a trilling growl, but he tried to struggle against her instead even though her position was dominant—not even the fighters from Warrior could escape her now!

“Suit yourself.” She then head-butted him hard, leaving him unconscious on the floor before she got up off him. “The duel is mine! Unless anycreature now present objects?” she asked them all with a smirk. When no answer was received, the Tribune continued for her.

“As he failed to surrender, he was knocked out, and thus, the Decurion declares herself the victor. When he wakes up, the Lance Corporal will be required to fulfill the duel terms he agreed to,” Narada explained as Shriver was carried by two Marines to the infirmary, a bruise quickly forming on his forehead. “And my commendations, Decurion. It would seem you learned your lessons at the Gauntlet about dealing with angry Minotaurs well…”

Three classes—and two more mock duels—later, every seminar for the day had been given. There were still more classes scheduled for the off-site Marines, and even one for Ambassador Goldberg’s staff, but Gilda increasingly expected that after the additional confrontations with the Marines and Captain Moran during the first seminar, she wouldn’t be giving them.

In fairness, the other duels had been friendly, and she’d even been on the losing end of one when she found herself rolled up on her side in seconds by a powerful and well-practiced Sergeant Reyes, with her wing pinned and her neck caught in a headlock. Unable to break free, breathe or bare her throat, she’d been forced to ‘tap out’ as humans did, patting his forearm repeatedly with her talons.

The Sergeant’s victory had earned him a series of whooping cheers, leaving Gilda marveling at both how good he was and how well Giraldi must have trained him to beat her so easily. Sorely impressed, she’d bared her throat to him after, explaining again that she would then have to abide by any terms of the duel, whether it was a bet of gems, duties, or a simple apology.

“Soldiers are allowed to challenge their superiors for their rank in the Kingdom’s military.” She’d even answered the question from one of the lower-ranked Marines. “But only your immediate superior, as any higher would mean you assume a rank and duties you are not qualified for.“

“And even if you win the challenge, you must take additional training to ensure you can carry out your new duties,” Fortrakt added from the side. “I could not, for example, challenge the Decurion for her rank, given she’s two ranks above me.”

“That said, you could still challenge a much higher superior to, say, demand a transfer or satisfaction for a personal affront,” Narada then added with a nod, followed by an increasingly sly grin. “But that is highly inadvisable as a rule. As to why… step forth, Sergeant Reyes.”

She then entered the improvised duel ring herself. “No challenge necessary, as this is simply a friendly spar. I understand you can now not only best the Decurion, but First Spear Giraldi himself? Then let us see how good you have gotten! No blood shall be drawn; we fight to submission only.” She donned Fortrakt’s gloves before settling into a combat crouch.

“Sir, yes sir!” Though surprised, Reyes smiled and took his ready stance again while Fortrakt called the start of the duel, saying he would act as the Sergeant’s second while Gilda did the same for the Tribune.

At the downward swipe of his claws, Narada struck swiftly, using her flared wings to add speed to her pounce. But Reyes successfully pivoted to deflect her initial rush, then dodged or parried two subsequent talon swipes before he was off-balance enough that the Tribune was able to spin and sweep his rear leg from behind with a wide arc of her wing.

Her surprise strike knocked the Sergeant’s underpinnings out and made him fall flat on his back, giving him no chance to recover before he found Narada atop him, pinning him from above with one set of gloved talons on his chest and another poised at his neck.

The room fell silent at the swift defeat. Well-versed in griffon sparring and duel rituals from his time with Giraldi, a shocked Reyes quickly bared his throat, causing the Tribune to instantly release him.

“As we advance in rank through duel and combat, griffon commanders are generally very good at fighting,” she said dryly as the Marines stared at her warily, “And we do not take kindly to having our honor or ability slandered. That said, very well done parrying my initial blows, Sergeant,” she complimented him as she helped him back up with a clasp of his arm through her glove. “The First Spear has taught you well.”

“Thanks, sir. But I guess I still have a ways to go,” he said somewhat ruefully as he stood up and saluted her.

She smiled as she returned the honor. “There is no shame in your defeat, Sergeant, as you lasted longer than most griffons could against me. The point I am making is that when it comes to duels, do be mindful not to bite off more than your beaks can eat,” she then addressed the other Marines.

“Had your Sergeant been an actual subordinate, or even one of equal rank who had insulted me or those under me, I would have been far less gentle and likely wounded the offender to make sure the defeat was felt fully.” She looked pointedly at Moran, whose eyes narrowed and lips tightened.

She’s goading him, Gilda knew, though she kept the grin from her beak, wondering if there was yet a point that the human commander would issue the challenge to keep from losing face in front of his soldiers.

The final seminar ended ten minutes after that, with Moran departing first as his soldiers stood to attention without another word. Once he was gone, the other Marines went up to Reyes; several even hitting him on his shoulders hard enough to almost cause him to fall.

As difficult as it was to believe, it became clear that it was a complimentary gesture instead of an insult or outright assault on a sensitive area. Tribune Narada also received respect as well, with several Marines asking if she truly wished to fight the Captain.

“That’s up to him,” she answered shortly, but accepted the acclaim anyway. She might have stayed longer, but as she was then informed that Ambassador Goldberg was now available, Narada departed to speak with him immediately. She then ordered Gilda and Fortrakt to stay outside the Inn until summoned, giving them a communication crystal.

“I suggest you clear your head with a walk and flight, Decurion,” the Tribune advised before departing for her meeting. “If you’re called to testify, I want your wits sharp and your temper held in check. If there is to be a challenge issued to their Captain over his conduct, I will issue it,” she further warned, to which Gilda fervently hoped she’d at least be allowed to watch.

Though internally grumbling over having to leave—she’d been wanting to speak to Tara if nothing else—she obeyed, leaving the Inn with Fortrakt to take a long but lazy flight. While approaching the entrance of the Western Gates, they began to chat more about the day’s events.

“Have to say, the humans have some weird ideas about what makes a proper duel—even Marco,” Fortrakt mused at some length. “While we were sparring, it took him a while to realize the knife was planted. I expected him to go for it, but not to kick sand in my face as an initial attack.” He screwed up his features slightly, blinking his eyes rapidly at the memory.

“Me neither, but it was a good tactic. Though I don’t think he realized at first that the knife was there to be used,” Gilda replied with a smile as she thought of her human lover, before it dropped again at the knowledge that she might be about to lose him. “He said afterwards that he thought using it was cheating. So I imagine he’d been thinking of going for it but didn’t until he decided he had no other way to beat you. In his own slightly dweeby way, he was trying to be honorable.”

“Then between that and their Captain, they’ve got very strange concepts of honor.” Gilda was gratified to see that Fortrakt was just as put off as her by the Captain’s conduct. “And I’m starting to think Marco wasted his time learning those martial arts of his.”

Gilda shook her head as they continued to walk. “From what he said to you, he trained much more on weapons than striking or grappling arts. Give him that baton, and I don’t doubt he’d hold you off easily. But the thing is, Marco’s not fully trained for competition or warfare like us or Sergeant Reyes. He did it to keep fit and to be able to defend himself against untrained adversaries.” But now he’s training so he can be with me as a griffon can… the thought brought a smile to her face anew.

“Yes! And see, that’s the other thing!” Fortrakt exclaimed as they reached the crenel. “Their self-defense rules! I mean, the Captain tried to stop his subordinates from responding to your insults? Tara even told me once that the first rule in their society is to avoid confrontation, run when you can, and only fight when cornered! What kind of backwards thinking is that?” he huffed. “The best way to defend yourself is to put down your enemy immediately! We’ve seen humans kick rear in their movies! So why can’t their self-defense rules be like that?”

“Like in Warrior, you mean?” Gilda guessed as they waited in line for their turn to take flight.

“Exactly!”

Gilda chuckled. “Even there, fighting was frowned upon outside of special settings by both Brendon’s workplace and wife. Kinda like Equestrian ponies, really.”

“Well, they’re not on the human world! They should really let themselves loose more often. I enjoyed sparring with Marco! So if their Marines want to challenge us, I say let them!”

Gilda looked at her partner for a moment before smirking. “Enjoyed it, eh? So my partner is having fun doing Rounds with a male human?” She teased him for the first time in weeks.

Fortrakt blinked hard. “Wait, what?”

“Not that I blame you if you were a bit jealous that I’m taking a lot of Marco’s time.” Gilda snickered, amazed she could make jokes. “I just wonder how Talon Decanus Trali will react when she finds out that the tiercel she has been having Rounds with is doing the same thing with a male human.”

“Wha—? That wasn’t a Round!” a flushed Fortrakt exclaimed. “And at the time, I didn’t even know you two were together!”

“Nice touch with the gift giving, too,” Gilda continued despite his denial, her grin growing. “So are we going to hear plans for an Engagement soon? Just be warned, you might have to fight me for the right!”

“It was just a knife, not a—” He got cut off by Gilda’s snort and laugh, eliciting an annoyed trill. “Oh, piss off and go suck Marco’s spear,” he finished grumpily.

“I already have.” Gilda continued chuckling until they passed through the Western Gates, offering the guards a signal. Given the all-clear to fly, Fortrakt and Gilda arched their backs and launched themselves into the air, wings spread out. In rhythm, both sky griffons flapped their feathered appendages fast and hard, passing through the fourth level and going even higher until they reached the fifth. “Twice, now. Or is that why you’re jealous?”

“Decurion!” he shouted in pure outrage, turning redder than she’d ever seen before. But she only laughed and darted away from him as he proceeded to give chase, coming up with some impressive insults while swearing various elaborate and imaginative forms of vengeance when he caught her.

The chase lasted nearly twenty minutes, giving each a good workout and allowing them to burn off much of their tension. Still not receiving word from the Tribune, they had ended up finding a private table in a Caleponian-run pub at the base of the city and talking over some pony-style snacks and cider.

Deciding he deserved to know the full story, she told him how things had happened with Marco—“by all the Ancestors, he truly did honor you! So how could you not honor him in turn?” he agreed in amazement—while finally feeling more at ease, Fortrakt told her in turn what had happened during his talk with Chris and Tara, saying that after explaining what he remembered, he’d had to leave out of awkwardness when all three of them started getting turned on.

“Even if they couldn’t recall it, they sensed it,” he confided to her over a mug of soft Caleponian cider—not hard, because she wasn’t about to show up before the Tribune and Captain with alcohol on her breath. “I got excited. Then they got excited! Things were happening quickly, and I was afraid that if I didn’t leave…”

The rest went unspoken as he shivered and took a deep breath before continuing, shifting slightly to press himself tighter against the table. “Maybe you and Marco were ready for that, Decurion. But by all the Crows and our most sacred Ancestors, we weren’t,” he said as he nursed his drink and picked at a small platter of grapes, scones and cheese cubes they’d ordered to stall their hunger and master their nerves.

“A wise decision,” Gilda agreed as she speared a grape with a talon, recalling what had happened to her when she’d tried to force an encounter with an eagless back in Nova Ocelota. “You did the right thing. But for what it’s worth, cub, I actually envy you.”

He looked up incredulously. “You do?”

“Yes,” she said as she popped the grape in her mouth and then dipped her beak in her cider bowl. “You at least remember a little of what happened with them. I still don’t remember anything about Tara or Marco from that night…” she said forlornly, to which Fortrakt could only offer a wan smile.

An hour passed. Then two. But still they were not summoned. The sun was nearly down and they were getting hungry for something more than snacks, but it wasn’t until dusk when the communication crystal glowed and vibrated in Gilda’s pouch, signaling them to return to the Inn.

Unfortunately, by the time they arrived, Sergeant Reyes was waiting out front for them along with Staff Sergeant Stafford. Their expressions were grim, flanked by four fully armed Marines guarding the entrance.

“Thanks for coming back. Unfortunately, we have orders to not let you in,” Stafford said apologetically. “I’m sorry, Decurion. We tried our best, but the Captain wasn’t budging. And in the end, neither was the Ambassador.”

“That doesn’t sound like good news,” Fortrakt said warily as Gilda held her breath.

“I wish to God it was, buddy,” Reyes replied, his voice grim. “We just got word. By order of Ambassador Goldberg, you two are hereby barred entry to the Inn and are forbidden further contact with our civilians and Marines except on explicit orders of the Captain. Worse, Marco’s being expelled from the diplomatic mission on the grounds of being a severe security risk.

“I’m truly sorry to tell you this, Decurion, but he’s being kept under house arrest and will be sent home as soon as it can be arranged…”

17: Best Laid Plans

Author's Note

Here’s the third of now-four leadup chapters to the Cloven attack. To those who hadn’t read my earlier blog, I made the decision to split the third chapter up because it had gotten too big—north of 18k words. I’m of the opinion that writers shouldn’t force readers to digest such big chapters at once, so you’ll get the fourth and final chapter on Saturday, two days from now.

I mentioned last chapter that we’re going to take a different route getting to the Cloven attack than the original story had, for reasons that should be obvious by now. That route should become clear in this chapter. As always, thanks go to AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire and Silverblade5 for prereads, and as always, the standard boilerplate applies:

This chapter is a heavily rewritten version of the latter third of Feathered Heart: Chapter 5, borrowing not much more than a little dialog from it. Regardless, you are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original if you haven’t already, as it inspired many of my own works.

Content warnings: There are a couple PG-13 moments in here, and a brief blink-and-you-miss-it event that’s going to eventually spawn a new chapter of Eros.

17: Best Laid Plans

“I’m sorry, Decurion. We tried our best, but the Captain wasn’t budging. And in the end, neither was the Ambassador,” Staff Sergeant Stafford informed them, standing before her and staring straight ahead like he was delivering tidings of a family member’s death.

“That doesn’t sound like good news,” Fortrakt said warily as Gilda held her breath, feeling suddenly faint as she sensed her worst fears were about to be realized.

“I’m truly sorry to tell you this, Decurion, but he’s being kept under house arrest and will be sent home as soon as it can be arranged… which is likely tomorrow.”

For a moment, Gilda couldn’t move or speak; her legs going shaky. It had been expected, and perhaps even likely. And yet, now that she was faced with the reality of it, she felt the impending loss keenly.

“I’m sorry, Decurion. If it was our call, none of this would be happening,” Reyes offered. “We all tried to dissuade him; the Staff Sergeant here got a severe reprimand with threat of demotion, and I got my tail reamed, too, for getting ‘too close’ to you. He’s also forbidden me from training further with Giraldi or any other griffons, believing the Council of Crows is trying to use our bouts to learn more about human weaknesses.”

“In other words, he’s completely fucking paranoid,” one of the sentries muttered, earning a sharp glare from the Staff Sergeant. “Well, he is! Look, Decurion—we liked you and Gletscher there. We liked Marco too. And yeah, we all know about you and him now. For most of us, we think it’s weird, but kind of cool, too—especially after the seminars today and learning what it takes to win a griffon. We don’t hold it against him, and we sure as hell don’t think for a second that he was divulging stuff to you for sex,” he said in disgust.

“Unfortunately, the Captain does,” the Staff Sergeant decided not to reprimand him for speaking ill of his commander. “When the Tribune told him that he didn’t have to worry about Marco spilling secrets because they already knew what our weapons were—‘miniature cannons’ in her own words—he was sure that the only way you could have learned that was if Marco told you or showed you something he shouldn’t have. That cinched it. He demanded Marco be expelled on the spot, and Goldberg happily granted the request.”

“Crows take it…” was all Gilda could say as Fortrakt draped a wing over her back, wanting to both kill and cry over the unfairness of it. She couldn’t even feel any satisfaction that the Captain’s reaction confirmed her guesses about the human weapons to be true, or the promised rewards it would gain her.

For the only reward she wanted was being denied her.

For the only thing she wanted was now being wrested from her, perhaps never to return.

Ancestors above, you give me Marco Lakan, but then you just as quickly TAKE him from me? She wondered who she had dishonored in a previous life to earn such an awful punishment.

“It didn’t end there. The Tribune then challenged the Captain to a duel for his command and your continued posting, but he told her to piss off, saying he wasn’t bound by griffon customs and that from here on out, he alone would control interaction between our troops and civilians.

“She’s furious and threatening to go to your Queen over this, but for now, she offers her sympathies. She also grants you and the Second Spear an evening’s leave.” Stafford then passed her an order written in the Tribune’s script and marked with her command seal. “She says to return to the barracks tomorrow morning to meet her when you’re ready, and in the meantime, to do nothing that would dishonor yourself or the Kingdom going forward.”

When Gilda made no move to accept the order, her gaze locked downward and beak quivering, Fortrakt stepped forward to accept it. “Thank you for your kindness and understanding, Sergeant Reyes and Staff Sergeant Stafford. Will you please offer our apologies and well-wishes to Christopher McLain and Tara Fields?” He bared his throat towards them.

“I’ll do that, buddy,” Reyes promised with a nod. “Tara would be here too, except Moran told her that if she left the Inn, she wouldn’t be allowed back in and would have nowhere to go. She’s furious and he’s being completely fucking ridiculous at this point, but for now, the Captain is still in command. And at the moment, all we can offer you is this.”

As one, the six Marines came to attention and saluted them crisply. “It’s been an honor and a privilege, Decurion Behertz and Second Spear Gletscher. Know that you have our friendship and respect, even if you don’t have the Captain’s,” Reyes spoke on behalf of them all.

Gilda mustered just enough focus to return the gesture before her head fell again and she allowed Fortrakt to lead her away. “Come on, Decurion,” he told her gently, tugging her along. “Let’s go back to the pub, and have something a little stronger this time…”

Gilda barely remembered the flight over, or reentering the pub.

She was only dimly cognizant of being sat down or Fortrakt telling her the drinks were on him, asking for bowls of hot mulled cider and soft, freshly baked bread with a cauldron of melted cheese that could warm them inside and out—comfort food both griffons and ponies could share. They were getting some odd looks from the Caleponian patrons, and even a couple griffon Peacekeepers who were having drinks there, but they ignored them.

“This is good stuff, but remember Chris’s fried chicken?” Fortrakt recalled as they were served, leaving Gilda guessing he was trying to get her to talk. “By the Ancestors, that was so tasty! They could easily sell that here. Marco’s latest stew would do well, too. And Tara said they had a slew of exotic alcohols she knew how to turn into some really interesting brews.” He turned wistful, taking his first drink from his bowl. “Would have loved to have tried them. But maybe we’ll still get the chance? She’s staying, after all.”

“And I’m glad,” Gilda said dully, pulling her mulled cider closer and staring into its steaming contents. The smell of spice was strong, as was the alcohol within it—the Caleponians used a stronger brew for their Kingdom-acquired tastes. “I mean it, I am. But right now…” Instead of dipping her beak, she tipped the bowl back and simply poured it into her mouth, drinking half of it in one draw.

“I know.” He reached across the table to grasp her talons and guide them to a piece of warm bread. “Eat, Decurion. For as much as Marco loved making food, he wouldn’t want you to be hungry over him.”

She gave a sad smile, but obeyed, tearing off a small piece and distractedly dipping it into the cheese bowl. “He was so much more than he seemed…” was all Gilda could think to say as she recalled her reaction to seeing the brown-skinned human on his very first day there. “At first, I thought he was just a coward and a pervert. How little I knew.” She buried her head in her talons.

“How little we all knew,” Fortrakt ruefully agreed. “Guess first impressions aren’t everything and the ponies are right—you can’t ‘judge a scroll by its header.’ You want to know the funny thing, though? I told you that nothing happened between me, Chris and Tara last night because we weren’t ready for it. But now…?”

He exhaled slowly and squeezed his eyes shut in deep regret. “But now, if that was going to be our only chance to rut again and remember it, I wish we had. And for taking that chance and getting to be with Marco willingly, I now envy you.”

Due to curiosity or simple despondency, she decided she had to ask: “Rut again? With both of them?”

He hesitated but answered. “Yes,” he admitted, either out of a sense of honor or the alcohol starting to seep into his system. “I don’t know why, and I never thought of myself as a tiercel tucker, but the idea…” He shivered again as his cheeks took on a more rosy hue before he shook his head sharply and sidled himself slightly more to the inside of the table. “Guess it just goes to show that some opportunities should be taken, because they may never come again.”

“Or maybe it’s just better not to take them, if it only makes things worse afterwards,” Gilda answered dully, surprised she was feeling far more numb than angry at that moment, emotionally spent after the events of the past day. “By all the crows, what was I thinking, believing that everything would work out…?”

“You were thinking that he had honored you and earned you,” Fortrakt reminded her gently as he ate a fresh piece of cheese-dipped bread followed by another swallow from his bowl. “That human or not, he had proven himself a worthy friend, lover and mate. And don’t blame yourself for what happened after. You couldn’t have foreseen Moran turning on us like that. Even his Marines are mad at him now.”

“For all the good that does,” she groused. “Dishonorable, paranoid, boar-headed…” She couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to make him that way, but at that moment, she did not care. “It’s over, Fortrakt. I’ve lost my post and my mate. So what do I do now?” she asked forlornly.

“Let’s worry about that tomorrow,” he said gently, even chancing a brotherly squeeze of her talons she would have sharply reprimanded him for a month before, if not tried to break them for touching her like that depending on her mood. “I’m sure the Tribune will have some answers. But after a couple more bowls of this, we won’t be in any shape to fly back to the barracks, so let’s just sleep here tonight. We’ll get a room upstairs, and I’ll watch over you, okay?”

“Spending the night together in an Inn might be seen as a breach of fraternization rules, Second Spear,” she reminded him as she felt her cheeks warm as the cider soaked into her.

“With all due respect to both you and our human friends: Fuck the rules,” he said with a smile at what she could only assume was his first use of the phrase. “Have to admit, that’s one curseword of theirs I really like…”

She couldn’t help but smile at him, even finding herself with an urge to stifle a snicker. “Look at you, cub. You have your first eagless and a couple humans, and then you start acting all mature.”

“Well, somegriffon has to,” he replied with a wry smile, speaking far less huffily than he had when she had used that line on him following her first-night attack on Marco. “You’d do the same for me. So come on, Decurion. Eat and drink up. Drown your sorrows as much as you like. And know that I’ll be there if you need me…”

Gilda slept fitfully that night, despite Fortrakt’s company.

Nothing happened between them, nor did she think there was a danger of it, though he held her like a sire would a cub having nightmares a couple times in the night, leaving her grateful for his presence. Her dreams were indeed haunted by Marco and Moran; the former involved fantasies of keeping and being with him and the latter, of challenging and even killing him, though he kept rising from the ashes like a phoenix to take Marco away.

And in the background of all her dreams was an ominous shadow; like a growing threat stalking steadily closer. It blotted the sky and set the horizon afire; its flames starting to creep near until they were in danger of consuming all Arnau. She saw them but barely noticed or cared until they were licking at her talons, and this time, it was the shadow itself that reached for Marco, trying to take him away from her.

She took flight, attempting to reach him, but no matter how fast she flew or how desperately she beat her wings, he was pulled further back until she found herself face to face with her true enemy; a demon of darkness against whom there was no defeat or defense. She shrieked like a cub as its tendrils coiled around her and separated her from Marco for the final time; the entire Kingdom aflame around her.

“Gilda!” Marco called, reaching futilely for her as the shadows consumed them both. “Gilda! Gilda!”

And then abruptly, the voice’s owner changed. “Gilda! Gilda!” She awoke with a start to realize Fortrakt was calling to her repeatedly, shaking her hard. “You were having another nightmare.”

She blinked, realizing her wings were splayed for flight and her crestfeathers were standing on end as she continued to pant rapidly out her open beak. “F-Fortrakt…?”

“I’m here,” he promised her, holding her tightly like the big brother she’d never known. “I’m here, and I swear by all our Ancestors that I’m not going anywhere. By the crows, you were thrashing about like you were caught in a snare! That must have been a bad one.”

“You have no idea…” She shivered at the memory, taking what comfort she could from his warmth and presence. “By the crows, that was awful… have you gotten any sleep at all?”

“Not much. But it’s fine,” he promised her. “I had some bad dreams too. But also some good ones of Chris and Tara,” he confided. “They helped.”

“And I had some good dreams of Marco…” she conceded in turn, including a particularly powerful one in the middle of the night where he’d bested her in a round and she’d finally allowed him to properly rut her; she swore she could still feel his human paws groping her and eager thrusts into her as well as the enormous pleasure it brought. She used the potent memory to try to drive the still-powerful fears of her nightmare away, wondering if Princess Luna attended the dreams of griffons as well as ponies.

Well, if she does, she’s sleeping on the job! “Thanks for being here tonight, Second Spear.” Her heart rate and fear-splayed wings were starting to settle back down as she patted his foreleg with her talons. “You were right; it would have been very bad for me to be alone.”

“Well, one of us had to be an adult,” he reminded her with a chuckle, still holding her. “It was no problem. Looks like the sun’s coming up, so we should be getting up. The Tribune said to meet her later this morning. We’ve still got time, so do you want some breakfast?”

“Maybe later. Right now, I just want some water…” She was starting to feel the beginnings of what she guessed was a hangover-caused headache exacerbated by her restless sleep.

“Coming up.” Rising, Fortrakt poured her a bowl from the sink, letting her quench her thirst and water her cider-dried throat before he did the same for himself.

Leaving their armor behind for a bit—Gilda found she needed to not be a soldier just then, if only for an hour—they then went downstairs and ordered a breakfast of eggs, melon and muffins, washing it down with a Caleponian coffee brew they sweetened too much, even for her.

Though the meal was certainly filling, and the coffee woke her up fully, it still didn’t feel complete to her. It left Gilda wishing they could also have a few strips of the deliciously crispy and fatty flying boar ‘bacon’ the humans had introduced them to, wondering in turn if she would ever be able to enjoy human food again for being reminded of Marco.

Or human company…

They lingered over their meal for a bit, eating and chatting about their next steps and how they would present themselves when they showed back up at the Tribune’s office.

“We’re soldiers of the Kingdom, and by the Crows, we will act like it,” she ultimately decided, resolving not to show up moping. She’d had her night of grief, and though the pain of losing Marco was still very real, she vowed she would not allow Moran’s actions to break her spirit or desire to carry out her duty any more than the Ibex had.

That just like with the Ibex, she would allow him no victory over her, simply by remaining an honorable and earnest soldier.

Feeling at least somewhat better, and still having an hour before they were due, she and Fortrakt took time to bathe in the room’s small shower and put themselves to rights, preening their feathers and even putting some shine on their armor before exiting into the bright morning light. To her surprise, the sun cast an oddly orange or even red hue over Arnau like there was a pall in the air.

“Huh. Must be a wildfire in the mountains,” Fortrakt guessed as he looked up, though they couldn’t yet smell any smoke. “No big deal. They’ll probably just call in a Magus team with ice spells to deal with it. Or maybe one of our rented pegasus weather teams will extinguish it.”

“Maybe.” She might have given it more notice except her thoughts were decidedly elsewhere at that moment, allowing Fortrakt to take the lead in clearing their approach to the fifth level with the sentries. At one point she started to bank hard to go back to the Inn, only to remember with fresh pain what had happened, feeling the pit form in her stomach anew.

But she shook it off, reminding herself again that she would not spiral into depression or despondency over Marco.

That she was a soldier in service to the Kingdom, and she would show no weakness to the Tribune.

* * * * *

Five minutes after landing on the fifth-level crenel, they stood at crisp attention before Tribune Narada and Ambassador Strenus in the former’s office again.

Their appearance and bearing was noted with appreciation by the Tribune, who inspected them briefly before nodding her satisfaction. “Welcome back. And let me begin by saying that I’m truly sorry for the circumstances, Decurion,” Narada apologized to her with a bared throat as Gilda stood at stiff attention, doing her best to remain impassive.

“Know that both Ambassador Strenus and I tried to convince them to let you and Marco Lakan stay, and know that many of the human soldiers also spoke up on your behalf, including Staff Sergeant Stafford and even First Lieutenant Nantz, who addressed the Ambassador remotely from their outside camp. But in the end, Captain Moran simply would not listen, and appeals to neither reason nor honor worked,” she announced through narrowed eyes.

“I challenged him to a duel, but he declined, telling me in rather blunt terms that he would not answer to me or anygriffon else for doing his job. I even told him that we had guessed the nature of their weapons, but that only convinced him that Marco Lakan had been the one to tell us. He then insulted us again by proclaiming we could not have figured it out on our own, even though his subordinates told him that we were certainly smart enough to do so,” she finished in renewed anger.

“At least your theory was confirmed as correct by their reactions. Their black tubes are cannons, and the metal blocks beneath them their quivers,” Strenus pointed out. “For that insight alone, you have earned the gratitude of the Queen and the Kingdom, as I imagine our Arcane Labs and armories are going to be quite busy digging out and improving our old prototypes for the next few years—if we cannot convince the humans to trade us some of theirs, that is.”

“And will they?” Fortrakt asked.

“Admittedly, it seems unlikely. They have already told us that they will not, under any circumstances, sell their weapons to Tellusian nations, but they are checking with their government to see if they can accommodate a request for a demonstration as a precondition for a trade agreement. It will be some days before we get a reply back, but regardless, the credit for this discovery is yours, Decurion, and due credit will be given for the insights the Second Spear offered as well. You will both be rewarded for this.”

“Thank you, sir,” she and Fortrakt said automatically, but without any emotion. Just a day earlier, she would have been delighted, but now…?

Strenus and Narada glanced at each other, reading their unhappy moods. “I understand you two are still hurting, but perhaps I can cheer you up. For your rewards start now.” With a smile, she reached under her desk and then brought out several additional upgraded armor pieces for both of them, along with new rank insignias.

This time, the ensemble put before Fortrakt showed the improved vest, second steel pauldron and metal vambraces of a Decurion, while the set put in front of Gilda contained a sturdier helm, broader pauldrons that also covered most of her upper forelegs, and even a new leather vest equipped with a flexible metal band at the neck to protect her throat.

Gilda barely had time to register what was happening before the Tribune stood to attention, saying a ritual phrase to them as her aides stepped forth to present the new pieces in their beaks.

“Stand proud, Gryphons of the Kingdom! And reap the rewards of your service, Decurion Fortrakt Gletscher and Centurion Grizelda Behertz!”

“Ancestors above…” Fortrakt looked on the verge of fainting as Gilda was no less stunned. For they were both receiving a second two-rank promotion? In less than a month? “But… why?” he had to ask.

“For the wealth of information you have brought us, for the respect you have gained from human civilians and soldiers alike, and for solving the mystery of their armaments, these new ranks are well-earned,” Strenus said with a smile. “And before you ask about sponsorship, you were given the highest possible. At my direct request, this was ordered by the Queen herself.”

“But sir…” Fortrakt seemed to be having trouble speaking as he accepted the new pauldrons, staring at their single-feather insignia in wonder. “With respect, I’ve barely commanded three soldiers before this, let alone thirty!” He knew immediately what his new rank entitled him to do.

“Indeed,” Strenus said with a sly grin. “Which means you two will need to be given new duties and training in support of your new ranks. I am truly sorry you cannot see your previous assignment through to completion, but perhaps this will make up for it? Though it would seem you both will have one final duty in support of that assignment.” His grin suddenly got broader.

Gilda and Fortrakt looked at each other. “We do?” The former finally found her voice.

“You do indeed.” Gilda instantly picked out the coy note in Tribune Narada’s words. “You will be personally escorting Marco Lakan’s air coach to the coast with a single Turma, accompanied by a decade of Paladins. The human leadership wants him to leave immediately, escorted by a detachment of their troops and even an aide of the Ambassador to ensure no escape is attempted or information is divulged.“ She rolled her eyes.

“Paladins?” Fortrakt repeated dumbly as Gilda had trouble processing what she was hearing. “Not Knights?”

“Excepting the required presence of a Magus pair, no. And the reason is very simple: Though we will tell the humans that the presence of Paladins is to honor and protect their diplomats, the real reason is that your diplomatic command chain gives you the ability to lead them, and thus, the entire mission. And so you will, Centurion.” Narada’s grin was growing broader. “You will escort them to Catlais, where they will be met by a chartered Equestrian airship.”

“But due to short notice and logistical issues, that airship will not arrive for three days. This will, of course, mean you will have to stay with Marco Lakan in Catlais for the duration,” Strenus added with a wink. “This in turn means that his safety, security and comfort will be your responsibility, Centurion. And to that end, we have arranged lodging for you, Mister Lakan, and all the escorting troops in Catlais,” he explained as Gilda felt increasingly faint.

Narada picked it up again from there. “But sadly, due to the same short notice, there was no space available at the local Auxilia barracks; nor could we reserve enough rooms at the airship field Inns, which were already near capacity. This means that you and Marco Lakan will simply have to share a room.” Narada sighed in mock sorrow as Gilda’s heart leapt. “I trust that you will not be too inconvenienced?”

For the second time in the space of a day, Gilda had to choke back an uncharacteristic urge to cry. “From the bottom of my heart, I thank you both.” She bared her throat harder than she ever had before. “By my most revered Ancestors, I won’t ever forget this kindness.”

“You’re very welcome, Centurion. And before you ask, First Spear Giraldi has already discussed the matter informally with their outside Marines. They are no more happy about the Captain and Ambassador’s actions than we are, and though they are not willing to disobey their orders, they are willing to look the other way and simply not report certain things.

“If you don’t believe me, you can ask him yourself. Isn’t that right… Optio Giraldi?” she called behind them as they both heard the door open.

“It is indeed,” Giraldi’s jovial voice answered in some mirth as he entered and stepped between them both, saluting the Tribune hard with a thump against his sleek new steel pauldrons. “Greetings, Centurion and Decurion. I offer my sincerest sympathies at being so unjustly removed from your posts, but also my sincerest congratulations on your promotions! They were well-earned.” He saluted Gilda next.

“And greetings to you, Optio!” Fortrakt addressed him in amazement, saluting him for the first time. “But why—”

“His promotion was long overdue as well, as he has served the Kingdom loyally and competently for two decades, asking for little in return. He never had a proper sponsor, and due to his insulting a Paladin noble in his youth, he was held back from an officer rank even despite his combat experience,” she noted as Giraldi simply gave a strangely satisfied smile at the statement, leaving Gilda wondering what the story was there.

“As he has also played a major role in both gathering information and establishing good relationships with the human soldiers by training Sergeant Reyes—it may interest you to know that he, too, has been filing daily reports—I finally had an excuse to ignore said noble and give him a proper rank.

“Accordingly, he will be your new second, Centurion Behertz. Until you are more seasoned in your new responsibilities, I suggest you lean on him heavily as he has already aided Centurions and commanded their forces in combat in his guise of First Spear,” Narada advised.

“That will be a pleasure, sir!” Gilda was dizzy at the rapid turn of events, her mood suddenly soaring. I’ll get to be with Marco again! Alone for at least two DAYS! She went giddy, only to remember--“But after I see him off, what then? Wait until he can return?” But that could be… YEARS!

“I have already written Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, the new ruler of the recently restored Crystal Kingdom,” Strenus answered easily. “She was Equestria’s former Princess of Love, and in that capacity she will attempt to arrange it so Marco Lakan can stay in Equestria while things are sorted out here.

“In time, once proper trade agreements are implemented and immigration arrangements can be finalized, he will be able to return, and in the meantime, I imagine you’ll be taking a few vacations in Equestria?” he suggested with another wink, to which Gilda could only nod eagerly.

Just so long as he doesn’t live in Ponyville! “So what are our orders once he departs?”

“Twofold. Your final act as Diplomatic liaison will be to welcome a new group of humans to Aresia, who will be on the airship Marco Lakan will subsequently depart on—a team of twelve agricultural and ‘geological’ specialists their Ambassador requested without telling us their intention of replacing the existing one.” She frowned again.

“Ambassador Goldberg was apparently plotting to get rid of Mister Lakan, Miss Fields and Mister McLain anyway as soon as this new team arrived. This time, by request of the humans, they are being liaised with by an experienced civilian diplomat instead of military ones. The liaison is Miral Kalishad; a personal friend of mine.

“And with apologies, as your duties will be complete upon your departure from Catlais, you will transfer your diplomatic command chain to him.” Narada gave Gilda a scroll that contained her orders, including her new itinerary.

She scanned it quickly, scarcely able to believe what was happening and the incredible lengths they were going to for her. Ancestors above, how am I ever supposed to repay this? “Of course, sir. But does he know how to use it?”

“He does indeed. I know Miral. He is a fine griffon who has done everything from escort dignitaries to liaise with pony singers. So believe me when I say that he is more than able to keep confidences,” Ambassador Strenus assured her. “To that end, know that I have made him… aware of you and Marco Lakan, but I promise you can trust him to be discreet. And please do not think of losing your chain as a punishment, Centurion. Your new duties will simply no longer require it.”

“Trust me, at this point, it will be a relief, sir,” she said, baring her throat at him, feeling the weight of the chain anew. “And after that?”

“And after that, you will report to Tribune Rialta of the Catlais Guard garrison to be assigned a full century of troops. Though the coastal cohorts generally see little action aside from the odd Harpie or Diamond Dog raid against isolated ships or settlements, they make excellent training grounds for new commanders. There, you will learn how to properly command a century, and you, Decurion Gletsher, a Turma. Optio Giraldi will help you both learn, and in time, be rewarded with a long-overdue command of his own. Is that satisfactory?” she asked them all with a wry grin.

“More than satisfactory!” Gilda spoke on their behalf as they all came to attention and saluted. “Our orders are understood. Will that be all?” she asked, still feeling shaky; a quick scan of the documents told her that they were due at the rendezvous point for the air coach at noon, with the intention of arriving at the coast by nightfall.

Get there, get settled, and then get two full days with Marco! she thought again eagerly, worried for a moment that the idea alone was going to make her get very obviously and embarrassingly aroused.

“It will. And Behertz…?” Narada called to her. “Know that I would not do this favor for just any griffon. But you have more than earned it. Well done, Centurion.” She then stood back to attention and saluted the newly promoted trio, signaling all her aides and sentries to do the same.

“Stand proud, Gryphons of the Kingdom and Soldiers of the Guard! As this may well be the last time I see you, I wish you the best of luck in your new posts…”

The previous night and morning had been a wild ride of events and emotion for Gilda. And she knew it wasn’t over yet.

Her orders were issued, but getting everything together on short notice was no small task. Their former comrades outside the Inn were stunned anew to see their latest promotions—“So all we have to do is rut some humans to get some new ranks?” a tiercel of her old decade asked jokingly, to which Gilda gave him only a half-hearted glare while Fortrakt and Giraldi just laughed.

Still, she let it pass. If she was going to be commanding the escort flight out, she wanted soldiers they were familiar with, and thus—with the Tribune’s permission—she had gone to their old Turma to collect them. They needed enough sky griffons to both escort and carry the likely trio of air coachs assigned, which would contain a fourteen-human ‘squad’ of Marines plus Marco Lakan and Ambassador Goldberg’s aide, as well as all the earth griffons like Giraldi, who would be inside to provide additional security, and could—in a pinch—provide an emergency escape avenue for the wingless humans.

Let’s see… sixteen humans plus six earth griffons equals… twenty-two, right? That means we need five six-seat or three nine-seat air coaches to carry them all, counting their supplies, she noted, which in turn required no less than four sky griffons harnessed to each for the former, and five for the latter.

As each coach also required two earth griffons inside and she only had the six, Gilda guessed they would be sending her a set of the larger but less comfortable nine-seaters, which was confirmed as a detachment of civilian griffons delivered them empty to the field outside the human encampment—which was little more than several lines of variously-sized tents right out of the movie Warrior—close to noon.

Though not military, they wore vests and flight goggles that bore the insignia of one of the Kingdom’s civil flight companies. They were contracted to provide both ground and air coaches to the Kingdom’s government and military upon request, for rates that had been previously negotiated. Being civilians, they did not salute her, but they bared their throats to her as they removed their harnesses and surrendered the coaches, requesting her signature on their delivery documents.

“You break them, you buy them,” an eagless warned her only half-jokingly, which would have earned a glare and reprimand if they weren’t civilians. “And these aren’t military grade, so try to avoid trouble.”

But instead of replying, Gilda just rolled her eyes. There were any number of things she could have said, from that the Kingdom would pay the damages to if there was anything wrong with the coaches that caused them to break, she’d break them. But she refrained, signing the requisitions and watching as they took flight, returning to their workplace near the base of the city

Avoid trouble… and just what do they think could happen inside the Kingdom’s borders? She shook her head at the thought, staring up into the cloudless but increasingly hazy sky. The sun was going a deeper shade of orange as the air above the mountains continued to fill with smoke, leaving her wondering how such a very large blaze had gotten started and why the Magus and pegasi weather teams they used to mitigate severe storms hadn’t put it out yet.

But as she would be heading away from it, she gave it no further mind. Gilda was already quickly coming to learn that an increase in rank also meant an increase in writing, if the number of forms she’d already had to deal with that morning was any indication.

They included contracts for the coaches that told her exactly where and when they were to be delivered in Catlais, requisitions for the troops and supplies she needed, including an in-air meal for all, full quivers and crossbows for her troops—not that she expected trouble for a simple transport flight within the Kingdom’s borders, but diplomatic escorts were always armed—and of course, the documents that named her commander of the escort force. The latter included a Magus pair and Paladin decade, with the former seconded to the latter from the Knights to ensure Gilda’s diplomatic command chain gave her the ability to command them.

Normally, a diplomatic chain only granted her the right to give orders to internal security forces like the Peacekeepers or Paladins; for a lesser branch to command the Knights required their own, rarely-given gold chain. But Magus were often assigned in support to other services, which instantly brought them under their chain of command.

As it happened, the Magus arrived first—a higher ranked tiercel paired with a younger eagless; both were sky griffons. That in itself was not surprising; Magus were always assigned to units in pairs, and they used the same junior-senior partnerships that the Guard did to season younger soldiers.

“First Stave Rubra Tunica and Decanus Arcine Nydia, reporting for duty, Centurion,” The higher ranked one spoke for both of them. They bared their necks and saluted crisply, their casting staffs strapped to their backs. Though she’d never met either directly before, it took Gilda just a moment to place the latter’s name and red headfeathers. She recalled quickly that Nydia was in fact the Magus that Tribune Narada had summoned to her office, ordering her to cast a privacy bubble over them while they discussed Gilda’s transfer request over what happened with Tara.

What a fool I was… Gilda thought as she returned the respect to the pair, noting that the younger of the two had the fur of a bobcat and the headfeathers of a red-tailed hawk. Running away from the most honorable beings and most Ancestor-sent experiences of my life…

“Welcome,” Gilda granted them both, putting her increasingly eager thoughts aside. “As this is just escort duty, I don’t expect your services will be needed, but your presence is appreciated all the same. I assume you know our itinerary and what to expect…?” She probed carefully.

The pair glanced at each other briefly, reading between the lines of her statement swiftly. “Be assured we were briefed by the Tribune—fully briefed,” the First Stave said.

“To that end, if you need our magical services to help you have some… private time with Mister Lakan tonight, you need only ask,” the younger eagless added with a slight smile that broke through her attention pose. “If you want to sneak into his room when we reach Catlais, we might have a stealth spell or two that could aid you.”

Gilda shot a look back over her shoulder at Fortrakt and Giraldi, who were glancing at each other and grinning; she gave them a half-hearted glare. “I appreciate the thought, but duty before pleasure, Decanus,” she reminded not just the Magus, but her two smirking subordinates. “We have to get our guests boarded, and then reach Catlais first. Our timetable requires us to leave at noon, which is just half an hour away! So stand to and prepare for departure!” she ordered, sounding as commanding as she could.

“Optio Giraldi, if you would be so kind as to assign the soldiers of our Turma to harness or escort duties? And Decurion? See that the supplies are loaded and when they arrive, that our guests are properly boarded and seated,” she instructed, only barely catching herself from calling them by their old ranks.

“By your command.” The two gave the ritual acknowledgement in chorus and saluted her with a thump of talons against their chests before going off to carry out their orders. She was especially glad Giraldi was there, as she could rely on him to assign soldiers quickly, but she also knew from time in their old Turma that Fortrakt was generally efficient about carrying out the tasks he was given. He’d never undertaken anything this big, though.

Then again, neither have I! She chuckled, trying to juggle their required numbers in her head. Five sky griffons carrying each coach leaves me only eleven, including me and Fortrakt for outside escort. But diplomatic convoys are supposed to require at least eight escorts per coach, including a pair of Magus… she knew, but that’s what the Paladin decade was assigned for; she looked up then to see them arriving next.

Landing in the field outside the human encampment, the green-armored soldiers came to a stop, folded their wings and saluted her, if somewhat grudgingly—in service hierarchy, they were far above the Guard, but being internal security forces, her diplomatic command chain granted her the ability to lead them.

“Prime Pike Niger Tigrus reporting for diplomatic escort duty,” he said in what she found to be a short and slightly snippy tone; his fur and feathers as black as Melina Marcus’s were white with the barest hint of tiger stripes beneath the former. “I will be commanding the Paladin contingent. I will also command the entire escort if you feel you are too inexperienced. Or are distracted and cannot perform your duties properly.” He dripped a measure of scorn on his words.

This time, it was her turn to read between the lines, and she frowned at his general bearing and borderline insubordinate tone. “I will command the escort, Prime Pike. And I will be commanding you,” she reminded him sternly, going up to the larger sky griffon to look him in the eye, making sure her command chain was displayed prominently.

“Such are my orders,” he agreed, refusing to make eye contact with her as a glance to her right showed Giraldi looking back and frowning; she had no doubt he could recognize their disrespectful attitudes from their posture alone. “And we will carry them out.”

She thought about calling Giraldi back over, as he was larger and more intimidating, and he was certainly used from his time as a trainer and First Spear to putting lesser soldiers in their place. But she didn’t, deciding that if this was her first true test of command, she would face it herself.

“Do you have a problem with me, Prime Pike?” she challenged him, then raised her voice to address the entire decade. “Do any of you?”

“Should we start with being placed under the command of a neophyte Auxilias Centurion when normally only Knights may lead us? Or should we also mention your ridiculously rapid and unearned promotions, or the alien ape you are laying with… sir?” One of the Fuga leaders asked scornfully.

Gilda’s hackles rose and her feathers ruffled as she stalked over to the Fuga leader, a Decanus eagless.

“That ‘alien ape’ is my partner, and I don’t give a crow’s worth of droppings if you approve of him or not!” she all but hissed in the other eagless’s face, then turned her attention to the Prime Pike.

“And as for you, I’m sorry if this pulled you away from more pleasurable palace duties like having tea with the Queen or servicing the spears of Saddle Arabian diplomats, but I’m not here by choice either, so by my order, mind your tongue and your attitude, Prime Pike.” Just like the Magus, the Paladins used a slightly different rank structure, though still analogous to the other services.

Her insinuations created a ripple of anger and ruffled feathers, which was just what she wanted—in griffon society, you were expected to give as good as you got, whether in battle or in a simple exchange of insults. “If you have a problem with me or any of this, we can duel over it later. For now, I expect you and your force to do as you’re told—to give my rank and chain their proper respect.

“If you do not, I will report it to my superiors, and given I hold the Queen’s favor, do not expect it to go well for you. And be warned that if any of you slander Marco Lakan in my presence again, we will settle it with blades later,” she told them all, and this time, she received no response.

“Now stow your gear and take your places at the fore of the formation! You’re elite troops, so by all the crows, start acting like it! And if I hear so much as a whisper of dissent from any of you, my final act as diplomatic liaison will be to order your ranks reduced! Are we clear?”

“Clear, Centurion,” he said sullenly, leaving her no doubt he intended to take her up on her offer and duel her later, once the escort mission was complete and she’d given up her command chain.

“Good. Now get out of my sight until we take flight,” she instructed them with a glower, then sought out the two violet-cloaked Magus. Unlike the over-armored Paladins, their protective attire consisted of lighter but heavily enchanted chainmail, designed to deflect not just blades but any spells or curses a magically adept enemy might fire at them.

“Greetings, Centurion.” They saluted again as they levitated their small packs of gear inside one of the coaches. “How may we be of service?”

“From what I’m told, you will bracket the formation, one from ahead and one from behind. Is this correct?”

“It is,” the First Stave confirmed. “Typically, the more experienced and better-armored Magus covers the fore of the formation, and the junior partner, the rear. Is this acceptable?”

“It is. Though if it’s not too much trouble, I do have one informal request.”

“And that is…?” the tiercel asked for both of them.

Gilda gathered herself carefully before speaking. “I would like to talk with Mister Lakan through one of the windows when we’re in flight, without the other humans seeing or hearing. You said you had some stealth spells that might help me, Decanus Nydia. Can you magically arrange it?”

“Of course, sir,” the violet-cloaked eagless said smoothly, gaining the same conspiratorial gleam as her partner. “I will be more than happy to cover you with such a spell from behind, but it will only be effective within two body lengths of you, so stay close to the coach when you speak to him. Just give me a signal when you wish it to be cast.”

“The signal will be when I fly beneath the carriage.” Nydia gave a sly grin in response, making Gilda take an instant liking to her. “When I do, cast your spell. When you nod back, I’ll assume it’s ready.”

“By your command, Centurion.” She saluted, then went to the rear of the coach formation and took a meditative stance.

“Our gear is stowed and our soldiers are assigned their duties. Was there any problem with the Paladins back there, sir?” Giraldi came up, his voice neutral but his expression a mild glower.

“None at all, Optio,” she replied evenly, then raised her voice so the Paladins would hear. “Just some disapproval of my rank and choice of partners.”

“I see,” he said coolly, then stalked over to the Prime Pike; the two having nearly equal size. He waited until he had the other tiercel’s attention before he spoke.

“Then I would inform our esteemed and elite Paladin comrades that I, too, have enjoyed the company and intimacy of humans. And I, too, would take severe exception to denigrating them in my presence. To do so will be an affront to my honor as well as the Centurion’s. So mind your manners, or like the Centurion herself, I will be more than happy to extract a measure of satisfaction from each of you later.”

For the first time, the Prime Pike broke his bearing to turn his head, pinning Giraldi with a stare. “Then these apes have not only infested our lands but infected our lesser service branches. Furless and flightless, lacking teeth or talons, they have nothing to offer us. They are soft creatures not even remotely worthy of alliance, let alone the use of our spears or our nests,” he growled, his feathers ruffling, followed by Gilda’s and Giraldi’s.

“And if you don’t like that, then I will consider the challenge issued, Optio.” His talons went to the scimitar strapped to his back; for him to wield a sword in a service that did not teach its use meant he’d studied swordsgriffonship on his own and demonstrated enough proficiency that he was allowed to wield it in battle.

“As well you should,” Giraldi said quietly, leaving Gilda impressed that he did not raise his voice. “But not until our mission is complete. In the meantime, you will perform your duties andobey the Centurion’s orders without question, or by the crows and our Ancestors, you will answer to me.” He lowered his forequarters slightly to show off his war hammer, personal blades and heavy crossbow.

“A laughable threat from a group of half-trained Guardsgriffons,” the Prime Pike mocked. “But one I will not indulge now. We will do our duty and accompany you on this mission. But after that…?”

He lowered his head to prominently display his heavy Paladin helm and service crest. “After that, we will duel for your many affronts to our service and race. The terms will be resignation and dishonor to the loser. And do not expect to be the victors in our bouts…”

18: Bolt from the Blue

Author's Note

Lock and load folks! It’s time. As always, thanks go to AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire and Silverblade5 for prereads, and as always, the standard boilerplate applies:

This chapter is a heavily rewritten version of the latter third of Feathered Heart: Chapter 5, borrowing considerable dialog from it, if heavily rearranged and occasionally reassigned to different speakers. Some of the newly introduced characters were also given new professions, as you’ll shortly see. Regardless, you are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original if you haven’t already, as it inspired many of my own works.

Content warnings: Some suggestive dialog, including perhaps a single PG-13 moment as Gilda falls back on her favorite pastime of teasing Fortrakt.

Nothing else to say except... Merry Christmas, folks, a week early. I give you the gift of the Cloven of the Sun! :rainbowdetermined2:

—Firesight

18: Bolt from the Blue

At Giraldi’s recommendation, Gilda removed herself from the Paladins’ presence before she got so infuriated that she challenged their leader to a duel on the spot.

“He’s goading us,” the newly minted Optio warned her as they walked away; Gilda’s tail lashing. “Despite what he claims, he wants an immediate challenge. Do not rise to the bait, Centurion. Just let them clip their own wings with their insubordination. When they fail to promptly obey an order, that is when we will have them. Once they do, neither their service nor experience will save them. Nor will they be able to redeem their honor with a mere duel.”

“Thanks, Optio.” She exhaled slowly, forcing her feathers to furl. “Your cool head and counsel are appreciated. But after all that, I do have a question for you.”

“And that is?” he asked earnestly, giving her his full attention.

She turned to him, looking him in the eye. “Giraldi... please answer me honestly: Are they right that I didn’t earn my rank? Am I truly ready for this—for being not just an officer, but a commander?”

The big earth griffon studied Gilda’s face for a moment, then smiled. “This is part of getting you ready—a few easy duties first, such as a simple diplomatic ferry flight. And don’t forget that I’m here for you to lean on. Let this salted old griffon guide you, and you’ll be fine. Though perhaps you shouldn’t take that as Ancestor’s Word. Crows know I’ve been wrong on rare occasions.”

Gilda rolled her eyes. “Here’s to hoping that you didn’t make Optio by giving out advice.”

Giraldi’s laughter came unrestrained. “You must start somewhere. And don’t worry, Centurion. This is a simple enough assignment. Perfect for those young uppity griffons whose whole experience as an officer was hanging out with foreign guests.” He gave her a wink. “Trust me, you’ll do fine.”

“You’ve been wrong, Giraldi?” Fortrakt came up from behind them, a look of mock horror on his face. “Ancestors preserve us—nothing makes sense anymore!” He made a show of reeling back.

His sudden appearance and exaggerated reaction elicited a needed laugh and release of tension from Gilda, to which Fortrakt grinned and bared his throat. “Our gear is aboard, and I’m still waiting for the humans to arrive to seat them as per the Optio’s instructions. So what was that about?” He nodded back over to the Paladins, who were stowing their gear but otherwise mingling by themselves.

“Oh, the Paladins are apparently less than pleased that they’re taking orders from the Centurion. They also expressed some disapproval over our intimacy with humans,” Giraldi said mildly.

Fortrakt’s feathers instantly ruffled and his tail lashed. “Did they slur Marco? Or Chris? Or Tara? By all my Ancestors, if they did, I swear I’ll—” He flared his wings to take flight over to them before Gilda grabbed his shoulder straps and yanked him back.

“This is not the time, Decurion,” she warned him in no uncertain terms. “Let them be for now; we’ll deal with them after Marco has departed. And for the record, nogriffon fights my battles for me! If there’s a duel to be fought, I will fight it,” she told them both with a low trill, to which Giraldi nodded but suggested he show her some takedown moves that would be effective against the powerful but over-protected Paladins, using the weight and bulk of their armor against them.

“Wow. Do they work?” Fortrakt asked.

“They do indeed. Fifteen years ago, I used one against a Paladin officer of noble blood, who I told to his face had not earned his post. He challenged me to a duel in which I not only defeated him, but humiliated him when he was thrown flat on his back and couldn’t even get up afterwards without help. For he did not earn his armor if he could not even carry it!”

He closed his eyes and smiled at the memory. “Though I was victorious, it was not without consequence. For his sire was a Senator, and he took severe exception to my actions. The insult to his son prevented me from gaining an officer rank until now, but for what that duel gained me—we fought for the favor of my future wife—it was worth it.” He stood up straighter, sounding completely unrepentant. His story left Gilda wishing she’d been there to witness it, even if she was only nine years old at the time.

“Wow. Then you took down a Senator’s son?” Fortrakt was in awe. “To borrow another human phrase, you’ve got balls of solid steel, Optio,” he said, and Gilda had to agree.

Giraldi bared his throat at the compliment. “Thank you, Decurion. But in all seriousness, doubts do not become you, Centurion. You did well commanding a decade, and in carrying out your duties as a diplomatic liaison. I have also heard of your surprising insights regarding human weapons, and I agree that alone has earned your post.” To her surprise, he put a set of talons on her chest in a fatherly manner.

“Be assured that you will learn and grow into your rank, as will I and the Decurion. So, fear not your new responsibilities, nor our assignment here. For what could possibly happen on a minor escort mission that never leaves the borders of Aresia?”

Gilda closed her eyes. “Thanks, Optio.”

Fortrakt then spoke with a wry grin. “Well, if you ask me, that Chain and the new rank fits you perfectly. You should act more your age, you know—just sit behind the desk and order younger griffons about, talking to alien guests and all that. When you’re not rutting them, that is,” he added almost wistfully.

Gilda grinned at the last part. “Is that your jealousy over me and Marco rearing its head again, Fortrakt? If you want to suck his spear too, just ask. He might even say yes.” She winked.

“Centurion!” he shouted as Giraldi guffawed, only to go flushed when several heads turned his way. “Oh, stick your head in a cave,” he finally said in a slightly flustered tone, to which Gilda only laughed.

“One of these days, you’re going to need a better insult than that, cub,” she rejoined. But before he could reply, they turned to hear the growing rumble of a ground carriage, pulled by several Auxiliary guard earth griffons, coming from the direction of Arnau.

Gilda felt her heart leap as she knew instantly what it was—Marco’s carriage. She badly wanted to go to him, but her instructions were clear: have no contact with him until their arrival in Catlais, and even that was strictly off the books. The door opened after it came to a halt. But instead of Marco exiting, she was surprised when an angry-looking Chris and Tara emerged first.

“Tara! Chris!” Fortrakt called to them; Gilda quickly noted the latter was carrying a set of luggage. “Uh… what are you two doing here?”

“What does it look like?” Chris growled as he neared them. “I’m leaving.”

“Leaving?” Fortrakt said in shock while Gilda and Giraldi exchanged a startled glance. “But why?”

“Because I’m being replaced by a new team being sent through the portal that Goldberg never told us about, and because the only way Moran would let me stay was as a fucking mess hall cook that was allowed no outside contact with anyone!

“Well, no offense to the Marines, but I’m a scientist, not a chef!” he dropped his bags to the ground as Fortrakt went crestfallen, to which Chris’s expression dropped in turn. “Sorry, buddy. I really am. Guess we should have taken that chance the other night, huh? Nothing for it now. I promise I’ll keep working out and try to return later, when me and Marco are allowed back in.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Fortrakt said sadly, then accepted a heartfelt hug to the head from him; Chris had learned by then to grasp the neck and not the shoulders.

“What about you, Tara?” Gilda then asked the human eagless, who didn’t have any bags except her backpack. “Are you leaving, too?” She noticed Fortrakt held his breath.

Tara’s stare turned icy as she crossed her arms over her chest. “No. Moran and I had it out in his office after Marco was expelled. I told him to his face that he was a paranoid fucking lunatic and that no part of him was an officer or aGentleman!”

“I am impressed, Tara Fields,” Giraldi complimented her with a bared throat. “Your tongue is as sharp as any griffon’s. You will truly do well living among us.”

“Thanks, Galen. I also told them that I didn’t care what he said; I would be going with Marco and Chris to see them off. He then threatened to lock me out of the Inn if I left, so I just dared him to do it! And told him if he did, I’d spill the beans on everything.” She closed her eyes and grinned evilly, then looked up again. “Though apparently, you beat me to it, Gilda? Clever girl.”

Gilda’s grin was far more wan. “Thanks, though I was hoping figuring that out would allow Marco to stay.” She went downcast again.

“It’s not your fault.” Tara put a hand on the back of Gilda’s head. Taking comfort from the touch, Gilda had the passing thought that she wouldn’t allow anycreature else to do that—not even Marco outside of sex. “I don’t know what Moran’s problem is, but once he decided he wanted you gone, I don’t think there was anything you could say that would change his mind.”

“And sorry we had to keep secrets,” Chris added, then grinned. “You know, if we’d been able to tell you about our guns from the start, there would have been a whole slew of additional movies we could have shown you.”

Guns, Gilda repeated the word to herself, which she knew was also a term the Minotaurs sometimes used to describe airship cannons. So that’s what they call them? Interesting. Pity we’re not going to get to see them fired… “Then I regret not getting to watch them. So, uh… how’s Marco doing?” she had to ask.

Chris and Tara glanced at each other before speaking. “He had a rough night. First he was morose, then he wanted to kill Moran in a griffon-style death duel. But he’s in a much better mood now, after Reyes got word to us of what was planned,” the former said with a smile and wink. “He’s waiting over there in the company of one of Goldberg’s aides and four Marines.”

“The Marines themselves are livid over his treatment—and yours,” Tara added. “You’ve still got plenty of friends over at the Inn, Gilda. Don’t doubt it.”

“I don’t,” she replied as the gates to the human camp finally opened ten minutes before noon—they’d put up some kind of improvised metal fence around the periphery—and out came a line of battle-ready Marines.

“Here they come. Go meet them, Centurion. Ignore everything else and focus on facing the humans,” Giraldi told her.

Gilda blinked. “What?” she whispered back. “But I need to oversee the preparations!”

He shook his head. “Commanders shouldn’t pay attention to soldiers doing their duties—that’s my job as your second. Yours is to represent us and lead us. Right now, our soldiers need to know that their commanding officer would gladly meet a foreign force head on, unflinchingly. Especially those Paladins over there, who will be looking for any sign of weakness. If you wish, I will accompany you.”

Giraldi gently nudged Gilda forward as the Marines turned towards her and began to approach; to her surprise, Lieutenant Nantz was accompanying them. It was the first time she’d seen him since the night of the cider, and even then, she could only dimly remember that he’d come by.

“Please do. Any other words of wisdom, Optio?” She shunted all thoughts of that night as hard aside as she could.

“My first lesson of command to you is this: always remember that strength and respect are languages understood by enemies, allies, and subordinates alike. So give our soldiers and the human Marines a good initial impression. In many ways, that is your foremost responsibility as an officer of the Kingdom,” Giraldi instructed as he took position beside and slightly behind her.

Gilda took a moment before she nodded as Chris and Tara stood a respectful distance back. “Makes sense.” Standing facing the Marines approaching in a two-column formation, she rotated her shoulder a bit before she settled on a neutral face—her ‘game face’ as she’d heard Marco term it. Accordingly, Gilda let her sharp eagle-eyes focus on the Marines in front, not recognizing any of them outside of Nantz himself.

She knew that would be the case, given Moran didn’t want any of the accompanying Marines to be familiar or friendly with her. So they were dispatching a squad from their outside encampment instead of the Inn, which she guessed Nantz had come out to introduce.

Crows take it… she internally growled but didn’t say out loud. Maybe she had hung out too often with Reyes or Doc Cullen, but she found herself fervently wishing at least one of them was part of the group, just so she could have somehuman she knew and trusted to rely on.

Led by the First Lieutenant, the Marines stopped in front of Gilda and saluted her in the human manner; each of them wearing a similar neutral, if not very casual, expression. They all wore identical patterned green uniforms, but they were also in full body armor with their black tubes slung and multi-pocketed vests containing stacks of additional metal rectangles within them.

If those really are the equivalent of arrow quivers, then they have many, MANY cannonballs! she had the passing thought, wondering what the rate of fire and reload time for the weapons actually were. They also wore patterned helmets, each holding black metal boxes that looked like cameras as well as some goggles or eyepieces that fit over one or both eyes.

The mini-cannons themselves included three of the variations she was already familiar with, though she also noticed one of them carrying a new type of weapon that had small red tubes attached on its side.

But before she could study that any further, First Lieutenant Nantz approached her. “Greetings, Centurion Behertz. It’s good to see you again. My sincerest congratulations to you and Decurion Gletscher on your promotions.” He offered his forearm along with a genuine smile, though the latter quickly dropped.

“For what it’s worth, I’m truly sorry for what’s happened. If it was up to me, different decisions would have been made. But I’m not in charge, and orders are orders.”

Despite his words, Gilda gave him a warm smile. Why couldn’t HE be in command? “It’s good to see you as well, First Lieutenant. I heard from Sergeant Reyes that you tried to dissuade the Captain and Ambassador from expelling Marco. Thank you.” She bared her throat at him when she clasped his forearm. “I don’t hold what happened against you, or any of your Marines.”

“Nor should she. Oh, and First Lieutenant? Merlina Marcus wishes you well,” Giraldi spoke up from behind her in Aeric with a sly smile Gilda could hear in his voice. “She asked me to tell you that she misses you.”

Nantz visibly blushed and had to clear his throat. “Yes, well… I don’t want to cause trouble with her sire, who still wants to duel me,” he responded in slightly rough Aeric. “I guess I, uh, should write her a letter, if nothing else.”

“Indeed you should. And perhaps Miss Fields would be willing to deliver it?” Giraldi switched back to Equish as he glanced over at Tara, who was maintaining a respectful distance along with Chris; Nantz visibly flinched when he looked up and locked eyes with her for the first time in nearly a month.

“Uh… deliver what?” A wary Tara perked up from behind Gilda to hear her name called.

Nantz had to clear his throat before speaking again. “Oh, uh… Greetings, Miss Fields. It’s good to see you again. Perhaps we could talk before you depart?” He stood to stiff attention before her.

“Sure…” Tara answered even more warily. Gilda certainly understood why, given the human female and Nantz had been hit first by the cider, to predictable effects. But since it happened early in the night, they fully remembered what followed, for better and for worse.

“Thank you for your indulgence, Miss Fields. I’ll visit shortly. In the meantime, Centurion, I invite you to get to know your new Marine squad, which I am further supplementing with a combat medic—a requirement for all our field missions.” He motioned them forward.

“This is Corporal Imlay. He will command the contingent. Be assured he is fully briefed on what is expected of him, and I chose him in part for his willingness to help in this… sensitive matter,” he said carefully. “You can trust him. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to speak to the Ambassador’s aide.” He said with a nod as he took his leave; Gilda couldn’t help but notice he gave Tara a wide berth as he walked.

As Nantz left, a lighter-skinned human with two Corporal stripes on each sleeve stepped up; Gilda immediately noted that he seemed different from the rest. Instead of the casual easiness most of the other Marines bore, he carried himself like he was burdened by something heavy, leaving Gilda wondering if some difficult trauma lay in his past.

In appearance, he was a bit thinner than Reyes and definitely less-muscled; younger in face and paler in skin. His features were stark, showing sharp cheekbones; even his nose had an almost beak-like feature to it. While the helmet made all the Marines look alike, it was his eyes that were the most prominent feature—orbs of pale golden brown that almost glowed.

Unaware of her thoughts, he stared at Gilda for a moment. She sensed him assessing her as a griffon officer might a new soldier assigned to his unit, and she thus made a show of doing the same.

“Corporal Michael Imlay,” he introduced himself with a salute and an accent she couldn’t quite place. It almost sounded… Manehattan? “Warwolf-3 platoon, Alpha Squad Leader. As the Captain says, I will be commanding the Marines on this mission. I am not required to obey your orders, but I will do so as a courtesy as much as possible.” He dropped his hand when Gilda returned the honor, then offered his arm for a foreleg clasp.

“Centurion Grizelda Behertz,” Gilda replied in Equish after she’d thumped her chest, clasping and squeezing his foreleg. “Commanding Officer of the escort force. I was told to give you this.” She passed him a copy of her orders.

He accepted it with a nod. “A pleasure to finally meet you, ma’am. And I do mean that,” Imlay said, giving her a small smile. “Before you ask, we’ve heard about everything, including the Captain’s overreaction from Sergeant Reyes and First Lieutenant Nantz.” He pointed back towards Marco’s coach with his thumb.

“Understand that we have orders to keep Marco away from you, and we will—at least when Raleigh’s watching. But we know what’s up from the Sergeant and our other Marine brothers at the Inn, ma’am. Regardless of Mister Raleigh’s presence, we’ve got your back. And Marco Lakan’s.”

She couldn’t help but smile, deciding again that at least the human Marines were generally honorable even if their leaders weren’t. “The feeling is mutual, Corporal. But for future reference, female griffon officers are referred to as ‘sir’, not ‘ma’am’.” She suddenly regretted not getting to hold the rest of her cultural training seminars. “Then you know Sergeant Reyes?”

“Yes, ma’am—er, sir. I spent two tours in Afghanistan with him, and one under him,” Imlay replied, leaving Gilda wondering what kind of place this ‘Afghanistan’ they kept mentioning was. “We all like him, and we heard through the grapevine that he can now take a griffon in single combat. He’s quite the regular moto Marine.”

Gilda blinked. Grapevine? Moto Marine? Mentally shaking her head, she wondered if they’d ever run out of new terms or phrases for her to learn. But for the time being, she just nodded and motioned behind him. “Good to meet you, Corporal. And your subordinates?” She was surprised to see a single human female among them.

“First up is our combat medic, Chief Petty Officer Jacobs, or Chief for short,” he introduced the older male, whose features were chiseled but whose hair was visibly graying. “If you’re wondering about the rank, he’s actually part of our Navy, not the Marine Corps. But don’t let that fool you. He’s as hard-bitten as any of us, even if he’s just a stupid squid.”

“Well, someone has to wet-nurse the Marines and put bandaids on their boo-boos,” Jacobs instantly retorted. The exchange left Gilda guessing they were trading some good-natured insults between their respective services, even if it also left her wondering—again—what kind of navy they had if they didn’t use airships. “I heard from Doc Cullen about the goings-on back at the Inn. He’s had nothing but good things to say about you, Centurion.”

“Then he lies,” she answered somewhat wryly as she returned his salute and clasped his arm. “Because I did nothing but complain while I was in his care.”

“From what we heard, you had good reason to,” Imlay answered with a smile as he motioned three more Marines forward; two males and a female. “These are my fire team leaders—Lance Corporals Henderson and Brennan, and Private First Class Jamal.”

Fire team? Gilda blinked at yet another unfamiliar term as one of the males approached first.

“PFC Kalin Jamal,” the taller dark-skinned Marine introduced himself; he seemed to have a standard weapon with the curious addition of what almost looked like a second, much larger tube beneath his cannon barrel, replacing the strange purple lights that had been mounted there by the Marines back at the Inn. “Grenadier and godly basketball player.”

“Says the guy who couldn’t even get a division two scholarship. Lance Corporal Jennifer Henderson,” she introduced herself with a salute; a longer tube strapped to her back. “Designated head hitter.”

The third, far burlier male approached; if he’d been a griffon she would have no trouble imagining him to be a large earth griffon on par with Giraldi. “She means sniper,” he said, smiling as he offered a fist, which Gilda was happy to bump with her own. He was armed with one of the bigger tubes with a large block hanging from it; she couldn’t help but wonder again how many metal balls it could hold. “Private Bradley Brennan. Ground-pounder and platoon champion at video games.”

“He means Metal Gearhead and Resident Evil enthusiast,” Jamal added with a roll of his eyes.

“Hey, Zombies are real, and I can prove it!” Brennan replied with an easy smile, which his two comrades returned. “We’re at your service, Centurion.”

Zombies? Gilda wondered. But before she could say anything else, Marco broke away from his escort and ran in front of her, grabbed her foreleg, and shook it with exaggerated enthusiasm. One of her eyes got larger at his sudden appearance; she opened her beak, only for Marco to instantly grin.

“Hey, Hey! I’m Marco Lakan; your friendly human food critic, movie man and Flip-boy. Nice to meet you, Centurion! Say, you look familiar. Have we met somewhere before?” he asked impishly, giving her a wink.

“Hey! ” a rather rotund civilian human shouted—was that the Ambassador’s aide? “Get him away from her!” he ordered, and the Marines, led by Staff Sergeant Stafford, promptly moved to obey.

They caught up to him quickly and took him by both arms. “Dude, what the hell?” the lower-ranked Marine asked under his breath as they led him back away. “We told you to lie low!”

“Look, they were all shaking hands and shit, so I wanted to get into the action. And let Sir Walter over there know that he’s not keeping us apart,” Marco replied unrepentantly as Gilda could only stare after him.

“Guess he’s eager,” Tara said with a roll of her eyes as she came up to Gilda and the Marines. “Tara Fields,” she introduced herself, exchanging not forearm clasps but handshakes with them. “Former geologist-in-training; possible future bartender for the Kingdom.”

“A pleasure. We heard why you requested asylum, and I don’t think anybody here blames you. So is it true that you not only decked that Dana bitch, but laid out PFC Ricardo for grabbing your butt on a pull-up bar?” the female Marine asked with a grin.

“Sure did,” Tara showed her teeth with her smile as she smacked her fist into her palm. “He’s not coming on this trip, is he? Because if he is, I might just do it again.”

The other Marines grinned. “Nope. Last I heard, he was still peeling potatoes and onions in the mess hall, sitting firmly at the top of Nantz’s shit list,” Brennan said. “We heard the yelling all the way across the camp when Ricardo was presented to him. Not sure why, but the First Lieutenant seemed to take it pretty personally.”

“Such a sweetie,” Tara closed her eyes and smiled, then sighed somewhat sadly as her mood suddenly dropped. “Completely unlike Moran. Fine; guess I’ve put off talking with him for long enough. So if you’ll excuse me…” Tensing slightly, she gathered herself carefully and walked over to where Nantz was still chatting with the Ambassador’s aide. When she arrived, Nantz visibly flinched but spoke in low tones to her; they walked off by themselves a short distance away after that.

“Christopher McLain.” Chris introduced himself next, throwing a worried look Tara’s way. “I was in charge of the field studies here, but the Captain apparently decided I was only useful as a cook in the mess hall,” he all but growled.

The Marines glanced at each other. “For what it’s worth, we heard you make some killer fried chicken. For as hungry as we are for a taste of home, you’d make friends for life here if you’d cook for us,” Jamal pointed out.

“Seconded,” Brennan spoke up. “Haven’t had anything fried in months; just that tasteless griffie shit… no offense, Centurion,” he quickly added.

“None taken,” Gilda replied easily. “Your tastes in food are much different from ours; we don’t usually cook our meat. I’ve certainly learned from Mister Lakan and Mister McLain here how good cooked meat can be when properly prepared,” she noted to them appreciatively, to which Chris perked up at least slightly.

The Ambassador’s aide then took the opportunity to walk up to her, with Staff Sergeant Stafford in tow. He was a balding, pale and pudgy human wearing business attire in the late summer heat; she couldn’t fathom what kind of diet he’d been eating to have that much fat on him.

“James Raleigh,” he said as he ignored Chris to offer his hand to her in the human manner, giving a still-chatting Tara and Nantz a baleful look as he passed. “I’m Ambassador Goldberg’s representative on this trip. Though the Ambassador and Captain are less than pleased you are leading this mission, Centurion Behertz, we have no say over it. I am here at the Ambassador’s orders to witness affairs and make sure that Marco Lakan has no contact with any griffons before he leaves your borders.

“That said, I have no personal grievance with you, Decur—er, Centurion. So I hope we can get along.”

Though annoyed at his suspicious tone and nearly getting her rank wrong—were all senior human officials so arrogant and obtuse?—Gilda gently grasped his hand and gave it a simple shake. “I will be professional, and I expect you to be as well,” she answered evenly. At least until I can be alone with Marco again! “Please take your seats inside the coach as per Optio Giraldi’s direction, as we will be leaving shortly. Decurion Gletscher will show you to your seats.”

“Yes. About that,” he addressed her stiffly. “I want to modify the seating arrangements.”

Gilda exchanged a look with Giraldi. “To what?”

“By orders of the Ambassador, he wants only humans aboard Marco Lakan’s coach, not griffons.”

Gilda frowned. “With respect, Mister Raleigh, That’s not possible.”

He stared at her in confusion. “What do you mean it’s not possible? Why can’t you all fly alongside?”

Gilda gave him an annoyed look. “Because we are required to have at least two griffons ride in each coach. And because some of us are earth griffons, not sky griffons.”

“There’s a difference?” Raleigh asked as behind him, Chris facepalmed while Stafford just rubbed his eyes.

The latter then spoke for her. “With respect, Mister Raleigh, if you’d taken the Centurion’s cultural training seminars, you’d know that earth griffons can’t fly that far or carry a coach. Only sky griffons can,” he said mildly but pointedly. “To quote the Centurion directly, ‘earth griffons cannot keep up with sky griffons on long journeys, only short’.”

Raleigh visibly grimaced. “You really can’t fly outside?”

“Mister Raleigh, I am a well-conditioned earth griffon, but were I to attempt a flight from here to Catlais, it would take me around five days,” Giraldi responded directly this time. “I would only be able to travel about twenty leagues at a time before my stamina gave out, needing food and rest before I could attempt the next leg of the journey.

“Though our bodies are powerful, earth griffons are simply not built for long flights, only shorter ones,” he explained with far more composure than Gilda felt, leaving her wondering again if his patience was a product of his maturity or simply his personality.

But before she could offer her own opinion, trying to decide how to politely tell the portly human to piss off, he walked off in what she took to be a slight huff. Corporal Imlay came up to her next, this time with Fortrakt following. “I have a problem, too. I don’t want our supplies placed in a separate coach or stowed in the roof racks, Centurion. We’ll need at least three seats reserved for them.”

Gilda sat back and rubbed her head with a set of talons, wondering if she was being a military commander or cubsitter at that moment. But thoughts of being with Marco again kept her tongue and temper in check. “Then we have a problem, because as I just told Mister Raleigh, we require two seats for earth griffons per coach.”

“So I’m told. I suggested removing the two griffons. But the Decurion here said it was against protocol?” Imlay asked.

“He’s right,” Gilda replied, trying not to let the exasperation reach her voice. “Protocol for air coach escort is to have two earth griffons inside as a means of defense and emergency escape for non-flying races. You really can’t put your supplies in the third coach? Or stow them in the roof luggage compartments?”

“No,” Imlay responded immediately. “You may get the civilians to agree to that, but no way we are leaving our supplies out of reach, ma’am—er, sir.”

“Our seating is limited—we have only twenty-seven seats between the three coaches, and the two-griffon rule cannot be broken. Do you have any suggestions, Corporal?” Giraldi asked.

“Yes. I think it’ll work as long as we split our squad up,” Imlay replied. “We’ll put one fire team of four Marines in the coach along with Mister Raleigh and Mister McLain. Counting the four Marines, two griffons, and two civilians, that will leave a single seat available for supplies.

“I’ll put my other two teams in separate coaches, with me and Chief Jacobs also splitting up. Add two griffons to my five Marines plus a single civilian—you’ll have to split up Miss Fields and Mister McLain as well—that will fill eight seats each, leaving a single seat available for each fire team’s supplies.”

“I see.” Gilda closed her eyes. “I’m sure Mister Raleigh won’t be happy about having griffons in the same coach with Marco against the Ambassador’s instructions, so I would ask that you explain the situation to him, Optio. And Decurion, you talk to Chris and Tara. If they’re unhappy that they’re being split up from Marco, tell them off the record that I’ll make sure they get as much time with him as possible when we arrive in Catlais.” After me, of course…

“By your command, Centurion. Don’t worry; I’m sure this arrangement will work,” Giraldi offered with a salute.

“By your command,” Fortrakt echoed with his own salute; once it was returned, they went off to speak to their respective parties.

“It sounds like we have a plan, Corporal. We’re on a clock, so let’s get your Marines boarded,” Gilda instructed.

“Yes sir, I’ll get things moving,” Imlay replied, firing her a salute of his own and leaving her gratified that he finally remembered the proper form of address. As she watched, he turned towards the Marines behind him.

“Jamal! Your team is flying shotgun with Lakan. There’ll be one empty seat, so use it for storage! Henderson! Your team takes the left coach along with Doc Jacobs! Brennan! Take the right and be smart about it! I’m flying with you!” he directed them sharply; Gilda had the thought that she would have no trouble seeing him giving orders to a griffon decade.

Gilda stood back as the Marines just nodded and moved swiftly towards their subordinates, communicating quickly. She watched as Fortrakt apologetically told Chris and a recently returned Tara about the plan, eliciting a visible groan but nods of understanding when he added an aside she couldn’t catch in a whisper, motioning with a wing back towards her.

Giraldi likewise informed the Ambassador’s aide about the change of plans, to which he looked decidedly unhappy and marched over to Gilda, announcing that if she wasn’t keeping Marco’s coach human-only, he was filing a formal protest and would not let them leave.

Gilda was unimpressed. “That is your right, Mister Raleigh. But I cannot make an exception to our travel procedures of diplomatic guests except on direct orders of the Queen or a senior Legatus. And if you go to the Queen, she might be less than pleased to be consulted over such a trivial matter.” She raised an eye ridge at him, inwardly marveling at how she was able to keep a level voice.

“Is that your final answer?” he asked haughtily.

“It is the only answer I can give you,” she replied evenly. You know, it used to be that I would have lost my temper right about now… “With respect, Mister Raleigh, we have done all we can to accomodate you while still following those procedures. The changes you demand will force a delay in departure until tomorrow, meaning Mister Lakan stays here for another day. So I suggest you simply accept these arrangements and let us be off.”

“Just get on board, sir,” a resigned Stafford spoke up. “The Captain and Ambassador want Mister Lakan gone, so there’s nothing for it. I’ll explain the situation when I get back, and don’t worry—I’ll take the blame. The Captain will chew me out, not you.”

Gilda felt a pang of guilt at that moment, guessing that Stafford had already undergone multiple tongue-lashings by then, and now he was going to accept another just to make sure she and Marco could have their time together. She caught his eye and bared her throat at him, wishing she could speak to him or do more for him. But by order of the Captain, she wasn’t supposed to talk to him, either.

Instead, he snapped to attention and saluted her. “Safe journey, sir. And best of luck in your new posts.”

“Thank you, Staff Sergeant.” She returned the honor crisply, resolving she’d write him a letter later. “Alright, Optio, it’s time. Let’s get everyone ready to fly,” Gilda ordered Giraldi, surprised to hear herself say the human word.

“Yes, sir!” He saluted and then turned towards their old Turma comrades. “Time to go to work, soldiers of the Guard! Sky griffons, harness up or take your positions in formation! And earth griffons, board the coaches and get your lazy rears in the seats!”

“Does that include your lazy rear, Optio?” Gilda asked him with a grin.

“Of course. Mine’s the laziest of them all,” he quickly and somewhat jovially rejoined. “Though sadly, for reasons I cannot even begin to fathom, the Ambassador’s aide doesn’t want me near Marco Lakan or Miss Fields.” He rolled his eyes. “So I will ride with Corporal Imlay and Mister McLain.”

“Whatever.” Gilda placated her simmering anger at the Ambassador’s aide by reminding herself that when they arrived in Catlais, none of his restrictions would matter. One way or another, she would have her time with Marco regardless of his efforts or the orders of the Captain.

Everything moved quickly after that. With Giraldi’s practiced tongue directing her soldiers, they were harnessed up and in position before she knew it. So were the Paladins, taking their traditional position at the forefront; they along with First Stave Tunica would be the first and deadliest line of defense if the three-coach convoy somehow came under attack.

Her nine remaining non-harnessed sky griffon Guard soldiers would fly cover on the flanks and rear in Fuga-sized elements, while at his own request, Fortrakt would fly half a league ahead to provide scouting and early warning of any trouble, while Gilda herself would travel with the main force, where she could oversee it.

Being the convoy commander, she was actually entitled to ride in the coaches and could simply relay orders to her forces through communication gems. But even if there were seats available, she wouldn’t have taken one. She was a sky griffon at heart, born to fly high and far, and she’d be damned if she’d be sitting on her rear the whole way there.

As she made her way towards the front of the coaches, she watched with satisfaction as the Marines filed in quickly, noting that Imlay’s soldiers followed his orders crisply. It probably displayed Imlay’s leadership qualities, or perhaps they were just very disciplined. Either way, she was glad both sides knew what they were doing, as it made her first true command task easier.

Within two minutes, all were aboard and the doors were sealed, as confirmed by Fortrakt. “All passengers seated and ready!” he called out.

“Then let’s take flight! Paladins! Into the air! Fly standard sentry formation until the coaches are airborne. Guardsgriffons! Take defensive posture,” she further instructed, shouting the orders into her communication crystals. She had four in her possession, as each could only communicate with a single paired gem; one was held by Fortrakt, with the others belonging to Giraldi, First Stave Tunica and the Paladin leader. They were actually purchased from Equestria, as the ponies alone knew how to pair them via magical means they had been reluctant to share.

Regardless of their reasons, the gems served their purpose, even though it was slightly annoying to have to shift between them; she’d already noted in earlier reports that the human communication devices did not seem limited to a single recipient.

Maybe we should buy some of those! she thought as her soldiers moved to obey, with the Paladins taking flight while her Guard soldiers and Gilda herself formed an outward-facing ring. The precaution was standard convoy procedure as well; the reasoning was that the coaches were most vulnerable to enemy attack during takeoff and landing, so they were protected from both air and ground as they were launched.

Though she watched the Paladins carefully to see if they were slow to follow instructions, they did promptly take flight, circling the coaches slowly at a prescribed altitude with weapons drawn. Her Guardsgriffons simultaneously turned outwards to spot any approaching threat, notching arrows in their crossbows while flaring their wings for instant takeoff if needed.

With no threats evident—not that she expected any, given the lack of any real internal threat to the Kingdom and the Marine encampment next door—there was nothing left for her to do but give one final order. “Convoy! Take flight!”

In response, her harnessed Guardsgriffons began immediately flapping their wings in broad and powerful strokes as they pulled the coaches forward on their wheels, which didn’t stay on the ground long. Each coach flyer synchronized their movements as close as possible as they pulled them slowly into the air, gaining speed and altitude with each second and stroke of their long wings.

Once they had reached the level of the Paladins, Gilda and the other grounded griffons took flight after them. They took their stations around the flanks and rear of the formation as the Paladins formed an airborne phalanx in front, while Fortrakt flew well ahead as a scout.

Five minutes later, they were nearing their cruising altitude, just above the peaks of the Falcine range. “I guess that went well,” Fortrakt said over his communication gem as he called her from half a league ahead. “The hard part’s done, Decu—er, Centurion! Sorry, I’m still getting used to that,” he chuckled, to which Gilda could only grin. “According to the Tribune’s itinerary, there’s no weather in our way, so it should be smooth flying all the way to Catlais.”

“Would that the Ancestors grant such a thing,” she called back, noting that the higher they climbed, the more noticeable the smoke in the air was getting; for the first time, she was starting to smell it, too. She’d smelled forest fires before, and there was certainly an element of burning woodlands to the smoke here, but for a moment she thought she sensed a sulfuric component to the scent as well.

That’s odd. Could this be volcanic? she had the half-thought, and it wasn’t impossible given there were some long-dormant volcanoes scattered in patches throughout the Kingdom. The only known active ones were far to the south in the Italon peninsula and its offshore islands; the sole dragon population within a thousand leagues of the Kingdom could be found on the latter.

I wonder if Crimson Comet lives there…? She half-hoped she’d one day get to meet the mysterious drake who had won Tribune Narada’s heart. But it was just an idle thought, and as it had been a while since she was up this high, she closed her eyes, feeling the wind course through her coat and feathers; she imagined Fortrakt, her Guard soldiers and even the Paladins were enjoying the sensation as well. For a sky griffon, there was nothing quite like the feeling of flying so high up in the sky.

Better than sex with Marco? she asked herself with a grin. Well, let’s not go THAT far…

Once they reached cruising altitude, Fortrakt was right that the most tiring part of the journey was done. With no more need to expend energy pulling the coaches skyward, all griffon wings harnessed to the coaches were lazily stretched outwards, flapping only a few times a minute in a slow but steady rhythm they could sustain for hours.

With clear skies outside of the smoky haze—and as they were flying away from its apparent source, she expected it to dissipate as they flew further west—Gilda couldn’t see any problems that would delay their arrival at Catlais. On a whim, she flew past Marco’s coach and twirled herself in a spiral, tucking her wings for just a second to enjoy a small dip in height.

Such unnecessary maneuvers were strictly against protocol on escort flights, but she couldn’t help it. Up there, she was free.

The sun seemed to move at a rapid pace above them as they flew for the next hour. With nothing but hazy sky above and green and brown patches below, boredom quickly settled in. A few of her harnessed Guardsgriffons chatted amongst themselves, though to their credit, they still maintained diligence; they cut through the sky with short, swift strokes, making good time as they traveled. It was the same for the Paladins, who she could see at least occasionally exchanging words as they maintained their protective cover along with the First Stave.

Once she thought enough time had passed, she glanced back at Decanus Nydia, who was trailing the formation with one of her Fugas to provide rear cover. Deciding it was time—and why hadn’t the smoke cleared out of the air yet? If anything, it seemed to be growing thicker—she ducked under Marco’s coach, and then flew up behind it, looking expectantly at the Decanus.

She smiled and pointed her staff at Gilda, which glowed briefly; Gilda felt a wave of gentle magic wash over her to unknown effect.

Nydia then nodded, and to Gilda’s surprise, the Mage’s voice sounded in her head—a telepathy spell?

“It’s done, Centurion. You will only be visible and audible to those within two body lengths of you, so you will have to get that close to Mister Lakan’s seat. The spell will only last ten minutes. Will that be sufficient?”

“Understood. And yes,” she replied with her voice, then slightly belatedly did so with her thoughts as well, moving close to the coach windows. Spotting Marco on the other side, she dipped beneath the coach again to come up beside him, being careful not to affect the flight of her harnessed Guardsgriffons. “Marco? Can you hear me?” she called to him loudly enough to make sure she could be heard over the wind.

He turned to her with a start. “Gilda?” He called to her tentatively, then looked around nervously. “If Raleigh sees you…”

“Don’t worry. I’m magically masked,” she promised him. “As long as I’m this close to you, only you can see or hear me.”

“Way cool…” he said, staring at her in wonder before she heard another voice inside asking who he was talking to, followed by other human heads looking out the other side windows but not seeing her. She grinned at that—at least until one of the Marines shined one of their odd violet lights outside. To her surprise, It caused the magical bubble she was in to fluoresce brightly, and even her body’s outline to glow.

It was only then she understood the purpose of the lights—they somehow revealed magical shrouds and surfaces! And it was only too effective as, to her further shock, PFC Jamal locked eyes with hers under the light’s illumination as he grinned and winked, firing her a quick salute before he turned the light off.

“There’s nothing out there except our pilots, Mister Raleigh,” he told the Ambassador’s aide as he ducked his head back in. “If you don’t believe me, see for yourself.”

Gilda instantly backed further away from the coach, taking her bubble out of range. Raleigh’s head shortly appeared beside Marco’s, looked around without seeing her, and then disappeared with a disgusted air.

She waited another minute before she moved back in, to Marco’s visible relief when she reappeared. “It’s good to see you, but I can’t talk long. I take it you’ve heard about what’s awaiting us in Catlais?” she asked him.

He nodded eagerly. “I can’t believe everybody’s doing all this for us.” He kept his head turned towards her and spoke quietly, presumably to keep Raleigh from hearing him. “The trip to Catlais will be what, six hours tops?”

“Depends on the direction of the wind and how strong it is,” Gilda replied. “But yes, we should arrive by nightfall. We’ll make one stop at a small steadholt for meals and watering, but after that it’s a straight flight in. Just one nap, and you’ll be there. And trust me, I’ll find my way past Raleigh into your room later.” She gave him a wink.

His cheeks flushed slightly. “Oh, I’m definitely looking forward to that! But I don’t think I can nap.”

“Why not?” He suddenly looked anxious to her.

Marco bit his lip for a moment before shaking his head. “Uh, okay, maybe now’s a bad time to say this, but I’m really not comfortable flying in your air coaches.”

Gilda blinked. “Are you afraid of heights? I thought you’d be used to it, with all the human airplanes and everything.”

“Yeah, well, our airplanes have a lot going for them, including safety features, reliable machines, and other stuff,” Marco countered, trying to keep his eyes on her and off the ground below them. “An air coach is basically a flying box supported by a few flying griffons that are quite affected by factors such as wind and stuff. Yes, I’m being silly here. I’m just... preparing, you know.”

“Preparing? For what?” Gilda shouted through the blinding bellowing of the wind. “What do you think’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know… a crash? A storm? A random lightning bolt from the blue?” He shrugged somewhat anxiously. “It’s actually not so bad now, though my stomach did do a bit of a tumble when we took off and were climbing. I gotta say, though, you guys are machines. We’ve been flying for almost two hours now!” He looked from her harnessed soldiers back to her again.

“Come on, Flip-boy, stop leaning out the window! You’re making Mister Raleigh nervous. Just sit your raggedy-brown ass down already.” One of the Marines—Jamal?—called to Marco from inside.

He turned his face towards the voice. “Hey, don’t nag, Jamal. I’m trying to get to my happy place.”

“Psh, happy place,” came the reply. “Look, this thing crashing is no different from a humvee hitting a mine and flipping over. It is very easy to ensure maximum survivability.”

Marco gave him an askance look. “Oh yeah? How?”

“You curl up like a bitch,” came the answer, to the snickers of his squadmates. “You do know how to curl up like a bitch, don’t you, Flip-boy?”

Marco looked like he wanted to laugh, but he did his best to maintain an I-am-not-amused face. “Gimme a break, guys—I’m a civilian! Curling up like a bitch is what we do best.” His words elicited a roar of laughter from inside.

He then turned back to her one final time. “Thanks for checking in, Gilds. The sooner we’re in Catlais, the better.”

“You said it. And Marco?”

He paused, then looked at her. “Yeah?”

“I just wanted to promise that you’ll be fine,” Gilda assured him, then let her eyes turn hooded. “We’ll get there safe and sound, and by tonight, we’ll be together again. And neither Goldberg nor Moran nor Raleigh will stop us.”

The human looked at her for a moment before smiling. “I’m really looking forward to it. Thanks, Gilda.”

As he pulled his head back in the coach, she could hear him continue to mutter. “Great. Now everyone’s going to think I’m the biggest pussy here.”

“I wouldn’t worry. You’re not hairy enough,” came the response, followed by laughter from the other Marines.

“Oh, ha-ha…” was the last thing she heard before she pulled away.

It was then she felt one of her crystals vibrate in its pouch. Recognizing its source, her gaze turned forward, her sharp eagle-eyes searching for and locking onto Fortrakt in the far distance.

“Sir!” he called to her as she activated the gem, holding it near her ear. “Sir, you’re not going to believe this. I’ve spotted adult dragons.”

That immediately got Gilda’s attention. “Where?”

“A few leagues ahead,” Fortrakt replied. “I can just see them through the smoke. They’re heading roughly our way.”

“A migrating group?” Gilda muttered to herself. “No, that’s only a once-a-decade thing, and the last one was four years ago. Outside of those, grown dragons avoid the Kingdom as a rule. So what are they doing here?”

“I don’t know, but they’re behaving oddly,” the tiercel advised, a slight edge to his voice. “They were flying in a spread-out pattern. Kinda weird, since during migration they usually fly single file to aid the flight of the rearward dragons, then switch places occasionally to let each have a turn in the lead.”

“I see…” Suddenly all the sulfuric smoke in the air took on an ominous new meaning. She fumbled with one of her pouches and triggered a gem within it, causing its companion gem in the possession of the Paladin leader to vibrate with a summoning tone.

As she watched, he looked down at his pouch, then back at her. He might have been a little slow to obey, but not enough that she could punish him for it later.

“Reporting as ordered, Centurion. What is it?” he asked impatiently, giving her a perfunctory salute as he fell in beside her, only to fall silent as the situation was explained.

“This is concerning,” the Prime Pike replied, his earlier belligerence instantly forgotten. “Dragons only fly spread out when they’re trying to raid or burn large areas.”

“So you’re saying they’re attacking?” Gilda felt a shiver go through her—her escort group could deal with most contingencies, but a flight of hostile full-grown dragons was not one of them. “That they’ve declared war on the Kingdom?”

“I know not. But all this smoke would certainly suggest less than friendly motives.” He nodded to the hazy air around them, though there were no flames or plumes of smoke present that she could see. “We are not equipped to fight dragons, so I would strongly suggest we abort our mission and make for the nearest major military base. Preferably a naval one, since airships will be most effective in fighting them.”

“I concur,“ First Stave Rubra Tunica said as he caught up with the conversation, calling through his own linked gem. “Decanus Nydia and I could possibly hold off a single adult dragon for a short time. But definitely not more than one. We need to find shelter. Now.”

“Agreed,” Gilda said as she banked left away from the dragons and began to descend, causing the rest of the escort to do the same. She hadn’t chosen that direction for any reason other than that she saw some low rocky hills they might be able to hide in. “But we also need to figure out where that shelter is. How many dragons do you see, Decurion?” Gilda asked Fortrakt.

“Three adults,” he replied crisply; she could tell he was worried but resolute. “No adolescents. But the haze in the air means I can only see so far. If we don’t alter course, they’ll be on top of us in minutes.”

“Understood. We’re breaking off and heading to ground. Return at once and don’t let them see you.” Gilda frowned as they continued to descend toward the outcrop of hills and rocks. Nothing about this seemed right to her, and she felt a tingle of danger growing on the back of her neck as she pulled a map from her pouch, trying to determine their rough location from the visible towns and steadholts in the smoke-filled air. Most of them would have a small garrison of Auxiliary Guard soldiers and Peacekeepers, certainly, but against a force of full-grown dragons, small meant little.

“Orders, Centurion?” the Prime Pike prompted, though she got the impression he was more than willing to start issuing them himself if she didn’t do so quickly or otherwise proved unequal to the danger.

Even if she wasn’t resolute in her desire to do her duty and protect her charges, she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. “The nearest major military base is in Tierra, located roughly twelve leagues ahead. I’m tempted to just make a dash for it at lower altitude through the thicker layer of smoke near ground level, but that seems… unwise. If we try that, will we still be seen by them, Decurion?” she asked next, looking up to see Fortrakt had covered half the distance back to them.

There was a pause before Fortrakt answered. “I wouldn’t do it, Centurion. Remember that dragons can see heat, like those human cameras. They’d probably spot our warm bodies even through thick smoke easily.”

She grimaced at the reminder. By all the crows, I should have remembered that! she mentally berated herself, suddenly very glad that Fortrakt was there to stop her from making a potentially fatal mistake. “Very well. I’ll report this to Optio Giraldi via his gem, advising him quietly that we’re making a detour.”

“Just him? And not the humans?” Tigrus prompted.

Gilda shook her head as she looked at the ground, which was visibly closer now. “Let’s not alarm our guests just yet. We’ll head for a lower altitude and try to avoid the dragons while circling in towards Tierra from the south. Once past them, we’ll see if we can get close enough to make a dash for the base and—”

Gilda’s words caught in her throat as she suddenly felt pricks of pins and needles travel all over her body, like an electric current. And judging by the way Prime Pike Tigrus and the outside griffons she could see stiffened, they felt it too.

They had just entered a magical field—an active magical field!

“Centurion!” First Stave Tunica shouted in alarm as he whirled his staff to hastily cast some form of counterspell, but it was already too late.

There was a blinding flash of light, followed by a deafening crack and roar as the very air seemed to explode outwards, with the smell of burnt wood and feathers hanging in the air. Wind whooshed everywhere in the magically-agitated atmosphere, disturbing the airstreams that had Gilda almost stumbling over herself.

She recovered quickly, only to discover that the First Stave and lead coach were now falling out of the sky along with most of the stricken Paladins, who had taken the brunt of the first volley. Worse, the central coach containing Marco was now partially on fire, scored with scorch marks all over the front as the two lead griffons hung limp in their harnesses, having taken direct strikes to judge by their burns and smoking feathers.

But she had no time to react before a fresh crackling sound was heard. Up in the cloudless but smoke-filled sky, she saw electrical lines beginning to form anew, building up for a second orchestrated volley that would kill them en masse.

“Scatter!”she shouted in desperation as events quickly spun out of control, with half her escort force struck down in a single, terrifying instant. “Scatter and descend to ground! NOW!"

But before anygriffon could even begin to obey or she could start to dive after the damaged coach, another eruption of lethal lightning bolts speared through the air towards them.

19: Shadows of the Past

Author's Note

🎇🎇Happy New Year, folks! 🎇🎇

I’ll mark the calendar rolling over from 2021 to 2022 with yet another Feathered Hearts main story chapter, as our heroes find themselves and their parent/host nation suddenly and quite unexpectedly under attack. Will they be equal to the challenge? Or will the Griffon Kingdom crumble and burn?

You already know what’s hitting, but they don’t, and I’ve added a significant amount of nuance, dialog and additional exposition to this scene—to say nothing of a surprise introduction of three new figures. You folks should know by now that initial impressions are often not accurate with my characters, and such it is here. :twilightsmile: We don’t quite reach gunplay here, as that’s coming next chapter. But for all that happens, I don’t think you’ll be too disappointed, and that next chapter will be coming quickly, in less than a week.

No adult moments here, so don’t worry. And thanks as always go to ASF, AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire and Silverblade5 for prereads. Nothing else to say except hope you enjoy, and Happy New Year again!🎇🎇🎇🎇

And lest I forget the standard boilerplate: This chapter is a heavily rewritten version of the first half of Feathered Heart: Chapter 6, borrowing some chunks of dialog and detail modified to accommodate the updated story. Regardless, you are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original if you haven’t already, as it inspired many of my own works.

19: Shadows of the Past

A second flash of searing white was followed swiftly by another massive crash of thunder that bowled Gilda backwards in the air, knocking her head over heels. It left her momentarily blind and deaf, completely unaware of what was going on around her.

At first, she wasn’t sure if she was alive or dead. How many seconds had passed? How many minutes? Was she hit? Was Marco?

Reasoning that she wouldn’t be able to wonder if she was dead unless she was actually alive, she forced her eyes to open, and slowly, her senses returned along with her vision. As it did, badly blurred whites blended with blues, browns and greys that seemed to be whirling around her. Her ears also began to respond; she could distantly hear not just the roar of the wind, but somegriffon shouting her name and desperately shaking her by the armor straps around her neck.

“Gilda! Gilda! Wake up!” a voice she finally recognized as Fortrakt’s was frantically calling to her.

Gilda took a moment before shaking her head sharply. She felt the wind hit her strongly—too strongly. There was also an odd sinking feeling in her gut she knew from experience meant her flight was out of control; she realized just a single but terrifying instant later that she was falling uncontrollably from the air, plunging along with the stricken air coach to certain doom.

The eagless immediately spread her wings in an action as instant as it was instinctive. Her eyes were still swimming in color, so she used her experience as a practiced flyer to right herself until she could finally see, forcing her gaze to focus.

The first thing she locked onto was Marco’s coach doing a near-vertical dive; the two sky griffon soldiers at the rear trying valiantly but futilely to keep it from crashing into the oncoming ground. The front part of the air coach had two badly burnt members of her Turma dangling lifelessly in their harnesses with a third missing along with her harness extension, which was reduced to a seared and splintered stub—far too much weight for a single pair of sky griffons to lift, no matter how strong their wings were.

“Marco!” Gilda shouted, realizing she had but seconds to act. A surge of adrenaline and fear overriding the lightning-caused concussion she’d received, she immediately dashed forward through the air, towards the front of the crippled coach. She sensed a windstream coming up beside her, and a glance revealed Fortrakt to be the source to her right.

“We have to lose the dead weight!” she told him as they reached the two remaining forward air coach extensions and hit the quick release on the yoke attachments her stricken soldiers were harnessed to; she tried not to think about the possibility that they were still alive despite their gruesome burns and smoking bodies as they both fell free, plummeting hard to the ground.

The loss of their limp and lifeless forms caused the descent to immediately slow as the rearward griffons suddenly had less weight to restrain, though it still wasn’t enough. The extensions now free, Fortrakt and Gilda shunted themselves under them and put the ends on their upper backs. They grunted as they tried to lift the front of the coach even though they weren’t properly harnessed, which caused the yokes to dig in painfully to their backs and shoulders.

Fortrakt squawked with desperate effort as he began to flap his wings with all his strength. Gilda just clenched her beak, a trill of agony escaping her throat as she, too, tried to lift while ignoring the intense pain of the bare harness wood digging in hard to her flight muscles, attempting to slow the coach’s descent as quickly as she could. But despite their best efforts, a glance downwards revealed the ground coming up on them fast; the blurred greens slowly transforming to rocky hills and trees.

They were slowing their fall, but not quickly enough; she could hear the humans screaming inside the coach. Marco’s voice was the most recognizable, but she could hear the others too as they felt themselves falling to their deaths. She could also hear and feel small impacts as the passengers, both humans and griffons alike, were being thrown around inside.

Time seemed to slow down as the ground neared; Gilda’s vision tunneled as she saw individual rocks, blades of grass, and areas of dirt below. They were almost out of time, and her gut was telling her that they were still coming in far too fast.

Gilda realized then with a sinking heart that there was no way to fully arrest their fall in time. “If we’re going to crash, we have to cushion the landing! Prepare to spread wings!” she barked, surprised her voice could sound so clear and strong despite the intense efforts she was exerting. “Now!”

The four griffons opened up their wings wide, the wind catching and dragging them backwards. All of them screamed with effort, the weight and momentum of the coach taking a toll on their feathery limbs as they approached the earth below.

“Brace for impact!” Gilda warned needlessly as they hit the ground hard and a sharp jolt climbed up her forelegs like a second lightning bolt. The harness arm of the coach she was hefting snapped, which flung her into the air. In her tunnel vision, she saw the sky, the earth, and the sky once more as she impacted the ground twice before rolling to a stop, leaving her covered in dirt and broken branches. The whole thing lasted for just a few seconds, but for all her heightened awareness, it felt like an hour.

“Ow…” she groaned as she found herself momentarily unable to move, worried for a moment that she was paralyzed. But her limbs began to respond again, if only sluggishly; she felt her blood rushing everywhere and her heart racing so fast in the aftermath of her exertions that she thought it would burst right out of her chest. Trying to let her severely stressed body recover a bit, she kept her eyes down on the ground, her tunnel vision slowly widening.

Within a minute, though only with considerable effort, she was able to stand up at least somewhat shakily on all fours. She then noticed Fortrakt not too far away in front of her, lying on his side at the end of a long furrow his body’s passage had carved in the dirt and grass. He appeared relatively uninjured but was unmoving except for the rapid heaving of his chest and gulps of air into his open beak.

“Fortrakt! Are you okay?” Gilda asked rather roughly, her throat sore through her still-ragged breathing.

“No…” he replied weakly, trying to rise but failing, waiting until another rumble of thunder passed before speaking again. “Hit hard… broken ribs… feels like my wings were wrenched out of their sockets…”

“Just lie still, and try not to move. Hold on for the Magus,” she told him when she remembered the air coach. Grunting, she turned and spotted it lying half on its side with the front wheels ripped off and the right rear ones collapsed, leaving it partially in the air on the left.

The two remaining fore harness extensions she and Fortrakt had grabbed hold of had also been destroyed, with the aft ones severely damaged; their wood deformed and twisted. Her sky griffon soldiers attached to the rearmost yokes were trying their hardest to get out of their harnesses, while right behind them, she noticed the last two coaches making their way down guarded by what looked like Decanus Nydia, who was using her aura to attract the lightning bolts chasing them to her staff and not the coaches.

Whatever magical defense she’d conjured, it had worked as they appeared undamaged, to Gilda’s great relief; the coaches were intact and all five sky griffons yoked to each were still alive and flying.

I guess that explains how we survived the second strike. But where’s the Prime Pike? she belatedly wondered, only to get an answer when the big sky griffon descended to ground with a smoking hole in the green-tinted armor over his chest, looking pained but very much alive.

She had no idea how he’d taken a direct strike from mage-boosted lightning and lived, but that wasn’t her concern just then. Ignoring the pain in her wings and legs, she slowly hobbled her way towards the downed air coach, praying to her Ancestors for Marco’s safety along with the rest of those inside. “By all our Ancestors, get these doors open!” she ordered the other surviving sky griffons in desperation, wondering if she had enough strength left to do the deed herself.

But it proved unnecessary when the door was suddenly and quite strongly kicked out by a human boot, which shattered the damaged lock and latches in a single strike. The noise agitated her still-shaking Guardsgriffons in the rear, with one even grabbing for the crossbow strapped to his side.

“Hold!” she shouted somewhat hoarsely as PFC Jamal slowly got out with a badly shaking Marco leaning heavily on him, blood streaming off his leg and a very ugly bruise forming on his temple.

Jamal himself didn’t look in bad shape, however. He held the door open as one of her earth griffon soldiers came out next with a whimpering Raleigh riding on his back, the obese human cradling his left leg and moaning. The remaining earth griffon and the rest of the Marines followed afterwards, wide-eyed and clutching their weapons.

“Okay, what the hell just happened, Centurion?” a visibly freaked Jamal demanded to know, staring at Gilda as he released a trembling and sweating Marco, who fell to his knees and then forward onto his palms. “What the fuck hit us? An aerial IED?”

Before Gilda could ask what that was, a strong gust of wind blew around them as the last two air coaches landed. The Marines in them spilled out quickly and, at an order from Imlay, formed a defensive perimeter with their black tubes pointed outwards, using whatever cover was available. Giraldi and the other earth griffons quickly followed, the former’s eyes searching for and finding Gilda; he spread his wings to take flight briefly before landing in front of her.

“Sir! Are you okay?” her new Optio asked.

“I’m fine,” Gilda replied even though she didn’t feel fine; she could see that her pained movements and the tremor in her voice had Giraldi frowning. But determined to not admit weakness, she pointed to Fortrakt and the human civilians. “Or I will be. My injuries are minor. Have our mage check on the human casualties and Fortrakt. He’s hurt.”

Giraldi nodded with a concerned glance over at their newly minted Decurion. “By your command, Centurion. It is with deep regret that I must report we lost First Stave Tunica and most of the Paladins to the initial lightning strikes, but not Decanus Nydia—I don’t know if you saw, but she’s the reason the second volley of bolts mostly missed us! She, and the Prime Pike there.” He nodded over her shoulder.

“Him?” Gilda stared at the black-furred and feathered Paladin commander in confusion, again noticing he had a gaping and still smoking hole in his chest armor right over his heart.

“Yes, sir. I saw what happened from my window—he threw himself in front of the coach and took a bolt that would have hit it dead center and likely have blown it in two!”

She turned to Niger Tigrus and stared at him in disbelief along with a strong measure of respect. “Thank you.” She bared her throat at him.

“It was my duty,” he said with a pained grunt and cough as two more Paladins winged in, also with holes in their armor; one looked to have taken a bolt right through the feathers at the base of her wing as she hobbled over to where Chief Jacobs was and clutched her injured side. “I and the two remaining members of my decade have some… additional protection that enabled us to survive the strikes. Unfortunately, as the rest of my force did not have it, the Optio is correct. They are most likely dead.” He bowed his head.

“Then why did you have it?” Giraldi challenged, giving him an askance look.

“We had it from… a previous assignment,” the Prime Pike offered in what Gilda found to be a slightly evasive tone. Or had she just imagined it? “Needless to say, with good weather the whole way and no trouble predicted, we didn’t receive any anti-lightning enchantments for this flight. An intolerable oversight, but not one we can take back now. Despite that, my team and I need healer treatment. Where is Decanus Nydia?”

Team? Gilda wondered, thinking his personality had suddenly completely changed. But before she could ask, Giraldi spoke again.

“She’s still in the air trying to disperse that crow-accursed lightning trap we hit,” he said with a glance up; Gilda followed his eyes and could just pick out the eagless mage casting something far above them. “I’ll summon her back to the ground, but may I suggest we help the humans establish a perimeter while we tend to our injured, sir?”

“Right.” Gilda grabbed her still-woozy head with one set of talons and rubbed her throbbing temples, trying to focus her thoughts. “By my order, find the lead griffons—given they took direct hits and then got dropped to the ground, they’re probably dead, but make sure.” Unworthy though the thought was, she silently prayed to her Ancestors they’d already been dead from the lightning strikes when she and Fortrakt dropped them, or else they’d likely killed them.

And if I did… Guilt tried to take hold of her, but she shoved it as hard aside as she could, reminding herself forcefully that there was no other way to save the stricken air coach from a fatal crash. “Once that’s done, assist the humans in establishing a defense while we get our bearings. If we have any sky griffons in flying shape, have them scout the area. Find out where exactly we are and report the extent of the magical field. Last thing we need is another surprise lightning strike up our collective tails.” She glanced up at Nydia again.

“By your command,” Giraldi replied with a salute. He flapped his wings, barking orders as he moved towards the newly-landed coaches. He began to gather the still-stunned griffons of her Turma to assign them various duties as the human medic, Chief Jacobs, started looking at Raleigh’s leg.

“Broken,” he pronounced as he pulled out an odd sleeve-like device and slipped it over his leg carefully, and then did something that caused it to visibly inflate. “I can splint it and numb the pain, but he needs an infirmary,” he told Gilda distractedly.

“So do I.” A small groan grabbed Gilda’s attention; she turned to see Fortrakt painfully crawling his way towards the downed coach. Though she wasn’t a healer, she knew the basic battlefield triage taught to her at the Gauntlet and occasionally reinforced by training drills later, and thus, she checked on his legs and wings.

“Nothing seems broken, except for that rib,” she finally said, trying to keep her own increasing agony at bay; her wings and flight muscles felt overstretched and all four of her legs were swelling painfully at the knee and ankle joints. “I’m making you a priority for Nydia when she’s available.”

“I’ll be fine,” Fortrakt muttered. “But I hope you don’t mind me lying here for a bit.”

“I would prefer it,” she told him, offering him some water but not wanting him to move lest he worsen his wounds. In truth, she also wanted to just collapse; her wings were only barely responding to her mental commands, refusing to flap freely. She sighed, wondering how she would catch up to Giraldi when she heard human footsteps approaching her. Turning, she saw Imlay standing there.

“What happened, Centurion?” he asked quietly with his cannon held at what she had learned long before to be a ready position; for some reason, Gilda found his emotionless manner unnerving. His face was devoid of expression, but his shoulders were hunched, arms holding that black tube diagonally downward across his chest as he scanned the woodline for threats.

And yet, despite that, he seemed to be taking the attack in stride. “One minute we were flying along just fine, then the next we were hit with a barrage of lightning bolts. I’m going to assume that’s not a natural occurrence. Did someone attack us?” he asked her point-blank.

Gilda instantly realized that she wouldn’t get away with a non-answer, nor was there any reason to withhold the truth from him. So she motioned towards the damaged coach, and then to the sky. “I think so. We entered an active magical field that was triggered by our passage to rain down lightning bolts.”

Imlay stared at her. “So you’re saying someone shot us down?”

“Yes and no,” Gilda replied as she looked up into the sky again. “The field was more of a passive defensive spell. We would normally only use it to interdict movement of enemy aerial forces in war. Though sometimes it’s also employed on our border with the Ibex or on known Harpie raiding routes.”

For the first time, Imlay frowned, his brow furrowing. “That’s the kind of spell that takes time to build and has to be renewed every so often? A Lynch?”

Gilda exchanged a look with the Prime Pike. “Lynch?” they both asked.

“Sorry. I mean a Layered Enchantment,” Imlay replied. “That’s what the Equestrians call them.”

Gilda was impressed. “Yes. I admit I’m surprised, Corporal. I thought you humans didn’t know about Tellusian magic?”

“We studied up just in case,” Imlay replied with a brief grin. “So basically, we entered a recently emplaced minefield, and stepped on one.” Gilda just nodded, taking note of the word ‘minefield’ in a different context than she was used to. “Did we take a wrong turn somewhere? Was that Lynch not marked on your map?”

“What do you mean, ‘marked on my map’?” Gilda asked in genuine confusion as she saw Decanus Nydia return to ground and then assume the role of healer, looking over Raleigh and ordering him to relax before pointing her stave directly at him.

Imlay spared the scene just a brief glance. “Well, I’m assuming that the spell we triggered was one of yours. So shouldn’t you have known about it?” There was the barest hint of an accusing tone in his words.

“No!” an aghast Gilda exclaimed. “By the crows, that spell shouldn’t be there at all! We wouldn’t use it within our own borders or civilians might fly right into them!”

“And most of our border spells just detect trespassers. We wouldn’t call down lightning on them, Corporal, except on very rare occasions,” the Prime Pike added with another cough as he rubbed his chest where the bolt had hit him; Gilda could just see that there was some kind of exotic fabric underlying his Paladin armor.

Imlay’s brow furrowed. “Then someone just placed an unauthorized Lynch here? I mean, I don’t know about you, ma’am—er, sir—but the implications scare me.”.

Gilda looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“As far as I’m aware, Lynches only have limited uses,” he noted. “They have certain parameters to follow. Up there, it was shooting out lightning, yet down here—”

“We’re safe,” Gilda finished. She looked up again, her mind quickly realizing the implications Imlay had spoken about. “The defensive spell is acting as a barrier for flyers. Its purpose is to interdict aerial troop or airship movements.”

“Or to keep them from escaping,” Tigrus added.

Gilda nodded. “Either way, it makes getting reinforcements or conducting evacuations much harder. Which means that something very bad is happening.” She suppressed a shiver and grimace as a fresh wave of pain shot through her.

“My thoughts exactly,” Imlay said. “But that’s not all. You had a scout sent out ahead before we were shot down, right?”

“Yes, I did. Decurion Gletscher was out there, and—” Gilda replied distractedly, only to blink as she belatedly realized what was wrong with that.

Why wasn’t Fortrakt attacked first when he was well out ahead of the main group? By rights, he should have triggered the enchantment a minute before us and been slain instantly! she wondered as she glanced over to him to see that Nydia was concentrating on him next. He sighed with relief as his pain was numbed and rib magically reset; she then turned her attention to his badly overstrained joints and flight muscles.

He entered the area first, but he didn’t detect it or get struck down? But by all the crows, that doesn’t make SENSE! Unless—

An icy ball materialized in her stomach at the only possible explanation. She wasn’t that knowledgeable about magic, but she knew the basics, including the nature of such area enchantments as had to have been used here.

“I see you’ve figured out what that means,” Imlay said with another grim nod. “If the Decurion survived passage, it implies that one of the Lynch parameters was to activate only upon a large enough group entering its area. So a single soldier wouldn’t trigger it, but a platoon-sized unit would.”

“Meaning that a Magus deliberately built the defensive spell with parameters that would ensure maximum casualties,” Gilda muttered as beside her, Prime Pike Tigrus looked troubled despite his pain.

“Exactly,” Imlay replied. “And whoever emplaced it is probably still in the area. From here on out, we should assume we’re in hostile territory, sir.”

“I must concur,” Tigrus added as he awaited his turn with Nydia, waving his two surviving comrades forward to get their wounds tended first. “I know not what’s happening, but if it was a deliberate attack, then we need to organize ourselves for defense. Nor should we linger here, out in the open.”

“Agreed,” Gilda replied, then gave Imlay a respectful nod followed by a bared throat. “Thank you for your insights, Corporal.”

“No problem, sir,” Imlay said. He took a moment and looked around. “I only see three Paladins. Are the rest…”

The lack of response along with the bowed heads told him the answer immediately. Gilda felt the bottom of her stomach take a dive at the knowledge that seven elite soldiers had died under her command, as well as at least three Guardsgriffons from her old Turma.

“We have to presume them lost. And we don’t dare move until we’ve tended the wounded and found the limits of this defensive spell,” she told him.

Imlay’s lips thinned, but nodded. Gilda thought he was about to say more when his communication device chirped.

“Corporal Imlay, what’s going on?” Lance Corporal Brennan asked, though there was a strong crackling over the channel that made it hard to make out his words. “We’re holding our positions, but with respect, we’d all kind of like some answers as to what’s happening.”

“Yeah, what gives?” Gilda heard the female voice of Lance Corporal Henderson next. “This isn’t the best position to defend, especially with that hill in front of us. We’re in a shallow depression and we don’t have the high ground here.”

Imlay gave one last look at Gilda before replying into the device. “I know, but we’re stuck here until we can move the wounded and figure out what directions are safe to travel. Maintain a defensive perimeter for now and stay alert! What happened appears to have been a deliberate attack, and whoever set that magic trap is still out there. It seems like we might be seeing some action, so lock and load, and stow the combat-jack! It’s time to earn our pay, boys and girls.”

Gilda watched as the Corporal departed to give his ‘squad’ more instructions. Oddly enough, the dozen Marines he commanded seemed to get excited, even giddy, as Imlay told them to expect hostiles. At least mildly comforted that the humans weren’t hesitating or even remotely reluctant to fight despite the uncertain situation, she made her way towards the injured.

While Nydia was busy with the Paladins, Marco was being checked by the grey-haired naval healer, who was asking him a few questions and flashing a light in his eye. Marco grimaced at the beam’s passage, responding to the queries by either nodding or shaking his head, and then at the older male’s instructions he followed the light with his eyes.

Once she was close enough, she could see the Marine turn off his light and nod in satisfaction, “No concussion. Just a few contusions with the one deeper cut on your leg. I’d stitch it, but I’ll let that griffie witch treat it first. You’re one very lucky lad.”

“Sorry if I disagree, doc,” Marco muttered as he rubbed the growing bruise on his temple and grimaced; the cut on his leg having soaked right through his blue pants. He then looked up at her and managed a weak smile. “Hey, Gilda. So what was that promise that we’d arrive safe and sound?”

“Hey!” Raleigh called out weakly, doped up on whatever strange substance the human healer had used to dull his pain. “Don’t talk to her…”

“Oh, fuck off, Raleigh. You think that matters now?” Marco called irritably over his shoulder, then turned back to her. “Guess we’re not gonna make it to that hotel room in Catlais, huh?”

“And nocreature’s sorrier than me,” she told him wanly, and then she hugged him, hard. “Whatever happens, I swear to my Ancestors that I’ll protect you, Marco Lakan. I’ll protect all of you.”

“Thanks, Gilds. But don’t make promises you don’t know you can keep,” he said as Chris and Tara came over and hugged him hard in turn. To her relief, they were uninjured and more concerned about Marco than anything else; once they were satisfied he was fine, they then asked Gilda if there was anything they could do to help.

“Offload the supplies from the roof racks of the coaches, and then pass out the meals. We don’t know when we might get to eat again,” she instructed.

“Sure, but… what’s happening, Gilda?” Tara asked her.

“We’re not certain yet,” she told them, deciding it was best not to alarm them when she didn’t know how bad things actually were. “But until we do, and until the wounded are mobile again, we’re staying put.”

“Okay…” Tara said, exchanging meaningful glances with Chris and Marco while reaching over her shoulder to tap her backpack. “Uh, should we—” Whatever she was asking them, Chris shook his head sharply. He then mouthed something at her Gilda didn’t catch, as he took pains not to speak the words directly, eliciting a slightly pensive nod from Tara.

Gilda didn’t get a chance to consider what that was about before Imlay walked up beside her again. “How are they, Chief?”

“Mister Raleigh is suffering from a broken leg,” Jacobs replied, not even looking up at him. “I placed it in a splint and gave him a painkiller while their Magus does her thing. She says it’ll take just three treatments over the space of two hours to properly heal it, though I’ll believe it when I see it. Mister Lakan here is luckier, suffering from only minor injuries. And Jamal’s fire team got off nearly scot-free thanks to their helmets and armor. Ditto for the inside griffons.”

“And I said I disagree,” Marco mumbled. “I got that bruise on my head when I got thrown into a rifle.”

“Yeah, and that hard Flip-boy head of yours broke my scope!” one of Jamal’s Marines groused as he tried to look through what appeared to be some form of spyglass mounted atop his weapon. “It’s a total loss, Corporal. Looks like I’ll be using iron sights for a bit.” To Gilda’s surprise, he removed the spyglass from the top of his tube, then flipped up a pair of what looked like the manual sights Gilda had on her crossbow.

“It’s fine. We got some spares somewhere,” Imlay said placatingly. “I’m not gonna go digging for them now, though. Are all your supplies intact, Jamal?” he asked his fire team leader next.

“We pulled them out. They seem to be,” he confirmed. “We’re carrying them now and can deploy our big guns quickly if we need to.”

“You just might. This looks like a deliberate attack,” he said again, causing Gilda to wince while Chris and Tara gave him a startled look. He then turned to them. “With respect, Mister Lakan, Mister McLain and Miss Fields, we’re going to ask that you stay out of our way as much as possible and do not leave the immediate area. If you want to help, give the Doc here whatever aid he asks. Do any of you have medical training?”

“No, but—” whatever Marco had been about to say, he was cut off by Chris again, who made a sudden slashing motion with his fingers across his throat.

“But what?” Imlay asked, suddenly suspicious.

“Nothing. Never mind,” Marco answered, almost sullenly.

“With respect, Corporal, we just don’t want to feel like useless baggage here,” Tara added with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Then help out the Chief, and bring supplies or meals as requested by the griffons or my Marines,” he instructed. “This is a combat situation, so the best thing you can do is keep out of our way. And if the shit hits the fan, take cover in the intact coaches. Lock the doors and hunker down.”

“Uh, can we have weapons, then?” Marco asked a little weakly.

“No!” Raleigh shouted from behind him before grimacing again, earning a glare from Marco.

“Sorry, but no,” Imlay said more gently. “With respect to you, if you’re untrained in their use, then you’re more of a danger to us than whoever’s out there stalking us. You can have blades, but that’s it.” He offered Marco his combat knife.

“But we’re…” he began to say under his breath before relenting again, accepting the blade. “Fine.”

“So what should we do, Corporal?” PFC Jamal asked. “My Marines are ready for action.”

“I know, but I’m keeping you in reserve. Eat and guard the triage area for now, and I’ll rotate you to the perimeter later. We can’t move until the wounded are attended and we can figure out where the safe routes through that fucking lightning minefield are.”

“We should know soon enough,” Gilda said, idly thinking that their cannon-mounted spyglasses would make for a good report to the Tribune. If I was still writing them, that was, and if our first priority wasn’t survival right now! “When I have more information, I’ll pass it along.”

“I really appreciate that, ma’am,” Imlay replied, giving her a nod and walking off, leaving her alone with her three former civilian charges.

“Gilda... what’s going on?” Tara asked again. “Are we really under attack?”

“I don’t know for sure, but… it does seem that way,” she admitted with great reluctance as she turned to see a slightly harried Decanus Nydia approaching. Ordered to lie down, she did so as the Magus scanned her with her aura briefly before the hue of its light turned from green to blue, which Gilda knew meant healing energies.

“Just relax, Centurion,” Nydia told her more soothingly. “Your injuries aren’t as bad as the Decurion’s. I’ll fix you right up.”

“Thanks…” Gilda said, feeling her muscles fall slack as the pain drained from them and a cooling sensation washed over her swollen wing and leg joints. She groaned for a moment at the sudden feeling of relief, finding her body soaking up the magical energy like a sponge. When the treatment was completed, she tried to stand up, only for her legs to disobey her.

Forcing them to respond didn’t help, and she soon found herself falling back on the cool and comfortable ground. “Rest, Centurion,” Nydia then ordered. “It will speed the healing process.”

“Right,” Gilda sighed, locking eyes with a concerned Marco briefly before her lids fell shut.

I’ll just sleep for a bit, she thought, deciding she would rest for no more than ten minutes. That should be all I need…

* * * * *

An uncertain amount of time later, Gilda heard voices and felt her eyelids fluttering as a feeling of warmness washed over her; she dimly recognized the source as Nydia’s magical aura. She shuddered as she felt her limbs and wings flex, anticipating pain, but there was none from either. There were a few murmurs, but nothing she could understand until she heard Nydia speak. “... is complete. She’s almost fully healed and going to be fine.”

Gilda opened her eyes to see Marco, Fortrakt and Nydia staring down at her.

“Welcome back, Centurion,” the Magus addressed her first. “You should be feeling better?”

“I am…” Gilda grunted and tried to stand, finding her legs responding more naturally. She felt for her wings, which flexed obediently at her mental command. “By the crows, how long was I out…?”

“Two hours,” Fortrakt told her, causing her eyes to go wide. “The Decanus told us to let you sleep and recover.”

“Don’t worry, we would have woken you if anything bad happened. So far, nothing has.” Marco added, then hugged her again when she stood up. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“So am I…” she granted, accepting his embrace even as she still felt somewhat disinclined to move. Her limbs were no longer in pain but did feel quite stiff; like she’d been sleeping in an awkward position.

The Magus noticed. “The stiffness will fade as you start moving again. But I recommend you drink a lot of water and eat more red meat for the next couple days to replenish your body’s protein reserves. I used them all up to help heal your wings.”

“Will do,” she replied as she released Marco, then turned towards Fortrakt. “Anything to report?”

“Yes, sir. The scouts are back. Corporal Imlay and the Optio are awaiting your presence. Giraldi’s been commanding in your absence.”

“As well he should.” Gilda looked around and spotted Raleigh as well as the three Paladins. The former was still lying down with his leg splinted and what looked like a rolled-up blanket under his head, while the latter were up and about, talking amongst themselves. She motioned towards them and looked at the mage. “Before I go, please report on the wounded, Decanus Nydia.”

“The human civilians have been tended to, sir,” she replied, looking and sounding a bit tired; Gilda knew that mages could be exhausted by excessive magic use as well as physical exertion. “The one with a broken leg will be able to put his full weight on it by evening, though I don’t recommend he try running until tomorrow.

“I also tended the wounds of Marco Lakan here, who slept in a coach for an hour—though from what his friends said, he needed it more for being up all night than any actual injury,” she noted slightly dryly to a rueful look from Marco. “And though the rear pilots of the crashed coaches suffered moderate wing and muscle strains that were quickly healed, there were no injuries worth noting to our earth griffons or the human soldiers.”

“Marines,” Gilda corrected absently.

Nydia gave her a look. “I’m sorry, sir?”

Gilda opened her beak, then closed it, shaking her head. “They’re—never mind. And how are you doing, Decanus?” she had to ask. “I’m truly sorry for the loss of your partner.”

“The First Stave saved us, sir,” she told her, going downcast. “He was a fine mentor and Magus. I don’t know if you realize this, but he’s the reason we’re still here. That first strike could have been far worse, but he drew most of the bolts to himself and was overwhelmed. He bought me enough time to protect the rear coaches and our remaining troops.” Her beak quivered briefly, but then she squeezed her eyes shut tightly for a moment before opening them again.

“As for myself, my power needs replenishment after so much magic expenditure. I must rest soon.”

“Then do so. How long will you require?” Gilda asked.

She hesitated, but answered. “At least an hour. And two would be preferable.”

“If at all possible, you’ll have it. We need you at full strength. So once you’re done with healing, see to healing yourself. Now where’s Optio Giraldi and Corporal Imlay?”

“By the third air coach,” Fortrakt replied as the Magus saluted. “I’ll lead you there, sir.”

“You are not leading her anywhere,” the Magus corrected him. “You were hurt worse than the Centurion. You need another round of healing, Decurion.”

“Another? But I’m fine!” Fortrakt insisted.

Gilda blinked, then slowly stretched her wing to gently hit Fortrakt in his foreleg near his knee, which immediately got him to cringe and shudder as Marco gave a sly grin. “Okay, maybe I’m still a little sore…” her former junior partner said

“Get yourself treated first,” Gilda ordered. Expecting a complaint, she gave him a glare. “Don’t posture, Decurion—you’re not worth anything to us crippled, so you will allow yourself to be fully healed. Are we clear?”

Fortrakt sighed but surrendered. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. And Marco? I need to go to work,” She told him, to which he nodded and stepped back, departing only after extracting a promise from her to take it easy. Once he had left, Gilda stretched her legs a bit. She still felt mild discomfort from their stiffness but was otherwise able to move around with far more ease than she could before.

Step by cautious step, she passed the half-smashed air coach that was serving as their makeshift infirmary, watching her surviving sky griffon soldiers patrol the air while the Marines remained posted around them along with her earth griffons in a loose perimeter, their tubes and crossbows pointing outwards.

The third coach was not too far away, tucked in between the half-destroyed first coach and the undamaged second one. From their altered positions, she guessed Giraldi had moved the coaches closer to each other while she was unconscious to bring them to the center of their defensive ring.

Awaiting her around the third coach were Imlay and Giraldi, with the Paladin leader having just joined them. As she neared, Imlay saluted while the griffons did so and bared their necks, backing away slightly to let her enter their circle.

“It’s good to have you back, sir,” Giraldi said as Gilda approached the center of their improvised headquarters. “Beg to report.”

“What do we have, Optio?” she asked, trying to get her head back in the game, as she’d heard Marco once term it.

“Not a lot of good news. Our soldiers were able to ascertain the expanse of the defensive spell. Though Decanus Nydia dispersed a small area of it, almost the entire sky is covered with it starting a league to the east,” he explained.

“If you travel higher than fifty perches from the ground with more than one or two griffons, you enter the magical field and are immediately struck down by a curtain of lightning bolts. They also established that it extends for at least fifteen leagues west and north, towards Tierra.”

“I see…” Gilda frowned. While that height would still allow griffons to fly at just above treetop level, it would also preclude use of the air coaches. Then again, she realized that the coaches themselves wouldn’t help. They were down to two, and she didn’t have enough soldiers left to both carry and escort them—a potentially lethal proposition when there might be more enemies about. “That means we’ll have to leave the coaches behind and move strictly by ground.”

“That’s what it means. The magic in the area is also interfering with our comms,” Imlay declared. “Past a certain distance, we’re getting nothing but static.”

“Comms?” Tigris asked.

Imlay took a moment before answering, his expression deep in thought as Gilda guessed he was trying to find the best way to phrase his reply. “Communications. We have a certain technology on Earth called ‘radio’ where you can communicate with someone far away via voice.”

Gilda remembered something similar in the movie Warrior. “Oh. You mean like those telly-bones?”

“Telephones,” Imlay corrected with a momentary smile. “And yes, sir. It’s something like that.”

Gilda and Giraldi furrowed their brows; even the Paladin leader looked thoughtful for a moment. She had no doubt they were all thinking the same thing; wanting to ask how that ‘radio’ worked without magic.

Instantaneous communication like that was only found on Tellus using Dragonfire crystals and other paired gems the ponies could create, both of which they had in their possession. But their use was now compromised by the fact that hostile mages and dragons could detect their activation if they were close enough, and then find their source.

“When can you fix the problem on this ‘radio’ of yours?” Giraldi asked. “We need a secure means to communicate.”

“I don’t know,” Imlay replied. “We know from experience in Equestria that our radios are sensitive to areas of intense magical energy and can be disrupted by close-range spellcasting. So it should hopefully clear up once we leave the area of the Lynch.”

“Very well,” Gilda said. “Then we’ll have to minimize gem use as much as possible, relying on human radios at close range. Would you be willing to spare us a few, Corporal?”

“As long as we get them back after,” he replied. “We’ll also have to show you how to use them.”

“See to it,” she directed him, even though he didn’t technically fall under her command. “If possible, give one to me, one to the Optio and the Prime Pike here, and one to Decanus Nydia.”

“I don’t know if we can spare that many. But I’ll try,” he promised. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes, sir. I was waiting for you to wake up to discuss this, but Corporal Imlay said that he had talked to you earlier, and that a conclusion was drawn that we were deliberately attacked?” Giraldi then asked.

“A conclusion that is getting more likely by the minute,” Gilda replied, trying not to sigh. “It’s not just that, either. I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but just before we triggered the lightning field, Fortrakt spotted a few dragons flying ahead of us in a spread-out formation.”

“Dragons?” Imlay said with surprising calmness. “Adult or adolescent?”

“Adult,” she confirmed to a murmur among the griffons, impressed that he knew the difference. “They’re rarely seen in the Kingdom outside of migrations, which happen only once a decade. And the next one isn’t for six years.”

“If they were flying spread-out, they were in an attack formation,” a very troubled Giraldi immediately recognized. “We learned that long ago from the wars against Equestria, and later, Dragon Lord Diabla. So we now have a source for all the smoke. Between that and that accursed interdiction enchantment, we must now presume we are in enemy-held territory. But why are they attacking?” he wondered aloud. “Has a dragon clan suddenly declared war on the Kingdom? And that lightning trap above us is Griffon spellcasting. How did they turn our own mages against us?”

“How can you be sure it’s griffon spellcasting?” Imlay asked. “What about a unicorn?”

“An Equestrian?” The Prime Pike openly scoffed. “The Caleponians are all earth ponies. There are very few unicorns in the Kingdom, and short of the alicorn Princesses themselves, they would not have the power or expertise to do this.”

“Then what about the Ibex?” an unperturbed Imlay asked next. “Could they do it?”

Gilda exchanged a look with the two tiercels; the three considered the question briefly only to shake their heads. “They could, but their methods and magical signature would be much different,” Giraldi replied for all of them. “Even if they could exactly mimic the effects of our Magus spells, they would have been immediately detected due to that different signature. Trust me, our long history of hostility means we are very sensitive to the use of Ibexian magic within our borders. They couldn’t possibly hide anything this big.”

“He’s right, and so is the Prime Pike. No, Corporal, this is unquestionably griffon spellwork,” Gilda decided. “Trust us, we have known our Equestrian allies and Ibexian enemies far longer than you.”

Imlay frowned but nodded. “Then we’re back to the question as to why the dragons appear to have declared war.”

“I don’t know,” Gilda knew from her Gauntlet training that dragons had not so much countries as clans they were intensely loyal to. They consisted of a Dragon Lord and their entire extended family, which typically included a score of adults and hundreds of adolescents. In rare cases, those numbers could increase by an order of magnitude, and when coupled with a Lord whose urge was to gather not just gold but territory, the results could be catastrophic. “But we have to assume they have done so. We don’t have the ability to fight grown dragons; all we can do is avoid them.”

“Actually… we might.” Imlay answered carefully, gaining everygriffon’s immediate attention. “We have a class of weapon that could counter them.”

“You do?” the Prime Pike asked him. “With due respect, human, I understand from the Optio here that those tubes of yours are in fact miniature cannons, but such small balls as I assume they fire would be pinpricks against a full grown dragon. Even if you volley fire as an airship would its guns, I cannot see they would do much good.”

“It’s Corporal, Prime Pike. You guys are supposed to be big on protocol, so please show us proper respect.And with regards to our ‘cannons’, you’ll see what they can do if and when the time comes.” He saved Gilda the trouble of rebuking the Paladin leader. “But with apologies, our standing orders mean I am not allowed to discuss the capabilities of our weapons. I will simply say that yes, we might have an option to bring down a dragon. And a couple more to attack a grounded one.”

“You don’t have to explain it, but can you at least ready it?” Gilda asked him, fervently hoping he wasn’t making an empty boast. “If dragons strike, we’re not going to have much time to prepare.”

“Seconds at best if they swoop in; even just one of them could incinerate this entire clearing in mere moments,” Giraldi added. “So I suggest you ready such weapons before passing out your ‘radios’.”

“Point taken.” Imlay winced slightly. “Very well, I’ll make sure they’re at hand. But still, the more warning time we get, the better.” He saluted and walked off, leaving Gilda alone with Giraldi and the Prime Pike.

She addressed the latter first. “Are you healed?”

“I have been fully treated by the Decanus. I am fit for further action, as are my two comrades,” he replied, standing to attention. “We are currently patrolling the perimeter as per the Optio’s instructions, but we are at your command, Centurion.” He finished by saluting her.

Gilda returned the honor, noting there wasn’t a trace of his earlier arrogance, or any distaste in his manner. She wasn’t sure why that was, but she didn’t question it just then, knowing they needed to work together. “Continue to do so for now. But we need to start moving sooner rather than later. I want to break camp before evening, as soon as all the injured are mobile and Decanus Nydia has rested.

“But first we need to figure out where to go…” she mused as she began to pull her map free again, but she didn’t get a chance to study it before one of her sky griffon soldiers swooped in after answering a challenge from an airborne sentry.

“Sir! Beg to report!” the Spear said as he skidded to a stop before her, kicking up dust in her face. “I’ve been dispatched here by my Fuga leader. We found a rough road with an overturned ground carriage on it half a league from here. There are at least half a decade of pony and griffon bodies around it. Civilian bodies along with a couple Guardsgriffons, sir,” he said grimly.

“Are you certain they are dead?” Giraldi asked.

He nodded once, looking haunted. “Unquestionably, sir, as one of the Guardsgriffons was missing a wing and the pony we saw had its throat ripped open—by our Ancestors, there was blood everywhere!”

He shivered once, then clamped down hard on his fears, forcing himself to continue. “From the posture of the bodies and the fact they were clutching fired crossbows, we believe the two Auxilias were trying to defend the carriage. We didn’t go in closer because the area was in a small clearing an enemy force could be concealed in. We were fearful of ambush.”

“Good thinking. Now calm yourself, lad,” the Paladin leader spoke next in an almost fatherly tone. “Give a proper report. Could you determine from the scene what they were fighting? Were any dead enemy soldiers present? Was there any sign of a dragon or Magus attack?”

He shook his head sharply. “N-no, sir. No bodies except the ones we saw. There were also no scorch marks on the carriage or surrounding area from lightning, and no large burned areas from a dragon strike, either.”

“Odd,” Giraldi said. “So either they’re attacking with teeth and talons—which is not like them at all—or dragons did not do it.”

“There were no bite or talon marks that we could see. But we also couldn’t get close enough to make sure.” The Spear completed his report, then swallowed again. “By all our Ancestors sir, what’s happening?”

I don’t know…” Gilda said, careful not to show any worries even though she was now full of them. “But it’s past time we find out. As soon as we’re able, we’re making for that crash site! It’s roughly along the way to Tierra, and even if there aren’t survivors there, hopefully we can at least find some answers from the available evidence.”

“Centurion, I must point out that the risk of ambush applies to us as well,” Giraldi reminded her. “I understand and share your desire to find answers, but we must be cautious. We dare not travel for long out in the open. I suggest our priority be on finding defensible shelter and sanctuary. Preferably underground.”

“With respect, Optio, I disagree,” the Prime Pike replied with an experienced air. “We are flying blind right now. We need answers in order to determine the proper course of action, so our priority should be on gathering them. I’m certain we can keep ourselves safe with proper caution and tactics.”

“Right,” Gilda said, pulling her map out again, trying to order her severely jumbled thoughts. She had learned decade-sized tactics as a Decanus, and now she was left with what amounted to a force three decades strong, nearly half of whom were human Marines. By my Ancestors, what do I do? I’m not ready for this! part of her tried to protest, only to be quickly quashed by thoughts of making sure Chris, Tara and Marco all survived, to say nothing of the soldiers of her command who were now counting on her.

The Tribune said I earned my rank. Ancestors, please help me prove worthy of it! she silently prayed as she attempted to calm her fears and look at the situation dispassionately—no easy task given all that had happened just in the past few hours.

Remember your tactical training and start at the beginning. You know your desired end state—find answers and then find safety at Tierra. So break it down. What has to happen in what order?

Put that way, her mind began to piece together the steps that would lead there just as a freshly treated Fortrakt walked up, still grimacing slightly but promising he was fit for duty, flapping his wings and taking off into a hover to prove it.

She nodded in satisfaction, quickly catching him up. “Welcome back, Decurion. We were just discussing our next steps—it turns out there’s a crashed carriage with a slew of pony and griffon corpses around it not far from us. We want to investigate that first, but our ultimate objective is to reach the major Talon and Naval base at Tierra.

“Unfortunately, we can’t get there in one shot. Flying there is out, so we will travel by ground to the carriage crash site to gather intelligence, and then head for the nearest farming steadholt—this one to the northwest called 'Bale' seems our best bet—and hope they have supplies and defenders left. We can establish a proper defense there, tend any wounded we find and attempt to make contact by fast courier with Tierra.”

“We really can’t fly there?” Fortrakt asked; like any good sky griffon, he did not relish the idea of a long ground march when flying was so much quicker and safer given their maneuverability in the air.

“We really can’t, cub. It would mean leaving our human friends behind and inviting dragon or lightning attacks,” Giraldi replied instantly. “So I recommend traveling by ground beneath the smoke and tree canopy to mask our body heat, attempting to avoid contact as much as possible.”

“Agreed. We also leave no wounded behind; any dead bodies we find will not be burned despite doctrine or else we risk attracting the dragons,” Gilda added, and to her relief, nogriffon objected.

She then turned to the Paladin leader. “Prime Pike? You have the best soldiers we have left. So I ask that you and your remaining Paladins take the lead.”

He exchanged a look with his subordinates; starting with the same eagless who had insulted Gilda earlier over Marco and her rapid promotions. “With respect, sir, Paladins are strong soldiers but not effective scouts. However…” He glanced at the two eaglesses again, who each gave him a short nod. “Permission to speak with you privately near the woodline, sir?”

This time, it was her turn to exchange a quizzical glance with Giraldi and Fortrakt. “With apologies, Prime Pike, I don’t believe any of us should go off alone right now. It would be too easy for one or both of us to be picked off. So we must remain within sight of each other at all times.”

He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. “Very well, Centurion. Based on the uncertain foe we face, I cannot deny that is a sensible precaution. So be it. Normally I would never reveal this publicly, but…” He and his two subordinates pulled a set of medallions from their internal armor pouch and showed them to her. They looked to be made of gold and bore the Paladin crest, but when they ran their talons over it, the gold turned to black onyx and the Paladin shield into a single inscribed black feather.

Beaks fell open as everygriffon present instantly recognized it for what it was. “You mean… you’re all Ravens?” Fortrakt asked him in awe, to which the tiercel nodded once, then came to crisp attention.

“We are. Shadow Decurion Ebon Umbreon at your service, Centurion.” He bared his neck at and saluted her, to which a still-stunned Gilda could only return the honor slightly weakly. “Before you ask, we’ve been hiding in plain sight. Our orders since the Capricorn Conclave attack were to watch over the humans and ensure no harm came to them, from the Ibex or anycreature else.

“In this capacity, we were attached to the Paladin decade so we could keep watch over them in transit to Catlais. My sincerest apologies for slandering you and your human mate earlier, but it was a ruse to ensure no suspicion fell on us. For who would believe two insulting and abrasive Paladins were in fact Ravens?” he suggested with a smile.

“It worked,” Gilda confirmed wanly with another look at an equally surprised Giraldi, amazed and a little worried she’d been so easily fooled. “I honestly had no idea. You said Paladins aren’t scouts. But what about Ravens?” she then asked.

He smiled, as did his comrades. “Be assured that we are very good at reconnaissance. So in our true guise, we will take point,” he promised as he and his two remaining compatriots began to shrug out of their heavy green armor, revealing an odd layer of form-fitting fabric underneath that almost looked like very fine chainmail that had saved their lives from the lightning bolts; he then somehow triggered a spell that turned his fur and feathers from black to a dull gray, earning flinches from the griffons watching.

They next tossed some storage gems on the ground, which revealed them to be a band of blades and pouches they then slung and cinched in a diagonal loop around their barrels, and most ominously, an advanced model of repeating crossbow she’d never seen before. The other two previously disguised Paladins produced scimitars as well and slung them over the opposite shoulder to the weapons band, confirming to Gilda the rumor that the Ravens were masters of the old sword arts most of the Kingdom’s military no longer taught.

As she watched, Ebon Umbreon hefted his crossbow and slammed home a quiver drum, pumping the lever once to load it before putting it in a holster on his back. She didn’t know if it could match the likely firepower of the human cannons, but wielded by a well-trained soldier, it could certainly do a great deal of damage from the air.

Gilda hesitated before voicing her next thought; some of her old pride resurfacing. But she also realized that with the situation they found themselves in, and the newly revealed Ravens before her, things had just changed considerably.

“You are clearly a capable commander yourself given your true rank and station, Shadow Decurion. I told you before that I was in charge, but given my inexperience and the likelihood of this turning into a combat situation… I will surrender command of the escort force to you if you wish.” She felt that she had to make the offer, and though Fortrakt and Giraldi looked startled at the suggestion, they did not object.

The revealed Raven leader smiled but shook his head. “With apologies, Centurion, I cannot. I hold a lower rank than you, and the Ravens are not authorized to issue orders to any branch of the Kingdom military or security services without a command chain. That was a reform instituted long ago when the old Office of Owls was disbanded and our group was restored to its original purpose.”

“And that is…?” Fortrakt looked upon them in wonder.

“To serve the Gryphon Kingdom by dealing with those threats from the shadows that conventional forces cannot counter,” he recited easily, to smiles from the others as they pulled on special gauntlets and donned gray goggles that hid their eyes; Gilda realized that the dull gray shade of their altered coats meant they would be very hard to spot against the sky or any natural background.

“And in this case, serving the Kingdom means determining the means and manner of this new threat while seeing our guests to safety. To that end, we will scout the immediate area and investigate this mysterious carriage, then return to make our report.”

“Thank you, Shadow Decurion.” Gilda could only wonder again how she’d let the feathers be pulled so firmly over her eyes. “I will stay in command, but you will forgive me if I lean heavily on your expertise and experience.”

He smiled. “Wise is the warrior who recognizes her own inexperience, for that means she is able to learn and grow into her post,” he told her. “Take it from a longtime agent of shadow that you will do fine, Centurion—I do not just say this; that same ‘expertise and experience’ means I can recognize griffons like you who have the makings of good leaders. Our place is out there. But yours is right here.”

He laid a paw on her chest, ignoring the wide eyes of other griffons on them, all whispering excitedly to themselves while the humans looked merely befuddled at their altered appearance.

“Know that we will provide early warning of any hostile or friendly forces, and attempt to whittle the former down if possible. As you do not know our signals, we will keep this simple: If you see a blue flare, that means a hostile force is inbound from the flare’s location. A green flare means to go immediately in that direction. And if you see a red one, hide. For dragons are on their way…”

20: The Cloven of the Sun

Author's Note

For the milestone 20th chapter of Feathered Hearts, it’s battle time, folks! :rainbowdetermined2: And it deserves an extra long entry to describe both the first fight and the leadup to it. Maybe even a little mood music to help set the scene:

Get Ready To Fight ~ 1-Hour Epic Battle & Workout Mix

It was all hands on deck for this one, as I needed to get everything perfect, or at least as close as I could. That means this chapter was preread by AJ_Aficionado, Silverblade5, Silentwoodfire, ASF and brand new prereader Wechsel. The last three have military experience, so their advice and expertise was both needed and welcome. Needless to say, thank you for your service, guys. 🇺🇸

Note that there are by my count three PG-13 moments in here as Marco tries to lighten the mood a bit and you learn probably a bit more than you’d like about one of the Marines; you’ll also get a sudden surprise flash of memory regarding what happened to Gilda the night of the Cider. But no apologies for any of it, and note also that this chapter will have a measure of gore and battle carnage by definition. But aside from that, you should be good to go.

And as always, I give you the standard boilerplate: This chapter is a heavily rewritten version of the second half of Feathered Heart: Chapter 6, borrowing some chunks of dialog and detail modified to accommodate the updated story. Regardless, you are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original if you haven’t already, as it inspired many of my own works.

Nothing left to say now, except... enjoy!

—Firesight

20: The Cloven of the Sun

Two hours later, evening was approaching as the Ravens remained out on reconnaissance, having not taken a human radio with them when they found its range too limited beneath the area enchantment to be useful. While they were gone, her perimeter forces repeatedly noted movement in the underbrush of the woods, but neither her soldiers nor the human Marines could get ‘eyes on’ them in the words of the latter.

“We’re being watched,” Giraldi said with certainty as his sharp harrier eyes scanned the scrub brush. “The question is, by whom, and why have they not yet attacked?”

“Maybe our position’s too strong,” she suggested hopefully. “I’d be tempted to stay put except for our lack of supplies. We’ve only got a day’s worth of rations unless we could kill a flying boar or something. The problem there is, the humans would have to cook it, and we don’t dare set fires with dragons around.”

“We’re okay on rations, sir,” Imlay’s voice crackled over the radio. “We’ve got plenty. Enough to share, though I don’t know how well you’d like our stuff.”

Gilda grimaced, having seen—and smelled—some of the odd forms of paste they were eating out of the strange shiny bags they had; whatever it was, it was neither appetizing nor anything she wanted to try except out of desperation. “We’ll hope it doesn’t come to that, Corporal.”

“Then without even trying them, you’ve learned to dislike our MREs as much as us, sir,” the wry reply came back.

Giraldi smiled, but then turned serious again. “It just seems odd, sir. If our enemies know about us, then they could have called in the dragons at any time. And yet, they have not.” His words sent a fresh shiver through her. “I am having a very hard time making sense of our situation, or the actions of our apparent foe.”

Her ‘radio’ then crackled to life again. “Centurion? We’ve got more movement on the perimeter,” Imlay reported quietly.

“Confirmed,” Fortrakt’s low voice came through next from where he was patrolling with a few soldiers low over the clearing, keeping below the level of the tree canopy. “There’s something big moving in the tall grasses towards our positions. Whatever they are, they’re being careful to stay out of sight.”

“Do you smell anything?” she asked next.

“No sir,” he replied. “They’re downwind of us, unless you want me to try getting behind them. That would mean I’d have to get pretty close.”

“Don’t,” she immediately said. “You’d be too easy to ambush. But it would seem our foe is intelligent if they know to keep us upwind.”

“Intelligent or instinctive. It could be grass lions,” Giraldi suggested. “They’ve been known to do it.”

“Grass lions?” Imlay asked quietly; she couldn’t hear any other voices on the ‘frequency’, but she knew his squad was listening in.

“Native predators of the South region,” Gilda explained. “Not really lions, and not intelligent, before you ask. They’re basically big cats with enormous canines.”

“Sir, I doubt it would be grass lions,” Fortrakt replied from above her. “We can see at least three sources of movement through the brush, and—”

“And grass lions are solitary. They hunt alone,” Gilda completed the thought with a frown. “Okay, it doesn’t matter. We know that there’s something out there, so let’s be prepared for hostiles. What matters right now is that we have to get out of here and make for Tierra via the steadholdt. And sooner rather than later.”

Imlay nodded again. “Understood, sir. What’s the plan?”

Gilda pondered it for a moment. “We wait for our Raven friends to return and receive their report. Depending on what they found, we either head for the ground carriage first, or march directly for the steadholt of Bale before evening light fades,” she said. “It should take about an hour or so to make it to the latter. Ninety minutes if we detour.”

“Decanus Nydia is still resting,” Giraldi reminded her.

“Actually… no, she’s not.” Nydia broke into the conversation, her voice a bit bleary as she approached the group. “I might like some more sleep, but I’m sufficiently recharged and ready for further action now. I could use some food and water, though,” she requested with a salute and bared throat.

Gilda returned the honor instantly. “Welcome back, Decanus. Tara? Chris? Bring her a meal and a canteen,” Gilda instructed over her shoulder to them, to which they nodded and left, heading over to the intact coach they’d been storing their supplies in. They’d been mostly keeping to themselves and mildly grumbling at their earlier treatment until Giraldi reminded them that by doing supply runs, they were keeping soldiers on the front line and strengthening the defense.

“But we want to be on the front line too…” Marco muttered at one point, but Gilda didn’t reply, finding the idea ridiculous given they had no armor, and were untrained in both human and griffon weapons.

There’s brave, and then there’s just stupid, Marco… she sighed, finding his desire to help endearing but his inability to see that he wasn’t fit for this kind of fight infuriating.

“We should eat too, Centurion,” Giraldi told her from her side. “Our soldiers are fed, as are the Marines out of those strange pouches they had. If we’re going to be moving soon, we don’t know when we’ll get the chance again.”

“Right,” she agreed. “Marco?”

He got up with a grin. “There’s no fried chicken or meat stew on the menu, but… coming up, girlfriend,” he said with a wink, earning a half-hearted glower and a grin from Giraldi. “And remember that Nydia said you needed more protein? Well, you know where to get it!” He motioned down his body and gave the same lewd buck of his hips he’d made towards Dana his first day in Arnau, causing her to flush and Giraldi to chortle.

“Dude. Is Flip-boy actually flirting with her?” Jamal asked over the radio, which Gilda had quickly learned had allowed for large-scale conversations instead of only one-on-one like their gems. “Did he just ask her for a blowjob?”

“He did, and that means he’s got bigger balls than you, Jamal,” Henderson’s amused voice came next, followed by a series of snickers.

“Yeah, ‘cause I’d like to keep mine intact!” the reply came back, along with human laughter. “I’m not sticking my dick in a beak!”

“Why not? I know for a fact you’ve already had it in far worse things than that!” Brennan teased next. “Remember that brothel girl in Bangkok?”

“Of course I do—she gave me the fucking clap!” he said in disgust. “Still worth it, though…”

“Cut the phone sex, all of you,” Imlay said tersely. “We’ve got movement again. It’s starting to get darker, so mount blacklights and sweep the area. Report any contacts immediately, but nobody and I mean nobody is to fire without a positive ID and a hostile act!” he warned them all.

A series of acknowledgments came back, followed by declarations that there were no magical shrouds that their mysterious violet lights could detect as they swept the brush and trees with their odd beams.

“If they haven’t attacked yet, it may only be because they lack numbers,” Giraldi suggested. “But that may change the longer we stay. And with respect, sir, I do not relish the idea of spending the night in this depression and allowing them to concentrate against us. I would also remind you that our human friends lack good night vision.”

Gilda shook her head as Marco returned with their meals, delivering them with an exaggerated flourish like she was royalty. “What did I tell you about bowing to me?” she reminded him even as she found she couldn’t be mad at him—he was just trying to keep things light, after all. “Just tell Chris and Tara to be ready to move, Marco. Our wounded are fit for duty again, so we’ll be leaving as soon as the Ravens return.”

“Thanks for letting us know, “ Marco acknowledged with a nod as he went off to inform them, leaving her and Giraldi alone.

They continued to discuss tactics as they ate a standard Kingdom military ration, consisting of dried meats and fruits accompanied by a stiff scone. They washed it all down with canteen water into which they mixed a small measure of overly-syrupy switchel; the latter was sickly-sweet but just a small amount of it could rapidly replenish energy.

“The Ravens are due back soon. Regardless of what they report, I need a few sky griffons in the air to make sure no one is creeping towards us. When we move out, put our earth griffons—yourself included—out on the flanks in two Fugas with the Marines supporting them,” she ordered Giraldi.

“By your command,” he said with a salute as they finished their food. Gilda swore she barely blinked when suddenly the three Ravens were in front of her.

Despite her best efforts, she wasn’t able to stifle a flinch—as there’d been no challenge, they’d gotten through her sentries unseen! “Centurion! Beg to report.” Ebon Umbreon saluted her.

“Proceed,” she said slightly wanly as she thumped her chest.

“We found two nearby forest paths and the quickest route out of the woods to the main roads, though our recommendation would be to avoid them in favor of the side ones for now. We saw nothing we could identify as enemy soldiers and encountered no further magical traps we could detect—and believe me when I say our equipment enables us to reliably detect them from extended range.”

“I’m sure they do. And the overturned coach?” she prompted, wondering if Raven ‘equipment’ was their own or supplied by the Council of Crows.

“When we reached it, we found four dead griffons, all low-ranked Guard soldiers, as well as three ponies inside and around it. There was no indication of who killed them, as we found no blood or bodies from the attackers. All we can say for certain is that three Caleponians and their escort were slaughtered brutally, cut down by blades without any reason or mercy—even their young foal.” He bowed his head. “There is, however, some good news.”

“And that is…?” She couldn’t even begin to imagine what good news could come out of such an awful situation.

In response, he tossed her an orange, which she caught in a single set of talons. “It was a produce cart. And it’s still loaded with fruit and fresh bread. We can use it to replenish our supplies. Perhaps we could even take it with us, as it requires only minor repairs and would take just a single earth griffon to pull.”

“That is good news,” Gilda granted, though it certainly didn’t feel good given the loss of life and the sheer savagery involved. And why does something about that report seem off…? She couldn’t immediately put her wing on it. “That’s reason enough to stop there. If we can’t repair it quickly, we’ll load up what we can. And you clearly weren’t attacked yourselves?” she had to ask, only to receive a shake of the head.

“No, sir. But there’s something strange…” he said with a glance at his still-goggled comrades, their eyes unreadable. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s almost no animal sounds present. It’s a late summer evening, and yet there’s not a noise to be heard. Neither birds, nor frogs, nor crickets.”

That gave both Gilda and Giraldi pause. She strained her hidden ears, only to quickly realize the Shadow Decurion was correct—that there was little animal noise to be heard on a warm summer night was very odd, if not outright ominous.

“You’re right. Not even the crows are cawing,” the Optio stated. “And they normally never shut up. That can only mean…” he trailed off as Marco returned.

“Wow. So you guys are Ravens?” He looked them over from head to toe as behind him, Chris looked slightly freaked to see them. “We’ve heard about you. So you’re basically griffon ninjas?”

The three glanced at each other, then back at him; at least one looked annoyed, though it was hard to tell beneath her dull grey coat and goggles. “Greetings, Marco Lakan. We are a millennium-old secret warrior society in service to the Gryphon Kingdom. I know not where you learned that term, but you will forgive us if we greatly prefer not to be associated with the ancient equine assassin clans of the east,” Ebon Umbreon said politely but pointedly.

“Their services are for sale. Ours are not,” the eagless who had insulted Gilda while in the guise of a Paladin added, her beak tight.

“Oh!” Marco looked chagrined, and at a warning glare from Gilda, he stepped back. “Sorry, uh, not trying to offend.”

“Forgive him. Take it from me that he never tries, but he manages anyway,” Gilda said dryly.

“Quite all right. For the record, our assignment was to protect you and all humans after the Ibex attack, Mister Lakan. And so they remain, despite what your frightened friend over there may think,” the Shadow Decurion nodded over to Chris. “Though from what we have learned, it would seem your fellow human ‘Marines’ need little protection.”

“Neither do we, if they’d just—” he began to say, only to fall silent again. “Never mind. Good to meet you. Uh, carry on.” He walked off slightly stiffly.

“Hard though it is to believe, he grows on you. They all do.” Giraldi noted somewhat wryly after he’d reunited with his friends. “And properly trained, take it from me that they can defeat us in single combat.”

“Be that as it may, Marco Lakan is hiding something,” the female said with certainty, leaving Gilda wondering what her name was and why the third member of their group never spoke. “All three of them are.”

“What makes you say that?” Gilda asked, exchanging a quizzical look with Giraldi.

“Experience,” the Decurion replied. “He’s angry and resentful about being left defenseless when he believes he can fight. And judging by the way the female keeps motioning to her pack slung over her shoulders, there’s something in it of great interest to them. Something they very much want to pull out.”

“Personal weapons would be my guess,” the first Raven eagless added to a nod from her silent sister. “But we will leave that question for you to deal with, Centurion. Orders?”

Personal weapons…? Gilda pondered the conclusion and found that it fit. It makes sense, if they said before they’d be in big trouble if they were revealed. I can’t imagine they would have been allowed to bring their own arms. Are the Ravens right and that’s what they were hiding all this time…?

She couldn’t help but wonder what their weapons would be, and how they would differ from those of the Marines. But nor could she consider the question just then. “This place has been cozy, but it’s time to leave it,” she told them. “We’ll stop for supplies at the cart, then make for the Steadholdt of Bale and attempt to arrive before nightfall. We’ll set our defense there while we dispatch fast flyers to Tierra requesting help. You said you knew the safe routes there? Guide us.”

“‘Safe’ is a relative term out here, but by your command, Centurion.” Ebon Umbreon bared his throat and saluted. “Just keep your weapons at the ready and the human civilians at the center of your protective ring. We are being watched, and I cannot fathom that our foe would not attempt to attack us along the way. If it were me, I would strike at a convenient chokepoint.”

“As would I,” Giraldi said. “I have played these games with Ibexian irregulars on the border with the Ascendency before, and this feels uncomfortably similar. They tended to target commanders first, so I recommend that we be separated so we cannot both be taken out at once. I will travel at the fore of our formation, while you walk further back with the main body. Keep the human Marines as the first line of defense to the flanks and rear, and the earth griffons, the second. The Ravens will cover the front with their repeaters, which gives them the striking power of an entire Turma.”

“Makes sense. What about our sky griffon soldiers and Fortrakt?” she prompted. “If we’re killed, he’s next in command.”

“With due respect to him, he is not ready for this level of leadership,” Giraldi replied. “But based on what I’ve seen today, he keeps his head about him in a crisis and can be trusted with a decade or two. Put him in charge of our aerial element and have him fly top cover with emphasis to watch for movement. Instruct him to stay below the level of the area enchantment and immediately reinforce any threatened sector. Perhaps Decanus Nydia has some spellwork that can help hide him and his force?”

“Good thinking,” Gilda agreed. “And speaking of the Decanus, I’ll put her in the center of our march formation with the human civilians. She’s our most valuable asset right now and we need to protect her at all costs.”

“A wise precaution. And superb advice, Optio Galen Giraldi,” the Decurion approved with a bared throat. “Your dossier said you were a skilled and able soldier, only held back from an officer rank for embarrassing a Senator’s son. I see now that appraisal was correct. Pity, though—I would have loved to have tested you in single combat during our promised duel. Don’t worry; we would have let you and the Centurion win,” he finished with a wink before they spread wings and took flight, leaving Gilda and Giraldi staring after them as they disappeared into the branches ahead.

Dossier… a wan Gilda couldn’t help but wonder again how she’d ended up in the middle of all this intrigue. If they were keeping tabs on Giraldi, does that also mean they have a dossier on ME?

It took less than a minute to pass word; five minutes more to get organized for movement and assign both human and griffon soldiers where they needed to be. Imlay wasn’t entirely happy about being asked to guard the flanks and rear, but he at least recognized that the Ravens were the best scouts they had and could cover the fore almost entirely by themselves. Once their role and abilities were described to him, that was.

“Is this place feudal Japan or ancient Rome?” he muttered to himself at one point. “Fine, I can’t say I entirely trust the idea of some griffon spooks taking point, but I’ll grant they’re probably the best for the job.”

“Spooks?” Gilda repeated.

“They’re—never mind. We’ll be ready to move in five, sir,” he promised with a salute. “I’ll put one fire team on both flanks and the third on the rear. Fill in the gaps with your earth griffons, and make sure Gletscher up there calls it in immediately if he sees an attack brewing.”

“That’s Decurion Gletscher, Corporal,” she reminded him with a glance over to where Fortrakt was organizing his flyers. “You wanted proper respect for your rank, so be sure you show it in return.”

“Yes, sir!” he instantly stiffened and saluted again. “Sorry, we Marines tend to be a bit more informal than Griffon soldiers.”

“I’ve noticed. But this is not the time. Be ready to move forward on my order,” she said somewhat shortly as she returned the honor.

“Wilco,” he replied then blinked at her bemused look. “Sorry, that’s short for ‘will comply’.”

“I’ll try and remember that,” she said, wondering again as they parted if the humans would ever run out of new terms to teach her.

She found Chris, Tara and Marco next, explaining to them directly what was happening and what was required of them. “You three stay in the center of the formation with Raleigh, under the protection of Decanus Nydia,” she told them. “If anything happens, stay within her protective bubble—she can cast shield spells—and obey any orders given you by me, Giraldi, or even Fortrakt if he flies by.”

“Fine,” Marco said sullenly. “What about Raleigh? He’s still moaning about his leg.”

“Nydia told him he could walk now, but he doesn’t believe her. He’s afraid to try.” Tara rolled her eyes.

“Because you can’t heal a broken leg in an hour!” Raleigh complained from where he was still lying down with the leg splinted. “It’s still sore, too!”

“As you can hear, he’s done nothing but whine. I don’t suppose Nydia could slap a soundproofing spell over his mouth?” Marco said loudly enough for the Ambassador’s aide to hear, earning a glare.

“Or better yet, why not just leave him behind? He’s dead weight anyway,” Chris suggested in contempt with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Hey!”

“Tempting,” Gilda admitted under her breath as she clenched her beak, deciding that the portly human probably wouldn’t be able to keep up with a hard march anyway. “I’ll have Giraldi detail an earth griffon to carry you, Mister Raleigh.”

“Thank you,” he said somewhat grudgingly, earning a curt nod from Gilda before she turned her attention back to the three civilians.

“We’ll be ready to move—and before you ask, we should be able to keep up just fine thanks to our workouts with Sergeant Reyes. Is there anything else?” Tara then asked.

“Yes,” Gilda said in a serious tone, then raised her eyes to theirs. “Answer me honestly—are you three carrying weapons? The Ravens believe you are.”

From the way they froze at her question, she knew instantly that they were.

“Well, that is, uh—” Marco stammered, while Chris’s pale cheeks turned a more ruddy hue.

“Your own personal cannons?” she then guessed, watching their reactions carefully.

“Yes,” her human mate finally admitted in defeat after a glance at Chris and Tara. “And you’ll forgive us if we really don’t want to be without them out here.”

“Neither would I. Then despite what the Corporal claimed, do you know how to use them?” she then asked, to which they all nodded sharply.

“Without going into too many specifics, we’ve had plenty of time on the range, and even some tactical training,” Chris assured her.

“Then by my order, arm yourselves!” she instructed them to a series of dropped jaws. “At this point, I don’t know what we’re up against, but I won’t leave any of you helpless to face it.”

They stared at her stunned, then smiled. “Sir, yes sir!” Marco sketched her a salute.

“You have weapons?” Raleigh overheard them. “Corporal!” he shouted for Imlay.

“Be quiet!” he was promptly shushed by Chief Jacobs.

“Reporting, sir. Please don’t yell. What’s the problem?” Imlay asked as he walked up.

“They just admitted they have weapons!” Raleigh accused. “Confiscate them immediately!”

“Oh?” he asked them, his eyes narrowing. “What weapons?”

“These,” Tara said as she passed out some of what looked like storage gems from her backpack. They activated them and tossed them on the ground to reveal a series of varied black tubes and smaller L-shaped sidearms along with several metal boxes and stacks of metallic rectangles. There were even some circular discs that looked close in appearance to repeating crossbow quiver drums; the cache was completed by several pairs of human boots and a folded pile of splotchy green garments in a different pattern from the Marines. “We’ve had them ever since we came here.”

“Put them back in their storage gems and hand them over,” Imlay immediately ordered, his expression turning angry. “I’ll take them now.”

“No, you will not,” Gilda told him in no uncertain terms before Chris, Tara or Marco could, stepping between them. “They say they know how to use them, and I trust them. I will not have them unarmed out here.”

Imlay looked distinctly unhappy, but backed off from her. “Ma’—er, sir, with all due respect, I am not comfortable with armed civilians around us who lack our training and could be trigger-happy. Especially not at our backs.”

“And we weren’t comfortable with the chance we’d be abandoned in hostile territory by a Kabul-style bug-out, Corporal, leaving us at the not-so-tender mercies of the locals.” A glaring Tara all but dared him to say something in response; her remark earned a wince from the normally stoic Corporal. “So let me be equally clear: regardless of the Centurion’s orders, they’re ours and you’re not taking them.”

“Yes you are!” Raleigh said more forcefully. “Disarm them now!”

“You are not in command here, Mister Raleigh!” Gilda rounded on him hard as Chief Jacobs stayed carefully silent. “I am. And my order is for them to be armed and ready for whatever awaits us.”

“I’ll file a protest!” Raleigh warned as the three civilians didn’t go for their guns first, but instead, the stack of clothing; as she watched, Chris and Marco removed their shirts and pants to replace them with thick splotchy green-patterned garments not unlike those of the Marines, possessing large pockets and thick belt loops.

“Oh, noes! A protest.” Tara rolled her eyes just after Gilda did, earning a series of double-takes from the Marines as she, too, pulled off her shorts to replace them with long green pants, briefly showing off her small white undergarment. “Whatever will we do?”

“I don’t know… send back a strongly worded letter? Or better yet, we’ll just have to start a twitter tag trending to fight back!” Chris suggested irritably as he finished donning his green garments and then pulled on a thick belt to which he attached several pouches with wider but shorter rectangles than the Marines had. “How about hashtag-Raleigh-is-a-fat-and-useless-asshole?”

“How dare you!” Raleigh’s pale cheeks went red.

“Fuck off, Raleigh. And if you’re worried about our training, Imlay, we’ve had plenty of range time with these. We’ve fought in paintball and pellet leagues. We even took a three-day tactical course from a local club, learning room-clearing and urban combat.” Chris stepped between them quickly, stopping Tara from getting in his face.

“Three days does not teach proper tactics!” Imlay replied impatiently. “Playing at being weekend warriors does not make you the real thing! You three are in way over your heads, and I have my orders. Now hand them over!” he demanded again.

“Not just no, but hell no!” Marco replied vehemently as he laced up a pair of boots.

Imlay stared at them. “Why are you three being so unreasonable?”

“Unreasonable?” they chorused before Chris continued, pulling on what appeared to be a form of light armor over his torso. “At being disarmed in the middle of a fucking war zone?”

“You don’t know that’s what it—”

“Oh, please,” Tara cut him off with a disgusted air as she next tugged off her top before the staring Marines, her mammaries only covered by a form-fitting black undergarment before she pulled on a thick short-sleeve splotchy green shirt identical in pattern to her pants. “We know we were shot down, we know there are dragons about, and we also heard about the dead griffons and ponies around that carriage crash, all murdered! We know something very bad is happening, so don’t even try to tell us that!”

“We’ll protect you,” the Marine Corporal promised. “It’s our duty as Marines.”

“Oh, really? And if they order you to leave us behind again, what then?” Marco challenged, causing Imlay to look away for a moment.

“This is the Gryphon Kingdom, not Kabul,” he said through tight lips.

“You’ll forgive us if we don’t find that very reassuring. Especially with idiots like Moran or Goldberg in charge,” Tara finished with a flourish as she bunched up the base of her long golden mane into a bun and tied it off with some kind of flexible band, then pinned it up and out of the way before she pulled on what looked like a pony ballcap facing backwards to hold her hair in place.

“The griffons don’t let others fight their battles for them, and neither will we. So bottom line, Corporal—unless you’re willing to shoot us, we’re not giving these up. You can have our guns over our dead bodies,” Chris told him.

“Molon labe,” Marco added in an unknown language as he finished dressing by donning a wide brimmed hat in the same splotchy patterns as the rest of his new outfit, which she guessed was meant to camouflage them against forest backgrounds.

“Molon nothing! I’m more worried about it being our dead bodies if you try to get in a firefight!” Imlay protested as Tara crouched down to remove her sandals and pull on a pair of socks followed by heavy boots fitted for her. “You don’t know our tactics and you don’t know how to fight alongside us! Now for the last time, give your guns to me!”

“That will do!” Gilda told him as she sensed Tara about to snarl again, feeling as protective of her as she did Marco. She had no idea what they were arguing about, but whatever this ‘Afghanistan’ was they kept discussing, it had apparently ended very badly. “I’m sorry, Corporal, but your orders do not override mine. I am the commander of the escort mission, responsible for the safety of your civilians and my decision is final—they will be armed! You don’t have to like it, but you do have to abide by it.”

For the first time since she had met him, Imlay looked flustered. “Sir, please understand that they’re not trained for combat and could potentially endanger us. Or you.”

“If you have a problem with it, then take it up with your brass,” Marco told him defiantly as he hefted his weapon to move it away from Imlay; it looked almost exactly like the Marine tubes except it had a more grayish-blue hue. “Because after what happened in Afghanistan, we know not to trust them—or even you guys—to protect us now,” he proclaimed with a hard glare at Raleigh.

Imlay stared at him. “I was at that shitshow, and we were just as upset at our orders as you! So you’re gonna seriously hold that against me?”

“No. We’re just not going to allow you to disarm us after we saw what happened there. In any event, we’re not neophytes, and we’re not going to accidentally shoot you, Corporal,” Tara informed him as she stood back up and buckled on her own upper body armor, which like the others didn’t appear to be made of metal but something very heavy and solid. Now fully dressed for battle, she hefted a much thicker tube that looked similar but not identical to the one Gilda had seen Doc Cullen wield, slinging it over her back.

“In my case, I’ve known how to use a shotgun forever—my Dad taught me to fire them when I was eight! As for this one, I got it as soon as I could legally buy it, and I’ve pulled it out more than once to deal with unruly patrons at a dive bar I once worked at. Even made one guy piss his pants.”

She grinned unpleasantly as she then opened one of the metal boxes to begin loading it with what looked like large colored cylinders, slipping them into a hidden compartment beneath the tube before she then added them to what looked like a series of slots meant to hold them on the sling.

“I know that model—it’s a twelve-gauge Benelli M1014, right? Not bad, if a little light on ammo capacity. You any good with it?” Doc Cullen’s counterpart, Chief Jacobs, asked; he wasn’t armed with one himself, instead possessing one of the standard black Marine tubes.

Tara grinned again. “To borrow a phrase, Chief—I’m not just good with it, but I could do fucking surgery with it. I’ve gone skeet shooting with this thing and I hardly ever miss. I’ve got rifled slugs for distance shots and triple-aught buck for close-in work. I can even hit moving airborne targets without a problem. Bottom line—anything that comes close to me or my friends is dead.”

“Wow, look at that…” one of Imlay’s Marines walked over, staring at Marco’s personal cannon. “Is that a custom AR?” he pointed at the dark grey tube that looked a little different in layout from the marine cannons.

“A-R?” Gilda repeated, her mind awhirl with all the new information she was gaining on their weapons. She’d never remember it all, but it was clear they were far more complicated and involved than she’d ever have thought handheld cannons to be. Shotgun… twelve-gauge… skeet… AR…

“AR-15, also known as the Armalite model 15. Basically the civvie—I mean, civilian version of the Marine M-4 that Imlay and the Chief here are holding,” he explained, causing Gilda’s head to spin at the idea that they had civilian cannons that appeared to be on par with their military ones.

“And yes, it’s custom! I picked out the parts and even drilled out the lower myself,” Marco added with a grin as he pulled on what looked to be his own chest armor not too dissimilar from the Marines, which was already loaded with what she now knew to be their rectangular cannon quivers in the pouches. “And better yet, my little Armalite’s equipped with night sights, so I can shoot in the dark. Same with this 5th-gen Glock-17.”

He presented another L-shape weapon of a slightly different shape from the Marine ones, which appeared to have additional attachments on it both above and below the tube. “If you’re interested, here’s what I’m loaded with.”

To Gilda’s surprise, he clicked a button and slid something out of the grip. He then tossed it to the Marine; for the first time she got a glimpse inside it and saw what looked like small gold-hued metal cylinders with a slightly mashed head of copper color.

Then… those smaller cannons have internal quivers TOO! She felt faint for a moment as she kept having to up her estimates of the potential power of human weaponry.

“Hollow points? Nice,” the Marine said as he somehow extracted a single cylinder and inspected it closely before putting it back in. “That’s actually better than our FMJ ammo for anti-personnel effects—if you can get around armor, that is.”

“Yep. And no problem—got some good-quality armor-piercers, too,” Marco grinned, patting one of his smaller pockets, which appeared to be loaded with at least two spare quivers marked with green strips. “Same for my five-five-six rounds. Trust me, I’m loaded for bear.”

“Hey, girl, you got a 1911!” Henderson noticed next, pointing at a larger L-shaped item with a big barrel and some stylized swirls on the metal—her fire team had been the reserve force and been kept nearby instead of on the perimeter. “That’s a fine piece of military history. I approve.”

“Thanks. It was my Granddad’s,” Tara said wistfully as she pulled on a thick belt and holstered it at her right side. “I had it refurbished with some surface work and new pistol grips, but the rest is original. It saw action at Iwo Jima and Okinawa in World War Two.”

“Holy fuck, dude, that’s a Mosin-Nagant!” Another of Henderson’s marines pointed down at a tube that had not metal but wood wrapped around it. “The classic Russian rifle! Where’d you get it?”

“From an online auction,” a grinning Chris said as he pulled out a smaller pistol and holstered it at his left hip. “It’s not even close to the oldest or most collectable version out there, but it’s certified as an M1891/30 original. Wood was a bit rough, but I refurbished it and mounted a modern scope, and it fires just fine. And yeah, I got plenty of ammo—I bought a slew of 7.62x54r stripper clips for it. Surplus Soviet-era ammo from the old Eastern Bloc before you ask.”

“Dude, that stuff’s caustic,” the fourth Marine of Henderson’s fire team noted. “It’ll eat the barrel away.”

“Oh, I know, but it’s also very reliable. It works great, but when I use it, I gotta immediately clean the barrel with ammonia afterwards, so the Nagant isn't my first choice. This is.” He slung a larger grey-hued tube.

“A Ruger Hawkeye!” Henderson recognized appreciatively. “Excellent distance weapon. I have a friend who uses one for hunting. What’s it chambered in?”

“Six-point-five Creedmoor,” Chris answered slightly nonsensically, causing Gilda’s head to spin at all the jargon she was being fed; she couldn’t help but exchange a confused glance with a nearby and equally befuddled Nydia. “Mostly because it was the only ammo available at the time I bought it.”

“Yeah, we heard about all the civvie ammo shortages during the pandemic. You a good shot with it? And the Nagant?” the female Marine asked next.

Chris grinned broadly. “I’ve practiced on both enough. I can shatter a dish with each at five hundred yards,” he boasted, causing Gilda’s eyes to go wide—she knew what a ‘yard’ was from her time in Equestria, and if it was anything like the pony measure of distance…

Then they can FAR outrange our weapons! she realized with a sinking heart.

“He can,” Tara confirmed as Gilda had to sit down on her haunches heavily. “He’s an excellent shot. I’m lucky to score a hit with it at half that.”

Henderson grinned. “Not bad for a civvie, but if you want to qualify as a sniper in the Corps, we’ll need to get you up to at least eight hundred yards and preferably a thousand. When we get some time, I’ll train you, Mister McLain,” she promised. “Or maybe I just want the chance to fire your Nagant myself! So what’s your sidearm?”

“Ruger American Compact,” Chris replied as he drew it from its holster, leaving Gilda completely lost. “Nine-mil. It was my daily carry back home—between that and my Hawkeye rifle, I’m a bit of a Ruger fiend,” he admitted as he slammed a small quiver home into the base with a surprisingly slick and satisfying metallic click, following that up with a ratcheting motion Gilda was starting to understand was the means to load the cannonballs. Or was that what they were, given the strange cylindrical shape they had?

“Haven’t seen that one before. What’s the capacity?” Henderson followed up as he replaced it on his hip.

“Twelve rounds standard, or seventeen with an extended mag. And yeah, I practiced with it weekly thanks to the overabundance of bums and junkies around the college I taught at. Trust me, I know how to use it.” He directed the last remark at Imlay, who looked decidedly angry and unhappy at the eagerness of his comrades. “Hey, Tara? Take my Mosin-Nagant. Your shotgun’s good for up close, but given how we should be leaving the woods later, I think we need more distance weapons. You may not be as good as me with it, but you’re good enough.”

“I was gonna use my rifled slugs, but fine. I’ll load with triple-aught instead—that should take down anything short of a charging rhino,” she said with a shrug, then frowned. “Or on second thought, Chris? Give me the Hawkeye instead.”

“You sure?” Chris asked in surprise. “It’s a bit heavier.”

“Yeah, but those stripper clips you use to load that old Russian rifle give me fits. You can do it quickly, but I can’t. At least with your Hawkeye, I can just slap a new mag in.”

“You got it, girl.” He passed his longer tube and metal rectangles to her as he started filling his pouches with a series of what looked like sharp pointed darts sitting atop shiny gold-hued cylinders, their backs somehow attached to a thin metal piece. She wasn’t sure what they were for until Chris yanked something back to open the top of the weapon, positioned them over the opening and pushed down hard, causing all five cylinders to neatly slide inside, leaving only the thin metal rail behind.

“Slick, buddy. That’s probably the most powerful gun here, but five rounds at a time ain’t gonna last you very long. You’re gonna have to reload it rapidly in a fight,” One of Henderson’s Marines pointed out.

“Don’t worry; I’ve practiced,” Chris promised. “I’ve used this in speed shooting competitions. I can reload it in three seconds if I have to.”

“Actually, when we timed you, you averaged three-point-eight seconds to reload,” Marco said with a smirk. “Still, that’s a lot better than me or Tara could do with it. I know you like to kill from distance. But me? I like it up close and personal,” Marco said with a toothy grin as he hefted and slung his “A-R”, then affixed the blade that Fortrakt had given him to his vest. “Oh, and you can take your combat knife back, Corporal. I’ve got a better one.”

“All right, enough!” the Marine Corporal raised his voice for one of the few times as he snatched the blade back from Marco. “This is a combat march, not a fucking gun show! So stop gawking and get your team into position, Henderson! We’re oscar-mike in five, and you’re bringing up the rear with two of the Centurion’s soldiers! And as for you three…”

He turned his glare on Chris, Tara and Marco next. “You’re right; I can’t make you give those up, but you better understand this: You are responsible for every shot you take, and I will be very displeased if we come under friendly fire,” he warned them. “So be sure you know exactly what you’re shooting at, or you answer not to Raleigh, but all of us.”

“Noted,” an unrepentant but fully redressed Tara said as she made a ratcheting motion on her large ‘pistol’ once before holstering it, suddenly looking far more a warrior than she ever had before. “Now if you’re through threatening us, Corporal, can we please get moving? It’s now evening, and even armed, I really don’t like the idea of being caught out in these woods at night…”

To Gilda’s mild frustration, it took around eight minutes before everycreature was set and they could start marching.

Upon seeing additional movement behind them, Gilda approved Imlay’s suggestion of changing the formation slightly, using his entire squad to cover the rear while the shield-equipped earth griffons watched over the flanks. The Ravens took point and scouted carefully while Fortrakt flew top cover very low over the formation, with orders to stay in sight and not fly above the treeline.

Though she didn’t think it was right for her not to be at the front, Gilda marched in the center of the formation with Chris, Tara and Marco along with Decanus Nydia and Chief Jacobs, accompanied by a single earth griffon eagless reluctantly carrying Raleigh on her back.

“With all due respect, Centurion, is there any reason he can’t walk?” The young Spear asked her in annoyed Aeric under her breath; her shield removed and in the possession of Gilda so Raleigh could sit on her. “He keeps grabbing my shoulders.”

“Please don’t touch her wings or shoulders, Mister Raleigh,” Gilda instructed him in Equish, to smirks from the civilians. “That’s a sensitive area for us. If you need to hold onto something, use her pauldron straps,” she instructed, and he did so, if a bit grudgingly.

“You know, I got attacked for that,” Marco muttered as they stopped and waited for the Ravens to signal them to move forward again. They did so by ‘breaking squelch’ twice on the static-filled radios, which could be heard far easier than trying to speak over them given the magical interference they were still experiencing.

She gave him a look. “Yeah, well, I was tired, hurting from that crow-begotten dress uniform I’d been wearing all day and in a very bad mood when you did it. Now please be quiet, all of you,” she requested in a low tone. “I need to listen for any signals.”

They stayed silent after that, moving forward at a far slower rate than she wished, as the Ravens carefully checked each twist in the path and potential chokepoint they encountered for signs of an imminent ambush. But none were apparent; the only movement they could discern remained behind them, though it was becoming clear at least a dozen shapes were following them, staying carefully unseen in the brush.

Definitely not grass lions, then. It’s something with intelligence and a pack mentality, Gilda silently knew. They’re trailing us but not attacking us—in fact, they’re not even making a move to surround us! But why…?

She heard a single squelch again, which was the signal to stop—they’d gone barely forty paces forward this time. Their agonizingly slow advance was not helping her nerves, and something was still bothering her about the whole situation. She kept having the nagging feeling she was overlooking something important, even dangerous to them. But she couldn’t put her wing on it except her mind kept going back to the reports she’d received regarding the overturned carriage.

Bodies around it… fresh food supplies inside it… she turned it over in her head as they finally moved off the forest path and onto a cart-capable dirt road. The outlying Caleponian farms used them to deliver their goods; to her mild relief, the trees and brush opened up around it to give them more visibility.

But why leave the food behind? Does our unknown enemy not eat? Or maybe they’re only carnivores and don’t care for fruit or bread? She patted the orange she’d stowed in one of her pouches, planning to either eat it herself or give it to Marco later.

Caleponian-grown citrus and produce in general weren’t as good as their Equestrian counterparts, but she still occasionally enjoyed peeling and eating a nice sweet orange at breakfast. In fact; one of the dishes they’d been promised by Chris before Moran had expelled them was orange-glazed pork with onions, hot pepper slivers and scallions; Marco even said the orange rind was somehow used in the recipe.

Though she couldn’t fathom how that could be good, now was not the time to consider it. She shook her head as the tingle of danger she kept sensing only grew stronger the more she thought about the cart; she couldn’t explain why, but something felt terribly wrong about it.

She still didn’t have an answer as the Ravens sounded an all-clear with two squelches thirty seconds later. Everyone began moving forward again without a word; a glance behind her showed Imlay’s squad with their weapons leveled at the treeline, using two of his ‘fire teams’ to always cover the withdrawal of the third. For as talkative as they’d been before, they were now all business; she could smell their sweat and see their intentful movements as they continued to cover the rear.

Fortrakt was still above them leading two decades of sky griffons in a standard arrowhead patrol pattern, with a single three-griffon Fuga on each flank and one in front and higher; it was designed to maximize firing lines to the flanks and fore without catching other griffons in a crossfire. She’d given him command of the airborne element with strict instructions to pay particular attention to the flanks; it was his responsibility to defend them along with the earth griffons below while the Ravens protected the front and the humans brought up the rear.

They finally reached the dirt road and Gilda felt a wave of relief when she noted the area was more open with less chances for ambush; the forest was much thinner here and the grass was far too short to offer concealment to larger animals. The road itself was unremarkable, save for the occasional pile of sand to fill in the odd rut or low spot. Thus, they moved quicker; reaching the carriage only ten minutes later after two more stops and cresting a small hill.

It was as it had been described; a typical Caleponian produce cart lying on its side with a series of mutilated pony and griffon corpses around it; the ugly smell of voided bowels hung heavy in the air as she saw Chris, Tara and Marco look away at the scene.

Whatever had happened, the carriage had crashed in the middle of a depression, crushing a few tall grasses underneath. Gilda could easily visualize that it had been making a desperate dash for safety defended by the Auxilias before hitting a road rut and flipping, leaving them with no means of escape as their pursuers closed in. The ponies had clearly perished close to the coach while the Guardsgriffons had fallen trying to defend it and the Caleponians inside it; she could only hope they’d given a good account of themselves before dying.

“Hesusmaryosep!” Marco muttered upon beholding the scene, making an odd crossing motion over his chest she’d seen from him only once before. “I’ve seen plenty of dead animals. Even butchered a few myself. But this ain’t the same…” he said as Tara could only cover her face with a hand at the carnage and stifle a sob; Chris pulled her close and hugged her.

“What have we got, Centurion?” an emotionless Imlay came up, ignoring the civilians while leaving his squad still facing the rear in a loose semicircle.

“Four dead Guardsgriffons and three dead ponies. All killed brutally,” she recited quietly as she studied the scene, trying not to show that she, too, was affected by it. She’d hunted before, certainly, but killing an unintelligent animal was not the same as seeing sapient races slain. And definitely not ponies, who had rarely known such barbarity since the time of the great Pony/Gryphon War.

“Make that four dead ponies,” Fortrakt said from above over the radio. “Looks like there’s one in the depression under the propped-up part of the cart, for eight total. At least the Auxilias went down fighting,” he recognized, making Gilda note the loaded crossbows they were still clutching and the half-full quivers strapped to their backs.

“Loaded?” Gilda’s brow furrowed as the tingle of danger got steadily stronger. Wait a second…

“But… we didn’t see four before!” Spear Lyncis Alauda said loudly enough from overhead for Gilda to hear him without the radio; he had given the original report on the crashed carriage to her. “By my Ancestors, I swear there were only two griffons and three ponies when we found the carriage!”

“Then you were mistaken,” Giraldi said calmly over the human communication device, completely unperturbed by the gruesome sight. “Perhaps you were simply unnerved enough to not notice them all.”

“No sir, he’s right,” his Fuga leader, Gladio Cattus Avem, called into Fortrakt’s radio. “We only saw those two nearest Guardsgriffons. There also wasn’t a pony corpse under the carriage.”

“They must have arrived after,” the Raven leader offered next. “As they’re all quite dead now, my guess is, they went to the carriage for the same reason we did—seeking supplies—and got slain in turn. And that means…” he trailed off ominously as he leveled his crossbow at the woodline while his two flanking Ravens swiftly drew their scimitars.

In the back of her mind, Gilda sensed the jaws of a trap snapping shut on them. “And that means, the cart full of food was a lure! It’s a setup for a fucking ambush!” Imlay instantly recognized, leveling his cannon. “Find cover and stay sharp!”

Weapons that had been only briefly lowered were instantly raised again as all of Fortrakt’s forces pointed their crossbows outwards as well. Nydia grabbed her staff and took off into a hover, the end of her stave glowing; Chris, Tara and Marco also grabbed their metal tubes but aimed them in the air towards the flanks, away from the Marines but between her grounded earth griffons and Fortrakt’s hovering group.

For the next minute, they all held their collective breath with weapons at the ready as they awaited the promised attack, but nothing happened. “Do you see any movement, Decurion?” Gilda asked softly into her radio as she scanned the woodline but saw nothing.

“Not a thing…” he whispered back in tense tones, just audible over the radio crackle, which Gilda swore was loud enough at that moment that everycreature within five leagues of them would hear. “Maybe we’re just too large a force to hit?”

“Nothing here, either…” Imlay said softly as his Marines swept the still brush and branches with their violet lights, but once again, no magical shrouds were revealed and nothing could be heard in the woods; not even a single bird or cricket. “He might be right, but I wouldn’t linger. Let’s just load up and get the fuck out of here. And I suggest you check the cart for booby traps.”

“Booby traps?” Gilda repeated the odd phrase.

“Make sure they didn’t leave some nasty surprise on the cart or the food,” Imlay clarified. “Like an explosive.”

“He’s right, Centurion,” Giraldi advised. “Ibexian irregulars were known to do such things with magic and crude machines alike. I once lost several soldiers to a series of explosive crystals that were rigged to detonate when we entered a cave we thought they were hiding in, bringing the roof down on our heads. So I recommend having Decanus Nydia magically scan the area.”

She did so, but came up empty, shaking her head. “No enchantments, curses, or magical traps detected,” she reported. “And to the extent I can detect poison or disease, there’s also none.”

“That still leaves physical traps,” Imlay reminded them. “Use extreme caution. Watch where you step, and look for things like taut strings, odd piles of stuff or recently dug-out dirt. They’re prime candidates for hiding lovely and quite lethal surprises.”

He sounded like he was speaking from experience to Gilda as Giraldi nodded and ordered two of his earth griffons to only approach at a hover to keep them from contact with the ground. He even asked Nydia to levitate the cart up and shake it hard a few times, which she did with some visible strain, but nothing happened except for it spilling several bushels of varied fruits and vegetables.

“It’s clear,” he said. “No traps, and it looks like it can be repaired quickly using the spare wheel on the rear of the cart. I suggest we fix it and put the produce back in so we can carry it with us. A single earth griffon can pull it.”

“Then move it to the side of the road and set it upright,” Gilda instructed Nydia, her heart going a league a minute in her chest as she kept expecting an ambush or explosion at any moment. “We’ll repair it there. If there are unseen ground traps, that should get the cart away from them.”

It seemed like a sensible precaution, but every instinct she had was now screaming an attack was imminent and they were somehow looking in entirely the wrong direction. But why? HOW? she asked herself as she began to walk towards the cart and her eyes suddenly settled on the loaded crossbows the dead Auxilias were still clutching.

“By your command.” With considerable effort, Nydia moved the cart to the side of the road away from the center of the scene, presumably away from any ground traps that had been set around it as Giraldi detailed four of his five remaining earth griffons to put the spare wheel on and collect the fallen fruit, further cautioning them to remain in a hover as they did so.

As they holstered their crossbows, it was only then Gilda finally locked on to what was wrong with the scene.

Hadn’t Spear Alauda reported the crossbows the dead soldiers held as fired?

She no sooner had the thought than the corpses moved, their talons tightening on the grips of their loaded bows as everything went to the crows in an instant.

Despite their gruesome wounds and occasionally missing limbs, they leapt up and launched their bolts without a single word spoken, killing two earth griffons instantly with arrows through their unprotected heart or neck.

“What?” She didn’t know who shouted that, but it didn’t matter as the threat was revealed to not be in front or behind them, but within their defensive formation as a gurgling shriek came from another low-ranked earth griffon eagless member of her old Turma! Gilda turned to see that one of the dead ponies had impossibly stood up with a blade in its bloodied mouth and slashed open her throat. Taken by surprise, she was utterly defenseless, and her death cry seemed to serve as a signal.

The trees and shrubs around them suddenly came alive as a large mixed pack of grass lions, hornet bears, and other forest creatures crested the hill behind them or emerged from the foliage at a run. They charged the rear of her force in a full sprint while groups of griffons and even flying boars in various states of injury and decay rose into the sky around them, attacking from every direction in the air with tusks, blades and bows alike. Worse, she saw green Paladin armor on several of the griffons and recognized the two members of her Turma she’d cut free from the coach harnesses and dropped.

The former took aim at the Marines as they began to run down the ramp of the hill, gaining speed and momentum with each step. Their jaws were open and teeth presented, sharp overgrowing canines of the grass lions and the stingers of the hornet bears gleaming dangerously in the sun.

Gilda stared in horror as she watched them come closer and realized that there was no time to mount a defense and no way to break such a charge without a much larger force. There was also no way to retreat and no place they could go; they could not fly away without abandoning the humans, or worse, calling great gouts of dragonfire down upon them.

Time stood frozen as she watched the beasts and corrupted griffons get closer, all her greatest nightmares coming to life at once. Her mind in shock, she realized they were outnumbered at least three to one from the varied attack group with compromised ponies, griffons, and corrupted creatures alike, and the course of the battle, from its start to its likely conclusion, crystalized quickly in her head.

Fortrakt’s aerial group would fall first, overwhelmed in the air by superior numbers and Paladin armor.

The humans would shortly follow despite their cannons; first their Marines would be overrun regardless of how many volleys of metal balls they could fire as they were swiftly trampled and slain with sheer weight of numbers.

Then Gilda herself along with her human mate and friends would be cut down and killed, or if they were lucky, Nydia might buy enough time for one or two of her surviving soldiers or the Ravens to fly them to safety. But it would only be temporary as they, too, would be hunted down without mercy and slaughtered; their bodies used as vessels for whatever magical abomination their enemy was.

Her life beginning to flash before her eyes, she thought back to her youth and her time with Rainbow Dash in Equestria, to her return home and subsequent struggles to both grow up and ascend the ranks of the Kingdom's military; and finally, to her month with Chris, Tara and Marco. She could seemingly recall every moment of their time together as they met, ate exotic meals, watched movies, and even shared a night together they couldn’t remember even if they would never forget it.

And in one final moment of irony, she found herself with a sudden and strong flash of memory from that night—of being erotically attended by both Tara and Marco as they watched a movie full of flying metal machines and fiery explosions that left her more turned on than she could ever remember; amenable to anything and everything they wished.

It was a wingslap in the face to only remember it just as she was about to perish, but in it, she found a steely resolve. She decided that there were far worse and less honorable things in life than to die in defense of her nation, friends and lovers; in the end, all her thoughts flashed through her mind in just a few quick seconds before she recovered her courage and nerve.

“It’s a trap! By all our Ancestors, resist!” she said as Nydia took flight into a hover, her staff wielded while Gilda went to don her steel claws and barked what she was sure would be her final order. “Fight with all your might!”

By the time the grass lions and hornet bears broke past the Marine cordon and reached them, she’d be wearing them, and she hoped to take out at least one before she died.

“You heard the lady! It’s a trap! Light ‘em up!” Imlay shouted as instead of turning and running, Gilda watched the Marines hunch over their weapons more tightly, holding their rears hard against their shoulders. It was a second later when she realized why.

Fiery flashes and earsplitting cracks of thunder filled the air; the noise deafening as the cannons the humans wielded erupted with spouts of intense flame out the end of their tubes. An acrid smell of dirt and a pungent aroma of something she couldn’t identify quickly filled the air as a dozen grass lions and hornet bears fell in the space of mere seconds, riddled with bloodless holes she could see punched in their hides coming from miniature cannonballs she couldn’t; they moved so fast and hit so hard they splintered trees and caused great gouts of dirt to erupt wherever they struck.

And that was to say nothing of what they did to simple flesh; the big blocky weapon that Lance Corporal Brennan wielded spat out fire so fast that it all but cut a grass lion in two, causing it to slump down. She barely had time to register all that—the power and rate of fire of their personal cannons were incredible!—as a loud boom and series of even louder and closer cracks! returned her attention back to the civilians while beside her, Raleigh just curled himself into a ball and cried.

The noise shocking her back to her senses, Gilda looked around, finding Giraldi wielding his war hammer against the reanimated corpses while the two female Ravens struck them down with blinding scimitar speed and skill, covered by Umbreon’s crossbow. The latter buzzed hard as it fired a steady stream of explosive bolts that went off like a string of Minotaurian firecrackers, cutting down two more corrupted Caleponians charging at a full gallop before they could reach his comrades.

Initially uncertain where to go or what to do, Gilda tensed as for the second time that day, she felt a tingle of building magic around her. “Centurion!” Nydia shouted as she whirled her staff once; her warning trill was followed by a sharp crash of lightning that splashed hard against a full-strength Magus shield she had just erected overhead.

The bolt failed to penetrate; the magical barrier Nydia conjured saved their lives. But as an enemy mage could not be ignored lest they rain down lightning on the unprotected parts of the formation, the Decanus immediately shot off to fight whatever griffon it was; the air overhead was shortly filled with clashing spellcasting as she kept the opposing Magus at bay.

With the front and rear covered, and the magical threat countered, that left the overhead battle and flanks to tend. “Chris! Tara! Marco! Concentrate on the flanking forces! You too, Chief and Spear!” she ordered her mixed force as she notched an arrow in her crossbow. She also tossed the shield she’d been holding back to the eagless who had been carrying Raleigh and ordered her to protect him, noting that Marco’s rounds came a little slower than the Marine ones but also seemed to hit harder, blowing larger holes in whatever they hit when they struck home.

“You got it, girlfriend!” the wide-eyed but resolute human eagless replied as Gilda looked on at a battle that was now completely out of her control. Several corrupted civilian griffons charging in from the sides fell in turn to Marco and Tara’s combined cannonfire, the impact of the latter’s large weapon alone seemed enough to knock unarmored airborne griffons out of the sky when they got close.

Chris, by contrast, concentrated his wood-wrapped tube’s fire on the bigger or better protected targets; he took careful aim and killed a grass lion coming in from the side with a round through the head that all but caused it to explode, then fired on a green-armored Paladin following, penetrating his excellent armor and even blowing out a chunk of his chest.

But somehow, it didn’t stop the tiercel as he continued to charge forward on all fours, oblivious to his injury as Chief Jacobs opened up on him in turn.

“How is he still coming? That was in his heart!” Chris exclaimed in disbelief as he somehow cycled his weapon for another shot, yanking hard on a bolt that ejected an empty gold-hued cylinder and caused in turn what she guessed to be another cannonball to load.

“I don’t know, but hit him again!” Jacobs ordered, his tone harried as the big griffon got closer.

It was at that moment it finally crystallized in Gilda’s head what they were facing. It’s the ONLY possible explanation! And if so… “Go for their heads!” she instructed them all, remembering the long ago Gauntlet lessons that she never in a million years thought she would ever have to use. “It’s the only sure way to put them down!”

“Their heads… got it!” The Paladin never made it as Tara answered and obeyed the instruction first, dropping the green-armored soldier with a blast from her ‘rifle’ that blew away most of his face and sent what was left of him skidding to a stop in front of them. Meanwhile, Marco’s Marine-like weapon opened up on another charging Paladin who was attacking on the ground because he had a visibly broken wing. Such a wound would have been agony for a sky griffon, but he completely ignored it, his unblinking pale yellow eyes locked on his prey.

Marco himself!

Gilda cringed as this time, her mate’s cannonballs were deflected with a series of violet-hued sparks off the thick and heavily enchanted Paladin armor, so he swore violently and released the rectangle on his “A-R’s” underbelly, still cursing as he groped at his vest for another one.

“They’re too close! Switch to pistols!” Jacobs shouted as he and Tara let go of their tubes, which fell on their straps but remained in easy reach as they yanked their smaller, hip-strapped weapons. Tara got hers out first, leveled and fired it; five thunderous BOOMS! followed that did penetrate the Paladin’s armor at close range, causing the eagless inside to fall at their feet.

By that time, Marco had slapped a fresh rectangle in place that was marked with a green strip and yanked the weapon’s charging handle back hard, fumbling the motion once but succeeding on the second try. He then opened up again on two more attacking Paladins, one of which was hobbling forward on three usable legs.

This time, his cannonballs penetrated easily, though the lead Paladin didn’t fall until he’d taken at least a dozen of them through the chest and neck. The other, slower-moving one had his head blown out by Chris’s ‘Nagant’ while, her other weapons exhausted, Tara smoothly pulled up her ‘shotgun’ from where it had been slung on her back as their enemies got uncomfortably close, dropping one and then another with two powerful blasts that all but disintegrated their heads.

”Attackers to the left!” Chief Jacobs shouted a warning as he hurriedly reloaded his main weapon. Gilda whirled to see what looked like three Talon regulars charging her, one of which was an eagless who bore the armor of a Centurion like her.

But this time, starting to feel like ‘useless baggage’ herself as the humans proved more than able to deal with the attackers without help, she leveled her crossbow, took aim at her counterpart and fired a single armor-piercing bolt that speared through her helmet and caused her to slump forward.

The young eagless then flinched backwards from a far more familiar concussive wave of sound that she knew indicated an impacting war hammer. When her vision cleared, she saw the final Talon being knocked away by Giraldi’s brutal blow, crushing its midsection and leaving its spine broken in two; he followed that up with an overhead strike that pulped the former soldier’s head.

That was the last of them. With the attacking ground forces annihilated, the human soldiers and civilians then turned their attention to the overhead battle between Fortrakt’s sky griffons and their half-wounded griffon assailants, as well as the still-ongoing mage-vs-mage duel.

From what she could see, Nydia was holding her own against the enemy Magus, but Fortrakt had lost at least four soldiers by then. Despite that, they had given a good account of themselves to judge by the reduced numbers of attacking griffons around them; she admired Fortrakt’s tactics as his forces remained in constant motion and loose formations, using their uninjured wings to outmaneuver their enemies and slowly whittle them down with three-on-one, hit-and-fly attacks that generally succeeded in felling a single foe at a time.

But there were still a score of enemy flyers engaging a decade and a half of her Auxilias, and she couldn’t afford to lose any more of them. The human weapons pointed upwards but fell silent at a shouted order from Imlay, who said directly he was fearful of hitting the wrong griffon given the rapidly twisting and turning aerial duels above them, unable to distinguish friend from foe.

Which means that they can’t win an airborne battle! Only WE can! “Shadow Decurion!” she shouted over to Ebon Umbreon, whose Raven team was mopping up resistance to the fore; there were at least twenty dead griffon, pony and animal bodies around them. “We’ll cover the front! If you’re finished down here, assist!” she pointed up, and at his nod and a shouted order, they launched themselves into the air immediately.

As she watched them leave, Gilda decided she could no longer be a bystander. “Crows take it… stay here and hold your fire!” she ordered Chris, Tara and Marco in no uncertain terms as she spread her wings and shot skyward as well. She swooped in and shot one formerly civilian griffon looking the other way, firing into her shoulder to cripple her flight before slashing her suddenly stationary form with steel claws, shredding her wingbase and sending her plummeting.

But she only got the one as the Ravens made dangerously short work of the rest with steel and strafing runs from their repeaters, wielding them with precision aim to take down ten more flyers before the quiver drums were empty. As she watched, they didn’t bother with reloading them, instead holstering them as they switched to scimitars and plunged into the remaining enemy formations.

They led their attack not with sword but with thrown blades off their belts, embedding them with uncanny accuracy into wings and throats to stagger the remaining corrupted griffons, leaving them easy prey to scimitar strikes, which they aimed at their necks and heads.

What followed was a series of split skulls and even outright decapitations as within eight seconds, all remaining enemy flyers were down. They then turned their attention on the one remaining foe—the Magus, surrounding him and firing something into his shield bubble she couldn’t see. Whatever it was, the shield flickered and failed, and the Magus then fell swiftly to a simple scimitar strike, falling lifelessly to the ground as one of the Raven eaglesses went to a visibly crying Nydia and appeared to comfort her, leading her back to ground.

With the final contest decided, the sudden but violent battle was over. From beginning to end, it might have taken less than a minute, but it felt more like an hour to Gilda as her forces gathered themselves, looking around for additional targets but finding none.

“By the Ancestors…” she was just able to hear a shocked, shaking and heavily breathing Fortrakt say as he gazed from a hover at the human-caused carnage on the ground to the rear of the carriage; he’d taken a slash from steel claws near his hindquarters but was otherwise unharmed except for his increasingly violent trembling as the adrenaline rush of combat wore off.

She didn’t blame him for that; she was shaking as well and could still barely believe her eyes. She counted at least eighteen downed grass lions along with a score of massive stinger-and-antenna equipped hornet bears supported by dozens of both grounded and airborne griffons, and yet, they had barely made it halfway to them even at full charge. The other creatures fared even worse; the flying boars were speared right out of the air; she saw one riddled with a line of cannonballs that had nearly cut a wing clean off.

Even with a working shieldwall wielded by earth griffon Paladins or Fortis Knights, the best thing the Kingdom military could do facing such a force would be delivering death by inches. But the personal cannons of the human Marines and civilians had utterly annihilated them!

“Holy fucking shit!” one of the Marines shouted, smiling as he lowered his smoking tube. “Did we just light up a bunch of sabertooth tigers and bug bears?”

Imlay was frowning. “Stow that shit, Stavrou! This fight ain’t over! Some of the bastards are still moving.”

“Fucking hell, they aren’t dead yet?” Brennan asked, swapping out his large block quiver for a new one from his pack. As Gilda watched, he reached inside of it to pull what looked like a linked line of not balls but sharply tipped cylinders free, feeding it into his open weapon before slamming the top down with a sharp click. “What does it take to kill them?”

Gilda blinked and watched as two grass lions and a hornet bear resumed their advance, limping forward on just two or three legs as their mangled ones dangled uselessly, still coming at them despite their gruesome wounds. Three more followed afterwards, though all they could do was crawl.

“Corporal! Hit them in the head!” she shouted and pointed, struggling to be heard over the sharp cracks of cannon fire.

Imlay looked at her. “What?”

“Hit them in the head!” she yelled as loud as she could.

Imlay nodded. “You heard the lady, Marines! Target their heads and blow their fucking brains out!”

“You got it!” the Marines chorused and pointed their weapons towards the approaching grass lions again. More cracks of thunder roared around them, though unlike earlier, they came as single shots similar to Marco’s weapon.

“Boom! Headshot!” A Marine PFC exclaimed as a lion head all but exploded; the cannonball entering his eyes and bursting out the back.

“Holy shit, did you see that? I splattered its brains all over the place!” another Marine announced.

There were more single bursts and a few instances of laughter. “Fucking A, this is fun!”

“Anderson! Stop wasting your fucking ammo or you’re stuck on police call! Just kill the goddamned things!” Imlay’s order left Gilda wondering if there was anything they could actually do for the human soldiers except guard their rear; it was abundantly clear that their powerful personal cannons meant they did not need so much as a single crossbow bolt fired in support.

Finally, the last grass lion went down, but that still wasn’t enough for Imlay. “Okay, advance! And give each of them a coup de grâce!” he further ordered, to which the Marines crept up and fired their weapons at point-blank range into the various heads.

“Let’s see you bastards get up from that!” one of the Marines stated as the last twitching beast was killed.

Another shiver ran down Gilda’s spine as she yet again felt magic stirring in the air. Before she could shout a warning, a fresh ball of lightning formed right above the Marines, sending a series of destructive bolts down on their heads.

Behind them, a previously morose Decanus Nydia jumped to the air and intercepted it with her staff, attracting all the bolts to her. With a shout of effort, she moved her staff in an arc, returning the lightning towards a slight haze in the sky. A sickly green shield emerged as she redirected the bolts upwards, further illuminated by the Marine ‘blacklights’ that revealed it fully. “There he is!” She tried a lightning bolt of her own, which splattered against the other griffon’s shield.

“Enemy Mage!” Gilda shouted in alarm, realizing the Marines likely had no defense against magical bolts.

It landed on the ground on all fours; a former eagless who had scabs, red blots and bald spots all over her coat. She held her broken staff in her beak, spreading her unkempt wings as she stared at the Marines blankly; the intact end of the rod glowing with what little remained of her magic.

“Fuck that mage’s day,” was all Imlay said as he and his Marines raised their cannons again.

More deafening bursts of thunder spread out in the air as the Marines and civilians focused their fire on the corrupted corpse of a Magus. But even their powerful cannons couldn’t seem to break through the green-glowing barrier, which sparkled as it absorbed the human projectiles.

“Shield!” one of the Marines shouted before a group of them were bowled backwards by a magical wave.

Imlay nodded and grabbed something from a pouch in his vest. “Nice trick, lady. So you can take all our bullets, huh? Then how about sucking down a forty-millimeter grenade?” It looked like a thick cylinder with a yellow curved tip, and Imlay inserted it into the larger bottom tube of his cannon, pulling the attached trigger.

Gilda couldn’t follow what happened next. All she heard was a heavy thumping sound, like a hiccup in the air, and the next thing that registered was a bright flash of light that accompanied a deafening explosion that had her recoiling backwards and left her ears ringing again. Dust flew everywhere, making her cover her eyes, as additional bursts of thunder echoed for a few more seconds before they finally stopped.

“Mage down!” she could just make out over the ringing of her ears.

“Holy fuck, did you see that griffie’s face when it ate that forty-mil?” she heard one of the Marines ask.

“I don’t think it registered at all,” Lance Corporal Henderson replied. “Look at her—she looks and smells like a rotting corpse! They all do!”

“Because they’re fucking zombies!” Brennan exclaimed, less in fear than… excitement? “They’re right out of Resident Evil!”

“By the crows, what are you all looking at?” Fortrakt finally rousted himself out of his renewed shock and stupor at the slain Magus as he pulled his crossbow and notched an arrow. “Some of them are still moving! By all our Ancestors, stop gawking and finish them off!” he shouted at his remaining soldiers as he aimed an arrow into the head of the nearest dead Paladin and fired, embedding it in her eye.

Startled at first, her remaining Guardsgriffons obeyed, and within a minute, every single corpse had an arrow in their head or had otherwise been stabbed in the brain with a blade. The battle now truly over, Giraldi flew to her side; his eyes went wide as platters as he stared at the destruction that a mere seventeen cannon-equipped humans had wreaked on what should have been an unstoppable assault force.

“Ancestor’s Past,” Giraldi invoked as the Marines celebrated their victory, at least until Imlay snapped at them and ordered them back into a defensive formation.

Gilda could only stare numbly at the scene. “I know.”

“In mere moments, they not only defeated but destroyed an enormous attacking group of grass lions, hornet bears, Paladin soldiers and even a shielded griffon mage?” Ebon Umbreon shook his head as he joined them. “By all our Ancestors, what are these humans?”

Gilda shook her head in turn. “Right now, they’re the only reason we’re still alive. Just be glad they’re on our side. Because our infantry weapons can’t even begin to match that level of lethality.” She looked out at all the dead griffons, bears, and grass lions again. “We’re going to need them—especially now. We’ve all heard the legends… but I never dreamt I’d live to witness it.” She bowed her head, all her fears rushing back in that instant. “There’s only one thing this could be.”

Giraldi nodded grimly. “Aye. Corpses coming back to life… animals not acting like animals… griffons turning on griffons…” his voice trailed off as he closed his eyes tightly. “We face not a simple foe, but a monstrous race born of blackest magic. A mortal enemy of all life who promises not enslavement, but annihilation. We face The Cloven of the Sun.”

“So after more than a millennium, the greatest enemy of the Gryphon race returns,” Ebon Umbreon muttered as he sheathed his bloodied scimitar, unable to suppress a shudder. “We seek safety, but from them, there may well be none.”

Ancestors preserve us, Gilda thought, closing her eyes tightly for a moment as Marco, Chris and Tara huddled close behind them, clutching each other. As she watched, Marco staggered over to a tree and leaned hard against it, shaking violently while Tara sat down heavily and clutched her head. She cried softly to herself as Chris had the worst reaction of all of them; he only managed a few stumbling steps before he suddenly fell hard to the ground, pitched forward and violently threw up.

By all the crows of the Kingdom, what do we do now…?

21: Know Thy Enemy

Author's Note

Well, the epic action of the last chapter is a hard act to follow up, so I’m not even trying to here. This is taking a step back from battle so both readers and characters can take stock and a deep breath. Even if this step-back wasn’t present in the original version of the story, I would still consider it necessary. I call it the ‘reading refractory period’, where readers need a break from heavy combat (or clop!) to absorb what they just read. So don’t worry—there are many more battles to come! If you’d like a little mood music for this one, Starship Troopers seems appropriate:

Aside from exploring the aftermath of the fight and its effects on everyone, this is an info-dump of a chapter, folks, where we learn all about the Cloven. I’ve added considerably more material and observations over the original story, and at this point, I do have an origin story for them, and even an explanation as to why they have their name. All will be revealed over time, but let’s just say for now that some of the answers lie in the unrevealed lineage of Celly and Lulu, who will yet be heard from in this story.

No suggestive moments in this chapter as it’s simply not the place for it. As this is but the first part of a much larger chapter I was forced to split up, the second part will follow in a few days. And as always, here’s your standard boilerplate disclaimer:

This chapter is a heavily rewritten version of the first half of Feathered Heart: Chapter 7, borrowing some large chunks of dialog and detail modified to accommodate the updated story. Regardless, you are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original if you haven’t already, as it inspired many of my own works.

—Firesight

21: Know Thy Enemy

Gilda had to go off by herself for a minute—a few minutes, in fact—to mentally and emotionally recover from the battle before she was fit to face others again. Unfortunately, there was nowhere she could go that was private, as she couldn’t stray far from safety while activity from the Marines and her griffon soldiers continued around her.

“Fucking police call,” one of the lower-ranked Marines—Anderson, if Gilda remembered his name correctly—muttered as he walked back towards the gathered group of griffons and humans, carrying a jangling cloth bag.

“Well, you just had to take a few extra potshots,” his equally grumpy Marine companion replied under his breath, his bent-over shoulders shrugging as he continued to pick up small empty cylinders out of the grass. Gilda had only dimly noticed it at the time, but the Marine and civilian weapons ejected what appeared to be an empty cannonball container after they were fired.

Incredibly, and completely unlike griffon airship cannons or anything short of their repeating crossbows, the mechanical action of the shot somehow also cycled in a new cannonball. It enabled them to fire continuously without an arduous reload procedure; even the process of swapping out a cannonball quiver seemed very quick and simple.

“Still worth it. That was the most fun I’ve had since I joined the Corps.” Anderson smiled briefly, then glanced over at Gilda, who was watching them out of the corner of her eye. “Any idea where we’re going next?”

“Fuck if I know.” His companion looked up into the deepening dusk at a fresh flapping sound and frowned. “Do you see that shit?”

“Yeah. Fucking crows, man,” Gilda watched as the PFC glanced up in disgust to the trees, which were now filled with scavenger birds, especially loudly cawing crows as they called their friends to feast and other predators over to rip open the larger corpses. “Looks like they’re all waiting for their dinner.”

“Yeah, well, just so long as it’s not us.”

“Cut the chatter and keep picking up the brass. And if you don’t want to do this again, obey orders next time and cease fire when you’re fucking told!” Imlay informed the pair unsympathetically from where he was overseeing them as two of his three fire teams maintained a perimeter. “We’re not staying here long, so if you guys aren’t done when we leave, then you get left behind with your new friends.” He motioned up to the hungry avian eyes watching them.

Gilda didn’t think he meant it, but it was clear to her that the Marine Corporal was as no-nonsense as Tribune Narada when it came to the obedience of his underlings. She then turned her attention to the third Marine fire team—Brennan’s—who Imlay was keeping in reserve.

Their weapons were still held ready and loaded with fresh quivers, but they had gathered around a surprised Decanus Nydia. She was looking a bit lost at the attention as a minor wound to her side from a charging razorbat—Gilda hadn’t noticed them, but there had apparently been a few present in the fight—was treated by Chief Jacobs. He had shaved the short fur from the area with some kind of odd machine that buzzed softly, swabbed it with some substance to sterilize it, numbed it by injection and then closed the wound with a set of stitches.

She could have healed it herself, but at Giraldi’s order, she was conserving her power, which they would need if more corrupted mages appeared or severely injured soldiers needed healing. Despite her familiarity with the procedure, Gilda had to look away as the human healer delivered the injections—it took a winceworthy three to numb the area. But Nydia barely seemed to notice, staring off into the distance and paying him no mind until the Marines came up to her.

“—and then she fucking jumps in the air, and just bats all the damn lightning away!” one of the Marines declared excitedly, slashing the air with his free arm in an exaggerated manner. “Collected it in a ball and sent it all right back at the caster too!”

“Oh, it was nothing,” Nydia muttered a little softly. She seemed dazed and despondent to Gilda’s eyes—was she suffering some form of battle trauma?

“Nothing? Shit, it was totally ninja!” another Marine replied, offering her his fist. Though looking distinctly uncomfortable, the Mage managed a weak smile as she bumped it with her own.

“Uh… thanks?”

“Totally fucking badass ninja,” another Marine added to an odd look from the Ravens who were speaking with Giraldi; the more talkative eagless could only roll her eyes before she took it upon herself to walk over and shoo the Marines away.

“If you four please, she needs to be alone right now. I know you are trying to compliment her, but what you don’t realize is that she had to fight her own mentor up there,” the Raven eagless explained. Her scimitar and repeating crossbow had been holstered on her back; the latter had a fresh quiver drum attached. “That was First Stave Tunica. Or what was left of him.”

The Marines instantly fell silent as Nydia began to tear up, her beak quivering. “Oh, Jeez. Sorry, we didn’t know—”

“Now you do. So please depart,” the grey-dyed warrior asked them politely but pointedly.

“Well, what about you three?” Brennan asked. “We saw what you Ravens did—you guys took out nearly as many enemies as us! Just cut them to pieces with those badass blades! That was totally ninja, too!”

“Please do not call us that,” she told them all shortly. “We are not ‘ninjas’, which is a word you should not even know. We are a secret warrior society trained in both ancient and modern combat arts, serving the Gryphon Kingdom as needed to protect it from the shadows.” She then turned on her heel and stalked off, her tail flicking repeatedly.

“Dude, they’re totally ninjas,” Brennan said under his breath after she departed, earning a brief tail lash by the Raven eagless as he was overheard.

Deciding she wasn’t going to find any peace and quiet, let alone peace of mind at that time, Gilda slowly mastered her raw emotions and still-racing heart, which she found was afraid to slow down in case the Cloven should reappear. But that seemed unlikely given the birds had returned along with all the animal sounds she would normally expect on a late summer night; the song crickets were singing and horned toads were croaking happily away.

That means another old legend is true—that birds fall silent when the Cloven are close. Their presence and chatter means the Cloven are NOT close right now. In fact, they’re nowhere nearby and can’t reach us again without warning. Steady, Grizelda Behertz… she told herself, trying to control her fears with simple logic, which was something she’d never been good at as a rule.

Remember, this is just the first of many battles to come, and you can’t fall to pieces now. Maybe later, when we can rest, but not now… She suddenly wondered if Marco had his flask of buffalo whiskey with him, as she could use a strong brew just then.

That she was hardly alone in her struggles was of little comfort as she noticed the equally traumatized Chris, Tara, and Marco, who were being addressed by Imlay in the presence of Giraldi and Fortrakt. The former had put a comforting wing over Marco’s hunched-over back and was speaking to him softly, while Fortrakt was doing the same with Chris and Tara as he was treated by Chief Jacobs for a set of steel claw slashes on his hip.

They would normally be Magus-healed, but as they were not particularly severe and Nydia had been ordered to conserve her power, they were treated with human medicine instead. She had to look away again as her former junior partner was injected with whatever painkilling potion the humans possessed, but Fortrakt simply mastered his nerves by keeping his attention on Chris and Tara, whispering something to the latter she couldn’t hear.

Whatever he said, she fell into his embrace and cried, clutching his neck and burying her face in his dark golden eagle feathers while he wrapped a wing protectively around her.

Though she might have teased him about that before, she was just glad he and Giraldi were there for them, especially when they needed comfort she would have had trouble giving just then. But still, that didn’t worry her so much as Imlay’s presence. Uncertain what the Marine Corporal’s intention was—did he still want to disarm them? How could he after how well they’d fought? She decided to head over immediately even though her head wasn’t fully right either.

“You were right, Corporal…” a still-trembling and audibly shaky Chris finally admitted as she got close enough to hear. He was still doubled over and seemingly unable to rise; she did a double-take to see Fortrakt had laid his talons on the top of the human male’s back, rubbing it gently. “You were right. We’re in way over our heads out here…”

But instead of scolding him or being smug at being proven correct, the Marine Corporal gave him a sympathetic nod. “I’m sorry you three had to learn this way. Believe me, I didn’t wish this on any of you. But for your first time in combat, it looks like you all did pretty well.”

He nodded grimly to the fallen griffon and other corpses around them. “Chief Jacobs says you all performed superbly for civilians, though he did note your mag swaps need practice, Mister Lakan. You also failed to go for your pistol, Mister McLain, as your targets closed in. Miss Fields obeyed the Chief’s orders to switch to them, but you didn’t,” he gently chided.

“I d-didn’t even hear him…” Chris admitted, his head clutched in his hands with his Nagant now slung loosely on his back. “And I didn’t even think of my pistol. It was right there at my hip, but I completely forgot I had it.”

Imlay nodded knowingly, as did Giraldi. “You had tunnel vision. Understandable, but not acceptable. Everything you do in battle has to be based on full awareness of your surroundings—without it, you’re far more likely to make a mistake like missing an order or not seeing a critical threat,” he told them bluntly, but not meanly.

“This is exactly why I didn’t want you fighting with us. This isn’t one of Brennan’s video games and there are no saves or respawns out here. If you screw up, you die. Actions in combat must be immediate and instinctive—the time you waste fumbling a reload or remembering your sidearm could cost you your life.

“And above all else, orders must be heard and obeyed instantly. If they aren’t, combat cohesion falls apart quickly, which can be fatal to not just you, but the entire unit. That’s why I’m punishing Anderson and Armstrong over there.” He nodded over to the two Marine PFCs, who were continuing to pick up the innumerable metal casings on the ground and still grumbling about it.

“Then now will you disarm them?” Raleigh asked him; Gilda could smell the sweat and fear on the Ambassador’s aide; he had stripped off his jacket and partially unbuttoned his white dress shirt. “They’re untrained amateurs and I really don’t want to get killed by them.”

Marco’s head shot up. “Dude, we saved your fucking life while you just cried like a baby on the goddamned ground!” he reminded the rotund human heatedly, his anger returning in an instant.

“Would you rather we let you get torn to pieces?” Chris added irritably, causing Raleigh to wisely fall silent. “As tempting as it was, we didn’t!”

Giraldi, however, answered far more calmly. “With respect, Mister Raleigh, your criticism is not warranted. I saw them—they took down at least a dozen attacking griffon soldiers, including Paladins with intact armor.”

He turned to Imlay next. “And I would say the same to you, Corporal—had these three not been here protecting your rear, you would have been outflanked and quite possibly overrun, even with your admittedly impressive weapons,” Giraldi told him pointedly as he continued to gently rub Marco’s lower back with his wing, offering him the same reassurance a sire might give a young and frightened cub waking up from a nightmare.

“They have proven themselves capable warriors, and the fact that they reacted badly after such an unexpectedly savage attack does not reflect badly on them. Believe me when I say I have seen griffon soldiers under my own command fare just as poorly after their first battle, or even worse in the past,” he said with a glance at Gilda as she came up.

“I believe you. And you’re right. They have,” Imlay surprised them by agreeing. “If you let me continue, I was going to compliment them. I’ll start with you, Mister Lakan.” He turned to a surprised Marco first.

“I’m told you kept your cool and your aim true for the most part; Chief credited you with at least four kills. I also didn’t want to say it before, but for a custom AR, that’s very well-put together if you did it yourself. It looks like you did your homework and researched your parts properly. Believe me; I’ve seen civvies load theirs up with all sorts of ridiculous and useless bling, but yours looks solid from its sight to its sling.”

Marco blinked. “Oh, uh… thanks.”

“You’re welcome. We’ll work on practicing your mag swaps and switching to pistols later, but for now—well done, Mister Lakan. And that brings me to you, Mister McLain.” He turned to Chris next and laid a hand on his shoulder; Gilda still had to stifle a flinch at the use of what would be an intimate contact for griffons used so casually by humans.

“Chief pointed out some issues with your performance, but he also said your nerve and accuracy were impressive even facing an all-out attack, scoring several headshots both up close and at range,” he noted with a nod to the Naval ‘Corpsman’ still working on sewing up the steel claw slashes on Fortrakt’s hip, which though deep, had surprisingly stopped bleeding even before they were closed.

“And I meant it,” he said as his hands moved in and out like griffon tailor talons to close the widest rifts in Fortrakt’s flank. They were right where a pony cutie mark would be; she had the thought just then that it would give him a set of lurid scars that he might be able to impress eaglesses with later. “With a little seasoning, you’d make an excellent Marine or Naval Marksman, Mister McLain. We might have to find you an EMR—that’s an Enhanced Marksman Rifle. You’re that good.”

“I would concur, as long as you’re trained properly on it. Given how much she liked your Russian rifle, I’m sure Lance Corporal Henderson would be more than willing to help,” The Corporal said with a brief smile before turning his attention to Tara. “But the Chief reserved his highest praise for you, Miss Fields. He says you proved effective with all three of your weapons, obeying orders instantly and switching between them quite fluidly. He gave you five kills, including a trio of attacking Paladins that fell to your shotgun and pistol at close range.”

Tara looked up at him blankly from where she was being held by Fortrakt, then down at her feet again. “Oh. Thanks,” she said dully, the barest hint of a tremor in her words. “It was my granddad’s pistol, and…” Her voice trailed off and her eyes got distant. “I’m sorry. I just… need some more time.”

Imlay frowned, but nodded. “You three are clearly suffering from battle shock. As the Optio mentioned, it happens to the best of us when we see our first action—even trained Marines,” he admitted ruefully to a concurring nod from Giraldi. “Unfortunately, there’s no time to coddle you. We’ll be moving again soon, and all of you will need to be mobile and ready. Have your moment of grief, but then stow it deep and set it aside. You can fall apart later, after we reach safety.”

“And it’s really that easy?” Chris muttered, clutching his head. “Just set it aside? God above, I don’t think I’m ever going to get over this…” He took a shuddering breath.

“You can and you will, because you must,” the Corporal said in not so much sympathy as certainty. “Because right now, I need every rifle I can get, and as the Optio says, you guys had our backs. I’m stubborn, but I’m not stupid. For all your flaws, you’ve proven you can help, and we do need you right now. So while we have a chance, give your weapons a quick cleaning—especially you with that acidic ammo, Mister McLain. Because we’ll need them ready and reliable later.”

“Sir, yes sir,” As Gilda watched, a hollow-eyed Marco sketched him a salute, and then he finally saw her. “Hey, Gilds. How are you doing?” he asked weakly, trying but not quite succeeding in smiling.

About as well as you, she didn’t say, still struggling to control her own emotions. “Fine—thanks to you three and Chief Jacobs. And to you as well, Optio,” she bared her throat at Giraldi. “Your war hammer strike at the end there was well-timed. That Talon eagless was only a leap away from reaching us.”

“It was, except I nearly shot him…” Tara shivered again in Fortrakt’s grasp. “I’m sorry, Galen. You just flashed across my vision so fast and…” her voice trailed off.

“But you didn’t,” he told her as Chief Jacobs finished his work on Fortrakt, who experimentally flexed the area and grimaced only slightly; Gilda wasn’t too concerned about the injury given she planned to keep him in the air. As near as she could tell, he had led the aerial battle well given the bulk of his force remained intact, inflicting three times the casualties they had suffered. “Your arrows, if that’s what you call them, were all true.”

“Thanks, but…” she squeezed her eyes tightly shut again. “I still could have.”

“Now you know why we were worried about friendly fire,” Imlay noted. “You have to make decisions in a split second out here. It’s hard even for experienced Marines.”

“But like he said, you didn’t, girl,” Chris reminded her; as Gilda watched he accepted a circular canteen from Imlay from which he gulped down water after spitting out the first mouthful. “You didn’t falter. None of us did.” He seemed to be reminding himself as much as Tara.

“I guess, if thanks to…” Tara trailed off and her eyes went distant again, then she gave Fortrakt a final squeeze to his neck before she stood up and took several deep breaths, accepting Imlay’s canteen from Chris from which she drank in turn. “Nothing. Never mind. If you need me, I’m fit for duty, Corporal,” she announced as she returned the canteen, trying to stand to attention before him.

“And may you remain,” he said with a satisfied nod, returning the item to his belt before turning to Gilda. “With respect, Centurion, as this arrangement worked before, I recommend keeping the civilians in the center with the Chief and Decanus Nydia. With the loss of most of our earth griffons, I’ll detail two fire teams on the flank and leave one on the rear.”

“Sounds good,” she said dully, only half-listening.

“And as for you three—do exactly what you did here and protect our rear,” he addressed the civilians next. “You guys will have our backs and keep whatever these things are from flanking us, but if another battle erupts, do not move towards the action or fire in our direction without a direct order from me or Chief Jacobs there,” he instructed Chris, Tara and Marco, locking gazes with each in turn. “Understood?”

“Understood,” they all nodded and murmured; Gilda turned to see Chris and Marco trying to rise to their feet as well.

“But all that said, for a bunch of stupid civvies, you guys did good. Real good,” Chief Jacobs added to a concurring nod from Imlay. “Your hip wounds are sealed and sanitized, Decurion. The stitches should hold and will eventually fall out on their own once the area has healed, but try not to aggravate them in the meantime.”

“Thanks, Chief Jacobs,” Fortrakt said with a distracted nod as Chris reached up to squeeze his talons, indicating he could let go. Gilda was only starting to wonder about Fortrakt’s state of mind when Tara thanked him for his comfort by bending over and giving him a kiss on his beak, eliciting a brief blush and even a twitch of his wings as both Giraldi and Chief Jacobs smirked.

Well, I guess he’s okay! Gilda granted with a weak smile if her former junior partner was just as smitten and dweeby as he’d ever been. But she also decided it was best to head off any of his more untoward impulses and draw his mind back to his duty; it was for that very reason she wasn’t hugging Marco hard just then. “Decurion? Are you fit for further action?” she called to him, to which he stiffened and saluted.

“Sir, yes sir!” he immediately and emphatically answered with a thump of his chest, his flush quickly dissipating. “My hip feels a bit stiff, but it shouldn’t matter much in the air. I have fifteen sky griffon soldiers still available. I regret to report the loss of five flyers, but I may also report they fought ably and honorably against overwhelming numbers.” He stood at attention before her.

“Understood,” she said quietly. Counting the earth griffon losses, that meant she was down another nine soldiers from her old Turma, including half the decade she led only a month before. She wondered then if she’d ever get the chance to mourn their loss or mark their passing properly.

Or worse, if she was responsible for their deaths.

“You led your soldiers well, Decurion,” Giraldi noted as he came up. “Your tactics were superb, allowing you to preserve your force instead of letting it be defeated piecemeal or overwhelmed by sheer numbers.”

Fortrakt blushed again, but only briefly. “Thanks, Optio. But our losses…” He looked away.

“Were unavoidable,” the veteran earth griffon finished emphatically before Gilda could. “We did not then know what we faced, and by the time we did, it was too late. We will honor our fallen later, but it is our survival we must see to for now.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Imlay addressed Gilda next; it took a moment before she realized he was standing next to her. “With respect, we need to talk, Centurion.” He gave her a brief salute.

“Right.” Gilda looked towards the sky as she returned the honor, noticing the increasing number of crows that were gathering around the clearing. She had been expecting them to show up, just not so quickly, and half-wondered if that was an omen.

They walked off a little ways before Gilda spoke again, though they kept in sight of the others and carefully away from concealment. “Your Marines are… impressive,” she told him. “There’s no way we could have won this fight without you, even with the Ravens here. Your combat power is off the charts compared to ours.”

“Now you know why we were so careful about not divulging the capabilities of our weapons to you,” he replied slightly wryly. “But be proud, Centurion—from what I could see, your soldiers fought with discipline and bravery, both in the sky and on the ground.

“Those that didn’t die at the start,” she muttered, blaming herself for not realizing the cart was a trap when every instinct she had was screaming something was wrong with it.

Imlay stared at her for a moment. “I am truly sorry for the losses we suffered, but don’t blame yourself for them—we had no idea what we were facing or that those corpses could somehow come back to life to attack us. Which brings up the question: how did they?” he asked her, to which she and Giraldi could only grimace. “We have no idea what we’re facing. But from what the Optio said just now, you do?”

“Yes,” she said, raising her haunted eyes to his. “I know exactly what we’re facing—every griffon here does. We’re taught about them from cubhood in old myths and legends. We fought them once well over a thousand years ago, and they nearly annihilated us. To this day, we still train for them at the Gauntlet, because even if we were sure they’d never return, the threat they pose is existential. Not just to us, but to all races of Tellus.”

“I see,” he said without emotion. “Then I would appreciate being enlightened.”

She nodded. If this really is the Cloven, then there’s only one indisputable way to prove it… “It isn’t enough to just tell you. I have to show you. So have your Marines bring a grass lion corpse to us. And preferably one of the less smelly ones.” She screwed up her face in distaste.

After giving her an odd look, he obeyed, detailing Brennan’s fire team for the task. Though less than pleased at their orders, they did so, grunting as they picked one up by the legs and more or less dragged it over, then threw it down before them.

Once the deed was done, one of the Marines extracted a small container of some slightly colored liquid that smelled strongly of citrus-scented alcohol and squeezed it onto his palms, rubbing it all over the surfaces of his forepaws and talons vigorously. He then offered it to his friends, who immediately availed themselves of it and did the same thing.

By that time, Gilda had summoned the Shadow Decurion, Decanus Nydia, and Giraldi, who ordered Fortrakt and the remaining griffons to take over perimeter watch so the human Marines and civilians could see directly what they were up against; even Raleigh hobbled over on a pair of improvised crutches at Imlay’s request. As the dead animal was delivered, she could see up close the damage the Marines had done to it; there were small holes all over its neck and body, leaving her guessing the one in its left eyelid was what finished it off.

The holes themselves were bloodless, which came as no surprise to her, but did to the Marines, who noted the fact aloud.

“What the hell… there’s no blood from where we shot them?” Chief Jacobs looked distinctly uncomfortable when he reached the only possible conclusion. “Because corpses don’t bleed.”

“Precisely,” Giraldi said grimly.

“See? They’re zombies!” Brennan said eagerly again, leaving Gilda wondering what in the name of his human ancestors he found so exciting about the prospect of reanimated corpses.

“Oh, come on!” Jamal replied a little nervously. “There’s no such thing!”

“Cut the chatter, all of you! We’re here to find out what we’re facing. Centurion Behertz will be explaining just who—or what—the hostiles are, so pay attention!” Imlay ordered them sharply, causing his squad to obediently fall silent.

He then turned to Gilda. “That said, is he right? Are they zombies, Centurion?” Imlay asked, seemingly unaffected by the sight or smell of the beast.

“In a manner of speaking.” Gilda knew the term from an odd genre of movies she’d watched in Equestria with Rainbow Dash once or twice; they were horror films where dead ponies came back to life and started eating the flesh of living ones.

Though she never understood their allure, they had an avid following especially among teenage pegasi, and she certainly understood the effect the idea would have on the normally peaceful plant-eating ponies to see their own kind mercilessly kill and mindlessly eat members of their own race. “Just watch, and all will be revealed.”

Gilda took a deep breath as she looked at the gathered humans, who were staring at her expectantly. “We believe that what attacked us and set up the lightning field above us is an old foe we thought was long gone. An ancient enemy of the Gryphon race called the Cloven of the Sun,” she spat out the last few words like a curse.

There was a murmur amongst the humans while Nydia visibly shivered at the name. Gilda gave them a few moments before clearing her throat, waiting for them to quiet down again. She then motioned towards the hole-riddled corpse of a creature.

“As to what they are… look at this lion. Do you notice anything odd about it, PFC Jamal?” she asked him directly, given he’d been the one to express doubts that they were previously dead.

“Uh…” Jamal crouched, looking closely at the fallen feline. He sniffed at it, wrinkling his nose, and then frowned. “That’s not right. This animal smells like it’s already… rotting. Like it’s been roadkill for days.” He looked nervously at Gilda. “Do these, uh, types of animals decompose quickly?”

Gilda shook her head, guessing he was trying very hard to avoid the obvious conclusion. “No. It’s so rotted because it was dead long before it attacked us.”

“Damn right it was dead!” Brennan said.

“But… how?” Henderson spoke up this time. “How could it have been dead long before?”

Gilda exchanged a look with Giraldi and Ebon Umbreon, who stayed silent. “I could explain, but… I think it’s just better to show you. Shadow Decurion, would you do the honors?” she motioned to the beast with a wing.

“By your command.” He saluted her, then grabbed the grass lion corpse by its maneless and quite mangy head. Drawing a short blade from his belt, he proceeded to surgically scalp it with a rather sickening sound, skillfully opening up its skull.

“Hard-fucking-core,” one of Brennan’s Marines muttered as several looked suddenly ill.

Gilda had to give the Raven his due, given it was an incredibly accurate scalping that removed the top-half of the cranium without touching the brain inside. Once it was visible, most of the Marines took an involuntary step back at what they beheld. “Wha… what the hell?” a wide-eyed Jamal asked.

Even though she knew it would be there, Gilda felt more than a little sickened to see it herself. Around the grass lion’s brain was a long and thin black insect; its spindly legs digging deep into the grayish matter.

“What. The. Fuck?” Marco whispered while Tara stared at it in horror and Chris looked on the verge of throwing up again; Raleigh dropped his crutches and took an involuntary step back, not even realizing he was standing and walking again on a previously broken leg.

“That is a Cloven Parasite,” Gilda advised. “It’s how dead animals and griffons alike are reanimated and turned against us. It invades corpses and turns them into puppets, needing only control of the central nervous system to do it. Decanus Nydia?” Gilda then called to their Magus, who looked scarcely less sickened. “Give it a tug. Let them see how deep it goes.”

“By your command.” The Mage Knight replied slightly wanly and stepped forward, her floating staff glowing. Light surrounded the parasite, which was then slowly tugged outwards, making a few very unpleasant noises as it was gradually but only partially separated from its host.

Even after being pulled several pony inches away, it wasn’t completely detached. Its long spindly legs remained deeply embedded in the grass lion’s brain, but it was more exposed for everyone to see.

“Oh, that’s not right,” Brennan muttered, looking a little green as his inexplicable excitement seemed to have finally ebbed. “That’s not the T-Virus or anything else.”

Imlay glanced at him, then narrowed his eyes. “So this thing just burrows into a brain to gain control of a corpse? How long are its legs?”

“Depends on how long it has infected its host,” Giraldi replied this time. “It is said that before it enters a body, it’s about five uncias long.”

“Uncias?” Imlay echoed.

“An uncia is the Roman measure of inch,” Chris offered despite his sick expression. “It’s almost exactly the same as our own.”

“Sorry. About as long as my talons,” Gilda clarified, holding hers up briefly in comparison, noting again the use of ‘Roman’ to describe something griffon. “To answer your question, Corporal, it enters its victims through either their mouth, ear or nose, gnawing its way towards the brain. Once it gets there, it grows and embeds itself directly into the mind and nervous system until…” Gilda nodded towards Nydia, who grimaced but raised her staff to point at the parasitic creature’s head.

“Please step away from it,” the Decanus mage directed as she closed her eyes. With minimal magical effort, she produced a small spark of electricity that made the floating Parasite twitch a few of the grass lion’s legs, causing the Marines to instantly raise their cannons again and Raleigh to stumble back.

“Fascinating,” Brennan muttered.

“Not the word I’d choose…” Tara was leaning heavily on Marco now.

“It’s disgusting. And here I thought bot-flies were bad.” A freshly ill-looking Chris turned towards Gilda. “So, that’s what these ‘Cloven’ are? Corpse-controlling parasites?”

“No,” she replied grimly, taking another deep breath. “The Parasite is just the tip of the talon. They’re part of a hive mind that comprises what some would say are just a single massive, all-consuming organism.”

“Where did they come from?” Imlay asked.

“We don’t know where they originated,” the Shadow Decurion replied. “Or even how they got their name. Some say they were a pure black magic creation invented by an unknown agent meant to deconstruct all life. Others suggest that they were created by King Sombra specifically to fight the Solar Soldiers of Celestia, but he lost control of them,” he further recited, leaving Gilda wondering what kind of education and upbringing the Ravens actually received.

Are they trained from birth, or are they selected at some point? she couldn’t help but wonder as the discussion went on.

“The first and only time they appeared in griffon lands was some fourteen hundred years ago, back when our race was feudal and divided,” Giraldi picked it up from there. “There were four distinct territories then, each led by the four Tribal Leaders we called the ‘Blessed’.”

“As you say, Optio. Records of that time are sparse as our written language was still new, but… it is said that they came like a shadow in the night; fast, silent and deadly.” The Shadow Decurion pointed towards the black insect wrapped around the grass lion’s brain. “They started using Parasites first to infect griffons of power; sowing chaos and distrust amongst their tribes. It wasn’t until our Primo Basileus himself realized something was amiss that the other Blessed were warned.”

“Primo Basil-what?” Brennan asked.

“Basileus,” Chris replied. “On our world, it was a term used for a ruler of the old Byzantine Empire, which was the successor to ancient Rome. Sometimes it’s called the Eastern Roman Empire. If I remember correctly, Gilda, you told me and Tara that he was the one that united the griffon tribes under a single banner to defeat a mighty foe. Then this Cloven… was that the foe you were talking about?”

Gilda nodded. “It’s not a subject we enjoy discussing. Sorry I wasn’t more specific.” She offered an apology with a bared throat.

“This enemy doesn’t seem too hard to detect, though,” Brennan said, hand on his chin as his odd smile had returned. “I mean, these Parasites obviously aren’t going to stay hidden for long if they can’t stop the body from rotting. Plus you griffons look plenty strong and have a good handle on weapons. A hit in the head is all that it takes to kill them, right?”

“Not quite that simple. You have to destroy the brain, or sever the spine at the neck. They can’t work their puppets without an intact nervous system,” Ebon Umbreon explained. “Enough damage to the body will also render them unusable, so their hosts tend to lose effectiveness over time as they rot or take damage.

“That same damage means that corrupted forms can’t move as fast or fluidly as living ones can, but the parasites also absorb the memories of their hosts. They can then use those memories to wield weapons as well as control the body.”

“Absorb their memories?” Imlay asked as the Marines exchanged uncomfortable looks.

“Yes, and they then pass those memories along to the hive,” Giraldi noted. “So, if they capture a corpse who has information on defenses or numbers, then that information becomes known to all of them, and they tailor their tactics appropriately.”

“Son of a bitch…” Jamal said as Gilda noticed Giraldi and Umbreon exchanging a confused look. She could well imagine they were likely having the same reaction she had to hearing the human curse for the first time, not understanding it was a reference to something other than Diamond Dog females. “They’re the fucking Borg, then. That means if they got even a single Marine…”

“Exactly,” Gilda said grimly, wondering what he meant by ‘Borg’. “They would gain knowledge of your weapons and tactics as well. Thus, one of our longstanding customs was to burn our dead to make sure they couldn’t be converted to Cloven hosts. Unfortunately, that’s not an option here since setting fires may attract attention—or worse, a dragon attack.” It was only then she noticed that several of the stronger Marines seemed to be carrying long, thick tubes on their backs. “We cannot take the risk of our fallen being turned against us, So for any dead we suffer from here on out, we have to leave their bodies behind with their brain destroyed.”

The Marines exchanged an uncomfortable look. “With respect, we don’t like leaving our fallen behind, ma’am,” Henderson said, and Gilda decided not to correct her regarding the form of address. “We always try to return the bodies of our dead to their families.”

“I see. We would normally attempt to respect the customs of our allies, but it is simply not possible here,” Gilda told her. “Unfortunately, we cannot take corpses with us. We can only ensure they cannot be used by the enemy.”

“We can put them in storage gems,” Imlay suggested. “You can do that if they’re dead, right?”

“Only if their internal magic is completely drained, and—” Giraldi blinked, perhaps recalling as Gilda did in that instant that humans didn’t have internal magic. “Yes. You can.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Imlay said. “Still, I don’t wish to sound dismissive, but this threat seems… manageable. Given corpses decay, they’d need a steady stream of dead to keep infusing their ranks. Once it dries up, this Cloven would gradually dwindle in numbers down to nothing.”

Giraldi and Umbreon grimaced as Gilda shook her head. “If Parasite-controlled corpses were the only thing to worry about, you’d be right. Unfortunately, they are but a single tendril of a much larger group.”

“What do you mean?” Imlay asked.

“I mean, there are pure Cloven forms as well,” Gilda said grimly to knowing nods from Umbreon and Giraldi. “When King Fortis sounded the alarm, the Cloven stopped using subterfuge and struck everywhere using a massive army of those forms they had secretly amassed, invading all Four Territories at once. Worse, they had by then established dozens of small bases that could quickly replenish their losses by producing many centuries—by centuries I mean hundreds—of additional soldier forms a day at each.”

One of the Marines whistled. “Well, fuck,” he stated, but Imlay didn’t seem perturbed at all.

“How did they do that?”

“By recycling their dead and that of their enemies,” Ebon Umbreon said in disgust. “When their soldiers and corrupted corpses fell in battle or got too rotted to use, they could be thrown into special vats, broken down and then reconstituted into fresh soldier forms. In this way, all life would be slowly converted to Cloven, and worse, each subsequent generation would evolve further, gaining additional attributes and intelligence. So we don’t want to fight a long war with them, as they’ll only get stronger and smarter while we get weaker.”

There was a gagging sound. Looking up, she noticed that Raleigh appeared ill, giving Gilda only a brief glance before his eyes went back towards the ground. “Excuse me,” he mumbled before hobbling away despite his previously broken leg, having apparently heard all he could stomach.

The Marines watched him leave; a couple looked like they were going to make jokes before Imlay silenced them with a glare.

Despite her distaste for the portly human, Gilda shuddered as well, wondering anew how Lady Arnau and King Fortis had ever beaten the Cloven in the first place. “He’s right. Using such methods, they can reproduce with phenomenal speed. Give them just a few days and a steady supply of corpses from conquered areas, then they can overrun large tracts of territory as well as any opposing force in their way.”

“Okay, so what do these ‘soldier forms’ look like?” one of the Marines asked.

“Enormous insects,” Gilda replied, to which Giraldi nodded. “Or at least, that’s the way they appeared at the start. History records the Cloven soldiers evolving after every battle as they learned more about their enemies.”

“When they first appeared, they were said to resemble giant black-shelled hornets that attacked from the air with stingers and pincers,” Giraldi picked it up from there. “Then as the war progressed and they went through generations of soldiers, they started resembling griffons. They began to walk on all fours, developing larger claws and unnaturally sharpened beaks. During the final battles of the war, they even started differentiating their fliers and their ground troops.”

“How so?” Brennan asked.

“Flyers had two spikes for forelegs, wings sharp enough to cut through flesh, and a barbed tail,” Umbreon recalled. “Ground troops didn’t even have wings anymore, replacing them with two sharp spikes, which they could manipulate like the flyers. They were a far more dangerous and developed foe by then, but that was not the reason why they were so hard to fight off.”

Imlay and the rest of the Marines seemed to approach closer. “What was the reason?” the Corporal asked.

“Just as you saw here, they were utterly merciless,” Gilda replied. “Their hive mind gave them unparalleled discipline and unmatched morale. They didn’t care how many dead they suffered breaking a position or capturing a town; they’d just march over their wounded, trampling them underwing as they slowly but brutally ground you down, then recycle you for use in their own war machine.”

“Nor could you hide from them behind walls or mountains or rivers, as any barriers you put in their way were quickly surmounted,” Giraldi finished for her. “It was said they could climb right over any fortifications, using their own bodies to build bridges or ladders if they had to.”

“Christ Almighty. They sound just like Army Ants,” Brennan muttered, to which one of his team scoffed.

“Oh, is that all? Unless they sound like Marine Ants, I ain’t exactly shaking in my boots.” His words elicited some slightly wan laughter.

“Quiet!” Imlay ordered, shutting him up before looking back at Gilda. “So, what you are saying is that we could have an army of this Cloven marching on us as we speak?”

“Possibly,” Gilda replied. “However, our Raven friends are reporting no nearby movement and if you listen, all the animals are active again—it was also said in our old legends that birds and especially crows fell silent when Cloven were near,” she belatedly remembered.

“I don’t know how long that’ll last, but even if they are marching on us, we’ll have plenty of warning. That gives a chance for Decanus Nydia to finish treating our wounded flyers, though I’ve instructed her to only heal the more severe injuries to help conserve her power. Scrapes and more minor slashes will have to be treated by your healer.”

“You mean Chief Jacobs,” Imlay clarified. “And the proper term for them is ‘Corpsman’. Proper address and all that,” he reminded her.

“So about the Cloven… is there any way to stop them? Any weaknesses we can exploit?” Henderson asked.

“Their greatest strength is also their worst weakness,” Giraldi replied. “They have a hive mind, but they also have a central intelligence and leaders we can strike at. What gives them their unnatural drive and discipline are the ones giving them directions—the Cloven Overlords.”

“Overlords?” Imlay echoed. “So basically, the hive Queen?”

“In a manner of speaking, but not entirely correct as there are more than one,” Ebon Umbreon answered. “Whatever their nature, they are very different from the soldiers; much bigger and far more dangerous. They also have some sort of magical capabilities of expressing thoughts outwards—that was the theory on why they can control the Cloven soldiers.

“Whether it’s true or not, it was noted that if you kill them, then those they controlled become nothing more than a disorganized mob that is easy for even a much smaller force of trained soldiers to deal with.”

The Marines absorbed that for a few moments before any of them spoke again. “Great,” Anderson said as he rubbed his eyes. “So let’s see… we’ve got giant insects, a telepathic bug boss… and we’re the Mobile Infantry.”

“Huh? What’s that from?” Jamal posed the question Gilda wanted to ask.

Several Marines stared at him in disbelief. “Seriously, Jamal? You’ve never seen Starship Troopers?” one of them asked, to which Jamal could only stare back and shake his head.

“Nope. Never even heard of it. To me, this sounds like a cross between the Borg and the Flood from Halo. They possessed corpses, too.”

“Never heard of it? Dude, we have got to get you educated,” Brennan said. “That movie’s required viewing for a Marine!”

“Yeah, except this is more fantasy shit with zombie griffies,” Stavrou added, then he looked at Imlay. “You know, maybe you should change your name to Rico, Jamal.”

“Fuck that, Flip-boy is an actual Filipino. We should call him Rico,” another Marine replied.

That elicited a series of grins. “I’d lose my shit if he shouts that fucking line.”

The rest of the Marines laughed as even Imlay broke into a small smile; Gilda could only exchange a series of bemused looks with Giraldi, Nydia and Ebon Umbreon. She was sure she’d get the reference if she asked Marco, but she was a bit perturbed at how unimpressed they all sounded at the existential threat the Kingdom faced, until she noticed their eyes taking on a harder edge.

The laughter faded as the Marines seemed to mutter amongst themselves. Some began patting the bulging pockets of their vests, which she now knew were filled with additional quivers containing countless cannonballs.

Imlay looked at Gilda. “Anything else, sir?” When Gilda shook her head, he turned back towards his Marines. “Okay, boys and girls, you now know what we’re up against. So let’s get ready to kick some Cloven ass.”

“Fucking A,” a Marine muttered as the rest began to walk off. Imlay himself was about to join them when Gilda stepped forward.

“Corporal, can I talk to you?”

Imlay looked at Gilda. “What is it, sir?”

She paused for a moment, trying to find the right words in her mind. “Corporal, considering we are facing off against a very strong and dangerous enemy, we need to be made fully aware of your fighting capabilities.”

The Marine Corporal stared at her. “You just saw what we can do. What else do you need to know?”

Giraldi stepped forward. “We need to figure out how to work together properly. That means how we integrate our forces in terms of positions, movements, and formations,” he explained. “In other words, we need to know where you usually position your troops and how you conduct maneuvers. That way, we won’t accidentally bump into or shoot each other.”

Imlay nodded his understanding. “I think we can make arrangements on that.”

“Good. We also need to know more about your weapons and—” Gilda began.

“No,” Imlay quickly cut her off.

“No?” Giraldi echoed.

Imlay shook his head regretfully. “I’m sorry, Optio, but no. Our military personnel are under standing orders not to divulge any sensitive information about human weaponry.”

“Standing orders?” Gilda frowned. “From whom?”

“From people with a much higher pay grade than mine,” Imlay replied in some visible disgust. “I don’t agree with it, but orders are orders.” He was already turning away when Gilda called him to stop.

“Hold on, Corporal. We don’t need specifics,” she tried again. “We just need enough information to see how we’d adjust our formations to fight alongside each other.”

Imlay frowned again. “I’m sorry, sir. Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,” he repeated, then began to speak a bit more slowly. “Military personnel are not allowed to divulge any information on our weapons, unless ordered otherwise by the right authority.”

Gilda blinked. Was Imlay reciting orders given to him? And why the emphasis on the start of his last sentence? Or did she just imagine it? “Then who would be the right authority in this case?”

“That would be Ambassador Goldberg,” he replied. “And he’s in Arnau.”

Gilda exchanged a look with Giraldi. “And if he’s not available, who is the next one we can turn to? Raleigh?” she suggested with some distaste.

“Captain Moran,” Imlay answered to a grimace from Gilda. “Or at least his second, First Lieutenant Nantz. But they’re also in Arnau, and for as much as I would love to get them on the comms and see if we can get that changed, that damned lightning field up there screws any chance of getting a clear signal.”

Giraldi muttered something obscene under his breath, and Gilda couldn’t blame him. “Then with respect, it is left to you as the ranking soldier to decide this, Corporal.”

“I wish I could be more forthcoming, sir,” Imlay replied apologetically. “Unfortunately, my standing orders do not allow that. And before you ask, it doesn’t just involve us, but my government’s agreement with Equestria.”

Gilda frowned and exchanged another glance with Giraldi. What in the crows did Equestria have to do with this? “Can’t you make an exception for such extreme circumstances as these?”

“I truly wish I could, sir,” Imlay said. then repeated his previous statement, speaking more slowly. “Military personnel are not allowed to divulge any information about human weaponry unless ordered—”

“Yes, yes, we get it,” Giraldi cut Imlay off, but the Marine continued unabated.

“—otherwise by the right authority.” This time, Imlay’s golden eyes locked with hers before shifting slightly, which got Gilda’s attention. He then motioned with his head towards the side to where Chris, Tara and Marco were still huddled.

Following his briefly averted gaze, she only then realized what he was trying to tell her and exhaled heavily. “Thank you, Corporal.”

“For what, sir?” Imlay replied without so much as a hint of irony or emotion, walking away before Gilda could reply.

Giraldi looked a little lost as the Marine Corporal moved off. “Did I miss something, Centurion?”

“A loophole,” Gilda replied placidly. “I’ll take care of it. In the meantime, keep talking to Imlay. See if you can work out with him just how we can combine our formations so that we don’t accidentally cross claws. Just don’t ask him about human weapons. I’ll get back to you shortly on that…”

Two versions of chapter 22 are available from here. You can either read the T-rated one, or the M-rated one. Just click the appropriate link below:

—Firesight

===> next: Chapter 22 (M-rated)
===> next: Chapter 22 (T-rated)

22: Know Thy Ally (M-rated)

Author's Note

Hey, folks. As part of the story being boosted to M-rated, welcome to the new M-rated chapter 22. If you prefer the original T-rated version, go here:

22: Know Thy Ally (T-rated version)

Chapter Contains: Gilda x Marco/Chris/Tara reaching second base (i.e., heavy petting and groping of various human and griffon attributes), including some slightly involuntary exhibitionism, cider-induced cock and breast/teat growth, and a threatened four-way.

Original Author’s Note follows:

Welcome back, folks, as the writing charge on Feathered Hearts continues. This is another long-awaited chapter readers have been waiting for, containing our three favorite civvies teaching Gilda about the firearm facts of life. You’ve already got the content warning, so here’s the boilerplate:

This chapter is a heavily rewritten version of the second half of Feathered Heart: Chapter 7, borrowing some large chunks of dialog and detail modified to accommodate the updated story. Regardless, you are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original if you haven’t already, as it inspired many of my own works.

—Firesight

22: Know Thy Ally (M-rated)

Giraldi looked a little lost as Imlay moved off. “Did I miss something, Centurion?”

“A loophole,” Gilda replied placidly. “I’ll take care of it. In the meantime, keep talking to Imlay. See if you can work out with him how we can combine our formations so that we don’t accidentally cross claws. Just don’t ask him about human weapons. I’ll get back to you shortly on that.”

Giraldi stared at her for a moment before giving her a sharp salute and baring his neck. “By your command.” He waited until she returned the respect before he began barking orders, instructing two nearby Auxilias to dispose of the rotting corpse.

Just as Gilda was about to leave, she spotted Decanus Nydia off by herself again. Gilda guessed she was trying but failing to meditate given her glowing staff was not steady where it floated, and her expression kept shifting along with her anything-but-settled thoughts.

Gilda knew she needed answers on human weaponry. But she also needed to make sure her soldiers, especially her sole surviving Magus, were fit to fight as well.

“Decanus?” she called out as she approached, but Nydia did not seem to immediately hear her. “How are you doing?” she asked as she got closer, to which the hawk-headed eagless suddenly snapped her eyes open.

They went wide as they locked on Gilda, followed by her leaping up and saluting crisply. “Centurion,” she offered in greeting, though she was unable to keep her voice level. “How may I serve?”

“Decanus,” Gilda said again as she thumped her chest back. “You may serve by seeing to your own needs right now. I just wanted to let you know that you fought very well during the battle. We might have lost many of the Marines and human civilians to lightning if not for your defense against the two corrupted Magi.”

“Thank you, sir,” Nydia acknowledged quietly with a bared throat. “But…” Her beak quivered again as tears glimmered in her eyes.

Gilda’s face softened. “I overheard the Ravens say that you had to fight First Stave Tunica up there. I’m sorry, but for what it’s worth; that wasn’t the First Stave. Just a crow-accursed Cloven parasite wearing him like a shell. There was nothing you could do for him, and no way to bring him back. For he was already dead, and his broken body but a puppet under Cloven control. So you must let him go.”

“I know, sir, but…” She visibly struggled to control her emotions. “It still hurts.”

“I know it does, Decanus. And I wish I could take that hurt away, but I can’t. We need you at full strength, and your mind unclouded. You have a little time before we set off again, so my orders are to rest and recharge as much as you can,” Gilda instructed, then glanced at the sewn-up wound on her side. “Will that… scratch… hinder you?”

“Yes, sir. And no, sir.” The Magus Knight glanced towards where the Marines had gone, then shook her head. She sat on her haunches and took a meditative pose again, her glowing staff floating above her. “I will be fine and fit for duty. I simply request some time alone.”

“You’ll have it,” Gilda promised, deciding she would ask Imlay to order his Marines to stay away from Nydia for a bit.

“Centurion,” a new voice addressed her; she turned to see Spear Jade Jumentum saluting her. “Forgive me for asking, but I must know—do you still wish me to carry the human? You would understand that I would greatly prefer not to.”

“No,” Gilda answered emphatically. “Because the Decanus says Mister Raleigh can walk, and I now need you on the front line after the loss of…” Gilda’s voice trailed off as she suddenly realized that the Spear was the only earth griffon she had remaining other than Giraldi; the other four had been lost to the initial Cloven ambush along with their heavier axes, crossbows and shields. “I’m sorry, Spear. They deserved a far better end than a cowardly Cloven attack.”

“They did not even get the chance to fight, sir. Nor did I,” Spear Jumentum hung her head in shame. “I felt completely useless in the battle, able only to shield the Ambassador’s aide. I could not even fire a single bolt because every enemy that attacked was felled so swiftly by the humans.”

“Such were my orders,” Gilda reminded the larger eagless, “and you carried them out. You did your duty, and you were far from the only one who felt useless. One or two crossbow bolts cannot even begin to match the power of human weapons,” she said pensively, then raised her eyes to her sole surviving earth griffon Spear.

“We will both have plenty of opportunities to fight and avenge our fallen. So keep your bow loaded and wits sharp, Guardsgriffon. We will likely need them before this day is done.”

“By your command.” Spear Jumentum saluted, going off towards the humans at Gilda’s instructions to inform Imlay that Nydia was to be left alone. And when she was done with that, she was to report to Giraldi, seeking a new assignment.

After watching her leave, Gilda made her way towards Chris, Tara and Marco, who had sat down on a group of rocks within a slightly concealed alcove to tend their weapons. She wasn’t sure what maintenance they required, but they appeared to be cleaning them somehow; Chris had run a long rod with a white cloth wetted with something down the tube of his wood-covered cannon that came back covered in black. She could see the same effect on Marco’s “A-R”, which he had surprisingly taken apart and was withdrawing a slightly complicated looking cylindrical assembly from.

Gilda hadn’t seen the cleaning supplies they were using before, so she guessed they had come out of a separate storage gem. They were talking in low tones as she got closer; the first fireflies of the early evening helping to illuminate the area around them.

“—should have made you guys stay in Arnau,” Marco whispered as Gilda got close enough to hear them over the background chatter of cawing crows, singing crickets and croaking frogs. “Then at least you’d be safe from all this insanity.”

“Marco, I swear to God, if you don’t get off the emo-train, I’m going to hit you even harder than I did Ricardo,” Tara replied shortly as she rapidly disassembled her ‘pistol’, her exasperation surprisingly strong considering that the last time Gilda saw her, she was crying in Fortrakt’s embrace. Her armor was off now, sitting on the ground beside her, though Chris and Marco hadn’t removed theirs.

“If we weren’t here, you and the Marines would be down two rifles and probably dead from that fight! We’re a team, and more importantly, we’re friends who stand by each other through thick and thin. The ponies taught us all about friendship, remember?”

“Yeah, well, they think it’s magical,” Chris said in clipped tones. “But me? Staying together and seeing each other off is just something friends do.”

“Hey, at least we get to stay together in the Kingdom now,” Marco noted with a weak chuckle. “I wonder what Reyes and the other guys back in Arnau are doing? Have they been attacked yet? Do they even know what’s happening to us out here?”

“I’m sure they do,” Tara said, her tone still tense. “But I’m more worried about the ponies right now. Do they know what’s happening? Can they send help?” she wondered aloud, to which Gilda could only roll her eyes as she got near. “I don’t even want to think of what would happen if they had to face this.”

Me neither. The PONIES facing the Cloven? Or sending HELP? By all my Ancestors, that’ll be the day! she thought derisively as Marco noticed her first and hailed her.

“Hey, Gilda,” he greeted, causing Tara and Chris to look up and turn towards her. “Hell of a day, huh?”

“I guess that’s one word for it…” she said wanly as she entered the alcove and sat down on his left between him and Tara. “How are you three doing?”

“A little better,” Tara told her. “We thought we were ready for this, Gilda, but we weren’t even close. And the Marines do this as a profession!?” She fumbled her pistol briefly, then grimaced, snatching it up from the ground and running her rag reverently over it to remove the fresh dirt. “I have a lot more respect for my grandfather now. Especially since…” Her hand stilled as she gazed off into the distance again.

Gilda wasn’t sure what that was about, but she offered what comfort she could, deciding to take after Fortrakt. She laid a set of reassuring talons on Tara’s upper back where a griffon’s wingbase would be, rubbing the area gently.

“Be proud and stand tall, Tara. You heard Corporal Imlay and the Chief—you all fought superbly. And I’m here to say it as well,” she told them and meant it, finding that after seeing them fight and having her life saved by them, she felt closer than ever to not just Marco, but all three of her former civilian charges. “Your actions were honorable, and like Giraldi said, it’s likely none of us would have survived the fight if you three weren’t here.”

“He’s probably exaggerating, but thanks, Gilda. So how’s Fortrakt doing?” Chris asked in concern with a nod back over towards him. “I mean, he seemed okay, but who knows…?”

“He’s fine,” she promised them, feeling Tara’s continued trembling even through the tough fabric she was now wearing. “He commanded the aerial battle well, so I’m leaving him in charge of our flyers. We lost five in the attack.”

Tara slumped further and sniffled. “I’m sorry, Gilda. We did our best.”

Gilda shook her head as she gave Tara’s shoulder a squeeze. I’m blaming myself for not doing enough, and yet even after taking out a slew of corrupted Cloven and saving all our lives, these three are blaming THEMSELVES? She wondered what she’d done to earn such honorable humans as friends, praying she would yet prove worthy of them. “Thank you, but it wasn’t your fault, Tara—none of this was. They did their duty and made their Ancestors proud.”

“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died,” Chris sat up a bit straighter as he laid his own hand on Tara’s opposite shoulder, speaking in an air like he was quoting someone. “Rather, we should thank God that such men lived.”

Though a griffon wouldn’t have phrased it that way, Gilda got the meaning well enough and found herself nodding in agreement. “Well said, whoever that was. We can honor our fallen later, but for now, I need some information from you three.” She forced herself to release Tara’s shoulder, even though she didn’t wish to. She found it felt oddly comfortable and even reassuring to touch her there despite—or was it because of? —the normally taboo nature of the act to griffons.

“Information?” they echoed as one, giving her their undivided attention. “About what?” Chris prompted.

“Your weapons,” she said after only a brief hesitation. “Imlay said that military personnel were not allowed to discuss them. But he seemed to be trying to tell me indirectly that as civilians, you could…?”

They exchanged another series of looks before answering. “We made a promise that we wouldn’t, but…” Chris trailed off.

“But, I couldn’t care less about that now,” Tara finished, leaving Gilda relieved that the human woman was finally starting to sound more herself again. “They broke our trust and tried to get us all booted out. At this point, I care more about the Kingdom than our civilian and Marine leadership, so I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, Gilda.”

“No, girl, you won’t,” Marco told her firmly. “At least, not alone.”

“Marco—”

“Like Chris said, we’re a team, Tara. Moran and Goldberg already hate me, and there’s nothing more they can do to me if I spill the beans. Just like you, I’ll do anything I can to help protect the Kingdom and Gilda here. And if Raleigh objects, then he can go kiss my fucking flank!” he abruptly raised his voice as his eyes looked over Gilda’s shoulder and hardened into a glare.

At first, Gilda couldn’t help but smile at the way he so effectively combined a human curse with a pony word. She blushed as she found herself smitten with both him and Tara anew for their fervent declarations of loyalty, but then she realized that Marco had in fact directed his last remark behind her. Following his gaze, she turned to see Raleigh standing there at the entrance to the alcove, no longer bothering with his crutches.

“You’re not supposed to be talking with her, Lakan,” he said weakly, to which all three of them just stared. “Especially about our weapons. So please don’t.”

Marco’s glare hardened further. “Do you really think I give even a single fuck about that now, Raleigh?” he asked acidly.

“Do you really think any of us do?” Chris added angrily. “You can go fuck the hell off. The Ambassador’s orders mean shit out here.”

“When we get back, you three are going to be in big trouble,” Raleigh replied. His words earned a series of snorts and eyerolls as Gilda, to her own surprise, decided to remain silent and let her friends deal with the insulting and useless human.

“Oh, really? Well, here’s a news flash, Mister High-and-Mighty Ambassadorial Aide—we don’t even get back unless we and the griffies can work together. And working together means we tell them about our weapons,” Tara emphatically declared.

“But even if that weren’t the case, you and Goldberg have made it amply clear you don’t give so much as a single fuck about us, so we don’t have any reason to obey you now. Thanks to your Marco-hating hack of a superior caring more about his standing with Dana Carraway’s Senator daddy than me, the Kingdom is my home now, and I’ll gladly tell the griffons whatever they want to know.”

“Seconded,” Chris growled as Gilda found herself reminded of all the reasons she liked Tara at once. “For the record, all you and Goldberg ever had to do was treat us with a little respect. Instead, he couldn’t wait to shove us out the door. And for what?” he asked in a disgusted air. “Because Marco spoke out of turn a couple times? Because we embarrassed the Ambassador in Equestria by not remembering which fork to use for our salad in front of Prince Blueblood at a state dinner?”

“That’s not—”

“For the record, you will be walking from here on out, Mister Raleigh,” Gilda could stay silent no longer, not wanting to abide the overweight aide’s presence. “Your leg is clearly healed, so I will not spare a soldier for you after the losses we suffered. I suggest you rest, as we will be making a rapid march to a steadholt soon.”

“But… I…”

“What’s wrong, Raleigh? You could use the exercise,” Tara teased with an unpleasant expression, to which the portly, pale-skinned human turned away and hobbled off in defeat.

Exhaling slowly as she began to run a small square of fabric down the detached tube of her hip-mounted L-shaped weapon, Tara turned back to Gilda. “Sorry about that. So what do you want to know, Gilda?”

“Everything,” Gilda said in some embarrassment, her cheeks warming again. “I mean, I had already guessed your cannons weren’t melee weapons as we had initially thought, but I had no idea how powerful they truly were.”

The three stopped and stared at her as Marco gave a lopsided smile. “‘Melee weapons’, Gilda? Really?”

Gilda blushed. “The only infantry shooting weapons we knew of were crossbows, and we didn’t see any arrows or quivers with your tubes. They were nothing we could recognize as ranged weapons, and the thought that they could be miniature airship cannons didn’t enter our heads until… well, two days ago,” she pointed out in some embarrassment.

“True,” Marco conceded. “Actually, you can use these as melee weapons—they’ve got some pretty strong striking surfaces and it could do some serious damage to be hit with one. But needless to say, that’s not their main purpose.”

“So I saw,” Gilda said weakly. “Look—I won’t force any of you to divulge this information. You said you took an oath of secrecy, and I respect that. That makes it a question of honor, and neither I nor any griffon would hold it against you if you decided to stick to it.”

“Honor.” Tara repeated the word with a shake of her head, then sighed again as she glanced at the rag she’d been running through her tube, frowning at how dark with grit and ash it was. “Nothing that happened to us from the Ibex attack to Goldberg and Moran treating us like shit was honorable, Gilda. We only stayed silent to help the Marines. And Marines like Reyes or Nantz are the only reason I’d hold back from telling you now.”

“Except we wouldn’t be helping them by holding that information back,” Chris pointed out as he gave his much longer tube a second swab with a long rod and small soaked cloth, which came back much less dirty than the first. “Not now. You heard her—she needs to know how our weapons work and what they can do so we can work together. I know the Marines are too anal to disobey orders. But we aren’t beholden to them.”

“You’re right,” Marco agreed as he continued wiping down the pieces of the cylinder, setting each cleaned component of it carefully aside on a rag. “Sounds like it’s unanimous, Gilda. At this point, we have no reason to stay silent. We’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“Thank you.” She bared her throat at them. “And if you don’t want the Ambassador to find out you talked to us, I’ll just deny it when Raleigh claims we did. I’ll say that I already figured out the basics even before we ended up out here, which is true enough. I can also tell them I worked out the rest by observation and what I overheard.”

Chris blinked. “Really?”

She gave him a small smile. “You and the Marines fed me a lot of information when they came over to look at your personal cannons. That alone would make for a massive intelligence report—if I was still writing them, that is.”

“Still spying on us, eh?” Marco said with a grin. “Moran will be mad.”

“So he will. And the problem is…?” Tara challenged him; even Gilda found her feathers ruffling and tail lashing once at the Captain’s mention.

“No problem at all,” Marco chuckled. “So what do you want to know, Gilda?”

“The main thing is the effective range and hitting power of your cannons, and whatever limitations they have.” She paused. “Though, a little background on their origin and history of use would be nice, too.”

Chris raised an eyebrow. “Their history? That’ll take a bit longer to explain,” he said as he continued cleaning his wood-wrapped weapon. “Why do you want to know that?”

“Because we have nothing close in range or power to what the Marines—and you—are holding right now.” Gilda pointed at their varied tubes. She shivered as she remembered the acrid burning smell of the air, the thunderous and occasionally deafening cracks, and the falling of the many corrupted beasts and griffons coming at them. “It is…” she trailed off.

“Impressive?” Marco supplied with a grin. “Amazing? Stupendous?”

“Terrifying,” Gilda finished with a soft whisper, looking down to the ground as her words caused the three humans to fall silent. “And a little disheartening. We thought the Gryphon Kingdom was the preeminent military power of Tellus. And now…”

She pointed to Marco’s ‘A-R’ again. “That one weapon you hold is equal to at least an entire decade of griffon soldiers. Maybe even a Turma. So please tell me—where did it come from? How did humans develop it?”

“It’s only powerful when properly employed,” Marco said with a nod, hefting his cannon for a moment. “Imlay’s right that if you’re untrained in their use, they’re dangerous to both yourself and others. As for where they came from… historically speaking, the gun itself, or ‘firearm’ as we also call them, is a relatively new weapon. Or at least, the concept of it is.”

Gilda leaned a little closer. “How new?”

“Well, let’s see…” He visibly thought for a moment as he idly reassembled the cylinder construct and applied what appeared to be a form of oil to parts of its surface. “The first known evidence of a gun was around one thousand years ago.”

Gilda blinked. “One thousand years ago is relatively new?”

“Considering we’ve been using blades, bows, and other non-gunpowder-based weapons for many thousands of years? Yeah, it’s relatively new,” Chris picked up the chain of thought from there. “Even as late as two hundred years ago, these weapons had generally very limited range and an extended reload time. You were lucky to fire three shots a minute or hit a target outside of fifty yards, and that was only if you were very well-trained.”

“What changed?”

“Warfare changed,” Marco rubbed his eyes as Tara stayed silent, still concentrating on cleaning her pistol. “First, we came up with breech loading, which made the process of readying a single round to fire much quicker. Then we rifled the barrels—what you call our ‘tubes’—which dramatically increased their accuracy and rendered existing infantry tactics obsolete, though the Generals of the day were very slow to understand that.”

“Then they figured out how to make rifles or pistols repeating instead of single shot. By the time of my nation’s Civil War some one hundred sixty years ago, we had six-shot ‘revolvers’ and even rifles that could hold seven rounds, though only officers or a few elite units were equipped with them,” Chris continued the story.

“And then, fifty years later, the first of two world wars began, and with it, the first common use of continually firing weapons—also called ‘machine guns’. Lethality soared but infantry tactics were very slow to change, and the result was literally millions of casualties in the trench warfare of the western front,” Chris said grimly, the number causing Gilda’s stomach to clench. But she decided she would not ask for an explanation or context, given she didn’t want to endure any further blows to her still-reeling psyche. “It was a very ugly time in humanity’s history. But worse was yet to come.”

“Sometimes I think gunpowder was one of the worst things humanity ever invented,” Tara said sadly. “It’s been the cause of so much death and destruction over the centuries. But also at the root of a lot of our advancements,” she quickly granted in turn.

The question of how old human civilization actually was came to Gilda’s mind, but she put it away for another time. “Gunpowder?” she focused on the strange word. “What’s that?”

She could see all three humans were considering their responses carefully before Marco spoke, after exchanging additional glances with Chris and Tara. “That’s hard to explain. So before I try, let me ask: do you have explosive powders in your world?” he inquired as he slid the oiled cylindrical assembly back into his gun with a light rasping sound.

Gilda frowned. “In some forms, yes. We use pulverized explosive crystal dust to propel projectiles from our airship cannons, which are mostly Minotaur-made. The Minotaurs also use them to make fireworks. Expensive stuff, though, and very dangerous to both create and keep. It’s actually safer to store it in large quantities instead of small.”

“Why is that?” Tara asked.

“Because even when refined, crystal dust is unstable. It has to be carefully contained and shielded to prevent it from being detonated by environmental factors or hostile mages. There are stories of fires created by the stuff when it was improperly stored, and even an occasion when the Ibex brought down one of our airship flotillas by triggering all the gem dust in them to explode in their cannons and storage areas,” she recalled in some anger, deciding not to also mention that the Kingdom had exacted a very heavy price for that operation, razing an Ascendency border base in retaliation and sending the Ravens to sabotage an equal number of Ibexian airships.

“They did? Shit. Sounds like magical black powder,” Marco mused, leaving her lost again. “Our initial version of explosive powder, called black powder, was very volatile as well. Over time we refined it, making it much less dangerous. But back in the day, firing one of these ‘cannons’, which were called muskets back then, required a succession of steps. First, you had to stand the musket upright to pour gunpowder down the barrel and then shove a metal ball down to the bottom, using a long rod.”

He pantomimed the action with his AR, which seemed to involve biting something off and dumping the contents of an imaginary container into the top of the tube, followed by jamming something down it. He then raised his rifle back to level. “And once you did that, then you added a percussion cap to a spring-loaded striker just above the trigger. It basically caused a spark when it struck metal that ignited the powder, which then propelled the ball down the barrel and out. If I could pull out my laptop, I’d show you a video of it.”

“Sounds like a lot of work for a single shot. How good were they?” Gilda asked.

“Not very,” Chris admitted. “In the days of smoothbore muskets, the effective range was less than a hundred yards. To fight with them, opposing forces formed battle lines where they would volley fire at each other to whittle their enemy’s numbers down, and then try to break their enemy’s line with a charge. These ‘muskets’ would also be fitted with a long blade at the end, called a bayonet, to make it a stabbing weapon.” He then mimicked a thrusting motion with his wooden rifle.

“But since then, guns have steadily advanced to make such tactics obsolete. Our rounds—that’s what we call individual projectiles, or ‘bullets’—are now in a single and surprisingly simple package. Take a look.” Marco ejected the quiver from his reassembled cannon—this time, she saw the button he pressed to do so—and showed her the top of it, through which the long and tapered cylinders were visible. They looked to be almost gold-colored at the base but turned more of a copper hue at the top.

“Here,” he made a quick motion with his thumb talon that popped a single cylinder free and offered it to her. Seeing her reluctance, he smiled. “Don’t worry, it’s safe to hold. It won’t go off unless you smash the base of it with a hammer or something. You’d have to really try. It’s okay. Just take it.”

Stealing herself, she did so. To her great surprise, she found it was ludicrously light, sitting very placidly in her talons. “So this is a…” She couldn’t remember the word he used.

“Bullet,” Marco and Chris chorused before the former went on. “Our arrows. Or cannonballs, if you prefer, but they’re not balls any more. They’re pointed metal, as you can see, to allow greater penetration and much more stability in flight. My gun, or rifle, is basically just a tool that launches a bullet towards its intended target and then cycles immediately for another shot. There’s nothing magical about it; it’s all machinery combined with chemistry and physics as well as centuries of steadily improving designs.”

Gilda gave Marco a look as she studied the metal projectile. “This small thing is what did all the damage? How? Even if I flung that from a crossbow, it doesn’t look like it would wound an armored griffon. It’s too small.”

Marco grinned. “Well, when it travels faster than the speed of sound, it doesn’t need to be big. It’ll hit with the force of Giraldi’s hammer over a very narrow area, punching through all but the toughest armor—which, by the way, your Paladins had.” He shivered for a moment.

Gilda was about to ask how his initial rounds failed to penetrate Paladin armor but his subsequent ones did after he switched quivers, but then she blinked. “Wait—these travel faster than the speed of sound?”

“Yeah,” Chris replied. “Sorry if I forget the exact velocity, but that’s where the crack comes from. It’s making a sonic boom.”

“I’m aware of the speed of sound,” Gilda said shortly. “And sonic rainbooms.”

That got Tara to look up. “Rainbooms?” she repeated the word like it was unfamiliar.

“I had this friend back in Equestria,” Gilda began, looking away. “She trained hard so she could do a… well, to fly as fast as that.”

Tara hesitated before speaking. “Would that be your ‘Dashie’?” she guessed as she started reassembling her pistol, which Gilda vaguely recalled had been referred to as a “nineteen-eleven.”

The young eagless closed her eyes tightly shut in pain, guessing that the only reason they didn’t recognize ‘Dashie’ as Rainbow Dash was because most humans still thought her name was Rainbow Streak. She wasn’t about to correct them, though. “Yes,” she confirmed. “She wanted to be not just the fastest, but the very best there was.”

“Really? Wow,” Marco replied, studying her carefully as he snapped the two halves of his cleaned weapon back together. “Did she succeed?”

“Yes. She did.” Gilda sighed, finding all her regrets flooding back now that she was looking at the very real chance of dying in the next few days. If not hours.

Marco stared at her for a moment. “I’m sorry, Gilds. Is this a bad topic?”

“A little bit,” she admitted as she shook her head, “but it’s not important right now. So, I have to ask—how by all the Crows of the Kingdom can this little thing travel faster than the speed of sound?” she wanted to know as she passed him back the ‘bullet’.

“The same way our old muskets worked, and I imagine the same way your airship cannons do,” Chris said as Marco added the round back to his quiver with a sharp click. “Explosive powder propels it at great force down the tube and out.”

“But… where’s the powder?” she asked in bewilderment.

Chris’s grin got broader as he removed one of his larger rounds from its rail—she remembered they called it a ‘stripper clip’—and passed it to her. “Oh, it’s there. Hold the bullet to your ear and shake it.”

She did so and was surprised to hear a faint sifting sound within it. “The powder is inside?”

“Inside the brass casing, yes,” he confirmed with a grin at her befuddled expression. “And at the base of the brass is a modern percussion cap called a ‘primer’. It creates a spark when struck by a small pin which is released when I pull the trigger. That ignites the powder, which in turn launches the bullet down the tube and out. Given the bullet’s small size and weight, it doesn’t take much of that powder to rapidly accelerate it to high speed, since almost all the force of the explosion is focused directly down the length of the ‘cannon’, as you call it.”

“By the time it leaves the tube, it’s already breaking the sound barrier. And anything struck by it… well, you already saw what happens,” Marco finished.

“I saw.” Gilda confirmed with a shiver. “So you’re telling me that you use a small amount of explosive powder already contained in these things to blast the metal tip outwards at the speed of sound?”

“Yup,” Marco replied with a nod. “That’s pretty much it. The rest is just simple physics. Low mass plus very high speed equals severe damage to living bodies when they strike.”

Gilda could only shake her head at the explanation. “That’s…”

“Incredible?” Marco suggested, finally smiling again.

“Insane,” she told him, causing his expression to drop. “I didn’t know this until recently, but we experimented with these weapons ourselves unsuccessfully a long time ago. From the sound of it, what we produced was like what your weapons used to be—limited range; very slow rate of fire. So they were considered completely impractical for how we fought.”

To Gilda’s annoyance, that got Chris and Marco laughing while Tara gave a smile as well. “Yeah, I guess Napoleonic musketry tactics wouldn’t be worth much if you’re a flying race used to crossbows and blades,” Marco agreed. “Especially if you can close quickly with an enemy by air and are very good at mixing it up at melee range. And yeah, I guess it can be a little insane. But then again, humans have invented plenty of stuff that people thought were crazy or outright impossible until we got it working. The gun is just one of those.”

She could only shake her head in disbelief at his words—for all they had already created, was anything impossible to humans?—but also realized that wasn’t as important right now as the information she needed. “Okay, so all these ‘firearms’ you and the Marines wield work like that?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Marco confirmed. “There are some differences, though. Our weapons are only what’s called semi-automatic, which means one trigger pull, one shot. The Marine rifles can fire in three-round bursts or go ‘full-auto’ like Brennan’s over there. That means his rifle—its designation is the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, I think—can fire continuously without pause as long as he holds down the trigger. Or at least until his ammo runs out,” he added as an afterthought.

“With some few exceptions, civilian weapons are not allowed to be more than semi-auto,” Chris spoke again. “So for Marco’s variant, it can only fire bullets as fast as he can pull the trigger. But for most purposes, that’s enough. In fact, going full-auto is often not of any benefit because the recoil quickly reduces accuracy and makes you waste your rounds. They sometimes call that ‘spray and pray.’”

“Interesting. But that’s the other thing…” She tapped Marco’s disconnected quiver with a talon. “How many ‘rounds’ do those quivers hold?

Marco grinned again as he held his detached quiver up. “This one is a standard size for the Marine M-4 and my AR-15. It holds thirty rounds, though I was told by someone knowledgeable not to fill it all the way. So I keep it two rounds short to protect the spring inside. That spring is what shoves the remaining rounds upwards into the barrel as the ones ahead of it are fired.”

“So twenty-eight rounds per quiver…” Gilda muttered, feeling faint again; her own crossbow quiver held only twenty-four bolts.

His grin got broader. “Yes, though we don’t call them that. They’re actually called ‘magazines’.” he tapped the metal again. “And I have some high-capacity ones that double my load, at the cost of making my rifle heavier and possibly more likely to jam.”

She looked up. “Jam?”

“Yeah. Every once in a while, you get a round that misfires or sticks, which means it doesn’t fire or eject properly, getting trapped in the chamber. Thankfully, that didn’t happen here, but if it does, I have to clear the round—manually eject it and load the next round—or my rifle’s worthless as anything but a blunt weapon,” Marco explained.

“That’s why we’re cleaning and lubing these. Doing so frequently helps to prevent problems. If too many rounds are fired without cleaning, the barrel becomes fouled with carbon buildup—smoke and ash from the burning powder, basically.” Chris showed her a rag from his rifle now smeared with black and smelling of an odd oil. “If that happens, they jam, which can be lethal in a battle and leave you with nothing more than a big metal stick.”

“Blunt weapon…” Gilda had a sudden urge to laugh as she recalled again how they’d initially thought the human cannons were melee arms. “So how far do your bullets reach?”

“Well, the ones out of my AR can travel around three kilometers, but this class of rifle isn’t accurate at that range,” Marco replied. “Speaking for myself, I can reliably hit a human-sized target at two hundred meters. The Marines, I’m sure, have much better accuracy than me thanks to their training. They could probably double that range and could fire even further out if they just want to blanket an area with bullets.”

Gilda blinked. “What’s a ‘kilometer’?”

Marco blinked in turn. “Oh… right. I guess the Romans didn’t use metric,” he said slightly nonsensically as he began to look around. “Hmm, let’s see… notice those trees over there?” he asked, pointing towards a woodland area to her left.

Turning her head, Gilda’s eyes locked on the woodline, which she instantly ascertained was a bit short of half a league out. “Yes.”

“They’re roughly a kilometer away,” Marco said. “Well, more or less. So, yeah, half the distance, and you get the rifle’s effective range for a single target.”

One of Gilda’s eyes widened. Their best crossbows could only travel a tenth of that distance, and only if a griffon was grounded and in a stable firing position. But that distance? And hit enemy soldiers accurately?

“Of course, most of the time, they’d just engage at fifty meters or so,” Chris added. “I think because they’re usually on the move. And that’s only the standard issue rifles the Marines are given. They have Designated Marksman Rifles they give to particularly good shots. Though I don’t think they call them that anymore.”

“Then a designated marksman is someone who can shoot far?” Gilda guessed, wondering why Tara was remaining mostly silent when she’d been so adamant about answering any questions the griffons had.

“You got it,” Marco replied with a nod. “They’re equipped with special rifles that have longer barrels, heavier rounds, and better optics to see and hit targets at extended range. Those are designed to kill enemy soldiers past the half a kilometer mark, or even further. Heck, we have people called ‘snipers’ that can hit targets in that treeline and beyond. From what Henderson was saying, she’s trained as one.”

“I hope she trains me,” Chris said eagerly. “Because I’d love to be able to hit targets that far out.”

“I see,” Gilda muttered, getting a little lost. She shook her head, trying to remember what else she needed to know. “Okay, so how powerful are they exactly? These ‘bullets’ you fire?”

“That really depends on the kind of bullets,” Marco said patiently; the more he spoke, the more Gilda noticed he seemed to be settling down and recovering from the battle.

“For the 5.56 millimeter rounds that the Marines and I are using, they can penetrate over a quarter inch of steel. More than that if I switch to my armor-piercing rounds, which are denser and have a metal rod inside them to increase penetration power. That’s how I took out that last Paladin.” He shivered for a moment. “Damn near fumbled that reload twice, though…”

“Quarter inch…” Gilda repeated to herself, suddenly thinking that all the armor she wore and had become so proud of had just become a liability. A mere impediment to motion that wouldn’t protect her in battle with human weapons.

“I mean, a fourth of an inch—oh, right. That’s another measure you probably wouldn’t know,” Marco granted, though this time, she did know it given the ponies used it. Nevertheless, she said nothing as she watched Marco make a length between his thumb and finger; the distance he left between them confirmed to her the measures matched.

She swallowed hard. She didn’t know how different human steel was compared to the griffon or Minotaurian types, but if it was the same, then those bullets could penetrate any unenchanted armor the Kingdom had short of the Paladins without any problem. Ancestors, they would get through anything short of heavy Fortis Knight shields as well!

“Then there’s also the other weapons they brought,” Chris noted. “Remember that explosion that took out the mage?”

Gilda nodded, trying not to shiver in turn. “Was that also a bullet?”

“Well, no. That’s called a grenade,” he replied. “Remember when we said guns use small directed explosions to launch a bullet out the tube? Grenades are basically explosive handheld devices tossed by soldiers, or in certain cases, launched from a larger tube.”

“Generally, squad and fire team leaders are equipped with a second undermount tube on their M-4 rifles that can fire 40mm grenades,” Marco added. “That’s what he used. I think soldiers equipped with them are called ‘grenadiers’, and they give the squad an added punch when needed. They only have a limited number of those, though.”

“I see.” For the first time, Gilda finally found a human weapon with a griffon equivalent. “We use explosive gems for the same purpose. And some of our crossbow bolts are even tipped with them.” She brought out a ruby-tipped arrow from her back-mounted quiver to show them. “This is one of them. Just don’t hit the arrowhead or smash it against anything hard, or it will go off.”

“Gotcha,” Marco said, holding it carefully away from the end as he inspected the sharp crystal tip. “I wouldn’t want to be hit by this, either. My armor might take it, but it would still fragment in my face.” He passed it to Chris for inspection next.

“That’s part of the way it works,” Gilda conceded. “What about your armor? That’s not metal.” She pointed at Marco’s vest.

He rapped it with his knuckles. “Not entirely, no. It’s called composite armor, made of a mixture of metal and specially designed ceramics—and no, it’s not going to just shatter like a teacup!” He laughed at the look on her face.

“I couldn’t tell you how it works, but it’s designed to stop most pistol and rifle bullets, and it will—to a point. Certain bullet types are designed to penetrate it—I have a few with me. Chris’s old rifle might do it even without them, given it fires much larger and more powerful rounds. But even if not, I still don’t want to get hit, because the impact of a bullet alone will knock me back and hurt like hell.

“And you also notice not all of me is protected—just the vital areas. I’m not an earth griffon like Giraldi—too much more of this armor, and I wouldn’t be able to walk!” He chuckled as Gilda couldn’t help but stifle a smile.

“Thanks for sharing all this, Chris and Marco. It’s enough for now—you’ve told me so much that I don’t even know if I can remember it all. Maybe we can use it to find a way to fight together that won’t have you or your Marines shooting us by accident.”

Marco nodded as he reloaded his detached quiver with a sharp click. “We did pretty well before. I don’t know the answer, but if I learned nothing else in the last hour, it’s that I’m not exactly a soldier or Marine.” He shivered again, and this time, Gilda couldn’t resist hugging him, hard.

“You are a warrior, Marco Lakan,” she told him softly as she felt him trembling and realized just how much of his fears he was still holding in for her sake. “All threeof you are. I wouldn’t be here without you. None of us would be.” She found herself wishing fervently that she could repay them with something more than mere words.

“Thanks, but… you’ll forgive me if I still wish we were in Catlais,” he told her wanly, then reached in to kiss her as Chris and Tara looked on; in need of her own comfort, Gilda found herself all but melting into his embrace. “If we survive this, I’m gonna want a lot more time with you than just two days, girlfriend.”

“If we survive this, I’ll find a way to spend a lifetime with you,” she promised him, holding him tightly and never wanting to let him go. “Please don’t die, Marco Lakan. Please don’t die, any of you,” she pleaded with them, finding herself fearful that this would be the last time they would ever all be together. And if it is…

“If I do, it’ll be defending you. In fact, it’ll be defending all of us. And who knows? For helping the Kingdom, maybe we’ll earn statues in your Hall of Heroes?” Marco joked with a slightly weak smile. “Then you can visit us whenever you like. They can even make my statue as naked as the rest of them. And tell the Paladin sentries I won’t mind one bit if you want to put your paws on my shoulders.”

“Why stop there? Make mine nude, too. And tell them Fortrakt can grope my statue’s shaft,” Chris suggested wryly.

“And my statue’s topless boobs,” Tara couldn’t help but add with a grin. “He and Galen. They’re such good griffons… for as bad as we wanted to, why didn’t we take that chance with Fortrakt the other night, Chris?” she asked as she reached over to take his hand. “Why didn’t we do what he said we did with him all over again? At least then, we’d be able to remember it.”

“I don’t know, but we were fools not to. As God is my witness, if we ever get that chance again…” The rest went unsaid as his eyes went distant and his cheeks flushed; his patterned pants beginning to show a large bulge that started in his crotch but quickly swelled past it, beginning to work its way down the length of his left thigh.

He then looked down at himself in disbelief as his constrained human ‘cock’ struggled to free itself of his clothing, swiftly stretching towards his knee. It pushed hard against the splotchy fabric over his leg, leaving him making only a weak effort to hide the end of it with his hand. “Christ Almighty—I can’t believe I’m even thinking about sex at a time like this.”

“Me neither,” Tara said as she stared as fixedly as Gilda at the progression of his increasingly impressive erection down his leg. The human eagless started to squirm where she sat and began breathing a little harder as Chris started squeezing and rubbing it; as Gilda watched, her already-impressive mammarian protrusions almost seemed to swell further where they sat high on her chest, causing visible stress to the large buttons on the front of her shirt.

“Christ, you’re big now, Chris… and what’s wrong with me that I suddenly want to screw all of you like there’s no tomorrow?” She tugged lightly at her taut top for a moment and locked her blue eyes with Gilda’s gold ones briefly, only to quickly flinch them away.

“I don’t know, but I feel the same way…” Chris said as he pawed at his pants lightly to try to gain more room for his constricted organ, which had now reached at least halfway down his thigh. He glanced over at Tara to see her cupping her swelling teats, hefting them in amazement. “Tara, your boobs are—”

“I know! Are yours growing too, Gilda?” she suddenly asked the rapt eagless, who blinked and sat back to spread her haunches wide enough to reveal that they were. That just like had happened earlier when she was with Marco, they were indeed swelling into mound-sized masses around the greater area of her teats, the nubs of which looked like they’d doubled in size. Not only that, but they were now quite taut and tingling fiercely, ready and eager to be touched.

“By my Ancestors…” she said as she stared down at herself in disbelief, reaching to cup her upper set as Tara already had with hers, seeing and feeling them noticeably grow in her grasp. “How is this happening?”

“I don’t know, but there must be some cider still in us, because I’m starting to see pink! Maybe it’s doing this to us!” a clearly discomfited Marco observed as he was finally forced to free his surging spear out the front of his pants before it got too big to do so comfortably; he was only barely able to get it out before it got too stiff to remove without taking his pants off entirely.

Like Chris, he initially tried to conceal it behind his hands and shirttail but found it was already too big to do so; he gave up on trying to hide it as she watched it grow until it was standing tall at nearly 10 pony inches over his lap before the amazed eyes of his friends.

“Holy shit, Marco…” Tara stared at him in amazement, licking her lips once and leaning towards it as she unconsciously released the clasp of her belt. “I knew you weren’t small before, but that…” Her hand began to work her way downwards, slipping the vertical fasteners that led to her human nest.

“And he isn’t the only one…” a grunting Chris was finally forced to free himself as well, though in his case, his erection had already worked its way so far down his leg that he had to release his belt and push his pants down to nearly his knee before the full mass of his organ was uncovered, pulling his undergarment aside to reveal his thick shaft and equally impressive apples.

The former swiftly popped up into the air to point directly at Gilda’s head, barely an uncia in size shorter than Marco’s human spear. “Christ almighty, my erection was just average before. But look at me now!”

“Both of you are that big?” Tara began to paw at herself even harder as she released her remaining buttons, showing a great deal of her human ‘cleavage’ as her breasts now seemed to be spilling right out of her black undergarment.

“And so are you and Gilda!” Marco pointed out as he began to stroke himself to the sight of them while Chris seemed to be doing so to the sight of him. “And now I want both of you really bad…”

“Cider…” Gilda blinked when she realized that there was indeed more than a hint of pink at the edges of her vision; for a moment, she swore she could taste it on her tongue and smell it again on the breath of her human friends. “I think it’s the fertility potion part of it. It’s enhancing us! And the cider is enhancing its effect just like it does all magic!” she guessed. But she also realized that she didn’t mind at all for how good it felt, even beneath her own talons. And what about somecreature else’s…?

“I think I get it. The fertility potion makes everything bigger and more sensitive to increase attraction, and then the cider multiplies the effect. But did it do this to us before?” Tara’s amazed eyes flitted back and forth between the two erect shafts and Gilda’s still-swelling mammaries, her other hand going to her shirt to slip the fasteners down the front of it to allow her own bulging breasts more breathing room before they burst her buttons.

“It did to me a little when I was with Marco. But not like this!” Gilda marveled at not only her new endowments, but those of her friends. “Fortrakt said it might have happened when he was with that Talon eagless. So maybe it just took time for the effect to fully develop. Or maybe it’s a cumulative effect from having sex?” she mused as she felt her wings reach full sensual splay, her feathers brushing the backs of Chris and Marco as she continued to work her mammaries.

She noted all three humans were now eyeing her eagless form intently, with Chris and Marco stroking themselves slowly while Tara slipped a hand under her undergarment to work one of her human ‘boobs’ directly.

Marco didn’t answer right away except to take a furtive look around the alcove, not seeing or hearing anyone near them. “I don’t know, girlfriend, but at this point, I ain’t gonna fight it. And here and now, we don’t even know if we’re gonna live past tonight. So…” Gilda’s breath caught as Marco’s hands slipped beneath her wingbases from her left to begin massaging her exposed flight muscles, causing them to start quivering.

Her mouth going dry as her beak fell open, her talons fell slack against her swollen teats as she could feel her nest rapidly engorging as well, and at that moment, she found herself ready to indulge not just him but all of them; surrender her eagless body to them right then and there regardless of witnesses or danger.

For what did privacy or propriety matter if they died in the next few hours?

What meaning did her desire for Marco to earn her nest by winning a mating round have if he was never able to fight one?

What if this turned out to be their only remaining chance to be together, and worse, her only opportunity to ever repay them for all the friendship, love and honor they’d shown her?

What guarantee was there that they would ever get to share a room, movie, or bed again, in Catlais or anywhere else?

There isn’t any… she knew, and she also knew her human friends had reached the same conclusion as human and griffon eyes rapidly flicked back and forth. When Gilda trilled softly at Marco’s now-practiced touch, a red-cheeked Chris and Tara glanced at each other and then pushed closer to begin putting paws on her as well.

Chris rested his trembling left hand on her bare right flank while Tara guided a set of Gilda’s talons to her partially exposed chest. She reached in to kiss her beak over Marco’s shoulder, whose hands shifted low to fondle her newly enhanced teats, nearly making her legs buckle.

“Ancestors above…” was all Gilda could murmur as she was suddenly and quite sorely turned on, drinking in the affection and pure appreciation of those humans she treasured the most. Her wings and tail rising in involuntary invitation to Chris and Marco’s digits, and her nose and talons suddenly swimming in Tara’s softness and scent, she found herself ready to surrender fully to them like there was no tomorrow.

For as Marco said, she knew there was a very real chance that for all of them, there wasn’t.

Guided by Tara’s fingers, both sets of Gilda’s talons swiftly found their way beneath her odd undergarment to feel her bare body beneath. It left her marveling at the soft and pillowy feel of the fleshy mammary mounds, whose warmth and texture she couldn’t get enough of, squeezing and kneading them gently while feeling her human teats nestle gently into the gap between two of her talons.

Trilling her pleasure as she started making out with the human eagless in greater earnest, she pushed back fractionally into Chris’s digits as they got tantalizingly near her nest. She was rewarded when he took a ragged breath before inserting a finger into her, causing her to stifle a squawk as she nearly came on the spot; her slit clamping down on his fingers. A second digit swiftly followed, as his other hand found one of her free teats to fondle, leaving her mood soaring and deciding that even if the Cloven killed them then, she’d die happy.

The Cloven… some part of her protested between kisses of Tara. Can’t do this… we’re not safe yet…

“Chris? Let’s help her onto her back,” Marco said as she felt him starting to gently lower her to the soft ground just as he’d done to her in her suite, laying her down on the mossy floor instead of the carpet of her room. “Then all three of us can easily have her. Her ‘nest’ is off-limits, so you can have her tail while I take her tits.”

“You got it, buddy…” Chris said huskily as their hands on her belly were replaced by Tara’s, who fondled two of her teats in their place. Wanting to explore more of the surprisingly familiar curves of Tara’s exotic eagless body, Gilda’s talons slid down her form to find her hips. Slipping them inside the loosened garment, she pushed down her friend’s patterned pants enough to find her fleshy cheeks, whose smooth and yieldingly soft feel were just as enjoyable to squeeze and sample as her human mammaries.

“And I’ll take her beak…” Tara announced as Gilda felt herself being eased over onto her back by all three of them at once. “I don’t know how, but I remember you were really good at that…”

Gilda somehow knew it too, and she gave a shivering trill at her treatment, knowing that once she was on her back, her body would be fully surrendered, her submissive position leaving her able to pleasure all three of them at once. She felt the spears of Chris and Marco pushing into her belly from either side as they pressed close against her; she found herself wishing for a second set of talons so she could grasp and stroke them as well.

It was only then she heard the sharp cawing of a crow and her eyes snapped open, locking onto it. The black-feathered bird stared down at them almost curiously, joined by several of its friends; she swore for a moment that several of them were smirking.

“No! No! Wait, stop! We can’t! We can’t!” she finally managed just before she was laid back, at which point she knew she would be pinned by her own wings. “Please… not here. Not now,” she told them all shakily, to which the three humans all deflated but relented, snapped out of whatever trance they’d been in.

“But…” To her surprise, it was Chris who sounded the most disappointed. His spear was still throbbing hard against her, pushing into the side of one of her swollen mammaries.

“I’m sorry, Chris, I really am! But the Cloven could come back and this isn’t the time. Even for as badly as I want to, I have to be a leader, not a lover right now. I have my duty and can’t be distracted. I promise you can have me when we reach safety.” Part of her couldn’t believe she was saying that, but to another, far larger part, it felt like an offer that needed to be made.

Her words seemed to snap them out of it fully, causing Marco and Chris to gently release her and step back, their spears still standing rigid before them. “Sorry, Gilda. I swear I wasn’t planning to seduce you. That hit completely out of nowhere again…” Marco admitted as he released her, sitting back with his organ still hanging out his pants.

“Yeah…” a sweating Chris agreed shakily, his own stature still prominent and looking scarcely less impressive than Marco’s; it was only then Gilda noticed that he was holding Tara’s other hand to it, which was slowly stroking it as he reached around her back to cup and knead a breast.

“If we get through this, maybe we should get ourselves magically scanned. Because that sure felt like the cider was affecting us again. God above, I can’t even remember the last time I was ever interested in a girl! Let alone two!” He both squeezed Tara’s ‘boob’ and clutched her hand to him more tightly for a moment before he looked down and gaped, immediately releasing her.

“I’m sorry, too,” Tara agreed as she only belatedly snatched her hand back from him, clutching herself for a moment before she poured some water from a griffon canteen over her head. “For just a second, it was the night of the cider all over again. I’m sorry, Gilda and Chris. I just… couldn’t… help it…” She bowed her dripping head in shame as her still-exposed mammaries began to recede to their regular size.

“It’s okay. And I’m flattered, Chris, believe me. I’m flattered that you all want me, and for all you’ve done for not just me, but the entire Kingdom, you’ve more than earned me. But this isn’t the time or place.” Gilda stepped back and took several swallows of air, trying to will her still-strong excitement and the somehow-present effect of the potion-spiked cider away. Ancestors, PLEASE let us live to finish this later!

“It’s okay, Gilds. But if we can’t give you some love, then at least have some liquid courage,” a still-sorely erect Marco offered her his flask of buffalo whiskey, uncapping it for her but taking his own swig first, sighing with relief after an initial grimace that caused his spear to immediately start softening.

“The buffalo bull I got this from in Appleloosa told us that traditionally, they drank it before every battle. I’m not sure what’s in it, but I find a single swallow of this stuff does wonders to steady me. Any more than that, though…” His warning was left unstated as he handed the flask to her.

Gilda accepted it, stared at it… and then upended it briefly into her open beak. Even though only a small amount flowed out before she righted it again, the bison-created spirit hit the back of her throat and burned hard, causing her eyes to water and beak to gape.

“By the Ancestors…” she could only croak as Fortrakt once had as all her more untoward thoughts receded in an instant, leaving her only aware of the alcoholic bite and distinct taste of desert-grown grains. But the burn faded to leave an odd warmness in its wake as it ran down the back of her throat and found its way to her stomach, somehow settling it as well as her more lurid thoughts.

She sat back and took several deep breaths to let it fully take effect, finding that as Marco had promised, her mind suddenly felt far more clear and ready to take on the challenge she faced. “Thanks, Marco. I needed that.”

“I think we all do, Marco,” Tara took a large gulp from the flask next, then gaped. “Holy shit, that’s strong!” she breathed open-mouthed for a moment. “Fuck. Think I’ll need to figure out how to make some mixed drinks with this when I open a bar in Arnau.” She fanned her face and bare chest with her hand.

“In that case, maybe I’ll stay in the Kingdom and work in the kitchen there,” Chris suggested as he took a swig in turn. “Whew! Damn good stuff… I can’t believe the Buffalo don’t export this. Because I’d take home an entire barrel!”

“Once the war’s over, we’ll work all that out. And find a way to be together again,” Gilda replied as she fully recovered her senses, standing straight and tall before them on all fours again. Despite what had nearly happened, she took it as a good sign for the course of the conflict. It means we’ve all got something—and somecreature—to live for. And having something to live for counts for a lot in war, right…?

“Thanks for sharing this information, all of you. And believe me, I’m very sorry to have stopped this. But before I leave, I have one last question.” She stood back from them at a respectful distance this time.

“Yeah?” Tara asked warily as the flush of her face slowly faded; for a moment, Gilda found she could still keenly recall the feel of the human woman’s bare flesh against her open talons.

Gilda carefully ordered her thoughts again, using the whiskey to force herself to focus. “Well, Imlay said that they were under orders not to reveal any information about human weaponry,” she recalled. “He also said it was because of an agreement that your government made with Equestria?”

“He’s right. So, I’m guessing you want to know more about that?” a still-breathless Marco suggested, to which Gilda nodded.

“Well, there’s not really much to say,” Chris began, visibly using the question combined with the fresh alcohol in his system to help master his nerves, his spear falling slowly flaccid in his lap. “Since the Portal is in Equestria, a lot of what goes in and out is up to the Equestrian government. Understandably, the first thing they barred from coming through the portal was human weaponry.”

“Guns and the like?” Gilda guessed, trying not to glance at his still-impressive stature again.

“More than that,” Marco replied, his own organ only half-softened. “Guns aren’t the only weapons we use. What you’ve seen so far are just personal arms. We have some… larger and more powerful weaponry. Stuff that just couldn’t be brought, or at least, not without a great deal more resources and support. Stuff that there was no way in hell or the pony ‘Tartarus’ that the Equestrian government would have allowed through the portal.”

“Okay. Then how did you get your stuff through?” she had to ask, her wings almost fully furled again; she glanced down in both disappointment and relief to see her swollen teats seemed to be slowly receding in size as well.

They all smiled slyly. “I guess you could say we had some inside help,” Marco answered as he was finally able to stuff his spear back into his pants; he arched his back slightly to give himself enough room to refasten the ‘fly’.

She stared at them. “By which you mean Sergeant Reyes and Starlight Glimmer; the personal student and Magus to Princess Twilight Sparkle?”

Marco and Chris gaped as Tara grinned; the latter pulling her undergarment back down over her exposed mammaries. “That’s right. It’s a bit fuzzy, but I just remembered we told you right after we got out of the infirmary. I guess you werepaying attention.” The human eagless nodded in approval.

“Short answer—yes. Reyes hid our weapons with the Marine ones so they could pass the portal, then gave them back to us once we were through. And Starlight made sure we could smuggle them into the Kingdom without running afoul of griffon customs. Or being otherwise detected by whatever sensory magic you had,” she explained as she began to button up her shirt again.

Gilda gaped. “And this ‘Starlight Glimmer’ helped you even though she actually knew what you were carrying?”

“She sure did,” Marco chuckled, this time taking a swig from a canteen. “Basically, she liaised with us just like you did while we were in Canterlot. Well, minus the sex, of course.” He grinned impishly, earning him a playful swat with her wing. “Seriously. We showed her some of our movies, and she couldn’t get enough of them—since the Equestrians already knew about our guns, there was no point in restricting our movie selection. So I showed her some of our best.”

“And she liked them?” Gilda’s urge to meet this mysterious mare was only growing.

“She did!” Tara confirmed with a grin, starting to button up her shirt again. “After she saw a couple movies with gunplay—just like you, she really seemed to enjoy our war flicks—she wanted to see real firearms. So, after swearing her to secrecy, we showed her ours. We explained to her why we brought them, and why we didn’t want to leave them behind. We even told her we were breaking the rules big time, but she actually seemed to like that!” she recalled with a laugh shared with Chris and Marco.

“And then, when it came time for us to head here, she cast the wards on our weapons and gear without letting Princess Twilight or anybody else know. That’s how we got them into the Kingdom. Guess they weren’t perfect, though,” Tara’s expression abruptly fell.

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Marco agreed, rebuckling his belt. “Remember how we said some of those spells were triggered by distance to make sure we couldn’t be separated from them? Well, my laptop and the other stuff the Ibex stole didn’t come back to us when we got far enough away from Arnau. So either those fucking goats figured out how to defeat the enchantments, or—far more likely—our equipment blew up when they were blocked from returning to us.” He sighed. “Either way, we’re never getting them back now. Seems a stupid thing to be upset over out here, but… yeah.”

“Actually, some of them did return,” Chris said with a grin. “I didn’t remember until just now with everything else happening, but…” He brought out his portal device from his pocket, which Gilda hadn’t seen in weeks.

“You got your smartphone back!” Tara said in delight. “Does it still work?”

“I don’t know. The battery’s dead,” Chris said with a shrug. “And I’m not going digging for a charger now.”

“Wouldn’t do us any good, anyway. It’s not like we can use it to call for help,” Marco noted.

“Maybe we could use it to record a few parting messages, at least. And hope they might be found later.” Chris turned downcast.

“Just keep thinking those happy thoughts, guys,” Tara told them both as she finished redressing and swiftly reassembled her pistol. “Me, I plan to live so I can start a new life in the Kingdom and finish what we started.”

She winked at Gilda as she reholstered her sidearm after slamming home a fresh magazine and manually chambering a round. She then passed the longer ‘Hawkeye’ rifle to Chris while she began work on cleaning her shotgun.

“So why did you bring weapons?” Gilda asked, suddenly eager to change the subject lest they be tempted again despite the whiskey. “This ‘Afghanistan’ you keep mentioning?”

“Yes,” Chris said with a sound not far removed from a hiss. His mood instantly turned angry along with Marco’s and Tara’s; all remaining traces of their earlier excitement instantly vanished as the remnants of their bulges receded and even Tara’s teats returned fully to normal. “It’s a long story—like twenty years long—but to say it ended up being a complete debacle is an understatement. Civilians were abandoned there for very bad reasons, and, well… coming here, we had no idea if the griffons would be friendly, or if the same thing could happen again.”

“I know it seems silly, but we really didn’t want to be left defenseless if the Marines were ordered out and didn’t take us with them,” Marco added. “Like Imlay says, we’re not trained soldiers, but we know our weapons well enough for most purposes. Though maybe not for this…” He shivered, to which Gilda put a set of reassuring talons on his forearm.

Chris gave them a few seconds before he continued. “Anyway, to finish answering your earlier question… When this expedition was first proposed, the U.S. government had to deal extensively with the Equestrian High Council to get the Marines and their weapons through.”

Gilda scoffed as she squeezed and released Marco’s arm. “Given what I know about them, the negotiations must have taken a while.”

Tara gave a mild snort. “Yeah. It finally got to the point that the talks were at an impasse until Princess Celestia intervened. She proposed a compromise that both our government and the Equestrian High Council eventually agreed on.”

“Which was…?” Gilda prompted.

“That Marine personnel could only bring the weapons that they could personally carry,” Marco replied, his smile widening again. “Well, the Marines availed themselves of that rule quite liberally. They brought an enormous assortment of arms and ammo with the help of storage gems they were able to obtain.”

“But even then, there were more rules,” Chris picked it up from there. “Before they would let us enter, the Equestrian Government added the restriction that talking about our guns is a no-no. Something about how it would disrupt the ‘balance of harmony’ between Tellusian nations and other stuff. So, like Imlay said, all military personnel have standing orders to not discuss them.”

“And civilians…?” Gilda asked, giving them a slightly askance look.

“Well, we kept silent at our own volition, at the direct request of the Marines,” Marco said as he began to stow his cleaning supplies in a small case. “Whether we agreed with it or not—and some of it we did—we didn’t want to make trouble for them or Sergeant Reyes. What you have to understand, Gilda, is that he really stuck his neck out for us. If they found out what he did, he could be thrown in prison and right out of the Marine Corps.”

Gilda nodded slowly, thinking Reyes was every bit as honorable as the civilians he had helped, doubly so since he was putting his career on the line to make sure they weren’t left defenseless. Then she locked onto something else Marco had said. “What do you mean, you agreed with ‘some of it’?”

As Marco pondered her question, Chris answered instead. “Okay, let’s reverse our roles. Let’s say the griffons found a brand-new species or civilization.”

“Okay?” Gilda wasn’t sure what he was getting at.

“And they don’t have repeaters,” he emphasized. “They have a warrior culture, but they don’t have anything even approaching your military technology like airships or your repeating crossbows. They’re certainly curious about them, but when you first meet them, you aren’t sure if they’ll be allies or enemies. They live really far away, and after some time, you send over a few civilian officials to negotiate a trade agreement with a company of armed soldiers as escort.” He paused to let Gilda mentally create the scenario.

“So to summarize, you don’t know much about them except that they’re said to be somewhat militaristic and have a few hostile neighbors, meaning they’d be interested in your more advanced arms. So even if they asked you, would you want to talk about things like your repeaters in detail?”

Gilda thought about that, then shook her head. “Probably not. At least, not until I’ve confirmed that we’re going to be allies and that they can be trusted.”

Marco nodded. “Well, that’s exactly what we have here. Except we humans are the ones with the repeaters.” He paused and raised his gun slightly for emphasis. “Well, you know what I mean.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.” Gilda remained silent as they continued to sit together; she could only guess that the three humans were just as lost in their own thoughts as she was at that moment.

Out of all the races of their world, the Gryphon Kingdom was known to have the strongest military. They didn’t have as many magic users as Equestrian Ponies or the Ibex did, or expansive Alchemic studies like the Zebrican Confederation, or even the advanced machines of the Minotaurs. But when it came down to the simple questions of weapons and tactics, griffons were historically the most effective and innovative race in all Tellus.

But now this new race had far surpassed them in what was proving to be a very short time. To be told that they were centuries, perhaps even a millennium behind in military technology was a very bitter pill to swallow. In fact, she wasn’t sure she had swallowed it yet.

“For what it’s worth, Gilda? I’m sorry.” Tara broke her train of thought.

Gilda blinked and looked at her. “For what?”

“For being the ones to change your world,” the human woman replied, her shoulders slumping. “You kinda looked lost, so I’m guessing that you’re trying to come to terms with everything we’ve told you.”

Gilda nodded slowly. “Yeah. It’s a little hard to take,” she admitted with a wan expression, her wings and tail drooping slightly in marked contrast to her earlier excitement.

“Tell me about it,” Marco muttered, gripping his rifle tighter for a moment. “Still, I wouldn’t worry too much. Once the idea settles in, I’m pretty sure it’ll be just a normal day for the griffons. Except now you have a few new ideas to experiment with. Just do us all a favor and try not to blow yourselves up. Some of us have gotten rather fond of you.”

She smiled and let him rest his forepaw on her leather-covered chest, briefly reaching up to squeeze his talons; his hand was shortly joined by those of Chris and Tara. “All for one…” Chris began with a grin.

“And one for all!” Marco and Tara chorused in reply.

Though she didn’t have any idea what that meant, Gilda held their hands to her for a moment before releasing them, silently thanking her Ancestors anew for allowing such fine and honorable humans to enter her life, praying that she would yet get the chance to reward them all properly. “So, given that you’ve now told me all about guns with Imlay’s unspoken permission… does that mean you trust us? That humans now see griffons as allies?”

“I see you as a lot more than that, girlfriend,” Marco told her wryly, earning another swat of her wing. “I can’t speak for all of us, but—yes. At this point, I think we’re natural allies and partners.”

“And no, it isn’t just because we’re culturally and physically compatible,” Chris added with a wink. “Remind me to explain to you later how you seem to be the Tellusian equivalent of an ancient human civilization, brought forward to the modern day.”

Gilda glanced at him, suddenly remembering the delicious feeling of his digits on her, and even briefly insideher. If he IS a tiercel-tucker like Fortrakt thought, does that mean I would be his first female? She found the thought strangely heady but put it aside as hard as she could.

“These ‘Romans’ you keep mentioning, I’m guessing? Fine. I’ll hold you to that later, when we’re not fighting a war. Thanks, all of you.” She hugged each of them tightly in turn, feeling the weight of their armor and the hardness of their metal tubes between them. She could only hope that the day would come when they could remove them and enjoy each other’s company properly.

And then she wondered if such a day would ever come, given the terrifying enemy they faced.

“You’re welcome,” Marco replied as he released her and stood up. To her surprise, he then bumped his hips against her shoulder. “And hey, if you need a quickie out here, I’ll give you a wingjob any time.” He added impishly as he stuck his tongue out to her, which had her both flushing and narrowing her eyes. She waited for the moment he turned around before she pounced at him, knocking him to the ground.

“Wha—ouch! Hey!” Marco giggled as Gilda grinned triumphantly, pinning him on his stomach.

“You deserved that,” she said as Chris and Tara applauded and laughed. “You’re a terrible tease, Marco Lakan. And you will pay a price for it later.”

“Promises, promises,” he needled her.

But before Gilda could think of a good retort, a new voice broke in. “Hey, Rico!” a smirking Marine called out as he approached. He was round-faced with lighter brown skin than Marco; Gilda couldn’t recall his name just then. “We know how much you like fraternizing with the locals, but Corporal Imlay needs to speak to the Centurion.”

“Oh, shut up, Guerrero,” Marco replied as a slightly chagrined Gilda stepped off him. He then picked himself up off the ground, brushing the grass and dirt off his clothes. “And seriously... Rico?”

Gilda ignored Marco’s question. “Why does the Corporal need me?” she asked, trying to sound all business again.

“The magical interference is clearing. Comms are back online,” Guerrero replied, his smirk not having fully faded. “We’ve gotten through to Arnau, and you may want to hear it.”

Gilda glanced at Marco, who gave her a nod and a grin. “Go, girlfriend. You can have your way with me another time.”

“Be careful what you wish for, Marco Lakan…” she said with a low trill, to which he only blew a kiss at her and bucked his hips. She gave him a parting view of a briefly raised tail as she got up and rushed back towards the camp, taking flight for a moment to speed her journey and resettle her thoughts. Arriving, she spotted Imlay, Giraldi and Ebon Umbreon clustered around a Marine with a large backpack that had a long, thin, and flexible metal rod sticking straight up.

As she approached, Imlay motioned with his hands at her to come quickly. “Warwolf-3 to Warwolf Actual; I have the Centurion with me, over,” Imlay declared towards a green box that was on the makeshift tree stump table. To her surprise, after some crackling, she could hear a clear voice coming out of it.

“Copy that, Warwolf-3,” the voice from the box declared.

There was another slight crackle, and then to her amazement, Tribune Narada’s voice was heard.

“Is this close enough?” she asked softly.

“Yes, just talk normally,” came an even softer reply.

“Centurion Behertz! Are you there?” the Tribune asked.

At Imlay’s nod, Gilda stepped forward and took a breath. “Yes, Tribune. I’m here and very relieved to hear from you. As I’m sure you were already informed, we have been attacked by the Cloven of the Sun.”

“I am aware of the situation, Centurion,” Narada replied tersely. “In fact, the whole Kingdom is aware. A full-scale Cloven invasion is underway. We have reports of attacks all over Aresia, spearheaded by a corrupted dragon clan, who have been razing military bases and burning crops. But the greatest threat appears to be in the West right now. They’re rapidly expanding their operations and consolidating their gains there.”

“West? But the Cloven were originally from the South!” Gilda protested.

“Feel free to register a complaint with the Cloven Overlords. But that’s not the only concern,” Narada continued. “It seems they have brought a variety of corrupted creatures with them. We’ve received reports of not just dragons but diamond dogs and even a few Minotaurs under their thrall, and I regret they’ve captured plenty of griffons and Caleponians as well. I’m relieved to know you’re okay, given Catlais and several other cities have already fallen. Where are you, Centurion?”

“Sir, we were shot down by a mage-emplaced lightning field some eighteen leagues southeast of Tierra, near the steadholt of Bale. We’re making our way to the latter now, in hopes of eventually reaching Tierra itself.”

“Don’t,” she immediately said. “I’m sorry to report Tierra has fallen along with three other major military bases throughout the south and west. They were taken completely by surprise. The fragmentary reports we have were that the Cloven used adult dragons they’d captured to destroy the airships at anchor and raze the outer defenses, then simply overran them with sheer numbers of corrupted and recently created Cloven soldiers. We’ve lost at least two airship groups and four legions, all of which are likely to be turned against us.”

“Understood…” Gilda said as her guts clenched. No Tierra? What NOW? she wondered frantically. “Where can we go to find safety, then? I’ve got a full squad of human Marines but only a single mage and around two decades of Auxilias remaining, and four civilians to escort.” She decided against saying the civilians were armed at that moment.

“And the Paladins?” the Tribune prompted.

Gilda closed her eyes tightly for a moment. “We lost most of them to that crow-cursed lightning trap. They later attacked us as Cloven-possessed corpses, but it turned out three of them were Ravens and their special armor enabled them to survive. They’re a great help, as are the Marines with their cannons. We already defeated one Cloven attack thanks to both, but our numbers are few and we need to find sanctuary soon.”

There was a brief pause. “I’ve seen the destructive power of human weapons for myself. They repulsed a surprise Cloven raid on their outside encampment, and even one on the Inn when I was there arguing with Captain Moran to witness it. To say their arms are impressive would be an enormous understatement,” the Tribune noted, mostly to herself.

“There were several such raids launched throughout Arnau aimed at civilian and military leadership, and I regret to say they met with some success,” she continued grimly. “In any event, the Kingdom is at war, and I cannot detail any air coaches to reach you. Not until we clear the skies of their flyers and those accursed field traps set by corrupted mages.”

“Flyers?” Gilda echoed uncomprehendingly, then it clicked what the Tribune was likely referring to. “To this point, we haven’t seen any pure Cloven forms. Just corrupted creatures.”

“Expect that to change. You may not have seen them yet, but the Cloven have much-improved soldier forms, including a razorbat-like one that flies fast, has sharpened wings and fires spikes from its maw. They can kill from both up close and at a distance, so even if a coach could get to you, you’d be slaughtered by swarms of them if you tried to flee by air.”

“Understood.” Gilda felt like she was in a steadily narrowing tunnel running out of air, and she didn’t even know if it had an exit or would simply dead-end. “I need options, sir, and a place to go. Where can we find safety if Tierra has fallen?” She held her breath at the answer.

“Head northeast. The fortress city of Aricia still stands, as does its large Auxilias garrison and armory. Surviving Knights and Talons from Tierra and other bases fled there as well, along with two damaged airships and many civilian refugees. It wasn’t hit first due to its smaller size and lesser importance, and they were thus forewarned and able to mount a defense. We’ll try to let them know you’re out there, but our communications are intermittent at best due to Magus and dragon interference.”

Gilda consulted her map and grimaced at what she saw—Aricia was a full thirty leagues away. Such a distance was within easy reach by air even for earth griffons, but by ground, it was at least a three-day march through Cloven-controlled territory. “Orders understood, sir. We will head that way at once.”

“Good. By my command, bring your mixed force there and assist the Tribune of the garrison in mounting a defense. Aricia forms a strong salient into Cloven-held territory and is ideally placed for launching a counteroffensive, so we will work on getting reinforcements to your location as soon as we can.”

“That’s still a long way to go, sir,” Gilda said with a glance up at Imlay, who stayed silent. “Forgive me for asking, but do you have any suggestions for getting there alive?”

“Just the obvious ones. Keep to the ground and stay out of sight as much as possible. Light no fires and travel only by day, taking cover in defensible structures or underground during darkness. Body heat will stand out to dragons much more easily at night due to cooler temperatures, and you do not want to be caught out in the open with them around.”

“By your command,” Gilda said obediently, even if she was anything but confident that they could make it the distance.

Imlay scooted closer. “Warwolf-3 to Warwolf Actual, over.”

“Lieutenant Nantz?” Gilda heard Tribune Narada call off to the side.

There was another small crackle before Nantz’s voice was heard. “This is Warwolf Actual. Send traffic, over.” Gilda was never so glad as to hear the First Lieutenant’s voice.

“Roger, sir. As the Centurion said, I’ve got a full squad plus Chief Jacobs, supported by around twenty griffon soldiers and three armed civilians after our latest losses.”

“Armed?” Nantz echoed incredulously. “You gave those three weapons?”

“No, sir. It turns out that they brought their own,” he answered wryly, leaving a grinning Gilda wishing he could see the look on Moran’s face when he found out. “They smuggled a small arsenal into the Kingdom, including an AR, a shotgun, and two long-range rifles along with several sidearms, surplus camo clothes, civvie body armor and plenty of ammo,” he explained, to no immediate answer from Nantz.

“Before you ask, Mister Raleigh told me to seize them. But they refused to give them up, citing what happened in Afghanistan, and they proved they can use them adequately during our first battle. As I need every working rifle I can get and am not willing to use force against them, I will decline any order to disarm them,” he preemptively warned.

“The Captain’s gonna blow a gasket,” Nantz replied after a short pause. “But you won’t get that order from me. On that matter, proceed as you feel best. If they’ve proven promising, give them additional training when you can.”

“Wilco, sir. But I do have a request. To help our combined force work together, our griffon allies need to know exactly what we can do. To that end, request permission to advise the griffons of our weapon capabilities. Over.”

There was another pause before Nantz’s voice came back. “Permission granted, Warwolf-3. The Captain may not like it, but on my authority, you may. For now, please note you are permitted to advise the griffons of only our combat capabilities. Nothing more.”

Imlay exchanged a quizzical glance with Chief Jacobs as the interference increased again. “Interrogative: what do you mean by ‘only our combat capabilities’, over?”

“I mean, you can tell them what our weapons can do, but not how they work,” he clarified, struggling to make himself heard. “We’re cut off from communications with Equestria and the Portal, so for now we’re on our own and have to make our own decisions. As the Tribune says, get to Aricia and assist their defense—I’ll clear it with the Captain later. Communications are failing again, so that’s all! Out!” he said just before his voice was overwhelmed by fresh crackling.

“Sorry, sir. They must be putting the field back in place,” Imlay suggested. “If so, that means there are more mages around.”

“Right. We need to get moving, but we also need to settle where we’re going and how we get there,” Gilda reminded him. “Let’s figure that out now.”

Imlay nodded towards the Marine with the backpack, who immediately stepped away. “You heard him, sir. I can only tell you about what our weapons can do, though I’m guessing at this point—” he looked towards all the dead Cloven-corrupted animals and griffons, then over at the alcove where Marco, Chris and Tara remained “—it’s moot.”

“Mostly,” Gilda replied distractedly as she pulled out and unfolded her map. “We still need to figure out how to get to Aricia.”

“I suggest a phased movement, sir,” Giraldi said. “We travel by day from steadholt to steadholt in the rough direction of Aricia, absorbing what supplies and surviving soldiers we can as we go.” He traced a slightly zigzagging line with his talon, tapping a series of three steadholts in turn. “The Ravens will scout ahead to keep us free of ambushes, and if an area is infested with Cloven, we simply detour around it.”

“And if the steadholts have fallen?” Gilda prompted.

“Then unless it’s a large force, we take them back,” he said grimly. “We cleanse them of Cloven and sleep in the structures, protected by both sentries and whatever magical wards Decanus Nydia can conjure.”

“I have many stealth spells at my disposal, sir,” she confirmed. “I can mask us at least to an extent in travel, and as we sleep. Enemy mages may detect my spellwork, though. We will have to kill them quickly if they approach.”

“Noted, Decanus,” Imlay replied with a nod, then went off to summon his fire team leaders, directing them to have ‘heavier’ weapons available.

“So what, may I ask, was ‘moot’?” Giraldi inquired after he had departed.

“Marco, Chris, and Tara already told me everything about their weapons we could ever wish to know… short of how to make them for ourselves.” Gilda rubbed her temples, finding herself already regretting having not taken the chance to be with them. When she closed her eyes, she found she could still smell their spicy scents and feel their caressing hands on her; feel Tara’s deliciously soft flesh beneath her talons and the twin phalluses of Marco and Chris pressed into her sides as they laid her on her back, all of her human friends ready to claim different parts of her eagless body.

She shivered once at the image of herself rewarding all three of her human friends at once—and just what did Marco mean by saying ‘take her tits’? —then exhaled the remnants of her desires away, aided by the buffalo whiskey on her breath. Don’t be. It wasn’t the time. This way, we all have something more to fight for and an even stronger reason to survive. It would also have been impossible to hide it, to say nothing of being a bit unfair to Giraldi and Fortrakt! she reminded herself sternly, then firmly set it out of her mind to focus on the simple task of survival ahead.

Survival that was only possible thanks to the human firearms she’d learned so much about. “I have all the information we need, but Ancestors above, it’s a little… unbelievable. Suffice it to say, their cannons can far outrange our crossbows and penetrate all but our best armor, and I’m still not certain how we can effectively fight together.”

“A solution always presents itself to those that look hard enough,” Giraldi advised. “They command the ground, but we still rule the skies. With that in mind, the Corporal and I already came up with a few ideas. Besides, we did well enough before. Be assured that we will find a way again.”

“I hope so,” Gilda said. She looked towards the map, taking a deep breath. “Whatever we do, our first destination remains Bale. We have one hour to make it there before nightfall, and it’s still nearly two leagues away. So, let’s get moving and try to avoid any more ambushes getting there…”

Since the next chapter in story order is the T-rated chapter 22, click on the link below to be taken to chapter 23:

—Firesight

===> next: Chapter 23

22: Know Thy Ally (T-rated)

Author's Note

Content Warning: There is brief but intense R-rated sequence about midway down the chapter. It’s not explicit and no clothes or armor come off, but it’s there, and I’m rating it R for indirect description and implied action alone.

It is bracketed by a few other suggestive moments scattered throughout the chapter, but none of them exceed PG-13. Before anyone asks, it’s there because it felt appropriate to the moment after all they’d been through and how close they came to losing each other, never mind the fact that they could all die in the next few hours and the chance might never come again. And yes, it’s also there because I wanted to include it. :twilightsmile:

If you don’t like it, then I would ask that you just skip over it. There’s plenty of other interest in this chapter, not the least of which is Gilda’s gun education. Now that that’s out of the way, all that’s left is the boilerplate:

—Firesight

22: Know Thy Ally (T-rated)

Giraldi looked a little lost as Imlay moved off. “Did I miss something, Centurion?”

Just as Gilda was about to leave, she spotted Decanus Nydia off by herself again. Gilda guessed she was trying to meditate but not succeeding given her glowing staff was not steady where it floated, and her expression kept shifting along with her anything-but-settled thoughts.

Gilda knew she needed answers on human weaponry. But she also needed to make sure her soldiers, especially her sole surviving Magus, were fit to fight as well.

They went wide as they locked on Gilda, followed by her leaping up and saluting crisply. “Centurion,” she offered in greeting, trying but not succeeding in keeping her voice level. “How may I serve?”

“Decanus,” Gilda said as she thumped her chest back. “You may serve by seeing to your own needs right now. I just wanted to let you know that you fought very well during the battle. We might have lost many of the Marines and human civilians to lightning if not for your defense against the two corrupted Magi.”

“Thank you, sir,” Nydia acknowledged quietly with a bared throat. “But…” her beak quivered again as tears glimmered in her eyes.

Gilda’s face softened. “I overheard the Ravens say that you had to fight First Stave Tunica up there. I’m sorry, but for what it’s worth; that wasn’t the First Stave. Just a crow-accursed Cloven Parasite wearing him like a shell. There was nothing you could do for him, and no way to bring him back. For he was already dead, and his broken body but a puppet under Cloven control. So you must let him go.”

“I know, sir, but…” She visibly struggled to control her emotions. “It still hurts.”

To Gilda’s surprise, the knowledge that some of her soldiers were suffering even worse than her after the battle gave her the impetus to master her own still-roiled emotions, knowing that as their leader, they needed her to be strong so they could draw strength from her in turn. “I know it does, Decanus. And I wish I could take that hurt away, but I can’t. We need you at full strength, and your mind unclouded. You have a little time before we set off again, so my orders are to rest and recharge as much as you can,” Gilda instructed, then glanced at the sewn-up wound on her side. “Will that… scratch… hinder you?”

“You’ll have it,” Gilda promised, deciding she would ask Imlay to order his Marines to stay away from Nydia for a bit.

“No,” Gilda answered emphatically. “Because the Magus says Mister Raleigh can walk, and I now need you on the front line after the loss of…” Gilda’s voice trailed off as she suddenly realized that the Spear was the only earth griffon she had remaining other than Giraldi; the other four had been lost to the initial Cloven ambush along with their heavier axes, crossbows and shields. “I’m sorry, Spear. They deserved a far better end than a cowardly Cloven attack.”

“They did not even get the chance to fight, sir. Nor did I,” Jumentum hung her head in shame. “I felt completely useless in the battle, able only to shield the Ambassador’s aide. I could not even fire a single bolt because every enemy that attacked was felled so swiftly by the humans.”

“We will both have plenty of opportunities to fight and avenge our fallen. So keep your bow loaded and wits sharp, Guardsgriffon. We will likely need them before this day is done.”

After watching her leave, Gilda made her way towards Chris, Tara and Marco, who had sat down on a group of rocks to tend their weapons. She wasn’t sure what maintenance they required, but they appeared to be cleaning them somehow; Chris had run a long rod with a white cloth wetted with something down the tube of his wood-covered cannon that came back covered in black. She could see the same effect on Marco’s A-R, which he had surprisingly taken apart and was withdrawing a slightly complicated looking cylindrical assembly from.

“Yeah, well, they think it’s magical,” Chris said in clipped tones. “But me? Staying together and seeing each other off is just something friends do.”

“Hey, at least we get to stay together in the Kingdom now,” Marco said with a weak chuckle. “I wonder what Reyes and the other guys back in Arnau are doing? Have they been attacked yet? Do they even know what’s happening to us out here?”

Me neither. The PONIES facing the Cloven? Or sending HELP? By all my Ancestors, that’ll be the day… she thought derisively as Marco noticed her first and hailed her.

“Hey, Gilda,” he greeted, causing Tara and Chris to look up and turn towards her. “Hell of a day, huh?”

“I guess that’s one word for it…” she said wanly as she reached them and sat down. “How are you three doing?”

Gilda wasn’t sure what that was about, but she offered what comfort she could, deciding to take after Fortrakt by laying a set of reassuring talons on Tara’s upper back. “Be proud and stand tall, Tara. You heard Corporal Imlay and the Chief—you all fought superbly. And I’m here to say it as well,” she told them and meant it, finding that after seeing them fight and having her life saved by them, she felt closer than ever to not just Marco, but all three of her former civilian charges. “Your actions were honorable, and like Giraldi said, it’s likely none of us would have survived the fight if you three weren’t here.”

“He’s probably exaggerating, but thanks, Gilda. So how’s Fortrakt doing?” Chris asked in concern with a nod back over towards him. “I mean, he seemed okay, but who knows…?”

Tara slumped further and sniffled. “I’m sorry, Gilda. We did our best.”

Though a griffon wouldn’t have phrased it that way, Gilda got the meaning well enough and found herself nodding in agreement. “Well said, whoever that was. We can honor our fallen later, but for now, I need some information from you three.” She forced herself to release Tara’s shoulder, even though she didn’t wish to. She found it felt oddly comfortable and even reassuring to touch her there despite—or was it because of?—the normally taboo nature of the act to griffons.

“Information?” they echoed as one, giving her their undivided attention. “About what?” Chris prompted.

They exchanged another series of looks before answering. “We made a promise that we wouldn’t, but…” Chris trailed off.

“No, girl, you won’t,” Marco told her firmly. “At least, not alone.”

“Marco—”

“You’re not supposed to be talking with her, Lakan,” he said weakly, to which all three of them just stared. “Especially about our weapons. So please don’t.”

Marco’s glare hardened further. “Do you really think I give even a single fuck about that now, Raleigh?” he asked acidly.

“Do you really think any of us do?” Chris added angrily. “You can go fuck the hell off. The Ambassador’s orders mean shit out here.”

“Oh, really? Well, here’s a news flash, Mister High-and-Mighty Ambassadorial Aide—we don’t even get back unless we and the griffies can work together, and working together means we tell them about our weapons,” Tara emphatically declared.

“Seconded,” Chris growled as Gilda found herself reminded of all the reasons she liked Tara at once. “For the record, all you and Goldberg ever had to do was treat us with a little respect. Instead, he couldn’t wait to shove us out the door. And for what? Because Marco spoke out of turn a couple times? Because we embarrassed the Ambassador in Equestria by not remembering which fork to use for our salad in front of Prince Blueblood at a state dinner?”

“That’s not—”

“But… I…”

“What’s wrong, Raleigh? You could use the exercise,” Tara teased with an unpleasant expression, to which the portly, pale-skinned human turned away and hobbled off in defeat.

The three stopped and stared at her as Marco gave her a lopsided smile. “Melee weapons, Gilda? Really?”

“True,” Marco conceded. “Actually, you can use these as melee weapons—they’ve got some pretty strong striking surfaces and it could do some serious damage to be hit with one. But no, that’s not their main purpose, needless to say.”

“You’re right,” Marco agreed as he continued wiping down the pieces of the cylinder, setting each cleaned component of it carefully aside on a rag. “So I think it’s unanimous, Gilda. At this point, we have no reason to stay silent. We’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“Thank you.” She bared her throat at them. “And if you don’t want the Ambassador to find out you talked to us, I’ll just say I already figured out the basics even before we ended up out here, which is true enough. I can also tell them I worked out the rest by observation and overhearing you three talk about them.”

Chris blinked. “Really?”

“Still spying on us, eh?” Marco said with a grin. “Moran will be mad.”

“So he will. And the problem is…?” Tara challenged him; even Gilda found her feathers ruffling and tail lashing once at the Captain’s mention.

“No problem at all,” Marco chuckled. “So what do you want to know, Gilda?”

Chris raised an eyebrow. “Their history? That’ll take a bit longer to explain,” he said as he continued cleaning his wood-wrapped weapon. “Why do you want to know that?”

“Impressive?” Marco supplied with a grin. “Amazing? Stupendous?”

“Terrifying,” Gilda finished with a soft whisper, looking down to the ground as her words caused the three humans to fall silent. “And a little disheartening. We thought we were the preeminent military power of Tellus. And now…”

Gilda leaned a little closer. “How new?”

Gilda blinked. “One thousand years ago is relatively new?”

“Considering we’ve been using blades, bows, and other non-gunpowder based weapons for many thousands of years? Yeah, it’s relatively new,” Chris picked up the chain of thought from there. “Even as late as two hundred years ago, these weapons had generally very limited range and an extended reload time. You were lucky to fire three shots a minute or hit a target outside of fifty yards, and that was only if you were very well-trained.”

“What changed?”

“Warfare changed,” Marco rubbed his eyes as Tara stayed silent, still concentrating on cleaning her pistol. “First, we came up with breech loading, which made the process of readying a single round to fire much quicker. Then we rifled the barrels—what you call our ‘cannons’—which dramatically increased their accuracy and rendered existing infantry tactics obsolete, though the Generals of the day were very slow to understand that.”

The question of how old human civilization actually was came to Gilda’s mind, but she put it away for another time. “Gunpowder?” she focused on the strange word. “What’s that?”

She could see all three humans were considering the response carefully before Marco spoke, after exchanging additional glances with Chris and Tara. “That’s hard to explain. So before I try, let me ask: do you have explosive powders in your world?” he inquired as he slid the oiled cylindrical assembly back into his gun with a light rasping sound.

“Why is that?” Tara asked.

“They did? Shit. Sounds like magical black powder,” Marco mused, leaving her lost again. “Our initial version of explosive powder, called black powder, was very volatile as well. Over time we refined it, making it much less dangerous. But back in the day, firing one of these ‘cannons’, which were called muskets back then, required a succession of steps. First, you had to stand the musket upright to pour powder down the barrel and then shove a metal ball down to the bottom, using a long rod.”

“Sounds like a lot of work for a single shot. How good were they?” Gilda asked.

“Not very,” Chris admitted. “In the days of smoothbore muskets, the effective range was less than a hundred yards. So opposing forces formed battle lines where they would volley fire at each other to whittle their enemy’s numbers down, and then try to break their enemy’s line with a charge. These ‘muskets’ would also be fitted with a long blade at the end, called a bayonet, to make it a stabbing weapon.” He then mimicked a thrusting motion with his wooden rifle.

“Here,” he made a quick motion with his thumb talon that popped a single cylinder free and offered it to her. Seeing her reluctance, he smiled. “Don’t worry, it’s safe to hold. It won’t go off unless you smash the base end of it with a hammer or something. You’d have to really try. It’s okay. Just take it.”

Stealing herself, she did so, and to her great surprise, found it was ludicrously light, sitting very placidly in her talons. “So this is a…” She couldn’t remember the word he used.

“Yeah,” Chris replied. “Sorry if I forget the exact velocity, but that’s where the crack comes from. It’s making a sonic boom.”

“I’m aware of the speed of sound,” Gilda said shortly. “And sonic rainbooms.”

That got Tara to look up. “Rainbooms?” she repeated the word like it was unfamiliar.

“I had this friend back in Equestria,” Gilda began, looking away. “She trained hard so she could do a… well, to fly as fast as that.”

“Really? Wow,” Marco replied, studying her carefully as he snapped the two halves of his cleaned weapon back together. “Did she succeed?”

“Yes. She did.” Gilda sighed, finding all her regrets flooding back now that she was looking at the very real chance of dying in the next few days. If not hours.

Marco stared at her for a moment. “I’m sorry, Gilds. Is this a bad topic?”

“But… where’s the powder?” she asked in bewilderment.

She did so, and was surprised to hear a faint sifting sound within it. “The powder is inside?”

“Inside the brass casing, yes,” he confirmed. “And at the base of the brass is basically a modern percussion cap called a ‘primer’. It creates a spark when struck by a small pin which is released when I pull the trigger. That ignites the powder, which in turn launches the bullet down the tube and out. Given the bullet’s small size and weight, it doesn’t take much of that powder to rapidly accelerate it to high speed, since almost all the force of the explosion is focused directly down the length of the ‘cannon’, as you call it.”

“By the time it leaves the tube, it’s already breaking the sound barrier. And anything struck by it… well, you already saw what happens,” Marco finished.

“I did,” Gilda shivered. “So you’re telling me that you use a small amount of explosive powder already contained in these things to blast the metal tip outwards at the speed of sound?”

“Yup,” Marco replied with a nod. “That’s pretty much it. The rest is just simple physics. Low mass plus very high speed equals severe damage to living bodies when they strike.”

Gilda could only shake her head at the explanation. “That’s…”

“Cool?” Marco suggested, finally smiling again. “Awesome? Incredible?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Marco said. “There are some differences, though. Our weapons are only what’s called semi-automatic, which means one trigger pull, one shot. The Marine rifles can fire in three-round bursts, or go ‘full-auto’ like Brennan’s over there. That means his rifle—it’s designation is the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, I think—can fire continuously without pause as long as he holds down the trigger. Or at least until his ammo runs out,” he added as an afterthought.

“Interesting. But that’s the other thing…” she tapped Marco’s disconnected quiver with a talon. “How many ‘rounds’ do those quivers hold?

“So twenty-eight rounds per quiver…” Gilda muttered, feeling faint again; her own crossbow quiver held only twenty-four bolts.

She looked up. “Jam?”

“Blunt weapon…” Gilda had a sudden urge to laugh as she recalled again how they’d initially thought the human cannons were melee arms. “So how far do your bullets reach?”

“Well, the ones out of my AR can travel around three kilometers, but this class of rifle isn’t accurate at that range,” Marco replied. “Speaking for myself, I can reliably hit a human-sized target at two hundred meters. The Marines, I’m sure, have much better accuracy than me thanks to their training. They could probably double that, and could fire even further out if they just want to blanket an area with bullets.”

Gilda blinked. “What’s a ‘kilometer’?”

Turning her head, Gilda’s eyes locked on the woodline, which she instantly ascertained was somewhere around half a league out. “Yes.”

“They’re roughly a kilometer away,” Marco said. “Well, more or less. So, yeah, half the distance, and you get the rifle’s effective range for a single target.”

“So a designated marksman is someone who can shoot far?” Gilda guessed, wondering why Tara was remaining mostly silent when she’d been so adamant about answering any questions the griffons had.

“You got it,” Marco replied with a nod. “They’re equipped with special rifles that have longer barrels, heavier rounds and better optics to see and hit targets at extended range. Those are designed to kill enemy soldiers past the half a kilometer mark, or even further. Heck, we have people called snipers that can hit targets in that treeline and beyond. From what Henderson was saying, she’s trained as one.”

“I hope she trains me,” Chris said eagerly. “Because I’d love to be able to hit targets that far out.”

“I… see,” Gilda muttered, getting a little lost. She shook her head, trying to remember what else she needed to know. “Okay, so how powerful are they exactly? These bullets you fire?”

“That really depends on the kind of bullets,” Marco said patiently; the more he spoke, the more Gilda noticed he seemed to be settling down and recovering from the battle.

“Then there’s also the other weapons they brought,” Chris noted. “Remember that explosion that took out the mage?”

Gilda nodded, trying not to shiver in turn. “Was that also a bullet?”

“I see…” For the first time, Gilda finally found a human weapon with a griffon equivalent. “We use explosive gems for the same purpose. And some of our crossbow bolts are even tipped with them.” She brought out a ruby-tipped arrow from her back-mounted quiver to show them. “This is one of them. Just don’t hit the arrowhead or smash it against anything hard, or it will go off.”

“That’s part of the way it works,” Gilda conceded. “What about your armor? That’s not metal.” She pointed at Marco’s vest.

“You are a warrior, Marco Lakan,” she told him softly as she felt him trembling and realized just how much of his fears he was still holding in for her sake. “All three of you are. I wouldn’t be here without you. None of us would be.” She found herself wishing at that moment she could repay them with something more than mere words.

“If I do, it’ll be defending you. In fact, it’ll be defending all of us. And who knows? For helping the Kingdom, maybe we’ll earn statues in your Hall of Heroes?” Marco joked with a slightly weak grin. “Then you can visit us whenever you want. And tell the Paladin sentries I won’t mind one bit if you want to put your paws on my shoulders.”

“Why stop there? Tell them Fortrakt can grope my statue’s butt,” Chris suggested wryly.

“And my statue’s boobs,” Tara couldn’t help but add with a grin. “He and Galen. They’re such good griffons… for as bad as we wanted to, why didn’t we take that chance with Fortrakt the other night, Chris?” she asked as she reached over to take his hand.

“I don’t know, but we were fools not to. As God is my witness, if we ever get that chance again…” The rest went unsaid as his eyes got distant and his cheeks flushed; his pants visibly bulging hard in sudden and very strong arousal. He then looked down at himself in disbelief. “Christ Almighty—I can’t believe I’m even thinking about sex at a time like this.”

“Me neither,” Tara said as she stared fixedly at the same point, starting to squirm where she sat and breathing a little harder; as Gilda watched, her already-impressive mammarian protrusions almost seemed to swell further where they sat high on her chest. “What’s wrong with me?” She tugged lightly at her shirt for a moment and locked her blue eyes with Gilda’s gold ones briefly, only to quickly flinch them away.

Despite her disbelief that she, too, was getting rapidly aroused in Marco’s embrace, Gilda took it as a good sign that they were. It means we’ve all got something—and somecreature—to live for, she decided, indulging a moment of freshly remembered fantasy of being with Tara and Marco that caused her wings to stiffen slightly against her sides. And having something to live for counts for a lot in war, right…?

“I don’t know, but I’m starting to see some pink. Maybe there’s still some of that cider in us,” an newly-breathless Marco observed, and Gilda blinked when she realized that there was indeed just a hint of it at the edges of her vision; for a moment, she swore she could smell it again on the breath of her human friends. “And we don’t even know if we’re gonna live past tonight. So…”

Her breath caught as Marco’s hands slipped beneath her wingbases to begin massaging her flight muscles, causing them to start splaying. She could feel her other eagless attributes rapidly engorging as well, and at that moment, she was ready to indulge not just him but all of them; let them take her right then and there regardless of witnesses or danger.

For what did privacy or propriety matter if they died in the next few hours? What if this turned out to be their only remaining chance to be together and worse, her only chance to ever repay them for all the friendship, love and honor they’d shown her? What guarantee was there that they would ever get to share a room, movie or bed again, in Catlais or anywhere else?

The moment and opportunity hung in the air before her as human and griffon eyes rapidly flicked back and forth, appraising each other’s level of excitement and intentions. When Gilda trilled softly at Marco’s now-practiced touch, Chris and Tara pushed closer to her and began to put paws on her as well; Chris rested his left hand on her bare right flank while Tara guided a set of Gilda’s talons to her covered chest, reaching in to kiss her beak over Marco’s shoulder.

For as Marco said, she knew there was a very real chance that for all of them, there wasn’t.

But her sense of honor and duty swiftly reasserted itself as, mustering all her considerable willpower, she pushed back and pulled away from them. “No. Not here. Not now,” she told them all shakily, to which the three humans all deflated but relented. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. Even as badly as I want to, I have to be a leader, not a lover right now. I have my duty and can’t be distracted. You can have me when we reach safety.” Part of her couldn’t believe she was saying that, but to another, far larger part, it felt like an offer that needed to be made.

They all quickly pulled back from her, looking chagrined. “Sorry, Gilda. I swear I wasn’t planning to seduce you. That hit completely out of nowhere again…” Marco admitted as he released her, cupping his hands over his severely strained pants.

“Yeah…” a sweating Chris agreed shakily, his hidden stature still prominent and looking scarcely less impressive than Marco’s; it was only then Gilda noticed that he’d been holding Tara’s other hand to it. “If we get through this, maybe we should get ourselves magically scanned. Because that sure felt like the cider was affecting us again. God above, I can’t even remember the last time I was ever interested in a girl… let alone two!” He clutched Tara’s hand to him more tightly for a moment before he looked down and gaped, immediately releasing her.

“I’m sorry, too,” Tara agreed as she only belatedly snatched her hand back from him, clutching herself for a moment before pouring some water from a griffon canteen over her head. “For just a second, it was the night of the cider all over again. I’m sorry, Gilda and Chris. I just… couldn’t… help it…” She bowed her dripping head in shame.

“It’s okay. And I’m flattered, Chris, believe me. I’m flattered that you all want me, and for all you’ve done for not just me, but the entire Kingdom, I’m more than willing to let you have me. But this isn’t the time or place.” Gilda took several swallows of air, trying to will her still-strong excitement and the somehow-present effect of the potion-spiked cider away. Ancestors, PLEASE let us live to finish this later!

“It’s okay, Gilds. But if we can’t give you some love, then at least have some liquid courage,” a still-flushed Marco offered her his flask of buffalo whiskey, uncapping it for her but taking his own swig first, sighing with relief after an initial grimace. “The buffalo bull I got this from in Appleloosa told us that traditionally, they drank it before every battle. I’m not sure what’s in it, but I find a single swallow of this stuff does wonders to steady me. Any more than that, though…” His warning was left unstated as he handed the flask to her.

She accepted it, stared at it… and then upended it briefly into her open beak. Even though only a small amount flowed out before she righted it again, the bison-created spirit hit the back of her throat and burned hard, causing her eyes to water and beak to gape.

“I think we all do, Marco,” Tara took a large gulp from the flask next, then gaped. “Holy shit, that’s strong!” she breathed openmouthed for a moment. “Fuck. Think I’ll need to figure out how to make some mixed drinks with this when I open a bar in Arnau.”

“Once the war’s over, we’ll work all that out. And find a way to be together again,” Gilda replied as she fully recovered her senses, standing straight and tall before them on all fours again. “Thanks for sharing this information, all of you. And I’m very sorry if I tempted you. But before I leave, I have one last question.” She stood back from them at a respectful distance this time.

“Yeah?” Tara asked warily as the flush of her face slowly receded; for a moment, Gilda found she could still keenly recall the feel of the human woman’s covered flesh against her open talons.

“He’s right. So I’m guessing you want to know more about that?” Marco suggested as his flush faded, to which Gilda nodded.

“Well, there’s not really much to say,” Chris began, visibly using the question combined with the fresh alcohol in his system to help master his nerves. “Since the Portal is in Equestria, a lot of what goes in and out is up to the Equestrian government. Understandably, the first thing they barred from coming through the portal was human weaponry.”

“Guns and the like?” Gilda guessed.

“More than that,” Marco replied. “Guns aren’t the only weapons we use. What you’ve seen so far are just personal arms. We have some… larger and more powerful weaponry. Stuff that just couldn’t be brought, or at least, not without a great deal more resources and support. Stuff that there was no way in hell or the pony ‘Tartarus’ that the Equestrian government would have allowed through the portal.”

“Okay. Then how did you get your stuff through?” she had to ask, her wings almost fully furled again.

They all smiled slyly. “I guess you could say we had some inside help,” Marco answered as he slung his weapon again.

She stared at them. “By which you mean Sergeant Reyes and Starlight Glimmer; the personal student and Magus to Princess Twilight Sparkle?”

Marco and Chris gaped as Tara grinned. “That’s right. It’s a bit fuzzy, but I just remembered we told you right after we got out of the infirmary. So you were paying attention.” The human eagless nodded in approval. “Short answer—yes. Reyes hid our weapons with the Marine ones so they could pass the portal. And Starlight made sure we could smuggle them into the Kingdom without running afoul of griffon customs or being otherwise detected by whatever sensory magic you had.”

Gilda gaped. “And this ‘Starlight Glimmer’ helped you even though she actually knew what you were carrying?”

“She sure did,” Marco chuckled. “Basically, she liaised with us just like you did while we were in Canterlot. Well, minus the sex, of course.” He grinned impishly, earning him a playful swat with her wing. “Seriously. We showed her some of our movies, and she couldn’t get enough of them—since the Equestrians already knew about our guns, there was no point in restricting our movie selection. So I showed her some of our best.”

“And she liked them?” Gilda’s urge to meet this mysterious mare was only growing.

“She did!” Tara confirmed with a grin. “After she saw a couple movies with gunplay—just like you, she really seemed to enjoy our war flicks—she wanted to see real firearms. So, after swearing her to secrecy, we showed her ours. We explained to her why we brought them, and why we didn’t want to leave them behind. We even told her we were breaking the rules big time, but she actually seemed to like that!” she recalled with a laugh.

“So when it came time for us to head here, she cast the wards on our weapons and gear without letting Princess Twilight or anybody else know. That’s how we got them into the Kingdom. Guess they weren’t perfect, though,” Tara’s expression abruptly fell.

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Marco agreed. “Remember how we said some of those spells were triggered by distance to make sure we couldn’t be separated from them? Well, my laptop and the other stuff the Ibex stole didn’t come back to us when we got far enough away from Arnau. So either those fucking goats figured out how to defeat the enchantments, or—far more likely—our equipment blew up when they were blocked from returning to us.” He sighed. “Either way, we’re never getting them back now. Seems a stupid thing to be upset over out here, but… yeah.”

“Actually… some of them did return,” Chris said with a grin. “I didn’t remember until just now with everything else happening, but…” He brought out his portal device from his pocket, which Gilda hadn’t seen in weeks.

“You got your smartphone back!” Tara said in delight. “Does it still work?”

“I don’t know. The battery’s dead,” Chris said with a shrug. “And I’m not going to go digging for a charger now.”

“Wouldn’t do us any good, anyway. It’s not like we can use it to call for help,” Marco noted.

“Maybe we could use it to record a few parting messages, at least. And hope they might be found later.” Chris turned downcast.

“Just keep thinking those happy thoughts, guys,” Tara told them both as she swiftly reassembled her pistol. “Me, I plan to live so I can start a new life in the Kingdom and finish what we started.” She winked at Gilda as she reholstered her sidearm after slamming home a fresh magazine and manually chambering a round. She then passed the longer ‘Hawkeye’ rifle to Chris while she began work on cleaning her shotgun.

“So why did you bring weapons?” Gilda asked, suddenly eager to change the subject lest she be tempted again despite the whiskey. “This ‘Afghanistan’ you keep mentioning?”

“Yes,” Chris said with a sound not far removed from a hiss. His mood instantly turned angry along with Marco’s and Tara’s; all remaining traces of their earlier excitement instantly vanished. “It’s a long story—like twenty years long—but to say it ended up being a complete debacle is an understatement. Civilians were abandoned there for very bad reasons, and, well… coming here, we had no idea if the griffons would be friendly, or if the same thing could happen again.”

Chris gave them a few seconds before he continued. “Anyway, to finish answering your earlier question… when this expedition was first proposed, the U.S. government had to deal extensively with the Equestrian High Council to get the Marines and their weapons through.”

Gilda scoffed as she squeezed and released Marco’s arm. “Given what I know about them, the negotiations must have taken a while.”

“Which was…?” Gilda prompted.

“But even then, there were more rules,” Chris added. “Before they would let us enter, the Equestrian Government added the restriction that talking about our guns is a no-no. Something about how it would disrupt the ‘balance of harmony’ between Tellusion nations and other stuff. So like Imlay said, all military personnel have standing orders to not discuss them.”

“And civilians…?” Gilda asked, giving them a slightly askance look.

As Marco pondered her question, Chris answered instead. “Okay, let’s reverse our roles. Let’s say the griffons found a brand new species or civilization.”

“Okay…?” Gilda wasn’t sure what he was getting at.

“And they don’t have crossbows,” he emphasized. “They have a warrior culture, but they don’t have anything even approaching your military technology like airships or cannons. They’re certainly curious about them, but when you first meet them, you aren’t sure if they’ll be allies or enemies. They live really far away, and after some time, you send over a few civilian officials to negotiate a trade agreement with a company of armed soldiers as escort.” He paused to let Gilda mentally create the scenario.

Gilda thought about that, then shook her head. “Probably not. At least, not until I’ve confirmed that we’re going to be allies and that they can be trusted.”

Marco nodded. “Well, that’s exactly what we have here. Except we humans are the ones with the crossbows.” He paused and raised his gun slightly for emphasis. “Well, you know what I mean.”

Out of all the races of their world, Gryphons were known to have the strongest military. They didn’t have as many magic users as Equestrian Ponies or the Ibex did, or expansive Alchemic studies like the Zebrican Confederation, or even the advanced machines of the Minotaurs. But when it came down to the simple questions of weapons and tactics, they were historically the most effective and innovative race in all Tellus.

“For what it’s worth, Gilda… I’m sorry.” Tara broke her train of thought.

Gilda blinked and looked at her. “For what?”

“For being the ones to change your world,” the human woman replied, her shoulders slumping. “You kinda looked lost, so I’m guessing you’re trying to come to terms with everything we’ve told you.”

Gilda nodded slowly. “Yeah. It’s a little hard to take,” she admitted with a wan expression, her wings and tail drooping slightly.

“And one for all!” Marco and Tara chorused in reply.

Though she didn’t have any idea what that meant, Gilda held their hands to her for a moment before releasing them, silently thanking her Ancestors anew for allowing such fine and honorable humans to enter her life. “So tell me… given that you’ve now told me all about guns with Imlay’s unspoken permission, does that mean you trust us? That humans now see griffons as allies?”

Gilda looked at him. “These ‘Romans’ you keep mentioning, I’m guessing? Fine. I’ll hold you to that later, when we’re not fighting a war. Thanks, all of you.” She hugged each of them tightly in turn, feeling the weight of their armor and the hardness of their metal tubes between them. She could only hope that the day would come when they could remove them and enjoy each other’s company properly; finally getting their promised time together in Catlais.

And then she wondered if such a day would ever come, given the terrifying enemy they faced.

“Wha—ouch! Hey!” Marco giggled as Gilda grinned triumphantly, pinning him on his stomach.

“You deserved that,” she said as Chris and Tara applauded and laughed. “You’re a terrible tease, Marco Lakan. And you will pay a price for it later.”

“Promises, promises,” he needled her.

But before Gilda could think of a good retort, a new voice broke in. “Hey, Rico!” a smirking Marine called out as he approached. He was round-faced with lighter brown skin than Marco; Gilda couldn’t recall his name just then. “As much as we know you like to fraternize with the locals, Corporal Imlay needs to speak to the Centurion.”

Gilda ignored Marco’s question. “Why does the Corporal need me?” she asked, trying to sound all business again.

“The magical interference is clearing. Comms are back online,” Guerrero replied, his smirk not having fully faded. “We’ve gotten through to Arnau, and you may want to hear it.”

Gilda looked at Marco, who gave her a nod and a grin. “Go, girlfriend. You can have your way with me another time.”

“Be careful what you wish for, Marco Lakan…” she said with a low trill, to which he only blew a kiss at her. She gave him a parting view of a briefly raised tail as she got up and rushed back towards the camp, taking flight for a moment to speed her journey and resettle her thoughts. Arriving, she spotted Imlay, Giraldi and Ebon Umbreon clustered around a Marine with a large backpack that had a long, thin and flexible metal rod sticking straight up.

“Copy that, Warwolf-3,” the voice from the box declared.

There was another slight crackle, and then to her amazement, Tribune Narada’s voice was heard.

“Is this close enough?” she asked softly.

“Yes, just talk normally,” came an even softer reply.

“Centurion Behertz! Are you there?” the Tribune asked.

“I am aware of the situation, Centurion,” Narada replied tersely. “In fact, the whole Kingdom is aware. A full-scale Cloven invasion is underway. We have reports of attacks all over Aresia, spearheaded by a corrupted dragon clan, who have been razing military bases and burning crops. But the greatest threat appears to be in the West right now as they’re rapidly expanding their operations and consolidating their gains there.”

“West? But the Cloven were originally from the South!” Gilda protested.

“And the Paladins…?” the Tribune prompted.

“Flyers?” Gilda echoed uncomprehendingly, then it clicked what the Tribune was likely referring to. “To this point, we haven’t seen any pure Cloven forms. Just corrupted creatures.”

“Understood,” Gilda felt like she was in a steadily narrowing tunnel running out of air, and she didn’t even know if there was an exit or it would simply dead-end. “I need options, sir, and a place to go. Where can we find safety if Tierra has fallen?” She held her breath at the answer.

“Head northeast. The city of Aricia still stands, as does its large Auxilias garrison and armory. Surviving Knights and Talons from Tierra and other bases fled there as well, along with two damaged airships and many civilian refugees. It wasn’t hit first due to its smaller size and lesser importance, and they were thus forewarned and able to mount a defense. We’ll try to let them know you’re out there, but our communications are intermittent at best due to Magus and dragon interference.”

“That’s still a long way to go, sir,” Gilda said with a glance up at Imlay, who stayed silent. “Forgive me for asking, but do you have any suggestions for getting there alive?”

“Just the obvious ones. Keep to the ground, and stay out of sight as much as possible. Light no fires, and travel only by day, taking cover in defensible structures or underground during darkness. Body heat will stand out to dragons much more easily at night due to cooler temperatures, and you do not want to be caught out in the open with them around.”

“By your command,” Gilda said obediently, even if she was anything but confident they could make it the distance.

Imlay scooted closer. “Warwolf-3 to Warwolf Actual, over.”

“Lieutenant Nantz?” Gilda heard Tribune Narada call off to the side.

There was another small crackle before Nantz’s voice was heard. “This is Warwolf Actual. Send traffic, over.” Gilda was never so glad as to hear the First Lieutenant’s voice.

“Roger, sir. As the Centurion said, I’ve got a full squad plus Chief Jacobs, supported by around twenty griffon soldiers and three armed civilians after our latest losses.”

“Armed?” Nantz echoed incredulously. “You gave those three weapons?”

“No, sir. It turns out they brought their own,” he answered wryly, leaving a grinning Gilda wishing he could see the look on Moran’s face when he found out. “They smuggled a small arsenal into the Kingdom, including an AR, a shotgun, and two long-range rifles along with several sidearms, surplus camo clothes, civvie body armor and plenty of ammo,” he explained, to no immediate answer from Nantz.

Imlay exchanged a quizzical glance with Chief Jacobs as the interference increased again. “Interrogative: what do you mean by only our combat capabilities, over?”

“I mean, you can tell them what our weapons can do, but not how they work,” he clarified, struggling to make himself heard. “We’re cut off from communications with Equestria and the Portal, so we’re on our own and get to make our own decisions. As the Tribune says, get to Aricia and assist their defense—I’ll clear it with the Captain later. Communications are failing again, so that’s all! Out!” he said just before his voice was overwhelmed by fresh crackling.

“Sorry, sir. They must be putting the field back in place,” Imlay suggested. “If so, that means there are more mages around.”

“Right. We need to get moving, but we also need to settle where we’re going and how we get there,” Gilda reminded him. “Let’s figure that out now.”

“Mostly,” Gilda replied distractedly as she pulled out and unfolded her map. “We still need to figure out how to get to Aricia.”

“And if the steadholts have fallen…?” Gilda prompted.

“Noted, Decanus,” Imlay replied with a nod, then went off to summon his fire team leaders, directing them to have ‘heavier’ weapons available.

“So what, may I ask, was ‘moot’?” Giraldi inquired after he had departed.

“Marco, Chris and Tara already told me everything about their weapons we could ever wish to know.” Gilda rubbed her eyes, finding herself already regretting having not taken the chance to be with them. Don’t be. It wasn’t the time. This way, we all have something more to fight for and an even stronger reason to survive. It would also have been a bit unfair to Giraldi and Fortrakt, she reminded herself sternly, then firmly set it out of her mind.

“I have all the information we need, but Ancestors above, it’s a little… unbelievable. Suffice it to say, their cannons can far outrange our crossbows and penetrate all but our best armor, and I’m still not certain how we can effectively fight together.”

“I hope so,” Gilda said. She looked towards the map, taking a deep breath. “Whatever we do, our first destination remains Bale. We have one hour to make it there before nightfall, and it’s still nearly two leagues away. So let’s get moving and try to avoid any more ambushes getting there…”

23: Enter the Ibex

Author's Note

As the title implies, and as has long been promised, it’s time to bring our favorite but previously unseen race of Russian mountain goats into the story. But before that, an advisory:

Content Warning: Be advised there is a fair amount of suggestive content in this chapter, especially in the opening section. None of it exceeds PG-13, and it only involves thought or dialog, not any actual adult moments. Some of it is hinting at or calling back to latest chapter of Eros released this past week; some of it is simply discussing the previous chapter’s close call between Gilda and our three favorites civvies. But there’s nothing even remotely reaching an R-rating.

Thanks as always go to my excellent prereading team of AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire, Silverblade5, ASF and Wechsel, who generally seemed to be over the moon regarding the introduction of the Ibex; they clogged the google doc with comments and observations and even suggestions for how they might be used later in Eros! But you be the judge, and do enjoy the reveal of the first brand new race I’ve ever created in this verse or any other.

Hope you like! Nothing else to say, except the boilerplate:

This chapter is a heavily rewritten version of the first half of Feathered Heart: Chapter 8, borrowing a couple chunks of dialog and detail modified to accommodate the updated story, particularly in the opening section. Regardless, you are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original if you haven’t already, as it inspired many of my own works.

—Firesight

23: Enter the Ibex

“I hate you,” Fortrakt muttered again as they scouted the roads and paths towards Bale, looking for possible flanking forces while the Ravens checked further ahead. Gilda wasn’t sure how many times he’d said it, given she lost count after the fourth. “May your talons dull and your beak go so soft it can no longer tear meat from bone.”

She rolled her eyes, not certain where his hostility was coming from; he’d been acting this way ever since she told him about her talk and near-sex experience with Chris, Tara and Marco. She wasn’t sure why she mentioned the latter, except it didn’t feel right to withhold it from him or Giraldi. “Don’t you have anything else to say, Fortrakt?”

“If you survive this war, may the Ancestors cause all your feathers to fall out and your wings to never take flight again,” he continued, steadily flapping his wings to maintain his height and position beside her, “and may you be infested with a stench so foul that no bath may cleanse you of it!”

“Okay, that’s new,” she said with a snort, stifling an urge to laugh given she sensed his anger was real. “You know, I can see you being jealous of me with Marco, given how much time you were spending with him. And I can certainly understand you being upset over Chris and Tara being interested in me. But maybe you missed the part where I said it was completely unplanned, or that we pulled back at the last second? That we didn’t do anything because I stopped it?”

Despite her words, his golden eagle feathers only ruffled harder. “May the Ancestors speed your aging so that you’ll be left incapable of rutting, unable to do anything but lie down on a bed, eat soup and suck on soft-boiled eggs.”

With effort, she held her temper in check. “You wanted to be with them too; I respected that. I knew it wouldn’t have been fair to you or Giraldi. So I really don’t see why you’re acting this way,” Gilda told him. “Or is this not about that at all?”

“And those soft-boiled eggs? May the Ancestors make them overcooked and leave the soup unsalted.”

She stared at him. “Are you angry because they told me about their guns instead of you? You had other duties to perform, and you’ll learn about them soon enough anyway. So why are you still whining?” she asked as they checked a small depression that might conceal an ambush, but saw nocreature present, dead or alive.

“May you never enjoy sex again, and may you turn into an old crow so fast that both human and griffon spears shrink from view at the very sight of you!”

Her feathers ruffled as his barbs got steadily more inventive and personal. “What did you want me to do, Fortrakt? Go through with it? Let them all have me right there out in the open? Be with all three of them at once in front of everyone?” she challenged him as they swept another ditch with their crossbows, increasingly annoyed at his unending stream of insults.

A stream he then added to with the most mortal insult of all. “May the Ibex find you irresistible, and may your beak and tail be a magnet for their spears!”

Her tail lashed and she flushed bright red; had it been anycreature but him, she would have challenged the griffon in question to a duel on the spot for making such an obscene suggestion. It’ll be a cold day in the human Hell or Tartarus that I let an IBEX rut me!

“Enough, cub! If I’d let it happen, there would have been no way to hide it from you or anybody else! Everyone would have seen us going at it, including you! And how would you have felt then?” She only realized after she’d spoken that she’d resorted to the human words for everycreature and anycreature.

“Then Ancestors above, why didn’t you?” he all but exploded; his headcrest flaring hard in anger even though he managed to keep his voice a harsh whisper. “Crows only know if the opportunity will ever come again, or if we’ll even live to see another sunrise! I declined my one chance to be with Chris and Tara willingly, and I deeply regret it now! So by all our Ancestors, why didn’t you take this one?” he demanded to know, striking Gilda speechless.

His eyes flashed, but then he deflated, hard. “Yes, I would have seen you. And yes, I would have been a bit jealous to see them with you. But I also wouldn’t have interfered. I might even have encouraged it, just thankful that those three got one last chance to enjoy our company by choice, even if it wasn’t with me.”

For one of a very few times, Gilda found herself taken aback. “I had no idea that’s how you felt.” And what does he mean, he might have ‘encouraged it’?

“Well, now you do,” he said shortly, not looking at her as they flew towards the next search area. “If this whole wretched day has taught me nothing else, it’s how fleeting and fragile our lives are, and how much we all take for granted. How we never know what chances—or day—might be our last. I wouldn’t deny you or any of them the opportunity to have one last moment of friendship and intimacy as our Kingdom crumbles around us, even if I couldn’t be part of it.” He hung his head for a moment.

She glared at him as they flew forward again, her ire growing. “Our Kingdom is not crumbling! And It will not fall—not even to the crow-cursed Cloven of the Sun! Insult me all you want, but I will not act with wanton abandon as though it is, and I expect far better behavior from you than a defeatist attitude or indulging selfish sexual desires in the middle of a war, Decurion!” she sharply rebuked him.

His beak fell open and his eyes went wide as her words registered; his jaw moved like he was going to speak again but snapped shut as he seemed to realize that everything she said was true. “My most fervent apologies, Centurion.” He finally offered with a salute and deeply bared neck.

“You’re absolutely right, and I’m way out of line again. I spoke out of fear and frustration, projecting my own desires and regrets onto you. My insults were inexcusable, and on my sacred honor as a griffon, it will not happen again. We will win this war, and I swear by the blood of my most revered Ancestors that I will do everything in my power to bring that victory about.”

Her anger ebbed instantly at Fortrakt’s contrition. His admission of a mistake was far more than many griffons his age would grant, even in the Kingdom’s military, so she returned the honor crisply. “Apology accepted. And I will hold you to your oath.”

They stayed silent after that as they continued to scan their surroundings. Her ears heard no movement in the brush over the sound of evening animals, and their presence alone should have meant no Cloven were nearby. They couldn’t assume that, though, and she wasn’t going to order her force forward out of the woods into the open without first scouting the flanks along the road to Bale with her remaining sky griffons, leaving the main force under the control of Giraldi.

A glance towards a silent Fortrakt showed that he looked deflated and chagrined, so she decided her message had been received. You tore him down, now build him up again. That’s what a leader does, right? “You know, for what it’s worth, cub, you weren’t the only one with regrets. Right before our rutting nearly happened, both Chris and Tara said they wished they’d been with you again.”

He started and looked at her, half-hopefully. “Really?”

“Really. So Ancestors willing, you may yet get your chance. But on a more serious note, you should also know that there’s definitely some of that cider still in us,” she quickly added before he could start getting too excited. “We all started smelling it and seeing pink again when we got turned on. I think that’s why we got so ready to rut so fast.”

“That’s… interesting,” was all a clearly distracted Fortrakt could say at first as they scanned a treeline in the evening light, but neither their ears nor noses could detect anything out of the ordinary; the animals remained active and the breeze blowing out of the west carried plenty of smoke, but no spoor of decay that could indicate corrupted creatures were present. “Then it’s not just me.”

She blinked. “You’ve felt it too?”

“Maybe,” he hedged. “I thought I might have smelled cider when I told Tara and Chris about what I remembered from that night. That’s part of why I pulled back; I didn’t want us to be together just because of that crow-cursed magical concoction again,” he explained, causing her to blink anew—as she thought about it, that was a very good reason not to do it; she didn’t want to be a slave to her cider-boosted passions, either!

Her thoughts were lost as Fortrakt went on. “And though I didn’t think of it at the time, the same thing might have happened when I was with Kesi. Each time I came, I thought my vision was going pink, but it was so brief and my eyes were shut tight so it was hard to say. In fact, looking back, I might even have—” he began to say but caught himself.

“Even what?” It took Gilda a moment to recall the name, but she quickly remembered he was talking about Decanus Kesi Tralia, the sky griffon eagless he’d had his first-ever round with just a week or two earlier.

Fortrakt’s green eyes turned evasive for a moment. “Nothing. Never mind. The point is, even if we know we’ll win this war, I don’t think you should turn down those chances, because there’s no guarantee that any of us will survive it. Given that each day and hour might be our last now, I say spend as much time with them as you can. For them, as much as you.”

She stared at him, feeling her cheeks warm. “You really care for them, cub.” Gilda felt touched despite her earlier ire.

“More than anything,” he said softly as they moved to the next ditch. He visibly hesitated, then spoke again. “And after all we’ve been through and done together, please forgive me for saying that I care for you, too, Centurion.”

“Oh. Uh… thanks.” She wasn’t sure how else she could answer, and she wasn’t even sure where it came from. But he didn’t elaborate on his statement, and she didn’t press the subject even though she sensed there was more he wasn’t saying. Not the time to ask, she knew as they continued to scout the area, looking for anything from corpses to potential sources of shelter or concealment. But all they found were a few razed storage sheds and several fields of dragon-burned crops and orchards.

Ancestors above… they’re trying to destroy our harvest! Maybe so they can starve us to death this winter? She wondered again what the Cloven actually were, given they showed both cunning and cruelty that went far beyond simple animal instinct, including an ability to make long-term strategies.

Gilda covered her suddenly worried thoughts by going back to the earlier topic. “Well, if we do survive this, I think we should get ourselves magically cleansed of that cider. We really don’t want to get aroused right in the middle of a battle.”

“I don’t think that’s a danger,” Fortrakt replied carefully as they checked another low area. “That’s not the way the stuff works. From what I understand, Zap Apple Cider heightens what we’re feeling and what we wish to do at that moment. So if it’s a battle rush we’re feeling…” The rest went unsaid.

She blinked again. “You’re right,” she realized, wondering if the crow-accursed Ibexian attack and all the potion-spiked cider they imbibed might yet be turned to their advantage. Her eyes then fell on his sewn-up flank, seeing that one of the ‘stitches’ Chief Jacobs had used to seal the slashes he’d received seemed to be loose against it. “How’s your wound?” she suddenly asked.

“Huh? Oh. I forgot I had it,” he said absently, glancing down the right side of his body, then experimentally flexing his hindquarters. The motion caused another of the loosened stitches to fall out, but the steel claw gashes they had closed looked like little more than a series of shallow scrapes now. “It feels fine. No pain. Even the stiffness is almost gone.”

“Odd…” She wondered how it had healed so fast without Nydia’s help. She couldn’t worry about it then, though. “This area is clear. If the others are as well, we can safely advance.”

“Right,” he said as they flew for their final search area near a burned-out Caleponian farmhouse. “But promise me this, Centurion—if you get the chance to be with Chris, Tara and Marco again, then by all our most revered and sacred Ancestors, take it! I’ll even help arrange it if I can.”

Though Gilda had no idea how he thought he could help ‘arrange it’ other than ensuring they had some privacy, she nodded, at least noting he wasn’t being selfish given he hadn’t once requested the right to be with them himself. “I appreciate the offer, cub. But I won’t do so until we reach safety. And if at all possible, not until the war is won.”

He stared at her again and shook his head. “You wouldn’t even take the chance to be with them in private if it was offered? You really are a stubborn Old Crow.”

“And proud of it, cub,” she told him unrepentantly. “Even aside from that, as your older and most definitely wiser partner, let me give you a very helpful piece of advice, Fortrakt: don’t try playing matchmaker for other griffons. Especially not with multiple partners! Not even Equestrians do that—well, not outside of the bat-ponies and maybe a few notable earth pony clans in New Neighico, that is,” she belatedly amended her words, remembering what she’d heard of the thestrals for the former and the ponies who lived in that desert area for the latter. “We’re griffons; we don’t woo more than a single partner at a time.”

He gave her a disbelieving look. “Says the eagless who was nearly with three human partners at once?”

Gilda grimaced and her cheeks flushed. “You’ve got me there, but given I didn’t mean to do it or go through with it, the point holds: We aren’t ponies or Saddle Arabians. We don’t form herds or harems.”

She had barely voiced the thought before she had a sudden image of Giraldi at the head of one of the latter in a Saddle Arabian setting. But in her vision, he was surrounded not with amorous eaglesses in Mareabian finery, but human and griffon tiercels in various states of undress and intimacy around him!

She blinked hard, her beak falling open. By all the crows, where did THAT come from? She shook her head to try to dispel the oddly titillating and persistent image, wondering if whatever remained of the cider within her was somehow altering her very thoughts and fantasies, just as it had when she was still being weaned off it in the aftermath of the Ibex operation.

Unaware of where her mind had gone, Fortrakt briefly grumbled under his breath; she just caught him saying something about ‘stupid rules’ and ‘useless taboos’, swearing to his Ancestors that when the war was over, he would change them all.

Though she had no idea how he thought he could do that, she stayed silent, letting him get it out of his system. “You know, now that I think about it, it’s also a bit unfair that they only talked to you about their weapons,” he noted a few minutes later. “I would have liked to have been there to hear it, too.”

“You were busy with your duties. I’m sure they’d be happy to tell you later,” Gilda reminded him as they checked their final area; a small copse of trees that passed near the path they’d be taking to the Steadholt of Bale. “They seemed to enjoy talking about them. It even seemed to make them feel better after the battle.” Almost as much as getting to be with me…

“Really?”

“Really,” she replied easily, suddenly wondering if Fortrakt was right that she should have taken the chance to be with them. If not then, when? She suddenly worried that there wouldn’t be another opportunity even if they reached safety, when she would likely have to leave them behind in Aricia in order to fight the Cloven with the rest of the Kingdom’s military.

There might not be another chance until the war is over. And who’s to say that any of us will survive…? “They told me that they trust us and want to help us, so I don’t see why they wouldn’t share the same information with you,” she told him to cover her own brooding thoughts.

“In that case, I’ll ask them later.” He looked contemplative for a few moments more before he turned back to Gilda. “Now that we know about their cannons, do you think the Marines will let us try them for ourselves?”

“Nope. Not a chance,” she immediately declared, causing his feathers to droop. “Would you, in their place, without a great deal of trust or training? Even if they were willing, I’m not even sure that we could use them. They’re designed for human hands, not griffon talons.”

“Maybe. But it couldn’t hurt to ask Imlay…” he mused half-hopefully.

“Don’t,” she told him sternly. “You weren’t there, but the Corporal was mad enough that Chris, Tara, and Marco had their own personal weapons when they weren’t supposed to—even though they did have training. But we don’t have any, and both Imlay and Marco said their weapons were dangerous to those untrained in their use. That being the case, what do you think Imlay’s going to say if we asked to use them?”

“I know. But—”

“But nothing,” she cut him off quickly. “I wouldn’t do it, and neither will they. I have no idea why you’re being such a stupid cub about it.”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s what I’m best at,” he said slightly sullenly. “I just hope the human weapons are enough to help us. By which I mean the Kingdom,” he quickly clarified. “We have less than two centuries of Marines present. Given likely Cloven numbers, it seems like barely a drop in the rum barrel.”

“And three of their civilians, who can use their weapons as well,” she reminded him.

“Maybe, but… as much as I know Chris, Tara and Marco want to help us, I also don’t want them in combat. They’re not soldiers, and they took their first battle really hard.”

“Wishful thinking,” Gilda knew, scanning forward but still not seeing any threats. “Not that I don’t wish for it, too. If we could get to Arnau and keep them safe behind her walls, I’d be all for it. But they want to help, and it’s not our place to deny them if they wish to risk their lives in service to the Kingdom—especially when we need every human weapon we can get,” she reasoned. But when he still seemed uncertain, she went on.

“Think of it this way, Fortrakt—the more these guns are used, the better our chances are. And for serving the Kingdom willingly and risking their lives in its defense, the Queen would almost certainly allow all of them to stay here after. She might even grant them citizenship on the spot.” Gilda had to restrain a sudden giddy hope that would occur, reminding herself that they had a long way to go before they could even begin to think about such things.

He considered that, then nodded slowly. “True, I guess. May the Ancestors grant such a thing. But when all is said and done, where does that leave us?”

“What do you mean by ‘us’?” Her mind already awhirl with thoughts of Marco and memories of her near-sex encounter with him and his friends once more; Gilda’s first thought was that he was asking about relationships among them and wanted his own turn. If he was, she was going to sharply reprimand him again for allowing his desires to cloud his judgment and dictate his actions, and then have Giraldi do it as well for additional emphasis.

“I mean, how are we going to mesh our forces and tactics with those of the Marines?” he clarified quickly. “I know how to command a decade or two of sky griffons at this point, but I have no idea how to incorporate human cannons into our formations when the Marines that hold them can’t fly. Unless we can wield them ourselves, I don’t think they can help us in aerial combat.”

Gilda blinked hard at the statement, then reprimanded herself sharply instead for thinking the worst of Fortrakt—this time, she noted ruefully, she had projected her thoughts onto him. She further reminded herself that he’d more than proven his worth during the first Cloven attack, preserving his force of sky griffons against overwhelming numbers. More than that, he’d kept the airborne enemies busy until the human Marines and Ravens could defeat the Cloven surface assault, enabling the Ravens to win the aerial battle in turn.

Even in regards to me being with Chris, Tara and Marco, he’s just trying to be a good soldier and see to the needs of his commander, she then had the thought, and I also can’t begrudge him for trying to look out for them, too.

“It’s an open question,” she agreed, given she hadn’t come up with any answers herself. Giraldi and Imlay said they had a few suggestions, but she hadn’t heard them yet. Other than maintaining the arrangement of letting the humans and Ravens have the lead in ground combat while her sky griffons covered the skies and scouted ahead, that was.

Beyond that, merging human and griffon formations seemed impossible to Gilda, much to her chagrin. She now understood why Chris and Marco had laughed at the idea of old human infantry tactics being used by griffons, given facing each other in grounded battle lines would completely nullify their airborne advantages. That, in turn, gave her a greater understanding of why human projectile weapons had evolved so far, when griffons had given up on personal cannons as a viable warfighting method in the infancy of their design.

From what the two said, even the humans took centuries to come up with their current models of cannon, which could be of great help to griffons. But that just showed how long the Kingdom would have had to be using them exclusively to make the same advances and enhancements.

Refining such deadly weapons would have been for nothing if proper tactics weren’t adapted around them, she also knew. In ancient times, a shield had been nothing but a nearly useless defensive tool that was relegated to the most expendable units; the lowest in a Blessed’s ranks—fledgelings, civil guards, and auxiliary defenders.

When King Fortis had succeeded in winning against the Blessed who ran the Eastern Territories, and his ideas of merit-based living began to spread, most who pledged allegiance to his leadership were just those: the lowest of Blessed ranks, armed with little more than weak shields who were previously only supposed to provide a living wall for the more-valued and better-protected forces, absorbing the arrows aimed their way.

But from those meager beginnings had come the heavy Fortis Knight shield and shieldwall tactics, which had broken the charge of many a foe and become the bedrock of griffon defensive doctrine. The rest was history.

Applying that as an analogy, she could see why human tactics wouldn’t mesh well with Gryphon ones. In each Marine’s hands were very powerful, very advanced versions of repeating crossbows that could easily penetrate armor and shield to cut down grounded and airborne enemies alike.

The last part was particularly important, given it would prevent griffons from closing to melee range. If such weapons existed in the Kingdom, shieldwalls and the phalanx tactics that had sprung up around them would quickly become obsolete. Were they to suddenly acquire human firearms, Gilda was certain that the Kingdom would start forming brand new tactics around such weapons, likely slowly phasing out their existing armor and shields.

If she had to guess, the Kingdom’s military would shift from an emphasis on defensive positioning to maneuvering quickly to use such weapons to maximum advantage, finding the enemy’s weak spots to exploit. Not too dissimilar from how Wind Knights were trained to fight without phalanx or shieldwall support, which reminded her in turn of Chris’s comment on how Marines kept moving in battle.

I sure wish we’d been able to see more of their movies, Gilda thought with a shake of her head, reasoning that they would have provided a lot more information on how modern humans fought their wars and used such powerful weapons. Their scouting circuit completed, she broke squelch four times on her borrowed radio to indicate her particular two-griffon element was returning; anygriffon who appeared without their personal squelch count was to be greeted with guns and crossbows drawn.

When four squelches were heard in return, they banked hard on their wings and headed back to their lines.

* * * * *

A minute later, they had returned to her main force to receive the other scouting reports from the Ravens and sky griffons alike. To her relief, all had returned, and all reported no enemy contact or any further sign of nearby Cloven. Giraldi also reported the wagon wheel was fixed, ordering a clearly unhappy Spear Jade Jumentum to pull it.

“By your command,” she said slightly grudgingly with a glance at her Centurion. Gilda then ordered the civilians, Nydia and Chief Jacobs to walk beside it and protect it, given it contained what might be sorely needed supplies.

It also contained the Ambassador’s aide, as to her great annoyance, Raleigh had simply invited himself to ride within it instead of walk. Though tempted to order him out, she didn’t, given that in his overweight state, there was practically no chance he could make a two-league march on his own. That still left her sole remaining earth griffon Spear in effect carrying him again, but at least this time, he wouldn’t be accidentally groping her shoulders.

Their march order set, they assembled for movement as planned, with the Ravens in the lead and Imlay assigning his three fire teams to cover the flanks and rear. Fortrakt’s aerial group, which he had split into two smaller decades, flew low over the formation to keep below the level of the recently restored area enchantment; Nydia further reported she sensed at least two additional mages in the area.

“If you can sense them, they can sense you,” Giraldi instantly warned her. “Cease all magic use unless we enter battle.”

“By your command,” Nydia replied obediently with a salute. “But before we depart, there’s something else…”

“Something else?” Gilda echoed.

Nydia hesitated for a moment. “I sense another magical signature I can’t identify or pinpoint. It’s weak, but it’s present. And it seems to be moving with us.”

“Is it dangerous?” Gilda immediately asked with a glance at Giraldi. “Another field enchantment or curse?”

“I don’t think so. It feels… passive. Maybe some form of sensory magic.” Nydia’s brow furrowed. “But it’s so weak I can’t tell you more than that.”

“‘Moving with us’ implies we have a spy in our midst,” Ebon Umbreon warned her over the radio. “Whatever it is, I would strongly suggest we find and discard the source of that spell before we set off.”

“Agreed,” Gilda said, even though she didn’t like waiting again given the sun was rapidly heading for the horizon. The sky at sunset was also turning a much more fiery orange hue than usual, which was no surprise to her given all the smoke in the air. “By my order, find it, Decanus.”

“By your command,” she said again, closing her eyes while pointing her stave to and fro. Her brow furrowed in concentration as she walked in a slow circle around the wagon and the human civilians watching her, but her stave kept drifting as it floated to point inwards, towards the group.

Then she approached the wagon, her stave pointed directly at it. “Is there something in the cart?” Giraldi asked her, which was Gilda’s initial guess as well. But the Decanus shook her head.

“No, sir, it’s…” her voice trailed off again as she took flight briefly into a hover over the cart, letting her staff float freely; Gilda reasoned that she was using it as a magnet of sorts, trying to find the source of the mysterious magic.

Chris had been on the other side of the cart. He began to back away as the staff neared him, but Nydia told him to stay still as the staff floated downwards and then hovered at his left hip. “Whatever it is, it’s coming from your pocket, Mister McLain.”

“My pocket?” Chris blinked in confusion as all eyes turned on him, reaching in to pull out his small portal device. “But I’ve only got my smartphone in there. It’s not even charged.”

She stared at him uncomprehendingly. “I don’t know what that means, but there’s some kind of subtle magic on it,” Nydia warned again, to which Chris just shrugged.

“Of course there is. We had our gear enchanted back in Equestria to protect it from theft or magical scans.”

But Nydia seemed unmollified, floating it up out of his hand to scan it more fully. “But that’s not just unicorn spellcasting I sense,” she said, then her eyes widened in alarm. “Part of it feels… Ibexian!”

“Ibexian?” The word was hissed out by humans and griffons alike as weapons were instantly hefted and heads swiveled around. “Are they here?”

“Impossible,” Ebon Umbreon replied over the radio. “You didn’t see it, but we scanned all the humans and human gear for Ibexian magic before we left Arnau and came up empty.”

“But this item was only returned to Chris while we were in flight,” Gilda abruptly remembered, her guts clenching. “Maybe because they wanted it to…”

“It was? Then by all our Ancestors, back away from it!” Ebon Umbreon ordered, rushing back through the air as Chris dropped it to the ground in alarm. “Let me scan it with our equipment.”

Landing, he swiftly pointed an odd multi-hued crystal at the portal device, which lit up from three of its facets, leaving his beak clenching at what it told him. “It’s an Ibexian anchor beacon,” he confirmed grimly. “It’s used by Capricorn Adepts for two purposes. First, it allows them to track the bearer. And second…”

He pointed his repeating crossbow at it. “When a special spell is transmitted, it also becomes a magical nexus and anchor point to which they can teleport!” he warned as Chris, Tara and Marco all leveled their weapons at the discarded device as it lay on the ground.

But nothing happened; the human ‘smartphone’ continued to sit placidly in the dirt where it fell. “So what do we do? Leave it behind? Smash it?” Marco asked as he continued to aim his cannon.

“I fear that won’t be enough, Marco Lakan,” the Raven leader said. “As Christopher McLain has now held it for an extended period, that means some of its magic has rubbed off on him. That means that he now can act as the nexus, which I’m sure was the intention. And no, Magus, your standard magic dispersal spells will not be effective against it,” he further stated before Nydia could offer.

“Gods above… I feel so tainted! What did they want with this thing?” Chris looked freaked again as he frantically brushed off the area around his pocket like he wanted to rid himself of the magic attached to him.

“I know not their intentions, but it is unlikely to be anything good. I suspect they were planning to use it to cubnap you later, Mister McLain. Perhaps so they could get you to make the device work or explain your weapons.”

“Fuck…” was all a suddenly sweating Chris said as Gilda’s heart went out to him. “Please get this magic off me!”

“We cannot, without triggering the anchor spell,” Ebon Umbreon said in disgust and a strong measure of worry. “I regret that this particular Ibexian spellcasting is such that it cannot be removed. It can only be used up.”

“Then let’s trigger it deliberately,” Decanus Nydia suggested, holding her staff to point at the portal device again. “I have training in countering Ascendency spellwork, including their anchor points. I can force the teleportation part of the spell to activate, and bring the Ibex to us. Once it’s used, the spell will be spent, and then the remaining traces of its magic can be purged from both Mister McLain and his portal device.”

“Bring them to us?” Gilda didn’t like that idea, exchanging an uncomfortable glance with Giraldi.

“We aren’t equipped to take prisoners, sir,” Imlay reminded her over the background muttering of his Marines. “And if they could have grabbed Mister McLain before this, why didn’t they while we were still close to Arnau?”

“Most likely, they couldn’t while we were in flight, given teleportation into a moving and unsteady airborne target is very difficult and dangerous,” Giraldi replied. “But the point still holds, given they could have struck after we landed… and they would have known we had landed when the tracer stopped moving,” he added warily, keeping his war hammer within reach.

“Assuming we do bring them to us, what then?” Fortrakt asked over the radio from overhead. “I say we just kill them!”

“I understand your feelings, Decurion, but I will not kill in cold blood. Perhaps cubnapping was not their intention. But we will not know unless we ask them,” Giraldi replied calmly, leaving Gilda very glad again that his cool head was present.

“We do have spell disruption snares and a few magical restraints available,” Ebon Umbreon said. He grabbed a storage gem from a belt pouch and tossed it on the ground; it turned quickly into a set of short manacles. “Place these on the base of their horns, and they will be unable to cast. A simple sleep spell or a dose of our sleeping powder will keep them quiescent, then.”

“Clever, Shadow Decurion. But I fear they might be less than amenable to accepting such restraints. And their powerful magics will make it very difficult to force it upon them,” Giraldi remarked mildly, to which Ebon Umbreon gave an unpleasant grin.

“Fear not, Optio. We have ways of dealing with that.” He then turned to Gilda. “With the help of Decanus Nydia, we can capture them, and it is my recommendation that we do so, Centurion. We cannot leave this threat unresolved, or an untriggered enchantment on Christopher McLain. And they might know something about what’s happening to the Kingdom as well.”

Gilda had a hard time believing that the Cloven were working with the Ibex given the former hated all life, but nor was she about to leave Chris with a spell that could potentially result in him being snatched up at any time.

Especially not when he was ready to have me as his first eagless! the thought came unbidden; for a moment, she could keenly remember his hands roaming her and the stature he displayed.

She purged it as hard as she could, still not understanding how or why she’d been so ready to rut after a fight for their very lives. Was it the cider? Or was it ME? She suddenly worried she was no better than Fortrakt when it came to acting on impulse. “Fine. We’ll take them prisoner and restrain them, then put them in the cart. We ask for information, but if they give us more trouble than they’re worth, then I’ll be with Fortrakt—we just kill them.”

“That’s pretty cold, Gilda. Not that I disagree,” Marco all but growled.

“Can we do it if it comes down to it?” Tara asked, her voice icy and blue eyes as hard as steel. “They tried to kill us before, after all, and God only knows what they would have done with Chris once they got what they needed from him.”

Though Gilda was again hard-pressed to disagree, Giraldi remained the voice of reason. “We don’t know what they want, and we won’t until we ask them. Keep your emotions in check, all of you. A soldier keeps a cool head and does not act on his hatreds or passions.” His orange eyes fell first on the humans, and then on Gilda herself, who did her best to take his advice to heart.

“Well said, Optio,” Imlay agreed as he came over. “To all my Marines, and you three as well—we’re not going to kill them unless we have to.” He shifted his own gaze from Chris to Tara and Marco in turn. “Understood?”

“Understood,” the three humans agreed sullenly, stepping back and lowering their weapons to let the Ravens prepare the scene.

It took them but seconds, starting with the more talkative Raven eagless covering the area from above with her repeating crossbow. She had loaded it with a drum containing a mixture of standard steel bolts mixed with purple amethyst-tipped ones, the latter of which Gilda knew were not meant to penetrate armor but simply disrupt magical barriers and spellcasting.

Her sister Raven, who Gilda had still never heard speak, prepared a series of snares designed to drain magic from clothing and armor while Ebon Umbreon himself brought out two dark agate crystals she’d never seen before, planting one in the dirt right beside the portal device.

Once all was ready, with the three equally spaced Ravens surrounding the human ‘smartphone’ at a respectful distance, Ebon Umbreon turned towards Nydia. “Decanus? Cast the spell!”

Nydia glanced at Gilda before she did so, who nodded. “By your command.”

The end of her stave glowed briefly before a magical beam was emitted, targeting Chris’s portal device, which began to glow with the same light. The glow then rapidly intensified and changed color as its activated spell took over; Gilda could soon feel the non-griffon magic suddenly saturating the air. She’d never sensed Ibexian magic before, but it felt both powerful and slightly unstable to her, like it was straining to be held in the human device.

Nothing more happened for several seconds, and nobody moved until Nydia spoke again. “It has them!” she announced loudly, her eyes squeezed shut and beak clenched with the intensity of her effort. “From the amount of magic they’re putting out, I think they’re fighting a battle, but… I’ve got hold of them! There’s three of them, and the beacon is pulling them all to us!”

“Steady…” Giraldi called out calmly to her forces. “And please lower your weapon, Marco Lakan. Ibexian Adepts are not to be trifled with, and we want them alive. Let the Ravens deal with them.” He reached out to gently push the barrel of Marco’s rifle down.

“Stand down, all of you!” Imlay reiterated. “Anyone who fires answers to me, and I will take your weapons if you don’t follow orders.”

Gilda wasn’t sure how he could carry out that threat if neither she nor they were willing, but the three civilians obeyed, grudgingly returning their rifles to a ready position.

The glow around the device intensified further, and suddenly a circular, rune-etched ring appeared in the air. The runes themselves were not the icons the griffons or ponies would use, but an entirely different alphabet of them—Cryllibex, their written language was called? She had little chance to consider it before the fiery edges of the ring reached upwards with sheets of arcane energy to form a translucent glowing dome over the area, which quickly turned opaque.

“Almost finished…” a clearly straining Nydia said as she continued to clench her beak and struggled to hold her staff steady. “And… done!” she announced as she cut her magic. She collapsed to the ground as the dome began to fade and the Ravens leveled their weapons.

The first thing Gilda saw was a series of three shapes, two in close proximity and one slightly away from them. As the view slowly cleared, their general outlines became visible; two of them appeared to be leaning hard on each other and the third was facing away with his head lowered and long, back-curved horns presented, roughly facing the direction of Nydia. The magical dome then evaporated entirely into wisps to reveal the three Ibexian Adepts fully, all looking haggard, injured and desperate, to say nothing of very disoriented to suddenly find themselves in an entirely different place.

“Now!” Ebon Umbreon shouted as he remotely activated the gem planted by Chris’s phone by triggering the one in his talons. Dark violet sparks then erupted from it and crackled around the three rivals to the Ravens, instantly blocking their magic.

Nullification gems! Gilda finally identified them. She had heard of but never seen them before; they were said to be effective against most magic wielders by eliminating wards and blocking all but the most basic forms of spellcasting. They did so by interfering with magical flow through casting surfaces like horns and staves, but they could also purge existing magic like enchantments and curses.

The final part of the sprung trap were the snares launched by the silent Raven eagless; they instantly wrapped around the Ibexian torsos and limbs, dissipating the remaining protective spells that were channeled by their odd armor and causing the Adepts to topple in a heap.

Within mere moments, their capture was complete as the three Capricorn Adepts lay bound and helpless before them. It was the first time Gilda had ever seen an Ibex except in drawings or rare pony-produced photographs, and she found them almost as alien as she first did humans.

They were quadrupedal like her, midway in size between griffons and ponies, but everything else about them, from the size and blocky shape of their goat-like snouts to their short-shaven beards and deer-like ears; from their large, back-curved antlers to the generally ruddy colors of their coats marked them as neither pony nor griffon.

They wore thin woven fabric with mithril filaments that covered their torsos and forelegs, with a pack of unknown contents carried on their wingless backs. She knew from briefings of Ibexian soldiers that their armor was not designed to directly protect them so much as to help channel their magic into shrouds or shields or even blade constructs; the latter of which could be just as effective as griffon steel. They also bore no weapons or weapons belt that she could recognize for the same reason, given their auras themselves were their weapons.

Ibexians were very magic-oriented in their arms and warfighting; they tended to turn their powerful auras, which they channeled through their large twin antlers, into both distance and slashing weapons. If they needed physical ones; their horns or sharp hooves would generally suffice; magically boosted, their males were even strong enough to ram right through brick walls when they couldn’t teleport behind them.

But the overabundance of magic their race wielded, along with their enormous antlers that enabled them to tap it, was also their greatest weakness. The former produced a dependence on it while the latter made their large horns an immediate target, for to damage or disrupt them was to limit their ability to cast. When stripped of their magic, which the Raven items were designed specifically to do, they were far easier to deal with and could be quickly restrained or killed.

That said, Capricorn Adepts were not easy to ensnare. They were supposed to be the best and most lethal warriors of shadow the Ascendency had, wielding a wide array of stealth and fighting spells that suited their special craft. And yet, for all their assumed abilities, they looked completely exhausted to Gilda, breathing and shaking heavily, and not just from their new predicament.

Gilda quickly decided that Nydia had been correct—it looked like they’d been pulled right out of a battle. A battle they were losing badly, given all three were battered and bleeding with multiple tears in their armor and cracks in their horns; at least one of them had been wounded severely to judge by a dangling foreleg and the amount of blood running down his side through a tear in his mythril-woven fabric.

He—no, she, since female Ibex had shorter antlers—was being supported by a second female whose left horn had been shorn off halfway up. It left an ugly break through which her magic leaked uselessly away; Gilda knew from her time in Equestria how agonizing those injuries could be to unicorns and how difficult they were to heal. The male was least wounded and appeared to have positioned himself to defend the other two, and after a panicked look around him, the first creature he locked eyes with was Imlay as he realized his magic was blocked and his limbs caught.

“Nyet! Nyet! No shoot! No kill!” he frantically pleaded in broken Equish as he realized human soldiers were pointing their cannons at them with his magic now unusable. “No fight! Need help!” he glanced back over his shoulder at his wounded comrades, who, even before they had fallen in a pile of snare-entangled limbs, looked barely able to stand.

“Only three of you, Starshina Karin Kazal?” Ebon Umbreon asked icily in Equish as well, causing the Ibex’s head to whip around to face him; the trio finally fully noticing all three Ravens and freezing in fear. “Capricorn Adepts operate in teams of eight. Where is the rest of your force?”

The Ibexian’s jaw quivered and tears glimmered in his gold-tinged eyes. “Cloven come! Rest dead!” He fell on his side in defeat, crying softly.

Ebon Umbreon then addressed him in what Gilda could only guess was fluent Ibex, and the Capricorn buck responded in kind. She didn’t know more than a word or two of their tongue, though it appeared he wasn’t fighting the interrogation at all—at least, not after the Shadow Decurion squawked an order in Aeric that resulted in the silent Raven eagless drawing her scimitar and putting the blade to the male’s throat. Another slightly frantic exchange followed, which was joined by the two females; it lasted several minutes before the lethal threat was withdrawn.

She had no idea what was being discussed, but to her surprise, one of the humans did. “What are they saying, Stavrou?” Imlay quietly asked a PFC standing off to his side after a couple minutes of interrogation.

“I’m not sure of all of it. Their accent and the way they speak Russian is really weird. But it turns out the Ravens were right—the cellphone was a lure,” he said quietly but angrily. “They let it return to Chris after we’d taken off and were using it to track us.

“They had orders to grab him after we landed for lunch, and then bring him back to Arnau because they couldn’t get around the enchantments the ponies placed on the stolen civvie equipment without at least one of them there. From the sound of it, they weren’t happy about their orders, and they knew they were taking an enormous risk.”

“They were right,” Gilda growled, feeling her ire rise again along with a hint of pink at the edges of her vision. “If they were caught, they’d be executed, and it’d be war with the Ascendency for certain.”

“Fucking KGB shit…” Marco said yet another phrase she didn’t understand from beside her before he spat on the ground. “Putin would be proud.”

“As you were,” Imlay said shortly as the interrogation finished. The three injured and broken Ibex did not resist as magical restraints were slapped on their horns and legs before the snares were released. “So now that we have them, what do we do with them, Centurion?”

Though she quickly came up with several progressively more evil ideas, Ebon Umbreon walked up before she could voice them. “Sir. Beg to report.” He saluted Gilda as Giraldi ordered the three adepts placed in the large produce cart under guard with Raleigh, sparing the silent Raven eagless and two sky griffons to the task. He then announced he would pull the cart himself, as he was the only griffon strong enough to do so quickly with the added weight, freeing Spear Jumentum to be a soldier and not a beast of burden again.

“At ease. What did he say?” she asked after thumping her chest.

“As our human friends have already overheard—and I will not ask how you know the Ibexian language, Private First Class Stavrou—they were conducting a covert operation whose goal was the capture of Mister McLain there,” he confirmed, causing Chris to break out in a cold sweat.

“They were planning to snatch him when we stopped for our mid-flight meal, and they were following us by transforming themselves temporarily into sky griffons, flying out of sight behind us. They would also have cubnapped him in those forms to make it look like they were griffon mercenaries—yes, such dishonorable griffons exist—who were paid by criminal gangs for their services, seeking to sell human technology on the underground markets of Arnau and other cities.”

“And they actually thought they could get away with it?” Giraldi asked in contempt. “Even if we didn’t stop them, human cannon fire would have.”

“Perhaps, Optio. But I do not blame them for trying. Even as an Ibexian Adept, you do not defy orders from the Capricorn Conclave,” the Shadow Decurion said simply. “As they traveled, they were leaving a series of anchor points behind them, which they could later use to return to Arnau by staged teleportation. But they fell into the same trap we did, losing their lead two Adepts to lightning.

“They dove for the ground, and not knowing what was happening, they tried to pick up our trail again. But then the Cloven struck, forcing them to engage in a running battle for their very lives,” he detailed. “Perhaps we should thank them, for it would seem they diverted a significant number of corrupted creatures from the attack on us, killing scores.”

“I’ll be sure and put them in for a citation,” Gilda growled. “Anything else?”

“Just the end of their story. On the verge of being overrun, they mustered most of their remaining power to teleport far away and took refuge in a cave. But corrupted mages tracked them down and they were then overwhelmed by sheer numbers despite their skill and spellcasting. They had already lost three other Adepts in battle; they were down to their last dregs of magic and seconds away from death when we pulled them here.”

“They were? Pity,” a glowering Tara said. “Even now, they still won’t leave us the fuck alone.”

Though Gilda agreed with the sentiment, she held her tongue. “Do you believe them? And did they say who sent them?”

“I do believe them, as I see little reason for them to lie about their circumstances, given they are now defenseless and know we could kill them easily. As for who sent them, he claims he does not know who ordered the operation, as his orders were passed to him anonymously by magic message drop. Which is in fact typical for the Capricorn Conclave,” Ebon Umbreon explained calmly.

“He also insists that his team was not the one who poisoned you or the three humans, Centurion. That I know to be true, as those Adepts were identified and flushed from hiding by my brethren. They were then forced to take refuge in the Saddle Arabian Embassy.”

“Oh, like that makes it better?” Chris growled in the direction of the Ibex, who turned nervous eyes upon him, their gazes then falling on the wooden rifle he held loosely in his grasp. “Just following orders, huh? I hope the Kingdom fucking cooks you for dinner!”

“Let me do it. I know a good goat recipe,” Marco sneered, causing the eyes of the two female Adepts to dart back and forth in nervous worry after his words were at least roughly translated by their leader. “I’ll be more than happy to eat them!”

“Save it, both of you!” Imlay said sharply like they were underlings speaking out of turn. “So can they be trusted, Shadow Decurion? Do we have anything to fear from them?”

“I believe they can be. And no. They are wounded and exhausted as you can plainly see, so they pose no immediate threat. Even when healed, their restraints will prevent them from casting and cannot be removed, except by us. Given time, they might even be useful to us.”

“Useful to us?” Gilda couldn’t imagine how that could be the case.

“Indeed, Centurion. For they understand perfectly well the peril the Ascendency is now in, given they know the Cloven will not stop with conquering and corrupting the Kingdom. I’ve crossed blades with their Starshina on a previous occasion, and though he is a skilled and able Adept who does his utmost to carry out even the most difficult of assignments, he is also smart enough to know that his original orders no longer hold sway.”

He turned back towards the three Ibex and raised his voice enough to let them hear it. “For he knows full well we are the only creatures standing between them and certain death, and that his orders are now irrelevant given the existential threat our two Kingdoms face. That we will very likely have to work together as races and nations to defeat and destroy the Cloven of the Sun.”

“All well and good, except for them trying to kidnap Chris,” Tara reminded them.

“For what it’s worth, Tara Fields, he insists they had strict orders not to harm him,” the Shadow Decurion addressed her.

“Like we’d take their word for it?” Marco growled with a fury that Gilda very much felt as well. “After what they did to us? If they try anything, they’re dead!”

“As you were!” Imlay snarled. “I understand how you three feel, but the moment you take matters into your own hands and demonstrate you can’t obey orders is the moment I will strip you of your weapons. I don’t want to do that, but if you force me to, I will. Are we clear?” he asked them again, his voice ice cold.

“You don’t do that without my permission, Corporal,” Gilda felt compelled to remind him, to which he closed his eyes tightly for a moment but nodded. “Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“Good. That said, the Corporal is right, and so is Optio Giraldi—I need you three to keep your heads about you,” she told Chris, Tara and Marco sternly, speaking over the radio to make sure Fortrakt heard her as well. “You have every reason to be angry at them, as do I. But as soldiers, we can’t act on our emotions, and here’s something else to think about—if that cider really is still in us, it will heighten our emotions and intensify our desires to do whatever we’re feeling at a given moment, whether it’s violence or sex. Be aware of it and don’t be a slave to it,” she finished emphatically for herself as much as them, to which they blinked hard, and then visibly relented.

“Shit, you’re right…” Marco admitted in some embarrassment with glances at an equally chagrined Chris and Tara. “Sorry, Corporal. We’re not soldiers, but from here on out, we’ll do our best to act like them. I swear we’ll leave the Ibex alone.”

“Good,” Imlay nodded. “Still, I think it best to keep you three away from them, so I’ll assign one of my fire teams to guard the coach. You three walk ahead and report any movement you see immediately.”

“You really trust us to take point?” Tara asked in amazement, to which the Marine Corporal only raised an eyebrow.

“You’re not—the other two Ravens remain on point. But if another battle erupts, anything that gets past them is yours. Just remember that those two are ahead of you and be damned sure of what you’re shooting. Because if you think I’ll be pissed by friendly fire, just imagine what they’ll do.” He smiled thinly.

Tara and Marco cringed as Chris paled mightily. “We got it,” the latter said in a very weak voice.

“Good. Keep your eyes peeled and report any movement you see. If trouble erupts, fall back towards the cart—I assume from your paintball leagues you know how to cover each other’s movement. And as for you, Chief, we have wounded. Ride in the wagon and try to treat the Ibex.”

Chief Jacobs looked up sharply. “With all due respect, I’m a combat medic, not a veterinarian, Corporal!”

“If you treated a couple mythological creatures for battle wounds, then you can also treat a magical mountain goat,” Imlay said dryly, causing Gilda to blink—what did he mean, ‘mythological’?

“Now get to it. They’re proof that the Ibex are still conducting operations against us, so I want them to make it out of this alive. And if they’re as magically powerful as the griffons say, then we might need them to help fight off the Cloven, too…”

24: Battle of Bale - Prelude

Author's Note

Welcome back to Feathered Hearts, folks! As we head towards the second battle of the conflict. It’s time for some scene-setting and more lore, setting up future events in both the main story and Eros. For those of you anxious for combat, it’s coming next chapter. And the next chapter is coming in three days.

Content Warning: There are some mildly suggestive sequences here, including a Marine accidentally groping Gilda’s shoulders, two tiercels showing interest in each other under what might be cider influence, and some brief crotchgazing/pause given to Gilda over persistently sensual thoughts. But it’s nothing that even comes close to approaching an R rating.

Thanks as always go to prereaders AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire, Wechsel, Silverblade5, and ASF. So let me just say the boilerplate, and I’ll set you loose on the chapter:

This chapter is a heavily rewritten version of the second half of Feathered Heart: Chapter 8, borrowing several chunks of detail and dialog modified and rearranged to accommodate the updated story. Regardless, you are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original if you haven’t already, as it inspired many of my own works.

—Firefly

24: Battle of Bale - Prelude

Once they were finally underway, the march to Bale occurred swiftly.

The sun was setting as they arrived near its gates to find the steadholt deserted. Worse, the animals had fallen silent again, causing humans and griffons alike to clutch their weapons more tightly and Gilda to order the advance halted half a league out on a slight rise. But as they had already scouted the vicinity and came up empty, Gilda could only conclude that the Cloven were inside the Steadholt itself.

Meaning at best, we’ll have to clean them out before we can use the buildings for shelter, or worse, we’ll have to give up the idea of staying here entirely if their numbers are too great. But if they were, wouldn’t they just attack us again out in the open? Or do they already know not to do that from the earlier battle and now plan to ambush us when we come inside?

Her eyes fell on the forms of Chris, Tara and Marco walking about thirty paces ahead in a spread-out pattern; she noted the hard march seemed to have exhausted them quickly given their bent-over forms and ragged breathing.

Chris seemed the worst off given he was hunched over heavily; she guessed the weight of his armor was tiring him given he’d been the most out-of-shape of the three to begin with before they’d started working out with Sergeant Reyes. Tara and Marco seemed a bit better, but she could see they were breathing hard and smell the salty-sweet sheen of moisture each were now wearing.

I guess that unlike the Marines, they’re not used to walking with so much weight on them, she supposed, though it still brought a smile of appreciation to her face at how hard all three were trying to act the part of soldiers even though they weren’t.

They’re all keepers. Not just for me, but the entire Kingdom, she decided as unbidden, the scent of their sweat triggered a series of sensual memories. In her mind, she found herself in the clearing at the center of attention of her human friends again, followed by remembering her time with Marco back at the Inn.

But what little elation she remembered at their first true time together waned quickly as she focused her attention back to the here and now, trying to determine what their next move was. She wished Giraldi was there to provide his counsel, but he was still pulling the cart; a glance back showed him chatting with Imlay while they waited to move again.

“Centurion!” Fortrakt’s voice broke into her thoughts as he swooped in before her and saluted, though he maintained a hover in the air. “Beg to report.”

“Proceed, Decurion,” she invited as she returned the honor. Magical interference had been getting worse again; enough that the human radios were having trouble being heard through even over short distances.

“Still no Cloven or corpses in the vicinity that we can see. But it’s getting dark and I’m sure you’ve noticed everything’s gone quiet again?” He looked around nervously, to which she could only give a grave nod. “If they’re anywhere, they have to be inside the steadholt.”

“I agree,” she said tersely. “The Ravens are checking it. Let’s see what they find before we try—”

Before she could finish her reply, Ebon Umbreon seemed to materialize right out of the air itself, causing her and Fortrakt to flinch. “Beg to report, Centurion.”

“Proceed,” she said again, if far more wanly.

“We’ve reached the gates of the steadholt, sir. It appears deserted and there is no sign of activity within it. But the animals have gone quiet again in its vicinity,” he observed as well, causing her insides to automatically clench and her heart to race in anticipation of another attack. “We see no indications of an ambush or a large force present, but as the Cloven seem to be nearby, we must exercise extreme caution.”

“As you say.” She struggled to focus her thoughts. At this distance, she couldn’t see anything inside the steadholt clearly, but the lack of movement and silence of the animals was not to be ignored. “The most obvious conclusion is that if we don’t see them but the birds and crickets are quiet, then they’re waiting for us, either inside the buildings or under them—Tribune Narada did say they were using Diamond Dogs on the attack. Can you check the structures and cellars without being seen?”

“We can,” he said, then winked and she flinched again as he simply faded from sight. “Hold here while we check them. Fire a flare if you come under attack, and we will hasten to rejoin you,” his slightly muffled voice said from directly in front of her, but whatever magic he was tapping, she could see nothing of him except the barest hint of distortion in the air around his outline as he flew off again.

“Ancestors…” Fortrakt said from a hover beside her, his jaw agape. “They’re amazing.”

“Close your beak, cub. Before it attracts flies,” an amused Giraldi said as he came up with Imlay beside her; they then saluted Gilda as one. “Just be grateful they’re here, because we would have no chance without them.”

“Optio.” She returned the gesture; it struck her then that she was finally getting used to having honor paid to her rank. “And Corporal. Have you made any progress on finding ways to merge our formations?”

“We have, actually,” Giraldi replied. “That wasn’t all we discussed, though. We were swapping war stories on our walk over. From what the Corporal says, there are some surprising similarities between the foes we face on our border with the Ascendency, and this ‘Afghanistan’ he served at.”

“More than I would like. Those Ibexian irregulars you fought sound as bad as the Taliban. We could have used more officers like you, Optio,” Imlay told him ruefully.

Giraldi bared his neck back. “And you would do well in command of a griffon decade, Corporal Imlay. Perhaps even a Turma.”

“Thank you, sir.” He gave him a nod of acknowledgment instead of baring his throat; she wondered then if she’d ever get the chance to teach the rest of the Marines proper griffon body language and cultural etiquette.

Might have to at least sit them down and teach them the basics before they accidentally grope a griffon on the shoulder, she had the passing thought; it still caused her to do a double-take whenever she saw the humans do it to each other. Raleigh’s just lucky Spear Jumentum didn’t take it personally when he did it! “He’s right, Corporal. If you wish, I’d be more than happy to assign your squad some griffons.”

“Thanks again, sir. Though I fear my lack of wings might be a slight impediment to properly leading them,” he noted dryly. “I think you griffons could command us well, too. And for what it’s worth, Centurion, you’re certainly performing a lot better than way too many fresh-from-the-academy Second Lieutenants I’ve seen.”

She bared her throat at him—maybe he could at least learn by example that’s what griffons did in response to compliments? “Your respect is noted and appreciated, Corporal. I fully intend to recommend you and your unit for commendation when all this is over. In the meantime, we’re waiting again.”

“Understood,” he said. “My Marines are in position and ready to receive hostiles. I take it we stopped to scout the village?”

“It’s called a steadholt. And yes,” she confirmed. “The Ravens are checking it. Given the animals are quiet again, we suspect there’s Cloven inside.” Recalling her instructions, she belatedly began to prepare a flare to fire in case they were attacked, and she needed to recall the two Ravens swiftly.

“Makes sense,” he agreed, crouching on one knee beside her; he wasn’t sweating anywhere near as hard as the civilians were, but he still had a faint sheen of it on his forehead in the warmth of the evening. “And if there are?”

“Unless their numbers are too great, we clean them out,” she told him tensely, turning to find herself face-to-face with a human for a change instead of staring at their crotch or midsection. “How good are your Marines at clearing buildings?”

Imlay smiled, showing the tips of his teeth. “Very. I would strongly suggest you pull the civilians back, though.” He nodded ahead towards Chris, Tara and Marco. “I don’t care what they say or what classes they took; they won’t be able to do it properly without a lot more practice and training.”

“I believe you. And I will,” she promised, “but let them rest where they are for now. They need it. And don’t worry—Fortrakt’s group is covering them from overhead.”

“Thanks. And we’re glad your soldiers are up there, believe me,” he assured her. “As for those three, they’re not used to marching in full pack, though they seem to have held up pretty well. But from the looks of them, I don’t think they can last much longer before having to stop. They’ll need some real rest soon, and we’ll need to find defensible shelters we can sleep in. How long before the Ravens report?”

“I’d say…” Her voice trailed off as the wind gusted slightly just then. It bore another wave of mingled human scent and sweat from the three civilians, and this time, her mind went all the way back to the night of the cider. In that instant, she could recall the same spicy and oddly intoxicating aroma hanging heavy in the air around her the entire time, causing the edges of her vision to turn slightly pink again, adding further fuel to her still-strong cider-spiked desires.

“Sir?” Imlay prompted again when she stopped speaking. But she didn’t immediately hear him; still sniffing the air, finding herself lost in memories she mostly still couldn’t reach but seemed closer to the surface than ever. “Something wrong?”

Finally realizing he’d spoken, Gilda looked at him blankly for a moment. “What? Oh! Ten to fifteen minutes,” she said softly. “Yeah. Should be ten, fifteen minutes, tops.”

Imlay gave her an odd look. “Sir? Is there something wrong?”

Gilda shook her head to clear it, wishing she could turn off her sensual side. It wasn’t just her, either; a glance around her showed that Giraldi and Fortrakt appeared to have been affected as well given their suddenly distant expressions; both were staring straight ahead at the three civilians.

Crows take it… this is NOT the time! she reminded herself again, starting to worry that Fortrakt had been wrong and the cider wasn’t just enhancing desires, but inducing them. I wonder if Nydia can do something about this? She wasn’t sure, but she also wasn’t sure she wanted to ask given the embarrassing questions that might involve.

Embarrassing or no, I might HAVE to ask if this keeps up! “No. Nothing. Once the Ravens return, we’ll plan our next steps. In the meantime, have there been any further issues with our honored guests?” she asked with some distaste and a nod back towards the cart where the Ibex were kept, along with all the precious produce and bread they had paid so painfully for.

Imlay and Giraldi exchanged another glance, the latter looking uncharacteristically befuddled for a moment before he refocused. “It would seem that they’re not entirely happy with the quality of their care, Centurion,” the latter spoke first with a note of amusement.

“They speak Aeric well enough, and from what I overheard, they thought Chief Jacobs was trying to kill them by sticking them with needles and sewing their wounds shut. Even after its purpose was explained to them, they protested, calling such treatment primitive and barbaric. To which I heard Spear Jumentum ask them from behind the cart if they wished no treatment at all.”

“And their response?” Gilda asked with a sneer. I won’t mind one bit if they don’t!

Giraldi smiled thinly. “They complained some more and said that they would not let Chief Jacobs touch them, with the male threatening to shock him into unconsciousness if he tried. When Chief Jacobs then said in Equish that he could not help them if they were uncooperative, there was the sound of a drawn blade, and they fell silent. I gather the Chief was then able to treat them.”

“I see.” Gilda smiled thinly in turn, imagining the mute Raven eagless was the source of the sound. She found herself taking no small pleasure in their fear and discomfort, given not only what the Ibex had planned for Chris, but the enormous discomfort she and the rest of her human and griffon friends had endured following their potion-spiked cider poisoning.

In fairness, even if they had declined treatment, it might not have been dangerous to them. From what she’d been taught at the Gauntlet, the potent auras of the Ibex were normally enough to self-heal all but the worst battle wounds in a matter of hours—assuming they had sufficient magic available, that was, which these three didn’t after their exhausting efforts against the Cloven. And assuming their horns were intact, which they weren’t.

Nor was that ability inexhaustible even in the best of circumstances; physical healing was a very magic-intensive process that used up a great deal of a caster’s strength regardless of race. It was why Giraldi had ordered Nydia to not heal more minor wounds, only major ones; she had to conserve her power as much as possible should the Cloven attack again.

But she used a stave to channel her magic and cast her spells. It wasn’t a part of her body like the antlers were for the Ibex; when they were damaged, they lost a great deal of their healing and casting ability. In that instance, all their remaining power would go into repairing the cracks and regrowing the lost parts of their magical appendages.

If they were well-fed and able to rest, it was said they could fully regenerate even a broken-off horn in a day or two—at the cost of not being able to otherwise use their magic. Which included healing their flesh or broken limbs if they’d suffered other injuries; their bodies prioritized preserving their all-important antlers over just about everything else.

“I suppose we should at least inform our guests about what is planned and expected of them. Instruct them in Aeric that we will be stopping soon, Optio. Tell them that if they wish to be tended and fed, they will obey our instructions without question. Tell them that if they try anything untoward, they will be left by the roadside with human bullets in their brains,” she said through narrowed eyes, half-thinking of allowing Chris, Tara and Marco to fire the fatal shots as they’d requested.

She blinked, then shook her head sharply at the ugly thought. Do NOT let your emotions guide you, Grizelda Behertz… she told herself again. And by all your Ancestors and your love for Marco, Chris, and Tara, do NOT make them murderers! “Sorry. That might just be the cider speaking again,” she added in Aeric so Imlay wouldn’t understand her.

“Then it would seem you’ve been feeling it too,” Giraldi noted in Aeric back, giving her a knowing look. “I thought I was the only one.”

“Not even close,” Fortrakt told him worriedly. “We all are. And the effects seem to be getting stronger, not weaker. I keep trying to—” He caught himself and shook his head sharply, just as she had. “Never mind. But I’m worried about what it may make us do at bad times.”

“I see. Then we must be cautious not to act on its urges, as I fear I already did once,” Giraldi reminded them, his cheeks flushing and wings twitching for a moment; she thought better of asking him what he meant. “I need not tell you it will heighten whatever we are feeling and make us far more likely to act on impulse, to possibly great detriment. I would say be aware of it, but it would seem you already are.”

“Until we can get ourselves scanned for it by specialist mages back in Arnau, that's all we can do for now,” Gilda agreed, then dropped the subject, turning to Imlay and switching back to Equish. “Sorry for the private conversation, Corporal. One of your Marines speaks Ibexian, correct?”

He nodded, unperturbed. “PFC Stavrou does, sir. But we call it Russian, not Ibexian.”

“Russian,” she repeated the odd word, wondering if all Tellusian languages were known by different names in the human world. And then she wondered in turn how by all the Ancestors two entirely different worlds somehow spoke the same tongues. “Put his fire team around the cart and have him walk behind it. I want him to listen in if they start speaking it. Maybe he can pick up if they’re planning an escape or something.”

“I’m sure the Raven eagless knows Ibex, sir,” Giraldi quickly pointed out, only to just as quickly realize: “But she doesn’t seem to talk.”

“Exactly,” Gilda confirmed, wondering if it was by choice or if she was unable to. “Any problem with that arrangement, Corporal?”

“No, sir. I’ll switch up the teams,” he said, standing back up again, leaving her staring at the business end of his cannon barrel for a moment; she could smell the burnt powder within it from the earlier battle. “By your command,” he even added the griffon response to an order as he flashed her a salute with a slight twinkle.

Ten minutes later, the Ravens returned to make their report while Imlay was away, though he listened in over the radio. “The steadholt is deserted aside from around a score of Caleponian and griffon corpses, now neutralized. They were all found inside the structures and storage cellars, which we meticulously searched, so it is safe to say that they were indeed planning to ambush us when we went inside them.”

“Neutralized? Then you dispatched them?” she asked with a glance at Fortrakt, to which the Shadow Decurion nodded solemnly.

“We did, with blades or bolts to the head—thanks to our stealth spells, they didn’t know we were there. Other than that, there are no survivors and no signs of battle other than bloodstains, a barricaded door and a broken window or two. Whatever happened, it happened so quickly that there was little time to mount a defense.”

“Curious,” Giraldi said, though the only words Gilda could come up with to describe the situation were awful and ominous. “Are you certain that you got all of the corrupted corpses?”

“We searched every building and cellar for them, Optio. As the nighttime animals were being heard again as we left, I believe that we did,” he pointed out. “Nevertheless, I advise caution as we move in. It would seem our foe is trying to play on our protective instincts and compassion for cubs, as we found a room full of corrupted griffon and pony younglings pretending to sleep. It was not pleasant having to stab them, Centurion.” He and his comrade went downcast.

“I hate this anti-Cloven doctrine, sir,” the latter said, her voice trembling. “I knew they were dead, as their bodies showed no heat, but to have to slay them for a second time with a blade through the brain…” She shuddered. “Ancestors above, each time I did it, it felt like I was killing my own cubs!”

Gilda was surprised to learn the nameless female was a mother as well, but she supposed she shouldn’t have been—Ravens are said to live among us as normal griffons to all outward appearances, and you never know who might be one.

“As you say, our foe is playing on our instincts and compassion,” Giraldi reminded them gently as the Shadow Decurion laid a comforting wing over his comrade’s back. “Ravens you may be, but I can see that you are also parents and thus react as one to the sight of slain younglings. By using such dishonorable tactics, the Cloven are attempting to weaken our resolve and drive us into despair. For the sake of your cubs and comrades, do not give in, Ebon Umbreon.”

He stepped forward to put a fatherly paw on the other tiercel’s chest, though Gilda didn’t think the Raven male was much younger than he was.

“As you say, Galen Giraldi.” The Raven tiercel closed his eyes tightly for a moment before opening them again; he seemed to blink and grow distracted for a moment, staring down at Giraldi’s talons touching him before he recovered his bearing and focus. “Regardless, as its walls and buildings remain intact, it will make a suitable redoubt. We should thus occupy the steadholt immediately before more Cloven appear. And before we…”

His tail twitched as a slight flush appeared in his cheeks; for a moment Gilda thought she scented cider in the air as the the two males suddenly stared fixedly at each other and their wings started rising fractionally from their sides.

Gilda blinked and shook her head hard at the images and ideas suddenly running freely through her head. She wasn’t sure if she was more shocked by the sudden vision of the two powerful tiercels engaging in intimacies completely out of the blue, or the fact that she found it strangely apt and arousing, wanting to watch it happen.

Wanting to watch them take the chance she hadn’t, right out in the open in front of everyone. For if they did, wouldn’t that mean it was okay for her to do so?

Wouldn’t that mean it was okay for them all?

Though given momentary pause, her will quickly reasserted itself. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she didn’t intervene immediately, but she also wasn’t going to find out. No! We are NOT doing this right now! she vehemently thought as she stepped firmly between them, at least glad that unlike before, the effects of whatever residual cider remained within them could be resisted.

“Okay, back to business, everyone!” she said sharply to break whatever spell they’d fallen under, causing the two males to blink and pull back quickly, suddenly having to look away from each other.

“You’re right that we need to occupy the steadholt immediately. Our work isn’t done yet, and there’s no guarantee the Cloven won’t reappear, so keep your eyes and ears open! Decurion Gletscher, detail a Fuga or two to secure the well and food storage areas. We’ll be needing more water, so find containers and fill as many as you can. The rest will continue aerial patrols and cover the convoy as we move in.”

“By your command!” came the crisp response as an initially distracted Fortrakt saluted and took flight again back to his contingent; watching him direct his two decades, she was impressed at how readily the sky griffons he led seemed to carry out his instructions.

Wow. Who would have thought such a young and dweeby griffon would be so able to get soldiers to obey orders? she had the passing thought before turning to Giraldi. “Harness back up and pull the cart inside the steadholt walls, Optio. Once it’s safe there, we’ll pass out some of the food and have Nydia cast preservation spells on the remainder. I’m not sure we can take the cart with us all the way to the next steadholt, so we’ll have to pack as much of it as we can.”

“By your command. And the Ibex?” he prompted with what she found to be an odd and lingering look at Ebon Umbreon, to which she grimaced, having forgotten about their prisoners for at least a few Ancestor-blessed moments.

“Move them under guard to the cells found in the cellar of the main hall,” she directed. “I know from previous rotations that’s where the steadholt peacekeepers usually stow troublemakers, and if their magic is blocked, they shouldn’t be able to escape. Feed and water them, but also be sure you keep the civilians away from them. Tell them that if they behave, we’ll continue to protect them. And recommend that they not be executed as spies when we reach safety.”

Her eyes turned angry again for a moment at the knowledge they were trying to take Chris away. And worse, right before we nearly… She yet again couldn’t believe where her mind was trying to go.

“Understood. And the civilians themselves?” Imlay interrupted her lurid thoughts over the radio; she’d been so intent on what was happening in front of her that she’d forgotten he was listening in from back at the cart.

With effort, she purged her mind of the persistent fantasies again. “They need to rest, so let them.” She found herself already wishing she could join them, not for sex but for sleep. She was quite tired after her restlessness the previous night, to say nothing of the combat and constant whiplash of emotions she’d experienced over the course of the day.

“Once we form our defensive perimeter, we’ll establish safe eating and rest areas and work out a four-hour watch rotation, with no more than a third of our force sleeping at a time. And Shadow Decurion…?”

Though his eyes had still been on Giraldi, he instantly perked up. “Centurion?”

She sighed and nodded, almost feeling guilty about having separated the pair. “I must once again ask a great deal of you. I need you and your team to stay awake and stay outside, keeping watch for any Cloven activity. You’re the best early warning system we have, so use the same flare color scheme you suggested before,” she outlined.

“A blue flare means an attack is inbound from the flare’s location. Green means abandon the steadholt and move in the flare’s direction at once. And red means dragons are coming,” she finished, though she had no idea what they would do in that instance other than dive for the cellars and pray. “And if you see a white flare, it means return to the steadholt immediately.”

He nodded and saluted. “By your command. And worry not. We are used to extended periods without sleep. So rest your soldiers and yourself, Centurion,” he offered. “You are in good wings. Sleep soundly knowing we will keep watch over you all.”

Two minutes later, the convoy entered the gates of the steadholt as Fortrakt’s fifteen soldiers kept watch from the air and the Marines covered the rear.

Once they had reached the main plaza, the gates were closed and sealed behind them; Nydia reinforced them with a spell that she promised would make them very difficult to break. The steadholt’s high walls would provide no protection against airborne enemies, of course, but would be at least partial proof against grounded ones like more grass lions or the flightless soldier forms pure Cloven were said to take.

The plaza secure, her sky griffons took over defense while the Marines cleared the buildings covered by Nydia’s spellcasting, starting with the largest one—the Main Hall, or Town Hall as the ponies would have called it—in the center of the steadholt.

She watched from the air as the civilians and her two earth griffons protected the cart; sky griffon crossbows covering the windows and balconies in case corrupted corpses should appear within them. She didn’t expect any given the Ravens said they’d already cleared the area and the evening animals were active, but there was no telling what other surprises the endlessly adaptable Cloven yet had for them.

To her relief, nothing happened. The Marines moved efficiently and cleared the Hall swiftly; no shots from their cannons were heard as the call came back over the radio: “Building clear. But we found something strange, Centurion,” Imlay reported, his voice barely audible over the background crackling.

“Another Cloven corpse?” she asked as Nydia perked up beside her.

“No, sir. But our blacklights picked up something. We don’t know what it is. I think Decanus Nydia needs to see it.”

“Understood. Hold your fire; we’re coming in.”

With a nod to Nydia, they entered the Hall. Despite their expected approach, they were both greeted with a pair of violet lights sweeping over them; it caused her wings to fluoresce and Nydia’s entire stave to light up with an intense glow.

“Confirmed. No shrouds,” Henderson called out, then issued a challenge phrase. “Eclipse.”

“Occlusion,” Gilda replied to lowered rifles; they were still using a simple sign/countersign system that they’d discarded weeks earlier at the Inn. But as the Cloven didn’t speak, she didn’t think there was an issue with using it out there. “What have you found, Corporal?”

“This.” He shone his violet ‘blacklight’ on the floor near the back of the room, away from the doors and off to the side of the stage from which the Steadholt Master would normally conduct business. The beam revealed a glowing square shape, but there was nothing on the floor itself to suggest a real one was present in the stone surface. “What is it?”

“Interesting…” Nydia raised her staff to scan it with her magic, then frowned.

“Something wrong?” Gilda asked.

“It’s a Shelter spell, sir,” Nydia replied distractedly. “And its magical signature is so faint that if these strange human lights didn’t find it, I’m not sure I would have.”

Gilda frowned in turn. “I see it, but I don’t feel it.”

“You’re not supposed to,” Nydia said, pointing her staff towards it, magically tugging on the area experimentally. “As it’s meant to hide magically sealed areas, it was designed to be only barely perceptible, if at all.” She opened her eyes again. “In this instance, I think it’s hiding an entrance to an underground area.”

Gilda was tempted to call the Ravens and ask them if they’d sensed such a spell, but as they were now patrolling outside the base walls where the radios could not reach them, they couldn’t be recalled short of firing a flare.

Giraldi then approached. “A shelter spell you say? We used those on the border with the Ascendency. It’s a defensive spell that conceals an underground storage area. We used them to cache extra food or items for our patrols.”

Nydia nodded. “As you say, Optio. The magic is faint but feels relatively fresh; emplaced in just the past few hours. I’m guessing this steadholt had a mage who cast it.”

Imlay then spoke. “You said they were used for supplies. Can these ‘shelter spells’ also hide people?”

“Huh? Oh. Uh, yes, but it’s not really recommended,” Nydia said; Gilda wasn’t sure that she’d ever heard the word ‘people’ before, but she seemed to get the meaning after a moment’s thought. “It magically seals off the entire chamber to conceal it from scans, and that means it’s not ventilated. Regardless of how big the pocket is, whoever hides inside it will slowly suffocate if the spell is not released.”

Giraldi glanced at Gilda as Imlay and the Marines exchanged looks. “Sir, you don’t think that…?”

“It’s possible,” Gilda replied. “If the steadholt was attacked, this Shelter spell could be what hid the survivors from the Cloven.”

Her newly minted Optio shook his head. “Slow suffocation or certain death—few grown griffons would choose to go for the former unless the situation was dire.”

“I think we can safely assume it was,” Imlay said. “As nobody is here, but there are bloodstains and broken doors all over, it seems likely the residents were slaughtered, and their bodies taken to fuel the Cloven war machine.”

“Perhaps, but we must also consider the possibility that this is another Cloven lure,” Giraldi reminded him. “It would seem the Ravens did not sense it, so I would proceed with extreme caution. Can you open the Shelter, Decanus?”

“Possibly, but—” Nydia suddenly gasped as her magic probed deeper; her efforts turned the heads of the Ibex as they were led inside in shackles. “I sense living auras inside it, but they’re weak. They may already be running out of air. And worse… I think some of them are cubs!”

“Cubs?”

“Be careful,” Imlay warned. “The Ravens already said they tried to use corrupted cubs in an ambush.”

“But these are definitely living!” Nydia exclaimed in alarm. “Request permission to force the shelter open, Centurion!” she all but begged Gilda.

“Breaking another mage’s spell is a magic-intensive process, Centurion,” Giraldi advised. “It could cost her a great deal of power and worse, might act as a beacon for corrupted mages.”

“But there are cubs down there!” Nydia pleaded. “They might be all that’s left of this steadholt! By all our Ancestors, Centurion, please let me save them!”

All eyes turned on Gilda as she considered the request. Do I let her? We need her at full strength, and this Shelter spell even eluded the Ravens. Could it be another Cloven trap using cubs as bait? she wondered slightly frantically.

But how COULD it be? If it was, they would have to make sure it would be discovered, but the Ravens missed it. In fact, even Nydia said she probably would have missed it if it wasn’t shown to her! The Cloven couldn’t have known about these human ‘blacklights’ being able to reveal magical shrouds or surfaces, could they? And even if they did, how did they know there would be humans here to reveal it?

The entire thought process took just a few seconds before she reached the only conclusion possible.“Permission granted! It can’t be a trap unless they both knew about humans being able to detect magic and that they would be here! There are survivors down there, and even at the cost of Magus power, I will not abandon them! So by my order, open the Shelter and be quick about it, Decanus!”

“By your command!” she shouted, and then slightly frantically went to work, pointing her stave, which shortly began to emit another magical beam at the glowing rectangle. It caused the area to flare brighter and start to glow even without the illumination of the violet human lights, but even Gilda could sense its building resistance, and she felt the magical backlash like a slap to the face as a splintering sound was heard beside her.

The source had been Nydia’s casting staff, which now showed a long and glowing crack in the wood. “I can’t…” she said, stumbling back in defeat, tears of frustration glimmering in her eyes. “The caster down there is stronger than me. I can’t break their spell without breaking my stave!”

“What would it take to overcome it?” Giraldi asked.

“More power than I possess,” Nydia said in despair. “Me and another mage working in concert might be able to do it, but we don’t have any other casters! Except for—” She blinked hard and turned towards the three Ibex, who were being walked in under guard; their heads turned towards the scene as they likely sensed the magical expenditure.

Gilda followed her gaze and realized what she was thinking. “No! We don’t dare remove their manacles!”

“We wouldn’t have to, sir. I can use Ibexian magic to power my spell. Even with their manacles on, I can draw it through an antler!” Nydia explained. “But they can’t fight me or it won’t work.”

“So in other words, they have to willingly give up their power?” Gilda exchanged a dubious look with Giraldi.

“Even if they agreed, they could cripple or poison your stave,” the latter warned. “Plant a magical seed in it to be used later. I strongly advise against it, Centurion, or else they might…” His voice trailed off as his logic led to the same dead-end Gilda found.

“Might what? Escape into the Cloven-infested countryside where they’d get hunted down by corrupted mages and killed?” she suggested derisively, then stalked up to the Ibex male, her gold eyes boring into his orange-tinted ones. Staring at him, she found herself given pause by her first real noseful of male Ibex musk, which simultaneously stimulated both her olden hunting and mating instincts.

Finding herself with strong urges to both rut and kill, Gilda shoved them as hard aside as she could, annoyed at herself anew for not being able to shake such thoughts and resolving again to get herself scanned for cider as soon as possible—by all my Ancestors, I don’t want to be turned on by the IBEX!

“You—Starshina, is it? We have a shelter spell we can’t open with survivors inside. But we might be able to break it if you boost our mage’s power,” she told him in Aeric, guessing he likely knew the griffon tongue as well as the Ravens knew Ibex. “Allow her to draw off some of your magic. I promise she will only use as much as she needs to do the job.”

He glanced back at the two surviving females before forcing his features into a sneer. “And why, by all the Ancient Rams of our Rodina, would I do that?” he asked her in fluent Aeric.

She didn’t know what the Ibexian word meant, but she let her gaze harden into a glare as she stepped forward to go beak to muzzle with him. “Because I ordered it. Because there are cubs dying down there! And because if you don’t, I’ll let the humans cook you for dinner,” she threatened him coolly, causing him to pale beneath his ruddy fur.

“I don’t know how much you understood from the earlier conversation, but our three civilians already asked for permission to kill you for what was done to them—for what you were planning to do to their friend! You’re dead weight right now at a time I need every soldier available to fight, so why, by all my Ancestors, should I not grant their request?“ She was both amazed and appalled at how calmly she delivered the ugly threat.

“You’re bluffing,” he claimed as the silent Raven eagless listened to the conversation intently. She started to go for her blade on her back again but stopped at an upraised wing from Gilda. “You need us alive.”

Gilda’s smile turned almost sweet. “I need one of you alive,” she corrected him, nodding to the Raven eagless and motioning with her eyes to one of the Ibex females. The gray-dyed assassin grinned for the first time since Gilda had met her, drawing her scimitar and putting it at the throat of the more wounded doe.

“And thanks in part to your fellow adepts poisoning us with that spiked cider, one of the humans is now my mate! I suppose I should thank them for that, but he and his friends need meat, and it may interest you to know that goats are a food animal in their homeworld.”

She paused to let the words and threat sink in. “So, what will it be, Karin Kazal? Will you help us save some lives? Or shall I allow my mate to eat one of your females to make you cooperate?”

She was rewarded by a visible swallow. “If I help, what guarantee do I have that you won’t slay us anyway?” To his credit, he kept his voice level.

Her gaze turned icy. “The same guarantee I have that you would have left Christopher McLain unharmed,” she said pointedly, causing him to cringe. “But if you want me to swear to your safety, so be it. Help us, and on my honor as a griffon and officer, we will feed and protect you. Help us, and I will recommend that you not be executed as spies and saboteurs following interrogation in Aricia—if you cooperate, that is. That is all I will offer you. And for what you were planning, it’s far more than you deserve.”

She was rewarded when he visibly slumped. “Very well, Centurion. If you wish my help, I will grant it. Simply remove my manacles, and I will assist in the spellcasting.”

“Just how big a crow-damned fool do you take me for?” she asked him through narrowed eyes. “We don’t have to remove the manacles. Just let her draw on your magic through your horn, and don’t resist. If you do, or if you try anything that corrupts her or her stave, I swear on the blood of my fallen soldiers that I will not hesitate to kill you. Are we clear, Starshina Karin Kazal?”

“Clear,” he agreed wanly. “But please use my left antler. It’s least cracked and will hurt less.”

“Whatever.” She dismissed him with a single word and then nodded over to Nydia, stepping back to allow her to move forward.

“How’d I do?” she asked Giraldi under her breath as she sat beside him.

“A commendably chilling performance,” he replied with an askance look. “I admit, I wasn’t sure if you meant what you said or not...” he added cautiously, to which she gave no reply.

As Gilda watched, Nydia approached the captured Adept and spoke to him softly for a moment, promising him she wouldn’t drain him of more magic than she needed. To which he replied that there was nothing he could do even if she did, requesting again that she only use his less-damaged horn for the purpose.

Nodding, she obliged him, touching the end of her stave to his antler. It reacted quickly, presenting the odd sight of only one of his antlers aglow. Nydia’s stave glowed in turn as she charged it using his remaining magic; as Gilda watched, the cracks in the wood seemed to heal.

Half a minute later, the process was complete and the male collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.

“He’ll be fine, but he needs rest and water now,” she told Gilda. “I took as much of his power as I dared. Ibexian magic is… somewhat more potent than ours. So they tend to feel its ebb more keenly.”

“Did he do anything but give you magic?” Gilda asked as Giraldi directed water be brought to the fainted buck.

“Not that I’m aware of, sir. I took what precautions I could, but I strongly suggest you have the Raven keep her crossbow trained on me until I’ve used it up.” The Raven eagless glanced at Gilda, who nodded back. She then drew her crossbow, still loaded with magic-disruption bolts, and pointed it at Nydia’s back.

But Nydia seemed oblivious to the repeater aimed at her, as she stared at the hidden entrance to the shelter. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and cast her spell again, growling in effort as her staff glowed much brighter and with a slightly different color this time. The coruscating energies caused humans and griffons alike to grimace like they were too close to a hot flame; all present stepping back warily from the wave of magic coursing around her.

“Is there something wrong?” Gilda asked.

“Resistance,” Nydia replied stiffly. “The spell was emplaced by a powerful Magus. It’s fighting me hard! But not… hard….”—she shouted the last word—“enough!”

Gilda braced herself as the magic ripped through the hall like a gale, making her feathers and coat hairs stand on end; everything went blinding white for just a few seconds before the light faded. “Got it!” She heard Nydia proclaim as the solid stone ground began to give way, slowly turning the flat surface into a descending ramp that could easily and comfortably allow two griffons to walk side-by-side.

“Holy crap,” said a voice behind Gilda. At a glance, the speaker was revealed to be Marco, joined by Chris and Tara as they carried supplies in from the cart. “What’s going on?” he asked Gilda, struggling to be heard over the rapidly shifting winds, which abruptly ended with a rush of stale air out of the pried-open entrance.

“We think there are survivors down there,” Gilda said stiffly as she watched Nydia continue to work; the intensity of her effort evident through her stiff posture and clenched beak as well as the brightness of the glowing cracks starting to reform in her wooden staff.

If she loses it… Gilda didn’t want to think as she heard a slight splintering sound. Staffs were the equivalent of external horns or antlers; without them, griffon mages still had magic, but they could only use it on what they could touch instead of casting it remotely, which all but crippled them in combat. Without them, Nydia might still be able to help heal a wounded soldier by touching them, or even shock someone who tried to grab her, but the staff was a multiplier of Magus magic; her options became far more limited and her power was much less potent without it.

“Can’t keep it open long, even with the extra magic,” Nydia said before Marco could respond. She sounded increasingly breathless; as Gilda watched, she flared her wings to dissipate the excess body heat she was generating. “Ancestors above, it’s fighting me! I think the mage who cast it is trying to keep the Shelter closed! I can pry it open for a few minutes, but I won’t be able to dispel it!”

“Right,” Gilda said, making her decision quickly. “Then I’ll go down and tell the Magus in question that we’re here to help them. Once they drop the spell, we’ll bring them out.”

“If you’re down there when Nydia loses control, you’ll be trapped there and could suffocate along with the rest,” Giraldi warned her.

“I’m not willing to order my soldiers to do anything I’m not willing to do myself!” she said sharply, surprised at how vehemently she meant it. “I’m going.”

“Not alone, you’re not!” Marco proclaimed, putting down his supplies and grabbing his rifle off his back, rotating it around to the front of his body. “I’m coming with you.”

“No, you’re not,” she said sharply. “You don’t know what’s down there, Marco!”

“And neither do you!” he replied hotly, pulling out a small object and affixing it to the end of his “A-R”; he clicked something and a bright beam of light shot out of it. “You said before that we’re partners, so let’s act like it! Let’s face the danger together.”

“Don’t bother telling him no, Gilda,” Tara said, pointedly ignoring the Ibex as she passed them; Chris, by contrast, gave them a glare. “I don’t want him—or you—down there either, but he’s as stubborn as you are when he feels strongly enough about something.”

“Then how about hearing it from me?” Imlay asked, stepping forth. “You’re not trained for search and rescue, Lakan. Or to clear rooms.”

Marco stared at him. “Are you seriously gonna keep me from helping her, Imlay? Fuck that and fuck you! I’m going with her.”

“It’s Corporal. And if I think you’re being a macho idiot, then yes,” he replied easily, then raised his voice to address his squad. “I want one volunteer to accompany the Centurion and Lakan, with the understanding that you could get trapped down there. If none of you go, I will.”

Glances were exchanged before a single Marine stepped forward. “I’ll go, sir.” The PFC named Guerrero spoke up, leaving her admiring him for his bravery and Imlay for challenging his squad to match his courage by threatening to shame them. “I promise I’ll keep the Centurion safe and Rico out of trouble. But with respect, are we completely sure that it’s friendlies down there, ma’am?”

Gilda frowned at the mistaken address, but realized the Marine had a point. “It’s sir. And no, we’re not.” She donned her steel claws.

“Please hurry,” Nydia muttered as the audible groaning and slow cracking of wood from her staff told Gilda that they needed to do this fast, as even the Ibexian boost her magic had received wouldn’t last forever. “I can hold it for five minutes… if I’m lucky!” She was starting to tremble with the effort.

“You heard her. So let’s go. And since you’re so gung-ho, Rico, you can take point.” Guerrero nodded to the stairwell. “No offense, but I’d rather not have a trigger-happy civvie behind me.”

“Still think I’m going to accidentally shoot you?” Marco asked in annoyance as he hefted his rifle and walked ahead. “Fine, whatever. Let’s do this.”

“Stow it, both of you,” Gilda grated, finding herself yet again as exasperated as enamored by Marco’s stubborn loyalty and near-stupid bravery. If we get out of this, first I’m going to cuff him, and then I’m going to… She yet again forced herself to suppress the thoughts she was having. “Now let’s go.”

“By your command!” Marco flashed her a grin and a passable imitation of a griffon salute. Taking the lead, he aimed his rifle forward, his eyes sweeping the bottom of the stairwell and then the ground ahead along with the beam of light. Stone ground gave way to an earthen floor the deeper they proceeded into the magically masked chamber; she could sense the air growing more stagnant and even poisonous from endless exhalations as they moved forward.

It was a storage area, and there were more than a few barrels of various sizes lining the damp stone walls. Guerrero’s blacklight swept them to reveal them glowing with embedded incantations, but this time Gilda knew what they were.

“Steady, PFC,” she had to tell the male Marine as he raised his rifle at them. “Those are just food preservation spells on storage barrels. They keep things like meat and produce from spoiling. Not every magical signature you see is a trap.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said in some embarrassment, making her want to swat his rear with a wing. What is it going to take before the Marines get it through their thick skulls not to call me that? she wondered before Marco spoke again.

“And you were worried about me being trigger-happy, Guerrero?” he called back in a tense whisper as they got deeper. “Maybe I should be worried about you being in back of me?”

“Fuck off, Rico,” the Marine replied as the illumination from the entrance faded entirely when they rounded a corner. “We all know how much you enjoy having guys behind you.”

“Yeah, and I’ll bet you’re just waiting for me to drop the soap,” Marco retorted softly as he continued to move forward slowly, keeping in a crouch with his rifle leveled as he scanned the light back and forth.

“In your dreams, Flip-boy. I’d sooner tuck a tiercel,” Guerrero replied, leaving Gilda reflecting on the irony of the Marines having already learned the griffon terms for rutting but still not knowing proper military address.

They fell silent after that as they continued to move deeper into the large basement. But only Marco’s bright searchlight was active; Guerrero’s blacklight, though good at illuminating magical surfaces, didn’t do as well for lighting up the entire chamber. Gilda looked back at the Marine, about to ask if he could see when she saw he’d lowered an odd set of goggles over his eyes, which seemed to emit a faint green glow.

“Shit,” Marco suddenly froze, raising his rifle and sweeping the area ahead with its beam to reveal a series of fallen forms. “I’ve got a group of bodies about ten meters ahead.”

“Then stay where you are!” Guerrero warned in a sharp whisper, rushing up beside him along with Gilda, cannon and crossbow raised. “Let me look at them with my thermal camera.” He brought up something off his belt—some kind of spyglass?—and clicked it on; it glowed softly as he pointed it at the scene.

“I count seven bodies. Three adults; the rest are cubs. And with one exception, they’re warm,” the Marine declared as he adjusted something on his goggles. He then swept the bodies with his blacklight; griffon wings flared into at least weak fluorescence along with what looked like the end of a stave.

“Are they alive?” Marco asked tersely.

“If they’re warm and have active magic on them, then they would seem to be,” Guerrero said cautiously. “But I can’t say for certain from here.”

“At least we found the Magus staff. But where’s the Magus?” Gilda wondered, having thought he or she would glow with the most magic of all.

“I think he’s clutching it, ma’am,” Guerrero replied, clicking off his blacklight. “Shine your light on him, Rico.”

“I still don’t get why you’re calling me that,” Marco muttered, but he obeyed, revealing an upright staff, stuck hard into the dirt ground. It continued to feed the whole area with magic, while an emaciated tiercel Magus held onto it tightly.

She hadn’t seen him before, even under the blacklight’s gaze, as his wings had not lit up. Which can only mean… She didn’t want to think about it.

Nevertheless, she called out to him in Aeric, loud enough for all to hear and her voice to echo through the chamber harder than it normally would have, as the shelter spell kept sound from escaping its walls along with everything else. “This is Centurion Grizelda Behertz of the Auxiliary Guard! Cease your spellcasting; we are here to help! Are you injured?” Gilda shouted, but there was no immediate response or movement. “Do you need assistance?”

She waited, but yet again, there was no reply. She tried to check for any obvious signs of death, but other than his very gaunt frame, the tiercel looked relatively whole and there was no stench of decay present, either. She didn’t think he was possessed, so taking a breath, she took a couple more steps forward.

“Gilda…” Marco said warningly.

“I’m going to check for vital signs,” she replied tensely. “If he moves aggressively, shoot him. In the head, if you can.”

“Put your A-R down, Rico,” Guerrero ordered as he moved slightly to the side to give himself a better angle. “I’ve played whack-a-mole with Taliban heads in windows, so I promise I’m a better shot under pressure than you.”

To Gilda’s relief, Marco didn’t argue, lowering his rifle. “Fine. But are you sure, Gilda?” he asked nervously.

“Positive,” she replied even though she wasn’t, slowly moving forward. For the first three steps, she thought the tiercel moved, but it proved to just be a trick of the light. By the time she reached the staff, the first thing she did was take hold of the extended foreleg. She shook it a bit, but the limb held the staff in a death grip.

Thinking the wooden tool might be an easier target, she took hold of that instead, and jerked it upwards. To her surprise, it readily moved. Satisfied, she flared her wings and stood upright to grasp it in both sets of foretalons. With a grunt of effort, she then yanked it out of the ground.

Once it left the earthen surface, it stopped glowing and she felt the wave of magic collapse, followed by an equally strong magical backlash that preceded a faint shout of eagless pain coming from back up the tunnel. It might have been Nydia, but she couldn’t worry about her just then as her focus returned to the downed tiercel. Now that he didn’t have a potential weapon, she grabbed his neck and checked for a pulse.

Nothing. She sighed, relief and regret flooding into her.

“Is he alive?” Guerrero asked.

“Dead,” Gilda replied in pain as she examined the tiercel’s spent body under the illumination of Marco’s light. “Gave his life and all his power to keep the Shelter sealed and the survivors safe.” She grabbed her crossbow from her back and popped the armor-piercing bolt out to replace it with a blue sapphire-tipped electrical one; anti-Cloven doctrine said that they were the best for destroying the nervous system the Cloven parasites relied on.

“Rest, Magus. May the Ancestors guide your soul to the stars,” she whispered before shooting him directly in the head, causing his muscles to convulse one final time as sizzling sparks arced over him. She couldn’t escape the sick sound of the bolt penetrating the skull or the lethal electric currents it generated; she suddenly understood why even the two Ravens had reacted badly to shooting corpses, feeling like she was killing them a second time.

“Holy shit,” Guerrero muttered. Turning, Gilda saw him and Marco staring at her. “With respect, was that really necessary, ma’am?”

“Protocol,” Gilda replied weakly, turning away to hide her glimmering eyes. “It’s like I said before—we have to destroy their brain to ensure their corpse cannot be possessed by the Cloven. Normally we’d burn the bodies, too, to make sure they can’t be recycled into new soldier forms. I don’t like it either, but it had to be done.” She blinked away tears as she felt Marco rest the back of his hand on her neck while Guerrero muttered something inaudible.

But for as badly as she wanted to collapse into his embrace and cry, she needed to get the survivors to safety. And to clean air, as she was starting to feel very lightheaded.

“Come on, you two. We need to get them out of here quickly. Marco, run upstairs and tell them we have survivors but they’ve almost suffocated. We need to carry them out now!”

“Right! Just hold on,” Marco said, dashing back to the entrance as she stared in sorrow at the fallen Magus.

It had to be done… she repeated to herself as the human weapons were shouldered and Gilda holstered her crossbow as well, but she still felt like she was both desecrating their corpses and dishonoring their memories.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Guerrero told her as he came up on her left side, and Gilda was so despondent she couldn’t even correct him. “Don’t blame yourself for this. It isn’t much, but we’ll honor him later with a round of drinks.”

“Thanks, Private First Class. Maybe after we reach Aricia, I’ll—” she began, but all her thoughts suddenly ceased as the Marine PFC laid what he must have thought was a comforting hand on her shoulders. Her breath caught and cheeks flushed as he squeezed the area as she’d seen the humans do to each other in what she now knew was a gesture of reassurance. But unlike when Marco had done it his first night in Arnau, her urge was not to attack him.

It was to let him do it!

Her feeling of lightheadedness only grew as he continued to rub her shoulders, leaving her half-wondering if the lack of oxygen in the air was affecting her as her wings impossibly started to splay; her flight muscles drinking in his touch.

Wh… why am I allowing this? she wondered half-frantically as the edges of her vision started to go pink again and she could scent a hint of cider in the air. Whereas she’d thought Marco a pervert when he’d first done it, and even before that had just wanted him to go away, this time she knew Guerrero to be a brave and honorable human—he’d volunteered to accompany her even knowing he might get trapped, after all!—and found him not just worthy, but herself craving touch and comfort, which he was offering and she had previously declined from Marco and his friends.

Seemingly sensing her appreciation of his efforts as her back arched up slightly into him, he took that as an invitation to pull her closer by the shoulder against his leg, leaving her keenly aware of his presence and spicy scent. Worse, a turn of her head found herself staring directly into his nearly perfectly eye-level crotch; she found herself mentally urging him into erection, imagining herself undressing him right then and there just as she had done to Marco.

Imagining herself wishing to reward his courage and comfort as only an eagless could.

Alarmed at where her thoughts were going—and terrified that she was not only going to follow through with them, but would be seen doing so by Marco or others—she jerked her head away and finally mustered the will to speak. “PFC? Please don’t touch me there…” she said, her throat very dry.

His hand stilled from where it was gently massaging her, sending fresh thrills of pleasure down her spine that were starting to cause her tail to rise. “Ma’am?”

“Shoulders are a bad area for griffons. They’re… intimate.” She hated saying it, but nor did she wish to be seen in her current state as she heard voices coming up behind them. “And please call me sir, not ma’am.”

“Oh!” he said, withdrawing his hand quickly and stepping away. “Sorry, ma’am—er, sir.”

“You didn’t know.” She exhaled slowly, trying to get her wings to still and tail to lower. “But please remember not to touch us there. Wings and flight muscles are off-limits for griffons. Outside of mating, anyway,” she felt compelled to add.

“Oh, Jeez. Sorry.” He cleared his throat and stepped away from her. And was it her imagination, or did she smell a hint of excitement on him and see the barest beginning of a bulge? She was afraid to turn her head again to check. “I swear I wasn’t trying anything.”

“I know,” she said, already regretting making him stop and wondering again if Fortrakt was right that she should have taken her earlier opportunity to be with her human friends, if only to take the edge off her inexplicably boosted passions. Is it just the cider? Or is it ME? She still wasn’t sure.

“Gilda!” Marco scattered her remaining thoughts, causing her to shake her head sharply as he reentered the chamber with Chris, Tara, and several Marines in tow. “Nydia collapsed—they say her staff pretty much exploded in her grasp when the Shelter spell went down. We can move the cubs, but the full-grown griffons will probably take the Marines,” he told her as he walked up to her, then frowned.

“You okay, Gilds? You look a little… dazed.”

“I’ll be fine,” she told him, even as she wondered if she would ever be fine again given the continual emotional whiplash she was experiencing. “See to them. Get the cubs out first. And don’t stay down here too long. The air’s poisonous.”

“Right,” he replied as Chris and Tara stepped up.

“Are they safe? Not infected by that insect thingy?” Chris asked.

“Corrupted corpses aren’t generally warm, and they don’t need to breathe,” Gilda pointed out, still staring straight ahead. “They also have active magic. If they were dead, their wings wouldn’t glow under your violet lights.”

“Fucking zombies,” Chris muttered. He and Tara picked up the nearest cubs, the latter cradling the youngest and smallest pair of them gently. She started cooing at them as Guerrero studied one of the adult eaglesses, leaving Gilda guessing he was trying to figure out how to pick her up. “Rico, make yourself useful and grab the last of those kitty-chicks.”

“Fine, but will someone please explain why I’m being called Rico?” Marco replied to snickers from the Marines, but he wasted no time, shouldering his rifle before moving towards the downed cub. He grunted as he bent down to pick him up. “Okay, this little dude is a guy griffon. And no, I wasn’t looking intentionally.”

“Seriously, Marco? That’s the first thing you noticed?” Tara teased as Giraldi walked by and simply hefted one of the adult eaglesses onto his back without so much as a grunt.

Guerrero watched him with a chuckle, then as if to prove he wasn’t weak, the young but burly Marine did the same thing. He surprised Gilda by slinging the eagless around his shoulders and proceeding to walk upstairs with her despite his heavy load, leaving her impressed and even taken with him anew. “Rico the Pedo.”

“Fuck you,” Marco replied good-naturedly as he walked the cub he was carrying back towards the entrance after Chris and Tara.

Gilda stayed put. As usual, most of the context was lost on her, but she was beyond caring, hoping Chief Jacobs could help the cubs and who she assumed were their mothers recover in the absence of Nydia.

“You coming, Gilda?” Marco called back to her as she stayed staring at the dead Magus, wanting to be alone but knowing she couldn’t just then. “You’re gonna pass out if you stay down here too long.”

“Yeah,” she said distractedly, her emotions awhirl, thinking that fainting might be preferable to trying to deal with everything she was feeling just then. Ancestors, what’s happening to me? And why is it happening NOW? she asked them, but if they heard her, they gave no reply.

Two story tracks are available from here. You can either follow the T-rated one, or the M-rated one. Just click the appropriate link below:

—Firesight

===> next: Chapter 25 (M-rated)
===> next: Chapter 25 (T-rated)

25: Battle of Bale - Part 1 (M-rated)

Author's Note

Hey, folks. As part of the story being boosted to M-rated, welcome to the new M-rated chapter 25. If you prefer the original T-rated version, go here:

25: Battle of Bale - Part 1 (T-Rated)

Chapter Contains: An abortive encounter between Gilda x Marco/Chris/Tara involving some nudity, boob and teat groping, bare boners, and other brief but explicit action beneath the covers.

Original Author’s Note follows:

Well, folks... I’m sorry to report that this chapter will be the last one released for a while. After putting a massive push on for this story over the last three months and generating a whopping 11 chapters totaling around 120,000 words, it’s time for me to focus on my other active stories for a bit, including Firefly and Unleash the Magic. Don’t worry, though—I will very definitely come back to this, especially given the cliffhanger this ends on!

Thanks as always go to prereaders AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire, Silverblade5, ASF, and Weschel. Judging from their comments, this chapter was a hit with them. I hope it will be with you as well! And lest I forget the boilerplate:

This chapter is a heavily rewritten version of the ending of Feathered Heart: Chapter 8, borrowing several chunks of detail and dialog from the chapter modified and rearranged to accommodate the updated story. Regardless, you are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original if you haven’t already, as it inspired many of my own works.

—Firesight

25: Battle of Bale - Part 1 (M-rated)

The next few hours passed in a daze for Gilda, starting with reviving the rescued griffons.

Chief Jacobs had been able to wake them by feeding them some ‘oxygen’ from a strange metal canister, which she knew was a pony term for the element of air that all creatures needed to breathe. It had not gone entirely smoothly as one of the cubs had shrieked upon waking up and seeing the monsters it assumed humans were; the noise had then rousted his slowly stirring mother who had taken a weak swipe and snarl at the alien creature who had her son.

Fortunately, Giraldi was there to explain the situation; his ability to care for and calm the cubs as a longtime sire helped as well. Gilda could only look on as he introduced the humans, saying they were both honorable friends and powerful allies—that it was they who had found the shelter and risked their lives along with Gilda to enter it, even when they couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t be trapped within it.

The two revived eaglesses bared their throats in Gilda’s direction while still clutching their crying and hungry cubs close. One was a larger earth griffon she guessed was not much younger than Giraldi with snow leopard hindquarters that gave way to the light-hued head and mottled feathers of a mountain hawk eagle, while the other was a sky griffon with very dark cougar hindquarters and raven-feathered forequarters. Gilda couldn’t help but note she was almost as black as Ebon Umbreon was without his gray fur dye, peering at the humans suspiciously through golden eyes that almost matched the color of her own.

Giraldi then asked Marco and Guerrerro to step forward in Equish before switching back to Aeric. “Vira Amator and Calidum Mater, these two humans risked their lives to save you. This is Marco Lakan and Private First Class James Guerrero,” he presented them as the two females could only stare at the bipedal creatures warily, though they did bare their throats at them somewhat grudgingly. He translated the greetings of the two humans in turn, with Guerrero saying he was just doing his duty and Marco somewhat dweebily swearing that they meant them no harm.

Gilda then asked the two mothers if there was anything they needed; the answer was food and water, plus privacy to nurse their cubs.

She granted it, giving them the steadholt master’s personal quarters, though she did allow Chris and Tara to bring them the nourishment they requested as long as Giraldi was with them. “Any problems?” she asked him after they got back while she ate the orange she’d been saving; she noted they’d taken more time than it should have for a simple delivery.

“After I introduced Tara Fields, they asked where her cubs were,” Giraldi reported in some amusement as Tara blushed and Marco laughed.

“They thought her having big boobs meant she was nursing,” Chris added with a smirk and a nudge of Tara’s side with his elbow, eliciting a smile from Gilda as well. “Some explanation was needed after that.”

That was the last she saw of them for a while. Once her mixed force got settled in the steadholt with their defenses set and both Marines and griffons assigned to their posts, they set watch and rest schedules, with Gilda sleeping first at the insistence of Giraldi and Fortrakt. The latter also volunteered to command the first four-hour watch himself, though he still seemed moody and distant to Gilda, not even smiling when the story of Tara’s introduction to the two mothers was related to him.

Considering all he’s been through, I can hardly blame him, she decided as she attempted to bed down on the stage of the dimly lit main hall, from where the steadholt master would normally hold court and conduct trade. She was offered the master’s private office by Giraldi, which had a cushioned lounge, but she declined and gave the accommodation to Raleigh, not wanting to be alone.

Ancestors, we’ve all been through Tartarus itself today, and tomorrow might be even worse, she knew as she settled in beside Chris, Tara, and Marco, who snuggled up to her to a slightly longing look from Fortrakt and a nod of approval from Giraldi. The Marines, however, just smirked a bit and said nothing, though she caught PFC Guerrero glancing at her repeatedly as he bedded down on the other side of the stage.

Bet he’s wondering why I took so long to tell him to stop groping me, she worried, and she didn’t have a good answer for him. Or at least, not one she was willing to share as she laid down on her right side against the comfortable carpet—she guessed the steadholt master had gotten it from Saddle Arabia, given its Mareabian design and finery.

Marco nestled beneath her right wing and draped an arm over her from behind while Gilda spooned Tara in turn, resting her left set of talons on the tough green fabric that covered her belly. She also allowed Chris to use her left flank as a pillow; a glance down her body showed he had clasped Tara’s free left hand with his right. They had removed their body armor and set their weapons aside, but they also kept them close by in case the Cloven struck again.

Though Gilda was gratified to see that they fell asleep in her presence relatively quickly—the second swig of Marco’s whiskey that all three had taken probably helped—and finding their company no less welcome for whatever urges she’d had regarding Guerrero, she didn’t right away. Her thoughts still unsettled and anxieties reasserting themselves, she squeezed Marco’s hand against her chest with one set of talons while licking Tara’s still-sweaty head, unable to reach Chris except for curling her tasseled tail over his form.

Ancestors preserve them… she prayed again for their safety and that she would be able to protect them.

That she would prove not just worthy of her post, but worthy of all the honor and affection they had shown her.

At least an attack didn’t seem imminent. So far, the Cloven had not reappeared, and the nocturnal animals remained active, though she was certain it was only a matter of time before that changed. She couldn’t imagine that they would allow her group to march to Aricia unmolested, and feared the Cloven Overlords were already using what they learned from the first encounter to make plans for a second strike.

Will they hit us here? Or when we try to march again? She didn’t know, as each presented its own advantages and disadvantages to the attacker; the difficulties of either option compounded greatly by human firearms. But as there was nothing more she could do just then, she allowed the whiskey to take hold of her and help her drift off to sleep.

Gilda awoke to find that a large blanket had been thrown over her form that covered everything except her head, and a human hand on her upper foreleg was shaking her awake through it. “Centurion? It’s time to change the watch,” Imlay told her softly. “No Cloven activity thus far. Nothing from the Ravens, either.”

“Right…” She groaned, blinking blearily while finding that the trio of warm, soft human bodies nestled against her left her very disinclined to move. “Give me a minute.”

“Take your time. We brewed some coffee if that will help,” he told her. “It’s not great, but it’ll wake you up.”

“Thanks,” she said weakly, taking a moment to gather herself. Chris, Tara and Marco seemed to be where she’d left them lying against her, and she wasn’t immediately certain how to disentangle herself without waking them up.

It turned out it was too late as Tara stirred. “Corporal…?” she called out sleepily, raising her head slightly. “Is it morning?”

“No. But the Centurion’s next to stand watch. Go back to sleep, Miss Fields,” he told her before walking away.

“Aww…” Tara said. “Please don’t go, Gilda.”

“I have to. The Cloven are still—” she began to say as she licked Tara once on the head and squeezed her with her talons; her voice caught when she realized that her digits had somehow slipped under Tara’s shirt and drifted up onto the human female’s chest. It was pressed firmly into the soft and yielding flesh there, having not only unbuttoned her shirt—Gilda knew that she’d done it because a button thread was caught in her claw—but pushed her undergarment up out of the way to cup her bare human breast.

A startled twitch of her tail beneath the blanket told her it was caught between Chris’s thighs. Her leonine tassel was trapped in his pants which were down around his knees, held fast against his bare spear and sac by his human hand. It left her feline tail flush with his only semi-softened shaft, while Marco’s left foretalons had settled happily onto her wingbase. It felt like he was partially undressed under the covers as well, with his bare and only half-flaccid organ pressed firmly into her middle spine.

Her breath caught and suddenly Gilda was wide awake as she realized how compromising their position was. Did they see us? Did they see it happening? Is that why they threw a blanket over us? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, having no idea how or when they’d undressed themselves to bare their bodies beneath the blanket, to say nothing of how they’d done so without waking her. And for that matter, how did I undress Tara in my SLEEP?

“Are you sure I can’t convince you to stay…?” Tara asked again, reaching up to hold her talons in place as Chris and Marco began to stir in turn; she could feel Chris’s organ beginning to respond to the stifled swishes of her tail against it. “Just give us five minutes with you. And if you’re worried about privacy, there’s a lot we can do under the covers…” she offered in a sound not far removed from a coo as she started wriggling out of her loosened pants to expose her human flanks beneath the blanket, pushing them into Gilda’s second set of talons as they lay on the floor.

Gilda’s breath caught again as she realized what Tara was doing. She was unable to speak for a moment as the human female exposed herself to her, inviting Gilda to explore her exotic furless form beneath the blanket to her heart’s content. She then increased the enticement by reaching back with her other hand to push it and Chris’s paw, which she still held, against the upper set of mammaries on Gilda’s lower belly, which were already starting to swell.

“I…” Gilda felt them beginning to grow into the grasp of her friends while the wing she’d laid over Marco started to go stiff. Her tail began to uncontrollably twitch between Chris’s legs and she couldn’t stop it, doubly so when she sensed it start to both rouse and arouse him.

His spear began to engorge rapidly from the movement against it, its steadily growing length coming into contact with even more of her tail. Held in place by Tara, his hand found and fondled one of her teats while Tara’s talons locked on to another; it was all she could do to bite off a trill of pleasure as Marco stirred next, starting to caress her already-quivering flight muscles while his own quickly hardening spear began to press into the sensually sensitive junction of her wing and back.

“Please, Gilda…” Tara implored her softly, squeezing her talons against the deliciously soft and pillowy mound of her chest-mounted mammary. “Just five minutes. We may never get the chance again, so let us show you how much you mean to us.”

“By my Ancestors…” was all Gilda could say at first as she wavered badly to feel herself being groped with not one but two large and fully erect organs now throbbing hard against her, leaving her entire body pleading for the attention of her human friends as she became keenly aware of their presence and scent. A scent that included the sweet spoor of cider, she quickly realized, the edges of her gaze beginning to take on an intense pinkish cast.

But once again, no matter how badly she wanted to surrender herself to them, she overrode her surging desires and forced her sense of duty to reassert itself, reminding herself strongly not to be a slave to the cider or her own desires. “I want to, Tara. More than anything. But I can’t right now. The Cloven are still out there. And I can’t protect you or anycreature else from them here.”

Tara sighed and nodded, patting her paw. “I know. That’s part of the reason we love you,” she relented with a final squeeze of Gilda’s talons to her naked chest before she let them go, leaving the young and sorely aroused eagless aware of what she was touching anew. “Please don’t die before we get the chance to finish this, girlfriend.”

“I swear by my Ancestors, I’ll kill every last Cloven before that happens,” she promised as she nibbled briefly at Tara’s ear, regretting that she couldn’t easily do the same for Chris and Marco. Taking a deep breath to let her desires at least somewhat ebb, she slowly stood up, letting the blanket hang over her as she crept out from under it.

She took pains to make sure she didn’t accidentally uncover them, and once she was free, she tugged the blanket back over them in places where it might have shown they were undressed. When that was accomplished, she gave the still-restless Marco and Chris a lick as well; she smiled to see that they both pawed the now-empty carpet for her missing form after she departed, with Chris showing a noticeable bulge beneath the blanket.

She gave them one last lingering look before she went off with Imlay, accepting a bowl of very bitter and bad-tasting coffee that she wouldn’t have paid for if it was served to her back in Arnau. But she didn’t cream or sweeten it, deciding the unpleasant taste would help her refocus quickly.

“Any contact with Arnau?” she asked him after she’d downed half the foul liquid, only to receive a shake of the head from the Marine ‘radioman’ who had set up his communication device again.

“Nothing,” the PFC confirmed. “There’s still too much interference. We might have just got lucky that one time when we killed the mages in the area during the first attack. Maybe that’s what cleared up enough of the magical crap in the air to allow us to transmit.”

“Maybe,” she said, glancing down to see that Chris’s portal device was plugged into a port of the larger Marine one, bearing an odd icon on its screen.

* * * * *

Five minutes later, Gilda had finished the coffee and walked upstairs to the Main Hall’s Roost. It was a balcony where the Peacekeepers typically kept watch over the steadholt and its surroundings from, searching for anything from storms to fires to trouble in the streets.

When she arrived, she found Fortrakt there, still standing watch. He was staring off into the distance of the moonless and starless night, with Luna’s normally spectacularly starry sky shrouded by all the smoke in the air and only lit by the glow of distant fires. Probably more burning fields, she thought, wondering how long it would take the Kingdom to recover from the invasion even after the Cloven were beaten.

Guess we’re going to have to lean heavily on Equestria to keep us fed for a while… Gilda found the idea galling but admitted the ponies were the best and most reliable source of food on all Tellus there was.

Fortrakt greeted her with a salute, baring his throat when he saw she had brought him a bowl of cool water along with some bread and fruit from the cart. They were eating that first instead of the steadholt supplies since the former had no preservation magic on them, and Nydia was still recovering from having to pry open the shelter spell, at the cost of her all-important stave and most of her magical strength.

“Centurion,” he addressed her somewhat shortly as he accepted the food and drink. “Beg to report: no Cloven activity. All quiet and the animals are still active. Human and griffon patrols are reporting in every fifteen minutes. All present and accounted for. And no word from the Ravens.”

“Noted,” she said, even though she’d already received that information downstairs from Imlay. “You’ve done well this day, Decurion. So eat up and head downstairs. Try and get some sleep,” she directed, then set the bowl, fruit and bread in front of him. “Feel free to keep Chris, Tara, and Marco company. Just don’t be surprised if they can’t keep their paws off you,” she warned him with a wink.

Though she thought he would jump at the suggestion, he barely reacted, picking up the bowl to drink from it. “I appreciate the offer,” was all he would say after he took several beakfuls and gulped them down, tearing off a piece of the bread in turn. “But I think I might prefer to be alone tonight.”

She stared at him, suddenly wondering if he was sick. “Weren’t you the one telling me to take chances when they were offered?” And once again, I didn’t…

“Weren’t you the one telling me to not act wantonly like the Kingdom was crumbling?” he responded instantly and in the exact same tone. Gilda sighed, remembering saying that to him earlier. But now, she didn’t feel the same conviction over it. Just embarrassment for sounding so certain and arrogant considering all that had happened or nearly had, not once but twice. “It’s not that I don’t want to, Centurion. I just don’t think it’s a good idea right now.”

“How unusually mature of you,” she mildly teased him to cover her own thoughts. “And that’s why I didn’t.”

“Right.” There was a pause, then Fortrakt turned to study her as he picked up the orange she’d brought him and began to peel it. “What about you? Is there anything bothering you, Centurion? And I hope you didn’t mind me throwing a blanket over you four. I only did it because I thought matters might turn… personal.” She could just see him beginning to blush.

“Well, they didn’t,” she said, even though it wasn’t exactly the truth, to which Fortrakt smiled at least briefly. “Though it still bothers me that I’m even tempted.”

Fortrakt said nothing for a few moments; his eyes scanning the area along with hers. Everything seemed in order, and the nocturnal creatures remained raucous. But she couldn’t decide whether she should be grateful or annoyed that nothing was happening, given that a lack of activity would shortly leave her alone with her anything-but-settled thoughts.

“So why, by all our Ancestors, does it bother you?” he finally asked her as he popped a section of orange in his beak and licked the juice off his talons. “Wanting to be with them, I mean?”

This time, it was her turn to blush as she looked away. “Because I shouldn’t be having all these urges—especially not now! And it doesn’t feel like I can just blame the cider for them,” she confided. “It’s unprofessional and unbecoming of a commander. If I can’t treat situations and the civilians under my care dispassionately, then maybe Tribune Narada shouldn’t have made me a Centurion.”

Fortrakt glanced at her for a moment before shaking his head. “Stop putting yourself down, Gilda. You’re doing fine.”

“Fine?” she spat out. “Don’t give me that, Fortrakt. My first day leading griffons resulted in twenty deaths. Twenty, and twelve of them were from our old Turma! Young griffon soldiers who were just starting out their careers.” She looked away. “I failed them.”

“Young or not, we are griffon soldiers, Gilda,” Fortrakt countered as he paused eating his fruit. “They swore the same oath of service as us. They did their duties and are now at rest. May the Ancestors bless them and speed them on their journeys to Valhalla.”

“Griffon soldiers who didn’t even get a chance to fight. They died doing their duties because I’m not good at doing mine,” she muttered.

Fortrakt stared at her with his green eyes, glinted orange by the distant fires. “They died because we stepped into not one, but two traps that nogriffon, not even the most experienced of Consuls or vaunted of Tribunes, could have predicted,” he declared, his tone surprisingly hard.

“You took every possible precaution regarding that cart. We had no idea that we were facing the Cloven or that the corpses could attack us. By the Ancestors, Gilda, I don’t think there’s a single Centurion in all the Kingdom who could have detected that trap!”

“You’re just saying that,” Gilda replied. “I should have known it was a lure! And what about the battle itself? I could barely give even a single order. I fired exactly one bolt in the ground battle while Chris, Tara and Marco gunned down everything that came near! And then afterwards, I cared less about their guns than rutting them?” she said in disgust.

“And if that wasn’t bad enough, it happened again in the cellar! You weren’t here, but I went down there with Marco and Guerrero, where we found the survivors with a dead mage—they both volunteered to go even though they knew they could get trapped down there with me, Ancestors bless their brave but stupid souls—and I had to shoot the dead Magus in the head.

“After Marco left to get help for the cubs and their mothers, I felt awful and Guerrero put his hand on my shoulder. He groped me even worse than Marco did that first night, and yet… I didn’t want to rip it off! By all the Ancestors, it felt so good I wanted him to keep doing it—I even let him! And th-hen he pulled me against him and crows know I was ready to…”

Her voice broke and her beak quivered as she recalled being ready to orally pleasure him right then and there. And worse, she could still see herself doing so if given the chance.

She wasn’t sure why she told Fortrakt the story, except she needed to get it off her wings. But instead of acting aghast, he just stared at her anew, and then gave a knowing nod. “So, they saved your life—saved all of us—by fighting alongside us using a series of incredibly powerful weapons any griffon would love to wield, and then you wonder why you were suddenly ready to offer yourself up to them?” he summarized with a faint smile.

“They were brave, they were honorable, and they fought to defend not just you, but all of us. Crows know we wouldn’t even be alive without them. By all the Ancestors, Gilda, I’d think there was something more wrong with you if you didn’t want them after that!”

He held up a wing to forestall her protest. “And as for Guerrero, crows know I’m surprised, but from what you said, he offered up his life to go with you and Marco, risking himself alongside you both? Ancestors, he honored you just like Marco did. And then he gave you comfort when you needed it, even if he didn’t know what he was doing?” he recited the facts back to her, causing her to blink, hard.

“Maybe you were vulnerable, but that doesn’t change the fact he was there for you. That he proved himself worthy just by being there for you. He stood by you and your mate when he didn’t have to. So you wanted to reward him, and there was really only one way you could.”

Gilda was starting to fidget as she found his words ringing true and, despite all her mental efforts, her untoward urges suddenly seemed far more acceptable and eager to be indulged, leaving her wishing once again that she’d taken one of her opportunities to do so.

Still, she couldn’t let it go without a fight. “It’s not wrong to want three alien partners at once? And then an alien soldier?” she muttered, trying to feel appalled over it but failing; the more she thought about it the more acceptable she found it. “My mate and his two friends? And then I turn around a couple hours later and suddenly want Guerrero? By all the crows, what is wrong with me?” She clutched her headfeathers in her talons, wanting to rip them out in frustration.

“Nothing,” Fortrakt said with not a shred of hesitation or doubt as he sat beside her. “And I still think you should have taken the chance to be with them.”

Her head shot up to hear her own thoughts echoed. “And I still think you’re crazy for thinking any of that was somehow okay!” She couldn’t help but wonder if he had some odd fetish for public exposure or exhibitionism. Well, it would certainly explain why he got so turned on in the hallway that one time, right? Despite everything, the memory of teasing him brought a smile to her face; she even found herself wishing again that Rainbow Dash had been there to join her in the effort.

“I can’t help what I think.” He shrugged. “But what do I know? I’m just a stupid cub, remember?”

“No, you’re not.” She relented slightly, realizing she was turning on him just for trying to help her talk through things. “Crows know you’ve more than proven today you’re not a bad combat officer, either.”

“And crows know you’ve more than proven you’re not a bad combat commander. If you don’t believe me, then let me tell you the story of my sire,” he said, and his tone, which turned a shade of brooding she’d never heard from him before, convinced her to listen. “Did you know that he was also in the Auxiliary Guard?”

Gilda looked back at him in surprise. Fortrakt rarely said much about his family or upbringing, and judging by the way he was looking away, he wasn’t comfortable speaking about it now, either. “No.”

“Well, he was, around fifteen years ago,” he began. “He didn’t join by choice, but by necessity. We had a bad stretch where we were facing frigid winters year after year. The growing seasons were stunted, and our local farms were failing, forcing us to import more and more food from Equestria and elsewhere.

“Father wanted to hire a few Caleponians away from the Southern lands to try to make the most of our shortened growing seasons, but we didn’t have enough gems to do it. So he joined the Guard for extra money,” he recounted.

“I was only six when it happened. But one day, not long after he got his second pauldron, he and another newly minted Spear were assigned to escort an eagless senator and her son, who had just been promoted to Talon Centurion—all due to the influence of his mother, of course. So naturally, he began ordering the whole lot of Guardsgriffons and Talons around.”

Gilda broke into a small smile; she had encountered a few such officers who had their positions not due to merit but nepotism along the way. “Naturally.”

Fortrakt chuckled only briefly before his expression dropped again. “So, yeah, he was a bit overbearing, and from what father said, he seemed to be mostly trying to impress his mother with his new authority. But he also said most of the soldiers didn’t mind, given the escort job was only until the next town, at which point they’d get good food and quarters along with the Senator they were defending. They were more worried about the blizzard that hit early in the season.”

“A blizzard? Then your father was still in the North?” Gilda guessed.

Fortrakt nodded. “His second Rotation brought him back to the North, though not back home. Anyway, they trudged through the whitened skies; snow and wind blinding them enough that they had to land a few times just to get their bearings. And on the fifth or so landing? Harpies attacked,” he announced, gaining her immediate attention.

“My father’s grounded column was raked by cannon fire from one of their corsairs while boulders and arrows rained down on them from above. In just seconds, four Guardsgriffons were killed and six were wounded.”

“I see…” Gilda held her breath as Fortrakt had to gather himself before continuing. The Harpies had a score or more of large raiding clans in the rugged Skydavian mountains that were almost impossible to root out; efforts to do so usually ended up finding only abandoned camps as they could simply pull up their tents and flee through the air, using their fast and elusive corsair airships to evade pursuit and quickly establish colonies elsewhere. Other times, griffon efforts against them had resulted in bloody ambushes with heavy casualties to the attacking force as their normally unaffiliated families united against the invaders.

Their determination to survive and live as nothing more than a loose confederation of pirate clans had earned them at least a grudging respect from the Kingdom, which had unofficially ceded a large area to them. The end result was that griffons kept no formal contact with the Harpies, but parleys and the occasional battle had established at least an uneasy peace where both sides understood the other could be pushed too far.

That there were lines not to be crossed, not the least of which were attacks against civilians, which would earn an immediate reprisal. It was an awkward arrangement, accepting the occasional raid against shipping or supply ports, but in fairness, the Kingdom had some reason to tolerate their activities given the Harpies also targeted the Ibexian Ascendency. “Then what happened?” Gilda finally asked.

“Exactly what you’d expect—at least from the Optio. She reacted immediately and did her best to form a defense quickly, trying to protect the Senator,” Fortrakt recounted.

“The Optio? What about the—” she began to ask, only to stop as a pensive Fortrakt held up a wing.

“When she turned to ask for orders from the Centurion, he was unresponsive at first. They thought—or at least hoped—he was forming a plan. But as more arrows and cannonballs impacted, the Centurion began to scream that they were about to die and ordered everyone to flee for their lives before taking off through the air. He abandoned his post, and even his own mother.”

Gilda was shocked. Even for the entitled son of a Senator, that sounded like an uncommonly cowardly reaction for a griffon. “Was your father… taken?” she asked cautiously, by which she meant cubnapped for ransom, which the harpies were known to do—she imagined that was why they had targeted the Senator in the first place. But Fortrakt shook his head.

“No. They drove off the attack and saved the Senator, no thanks to that craven Centurion who had no business being in his post. But the damage was done. Father was wounded that day and was never the same after.” Fortrakt looked towards the horizon; for a moment, Gilda thought he was tearing up. “He took both a boulder to the wing and a poisoned dart to the wing muscles; between them, the healers were never quite able to fix it. He couldn’t fly straight, and he couldn’t hold formation afterwards.”

Fortrakt blinked his eyes repeatedly, taking several breaths before he could continue. “As he was no longer fit for service but honorably wounded in the line of duty, he was discharged from the Guard and given two years’ pay as compensation for his injuries, which I guess was enough to hire some Caleponians to help us out. But after all that, and the awful price my father paid just to keep our farms afloat and our village fed, my mother left.” His voice suddenly trembled and he looked away.

“She said she was sick of the cold. That she felt shamed by having a mate who couldn’t fly and having to rely on ponies to feed us. That there was nothing honorable about our family anymore, abandoning us and taking my younger sisters with her. By all my Ancestors, I hated her for that…” His tail lashed, then stilled.

Gilda didn’t know what to say. And I thought MY upbringing was hard just for being taken to Equestria and having a single friend dump me? She suddenly felt a deep sense of shame but remained silent, letting Fortrakt vent.

“For the longest time, I just stayed and helped my sire however I could. I did whatever was needed and learned much of the family business along the way. It wasn’t easy, but eventually the hard winters relented and we more or less recovered. I was of age by then, and he told me it was time to stop supporting him—that I needed to stretch my wings and find my own way in life. So I chose to join the Guard. I wanted to redeem his honor and finish the term of service he couldn’t,” he concluded as Gilda could only listen in disbelief.

His story finished, he exhaled heavily, then turned to face her again. “So, yeah. You’re still here and trying your crow-damned best to lead us. And given everything that’s been thrown at us, I think you’re doing quite well.”

“In other words, your way of cheering me up is to compare me to a crow-cursed coward?” Gilda paraphrased, the words spilling out of her mouth thanks to her still-roiled emotions before she could stop them. “Thanks, Fortrakt. I feel better already.”

“Oh, go suck an Ibex spear.” He gave her an exasperated look. “With all due respect, Centurion, you berated me for having a defeatist attitude earlier. So please don’t fall into one yourself over your first-ever command,” he reminded her softly, causing her to fall silent despite the insult.

“What I’m saying is you’re not giving yourself anywhere near enough credit for everything you’ve done right, from saving those civilians to just getting us this far safely. You’re learning on the job, as am I. But if you keep doubting yourself, you're going to lose it like that ‘crow-cursed coward’ and burden the rest of us. Most notably Marco, Chris and Tara.”

This time, it was her turn to feel chagrined. “You’re right. Thanks for the wingslap, Fortrakt. So tell me, when did you decide to grow up and become so sensible?”

“When we got attacked by the Cloven and found ourselves in a war for our race’s existence,” he replied instantly and without emotion. “And believe me, you’re not the only one with doubts about his abilities.”

Gilda looked at him again. “I’d never have known it from how well you led your force in battle.”

He smiled and bared his throat at her. “Thanks, Centurion. May we live to be comfortable in our roles. And get to order about other griffons in far more mundane or pleasurable matters than these.”

“May the Ancestors grant such a thing,” she agreed with a chuckle, then studied him again. “Are you sure you’re okay, cub? Ever since the battle, you seem… different. And it’s not because of this story you just told me.”

He didn’t reply right away. “Maybe I am,” he said quietly at some length. “It’s a little hard not to be different after what I remembered.”

“What do you mean, ‘what you remembered?” she asked him in confusion.

He had to gather himself again before speaking. “When I saw the Cloven attack start and realized how badly we were outnumbered, I thought we were all dead. In that moment, my life flashed before my eyes,” he told her, then raised those same haunted eyes to hers. “And in that one moment, I remembered… everything.”

“So did I,” she said softly. “My cubhood, my training, the month we spent with the humans—”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said shortly. “I mean, in that instant I thought I was going to die, I remembered everything about that night,” he told her pensively. “The memories are like something out of a dream, but they’re present now. I know what occurred. I know what we did. And by all our Ancestors, even if we survive this war, nothing will ever be the same for me.” He buried his head in his talons.

“You remember?” Gilda stared at him in shock. “Why? What happened that night?” She was desperate to know even as she felt afraid of learning.

He chose his next words carefully. “Everything you could imagine… and some things you couldn’t even begin to,” he said cryptically, then shook his head in disbelief. “And here I was, thinking I’d been left out.”

Despite her half-frantic need to know more, she reminded herself to be wary. “Are you sure you didn’t imagine it? That your mind wasn’t just clawing for some meaning from that night and filled in the blanks to provide it?” she had to ask.

He locked gazes with her again, his green eyes glinting anew in the distant glow of dragon-set fires. “You told me and Tara all about your ‘Dashie’ that night, Gilda,” he informed her quietly, causing her to gape at him. “You grew up friends with Rainbow Dash herself, though I don’t think Tara understood that’s who you meant. And for what it’s worth… I’m sorry she dumped you like that. It sounded awful to go through. If she was here, I’d tell her off for you.”

Despite his words of comfort, Gilda felt faint. I get why I would have told Tara. But why would I have told HIM? Unless… “Please don’t tell anycreature else I knew her,” she asked weakly, trying hard not to follow her logic chain to its inevitable conclusion.

“Don’t worry. Because given how you cried on Tara’s shoulder, I know how painful it is for you just to think about her. I’m just glad I could—” He caught himself and snapped his beak shut.

“Could what?” She gave him an askance look.

“Do you really want to know?” he asked her, and something in his voice warned her she would not like the answer. “Because if I tell you, everything changes for you, too.”

She stared at him. “No,” she finally said, to which he only nodded.

“A wise choice,” he agreed quietly. “And believe me, for as much as I now remember, I wish I didn’t. It’s a distraction that crows know I definitely don’t need. It’s hard enough being around the humans and Giraldi right now, since just seeing or even smelling them is sparking flashbacks. By the crows themselves, I think I might even remember the two of us being carried back to our room by the Ibex.”

“Giraldi?” She blinked again, suddenly flashing back to the impossibly lurid image she’d had of him earlier enjoying the company of human and griffon tiercels alike. “But why would he—?” She trailed off at the pleading look he gave her and fell silent.

“I won’t tell you. And by all the Ancestors, I have no idea how I’m going to tell them…” he muttered.

Sensing the topic was a difficult one, she moved on. “Well, for what it’s worth, I did get one more flash of memory from that night when the Cloven attacked. I think I was with Tara and Marco while we watched another movie… with metal birds and ships?” she recalled tentatively, watching his reaction carefully.

For the first time since they started talking, he smiled broadly, confirming her vision with a nod. “The movie was called Midway, about a massive naval battle during humanity’s Second World War. I loved it, and so did you—you even wrote a report to the Tribune on it in the middle of rutting! You also really enjoyed the 300 movie Marco showed us before that,” he told her with a wry grin and wink, his voice acquiring a teasing tone for a moment that caused her to blush.

“Not that I blame you. I want to watch those movies again just so I can remember them without being under the influence and seeing everything through a pink haze. And you know, maybe that’s part of why you ended up so smitten with Marco after initially hating him. He seems to have a knack for turning on and teasing both you and—” He caught himself again, then slumped, burying his face in his talons. “Ancestors, why did I have to remember all this now?”

Though she desperately wanted answers on who else Marco had teased, she looked away, a fierce blush erupting. She wasn’t sure what it was more over; the confirmation that she’d been with the two humans at once, or her sheer and utter dweebiness in trying to pen an intelligence report to Tribune Narada while in the middle of sex. “For what it’s worth, I think I know how you feel. Because the more I learn about that night, the less I’m sure I want to know.”

“Just trust me—you don’t. To suddenly remember it but be the only one who does is a burden like you wouldn’t believe, Gilda. Ancestors above, I can’t get it out of my head! Even when I was holding Chris and Tara after the battle, I was remembering… well, holding them and it was all I could do not to get excited. Even though I knew it wasn’t the time!”

He sighed and slumped. “It wasn’t too bad when I had the distractions of battle or trying to get us here safely. But now that there’s no immediate threat and I’ve had some time to myself, I can’t stop thinking about it. Can’t stop thinking about them. And that’s the reason I don’t want to be with them. I don’t trust myself around them right now, so I think it’s best for me to keep my distance.”

She stared at him again. “I don’t understand, cub. You encourage me to be with them but turn down your own chance to do so? Why don't you ‘trust yourself’?”

“I…” Fortrakt looked flustered. “It’s hard to explain. And I’m not even sure you’d believe me. Ancestors, I’m not even sure I do,” he offered, which only confused her even more. “It’s just that… I’m afraid that if we were together, it wouldn’t be by choice, but because of…” To Gilda’s exasperation, he again couldn’t finish his thought.

Seeing her confusion, he hung his head. “I’m sorry, Centurion. I know I’m not making sense. But if you believe nothing else, believe that I’m not ready to be around them right now. So I respectfully request that you keep me busy commanding our aerial element for the time being.” He bared his throat at her.

Gilda nodded after a short pause. “You’ve done a good job with that, Decurion. So no problem,” she promised, wondering what he didn’t trust—that he wouldn’t get excited or that he wouldn’t outright try to rut them again. But why would that be an issue? He’s been encouraging me to do it, but when I offer him the opportunity, he won’t take it? I don’t get it—what is he afraid of?

She didn’t know, but she sensed that she wouldn’t get the answers from him until he was well and truly ready. “Thanks for telling me this, cub. I’m on watch now, so get some sleep.”

“By your command,” he told her, putting the orange peel in the empty bowl before picking the latter up in his beak and heading for the stairwell. “And thank you for letting me talk about all this, Centurion. I really needed to,” he said around his mouthful.

“You’re welcome. But Fortrakt…?”

“Yes?” He put the bowl down again so he could speak.

Her beak closed and opened repeatedly before she finally found the words. I don’t want to know, and yet… “I don’t need any details. But answer me one thing: You know about Rainbow, but I can’t imagine I would have told you about her unless we were… close,” she concluded with a cringe. “So please tell me… did we do anything together that night?”

From the way he hesitated and suddenly wouldn’t meet her eyes, she knew instantly what the answer was.

“We did? But why? How?” she asked him, feeling faint even as her body seemed to confirm her suspicion, her wings starting to splay and blood beginning to surge into her more sensual areas as they yet again recalled something she couldn’t. “You said it yourself—we don’t like each other like that! I don’t care how much cider I had, there’s no way in either the human or griffon underworlds I would have let you mount me!” she protested to herself as much as him, desperately trying to stop her wings from going erect.

“You didn’t. And that’s all I’ll say,” he said softly after a brief pause, his eyes flitting to her nervously before hurriedly averting themselves. At the moment they briefly locked gazes, a vivid image flashed through her head of looking down to see his talons running all over her form, fondling her teats and flight muscles from behind.

Shocked at not just the sudden vision but how it made her react, she opened her beak again, only to stop at an upraised wing. “And before you tell me you don’t understand, just trust me—you’re not ready for the answer, Gilda. So by all our Ancestors, please don’t order me to give it.”

Though she’d been about to issue the order anyway—by all her Ancestors, did she really want to risk dying during the next day not knowing?—she felt a strangely compelling mental pressure not to. She sensed she could override it if she really wanted, but she also found she didn’t feel strongly enough about it to do so, and something about his posture was warning her to stop pressing him.

So she relented with another sharp exhale of breath. “Fine, cub. I won’t. I don’t know what you’re hiding, and I’m not even sure I want to. All I ask is that if you tell one of us… then you tell all of us,” she requested. “It’s not an order, but I think you owe it to us.”

“I think I do too. But believe me, they’re not ready either,” he barely whispered as he picked up the bowl again and began to head downstairs. “And at this point, I don’t know if they’ll ever be.”

Before Gilda could reply, a blue flare fired in the distance and there was a sudden rumbling sound as the ground beneath the steadholt plaza gave way.

Gilda stood frozen for a moment as the cobblestone street collapsed into itself and a flood of shapes poured out; before she could register what was happening, the loud and familiar cracks of human rifles echoed through the air.

“By the Ancestors…” Fortrakt exclaimed as he hurriedly came up beside her again to see what caused the commotion, pulling his crossbow and notching an arrow.

“Crows take it… retake command of the aerial element, Decurion! Focus fire on that hole with one decade while the other keeps watch! This could be a diversion!” she sensed instinctively.

“By your command!” He obeyed instantly and shot off into the air, his earlier brooding forgotten along with Gilda’s. But the attack was defeated swiftly as a score of corrupted creatures were cut down by human firepower.

That’s it? Way too easy… she decided, pulling her radio and calling into it. “Corporal? Report!” she ordered Imlay.

“They came out of a hole near the entrance to the Hall. Mostly forest beasts with a few griffons and some of those diamond dogs you told us about. Guess they thought it would surprise us or we couldn’t see in the dark. They were wrong,” he said stiffly. “We got them all.”

“That can’t be all…” she muttered, mostly to herself. “Stay alert! We’ve got a blue flare along the roadway, so more Cloven are inbound! This was probably a probe or diversion! Pick up your watch on the perimeter! And be careful of more holes popping up around the plaza!”

“Yes, sir,” Imlay replied calmly. She wasn’t particularly worried about the Cloven opening up a hole directly under the Main Hall, since it was heavily enchanted against that to prevent the Diamond Dogs from raiding its storage areas.

“Gilda? We’re up! What can we do?” she heard Marco’s slightly anxious voice call into the radio, leaving her wondering just how rapidly they’d redressed.

“You, Chris and Tara stay inside with Chief Jacobs and Spear Jumentum. Defend Raleigh, the cubs and their mothers! Do not come out unless you’re told to, and if anycreature comes inside without a proper passcode, shoot them!”

“You got it, girlfriend!”' he replied. “Go on out, Imlay! We got your back.”

“You’d better,” the Marine Corporal replied tersely as she heard him dispatch a fire team to the balcony to further cover the hole in the ground.

“We’re here, ma’am! Time to get some!” Guerrero announced the team’s presence before Lance Corporal Henderson could, readying his rifle as he and his three comrades knelt by the low stone rail which was mostly meant to keep pony foals from falling, aiming their cannons downward.

Get some… what? She wasn’t sure what that phrase meant as she pulled the rod to notch her crossbow. She loaded one of her sunstone-tipped incendiary bolts, hoping it would prove effective against pure and corrupted Cloven alike.

She got her chance to find out quickly as a second wave of Cloven erupted out of the hole; this one composed not of corrupted but of what she guessed were pure Cloven soldier forms. Even in the low light, her night vision enabled her to tell that they were exactly as they’d been described at the Gauntlet: grotesque imitations of griffons covered in a black-green shell with spikes where their wings should have been, bearing unnaturally long beaks and talons.

She first thought the Cloven were without eyes, until she saw the glint of two small black orbs sunken deep in their heads, only barely visible against their darker exterior. But she only had a second to note it before they were once again cut down rapidly by a thunderous barrage of human bullets. They were aided by a mixture of incendiary and explosive bolts from griffon crossbows, which alternately blew their limbs apart or consumed their bodies in fire.

They seemed to be aiming their efforts at the Marines in front of the Main Hall, but they couldn’t close to melee range where their superior strength and tail spikes could tell. One soldier made it within ten paces, but between being peppered by dozens of Marine rounds and the three armor-piercing crossbow bolts struck through its neck, it could get no further. Dark green gore poured out of the holes in it freely as it took a final drunken step forward before collapsing to the ground, bleeding out an ugly ichor.

“Hold your fire!” Imlay ordered at Giraldi’s request before her earth griffon Optio approached it, rearing up to finish it off with a thunderous smash of his warhammer.

“That seems to be all of them,” she hoped as a clearly tired Nydia stumbled outside next, now bearing a new staff; it took Gilda a moment to realize it had belonged to the dead Magus in the cellar. She then looked at Fortrakt, who was again carrying out his orders efficiently; as she watched, he instructed his Guardsgriffons to stab the first wave of corrupted who had fallen in the head.

Within seconds, it was done; they’d taken out another forty Cloven with no loss to themselves.

“Clear,” the Optio announced as he stepped back, still standing upright while wielding his warhammer with his wings flared for bipedal balance.

“Damn, he’s big…” she heard one of the male Marines mutter.

“Yeah, and he’s tall, too!” another rejoined, eliciting a snicker and a slight blush of the Optio’s cheeks.

“Cut the chatter. Clear here as well,” Imlay said as Giraldi sheathed his hammer and went back to all fours. “And that blue flare means there’s more inbound! Stavrou! Set up our fifty to cover the hole and the gate!” he further ordered as a shimmer of air announced the return of the Ravens, whose shrouded forms were quickly revealed by the cannon-mounted Marine blacklights.

“Wilco,” Stavrou replied obediently, pulling several gems out of his pack as the Ravens bared their throats and held their talons away from their body.

“Mantis!” Giraldi issued the challenge phrase while leveling his heavy crossbow.

“Monocle,” Ebon Umbreon instantly replied, causing weapons to be lowered. “Beg to report, Centurion.” He turned up to her with a salute, pulling out his radio so all would hear him.

She returned the gesture swiftly. “Proceed.”

“There are over two and a half centuries of Cloven ground soldiers coming along the road to the steadholt. They are a mixture of pure Cloven forms, including some in the lead that we have never seen before. Huge ones that were just flattening everything in their path and even taking down trees.”

“Great,” Gilda muttered, exchanging a look with Guerrero, who had crouched down to her left. “How long until they get here?”

Before the Shadow Decurion could answer, a buzzing sound made itself known. A dozen black Cloven flyers in roughly the form of giant razorbats alighted on buildings near the gate, inducing a few Marines and Guardsgriffons to point their weapons towards them as they hung upside-down from the eaves. But they didn’t act aggressively, just staring at the griffons and humans fixedly for a few seconds before taking to the air once more, flying away.

“Curious,” Henderson stated as she set up a longer tube—was that one of those ‘marksman’ rifles Marco and Chris had talked about before?

“Try creepy as fuck,” Guerrero replied from beside her, his green-glowing goggles on along with the rest of the Marines. “It’s starting to feel like we’re in a horror movie. At least Brennan should be happy.”

“Can it, Guerrero. So why did this lead group not wait to attack in concert with the main force?” Imlay wondered aloud over the radio.

“Perhaps because when we saw them and launched the flare, they knew surprise was lost and they sought to gain what initial advantage they could, drawing attention away from the main group,” Ebon Umbreon suggested. “In the end, it matters not. They are coming, and we must be ready for them.”

“Agreed.” Gilda nodded back, watching as a group of three Marines set up what looked like a very large gun at the top of the stairwell leading to the Main Hall entrance. She also noticed a few gemstones on the ground, some transparent while the rest were sparkling amber, indicating that their magic was unspent. Leaving them to their work, Gilda summoned down Fortrakt.

“Ancestors,” he muttered as he saw what they were setting up. “They have cannons that big?”

But before she could reply, an evil and ugly wail echoed through the steadholt; the air itself reverberated around them. Even the humans stopped whatever they were doing, looking around nervously, trying to discern a source for the sound that seemed to be coming from everywhere.

Giraldi listened intently for a moment. “That sounds like an Elder Ram war cry,” he whispered, and Gilda couldn’t disagree—they had heard memory-taken recordings of the sound during Gauntlet training.

But she couldn’t consider the impossibility of an extinct race being present again as the next thing Gilda heard was wood splintering. Her eyes immediately went towards the gate as something slammed into it hard from the outside, strong enough to crack it despite Nydia’s spellcasting. And then again. And again. And again.

“Centurion? Something big is coming,” Fortrakt declared softly from his hover. “And there are more flyers on the way—scores of them!”

“I can see that,” Gilda replied tensely. “Don steel claws, Decurion, and keep your formations close. Don’t let yourself get swarmed by those razorbat forms! Retreat to the upper-level balconies if the pressure gets too great.”

“By your command,” he said, launching himself into the air again.

“Reload, people!” Imlay ordered, and Gilda could hear a few snaps and clicks as half-empty quivers were swapped out for fresh ones. “Stavrou, please tell me you’re almost done?”

“Just a minute more, Corporal,” the Marine working on the big gun replied.

“We may not have a minute!” the Corporal warned as the wail was heard again, accompanied by a short snort before another slam hit the gate. That proved to be the final straw as the enchanted wooden barrier gave way, crashing to the ground.

Dust flew up, blocking Gilda’s view, but she nevertheless readied her crossbow, pulling the rod to notch it before locking a bolt in place. Aiming it towards the gate, she noticed that she was not alone; the griffons and the Marines had the same idea, training their weapons towards the breach in their defenses.

But before they could open up on the intruder, a massive swarm of razorbats descended, whipping and slashing their wings at Fortrakt’s group and forcing them to fight with desperate fury. Worse, half simply hovered in the air at a distance as they opened up their ugly beaks to fire on the Marines with spikes from their maws, which impacted the ground hard around them as they struck home.

“Fuck!” she heard a pained cry over the radio, but she couldn’t recognize the voice’s owner. “I’m hit!”

“Pull back inside! Now!” Imlay ordered as his Marines and Gilda’s Guardsgriffons simply couldn’t knock the flyers down fast enough with steel claws and rifle fire, leaving Gilda eternally grateful the Cloven attack had been disrupted enough to prevent the flyers from striking in concert with the forces that had come out of the ground.

Which was not to say their situation was any less dire. “You can’t fight them all! Get to cover in the balconies, Decurion!” she called out frantically to Fortrakt, who was heavily engaged and didn’t immediately reply.

But before she could direct the Marines to hold their fire or join the airborne battle herself, there was a sharp flash of light behind her, which revealed itself to be the male Ibex. He had his horn manacles removed, though the silent Raven eagless had apparently teleported with him, aiming her repeater not at him but into the air.

“Griffons! Clear the skies!” the Capricorn Adept shouted in Aeric, using a magically boosted voice as he ran up to the rail while Gilda and the Marines looked back at him in shock. As she watched, a large ball of electricity formed between his long glowing horns, which he then launched into the air over the steadholt before collapsing with a cry of pain and what looked like fresh cracks in his barely-healed antlers.

It burst fifty perches over the Main Hall with a massive eruption of sizzling sparks like miniature lightning. The bolts then spread out like anvil crawlers through a thunderhead and blanketed most of the area above the steadholt, striking down the Cloven flyers en masse while allowing the Marines and griffons to pick off the few who survived.

The stricken razorbat forms fell to the ground with a series of ugly thumps, smoke coming off their burned bodies as a shadowy figure began to emerge from the curtain of dust near the shattered steadholt entrance. Little by little, it took a more solid form.

It was huge, with a round body, reaching almost five ells in height, towering over human and griffon alike. The shape was familiar to Gilda, and she wondered for a moment where she had seen it. When it snorted strongly enough to blow the dust out of the way, revealing more details, she realized what she was looking at; the knowledge causing her guts to clench.

It was indeed an Elder Ram—or, at least, that was the closest thing she could associate the monstrous Cloven at the breach with, and she only knew their appearance from the old museum scrolls she’d seen and some training at the Gauntlet. Though believed extinct, Kingdom soldiers received instruction on fighting them in case they should ever reappear. It was a sensible precaution given they were yet another foe her race had once fought to the finish with, in the guise of the Gryphon Empire just two decades before the war with Equestria.

Led by their immortal King Grogar, who was said to be a magic user on par with the pony Princesses themselves, they had set out to annihilate the griffon race and had very nearly done so. A hoard of rams had overrun half of Aresia before the strategic brilliance of then-Consul Salvio Gaius completely reversed the course of the war, winning a string of stunning victories over the evil king’s armies that ended with his power drained and sealed away.

Like the Ibex, they had large magic-channeling horns, though theirs were far thicker and curled backwards into a coil. But unlike the Ibex, the magic they wielded was almost entirely geared towards hardening their bodies and increasing their speed and striking power; at full charge they could shatter a griffon shieldwall or punch through even an iron gate, let alone the wooden one that had splintered before its assault.

Though normally quadrupedal, it stood upright like humans did on two thick black legs. The roundness of their forms was caused by the large arms on its sides, which were curved and bowed. Instead of a griffon beak, it had a large snout with multiple small holes for a nose, expressionless eyes, and the two enormous back-curled horns on top of its head. It opened its mouth, revealing jagged teeth, and roared in a deafening volume that seemed to stop everyone in their tracks.

“Holy fucking shit,” a pale Guerrero muttered from beside her while Gilda watched the male Ibex fall to his knees in exhaustion and pain.

He… he SAVED us? she thought in disbelief as she turned her attention from the downed buck onto the new intruder.

“Marines, take it down!” Imlay ordered.

Cracks of thunder echoed in the air as the human rifles began to once more work on bringing death and destruction. However, unlike the Corrupted grass lions or even the earlier soldier forms, the huge Cloven took the brunt of their attacks without pause. Green blood and gore spurted out of its cracked chitin, but it still moved inexorably forward, using its magically-infused arms to shield its body from the bullets.

Gilda shot her bolt out as well; she was joined by more thrums of bass as the Ravens added their repeaters to the defense. But to her dismay, most of it got deflected with only a few stray projectiles penetrating the thick chitin, and not enough to do any real damage.

“Arm with explosive bolts and triple-notch your crossbows!” Giraldi ordered as Gilda groped for one of her ruby-tipped arrows. “Aim for the legs and knees! Treat them as Elder Rams, Guardsgriffons!”

Gilda wanted to protest. While this was said to have been a good tactic against the Elder Rams, crippling or at least limiting their ability to charge, she wasn’t so sure it was going to work this time. The Rams usually overwhelmed enemy forces by running right through them, using the powerful personal shield their horns could project to harden their bodies and protect themselves. The Cloven, however, while taking the form of the Elder Rams, had thickened the legs. Could that be the reason why it hadn’t run up to them?

Unbelievably, the tactic seemed to work as the bursting bolts did penetrate the thick and magically-reinforced chitin, causing more green blood to pour out. But her heart sank when the Cloven creation didn’t seem to notice the damage, or even slow down.

“Fuck this,” Imlay muttered. He went for his vest once more, taking out a familiar tube colored in olive and green, topped with a yellow dome. He then placed it into the larger tube attachment at the bottom of his rifle before looking at Gilda and shouting:

“Everyone! Get down!”

When the Marines obeyed instantly, diving for whatever cover they could, she relayed the order in Aeric to Fortrakt’s group. “Everycreature, down and cover your ears!”

“Down!” Giraldi shouted in Aeric as well.

They all obeyed instantly but the pain-addled Ibex male didn’t; Gilda had to leap at the woozy, horn-damaged buck who was struggling back to his hooves while staring blankly at her. She yanked him down—Ancestors knew he’d earned it for saving them from the flyers—all but tackling him. She then rolled with him to a stop on the stone floor of the balcony, trying to return the favor by protecting him with her body and armor.

She’d just made it down before hearing that now-familiar thump, like a hiccup in the air. It was swiftly followed by an explosion much louder than the last time; the air smelling of burnt metal and fire as she was showered with dust and pebbles as well as a measure of foul-smelling green-tinted spatter. She heard the creature’s death cry echo through the air as she felt the floor beneath her shake.

Gilda’s eyes went wide as she found her beak buried deep in the junction between his sheath and apples; her nose suddenly swimming in his exotic male musk. Worse, she felt hot breath washing over her and realized her own hindquarters had somehow ended up right over his head.

“Wow!” Fortrakt declared from somewhere nearby as the Ibex muttered something in his native tongue. “Ancestors, wow! Did you see that, Centur—” he trailed off as she sensed him glancing back and gaping, then hastily looking away.

Crows take it… how does this keep HAPPENING? “Starshina… are you hurt?” she asked as she pushed back from him, trying to conceal where her face had been and her thoughts had impossibly gone. But he only groaned in response, not seeming to notice their compromising position, though she looked up to see the female Raven beside her was staring down at them and had acquired a flush.

“Deafened… antlers cracked… don’t make me cast that again…” he begged her in Aeric before he passed out beneath her.

Blushing hard and praying nocreature had noticed other than Fortrakt and the silent eagless, she quickly stood to all fours and crept back toward the edge of the balcony, leaving the Ibex lying there guarded by the gray-dyed Raven female. The dust slowly settled down, revealing a large mutilated lump of black and green, unmoving and undoubtedly dead.

But before Gilda could issue another order, a second wail reverberated in the air. Followed by another. And then another. The dust from the explosion cleared to reveal three more large Cloven coming through the gate. At the sight of them, Gilda suddenly felt very tired. She looked down at Imlay as he grabbed another one of those explosive cylinders—grenades, if her memory served her correctly?—and loaded it into his bottom tube.

“Corporal? How many of those do you have?” she asked loudly.

“On my person? This is the last one,” Imlay replied grimly. “Jamal! Load a forty-mike!” he called over to his third fire team leader, who promptly moved to obey, yanking a cylinder out of its slot on his chest armor.

“Maybe you should get more?” Fortrakt offered nervously.

Imlay was about to reply when Stavrou’s voice was heard. “Corporal Imlay! The fifty is up and ready!”

The Corporal looked towards the big gun the Marines were working on earlier, sitting on top of the stairwell beneath and just in front of the balcony. Gilda could only describe it as a large rectangular body with a smaller, but longer tube extending out from it. Judging by the large size and the black tripod keeping it upright, it wasn’t a weapon that the Marines could use while carrying.

“Good work, Marine. Belay that last, Jamal! Save your grenades and let’s see if we can give these big guys a few extra breathing holes.”

“Wilco, Corporal!” Jamal returned the ‘grenade’ he’d been about to load to his vest.

The three large Cloven wailed once more, making Gilda look back at them. They were already taking a few steps forward, arms shielding their body and faces as they took more cannon fire and her Guardsgriffons began to shoot their bolts, hitting their thickened legs and arms to little effect. She then looked back at Imlay as he grabbed one of the gemstones laid on the ground.

A second later, she felt magic flaring out. As she watched, a dozen green metallic boxes materialized in front of the Corporal.

“What are those?” Fortrakt asked her.

“Storage Gems,” Gilda replied automatically. “I know they’re expensive, but you should know about them.”

He rolled his eyes. “I know perfectly well what they are, Centurion! I meant those.” He pointed with a talon towards the green metal boxes which were stamped with white Equish text, though she didn’t know what “CRTG .50 CAL” or any of the other slightly nonsensical words beneath it meant.

Imlay grabbed one of the boxes and unlatched the top to reveal a string of very long bullets; far bigger than what Marco had shown her. Oddly, they were all attached side-by-side to each other by some sort of small black chain. Offering one end to Stavrou, the Marine opened a latch on top of the large gun, inserted a single bullet, and clamped it shut.

“Plug your ears and grab your balls, boys and girls! Because Ma Deuce is cutting loose!” Stavrou shouted as he ratcheted the weapon by pulling a handle that she realized wasn’t too dissimilar to a crossbow notching rod, making a loud metallic click.

“Ma wha—?”

Fortrakt didn’t get to complete his sentence before the big gun fired. Gilda was already prepared, placing the palms of her foretalons over her ears. But even that couldn’t block the horrifically loud cracks that punched through the air without mercy; each blast from the rifle felt like a slap to the face. If the Marine rifles sounded like individual bolts of lightning, this gun sounded like a close-range lightning volley.

And to judge from the Cloven, it hit like one too.

Their thick chitin and large bodies that had withstood explosive bolts and regular bullets alike were gruesomely shredded as the big gun did the jobs the smaller Marine rifles couldn’t. Their enormous armored and magically-charged arms didn’t even seem to slow the powerful projectiles, exploding into green and black pieces. When the first charging Cloven fell, the gun went silent, making Gilda look down at Stavrou.

“Shit!” Hearing his curse, she wondered if something had gone wrong, but after pulling back on that handle once more to eject a single unfired cylinder—was that a ‘jam’ that Marco mentioned could happen?—he continued firing. One by one, the monstrous Cloven soldiers fell to the irresistible impacts of the massive but still-supersonic projectiles; it was only after the last one collapsed in a heap of greenish gore and broken body parts that Stavrou finally stopped firing, the end of his weapon emitting smoke.

There were no additional wails, or even a cry of victory from the Marines. Gilda fell silent as well, feeling pensive at the death brought forth by the massive gun, and a look around her showed she wasn’t alone—the Auxilias of her command were likewise shocked anew by what the ‘heavier’ human cannon could do, staring at it in a mixture of wonder and wariness.

The only griffon who didn’t look dumbstruck was Fortrakt, and Gilda had to say, that was only because he looked more awestruck than anything; his beak was so far agape that she thought he could take an entire Saddle Arabian spear within it.

She wasn’t sure where that thought came from until she smelled male excitement and a hint of cider in the air; she turned to see her former junior partner was very openly and visibly aroused. “By all our Ancestors, I want to fire one of those cannons,” he whispered reverently from a hover beside her, seemingly unaware of his state.

“I’d never have guessed,” she said dryly, unable not to notice his impressive stature given it hung but a body length away from her. It was easily on par with Marco’s, leaving her wondering if she or Tara had taken it before. But how could I, if he said he didn’t mount me? “Because it looks like you’re about to fire your own cannon, cub.”

“I… what?” He looked down at his body and gaped, then immediately alighted, sitting down hard and trying to hide himself with his talons. He flushed hard even though she didn’t think anycreature else had noticed him, with all eyes fixed ahead. “S-sorry…”

Though she might have reprimanded him for the untoward display, Gilda only shook her head, unable to really fault him given she wasn’t sure if she was more aroused by or afraid of the gun’s enormous destructive potential herself. Especially since this means humans actually use such horrifically powerful weapons on each other!

But she had little time to consider the implications as she looked towards the dead Rams, then towards the sky, seeing still more razorbat forms orbiting the steadholt at a safe distance while remembering that there were another two and a half centuries of Cloven soldiers on the way.

Two and a half centuries coming and how many more behind that? She wondered how many attacks they could take before they were ground down to nothing regardless of the Ravens and Marine cannons, or if it was even possible to reach Aricia now given the Cloven seemed to be concentrating against them.

“Save it, Decurion. This is not the time, so sheath your spear and pray to the Ancestors that they have plenty more of those bullets. Because crows know this is only the beginning of the battle…” her voice trailed off as she heard rapid human footfalls up the stairs behind her.

“Gilda!” Chris’s voice called out to her frantically, though he briefly gaped at the collapsed Ibex male. “Gilda!”

She rounded on him hard. “Crows take it… what are you doing up here, Chris? I told you three to stay downstairs!”

“Sorry, but it couldn’t wait,” he explained, holding up his portal device in disbelief and excitement. “You’re not gonna believe this, but my phone buzzed when the battle was happening! I’ve picked up an incoming text!”

Though Gilda had no idea what that meant, the Marines seemed to. “A text? How? And from whom?” Guerrero asked in disbelief.

“That’s just it!” Chris said excitedly. “I have no idea how she managed it, but the sender is showing up in my contact list… as Starlight Glimmer!”

Since the next chapter in story order is the T-rated chapter 25, click on the link below to be taken to chapter 26:

—Firesight

===> next: Chapter 26

25: Battle of Bale - Part 1 (T-rated)

The next few hours passed in a daze for Gilda, starting with reviving the rescued griffons.

Gilda then asked the pair if there was anything they needed; the answer was food and water, plus privacy to nurse their cubs.

“After I introduced Tara Fields, they asked where her cubs were,” Giraldi reported in some amusement as Tara blushed and Marco laughed.

That was the last she saw of them for a while. Once her mixed force got settled in the steadholt with their defenses set and both Marines and griffons assigned to their posts, they set watch and rest schedules, with Gilda sleeping first at Giraldi and Fortrakt’s insistence. The latter also volunteered to command the first four-hour watch himself, though he still seemed moody and distant to Gilda, not even smiling when the story of Tara’s introduction to the two mothers was related to him.

Considering all he’s been through, I can hardly blame him, she decided as she attempted to bed down on the stage of the dimly lit main hall, from where the steadholt master would hold court and conduct trade. She was offered the master’s private office by Giraldi, which had a cushioned lounge, but she declined and gave the accommodation to Raleigh, not wanting to be alone.

Ancestors, we’ve all been through Tartarus itself today, and tomorrow might be even worse, she knew as she settled in beside Chris, Tara and Marco, who snuggled up to her with a slightly longing look from Fortrakt and a nod of approval from Giraldi. The Marines, however, just smirked a bit and said nothing, though she caught PFC Guerrero glancing at her repeatedly as he bedded down on the other side of the stage.

Marco draped an arm over her from behind while Gilda spooned Tara in turn, resting her left set of talons on the tough green fabric that covered her belly. She also allowed Chris to use her left flank as a pillow; a glance down her body showed he had clasped Tara’s free left hand with his right.

Though Gilda was gratified to see that they fell asleep in her presence relatively quickly—the second swig of Marco’s whiskey that all three had taken probably helped—and finding their company no less welcome for whatever urges she’d had regarding Guerrero, she didn’t right away. Her thoughts still unsettled and anxieties reasserting themselves, she squeezed Marco’s hand on her chest with one set of talons while licking Tara’s still-sweaty head, unable to reach Chris except for curling her tasseled tail over his form.

Ancestors preserve them… she prayed again for their safety and that she would be able to protect them.

That she would prove worthy of her post; worthy of all the honor and affection they had shown her.

At least an attack didn’t seem imminent. So far, the Cloven had not reappeared, and the nocturnal animals remained active, though she was certain it was just a matter of time before that changed. She couldn’t imagine that they would allow her group to march to Aricia unmolested, and feared they were already using what they learned from the first encounter to make plans for a second strike.

Will they hit us here? Or when we try to march again? She didn’t know, as each presented its own advantages and disadvantages to the attacker; the difficulties of either option compounded greatly by human firearms. But as there was nothing more she could do, she allowed the whiskey to take hold of her and let her drift off to sleep.

Gilda awoke to find that a blanket had been thrown over her form, and a human hand on her upper foreleg was shaking her awake. “Centurion? It’s time to change the watch,” Imlay told her softly. “No Cloven activity thus far. Nothing from the Ravens, either.”

“Right…” she groaned, blinking blearily while finding herself very disinclined to move. “Give me a minute.”

“Take your time. We brewed some coffee if that will help,” he told her. “It’s not great, but it’ll wake you up.”

It turned out it was too late as Tara stirred. “Corporal…?” she called out sleepily. “Is it morning?”

“No. But the Centurion’s next to stand watch. Go back to sleep, Miss Fields,” he told her before walking away.

“Aww…” Tara said. “Please don’t go, Gilda…”

“I have to,” she said as she licked Tara once on the head and squeezed her with her talons; it was only then she noticed that her foretalons had drifted up onto the human female’s chest and was now pressed firmly into the soft and yielding flesh there. A twitch of her tail beneath the blanket told her it was squeezed between Chris’s thighs, held fast against his hidden attributes by his human hand, while Marco’s left foretalons had settled happily onto her wingbase, pressed firmly beneath her large upper pinions.

Her breath caught and suddenly Gilda was wide awake as she realized how compromising her position was. Did they see us? Is that why they threw a blanket over us? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, wondering when it had happened.

“Can’t I convince you to stay…?” Tara asked again, reaching up to hold her talons in place as Chris and Marco began to stir in turn. “If you’re worried about privacy, there’s a lot we can do under the covers…” she offered in a sound not far removed from a coo as she started audibly releasing her shirt fasteners to expose her human mammaries beneath the blanket.

Gilda’s breath caught again as she realized what Tara was doing; the human female then increased the enticement by reaching back with her other hand to push it and Chris’s paw, which she still held, against Gilda’s equivalent eagless anatomy on her lower belly.

“I…” Gilda felt the wing she’d laid over Marco starting to go stiff as her tail began to twitch repeatedly between Chris’s legs. The movement threatened to fully rouse both human males as well; her entire body now pleading for their attention as she became keenly aware of their presence and scent. But once again, no matter how badly she wanted to surrender herself to them, she overrode her surging desires and forced her sense of duty to reassert itself. “I want to, Tara. More than anything. But I can’t right now. The Cloven are still out there. And I can’t protect you from them here.”

“I know. That’s part of the reason we love you,” she said with a final squeeze of Gilda’s talons to her chest before she let them go, leaving the young and sorely aroused eagless aware of what she was touching anew. “Please don’t die before we get the chance to finish this, girlfriend.”

“I swear by my Ancestors, I’ll kill every last Cloven before that happens,” she promised as she nibbled briefly at Tara’s ear, regretting that she couldn’t easily do the same for Chris and Marco. Taking a deep breath, she slowly stood up, letting the blanket hang over her as she stepped away before pulling it off her back with her beak and then whisking it over the three. When they were covered again, she gave Marco and Chris a lick as well; they both pawed the now-empty carpet for her missing form after she departed.

She gave them one last lingering look before she went off with Imlay, accepting a bowl of very bitter and bad-tasting coffee. But she didn’t cream or sweeten it, deciding not softening it would help her refocus quickly.

“Any contact with Arnau?” she asked him and the Marine ‘radioman’ who had set up his communication device again, only to receive a shake of the head.

“Maybe,” she said, glancing down to see that Chris’s portal device was plugged into a port of the larger Marine one, bearing an odd icon on its screen.

* * * * *

When she arrived, she found Fortrakt still there. He was staring off into the distance of the moonless and starless night; Luna’s sky shrouded by all the smoke in the air and only lit by the glow of distant fires. Probably more burning fields, she thought, wondering how long it would take the Kingdom to recover from the invasion even after the Cloven were beaten.

Probably going to have to lean heavily on Equestria to keep us fed for a while… She found the idea galling but admitted the ponies were the best and most reliable source of food on all Tellus there was.

Fortrakt greeted her with a nod. She had brought him a bowl of cool water along with some bread and fruit from the cart. They were eating that first instead of the steadholt supplies since the former had no preservation spells on them, and Nydia was still recovering from having to pry open the shelter spell, at the cost of her all-important stave and most of her magical strength.

“Centurion,” he greeted her somewhat shortly. “Beg to report: no Cloven activity. All quiet and the animals are still active. Human and griffon patrols are reporting in every half-hour. All present and accounted for. And no word from the Ravens.”

She stared at him, suddenly wondering if he was sick. “Weren’t you the one telling me to take chances when they were offered?”

“Weren’t you the one telling me to not act wantonly like the Kingdom was crumbling?” he responded instantly and in the exact same tone. Gilda sighed, remembering saying that to him earlier. But now, she didn’t feel the same conviction over it. Just embarrassment for sounding so certain and arrogant in light of all that had happened, or nearly had. “It’s not that I don’t want to, Centurion. I just don’t think it’s a good idea right now.”

“How unusually mature of you,” she mildly teased him to cover her own thoughts. “And that’s why I didn’t.”

“Right.” There was a pause, then Fortrakt turned to study her as he picked up the orange she’d brought him and began to peel it. “How about you? Is there anything bothering you, Centurion? And I hope you didn’t mind me throwing a blanket over you four. I only did it because I thought matters might turn… personal.” She could just see him beginning to blush.

“Well, they didn’t,” she said, even though it wasn’t exactly the truth, to which Fortrakt smiled at least slightly. “Though it still bothers me that I’m even tempted.”

“So why, by all our Ancestors, does it bother you?” he finally asked her as he popped a section of orange in his beak and licked the juice off his talons. “Wanting to be with them, I mean?”

This time, it was her turn to blush as she looked away. “Because I shouldn’t be having all these urges, cub—especially not now! And it doesn’t feel like I can just blame the cider for them,” she confided. “It’s unprofessional and unbecoming of a commander. If I can’t treat situations and the civilians under my care dispassionately, then maybe Tribune Narada shouldn’t have made me a Centurion.”

Fortrakt glanced at her for a moment before shaking his head. “Stop putting yourself down, Gilda. You’re doing fine.”

“Griffon soldiers who didn’t even get a chance to fight. They died doing their duties because I’m not good at doing mine,” she muttered.

Fortrakt stared at her with his green eyes, glinted orange by the distant fires. “They died because we stepped into not one, but two traps that nogriffon, not even the most experienced of Consuls or most vaunted of Tribunes, could have predicted,” he declared, his tone surprisingly hard.

“You’re just saying that,” Gilda replied. “I should have known it was a lure! And what about the battle itself? I could barely give even a single order. I fired exactly one bolt in the ground battle while Chris, Tara and Marco gunned down everything that came near! And then afterwards I cared less about learning about their guns than rutting them?” she said in disgust.

“They were brave, they were honorable, and they fought to defend not just you, but all of us. Crows know we wouldn’t even be alive without them! By all the Ancestors, Gilda, I’d think there was something more wrong with you if you didn’t want them after that!”

“Maybe you were vulnerable, but that doesn’t change the fact that he was there for you. That he proved himself worthy of you just by being there.”

Gilda was starting to fidget as she found his words ringing true and, despite all her mental efforts, her untoward urges suddenly seemed far more acceptable and eager to be indulged.

Still, she couldn’t let them go without a fight. “It’s not wrong to want three alien partners at once? And then an alien soldier?” she muttered; the more time that had passed since it happened, the more appalling she found it. “My mate and his two friends? And then I turn around a couple hours later and suddenly want Guerrero? By all the crows, what is wrong with me?” she clutched her head feathers in her talons, wanting to rip them out in frustration.

“Nothing,” he said with not a shred of hesitation or doubt as he sat beside her. “And I still think you should have taken the chance to be with them.”

Her head shot up. “And I still think you’re crazy for thinking any of that was somehow okay!” She couldn’t help but wonder if he had some odd fetish for public exposure or exhibitionism. Well, it would certainly explain why he got so turned on in the hallway that one time, right? Despite everything, the memory of teasing him brought a smile to her face; she even found herself wishing again that Rainbow Dash had been there to join her in the effort.

“I can’t help what I think.” He shrugged. “But what do I know? I’m just a stupid cub, remember?”

“Well, he was, around fifteen years ago. He didn’t join by choice, but by necessity. We had a bad stretch where we were facing frigid winters year after year,” he began.

“The growing seasons were stunted and our local farms were failing, forcing us to import more and more food from Equestria and elsewhere. Father wanted to hire a few Caleponians away from the Southern lands to try to make the most of our shortened growing seasons, but we didn’t have enough gems to do it. So he joined the Guard for extra money,” he recounted.

Gilda broke into a small smile; she had encountered a few such officers who had their positions not due to merit but nepotism along the way. “Naturally.”

“A blizzard? So your father was still in the North?” Gilda guessed.

Their determination to survive and live as nothing more than a loose confederation of pirate clans had earned them at least a grudging respect from the Kingdom, which had unofficially ceded a large area to them. The end result was griffons kept no formal contact with the Harpies, but parleys and the occasional battle had established at least an uneasy peace where both sides understood the other could be pushed too far.

“Exactly what you’d expect—at least from the Optio. She reacted immediately and did her best to form a defense quickly, trying to protect the senator,” Fortrakt recounted.

“The Optio? What about the—” she began to ask, only to stop as a pensive Fortrakt held up a wing.

“When she turned to ask for orders from the Centurion, he was unresponsive at first. They thought—or at least hoped—he was forming a plan. But as more arrows and cannonballs impacted, the Centurion began to scream about how they were about to die, and ordered everyone to flee for their lives before taking off through the air. He abandoned his post, and even his own mother.”

Gilda was shocked. Even for the entitled son of a Senator, that sounded like an uncommonly cowardly reaction for a griffon. “Was your father… taken?” she asked cautiously, to which Fortrakt shook his head.

“No. They drove off the attack, no thanks to that craven Centurion who had no business being in his post. But the damage was done. Father was wounded that day and was never the same after.” Fortrakt looked towards the horizon; for a moment, Gilda thought he was tearing up. “He took both a boulder to the wing and a poisoned dart to the wing muscles; between them, the healers were never quite able to fix it. He couldn’t fly straight, and he couldn’t hold formation afterwards.”

“She said she was sick of the cold. That she felt shamed by having a mate who couldn’t fly and having to rely on ponies to feed us. That there was nothing honorable about our family anymore, abandoning me and taking my younger sisters with her. By all my Ancestors, I hated her for that…” His tail lashed, then stilled.

Gilda didn’t know what to say. And I thought MY upbringing was hard just for being taken to Equestria and having a single friend dump me? She suddenly felt a deep sense of shame, but stayed silent, letting Fortrakt vent.

“For the longest time, I just stayed and helped out my sire. I did whatever was needed and learned as much of the family business as I could. It wasn’t easy, but eventually the hard winters relented and we more or less recovered. By that time, I was of age, and he told me it was time to stop supporting him—that I needed to stretch my wings and find my own way in life. So I chose to join the Guard. I wanted to redeem his honor and finish the term of service he couldn’t,” he concluded as Gilda could only listen in disbelief.

“So in other words, your way of cheering me up is to compare me to a crow-cursed coward?” Gilda paraphrased, the words spilling out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Thanks, Fortrakt. I feel better already.”

This time, it was her turn to feel chagrined. “You’re right. Thanks for the wingslap, Fortrakt. So tell me, when did you decide to grow up and become so sensible?”

“When we got attacked by the Cloven, and then found ourselves in a war for our race’s existence,” he replied instantly and without emotion. “And believe me, you’re not the only one with doubts about his abilities.”

She looked at him again. “I’d never have known it from how well you led your force in battle.”

He smiled and bared his throat at her. “Thanks, Centurion. May we live to be comfortable in our roles. And get to order other griffons about in far more mundane or pleasurable matters than these.”

He didn’t reply right away. “Maybe I am,” he said quietly at some length. “It’s a little hard not to be different after what I remembered.”

“What do you mean, ‘what you remembered?” she asked him in confusion.

“So did I,” she said softly. “My cubhood, my training, the month we spent with the humans—”

“You remember?” She stared at him in shock. “Why? What happened that night?” She was desperate to know even as she felt afraid of learning.

Despite her almost-frantic need to know more, she reminded herself to be wary. “Are you sure you didn’t just imagine it? That your mind wasn’t just clawing for some meaning from that night and filled in the blanks to provide it?” she had to ask.

Despite his words of comfort, Gilda felt faint. I get why I would have told Tara. But why would I have told HIM? Unless… “Please don’t tell anycreature else I knew her…” she asked weakly, trying hard not to follow her logic chain to its inevitable conclusion.

“Don’t worry. Because given how you cried on Tara’s shoulder, I know how painful it is for you just to think about her. I’m just glad I could—” he caught himself and snapped his beak shut.

“Could what?” She gave him an askance look.

“Do you really want to know?” he asked her, and something in his voice warned her she would not like the answer. “Because if I tell you, everything changes for you, too.”

She stared at him. “No,” she finally said, to which he only nodded.

“I won’t tell you. And by all the Ancestors, I have no idea how I’m going to tell them…” he muttered.

For the first time since they started talking, he smiled broadly, confirming her vision with a nod. “The movie was called Midway, about a massive naval battle during humanity’s Second World War. I loved it, and so did you—you even wrote a report to the Tribune on it in the middle of rutting! And you also really enjoyed the movie Marco showed us before that,” he told her with a wry grin and wink, his voice even acquiring a teasing tone for a moment that caused her to blush.

“Just trust me—you don’t. To suddenly remember it now but be the only one who does is a burden like you wouldn’t believe, Gilda. Ancestors above, I can’t get it out of my head! Even when I was holding Chris and Tara after the battle, I was remembering… well, holding them and it was all I could do not to get excited. Even though I knew it wasn’t the time!”

She stared at him again. “I don’t understand, cub. You encourage me to be with them but turn down your own chance to do so? Why don't you ‘trust yourself’?”

“I…” He looked flustered. “It’s hard to explain. And I’m not even sure you’d believe me. Ancestors, I’m not even sure I do,” he offered, which only confused her even more. “It’s just that… I’m afraid if we were together, it wouldn’t be by choice, but because of…” To Gilda’s exasperation, he again couldn’t finish his thought.

She nodded after a short pause. “You’ve done a good job with that, Decurion. So no problem,” she promised, wondering what he didn’t trust—that he wouldn’t get excited or that he wouldn’t outright try to rut them again. But why would that be an issue? He’s been encouraging me to do it, and I just offered him the opportunity but he wouldn’t take it! So I don’t get it—what is he afraid of?

She didn’t know, but she sensed she also wouldn’t get the answers from him until he was ready. “Thanks for telling me this, cub. I’m on watch now, so get some sleep.”

“You’re welcome. But Fortrakt…?”

“Yes?” He put the bowl down again so he could speak.

Her beak closed and opened repeatedly before she finally found the words. I don’t want to know, and yet… “I don’t need any details. But answer me one thing: You know about Rainbow, but I can’t imagine I would have told you about that unless we were… close,” she concluded with a cringe. “So please tell me… did we do anything together that night?”

From the way he hesitated and suddenly wouldn’t meet her eyes, she knew instantly what the answer was.

“We did? But why? How?” she asked him, feeling faint even as her body seemed to confirm her suspicion, her wings starting to splay and blood beginning to surge into her more sensual areas as it yet again recalled something she couldn’t. “You said it yourself—we don’t like each other like that! I don’t care how much cider I had, there’s no way in either the human or griffon underworlds I would have let you mount me!” she protested to herself as much as him, desperately trying to stop her wings from going erect.

“You didn’t. And that’s all I’ll say,” he said softly after a brief pause, his eyes flitting to her nervously before hurriedly averting themselves. She opened her beak again, only to stop at an upraised wing. “And before you tell me you don’t understand, just trust me—you’re not ready for the answer, Gilda. So by all our Ancestors, please don’t order me to give it.”

So she relented. “Fine, cub. I won’t. I don’t know what you’re hiding, and I’m not even sure I want to. All I ask is that if you tell one of us… then you tell all of us,” she instructed. “It’s not an order, but I think you owe it to us.”

Before Gilda could reply, a blue flare fired in the distance and there was a sudden rumbling sound as the ground beneath the steadholt plaza gave way.

“By the Ancestors…” Fortrakt exclaimed as he hurriedly came up beside her again to see what caused the commotion, pulling his crossbow and notching an arrow.

“Crows take it… retake command of the aerial element, Decurion! Focus fire on that hole with one decade while the other keeps watch! This could be a diversion!” she sensed instinctively.

That’s it? Way too easy… she decided, pulling her radio and calling into it. “Corporal? Report!” she ordered Imlay.

“Yes, sir,” Imlay replied. She wasn’t particularly worried about the Cloven opening up a hole directly under the Main Hall, since it was heavily enchanted against that to prevent the Diamond Dogs from raiding its storage areas.

“Gilda? We’re up! What can we do?” she heard Marco’s slightly anxious voice call into the radio.

“Got it,” he replied. “Go on out, Imlay! We got your back.”

“You’d better,” the Marine Corporal replied tersely as she heard him dispatch a fire team to the balcony to further cover the hole in the ground.

She got her chance to find out quickly as a second wave of Cloven erupted out of the hole; this one composed not of corrupted but of what she guessed were pure Cloven soldier forms. Even in the low light, her night vision enabled her to tell that they were exactly as they’d been described at the Gauntlet; grotesque imitations of griffons covered in a black-green shell with spikes where their wings should have been, bearing unnaturally long beaks and talons.

She first thought the Cloven were without eyes, until she saw the glint of two small black orbs sunken deep in their heads, only barely visible against their darker exterior.

But she only had a second to note it before they were once again cut down rapidly by a thunderous barrage of human bullets. They were aided by a mixture of incendiary and explosive bolts from Griffon crossbows, which both blew their limbs apart and consumed their bodies in fire.

They seemed to be aiming their efforts at the Marines in front of the main hall, but they couldn’t close to melee range where their superior strength and tail spikes could tell. One made it within ten paces, but between being peppered by dozens of Marine rounds and the three armor-piercing crossbow bolts struck through its neck, it could get no further. Dark green gore poured out of the holes in it freely as it took a drunken step forward before collapsing to the ground, bleeding out an ugly ichor.

“Hold your fire!” Imlay ordered at Giraldi’s request before her earth griffon Optio approached it, rearing up to finish it off with a thunderous smash of his warhammer.

Within seconds, it was done; they’d taken out another forty Cloven with no loss to themselves.

“Clear,” the Optio announced as he stepped back, still standing upright while wielding his warhammer with his wings flared for bipedal balance.

“Damn, he’s big…” she heard one of the male Marines mutter.

“Yeah, and he’s tall, too!” another rejoined, eliciting a snicker and a slight blush of the Optio’s cheeks.

“Cut the chatter. Clear here as well,” Imlay said as Giraldi went back to all fours. And that blue flare means there’s more inbound! Stavrou! Set up our fifty to cover the hole and the gate!” he further ordered as a shimmer of air announced the return of the Ravens, whose shrouded forms were quickly revealed by the cannon-mounted Marine blacklights.

“Wilco,” he replied obediently, pulling several gems out of his pack as the Ravens bared their throats and held their talons away from their body.

“Mantis!” Giraldi issued the challenge phrase while leveling his heavy crossbow.

“Monocle,” Ebon Umbreon instantly replied, causing weapons to be lowered. “Beg to report, Centurion.” He turned up to her with a salute, pulling out his radio so all would hear him.

She returned the gesture swiftly. “Proceed.”

“There are over two and a half centuries of Cloven ground soldiers coming along the road to the steadholt. They are a mixture of soldier forms, including some we have never seen before. Huge ones that were just flattening everything in their path and even taking down trees.”

“Great,” Gilda muttered, exchanging a look with Guerrero, who had crouched down to her left. “How long until they get here?”

Before the Shadow Decurion could answer, a buzzing sound made itself known. A dozen black Cloven flyers in roughly the form of giant razorbats alighted on buildings near the gate, inducing a few Marines and Guardsgriffons to point their weapons towards them as they hung upside-down from the eaves. However, they didn’t act aggressively, just staring at the griffons and humans fixedly for a few seconds before taking to the air once more, flying away.

“Curious,” Henderson stated as she set up a longer tube—was that one of those ‘marksman’ rifles Marco and Chris had talked about before?

“Try creepy as fuck,” Guerrero replied from beside her, his green-glowing goggles on along with the rest of the Marines. “I’m starting to feel like we’re in a horror movie now. At least Brennan should be happy.”

“Can it, Guerrero. So why did this lead group not wait to attack in concert with the main force?” Imlay wondered aloud over the radio.

“Agreed.” Gilda nodded back, watching as a group of three Marines set up what looked like a very large gun at the top of the stairwell leading to the Main Hall entrance. She also noticed a few gemstones on the ground, some transparent, while the rest were amber, sparkling unnaturally, indicating that their magic was unspent. Leaving them to their work, Gilda summoned down Fortrakt.

“Ancestors,” he muttered as he saw what they were setting up. “They have cannons that big?”

But before she could reply, an evil and ugly wail echoed through the steadholt; the air itself reverberating around them. Even the humans stopped whatever they were doing, looking around nervously, trying to discern a source for the sound that seemed to be coming from everywhere.

The Optio listened intently for a moment. “That sounds like an Elder Ram war cry,” he whispered, and Gilda couldn’t disagree—they had heard memory-taken recordings of the sound during Gauntlet training.

But she couldn’t consider the impossibility of an extinct race being present again as the next thing Gilda heard was wood creaking. Her eyes immediately went towards the gate as something slammed into it hard from the outside, strong enough to crack it despite Nydia’s spellcasting. And then again. And again. And again.

“Centurion? Something big is coming,” Fortrakt declared softly from his hover. “And there are more flyers on the way—scores of them!”

“I can see that,” Gilda replied tensely. “Don steel claws, Decurion, and keep your formations loose. Don’t let yourself get swarmed by those razorbat forms! Retreat to the upper level balconies if you have to.”

“By your command,” he said, launching himself into the air again.

“Reload, people!” Imlay ordered, and Gilda could hear a few snaps and clicks as half-empty quivers were swapped out for fresh ones. “Stavrou, please tell me you’re almost done?”

“Just a minute more, Corporal,” the Marine working on the big gun replied.

“We may not have a minute!” he warned as the wail was heard again, accompanied by a short snort before another slam hit the gate. That proved to be the final straw as the enchanted wooden barrier gave way, crashing to the ground.

Dust flew up, blocking Gilda’s view, but she nevertheless readied her crossbow, pulling the rod to notch it, and locked a bolt in place. Aiming it towards the gate, she noticed that she was not alone; the griffons and the Marines had the same idea, training their weapons towards the breach in their defenses.

“Fuck!” she heard a pained cry over the radio, but she couldn’t recognize the voice’s owner. “I’m hit!”

“Pull back inside! Now!” Imlay ordered as his Marines and Gilda’s griffons simply couldn’t knock the flyers down fast enough with steel claws and rifle fire, leaving Gilda eternally grateful the Cloven attack had been disrupted enough to prevent the flyers from striking in concert with the forces that had come out of the ground.

Which was not to say their situation was any less dire. “You can’t fight them all! Get to cover in the balconies, cub!” she called out frantically to Fortrakt, who was heavily engaged and didn’t immediately reply.

“Griffons! Clear the skies!” the Capricorn Adept shouted in Aeric using a magically boosted voice as he ran up to the rail while Gilda and the Marines looked back at him in shock. As she watched, a large ball of electricity formed between his long glowing horns, which he then launched into the air over the steadholt before collapsing with a cry of pain and what looked like fresh cracks in his barely-healed antlers.

They fell to the ground with a series of ugly thumps, smoke coming off their burned bodies as a shadowy figure began to emerge from the curtain of dust near the steadholt entrance. Little by little, it took a more solid form. It was huge, with a round body, reaching almost five ells in height, towering over human and griffon alike. The shape was familiar to Gilda, and she wondered for a moment where she had seen it. When it snorted strongly enough to blow the dust out of the way, revealing more details, she realized what she was looking at and the knowledge caused her guts to clench.

It was indeed an Elder Ram—or, at least, that was the closest thing she could associate the monstrous Cloven at the breach with, and she only knew their appearance from the old museum scrolls she’d seen and some training at the Gauntlet. Though believed extinct, Kingdom soldiers received instruction on fighting them in case they should ever reappear, given they were yet another foe her nation had once fought to the finish with, in the guise of the Gryphon Empire just two decades before the war with Equestria.

Lead by their immortal King Grogar, who was said to be a magic user on par with the pony Princesses themselves, they had set out to annihilate the griffon race and had very nearly done so, a hoard of rams overrunning half of Aresia before the strategic brilliance of then-Consul Salvio Gaius completely reversed the course of the war, winning a string of stunning victories over the evil king’s armies that ended with his power drained and sealed away.

Though normally quadrupedal, it stood upright like humans did on two thick black legs. The roundness of their forms was actually caused by the large arms on its side, curved and bowed. Instead of a griffon beak, it had a large snout with multiple small holes for a nose, expressionless eyes, and the two enormous back-curled horns on top of its head. It opened its mouth, revealing jagged teeth, and roared in a deafening volume that seemed to stop everyone in their tracks.

“Holy fucking shit,” a pale Guerrero muttered from beside her while Gilda watched the male Ibex fall to his knees in exhaustion and pain.

He… he SAVED us? she thought in disbelief as she turned her attention from the downed buck onto the new intruder.

“Marines, take it down!” Imlay ordered.

Cracks of thunder echoed in the air once more as the human rifles began to work on bringing death and destruction. However, unlike the Corrupted grass lions or even the earlier soldier forms, the huge Cloven took the brunt of their attacks without pause. Green blood and gore spurted out of its cracked chitin, but it still moved inexorably forward, using its magically-infused arms to shield its body from the bullets.

Gilda shot her bolt out as well. She was joined by more thrums of bass as the Ravens added their repeaters to the defense. But to her dismay, most of it got deflected with only a few stray projectiles penetrating the thick chitin, and not enough to do any real damage.

Gilda wanted to protest. While this was said to have been a good tactic against the Elder Rams, crippling or at least limiting their ability to charge, she wasn’t so sure it was going to work this time. The Rams usually overwhelmed enemy forces by running right through them, using the powerful personal shield their horns could project to harden their bodies and protect themselves. The Cloven, however, while taking the form of the Elder Rams, had thickened the legs. That could be the reason why it hadn’t run up to them?

Still, she had no other ideas. Hoping that Giraldi was on to something, she pulled on her notching bar thrice, watching her string stretch painfully taut before setting a bolt in place. With careful aim, making sure she was in a steady firing position, she unleashed one of the many bolts shooting out towards the Cloven’s left leg. Unbelievably, the tactic seemed to work as the bursting bolts did penetrate the thick and magically-reinforced chitin as more green blood poured out. But her heart sank when the Cloven creation didn’t seem to notice the damage, or even slow down.

“Everyone! Get down!”

When the Marines obeyed instantly, diving for whatever cover they could, she relayed the order in Aeric to Fortrakt’s group. “Everycreature, down and cover your ears!”

“Down!” Giraldi shouted in Aeric as well.

Coughing from the wave of debris the explosion had kicked up and rained down on them, Gilda’s senses returned to find her head somehow buried in the male mountain goat’s groin, who groaned beneath her. He said something inaudible as she found herself in close contact with Ibexian attributes she never dreamt she would; her nose suddenly swimming in his exotic male musk. Worse, she felt hot breath washing over her and realized her own hindquarters had somehow ended up right over his head.

“Wow,” Fortrakt declared from somewhere nearby as the Ibex muttered something in his native tongue. “Ancestors, wow! Did you see that, Centur—” he trailed off as she sensed him glancing back and gaping, then hastily looking away.

Crows take it… how does this keep HAPPENING? “Starshina… are you hurt?” she asked as she pushed back from him, trying to cover up where her face had been and her thoughts had impossibly gone. But he only groaned in response, not seeming to notice their compromising position, though she looked up to see the female Raven beside her was staring down at them and had acquired a flush.

“Deafened… antlers cracked… don’t make me cast that again…” he begged her in Aeric before he passed out beneath her.

Blushing hard and praying nocreature had noticed other than Fortrakt and the silent eagless, she quickly stood to all fours and crept back toward the edge of the balcony, leaving the Ibex lying there guarded by the gray-dyed Raven female. The dust slowly settled down, revealing a lump of black and green, unmoving and undoubtedly dead.

“How many of those do you have?” she asked loudly.

“Maybe you should get more?” Fortrakt offered nervously.

Imlay was about to reply when Stavrou’s voice was heard. “Corporal Imlay! The fifty is up and ready!”

“Good work, Marine. Belay that last, Jamal! Save your grenades and let’s see if we can give these big guys a few extra breathing holes.”

“Understood, Corporal!” Jamal returned the ‘grenade’ he’d been about to load to his vest.

A second later, she felt magic flaring out. As she watched, a dozen green metallic boxes materialized on the ground in front of the Corporal.

“What are those?” Fortrakt asked her.

“Storage Gems,” Gilda replied automatically. “I know they’re expensive, but you should know about them.”

“Ma wha—?”

And to judge from the Cloven, it hit like one too.

There were no additional wails, or even a cry of victory from the Marines. Gilda fell silent as well, feeling pensive at the death brought forth by the massive gun, and a look around her showed she wasn’t alone—the Auxilias of her command were likewise shocked anew by what the ‘heavier’ human weapon could do, staring at it in a mixture of wonder and wariness.

She wasn’t sure where that thought came from until she smelled male excitement in the air; she turned to see her former junior partner was very openly and visibly aroused. “By all our Ancestors, I want to fire one of those cannons,” he whispered reverently from a hover beside her, seemingly unaware of his state.

“I’d never have guessed,” she said dryly, unable not to notice his impressive stature given it hung but a body length away from her, leaving her wondering if she or Tara had taken it before. If we did, how did it even FIT? “Because it looks like you’re about to fire your own cannon, cub.”

Though she might have reprimanded him for the untoward display, Gilda only shook her head, unable to really fault him given she wasn’t sure if she was more aroused by or afraid of the gun’s enormous destructive potential herself. So this means humans actually use such horrifically powerful weapons on each other?

But she had little time to consider the question as she looked towards the dead Cloven Rams, then towards the sky, seeing still more Cloven flyers orbiting the steadholt at a safe distance while remembering that there were another two and a half centuries of Cloven soldiers on the way.

“Save it, Decurion. This is not the time, so sheath your spear and pray to the Ancestors they have plenty more of those bullets,” she told Fortrakt sharply, “because crows know this is only the beginning of the battle…” her voice trailed off as she heard rapid human footfalls up the stairs behind her.

“Gilda!” Chris’s voice called out to her frantically, though he briefly gaped at the collapsed Ibex male. “Gilda!”

She rounded on him hard. “Crows take it… what are you doing up here, Chris? I told you three to stay downstairs!”

Though Gilda had no idea what that meant, the Marines seemed to. “A text? How? And from whom?” Guerrero asked in disbelief.

“That’s just it!” Chris said excitedly. “I have no idea how she managed it, but the sender is showing up in my contact list… as Starlight Glimmer!”

26: Battle of Bale - Part 2

“A text? How? And from whom?” Guerrero asked Chris in disbelief.

“That’s just it!” the latter replied excitedly. “I have no idea how she managed it, but the sender is showing up in my contact list… as Starlight Glimmer!”

Gilda only understood about half of what Chris had said. Text? Contact list? She noted at least two more unfamiliar human terms to add to her ever-growing catalog of them—but whatever he meant, the surprised Marines seemed to comprehend it instantly.

“Starlight Glimmer? You mean the personal student of Princess Twilight?” Henderson asked, to which Chris nodded eagerly.

“I remember her. She was really friendly and curious. Liked to hang out with us, too. We called her Glim-Glam,” Guerrero noted, taking advantage of the lull in action to release his quiver and swap in a new one, ratcheting the weapon to ensure a fresh ‘bullet’ was loaded before he returned the rifle to a ready position.

“Well, she was really friendly and curious with us, too. In fact, she liaised with—wait. Glim-Glam?” Chris gave him an odd look. “And, uh… dare I ask what you guys nicknamed Princess Twilight?”

“‘Twi-Fi’,” Henderson’s entire team chorused with chuckles, earning a chortle from Chris while leaving Gilda unsure if she was more amazed or appalled that they could joke at a time like this.

“And never mind what we nicknamed Celestia and Luna. So how the fuck did Glim-Glam text you?” Guerrero asked.

“No idea! But she did! Just look!” Chris turned his small portal device around to face them, on which Gilda saw what looked like a profile picture of a grinning pink-and-purple unicorn with text beside it.

Chris! I’ve been trying to reach each of you! We just heard the Kingdom was under attack by something called the Cloven, but we’ve lost contact with Arnau and the Equestrian Embassy! All cross-ocean avenues of communication are out as well! Are you guys okay? Where are you? Find a griffon mage or unicorn, and you can reply if you hit send right after they cast this telepathy spell! Please reply soon! I’m worried! We’re going to send help, but it will take some time! Until then, stay safe!

Following the text was a series of arcane symbols Gilda had no idea how to translate, but she presumed another unicorn or Magus could make sense of it.

“Shit, dude…”Guerrero shook his head. “You three made some friends in high places!”

“Right! So… can we reply to her? She’s a really strong mage and she might be able to help us! Can Nydia do the spell?” Chris asked hopefully, to which Gilda summoned her to the balcony. She arrived with a few flaps of her wings just seconds later.

“Well, Decanus? Can you cast it?” Gilda prompted after the Magus had been given a chance to study the strange text, trying not to voice the thought that she could see no possible help the ponies could send short of dispatching the Alicorn Princesses themselves. And who could say if even they could fight effectively, given Celestia had been so easily felled by a Changeling Queen?

Nydia studied the strange symbols, only to shake her head. “No. Or at least, not now.”

“Why not? Can’t you read it?” Chris went crestfallen.

“I can read it just fine. But it’s a composite spell, crossing telepathy with a modified form of reverse item summoning—basically, instead of sending an item, it sends your very thoughts to a remote person or object which can presumably receive it. By the Ancestors, whoever invented this incantation was either completely mad or utterly brilliant considering how badly it could have gone wrong.”

“Mad but brilliant…” Chris chuckled. “Given some of the crazier stuff she said she’s done, that’s Starlight, all right.”

“I’ll, uh, take your word for it. But right now, I don’t have the power to cast it, and I don’t dare try anything complex like that until I’ve gotten more familiar with this stave,” she explained in defeat. “It’s possible the Ibex could.”

“It’ll have to wait anyway…” Henderson warned, swapping her standard rifle for a bigger one; she shouldered the former while looking through the oversized spyglass mounted to the top of the latter. “I’ve got eyes on a large force of Cloven inbound along the highway!”

“That would be the main force we saw earlier,” Ebon Umbreon noted over the radio; Gilda could well-imagine how confused he was at the discussion. “We counted two and a half centuries of Cloven soldier forms, of at least two types.”

“How far out are they?” a calm Corporal Imlay asked, still sounding all business and leaving Gilda wondering if he ever got excited or anxious.

“According to my rangefinder, a klick and closing quick,” the female Lance Corporal pronounced grimly. Her words left Gilda wondering what she meant by ‘click’; her eagle eyes could tell the Cloven were a little less than half a league out even in the dark of the night.

“He’s right; there’s at least two hundred fifty of them. ETA is about three minutes. They’re in range of my EMR. Want me to start whittling them down, Corporal?” she asked, loading her weapon with what looked like a shorter but thicker quiver. She then pulled free two stilts from near the tip of the tube for it to sit on, which Gilda guessed was to give the weapon stability as she propped it on the end of the low stone rail. “I’ve already got the first in my sights.”

“Then by all means, start dropping them, and let your team join in as they get closer. McLain! You said you were a good shot at distance? Here’s your chance to prove it!” Imlay further invited. “Just hope you have a low-light sight.”

Chris broke out in a huge grin as he immediately pulled his ‘Nagant’ free, pocketing his portal device again. “Sir! Yes sir! And I do.”

“Good. Get that old Russian rifle set up and go to town. Just don’t call me sir. I work for a living!” he said in a half-humorous tone, earning some snickers from the other humans. “Marines! Let’s roll out a very red carpet for our latest guests! Plant a circle of Claymores around the main hall. Daisy chain them into three groups and be bloody quick about it!”

“Claymores?” Fortrakt’s voice asked from the Crow’s nest at the top of the main building tower as the Marines broke into renewed activity, producing and tossing half a dozen more storage gems on the ground. “What’s that?”

“It’s a type of olden Equestrian sword, used mostly by the Shetlandian ponies in ancient times,” Giraldi replied in some bemusement. “They’re large and heavy, only able to be wielded by the most powerful earth ponies. Even I would have trouble with one.”

“It’s not a sword. It’s a directional mine,” Imlay replied as Gilda winced from the sound of close-range rifle fire from Henderson and Chris; the crack of their twin guns even louder than the standard Marine weapons. “I don’t have time to explain, but you’ll see shortly.”

A groan behind her brought her attention back to the Ibex. “Please… sound hurts… no more…” he pleaded in Aeric. Gilda grimaced as she realized his large ears probably made him more susceptible to the piercing sounds of human guns than griffon ones, so she ordered Spear Jade Jumentum to come up and carry him back below.

“Three down,” Henderson said as she cycled for another shot. “How you doing, Mister McLain?”

“Just one… by accident.” He grimaced as he yanked his bolt back to eject a spent cylinder. “I hit the Cloven in front of the one I was aiming at. Never fired at this range before!”

“Remember that your bullets will drop over distance. Use the horizontal lines on your scope sight below the main crosshairs to adjust your aim point—that’s what they’re for! Range now 800 meters!”

“Right. I just have to remember—” Chris’s reply was drowned out as Henderson fired again.

“Centurion! With respect, we could do more damage at close range with our repeaters,” Ebon Umbreon’s voice broke in. “The efficacy of human cannons is impressive at that range, but it’s still just a few pinpricks to the overall force.”

Gilda’s response was instant. “Denied! Do not engage in combat away from the steadholt, Shadow Decurion. We don’t know their full capabilities yet, and the last thing we need is for one of you to be slain and reanimated,” she replied, impressing herself that she could make that observation even as she shivered at the thought of corrupted Ravens.

“Stealth yourselves and observe the main force from at least a quarter league to the side to keep out of the line of human fire. Call out any movement or notable activity you observe. Decurion Gletcher! Are there any more Cloven flyers present?” She called up to Fortrakt next.

“None that we can see!” he said after a brief pause. “Do you wish us to take flight? We might be able to pepper them with explosive bolts as they get closer!” he offered eagerly.

“Don’t,” Imlay said immediately before Gilda could. “That’ll put them in the line of rifle fire! And once the Cloven close to within 400 meters—that’s around a fifth of a league by your reckoning—the rest of Henderson’s team will start shooting as well.”

“700 meters! Four down!” Henderson announced.

“Make that six!” Chris said excitedly as he slammed home another ‘stripper clip’ into the top port of his weapon, loading five fresh rounds. “I got another!”

“Great. Only two hundred forty-four to go…” Guerrero muttered as he laid down and propped his weapon on the rail beside Henderson, readying to open up with it in turn as the Cloven got closer.

“Fuck… they’re in a full sprint now!” Chris suddenly warned as he fired again, starting to sound nervous. “Holy shit. That’s a banzai charge if I’ve ever seen one…”

“He’s right. Estimate forty seconds to arrival,” Henderson said far more calmly, then fired again. “They’re aiming for the front gate. Wait—check that! They’re fanning out to circle the steadholt!”

“Huh? What the hell are they doing?” Chris asked as he fired again; Gilda instantly guessed from his curse that he had missed. “Damn it, that lateral movement is throwing me off…”

“Steady, Mister McLain. You’re doing fine. Try to lead them by about half a body length at this distance, then shorten it as they get closer.” She fired again. “Eight down.”

“Nine down!” Chris corrected after his rifle boomed and he yanked back on the bolt again, ejecting another empty cylinder. “Think I’m getting the hang of this…”

“They’re all circling away from the entrance.” Ebon Umbreon observed from overhead. “And they’re splitting into multiple groups. I think they’re going to try to create additional breaches in the wall out of the line of fire.”

“Because they’re not stupid enough to charge through the main gate and run right into a kill zone covered by a fifty-cal. Marines! You’ve got twenty seconds to complete claymore emplacement!” Imlay warned. “Arm them and then fall back to the Main Hall! Trigger the mines only on my command!”

A cacophony of harried acknowledgements came back as the Marines rushed their tasks to completion, scurrying around quickly on the ground below. Gilda wasn’t entirely certain what they were doing, sticking odd curved rectangular boxes into the ground with wires trailing out the back, which they then somehow joined together, but her gold eagle eyes were just able to pick out the text on one before it was turned around to face the curved surface outwards, away from the building:

‘Front towards enemy?’ she repeated the words to herself, which were written in all capital letters. So by ‘directional’, they mean it’s only lethal in one direction? she guessed, almost regretting that she was no longer writing intelligence reports for Tribune Narada and Ambassador Strenus.

“Centurion. Orders?” Fortrakt prompted from the top of the tower. “They’re getting awfully close…” His words were punctuated by the other Marines of Henderson’s fire team opening up as the charging Cloven got in range of their standard rifles.

“Wait until they’re inside the compound and the Marine ‘mines’ have done their damage. Then take flight with your two decades and rain down death from above! You too, Shadow Decurion! That will be the time to use your repeaters.”

“By your command!” they both shouted before Imlay broke in again.

“I strongly suggest your soldiers and the Ravens concentrate on one breaching group at a time, wiping it out quickly before focusing on the rest,” the human Corporal advised. “We’ll hold off the remainder and then shift our forces to concentrate on the other groups in turn.”

“Approved. Griffons! Load explosive bolts!” she ordered, noting she had but four left after the earlier engagement, having already pumped an equal number into the Cloven Rams and the hole the Diamond Dogs had dug into the compound. The latter had been sealed by a still-weak Nydia, who had remotely detonated a series of large explosive gems the Ravens dumped into the shaft to collapse it; she’d thrown a seal spell on top of it to make sure it couldn’t be reopened without Magus help.

It wasn’t that they didn’t have extra arrows available, either. They’d collected the quivers of her fallen soldiers and the corrupted Cloven they’d encountered after the first battle around the cart, which they were now keeping inside of it. But she couldn’t go back for a reload then, and neither could her soldiers. “Are you fine on crossbow bolt supply, Shadow Decurion?” she then asked the Raven leader.

“We are. We have dozens more loaded repeater drums in storage gems. But our supply is not inexhaustible,” Ebon Umbreon warned with the sound of a fresh drum being slammed home into his weapon. “We won’t be able to keep this up forever.”

“Neither can we, but we’re fine for now. If they think we’re going to run out of ammo anytime soon, they’re going to be waiting a while.” Gilda could hear Imlay’s thin smile right over the radio despite the rifle fire around her, leaving her somewhat amazed that she’d already learned to mentally block out all the sounds of the human guns. “The question remains: what are they doing this time?” he wondered aloud as his Marines stabbed a few final ‘mines’ into the ground and rushed back to the main hall.

“They’ve split into three groups!” Ebon Umbreon reported from where he orbited the steadholt invisibly just below the topmost level of the tower; he couldn’t go any higher without potentially triggering the lightning field enchantment still emplaced in the air above them. “They’re spacing them at equal distance around the perimeter, away from the opening.”

“Then they’re trying to hit us from multiple directions at once. But how will they get over the wall?” Giraldi wondered in turn. “Recommend bringing Spear Jumentum outside, Centurion. Our heavier explosive arrows will be useful against concentrations of Cloven.”

She thought about that for only a second before nodding. “Agreed. Marco? Send Spear Jumentum outside and tell her to join Giraldi at the Hall’s front entrance.”

She didn’t get a response before the two human rifles fired again. “The group I’m targeting is turning inbound!” Henderson warned as she switched out a quiver on her larger weapon. “Eleven down. Estimate sixty-five remaining! They’re at two hundred meters and closing!”

“So is mine!” Chris replied in tense tones as he yet again loaded a fresh stripper clip. “Five down…” he added in what she took to be a slightly disgusted tone at his lesser kill count.

“Steady…” Gilda called out, feeling her heart start to race and her senses heighten as she mentally readied to enter combat again. She flared her wings for takeoff, intending to observe the battle from above. She then made a quick count of their forces and found she didn’t like their odds.

Each ‘fire team’ of four Marines matched against a single group of sixty Cloven? However they’re going to climb the wall, they could reach the main hall in seconds after that, even counting the losses they’ll take from whatever those curved boxes are. And once they do… she clenched her beak at the idea of the brutally strong spike-winged and black-armored beasts mixing it up with the Marines or even her griffons at close range.

She then closed her eyes in prayer as she reached her next decision, bringing the human radio to her beak. “Chief! Marco! Tara! Come outside and join the Marines! The Cloven are going to hit us from three directions! I need you to brace the defense!”

It was two seconds before she heard a reply. “Sigurado ka? You really mean it, Gilds?” Marco’s voice was both excited and fearful; Gilda wasn’t sure he realized he’d lapsed briefly into his native language, which near as she could tell, was the first she knew of that didn’t seem to have a Tellusian equivalent.

“You heard her! Now move, Lakan!” Chief Jacobs replied over the radio before she could. “You and Miss Fields join Jamal’s fire team to the back left of the entrance! I’ll join Brennan’s to the right! If you want to be Marines, then start acting like it! So obey orders and go get some!”

“Sir, yes sir!” she heard Marco and Tara chorus, leaving her praying again she hadn’t just ordered them to their deaths.

“Centurion…”She then heard Fortrakt’s very unhappy voice above her.

“Save it!” she snapped, her beak tight. “I don’t like it either, but right now we need every human rifle we have on the front lines! They are not your problem, the Cloven are! So carry out your orders, Decurion! After the Cloven enter the compound and the Marines use their ‘claymores’, take flight! Concentrate on each Cloven cluster in turn and remember to stay below the area field enchantment! Rain death on those crow-cursed creatures from above! Watch out for flyers and by all our Ancestors, stay out of the line of Marine cannon fire!”

“By your command!” he responded instantly, issuing orders in the background as Chris shouted that he could no longer see the Cloven, which were now close enough that they were below the level of the steadholt wall.

“Recommend you attack the largest group, Decurion Gletscher, approaching from the east,” Ebon Umbreon suggested. “First Scimitar Occulta Bellator and I will concentrate on the medium-sized northwest element. Centurion, I respectfully request the assistance of Second Scimitar Serpens Oculis in this battle. Please release her from her guard duties. The three of us can reduce that formation of Cloven quickly.”

Gilda was given pause, not by the request, but by it being the first time she’d heard the names and ranks of the other two Ravens. Interesting time to say them! she thought, but Giraldi’s voice then sounded over the radio.

“And leave the Ibex unguarded, Shadow Decurion?” he beat her to the question.

“They’re not going anywhere with those cracked antlers, Optio, and there’s nowhere for them to run anyway. If they want to live, they have to stay here. We have seconds left before the Cloven reach the wall. I need her now!” he requested again, a little more urgently.

Gilda only had to consider it for a second before replying. “Granted. Get out here, Second Scimitar!” she called into the radio, though instead of receiving a voice reply, she heard two squelches in response from the mute eagless—her signal for ‘yes’—leaving Gilda wondering again why she didn’t talk. “Leave the Ibex behind and rejoin your Fuga!” She didn’t actually have any idea if the Ravens used the same term for their teams.

No acknowledgement was heard this time before the third Raven eagless flew up the stairs and burst out the doorway behind her. Gilda only briefly glimpsed her soaring into the skies before she engaged her stealth spell; the last thing she saw of her was the grey-dyed female banking left to join her comrades while pulling her crossbow free of its mount.

Gilda then nodded. “Everycreature—I’m taking flight to observe the battle from above! Mind your targets and do not shoot each other! Griffons—let the Marines make the first strike! Once they do, descend and wipe these evil creatures out!” she proclaimed vehemently, her steel claws flexing against the crossbow they held.

A cheer came up as the call came out from First Scimitar Bellator this time that the Cloven had reached the wall.

* * * * *

The entire mixed human/griffon force held their breath as nothing happened except for an odd scrappling sound that had no obvious source. The walls themselves did not move, nor show any sign of being forced or damaged.

“What the fuck are they doing?” Guerrero muttered over the crackling radio as the Ravens returned inside the walls and Henderson’s team collected into a single unit again, targeting the southwest force; Gilda planned to use them as a mobile Marine reserve, rushing them around the balcony periphery to focus fire wherever they were needed. “Are they tunneling under?”

As she watched, Henderson switched back to her standard gun, stowing her ‘Enhanced Marksman Rifle’ in its storage gem. Gilda was starting to understand that the human weapons tended to be useful at one set of distances but not another; she could well imagine the female Marine’s long-range weapon was much more unwieldy and awkward to use at close range.

Ancestors, there’s so much we still don’t know about these ‘firearms’ of theirs, she thought idly as she circled the tower about two-thirds up. Never dreamt that personal cannons could come in so many different types, shapes and sizes and have so much nuance! She could well imagine the education that Tribune Narada and the griffons in Arnau had already received on them; she just wished she could have seen the look on the Tribune’s face when she saw them in action for the first time.

“I’m not sure. We can’t see them. Permission to make a quick look outside the compound, Centurion?” Ebon Umbreon requested, his voice tense.

“Granted. But stay stealthed and do not let them know you’re there!” she reminded him, probably pointlessly—they knew their craft far better than her, after all.

“By your command,” he said quietly, then fell silent for the next ten seconds until she heard him swear violently. “Crows take it; they’ve played us for fools! Centurion, shift your forces south! They’re concentrating in that direction out of view from the inside, forming a large ramp with their very bodies! They’ll come over the top of the wall in seconds!”

His words were followed by a series of severe griffon and human oaths. There were external buildings, including a dozen stores and warehouses inside the wall in that direction, meaning the Cloven would be able to use them as cover and means to close on the main hall that the front entrance didn’t have. It also meant that the heavy ‘fifty’ the humans had used to defeat the ram-like Cloven was faced uselessly away.

“All Fire Teams! Shift south! Stavrou and Jenkins! Continue covering the main entrance with the fifty and keep your fingers on your claymore trigger! We don’t know what other surprises or forces they may have.” Imlay ordered before Gilda could add her own instructions.

“Centurion! Should I attack them on the outside? Try to whittle their numbers down?” Fortrakt asked as the two Marines acknowledged their instructions.

“No!” she shouted. “You’ve got no cover out there and could get swarmed by fliers again where we can’t help you! We also don’t know what defenses their ground forces have! Stay close and wait until they’re in the open ground in front of the Hall to attack! Shadow Decurion! By my order, stealth yourself and strike! Hit that crow-cursed ramp they’re building and then return to the Main Hall before they can target you! Do what you can to buy us time to redeploy!”

“By your command!” he replied as the first Cloven crested the wall and began to pour into the compound; at least twenty made it in before there were a series of firecracker-like detonations punctuated by even louder booms and a light show. They were accompanied by the sound of bursting repeater bolts and larger explosive gems from their pouches; Gilda couldn’t see the carnage that they caused on the other side of the wall, but the flow of Cloven stopped as the top of the living ramp disappeared from view.

But her sense of triumph was short lived as retaliation swiftly followed, taking the form of a series of glowing spikes that shot outwards and upwards in every direction from behind the barrier. She wasn’t sure of their origin until she cataloged yet another new Cloven type already in the courtyard; this one apparently modeled after a Porkupike—grounded boars with spikes on their backs that were the bane of farmers everywhere, given they didn’t mind at all digging up crops to get at succulent roots.

Physically powerful, armed with tusks and very ornery, they could fire their spikes a short distance to discourage pursuit or even kill at close range. But the Cloven appeared to have improved their design and lethality by entire wingspans, given the hail of hot spikes she saw erupting reminded her instantly of the Midway movie Fortrakt had confirmed she watched.

“I’m hit!” She heard the cry of the more talkative Raven eagless along with the first bursts of rifle fire from the Marines, targeting the few that had already made it in; lacking numbers they were slain in short order. She couldn’t hear any more words over the radio, but saw the First Scimitar being escorted away by Ebon Umbreon covered by the mute Raven female—the latter’s name was Serpens Oculis, if she recalled correctly. They disengaged their stealth spells to become visible again as they got near; Occulta Bellator had two ugly spikes embedded in her body that had even penetrated whatever her odd armor was.

“Centurion! Beg to report! We took out around thirty of them and collapsed the ramp. But they’re rebuilding it quickly and those spiked boar-like creatures are not to be trifled with! Worse, they’re heavily armored! Our repeaters are not effective against their forms!” he admitted in dismay.

Though tempted to go to them to help the wounded eagless inside, Gilda stayed put, not wanting to lose sight of the greater battle she was supposed to be commanding. “Noted. Get her to safety! Then get back out and keep watch to the north! Make sure they’re not sneaking in another force on us!” she told them, starting to get nervous about the open gate as the Cloven crested the wall again.

But there was no sign of an attack from that sector; the Cloven seemed to have thrown everything they had into the southern strike. “Marines! When you see those porcupine pigs, kill them!” Imlay ordered.

“Fine with me!” Brennan said; Gilda could pick out the continuous fire of his bulky gun over the three round-bursts of the other Marine weapons and single cracks of Marco’s rifle. “Be just like hunting hogs in the bayou backcountry of home…”

“Jeez, could you get any more fucking redneck, Brennan?” Marco asked as they continued to fire; Gilda noted that if he was cracking jokes in battle, he’d adjusted to combat quickly.

Gilda could all but hear Brennan smirk. “Mais… Ah reckon we ate cottonmouths, chauoi, hogs ‘n gators growin’ up. Mah Mamere made ‘em with a little file, patate ‘n may-nez. And them’s good eatin’!” he answered in an odd exaggerated accent vaguely reminiscent of her one visit to Neigh Orleans in Equestria, pausing only briefly as his gun thundered again and the last of the Cloven fell. “That answer your question, Flip-boy? Or should I break out my back-holstered violin?”

“You could,” Marco agreed weakly to a few laughs as the Marine rifles fell silent for lack of targets. Outside the wall, there was now a continuous hail of upward firing spikes that were clearly designed to deter any more sneak attacks. “Clear!”

“But not for long…” Imlay warned. “Centurion! Recommend a larger force to watch the north. I’m nervous about the open door and hole. Can the Ravens and Decanus Nydia cover it?” he asked as the Cloven crested the wall again and this time began to flood in unhindered. “Marines! Stand by to detonate mines on my command!”

Gilda considered the question. Even from the air, she couldn’t see any additional Cloven force in that direction, and the hole the initial attack had come through was sealed. But that didn’t preclude them from opening a new one, and she was starting to experience the same tingle of danger she had before the initial ambush at the cart.

So this time she trusted her instincts, even if she didn’t yet know their source. “Ravens! Optio! Spear Jumentum! Decanus Nydia! Cover the front of the Main Hall! Decurion Gletscher! Send one of your two decades there, now!”

She didn’t get acknowledgements back before the Marine rifles opened up again on the invading Cloven, aided by the civilian ones. But this time, there was return fire as the Porkupike-like creatures simply stood on their forelegs to bear their armored backs so they could launch their spikes like slower but heavier rifle bullets; large enough that they could be seen in flight and she could even pick out a slight arc to their paths across the short distance of the compound. The heavy impacts of their red-hot projectiles caused the Marines to flinch away in places, allowing the charge of standard soldier forms to creep closer.

“Fuck!” she heard a Marine cry out as the first wave of attacking Cloven were cut down but more and more were coming in. “I’m hit! Corpsman!” a Marine she recognized as Anderson called for Chief Jacobs.

“Suck it up, Anderson! I can’t spare a rifle now. Keep firing, Chief,” Imlay ordered coldly. “Stand by on the mines. Just let them get as close as possible…”

She trusted his judgment enough not to overrule him over whatever the ‘mines’ were, though she was starting to get the impression that they would be used as roughly the equivalent of ‘scattershot’ bolts from storm clouds that pegasi could create, used to devastate charging infantry at close range—she’d seen them demonstrated at reenactments of old Equestrian Aerial Corps tactics in Cloudsdale.

As the Marine Corporal seemed to have the southern battle in wing, she shifted her attention to the north, deciding she’d help cover it herself. There was still nothing there that she could see, and yet the tingle of danger she sensed only grew stronger and her already racing heart was starting to speed up further; her pupils dilating as she swore she kept sensing movement out of the corner of her eyes.

But no matter where she turned her head, she saw nothing except an empty plaza, nor was there anything she could hear except for the rifle cracks to the rear aided by the occasional distinctive pop of an explosive bolt fired into the Cloven ranks. And yet… she squinted hard at a spot on the ground as a depleted decade of seven sky griffons joined her in the air.

“Centurion. Orders?” the decade leader asked as Giraldi and Spear Jumentum appeared at the front door, crossbows drawn.

She didn’t reply right away as a ring of pink appeared at the edges of her vision. But instead of simply arousing her as it had before, its other effects came into play as it heightened all her senses, including her vision and magical awareness. In that moment, she realized two things:

First, there was a faint trace of magic in the air of Ibexian origin, coming from the courtyard.

And second, there were also a series of sourceless hoof and paw prints creeping forward, only fifty paces from the Main Hall, nearly to the line of boxes the Marines had emplaced.

Her guts clenched as she raised the radio. “Stavrou! Whatever your ‘claymores’ do, use them! Now!” she allowed a moment of panic to enter her voice.

“What? Why?”

“JUST DO IT!” she screamed into the human device as Stavrou and his partner—as well as the sky griffon decade around her—looked up at her in confusion just as more hoofsteps started to appear in rapid succession on the ground below. Their source was now in a full charge and they would be on the uncomprehending pair of humans within seconds; their big gun lying silent before them.

And then there was a series of sharp explosions and equally deafening BOOMS that were followed by a wave of sheer death emanating from the curved boxes. It manifested itself as a visible outward-propagating shock wave that merely slapped her in the face but shredded the fore of the shrouded force. The source of the stealth spells went down to reveal at least fifty Cloven soldiers and an equal number of corrupted, including three Ibex, with half their force already dead or wounded.

“Fuuuuuuck!” She heard Stavrou and his partner exclaim, hurriedly opening up with their ‘fifty’ again as Giraldi and Spear Jumentum likewise shook off their shock at the horrifically powerful and evil human weapon, which had mowed the first several ranks of Cloven down like a scythe.

She still didn’t know what the human ‘mines’ were or how they worked, but judging by the fact that even Cloven further back were staggered, peppered with what looked like an array of small holes, she guessed the ‘mines’ somehow fired hundreds of cannonballs horizontally at once, producing devastating effects at close range.

She couldn’t dwell on it then, however. “Stealthed force at the north gate! Wipe them out!” she ordered as a pair of intact porkupike forms at the rear reared up to bring their armored backs to bear and started launching spikes, while the two uninjured Ravens reappeared and began opening up on the charging formations with their repeaters.

“Take flight and load incendiary bolts! Target the source of the spikes!” Gilda heard Giraldi order Spear Jumentum as her sky griffon force bobbed and weaved to dodge the hail of fire. The humans did not have that ability, however, and worse, it appeared that there was at least one corrupted Ibex still active—probably one of the comrades of the three inside the hall, killed during their own running battle with the Cloven—firing lightning bolts from a single intact antler towards the humans.

A still-weak Nydia cast a faltering shield spell over the Marines to allow them to fire the ‘fifty’ out of it—Gilda had no idea how one-way shield spells worked—and any other time, she would have ordered her sky griffons to target the attacking Ibex. But the pink in Gilda’s vision suddenly intensified along with a sense of not fear, but pure rage at his presence, and what the Kingdom’s longtime enemy had done to her and her friends.

Worse, what they had been planning to do, cubnapping Chris away from them!

Her pink-hued gaze fixed on him, she swooped in with a snarl right through the thick of the Cloven formation and, oblivious to all danger or Giraldi’s startled squawk as the gun fell suddenly silent for what she would later guess was fear of hitting her, she crushed the back of his head by slamming her curled metal-clad talons into it with more force than she could ever remember, caving in his skull. Her anger and adrenaline surging further, she then grasped and broke his already-damaged remaining antler off, following it up by firing her crossbow into the back of his head to make sure he was well and truly dead.

“Centurion!” She was yanked up and away by the shoulder straps before a nearby Cloven soldier’s tail spikes could impact her side. Though initially inclined to snarl and swipe at the attacker with her steel claws, she realized she was being pulled quickly into the air by Spear Jumentum, who had entered the aerial battle with her crossbow and axe. “By all our Ancestors and with all due respect, are you out of your crow-damned mind?” she asked as she swung her axe at an attacking Cloven, cleaving its head in two.

“I…” Her senses returning and cider-boosted ire ebbing as fast as it had come, she noticed the eagless had an empty crossbow and one of the two Porkupikes had been consumed in fire while the second had been felled by a heavy human bullet in the head. Looking up, she realized that Henderson and two members of her team had rushed back to the north and were now shooting down from the balcony again, providing what cover fire they could. But Chris was not among them.

She didn’t have time to worry if it was because he’d gone down. Even with their help, there were still five decades of mixed pure and corrupted Cloven that were to be shortly joined by at least forty razorbat-like flyers she could see winging in; it would take another minute and several more dead soldiers from her already-depleted sky griffon decade before they were all slain.

“Centurion! Can you hold out? We’re still fighting the southern group! We’re grinding them down but it’ll take another minute before I can send any more Marines!” Imlay told her as she clawed for altitude and readied to turn on the flyers, notching an electrical arrow.

“Not without help!” she instantly replied, realizing that with the human ‘gunners’ pinned and her flyers under razorbat attack, they’d overrun the ‘fifty’ and be able to storm the main hall, killing everycreature within before crushing Imlay’s force on the other side. Worse, with dozens of additional Cloven flyers on the way; her sky griffon decade would be driven from the air soon and no longer be able to aid the battle from above, forced to fight from the ground as the second Cloven force surged through the compound.

Unless… “Ravens! Target the flyers!” She reasoned that their repeaters, stealth and sword skill could cut them down quickly, hoping they could do so swiftly enough to allow her sky griffons to continue assisting the ground defense. “Take them out, or we lose the ability to fight from the air!”

“By your command!” Ebon Umbreon shouted as he and the mute eagless turned their repeaters upwards, their weapons buzzing as they began cutting down the lighter and far more fragile airborne Cloven. They weaved to dodge the sharp-edged wing slashes and smaller mouth-fired spikes they wielded, struggling to close the distance where their scimitars could tell.

It worked, at least to a point; they swiftly took down a dozen flyers before streams of maw-fired spikes began converging on them like tracer bullets from the human movie Midway—wait, how did she know what those were called? But it quickly became clear that the Cloven had pegged them as priority targets and were doing their best not to let them near.

“Engage stealth spells,” she heard Ebon Umbreon order; Gilda had noticed before that those spells only seemed to last so long before they lapsed, and there appeared to be a recharge time before the ability could be used again.

But whatever its magical nature, this time it didn’t work as the final corrupted Ibex in the back made its antlers emit a bright purple light that matched the human ‘blacklights’. Worse, it had the same effect; instantly illuminating the stealthed Ravens by making their hidden outlines glow, forcing them to fly for their very lives as every single flyer opened up on them.

Though tempted to help the pair, Gilda decided the ground attack was more important, ordering her aerial forces to focus crossbow fire on the final Ibex as she heard the massive human cannon fall silent, leaving her guessing it needed a reload.

Turning away after shredding the wings of a Cloven flyer that had gotten too close with her steel-clad talons, she saw Stavrou and his partner hurriedly opening a new metal box that held a fresh belt of the large and lethal bullets. They were covered from above by Henderson’s team as Giraldi and Spear Jumentum fired two more heavy crossbow bolts, using short bursts of flight to shift and cut down any Cloven forces that tried to flank them with axe and war hammer.

But this time, the remaining Cloven spotted the pause and emitted a blood-curdling roar. They erupted into a full gallop that would reach the two humans in seconds, and worse, the flyers instantly coordinated their efforts, forcing Stavrou and Jenkins away from the gun as the ground around them was impacted with dozens of spikes that threatened to impale them, peppering the pair with glass-like fragments.

Her immediate options exhausted, she was about to swoop in to try to save at least one of the sorely endangered humans when another pair of heavy explosive bolts detonated right in the middle of the charging formation, disrupting their attack for a few critical seconds. Gilda watched as Giraldi tossed his crossbow aside and ran up to grab the end of the bullet belt. He then threaded it into the top of the open cannon and slammed the latch shut as she’d seen the Marines did to load it, yanking the charging handle back once.

Though she had no idea if he’d done the process correctly, he then bodily hefted the abandoned heavy human weapon in his talons, standing upright while he cradled the massive tube from below the junction of its tripod mount. The belt of large ‘rounds’ dangled off to the left as he struggled to wield it, clearly uncertain how to fire it.

Fortunately, the dazed Marines did. “Optio! It’s a thumb-trigger! Grasp the right handle and push down on the metal tab between them!” he mimicked the motion with his soft talons.

Giraldi fumbled for a moment before the gun fired a single round. He looked surprised at the force it exerted on him as even his large form was visibly rocked back, but then he set his legs and braced the back of the long tube against his barrel before he began firing again. He used all his considerable strength to keep the weapon stable against the severe recoil, swiftly finding his mark as the first two Cloven fell, their armored bodies all but shattered by the brutally powerful human bullets.

And then he began marching forward with the big gun on two legs.

The nearest three Cloven crumbled beneath the impact of the massive rounds and soon the ones further back were falling, their chitin-armored bodies shredded in turn. Stavrou and Jenkins could only look up in astonishment as Giraldi’s beak emitted a jaguar-like roar to match his hindquarters, the pair finally going for their personal cannons. They then ran out to assist her former First Spear, taking position to the sides and slightly in back of him, firing their standard rifles in support to keep the Cloven from flanking him.

Even without being told, Giraldi seemed to quickly figure out that the best tactic with the powerful gun was to fire in short bursts, with each one seeming to down two or three Cloven at a time.

One flyer-fired spike impacted his armor, partially penetrating it as he shortly had all the attention of the faltering Cloven attack. And then another. But he ignored the hits and the blood streaming down his side as he then flapped his wings and took to the air, firing down on the rapidly thinning group until the entire belt of bullets had been sucked up into the greedy weapon’s tube. The remains of the rail the rounds were attached to were flung to the side as the expended shells rained down to the ground beneath the big gun, a score of corrupted and pure Cloven creatures dead before him.

The entire belt expended, the ‘fifty’ fell silent; the black metal tube smoking heavily while Giraldi visibly shook from exertion—or was it excitement? He was still clutching the human weapon as he slowly descended to alight on his hind legs, his suddenly stiff wings remaining flared as the final grounded Cloven fell to individual rifle bullets and crossbow bolts. The surface forces defeated, Gilda ordered the attention of her sky griffons turned fully on the flyers, only to find that the two Ravens had taken most of them out with blade and bow after the Ibex illumination was eliminated.

Giraldi was shaking and breathing hard as he beheld the carnage he had created with the human heavy cannon; it was only then Gilda realized the firing on the other side of the Main Hall had also ceased.

“Holy shit…” Stavrou said, staring up at him in awe. “You took that Deuce and mowed them down like the fucking Terminator!”

Giraldi didn’t respond right away. Though she didn’t understand the reference, Gilda blushed to realize her longtime First Spear and now-Optio was not just shaking, but also quite visibly and painfully erect as he carefully settled the weapon to the ground. He was clearly trying not to touch his throbbing flesh with the hot metal; she could feel the massive amount of heat coming off the tube.

And off his body as even the two Marines suddenly noticed his state and looked quickly away.

Though his spear stubbornly refused to subside, he did finally speak. “I thank you for your guidance and assistance, Private First Class Stavrou and Jenkins. I now return this impressive weapon to you.”

“Uh… thanks,” Jenkins said as Giraldi finally fell back to all fours out of his bipedal stance, the two Marines seemingly stealing repeated looks at his impressive stature before his hindquarters disappeared from view.

His red-cheeked gaze then locked with Gilda’s. “My sincerest apologies, Centurion. I find that using human cannons is most… invigorating…” he announced in Aeric with a fiercer flush.

“No apology necessary,” she replied with a dry beak in the same tongue. The Cloven killed, she realized at that moment she not only perfectly understood his reaction to being able to use such a destructive weapon, but that she also greatly envied him for getting the chance.

Five minutes later, the Cloven were confirmed to be vanquished as the nighttime animal sounds returned.

Finally able to catch their breath and treat the wounded, which included at least three Marines and four griffons who’d taken spikes, fresh mines were laid, griffon and human ammunition was replenished from the cart and storage gems, and the Marines deployed an insectile ‘drone’ to monitor the surroundings while the Ravens caught their breath and tended their own injuries.

Not all the endings were happy ones, however. The Ibex had sensed the spellcasting of their former brethren and demanded to see them; the buck and the less wounded doe shortly found three of them among the corrupted Cloven, slain for a second time.

“Mikhail,” the Ibexian male fell to his knees before the buck Gilda had struck down as he recognized the gruesome remains of his twice-killed comrade, adding something under his breath in his native tongue that almost sounded like a prayer to whatever Gods they had. “Nyet…”

She might have felt guilty over it, and she was also still worried about her sudden surge of not simple lust but outright bloodlust during the battle, even if it had given her the strength and clarity of purpose needed to kill the well-trained Adept. But she couldn’t worry about that then, as she summoned her humans and griffon subordinates to a council of war.

“We can’t stay here, Centurion,” Imlay told her, rifle smoke staining his sweaty cheeks slightly gray. “They’re already adjusting their tactics and bringing in new and more dangerous Cloven forms against us. If we remain, they’re just going to keep hitting us until we’ve got nothing left.”

“I agree. But I don’t know where else we can go,” Gilda replied, her beak tight. “The next steadholt is too far away to reach by ground.”

“Then can you carry us by air? On your backs, maybe?” Imlay suddenly asked, causing Fortrakt to look startled and Gilda to blink; the former had reacted with visible envy to the news that Giraldi had gotten to fire the big human gun and seemingly had to hide his own hindquarters when told.

“The Optio and I were discussing that as a possible tactic earlier. Could you fly us to the next steadholt? Or even somehow carry us in that cart? There’s twenty-plus of you against eighteen humans. And the Optio here just proved he can carry a lot of weight,” he noted with a slightly wry grin.

His words elicited a renewed blush; from what Gilda had gathered, word of Giraldi’s deed and… reaction had quickly made its way around the Marines and civilians. Tara had rewarded him with an affectionate kiss to his head while Chris openly admitted he wished he’d gotten to see it happen, stealing repeated glances of his own at the big griffon’s hindquarters.

Though Gilda might have teased the two over it if the situation wasn’t so dire, she knew it wasn’t the time as she exchanged a look with her comrades; the expressions on their faces said that each had reached the same conclusion as her. “No. That might work for short hops, but not for extended journeys without some sort of saddle. You’d have to hold on tight to us the whole way and we’d be very vulnerable in flight to a Cloven attack with you on our backs, unable to maneuver properly,” she knew.

“I agree. I suggested that we could use griffons to carry the Marines to reinforce threatened areas or put human rifles on high ground, but as a means of transporting you eight leagues in darkness with roving Cloven flyers and corrupted griffons about? No,” Giraldi shook his head. “We would be slaughtered.”

“Then what about just a few of us at a time?” Imlay didn’t give up on the idea. “One group of griffons carries us, while another group guards us? You’d have our rifles defending you, too.”

Gilda thought about that, only to shake her head again. “Even assuming we weren’t attacked in the air and that you could safely fire your rifles while riding us, it would take an hour to make the next steadholt and return for another group. In the meantime, whoever’s left behind would have sharply reduced defenses and be much easier to overrun. And if they are, the returning force would be running into a trap.”

Imlay frowned. “Then what about the—”

“The cart has no harnesses and isn’t designed to be carried into the air. It would fall apart if we tried,” Fortrakt anticipated his question. “I admit, I don’t know what to do, Centurion. Short of getting word to Aricia somehow and hoping they can rescue us. What if we send a flyer there and tell them where we are?”

“At thirty leagues distance through Cloven-infested territory, I find survival unlikely.” Giraldi sounded resigned. “And even if we did get word, we would be asking them to fly the same gauntlet back.”

“What about Starlight Glimmer?” Chris held up his portal device again; he was soaked through with sweat and covered in a fine acrid-smelling ash from whatever the explosive powder they used was. “Could we reach her? Maybe she can send help!”

“How?” Gilda couldn’t quite keep the derisive note from her voice. “I know she’s your friend, Chris, and I believe you when you say she’s powerful. But she’s also half a world away. Even if we told her where we were, there’s nothing she could do. Not even the pony Princesses could teleport that far.”

“I don’t have the power or control to cast the telepathy spell she said to use anyway, and neither do the Ibex right now. So it’s moot,” Nydia added.

“Then what do we do?” Chris slumped. “Stay here and wait for them to send a thousand Cloven at us next time?”

“No. Instead of awaiting certain death, we escape by summon spell,” a new voice broke in. It belonged to the previously silent Ibex buck who was still standing over his fallen comrades a few paces away. He spoke in fluent Equish, causing Gilda to stare at him in surprise given he’d only uttered a few broken phrases of the pony tongue previously. “If you will trust us, Centurion, we can give you the means to get all of us to Aricia.”

He turned to them as he produced a single large yellow gem from a hidden pouch, floating it up before them on the feeble strength of his barely active aura.

“These are enhanced anchor point crystals. They allow for mass movement of entire formations of troops. Their range is not as good as our standard Adept beacons, but they can transport dozens, even hundreds of soldiers at a time depending on the distance,” he explained as Giraldi frowned and the two remaining Ravens exchanged a surprised look.

The reaction elicited a smile. “I see you were unaware of them, Ebon Umbreon and Serpens Oculis. It’s good to know we kept some secrets from the Council of Crows and Ravens.”

“Like the fact you spoke Equish?” Ebon Umbreon asked menacingly. “It is clear you are still withholding information, Karin Kazel. So why should we believe or trust you?”

For the first time since she had met him, the Adept’s orange eyes flashed in genuine anger as he went nose to nose with his Raven rival. “Because I don’t want to die out here any more than you, Ebon Umbreon! The human commander is correct—how many more of these strikes do you think we can survive?” he asked them all point-blank.

“By the Ancient Rams of the Rodina, we know the nature of the Cloven just as well as you! With every action we fight, they get smarter and our options become fewer! They hit us with four hundred pure and corrupted forms this time? Given their endless supply of soldiers, what is to stop the next attack from involving double or triple that? Can even your cannons and odd explosive devices stop them then, human?” he asked Imlay directly, who frowned; even Marco looked perturbed at the scenario the Ibex buck described.

“You sought sanctuary here, but it is now clear there is none. If we stay, this steadholt will not only become our grave, but result in humans and human weapons being added to the Cloven arsenal! So tell me, Centurion, how long do you think your precious Kingdom will last then? And how could the Ascendencysurvive once it falls?” he challenged her, then turned to address human and griffon alike. He was joined by the smaller-horned doe as he spoke, whose blue eyes were wet but whose expression had turned steely.

“You don’t have to like us. You might even have good reason to hate us. But we are no fools—as the Shadow Decurion said, if we don’t work together, both sides will die! For the sake of not just our nations but the entire world, we must defeat the Cloven of the Sun here and now, or all will perish!”

“We have two of these gems,” the female Ibex spoke up for the first time as she produced her own, speaking in only slightly-accented Equish. “Just one would be sufficient to transport everycreature here a third of the distance towards the city, thus getting us most of the way there in two hops. They only work once, though, after which they need to be recharged.”

“And can you recharge them?” Decanus Nydia asked, her voice wary; Gilda guessed she’d not been taught about that particular Ibexian magic before.

The female’s jaw clenched. “Nyet. Because the Capricorn Conclave never teaches its Adepts the spells to do so, for reasons I’m sure you can guess.” She smiled thinly.

“Aside from their usual paranoia? They would not want knowledge of it to fall into griffon wings from a captured Adept, else we might be able to counter it,” Ebon Umbreon suggested with a slow and knowing nod. “Or worse for them, we might later be able to redirect such teleports to places… undesirable. Like deep underwater or into a circle of ready troops, where they could be quickly killed or captured.”

“Da,” Karin Kazal confirmed in some disgust. “But even if they had taught us the spells, we are still left with one difficult dilemma—how to place the enhanced anchor points at our destination. If the three of us were at full strength, we could teleport one or two of you—or ourselves—the distance. Assuming we were familiar with the area and could visualize it, that is. But we are far from full strength, we cannot visualize the area without having been to it, and even were it otherwise, teleportation would be a grave and deadly mistake.”

“Why?” Gilda asked, more suspicious of the trio than ever when it was revealed that they in fact spoke Equish fluently, which she supposed was necessary for them to interact with Chris after they cubnapped him.

“Because teleports of that distance require an enormous amount of mana. That would not only drain their caster, but fire off a massive magical flare at both the origin and destination points that would be sensed by any Magus within a dozen leagues,” Nydia explained. “Their jump would be instantly detected by corrupted mages and the Cloven would know where we’re going. You can bet they’d attack us there, and the outcome is the same.” She slumped.

“Correct, Magus. But our anchor points do not use teleportation. Instead, they use summoning spells,” he emphasized. “That is an entirely different magical mechanism, in effect pulling instead of pushing its target. It uses the magical conduits of the world itself to work—I believe the Equestrians call them Ley Lines—and as a result, they do not release that magical flare.

“A griffon mage or Ibex might still sense it, but only at very close range. This is how we infiltrate your borders, Centurion,” he said with a sly smile that made her immediately want to hit him. “Your standard anti-intrusion wards do not detect or stop this.”

“Remarkable,” Ebon Umbreon said in grudging respect. “We knew about your anchor beacons but had no idea you’d developed them this far. You could have used them to launch a devastating first strike, transporting thousands of troops to critical points behind our border defenses.”

“Indeed, Shadow Decurion. But now that you know, I’m sure your organization and the Council of Crows will find counters for them quickly—assuming we survive the Cloven, that is,” the Ibex buck said dryly. “As you say, we have crossed horns before, but I do respect you, Ebon Umbreon. And I hope you do not begrudge us our original orders, given the grave threat we thought humans posed to our race and nation.”

“Grave threat?” Chris repeated angrily as Gilda’s tail lashed and Marco gave a growl. “What the hell did we ever do to you?”

For the first time the two Ibex turned to look at him directly. “After we obtained Marco Lakan’s ‘laptop’ device, we learned how to magically interface with it. We then watched many of your ‘movies’, where we saw the horrifying power of your weapons and the potential world-devastating violence of your wars, human! Worse, you eat beings like us and some of your movies showed Ibexian-speaking humans as the enemy!” the female pointed out.

“By the Ancient Rams themselves, were you to ally with our mortal enemies and start sharing those weapons with the griffons, we thought we were as good as dead! And thus, our only option was to gain knowledge of those weapons and human technology for ourselves! But we couldn’t defeat the magical wards the ponies placed on the stolen human equipment without an actual human present! Mister McLain was the obvious choice for such an operation given his intelligence and knowledge of multiple subjects, including human history and firearms.”

“And you thought kidnapping Chris wouldn’t make us your enemies?” Tara pointed out icily. “Maybe you hadn’t heard, but human weapons were not going to be sold to Tellusian nations!” she further told him, to which the goat-like creature gave a very equine snort.

“Not formally, no. But how long would it have taken the Kingdom to get their grubby talons on just one human firearm, Tara Fields? That’s all it would have taken to teach them or the Minotaurs how they worked, and then how to make their own on a mass scale!” he insisted angrily. “What, do you think we didn’t know your Council of Crows was trying to do just that?”

Everyone fell silent, including Gilda. There was little she could say in response, as the Starshina’s words were true. But still, she was not about to let her ire at them pass so easily. “Fine. You’ve got us there. But that doesn’t excuse your attempt on our lives with that crow-cursed spiked cider!"

The Ibex closed his eyes for a moment, but only a moment. “I’m sorry, Centurion. It wasn’t my team that conducted that operation, but we still would have done it if we were told to! Because based on what we knew about humans even then, we had to prevent a human/griffon alliance at all costs!”

His words elicited a ripple of angry trills and ruffled feathers paired with human curses. “Well, guess what? It failed, Ibex. In fact, for attacking their civilians, you gave the humans plenty of reason to ally with us against you!” Fortrakt’s wings splayed hard as he took a step towards them.

The female rounded on him. “Then perhaps you should be thanking us, Fortrakt Gletscher! Not only for that, but for allowing you to enjoy the company of a human doe!” she said with an appraising glance at an infuriated Tara, but then her grin turned evil. “Or did you prefer their bucks instead…?”

Fortrakt gave a warning trill punctuated by a fierce flush. Stepping in front of him to head off a challenge, Gilda had been about to snarl her own reply when Giraldi stepped forward in turn, his voice calm and composed despite his own lingering blush.

“Enough. With due respect to all present, recriminations and political debates can wait. Our first priority is survival and getting to Aricia. And we are still left with the question as to how to get these anchor points to the next steadholt towards the city—which I believe is called Harness, located eight leagues ahead and situated on top of an isolated hill.

Chris groaned. “If your measure of ‘league’ is the same as the Roman one, that’s about an eleven-mile march through hostile territory over mostly open farmland. I’m no tactician, but given Cloven numbers and all the effort they’ve made to kill us, there’s no way in hell we’ll make it.”

“Fuck…” Marco said simply. “He’s right. The three of us couldn’t possibly make that distance weighted by our guns and armor, let alone Raleigh or the two mothers with their cubs by ground.”

“Christopher McLain and Marco Lakan speak true,” the Ibex male said. “But I would submit, Grizelda Behertz, that an agile, low-flying sky griffon might be able to evade pursuit and deliver the gems to a new and unoccupied steadholt, triggering them from there. And could do so in under an hour.”

“I think he’s right, Centurion,” Fortrakt agreed grudgingly. “It’s an all-day journey by ground, but less than half an hour away by air. It might not even have to be a low-altitude flight if the lightning field enchantment is only triggered by large groups, not small ones,” he mused aloud.

“I wouldn’t advise that,” Giraldi warned. “We have no idea if they’ve changed the spell parameters. You could be struck down the instant you fly into it.”

“Fine, then we stick to low altitude!” Fortrakt conceded. “If we deliver the gems by air to a safe location and activate them, pulling everycreature to them, we could finally find respite. The Cloven wouldn’t know where we are any more than we knew where the Ibex were before we pulled them to us. And after that? We repeat the process. We do it again with the second gem to the third steadholt in line, getting there by dawn, and from there, it’s only five leagues to Aricia. For all we know, that steadholt is already within their defensive lines!” he suggested hopefully.

“I doubt it, as they’d want to concentrate all their civilians and soldiers behind the city walls, which are far more defensible than the outlying towns. But I concur with the Decurion’s assessment.” Giraldi nodded slowly. “The Corporal and the Ibex are correct. We cannot stay here. The Cloven will return, likely within an hour. And given how badly they want the humans, they will not stop coming until we are all dead.”

All eyes then turned on Gilda as she considered the situation. The last thing she wanted was to do what the crow-cursed Ibex buck suggested after their latest admissions, or worse, trust them with their very lives. But nor could she deny that their reasoning was sound.

If we stay, we die, and the Cloven gain access to human knowledge and weapons. But if we can use these Ibexian anchor point crystals to slip free to the next steadholt, and then the one after that? We could conceivably reach Aricia and safety by midmorning, she thought, though she also wondered if safety could be found anywhere in the Kingdom or even outside of it by now. If, that is, a single fast flyer could make it there unseen…

She mulled it over, and in the end, she made the only choice that both military necessity and her own personal honor would allow.

“So be it. Ancestors know it’s our only possible escape route at this point. Optio Giraldi? I leave you in command. I’ll personally deliver the crystals to the steadholts of Harness and Yoke. I just need to know how to activate them when I get there.”

“Gilda!” Marco, Chris and Tara chorused in alarm as Giraldi and the Marines gave her a startled look.

“With respect, Centurion, your courage and honor do you great credit, but myself or the Second Scimitar are better choices,” Ebon Umbreon offered, to which the mute eagless nodded vigorously, stepping forward in offering. “Our stealth spells will allow us to evade pursuit and deliver them there unseen.”

“They’re right, Gilda,” Fortrakt spoke up, earning a momentary glare for calling her by a familiar term. “Please don’t throw your life away because you think you aren’t doing enough here.”

But Gilda only shook her head. “It’s not that. Yes, you’re the better choice, Shadow Decurion, but I need you and the Second Scimitar here. You’re the best early warning we have, and if you go, we lose your swords and repeaters from the defense. But if I go, we’re only down one crossbow. If I’m nothing else, I’m a very good flyer. And besides, I won’t ask anyone under my command to do something I’m not willing to do myself.” She noted Imlay nodded slowly in agreement when she spoke. “My decision is final. I’m going.”

“Then I’m going with you!” Fortrakt stepped forward.

“Decurion—” Annoyed, she was about to outright order him to stop acting like a stupid cub, but then stopped at the gleam in his eyes.

“With all due respect, you need me, Centurion! I’m going because there should be another griffon on your wing out there, and because we’ve been partners for over six months now. Crows know we’ve taken care of and looked out for each other all that time, so by our most sacred Ancestors, do you think I’m going to stop now?” he said firmly.

She stared at him, realizing he wasn’t just posturing or making airs. “Are you sure, cub?”

“Very. We know how each other flies and fights, so better me than another sky griffon. Besides, two flyers have a better chance of making it than one. We can each carry a single crystal, and if one of us falls, the other can carry on,” he further reasoned.

“Not both of you…” Chris looked shaky again as the Marines exchanged uncertain glances and Tara appeared to murmur a prayer.

Fortrakt closed his green eyes tightly for a moment. “I’m sorry, Chris and Tara,” he told them, baring his throat in apology. “I want to stay and defend you, but if she’s going to do this, the Centurion needs me with her. I promise I’ll get her there. And then get you all there.”

“A bold plan. But not without great danger,” Karin Kazal addressed them; she was surprised to see some real respect in his gaze. “If you two are killed and corrupted, they could gain access to the crystals and pull us all to them,” he pointed out ominously.

“If that happens, we can’t stop the summoning process. Once you trigger them, their spell will complete—as I believe your Magus made happen with our standard anchor beacons earlier,” he noted with a glance at Nydia. “If you do this, our lives are in your proverbial horns, Centurion.”

“And if I don’t, we’re as good as dead anyway,” Gilda replied, trying to draw what strength she could from her determination to do her duty and her love for her human friends. “This is our only chance. I swear by my Ancestors we’ll get there and save you all. Now give us the crystals and tell us how to use them…”

27: Escape to Aricia - Part 1

Even though time was pressing and they had to act before the next Cloven attack arrived, it took far longer than Gilda would have liked before she and Fortrakt could leave.

First, the Ascendancy anchor point crystals had to ‘tag their targets’ in the words of the male Ibex, which required all present to touch the crystal while it was magically active so as to receive some of its spellwork, which would then be used later for the actual transport.

Once that was done—it took ten minutes to get all fifty of her mixed military and civilian group tagged, from the Marines who couldn’t leave the perimeter to Fortrakt’s aerial group to the mothers and their cubs inside the structure, who had been terrified by the sounds of combat earlier—she and Fortrakt received one crystal each after being trained in its use.

“At the current count of soldiers and civilians it will summon, each crystal will have a theoretical range of around fifteen griffon leagues. But I would recommend no more than twelve to be safe,” Karin Kazal began.

“It can normally only be activated by a special spell. But as we occasionally require a manual means to trigger it for our paid agents in your Kingdom, I can enable you to do so by simply pressing down on the flat crystal top,” the smirking Starshina told Gilda in a conspiratorial tone that left her wanting to hit him again, bathing the gems in a brief magical glow before passing them to her.

“There. To protect from accidental touches, you must push down on it for several seconds. When it begins to glow orange, the activation is successful. But be warned again, Grizelda Behertz: once you start the summoning process, it cannot be stopped.” His previously sly smile disappeared as his tone turned serious. “The spell requires several minutes to complete, so be certain you are in a safe area when you do so. If enemies see it and gain the time to gather, those summoned will have no chance to defend themselves when the spell releases them.”

She nodded her understanding as she stowed the gem inside one of her more rigid pouches. She and Fortrakt were then imbued with a series of stealth spells cast by a still-drained and tired-looking Nydia, who promised that her wards would keep them magically masked ‘from a distance’. But even that came with the caveat that any corrupted mage, whether griffon or Ibex, would detect and see through it at close enough range.

“For that reason alone, I strongly advise you to avoid contact and combat if at all possible,” Ebon Umbreon then warned her, offering use of his wounded First Scimitar’s repeater. But Gilda declined, having only barely fired one before and not wanting to remove it from the defense. “Make your escape and then your way to the steadholt of Harness. Activate the gem, and from there, proceed to our final stepping stone of Yoke. Once we get there, we will be within five leagues of Aricia’s walls and can attempt to summon help from the garrison directly.”

“I recommend you head out in a different direction first to throw off pursuit,” Giraldi then advised. “Once you believe yourself unobserved, take flight at low level towards Harness in a loose formation. Stay far enough apart that you cannot both be taken out at once by a lightning strike or explosive bolt.”

“Right,” she said shortly as she also accepted a belt of crystals from the Ravens, consisting of various flavors of gem that could help to either evade pursuit or perhaps take care of enemies in enclosed spaces.

Most of them she recognized, but some she didn’t. Thankfully, Ebon Umbreon did, tapping each of her belt pouches in turn. “This pocket contains white diamonds—flash gems. They can blind your pursuers, though I don’t know how effective they would be against Cloven soldiers or corrupted. And in this pouch are smoky quartz gems. They produce... well, smoke,” he admitted in a somewhat embarrassed air to a smirk from the two Ibexians.

“And these are nullification gems. If you find yourself in a magical trap or field, they can neutralize it within a small area. You only have two, however, and they will also neutralize your defensive wards. So use them with extreme care.”

“Understood,” Gilda replied. Her head spun with all the information she was being fed, wondering how the Ravens kept it all straight.

“Our fates fly with your wings, young eagless,” Karin Kazal told her, saluting her in what she assumed was the Ibex manner by bowing his head to present the front of his horns, which though still visibly cracked in places, appeared to be slowly healing. “May the Ancient Rams of the Rodina protect you.”

Though she didn’t know who their Ancient Rams were or the meaning of the word Rodina, she gave him a nod of respect. She still didn’t like or fully trust him, but there was also no denying they wouldn’t be here without his surprise attack against the first flyer swarm, or have any chance of survival going forward without his help.

“Here, Gilda. Take this,” To her surprise, Marco removed his human sidearm from its belt holster and held it out for her, offering it to her hilt-first. “If I can’t come with you, then at least let one of my guns defend you.”

“Lakan…” Imlay said warningly before Henderson put a hand on his arm.

“Mine too!” Chris removed his own sidearm to offer to an equally surprised Fortrakt. “Take it, buddy. Marco’s right—it’s the only way we can help you now.”

“Wow. Really?” Fortrakt looked both touched and excited by the prospect, but he also hesitated to take it just as strongly as Gilda did. “I’d love to, Chris, but…”

Gilda could guess where his reluctance was coming from. “I appreciate it, Marco. I really do. But I don’t think we can take them,” she said with a sigh. “We don’t know how to use them.”

He gave her an incredulous look. “What’s there to know? You point it at the bad guy and pull the trigger,” he said. “There’s no safety on these except on the trigger itself. You pull, they will fire. And the Cloven goes down.”

“It’s not that simple and you know it, Lakan,” Imlay corrected him sharply. “They’re not trained on these. We don’t even know if their talons can fit the trigger wells, and they also don’t have a way to safely carry them. And worse, if they fire them, they’ll be heard for miles around. That seems like a bad thing if we’re talking about needing stealth.”

“I’m afraid I must concur, Centurion,” Ebon Umbreon spoke up. “If we had time and training—maybe. But it is time we lack, and I would be very wary about a griffon trying to use a human firearm without a great deal of practice.”

“The big guy did pretty well before!” Chris didn’t give up on the idea, flashing a glance over at a freshly blushing Giraldi.

“But that had a different trigger mechanism he could work on a gun that was well-sized to him. And he’d seen them loaded and fired before,” Imlay pointed out.

“Oh, like they haven’t seen us swap magazines and work the slide to reload them often enough? Come on, Gilda. Take it.” Marco held out his L-shaped sidearm again, which she recalled had been referred to as a ‘Glock’. “Please! I can’t go with you, so it’s the only way I can help or protect you.”

Gilda eyed the exotic weapon as she thought about it. Though sorely tempted and not wanting to deprive her human mate of his latest show of honor, which left her wanting to rear up and kiss him again, she forced herself to look at the situation logically. She weighed his words against those of Imlay and the Raven leader, and in the end, there was only one conclusion that she could reach.

She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see Marco’s crestfallen expression as she slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry, but Corporal Imlay is right. I’m touched, believe me, but taking your guns would cause more issues than they would solve right now. As the Corporal said, we’re not trained, we can’t easily carry them, and if we use them, the noise will instantly attract attention when we want none.”

All of Fortrakt’s feathers drooped. “But Centurion—”

“But nothing, cub. Speed and stealth are our only possible salvation now, not human firepower. So Chris and Marco? Keep them to defend yourselves,” she instructed, pushing the hilt of Marco’s weapon back towards him.

“Yes, sir,” a deflated Chris replied as he returned his own sidearm to his belt. She noted he at least got her proper address as a military officer right, which was more than she could say about far too many of the Marines.

“A wise decision,” Ebon Umbreon approved, then reached for something inside his woven fabric. It was scorched from the lightning strike he’d taken during the initial airborne ambush, but was otherwise still intact. “Though I fear that speed alone will not suffice, given that we are under surveillance. Even with some masking spells, they will likely see you leave. You need the means to slip the trap we find ourselves in, so myself and the Second Scimitar offer you these.”

He pulled out a single deep blue crystal on a thin chain that he wore around his neck, dangling it before her. “This is what we call a nightshade crystal, made from a rare type of onyx and enchanted with a special and very powerful concealment spell. Wear it around your neck, and when activated, it will render you almost completely invisible to both eyesight and all known forms of sensory magic—everything short of those odd human lights, that is,” he belatedly added with a nod to the cannon-mounted ‘blacklights’ some of the Marine rifles bore.

“This is what enables us to stealth ourselves for short periods of time,” he continued with a glance at the Ibexian adepts, who this time exchanged their own surprised look. “Understand, I would normally never reveal this information unless directly ordered to, but our situation is dire and I suppose it can be considered a fair trade for what the Starshina revealed of Ibexian abilities. So listen and listen closely, Centurion,” he bade her, to which she instantly gave him her undivided attention.

“It is activated by simply tapping it.” He did so himself and promptly disappeared, causing his voice to be much more muffled but still audible. “And tap it again to deactivate. We do it with our beaks to keep our talons free, but I don’t recommend that unless you’re well-practiced. At maximum charge, it can keep you hidden for around eighty seconds, and then slowly recharge itself over time from the area’s ambient magic.

“But the recharge time is much slower, taking nearly nine minutes to complete if starting from empty. So it is best to use them sparingly,” he emphasized to her, waiting until she nodded her understanding before continuing. “When possible, activate them for only ten or twenty seconds at a time—enough to escape pursuit or head off in a different direction unseen. Use it when entering a structure or other potential ambush site.”

“So that is how you mask yourselves from our magical probes,” Karin Kazal remarked in grudging respect. “The Capricorn Conclave was tearing its horns out trying to understand how you constantly evaded our border enchantments and infiltrated our bases.”

“It is indeed. Fortunately for them, due to the extreme scarcity of the gemstone involved, we cannot produce these in mass quantities. That is why conventional forces are not equipped with them. Not even the Knights or Paladins,” he explained, but then his voice turned sly. “If we could, I assure you that all Ibexians would now be speaking Aeric following the conclusion of our last war.”

“So it’s like donning the One Ring,” Marco remarked to some weak chuckles from the Marines, accompanied by odd looks from the griffons and Ibex. “It’s—never mind. If you won’t take our guns, then I hope you’ll at least use that, Gilda.”

“Of course,” she said, accepting the offered gem and placing it around her neck, just below her command chain while Fortrakt did the same with the one previously used by the Second Scimitar. She then experimentally tried activating the gem with a single sharp talon tap, and her vision instantly darkened, causing everything around her to look like she was seeing it through a shroud.

“Whoa…” she could just barely hear Fortrakt saying from where he was trying it, his voice muffled like he was behind a thick curtain. “That’s… different.”

“Indeed, Decurion. As you can plainly see, it is not without drawbacks. It will affect your ability to see and hear things around you, including your partner if they, too, are stealthed. Our flight goggles will compensate somewhat for the former, but not the latter,” he warned them, passing Gilda a spare pair of the gray goggles he wore out of a separate pocket.

“So be cautious in its use, Centurion. And do not forget to turn it off when it is not needed, or you may miss potential threats. Or worse, find yourself with a drained crystal that can no longer protect you when you need it the most.”

“Understood,” she said shortly, trying on the goggles next and finding that they noticeably sharpened her vision. She wasn’t sure what enchantments were on them, but they seemed to do so mostly by enhancing contrast and color, even through the shroud of the stealth spell. She experimentally turned her goggled gaze on a still-stealthed Fortrakt to realize that she could more clearly see his outline while wearing them, which appeared as a weak and slightly darker distortion in her line of sight to what lay behind him.

Her heart beginning to race in anticipation of her flight to come, she tugged on her various belts and straps to ensure they were secure and made sure her crossbow was loaded with nothing more than a piercing bolt, which would make the least noise of any of her armaments short of slashing with her talons. After double-checking it was notched, she resheathed it in its back-mounted holster, and then presented herself to her audience, human and griffon alike.

“Best of luck, Centurion,” Giraldi came to attention and saluted her. “May the Ancestors guide you. And know that I will do my utmost to keep everycreature alive until you can deliver us from this place.”

“I will hold you to that, Optio,” she said, returning the salute, then on a whim gave him an affectionate clasp of his head. “And if the worst should happen, thanks for everything, Giraldi. I wouldn’t be where I was without you.”

“You’re welcome. It was my honor to aid you, Centurion.” He returned the embrace before stepping back from her.

She then turned her attention to Imlay. “Corporal? You told me earlier that you would obey my orders as a courtesy. So I now ask that you extend that same courtesy to the Optio,” she requested.

“You got it, sir,” Imlay said with a solemn nod and human-style salute. “We’re already barricading the Main Hall, and if necessary, we can retreat to the same cellars we found the mothers and cubs in. I promise we’ll hold out until you get to Harness and Yoke.”

“I know you will,” she told him, returning the honor. “Your Marines have fought with bravery and brilliance, Corporal. I’m very glad you’re on our side.”

“Likewise, ma’am,” he replied, but simply smiled when she glared at him momentarily for getting her address wrong again. “Sorry. Old habits die hard.”

“And so will we. Please don’t die, Gilda,” Marco said as he knelt down and hugged her tightly. “We still have those two days in Catlais you promised me.”

“What?” Raleigh spoke up from the edge of the crowd, to which Marco simply raised a middle finger at him in what she took to be some form of rude gesture. He followed that up by openly kissing her, eliciting a blush from watching griffons—most especially Nydia, Gilda couldn’t help but note—and some snickers paired with odd whistles from the Marines. Even the two Ibex exchanged a brief glance and grin, speaking in their own language under their breath for a moment.

They were startled when Stavrou responded in the same tongue with a smirk, but she didn’t have time to ask him what was said. “I won’t,” she promised her human lover. “See to yourself and your friends, Marco Lakan. Because if you die, I’ll kill you,” she warned him with a wry grin and a mock trill, poking a talon into his chest.

As he laughed, she next turned her attention on Chris and Tara. They were hugging Fortrakt hard and sniffling, begging him not to perish. He returned the embrace with his wings and gave them both a lick, swearing softly to his Ancestors that he would not die without saving them—and that when they met up again, he had something to tell them.

Though Gilda had a guess as to what he meant, the pair looked startled and the Marines exchanged glances. “Dude… are you going to propose to them?” Guerrerro asked.

“Propose?” Fortrakt looked confused before the meaning was explained as requesting marriage! “What? No! I just… remembered something that they should know.” He turned flustered, glancing at Gilda for help.

She smirked at his reaction, gratified that even for as much danger as they were in, he could still be as dweeby as ever. “He remembers what happened the night of the cider,” she explained shortly, causing their eyes to go wide; even Giraldi looked startled at the revelation. “And he won’t tell me until he tells you.”

“Whoa…” Marco said with a nervous glance at his friends. “Do we, uh, want to know…?”

Fortrakt blushed and looked away. “I’m not sure you do. But either way, this isn’t the time.”

“Dude, that’s a hell of a bomb to drop…” Chris muttered, shifting uncomfortably for a moment and exchanging a glance with an equally uncertain Tara.

“Use it as motivation to live,” Gilda replied, deciding to end the conversation immediately. “For all of us. He’s right, this is not the time. So if you will excuse us…” she pulled down her new goggles and activated her stealth spell, positioning herself below the Main Hall’s biggest skylight, signaling Fortrakt to do the same. The room around her went dark and muffled as the magical shroud enveloped her, but with her borrowed goggles, she could still see well enough to navigate.

“On me, cub! Now as we planned—open and mask the skylight!” she commanded the two Ibex, who nodded. They did so immediately as the female opened the door—it occurred to her only then that she still didn’t know the doe’s name—while the buck cast an illusion spell around it to make it look like it was still sealed shut.

At their nod, Gilda took flight. Just four beats of her wings later, she had shot through the skylight followed swiftly by Fortrakt; she could just hear the opening being shut and locked again behind them as they turned west. Flying over the outer wall, she saw at least one group of several dozen Cloven soldier forms hidden outside the steadholt and a small flock of flyers who circled the Main Hall, searching for something that was no longer there.

Her heart pounded and her wings beat hard as she passed them. But the stealth spell worked as none so much as glanced towards her; their attention still fixed on the final redoubt of their quarry as the pair exited the steadholt. Once past the Cloven sentries, they continued heading out a short distance before turning south, following the path of a nearby stream.

* * * * *

A minute later, having already sprinted through the air an entire league away, she signaled Fortrakt to deactivate his stealth spell by turning hers off, causing her vision to brighten again and the nighttime sounds to return in full force. She took the latter as a good sign that there were no Cloven in the immediate vicinity, and thus decided they were safe to stop for a moment, especially since Nydia said her spellwork would keep anybody from noticing them at extended range.

Landing just long enough to catch their breath and shake off the adrenaline surge that had accompanied their flight and left their limbs feeling shaky, they exchanged a terse nod and headed out east across the smoke-shrouded countryside over a burned-out wheat field, keeping as low to the ground as they dared. It wasn’t directly towards their first destination of Harness, but she didn’t plan to turn towards it until she was safely away from any Cloven who might be monitoring its various avenues of approach.

Avoiding the main roads and side paths in favor of areas away from potential traffic and prying eyes, they flew low over a series of burned-out farmhouses and fields before turning north along a Caleponian-dug irrigation canal, using it as cover. The water burbled beneath them while singing crickets and horned frogs croaked happily away, seemingly oblivious to the existential threat the kingdom faced.

They were making good time, but Gilda nevertheless found herself quite jumpy, and not helping was the fact that she and Fortrakt were flying in silence, trying not to make any more noise than was necessary.

Twenty minutes later, when they were around five leagues from Bale and what she estimated was four from Harness, whose isolated hill she could just make out as a gray shadow in the distance whose top poked above the smoky haze, she banked northeast out of the stream bed, trusting Fortrakt to follow her. He did so promptly, staying in her slipstream as dragons did to conserve energy during long flights.

Not that this was a long flight, but it was in some ways even more taxing given their ground-hugging course and thicker air, to say nothing of the constant smell of smoke and not being able to fully see what was in front of them. Her heart clenched when all the fireflies suddenly stopped lighting up and the animals fell silent, followed by a great flap of wings as every crow in the area abruptly flew away.

“Stealth yourself!” Gilda spoke in a harsh whisper for the first time since they had taken off from Bale.

“By your command!” Fortrakt whispered back, his voice very tense as she chanced gaining some altitude to look around. She didn’t see anything to her right, but Fortrakt elbowed her and pointed with a talon to her left, his foreleg suddenly shaking.

Gilda followed his gaze and her guts clenched hard. Just two hundred wingpaces away was a column of Cloven nearly a quarter-league long, mustering at least a thousand mixed soldier forms and corrupted.

The former had at least five Cloven types that she could see, including a new and much larger flyer whose form and abilities she couldn’t discern from distance. There were six of them flanked by two entire centuries of varied airborne forces, including the smaller razorbat Cloven and flightworthy griffon corpses.

And worst of all, they were heading right for Bale, eschewing roads and trails to march directly across the countryside; at their current rate of travel she estimated they would arrive there in fifteen minutes.

“By the Ancestors…” she could just barely hear an agape Fortrakt saying before Gilda yanked him away by his shoulder straps, signaling him to follow her as she headed away from the column at her best speed. It took them further south away from their path to Harness, but she didn’t dare overfly the column for fear of being detected or triggering the lightning field above them.

Especially not with the column covered by at least five captured Magus Knights; their staves glowing bright with purple light.

“Crows take it…” she muttered, deactivating the stealth spell immediately upon realizing that the Cloven had somehow gained the human knowledge on how to defeat magical shrouds. She waited another twenty seconds and they’d put another quarter league between them before landing at the edge of an incinerated and still-smoking apple orchard, hiding in a ditch and intending to wait until the column passed.

“Centurion…” Fortrakt began ominously as they observed the Cloven from afar, the pair no longer stealthed for fear of being lit up, even at a distance by the blacklight-emitting staves. “They’re heading for—”

“I know,” she said shortly. “And against that army, they’ll have no chance.”

“What do we do?” he asked her; she could just hear him clicking his beak repeatedly in his anxiety. “Can we warn them? Maybe fire a flare?”

“No! If we do that, the Cloven will know there are spies in the vicinity and we’re as good as dead. All we can do is make sure nobody’s there when the Cloven attack,” she decided grimly as she rapidly formed a new plan in her head.

“We wait here five minutes to let the column pass and the stealth stones recharge. After they do, we’ll head east again, and then turn north. At that point, we’ll take a chance and head to Harness at higher altitude and speed, using the smoke that grass fire is generating for cover.” She nodded off to the eastern distance at a smoldering area that was full of glowing embers, which she guess had burned in just the past hour.

Fortrakt gave it a wary look. “I don’t know, Centurion. Never mind the lightning threat, but there are clearly dragons around if that field is freshly burned. If we fly higher, they could detect us,” he fretted.

“Then we’ll just have to hope we—"

Her voice was cut off by a series of loud and large wing flaps coming in the distance, carried along the wind. She looked up and her guts clenched again to see a pair of massive saurian silhouettes approaching; glowing cracks in their chests and necks confirming their identity to Gilda instantly.

She froze like a frightened cub for a moment until Fortrakt snapped her out of it. “Centurion!” he whispered in warning as he disappeared, causing her to blink, her mind suddenly filled with a vivid image of her amulet and an equally strong impulse to slap it to reactivate its stealth spell.

She cringed, having forgotten about it in the dread of seeing adult dragons approach; if she hadn’t immediately tapped it, they might well have spotted the heat of her body against the cooler ground around them as they got closer. To her relief, they didn’t seem to detect her or Fortrakt as the pair of large reptilian creatures passed right overhead. But to her consternation, they, too, were headed for the steadholt.

“Ancestors preserve us…” Fortrakt said after they had passed. “And Ancestors preserve them!”

“Keep it together, cub,” she told him through a very dry throat, as much to cover her own sudden surge of anxiety and pounding heart to see the giant and quite lethal adult dragons, who could lay waste to the steadholt and everycreature within it with a single pass. “We don’t know where they’re going. They haven’t used dragons against us yet, and I’m guessing the reason is that they want the humans dead but intact so they can be possessed by a parasite—not reduced to unusable ash.”

“Do you really think so?” he asked her; she knew from his dubious but hopeful tone that he didn’t entirely believe her but also desperately wanted her words to be true.

“It’s possible. But regardless, the Marines said they had weapons that could counter a dragon. Here’s hoping that they weren’t just blowing air up our tails,” she decided, closing her eyes in silent prayer for the safety of her human and griffon friends.

“We can’t wait now—follow me, Fortrakt! Remember that we head further east, then turn north again over that burning field. We have to get to the Steadholt of Harness quickly, so I’m going to risk additional altitude. That way, we can use that drifting smoke layer as cover and get there quicker. So listen closely, cub. You stay well behind and below me until I confirm it’s safe, and if I’m struck by lightning, take my stealth and summon crystals and then leave me behind after stabbing my brain with a blade.”

“Gilda…” Fortrakt looked appalled at the idea, his eyes going wide and jaw dropping open at the image. “By all my Ancestors, I can’t do that!”

“You can and you will,” she told him, less as a superior than a friend, putting a paw on his chest. “Our lives are expendable, cub. But the humans are not,” she reminded him sternly, though she couldn’t help but feel touched by his concern. “And besides, I’ll be damned if I let my body be possessed and used to attack Marco or anycreature else. I hope it’s the same for you.”

He squeezed his eyes shut tightly for a moment before opening them and turning his gaze on her. “It is. I swear to the Ancestors I’ll do it, as long as you promise to do the same for me.”

She nodded once, and judging it safe again, she took flight, heading further east for another league before turning north again, over the freshly burned fields. The smoke from the still-smoldering crops remained choking in places, causing her to remove a special cloth from her vest and wrap it around her beak as they entered it.

It was part of their standard equipment, enchanted to screen out poisonous fumes or vapors; as they flew, she found herself idly wondering how good they would have been at keeping out the cider fumes that apparently affected all the griffons that collected over the roof of the Inn.

Could have saved us all a lot of trouble if they did, she thought, vowing then to live long enough to learn what Fortrakt knew about that night. Relaxing as she entered the altitude of the lightning field but nothing happened—either the Cloven hadn’t changed the parameters, or the field was simply fading, having already served its purpose—she even found herself idly wondering for a moment what he didn’t want to tell her about the night of the cider.

We were together but I didn’t let him mount me? How would that even work? She turned the unlikely idea over in her head, considering several various illicit possibilities that suggested themselves but not coming up with anything that didn’t have him in a dominant position. Which she simply refused to believe that she would have allowed in any sense, even drunk on the crow-cursed spiked cider.

But if I dominated HIM… there was a sudden tug of memory from deep within her, and even the barest hint of excitement from her loins.

She might have considered it more until she heard a sharply whispered “Centurion!” from Fortrakt. It reached her ears just before she obeyed an irresistibly strong impulse to dip her flight lower, realizing only after she did so that she’d flown above the level of the smoke where anycreature could potentially see her.

“Not the time, Grizelda Behertz…” she reprimanded herself sharply for letting her mind wander, though she’d at least been able to see that the hilltop steadholt of Harness was now just three leagues away—barely four minutes at their current speed.

She was weighing the danger of making a dash for it without properly reconnoitering the area when her ears suddenly picked up the distinct crack of human weapons, though at that range it sounded like little more than a series of weak pops.

“Crows take it…” she cursed with a glance back over her shoulder; the pops were followed by a series of flashes and then a bright orange glow that marked a gout of fire. “Pick up the pace, cub!”

“By your command!” he said obediently, falling in next to her as they began to flap harder towards the now-nearby hill. But as she got closer, her heart dropped—the hilltop village was not deserted but occupied with what she could only describe as an alien structure in place of the buildings that had been there before.

It was hivelike, black with some kind of giant pit in the center of it that was filled with a thick, steaming and equally ebon liquid—a liquid into which the bodies of griffons and ponies along with dead soldier forms were unceremoniously dumped and quickly dissolved. The unholy mixture was then piped to a series of hexagonal compartments not unlike a whipwasp nest; they were covered with a thin and slightly translucent barrier through which a single dark shape could be seen in each.

“Crows take it…” was again all she could say at first to see the awful structure; the horrid smell of the place alone making her want to retch. It was clearly a Cloven factory, recycling their dead to churn out new and better soldier forms. It was also the final fate of captured griffons and ponies as well as all the various other animals they’d possessed as they slowly cleansed the Kingdom, converting all life to Cloven.

“By the Ancestors…” She could hear the despair in Fortrakt’s voice as he saw the massive breeding operation at work; as they watched, a single soldier form burst free of its pod and landed on the ground on all fours before marching to take its place in a fresh formation of them. It looked like one of the standard ground soldiers they’d seen before except its flightless wings had been enhanced somehow; they appeared to be armed with a series of forward-pointing Porkupike-like spikes which she guessed was to give them a modicum of distance weapon to match the well-armed Marines. “We can’t go there!”

“I know…” Gilda said weakly, hearing a faint boom in the far distance. She turned to see flashes in the air over Bale, and as she watched, she saw two barely-visible corkscrew trails of light that appeared above the smoke. They seemed to converge on a single glowing point just visible through the haze, right before they erupted into a massive ball of unnaturally violet fire that plummeted hard to the ground.

By all her Ancestors, had the human Marines just shot down a dragon?

It gave her some hope that they could survive the latest onslaught until she remembered the numbers they faced. “We’ll have to summon them elsewhere. Follow me!” she directed Fortrakt, heading south away from the hill, aiming for the burned out-fields they had already overflown.

She had spotted a decent-sized depression in one—an evaporated irrigation pond fed by one of the canals, she guessed—that she hoped they could use as a temporary refuge for their endangered friends. It would have to suffice until she and Fortrakt could make it to the next Steadholt, which she could only pray was not occupied.

It better not be! Because if we’re caught out in the open for any real length of time, we’re DEAD! she instinctively knew, arriving at the dried-up depression a minute and a half later.

“Is this safe?” a very agitated Fortrakt asked while glancing around them nervously. She didn’t blame him given the open field and the blackened ground that surrounded them, smelling of fresh sulfur and filled with glowing and crackling embers from an immolated corn crop.

“We’re out of time. So it better be,” Gilda said shortly as she set the Ibexian summoning gem in the lowest part of the depression—it had been a waist-deep pond, now marked only by the carbonized shells of a few spitting turtles and small skeletal fish on its severely scorched and cracked bottom—and activated it.

A painfully bright orange glow appeared around the gem that quickly expanded outward to encompass the pond; she could only hope that the smoke in the air would mask it. Fortrakt stood back to watch, and Gilda wanted to as well, anxious to see if her friends had survived. But she knew she couldn’t, taking flight again while telling Fortrakt to follow her.

“But Centurion—" he protested as a large glowing dome slowly formed over the pond, the former’s circumference slightly smaller than the latter.

“Now, cub! From what the Ibex said it’ll take several minutes for the summoning process to be completed, and that could be time we don’t have! You’ve got the last summoning gem and we’ve got to get it to Yoke! Now move!” she ordered him again as the lightshow of the summoning spell intensified behind them, but by the time it ceased, they were far enough away that they couldn’t see who was present.

She regretted not at least leaving them a note to let them know why they weren’t in Harness, but she trusted Giraldi and Imlay to realize that there was a good reason they’d been brought there—to remain in cover and not do anything stupid.

She just hoped the pond would provide them enough concealment to stay hidden and that nobody had noticed the light show through the smoke and haze, kicking herself after she had left for not using a smoke crystal or two to help mask it. The Ibex were right that there wasn’t much detectable magic associated with their spell—she barely sensed it, even standing right beside it when it started—but they had failed to mention that its visible effects could be seen from some distance when it wasn’t in a confined space.

Between that and the long time they take to complete, I suppose I should be glad that these Ibexian gems have a couple major weaknesses—if they don’t get us killed, that is! She resolved to remember them when they planted the next crystal, which would have to be activated under sufficient cover. Whatever you do, don’t activate them again in the open!

If they would even survive long enough to activate them, she mentally amended her thought as she clawed for altitude again. They dashed northeast and then north using another irrigation canal as cover, her eyes searching for but not finding their ultimate destination another seven leagues or so to the northeast of Harness. Yoke was a mid-sized steadholt situated on a lakeshore that straddled a major commerce route called the Highhawk Highway, but with all the ground-hugging smoke in the air, it was no surprise that she couldn’t see it.

At least there was nothing in their way this time, to her great relief. She picked out no further columns of grounded or airborne Cloven excepting the odd and easily avoided flyer, and there were no noises behind them that indicated their first summoning site had been spotted and attacked.

Just hold on, Marco… she mentally called to him, starting to feel winded from all the taxing low-altitude flight; she estimated they’d already traveled at least thirty leagues in the air due to their circuitous route. Hold on, all of you! We’ll be there soon, and then we’ll summon you there to join us! I just hope nobody was killed in the last attack, or else the Cloven might—

Her eyes going wide, she flared her wings to come to an abrupt halt in the air. Her sudden stop caused Fortrakt to nearly collide with her from behind, forcing him to swerve around her.

“Centurion?” he called to her, panting softly as he turned to face her in a hover. “What’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer right away, her mind desperately trying to refute the dire warning her own logic and instincts had just given her. But she was ultimately unable to, left with a single, terrible truth.

“We can’t go to Yoke or anywhere near it,” she said softly, her beak turning dry again. “If we do, we’re dead.”

“What?” Fortrakt looked at her in surprise, the glint of his green eyes barely visible against his darker features. “What do you mean? How do you know that?”

“Because the Cloven know exactly where we’re going.” Her blood ran cold at the terrifying certainty of it. “Think about it, cub—they just attacked Bale again, and with a force that large going in, what are the odds that nobody was killed in those few minutes?” She unconsciously used the human word.

“Zero. And after we pulled them here, they would have no chance to dispose of the dead properly, and I’m guessing that the Ibexian summoning magic doesn’t work if you’re already a corpse.”

Fortrakt picked it up from there, his jaw falling open as he saw what she was getting at. “Which means all the Cloven would have to do is possess a fresh corpse with a parasite to find out what we’re doing and where we’re going,” he followed the logic chain to its inevitable and quite deadly conclusion.

“You’re right, Gilda. We don’t dare go there now. They’ll either be waiting for us or hit us within minutes after arrival, giving us no chance to try to reach Aricia. And worse, they’ll be watching all its western approaches now.”

“Exactly. If it was me, I’d let us arrive and activate the summon spell, then strike and slaughter everyone right when it finished, before they could defend themselves,” she said grimly, descending to ground. “Yoke is now a deathtrap.”

“Then where do we go?” he asked her, his dark-hued feathers drooping as he landed beside her, taking the opportunity to catch his breath again. “Do you have a map? I don’t know this region.”

“I do a little from a previous rotation.” As she pulled her map of the area free, which she’d found on the desk of the Steadholt Master’s rather messy office, Gilda frantically searched her memory, trying to recall what was in the immediate area. Once she unrolled it and scanned it, her eyes quickly locked on to a smaller lake and hilly area with forest she had been to a couple times before. “That’s it. We’ll go to Lake Languid instead.” She tapped a point on the southeast edge of the map with a talon.

“Lake who?” Fortrakt asked in a confused air. “I’ve never heard of it. Is it another steadholt?”

“No,” she replied, rolling the map back up and stowing it. “It’s not a farming village, but a small, out-of-the way lakeshore resort about twelve or so leagues southeast of here. I went there on leave a few times, so I know it’s mostly only used by local families for cheap relaxation. It’s located in a secluded but scenic area, used as a retreat and enjoyment area for griffon and Caleponian families alike. It has a beach and other play areas for cubs, plus wooded hills and hunting grounds for the adults.”

“Sounds nice, but… why would that be safe?” He gave her an askance look.

It was a valid question, but one she had an answer to. “Because it’s not strategically important. It isn’t located on a major roadway or has any farms they’d want to burn. It’s also not near any military bases or cities. And since there aren’t many visitors there at any one time, it wouldn’t be a big source of new hosts, either,” she outlined, seeing the understanding dawn on Fortrakt’s face.

“So in other words, it’s of no real interest to the Cloven. If they did anything with it, it would be to sweep it once and then forget about it,” he said, leaving Gilda fervently hoping he was right and that their reasoning was sound.

“Exactly. They’d hit it once but then ignore it because it’s not otherwise valuable to them or us. Until now, that is.” Gilda set her beak.

Fortrakt considered that, then nodded slowly. “I get it. We could hold up there and they’d never imagine that’s where we were. But if it’s located south of here, it’s further away from Aricia,” he had to point out.

“Just twelve or so leagues by air. Still close enough for one of us to dash the remaining distance and get their help. And if the Cloven are watching the western approaches like you said, then they’ll be looking in the wrong direction if we come in from the south,” she decided, stowing the map in its case again. “And before you volunteer to do it, first things first—we need to get our friends to safety. So on my wing, cub! Stay well behind me, and if I fall, do not stop for anything except to stab my skull,” she reminded him, to which he grimaced and glanced away.

“By your command,” he said wanly. He stared at her almost longingly for a moment, looking like he wanted to say something else to her, but shook his head and turned his gaze downwards instead.

She didn’t know what he was thinking, or where the sudden and very unlikely image of having her body groped by his talons came from. But even as she cursed the cider anew for once more trying to bend her thoughts to sensual ends at a very bad time, she guessed he was trying to say goodbye to her, just in case.

“Whatever happens, it’s been an honor, cub,” she told him, putting a set of talons on his chest. “You’re a good griffon, Fortrakt Gletscher. I’m proud to have been your partner, even if you’re a total damned dweeb at times.” She decided then if they were going to die, then their final talk wouldn’t be complete without their usual exchange of insults.

He chuckled once, then grinned. “The honor was mine, Grizelda Behertz. It’s been good to know you as well, even if you are just an old, grumpy, and past-your-prime crow,” he retorted, to which she gave him a mock cuff, which quickly turned into a forearm clasp, and then a heartfelt hug.

“If we get out of this, you’ll pay for that, cub,” she promised him with mock sternness, then pushed back from him enough to poke a talon into his chest. “And by my order, you will tell me what happened the night of the cider.”

She could just see him blush as he nodded, even taking on a sly grin. “Promise. Think I want to miss the look on your face when you learn? By the Ancestors, I’ll live just for that!” He teased back with a wink. “Now come on, Gilda. Before we can talk about sex, we have to go save our friends…”

Another twenty minutes and nine leagues later, they arrived in the air over the wooded resort to find it deserted but unburned.

Several stealthed passes over the area showed nothing and nighttime animal sounds were heard as well, telling Gilda that no Cloven were currently near.

“Wow. You were right, Centurion. This place is perfect…” Fortrakt granted as he looked around. “It’s isolated and defensible. And there’s plenty of places to hide.”

“See? Sometimes this grumpy old crow does know what she’s talking about,” she replied with a mild tease, to which Fortrakt gave her a grin, then pulled his crossbow.

“We’re not done yet, though. We still need to scout the buildings. We can hide, but so can the Cloven,” he told her.

“Right.” Gilda grimaced at the reminder, reaching for her own crossbow. She wanted to use the second summoning gem immediately, but what Fortrakt said was true—they first had to make certain that they weren’t walking into an ambush. They hadn’t heard any fresh sounds of battle from the direction they had come, to her great relief, but she knew full well that it was only a matter of time before the Cloven found their friends.

If I was a Cloven Overlord, I’d be recalling every flyer I had to scour the countryside and nearby towns for them, she thought, hoping the griffon and Ibexian mages present would be able to keep them hidden from prying eyes. Or maybe they’ll wait to start the search until they realize we’re not showing up at Yoke…?

She didn’t know if that was wishful thinking. What she did know was that the only way to spare her human and griffon friends their fate was to summon them again, but before they could do that, they had to clear the buildings.

They’d had classes on room and corridor-clearing tactics at the Gauntlet, reinforced by the occasional drill. But we also had a full decade or turma with us then, and we’re just two Auxilia… she reminded herself, then mentally cuffed herself in turn for not immediately seeing an obvious solution.

She grabbed Fortrakt before he could descend to the ground. “On second thought, no. Stay right where you are—we’re not going in there by ourselves, even stealthed,” she decided.

“What? But—”

“Don’t argue, Fortrakt! The two of us aren’t Ravens—we don’t have their repeaters or sword skill, and we’d need both to clear even small buildings by ourselves. There’s no way we could do so safely with just steel claws and a single-shot crossbow. We’ll need our full force to do it properly, so we’ll summon them to a point safely away from the main camp and then march to it.”

“Oh. Okay,” he instantly relented. “That makes sense. If not here, where’s the summoning site, then?”

“We’ll use my old campground about a league away,” she decided, flaring her wings to take flight again. “It’s isolated and concealed, which is why I stayed there in the first place—it kept me from running into random dweebs when I just wanted to be alone. Now follow me…”

Finding her old campsite quickly across a large stream and halfway up a nearby hill—it was almost the same as she remembered it, at the end of a narrow path beside a large tree and firepit that appeared to have been recently used, judging by the remains of a torn-open tent and half-eaten flying boar that was already starting to attract flies—they confirmed it was deserted along with the rest of the area.

Guess I was right about the Cloven coming through once and then forgetting about this place! She took at least some small satisfaction in the thought as Fortrakt planted his gem in the center of the small clearing and activated it, quickly stepping back as the orange glow lit up the surrounding woods. She grimaced at that again, but as there were plenty of trees around and they’d seen not so much as a single flyer present, she judged it safe to do so.

The gem began to glow brightly as the dome of magical energy formed again, encompassing the clearing and then some. This time, they stayed put outside its effect area as they waited for it to finish; as it turned translucent, a series of forms could be seen inside it in various poses.

They remained frozen in their individual stances as the summoning process completed, leaving Gilda watching impatiently as the summoning circle finally evaporated into wisps from the center outwards until there was nothing left of it, leaving only its living cargo behind.

There was a series of startled sounds and oofs from the humans as several of them were dropped from a short height to the ground. They appeared to have been lying at a slight upwards angle with their guns all pointed outwards, which she took to mean that they’d formed a perimeter at the edge of the former pond.

“Hold your fire!” She heard Imlay’s harsh and harried voice as masked human eyes with a faint green outline looked around; her guts clenched when several rifles focused on her and Fortrakt. “Centurion?” The Corporal then called out.

“Right here,” she replied instantly, stepping forward to be bathed in blacklights along with Fortrakt.

“They’re clean,” a very tense-sounding Guerrerro spoke. “They have normal magical signatures.”

“We’ll see. Sunset!” The challenge word was spoken by Imlay.

“Shimmer,” Gilda replied instantly, causing the rifles to be lowered. “And we’re very happy to see you.”

“Us too. But where are we?” Marco’s shaky voice was heard. “This doesn’t look like a village!”

“It’s not,” Gilda relaxed in relief to hear him as Imlay began ordering his Marines to secure their new perimeter. “I realized halfway there that if anybody was killed and corrupted, the Cloven would know where we were going and be ready for us. So we diverted to this place instead. Welcome to Lake Languid,” she told them. “An isolated camp perfect for a two-day leave. Or a temporary refuge from an all-consuming invasion.”

“A wise choice,” she heard Giraldi’s voice next, then saw his form approaching her out of the darkness; her night vision and goggles revealing his features nicely. “Centurion. Beg to report.”

“Proceed,” she invited, immensely relieved to see him as well as he saluted her and she returned the respect. She could just make out a series of humans and griffons lying in the center of the summoning circle behind him along with the Ibex and civilians; a faint cry of a cub was heard before it was hurriedly shushed.

“To make a long story short, we are very lucky to be alive. They hit us hard a half an hour after you left with a millennium-sized force that included two adult dragons, who did not attempt to kill us directly but instead destroy our cover and suffocate us with smoke. It is with great relief that I may report that the Marines killed them, using what I can only describe as giant enchanted arrows that rose into the sky on pillars of flame and somehow followed their flight, converging on them in midair to blow open their heads and chests.”

“They’re called stinger missiles,” Imlay explained. “They seek heat, which makes them ideal for dealing with dragons. We’re just damn lucky we had enough time to ready them—the Ravens saved us with an early warning again. But after expending four to bring down the dragons, we’ve only got another four of them left, and that alone wasn’t enough to defeat the attack.”

“As the Corporal says, the attack continued even after the dragons were slain. Using living ramps, they flooded over the wall and rushed us from all sides, trying to storm the building by ground and air,” Giraldi continued.

“They weren’t trying to be clever this time, just crush us with sheer numbers. And they very nearly succeeded. They had taken almost the entire Hall and we were holed up in the cellar, on the verge of being overrun by them smashing through the ceiling when you used the first summoning crystal. It pulled us to that initial place you sent us, but not before we took additional casualties. Casualties which unfortunately included—"

“Oh no! Chris! Tara!” Fortrakt called out in shock as he saw their bloodied and broken forms in the center of the ring. Tara had her arms around two Marines, her splinted left leg visibly broken, hanging awkwardly below the knee.

Despite that and her obvious pain, she was still armed, one hand holding her pistol and the other clutching a bloodstained griffon blade. But she was still doing better than Chris, who was lying on his stomach with a line of flyer-launched spikes crossing his body. They hadn’t penetrated his chest armor, but his lower torso hadn’t been so protected.

“By the Ancestors! I’m so sorry! Are you okay, Chris? What happened?” Fortrakt asked as he ran up to them, stopping only at a halting motion from Chief Jacobs.

“Don’t touch him, Decurion,” he warned. “And don’t try to remove the spikes. They’re plugging holes in his body and their heat already cauterized his wounds around them.”

Gilda didn’t know what that meant, but Fortrakt obeyed as he at least accepted a one-armed hug from Tara. “So what happened?” she asked Imlay, trying not to wince as she stared at Chris’s impaled body.

“Like the Optio said, they nearly got us with the last attack. We had barricaded ourselves in the Main Hall, trying to defend the doors and windows, but we had to abandon the big room when they broke through the walls. I ordered a withdrawal, but McLain here didn’t right away,” he said in some rebuke.

“He ignored all the fired spikes and stood his ground at the edge of the stage to keep picking off soldier forms. After he got his last one, he ran back only to get hit by a surprise strike from above when flyers burst through the ceiling skylight and stitched him with those spikes,” Imlay explained solemnly.

“I’d say he disobeyed orders, but he did a lot of damage, too. For fifteen kills, you more than earned this, buddy.” He passed Chris his unloaded wood-wrapped rifle. “And for the record, when we get back I’m putting you in for a Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.”

“Thanks, Corporal. But I can’t feel my legs,” Chris said, holding his weapon tightly against his side as he lay on his stomach. “I think they got my spine.”

“It’s okay. Our healers will fix you! I promise!” Fortrakt said frantically, grasping Chris’s hand in his talons.

“They can?” a worried but still-mobile Marco asked; Gilda could hear the tremor in his voice. “Because ours can’t heal that kind of injury.”

“Ours can… if we can get him to fully-powered healers quickly,” Gilda answered, then shook her head, standing over Chris to lay a set of talons on his head. “Crows take it… for the record, you’re every bit as brave and braindead as Marco, Chris. What in the name of both realms were you thinking, staying behind like that?”

“That I had another Cloven in my sights…” Chris smiled despite his severely wounded state. “What can I say? I just wanted one more kill so I could keep up with Henderson’s tally.”

“This isn’t a competition, Chris,” Gilda heard the female Marine’s concerned voice next from the other side of the clearing. “But for the record, I have twenty-two. You’ve got the makings of an excellent sniper, so as soon as you’re better, I’m training you.”

“Thanks, Lance Corporal. Still, I guess Goldberg was right. Marco is a bad influence on us. You okay, Tara?” Chris’s voice seemed strangely unpained and serene.

“Me? I’m peachy,” she said through gritted teeth as she was helped to sit on a stump, still clutching her weapons; Gilda could just see the sheen of sweat on her form as she struggled to remain upright, leaning heavily on her shotgun. “Got a useless limb, though. Should really have known better than to charge a corrupted griffon. But my ammo was out and I didn’t have time to reload. So I hacked its fucking head off with a borrowed blade. And I’ll be keeping it, if you don’t mind.”

“It’s yours. But are you sure you don’t want morphine, Miss Fields?” Chief Jacobs asked her in some concern. “I already gave a dose to Mister McLain. I promise that it’ll end the pain instantly.”

“He’s not lying…” Chris said somewhat dreamily, still staring off to the side with his head on a makeshift pillow of Tara’s backpack. “I haven’t felt this relaxed in forever…”

“It’ll also mean I’ll be too dopey to shoot straight. So no thank you,” Tara told him tersely. “If you give me that, I’m out of the fight. And fuck that shit,” she proclaimed loudly, trying to stand on her splinted leg. “As long as I’m alive and have a good arm, I’m fighting.”

“Wow. Good-looking and great in a firefight? Think I’m ready to marry her,” one of the Marines said under his breath, earning a sharp glare from Gilda and Fortrakt.

“Appreciate the thought, boys. But I’m already spoken for.” Tara managed a wink at Gilda, who smiled back, suddenly wondering if she was as much in love with the human female as she was Marco.

“She protected the cubs and their mothers,” an amused but appreciative Giraldi said in Aeric as the two mothers approached Gilda next, their cubs huddled close against them. “Bought enough time for them to be brought below before her leg was struck.”

“He speaks true, Centurion. I admit I was distrustful of these strange apes, but… they are as powerful as they are brave. Their weapons are incredible and their honor is unquestioned,” the snow-leopard spotted eagless told her, bearing her throat hard at them, and then to Gilda herself. “As is yours for saving us all.”

Gilda bared her throat back. “I appreciate it, Vira Amator. But we’re still not out of this, so don’t thank me until we’re safe. In the meantime, keep your cubs close and don’t let them wander off. We’re going to be moving again soon,” she warned, to which the middle-aged mother nodded and spoke softly to her pair of younglings in Aeric.

“Unfortunately, not all of us were saved,” Giraldi corrected sadly as he reached down to ruffle the headfeathers of one of the cubs; Gilda instantly noted that they seemed at ease around him even if they still looked at her other soldiers and the humans somewhat balefully.

“I regret to report nine additional casualties, including three wounded Marines and two dead among the flyers. Gladio Falat and Spear Alado were slain trying to stave off an incursion through the skylight. Worse, we were unable to retrieve their bodies or destroy their minds before we had to retreat into the depths of the Main Hall. So by the Ancestors, you were right to change destinations. We would almost certainly be dead if you had not.”

“Thank you.” Despite the compliment, Gilda went downcast, realizing she’d now suffered a total of twenty-two dead from her original force of forty-four griffons. Worse, the Marines were down nearly an entire fire team, which made what she needed from them far more difficult. “Unfortunately, we’re not done yet. I fully expect the Cloven to start searching for us far and wide once they figure out we’re not showing up at Yoke. If we stay outside, we’ll be spotted by flyers, especially as daylight approaches. So we need to find cover,” she told them.

“What we need is to get word to Aricia,” Fortrakt reminded her from where he still stood over Chris, turning to face her and standing to attention as he spoke. “I volunteer again to make the journey, Centurion.”

She stared at him, touched anew at his determination to risk himself for the sake of all. “Fine, but stop for nothing, cub. Not even if you see us under attack behind you. Remember to fly in from the south to get around any Cloven watching the western approaches. Get to Aricia and tell them where we are. And if they hesitate, tell them that if they don’t rescue us quickly, all will perish and the next attack on the city will involve human weapons, whose power dwarfs our own.”

“By your command,” he said obediently, saluting and baring his throat at her before his eyes narrowed in what she took to be sudden realization. “Wait—so you’re not coming with me, then…?”

She closed her eyes briefly before opening them again. “No. There’s nowhere left for us to flee, so I refuse to spare myself the danger. From here on out, I’ll stay and command the defense. Now go, Decurion,” she ordered him, passing him her nightshade gem. “Double up on the stealth spell so you can extend the time you remain shrouded. Just watch out for mages emitting that accursed purple light. Avoid contact and get to Aricia quickly.”

He accepted the gem, squeezing his eyes shut as he added it around his neck. “May the Ancestors guide me,” he uttered the ritual prayer before saluting one final time. Once it was returned, he pulled down his goggles, stealthed himself and took flight again, disappearing with a whisper of wings into the air above the small clearing.

“Centurion. Orders?” Giraldi asked after he had departed. “With respect, dawn is just an hour away, and to remain in the open is to be observable from the air, even with a forest canopy. As such, I do not recommend staying here.”

“Nor do I. The main camp is located less than a league away. We need to get there and clear the buildings if we’re to use them. And that’s your job, Corporal.” She turned to Imlay again. “We’ll cover you with our remaining flyers, but you need to secure the stores and cabins. I don’t expect you’ll find anything, given the Cloven seemed to have already combed through this area. But you never know.”

“Wilco, sir,” he replied, then started barking orders, earning groans from the exhausted Marines as they realized they couldn’t rest yet.

“Centurion.” She next heard Ebon Umbreon approach; she had barely registered his presence before she caught the stench of burnt fur and feathers. “Do you want us to scout ahead? Myself and the Second Scimitar remain unwounded and ready for further action.”

“That’s not true,Shadow Decurion,”Giraldi corrected with a worried air. “You took a hit to the ribs and were nearly incinerated by dragonfire out there.”

He got close enough that Gilda could see the Raven tiercel’s scorched features, causing her to grimace; she could tell his entire face was burned except for what had been covered by his flight goggles, which had saved his vision. “It’s just a few flashburns from a peripheral burst of flame, and my ribs are only bruised, not broken. I can still see, fly, and fight. On my honor, I am fit for duty, Centurion.” He stood to attention before her.

“I see.” Gilda wasn’t entirely sure she believed him given he seemed slightly unsteady and she could see patches of bare and burnt skin in places on his head. Of greater concern was his wings, as the ends of his flight feathers were singed or even seared off in places, potentially limiting or even crippling him in the air. But even injured, he was still the most skilled and capable scout she had, so she reached her decision quickly.

“Very well. You and Serpens Oculus will reconnoiter the area. Inspect the buildings and the path there, and then report back. But by my order, if you spot Cloven or signs of them, do not attempt to engage or clear them yourselves,” she warned, then held up a wing to forestall his protest. “No argument, Shadow Decurion—you’re already down one Raven and with those wounds, you’re clearly not at your best. So if the camp needs clearing, we’ll use the Marines.”

“By your command,” he acknowledged with a salute before he and the Second Scimitar took flight, stealthing themselves before disappearing down the forest trail. She guessed he either had a spare gem, or he had borrowed the one from the wounded Raven eagless, who was being treated by Nydia and the Ibex. The latter turned and nodded to her briefly; she was surprised to see them assisting in the makeshift infirmary, offering what healing help their still-meager magic could.

Wow. Griffons and Ibex working together? She marveled at the sight, remembering that their nations had been on the verge of war just two weeks earlier. The Cloven invasion may actually accomplish the impossible by making us allies!

“Sir? How are we going to get the wounded to the camp?” Imlay then asked her. “Two of my injured Marines are mobile, but the third along with our civilians and the wounded griffons are not.”

“I think we can carry or fly them at least that far,” Gilda decided, turning back to Giraldi. “I’m sorry to use you two as beasts of burden again, but since earth griffons can carry the heaviest loads, you and Spear Jumentum will have that responsibility, Optio. You can grab a couple stronger sky griffons to assist you. They can carry the lighter or less injured, but nocreature is to be left behind! I don’t want us to be split up out here, so we move everyone at once.”

“By your command.” He thumped his chest hard as the remaining Marines formed up and crouched behind cover with their rifles pointed outwards, awaiting word to move out.

“Uh… what about me?” She heard Raleigh’s slightly timid voice, causing her beak to clench. “Can someone carry me?”

Trying to hide her annoyance, she looked him over in the darkness but didn’t see any fresh injuries, though the remains of his human business attire were now soaked through with sweat. “Are you wounded, Mister Raleigh?” she asked him directly.

“Well, I broke my leg earlier…” he said tentatively, to which Gilda nearly swallowed her tongue to keep herself from insulting him.

She had to stifle a smile when Marco did it for her. “It’s already healed, you fat fuck,” he answered irritibly from where he stood protectively beside his friends, earning a glare from the former and grins from the latter. “Nydia fixed it, remember? So you can walk there with the rest.”

“I’m sorry, Mister Raleigh, but the wounded have priority.” Gilda couldn’t help but wonder how he’d gotten his post when, by griffon standards, he had absolutely no fitness for it. “I will not spare a soldier for you. And I expect you to help out where you can. So I suggest you carry supplies and aid the injured.”

“But… I’m not a doctor…” he protested, but Imlay spoke up before Gilda could snap at him.

“With respect, sir, we’re all in this together. As the Centurion says, the best thing you can do is help the wounded. So do whatever Chief Jacobs or Decanus Nydia directs,” the Marine Corporal said far more diplomatically, to some derisive noises from Marco and Tara.

Defeated, the Ambassador’s aide went off again to sit on a stone. With him dealt with, there was nothing left to do but wait for the Ravens to return, so Gilda took the chance to finally have her reunion with Marco, hugging him tightly and never wanting to let him go.

“When we saw that red flare go up from the Ravens and later when the Cloven were breaking through the ceiling of the cellar, I thought we were dead, Gilda,” he confided, clutching her and shaking, his rifle strapped to his back. “You summoned us in the nick of time. You saved us all.”

“And I always will,” she promised. “I’m so sorry for Chris and Tara. I swear our healers can fix them.”

He smiled sadly. “I’m sure they can, but the Cloven are still after us and there’s no guarantee we’ll make it. So don’t make promises you can’t keep, girlfriend,” he reminded her. “And for the record, I’m not leaving your side again. If we die, we die together.” He hefted his rifle meaningfully.

She made a face as she found herself both exasperated and enamored with him anew. “Then you’re not only a sentimental dweeb right out of those damned pony romance flicks I used to hate watching, but you’re a crow-damned fool, Marco Lakan,” she told him, but couldn’t help herself as she reared up to kiss him. “And I love you for it.”

“Love you too, Gilds,” he answered as Imlay stood beside them slightly awkwardly. “Even if you are the kind of girl my mother once warned me about.”

“Oh, really?” She smirked. “And what kind of ‘girl’ is that?”

“Oh, you know… pretty and smart but has a hot temper and always has to be right?” he suggested slyly with a wink.

Despite his teasing tone, her feathers ruffled and tail lashed. “I do not have a hot temper and always have to be…” She trailed off at the grin he was giving her, to which she blushed, then trilled and cuffed him lightly. “By my Ancestors, I promise you’ll pay for that later.”

“I’d better,” he said quietly as the Marines around them snickered; even Imlay seemed to be stifling a smile. “Because I still want those two days with you in Catlais!”

Ten minutes later, the Ravens reappeared after three squelches were heard over the human radio—their signal that they were returning.

Without even being told, they came back with their stealth spells deactivated to make sure the dim marine blacklights didn’t cause them to brightly fluoresce and perhaps attract attention from overhead flyers, though their wings still glowed noticeably under its light.

“Centurion. Beg to report.” He landed slightly awkwardly before he passed through the Marine cordon and saluted her, causing the mute Raven eagless to look at him in worry and Gilda to note his slightly trembling legs. “We completed our reconnaissance of the camp. And we may have a problem.”

“A problem?” she echoed with a worried glance at Giraldi and Imlay. “The Cloven are there?”

“No, sir—at least, not that we can find,” he said, his voice raspy. “The animals are active, so it would seem our enemies are not present even though it’s obvious they came through earlier. Just as we saw at Bale, there are signs of struggle with the occasional broken window and bloodstains present, but no bodies.”

She nodded in relief, though she didn’t like how he sounded, wondering again if he was more wounded than he was letting on. “Good. That hopefully means that since the Cloven have already swept through here once, they won’t be back any time soon. So if they’re not here, what’s the problem?”

He hesitated, glancing at his partner. “We found signs of recent visitors, including what appears to be scavenging of food from trash piles and healer supplies from storage areas. They tried to cover their tracks, but given their crude efforts, it’s clear that they were made by civilians, not soldiers.” As he spoke, the mute female tossed the remains of what looked to Gilda like a makeshift but recently bloodied bandage on the ground before her, consisting of what she guessed was a scrap of scarf.

“From its scent, the blood on it belongs to a Caleponian foal. Given we found this among both hoof and talon marks on the floor of a forced-open cellar, I believe it very likely that there are both pony and griffon survivors present here, hiding in the nearby woods…”

28: Escape to Aricia - Part 2

Reach - Eternal Eclipse

As her mixed human/griffon force assembled for movement again, Gilda couldn’t help but note how much longer things seemed to take when they were not only tired, but short of time.

She was also amazed at how much effort and organization it took to move not just her remaining force of thirty-six human and griffon effectives, but also spare some of them to carry the wounded and keep the other noncombatants at the center of their protective ring.

The latter included all the civilians except Marco, who insisted on staying with her at the forefront while Giraldi walked further back in the formation to keep them apart, carrying a badly wounded Marine on his back.

That Marine, to her surprise, was Lance Corporal Brennan. He had taken a porkupike spike to his chest armor that had failed to penetrate but shattered, peppering the unprotected parts of his upper body with red-hot fragments that cut like shards of glass. His injuries left him with a weakened arm and unable to walk for the large fragment deeply embedded in his thigh, forcing her strongest soldier to carry him.

Fortunately, Giraldi did so with ease. Of more concern was that being the largest and heaviest of the human soldiers himself, the wound to his arm meant his support weapon, a continually-firing cannon the human Marines called a “saw” that was fed bullets from a large, mounted box beneath it, passed to one of his smaller subordinates.

He was burned and bloodied and clearly in pain, but just like Tara, he refused Chief Jacob’s offer of ‘morphine’ so he could still wield a regular rifle in the group’s defense. He did, however, mutter softly to himself as his Neigh Orleans-like accent got more pronounced, promising under his breath that he would have his revenge by finding out if the cloven porkupikes were as “good eatin’” as the “hogz ‘n gaterz” he knew back home.

That’s a good question—are the pure Cloven edible? Gilda suddenly wondered even as she admired his determination to stay in the fight. If so, that might solve our food issues for a bit… if we could get past the fact that they’re made in part from the bodies of griffon CORPSES! She made a face, hoping it would never come to that.

As always, Giraldi had efficiently carried out her instructions. He had the Ibex move her two wounded sky griffons in their auras while Nydia likewise levitated Chris along to protect his broken back from further damage, who was put to sleep at his own request. Tara, in turn, consented to being moved on the back of Spear Jumentum, who Gilda had decided she would recommend for commendation and promotion given her actions that day.

She saved my life earlier when I lost it and attacked that corrupted Ibex, and Ancestors know she’s carried out her orders without hesitation, even when they were dangerous or she didn’t want to, Gilda recognized, understanding that being forced to carry Raleigh had probably been the worst of those times. At least Tara will weigh less and know what not to touch…

Raleigh himself had been given a backpack full of supplies to carry off another wounded Marine, and only five minutes into their walk, he was huffing heavily and starting to stumble, leaving Gilda wondering how he or any human could allow themselves to be in such poor physical condition that wouldn’t even allow them to flee from the slowest and weakest of Tellusian predators.

He’s a disgrace by griffon standards, she thought as she ordered a stop halfway there. Not to let him rest, but to keep their formation coherent and allow the Ravens to scout the stream crossing, which was over a narrow bridge meant for non-flying races. But the other humans are not! she quickly acknowledged with a glance up at Marco, who had dropped to a crouch beside her with his rifle held ready, staying silently at her side.

He wasn’t aiming it anywhere but down because he’d been snapped at by Imlay earlier when he’d leveled it at the sound of a breaking twig. The Corporal had reminded him sharply that the Marines were ahead of him, and that they didn’t appreciate rifles being aimed at their backs.

“Sorry…” Marco had muttered as he did something to his ‘A-R’ that resulted in a soft click. “I’m on safety.”

“Keep it that way unless a firefight erupts,” Imlay ordered him, “and don’t you dare shoot at anything ahead of you unless you’re told to.”

“Sir, yes sir,” he said obediently, which only annoyed Imlay more.

“Do I look like an officer, Lakan?” he asked irritably, leaving Gilda noting that even the normally stoic Marine had his limits. “Just call me Corporal.”

Marco visibly bit his lip to keep from mouthing off. So just as he had spoken for her to Raleigh, she returned the favor here. “I am an officer, Corporal. So by my order, you will ease off him. We’re all tired and on edge, but the one thing we will not do is take it out on each other,” she reminded him. “You yourself said he proved his worth earlier, so kindly don’t treat him like a fledgling soldier.”

“Sir. Yes, sir,” he said in a mollified tone. “My apologies, sir. You’re right, he deserves better.”

“It’s fine, Gilda,” Marco said. “He’s right, after all—the first rule of gun safety is to never point one at something you don’t intend to shoot. He’s just telling me what I should already know, and what they all learned in basic training. And besides, if I’ve learned nothing else tonight, it’s that I’m not a Marine.” He looked away as he spoke.

“What you are is a warrior, Marco Lakan,” she said in a tone that brooked no argument, making sure that Imlay and the other Marines heard her, “and anycreature who disparages you is disparaging me.”

She could just see him smiling in the dark. “Thanks, Gilda.”

“You’re welcome. Now that said, be quiet, all of you! We need to listen for signals…”

Another minute passed before they received one in the form of two radio squelches, which was the Ravens telling them to move forward. She was getting increasingly worried about Ebon Umbreon, who she could tell was more gravely wounded than he let on. Even the Ibex buck had said as much, with Karin Kazal informing her quietly that he had magically scanned his rival earlier and found that his lungs and throat were damaged, likely from inhaling flame.

“That kind of injury will result in shortness of breath and increasing inflammation as he can no longer get the nourishment he needs from the air. He is weakening and needs to be healed, or he will collapse soon,” he warned her, to which she had responded with a terse nod, saying only that they couldn’t spare him just then.

A glance behind her showed that the Ibex antlers were dark as they had lowered their carried griffons to ground to rest their still-healing auras, while Nydia’s stave remained weakly aglow, keeping Chris suspended in the air.

She didn’t look healthy either, given her massive magical expenditures over the past day. But she was still doing everything she could, stealing five or ten minutes of rest and meditation at a time to try to keep her aura adequate for at least minor tasks. The Ibex, in contrast, appeared to be slowly healing their horns judging by the half-sealed cracks in them, which glowed a little brighter than the undamaged parts of their surfaces. Even the third Ibex doe, who had been the most wounded and had to be carried on the back of one of her brethren, had already regrown half of her broken-off antler.

But their faces—at least to the extent she could read them—were drawn; it was clear to her that just like Nydia, they needed plenty of food and rest before they could fully heal and recharge their depleted magic.

Crows take it. It isn’t just them, either. We all need sleep… Gilda thought as they began to move slowly forward again, glad she’d at least snatched a couple hours of it earlier at the steadholt of Bale. But even that gratitude was tempered by the knowledge that she’d had the chance—again—to indulge herself sexually with her human friends but declined it despite severe temptation.

She shook her head at the thought. And now Chris and Tara are wounded, so that’s out the window. And worse, we’re still in danger, stuck twelve leagues from Aricia with no guarantee that Fortrakt will make it there, or they’ll be able to reach us in time!

She suddenly wondered if she should have sent out additional flyers with him as they neared the bridge. Maybe I should have told him to take backup, but it’s too late now. Too late for fun ‘under the covers’ like Tara suggested, too. Ancestors, she’s such an honorable eagless and as much a warrior as Marco. And that’s to say nothing of CHRIS!

She shook her head again, finding that the closer death crept, the more she wished she’d taken the chance to be with them, onlookers be damned. Ancestors know they’ve proven their honor a decade of times over now. Crows take it… maybe Fortrakt was right, and I should have just let them—

“Centurion!” she had no sooner had the thought when Fortrakt’s voice was heard above her.

“What?” She looked up as blacklights were turned upwards to reveal his unstealthed form hovering in front of them. “Midnight!” She hissed out a challenge phrase.

“Maven!” he replied instantly, then descended to ground as the rifles on him were lowered. “Beg to report!”

“Crows take it… what are you doing here, cub?” she asked as he passed through the Marine cordon and saluted her. “You couldn’t possibly have made it to Aricia and back in that short a time!”

He grinned happily. “I didn’t! As it turned out, I was met halfway there… by them!” he motioned around them to a series of stealthed forms she could just see through her Raven goggles. They were shortly lit up as the Ibexians ignited their horns to produce the same purple glow as the human blacklights, revealing the fluorescing outlines of at least a dozen additional airborne gryphons.

“Hold your fire!” First Scimitar Bellator cried out somewhat painfully as rifles were hurriedly raised; Gilda glanced back to see her struggling to stand despite the admonishment of Chief Jacobs. “They’re Ravens! Good to see you again, Senior Scimitar,” she said as she struggled to walk forward and greet her comrade, baring her throat to her fellow gray-dyed warrior somewhat painfully. “My team lives.”

Despite the greeting, the other eagless eyed her balefully for a moment, then spoke to her in what sounded like the Saddle Arabian tongue of Mareabic. To which the injured First Scimitar replied in kind, to a nod of satisfaction.

The Raven leader then switched back to Aeric, pointedly ignoring the humans and Ibex as she turned to Gilda, though the latter had repeaters aimed at them before Gilda ordered them to stand down. “Good to see you as well, Oculta Belator. And greetings, Centurion. I am Senior Scimitar Miles Fortuna. My warriors were dispatched from Aricia to locate and aid you.”

She landed in front of Gilda and saluted, leading two teams of seven elite shadow warriors. Most were armed with repeaters, but the six earth griffon members of her force had strange oversized crossbows she’d never seen before attached to their backs. They were much larger than even the heavy earth griffon repeaters she’d beheld only once during her Gauntlet training, with their folded launcher arms studded with small crystals and woven with criss-crossing mithril filaments along their entire length.

“Dispatched?” She blinked, exchanging a confused look with Imlay. “But how? If Decurion Gletscher hadn’t made it to Aricia, you wouldn’t know where we were!!”

“I know not how, but we were told you were here and ordered to assist you immediately. Our instructions were to make contact and help secure a defensible perimeter before further reinforcements arrive. We met the Decurion halfway here, and he informed us where you were, offering to guide us in.”

Gilda relaxed, barely daring to believe their crow-begotten bad luck was finally turning. “I see. I have no idea how you learned where we were, but we thank the Ancestors you did. I have wounded who need immediate healer support, and we have no idea how long it will be before the Cloven find us. When can we expect evacuation?” She spoke in Equish so Imlay would understand her; she noted the Marine Corporal and Marco had stood back from her, letting her take the lead.

There was an uncomfortable silence of several seconds before the Raven female spoke again, switching to Equish in turn. “You don’t understand, sir. There is no evacuation. We’re only here to defend you, not take you to Aricia.”

BANISHED | Music of the Betrayed - 1 HOUR Of Epic Dark Sad Tragic Emotional Dramatic Music

“Defend us?” Gilda’s jaw dropped open, exchanging an aghast look with Imlay; even Fortrakt looked shocked at the news.

“With respect, Senior Scimitar, do they not understand there is at least an entire millennium of Cloven after us?” she asked the gray-dyed female, to no immediate response except a clenched beak. “Even with the human Marines and their cannons backing us, it would take a force at least a third that size to hold them off! And that’s assuming we could dig in and prepare proper lines of defense before they arrived!”

“Centurion—” The Raven leader tried to speak over her, but Gilda didn’t let her.

“And there’s also the fact that there’s a large Cloven factory at the Steadholt of Harness churning out probably a century of additional soldiers every hour!” she recalled bitterly. “Even if we somehow repulsed the initial assault, more would follow! We have been in multiple battles already and my forces are fought out, Senior Scimitar! We are injured and exhausted, and my wounded need healers now!” she all but snarled in the assassin’s face.

“We are aware of the Cloven factory,” the Senior Scimitar said unhappily. “The Decurion told us its location. Be assured that information has been passed along.”

Gilda’s feathers ruffled hard; she saw a hint of pink at the edges of her vision as her ire was raised. “Oh, that’s just fucking great.” She resorted to the human curse, earning at least a weak smile from Marco and Imlay. “By the crows, I’m so happy you’re aware of it. It will no doubt come as a great comfort to my soldiers and civilians as they’re slaughtered! So tell me, Senior Scimitar,are you also aware that if we’re overrun, all the Marine weapons and knowledge of how to use them fall into Cloven hooves?”

When there was no response, she got in the Raven’s face, allowing her temper to flare and the cider in her system to fuel it. “That human weapons will then be used against the Kingdom itself? Or is your Tribune simply not aware of their enormous power, having never seen them in action before?”

“Go, Gilda, go…” Marco muttered from behind her as Imlay stayed carefully silent along with an equally troubled Fortrakt.

“I cannot say. Whether they make sense to you or not, I have my orders, Centurion,” she told Gilda quietly. “And by my Ancestors and the sacred oath I swore to the Kingdom, I will carry them out.”

Gilda’s tail lashed hard. “Then you’ll die with us! Crows take it… on whose authority was this utter idiocy ordered?”

“On the authority of the garrison commander, Tribune Cipio, sir,” the Senior Scimitar answered evenly as she passed Gilda a pair of order scrolls, causing her to blink. “By direction of newly elevated Legate Narada in Arnau, you are now under his command as well. So I strongly suggest you mind your tongue, as the Tribune does not take well to his soldiers disparaging him.”

That caught Gilda short. She had served under Cipio during a previous rotation and knew he was anything but an idiot. By all my Ancestors, he MUST know the danger we’re in and what the humans being killed and corrupted would mean! So why isn’t he moving air and earth to evacuate us? she wondered frantically as she opened the two scrolls.

The first was indeed from the newly-promoted Narada, subordinating her and her force to Tribune Cipio; it included a message to Imlay from First Lieutenant Nantz to assist the Tribune in the city’s defense. The second scroll came from Cipio himself, and his instructions were terse but clear:

Stay right where she was and hold out for as long as possible, using whatever reinforcements she was given. No reason or rationale was offered, nor was there any mention of later evacuation, but her orders were to stay put and hold at all costs.

She read it twice, and then a third time just to be sure she wasn’t so tired she was misinterpreting it. But no matter how many times she scanned it, the text didn’t change, and she knew the Tribune’s talonwriting well from having served under him for a full year. But… by my Ancestors, this makes no SENSE! This place isn’t strategically important, but saving the humans IS! Why is Tribune Cipio leaving us hanging like this? She resisted the urge to tear the order scroll to shreds.

“So be it,” she said, her beak clenched. “I don’t understand this at all, but if there’s no evacuation, then we have no choice but to stay and fight. What reinforcements can we expect?” she then asked, struggling to keep her voice level.

“Once we have secured a defensible perimeter, A century of Talons and a mixed turma of Knights, including two Magi, will join us,” the Raven leader informed her. She glanced up at Imlay and Marco for the first time; her gaze lingered on their cannons for a moment. “Unfortunately, as more experienced officers are unavailable, you remain the ranking griffon and the Tribune authorizes you to command both Knights and Talons. But if you and your Optio are too tired to carry out such duties properly, then I will be happy to command the defense myself.”

Gilda glared at her. “The hell you will. You don’t know human capabilities or how to fight alongside them! As the Tribune clearly trusts me enough to do so, I will command the defense,” she told the other eagless, only realizing after the fact that she’d resorted to yet another human curse.

“I know not what ‘hell’ is, but you are the ranking officer,” the Raven leader looked unhappy but bared her throat anyway. “My team is at your disposal, sir.”

“‘Hell’ is where we’re headed at this rate!” Marco couldn’t stay silent any longer. “Are you seriously just gonna let us die out here?”

“Lakan—” Imlay started to say, but Marco cut him off.

“You guys are supposed to be a bunch of badass ninjas, but you’re just gonna mindlessly obey orders that make no goddamned sense?”

The Senior Scimitar had stayed her tongue when Gilda spoke, but this time, she trilled and her feathers ruffled hard. “Do not call us that again, human! Ninjas are mercenaries!”

Marco’s eyes flashed. “Oh yeah? Too bad! Because if you were, then at least we could pay you to do something sensible!”

“Zip it!” Imlay spoke sharply. “I don’t like it either, but as she says, orders are orders, even when they don’t make sense. We have no way to make the distance to the city from here without griffon help, so we have to stay and fight it out. And assume there’s a damned good reason for risking our lives.”

“One word, Corporal: Kabul!” Marco spat out.

“Enough!” an increasingly irritated Imlay rounded on him, getting in Marco’s face while speaking in a harsh whisper. “I see one thing hasn’t changed from our time in Equestria, Lakan—you still don’t know when to shut the fuck up!”

“Sipsipin mo ang titi ko, Corporal! So I’m supposed to just be nice when they’re gonna fucking abandon us like in Afghanistan?”

“That will do! Whether you like it or not, my Marines now fall under griffon command, and you’re under mine! If they tell us to stay, we stay! And you don’t help anything by insulting our allies!” He glared Marco silent, then rounded on his squad, tapping the side of his helmet to speak through the radio that seemed to be built directly into it. Or at least, that was what Gilda had concluded, given the Marines didn’t seem to need the odd blocky devices they’d equipped her soldiers with to be heard over it.

“And the same goes for all of you. We have our orders, and we will carry them out!” he said emphatically, then turned to face the Raven leader, exhaling slowly before he spoke. “My sincerest apologies, Senior Scimitar. You’ll understand we’re all a little on edge after so many battles and close calls. Sorry for not saluting you, but I’m unfamiliar with your rank and have no idea if you’re an officer.”

She gave him a curt nod. “I am not, so no salute is necessary. Senior Scimitar is the Raven equivalent of Senior Spear, which is the Kingdom’s highest enlisted rank. Nevertheless, I do outrank you, Corporal, by the combined chain of command we worked out with your superiors in Arnau. I will therefore thank you to restrain your civilians and keep them out of our way.”

“That is my order to give, Senior Scimitar,” Gilda corrected sharply. “And you will not be giving orders to any of the Marines or civilians, except through me.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry sir.” She saluted again, though Gilda could sense the intense resentment coming off the elite Raven warrior. “As we need to establish a defense quickly before we can receive reinforcements, what are the Centurion’s instructions?”

“We will establish our base in the main camp, which is down this path. By my order, you will screen our movement and keep watch further out for approaching Cloven while we clear the camp itself! We will make that camp our redoubt and set our defense within it with our backs to the lake. Now move, everycreature! And kindly get out of my sight until I need you again, Senior Scimitar…”

Gilda was still seething as they neared the main camp, and she could hear the Marines and Marco muttering as well.

Imlay had told them to be silent, but such orders only went so far, even with her own soldiers. She’d even heard at least two of her Auxilia grumbling to themselves, wondering what in all the Crows higher command was thinking, and why they were apparently being thrown to the Timberwolves.

In the end, it hadn’t been her that silenced the chatter so much as Giraldi, who seemed to accept their insane instructions far better than Gilda did.

“I do not believe that they would so callously and casually sacrifice us, Centurion. It is inconceivable to me that they do not understand what the loss of the humans would mean, particularly if they’ve been in contact with Arnau,” he reasoned, speaking to her quietly in Aeric so a still-woozy Brennan riding his back wouldn’t understand him.

“I suspect that much more is happening here than we are aware of, and I further suspect that is deliberate on the part of Tribune Cipio. Having served under him once on the Ibexian border, I know well his quality as a commander. Whatever his intentions, he is clearly keeping his plans secret, as well he should,” he said quietly, though he made sure his voice was loud enough for other nearby griffons to hear.

“For just as you realized before reaching Yoke, if anycreature with knowledge of those plans was captured, the Cloven would then know them as well. That would explain why he didn’t tell the Ravens—and us—anything more than our immediate orders.”

“You really think so?” She gave him a look as they walked.

“I know not for certain. I just cannot fathom that we have been given these orders without good reason.”

“Then you’re more trusting of higher command than me,” she told him as they reached the outskirts of the camp and the Marines set to work checking the buildings while her remaining flyers kept watch under Fortrakt’s command.

The first few structures were cleared quickly. But when they searched a storage cellar underneath the main hall, there was a sudden cacophony of sound including shouting Marines and what sounded like shrieking cubs.

“Corporal? What’s wrong?” She called into the radio.

“I think we’ve located those survivors the Shadow Decurion mentioned,” he said tersely. “We found what appears to be an adult griffon accompanied by several pony and griffon kids!”

Gilda was given pause, as she knew that ‘kids’ was a term used to describe the offspring of goats like the Ibex. But she had little time to reflect on the irony of an Ibexian term used to describe her own race as she realized how civilian foals unfamiliar with humans might react to the sight of them. “I’m on my way!”

She took flight for five wingflaps before landing in front of the open cellar, announcing over the radio that she was coming in. Descending the stairs into the darkened interior lit only by a single firegem that had apparently been dropped on the ground, she beheld a dark-furred adult eagless shielding a group of six badly frightened Caleponian foals and griffon cubs.

The bravest of the latter ruffled their fledgling feathers and trilled a warning while at least one of the young colts snorted and stomped his hoof, only to retreat behind the adult at the sight of human soldiers.

“They’re monsters! Ancestors save us!” One of the younger cubs cried out in Aeric while the eagless reared up to wield what looked like a kitchen butcher knife.

“Stay back!” the badly freaked female ordered the upright creatures in panicked Aeric, her stance sloppy enough that Gilda could tell she wasn’t a fighter at all. “By all my Ancestors, I swear you won’t take these cubs!”

“Dammit, we said don’t move!” One of the Marines shouted at them in Equish, his fire team leveling their rifles; for a single terrifying moment Gilda feared they were going to shoot as they saw the eagless brandishing a blade.

“Hold your fire!” She and Imlay chorused as the seven survivors huddled in a corner, looking tired and desperate.

“Scan them.” The order then came from the Corporal.

The apparent civilians winced as the purple blacklights passed over them repeatedly, forcing their eyes to avert from the unnatural light. Griffon wings and pony hooves fluoresced the brightest, with the rest of their bodies having a much weaker glow from their internal magic. “They’re clean, Corporal. Normal magical signatures for earth ponies and griffons,” one of the Marines noted; Gilda didn’t recognize the voice’s owner.

“Their bodies are hot, too. They’re definitely alive,” Guerrero said after looking at them through his odd heat-seeing spyglass.

“Understood. Now by my order, lower your weapons!” Gilda instructed in no uncertain terms, stepping to the forefront while sheathing her crossbow, baring her neck towards the huddled and frightened group. “Greetings. I’m Centurion Grizelda Behertz of the Auxiliary Guard. We mean you no harm,” she told them in Aeric.

The wild-eyed female didn’t reply right away. A sky griffon like Gilda; she had an odd combination of features, including what she guessed were the bluish-gray head and forefeathers of a Great Gray Owl paired with leonine hindquarters that included a tasseled tail.

But far from being the typical tawny tone of a lion, her hindquarters were the same slate shade as her headfeathers, and her wings were even darker, going a much deeper shade of gray. “These upright creatures are called humans—perhaps you heard their race arrived in Arnau recently? On my honor as a soldier, they are friends, and we are here to help you. What is your name?” She bared her neck again but more placatingly, rearing back and holding her talons out to the side to emphasize that she was unarmed.

It was another several seconds before the other female finally spoke, though she still seemed afraid to lower her weapon. “I’m… Gabriella Cunaria. M-my friends call me Gabby. I’m a Camp Counselor and activity director for cubs. And by all my Ancestors, I was afraid we were the only ones left alive…” She was starting to cry.

“And how, by those same Ancestors, did you survive?” Gilda asked gently.

“I… I…” She started to shake as the cubs she’d been protecting began to whimper. “I w-was taking them on an excursion to an old cave complex when we suddenly heard screams. Came out to see a bunch of strange razorbats descend and attack us in broad daylight! After fighting them off with my talons, I hid the cubs as deep in those caves as I could. By the time I risked coming out, everycreature was gone! Afterwards, it was all I could do to find them food and treat their wounds. That’s why we came back here—I needed supplies! And I was afraid to leave them alone…”

“Where’s my mommy?” One of the foals asked Gilda in Equish. From her accent and pastel coat, she was no Caleponian; she was clearly an Equestrian earth pony probably visiting the Kingdom with her herd. “I want my mommy!”

“I don’t know, honey…” Gabriella squeezed her blue eyes tightly shut as she answered in near-perfect Equish, tears welling in them as she was unable to tell the young filly the likely truth. “But I’m going to protect you, okay?”

“They’re all dead, aren’t they?” the oldest of the griffon cubs asked in Aeric. Gilda judged him to be no more than ten years old, his voice dull but his limbs trembling from emotion and lack of sleep. “It’s the Cloven, isn’t it? Then all those old legends were true! And that means…” he couldn’t finish his sentence as he began to shake.

Gilda had to look away for a moment. “It’s the Cloven,” she conceded quietly, which caused the griffon younglings of the group to start crying, as they knew what that meant from old tales all parents told their cubs. Occasionally to frighten them into behaving, but more to make sure that all griffons knew the telltale signs of their ancient enemy should they ever reappear.

“But the Kingdom is not lost. We’re on our way to Aricia, which still stands, but we’re going to have to stay here for a while first,” she explained, not about to say why. “You said your name was Gabriella?” she then asked the gray-furred female again, receiving a shaky nod.

“Then you’re a brave eagless who did a very honorable thing, protecting and caring for all these cubs. I’ll give you what food and healers we have, but for now, I need you to stay hidden and keep caring for them,” she said gently, then switched back to Aeric so the pony foals wouldn’t understand. “Once the Cloven know we’re here, they will attack. But this time, we will fight back.”

She then summoned the two mothers and their cubs, introducing them and respectfully asking them to help Gabriella feed and protect her charges. They agreed, introducing themselves and their cubs to the griffon and pony younglings, who took to the two eaglesses quickly, sobbing against their sides.

Once they were attended, Chief Jacobs entered at Imlay’s order. He removed his helmet and got onto one knee before them, introducing himself and speaking gently as he asked to look at their wounds.

They were initially afraid of him, but he eventually won their trust by offering them fruit and bread from the cart they’d left behind in Bale, as well as what Gilda’s nose told her was some form of very sweet chocolate he removed from a shiny wrapper. He bit off a piece to show it wasn’t poisoned and when the cubs tried it, their expressions lit up and they immediately asked for more. When they next asked him where he was from, he showed them pictures of his home and family, which included several cubs of his own.

So, he’s a father too, Gilda nodded in satisfaction as she departed. Bet he and Giraldi could swap some stories!

“Centurion? Beg to report,” Imlay told her in the griffon manner when she emerged, firing her a salute from where he’d been talking with the Senior Scimitar. “We’ve cleared the buildings and secured the perimeter of the camp as ordered, but I have to say that this isn’t the best ground to fight on. It’s too closed in. It’d be perfect for conducting guerrilla warfare against a larger force, but not for a set-piece defensive battle.”

Gilda wasn’t sure what he meant by ‘gorilla’ war—did humans wage war to wipe out fellow primates in order to establish themselves as the dominant ape of their world, and the outnumbered gorillas had fought back using irregular hit-and-fly tactics?—but she nodded her agreement.

“I concur,” the Senior Scimitar told her before she could reply; she had elected to stay with the main force. Though she had said it was to coordinate her team from a central point, Gilda suspected it was more to keep an eye on the Ibex. “It nullifies the range advantage of our weapons and offers few real chokepoints. As their soldier forms can charge right through the underbrush, they could attack from all directions out of the woods and we couldn’t effectively fight back until they were on top of us. And with our backs to the lake, there would be nowhere to run.”

Gilda gave her an odd look. Range advantage? What range advantage? She wasn’t sure what the other eagless meant, given their standard crossbows couldn’t hit much beyond the treeline, and the range of the Raven repeaters was even less. But her words certainly applied to the Marine cannons, so she decided that was what the Raven female had meant. Maybe she knows more about human weapons than she lets on!

“Point taken. I was only planning to stay here long enough to be evacuated, with air coaches landing on the beach to pick us up. But if we’re forced to fight here…”

She looked around anxiously at the forest around them in the slowly lightening sky, which despite the approaching dawn seemed more dark and dangerous than ever, leaving her mentally jumping at every sound of a snapped twig as the morning birds became active. “Time is pressing, Senior Scimitar, and there’s a chance the Cloven are already on their way. If they catch us in the open, we’re dead, so where do you suggest we go?”

“I was listening in to your talk over the human ‘radios’. That civilian eagless mentioned a cave complex? Where is it?” the Senior Scimitar asked, to which Gilda blinked before going back inside to ask her.

It took a moment before ‘Gabby’ replied to their query. She seemed only barely cognizant of her surroundings, not able to do much more than gently coax the cubs to eat and let their razorbat wounds be tended. She might be suffering from battle shock, Gilda knew, worried about her state of mind.

“Huh? Oh. Um, it’s not that far. It’s an old, abandoned Changeling hive about a third of the way around the east side of the lake, up a sharp hill.”

“Take us there,” Gilda directed, to which the other eagless said she couldn’t—that she had to stay with the cubs, who trusted her and she felt responsible for.

“It’s all right. We’ll take care of them for you, Gabriella,” the dark-furred Caladium Mater promised on behalf of the two mothers. “And remember that by showing us the location of the caves, you are protecting them if they’re safer there.”

She nodded jerkily, and once they got outside, she told the pair to take flight. To their surprise, the Ibex buck asked to accompany them over the dead body of the Raven female, who only partially relented after Ebon Umbreon somewhat raspily told her that he could be trusted. He was lying on the ground being treated by the combined healing auras of the female Ibex and Decanus Nydia while guarded by Serpens Oculus, who Gilda had ordered to stand watch over their makeshift infirmary.

But Gilda could only spare them a moment of her attention before the argument brought her focus back to the two rivals.

“Zakroyi svoyi rot, suka! Do you think I’m trying to escape? And just where, by the Ancient Rams of the Rodina, do you think I could go, Miles Fortuna?” the Starshina challenged her directly. “Three of my comrades are now twice slain and the Cloven have already demonstrated they want to possess all of us! They cornered us in a cave once already, and the rest of us barely escaped with our lives!”

“How touching. And I’m supposed to believe that you elected to aid your mortal enemies instead of fleeing across the countryside while we have no ability to stop you?” She all but sneered out the words. “Far more likely that you saw this as an opportunity to gain intelligence on humans and griffons alike, and plan to abscond at the earliest possible opportunity.”

He stared at her before gaining a sneer of his own. “For a Raven of your rank, I find you uncommonly stupid, Senior Scimitar. So be assured that unlike you, I am under no illusions about my odds of survival or escape out there, or what will happen to the Ascendancy if the Griffon Kingdom falls to the Cloven! Both sides are at risk here, and we have to work together! So for the sake of our two nations, let me help you!” he pleaded to Gilda as much as his Raven rival.

The Senior Scimitar stared at him distrustfully, then walked up to get in his face. “I swear by my Ancestors that if you betray us, Karin Kazal—” Her talons went meaningfully to one of the twin scimitars strapped to her back.

“Then I am as good as dead, from either you or the Cloven,” the Ibex buck finished without flinching from her, creating a pair of magical constructs in the shape of sharp blades which he crossed in a guard position before dispersing them and turning to face Gilda. “Request permission to accompany you, Centurion Behertz?” he asked politely, briefly presenting his horns as he stood to an attention stance in front of her.

“Granted. But how, if you can’t—” she started to ask him, to which he simply smirked and cast some form of magic on himself that suddenly allowed him to leap high in the air; they looked up to see he was now standing on an upper branch of an evergreen. It seemed far too small to support him, but it barely bent under his weight.

“A gravitational reduction charm. It will dramatically reduce its pull on me and allow me to easily follow you from the treetops as if I only weighed the same as a swallow—I could even run across water using this spell! It won’t last long at my current level of power, but it will allow me to keep up with you for a short journey,” he promised. “Now, shall we?”

“Fine,” Gilda grated, wondering if the Ibexian adepts would ever run out of new tricks to show her. Catching his scent, she had to suppress an abrupt and very unwelcome memory of tackling him and accidentally burying her beak in the gap between his sheath and oversized sac, suddenly and quite keenly recalling their feel and musk. “Then follow us,” she invited, disgusted with herself for finding him even remotely tempting and resolving to keep him downwind to prevent any more unwelcome flashbacks.

They took flight after, with Gilda and Miles Fortuna protectively flanking Gabriella, arriving at their destination in just two minutes. As promised, Karin Kazal had kept up with them by taking great bounding leaps from the treetops; she wondered how long he’d had to practice that feat to be able to judge such jumps correctly when the pull of gravity was far less on him.

I guess the Ascendancy’s Capricorn Adepts really are as good as advertised, she granted somewhat grudgingly as they landed halfway up a sharp hill, just grateful she hadn’t had to face a full unwounded team of them, even with the Marines.

They shortly landed in front of a cave entrance that sat at the end of a rough and steep upward path. It looked to Gilda like it would have given anycreature trouble short of the mountain-loving Ibex, terminating on a plateau that fronted the mouth of the cave itself. The former was a rough half-circle about fifty paces in diameter while the latter looked normal from the outside, but once they got inside a short distance, stalactites and stalagmites gave way to polished stone.

To her surprise, there were even some old, half-crumbled sculptures in the first large antechamber bracketing the path. She guessed they were a depiction of what was most likely a succession of Changeling Queens; there was even a hint of color and occasional glint of chitin in the interior walls.

Its old occupants were long gone, however, as the caves themselves looked like they hadn’t been inhabited in over a millennium, with nothing else to mark its onetime tenants but the remnants of arches between chambers and some old and faded artwork on the walls.

“Are there any other entrances than this one?” Gilda asked Gabby.

“Huh? Oh. There are several open skylights at the topmost chambers that cubs sometimes like exploring. There is—or was—a below-ground entrance, but its access tunnel collapsed long ago.” To her credit, she was trying gallantly to keep her voice from quavering.

“We’ll have to cover those skylights or seal off their access to the main cave complex—a few explosive gems should do the trick,” the Senior Scimitar suggested. “Aside from that, this looks quite defensible.”

“Curious…” was all the Ibex male said as he scanned the area, his horns only glowing weakly after his latest magical expenditure. “It is very unusual to see an old Changeling hive, as they normally destroy them when they leave to make sure nothing can be learned about their race. One can only surmise that they were driven out and forced to flee before they could. Traces of changeling magic remain in the walls as well. We might be able to use that to our advantage, Centurion,” he then told her.

“How so?” Gilda and the Raven female asked as one while Gabby trailed them somewhat nervously, her eyes darting and wings twitching.

“Changeling magic is, quite obviously, geared towards stealth and suppressing magical signatures to help them stay hidden. Even faded, the remnants of their old wards should help muffle our auras and hide us from the magical awareness of captured mages. So I suggest we make this the site of our stand instead of the main camp, Centurion.”

“I agree,” the Senior Scimitar said grudgingly with a glare at the Ibex. “As these caves are carved into a large hill with just a few possible avenues of approach to the cave entrances, this is far more defensible ground. We also have good visibility down its slopes, the steep angle of which should slow a Cloven charge. Once we clear the brush to remove cover and make sure we have clear fields of fire, we should be able to hold out for a while from here.”

“You’re right, though I don’t think we have time to clear the brush,” she said as she unclipped her human radio from her belt of Raven gems. “Corporal Imlay? Change of plans. I’m sending the Senior Scimitar back to get you. Once she arrives, get everyone to the cave complex and be quick about it. We’re setting our defense there. And be ready for some heavy hiking!”

“Wilco, sir,” he said after a brief delay, which was just long enough for her to hear some groans and curses from both the Marines and her own radio-equipped soldiers. “Marines! We’re moving again! Get into march formation and be quick about it!”

It was just ten minutes before dawn by the time they got everycreature to the cave complex, along with what food and healer supplies they could hastily scavenge from the main camp.

Moving the cubs and casualties were again the biggest issue, though at least the pony and griffon younglings could be put on the backs of sky griffons, who flew them there ahead of the main group escorted by four Ravens. Giraldi and Spear Jumentum were again used for the wounded humans while Ibexian auras carried her injured soldiers. That still left Raleigh dragging himself along though he finally collapsed halfway there in a puddle of sweat and a pounding heart, claiming he couldn’t go any further.

Though sorely tempted to leave him behind and later claim he’d been killed by the Cloven, she didn’t. It instead fell to one of the earth griffon Ravens to carry him while Gilda held on to her surprisingly heavy oversized crossbow, leaving her wondering again what its function was given there was no drawstring or accompanying quiver.

She didn’t have much of a chance to ponder it before the obese human groped griffon shoulders again. And this time, he did earn a sharp rebuke from the angry assassin, with the gray-dyed eagless ruffling her feathers and stopping long enough to pin him with a stare. She then warned him in Equish that if he touched her there again, she would not hesitate to leave him behind with a crossbow bolt in his head.

“Why bother? It’s not like the Cloven could make any use of him. He doesn’t know anything about fighting and he’s so fat and slow that he’s not even good cannon fodder,” Marco insulted him again, speaking just loudly enough for the overweight aide to hear. “I say just leave him behind.”

Raleigh sputtered, protesting his status as a diplomat. But finding no sympathy from humans or griffons, he fell silent and held onto the Raven’s shoulder straps instead, seemingly trying hard not to pass out from even moderate exertion.

Through it all, Gilda flew low cover with her remaining flightworthy sky griffons while the Ravens scouted ahead, using paired communication gems that they said could overcome the magical interference still causing issues with the human radios. They didn’t say more about them than that, however, and knowing they were vulnerable in transit and with every minute making an attack more likely, Gilda found the half-league march taking far longer than it should have.

Still no Cloven around, but for how long? She wondered how much warning they’d actually get before an attack this time. Once they know where we are, they’ll hit us with everything they’ve got! And with that massive crow-cursed Cloven factory churning out new soldiers at Harness, they can replenish even a full millennium of losses in hours! So why, by all my Ancestors, is Tribune Cipio risking us like this? she asked herself again. But she couldn’t come up with an answer, and if the Ravens knew, they weren’t saying.

It was thus with no little relief that they finally arrived at the cave entrance about a century and a half of perches high. And she judged it none too soon, given that by the time they arrived at the flat area that fronted the main entrance, even the Marines were starting to show signs of severe fatigue along with Marco.

At least unlike Raleigh, he had made the entire distance and climb, though his legs were starting to visibly tremble from all the hard marching. It gave her some new appreciation for how the Marines were able to bear the considerable weight of their cannons, quivers and armor, leaving her wondering what training they’d undergone to be able to carry it all.

“Holy shit…” he said through panting breaths as he finally pulled himself up onto the plateau with an assist from Imlay. The Marine Corporal clasped his foreleg and yanked him the rest of the way up, while to Gilda’s great annoyance, the two mobile Ibex scampered up the slope with ease, traversing the steep terrain like it was nothing. “That was a hell of a hike…”

“A walk in the park for us, Lakan. Marines! Establish a perimeter and secure the entrance! Let’s get the civilians and wounded inside—” Imlay began before catching himself and glancing at an annoyed Gilda. “Sorry, sir.”

“Exactly the orders I was going to give. Optio Giraldi! Secure our wounded and the civilians inside the caves! Gabriella can guide you. Chief Jacobs! Set up an infirmary there as well. Decurion Gletscher! Put your sky griffons on high ground and have one decade keep watch for flyers while another covers the skylights! Corporal Imlay! I want your fire teams positioned where they can sweep the slopes! Senior Scimitar! It’s up to you to provide early warning of a Cloven approach, so disperse your warriors in the woods and have them fire blue flares if a Cloven force is sighted, red if dragons are on the way. Once they arrive, try to whittle their numbers down a bit with hit-and-fly attacks in the forest.”

“Unfortunately, sir, I cannot accept those orders,” Miles Fortuna said after an odd pause, watching carefully as everyone made it onto the plateau with the last of her force bringing up the rear after Imlay’s trailing fire team. “Because those of the Tribune supersede yours. By his direction, once we have a secure perimeter, we are to call the Cloven to us and then defend you directly from their attacks.”

“What do you mean, call them to us—” Gilda began to ask only to receive an answer when the Raven leader unclipped a small tube from her belt and aimed it into the air.

A magical flare then shot out of the tube and burst with blinding light high over the hill. Worse, it stayed put and lingered long in a display that had to be visible all the way from Harness and Bale. Gilda watched in shock before she grabbed the Raven eagless and flung her to the ground. Her steel talons were shortly at the female’s throat as the Marines likewise raised their rifles against her equally startled comrades, who went for their repeaters and aimed them back.

“Son of a bitch! Cover the Ravens!” Imlay ordered, his rifle leveled. “And if they try anything, kill them!”

“No! Don’t shoot!” She heard Fortrakt’s plea above the shouting that erupted but was barely aware of it as suddenly all she could see was red. Or more appropriately, a very intense pink as she fought hard to not give into the Cider-fueled impulse to outright kill the other eagless.

“By all the crows of the Kingdom, what in the name of our human and griffon Ancestors are you doing?” she shouted in the Raven female’s face, shaking her violently by the neck. “You’ve just killed us all!”

The Raven did not resist her, though she was presumably more than capable of it. “I’m truly sorry, Centurion, but on my honor, I was ordered to do it! I was instructed to let the Cloven know our location once we were in a defensible position! But not just them!” she then told her as an answering flare was seen in the eastern distance.

“It was a signal to our own side as well! I swear on my honor as a Raven that reinforcements are now on the way, and my team has to lead them here! So with your permission, may we meet them?”

“Meet them? Or flee with them?” Gilda demanded to know, suddenly finding herself with enough rage-fueled strength to pick the shadow warrior up by the throat and slam her into a rock wall. She then tightened her grip on the Raven’s neck, her wings flared forward in pure fury. “Who gave you those orders and what is your true intention? If you want to live, speak!” she ordered as an equally infuriated Marco leveled his rifle at the Raven’s head, leaving her staring cross-eyed into the gun’s “barrel”.

“Kainin mo tae ko! Better start talking, you ninja bitch!” he further insulted her. “Come on, we’re waiting!” No weapons fire had erupted from either side yet as Fortrakt continued to plead with everyone, but Gilda sensed the situation was rapidly spiraling out of control.

A momentary glance to her side showed that the Ravens weren’t relenting as several turned on their stealth spells, only to be fully illuminated by Marine blacklights. And when that failed, the sounds of breaking gems announced the activation of several personal shield spells that could protect a single soldier. Much like the ones Nydia could conjure, they formed a potent barrier that the Ravens could fire out from while other projectiles could not quickly penetrate them.

“Jamal!” Imlay shouted to see them as he went for one of the large cylindrical ‘grenades’ on his vest; Jamal didn’t need to be told to do so before he copied the action, loading his weapon’s lower tube with one of the shield-crushing explosives.

“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” a franticFortrakt then landed, risking his life by planting himself squarely between the two sides as his sky griffons moved to bracket the Ravens, aiming crossbows at them from above to stay out of the line of Marine cannon fire. Gilda saw with a quick look that he had flared his wings to form a symbolic wall-like barrier between them, which at least resulted in some fractionally lowered weapons; she swore she could all but feel him trying to will the two sides apart. “Centurion, please! I don’t understand either, but there has to be some reason for this!”

“Oh yeah? Like what?” Marco asked heatedly, not lowering his weapon, and this time, Imlay didn’t order him away. The Marine Corporal instead warned the Ravens that if they took flight or shot even a single bolt from their repeaters, he would order his Marines to kill them.

“And she already betrayed us to the Cloven by firing that flare! So how can we believe anything she says?” Gilda followed up, reaching up to rip off the Raven’s flight goggles so she could see and read her yellow eyes.

“I know not. But I refuse to believe my brethren would do something so seemingly insane without good reason,” a hoarse voice announced the arrival of Ebon Umbreon, who was leaning heavily on the Ibex buck. “I understand your anger, Centurion. But I think we should at least allow her a chance to explain herself.”

“I was just carrying out my orders!” she protested again. “I don’t know why they were issued, and I agree they don’t make sense, but I swear on the oath I swore as a Raven that they came directly from Tribune Cipio himself! I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d try to stop me if I did! My orders are to protect you and escort the reinforcements we just summoned here! We are here to fight at your side! And be assured that if I wanted to betray you, Centurion, you and your force would already be dead!” she managed a moment of attitude even as Marco’s rifle pressed right into her temple.

“And how the fuck is telling the Cloven where we are protecting us?” Marco asked before Gilda could; the only other time she could remember being so murderously angry was after an endless array of pranks was played on her by Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash in Ponyville so many years earlier.

“Enough.” A surprisingly calm Giraldi then approached, making a show of passing between the two sides of the standoff. “With respect, Centurion and Senior Scimitar, both sides need to lower their weapons immediately before a battle erupts that only the Cloven can win. And if you claim your actions are honorable, Miles Fortuna, then you can start proving it with a show of good faith. Order your teams to stand down immediately.”

Her eyes darted back and forth between Giraldi and the muzzle of Marco’s rifle for a moment. “Stand down!” she shouted in Equish. “By my order,sheath your weapons and step out of your shields!”

Gilda saw Fortrakt relax, but only fractionally as the Ravens reluctantly obeyed, reholstering their repeaters while stepping out of their protective bubbles still covered by Fortrakt’s flyers and the human Marines. “Very well, Centurion Behertz and Corporal Imlay. It is now our turn,” Giraldi then prompted.

“Corporal! Decurion Gletscher! Stand down your forces,” she then ordered Imlay and Fortrakt through a clenched beak, though she didn’t release the Raven leader.

“You heard the lady. Lower your weapons! And step back from them!” Imlay ordered, leaving Gilda guessing he was trying to put more of a space buffer between them, having seen Raven skill at close combat vividly demonstrated in earlier battles. In contrast, she saw Fortrakt’s flyers already holstering their crossbows even before they were ordered to, perhaps having heard Gilda’s instructions.

“Centurion, please release me. Our reinforcements are already on the way and we need to meet them!” Miles Fortuna requested again.

“I’m not letting you or your force out of my sight until I get some answers, Senior Scimitar. Decurion Gletscher! Get back in the air and head towards that other flare location! Find out if what she’s saying is true! If there are reinforcements out there, tell them where we are and then proceed all the way to Aricia! Tell Tribune Cipio that we are dead unless he gets us out of here!”

“No!” the Raven leader replied, increasingly anxious. “They’re only expecting us! If he shows up, he’s likely to be killed for not knowing a passphrase and worse, they might turn back!”

“How convenient,” Marco said with a sneer. “I don’t trust her, Gilda! I don’t trust any of them now!”

“Nor would I, in your place. So allow me to determine the veracity of her words, Centurion,” Karin Kazal said next from beside her; she’d been so mad she hadn’t even noticed him approach. “With your permission, I can read her mind and discern the truth.”

She glanced at him and nodded, seeing the same anger she felt in his gaze. “Do it!”

“What?” The shocked Raven locked gazes with her Ibexian enemy. “By all our Ancestors, you’d trust him over me?”

But Gilda only sneered. “Yes. Because of the two of you, he’s the only one who hasn’t betrayed us!” she hissed back.

“I didn’t betray you! And stay out of my mind, you crow-damned goat!” she gave him a warning trill, to which the Ibexian adept only smiled sweetly.

“That sounds like a challenge, Senior Scimitar. As I’m sure you already know from my Council of Crows dossier, my mental lockpicking skills are among the best of the entire Capricorn Conclave. I, in turn, know how well Ravens are trained to resist mental magic. So shall we see who wins a contest of wills?” He looked to Gilda like he relished the thought.

Gilda wasn’t sure if she was giving her next order out of military necessity or just because she wanted to make the other eagless suffer. “Do it. And by my order, do not resist him! You will submit to his spell, Miles Fortuna!”

Her jaw fell open again. “But… I…”

“By your command.” The Starshina smiled slyly as he gave the standard griffon response to an order. “This will take but half a minute. And I strongly suggest you obey your orders and submit, Senior Scimitar. You resist my mental probes at your peril,” he then warned as he ignited his nearly-healed twin antlers and closed his eyes.

A beam of magic shot out to envelop the Raven female’s head, whose eyes went wide and beak fell slack as the intrusion into her mind registered. She visibly resisted it at first, to which the Ibex buck grimaced once or twice, but either because she relented or he finally broke through her defenses, they both suddenly relaxed about ten seconds in. Gilda belatedly wondered if he might not be trying to extract more information than he needed, but within the promised half-minute, he ceased his probe and released her, dropping her to the ground in disgust.

“Pizdets. As hard as it is to believe, she’s telling the truth about her orders and our promised reinforcements,” he told Gilda, though she saw him glance over at Fortrakt for a moment, giving him an odd look.

“For reasons I cannot even begin to fathom, she was indeed told to alert the Cloven by Tribune Cipio. She does not understand her instructions any more than we do, but as you ordered her submission, she did not resist me that much—pity—and I am satisfied that she does not intend to betray us. Nor does she have any other hidden orders regarding us she has yet to carry out.”

“She already betrayed us!”Gilda pointed out again. “The Cloven are on their way!”

“As the Starshina confirmed, her actions were on the orders of Tribune Cipio, whose intent remains unclear. Though I fear it possible that the Tribune himself might be somehow compromised to issue such orders, it matters not—what’s done is done,” Giraldi pointed out calmly. “We do need them, and time is pressing, so I suggest you release the Ravens. Have them escort our promised reinforcements in while the Marines and our remaining Auxilia ready our defense.

Gilda closed her eyes, trying to get control of her cider-roiled emotions again. “Fine. Marco, let her go,” she instructed. Unlike with Imlay, he promptly obeyed her, stepping back and lowering his rifle. “I still don’t trust you, Senior Scimitar. But I grant we need you and your Ravens. So get our reinforcements and get back here! We’ll deploy them when you arrive. But know this, Miles Fortuna…”

She got in the other female’s face again. “These orders are insane, and I do not appreciate you keeping part of them from me! By doing so, you nearly caused our two sides to fight, which could have ended with most of us dead right here! For endangering not just my force with your dishonorable conduct but my mate, I swear by my Ancestors that you have not heard the end of this.”

The Raven’s beak clenched as her eyes narrowed, Gilda just caught the intensity of the other female’s angry gaze before she donned her goggles again. “And for ordering me to dishonorably submit to the mental rape of an Ibexian adept, neither have you!” she trilled back, ruffling her feathers. “But whether you trust me or not, I will carry out my orders to defend you and the humans, up to and including dying at your side! But should we survive this?”

She went beak to beak with Gilda. “Then we will duel for that affront, and by the blood of my brethren, I will show you what skill I held back on you before!” Not giving Gilda a chance to reply, she trilled another call and ordered the sky griffons of her force to fall in beside her, leaving the earth griffon Ravens behind as she took flight to the east.

Gilda watched her leave alongside Marco, Karin Kazal and Giraldi, feeling her ire only slowly starting to settle. “You okay, Gilda?” Fortrakt finally asked her.

She didn’t reply right away, still trying to reign in her broiling temper, finding herself having to fight off the urge to rear up and release a loud roar just as had finally happened in Ponyville. “I’m fine. And Marco? I want you and Tara to stay with the cubs, along with the two mothers.”

But to little surprise, Marco shook his head. “Forget it. I said I would stay with you and that’s what—”

He stopped talking at the look she gave him. “Don’t argue with me. I am not in the mood,” she told him with a low trill, and whatever he saw in her eyes seemed to cow him. “There’s going to be a big battle here, and this time, there’s nowhere else to run. If we fall, then you and Tara will be the last line of defense for the civilians. Fight to the last blade and bullet, and if you’re going to be overrun, do not let yourself be captured.”

He nodded gravely. “If I’m dying, the last thing I’ll do is put a hollow point in my own head,” he promised, patting his pistol meaningfully. “It’ll blow my brains out nicely. And the Cloven won’t be able to use me.”

“Good,” she said, rearing up just long enough to hug him for what she feared would be the final time. “Now leave, Marco. Go find Tara and tend the cubs. And as for the rest of you, we need to plan the defense of this place properly.”

“Centurion.” She turned to see one of the remaining six Ravens addressing her, his large stringless crossbow sheathed as his comrades stood to attention behind him and saluted her.

“I am Shadow Decanus Acuti Surculus of Raven Team Tigris. I just wish you and the human commander to know that you have every right to be suspicious of us after the Senior Scimitar’s actions. But I think it should be known that with regards to the flare, we were not told about that part of our orders, either,” he said to distrustful looks from the Marines, who still had their rifles half-raised.

She pinned him with a stare. “Whether I believe that or not, this is not the time to discuss it, Shadow Decanus. It’s time to set our defense, and as we need to fully trust each other to fight the Cloven, I need more information,” she told him, only belatedly returning the salute. “First, I don’t recognize that weapon you and the other earth griffon Ravens are carrying. So what is it?”

He glanced over his shoulder at the large bow with folded, gem-studded launcher arms strapped to his back. “I would not normally offer this information, but as we are ordered to cooperate with you, I will. This is the Kingdom’s newest military innovation—a bowcaster,” he replied with a wary glance at the Ibex, who looked startled at the news.

“The first generation prototypes were being tested by the Council of Crows in Aricia. They are nowhere near perfected, but even in their immature state of development, they can fire magical bolts at rates and ranges that far exceed standard crossbows. Unfortunately, they are also quite heavy and not practical for aerial duels or close combat, so only grounded earth griffons can effectively wield them.”

“Then it’s a marksman’s weapon,” Imlay remarked, earning an odd look. “Sorry, I mean it’s designed to kill at a distance?”

“Correct, human—you will forgive me if I know not your name or rank. With trained bowgriffons and special crystal optics, they can kill at ranges of a quarter-league or more, though they need occasional maintenance and fresh feeder crystals after only eight shots. My team was already testing them when the war broke out, but as there is no point in preserving these prototypes for future improvements when we are already fighting for the Kingdom’s survival, we will use them now,” he explained.

“Wow,” Fortrakt said, looking like he was studying it carefully. “Do they work?”

“They do indeed, even if their capacity is not optimal and it takes several seconds to cycle for a new shot. Despite those limitations, they are a powerful weapon which can kill a grounded or airborne soldier at considerable distance, so I suggest you put us on high ground where we can use them to maximum advantage.”

She exchanged a glance with Imlay, who nodded. “Fine, but as the humans have long-range weapons of their own, you’ll need to work in tandem with theirs. Will you take care of it, Corporal?” she requested.

“Yes, sir,” he said somewhat shortly, ordering Lance Corporal Henderson to come to him.

“What about close quarters? I’m assuming from their size that your weapons are not good at melee settings?” Gilda then suggested, more from her observations of the limitations of human weapons than her familiarity with this new griffon one.

The Shadow Decanus nodded. “Correct, sir. It is not effective at close range as it becomes very awkward to aim and fire at a charging foe. Instead, in addition to our melee weapons, we have these.”

He tossed a storage gem from his belt on the ground to reveal an advanced heavy repeater, looking more than twice the size and weight of the ones Ebon Umbreon and his two comrades used.

“Armed with armor-piercing or explosive bolts, it can decimate charging infantry and is even effective out to standard crossbow range. It has a forty-bolt drum that can be swapped out quickly, which I would warn it can empty in but six seconds of continuous fire. We have mounts for them, too, if you wish other soldiers to fire it from a static position. The Navy uses them on its airships to hold off swarms of Harpie boarders. But I would not recommend it for use by sky griffons in the air as they won’t be able to keep it stable enough to aim.”

“So the griffies have an LMG…” Imlay noted, mostly to himself. “Sorry, Light Machine Gun. It seems similar in form and function to Brennan’s M-249.”

“I’m sorry, human. Who and what?” The big Raven asked, glancing from Imlay’s cannon up to his face.

“The name is Corporal Imlay, Shadow Decanus. And never mind. The point is that we can use that in concert with our own heavier weapons,” Imlay then suggested. "We can position them to provide interlocking fields of fire both on the plateau and downslope.”

“Perhaps, Corporal. But that brings up the matter of the brush and trees on that slope,” Giraldi then noted. “It provides too much cover for forces advancing up the hill and might mask their movements as well. I would say burn it out, but time is pressing and I fear Decanus Nydia does not currently have the power.”

“I doubt it. Do you, Starshina?” Gilda then asked the Ibex buck. He considered it for a moment, scanning the large area of hillside he would need to burn only to shake his head, giving an Ibexian curse under his breath.

“Nyet. Not at my current low level of power, and definitely not in the little time we have. Not even if I work with Serzhánt Polina, who is even more drained than me.”

Gilda blinked at finally hearing the name and rank of the less-wounded doe, even if she had no idea what the rank was. “Any ideas, then?” She turned to Giraldi and Imlay.

“Then I suggest we focus on clearing the ground nearest us and on the base of the hill,” Giraldi answered. We would need to clear just a small section of open ground at the bottom where they will be most bunched up, and then make sure they can not burst out of the brush on top of us when they reach the plateau.”

“That makes sense.” Gilda found herself immensely glad that an experienced tactician and combat veteran like Giraldi was present. “Then we also need to pick out places for the repeater and human cannon mounts that have a good combination of protection and visibility. Do you still have your ‘fifty’ available, Corporal?”

He nodded. “We do, sir. We pulled it back before the Cloven hit the Main Hall, and we still have around eighty canisters of ammo in our storage gems.”

“And something tells me we’re going to need them all…” she said as a fresh flare fired in the distance to the east.

“That’s the signal that the Senior Scimitar is returning with our reinforcements, Centurion,” the Shadow Decanus told her. “Permission to meet them?”

“Granted,” she said with a curt nod. “And when they get here, tell them to report immediately to me…”

Her three available mages had just started burning out the brush nearest the plateau with fire spells—at an agonizingly slow rate; she heard one of the Marines openly wish for something called ‘neigh-palm’ as they pulled out tools to begin digging holes in the ground—when the Ravens returned with their reinforcements in tow.

She didn’t realize how big or mixed the formation was until Ibexian antlers illuminated a large stealthed force on approach. The two accompanying Magus Knights dropped their concealment spells when they realized they were compromised, allowing the force to descend to the ground.

They had promised her a century-plus of additional soldiers, and it was indeed delivered, with four turmas of Talons and two of Knights getting there on the strength of their own wings. Both groups included earth griffons, she was relieved to see, with two decades of Wind Knights and four of Fortis Knights.

HEART OF DRAGON | Epic Chinese Adventure Orchestral Music | Epic Drum Battle & Flute Mix

But what she did not expect was five armored adolescent dragons to be accompanying them, flying in their own formation apart from the rest. They were clearly not corrupted as they’d been emplaced on the fore of the griffon force; the glow of their fire apparent through the gaps of their chest and neck scales. Nevertheless, their unexpected appearance caused some consternation in Gilda and the Marines, with the latter releasing some muffled curses and raising their rifles before Imlay ordered them in no uncertain terms to lower them.

“Centurion! Beg to report,” Miles Fortuna said snippily as she landed before Gilda and Giraldi with the Decade and Turma commanders behind her, along with one of the dragons. “As promised, I have retrieved our reinforcements.”

“So I see. And is there anything else you didn’t tell us about who was coming, Senior Scimitar?” Gilda enquired acidly, returning the contemptuous look the largest and presumed leader of the dragons was giving her, who pointedly did not salute her. Their mutual disdain was not surprising, given the Kingdom’s relationship with the world’s various dragon clans could be best described as distant. The closest of them lived on what they called the volcanic isle of Silicaly in the Servalenian Sea, not far off the southwest point of the Italon peninsula.

Gilda hadn’t cared about them or even thought about them much before her Gauntlet training, having never seen them while living in Equestria except at a distance during their once-a-decade migration. But even though the Kingdom hadn’t gone to war with dragons since the days of Dragon Lord Diabla a dozen years after the conflict with Equestria, they’d spent several weeks learning to fight them just in case.

They usually weren’t of large numbers and didn’t normally have an organized military, but that was not to say you ever wanted to challenge or invade them. For they guarded their clan’s territory as zealously as their hoards, and even adolescent dragons were very formidable warriors between their natural weapons and armor, able to fight effectively with teeth and talons alone while protected by their tough scaled hides. And that was to say nothing of their ability to breathe fire and survive in conditions nocreature else could.

As dragons chose their Lords and also determined who would be allowed to mate or become adults through trials of combat, which were held only once a decade during their combined migration and mating seasons, the adolescents forged their own armor and weapons while training endlessly to fight. As a result, those same armor and weapons were quite varied and occasionally garish, with many of them already showing scars of combat.

Several of the adolescents had taken battle damage and various injuries that ranged from obvious talon slashes to blade wounds. It was very hard to burn them, but at least one of the group had severely scorched scales and half-melted armor plates as she studied Gilda beneath her helmet through narrowed golden eyes—or at least, Gilda assumed she was female, given her slightly more slender frame; dragon genders were not always obvious. But regardless, it was clear she had withstood a direct gout of full-strength adult dragon fire and had merely been singed by it.

All this information flashed through Gilda’s memory in the moments before the Senior Scimitar spoke, her voice still clipped after their earlier confrontation. “I wasn’t expecting them either, but I am told they insisted on coming, sir,” she said as the dragons and humans regarded each other with a mixture of disdain and wariness, muttering to each other under their breath. “Unfortunately, our two Magus Knights will not be staying. They were ordered to escort us and then return to Aricia for reasons we were not told.”

“I see…” Her anger over their predicament already spent, Gilda couldn’t even muster up the slightest bit of indignation. “And our dragon friends?” Though I use that term loosely…

“This is Obsidian Ire,” the Raven leader introduced the largest of the dragons, an enormous black-scaled female with orange eyes wearing blackened armor paired with a large sword strapped to her back. “She and the remnants of her clan fled their island home when the Cloven corrupted their Lord and killed most of their kindred, ending up here at Aricia. As they have already fought honorably to defend the city and helped us repulse several attacks, you can trust her, sir.”

“Can I?” Gilda asked idly as the female stepped forward and crossed her forelegs, looming over her, to which the young eagless reared up to her full upright height and duplicated the haughty gesture, flaring her wings for balance. She found it awkward when she had nothing to lean on, but she forced herself to remain still, wondering how Giraldi or the humans did it so easily. “And just why did you come here, Obsidian Ire, when I presume you know the certain death we face?”

She waited a beat before answering, studying Gilda’s features from a head and a half above her. “To see these alien apes that are supposedly so important and powerful that the Cloven would sacrifice so many to take them. Thus far, I am not impressed,” she said in accented Equish with a glance over at Imlay, whose expression was unreadable behind his helmet and goggles.

“Nor am I impressed with you, Centurion Grizelda Behertz. For one so young should have never been given this post. If you were a dragon, you would not even have molted!” she added in renewed contempt.

Gilda knew ‘molt’ was the term for the metamorphosis by which dragons gained their wings, which marked the end of their toddler period at around age sixteen. But as Gilda was twenty-four years old, she guessed that either the drakina didn’t know how to interpret the ages of griffons or she was just being deliberately insulting. She decided it was most likely the latter, in which case she was being tested, given it was said dragons did not respect anycreature who wouldn’t stand up to them in a battle of blades or wits.

But if there was anything she had plenty of and was good at, it was attitude. So she sneered back and took two bipedal steps forward to get in the large female’s face, close enough that she could feel the intense heat held in her ebon throat.

“Then you’re a crow-damned fool who doesn’t know how to judge age or strength, Obsidian Ire. We made it here all the way from Bale despite the Cloven sending countless centuries of soldiers at us! We have won battle after battle and escaped death repeatedly, killing at least six hundred Cloven in the process! And for your information, those ‘alien apes’ are the biggest reason we’re still alive.” She wasn’t actually sure about their kill count, but it felt about right to her.

“Are they now?” the dark-scaled dragon turned to Imlay again, sniffing the air in his direction. “Those metal tubes of yours smell of salt and sulfur—are they cannons, human?” she asked, surprising Gilda that the dragon female was able to deduce instantly what had taken her a month to come up with.

“They are,” Imlay confirmed, stepping forward of his own accord. “Our weapons and our skill at wielding them are what the Cloven want.”

“Skill? What skill?” Obsidian Ire asked contemptuously, and a glance behind her showed her attitude was shared by her comrades. “By the sacred magma below, what talent does it take to aim a tube?”

“Oh, please. And what talent does it take to bite and claw something? Or breathe fire on it?” Gilda answered immediately and in the exact same vein, inwardly grinning as her retort earned an angry glare.

“Wielding our ‘cannons’ effectively takes plenty of practice, ma’am,” Imlay answered with surprising calmness as he walked up beside her, standing half a head higher than Gilda. “To carry and use them properly requires a great deal of drilling and training. It’s not easy to hit a moving target or even a static one at extended range. And it’s definitely not easy to do so when you’re on the move and have to function as part of a team. Even harder to make sure that what you’re shooting at is the correct target, and not an ally,” he further outlined, then turned back to Gilda.

“But with respect, ma’am, we don’t have time for this. The Cloven are on their way, and we need to be ready quickly,” he reminded her as much as the dragon female.

“Fear not, human. We will take care of them,” the black-scaled female promised haughtily, causing Gilda’s eyes to narrow. For if there was one thing that hadn’t changed since she was a hot-tempered teen hanging out with Rainbow Dash, it was hating boastful shows of bravado that had no relation to reality. “You won’t even have to fire a single cannonball, for be assured we will incinerate them all.” The gaps of her scales glowed as she vented some violet fire through her toothy grin.

The edges of her vision going pink again as the drakina’s words grated and caused her ire to rise anew, she employed her long-ago Gauntlet training to strike at the female dragon’s weak spots. She stunned her with a hard helmeted headbutt to the snout—the area of their nose was said to be sensitive—then grabbed her by the leading edge of the wing, digging her talons in and causing the larger female to hiss.

She might have been in danger of being immolated, but in her enraged, cider-fueled state, Gilda was beyond caring. Using the webbed wing as leverage, she threw the drakina down to the ground and pinned her with her weight, threatening to rip open her wingbase with one set of steel claws while clasping her reptilian head from above with the other, poised to dig her metal-clad talons into the only other real dragon weak spot—their heat-seeing eyes.

“Whoa!” she heard some of the Marines shout; even Imlay began to raise his rifle before Giraldi blocked him with a wing. But the other dragons did not interfere as Gilda fully pinned her, feeling a thrill go through her at her victory over the larger female..

Just wish Rainbow Dash could see this! the thought crossed her mind as she felt flush with pride and triumph, holding the drakina in place a second longer. “So, how do you expect to beat the Cloven when you can’t even beat me, Obsidian Ire?” she asked the larger female, digging in her claws deeper when she sensed the drakina trying to draw breath to heat her body further, which was already uncomfortably hot to hold.

“You claim you’re a mighty warrior? I say you’re nothing more than a crow-damned fool who’ll get us all killed! Unless you seriously think that the five of you can kill a thousand Cloven? Because that’s what’s on the way!” Gilda gave the female a sharp shake, wondering for a moment if the cider was also boosting her strength. Or did it just seem that way given the adrenaline rush she felt?

She then raised her voice so everycreature would hear her. “So heed my words and heed them well, all of you! For us to have any chance of survival this morning, we have to work together! And that means you and your kindred will obey my orders without question, Obsidian Ire! Is that fucking clear?” she shook the female a second time, not even caring that she was lapsing into the human invective again.

“Clear, commander,” she growled low under her breath. “Now if you will be so kind as to let me up—”

“Not until you submit! I know dragons have a loyalty oath, so swear one to me!” Gilda ordered.

“What? No! We only swear that oath to our Dragon Lord!” Obsidian Ire protested.

“Except we lack one now,” one of her smaller red-hued compatriots said in a subdued voice. “Dragon Lord Vesuvius is dead along with most of our clan. And with respect, the Centurion did defeat you in single combat, Obsidian,” she reminded her fellow female to a startled glance from the Marines, reminding Gilda of another fact she’d been taught at the Gauntlet about dragons.

“That’s right. As I just bested you in a duel, by dragon law, I now outrank you! So by all the Crows of the Kingdom, you and your group will obey me!” Gilda said, struggling to hold her down and not lose her grip on the drakina as the female’s body grew hot enough to be close to burning, which she guessed was a defensive tactic.

“So be it,” Obsidian Ire said, suddenly restraining her flame as the gaps between her scales stopped glowing. “But not because of that, which was not a declared duel! We swore an oath to assist the Kingdom in exchange for the liberation of our lands! And far too young though you are, you are the ranking officer, and you bested me even if you took me by surprise. You clearly have a dragon’s heart, so that means that here and now… we serve you!”

She abruptly wrapped the end of her tail around Gilda’s neck and used it to throw her off with contemptuous ease, flinging her several perches into the air. The feat forced the young eagless to use her wings to keep from falling as Obsidian Ire stood back up.

Righting herself in the air before descending back to ground, Gilda stared at the drakina warily while the non-dragon onlookers held their breath. But instead of attacking her, the large female came to attention and saluted her in what she assumed was the dragon manner. It almost looked like a double-griffon salute in that it started with their forelegs to the side and ended them with their talons balled into fists and pounded into both sides of their armored chests, palm-first.

The display earned some awestruck expressions from her soldiers, both old and new; even the Wind knights she still hoped to join looked impressed at her successful takedown of the much stronger dragon.

But Obsidian Ire paid them no mind. “These are my clan sisters, each of whom is an excellent fighter in their own right—Red Hot, Orange Crush, Emerald Inferno and Rose Ruby,” she introduced the dark red, bright orange, deep green and pink drakinas in turn, each of whom were in a slightly different shape and build. The smallest of them was Rose Ruby, who instead of a sword appeared to have a scythe mounted on her back; Gilda had the thought that she was far too young and small to possibly fight effectively. “They answer to me, and I, in turn, will answer to you. But know this, Centurion Grizelda Behertz…”

She got in Gilda’s face. “Your victory over me was from an ambush, and it was not appreciated! For humiliating me in front of my sisters, I will demand satisfaction later. We will duel, and you will pay for your affront to my clan and honor!” she vented violet flame again even as she saluted her.

“If we survive this day, that will be my greatest pleasure, Obsidian Ire,” Gilda said as she returned the honor. Great. So I’ve got a Raven AND a dragon mad at me now? she realized as there was a sudden vibrating tone that announced a message was being sent to a communications crystal in the possession of Miles Fortuna. Looks like if we survive this, my duel schedule is going to be busy for a bit—

“With apologies, Centurion, I fear we can tarry no longer. I have just received word from my team that Cloven flyers have been spotted approaching the area,” Miles Fortuna informed her.

“Understood,” Gilda replied, closing her eyes and hoping the precious time she’d spent winning over the dragons had been worth it. “Then my first order to you and your sisters is this, Obsidian Ire: clear this hillside of brush and at least fifty paces in front of it! I want it burned to the root, and then I want you hitting Cloven columns in the woods alongside the Ravens! Do not linger, just strafe them with flame and then fall back, repeating the process as many times as you can!”

She didn’t wait for a response before turning her attention to the other groups, her thoughts now flowing quickly as the urgency of the situation increased.

“Senior Scimitar! Your earth griffons will remain here with their bowcasters but your sky griffons will scout the approaches and fire blue flares when Cloven columns are sighted, red if adult dragons approach! Use hit-and-fly tactics in the woods with your repeaters and make corrupted mages priority targets!”

“Talons! Dig trenches and emplace heavy spears as obstacles at the lip of the plateau. And make damn sure you have clear fields of fire for your crossbows downslope!

“Ibex! As we lack mages, you two will have to function as them along with Decanus Nydia! Keep this smoke away and do what you can to conceal and protect us from enemy mages!”

“Earth Griffon Ravens! Each of you is to dig in on the upper slopes two to a trench along with a single human Marine! Their cannons will provide additional downslope fire and close quarters protection while you hit targets further out!”

“Corporal Imlay! Position your ‘fifty’ where it can do the most downslope damage, and set half your Marines alongside the Talons in teams to give them extra firepower! Keep one fire team in reserve inside the cave entrance while the remainder assists the Ravens with their bowcasters to call out targets and provide them protection!”

“Decurion Gletscher! Once the fires are out, salt the slopes with explosive crystals borrowed from the Ravens set to detonate on contact, and then position yourself over the skylights, using them as a place to retreat to if the pressure gets too great! Take more explosive gems to seal the skylights if you can’t hold them, but your primary duty is to protect our forces on the upper slope from any Cloven flyer attacks that get through the Wind Knights!”

“Fortis Knights! Arm yourself with Raven heavy repeaters and position them to cover the plateau! If the outer defense is breached, you will have to cover the Talons as we retreat to the caves!

“Wind Knights! You’re with me! We’ll be whittling those flyers down! And then orbiting the hill to provide mobile defense!” she concluded, amazed she’d said all that in what felt like a single breath. “You have your orders and we have but minutes to get ready! Now by all our Ancestors, move!” she directed, to which her combined force broke into fevered activity, with shovels flying while the dragons began burning their way downslope.

“Well done, Centurion,” Giraldi told her as she readied her flyers for flight. “All excellent orders. And your surprise attack on Obsidian Ire was superb. You won the respect of not just the dragons, but all our incoming soldiers with your actions. They will obey you quite readily now.”

“Thank you, Optio. And as for you, I want you to command the ground battle while I command the air. You know human capabilities, so use them well.”

“By your command,” he said as all the hillside vegetation was incinerated, sending a pall of smoke into the air above them as the Ibex generated a wind to keep the vapors at bay.

Two story tracks are available from here. You can either follow the T-rated one, or the M-rated one. Just click the appropriate link below:

—Firesight

===> next: Chapter 29 (M-rated)
===> next: Chapter 29 (T-rated)

29: Battle of Lake Languid, Part 1 - Unlikely Allies (T-rated)

Battlestar Galactica Season 2 Soundtrack: 17 - Prelude To War

As her improvised century and a half of mixed human, griffon and ibexian soldiers scrambled to carry out her orders and ready themselves for battle, Gilda reflected ruefully that another lesson of command she was quickly coming to learn was that just because she gave orders, that did not mean that they could or would be quickly carried out.

She and Giraldi spent the next twenty minutes overflying their chosen battlefield trying to get their defense set as per her instructions, working out combined chains of command with Imlay and the dragons and passing out radios while arguing with the Knights and Talons as to the best locations for weapons and soldier emplacement.

The latter was rendered doubly difficult at first when her ranking Wind Knight—a newly promoted First Spear named Amans Ubera oversaw their reinforced Turma instead of a Decurion, while the Talons at least had a veteran Senior Spear in command along with two First Spears and one Second to lead their Turmas—scoffed at the potential power of human cannons. He claimed their rate of fire would be “too slow to be worthwhile” and their soldiers “should just stay inside the caves.”

In no mood for backtalk, she told him to shut his beak and obey orders. But in a potential challenge to her authority, he then loudly questioned the worth of having humans in Talon trenches where they would only “be in the way.” He was swiftly silenced when Imlay authorized one of his three-Marine fire teams, which included his squad’s SAW, to fire downslope and ‘cut loose’ against a small section of the treeline.

Though warned to cover his ears, the First Spear pointedly did not, only to flinch when the human guns opened up with the same series of earsplitting cracks that had stunned her when she first heard them.

The three Marines targeted a small tree, and in the space of seconds, nearly cut it in two at the trunk. Its support severed, it fell over with a sound of splintering wood and a heavy thump, after which the only sound was silence as even the animals around them had fallen quiet at the very loud and destructive display.

“Satisfied, First Spear?” Gilda asked him mildly, to which he didn’t answer directly but instead suggested that each of the Talon Turmas be supported by at least two Marines plus their heavier cannons. He further recommended that his Knights not only defend the plateau, but if a retreat was necessary, block the cave opening as they had just enough force to form a shieldwall covering the entrance to the old hive.

Gilda had no idea how he thought a shieldwall of only twenty Fortis Knights would do much, but she didn’t bother explaining that, instead denying the request while ordering the Ravens to set charges inside the cave opening and give her the crystal to detonate them. If they had to retreat inside it, she would blow the entrance herself and they would then retreat chamber by chamber if the Cloven broke in, forcing them to fight through every chokepoint the old maze-like hive had.

He fell silent after that, while Ebon Umbreon advised Senior Spear Miles Fortuna of what he’d learned in battle against the Cloven soldier forms. Despite his barely balmed burns and only partially repaired lung damage, he said he was at least fit to fight from a prepared position, volunteering to protect a human sharpshooter on high ground.

That sharpshooter, or ‘Marksman’ as the Marines called them, was Lance Corporal Henderson, who produced her EMR again. She would serve the same role as the three earth griffon Ravens firing bowcasters from a hastily excavated ‘foxhole’, as the Marines curiously called their dug-out positions. But instead of being protected at close range by a Marine rifle, the male Raven’s repeater would shield her from flyer attacks and also provide a means of rapid escape should the position become endangered or they had to otherwise retreat inside the old hive.

The sole uninjured member of his team, Second Scimitar Serpens Oculus, was assigned to help cover the skylights. She was also given the task of destroying them if the pressure got too great, backing Fortrakt’s remaining thirteen flyers who would provide close defense of the upper slopes.

In the end, she’d had to at least partially compromise her original plan, placing the two Talon Turmas at the edge of the plateau—all it realistically had room for—while using the third to cover the rear of the hill and prevent any attempt to flank its forward defenders. She wasn’t too worried about it given its slope was not only steeper, but lacking openings and flat areas, it would be difficult to use for an attack and Cloven ground forces would be at a sharp disadvantage there.

Difficult but not impossible, so at Giraldi’s suggestion, they left the lower half of the slope unburned. That way, the dragon females could incinerate it if the Cloven tried to charge through it, bathing them in inescapable flames.

The drakinas themselves were impatient to begin the battle, chafing at being held back while waiting for Cloven columns to appear. They were also unhappy at having to hide in the woods while the Ravens easily took out the few initial flyers that approached, claiming that their tough hides were nearly immune to fired spikes and they could kill the razorbat Cloven forms quite easily with their talons alone.

But Gilda emphatically told them no, informing Obsidian Ire in no uncertain terms that the four of them were to wait in the woods with the Ravens and keep watching the approaches, ready to ambush and help grind down the Cloven ground columns when they finally arrived. She grudgingly agreed, but left behind the smallest of their group, who was the pink-hued dragon named Rose Ruby. She volunteered to stay behind to provide at least one source of flame and close defense if the Cloven attempted an airdrop with corrupted flyers onto the plateau, claiming that she alone could defend it.

Though Gilda didn’t believe that for a second given the drakina’s small size—she didn’t even stand as tall as Lance Corporal Henderson, who was easily the smallest Marine present, so how could she possibly be good at close combat?—she acceded, deciding the diminutive dragon female could at least burn the remaining brush on the rear of the hill if needed.

And by all the Crows, what kind of warrior ever wields a scythe? That’s for harvesting grain, not hacking off heads! She shook her head but gave it no further thought as she turned to the two Ibex next, asking what skills and spellwork they could offer the defense.

The reply she got from Karin Kazal was that given their wounds and still-limited power, they had little in the way of ranged weapons or more potent magics available. They were also unable to safely teleport more than very short distances with their still-healing antlers, but being able to scale the steep hillside with ease, he and the less injured doe could reach and carry wounded from anywhere on the hill as well as provide at least a few weak shields and other wards.

And when she asked him what they could do when it came to close combat, he ignited his antlers to produce magical blades of the same type he’d demonstrated briefly before, during his first confrontation with the Senior Scimitar. He boasted that they were quite skilled with them and particularly deadly in close quarters like the caves.

“In that, at least, he speaks true,” the Senior Scimitar admitted in a slightly rueful tone. “But I still don’t trust you, Starshina.”

“Then don’t. It matters not,” the Ibex buck replied coolly. “But as the humans must be kept from the Cloven at all costs, I will fight to defend them.”

“The humans? And what about the Kingdom?” Gilda challenged.

“It can rot,” he replied in perfect honesty, turning to face her glare head-on. “I will help you so long as I feel it helps the Ascendency, Centurion, which means working together to defeat our mutual foe. Once the Cloven are beaten, we can go back to our more personal squabbles, but I swear on the Ancient Rams themselves that I will aid you to the best of my abilities until then.”

“And after that?” she prompted, to which he gave her a level look.

“And after that, I will do my best to escape and get all the intelligence I have gathered back to the Ascendancy. And don’t pretend you would do any differently in my place.”

Despite the wingslap of his words, she was surprised to feel a strong measure of respect for him, finding his undiplomatic bluntness refreshing and an oddly comforting reminder of her youth. He’s certainly honest about his intentions! And loyal to his nation. In that sense, at least, he’s as honorable as any griffon, she grudgingly granted, wondering if he had a mate and if so, whether his willingness to be so cuttingly candid about things occasionally got him in trouble with her.

If he’s married, then their sex must be interesting… she decided with a smirk, but she couldn’t help flashing back yet again to the feel and scent of his ibexian attributes, once more vividly recalling when her face had been accidentally buried in them.

Her jaw fell open along with her eyes going wide at where her mind had just gone—again! But before she could mentally berate herself again in turn, a succession of blue flares fired from across the lake indicated the Cloven were on the way.

The conversation and her increasingly lurid thoughts were abruptly and quite mercifully ended as she ordered her troops to rush their tasks to completion; it soon became clear from Raven reports—and just how had their paired communication crystals overcome magical interference and Magus eavesdropping?— that they had at most minutes before the first attack went in.

Her soldiers needed little prodding after that. As she watched, the scorched hillside was seeded with explosive gems by Fortrakt’s aerial groups while a detachment of Talons stabbed spears into the ground at the hill’s base. They were meant to help break up a Cloven charge by not so much impaling them, but by causing them to bunch up where they’d be easy prey for human rifles and griffon bowcasters.

She saw the latter demonstrated for the first time as one was set up and the Raven wielding it fired a single bolt at her request. Just as before, there was no drawstring—at least, not until the gems and mithril filaments of the launcher arms lit up with violet light as they began moving to either side, with a glowing magical string of the same hue forming between their ends.

The magic soon concentrated and manifested itself as an arrow of pure energy in the bowcaster’s central mount, which was then released with an odd twanging sound; it shot out as a brightly glowing bolt that was almost too fast to follow in flight before it struck a tree in the woods. It caused a targeted branch to shatter at two hundred paces, sending it crashing to the forest floor.

It was an impressive display of firepower that even earned some nods of respect from the Marines for equaling or exceeding the power of their rifles, at least for individual rounds. But Gilda could also see the drawbacks of the experimental weapon, recognizing that the glowing magical bolts made their source’s location instantly obvious and that it took several critical seconds to cycle for another shot.

The delay was even worse when they demonstrated the reload procedure for the ‘feeder crystal’ that was placed in the base of the weapon, which required a series of precise and practiced motions to remove and replace. It took nearly eight seconds, whereas the well-practiced Marines could swap quivers in just two or three.

“Bowcasters, huh? Pity we don’t have an army of Wookies…” a Marine muttered under his breath, and Gilda had neither the time nor inclination to ask what in the crows he meant. In the meantime, at Imlay’s suggestion, she ordered two of his fire teams to practice riding earth griffons. They would become a mobile force meant to rapidly transfer Marine firepower to endangered areas, while his third team would stay behind to defend the trenches directly.

Five minutes later, they were finishing off their improvised emplacements and obstacles when the sound of combat erupted in the woods on the other side of the lake. The still-dark forest was suddenly lit up by painfully bright gouts of multicolored flame along with detonations of explosive gems and repeater bolts, with the noise coming from at least three locations as the Ravens and dragons started whittling down the lead Cloven formations.

The former reported some success, claiming at least a century of dead soldier forms, but also warned the Cloven were simply charging through their hastily laid surface traps without any heed to their losses. Worse, they were being swarmed by flyers and illuminated by blacklights from captured mages, who were keeping them visible while putting their power into maintaining their shield spells and not engaging in offensive action, rendering them nearly untouchable without a more concerted effort to take them down.

Swearing violently, Gilda ordered her forward forces to break contact and fall back to the hill. The Ravens acknowledged but Obsidian Ire reacted to her instructions with derision, boasting again that their forged armor and toughened hides were invulnerable to Magus magic and the smaller flyer-fired spikes.

“Withdraw your worthless Ravens, Centurion Behertz—we will deal with the corrupted mages and airborne Cloven!” she promised over a griffon gem as they took flight to begin systematically immolating the razorbat swarms or otherwise chopping them to pieces with the blades from their backs, closing on the former Magus Knights to cleave their shields and bodies in two with their dragonfire-infused steel.

That lasted about eight seconds, with nearly forty flyers and two mages slain before there were several sharp cries of surprise and pain. “I’m hit! By the ancient Dragon Lords, these flyers have more powerful spikes!” One of the other dragon females shouted in a severely strained tone.

The next voice to speak was Obsidian Ire’s, and Gilda could hear the disbelief in it. “Centurion, we need assistance! We killed the mages but Red Hot is wounded and Orange Crush has her wings torn! She can no longer fly! I’ll carry her but be vulnerable in flight!”

DRAGON'S WRATH | Intense Dark Apocalyptic Battle Mix | 1 Hour Epic Music

“Crows take it…” Though sorely tempted to leave at least one of them to their fate as an object lesson in obeying orders to the others, Gilda restrained her anger even as the pink at the edges of her vision grew again, this time in ire at the avoidable casualties.

“Dive for the ground and take cover in the woods, then head back on the main path towards the hill! Ravens! Protect the wounded and cover their withdrawal around the south side of the lake as best you can! We’ll meet you halfway! Marine mobile force and Wind Knights inbound!” she announced as she banked hard from over the hill towards the fighting, reflecting at least briefly that she was finally fulfilling one of her heart’s greatest desires—to lead the elite soldiers she wished to join above all others into battle, even if she wasn’t officially one of them.

At her shouted command, two decades of Wind Knights took flight and formed up behind her, notching arrows and in the case of the decade leaders, slamming home drums into repeater barrels—their models weren’t as advanced as the Raven versions but still looked quite capable. She’d been offered one again, and though nearly as tempted as she’d been to take Marco’s pistol, she declined. She knew she wasn’t practiced enough with them to be effective, having held and fired one just once during Gauntlet training.

The twenty gold-armored Wind Knights immediately settled into two V-shaped combat formations behind her, their bolts and blades ready, while one of her two decades of Fortis Knights dashed right below them. The latter charged downhill, with the second decade left behind to defend the plateau and cave entrance with heavy repeaters from further upslope of it. They were carrying their standard array of large shields, battle axes and war hammers paired with spears and standard heavy crossbows as well as two full Marine Fire teams on their backs.

It was the tactic that Giraldi and Imlay had earlier thought of on the march to Bale, and though not much good over long distances or in aerial combat, it was simple enough to implement in terms of quick maneuvering; combining the firepower of a Marine with the ground coverage of an earth griffon. Under Giraldi’s supervision, they had practiced moving mounted at least a little on the plateau in front of the cave entrance to see how fast they could go and if flight was possible, for which the answer was—sort of.

Her Fortis Knights could run more or less safely with them, using their wings to pin human legs to their armored sides. They even found they could carry them into the air with only limited speed and maneuverability, both due to the load and for being unbalanced in flight—no surprise given their earth griffon wings were not as powerful as sky griffon ones. But it was also to no surprise that the Marines were not particularly keen on that, having no way to secure themselves in the air other than hold onto their makeshift mounts for dear life. So as much as possible, they would have to be moved by ground.

More than once during their practice runs, griffon shoulders and wingbases were openly and repeatedly groped by soft and fleshy human fingers. It left the mostly-tiercel group of Fortis Knights with flushed faces and twitching tails, leaving Gilda wondering why a startled Giraldi and a slightly blushing Fortrakt hadn’t told them about that taboo touching area up front.

One of the tiercels then asked her under his breath in Aeric if all male humans were tiercel-tuckers, to which Gilda smirked, stepping up to inform the Marines that shoulders and flight muscles were off-limits for griffons.

They looked startled when she explained why, exchanging nervous glances before profusely apologizing to the large and powerful Fortis Knights. Though the elite soldiers somewhat grudgingly accepted the contrition, their cheek flushes didn’t quite fade. At least one was shifting uncomfortably for reasons she didn’t dare guess, while another looked like he was trying to stop his wings from at least partially going erect.

The Marines then asked what they were supposed to hold onto instead of griffon bodies, to which Gilda said that the thick protruding straps of neck or pauldron armor would do. They had a flat loop at the end to keep them from slipping that was—by strange coincidence—the perfect size for a human hand to hold.

Doing so, they more or less got the hang of riding on a griffon back after a minute or two of practice, though it was abundantly clear that they couldn’t safely fire their rifles from a moving mount. At least, not without losing their grip on them and likely falling.

If we’re going to carry them like Terran horses, we’ll need a proper saddle… she sensed as they rushed south down the road towards her retreating Ravens, wondering what form one would take. It’ll be something we can look into when we make it to Aricia—if we survive long enough to get there! she hastily amended her thought, feeling another moment of ire at what she still found to be their obscenely idiotic orders.

Her eyes fell on the Ibex buck below, running in front of the Fortis Knight formation to cover them and the humans they carried from ahead. To her surprise, Karin Kazal had all but demanded to accompany the humans on any foray, reiterating that he intended to protect them at all costs. He convinced her by promising that he could provide at least a modicum of Magus Knight support for the force, giving them protection that Decanus Nydia could not then offer.

Gilda wasn’t sure how much good he would be given his own admitted fatigue and lack of power, but he cast the same gravitational reduction charm on himself as earlier to keep up with the sprinting griffons, though at a lower power level to conserve energy. That meant he could bound along more or less effortlessly but couldn’t jump into the high branches as before. Neither the Marines nor Knights were particularly happy to have him along, but her order silenced their grumbling, saying he’d proven his worth and that she trusted he wouldn’t betray them.

“If he does, he’s dead and he knows it,” she had reminded them in the Starshina’s presence, surprised to find herself defending him. “And even weakened, he’s an excellent mage who’s got plenty of useful spells available, even if he’s just a crow-damned goat who eats grass and poisons diplomatic guests with fertility potion.” She couldn’t resist needling him.

He gave her a look. “Why thank you, Grizelda Behertz. And you are clearly a courageous and competent commander whose ability belies your youth… even if you are just a halfwit hen who eats meat and lays with alien apes.” He spoke his words with a sweet smile and wink, sketching her a barely adequate salute with his antlers from a cocked head.

Despite the anger and derision that greeted his words from her soldiers, she smiled and bared her throat in respect, returning the salute for having her barbs so neatly parried. She found his wits and ability to insult every bit as sharp as hers, thinking again that he almost reminded her of herself.

So help me, I think I’m actually starting to like him! she realized as she glanced down again to see him keeping up easily with the sprinting Fortis Knights, his horns weakly aglow to maintain his running spell. Not that I’d want to rut him or anything…

Less than a minute after leaving the old hive, they were already rounding the southeast corner of the lake, where there were some small waterfalls cascading off another hill; they fell into a small covered cove with a sandy beach that was hidden from prying eyes by branches from overhanging trees.

Called the Crystal Cove for its preponderance of glittering gems in the stone walls of the waterfall cliff, she’d been told during an earlier visit that it was a favorite area for romantic trysts and mating rounds. Gilda had greeted that news with an eyeroll, resolving to avoid it for that very reason. She had come to Lake Languid on leave to get away from everycreature and everything, wanting only to be alone for a couple days after having no privacy for weeks on end in the Auxiliary Guard barracks of Aricia.

Didn’t stop some trysts from taking place there, though… She could recall at least a few cases of hearing soldiers having sex in their straw beds while she was trying to sleep. Though very much against regulations, it was perhaps the inevitable outcome of putting young griffons of both genders into such close quarters, giving them no other outlet for their urges.

Especially given that they sparred so much during the day that the passions they potentially built then could only be relieved later, when they went off duty. At most uninterested and at worst outright annoyed at them for waking her up with their grunts and only barely bit-off trills, she had typically just wanted them to go away or at least finish quickly, but now…

She shook her head sharply to stop herself from fantasizing about sex again at a very bad time. Her drifting and increasingly lurid thoughts were no doubt helped by the cider within her, which was starting to take firm hold of her again as combat approached. Okay, that’s IT! Fortrakt was right and I should have taken the chance to be tucked earlier! So as soon as this fight is over, I’m finding Marco and—

The thought was lost as there was a sharp flash and boom of detonating explosive gems followed by a fresh gout of flame ahead of them. By the purple hue of it, it belonged to Obsidian Ire; Gilda’s cider-enhanced eyes could just pick out her form with Red Hot on her back. The latter was slumped over her sister’s shoulders with a set of flyer spikes deeply embedded in her scales, having penetrated her armor to stitch a diagonal line across her side.

“Crows take it… Double time!” she called into her loudspeaker crystal to hear the order echoed promptly from ahead and behind. “There’s a gorge ahead! Fan out behind it and be ready to cover the retreat!” She remembered seeing it from one of her earlier visits, thinking she might have enjoyed using it as an obstacle course if it wasn’t for the dozen griffon cubs already doing so.

Keeping the mid-sized lake to their right—which to her great relief, the Cloven had thus far shown no ability to cross with their grounded forces—they rounded the corner and charged ahead, heading for a stone bridge over the gorge that a crippled Orange Crush and the grounded Cloven would have to pass on their way back. It was fronted by not forest but a short meadow and was a favorite place for cubs to practice flying through the narrow crevice; Gilda supposed that she and Rainbow would have made use of it back in their teenage days.

Her mobile force covered the ground quickly as they spotted their defenders spilling out of the woods, both griffons and dragons falling back from the incoming mob of black-armored ground soldiers chasing them. They struggled to keep their foe at bay with fire and a spray of crossbow bolts from their repeaters, trying to hold the charging Cloven off long enough for the wounded to reach the bridge.

Gilda shouted an order to the lead earth griffon, who was the Fortis Knight Decanus carrying Guerrero. He raised his talons and made a circular motion with them, which signaled the entire decade following him to fan out. They took to the air briefly to hasten their dispersion, landing on the edge of the gorge where they could bracket the bridge and fire into the flanks of the pursuit.

Though the Marines were momentarily disconcerted by the sudden maneuver—which she was strangely certain Giraldi would be glad to know caused them to instinctively grab at Griffon shoulders and necks again to not be thrown off—they hastily dismounted and dove into the grass at the edge of the gorge, leveled their rifles and took just a moment to aim before they opened fire at the charging black wave that emerged from the woodline, not far behind her retreating force.

The roaring sound of the rifles in the close confines of the woods created a number of echoes in the narrow gorge as they spat out metallic death, causing the Fortis Knights to flinch back at the sound of close-range cannon fire. Green and black gore spurted from holes punched in the lead formation of Cloven ground soldiers as they were swiftly shredded by the human firearms, falling one by one.

Obsidian Ire looked shocked at the carnage and the retreating Ravens seemed equally surprised by how effective the Marine weapons were, and realizing they had turned the winds of battle in griffon favor, the gray-dyed warriors stopped retreating and turned on their pursuers. They drew their swords or aimed their reloaded repeaters at any of the Cloven that made it through the hail of fire or were otherwise too stubborn to fall.

As the retreating force reached the bridge while Gilda and the others flew overhead to strike down the weakened formations of flyers still threatening them, she smiled at the realization that they in fact had a very good chokepoint at the gorge, which would require the Cloven to either capture the bridge or go around far to the south to find another crossing, given the north side slowly turned into a broad but steep-sided river that drained into the lake.

You know, we might actually be able to hold this crossing for some time! she thought hopefully, thinking that it could be easily covered with a small force—one she could use to take out another century or two of Cloven before falling back. But as the initial pursuit wave began to falter and lose momentum well short of the bridge itself, there was a fresh buzzing sound, though Gilda could only barely hear it over the roaring thunder of the rifles.

Looking up, she could see clearly what was coming in the slowly lightening sky: there were several sets of the much larger Cloven flyers she and Fortrakt had first spotted in the millennium-sized column approaching Bale, escorted by a scattering of the smaller razorbat forms. The purpose of the former became clear when she saw they were carrying other Cloven soldier types they could drop as reinforcements, as they had both standard ground soldiers and porkupikes in their talon-like grasps.

Her guts clenched as she instantly sensed their intention, recognizing that they were going to airdrop a half century of enhanced Cloven soldier forms behind them, attempting to pocket her forward force and turn their chokepoint into a trap.

Not today! she thought fiercely as she pulled her notched crossbow, sensing that they had but seconds to act. “Crows take it… Wind Knights! Separate into Fugas and aim for the larger flyers! If you can’t kill them, cripple their flight by ripping open their webbed wings! Knock them down before they can land their force on the other side of the gorge! First Spear Ubera, you’re with me! Now move!” she ordered him on her wing as the formation broke apart to carry out her orders, keeping the unit’s senior sky griffon with her. With Amans Ubera at her side, she flew high and then swooped down hard on the first carrier form, her crossbow readied and supported by his repeater.

Thrums of released drawstrings came next, with a mixture of single-shot incendiary and electrical bolts paired with long sequences of repeater-fired explosive darts whistling through the air to strike down the airborne Cloven. The first quickly immolated the large flying forms as surely as if the dragons had bathed them in flame while the electrical ones paralyzed their prey, with the accurate aim of the Wind Knights accounting for six of the score or more of carrier forms in mere seconds.

Most of them fell dead or paralyzed from over a hundred perches high to the ground, releasing the soldier forms that they were carrying to fall hard to the forest floor. They usually survived, albeit with broken limbs that made them very easy for the Marines to pick off, and those that didn’t fell swiftly to the momentum of the Wind Knights’ charge.

Crossbows expended, they closed to attack with steel claws and scimitars pulled from their backs, which the Wind Knights alone among conventional Kingdom military units still wielded. They obeyed her orders to strike at the wings and instinctively did so from above, where the carried porkupikes could not retaliate. They used their superior speed and maneuverability to hit the larger Cloven from behind, ripping their bat-wings open with enchanted steel to send them spiraling or outright plummeting to the ground.

Finally realizing their peril and unsupported by more than minimal razorbat forms after the dragons and Ravens had earlier gutted them, the larger airborne Cloven tried to turn on their pursuers. But it was already too late as Gilda weaved through the air, her metal claws slicing open one of the latter’s thin razor-sharp wings. She let gravity do the rest, watching in great satisfaction as it fell with a heavy thump to the ground.

She almost missed a second razorbat
swooping down on her while she reloaded her crossbow with an electrical bolt, but the First Spear stopped it, cutting it in two with a single slice of his sword.

Startled, she turned to him and nodded, and then returned the favor by sending her bolt whistling past his equally startled head. It impacted a razorbat form closing on him from behind, piercing it and erupting with its usual blue arcing electrical sparks, killing it instantly and sending it falling limply with smoke coming off its wings.

She might have worried about the reinforcing flyer formations she could see belatedly winging in until a series of magical flares were launched high in the air from just behind the bridge. Its source was Karin Kazal, who was calling upon the spell he had originally used to strike down the first flyer swarm in Bale, though he seemed to be employing a much weaker version of it with less range to compensate for his lessened magic.

Despite that, his flares burst among them like electrical flak from the human movie Midway—yet again, how did she know what that was called?—bringing down all the agile but fragile flyer forms within a dozen wingpaces of the explosions. The spell’s effect crackled like miniature lightning and looked like a small set of spreading anvil crawlers in thunderstorms, branching out to ensnare everything in reach with its electrical tendrils.

Between him and the work of the two sky griffon decades, more and more flyers fell, slowly clearing the skies while down below, the Marines stopped firing their rifles as the soldier forms that had survived their charge towards the crossing got too close to the retreating force. It included the remaining Ravens as well as a visibly wounded and limping Orange Crush; the Cloven trying to storm the bridge on their heels.

That was when the earth griffon Fortis Knights that had carried the Marines took charge. They moved to block the bridge with their shields behind the Ravens and dragons; variously smashing, slashing, or stabbing any of the Cloven forces that were still moving to cross it with axes and war hammers. They held easily against the disorganized attack that had lost most of its mass and momentum, able to concentrate on one or two soldier forms at a time while the Marines kept their fire trained further back to keep striking down the stragglers.

Within another minute, it was over; they’d notched another victory while suffering no casualties to the relief force. Witnessing what felt like at least another century and a half of Cloven crushed, Gilda felt a fierce victory cry building up from her chest and finally released it with a loud leonine roar; one that was promptly echoed by the Knights she led even if they didn’t have lion hindquarters.

The strangest thing was, unlike earlier, she didn’t feel tired but alive. Finally facing off against the enemy herself after doing little but being a bystander or having to avoid it on the flight from Bale had been absolutely exhilarating, doubly so for having personally accounted for two carrier forms and three razorbats as they reduced the airborne force to nothing before they could even cross the gorge.

She didn’t know if it was adrenaline or something else like the cider, whose effects still made itself known in her pink-rimmed vision and heightened senses that left her aware of almost everything around her. But despite all her previous fatigue and even her earlier inability to shake sensual thoughts, she found herself fully alert and combat ready, her mind sharp and reflexes rapid.

The battle seemingly won, her eyes could see small gestures of celebration between the Marines and the griffon soldiers on the ground below her. Behind them, the wounded Ravens and dragons retreated down the path with the latter given rides on spare Fortis Knight soldiers, while those still mobile covered them from above. As they left, Gilda was about to order her defending force to reset their defense and prepare to meet another wave, believing they could account for another century or two before withdrawing.

Or maybe we should withdraw now? She suddenly fretted as Marine radios and Raven gems prompted her for orders. Now that they know we’re here, they’ll be able to concentrate against us and maybe try to flank us or—

“Centurion!” The thought was cut short as the First Spear shouted and motioned to the north. Following his pointed talon, she could see fresh swarms of flyers had gathered out over the lake, just visible through the morning mists of the approaching dawn. Though the hive redoubt of her century-plus of defenders was closer, they were not heading there, but instead, flying straight towards her mobile force’s location at the south end of the lake. And worse, there were clearly several dozen more carrier forms in the mix.

That cinched it. “We can’t stay here! Marines and Knights! Withdraw! Head back around the lake towards the hill!” she ordered, seeing the former scrambling to climb back on the backs of the latter, who weren’t always ready given they had to sheath their weapons, or in some cases, pass them for other griffons to carry.

Gilda grimaced at their lack of practice as the panicked departure showed their failure to get ready to go quickly; she estimated they’d need another thirty seconds to get everybody on the way back.

Which might have been time they did not have, and even more ominously, her enhanced vision picked up a fresh concentration of Cloven ground forces approaching through the woods. “Centurion! Do you wish us to return and assist?” Miles Fortuna prompted, this time over Raven communication gems.

It took her only a second to decide as she grabbed the companion gem from her belt and raised it to her beak. “Yes! Cover the withdrawal of the mobile force while the Wind Knights engage the incoming one directly!” she decided, earning a shocked look from the First Spear. “Starshina! If it is within your power, blow that bridge! Deny them their crossing!”

She got a harried acknowledgement back as the Ibex buck studied the stone structure, glancing repeatedly between it to the treeline where glowing Cloven eyes could be seen. She didn’t know how he could do it with his limited magic, and she guessed he wasn’t sure either, but he was clearly thinking about it, and in the end, he cast some form of spell on the bridge that didn’t have any immediate effect as the Marines were finally fully mounted.

As she watched, the earth griffons they were atop of took off with the Ibex buck hard on their heels. Despite that, she knew that they were very vulnerable in transit to such a large airborne attack, estimating they had just a minute before it arrived. “Wind Knights! Form up on me! We’re buying them time to get back to the hive!”

“Centurion, with due respect, we cannot take those numbers alone!” the First Spear informed her directly, to which she gave him a glare.

“We won’t have to. Decurion Gletscher! Fly south to protect the withdrawal of the wounded, and then go back to fly top cover for the retreat of the Marines and Fortis Knights! Obsidian Ire! You’ve rested long enough! So get your fat flank in the air and join us in attacking that fresh flyer swarm over the lake! We’re going to whittle their numbers down, and this time, you and your sisters will obey your crow-damned orders, or else!”

She heard a sharp draconic hiss in response over the Marine radio and saw a sudden puff of purple flame vented in anger further east. Despite the danger, Gilda grinned to see it—her words had been deliberately chosen to goad the proud dragon female, reasoning that just like her as a teenager, Obsidian Ire could not refuse to answer a slur or any challenge to her ability or honor.

“By your command. But that is yet one more insult you must answer for, Grizelda Behertz!” she said heatedly as Gilda could just see them take flight, their two remaining members—herself and Emerald Inferno—heading out over the lake to join her improvised assault force.

“Just wait! Because I’ve got plenty more coming!” she fired back before cutting the connection. You know, I bet I would have really liked her as a teen—wait. Just TWO dragons? Weren’t there three unwounded? Oh, right. We left Rose Ruby at the hill, Gilda belatedly remembered as she stayed in her hover, waiting impatiently for the Ravens to return. Probably just as well. Not like she could do much at her small size!

She waited until the gray-dyed warriors had nearly reached them to cover the retreat of the Marines and Fortis Knights before she set out with the Wind Knights. They headed at intercept speed towards the approaching Cloven, flying in what sky griffon flying doctrine called spoiling assault formations at her orders. That meant a narrower but deeper three-pronged V with the decade leader in the lead, with his repeater and three fuga-sized ‘prongs’ of three soldiers stretching out backwards from them at equal distance around him, forming a thin but sharp spearhead that was designed to punch through enemy formations quickly without stopping.

Done properly, it could stab right through an airborne battle line like a thrown spear and not stop until they burst out the back of the enemy formation, followed by diving away and then circling around for another pass. It was a hit-and-fly tactic designed to be used against superior numbers where the purpose was not to take control of the air, but simply attrit the enemy.

It used the speed of their strike to maintain griffon strength as much as possible, given their rapid transit didn’t allow for accurate aiming of distance weapons and their extended formations protected them from multiple soldiers being taken out at once. In contrast, the griffons involved in such a strike could fire straight ahead with some hope of hitting, and slash at enemy soldiers as they passed.

She knew they were the right tactics to use, but she still cursed her enemy for their own. And herself for not anticipating them. Damned Cloven… they don’t care about the hill or the rest of us so much as killing and corrupting the HUMANS! she belatedly realized, recognizing that they weren’t even going to bother with the fortified hive so long as they could isolate the human Marines outside of it, kill them and corrupt them.

And then once they had Marine knowledge and weapons at their disposal, she knew they could reduce the hill and kill its remaining defenders at leisure. Crows take it… they might not even bother with storming it then! They might just order their remaining dragons to turn it to ASH!

The thought made her guts clench anew as the pink in her vision intensified again while they headed out over the lake. By the time they were within two hundred wingpaces of the approaching Cloven, who were already banking left to follow the retreat of the humans, the Cloven razorbat forms opened up on them with their fired spikes. They weren’t accurate at that distance, but at least one lucky shot speared right through a Wind Knight pinion, so she ordered her force to bank left as well, not just to evade fire but draw their attention.

Gilda smiled thinly as her tactic worked and the Cloven flyers were blindsided by the returning drakinas. Blasts of green and violet fire enveloped the left side of their formations while they were focused on Gilda and the Wind Knights to the right, sending another fifty Cloven razorbat and carrier forms to their deaths.

She was also pleased to see that Obsidian Ire was smarter about her tactics this time. She was not lingering in the air to fight them head to head with her swords, but instead strafing them with flame and then darting away before too many spikes could target her. The large black-scaled dragon female was trailed by Emerald Inferno, who appeared to be flying in her big sister’s shadow as she bled out beneath her armor, the tip of a spike having pierced it to remain embedded in her green-scaled back. But she was still flying and fighting as the airborne Cloven finally maneuvered to meet them, recognizing that they were the greater threat.

That meant it was time for Gilda to return the favor, though not before she chanced a look back at the gorge where they’d just been. To her surprise, the bridge was still up but when the Cloven tried to cross it, the stone simply crumbled beneath them as they made it halfway to the other side, falling apart beneath their combined weight like wet sand and sending a dozen forms tumbling down the gorge into the rapids below.

She blinked, wondering how Karin Kazal had pulled that off, resolving to ask him about it later. To her surprise, she mentally thanked the Ancestors for sending the ibex buck to her, deciding she’d speak up for him when they made it to Aricia. I don’t want to rut him, but at this point, I don’t want him dead, either!

If they made it back, she hastily corrected her thought as a third of the flyer swarm peeled off to fight her and the Wind Knights. She could feel tiny wind streams flowing through her feathers as they approached, and she could hear the odd buzzing sounds of their bladed wings getting louder and louder as they neared.

Focusing on the center of the formation, she saw a few more of the larger flyers mixed in, but this time, they weren’t carrying any ground troops. The Wind Knights spotted them too, judging by the way they all loaded their crossbows with heavy proximal explosive bolts, designed to take out clusters of close-packed forces in the air by detonating when they simply got close enough.

She didn’t know what enchantments allowed that for Knight weapons, and at that moment, she didn’t care. “Aim!” she ordered her two decades, raising her crossbow to level. She smiled a bit as she saw that the flyers weren’t even dispersing. In fact, they were clustering around the larger forms, whose beaks opened slightly. But before she could give the order to fire, she spotted something bright and hot coming at her.

She recognized it instantly as not just a stream but a broad spray of heavy spikes that reached out for them like a scatter blast from a magus lightning attack. Even with her senses and reaction speeds enhanced by the cider, she wasn’t fast enough to dodge it at that range as fire engulfed her flank, sharp and painful as crimson blood sprayed out into the air.

Stifling a cry of pain, her eyes widened as she saw something long, black, and sharp striking the chest of the Wind Knight beside her, penetrating his metal armor instantly. He gaped down at his pierced protection, seeing the red-hot spike embedded deep within him with the metal melting around its edges, then up at her briefly, not understanding that he was hit.

His eyes briefly widened in surprise, only to roll back up in his head as they became lifeless and he fell dead to the water below, slain along with two more of her force.

“Crows take it! Disperse!” Gilda ordered, firing one shot towards the nearest carrier form, though maybe that wasn’t the best name for them given this new ability. As she flew at an angle, she could see that her shot flew true, her piercing bolt striking the flyer in the chest with enough force to spear through whatever passed for its heart.

She didn’t stay put long enough to see if it fell, instantly maneuvering to evade a barrage of retaliatory spikes from the smaller razorbat forms that followed. Her remaining Wind Knights fired their own shots before taking evasive action, using a mixture of armor piercing and explosive bolts while slashing with scimitars and steel claws at any flyers who attempted to engage them with the ends of their sharpened wings, which could cut like a blade.

Their formations were solid, their maneuvers were well-practiced, and their armor was quite good. But as the large Cloven had just demonstrated, it wasn’t perfect as the glowing smaller spikes struck at least three of them in unprotected areas of the back or barrel, bringing another two of them down. Gilda cursed, stealing a glance at the still-numerous flyers in the sky maneuvering around them, their beaks open as they fired a steady stream of incendiary bolts towards the dodging griffons.

Gilda guessed they were trying not to give them a chance to reload their crossbows while the remaining third of their force headed for the humans, whom they could no longer assist. She also wasn’t sure when it had happened, but her forces were now fighting back to back with Obsidian Ire and Emerald Inferno in the air.

The two drakinas weaved, dodged and sliced through the Cloven formations with sword and talon, only occasionally finding the time to draw enough breath to emit flame. Both of them were showing multiple spikes embedded in their torsos at that point, but still they battled, with Obsidian Ire even rescuing one of her Wind Knights who had been in danger of being cut off from her comrades, fending off her assailants before grabbing her and dragging her to safety.

Despite that, she guessed they had taken down another eighty airborne cloven between them. Buttheir fatigue was building along with their losses, as she was now down five of her original twenty Wind Knights. There’s just too many flyers, and we can’t dodge them forever! Gilda thought desperately, hoping her efforts had bought her retreating forces the time they needed. Even as she continued to fight, she couldn’t help wondering what the Cloven had done to improve the ranged weaponry of their flyers so that they could punch through armor and even wound dragons.

Whatever they were shooting out was not only fast and accurate at closer range, with a few almost clipping her wings as she traced a spiral path through the air, but the bolts were hot enough that she could feel the heat of their passing, causing a series of scorch lines on her flank and feathers even aside from the one that had left a deep cut in her side.

But she ignored the pain, the pink in her gaze intensifying yet again. And this time, it seemed to cause time itself to slow down around her as she suddenly found she was fast enough to dodge several more spikes aimed her way.

Feeling like they were moving in slow motion, she avoided them easily and took down five more razorbat forms in rapid succession, swooping and slashing at them with her steel-clad talons. But it still wasn’t enough, as with the century-sized flyer formation now moving to envelop her own, their fate was sealed unless they could break free of the trap.

By all the crows, THINK, Gilda! she ordered herself, and upon receiving a report that the Marines had made it most of the way back to the hill despite the faltering efforts of the Cloven to interdict them, she reconsidered her options. If nothing else, that meant they could try to break contact and get back to the hive themselves, but she sensed that if they ended up pinned at low altitude over the lake, the flyers would knock them down easily given they would be unable to dive away.

And then she no longer had the chance as a massive new shape approached out of the north with a loud and guttural roar. Its chest glowed and flames leaked out around not just its mouth, but several ugly puncture wounds on its shoulders and neck where its partially crumbling scales were burned nearly to ash around it; a testament to its intense internal heat.

“Dragon!” the call came out as they instantly dispersed before its initial and very indiscriminate blast of flame. It took out a large slew of the remaining Cloven as well as two more of her Wind Knights, who fell immolated to the steaming lake surface below. She ordered her force to retreat, and all did so except Emerald Inferno, who stared up at the approaching adult drake in disbelief, steaming tears starting to appear in her punch-drunk eyes.

“F-father…” the wounded and woozy drakina called out forlornly, dropping her sword into the lake. “Please… help us…” She then tried to fly to him, which only lasted until Gilda grabbed her by her armored collar and dragged her backwards through the air.

That thing was her FATHER? she wondered only in passing before all but throwing the sobbing female at Obsidian Ire, who was the only one who could restrain her for more than a few seconds.

“Get her back to the hill and knock her out if you have to! The rest of you, scatter! Split up and head in different directions by Fuga before curling back towards the Hive! Senior Scimitar! Tell Corporal Imlay that if he’s got any more of those ‘stingers’ available, we need one now!”

From the tone of her barely audible response, Miles Fortuna clearly didn’t have any idea what she meant, but the Raven eagless promised she would pass it along given Gilda’s radio was out of range of the hill at that moment. As her remaining soldiers obeyed her instructions, the drake couldn’t follow all of them. But by luck or design, he settled on pursuing Gilda, perhaps because the parasite controlling him recognized her as the commander.

“Crows Take it…” Fighting off both the wave of sheer terror attempting to grip her as well as her still-bleeding wound and the growing fatigue that threatened to slow her down, she flew as fast as she could, weaving and dodging ahead of the drake, trying not to let him or the scattered flyers still present get a bead on her. Gilda only barely evaded his initial gout of flame, which incinerated a stand of trees beside her. Realizing she couldn’t keep up the pace for much longer, she decided to go for the gorge, which wasn’t wide enough for his wings.

She had just made it inside when she realized she’d made a terrible, and likely fatal mistake. She was right that the adult dragon couldn’t enter the ravine, but he could engulf its narrow confines with inescapable flames that would be focused and forced further ahead by the walls, allowing him to fill it with fire far past the point her flying could outpace it.

Her life flashing before her eyes as she saw the dragon draw a final, fateful breath above her, the gaps in his damaged chest and neck scales growing hotter as she watched, Gilda found her greatest regret at that moment was not one of failing to gain rank or making the Wind Knights, or even of never making amends with Rainbow Dash.

It was the simple fact of not taking the opportunity to have sex with her human friends again, reflecting ruefully on all the chances she had missed.

Their faces swimming before her as he opened his maw in what seemed like slow motion, she closed her eyes, her racing mind mentally promising her Ancestors that if they saw fit to spare her, she would never shun the chance to have sex with them or anycreature else she desired ever again.

As if in answer to her unspoken prayer, there was a bright flash of light ahead of her that briefly resolved into the form of Karin Kazal. She barely had time to register his presence before they collided, his nearly-healed horns glowing brighter than they had before. The dragon breathed flame just as the Starshina’s enormous Ibexian antlers flared hard again, and she suddenly felt like she’d been punched hard in the stomach, fighting off a severe wave of nausea and vertigo.

Stumbling badly and surprised to find herself still alive and unburned, Gilda’s vision cleared enough to realize she was at the top of the gorge behind the crumbled bridge. The dragon had seemingly seen her escape as it was flying up and looking around for its quarry again, its one good eye finally settling on her.

It was then she noticed Karin Kazal beside her, unable to pull himself back up, having spent his magic in a teleport he wasn’t supposed to have performed so soon. “By the Ancient Rams themselves, what are you looking at? Go, Centurion! Flee!” he ordered her imperiously, seemingly so stripped of his power he was unable to rise or run.

But after staring at him for a second in disbelief—he… he SAVED me? was the only coherent thought she could form for a bare instant—she refused to, going over to pick him up, ordering him to hold on to her back. Despite his heavy load and her own pounding heart, she got a running start through the meadow by the gorge and began flapping hard like she was harnessed to an air coach, trying to gain enough speed and lift to take off.

With him on his back, she pulled into the air only agonizingly slowly at first, the Ibex buck holding on to her form as tightly as he could while emitting what Gilda guessed was a stream of Ibexian invective under his breath.

And through it all, she could sense the dragon coming hard for her, now able to slowly close the distance from above and behind them even with the visible tears in its wings.

“Centurion! Turn left and go higher! Lead the drake out over the lake towards the hive!” she heard Miles Fortuna call into the communication gem still strapped to her borrowed Raven belt, but she didn’t reply. She couldn’t, her overworked muscles screaming in pain as she struggled to obey, not understanding the instruction but trusting there was a good reason for it. If there isn’t, we’re dead anyway, so…

Diving and skimming over the water briefly to gain some speed with the Starshina still latched on to her back—who she noted was trying very hard not to interfere with her flight as he held onto her with his hind legs squeezing her barrel and forelegs wrapped around her neck guard—she rose again and clawed for altitude, trying to cut across the southeast end of the lake towards the hive.

There was another powerful and briefly painful blast of heat behind her she could feel on her tail and exposed hindquarters, but fortunately, she had just enough speed to stay ahead of the actual flame. That wouldn’t last much longer, though, and with the corrupted drake closing, she could only pray for deliverance yet again.

This time, it came in the form of two pillars of flame that lanced out from the hillside plateau, curving up and then outward until they were headed directly for her. Acting on pure instinct as the edges of her pink-rimmed vision were closing in and she thought her lungs were going to burst, she dove again under what she thought was the path of the large enchanted arrows. They indeed passed overhead with a sharp and very loud whoosh, heading behind her as she neared the waterfall cove she’d noted earlier.

There was a bright burst of light followed by a thunderous explosion just a second later. It was swiftly followed by a shock wave that knocked her and Karin Kazal head over heels, sending them hard into the lake at an oblique angle and skipping across the suddenly roiled surface like a stone. Her ears ringing and only barely cognizant of her surroundings, she felt herself tumbling before she skidded through the water to a stop in the covered cove itself, finding herself floating in the cool waters of the waterfall-fed pool there and looking up to see the covering branches and glitters of crystal in the slickened cliffside rocks.

Still seeing stars, and feeling barely able to breathe for how hard her heart was pounding in her chest, she glanced up and then over to see the stricken and slowly sinking form of the dragon in the lake; its weakened spine severed and chest completely blown open by the force of the human missiles. A wave from its impact then entered the cove and washed over her like an ocean breaker, picking up her limp form to deposit it on the sandy bank with the Starshina.

She tried to rise after the water receded, her hearing just barely starting to return. She blinked once, only dimly aware of the Ibex buck’s presence beside her as she found she couldn’t focus on him and her head simply wouldn’t stay up.

And then she was aware of little else as she fell atop him and blacked out.

Gilda awoke to find the sun had risen and the radio clipped to her belt was squawking.

Her chest was still heaving while her limbs and wings were shaky, leaving her feeling like she’d just run a two-thousand league marathon with them, even if she couldn’t immediately remember why. Then she recalled the gorge, the chase, the battle with the Cloven flyers and being hunted by a corrupted adult dragon drake, only to be saved by…

Her head finally cleared enough that she caught his scent and realized he was close by; she thought she might even have been lying against him given she could sense his still-ragged breathing as a movement against her body.

“Starshina… are you all right?” she called to him without raising her head, only to receive a groan in response. Still only slowly recovering her senses—she knew she’d been knocked out but wasn’t sure for how long—she realized from the presence of the cool sand and the sound of a waterfall behind them that they were in the Crystal Cove, whose location she had disdained on previous trips for not wanting to run into the rutting couples who were said to frequent it for its secluded location and beauty.

“Starshina?” she prompted again, reaching up to give his furred form a shake with her talons, and this time she earned not just a groan but a response as he began to berate her.

“By the Ancient Rams themselves… just what were you thinking, Grizelda Behertz, diving into the gorge to escape that drake when he could just fill it with fire?”

“I wasn’t,” she admitted, trying to force her head to clear as her heart and breathing were only slowly settling down. She opened her bleary eyes to find them unfocused, able only to perceive a brown blur between the still-pink edges of her vision and a musky scent in her nose. I fought the battle well, only to nearly kill myself at the end with one incredibly stupid mistake! she silently admitted. “But by the crows themselves, I’d like to see you think clearly when there’s an adult dragon chasing you!”

“I did think clearly when I saw what the result of your actions would be!” he retaliated, rolling over on his back slightly to bring the blurry bulge closer; as she listened, his breathing slowed down. “And why did you save me, Centurion? I was out of power after the teleport and only dead weight back there. I told you to flee and you could have died trying to carry me! I was willing to perish in your place and could have been out of your feathers permanently! So why did you go back for me?” he again demanded to know.

She trilled at him in annoyance. “Because you saved me, you crow-damned dweeb of a goat!And why?” she asked him right back, trying to push up off him again.

But when her still-weak limbs buckled for a second time, all she was able to accomplish was shifting her head forward fractionally further onto his wet and still-trembling form, causing something to press into her cheek and his musky scent to grow stronger in her nose.

“I’ve imprisoned you, threatened you, insulted you and even hated you to the point of wanting you dead when we first met! So why, by not just your Ancient Rams but my Ancestors, did you risk your life for me?” she had to know, wondering why her words sounded slightly muffled.

“Because, you obtuse and idiotic human-rutting hen, I—” his voice suddenly caught as he raised his head beside her, and it was only as she opened her eyes again that she understood why.

They were in the most compromising position imaginable with her head buried deep in his lower belly, filling her nose with his male ibex musk.

“Centurion? What are you…” he started to somewhat shakily call down to her.

“I…I…” Still charged up with massive amounts of cider from the earlier battle and her untaken opportunities with her human friends, her breath caught as a pulse of pure desire and something approaching vertigo passed through her, leaving her feeling for a moment like she was going to faint. Fantasies beginning to flow unbidden along with a desire to reward him for saving her; the pink in her vision intensified further as her earlier bloodlust began to quickly give way to a far more conventional kind.

She couldn't help it, and she quickly realized that either from the cider she could now smell in the air or the compromising position they now found themselves in, neither could he.

She didn't fight it. She didn't want to fight it. For she knew that for saving her, he had earned her.

And that in that moment, he needed her just as much as she needed him.

Just six minutes later, they remained intertwined on the cove’s sandy beach with badly flushed cheeks and trembling bodies, the pair barely able to stand or move after not one, but four immensely enjoyed and incredibly passionate ruts.

Six minutes had passed for their friends, but far more than that for them. He’d amazed her when, in one of the few sentences he spoke after their initial encounter, he announced he was slowing down time in the immediate area of the cove using a spell she didn’t even know existed, magically stretching the next two minutes into nearly half an hour. He said it was so they could enjoy each other’s company fully, while still being able to get back to the main force before they were too badly missed or the Cloven arrived.

She didn’t know if the cider had somehow restored and enhanced his stamina as it had hers, but she found herself beyond caring as she was finally able to relieve her endlessly building urges, spending all her accumulated passions from the past day-plus of danger and wild emotional swings on him.

They spoke little—for what could either of them say to what was happening, which violated so many longstanding taboos of their respective societies that they could be shunned or outright exiled for it?—but they also didn’t stop, with Gilda finding she couldn’t get enough of his exotic body or magical touch.

She didn’t want to leave him. In fact, she didn’t ever want the moment to end, but knowing their friends were waiting for them and more Cloven were coming—if nothing else convinced her that the experience was Ancestor-sent, it was that they hadn’t returned before she and the Starshina were done—she finally decided that they couldn’t stay there any longer regardless of whatever magical chicanery he was using, giving him one final lick to signal it was time for both of them to rise.

Nodding reluctantly, he relented even if he didn’t quite release her; she smiled at the realization that just like her, he didn’t want to let her go. Either due to the favor of the Ancestors or the simple luck of chance, the lull in combat continued, though the desperate pleas from the radio for them that erupted after he released the time dilation spell could not be ignored. Waiting until her breathing had settled enough to talk more or less normally, she rolled over to reach for the human communication device while still laying against him.

Answering Imlay’s call, she announced she and the Starshina were alive but had been knocked clean out by the force of the dragon-killing blast, thrown hard into the cove and were only then recovering their senses—true enough, right? Even if it leaves out everything that happened in between…

When asked by a relieved Giraldi if she was okay or needed assistance, she replied after a brief pause that she would be—that she was otherwise unwounded and to not risk sending soldiers for them, given the Cloven had used the earlier foray to try and target an isolated force. She further said she would be returning with the Starshina to the abandoned hive shortly, glancing over to see him staring at her in wonder.

Clicking off the connection with a promise to return within five minutes, the unlikely lovers finally, if very reluctantly, separated after that, with Karin Kazal staggering slightly weak-legged over to the poolside to take a long drink from it. The silence stretched awkwardly between them as Gilda desperately willed the remaining stiffness of her wings to slacken and her equally shaky limbs to steady, still able to quite keenly feel him inside her as well as the ghosts of his aura caressing her. She even found herself sorely tempted to indulge in another round with him despite the urgency of getting back, finding his Ibexian attributes immensely pleasurable and his magical touch every bit as enjoyable as the caress of human hands.

Her cheeks flushed and her wings began to splay again as she stared at him, actively fantasizing about what else they might try given that her cider combined with his mating aura seemed to grant them almost limitless stamina, and even seemed to have gone a long way towards healing them both.

Wanting to feel his fur and exotic features against her again, she took another step towards him before she caught herself. By all the crows, ENOUGH, Grizelda Behertz! We’ve been lucky, but it can’t go on! She tore her eyes away and shook her head sharply as, her desires ebbing, she worried that once she’d had some time to dwell on it, she’d feel far worse about their unexpected encounter.

Worried that she’d never get over what had just happened and worse, wondering how she could face Marco or even her fellow griffons afterwards.

Ancestors above… What if they learn of this? What if we were SEEN? she suddenly fretted, glancing around her at the cove, which included the glittering, gem-studded walls of the cliff over which the waterfall fell.

She didn’t know or even want to think about it, but with radio reports of more Cloven coming around the lake from both the north and south sides to attack the hive, it also wasn’t the time for it. Like it was the time for THIS? She shook her head in disbelief, asking her Ancestors how in all the crows it could possibly have been the right time for her to have sex with an Ibex.

By all the crows, I just rutted a bucking IBEX! She found herself reeling and resorting to the old Equestrian curse, though she still preferred the human version of it. With few other options to hide his scent from griffon noses or quench her ongoing excitement, she flew out over the middle of the cove a short distance, tucked her still-stiffened wings as much as she could and dove headfirst into the deepest part of the pool.

Gulping down the deliciously clear and crisp water for a few seconds, she hoped that a quick bath and perhaps smearing herself with some mud would do the trick. She even chanced standing under the waterfall directly to let it cleanse her body and drive her remaining desires away, turning her face up into the deluge and even opening her beak slightly to let some of it soak into her system.

The Starshina saw her actions. After hesitating only briefly, he nodded and copied it, wading hip deep before dunking himself into the cool mountain water repeatedly. He then moved beside her in the waterfall; she got the distinct impression that he was not only trying to cleanse himself of her scent, but like her, take an improvised cold shower.

It more or less worked as she found her head clearing, and her remaining desires finally starting to recede. “We need to get back,” she told him after she had returned to shore and shaken the water coating herself free, beginning to pick up the scattered pieces of her armor to buckle back on.

“When you do, get your wounds treated and eat or rest while you can. This isn’t over, and we will yet need your power, Starshina.” All she could think to do or say at that moment was to act as a commander and give him an order, addressing him by his rank instead of his real name.

“By your command. But Centurion?” he couldn’t look at her for a moment, his entire manner seeming equal parts dazed and—unless she missed her guess—elated.

Gilda froze to see the mixed emotions on his face. “Yes?”

He hesitated, his blue eyes flitting to hers briefly before flinching and averting; she could only imagine that he was suffering the same flashbacks to the near-treasonous acts that she was at that moment, and worse, wanting to do even more of them.

“For the record, you were emitting an odd form of what I can only describe as an incredibly potent and almost irresistible magical pheromone. For which I strongly suggest you get yourself scanned and treated at the earliest possible opportunity,” he informed her wanly, sitting back to rub his temples with his forehooves. “I knew what it was, but I still couldn’t fight it. Even if I wanted to.”

She stared at him, certain he knew why just as well as she did. “For which you can thank your comrades in the Capricorn Conclave.” She allowed a note of remembered bitterness to enter her voice.

He winced and had to look away. “If this is, as seems all too likely, an aftereffect of the cider and fertility potion we poisoned you with? Then you have my sincerest apologies, and I accept this as a suitably ironic punishment for not just the actions of my fellow Adepts, but for myself defending them.” He bowed his head in contrition to her in an act she’d earlier reprimanded Marco for.

Gilda struggled to find a reply, but before she could, he held up a hoof to forestall it. “That said, know that I do not hate you or blame you for what happened, and I would be lying to claim I did not enjoy it greatly,” he continued, but then raised his haunted eyes to hers.

“But it must end here, Centurion. So for the sake of our mates and sanity, to say nothing of our standing among our own kind… let us never do this or even speak of it again.” He shifted uncomfortably for a moment before averting his gaze once more.

“Agreed,” Gilda replied with a grimace as she stepped upwind of him, fearful his scent alone might tempt her anew as she finished fastening her cuirass and worked on donning her two weapons belts next. So he does have a mate, she realized, surprised to feel a pang of shame. Not over being with him, but for potentially making him betray her. I’m sorry, whoever you are… she called out with her thoughts to the unknown doe. “But Starshina?”

“Yes?” This time, it was the Ibex buck who froze.

She sighed, deciding that a simple sense of honor required her to make her own admission in return. “Cider or no, I enjoyed it greatly as well. And for as much as I hate to admit it, I needed it badly and you earned it for saving me—for saving all of us at least six times over by now. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, Karin Kazal. Our races may be enemies, but you’re a good and honorable Ibex. A powerful mage. And an excellent lover.”

She added the last sentence as an afterthought as she bared her throat to him, to which he nodded and presented his horns with a renewed blush, following by giving her what she thought was a brief but longing look. “Spasiba.”

Gilda guessed it was an expression of gratitude. For a moment, he looked to her as if he wanted to say something else as he opened his mouth only to close it again, shaking his head as he forced himself to turn away from her. As she watched, he removed the water from his coat by somehow repelling it with his aura as he picked up his discarded vest, shaking out the thin fabric of his magically conductive adept armor over the pool to rid it of sand.

She was surprised to feel a moment of hurt at his refusal to respond or even look at her again, watching as he redressed himself with his protective garment while continuing to pull her armor back on. Crows take it… She wondered how either of them were supposed to get their heads ‘back in the game’ at this point, realizing he was probably trying to hide and stifle any chance of renewed excitement as much as she was.

Which means it’s probably best that we stay separated from here on out! “We need to get back to the hive before the Cloven attack again. Are you fit to travel, Karin Kazel?”

The Ibex buck exhaled heavily before he replied with a single word: “Da.” He cast what she guessed was another gravitational reduction charm on himself with his newly restored aura, then nodded, walking out of the cover and leaping high into the trees before looking back down at her, waiting.

“Right,” she said, flexing her wings and finding them nimble enough to support flight again. Taking to the air and quickly catching up with him, she darted ahead to make sure he stayed out of sight and scent as they returned to the hive, hearing him leap from treetop to treetop behind her.

She tried her best not to think about him but ultimately couldn’t, finding herself only able to remember how much she enjoyed not just the sex itself, but the simple act of seducing him.

That the thrill and pure feeling of power it gave her was as much or even more heady than that of killing the Cloven in battle.

She felt her cheeks flush again at the thought. Ancestors forgive me… I enjoyed it so much that if given the chance, I think I might do it AGAIN! she admitted in shame, praying she could somehow make amends for it to Chris, Tara and especially Marco later—for not giving herself to them instead of the Starshina when she’d repeatedly had the chance.

Fortrakt was right—I’ve been a stubborn old crow, trying to save myself for later when I didn’t even know if there WAS a later! she further berated herself, and yet, she found she didn’t regret what had happened with the ibex buck at all. Even in flight, her mind kept drifting back to their encounter, recalling his touch, both physical and magical, upon her.

She wasn’t sure if she imagined a magical squeeze of her flanks and feathery caress of her form before she landed

30: Battle of Lake Languid, Part 2 - Hold the Hill

Gilda remained in a daze as she landed on the plateau that fronted the entrance to the abandoned Changeling Hive complex, which she only then realized looked very much like a large inferno anthill from the outside when stripped of its vegetation. Its newly-scorched and now-barren surface was bumpy with hints of multiple entrance and exit points studded throughout the complex, even though all but the largest one was collapsed.

I wonder if the Changelings who once lived here got besieged? And when they were unable to escape, they died defending it, and that’s why they couldn’t destroy it? the thought suddenly crossed her mind, which she found grasping for some distraction after all the intense and unlikely sex she’d just experienced. And I wonder if that’s the fate that awaits us in turn?

She didn’t know, but whatever the reason, she found herself grateful to them for leaving it behind, providing her nearly two centuries of soldiers a ready-made redoubt that could hopefully hold against a much larger army.

It’s going to have to, she decided as she received the salutes of Giraldi and Imlay on top of the plateau, with the latter having stayed behind to supervise the emplacement of his final fire team and the recovery of the Marine mobile force.

“It’s very good to see you, Centurion. We lost sight of you and the Starshina after the human heavy arrows slew that dragon and worried you’d drowned in the lake,” Giraldi told her after she’d returned the respect. He was all business, but Gilda could see the relief in his eyes at her return. “You appear to be unwounded.”

“Only because—” Still distracted, she just caught herself from saying that she’d been healed of the singes and slashes she’d suffered because of the sex she’d just had with Karin Kazal, with their mutual magic somehow combining to do the job as effectively as any healer.

She took a deep breath to try to drive the lingering and still-compelling memories away, forcing her mind to focus. If nothing else, she could admit that she felt well and truly sated for the first time in days, but with battle still upon them, she also couldn’t step back and assimilate the intense experience as she sensed she needed to. “Only because of the Starshina, here. He saved me from the dragon and then healed me from the fight with the flyers.” She turned to him and bared her throat. That’s true enough, right?

“I see…” Giraldi gave her an odd look at her hesitation; she got the impression that he sensed there was something she wasn’t saying. “Then I thank you as well, Karin Kazal.” He bared his throat to the Starshina in turn, to which the ibex buck gave his usual tilt-headed salute that presented the side of his antlers. Gilda was starting to guess they did it to symbolically show a more vulnerable face of them, much like griffons bared throats for the same reason.

“As do I,” Miles Fortuna said somewhat grudgingly. “The Knights say you fought honorably and proved invaluable in holding the line. Your attacks against the flyers also helped prevent an airdrop of Cloven soldiers on the opposite side of the bridge.”

It was only then that Karin Kazal spoke. “Then I would hope you are satisfied that I am an ibex of my word, Senior Scimitar,” he allowed some of his old attitude to enter his voice. “I said I would help, and I have. And I would be remiss to not say that the Centurion saved me in turn when I had no power left.” He turned to her and presented his horns, whose magical touch she could still keenly feel.

“You earned it for saving my life, Starshina.” Gilda just stopped herself from saying that he’d earned her. “And know that after all that happened, you have my trust now.” She found she had to say as much, deciding that if it was within her power, she would let him go after the war was over. Sex aside, how could I not? At this point, his service to the Kingdom already far outweighs his crimes…

“Thank the Ancestors you’re back, Centurion.” Fortrakt’s voice was heard over the radio from where he continued to orbit overhead. “I wanted to go look for you, but Giraldi told me not to,” he said in a slightly accusing tone.

Gilda nodded, feeling her cheeks warm at Fortrakt’s stubborn loyalty and bravery, relieved he hadn’t gone looking for them given what he could have found. Do I dare tell him or Marco? Do I dare tell ANYCREATURE what really happened out there?

She still didn’t know, but Gilda took some small solace in the fact that Karin Kazal was probably asking himself the exact same questions as he stood beside and slightly behind her. Maybe I shouldn’t even bother, given it was just a one-time thing—a mutual reward for saving each other that we both enjoyed but also agreed will never happen again.

She was surprised to feel a moment of pain at the thought, but as the distinct sound of a firing bowcaster rang out from the upper slope, she stuffed it as firmly out of her mind as she could.

Win the battle and save all our lives first, worry about the rest later! she ordered herself sharply. “I appreciate the thought, cub, but it was the right decision. The Cloven have proven that they’ll concentrate against any isolated forces they see outside the hill. Especially human ones,” she said somewhat ruefully.

“We figured that out too late, sir. But in fairness, our tactics seem to have worked well so far,” Imlay answered this time. “We’ve blunted and bloodied them pretty badly even before they’ve been able to assault the hill itself. Judging from what the Ravens and my returning Marines said, we’ve taken out at least several hundred ground soldiers and gutted their flyer formations. In fact, it looks like we hurt them badly enough that they’re having to gather more force before they hit the hill directly.”

“And where are they now?” she asked as several more distinctive twangs rang out along with visible bolts of magical energy lancing downslope, followed by the sharp crack! of Lance Corporal Henderson’s “EMR”. What does that stand for again? ‘Enhanced-something-rifle’?

“Probing, as you can hear,” Giraldi replied with a nod upslope. “I’ve authorized our bowcasters and human cannons to fire on any Cloven they see, with priority given to those larger flyers and mages. The Ravens say they have special feeder crystals that are effective against Magus shields, but they only have a limited supply of them.”

“I see. And where are the main Cloven columns?” Gilda asked.

“Halted a third of a league out along the lakeshore paths around the north and south sides of the lake,” Miles Fortuna replied. “I’ve ordered my surviving soldiers to shadow them but not engage them. We already lost two dead in the woods in the earlier battle.”

That gave Gilda pause. “Please tell me that they won’t be—”

“They will not be corrupted. For we are always equipped with countermeasures to prevent capture, Centurion,” the Senior Scimitar anticipated her question. “Our warriors have small crystals implanted inside our heads. They activate when our heartbeat stops and destroy the mind within. Other variants exist that incinerate our bodies entirely; we can also manually trigger them if needed. Never mind how.”

“She speaks true,” Karin Kazal admitted. “It’s why the Capricorn Conclave never recovers bodies or knowledge from captured Ravens. I regret we did not take similar measures on my side, however. And on that subject, I would be remiss to point out that at least two of my former team of eight remain unaccounted for…” he trailed off ominously.

“Then you are saying that there could be two corrupted Adepts out there?” Miles Fortuna paraphrased in some disgust. “How unsurprisingly sloppy, Starshina. And is there anything else you haven’t told us?”

“That the Cloven would reemerge after well over a millennium could hardly be a contingency planned for during their operation, Senior Scimitar. Still, the presence of additional hostile adepts does pose a potential threat. Are there any more magical tricks or artifacts they might be able to use against us, Starshina?” Giraldi asked more calmly, stepping between Miles Fortuna and Karin Kazal when it looked like the Ibex buck was about to get in the former’s face.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Though he looked like he wanted to snarl at or outright insult his Raven rival, the Starshina held his tongue; Gilda judged it because he half-thought she might be right. “They each had an enhanced anchor point crystal in their possession. But even if they still have them, the same rules apply to those as applied to the ones we used—they have to get them to a desired destination first and activating one takes several minutes, during which time any incoming forces are extremely vulnerable,” he pointed out.

“Then we’ll have to act quickly if they’re used against us. Can you detect their activation?” Gilda asked.

“As we are attuned to them, yes, at greater range than you can. But given the difficulties in emplacing them, I do not see that they would be useful here. With the help of Decanus Nydia, we have already emplaced anti-teleport fields over and inside the hill to prevent any corrupted Cloven from entering that way,” he recited.

“Regardless, be assured that if ibexian magic is used or another summoning gem is activated, I or my surviving comrades will sense them. We will alert you instantly, but I ask that I be allowed to deal with any possessed Adepts if possible. For I feel it is my duty as their commander and comrade to grant them release from the corruption of the Cloven.”

“If possible, then fine.” Gilda decided she owed him that much as another round of bowcaster bolts and bullets were fired from upslope. “How are the dragons?”

“Wounded and being treated by the Decanus and the ibex doe,” Giraldi replied. “I told Nydia to concentrate on healing Orange Crush’s wings and Emerald Inferno’s hide to get them back in action, though the latter seems inconsolable right now after witnessing what became of her sire. Worse, Red Hot is badly wounded and out of the fight. And with respect, I would avoid Obsidian Ire for now, sir,” Giraldi finished with a raised eyeridge. “Needless to say, she is not pleased with you.”

“The feeling is mutual.” Despite the implicit threat, Gilda smiled. She couldn’t help it—for her arrogance and attitude, she rather liked the large female for reminding her of herself as a teen. And just like Rainbow or Tara, she’s really good in a fight, too…

“If I may, Centurion…” A new voice was heard; Gilda looked up to see the smallest of the dragon females approach the group, causing heads to turn towards her.

“Rose Ruby, is it?” She noted the pink-hued drakina stood a full head smaller than Imlay, leaving Gilda guessing that she was still an immature adolescent, barely a quarter-century old.

“Yes,” she said in an accented voice that almost sounded demure, leaving Gilda wondering if she was somehow the dragon version of Fluttershy. “I just wanted you to know that despite whatever Obsidian Ire may say, she does respect you. She wouldn’t obey your orders if she didn’t.”

“All well and good, except that she didn’t obey them before,” Gilda said pointedly with a glance at Giraldi. “I told her to withdraw, and she failed to.”

“Because she didn’t respect you then,” Rose Ruby replied in an unperturbed tone, the scythe mounted on her back nearly as large as she was. “But she does now, after seeing you risk your life to save our clan sisters, fighting the flyer swarms alongside her and braving the attack of one of our clan’s corrupted adults. She is proud like all of us, but not so much that she doesn’t understand we can’t beat the Cloven or win back our lands alone,” the small dragon female said with certainty.

“Pride is not helpful when it leads to lost battles or needless casualties, young drakina. Will she obey orders now?” Giraldi asked, leaving Gilda ruefully reflecting that her own pride and inability to apologize was what had kept her away from Rainbow for so many years.

“I swear by our Ancient Dragon Lords themselves that she will. And as for Emerald Inferno, she will need time but will be fit to fight again later. Be assured that I will stand in her stead for now.” She stood to passable upright attention before Gilda and then gave the curious dragon double-fisted salute, starting with her talons held up to either side of her before bringing them in to bang against her scaled chest.

“I see.” Returning the salute, Gilda wondered again how much use the small drakina would really be, being anything but imposing physically and wielding a weapon that she couldn’t fathom would actually be useful. But she also didn’t want to hurt her feelings, recognizing that she was trying to be a brave and mighty warrior like her clan sisters were. “Then I would order you to—”

Before she could finish her sentence, there was a sudden flash of light that resolved into a half-rotted ibex doe with badly cracked antlers and two freshly killed Ravens, recognizable from their gray fur dye and ripped open throats from which blood still dripped. Though visibly wounded and hobbled under the control of a parasite, they already had their repeaters and scimitars leveled and pointed at her group; Gilda barely had enough time to register their presence and recognize that they had her entire command team dead to rights, able to take them all out at once.

Her life flashing before her eyes again in that instant as an enchanted scimitar began to swing for her throat in a slash that she knew would penetrate her armor as if it wasn’t there, she found her newest regret was that she had not been able to tell Marco what had happened or make amends, hoping only that she could somehow do so in the afterlife.

But she’d barely formed the thought before a blue-hued ibex shield materialized in front of her, blocking the stream of bolts that detonated hard against the barrier, causing it to progressively weaken. One or two more shots might have penetrated, but then the repeater-armed Raven tiercel was cut down by a whirling blur of pink and gleaming steel before he could fire while the second had her scimitar parried barely an uncia from her head by the aura-generated blades of Karin Kazal.

Shouts of alarm were heard around them as he used his magical construct to go blade to blade with his former rival in a rapid exchange of blows. He flung the Raven female back from Gilda with what sounded like an Ibexian curse, blocking slash after slash while the diminutive drakina turned her scythe on the Ibex doe next.

To Gilda’s surprise, she moved the unwieldy weapon with blinding speed in a wide and whistling arc to neatly cleave the shield in two before splitting the corrupted adept’s head open in the same stroke, causing both her barrier and half-created constructs to flicker out while the dead doe fell to the floor of the plateau.

By that time, the Starshina had defeated his former rival by teleporting behind and decapitating her with a whirling slash of his own. He moved with his constructs as if he was holding them in his hooves and then reared up to bring one of his two blades down vertically to spear the separated head, impaling the parasite within.

From beginning to end, it took less than three seconds, leaving Gilda and the rest of them agape, only belatedly going for their weapons now that there were no longer targets. “By the Ancestors…” she heard Fortrakt from overhead, who had just started to swoop down on the invading group but arrived too late to assist.

“Holy shit…” one of the Marines said from a Talon trench as a triumphant Rose Ruby took a ready stance with her scythe held over her head, watching for additional intruders. “That dragon girl is a fucking reaper!”

Despite her incredible feat—clearly, size wasn’t everything; not even with dragons! —Gilda rounded hard on a shocked Miles Fortuna, who had been so stunned she’d only been able to get her scimitar halfway out of its sheath before the ambush was defeated. “Dammit to the Crows, I thought you said that your warriors couldn’t be corrupted, Senior Scimitar! And what happened to the anti-teleport fields, Starshina?” she snarled at each in turn, feeling her gaze only belatedly turn pink as her emotions and energy surged.

“I… I…” the Raven leader stared down at her former teammates in disbelief, having to sit down heavily. “I don’t understand…”

“I don’t know how they...” Karin Kazal said forlornly as he stared down at the doe, then fell to his knees again. “Mishka…” He then recited what sounded like a prayer and began to cry.

She was about to berate them both again when blue flares from surviving Ravens shot up from north and south of the hill, indicating an imminent assault from Cloven columns. “We’d better get to cover. That was clearly intended as a decapitation strike in advance of an attack, sir!” Imlay pointed out; his rifle still raised at the fallen Ravens.

Gilda felt like crying herself in that instant to see yet more soldiers under her command fall, but there was no time. “Crows take it… Take positions, everyone! Human cannons and bowcasters will fire at more distant targets while crossbows and spears are to be reserved for Cloven attacking up the slopes!”

“Wilco, sir! Marines! Into the trenches!” Imlay ordered as he ran to the one overseeing the center of the hill himself, where Stavrou and his partner had emplaced their heavy ‘fifty’, leaving Gilda impressed at how quickly he’d shaken off the close call given she was still trembling.

How many battles has he gone through already to accept the chance of death so easily? she couldn’t help but wonder as she continued to give orders, somewhat amazed at how readily she was able to give them now, even as her body continued to shake from an unspent adrenaline rush that had accompanied yet another near-death experience.

But she grounded herself by resorting to her old pastime of insults. And thankfully, she had at least one ready-made target for them. “Obsidian Ire and Orange Crush! Stop enjoying your own vapors and get your smoke-stained snouts out here! We need you to help wipe out the flyers and attack grounded concentrations of Cloven!” she ordered them to an angry hiss from what she assumed was the black-scaled Obsidian Ire.

The dig was in reference to the fact that dragons could get drunk on their own heat and brimfire-infused breath in high enough concentrations. In fact, there was an entire underground industry in the Kingdom centered around inhaling their collected smoke through imported Saddle Arabian hookahs.

“With a name like Orange Crush, she’d almost have to be…” one of the Marines muttered over the human radio to snickers.

Gilda didn’t know what he meant, and she didn’t care. “Decurion! Defend the skylights and backstop the Wind Knights to protect the upper slopes from flyer swarms! Rose Ruby! Watch the backs of the Talons and humans and deal with any teleportations or airdrops onto the plateau!” She waited for acknowledgements to be received before turning her attention on the ibex buck, who for the second time had been forced to witness the death of his own comrades.

“Starshina! Reinforce the anti-teleport wards and stay out here to provide magical cover to the trenches! Deal with any mages that come near! And by all the crows, pull yourself together!” She shook the ibex buck hard from where he was kneeling, but her eyes softened at the look he gave her.

“I’m truly sorry, Karin. But there is no time. Fight now, mourn later!” she told him, squeezing his shoulder and letting him see at least a brief moment of pity in her eyes she would never have offered him or any of his kind before.

He seemed to take some solace from her touch, closing his orange eyes tightly for a moment before opening them. “By your command…” he finally managed, and his horns ignited to lay what she assumed was a fresh suppression field over the area before he stood back up, his gaze turning steely again. “I will protect the plateau. But I suggest leaving your Decanus and my comrade inside the caves in case they somehow teleport within them.”

“Granted. See to it, Decanus Nydia and Serzhánt Polina! Defend the infirmary and be alert to possible teleports despite the suppression fields!” She shouted into the radio, hoping she pronounced the ibexian rank right.

“If any happen, alert us immediately and keep them away from the civilians! Senior Scimitar! Pull your remaining sky griffon Ravens inside to clear the corridors if they appear within them! Fortis Knights! Backstop the defense! If we retreat, you’ll have to keep the cave entrance open long enough to get everyone inside! And then I’ll collapse the entrance after!”

They were mostly orders she’d already given before, but as Gauntlet training had emphasized time and time again, it never hurt to repeat instructions. “I’ll be taking flight with the Wind Knights to observe the battle from above and concentrate additional force where needed. Optio Giraldi! Command the ground battle in my stead!”

“By your command!” He thumped his chest and flew slightly uphill to a dug-out perch over the cave entrance where a heavy repeater was emplaced, giving him a good view of the battlefield while defended by a single Raven.

“Excellent. Good luck, everycreature! Fight hard and fight well! And as the humans say, give these evil creatures hell!” she proclaimed to a laugh and cheer from the Marines as the two dragon females emerged to give her a growl and glower, to which she only smiled sweetly and ordered them on her wing.

With the drakina pair flanking her, she took flight right up the middle of the hill to join her airborne force orbiting further up, flying low and keeping carefully between bowcaster emplacements. They had already opened up with the distinctive sharp twanging sounds she wasn’t quite sure how to categorize, though they tended to be overwhelmed by the cannon-like cracks of Marine rifles.

Pink-hued bolts of pure magical energy lanced out along with human bullets to strike down still distant-targets as fresh flyer swarms appeared out over the lake, closing quickly. Despite their losses, the cloud of them was thicker than ever, leaving Gilda reasoning that their small size made them easy to replace as well as quick to grow in a Cloven factory, given how little organic material they actually required.

She thus ordered them thinned out first. They were hard to pick off individually, but the bowcasters started firing different-hued bolts that burst among them with spreading electrical eruptions not unlike Karin Kazal’s lightning flak spell, which he opened up with as well using greater magic power than before.

His horns nearly fully healed, and his aura at least partially recharged through means she didn’t understand, but that she instinctively knew had to do with their earlier lovemaking, he used it to good effect, targeting concentrations of flyers as she likewise ordered her Wind Knights to load proximal explosive bolts for their single-shot crossbows. She’d made sure to obtain a few such bolts for herself this time, though they only had a limited number; she had just three in her quiver and the one currently notched in her bow.

After a few rounds had punched holes in the flyer formations, she ordered the bowcasters to cease fire and concentrate their efforts on the ground forces that were now halfway to the hill. Once they had obeyed, she ordered her force to strike with Obsidian Ire and a partially healed Orange Crush on the flanks. It was an improvised tactic, one she’d come up with to allow the dragons to safely strafe the Cloven to the sides with violet and orange flame while not endangering the griffons beside them.

With her sky griffons safely between them and back in their conic spoiling assault formation, she flew high and then plunged her force straight through the largest remaining concentration of Cloven to drop another two score of razorbat forms into the lake before they could react, diving and swooping out of the way while the belatedly fired spikes chased after them but didn’t hit them.

Gathering speed from their dive and then using the momentum to arc upward hard for another pass, she noted the cracks of human cannon fire from the trenches as the Cloven reached the base of the hill and hit the line of spears emplaced there.

Though they tried to charge right through them, splintering and in some cases running with them impaled in their bodies, they were still slowed up and bunched up by the obstacles, which was by design. It made them easy targets for the human ‘fifty’ and single-shot Talon crossbows that opened up on them, mowing them down as swiftly and as surely as Rose Ruby’s scythe would a stand of grain.

But she couldn’t spare it more than a brief look before noting that some of the flyer swarms seemed to be parting around the hill. The flanking forces had several carrier forms, leaving her wondering where they were going to land.

The answer occurred to her quickly as she grabbed for one of her paired Raven gems. “Decurion Gletscher! Carrier forms are circling around to the rear! Be alert for a combat drop on top of or behind the hill! If they make it down, kill them quickly!” she warned him.

“By your command! Guardsgriffons! On me and load incendiary bolts!” he ordered his remaining thirteen effectives, leaving her hoping that he would do as well against the Cloven ground forces as he had against their flyers.

“Give them Tartarus, cub! Bowcasters and Lance Corporal Henderson! Target those large carrier forms!” she further ordered over a second gem, leaving her wondering if there was any way to combine the advantages of the paired gems which seemed immune to magical interference with the human radios that could broadcast to everycreature at once.

“By your command!” She heard their chorused acknowledgement as the three available bowcasters turned upwards. But the first kill went not to a magical bolt but a human bullet as there was suddenly a much louder boom than before that came from Henderson’s position and made a carrier form all but explode, sending it and the two porkupikes it was carrying plummeting. It was even louder than her “EMR”, leaving Gilda wondering if the female Marine had yet another weapon available.

Whatever its nature, they succeeded in dropping half of the carriers before they disappeared out of sight on the other side of the hill. “Centurion! They’ve dropped on the back of the hive with porkupikes in support. They’re pinning down the rear Talon Turma and keeping us at bay with heavy spikes while they advance up the hill! Request permission to circle around and engage them from the rear!”

It took her but a moment to visualize the situation and realize the danger of splitting her force. “Denied! You don’t have dragon support and you’ll be swarmed by flyers if you do that! Order them to don filter masks and tell Rose Ruby to ignite the brush back there and take out the porkupikes! Then swoop in to finish them off!”

“By your command!” he said obediently, relaying the orders through the human radio given that Rose Ruby didn’t have a paired gem.

“Centurion!” This time it was Karan Kazal’s voice she heard over what she assumed was the borrowed gem of the Senior Scimitar, given it was hers that vibrated. “I just sensed the activation of one of our enhanced Adept summon spell crystals… from deep inside the hive!” he warned her, causing her guts to clench.

“What? How?” she asked him. “How could they have gotten one there?”

“I know not! But we must assume the worst! We have minutes to act before the summoning process is complete! I know roughly where it occurred, but the Senior Scimitar and I will need human support to find and kill them quickly!” he said over the sound of Marine cannons, which another glance told her were leaving heaps of Cloven soldier forms piled at the bottom of the hill. But the Cloven themselves were starting to claw their way uphill, though that meant that they had to contend with crossbow fire and the explosive gems strewn over the slope.

“Granted! Tell Imlay to secure the civilians and assign you his reserve fire team! And by all the crows of the Kingdom, find and kill whoever activated that spell, now!” she ordered as she shredded another flyer, mildly amazed that she could give orders and fight at the same time.

The pink in her vision told her the cider was active within her again, but either because she was so intensely focused on her task or because she’d finally and quite fully relieved her sensual urges earlier, it did nothing except heighten her senses and enhance her reaction times to near super-griffon levels of ability again, finding herself dodging spikes and shredding flyer forms with ease.

Her thoughts flowed quickly, too. A day ago, I was wondering if I was worthy of my post, promised the chance to ease into my new rank and responsibilities. And now here I am commanding two centuries of soldiers belonging to no less than three races in battle against a mutual foe! she marveled. She might have wondered about what it all meant and how it had already changed her for better and for worse, but there was no time.

No time for anything except survival, either outside of the hive or within it! Ancestors preserve them… She was deathly afraid for Marco and the others hiding inside the old structure, with the Cloven apparently having transported themselves inside using a borrowed ibexian adept gem. But in the middle of flying and fighting the Cloven, there was nothing she could do for them as they conducted a second pass through the Cloven flyer formations, who were starting to spread out more to protect themselves from immolation and being taken out by explosive bolts.

So far, she guessed they had taken out around a third of them with the loss of only one soldier from repeatedly spearing through their formations at maximum speed, as that simply wasn’t enough time for the flyer forms to take aim. She was readying a third pass when the gem paired with the one belonging to Miles Fortuna buzzed.

“Centurion! Beg to report!” Gilda held her breath as the Senior Scimitar began to speak. “We found the source of the summoning spell! It was activated in one of the large lower chambers to transport in over two hundred Cloven and corrupted, including the final ibex adept, but… they’re all dead!”

“Dead?” she said in confusion as she made another weaving pass at a thinning flyer swarm, though there were still at least two centuries of them in the air. They were starting to ignore her and trying to support the ground attack by peppering her forward trenches and weapons emplacements with spikes, but to her relief, they were not having much luck given they had to fire them from a hover which left them easy targets from both above and below. “From what?”

“We don’t know! As near as we can tell, they were already annihilated on arrival! They’ve got everything from blade wounds to what look like animal injuries! Judging by the bite and claw marks, it looks like they were torn apart by creatures ranging from timberwolves to tigerhawks!”

Despite the danger she was in, the thought gave Gilda pause. Then a mixed pack of animals attacked them in their marshal area but DIDN’T fight each other? How? Why? And with blade wounds mixed in? Her mind swam with the sheer unlikeliness of it. “Are the civilians and wounded inside the infirmary safe?”

“They are. No breaches,” she said to Gilda’s great relief. “I’m keeping my Ravens present here now, and your mate is currently standing guard with us at the chamber entrance,” she added in a note of annoyance. “We told him to stay inside, but he’s rather persistent and—” There was a fumbling sound on the other end.

“Gilda? We’ve got this. Everyone’s safe. Nothing’s getting in here, so just kill the goddamn things!” Marco told her after she gathered that he had grabbed the gem right out of the Raven’s grasp. “But if we survive this, I’m gonna want you bad, girlfriend.”

The pink in her vision intensified at the thought. “And you can have me,” she promised him, trying not to feel a fresh pang of guilt and pain. She resolved then that she would tell him what happened with the Starshina when the time came, praying he would be accepting of it. “But until then, obey the Senior Scimitar’s orders!”

“You got it, girlfriend!” he promised, the title causing yet another stab of guilt to shoot through her; she could only imagine what Karin Kazal was thinking on the other end to hear it.

Live first, admit infidelity and make love to Marco later! she reminded herself, trying not to think about how she’d broken that rule badly once already and infuriatingly, still found she didn’t regret it so much as not being with him and her other human friends first.

She tried for a moment to focus some ire on the Starshina for depriving her of that chance, only to once again find that she couldn’t. Just as before, her thoughts ran into a two-pronged mental barricade of both knowing that she badly needed it, and that he had more than earned her.

Ancestors above, how am I supposed to hate Karin Kazal? He’s saved me at least three times today! She shook her head at the thought as she ordered her force to head back to the hive, judging they’d done as much damage as they could out there without risking the Cloven turning on them with their entire force.

She’d lost another Wind Knight dead into the lake with another two wounded from spikes and slashes, but her hit-and-fly tactics supported by the two dragons had proven effective. As Rose Ruby had promised, Obsidian Ire had obeyed orders instantly this time and Orange Crush had killed her share of Cloven as well.

They’d each taken a couple more spikes but were ignoring their injuries, though she noticed Obsidian Ire had two holes punched in her broad webbed wings and watched as Orange Crush sealed a wound on her side with her own fiery breath without so much as a grunt of pain.

Gilda could only marvel at the sight of it, starting to understand how tough the two drakinas really were. To say nothing of their stamina! she further marveled. Dragonfire was not inexhaustible, she knew from Gauntlet briefings. But she also knew they could recharge it quickly by the simple act of breathing as long as their body’s mineral needs were met, which they could satisfy by eating rocks or especially crystals. And indeed, when they dove free again, Orange Crush grabbed at one of her pouches to pull out what looked like a diamond to eat, taking a large bite out of it with a loud crunch before stowing the remainder.

The brief respite gave her a chance to glance back at the hive. She could see the Cloven attack had made it halfway up the hill, but the Cloven soldiers were being struck down swiftly from combined crossbow and cannon fire as well as the detonation of the occasional strewn gem.

Porkupikes tried to provide their own base of fire for the charging soldier forms from the bottom of the hill, but their stationary positions made them easy targets for bowcasters and human rifles, and they typically got only a few shots off before they were struck down.

Despite their losses, both they and the surviving razorbats scored the occasional hit as she heard casualty calls go out, promptly followed by one of the two Ibex retrieving them. Worse, one of her bowcasters was down, she realized as she saw the Ibex doe scamper upslope to retrieve the wounded earth griffon, and there weren’t any other trained soldiers available who could take it over.

Still, as the minutes passed, she judged they were winning the fight given Cloven casualties far exceeded theirs, both in the sky and on the ground. Giraldi was skillfully shifting forces and directing fire in the form of the Raven heavy repeaters, using them to cut down concentrations of Cloven when they occasionally tried to focus their efforts on one side of the hill or the other. In the end, they simply could not enter or even approach the trench line where their superior strength and spiked bodies could tell.

The carnage among their ranks was bad enough, in fact, that the charging Cloven soldier forms were being slowed down by simply having to fight through the fallen and occasionally outright tumbling forms of their slain brethren, resulting in their advance being halted two-thirds of the way up the hill.

At one point, an additional group of carrier forms tried to swoop down on the plateau with maws open and spikes stitching the area, but another pair of massive booms from Henderson’s position cut two of them down in sequence while three others fell to bowcasters, with only one making it all the way down. And it didn’t last long before a hail of heavy repeater fire from the hillside shredded it and the pair of soldier forms it was carrying quickly.

With the battle for the main cave entrance apparently in wing, that only left the action on the rear of the hill unaccounted for. She could see a massive pall of smoke rising behind the abandoned hive but couldn’t hear much combat from that direction. “Decurion Gletscher! Report!” she ordered him.

Gilda was given some momentary pause when he didn’t immediately reply, leaving her praying he hadn’t been struck down. “Centurion!” His harried voice was finally heard. “We’ve eliminated the force they landed to the rear thanks mostly to Rose Ruby! Ancestors, she’s amazing with that scythe!” he said in the same wonderment Gilda had felt upon seeing her in action for the first time. “She’s so fast that they can’t touch her! She burned the hill beneath them and then wiped out the survivors almost by herself!”

“Now you know why she stayed behind, Centurion—to be your final and best line of defense,” Obsidian Ire said smugly from Gilda’s left to overhear it. “She’s not the biggest or oldest of us, but she’s easily the swiftest and the most lethal of our warriors. Be very thankful that the Cloven could not kill and corrupt her when they first invaded our lands, or we would stand little chance.”

Gilda gave the large drakina a look as she searched for a fresh concentration of airborne Cloven to attack. “I thought you were just keeping her out of the way because she was too young and small to fight effectively.”

“Do not judge a stone by its surface, Centurion,” Orange Crush reminded her from the right in a tone of pure pride. “For sometimes the most magnificent of gems lie within.”

“Point taken…” Gilda muttered as the remainder of the Cloven assault force was cut down, leaving over a millennium of soldiers and flyers strewn about the hill. She was starting to wonder about their crossbow ammunition reserves when the attack abruptly halted and the Cloven withdrew, apparently on the order of their Overlord. They scampered back down the hill and quickly retreated out of sight into the woods, chased by the occasional rifle bullet and bowcaster bolt.

Even after they had disappeared, a few more shots rang out. ”Cease fire!” She heard Imlay call over the radio. “Marines, safe and service your weapons! And replenish ammo from storage gems! Stavrou! What’s the status of the fifty?” she called out as Gilda banked back towards the hill.

“Fifteen hundred rounds expended,” he reported. “Barrel’s so hot it’s nearly glowing and it might be getting fouled. I had three jams in the past two canisters.”

“Then cool and clean it as best you can,” he ordered as Giraldi called to Gilda next just as she came in for a landing.

“Centurion! Beg to report,” he said as she skidded to a halt before him, only furling her wings when she confirmed the plateau was safe.

He saluted her and she saluted him back. “Proceed.”

“I am pleased to say we smashed the attack with the loss of what I conservatively estimate to be at least six centuries of Cloven ground soldiers and Ancestors only know how many flyers. Unfortunately, we suffered nearly a Turma’s worth of casualties of our own and crossbow bolts are beginning to run low. Six Talons are dead and sixteen are wounded, as is one of the Ravens. All dead have had their minds destroyed.”

Gilda closed her eyes. She didn’t realize that they’d been hit that hard, given she’d only lost one dead and three wounded, wondering if she’d ever get used to the griffons under her command dying. “And the Marines?”

“One more wounded, ma’am… er, sir.” Imlay caught himself again to a smirk from the Ravens. “But he’s fit for further action.”

“Make that two!” a slightly frantic Ebon Umbreon called out as he landed before them, holding a helmetless and bleeding Henderson in his arms with multiple spikes sticking out of her shoulder and arm. “By the Ancestors, she was utterly unflinching before enemy fire, even when the flyers closed in! I was trying to defend her, and she shot two of them right off my back!” he said, staring down at her in wonder.

“You’re welcome, Ebon. But I’m afraid I’m out of the fight, Centurion…” Henderson apologized with a cough that brought up blood. “I did my best. And my rifles are still up there…” she told them, to which Gilda dispatched one of her Wind Knights to bring them back. But not before Imlay warned him not to touch the triggers or ‘barrels’, the latter of which he said were the long tubes whose bare metal would likely be very hot.

“You did fine, Lance Corporal,” Imlay told her, grasping her hand and squeezing it with his own. “Well done, Marine.”

“Seconded,” Gilda told her with a bared throat. “You’ve done your part, so get yourself fixed up. And if Chris is awake, tell him how many more kills he needs to catch up to you now,” she further suggested with a sly smile.

“He’ll hate that,” Henderson said in a weak voice and grin. “But it’ll give him motivation, too…”

Gilda grinned back. “I’m sure it will. But for now, your battle is done, Lance Corporal. So if you would be so kind as to take her to the infirmary, Shadow Decurion…?”

“By your command,” he said solemnly, still staring down at the human eagless in his arms as he flew into the caves with her.

Gilda had barely started to wonder if he might be smitten with her when a new voice broke in. “Centurion?” She looked up to see Shadow Decanus Acuti Surculus approaching, carrying the male Marine who had been paired with him to provide close defense, wearing both his bowcaster and human rifle slung around his body. “I regret to report there is one more human casualty…”

He laid a PFC Gilda didn’t know the name of down on the ground. She didn’t see anything immediately wrong with him until his head lolled to reveal a single flyer spike gruesomely impaling his eye, having punched right through the goggles he wore.

“Ah, fuck,” Imlay said with a grimace, his fingers going to the side of his head to tap something. “Sorry, buddy. Squad, this is Imlay. We lost PFC Jenkins.”

Sounds of shock and dismay were heard followed by curses and angry growls as the Marines swore to avenge their fallen comrade. “When did it happen?” Gilda asked, staring down at what she was certain was her latest failure of leadership.

“Halfway through the battle when their flyers tried to swarm the hill. I didn’t know he was down until after the attack was repulsed and I realized his cannon had stopped firing.”

“But we still heard cannon fire from that position later,” Giraldi noted solemnly.

“That was me,” the subdued Raven tiercel admitted after a brief pause as he glanced at the human weapon. “When he fell, I picked it up, as my bowcaster is not effective at close range. I learned how to aim and fire it from observing him. I will say it was harder than it looked and difficult to keep stable, to say nothing of rather painful on the ears. But it was also very powerful and effective when its cannonballs found their mark. I may also report that griffon talons are not a good fit for the trigger or quiver release button, but I managed. I do not think they would need much modification to be more easily used by us.”

“I see…” Gilda felt the loss of the male Marine keenly. So finally, a human falls. At least the Cloven can’t possess him since they already destroyed his brain, she noted somewhat wanly to see the formerly red-hot spike deeply buried in his skull. Feeling like she should say something, she did so, hoping it wasn’t offensive to whatever gods or concept of the afterlife humans had.

“Rest, Marine. And thank you for your service to the Kingdom. You fought to the death at our side, so know that you die with our gratitude and honor. May your Ancestors guide your soul to the stars.”

To her relief, Imlay didn’t seem to take offense, and neither did the other Marines listening in. She thought she heard a prayer or two over the radio as the Corporal reached down to close his fellow human’s good eye.

”Semper Fidelis,” he surprised her by saying an Aeric phrase. “Always faithful. And you were, Marine.” He squeezed his own eyes shut once tightly, then opened them again, suddenly all business once more. “I’ll bring out someone from our reserve fire team to replace him on the upper slope. And thank you for returning his body and weapon, Shadow Decanus.” Imlay nodded at the Raven, who bared his throat. “I’ll need the rifle back, though. You’ll understand that I can’t let you keep it.”

“Nor would I, in your place,” he granted as he carefully pulled the human weapon off his shoulder and laid it down at Imlay’s feet. He did so as the Corporal called forth another Marine to take the place of PFC Jenkins; PFC Anderson emerged from the hive at a run less than a minute later and gaped at his fallen comrade, uttering a single word. “Fuck.”

“Still think this is fun, PFC?” Imlay asked him acidly as he placed an empty storage gem on the fallen Marine and activated it, causing the dead human to be enveloped in a magical aura and then disappear.

When the process was complete, the now-glowing gem fell to the ground with a mild clatter. “It’s so we can return his body to his family,” he said to the quizzical looks he received, picking up and stowing the crystal inside one of his interior pockets. “It’s our way. And as for you, PFC, you’ll be taking his place in a foxhole further upslope with the Shadow Decanus here. Protect him from close-range attacks while he snipes them. And kindly try not to take a flyer spike through the eye.”

“Yes, Corporal,” the young Marine said with far less attitude than before as Henderson’s three weapons were delivered downslope—she indeed had a third rifle available, and this one looked like the most powerful of all, with a long barrel and thick quiver.

Gilda might have asked about it but found she couldn’t as Imlay ordered another Marine to take over the EMR, stowing the largest rifle in a second storage gem. She could only stand there dazed and despondent for a moment, feeling the crushing weight of command falling on her anew.

Ancestors above, how many more must die under my orders? She thought again that for as many dead as she had already suffered, she wasn’t worthy of her post. But then she shoved it as hard aside as she could, deciding that she needed to clear her head while she had the chance. At least it puts things in perspective. What happened with Karin Kazal doesn’t even begin to compare to the guilt I feel over this. Still…

Thinking of him and what had happened, she decided it was time to go see Marco directly and spill the story, letting him know while she still had the chance. May the Ancestors guide me, she invoked the ritual prayer for one of the few times in her life, having always prided herself on taking responsibility for her actions while not relying on the Grace of the Gods to help her.

“While I have a chance, I’m going below to check on the civilians and wounded. The Optio is in charge until I return. Reset our defenses and summon me immediately if the Cloven attack again,” she directed shortly.

“By your command.” Giraldi saluted and bared his throat. “But Centurion?”

“What?” she asked as she returned the respect, her voice clipped and emotions raw.

“I just wanted to say—very well done, sir. You have led us superbly and fought from the forefront as a Centurion should. I would only ask that you do not blame yourself for our fallen. Casualties are inevitable in such battles as these, and they are not a reflection of your leadership. Only the brutal ruthlessness of our foe.”

“She’s right, sir,” Imlay offered, leaving Gilda guessing that he sensed her guilt, if not all its sources. “If you won’t take it from him, then take it from someone who’s seen far too many dead and been under the command of way too many officers whose inexperience and idiocy got them killed—you’ve led us well. Know that neither me nor my Marines blame you for this.” For a moment, his eyes looked far too old for his youthful face.

Despite his words, she looked away. “Maybe that will mean more to me later, Corporal. But by the crows, it sure doesn’t make things better now.” She bared her throat to him only briefly before turning on her heel and departing, seeking solace in a place she knew she would find none.

As Gilda walked down the broad carved hallway to their makeshift infirmary alone with her dark and brooding thoughts, she couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that shadows were following her, and hundreds of eyes were on her the whole way there.

It was undeniably disconcerting but still a completely illogical feeling given nocreature else was present in the old hive except for her civilians and soldiers, so she judged it a trick of the light from the few hastily mounted firegems in the hallways. They were there to provide just enough illumination to navigate the hive’s darkened interior, with the side corridors protected by Raven-laid traps and the occasional pair of human or griffon sentries after the failed intrusion attempt.

And we still have no idea how all the Cloven ended up dead on arrival. They had to have been slain in their assembly area before the summon spell was activated, so maybe there’s something helping us out there? She didn’t have any other explanation than that, but also understood how badly the battle could have ended if the Cloven had been able to attack them from within the former hive. Thank you, whoever you are…

Answering a challenge from the final pair of guards outside the infirmary, which she judged was the former private quarters of the Changeling Queen from the remnants of artwork and multicolored swirls of chitin on the walls, she passed through it to see her injured soldiers and the Marines being treated by a harried Chief Jacobs. He did so alongside an overtaxed and exhausted looking Nydia, who was only able to triage the worst of the wounds in hopes of holding them over long enough for rescue or for herself to regain enough power to start healing in earnest.

Nevertheless, she came to attention and saluted upon seeing her Centurion, asking if she was needed outside or if there was any more she could do. “Your place is here, Decanus,” Gilda told her, putting a set of talons on her vest-covered chest. “The ibex are serving well in your stead. And lest you think you aren’t helping enough, know that for all you’ve done for us, I’ll be putting you in for a citation and promotion when we make it to Aricia.” IF we do…

Nydia bared her throat back, asking how long they had before the next attack. “Not known. So steal a few minutes of rest and meditation while you can.” Gilda advised her, to which Nydia nodded and took a meditative stance, letting the ibex doe take over her healing duties.

To her surprise, the civilian griffon named Gabriella was helping as well. She busied herself by tending wounds and providing food and water at the direction of Chief Jacobs, trying to offer encouragement and a comforting wing to each soldier she tended. She caught Gilda’s eye as she entered and bared her throat at her in lieu of a salute, to which Gilda responded in kind.

“By the Ancestors above, I have to do something,” she explained when Gilda asked why she was there. “I can’t stand seeing suffering. Or standing by while there are creatures in need. The cubs are taken care of right now, so I…” Her voice trailed off as she began to cry again, turning her face away to hide her shame.

Recognizing that she was trying very hard to be both brave and helpful, Gilda’s heart melted as she took the other eagless into an embrace. She let the other female cry into her neck for a minute, her squawking sobs muted by the feathers she buried her beak in. It was an act of comfort that Gilda would never have performed just a month or two earlier, and very possibly not even a week before. But now?

But now, she didn’t hesitate, willing to do whatever it took to keep up the flagging morale of her forces and civilian charges in the face of the losses they’d already suffered. Finally, the gray-feathered eagless pushed back from her with an apology and bared throat. “Th-thank you, Centurion. I needed that.”

“It’s alright. You’re a brave and noble griffon, Gabriella Cunaria,” Gilda told her and meant it. “You would have to be to have protected and taken care of all those cubs.”

She sniffled again. “I don’t care if I die at this point. But Ancestors above, please save them…” she pleaded with Gilda as much as the Ancestors themselves, nodding back to the room that contained the cubs.

“Ancestors willing, we will,” Gilda promised her, at which point Chief Jacobs summoned Gabby, asking her to help him attend a fresh casualty. Many of the wounded were sleeping surprisingly soundly despite their injuries, she noted, with most of them marked with a black M on their foreheads.

“It means I gave them morphine,” he explained shortly as he wrapped a Talon’s wounded foreleg with a bandage after stitching the wound shut; Gilda took some comfort in the fact that just like her, the tiercel couldn’t watch as it happened. “It’s a powerful painkiller. But it’s not without drawbacks. It also dulls your wits and reflexes. Once you have it, you’re out of the fight, and it can be addictive if repeatedly given,” he warned her, causing Gilda to grimace, remembering how bad her own cider withdrawal symptoms had been.

But now there’s more cider in me. So will I have to suffer those same symptoms again when it subsides after the battle? she suddenly worried, but then decided that of all her concerns at that moment, that was the least important just then.

After greeting each of her wounded soldiers in turn to praise them for their performance and the massive cost to the Cloven they’d exacted, she decided she’d put off seeing Marco long enough. Passing a final pair of Raven sentries, she headed for the inner sanctum of the former Queen’s still-solid bedchambers, where they’d been keeping the cubs and other civilians.

It was soundproofed outside of the short hall leading to it, and when she entered it, she heard a surprising sound—laughter. As she got closer, she realized it was coming from both griffon cubs and pony foals. Though the carefully carved chamber no longer had furniture, there were still carve-outs for closets and some stands for what were likely tables or beds, which were now being availed of by the mothers and the human guards.

Entering the room, she stopped short at the sight of Marco playing with the foals and cubs as Tara, Guerrero and Brennan watched, laughing and egging him on despite the news of the dead Marine that she had to assume had reached them.

It was a simple game of chase they were playing under the watchful eyes of the two mothers. They seemed almost amused at the antics of the upright human, who had stripped off his armor and weapons for the purpose, leaving them in the possession of Tara.

Marco grunted as he dodged to the left, almost falling as three cubs and a foal chased after him. He took a quick look behind him, eyes widening as he saw two more cubs moving to bracket him. He barely escaped them with a quick jump to the right. But he didn’t see another shadow sneaking in front of him, watching and waiting its chance. When Marco turned away, it arched its back, a soft growl escaping its throat.

And then it jumped right at him before he realized his mistake, landing squarely on his back.

The human gasped, losing his balance. He forced his hands up to defend himself as the cub clawed at him, but the rest of the cubs soon joined in, grabbing onto his legs as they began to speak.

“Don’t let him up!” the female cub said in Aeric as she held onto Marco’s left leg.

“Pin him! Pin him!” one of the other male cubs called out from where he had latched onto Marco’s right.

But the third and oldest of the group, who looked to be no more than ten and was trying to drag Marco down, declared: “He’s not giving up! Pile on him!”

Seeing an opportunity, she trilled sharply, getting the cubs’ attention. With an evil grin, she wriggled her talons against her side. The male cub clawing at Marco took a moment to understand, but when he did, his smile widened. And when he duplicated the gesture by moving his talons to Marco’s sides, the human’s brown eyes enlarged.

“Oh, nononono!” Marco pleaded.

Gilda smirked. Too late! she thought as the cubs began to tickle him, causing Tara and the Marines to snicker as Marco burst out laughing. Now really trying to fight the cubs off, he briefly succeeded, but that only earned him more attackers as the cubs holding his legs jumped up to assist their friend while the foals took over holding him down.

They finally succeeded in toppling him and then continued their assault, quickly determining what his most ticklish spots were and then attacking them mercilessly.

“Okay, I give, I give!” Marco exclaimed, laughing as he bared his neck. The cubs and foals desisted after a few seconds, raising their right forelegs in victory.

“We beat the giant! We beat the giant!” The cubs did celebratory aerial somersaults while the pony foals pinwheeled their hooves in triumph.

Marco sat up, a small smile on his face as he watched the griffons and pony younglings jump up and down excitedly. He patted his shirt in a similar motion to when griffons wanted to dust themselves off, Gilda noted, before extending his right fist to them. The cubs immediately returned the gesture before they continued celebrating, running around him in circles as he slowly got back on his feet. They even followed him as he walked towards Gilda and the Marines until the two mothers called them back.

“You think you know a guy,” Brennan declared loudly when Marco was in earshot. “Reckon Flip-boy’s got enough jack-off material to last him until the fucking end of the world, with a phone full of women with big fucking titties and baby-bare pussy. And then it turns out that he’s just a pedo-fag tail-chaser.”

In response, Marco rolled his eyes, raising a fist with his longest finger pointing upwards. It must have been a rude gesture because when the cubs started copying it, he began to shake his head, telling them in Equestrian not to do it. The Marines just laughed as he failed to stop them from raising their two claws with the gesture, though the befuddled foals couldn’t do anything except raise a talon-less hoof.

Shaking his head, Marco grabbed a few clean bowls and scooped up water from a small basin they’d set up—Fortrakt had filled some borrowed storage gems with water from the Bale well, she was happy to see—and offered them to the cubs. They took it, and after a few sips they seemingly lost interest in Marco as they began to chase each other under the watchful gazes of the two mothers, who only occasionally called out to them.

“That’s our Rico. Remember the good old days?” Guerrero asked; he was uninjured but had been part of the reserve fire team stationed inside the hive, now guarding the infirmary. “We all thought Rico was just a weird-ass perv who did nothing but stare at pony ass, thumping his hips on the table when one went past him?”

That caught Gilda’s attention. “Is that true?” she asked with a half-hearted glower at Marco.

“Yes, sir,” Guerrero replied with a conspiratorial smile. “Every word.”

“Don’t believe a thing they say, Gilda,” Marco interjected, approaching her and getting down long enough to give her a hug. She quickly returned it, relieved to have his scent in her nose again. “It’s nonsense. All of it.” She imagined he would have used a stronger word if not for the presence of the cubs and foals, given at least one of the latter spoke Equish.

“Fuck it is,” Guerrero replied. His remark earned a reproachful look from Tara, who reminded him that there were ‘kids’ present. “Sorry, Miss Fields. But no, really. Rico here is the Mare Chaser. That’s the title he earned.”

“No, I didn’t!” Marco said in response to Gilda’s glare. “You guys just started calling me that when—”

“Hey, hey!” Guerrero cut him off. “Who’s telling the story here, huh?”

Marco rolled his eyes as Gilda shifted slightly, focusing on Guerrero. Mare Chaser? In her Equestrian experience, it was always the mares who did the chasing. Then again, Gilda hadn’t heard more than a few snippets of what had happened during the stay of Marco and his friends in Equestria.

To that point, all she knew was that he had apparently embarrassed the Ambassador in front of Prince Blueblood by speaking out of turn and failing to follow proper etiquette rules, and that he had to deal with Dana’s obnoxious and insulting presence the whole time.

Then there was the fact that Imlay had told Marco to his face that “he still didn’t know when to shut up” after his time in Equestria, which implied that his muzzle had gotten him in repeated trouble there even outside offending the Prince. “Okay. So what happened?” Gilda asked, just glad to have a respite from her brooding thoughts and an excuse not to pull Marco aside just then.

“It was back in Baltimare,” Guerrero began. “Which is a completely stupid name, but I won’t go on about it.”

“I think your grievance with Equestrian city names being similar to American city names is far more interesting,” Marco interrupted as he passed out snacks of fruit to the cubs next, which they ate eagerly; Tara also took a piece as one of the younger cubs laid his head in her lap. “Why don’t we talk about that, instead?”

“Nah, next time,” Guerrero replied. “Now, this was a week before we left Equestria. We were all billeted in this one area near the Baltimare port… what was that shit called again?”

Marco rolled his eyes. “Horseshoe Bay.”

Brennan laughed despite his visible pain; as he lacked a black M on his forehead, it was clear he hadn’t taken the ‘more-feen’ either. “Of course, Flip-Boy would know the name. He got laid there.”

“Did he, now?” Gilda turned her probing gaze on him again.

“No, he didn’t.” Marco rolled his eyes.

Don’t be bashful, Rico. You’re a legend for what happened there,” Guerrero teased, turning back to Gilda. “So yeah, we were there for a couple days before our chartered airship departed for the Kingdom, given leave to visit bars and whatnot. So we pop into this one pub, and guess who we see?” He motioned towards Marco.

“The Mare Chaser himself, talking to this one filly who looked like she had been drinking heavily. Rico was probably drunk too because the next thing we know, he was on his knees.” Guerrero then motioned with his hands as if both were cupping something.

“Oh, great. So not only are we getting bullshit, but now we have to watch it get shit out, too.” Marco groaned before taking a sip from his own bowl, leaving Gilda glad that the cubs still playing around him didn’t understand Equish.

“Marco, mind your mouth,” Tara reminded him, sitting on a storage barrel.

“Yes, Mom,” he groused, but Guerrero paid him no mind.

“You should have seen him, Centurion. He grabbed that pony ass and ate out her pussy like there was no tomorrow! You should have heard him lap her up. It was like he was eating nachos with sour cream dip.”

Marco coughed, spitting out some of the water he was drinking, earning a loud laugh from the Marines.

“Nachos with sour cream dip?” he echoed incredulously when he finally stopped coughing. “Seriously, Guerrero? That image is shit. I’m glad you’re not a writer.”

Gilda felt a blush creep on her cheeks as she looked at Marco. She didn’t know what nachos were, but sour cream definitely gave her a crude image. “Okay. So were you really with a mare before me?” she asked him menacingly, feeling her ire rise at just the idea of it.

“No!” Marco exclaimed immediately with a shake of his head, but then paused. “Okay, the bar part is true, and yes, I may have been drunk enough that my hand wandered somewhere inappropriate on this mare I was chatting with—honestly, that detail’s a little fuzzy—but I didn’t, as so eloquently put, go down to my knees and… well, whatever.”

“You keep saying no,” Brennan replied, “but all I hear is—” he spoke in another accent, “—I solemnly swear, I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

“Mare in this case, dog,” Guerrero added with a slightly forced grin; Gilda couldn’t help but wonder if they were teasing Marco to distract from news of their comrade’s death. “Mare Chaser. Rico always getting some alien pussy—no offense, Centurion! But hey, give him time, and I even bet he’ll start humping those weird ass alien zombies. Who knows? Maybe he’ll even end this war before we can kill them all.”

“You know, they’re right, Marco. So maybe we ought to call you Kirk,” Tara teased next, though her smile seemed a bit forced as well; Gilda couldn’t tell if it was because of the news of Jenkins’ death or the fact that she was still in considerable pain. “You know, peace through booty calls. Then again, you seem to cause more strife than anything else.”

“Et tu, Tara? Screw you guys. I’m going home,” Marco declared in an odd voice, walking away with his nose in the air to play with the cubs again. The Marines jeered even louder, laughing when Marco repeated that same gesture with his hand, not even deeming it worthy to face them as he walked away.

Once he was out of hearing range, Gilda turned to Tara. “Okay, seriously—is any of that true?”

Tara gave her a smile. “I doubt it, but I don’t know for sure, Gilda. All I do know is that a day before we left Equestria—we were flying from Baltimare to Loondon with a stop in Manehattan—he went missing. Made quite a few people nervous. And furious, too, in the case of Goldberg. They ended up sending the off-duty Marines out looking for him.”

“Yep. I was one of them. And you know where my buddies finally found him?” Guerrero asked.

“Where?” Gilda prompted.

“Exiting some pony’s house, having messed-up hair and kissing a mare goodbye,” Guerrero replied with a grin.

“Just kissing?” Brennan snickered, his wounds patched up with bandages and his arm in a sling, though he had what appeared to be Chris’s pistol holstered at his hip. “I heard they actually saw him banging that mare. They thought his moans were of distress. Must have been fucking weird when they went in, guns at the ready.”

“Oh, please. If you’re going to lie, at least make it believable. You guys didn’t even have your guns while on leave!” Marco answered as he passed them on the way back to the infirmary, but the Marines just talked over him.

“Nah, dog, I heard it was three mares,” Guerrero corrected, ignoring him.

“Three? I heard it was four mares in heat who were sick of their stallion neglecting them! And that they tried to get naughty with the Marines that came in to get him,” Brennan rejoined with a smirk.

“I heard they did. Rico gave them such a taste for men that they gave everyone blow jobs on the spot.” Guerrero insisted.

“Just blow jobs? I heard they all got pony pussy.”

Gilda blinked as the two kept correcting each other with even more detail, which made the story of Marco’s discovery getting more improbable every second, punctuated with snickers that slowly gave way to exuberant laughter. After a few more seconds of listening, she realized that either they didn’t know the whole story, or that as ponies put it, her hind leg was being severely pulled.

Catching Tara’s gaze, who visibly rolled her eyes, she left them to their increasingly tall tales (Marco apparently slept with Celestia and Luna at once as well!) and followed her mate’s steps back into the infirmary until she saw him chatting with Nydia. He pointed towards the staff Gilda had found inside the Shelter, and the two began conversing. It looked like Marco was asking a few questions, and Nydia herself looked a little too eager to answer. Then, to Gilda’s surprise, the mage began to blush.

Her eyes narrowed as suddenly, the stories of him bedding three mares actually seemed a bit more plausible. She wanted to talk more to Nydia, But all her jealousy receded in an instant as she pulled Marco aside and asked to speak to him privately, mentally steeling herself as she did so.

But privacy was not to be found just then unless they wanted to find an unused chamber or hallway, which was a bad idea if the Cloven were finding ways to teleport in. So she settled for halfway down the short corridor from the infirmary located in the former Queen’s outer suite to her bedchambers where the cubs now played, which she knew was soundproofed from the outside. If this was the Queen’s chambers, what did it look like while occupied?

She didn’t know, but it wasn’t the time to wonder. “Hey, Gilds. So is it true about Jenkins?” Marco asked her, to which she nodded solemnly and looked away.

“Aw, hell,” he said, then made another series of crossing motions over his chest. It was the third time she’d seen him do it, and given the second occasion was when they’d encountered the overturned cart with dead griffons and ponies around it, she decided it was most likely some form of religious gesture. “Didn’t know him that well, but he seemed like a good kid.”

“Guerrero and Brennan seemed to be taking it okay,” she noted somewhat wanly.

“I think teasing me was just their way of dealing with it,” he guessed. “They were trying not to think about it. That’s why I didn’t push back too hard, even if what they were spewing was complete and total bullshit. If it takes their minds off it, that’s fine with me. Ditto for playing with the cubs. At least they more or less trust us now.”

“And I’m glad,” she said, then took a deep breath, finding she preferred facing the Cloven to what honor required her to do. “But Marco? I came down here because there’s something I need to tell you. And I didn’t want to chance either of us dying before I did.”

“Oh?” he said, then offered her an easygoing smile. “I thought that we’d already said pretty much everything that needed to be said the other night, girlfriend.”

She felt another stab of pain at the title. “It’s not that. It’s something that happened right after the initial battle, when we were using mounted Marines to rescue the dragons. Something that hit me completely out of the blue...”

31: Battle of Lake Languid, Part 3 - Change of Fortune

“Well, what then?” Marco asked earnestly in response to Gilda’s announcement that there was something he had to know. So mustering all her courage and taking a final deep, if ragged breath, she began to tell him about her unexpected encounter with Karin Kazal, asking only that he let her finish the entire tale before saying anything.

She first detailed the battle to save the retreating Ravens and drakinas by defending the bridge they were crossing. That action was swiftly followed by engaging the flyer swarms over the lake, ending with the terrifying appearance of a corrupted adult dragon who was apparently Emerald Inferno’s father.

Marco started to hug her when he saw her begin to shake at the memory of being targeted by the monstrous and mindless fire-breathing creature. But Gilda stopped him with an upraised wing so she could keep the story going, fearful of losing her nerve if she didn’t.

She explained her mistake of flying into the gorge and being rescued from her own idiocy by Karin Kazal, emphasizing that the ibex buck had saved her life when he didn’t have to, likely sacrificing his own to do so. She then took pains to say that she had saved his life in return, carrying him on her back on a desperate dash towards the hive in a futile effort to outpace the pursuing dragon, where two human ‘missiles’ had slain the drake but thrown them hard across the lake from the force of the explosion.

Marco looked aghast at the story, wanting to hug her again. But no matter how badly she wanted to collapse into his embrace at that moment, she took the plunge. “So after all that, Karin Kazal and I ended up alone during a lull in the battle, still holding each other. And then…”

And then...
Whitesand - Eternity (Epic Beautiful Dramatic Emotional Instrumental) [Copyright Free]

Marco’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped open when he saw the guilty look on her face and her sudden inability to meet his eyes. “You and him?” he reeled, finally able to guess the rest. “But… why?” he asked her in a stunned and forlorn tone, to which she could only answer honestly.

“Because he saved my life, Marco,” Gilda emphasized again, praying she hadn’t just made a grave mistake. “And not just once, but three times now in the past day! If I said he hadn’t earned me after all that, it would be a lie. I’m sorry.” She bared her throat hard at him, finding tears welling in her eyes.

When Marco seemed too stunned to speak, she went on. “Look—I know it’s a shock, but I swear to my Ancestors that I didn’t plan it. I also swear that before I ended up there with him, I didn’t even want it! But after the Marines took out the drake, the blast knocked us halfway across the lake and we ended up washed into this small cove, passed out in a heap and just happy to be alive. And when we woke up…”

She blushed deeply, trying hard to stop her wings from going erect at the memory. “I couldn’t help it. It’s not an excuse, but I was charged up with so much cider from the battle that…” she once again couldn’t finish the statement.

“Seems like that shit’s real good at making sex happen,” Marco muttered, running his hand through his hair as he struggled to find a response. “But dammit, Gilda, if you were going to be with him, why weren’t you with us first? We had all those chances, but we backed off because you told us to!” he reminded her, stepping back and crossing his arms in what she realized was a defensive gesture. “And then you turn around and sleep with him? Even knowing what he was going to do with Chris?”

“I’m sorry!” she said again more forcefully, feeling her voice choke. “I was a crow-damned fool not to take those chances, and I realize that now. Though for what little it’s worth, I think part of the reason it happened was that you three got me so keyed up!” she recalled. “After all those close calls and all the cider boosts I got during the battle, I needed to be rutted in the worst possible way. He was there with me. And for saving me, he earned me. And after saving him right back, I guess I earned him, too.”

She knew what she said was true, but Marco was unmollified. “If you saved him back, then the debt was paid! You didn’t have to fuck him! And now you come here seeking forgiveness?” He glared at her, making clear that he wasn’t about to give it.

“Marco…” Tara’s voice called from the end of the corridor, causing their heads to whip around to see her standing there, supported by Guerrero. “Sorry, the corridor’s not soundproof in this direction. We heard everything, so now I’m telling you to back off and stop yelling at her. She’s trying to be honest with you like a partner should, and you’re hurting her right now.”

“Hurt her? She just hurt me!” Marco shouted, then rounded on Gilda again. “You said we were mates, and then it took you what, less than two days to be unfaithful?”

“That didn’t sound like being unfaithful, Flip-boy. It sounded like a classic case of post-combat coitus,” Guerrero spoke up, his lips tight. “So you’d better back the fuck off her.”

“Post-combat what?” Marco echoed angrily, and Gilda had never heard that word before either.

“Post-combat sex. It happens all the time, even with us,” the big Marine said, his eyes going distant for a moment before they refocused. “A lot of the time, it’s inevitable. I mean, we fight for our lives together, saving each other and watching each other’s back, and afterwards… well, shit happens, and it usually never gets spoken of again. But it does happen. And it doesn’t mean we can’t go back to our wives or girlfriends later.”

“Listen to him, Marco,” Tara admonished. “I admit I’m surprised, but I don’t begrudge it. Not after he saved her. And not after all the stuff we nearly did with her just in the past day. Not once, but twice,” she said, earning a startled look from Guerrero.

“Okay, I definitely wanna hear more about that!” he told her.

“Me too!” Brennan called from out of sight. “So, for a goat, was he good, Centurion?”

“Yeah. Maybe he was better than me?” Marco suggested bitterly, looking ready to storm off and leaving Gilda flustered, wondering if she would have been better off just taking Karin Kazal’s advice to never speak of it again.

“You stay right there, Marco Lakan,” Tara ordered him sharply before he could depart, freezing him in mid-stride. “And apologize to her right now.”

“Apologize? For what?”

“For acting like a fucking idiot over her… again!” she replied vehemently. “Forgetting that you haven’t exactly been a paragon of fidelity in the past, do you realize how hard it was for her to come here and tell you this? Or have you forgotten how hard it was for us to come together again after we had that fling a year or two back?” she asked pointedly.

“And what the fuck does that have to do with this?” he shouted.

“Everything. Weren’t you in another relationship at the time?” she reminded him. “And didn’t you try to go back to her after?”

“Yeah, and after I told her what happened, she told me to piss off!” he recalled bitterly. “Just up and dumped me for being unfaithful even after we’d barely seen each other during the pandemic! And she didn’t even have the courtesy to do it in person! Just did it over a fucking text!”

“Exactly. So even after knowing how bad that felt and how willing you were to make it up to her, you’re going to do the same thing to Gilda here?” Tara pointed out, causing Marco’s expression to drop. “She’s trying real hard to do the right thing and make amends, but you’re throwing it back in her face!”

“I gotta agree, Rico,” Guerrero said cautiously. “Look, dog, I’ve seen shit like this happen way too many times to be surprised by it anymore. So if you won’t take it from her, then take it from someone who’s been there—it happens and it ain’t the end of the world. And sorry to say so, but Miss Fields is right. You’re acting like an idiot, and you need to calm the fuck down.”

Marco stared at him as Gilda held her breath. As he glanced from them to her and back, she caught his gaze just long enough to see that he was fighting his own emotions; for a moment she thought she scented cider in the air around him.

He confirmed it with his next words. “I’m seeing a lot of pink right now…” he admitted through gritted teeth, rubbing his temples. “And I think it’s making me even more pissed.”

“In other words, that damned cider has hold of you,” Tara tried to talk him down. “I get that it’s making you madder, Marco, but like Gilda here said, don’t be a slave to it. Don’t let it control you and make you do something you regret.”

“Like she did?” Marco growled again, to which Gilda had to stifle equal urges to snarl and sob.

“Marco!” Tara spoke sharply to him. “For fuck’s sake, stop it! You weren’t there, and you didn’t save her life from a fucking full-grown dragon! But that ibex buck did. Then she saved him in turn, and they ended up alone together during a lull in the battle, in a pile with each other coming off an adrenaline high and just happy to be alive,” she recited, to which Gilda nodded sharply.

“Think about it. They were vulnerable and in need of comfort after their close call, never mind the cider in her system and that they were already basically naked. So to borrow the griffon phrase, how by all the fucking crows of the Kingdom could something not happen?”

“Listen to her, Marco.” Guerrero’s rare use of his real name seemed to get his attention. “She’s not wrong. Remind me to tell you later of what happened to me this one time in Iraq.”

“Just once? I had shit happen in Afghanistan at least three times. Can’t say I regret it, either,” Brennan called out from around the corner, and this time, Gilda didn’t think he was exaggerating.

“After hearing the whole story, I don’t blame her one bit for this. So let it go, Flip-boy. It doesn’t mean she loves you any less. Especially if she didn’t hide it from you like my bitch of an ex-girlfriend did!” he added angrily. “She got pissed at me when I told her what happened, but then it turned out she’d been unfaithful! And I’d only been gone a month when she did it!”

Gilda stayed silent, letting her mate’s friends speak for her. As she watched, Marco stared at them and then slumped hard against the wall of the corridor, burying his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, but cider or no, this is just really hard for me to accept…”

“No harder than it was for me to accept that I had feelings for you,” Gilda couldn’t keep the catch from her voice. She felt certain that she was about to be dumped by someone she loved again, and even worse, that this time it was her own fault. “And that I’m now terrified of losing you. Both to the Cloven and as a mate.”

He finally turned to look at her, and she saw a glimmering in his eyes to match her own. “You are, aren’t you?” he realized, if somewhat grudgingly to her eyes. “And I guess I’m afraid of losing you, too. Not just to the Cloven, but to… well, some other guy who could offer a lot more than me. Who has magic and shit and can do things I can’t.”

“And you can do things that he can’t. I swear to my Ancestors that I am not trying to replace you, Marco Lakan,” she told him fervently, trying not to cry as her earlier breakup with Rainbow flashed through her memory. “But I also told you that griffons don’t hide things from their mates. So even with a battle happening, I couldn’t hide this, either. Especially after barely escaping death again. I couldn’t live with myself if I died without telling you.” She grimaced at the contradiction inherent in her statement, but she didn’t correct it, either.

“And here you are…” he muttered, rubbing his eyes and his temples again. “I’d say I need time to absorb this, but—”

“But there is no time, Marco,” Tara reminded him. “So I’m telling you as your longtime friend—stop acting like a total ass. She’s trying to be honest with you, and you need to understand that. Hurting her now will hurt her ability to command the battle, and there’s still a good chance that none of us walk away from here. So don’t let your last meeting be a fucking break-up!”

Instead of replying, he walked away a few steps, still visibly seething before he turned fractionally back to Gilda. “So you’re saying that what happened didn’t mean anything to you?”

Gilda stared at him. She thought about giving him the answer he wanted, but to do so would not only be the basest of lies but dishonor the Starshina when he was anything but deserving of it. “It meant a great deal to me. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. I don’t have sex with random dweebs, Marco. You have to win me. You have to earn me. And Ancestors above, he did.”

It was the truth, but she was afraid it was just making things worse as anger flashed through Marco’s eyes again. He looked like he was about to snarl another reply, but Guerrero cut him off.

“He saved her from a fucking full-grown dragon? I’d say that qualifies,” the burly young Marine agreed with a nod.

“Seconded,” Brennan concurred from out of view. “And I’d be lying if I said what happened to me in Afghanistan was meaningless, too. So I’m telling you again to just let it go, Flip-boy.”

“Listen to them, Marco,” Tara warned him. “Because if you break up with her over this, you’re breaking up with me. I won’t forgive you for hurting her when she was just trying to do the right thing.”

Marco glanced at her, then turned away, walking off with his fists clenched; for a moment, Gilda’s heart froze as she thought he was going to pass out of sight of her and not come back. “Damn cider’s making me so mad I can’t see clearly or think straight…” he grated out, then added something else under his breath in his native tongue.

“You’re right. It is. So take deep breaths and a swig of that whiskey if you have to,” Tara advised.

“Whiskey?” Guerrero instantly perked up. “I’ll take one too!”

“And me!” Brennan agreed eagerly.

Marco obeyed, fumbling with the flask on his belt for a moment before taking a large gulp. His eyes watered and he coughed hard, then stumbled back against the wall as the effects seemed to war with the cider within him for a moment before he visibly relaxed and leaned back against the corridor.

“Better?” Tara asked.

“Better,” he confirmed, though he still didn’t look at Gilda. “I guess what I’m having the most trouble with is that fucking buck was going to kidnap Chris, and after he saves you once, suddenly you want to screw him?”

“Not just once,” Gilda reminded him, impressing herself that she could speak coherently. “Three times. He saved me from the attack of the first flyer swarm over Bale. And then from a corrupted Raven before the latest battle, blocking a repeater and a sword aimed at my head!” she shivered again. “And that’s to say nothing of the fact he saved us all with those summoning gems. We would have never made it out of Bale if he wasn’t there,” she recited.

But her words only seemed to make Marco even more upset. “Great. And how am I supposed to compete with all that?”

“So now this is about you being inadequate?” Tara asked derisively as Guerrero rolled his eyes. “Goddammit, Marco, she didn’t have to do this!”

“Yeah, well, she didn’t have to do that, either!”

Despite her wounded leg, which seemed to be straighter than it was—had it been splinted? —Tara all but snarled and lunged at Marco, hitting him squarely in the jaw and sending him sprawling. “That’s for hurting her,” she told him, struggling not to lose her balance as Guerrero rushed out to support her and Marco gaped up at her from beside Gilda, blood coming off his chin. “And for severely pissing me off. You aren’t the only one seeing pink right now, you know.”

Marco didn’t reply right away, bringing his hand to his face and seeing it came back red. And then, to Gilda’s amazement, he began to laugh. “Wow, Tara. You’d think I got drunk and tried to grope you again back when you were working at that bar.”

“And you never will again unless you apologize to her.” Tara glared down at him over crossed arms, balancing herself on her good leg as Brennan hobbled to the entrance on a set of odd stilts to see what was happening.

“Whoa… she hit him?” he recognized, then nodded in satisfaction. “Nice. Guess the stories of you laying out Dana Carraway and PFC Ricardo were true, Miss Fields. And for the record, you deserved it, Flip-boy.”

“Yeah, maybe I did…” Marco admitted, and Gilda prayed that she wasn’t just imagining his voice being calmer and his eyes clearer. “I guess Tara is right and I’m just being an idiot again.”

“Ya think?” Tara said unsympathetically as Guerrero offered Marco a hand up, but he shook his head and turned to Gilda, who was staring down at him, afraid to move or speak.

“Sorry, girlfriend. Guess I needed some sense smacked into me. Look, I’m not gonna say I approve of it—or him! —but after hearing the whole story, I guess I can understand it, too,” he granted as he sat up. “And after all that’s happened to us and all the crazy shit we know we did that night? Guess I’m not one to talk, either. I’m sorry for overreacting, and I’d be lying if I said it was all due to the cider. I forgive you, Gilda. So will you now forgive me for being a horse’s ass?”

A sorely relieved Gilda’s only response was to hug him, hard. “If we get out of this, I’m making it up to you. I’ll make it up to all of you!” She promised with a glance up to Tara, who nodded and grinned.

But then she grimaced. “Appreciate the thought, but I should probably get my leg fixed first. Fuck… that was dumb,” she said through gritted teeth, trying to hobble back inside the bedchambers on one leg with a helping hand from Guerrero, who put her arm around his shoulders.

“Maybe, but damn, girl. Between your aim and your fists, you’re gonna make all the Marines fall in love with you if you keep doing shit like that…”

Before Tara or Gilda could reply, one of the latter’s communication gems buzzed, vibrating hard in its slot on her belt. “Centurion! Beg to report,” came Giraldi’s voice. “You need to get up here now, sir. It looks like the Cloven are massing again. And this time, there are some of those Elder Ram forms in the mix.”

She nodded, pulling it out even though she didn’t immediately release Marco. “I’m on my way,” she said into it, then took one final breath before pulling back from the embrace. “I have to go.”

“I know,” Marco said. “Don’t die, Gilda. Because if you do before we get a chance to be together again, I’ll kill you,” he echoed her earlier words to him with a sudden twinkle, sticking a digit into her armored chest.

She smiled and hugged him tightly one last time. “And you as well, Marco Lakan. Now put your armor back on and ready your weapons. Whatever happens, defend the infirmary and the cubs to the last.”

“By your command,” he said with a bared throat and passable griffon-style salute. “Though do me a favor and try not to screw any more ibex for a bit…”

Fight to the Finish
TO KILL A GOD | Epic Battle Dark Heroic Music | Epic Music Mix by @Audiomachine

After passing word through the infirmary to be ready for more casualties and possible invasions of the hive—a glance to the side showed that Gabby was speaking softly to Emerald Inferno, who was visibly crying, with steam coming off her tears—Gilda ran upstairs and out the entrance onto the plateau, finding Giraldi and Imlay there along with Obsidian Ire and Miles Fortuna.

“Report!” she called out as she ran up to them, finding to her relief that the burden on her heart was lifted and her mind felt clear again. Thank you, Marco. And thank you, TARA! she told them with her thoughts, mentally renewing her oath that she would find a way to make it up to them later.

“They’re massing and moving closer, both in the air and on the ground. There appear to be Cloven rams in the mix and worse, the big flyers are carrying a few. They’re circling just out of effective bowcaster and rifle range,” Giraldi said with a nod upwards. Gilda followed his gaze to realize that there were indeed several centuries of fresh flyers orbiting the hill; her sharp eyes could also pick up the monstrous-looking Elder Ram forms in the mix.

“At a guess, they’re going to try to drop them right on top of the hive so they can come crashing downhill as the ground forces strike,” Imlay added, speaking over the radio so everycreature could hear him. “Orders?”

She grimaced as she visualized it. “That means they also might try to invade the hive through the skylights. Decurion Gletscher! Be ready for that possibility! If they come in force, do not try to fight them in the open air! Retreat inside the skylights, and then blow the entrance behind you. Keep them out at all costs!” she called into the radio.

“By your command!” he acknowledged. “With respect, Centurion, may we have Rose Ruby in support again? Crows know she’s equal to an entire Turma of soldiers!”

Gilda glanced at Obsidian Ire, who grinned and nodded. “Granted. Join them, drakina.”

“By your command,” the small and surprisingly soft-spoken dragon female said with a nod before spreading her wings and shooting upwards.

Gilda then glanced up again at the orbiting flyers and realized that she didn’t like their odds. Crows take it… there’s too many! And even if there weren’t, I don’t have enough Wind Knights left to try engaging them in the sky again! she instinctively knew, having suffered the loss of eight over the course of two engagements. I’ll have to keep them here. I’ll use them to protect the upper slopes! And as for the plateau…

“Obsidian Ire! You and Orange Crush will defend the trenches directly. Keep flyers off them as best you can! Just try not to burn us.”

“Just try not to shoot us!” the former retorted. “As you wish, Centurion. Orange Crush and I will—”

“And me!” a new voice was heard, causing them to turn to see Emerald Inferno emerging; her eyes wet but her snout close to a snarl.

“Emerald?” Orange Crush asked. “Are you—”

“No,” she said, with a look on her face and gleam in her slitted eyes that gave Gilda pause. “But as the griffon drakina named Gabriella reminded me, nor can I stay out of this struggle while my clan still fights. So fight I will!” she announced.

“Know, my sisters, that I have purged my heart of all but heat and hate. For seizing our lands, slaying my sire and worse, turning him into a puppet while forcing me to witness his death for a second time, I swear by the magma below that I will kill every Cloven I see!” She vented bright green flame whose heat made Gilda grimace as it stung her skin and eyes.

“Welcome back, clan sister,” Obsidian Ire acknowledged with a bow of her head. As she spoke, she tossed the other drakina a spare blade off her back, still in its scabbard. “Know that we share your sorrow and rage. And by our lost Dragon Lord, we will avenge our fallen.” She exchanged a forearm clasp with the other female much as a griffon would do, which quickly turned into not a hug, but a hard bump of their armored chests.

“Good to have you back, Emerald Inferno,” Gilda addressed her after the odd greeting was finished. “Did you hear my instructions?”

“Yes. And I will carry them out with my clan sisters,” she promised, strapping the borrowed blade to her back. “Now let them come so that I may incinerate every last one of them!” She inhaled hard and the gaps in her chest scales glowed bright green for a moment.

“Damn, that girl’s intense,” Gilda heard PFC Jamal call out after she had gone off with her sisters. “Think I’ll steer clear of her.”

“Too bad. Because it sounds like she’s just your type, Jamal,” Stavrou remarked from where he still wielded the human ‘fifty’, which was staring downslope from the center of the forward trench. “You do seem to go for hot girls. Gonna stick your dick in her?” he suggested, earning some weak snickers and a sputtering sound on the other end.

“Uh, no thanks. I’d rather not have my cock cooked…” Jamal said weakly, and his remark even earned a brief grin from Imlay before he ended the conversation.

“Alright, cut the chatter. Stay sharp! When they come, they’re gonna come quick and—”

“They’re coming now!” One of the Marines shouted, followed by echoing yells from the Knights and Talons, who leveled their crossbows to see several lines of standard Cloven soldier forms emerging from the nearby woodline in both directions along the lakeshore. But they only took a few dozen steps forward before stopping this time, forming a loose semicircle around the hive.

“By the Ancestors… they’re not attacking? What in the name of the crows are they doing this time?” she heard one of the male Talons ask in tense tones.

“Quiet on the line!” Giraldi spoke sharply like he was the First Spear of their old Century again. “We’ll know soon enough. In the meantime, bowcasters and humans! Fire at will!” He ordered to a fresh eruption of twangs and cannon cracks which fell a few more soldier forms.

“Centurion…” a nervous Fortrakt’s voice was heard. “Look at the ground soldiers! They’re those newer Cloven trooper types we saw at Harness that are armed with wing-launched spikes!”

“What?” Squinting, Gilda’s avian eyes could see that Fortrakt was correct—they had two wingspans full of forward pointing spikes that they then arched upwards as one to target the plateau. “Crows take it—kill as many as you can before they fire!” was suddenly all she could think to do.

“By your command!” the calls came out as a dozen more forms were dropped in the next few seconds, yet still they did not fire despite being able to unleash what looked like a deadly bombardment.

“Fuck… each of those soldier forms has their own mortar section now!” Stavrou said as the hastily cleaned human fifty opened up with a series of muffled cracks on their enemy again from a fresh box of large bullets. He took down an entire row of enhanced forms; it was only then she realized that the ibex must have cast some form of sound suppression spell on it to protect the hearing of nearby griffons. And yet, the Cloven didn’t move, simply absorbing the fire and accepting their losses until the big gun exhausted another ammo box and had to be swapped out.

A sudden silence fell over the hill as all present realized the Cloven weren’t fighting back, simply staring up at them through their sunken eyes. What are they doing? Gilda thought to herself, her unease growing along with a strong sense of foreboding.

And then she saw something moving around their talon-like feet.

“What the hell…?” She didn’t know which human Marine said that as what appeared to be a liquid flowed forward around the grounded Cloven forms, migrating impossibly but inexorably uphill.

“By the crows, what is that?” Giraldi squinted at what almost looked like a moving carpet on the ground while some very weak scraping or scuttling sounds reached her ears. As the moving black liquid got closer, she was finally able to pick out what she was seeing and a feeling of utter dread filled her. The seeming carpet was in fact composed of countless tarantula-like creatures, each nearly the size of a griffon fist.

They had exaggerated jaws paired with an ugly pair of forward pincers; individually they could be swiftly shredded by a swipe of steel talons or simply stomped by a human boot. But taken together…

“Ancestors above…” Gilda realized that Fortrakt had reached the same conclusion as she had. “They’re Cloven parasites!”

“Parasites?” The Marines opened up again at Imlay’s order to only limited effect against such small creatures as they began climbing the hill, scuttling quickly right over everything in their way. “But those are only for possessing corpses!” A worried Miles Fortuna protested as she swapped her repeater drum for one containing electrical bolts.

“Unless they attack in massive numbers and swarm us with those teeth and talons! Marines! Use frag grenades!” Imlay ordered, going for his vest to load his bottom tube as Giraldi likewise ordered the griffons to begin tossing explosive and incendiary gems into the seemingly endless mass of minor Cloven creatures, leaving a suddenly terrified Gilda frozen in fear.

Spiders… why did the parasites have to be spiders…? The only other creature who knew she had a touch of arachnophobia was Rainbow Dash, who had played pranks on her with them to good effect.

“Centurion! Orders?” Giraldi called to her, and for a moment, Gilda couldn’t answer, feeling old nightmares coming to life and more fear than she could ever remember. But then she imagined Marco facing such a swarm and that fear snapped her out of her terror.

“Ugh! Dragons! Burn them down!” she ordered the three drakinas into the air. But seeing them, the grounded Cloven soldiers opened up with their new wing-mounted spikes, which alternately targeted the fire-breathing females or outright burst over the plateau, forcing her forces to take cover from a hail of red-hot fragments.

The three dragons managed only one fiery pass to take down the fore of the surging front before they were forced to retreat, with several fresh spikes sticking out of their tough hides.

“By the Magma below…” This time, it was Obsidian Ire who had fared the worst, stumbling down as she oozed steaming blood from two sizzling holes in her side. “Too many! They’ll shoot us down if we try that again…”

Despite her still-potent and nearly paralyzing fears, Gilda grimaced, starting to see the newest Cloven strategy take shape in her head—keep her forces pinned in their trenches while the parasites swarmed them, who had now made it nearly halfway up the hill. “Into the trenches, then! Attack them with fire from there! In the meantime, hit them with every explosive and electrical device we have!” she ordered again, notching an explosive bolt for her crossbow only to fumble the motion repeatedly as her talons shook.

“By your command!” She could hear the growing fear in the voices of human and griffon alike as gems and odd dimpled devices were tossed by the human Marines over their heads to roll downslope and detonate. Imlay and a cursing Lance Corporal Jamal—his only unwounded fire team leader—added grenades from their lower tubes to the mix, launching them with heavy thumbs to blast great gaps in the approaching flood of Cloven creatures.

Unable to fly, Emerald Inferno and Orange Crush opened their maws to release great gouts of flame downslope as the disconcerting click-clack of the parasites got closer, incinerating dozens to hundreds with every breath they took.

But as they couldn’t sweep the front on the strength of their wings, it wasn’t enough to stop the unconventional assault. And even as Gilda saw the tail end of the awful tide pass the bottom of the hill—at least their numbers weren’t limitless! —she realized that they’d reach her trenches in seconds and then overwhelm her forces.

And worse, she looked up to see the cloud of Cloven flyers starting to descend, intending to bombard them while they were being swarmed by the parasites and could not effectively fight back. The two ibex started targeting them, but even their most powerful flak spells weren’t enough to significantly dent the still-vast numbers of airborne Cloven.

“Dammit, they’re gonna get us! We can’t stay here!” Even Stavrou suddenly sounded panicked though he continued to fire.

“Hold the line!” Imlay ordered as Giraldi snapped the same in Aeric to see the Talons start to waver despite continuing to pepper the parasites with explosive gems and bolts. “It’s our only cover out here!”

“We can’t hold!”Even Miles Fortuna sounded alarmed as her repeater buzzed only to run empty and she looked uncharacteristically clumsy as she fumbled for a fresh drum. “Centurion! If they reach us, we won’t be able to fight them! We have to leave, now!”

Gilda tried to reply, only to find she was having trouble forming thoughts or thinking coherently as she launched her own arrow, which detonated ahead of the swarm when her shaking talons jerked the crossbow downward, causing her to miss completely. And worse, the crossbow and cannon fire she was seeing from the humans and Talons alike seemed strangely uncoordinated and ineffectual. She felt like she was drowning in a daze of dread and despondency, like nothing she was about to do would matter against the latest Cloven tactic.

It was only at that moment, as she sensed their end approaching, that she finally shook herself free of her stupor again, knowing that the Senior Scimitar was right—that to stay was suicide.

“Crows take it! Retreat! All soldiers and Marines, break contact and get inside the hive!” Gilda gave the order to abandon the trenches. “Ibex! Give us what cover you can!” she next directed the two Adepts, who placed some weak shields over two narrow corridors from the front of the trenches to the entrance of the old cave complex.

Hearing her shouted words seemed to cue the Cloven as their grounded and airborne soldiers erupted with a massive bombardment, one Gilda could only guess was meant to kill her forces in the open. The grounded soldiers couldn’t see what they were aiming at, but they simply launched their spikes high over the hill rank by rank, which detonated overhead in another new trick to repeatedly pepper the entire plateau and upper slopes with fresh fragments.

They struck down several of her soldiers in mid-flight as they struggled to extricate themselves from their trenches and holes to fly back inside. Over a dozen Talons died getting there, knocked to the ground by airborne detonations that made them easy prey for the closing flyers, and worse, some never made it out of the trenches before the parasites reached them.

They slashed at them desperately with their talons but in the end were only able to scream in pain and terror, falling to an endless series of what were almost certainly venomous bites as the parasites burrowed into their brains while they still lived.

At least one dying eagless managed to shoot herself in the head with her own crossbow before she succumbed to the swarm, but another of Gilda’s struggling soldiers gave one final shriek before his eyes went lifeless and he suddenly turned his weapon on his own comrades, firing a crossbow bolt into another Talon’s back.

Struggling to salvage the rapidly deteriorating situation in the face of her own all-consuming terror as she watched her defense crumble, Gilda ordered the drakinas to blast the evacuated trenches and the dead bodies with flame, sending Obsidian Ire to grab the ‘fifty’ that Stavrou and his partner had abandoned before it could be turned on them. Despite its heavy weight and red-hot barrel, she simply slung it and hurried back with more spikes chasing her until Karin Kazal, knowing the weapon’s importance, grabbed her and teleported her to the entrance.

But the situation remained no less dire as the remaining parasite forms crested the hill and began to flood towards her retreating forces, and even worse, Gilda could just see that the Cloven ground soldiers who had expended their wing-launched spikes were now surging uphill as well. They clearly intended to charge in hard on the heels of the carnage the parasites and massive spike barrage had caused, with less than a fifth of her soldiers having made it to what promised to be the only fleeting safety of the hive.

“We need to get the wounded inside! Have the heavy repeaters cover us!” Gilda told Giraldi as the latter stood upright with his war hammer and simply brought it down on the ground in front of them to fling hundreds of parasites backwards with the shock wave of the weapon alone. Her former First Spear nodded and shouted an order, to which the remaining two earth griffon heavy repeaters were emplaced on the plateau directly and began firing streams of explosive bolts to try to keep the tide of parasites at bay.

Earth griffon Talons began to move while Wind Knights took to the air at her order to get them out of reach of the grounded Cloven. She hoped they could evade the bulk of the barrage and take at least a few out from above despite the flyer assault, the thrums of their crossbows mingling with sporadic human gunfire as they fell back to the entrance. But it was clear that the Cloven were quickly gaining the upper wing and worse, that she was very likely to lose the bulk of her force before they could make it inside.

Marine rifle fire began to slow down as the humans took spikes and struggled to take aim, while her available Knights and Talons were now concentrated far more on escaping than shooting in the face of the seemingly unstoppable attack.

A clang of metal echoed nearby, and Gilda saw one of her few remaining Fortis Knights raising his shield to protect Giraldi from flyer spikes as he fell back despite a visibly hobbled leg; she hadn’t seen it happen, but he had a spike sticking out of his hip in what had to be a very painful injury. “Get inside! Inside!” she shouted as one by one, Marines and Talons carrying the injured dashed through the opening, outrunning the black spikes stabbing the ground in their wake.

“Goddamnit,” Imlay cursed as he hurriedly swapped out a fresh magazine on his rifle with an uncharacteristic fumble. He resumed firing and triggered his bottom tube again with a hollow thump that shortly turned into another resounding BOOM! which cleared a large area of the outer plateau of parasites, but it still wasn’t enough.

Gilda glanced in his direction, seeing him cover two Marines carrying a third with wounded legs between them only to be pinned down by the flyers. Dust flew, punctuated by the rain of spikes that slackened just long enough for several carrier forms to swoop in and drop Cloven Rams on the edge of the plateau.

They roared in victory before they lowered their heads and began to charge, this time on all fours, clearly intending to shatter her force’s faltering and increasingly ragged battle line once and for all.

“Shit!” the Corporal shouted as he fired his rifle at them to no effect. “Cover Stavrou and Briggs! We need that fifty-cal set up back inside the entrance, now!”

But Gilda knew there was no time as Cloven Ram war cries echoed through the smoke-filled air. She could now see them running at full speed as they smashed through anything in their path, mercilessly crushing the corpses of the downed flyers and a thick layer of dead parasites under their hooves.

We’re going to be overrun! she knew beyond any shadow of a doubt even as she struggled to keep the Cloven out of the hive for just a few seconds more, until her stragglers could reach it.

Their defeat and death now nigh, everything seemed to move slowly, from the retreating Marines and Talons struggling to hold off the onslaught to Fortrakt’s group trying to fly in the sky to bring the Marines stationed further upslope down. And though she’d never been the praying type before the Cloven invaded, Gilda found herself calling out for the Ancestors to help.

We’ve done all we can and can no longer fight back! Ancestors, if we fall here, the humans belong to the Cloven and the Kingdom falls in turn! For the sake of not just the Kingdom but the entire world, we need your aid, NOW! she pleaded with them as she dragged one of her Talon eaglesses towards the entrance, who screamed with pain as her spike-broken ribs and leg were jostled.

And once again, her prayer was answered.

A sudden roar of fresh fire made her open her eyes to see pure yellow flames raining down from the sky—not the color of the ones the drakinas emitted. They hit the screeching flyers who were still trying to impale them with spikes, fires enkindling them with dancing orange light before the same effect was turned on the remaining parasites and lead Elder Ram forms, immolating them and clearing the trenches they had consumed.

Then the sound of the Western Drums came next as a full century of fresh Fortis Knights came streaking down from the sky like a striking hammer, flying low over the upper slopes. They dove hard, ramming their shields on the larger flyers before slowing down long enough to land on the plateau on all fours. A Senior Spear Gilda had never seen before followed them, shouting orders to form a shieldwall in a semicircle between her retreating force and the advancing Cloven.

As she watched, metal clinked as the shields linked together, meeting the incoming tide of pure Cloven soldier forms without losing ground. Every once in a while, two shields would open up just long enough for the Knights to swing their warhammers, smashing chitin with the force of their strokes. Then, on signal, the frontline thrust their shields forward hard enough to push the enemy back, giving them enough time to hover in the air and fall backwards, letting the next line put up a fresh shieldwall and take the brunt of the attack for a few seconds.

It was the well-practiced effort of a veteran unit; one that swiftly smashed the ground attack. A signal then came from the sky, and Gilda watched with awe as two turmas of Wind Knights followed, targeting the Cloven flyers. They came in behind the Fortis Knights, and in a synchronized manner, aimed their crossbows towards the airborne enemy forces and let loose a barrage of electrical and proximal explosive bolts. The razorbat forms scattered immediately, but not before losing several additional scores of their fragile forms.

A fresh wave of Cloven Rams crested the hill and wailed out, their steps making the ground shake as they attacked the shieldwall at a full charge. They raised their arms high to smash the defenses down, only to meet their deaths as deafening bolts of lightning speared them out of the smoke-choked skies.

Though dazzled by the bolts, Gilda finally saw four Magus Knights as the source of the flashes, just above the top of the now-collapsed skylights. Their staves glowed brightly as they pooled all their energies together to unleash their spectacular offensive, crushing the heavy Cloven infantry just as sure as the human ‘fifty’ had.

“Centurion!” Fortrakt’s excited and relieved voice called out from behind her, where he’d apparently succeeded in getting the Marines on the upper slopes inside. “Reinforcements have arrived!”

“Yeah, I kinda noticed, cub…” she said in relief, busying herself with getting the rest of her force behind their protective wall. Within a minute, despite nearly having them on the verge of defeat, the Cloven assault had been smashed yet again with the loss of another four centuries of varied ground soldiers and Ancestors-only-knew how many dead parasites, leaving the steep hillside carpeted with their fallen forms and further quantities of green gore.

Gaining at least a brief respite as the remaining Cloven forces retreated again in the face of the newly arrived Knights, the reinforcing Century’s commander turned to a shaky Gilda and saluted.

“Centurion! Beg to report. I am Senior Spear Figura Mutatio of the Fortis Knights! We were dispatched from Aricia to aid you,” she introduced herself, holding her salute until Gilda had returned it. “Tribune Cipio sends his compliments. And instructs you to keep holding out here for now.” She passed Gilda another order written in the Tribune’s script.

Gilda’s heart sank as quickly as it raised while muffled curses were heard around her. “Hold out? With what?” she asked incredulously. “I am grateful for the rescue but look around you—over a third of my force is down, Senior Spear, and we are dangerously low on munitions! And you saw what else they have out there! Even with your additional century of soldiers, we’re exhausted and can’t hold out much longer! So why in all the crows is he still leaving us out here?”

Figura Mutatio regarded her unblinkingly, disconcertingly so. To look at her, her feathers and armor almost seemed too clean, like they hadn’t seen action yet. “I know not, as the Tribune did not see fit to share his plans. But by the Hi—by the Ancestors themselves, I have my orders and will carry them out. My force is at your disposal, Centurion. And with regards to crossbow bolt and crystal supply, worry not—we brought reloads, fresh from the Aricia armories.”

Gilda barely had time to wonder what the Senior Spear had caught herself from saying or how her force had gotten there all the way from Aricia undetected before she tossed several storage gems on the ground; they turned into full quivers and chests containing large quantities of various gem types from explosive to incendiary. “We hope these will help.”

“They will, but not enough…” Gilda knew, ordering Giraldi to supervise their distribution, trading her own nearly-empty quiver for a new one that she then attached to her left shoulder, in easy reach of her right set of talons. “With those new spike-launching soldier forms, I don’t think we can defend from the trenches now. So we’ll have to defend the plateau directly under Magus protection. Are your mages at full charge, Senior Spear?” she asked.

The newly arrived eagless nodded. “They are. And with the help of feeder crystals in our possession, they can create powerful shields.”

“Then do so, but spare two for healer duty,” Gilda directed, nodding back to her bloodied force; she wasn’t sure she had anycreature left unwounded at that point. “Triage the severe injuries, but priority goes to the walking wounded. Anybody who can be brought back into the fight quickly, do so. The rest are to be healed just enough to be out of danger and then escorted below.” She realized too late that she’d resorted to a human word again.

“By your command.” The Senior Spear bared her throat as she barked orders to the Magus, sending the requested pair down to the plateau below.

They looked around at the dozens of wounded and swore violently; she wasn’t sure but thought one of them might have said something like “Chicken rot.”

Chicken rot? Never heard that one before. Is that some sort of Southern curse? Gilda wasn’t sure, but noted they immediately attended the worst of the injuries as the two airborne magus alit slightly upslope. They pooled their power to cast broad shield spells over the rear half of the plateau, just encompassing the shieldwall.

“Centurion? I think they’re coming again…” Fortrakt’s tired and increasingly shaky voice sounded over the radio. “Ancestors, after all the soldiers we’ve slain, how can they still have reserves?”

Gilda slumped at the news. She felt emotionally and physically spent, wondering if the Ancestors were testing them, or if the Cloven were simply so determined to kill and corrupt them that every single soldier their factory at Harness was churning out was now marching from their hatcheries directly to the Lake.

If so, it meant they would never run out of reinforcements, and the end of her force was all but assured.

“Crows take it…” she couldn’t resist saying, trying to rouse herself to action one final time. “Optio! Set our remaining heavy weapons in holes below the Magus positions to keep them within the shield. Marines! Any of you who are still unwounded join them and the rest defend the entrance! Decurion! By my order, destroy the skylights and—” she trailed off as a horrific shriek was suddenly heard in not just her ears or her bones, but her very soul.

It sounded just as painful as talons on glass but was somehow far more piercing and pounding, leaving her not only unable to think but increasingly steeped in despair. She sat back and clamped her talons over her head. “What the fuck is that?” Imlay asked, forced to drop his rifle to do the same thing.

“I don’t know! But I can’t…” Gilda felt herself beginning to wobble, able only to look up into the sky to see a monstrous black shadow approaching with webbed wings and a visible glow in its throat

“Dragon!” the call came up from the Talons, but as it got closer, Gilda realized it wasn’t. It was much worse—a Cloven-created version of one, meaning it would be far better-armored and its form fully intact instead of the half-rotted and crippled bodies of the possessed drakes they’d seen previously.

It then stopped and entered a hover several hundred perches over the hill and opened its mouth to emit another shriek at closer range, whose impact on her mind and mental processes left her consumed by terror and forced down to her knees.

Its cry was also echoed by the remaining centuries of Cloven soldiers massing for a fresh and final attack on the hill. They added their own voices to the awful chorus, and it was only then that Gilda understood from the assault on their very sanity and senses what they were actually facing.

“Ancestors preserve us! It’s a Cloven Overlord!” she finally realized, using the phrase for the first time as she felt her heart filling with fresh fear and despair. “Marines! Shoot it down before it’s too late!”

“Can’t…” Hearing Imlay’s voice, she looked to see that the Marines, like all her soldiers, were unable to act. Even the newly arrived Knight century seemed affected, if not as much, maybe because they were far fresher and less fatigued. But the shield covering them seemed to falter as the Mages casting them were weakened, and seeing it flicker, the monstrous Overlord swooped down to release a great gout of greenish fire that almost seemed more smoke than flame, promising to both incinerate and suffocate them with intense heat and poisonous vapor alike.

Its assault struck the barrier and caused it to collapse as only a few of the strongest-willed Marines, Knights and remaining Ravens raised their weapons against it, but their bolts and bullets were just pinpricks to be ignored.

The shield down, it then landed before them and grinned toothfully, its mental pressure as stifling as its brutally burning breath as one final shriek sent all her remaining soldiers to the floor of the plateau, crying out and pleading for help from their Ancestors or what she would later guess were various religious figures in the case of the humans.

Several Marines and Talons openly sobbed, unable to take the mental assault as they sensed their death was imminent. Sometimes they just curled themselves into balls and called like cubs for their mothers, but in at least two cases she saw her wounded soldiers commit suicide, obeying an impulse Gilda herself was now desperately fighting to slash her own throat.

In that moment, either due to the Overlord’s presence or the helpless state of her surviving soldiers around her, Gilda lost all hope. No escape this time… she knew, and their end at wing, she decided in a final moment of defiance to the despair that was trying to consume her that they had fought hard and fought well.

And that she could at least die knowing that she had done her duty to the Kingdom, crippling the Cloven so badly that one of their own Overlords had been forced to intervene.

Regrets flooding her thoughts for the final time as the dragon-sized Cloven commander took a final breath to kill them all, she found herself wishing for everything from another opportunity to be with Marco to the chance to make amends with Rainbow Dash, all the way down to more trivial matters like meeting the mysterious mare named Starlight Glimmer who had befriended and helped her human friends.

But none of it mattered any more as the two ibex slapped a weak shield over the opening; she sensed they did so in hopes of deflecting some flame while a small fraction of her force retreated deeper into the hive. If they weren’t mentally incapacitated, she guessed that they might buy the civilians a few more minutes at most. But she also knew that even without the Overlord constantly force-feeding them thoughts of defeat and certain death, that their end was equally inevitable.

And so too, perhaps, was that of the Kingdom as Gilda could only look up from her back into the darkening skies. Despite the heat and awful stench of the Overlord’s breath, a cold gust of wind blew around her, and even with her thick coat, she shivered.

Once again, everything seemed to move slowly, from the crawling Marines to the Wind Knights trying to hold off the onslaught with their remaining repeaters as the final four centuries of Cloven ground soldiers crested the hill. Though she’d never been the praying type before that day, she called out to her Ancestors one last time even though she was certain she’d already severely abused their generosity, asking not for rescue but only that their sacrifice wasn’t in vain.

And that for fighting and falling in service to the Kingdom, they would admit all her soon-to-be dead human friends to Valhalla.

... Before the Dawn
Dwayne Ford - In A World

It was then that a shimmering orange field fell over not just the plateau but the entire hive, deflecting the blast of dragon-like flame with contemptuous ease and holding strong against the efforts of the apparently surprised Cloven creation to batter it down with tail and talon.

It was accompanied by a great flash of light in the center of the plateau right in front of the fallen shieldwall; it faded to reveal a tall, dark-armored quadrupedal form with orange trim who had what appeared to be an enormous scimitar on its back.

Its owner—a female? Her gentle curves and less chiseled features seemed to suggest she was—was an alicorn-like figure the size of Princess Celestia, accompanied by six smaller armored insectile figures who formed a protective ring around her, with the two nearest her being twice the size of the others but still smaller than the large being they guarded.

Much like an alicorn, the central figure was somewhat slender with wings and an impressively long horn. But the former was insectile, looking like those of a fairy fly, while the latter was slightly jagged with one or two holes in it, accompanied by several holes in its crystal-gloved hooves. The central part of her torso from where her wings sprouted was covered with some form of shell—a carapace? She also wore a glittering opal crown and pendant that accented her size and station, marking her as some form of royalty.

And then the large creature turned to Gilda, otherwise ignoring all the shocked eyes on it. Her voice was somehow both soothing and commanding; it was only then Gilda realized that the pressure on her thoughts was gone and she could suddenly think clearly again.

“Well-fought and well-led, Centurion Grizelda Behertz. You did your duty. Now we will do ours.” The newcomer said in a strangely serene female voice, her horn still aglow as Cloven forces were not only repelled but flung right off the cliff by an irresistible wave of magic that sent them tumbling down the slopes.

“Holy shit…” Stavrou said from his knees. “She’s a Changeling!”

“Not just a Changeling, but a Changeling Queen…” Giraldi realized in a rare note of awe, motioning with his wings at her still-nervous soldiers to lower their weapons.

“A Queen? You mean… she’s Chrysalis?” a worried Marine asked as he struggled to his feet, to which some of the Changeling soldiers glared back at him. But the large alicorn-like female only responded with a single, serenely delivered word:

“No.”

She had no sooner said it then there were a series of sharp explosions from the lower parts of the hive that blew out dirt and rocks. And in their wake, scores and then centuries of armored insectile forms surged forth from the revealed entrances to strike down the dazed and disoriented Cloven who were caught looking the wrong way. Some did so with blades and bolts from wrist-mounted crossbows that fired what looked like magic-infused arrows, others by transforming themselves into various creatures to rip them apart with teeth and talons.

And to further shock, the survivors of the fresh century of Fortis Knights she’d received suddenly stood back up as if they were unaffected by the mental assault. As Gilda watched, they were then consumed in green flame to reveal themselves to be changeling drones as well, though they were still wielding the same weapons as before, and this time, they formed a protective ring around the Queen herself.

“Ancestors… then they were Changelings, too?” an agape Fortrakt asked over the radio, and though Gilda might have been annoyed with him for stating the incredibly obvious, she could only stare transfixed at the scene outside the bubble as for the first time, the Cloven were engaged and quickly crushed by a more numerous force that swarmed over them like whipwasps defending their nest.

But far from a simple swarm, the drones were clearly well-trained soldiers as they worked together, flying in formation or otherwise synchronizing their attacks to swiftly defeat the threat. The carnage outside the shield was intense, but the Queen continued to speak calmly, maintaining her powerful protective spell over the hive and the visitors within it.

“They were indeed. I apologize for the deception, but we had to ensure that you survived long enough for the Overlord to appear, while still keeping our presence a secret. I promise that you are safe inside my shield, so lay your wounded out here, Grizelda Behertz. My healers will attend them shortly.”

“By your command…” Gilda said wanly, giving a nod to Imlay, who began barking orders into the radio, telling his Marines to hold their fire as Giraldi did the same for the griffons. She was barely aware of his words or the response as she watched nearly half a millennium of changeling drones finish off the once-massive Cloven assault force, just before turning on the desperately fleeing Overlord itself with their entire army.

But the nightmare creature didn’t get far as the drones transformed into griffons and even adolescent drakes and drakinas. They soon caught the adult dragon-sized Cloven commander and began dragging it down with sheer weight of numbers; she saw them slowly rip its form—she didn’t think the Cloven had gender, so she refused to assign their Overlord one—to pieces until it could no longer fly or defend itself, finally sending it plummeting into the hillside.

They pinned its still-potent and struggling form down with the combined weight of their bodies and auras as the Queen herself stepped up to the edge of the plateau. She then generated an enormous spear-like construct with her impressively strong magic that she plunged into the creature’s head, splitting its skull and silencing its shrieks for the final time.

Their Overlord fallen and no longer receiving its mental instructions, what few remaining Cloven they could see on the slopes and in the surrounding woods lost all cohesion. They simply attacked any enemy they saw but didn’t coordinate their efforts, becoming little more than a frenzied but unfocused mob that was easy prey for trained troops.

Which the Changelings clearly were as they hunted down the surviving pure and corrupted Cloven soldiers without mercy, slaying them swiftly. Once they were all dead, the drones turned en masse into adolescent dragons to incinerate the bodies to the evident disgust of Obsidian Ire, ensuring the fallen couldn’t be recycled to threaten the Kingdom again.

“A poor imitation of the real thing,” the large drakina groused to see that the Changeling-generated dragonfire clearly wasn’t as intense as those of her or her sisters, but even Gilda could pick out the grudging note of admiration in her voice.

The battle won in mere minutes, the cohort-sized force of Changelings fanned out to pick off any stragglers as Gilda could only watch in amazement, glancing around her to see that her exhausted soldiers were equally agape. It was only then, when her mind had finally caught up to the incredibly unlikely turn of events, that Gilda understood the truth of the place:

That the abandoned changeling hive had been used as camouflage for a real one!

“Well, what do you know,” an awed Imlay said softly as the Changeling drones did their deadly work with incredible speed and efficiency. “Live to fight another day.” He spared just a moment to watch the insectile army at work along with the rest of his Marines before issuing fresh orders.

“We ain’t done yet, Marines! Reload, and let’s sweep the slopes! You ain’t gonna let the damned Changelings do all the work, are you?”

“If you don’t mind, Corporal, I think I am,” a ragged-looking Stavrou said, laying down the slashed and bleeding Talon eagless he was carrying to be attended by various drones, who immediately began bathing her with healing magic. Once he had released her, Stavrou himself collapsed to the ground and then forward onto all fours, shaking violently. “We’re completely spent, and with due respect, we’ve more than carried our weight.”

“Agreed,” Giraldi said, and Gilda noted that even he sounded tired. “I do believe our work here is done, Centurion.”

“Indeed,” the Queen concurred, her voice sounding directly in their heads. “Please stand down your troops, Centurion Behertz and Corporal Imlay. You have fought heroically, but your forces are exhausted, and there is no need to risk yourselves any further. It is our turn now, and as we have not practiced working together, I respectfully request that you let my soldiers finish this fight unhindered…”

Battle’s End
Good vs Evil - Instrumental Song

A minute later, the Battle of Lake Languid was over as the Changeling army annihilated and incinerated all the remaining Cloven, with their efforts to destroy the dead bodies leaving most of the previously scenic forested area aflame. And to Gilda’s amazement, she was still standing along with half of her force.

Despite being overjoyed at simply being alive, she found she felt afraid to relax, worried that if she did, her physical and emotional fatigue would catch up to her and she would quickly collapse. And that was to say nothing of finally being able to reflect on all that had happened to her over the past day, which she wasn’t sure she was ready to do.

By the crows… am I actually disappointed that I’m NOT in any more danger? she couldn’t help but think as the Changeling Queen dropped her protective spell over the hive and turned to Gilda, baring her throat exactly as a griffon would.

“Greetings to you, Centurion Grizelda Behertz, and to all our human, griffon, dragon, and ibex friends. I am Queen Scylla Lepidoptes VIII, sovereign of the Lepidoptes Changeling Hive,” she announced in a calm but commanding voice that earned blinks and startled looks from every griffon there, including Gilda.

For the name of Lepidoptes was well-known to the Kingdom, as it belonged to the hive who had betrayed the invasion plans of the former Gryphon Empire to Equestria some seven centuries earlier.

They had not only alerted the ponies and likely saved them from annihilation by forcing the Empire to launch its invasion before sufficient forces were in place, but then assisted the Equestrian nation by passing information and intelligence throughout the course of the war. This despite the best efforts of the Empire’s intelligence service, which was then known as the Office of Owls, to pin down and eliminate them; it was even said that some drones had fought directly in the pony services.

After the war, they had disappeared, and the Council of Crows had ultimately no more luck than their predecessors in tracking them. Then they were HERE all this time? Gilda found herself admiring them immensely for having successfully hidden in plain sight, beneath an abandoned hive near a well-known and frequently-used recreation area.

“I bid you welcome to our home and offer our sincerest apologies for not assisting you sooner. But we could not without compromising the plan of Tribune Cipio, who we have been sharing information with since the invasion began,” the Queen said.

“Plan?” Gilda repeated blankly, still staring up at her in disbelief, feeling her thought processes starting to turn sluggish as the cider and adrenaline that had been powering her began to wear off. Ancestors above, please don’t let me end up with withdrawal symptoms again!

“Indeed.” Queen Lepidoptes motioned with her head off to the northwest where Gilda suddenly heard a series of distant booms. She recognized them as naval ballistae, though she couldn’t see their source through the smoke in the air.

“Ever since the Cloven attack began, we have been sharing what intelligence with your military leadership we could. To that end, we detected your arrival at Lake Languid, and immediately passed that information along to Tribune Cipio in Aricia.

“Though it was our hope—and no doubt yours as well—that he would rescue you quickly so as not to compromise our hive, he saw your presence here as an opportunity to destroy both the large Cloven factory at Harness, and the Overlord who controlled it. An opportunity that required a sacrifice of our own, as well.”

Gilda had to sit back heavily as understanding finally dawned on her. Then Giraldi was right—there WAS an actual purpose to the Tribune leaving us for dead out here!

“So in other words… we were bait for a trap.” Imlay reached the same conclusion in a surprisingly calm tone.

The orange-trimmed Queen turned to him, taking him in at a glance. “Yes, Corporal Michael Imlay. And the Cloven took it—how does the human phrase go? Hook, line, and sinker. They wanted you and your fellow humans so badly that they were blinded to everything else.”

“Then he left us hanging out here because he knew that the Cloven couldn’t resist the chance to capture the humans, and that he could use that against them.” A still-reeling Gilda finally found herself comprehending the full sweep of Cipio’s plan.

“Correct, Centurion Grizelda Behertz. Because of how much of their available army the Cloven committed against you, they stripped their defenses enough to allow their factory to be razed by a joint force of griffon airships and adolescent drakes,” she further explained, nodding off to the northwest again where booms still echoed.

“Your stand here means that not only is the stronghold of Aricia safe along with its precious population within, but Cloven efforts throughout the entire province are now crippled, buying the Kingdom much-needed time to regroup and ready a counterattack.”

“Ancestors above…” Fortrakt said the words Gilda wanted to, then walked forward fractionally towards the Changeling monarch and bowed low, flaring his wings before her in a show of honor. “For reporting our location and saving all our lives, we are in your debt, Queen Lepidoptes.”

Gilda didn’t reprimand him for the display, given he was technically bowing before royalty. But still, she didn’t join him. “Not to sound ungrateful, Your Highness,” —she didn’t know what else to call her— “but we lost half our soldiers here and were nearly overrun at least twice, even with your reinforcing century helping us. Could you not have intervened in full force sooner?”

Accepting the rebuke, the Queen bared her throat in what Gilda interpreted to be contrition. “For that, I can only offer my sincerest apologies and regrets, Grizelda Behertz. You are correct that we could have, but to do so would have caused the Cloven to withhold further attacks without a great deal more preparation and numbers, thus losing the opportunity for a resounding victory,” she explained.

“In pursuing his prize, the Tribune wished for all their reserves to be committed against you first. For it was only then that the factory would be vulnerable, and the Overlord would show itself in order to lend its strength to the effort here. And that required you to be on the verge of defeat with Cloven forces also decimated, needing just one more Overlord-assisted push to overrun your defenses and corrupt the humans as they so desperately desired.”

Gilda wasn’t sure if she was more impressed or appalled at how she and her force had been used by Tribune Cipio, resolving she’d have some sharp words for him later whether he appreciated them or not. But she also couldn’t deny that it had worked brilliantly—that they had been completely in the dark as to what was happening, thus preventing the Cloven from learning the plan by killing and corrupting her soldiers.

“And the summoning crystal?” Karin Kazal addressed her next. “May we assume that your drones took care of the invading force, considering we found them all dead by a bewildering array of means?”

She and her guards gained a sly smile. “You may indeed, Starshina. We were not about to let them invade our hive or threaten your rear, so when we detected them, we eliminated them the instant they fully materialized. But I do suggest that you upgrade your anti-teleport field enchantments, as corrupted mages were evading them repeatedly, including to teleport in a single possessed ibex with the gem. As it happens, we have some idea as to how, and we will be more than happy to share our insights with your Magus Knights.”

“Then we owe you again, Your Highness.” So it turns out that she was in on this from the start and watching over us the whole time! But how did she know Tribune Cipio or gain his trust? Gilda wondered, able only to guess that one of her drones—or the Queen herself! —had been rutting him or his advisors, using them to gain love. I guess in the end, it doesn’t matter. And we do owe her our lives!

Closing her eyes briefly as she reached her resolution, she stepped forward and bowed low before the alicorn-like Changeling ruler as well, signaling the rest of her still-standing soldiers to do the same. “Thank you for saving us, Queen Lepidoptes. As the Decurion says, we are in your debt. All I ask now is that you convey our request to the Tribune for the immediate evacuation of the humans and civilians to Aricia.”

The Queen offered a warm smile as she bowed her head back. “You are very welcome, Centurion Grizelda Behertz. But there is no need. As the Tribune does not wish to risk his remaining air carriages for now, I will offer my own royal transport for the purpose,” she said as she cast a fresh spell that caused a shimmering in the air. A series of arcane energies briefly billowed to reveal a slender but rather ornate airship with several sets of insectile wings in place of oars and sails, covered in a layer of glistening green and orange chitin.

“Despite its admittedly delicate appearance, be assured that it is fully armed and armored, and that there is sufficient room for all. But time is pressing, and there remains the possibility that a neighboring Overlord may attempt to avenge the loss of its brethren and destroy us in flight if we linger too long. So please order your forces to board, Centurion,” she requested as a gangplank was lowered to the plateau floor.

Gilda noted the Changeling Queen was deferring to her despite unquestionably having a higher rank and a great deal more power. She wasn’t sure she was comfortable with that, but in the end, she wasn’t about to question it.

“We have additional wounded below,” Gilda replied in amazement, finally understanding what Cipio had done—by all my Ancestors, the Tribune wasn’t being a fool! He used the Cloven fixation on us as a distraction to strip the area of soldiers so he could take out the factory and the Overlord who controlled it! “Both human and griffon. They will need immediate healer support.”

The Queen nodded gravely. “You will have it. Be assured that our healing arts are the equal or better of your own, especially if we have full magical charges to work with. We will triage and treat them along the way. Now if you please, Centurion, it is best not to linger here. It is time for your civilians and soldiers to board,” she politely requested again.

This time, Gilda didn’t hesitate. “By your command. Marco!” she shouted into the radio.

“Right here! What’s going on, Gilda? And what’s with all these weird insect ponies?” He sounded nervous and she had a sudden sense that he had his rifle raised.

“Stand down! They’re friendly, so please don’t shoot them!” She was afraid to tell him that they were Changelings, given the reaction the Marines had to hearing the name. But she didn’t blame them for that, given all they’d probably heard about them was that they’d attacked Equestria earlier; she doubted that they could make the distinction between those of Queen Chrysalis and those of different hives.

“Tell the Senior Scimitar to get everyone ready to move up top. They saved us, and now they’re going to get us to Aricia via their Queen’s personal airship. If anyone needs help being moved, let the newcomers assist. They can levitate the wounded, at least.”

“No problem, girlfriend,” he replied, causing her to feel a momentary pang of guilt at the title again, even though he now knew what had happened.

I guess he really has forgiven me. By the Ancestors, I swear I’ll make it up to you later, Marco Lakan, whatever it takes! she mentally promised him once more. Gilda had no sooner had the thought when she caught the Queen looking at her again, giving her a smile when their gazes met.

“You love him,” the Changeling monarch said simply, to which Gilda could only nod. She recalled then from Gauntlet training that Changelings could sense emotions, which made them very difficult to surprise or otherwise approach undetected. “Then worry not about earlier events, Centurion. For in the end, they change nothing.” She looked from her over to Karin Kazal as she spoke and gave him a strangely serene smile, causing them both to stiffen and exchange a nervous look.

Does SHE know? Gilda internally froze. If they detected our arrival here, could they also have detected… THAT? She swallowed hard, praying the Queen knew enough to be discreet.

Ten minutes later, all remaining civilian and military forces were aboard, and the oddly insectile airship lifted off from the plateau. Scanning it, Gilda noted that it had several unfamiliar forms of cannon that were loaded and ready, though it certainly wouldn’t have been a match for one of the Kingdom’s capital airships in battle.

But as it began to gather speed and gain altitude, Gilda realized that much like the Changelings themselves, its survivability lay in stealth as a shroud fell over the airship similar to the kind she’d experienced when activating the nightshade crystal, causing sounds to be muffled and the outside to appear darker.

Just like the Raven goggles she still wore, it seemed to make detail clearer as they rose above the ground-hugging pall of smog to see a massive pillar of ugly black smoke rising from Harness. Two Kingdom airships and a bevy of adolescent dragons continued to pour fire into it, pounding the hill into powder to make sure the underground part of the Cloven construct was destroyed as well.

The booms remained audible at that distance, causing all her remaining soldiers to watch the display of naval power. “Look at that. Damn griffies get some too,” Imlay said with a smile from beside her. She wished Marco was there to watch as well, but after checking in with her and being slightly warily introduced to the Changeling Queen, Marco had elected to stay with his friends, watching as Tara and Chris finally received strong doses of healing magic.

Though she suspected he was doing it in part to avoid being in the company of Karin Kazal, Gilda looked at the Corporal. “Griffies?”

“Yup,” Imlay replied with a smile, swapping out the magazine from his rifle. “What can I say? You guys earned it.” He watched as the airships and drakes began to hunt down stragglers. “Damn earned it.”

“You said it, Corporal. Look at the damn dragons and griffies getting some,” Guerrero said, before raising his arm and shouting: “Yeah! Get some!”

“Crows take it… do you have to call us that?” Gilda asked him. Between feeling herself starting to relax for the first time in two days and finally knowing that she hadn’t lost Marco to either the Cloven or her own indiscretions, she sensed some of her old attitude starting to return. “It’s really insulting and dweeby.”

“What do you mean?” Guerrero looked taken aback. “It’s a term of endearment! It means we like you guys!”

“Oh, really? And would you like it if we called you ‘humies’?” she asked him, to which his expression dropped.

“Well, when you put it like that…” he granted, trailing off as the two airships completed their work along with the adolescent dragons she could just see pouring gouts of fire into the area as well, completing the destruction of the factory and what she assumed were the many thousands of half-created Cloven forms within it.

As they watched, the two vessels ceased fire and turned for Aricia, pausing only long enough to collect the soldiers and dragons they’d used in the effort, though a protective cloud of them still surrounded the two vessels. “Looks like they did it,” Imlay finally noted.

“We did it!” a scratched up and smoke-stained Fortrakt corrected, though it was hard to see the latter against his darker fur and feathers. “It was all thanks to our stand here. Crows know that we faced the worst of the Cloven and lived.”

“Ran a goddamned gauntlet to get here, too,” Guerrero added. “Survived battle after battle and were never beaten. Can’t wait until the higher-ups back home read the report on this one.”

“Not all of us lived…” Gilda had to look away, finding the fallen faces of her old Turma and PFC Jenkins swimming through her mind. “Not even close.”

“Guilt does not become you, Grizelda Behertz,” Queen Lepidoptes spoke again. “Take it from a longtime ruler with the shared memories of Queens and conflicts past that you have nothing to be ashamed of. In every facet of the battle, you commanded your forces well. At every turn, you acted in the interests of others, putting them before you.”

“At every turn?” Gilda asked despondently, her time with Karin Kazal flashing through her memory again.

“Yes.” It was the Starshina himself who answered this time, the less-injured doe at his side. “There are many words I could describe you with, Centurion, and most would not be flattering. Obnoxious, insulting, and occasionally outright infuriating foremost among them,” he said deadpan, though Gilda caught a glint of mischief in his orange eyes that belied his tone.

“I’ll second that!” Obsidian Ire said angrily from where she was being treated by Changeling magic, eating what looked like a sapphire as her wounds were slowly mended.

“He’s got you there, Gilda,” Fortrakt agreed with a knowing grin, to which Gilda could only blush.

Karin Kazal gave him a smirk and wink. “But that said, you are also an uncommonly courageous and exceptionally effective leader, willing to take risks where others, whether griffon or ibex, never would. I cannot even begin to call you selfish given all that happened this day, and after fighting at your side and seeing your quality up close, I would now gladly obey your orders and even die at your command in defense of our two nations. So have no regrets about your actions here, for after surviving this ordeal, I find no fault in them. In fact, I am immensely grateful for them.”

She felt her cheeks warm as he gave her a meaningful look. Ancestors above… he’s telling me that he’s glad we rutted and to stop feeling guilty over him! His words caused her to blush again and even left her desiring him anew.

“Well said, Starshina,” Queen Lepidoptes agreed in a tone that brooked no argument, and then turned to face all of Gilda’s surviving soldiers. “Karin Kazal speaks true. So be proud, all of you. Your stand against the Cloven was a magnificent effort worthy of story and song. But sadly, Harness is not the only hill that will crumble this day.”

As she spoke, the large Queen walked over to the side of the airship, looking down on the hill that had hidden their hive. She then said something in what Gilda guessed was their native language to one of her aides, who nodded and responded in kind.

She nodded gravely, and without another word, she cast a fresh spell that caused a series of loud booms around the base of the old hive that had been their salvation.

As a surprised Gilda watched, the formerly steep anthill-like structure collapsed in on itself with a resounding rumble and cloud of dust. “And thus, does our home of seven centuries fall,” the Queen said sadly as her drones bowed their heads. “A hard loss, but a necessary one to deny the enemy intelligence. And certainly not the first time we have been driven from our hive.”

Gilda guessed she was referring to the great pony/griffon war, when they had been ejected from their underground lair in the old Imperial capital of Mosclaw at the start of the conflict. They had spent the next four years of it always on the run, yet still found time and ways to aid the ponies and even occasionally assassinate high-ranked Imperial officials.

“I am truly sorry for your loss. Then for making such a great sacrifice, may I assume you will be joining us in this fight, Your Highness?” Giraldi inquired, to which she nodded and moved back to the center of the airship flanked by the large, well-armored drones of her personal guard. Gilda noted again that they were far bigger than the Changeling norm, each looking as powerful and battle-ready as any earth griffon Paladin. “Surely Queen Molyneux will reward you richly for aiding us in our hour of need.”

Queen Lepidoptes nodded solemnly. “We will indeed, Optio Galen Giraldi, and for the first time in our hive’s history, we will do so in the open regardless of any reward offered. For this war is on not just the Gryphon Kingdom, but on all races and nations of Tellus. A Cloven victory means the end of all life, and as Changelings, we are uniquely able to help fight this particular foe.”

“And why is that?” a wary Karin Kazal asked her, to which she glanced at him and answered evenly.

“Because the Cloven were originally created from captured Changelings, devolved to a more primordial state and then reprogrammed through very dark magic,” she answered to a series of startled looks.

“Though we consider them to be abominations no less than you, that we are related to them means we can detect and counter them, and can thus greatly aid in defeating them once and for all…”

Hello, one and all. This is your humble author speaking. I wish everyone to know that I dedicate this chapter to former Fimfiction and Gentlemanverse author Denim_Blue. He was an excellent writer, and the Lepidoptes hive belonged to him, along with the character of Queen Scylla Lepidoptes the VIIIth—or at least, her great-great grandmother, Queen Scylla Lepidoptes the IVth. So for me to include them here is homage.

They were first revealed in my Firefly series of stories when he guest-authored a couple chapters. He has departed the site, sadly, but he is not forgotten, and his extensive and very well-thought Changeling lore is simply too good not to use. Here’s hoping I’ve done it justice and will continue to do so.

—Firesight

32: Arrival at Aricia

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

33: Reunions (M-rated)

Author's Note

Welcome back to C&C! First and foremost, this chapter contains a great deal of M-rated content. If you want the T-rated version of this chapter, go here:

33: Reunions (T-rated)

Chapter contains: A heavy dose of Marco x Gilda with a side of one very teasing Archon Archex, though he does not participate in anything. He does, however, demonstrate Changeling skill at reading sensual desires and seduction. Action includes a full description of human-on-griffon paizuri followed by eagless-on-man rimming, and a lot of erotic images on the walls depicting a ton of varied interspecies action.

As always, I thank my eager prereading crew of Silentwoodfire, AJ_Aficionado, ASF, Wechsel and Silverblade5. They all enjoyed the chapter, so hopefully you will as well! Have at it just as soon as I post the standard boilerplate:

This chapter is brand new content, taking place after chapter 9 of the original story. You are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original Feathered Heart if you haven’t already, as it inspired many of my own works.

—Firesight

33: Reunions (M-rated)

Down Time
Love Making Music : Romantic Saxophone Music, Sensual Mindset, Background Music, Instrumental Music

As the pink in her vision continued to grow along with what felt like the teats on her belly, Gilda found her impatience to be alone with Marco rising in tandem with her excitement. And the presence of the large Changeling drone leading them wasn’t helping.

Her interest in male company still up and eager to be indulged, she found her gaze wandering over his large and lithe form repeatedly, with her eyes finally settling on the impressively large set of orbs beneath his long, forked tail, which were almost exactly at her eye level. They were enormous—even larger than Karin Kazal’s or Marco’s when he got fully aroused; she sniffed at the air behind him to try to pick up a hint of their exotic musk. To her surprise, she even had to suppress a sudden fantasy of burying her beak, cheeks and nose in them as she was quickly coming to learn she liked doing, worshiping his masculinity from behind.

Thankfully, Archon Archex himself—and was ‘Archon’ a name or a title? —seemed unaware of her interest. “This way, please.” He invited them through the door, cutting off sound from the catcalling Marines and teasingly trilling griffons, then closed and locked it behind them. As the lights within it came up, she realized it wasn’t a room he had led them to, but another corridor with much more ornate surroundings, including some surprisingly erotic images on the walls.

They were carved out of multicolored chitin showing Queens and drones alike cavorting not just with each other but various races, all showing enhanced sexual attributes. They were even backlit by some form of magical glow which illuminated them like sunlight through colored glass, reminding Gilda of pictures she’d seen of the interior of Canterlot Castle, where the windowed walls showed momentous events from pony history.

“Whoa! Nice art, Archon. Would it be okay to take some pictures of it?” Marco went for his pocket only to remember that he didn’t have his ‘smartphone’, which remained missing following the ibex invasion of the Inn.

“Though it is gratifying that you find it pleasing, we would greatly prefer that you didn’t, Marco Lakan. You will understand that as much as possible, we do not wish the interiors of our hives or vessels to be known,” he answered easily. “The Queen will no doubt request that you keep what you see here secret, even after you leave.”

“Oh. Okay.” She was relieved that Marco sounded at least slightly chagrined, though he kept looking around. His eyes flitted from one lurid image to another, which typically showed Changelings seducing everything from griffons to harpies to ponies, often in mid-transformation. Even Gilda found a few of her buttons pushed, especially by images showing female drones—or the Queen herself! —in dominant positions, mounting the spears of males or the mouths of males and females alike as they lay on their backs.

Look at that… they even know about human-style teatplay! she further noticed, picking out a picture showing an ibex doe looking down in astonishment to see a glowing Changeling phallus—did they glow or was that just another artistic exaggeration similar to the overly-endowed creatures she saw? —being thrust between her massive magic-enhanced mammaries as she lay on her back and was curled over, leaving her staring the organ’s dripping head in the face with her bearded jaw slack and ready to receive it.

Didn’t the humans have a name for that act? she somehow recalled, even if she wasn’t sure how. And then abruptly, her brow furrowed. Because it was once done to me…? She felt her teats plumping further at the thought.

Still other images showed Changelings using the curious holes in their legs to pleasure everything from tiercel spears to unicorn horns or even the large ears of certain races. So those holes have purpose? By the crows, even those Neighponese comics Rainbow and I read weren’t as explicit as these pictures! Gilda couldn’t help but marvel, noting that Marco seemed enrapt as well.

She saw that his gaze lingered on images of the male drones rutting the tails of larger tiercels, stallions and bucks, who were often depicted as both shocked and sorely aroused to see themselves claimed by one. So he’s got some tiercel-tucker in him, too. I wonder which side of that he’s imagining himself on?

Abruptly, he tore his eyes away and shook his head hard, giving Gilda a nervous look. “So, uh… if you don’t want the interior and all this art to be known, aren’t you worried that anybody you bring down here for ‘business negotiations’ is going to tell?” he asked the question Gilda wanted to, to which Archon Archex smiled.

“Not at all, given this ship is as much a chameleon as we are. For example…” His slightly holed horn flared as he cast a minor spell that washed over the walls, causing the images to briefly shimmer. When they cleared, all the Changelings in the image had been replaced with other races as if they’d taken their disguise.

“And if we don’t wish such images to be seen at all…” A second flare changed the murals to far more placid scenes of landscapes and the hallway to a much more generic griffon one, if belonging to a high-end inn. “Or perhaps if we are entertaining a Kingdom military official?” A third flare changed the images to scenes of historical battles.

“Amazing…” Marco murmured, unable to resist running his hand over the images before Gilda could stop him; worried it might be as offensive as when he nearly caressed a statue in the Hall of Heroes. “You guys really go all-out.”

“Of course. Disguise and desire are ways of life for us, Marco Lakan, and are incorporated into all facets of our existence right down to the interiors of our structures. It is extremely rare—and speaking for myself, quite refreshing—that we may reveal ourselves to outsiders and greet them as we truly are.” He returned the hallway and pictures to their original erotic incarnations. “Be honored that we allow you to see this. But please return that honor by keeping our confidence when you leave.”

“No problem…” Marco said through a suddenly dry throat; Gilda could see his spear straining at his pants even harder as they passed a series of images where the emphasis was tiercel-tucking, the centerpiece of which was a dual-spear adult drake being attended by over a dozen changelings disguised as male adolescent dragons, using him to extract massive amounts of love while he could only lie back in a lake of lava to take it. “I, uh, really like them.”

“Me too…” Gilda admitted. Even outside of such unheard-of scenes, the images themselves remained heavily interspecies; she couldn’t help but note the especially unlikely coupling of several changelings-turned-griffon tiercels with a single ibex doe. They left her gratified that the former were in dominant positions as they both nibbled at the female goat’s long ears and took every orifice she had at once, along with her oversized teats for good measure.

“Thank you. As you might guess, they are here not just for decoration, but to aid the process of extracting love. It is also worth noting that everything you see here is not just fantasy—they depict scenes that truly happened. They represent some of our greatest sensual triumphs over our many centuries of existence.” His words caused Gilda’s eyes to go wide and exchange a startled glance with Marco as the large drone continued his impromptu lecture, acting the part of a tour guide.

“Holy shit…” This time, Marco’s gaze lingered long on the ibex doe. “Then all this is real?”

“Or more correctly, was real. And with the coming of your kind, Marco Lakan, I daresay we will be adding some human images to this pantheon of passion in the years to come.”

“If you need ideas, I’d be happy to share my porn collection with you…” was all Marco could say in response, the smell of cider around him growing. As she watched, he rubbed his painfully constrained shaft through the front of his trousers, then forced himself to tear his eyes away from the walls for a second time.

“So, uh, is ‘Archon’ your name, or—” he tried to make conversation as they both walked increasingly stiffly; aroused wings and a painfully tented pants front making movement more and more difficult since their surroundings seemed designed to excite them further.

“My name is Archex, Marco Lakan. ‘Archon’ is both a rank, and a title,” he replied easily without looking back, continuing to lead them along. “It means many things, but in human military terms, if the Queen is a Captain, then I suppose you could say it makes me a Lieutenant of sorts. Or in griffon terms, it is roughly equivalent to Centurion, with my duties not unlike Queen Molyneux’s elite Praetorian Guard—at least in part. Which, by strange coincidence, is the rank and station my griffon persona holds in the Kingdom’s military,” he added with what Gilda took to be a coy note.

“You were a Praetorian Centurion?” Gilda asked, feeling at least slightly perturbed at the idea that a Changeling, even a friendly one, could infiltrate the Queen’s personal guard.

“I still am, but I was recently rotated to the Paladin unit in Aricia. By complete coincidence, I was on leave when the Cloven attacked, for which I thank the Hive Mother for being present to defend my Queen and home. Just like the Kingdom’s other service branches, Paladins are required to spend some time away from Arnau for our skills to not get stagnant, but I would return to my post there eventually. I have even stood sentry beside Queen Molyneux‘s bedchambers in the past,” he admitted matter-of-factly, causing Gilda’s eyes to go wide.

“Yeah? Why? So you could fuck the Queen?” Marco asked out of nowhere.

“Marco!” A red-cheeked Gilda exclaimed, but Archex just laughed.

“Sadly, no, though I consider it a compliment that you think I could. Then again, I admit that the thought has crossed my mind on occasion. To extract love from Queen Molyneux herself would be the ultimate test of my infiltration and seduction skills, but it would also be far too dangerous to attempt for an uncertain return,” he said almost wistfully.

“For as strong-willed and perceptive as your Queen is—and having guarded her directly, I have witnessed her ability to see right through diplomatic doublespeak and the endless palace intrigue she must endure—the chance of discovery would be very real. So no, Marco Lakan. I choose my sources of love carefully, but they do not include her.”

“Then why would you even be in the Guard?” Gilda asked, her eyes roaming over his impressively endowed hindquarters again. “For intelligence?”

He glanced back at her and grinned, causing her to inwardly cringe, praying he hadn’t noticed her gaze. “In part, certainly. We do like to keep watch on the internal affairs of the Kingdom, in case there is something that concerns us. But more because the Guard itself is a very potent source of love.”

“It is?” Gilda tried to imagine it and failed, not understanding how such strong, stiff, and unsmiling soldiers would ever enjoy sex. “I wouldn’t think that the Praetorians would provide much.”

“You would be surprised. As they are always so disciplined and duty-conscious, with nearly all their time taken up with training and then simply standing sentry for extended periods while not being allowed to move or speak? They, far more than most of your soldiers, need release from the endless monotony of their posts,” he explained with a growing grin.

“It is a release I am only too happy to grant them. And lest you think I am taking advantage of them, I much prefer to see it as giving them a sorely needed respite from their important but unenviable duties. By doing so, I feel I am making them more attentive and effective guardians of not just your Queen, but her entire royal line in the process.”

“So in other words, you have sex with them in service to Queen Molyneux, eh?” Marco suggested in what Gilda almost took to be an envious tone, to which the drone only smiled.

“And Queen Lepidoptes as well. Remember that my foremost duty is to collect love for my hive, Marco Lakan. And be assured that as an Archon, I am very good at it.”

“Oh, yeah?” Marco sounded intrigued, tugging at the front of his trousers to try to free up at least a small amount of space for his badly constrained organ, which was held fast against his thigh with its length extending over halfway down his right pants leg towards his knee. “And why is that?”

“Some of it is acquired experience. Some of it is the potent allure we can put into the very air, effective against all races, genders and ages—an allure which is doubly effective given my… evolved form. But mostly, it is that we are very good at detecting the proclivities of our potential partners and tailoring our responses to them. For example…”

He abruptly stopped walking and lowered his forequarters fractionally, raising his tail so they could see his large ‘balls’ plump further before her wide-eyed gaze in what she guessed was a minor application of his shapeshifting power, sending a wave of what she could only describe as magic-infused musk into her nose.

If it was his ‘allure’, then it had the desired effect as her beak went dry to both see and smell it, and she realized she wasn’t the only one as Marco took a ragged breath as well. His human hands suddenly made cupping motions against the air followed by his crotch beginning to bulge further, with the head of his organ seemingly trying to burst right through the thick stitching of the tough fabric not far above his knee.

“See something you like, Centurion and Marco Lakan?” he asked idly, causing them both to start and stammer, to which he gave them a reassuring grin. “Because I assure you both that I am more than willing to share. To show you what your Queen’s Praetorians have already discovered, to our mutual enjoyment and benefit.” He pushed his hindquarters back towards them, presenting not just his slowly swelling balls but rapidly engorging organ. It not only dwarfed even Marco’s spear, but cast an enticing greenish glow onto the floor below.

“Putang ina…” Marco breathed softly, and though Gilda didn’t understand the words, she could certainly read the disbelief that underlay them; from the way he was clenching his fists she realized he was trying to stop himself from reaching for the drone’s hindquarters.

“By the Ancestors…” It was an urge she was fighting as well, suddenly wanting to bury her face in his masculine attributes, worshiping them alongside Marco. And somehow, it didn’t seem like cheating to her because she would be sharing the male drone with her human mate, enjoying and indulging him as one as they first pleasured his beautiful balls with tongue and talon before taking turns being claimed by him, to each be brought to rapture in turn.

He smiled knowingly at their reaction. “I see you both find my evolved form pleasing. If you are interested, I have also acquired an array of helpful seduction spells over my many years of service to the Queen—both yours and ours. Allow me to demonstrate…”

His horn flared and a wave of magic washed over them both, causing her fur and feathers to intensely tingle. But that was far from the only effect as all her armor fasteners suddenly unlatched and unraveled themselves, instantly enabling her wings to flare fully as all her protective pieces fell free, leaving her naked before him.

In contrast, the tough material of Marco’s pants audibly stretched and tore like tissue paper from the severe tension it was under. No longer held fast against his leg, his engorged organ freed itself of its fabric prison to stand proudly at attention, ripping right through the thick material like it was nothing. Even his human balls burst free, growing along with the Archon’s to rend the thick cloth further until his crotch and everything within it was fully exposed.

Archex smiled in great satisfaction as they gaped down at themselves, then at him. “My apologies, but you are far too beautiful and desirable an eagless to hide yourself beneath that armor, Centurion. And I do hate seeing severely constricted spears, Marco Lakan,” he further added as he studied Marco’s organ intensely.

“Such superb stature should never be hidden but displayed prominently for all to admire and envy. I also wanted to get a good look at your human malehood, and I am not disappointed. It has an impressive size and a pleasing shape. But if you need somewhere to stick it…” He was consumed in green fire, and when it faded, he had taken the naked but very familiar form… of Giraldi!

As a slack-jawed Marco watched, he submissively lowered his northern harrier forequarters and raised his jaguar tail high to expose himself, suddenly showing fur-covered orbs in place of his original black ones without losing any of their size.

“Take my tail, Marco Lakan. It is hungry for your human spear. Fill me with its great girth. Mark me with your sensuous seed. By the Ancestors themselves, claim me for your race and make me your eagless again…” he all but purred in a flawless imitation of Giraldi’s voice, even managing a pitch-perfect sensual trill.

She heard Marco urk! and saw his hips buck hard in an action she was strangely certain he’d done before to the same sight, dragging him forward towards the other male fractionally. Going weak-legged at the idea herself, Gilda started to paw at her teats with her talons,all but biting her tongue with her beak to keep from encouraging him; she only held back at not wanting him to spend his considerable passions on someone other than her just then.

Despite that, she didn’t stop him as he began taking halting steps toward the presented tiercel—she knew he was a disguised drone, but the disguise was so perfect she found herself even thinking of him as Giraldi—urged on by his throbbing spear and thrusting hips. Marco clearly wanted to bury himself deep within the other male’s prominent sphincter, which winked enticingly before him like a pony nest.

As a dry-mouthed Gilda watched, Marco took two, then three half-steps forward to close the distance until Giraldi’s tail tip dangled in his face; the former’s rigid spear mere uncia away from the offered opening and at the perfect level to enter it. Just one more step… She mentally pleaded with him to take it, knowing that when he did, he’d be pressing his spear’s slightly flared head into the puffy and prominent pucker, wanting to see it part before him.

Wanting to see Marco’s spear sink into the drone’s depths.

Into Giraldi’s depths!

She somehow knew that once Marco made contact with him, there was no turning back. He wouldn’t stop until he had hilted and emptied himself.

Because he’d already done it at least once before…?

She licked her beak and shivered as Marco stood on the precipice; to his credit he was still trying to hold back. But she could tell that the battle was ultimately a losing one given the perfect picture and opportunity before him as his shaking hands began to move towards the other male; his fingers loosening out of their clench intending to grasp the Changeling’s hips.

Mentally urging him forward despite herself, she began to self-pleasure more frantically at the idea of the imminent tiercel-on-tiercel action before her, vowing that when they started rutting in earnest, she would rip off the remainder of Marco’s ruined green-patterned pants so she could watch it happen from between his legs, and then bury her face in the middle of their four combined orbs when they finally met, worshiping their masculine essence as one.

But before Marco could take the final, fateful step, the drone suddenly lowered his tail and changed back to his true form with another flare of green fire. “I think that will do for now,” Archex announced, speaking in his own voice again. He stepped away and cut off the magical ‘allure’ that he was further tempting them with, causing them both to stumble heavily, still sorely aroused. For his part, Marco fell to all fours beside her, shaking violently and breathing raggedly.

“H-holy shit…” he said through a trembling breath. “Y-you had me ready to…”

“And me!” a reeling Gilda had to admit, finding her mind and body still trying to overheat.

“Indeed. That was just a minor demonstration of how enticing we can be, both in disguise and out of it. But for as tempted as I am to go further, this is your time, not mine. I hope you will forgive me for teasing the two of you, but I could sense your earlier ogling of me, and its source. It is futile to hide or deny it since as Changelings, we are very attuned to such things,” he reminded them with a wink, causing them both to flush and look away.

“I will leave you to your lovemaking now. Oh, and Mister Lakan? Please remove your torn garment immediately so I can repair it. Do not dawdle, as the spell I used is only reversible within the first few minutes.”

“Th-thanks. But, uh, h-how did you know about—” was all a sorely sweating and shaking Marco could ask as he began shrugging out of his half-ruined trousers, to which the drone only smiled.

“About your interest in the Optio? You will forgive me for keeping that a secret, Marco Lakan, except to say my sensual perception skills are almost equal to those of the Queen herself. Encouraging passions is something of a reflex with us, and as we are so very good at it, please do not be offended or embarrassed,” he requested, watching with some interest as Marco pushed his pants down to the floor and began to step out of it. He stumbled hard once when his boot caught the edge of his belt, causing the rear of his pants to tear further as he fell forward with his flanks exposed to Gilda, who blushed anew.

“Consider it a form of flattery, as I do your interest in me. In time, I might even be willing to indulge it… if both you and the Queen approve, that is. But that particular pleasure can wait.” His hole-studded horn flared and the chitin-covered door before them audibly unlocked; Gilda had been so distracted that she hadn’t even realized they’d arrived before it.

“You’d really want to be with us?” Gilda could hear the dry note in Marco’s voice as he hurriedly removed his caught boots, having to sit up despite his erect and throbbing spear to do so; she was suddenly afraid to speak for how her own voice might sound. “Oh, and uh… please don’t do anything with what’s on the belt. It’s weapons and ammunition.”

“Worry not. After seeing your cannons in action, I have no intention of examining or even touching them,” he promised as he accepted the garment and bathed it in fresh magic, causing the rended threads to somehow re-ravel themselves back into their original strength and form.

“As for being with us, of course I would. For I can already sense you could give not just me, but all of us a significant power boost. Indeed, you already have, Centurion,” he told her with a knowing grin as he stepped aside to let them pass through the door, though he took pains to stretch himself out before them to show off his exposed organ, which did indeed emit a noticeable glow. She could sense it was also releasing a very powerful and almost irresistible pheromone, making it pleasing to both the eye and nose.

“Here you are. Be assured that you will have absolute privacy here, even from the awareness of the Queen herself. Food and drink are available in the cupboards and counters to your left, including various spirits—though we request that you not overindulge on those, as too much can taint your love,” he warned them.

“A toilet and large tub are available through the far door as well if you wish to bathe, along with various cleansers that include the highest quality preening oils—though you will forgive us for not having anything human-specific, Marco Lakan,” he said with an apologetic dip of his webbed ears.

“No problem…” was all a wan Marco could say, gazing warily yet half-longingly at him as his erect and drooling spear still hung openly before him.

“You are very gracious, my human friend, but I fear that it is a problem given we pride ourselves on seeing to the needs of our guests. We will do our utmost to rectify that later, but in the meantime, please use this room to your heart’s content, and do not worry about cleaning up. Trust me—we have dealt with messes and even damage to this room far worse than anything you two could come up with,” he said with a wry grin as he finished fixing Marco’s pants and laid them over a nearby lounge. With a parting wink, he closed the door behind them, leaving the pair alone with each other.

“Holy shit…” was all Marco could say after he had departed, still staring after him when he was gone. “That came out of nowhere again. I can’t believe I wanted to…” He couldn’t even finish the sentence as his hips bucked and human spear twitched hard, spurting a small amount of clear liquid.

“You and me both,” Gilda admitted in some shame, unable to meet his eyes even as she couldn’t look away from his stature. “And I can’t believe I wanted you to do it. I’m sorry, Marco.”

“I’d be mad, except I would have...” He rubbed his hand behind his head. “Christ almighty, when he turned into the big guy, I was ready to…” his hips gave another involuntary buck.

She looked up sharply. “Then you really did rut Giraldi?”

“I, uh… yeah,” he admitted sheepishly, his shaft now visibly throbbing before her as he poured himself some water into a chalice on the counter and threw it back. “Thought I told you about that earlier… or maybe I just hinted at it? I don’t even remember now, but that’s part of the reason I had so much trouble with stuff early on. I knew I screwed him, even if I couldn’t remember specifics. Seemed to recall I dommed him good, though.”

“Dommed?”

“Dominated,” he explained in some embarrassment as he filled a bowl of water for her next. “It means I was on top and he was… well, the girl. And given I only half-remember it, I have no idea how the Archon guessed it.”

Her beak dropped open again as she accepted it, taking several gulps to try to cool her still-surging passions and cover her freshly heady thoughts. Then it wasn’t just fantasy? Marco really made an eagless out of GIRALDI? The idea of it alone was enough to send her excitement soaring again, as was the knowledge that her human mate had somehow sexually subdued the much larger earth griffon male, even without the benefit of a mating round!

“By my Ancestors above; I wish I could have seen that.” Or just now with Archex… she suppressed another shiver at the still-potent fantasy as she took another gulp.

“You did,” he assured her, putting his hand on her wingbase again; the touch alone almost caused her legs to buckle for how badly the large drone had left them both keyed up. “He made me gay for him, and the weird thing is, I don’t mind one bit—just please don’t tell Tara or Chris I said that! They’ll never let me live it down.”

“My beak is sealed, dweeb,” she promised, feeling her wings rise to full rigidity as he passed back the bowl, its forward edge beginning to rub suggestively against his naked rear. “So shall we?” She reached down her belly to begin fondling a teat before him, looking forward to feeling Marco’s talons against her increasingly mounded mammaries in place of her own.

“Love to.” His top garment unaffected by whatever odd fabric-weakening magic the Archon had cast, he carefully unslung his rifle and put it aside on the counter beside the pantry after removing the quiver and ejecting the loaded ‘bullet’, pointing the business end of it away from them the whole time he did. That accomplished, he removed his armor and shirt next, putting them in a pile beside the rifle.

“There. Now, where were we…?” he asked in a rhetorical air, turning partially towards her to show off his naked form and horizontally hanging organ, which was dangling freely before him.

Finally able to indulge without guilt, she answered him by rearing up and shoving him against the wall to aggressively kiss him. “Right about… here,” she answered as she pushed hard against him, raising her talons to knead his shoulders while his human hands found her wingbases in turn. Even better, she felt his spear pressed firmly between the upper set of her newly bulging belly breasts. It made space for itself between their still-swelling masses, nestling between them until it was pushing out the top.

Groaning, he began to thrust lightly up her belly, and between that and some of the Changeling pictures of teatplay she’d seen, she finally guessed what Marco meant by ‘take her tits’ during their earlier near-sex experience in the clearing.

When she made the connection, she shivered hard and her legs nearly buckled, finding herself trying to flash back to the night of the cider. She still couldn’t reach whatever memory her mind was trying to recover, but she somehow knew they had done it before. And that she had loved it, almost in spite of herself, to see her teats turned into tiercel tuck toys.

“M-Marco…” she called to him, her voice a croon as she was suddenly aware of little else but her taut and tingling teats and the feel of his spear against their inner surfaces, slipping beneath the rounded edges of their mounded masses. “To make up for everything, I want to do something special. So please. Take my ‘tits’.” She used the human slang for the first time. “Do them just like we saw in those pictures on the walls outside.”

She didn’t know if it was the cider she could smell in the air, the aftereffects of the Archon’s dangerously effective allure, or the simple fact that she really did want to do something special for him—both to celebrate surviving and atone for her earlier infidelity. But regardless of the reasons, she was more than ready to try it, even if it meant she’d be stuck on her back for a bit again thanks to her taut and trembling wings.

He gaped at her and stopped thrusting for a moment. “Sigurado ka? You’re sure, Gilda?” he hastily corrected his use of his native tongue.

“I am…” Pushing away, she carefully laid herself back before him on the soft and warm carpet—she didn’t know what material it was made of, but it was deliciously plush and even pillowy—to present her belly. She knew that meant she would be trapped on her back again until her excitement ebbed, but she didn’t care, letting him watch her self-pleasure for a few seconds as she cupped and kneaded her lower right mammary with one set of digits while tweaking her top left teat between her thumb and foretalon.

“Putang ina…” he murmured again to see her laid out before him, falling to his knees before her with his spear dangling over her lower belly. She watched him observe her as she moved sensuously beneath her own pleasuring paws, giving soft and needy trills. “Your teats are full-blown tits now… and they’re still growing!” he further marveled as they engorged further before his hungry eyes.

“That’s right. They’re all for you, Marco Lakan. And just so you know, I wouldn’t show my belly to anycreature but you. And Chris and Tara, of course,” she hastily amended, recalling a sudden image from the earlier encounter in the clearing of the normally tiercel-tucking Chris having groped Tara’s ‘boob’ from behind her back, to apparent mutual surprise and pleasure.

Wonder if he’d like to grope MINE? She suddenly flashed back to the depiction she’d seen outside of a griffon eagless having all her belly breasts groped at once by different sets of dragon talons, imagining they were human hands instead.

“I’ll be sure and let them know you said that,” Marco told her breathlessly as he got up long enough to slip a pillow from the bed under her head and then walked back around behind her while slowly stroking himself, his gaze all but devouring her. To Gilda’s great gratification, he looked to her like he was savoring the sight of her aroused eagless body before him, inviting her human mate to avail himself of her. “I’d love to see Chris discover the joys of tits. And pussy.”

As he spoke, he laid his organ over the top of her slit and began to grind its pulsing upper surface lightly against the sensitive nub there. It elicited a needy trill and shiver that passed through her entire body, starting at the base of her back before proceeding as a ripple of pleasure up her spine. The movement caused her now-impressive belly breasts to wobble hard and in tandem, her two pairs of uncia-long teats inscribing mirrored circular paths in the air a half-second apart that instantly caught Marco’s gaze.

“Pussy?” she screwed her face up at the word despite her excitement. “The Marines used that term, too. I take it ‘pussy’ refers to a nest?”

He grimaced slightly as his hands settled happily on her lowest set of mammaries, still thrusting his organ lightly over the top of her opening. “Y-yeah. Never mind why. It’s considered crude, and it’s not even the most vulgar term we use for it. Is, uh, yours still off-limits?” he wanted to know, leaving her appreciative that he’d asked her for permission first and not just tried to take it.

Especially since I’m not sure I would have stopped him if he did! she thought as she hesitated, wondering if there was any point in holding out for an actual mating round after all they’d been through. She could certainly make the case that he’d earned her fully by simple dint of fighting at her side and proving himself a warrior, and there was also the fact that she’d granted Karin Kazal access to her nest while lost in the moment. It was hardly fair to him, and yet…

And yet… she decided there was still a use to withholding it. “It is, sorry. I still want you to get good enough at fighting rounds to earn the right to rut me properly. As for why, it’ll give us both something to live for and a reason to fight all the harder,” she realized even as she told him, to what she was relieved to see was only mild disappointment. “But the rest of me is yours, Marco Lakan. Including my wings, teats, and tail.” She thrust her belly up at him.

“Can’t argue with your logic. I’ll live and train just for that! And there’s still plenty of your body to enjoy…” He bent over her to suckle at one of her lower teats like a cub, causing her to squirm and groan as the sensitive flesh was fondled and tugged at gently by his teeth.

“By the crows, you do that so well…” She didn’t know the words to describe the sensation in either Equish or Aeric, but she did know what she liked and what she wanted. “Harder, Marco. Bite and pull harder!” she implored him as she struggled to arch her back up into him despite her stiff wings. He obliged her eagerly, grasping the swollen mass of soft flesh around the hard and exquisitely erect nub to squeeze more blood into it, increasing its engorgement and sensitivity even further.

It sent shocks of pure pleasure through her as she felt her nest wink and water against his still-present spear, which she swore was dripping seed onto her fur just above its opening. Her mind starting to overheat again, she could only lie back and take it, her talons curling and pawing lightly at the air as he hit each teat in turn, worshiping both them and the greater mammary mass around them with his muzzle.

Worshiping her!

She moaned. She writhed. She even sensed herself squirt out the top of her nest at least once onto his human ‘balls’ as he moved further up her belly, sending her surging towards orgasm as he turned his surprisingly practiced attention on her upper set of teats next—and just how many human females had he been with before to get so good at this nearly unknown act to griffons? —but she held it off, not wanting to come until he’d had a chance to do what she’d invited him to.

The scent of cider hung heavy in the air around them again as her vision took on an intense and now-familiar pink cast; one that hadn’t even been present when the Archon was teasing them. Despite the rosy halo-like glow it gave Marco and the rest of her surroundings, it let her see and feel everything in exquisite detail, from his groping hands deliciously manipulating her mammaries to his spear now settling squarely between her lower set. If possible, she felt her teats engorge even more in his grasp, approaching and even exceeding Tara’s already-ample stature—at least before the cider enhanced her.

Sure wish she was here to see this! The disjointed thought flashed through Gilda’s head. Her spirits soaring and inhibitions evaporating under the cider’s effects, she resolved then that she’d invite the human eagless along with Chris and Marco to have her once the former were fully healed, in order to complete the aborted act they’d started in the forest clearing before going to Bale. Ancestors know they’ve earned it—earned ME! But here and now…

She laid her head back into the pillow and closed her eyes to concentrate on the sensations and the love of her human mate, though she did notice the glitter of gemstones in the ceiling in the low light, which were starting to glow weakly. Guessing they were the means the Changelings used to ‘harvest’ love, she vowed that she and Marco would give them all they needed as repayment for saving her soldiers, and even found she couldn’t fully dismiss the idea of being with the Archon.

Perhaps it was just her aroused state and the inhibition-shattering effects of the cider in her system, but she found herself amenable in that instant to everything from sharing Archex with Marco to watching her mate rut Giraldi to even orally pleasuring Guerrero, as she’d had the urge when he’d accidentally groped her in the cellar at Bale.

And from there, her flights of sexual fancy expanded further to imagine herself in some of the outside wall murals she’d seen, her mind focusing on the one picture of a griffon eagless being groped and fondled by multiple sets of dragon talons.

Her mating-fevered psyche changing them to human hands once more, she suddenly saw herself receiving the sensual attention of not just Marco but the entire Marine squad, boosting their morale by allowing them to grope and fondle her form to their heart’s content. She fantasized about them caressing everything from her feathers and flight muscles to the quartet of teats that Marco so loved, even inserting their soft talons into her nest and tail.

She trilled and shivered at the sudden vision, which only encouraged Marco more. Finally finished giving her teats oral attention, he pulled back to stare down at her with a dazed expression, shifting up her belly enough to lay his spear down the middle of her mammaries.

“Damn, girlfriend…” was all he could say as he gave her wingbase some attention with his hands next, feeling them quiver beneath his soft and deliciously groping digits. “Four tits, two wings, a clit, a slit, and a tail? Far as I’m concerned, you’re a lot more fun than human women,” he further told her, now straddling her with his sac resting squarely on the top of her slit and his spear jutting between both sets of her belly breasts, barely visible with the end of the organ poking out the top.

Gilda gave a rare purring sound at that. “You’re just making me like you even more, dweeb,” she told him with a half-hearted glower. “Now stop stalling and take my tits! And if I enjoy it enough, then maybe I won’t tell Tara you said that griffon eaglesses are better than human ones,” she added with an evil grin.

“You wouldn’t…” He recoiled in mock horror as he fondled her flight muscles.

“Oh, yes I would!” she teased as he picked up her talons and placed them against her upper set of teats, making her cup her own mammaries to push their greater mass against that of his shaft.

“Then since I don’t want to get smacked by her again, I’ll just have to make sure you ‘enjoy it enough’…” he decided with a purr of his own as he did the same with his hands on her lower set and began to thrust lightly between them, letting her feel and savor the unfamiliar sensations as much as she could.

“Ancestors…” Gilda stared down at herself in wonder as they registered. She watched in keen interest as the head of his organ nearly disappeared when his hips pulled back, only for the last two uncia of it to reemerge out the middle of her mammaries when he thrusted forward again, pointed right at her head. She marveled at the sexual stimulation it gave all four of her belly breasts at once, which were only accented further by the talons of herself and Marco on them, squeezing and kneading them as he continued to thrust between them.

“Fuck…” Marco was already gritting his teeth hard to feel what she knew was his own rapture at the unlikely act. “Feels so good… I’m so keyed up that I ain’t gonna last long at this rate, girlfriend…” he just managed to tell her through increasingly ragged pants.

“Me neither, but I don’t care…” Gilda told him, her own breathing coming equally quick. “I want this. I want you. And I want to do this over and over again…” she said as she continued to stare wide-eyed down her belly at her unfolding subjugation, feeling more memories trying to rise up from the night of the cider. The vision of multiple human hands on her obscenely swollen teats flashed through her memory again, but this time they were replaced by a mixture of human and… griffon ones?

For an instant she saw two sets of foreign talons on her and a pair of tiercel spears taking her teats from opposite sides—Giraldi’s and FORTRAKT’S? she realized in only momentary shock and fresh fantasy—before the memory was scattered in favor of the one she was making now.

She pushed her pillowy flesh even harder into the sides of Marco’s organ to form a full tunnel around it, to which he responded with a groan and a series of harder thrusts between them. Each additional movement tweaked her teats and sent fresh thrills through her, driving her ever-closer to orgasm.

Her back beginning to arch hard as she sensed Marco begin to tense as well, she spared just enough mental effort to thank her Ancestors for delivering her not just from the Cloven, but back into the arms of her human mate, renewing her vow to them that she would never again turn down sex with a worthy partner.

As if in response, she felt a wave of fresh warmth wash over her like divine favor, leaving her feeling like she was in the glow of Valhalla itself. But it was lost as a powerful and irresistible climax rose up from not her nest but her four bulging belly breasts to claim her.

It once again crashed over her like an ocean wave, only this time, there was no illicit pleasure in it, other than that of performing the previously unheard-of act. She felt Marco give one final string of human cursewords as he came hard as well, spurting all over her feathered chest and even onto her face, with more than one streamer making its way directly into her wide-open beak as she announced her own rapture with a loud and passionate trill of pleasure.

She wasn’t sure how long her climax lasted, only that she never wanted it or the moment to end. But end it finally did, leaving her rigid and arched body slumping back to the carpeted floor as Marco nearly fell off her, having to brace himself against the rug with his hands.

She was only barely cognizant of him at that moment, feeling herself all but floating from the lingering rapture and suddenly very close to sleep. Her mind in a twilight state, she beheld what looked like a young and quite naked human version of herself in the room. Her seeming twin was gaping down at the scene with her and Marco in visible shock, gesticulating with soft human talons while speaking to someone off to the side.

When Gilda turned her head fractionally to see who her strange counterpart was talking to, she beheld what she could only describe as an exceptionally tall and mature human woman version of Rainbow Dash in odd skintight attire and bearing prismatic wings, staring smugly down at her and Marco over crossed arms.

“But he’s so dweeby…” her teenage human self complained somewhat petulantly while Dashie’s doppelgänger just laughed and Gilda smiled, not knowing if what she saw was real but also not caring.

That he is… she granted as the strange vision faded away. But I love him anyway! was her final thought as a blissful sleep claimed her.

Gilda didn’t know how long she slept, but found herself feeling infinitely better when she finally woke up at the feeling of Marco stirring against her.

“Ancestors…” she breathed softly as she licked his half-dried seed off her beak, marveling that she’d once again gotten off from teat stimulation alone!

“How ya doing, Gilds?” he asked her in a tired but affectionate tone, kissing the back of her head.

“Crows take it… thanks to you and those murals outside, I think I’m addicted to ‘tit jobs’,” she admitted in only mild disgust that she was enjoying what was basically another creature dominating her, using her teats as toys.

“Oh, yeah? I’ll be sure and tell Tara you said that,” he teased before pulling back slightly, his organ only barely softened as it continued to ooze onto the junction of her fur and feathers. “And if you like, I’ll clean you up?”

“Sure…” she said slightly dreamily as she continued to lay back, basking in the afterglow of the act. Despite his offer, it was another minute before they parted, with Marco going to the bathroom to find a towel.

When he got there, he audibly gasped. “Holy shit… forget Catlais, we should have just come here! I mean, look at this place!” Marco marveled as he glanced around, opening the back door before sticking his head into a sunlit room where Gilda could hear what sounded like a small waterfall.

“That’s not a tub, they’ve got a fucking pool back here complete with plants, a waterfall and everything! And there’s more of those murals, too. So, Queen Lepidoptes uses this for ‘business negotiations’, eh?” he said with a chuckle. “Judging by those pics, she must be one hell of a negotiator.”

“If that Archon is any indication, she is,” Gilda granted as she pulled herself back up, admiring his human flanks from behind as he stood at the entrance to the washroom. Or given Marco’s description, was it a spa? “Crows take it, he nearly got us both.”

“He would have if he didn’t pull back. He wasn’t lying, Gilda—he’s so fucking good at seduction that I don’t think either of us could have resisted him otherwise. Hell, I don’t even think your Queen could have,” Marco admitted as he bent over to sample the water of what looked like a secluded pond-like pool. It was lined with grasses and even lily pads around its periphery, though she noticed a stone shelf with various bottles of different colors and labels was visible beside the waterfall in back, which she guessed took the place of a shower.

“Water’s warm, and come to think of it, we really do need a bath. Wanna have some fun in the tub, girlfriend?” he suggested hopefully, staying deliberately bent over in display.

Though the thought warmed Gilda’s already-hot cheeks further—the idea sounded doubly delicious for how dirty she was and how badly she needed to preen her filthy and occasionally askew wingfeathers—she shook her head, walking into the room behind him, her erect wingtips scraping the sides of the opened double-doors.

“Tempting. Very tempting. But I’ll pass, at least for now. Reason being, I don’t want to be presentable for the Tribune. I want him to see how beat up and bloody we are after those battles.” She reared up to lean against his back with her talons on his wingless shoulders, squeezing them lightly as she nuzzled the nape of his neck, inhaling his human scent deeply.

He glanced back at her and nodded, patting her left set of talons with his right hand. “I can respect that. Guess I’ll meet him the same way. Hope you don’t mind if I’m a bit sweaty and smelly, then…” He leaned back into her teasing tongue, which briefly found the inside of his ear; it tasted a bit tangy as well as salty. “We’ll save the bathing for later, then.”

“Works for me.” She scanned the insides of the incredibly opulent washroom from over his shoulder, which easily outdid any spa or sauna she’d ever seen. He hadn’t been lying about the explicit images on the walls there either, though they were water-based as befit the room; a few even showed changelings having sex with rarely seen hippogriffs!

Though Gilda found herself admiring their exotic forms and erotic poses, which were depicted in both their land and sea forms, she felt a bit dirty for doing so. Hippogriffs were generally looked upon as something of a rival race to griffons, given they had an equally strong military culture and had aided Equestria against the invasion of the Gryphon Empire.

Their races might have made up in the centuries after the war, but given the hippogriff nation was located on a remote island complex in the southern Sea of Serenity, the Kingdom kept no contact with them outside of occasionally meeting a few of their athletes during the Equestria Games. “So, what do you think?” Marco motioned to those images, pushing his rear back into her still-enlarged teats for a moment and wriggling against them.

“Well, I guess if you’re into sea ponies…” she said nonchalantly, noting that their females had four belly breasts instead of two like Equestrian mares. There were at least a couple images of them being shown with griffons, with a particularly notable instance catching her eye of a griffon eagless and hippogriff hen—that was a griffon nickname for them; she didn’t know what hippogriff females were actually called—performing the swirl with beaks parting each other’s nest as front talons closed on each other’s swollen teats; the changeling was the griffon in that case.

“Is that what they are?” Marco sounded mystified. “Well, I do kind of like the girl-on-girl action there…” He pointed at the picture Gilda had been staring fixedly at.

“You would,” she teased as she pushed off him to fall back into a sitting position with her head just above the level of his bare flanks. “But that’s okay. So do I…” she admitted in an increasingly husky tone as she used her thumb talons to spread his cheeks so she could see what lay between them, from the back of his balls to the slight ridge that started from their base at the very center of his cleft. It led all the way back to his anal opening, which wasn’t as prominent as it was on other creatures but was still pleasingly puffy.

He was still very hot and sweaty, and yet, she couldn’t get enough of his scent, both familiar and exotic. To say nothing of spiced by the cider he excreted along with his sweat. “You smell and taste good to me, Marco Lakan. Even all that explosive powder ash from your cannons on you is a good odor. Makes you smell like a warrior.”

“Wow. Who would have thought that gunpowder was the way to a griffon’s heart?” he chuckled as he bent over slightly to present himself, bracing his hands on an overhanging branch. “I’ll gladly wear it and some gun oil in place of cologne. I guess we still have some time, so, uh... anything else you’d like to do?” He waved his rear in her face.

She got a mischievous look. “I was thinking… this,” she announced as she stuck her beak between his spread cheeksand began licking the entire area from the back of his balls all the way to his anal area, causing him to groan and fall to all fours before her as she lapped up all of the salty-sweet sheen she could, holding his hips up with her talons. “And since one good oral act deserves another…”

Focusing her attention near the top of his exposed cleft, she didn’t hesitate to first bathe the sensitive sphincter and then stick her tongue inside him right through his sweat-slickened opening, gratified when he stiffened and gave the squeal of a teenage eagless followed by a surprisingly griffon-like squawk.

Hearing him gasp and groan, she continued to pleasure him there until his quickly crumbling resistance was reduced to nothing, leaving him only able to try to squirm and crawl weakly away from the intense but illicit pleasure. But in the end, he couldn’t as it proved overwhelming, causing him to call her name and even invoke the human gods as he came hard onto the floor beneath him.

“Damn, girl…” he told her in dazed wonder after he’d recovered again. “I didn’t think you’d do me there!”

“If you like it, that’s good enough for me, Marco Lakan,” she said as she licked her beak, then crouched before him to present her own rear with tail held high. “So now if you’d like to return the favor…?”

Another hour and two more lovemaking sessions later, Gilda was awoken not by a knock, but by a gentle pressure on her mind followed by an increase in the light level of the room.

“Wakey, wakey…” She heard the amused voice of Archon Archex in her head as much as her ears. Her unfocused eyes fluttered to find him standing by the bed they’d eventually ended up on with what looked like a waiter’s tray, on which sat a drink bowl and a mug along with some form of bottle held in his magical grasp. “It’s time to get up, Centurion, though I see Mister Lakan already is.” He nodded down to where Marco’s renewed erection had ended up between her legs; its shaft pressed up against the entrance of her equally aroused nest.

Despite that and their very compromising position, Gilda could only groan and glare, to which the large male Changeling chuckled and began pouring them both a drink. “I’m sorry, I truly am. We would be more than happy to let you two rest and rut for the massive amount of love we have already collected, but it’s nearly noon, and we’ve just received word that the Tribune is on his way.”

“Fuck the Tribune…” Marco growled tiredly, not caring that he was naked and aroused before the drone. “Not literally, of course.”

“Speak for yourself, Marco Lakan. Tribune tiercels are a particular favorite of mine for how much I find they enjoy not being in command for a bit. But it would seem that your time here was spent well.” Archex nodded towards the collection of crystals embedded in the ceiling, which were now brightly glowing.

He then helped them sit up with gentle magical pressure on Gilda’s neck and lower back, away from her wings. “Here. This will help restore your energy and alertness, at least for a time. And it should also help subside your excitement—yes, hard as it is to believe, not everything we possess is meant to increase it.”

“What’s in it?” Gilda asked as she struggled to shake off her sleep and sit up, though she didn’t move her hindquarters right away, wishing for a moment that Marco’s still-swollen spear would accidentally slip inside her when he tried to push back. Can’t blame him for that, right…?

“Be assured that it’s nothing magical or alcoholic. Just a strong jolt of a special coffee strain we commissioned from the zebras, combined with a flavored sweet syrup of our own make and simple soda water. Our younglings find it quite invigorating and refreshing,” he told them as she heard it fizz when it hit the bowl.

Her nose twitched appreciatively as the switchel-like scent reached her. “That smells good.”

“I promise that it tastes good, too. It may interest you to know that this is another item we’ve considered selling to griffons in an effort to more easily make money for our various… business ventures. The joke among our kind is that for as much energy as it imparts, it will ‘give you wings’ if you don’t already have them,” he noted in amusement, causing Marco to suddenly cough hard as he took a sip from his mug. “And if that worries you, Mister Lakan, be assured that description is not meant to be taken literally. Though if you like, we do have potions for that.”

“As fun as having wings might be, I’ll pass. As for this, I think you guys might be sued for trademark infringement if you tried selling it on Earth…” he mused as he propped himself up on an elbow to take a longer draw. “Whoa. Damn, that is good. Try it, Gilds.”

“Okay.” Though Gilda had no idea what Marco meant, she accepted her bowl as it was placed on the bed beside her and raised her head enough to dip her beak in it. To her surprise, it tasted not unlike the overly-sugared sodas she’d occasionally enjoyed with Rainbow at malt shops in Cloudsdale, if a bit less sweet and more stimulating.

Mere seconds after taking it, she felt it soaking into her system swiftly, causing her talons to flex against the sheets and herself to stretch her stiff and still-sore body out hard.

For just a moment, the movement caused the head of Marco’s only slightly-softened spear to press directly into the entrance of her still-engorged nest. But before she could do anything about it, it slipped back out, though she froze briefly along with her human mate, who took a ragged breath as his spear and her teats swiftly surged back to full engorgement in direct view of Archex himself, the former poised and eager to enter her.

None of which was missed by the perceptive Archon, who studied them with an almost academic interest. “Remarkable. Overcoming the effects of the drink and self-enhancing your own sexual attributes? I daresay you two would make excellent drones, and I would greatly enjoy seeing an example of human lovemaking so I can both bask in it and later copy it. Unfortunately…”

He bodily separated them with his aura, moving them to opposite edges of the bed without touching or stimulating anything untoward. “I cannot, and neither can you.”

“Hey!” they both squawked in protest, to which he met their glare head on with his pupil-less gaze.

“I’m truly sorry, Centurion and Mister Lakan. But there is no time for this. Tribune Cipio will be here in mere minutes, and the Queen believes that you should not disrespect him more than you already have. You demanded his presence, and he has come. You should be there to meet him along with her and your subordinates.”

Gilda relented at his words, suddenly angry at herself that she had to be lectured by a Changeling of all creatures on self-control. “You’re right. Sorry. We have to get dressed, Marco,” she called over her shoulder to him. “We’ll finish this later.”

“We’d better,” he groused as he sat up facing away from her, upending the mug’s contents into his open maw. “Maybe it’s just as well, though. Because now I’m gonna be even grumpier when I see him. Can’t wait to say exactly what I think of him for endangering us like that…”

By the time she and Marco emerged back in their dirty clothes and armor beneath the noon sun, which was still shrouded by a smoky pall that it only showed weakly through with an orange hue, she found her available human and griffon soldiers standing in formation behind Queen Lepidoptes.

Fortrakt, Giraldi and Miles Fortuna were there as well along with a returned Obsidian Ire. She stood at the head of the drakina contingent, though she had very deliberately left an empty spot in their line for the missing Red Hot, who was still being healed below. In fact, it was only then Gilda noticed that all the formations were only half-full, studded with empty spots for dead or wounded soldiers.

Though she didn’t have a chance to ask him, she guessed it was on Giraldi’s instructions, wishing to emphasize their awful losses to the Tribune. Taking her place at the Queen’s left in front of the lowered gangplank, she was finally able to look out over the field below and see that somewhat to her surprise, her instructions had been obeyed—Tribune Cipio stood at the head of a mixed century in formal attire along with several civilian officials, though he was flanked by a decade of heavily armed Paladins and further defended by two mages.

A quartet of Kingdom flags fluttered in the breeze along with the standards of the City and Southern Territory, to which the Queen had answered by raising her own rarely seen standard to the top mast of her airship. It was orange and blue with crossed sabers beneath a helmeted Changeling head bracketed by their distinctive dragonfly wings.

Well, what were you expecting, Grizelda Behertz? Crossed phalluses over a nest-shaped opening that’s studded with pink hearts? She asked herself somewhat derisively to see the martial design, realizing that the Changelings would require a military tradition of their own in order to survive among griffons.

“So nice of you to join us, Centurion,” Fortrakt said slightly testily as she took her place beside him; he spoke in a low and barely audible voice without turning towards her. “I was worried that you were stuck on Marco’s spear.”

“Don’t be jealous, cub,” she replied with a wry note in a whisper, but he didn’t seem to appreciate the tease, giving her a brief glare.

“Of you getting to have sex? No. Of you getting to sleep…?” he snapped back under his breath, causing her to fall silent, realizing only then she’d indulged herself while ordering her subordinates to stay up and write reports. “Forgive my tone, Centurion. But I really need to rest.”

“I know,” she said in a far more subdued voice. “I promise that I’ll release you and everycreature else from duty after this. And I’ll stay up all afternoon to make up for it.” And besides, after drinking that weird energy brew, I’m not sure I could sleep anyway…

They both fell silent as Giraldi called for attention and all present stood up straight and tall. The two Archons then descended to meet the visiting force in place of their Queen, who remained on the ship she could not leave. Salutes were exchanged—the Changelings used the griffon kind—followed by a series of words she couldn’t hear over the smoky breeze.

Face to Face
Baki OST - Confrontation (10 minute extended HQ)

Introductions were then made of the civilian officials by a thinly smiling but clearly smoldering Cipio, who Gilda noticed glanced up and glared at her for a moment. But then abruptly, the two Archons attacked, with Archex whipping a sword around to cleave a Paladin helmet and the head beneath it in two, while the other released some kind of chain hidden up his armored sleeve with a spike on the end.

It went right through a noble’s eye and burst out the back of his skull. Weapons were raised in shock, but then just as quickly lowered as the blade and spike were withdrawn from the slain griffons to reveal Cloven parasites impaled upon them.

Beaks dropped open to see it. “But… they were alive!” one of the mages said in disbelief, and Gilda shivered at the implications.

Then it’s possible for the Cloven to corrupt LIVING hosts? She had no idea how they were going to combat that until the Archons explained that Changelings could detect the presence of Cloven parasites, ordering the entire formation to hold still until they were scanned. Crows take it… now what?

Thankfully, there were no other compromised griffons in the clearly unnerved formation, who were held at arrowpoint from hovering drones until the search was complete. “As this one was in possession of a standard ibexian anchor beacon, they were likely going to teleport in a force to assassinate you and the Queen once you were together,” the other Archon noted idly as they found the gem in the civilian’s robes.

“Though I do not know how the Cloven managed to start controlling live creatures, it matters not. We can still mitigate this threat, but it must be done immediately. We will need to scan every one of your soldiers and staff to make sure we get them all. With your permission, Tribune, we will send a century of drones to check your headquarters, and then have turma-sized patrols overfly your battlements to look for Cloven puppets there.” The large chain-wielding drone gave orders like he was an officer himself.

The suddenly wan and slightly pale Tribune gave his permission immediately, though he requested that they stay in disguise as they did so. With a nod, the hovering drones turned into griffon Talons with bursts of green fire that consumed them, earning startled flinches from watching griffons.

Once they were all shapeshifted, they took flight with a single one of Cipio’s subordinates in a surprisingly practiced sky griffon flying formation. The two Archons then escorted the town’s Maior along with a Tribune and a single aide—the Optio adjutant Gilda had met before—up the gangplank to meet Queen Lepidoptes herself.

The Queen stood regally in full battle armor to receive them; a quartet of armored drones bracketing her in front. Upon reaching the top of the ramp, the three visitors bowed low before her and flared their wings, if somewhat nervously in the case of the Maior and Optio Virgo.

Tribune Cipio, however, did not flinch from her presence, though Gilda did see a wary note in his green-eyed gaze that she wasn’t quite able to categorize. As he got closer, she noted that he no longer wore just the copper chain that gave him the ability to direct civilian security forces, but also a gold one that granted him the authority to command the Knights and—by dint of their being a subordinate service—the Talons.

Though surprised to see it, Gilda supposed she shouldn’t have been, given he was the commanding officer of the Aricia garrison and its district. From what she’d heard, thousands of soldiers from other service branches had fled fallen bases for Aricia and lost their commanders along the way. As the only ranking officer left, there would have been no choice but to make him their leader.

Still, it was very unusual to see even a senior Auxiliary Guard officer given authority to command the Knights, no matter how experienced or respected. Which only spoke to how dire the situation the Kingdom faced was, scrambling to reestablish a broken chain of command using whatever surviving officers were available regardless of service branch.

Despite that, he was in formal military uniform, though Gilda guessed from the fact it wasn’t as tight-fitting as usual that he was wearing a layer of armor beneath his dark blue cape and tunic. Once the Queen had returned the bow with a dip of her head, he rose to face her, pulling out a command crystal and speaking into it while facing her.

It caused his voice to boom out over the remote anchorage, equally audible within its area of magical influence. “Greetings and welcome to Aricia, Queen Scylla Lepidoptes the eighth! Your hive has lived among us for centuries, and yet it is only now that we make formal contact. It is truly a momentous occasion, even if it is brought upon by the most trying of times,” he began.

“I sincerely apologize for not meeting you sooner, but these are… exceptional circumstances that require severe security precautions. And I believe you can now understand just why I didn’t want to chance seeing you before this.” He looked ruefully over his shoulder at the remains of two felled Cloven corpses, who were already being incinerated by the pair of Magus.

“Trying times indeed,” the Queen answered, using her magic to boost her own voice to booming. “And ones that require painful sacrifices from us all. But it is my sincerest hope that out of the ashes of war will come a new beginning for both our races, where my Hive can at long last step out of the shadows and live among you openly. To that end, I wish you and all griffons to know that we fully intend to fight and die at your side, lending our strength and magical skills to ensure the Kingdom’s survival.”

Not a bad response. I wonder if she rehearsed it? For all I know, she’s been saving that speech for centuries… Gilda thought idly, noting that Cipio hadn’t looked at her since boarding the vessel.

But he had glanced at Marco and Imlay at least once, with his eyes settling for a moment on their cannons. Marco himself was standing with the Marines, though she’d overheard Imlay order him to ‘keep his fucking mouth shut’ when the Tribune passed, threatening to put him on laundry detail if he didn’t.

She smiled at the memory before tuning back into the conversation. “... is to your enormous credit. And that you have already aided our efforts has been noted with great gratitude and appreciation, as is the fact that you have fled your longtime home,” the Tribune gave what sounded to Gilda like an equally scripted answer. “For doing so, the Queen herself sees fit to honor you.”

He then sat back and unfurled a scroll. “By order of Her Highness, Queen Molyneux herself, we are instructed to give you the full honors due a visiting head of state and welcome you as an important ally in our struggle against a mutual and murderous foe. She affords your airship the status of embassy, and when we emerge victorious, she fully intends to reward your aid with land and wealth, up to and including a formal recognition of your Hive’s sovereignty.”

Despite the fact she was supposed to be standing at attention, the news caused Gilda to smile as the Tribune then passed the Changeling monarch a scroll bearing the royal seal of Queen Molyneux, which she supposed had been delivered by dragonfire courtesy of friendly drakes or drakinas.

That means he complained to the Queen about my orders and was then told I was right—that he should greet her properly and treat her as an ally! I bet that hurt, Tribune… She couldn’t wait to rub his beak in it later.

A few more pleasantries were exchanged and a speech was then made by the city’s Maior, an older eagless of minor nobility. She bade the Queen welcome in a slightly awkward air, seemingly having trouble looking at her. She offered her what little hospitality they could “under the circumstances,” inviting her to visit her heavily guarded house later once security arrangements could be made.

To her relief, Queen Lepidoptes respectfully declined, explaining that due to its “sensitive cargo”, she could not leave the ship. In its place, she offered to entertain the Maior herself more directly later, up to and including dinner and a tour of the vessel.

The initial greetings concluded, the Tribune was then invited by the Queen to meet and inspect her civilians and guests, though Gilda could easily tell that he didn’t want to be there any longer than he had to. She wasn’t sure if it was out of distaste for the Queen’s presence or simply a desire to get back to work defending the city, but it would also have been impolite to refuse her.

So following her lead, he allowed Queen Lepidoptes to guide her from formation to formation, starting with Optio Giraldi, who he greeted at least half-warmly. Gilda could just overhear him asking why her former First Spear refused a long-overdue promotion to Centurion and command of a century, to which Giraldi replied that it only honored him when others were more deserving.

“I did not lead us through this nightmare, sir, acting with incredible ability and honor in her first-ever command. Centurion Behertz did. And you slandered her by not acknowledging her efforts. To say nothing of the efforts of our soldiers,” he told the Tribune point-blank.

Whatever was said after that was too low for her to hear before Queen Lepidoptes led the Tribune on, though Gilda thought she might have briefly heard feathers ruffling. He was then introduced to the Queen’s senior military officials, which included what they called a ‘Captain’ and ‘Commander’ in Equish. Gilda gathered from what she overheard that improbably, the Changelings had not one but two military service branches despite their Hive’s small size, involving a ‘Guard’ and something called the ‘Silencers’.

With regards to the latter, she’d noticed that a few of the drones were not blue or orange-trimmed, but black with even their normally green pupils showing no color at all. They also tended to be armed with twin blades and a bevy of other items, leaving her wondering if they were somehow equivalent to the Ravens in function.

Then the Changelings have assassins, too? She was momentarily incredulous, then recalled stories from the long-ago conflict with the ponies of drones stalking and slaying high-ranked Imperial officials. They know how to make love, but for the simple sake of survival, I guess they also need to know how to make war…

After that, Tribune Cipio was introduced to Marco, Imlay and his available Marines, of whom only eight stood in line with the rest still being treated below. To her relief, Marco deferred to Imlay, who answered the Tribune’s questions respectfully. And when asked about their combat capabilities, he said that by Gilda’s order, a demonstration of their weapons was already arranged.

But the Tribune ended the conversation somewhat curtly on that note, saying only that he would try to find time for it later. After that came the surviving Ravens, and to Gilda’s surprise, Miles Fortuna was equally short with Cipio when he greeted her, saying only that the Tribune should “read her report” if he wished to know her opinion on the matter. The Queen also wisely steered him clear of Obsidian Ire, who was slouching off to the side with her sisters and glaring at him.

It was only then, after he’d seen the Talon and Knight formations to witness their casualties and get a sense of their anger, that he was led back to the fore of the formation to see Gilda herself.

“Centurion Grizelda Behertz,” the Tribune acknowledged with a cool look as she and Fortrakt saluted him crisply while staring straight ahead. “Congratulations on your promotion. A rise in rank was perhaps overdue for you, though I am surprised that you became a Centurion so swiftly.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said perfunctorily, baring her throat as much to show off her command chain as acknowledge the compliment. And though she would normally have left it there when being inspected by a superior, she decided to start needling him immediately. “I am pleased that my orders to you were carried out so promptly and obediently despite the difficulties involved. Be assured that I will note as much in my report to the Queen.”

As she watched, the Tribune’s beak clenched as his cheeks went red and his crestfeathers flared hard; she wished she could turn her head enough to see Fortrakt’s reaction, who she was certain was now stifling a smile. “It wasn’t your orders I was obeying, Behertz. It was the Queen’s.” He raised his voice to make sure nearby griffons heard him.

“As you clearly tried to go over my head to her, she concurred with my instructions, as I knew she would,” Gilda replied smugly, her deliberately insubordinate tone baiting him further. “She also clearly agrees with me that you were acting irresponsibly and dishonorably with regards to the Changelings. And I have no doubt that once she knows the facts, she will further concur just how incredibly idiotic you were to endanger the humans.”

His eyes narrowed and feathers ruffled. “You have a very outsized opinion of your own influence, Behertz. One I will relieve you of soon, once this little diplomatic affair is finished. I do not brook disobedience in wartime, and I fully intend to make an example of you.”

Gilda was unimpressed. “You can insult and threaten me all you like, but you’re ultimately here because I told you to be, Tribune. And by all the Ancestors who aided us this past day when you didn’t, I don’t care if it costs me my chain and rank. I don’t even care if it gets me thrown in the mines. I’m going to make sure you know exactly how crow-damningly stupid you were to risk the humans like that,” she told him to his face, relishing being able to backtalk like she was a teenager once more. “And then I’m going to make sure that you can’t ever do it again.”

“Are you quite through destroying your own career yet, Behertz?” he asked her acidly.

“No, sir.” She broke her attention stance and looked him in the eye, dropping her voice enough to make sure no nearby griffons other than Fortrakt could hear her. “If nothing else, I hope you’ve taken note that nocreature here is happy with you, Tribune Cipio. The reason is that they know how foolish your orders were, and what it could have cost,” she grated out the words through a clenched beak of her own, then stretched out her neck to go nose to nose with him, her posture low and wings starting to flare in anger.

The Tribune looked ready to grab her by her armored collar and throw her over the side, but he restrained himself, perhaps only due to the presence of the Queen listening in beside them.

“So heed my words and heed them well, sir. If you don’t want to be humiliated in front of your own troops by a public demonstration of human firepower that shows them directly how big a crow-damned fool you were, then I suggest you quit posturing like an overstuffed Paladin peacock with a spear up his rear… and come with me immediately.”

Before he could reply, she heard a stifled snicker at the dig from Fortrakt, which immediately gained the Tribune’s attention and ire.

Turning, she saw him smirking despite his tired features, which he didn’t erase even after the Tribune stepped in front of him. “Am I to take it that you agree with her insubordination, Decurion?” he tried to intimidate Fortrakt in her place, but he wasn’t having it, either.

“Sir. Yes, sir. We all do,” he told him without hesitation despite an audible quaver in his voice. “With due respect to your rank and station, every word she said was true. You were a crow-damned fool in risking the humans, and your actions could have cost us everything!” He was shaking but also standing straight as he said it.

Gilda was impressed, recognizing that talking back like that went against every fiber of his being. Wow, cub. I just hope that if I’m relieved of duty, you don’t go down with me!

When Tribune Cipio looked ready to not just snarl a reply but order his arrest on the spot, Queen Lepidoptes herself intervened. “With greatest respect, Tribune, I strongly suggest that you accept the Centurion’s offer. Passions are running understandably high right now, but these issues cannot be resolved standing in a receiving line. She is right that it is time for you both to talk, so I also invite you to do so. You may use my personal meeting room for the purpose, which is below.”

“That is more than acceptable,” Gilda told him through a glower. “I trust you agree, Tribune?”

“As I am instructed by Queen Molyneux to give you every consideration, I will do as you wish, Queen Lepidoptes,” he said shortly. “Fine, we’ll talk. But by our Queen and realm, don’t expect this to end well for you, Behertz…”

Since the next chapter in story order is the T-rated chapter 33, click on the link below to be taken to chapter 34:

—Firesight

===> next: Chapter 34

33: Reunions (T-rated)

Author's Note

Welcome back to C&C! First and foremost, this it the T-rated version of chapter 33. If you want the M-rated version, go back one chapter.

Despite the fact that this chapter is heavily sanitized, sex is imminent in the opening sections and there will be at least some suggestion of it in places. But the acts themselves are glossed over and not vividly described, almost entirely happening off-screen. Nevertheless, don’t be surprised by hints of it here and there.

As to why I didn’t cut the sections out entirely, the reason is there is some new Changeling lore and worldbuilding present here that I want all readers to know, and you will also learn a little about our Archon escort along the way. Needless to say, the Changelings have a rather unique outlook on things that you’ll start learning about here.

—Firesight

33: Reunions (T-rated)

Down Time
Love Making Music : Romantic Saxophone Music, Sensual Mindset, Background Music, Instrumental Music

As the pink in her vision continued to grow, Gilda found her impatience to be alone with Marco rising in tandem with her excitement. And to her surprise, the presence of the large Changeling drone leading them wasn’t helping.

Her interest in male company still up and eager to be indulged, she found her gaze wandering over his large and lithe form repeatedly; she even sniffed at the air behind him to try to pick up a hint of his exotic musk.

Thankfully, Archon Archex himself—and was ‘Archon’ a name or a title? —seemed unaware of her interest. “This way, please.” He invited them through the door, cutting off sound from the catcalling Marines and teasingly trilling griffons, then closed and locked it behind them. As the lights within it came up, she realized it wasn’t a room he had led them to, but another short corridor with much more ornate surroundings, including some surprisingly sexual images on the walls.

They were carved out of multicolored chitin showing Queens and drones alike cavorting not just with each other but various races, all showing enhanced attributes. They were even backlit by some form of magical glow which illuminated them like sunlight through colored glass, reminding Gilda of pictures she’d seen of the interior of Canterlot Castle, where the windowed walls showed momentous events from pony history.

Look at that… they even know about human-style teatplay! she further noticed, picking out a picture showing an ibex doe that displayed just that. Didn’t the humans have a name for that act? she somehow recalled.

She wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she also didn’t have much time to dwell on it, unable to tear her eyes away from the walls around them. By the crows, even those Neighponese comics Rainbow and I read weren’t as explicit as these pictures! Gilda couldn’t help but marvel, noting that Marco seemed enrapt as well.

She noted his gaze seemed to linger on images of the male drones rutting males of other races, until he abruptly tore his eyes away and shook his head hard, giving Gilda a nervous look. “So, uh… if you don’t want the interior and all this art to be known, aren’t you worried that anybody you bring down here for ‘business negotiations’ is going to tell?” he asked the question Gilda wanted to, to which Archon Archex smiled.

“Of course. Disguise and desire are ways of life for us, Marco Lakan, and are incorporated into all facets of our existence right down to the interiors of our structures. It is extremely rare—and speaking for myself, quite refreshing—that we may reveal ourselves to outsiders and greet them as we truly are.” He returned the hallway and pictures to their original explicit incarnations. “Be honored that we allow you to see this. But please return that honor by keeping our confidence when you leave.”

“No problem…” Marco said through a suddenly dry throat; Gilda could see how painfully aroused he was at not only their earlier encounter, but their surroundings. “I, uh, really like them.”

“Me too…” Gilda admitted slightly wanly as she continued to study the well-rendered scenes.

“Thank you. As you might guess, they are here not just for decoration, but to aid the process of extracting love. It is also worth noting that everything you see here is not just fantasy—they depict encounters that truly happened. They represent some of our greatest sensual triumphs over our many centuries of existence.” His words caused Gilda’s eyes to go wide and exchange a startled glance with Marco as the large drone continued his impromptu lecture, acting the part of a tour guide.

“Holy shit…” This time, Marco’s gaze lingered long on the image of a sorely pleasured ibex doe. “Then all this is real?”

“Or more correctly, was real. And with the coming of your kind, Marco Lakan, I daresay we will be adding some human images to this pantheon of passion in the years to come.”

“If you need ideas, I’d be happy to share my porn collection with you…” was all Marco could say in response, the smell of cider around him growing. “So, uh, is ‘Archon’ your name, or—” he tried to make conversation as they both walked increasingly stiffly; Gilda’s aroused wings and Marco’s severely strained pants front making it progressively more difficult for them to move fluidly.

“You were a Praetorian Centurion?” Gilda asked, feeling at least slightly perturbed at the idea that a Changeling, even a friendly one, could infiltrate the Queen’s personal guard.

“Yeah? Why? So you could fuck the Queen?” Marco asked out of nowhere.

“Marco!” A red-cheeked Gilda exclaimed, but Archex just laughed.

“Then why would you even be in the Guard?” Gilda asked, her eyes roaming over his impressively endowed hindquarters again. “For intelligence?”

“It is a release I am only too happy to grant them. And lest you think I am taking advantage of them, I much prefer to see it as granting them a sorely needed respite from their important but unenviable duties. By doing so, I feel I am making them more attentive and effective guardians of not just your Queen, but her entire royal line in the process.”

“So in other words, you have sex with them in service to Queen Molyneux, eh?” Marco suggested in what Gilda almost took to be an envious tone, to which the drone only smiled.

“And Queen Lepidoptes as well. Remember that my foremost duty is to collect love for my hive, Marco Lakan. And be assured that as an Archon, I am very good at it.”

“Oh, yeah?” Marco sounded intrigued, tugging at the front of his trousers to try to free up at least a small amount of space for himself. “And why is that?”

He abruptly stopped walking and lowered his forequarters fractionally, displaying himself while sending a wave of what she could only describe as magic-infused musk into her nose.

If it was his ‘allure’, then it had the desired effect as her beak went dry to both see and smell it, and she realized she wasn’t the only one as Marco took a ragged breath as well.

“See something you like, Centurion and Marco Lakan?” he asked idly, causing them both to start and stammer, to which he gave them a reassuring grin. “I see you find my evolved form pleasing. If you are interested, I have also acquired an array of helpful seduction spells over my many years of service to the Queen—both yours and ours. Allow me to demonstrate…”

His horn flared and a wave of magic washed over them both, causing her fur and feathers to intensely tingle. But that was far from the only effect as all her armor fasteners suddenly unlatched and the front of Marco’s pants unraveled, causing all her protective pieces to fall off while Marco’s malehood suddenly sprung free, leaving them both naked before him.

Archex smiled in great satisfaction as they gaped down at themselves, then at him. “My apologies, but you are far too beautiful and desirable an eagless to hide yourself beneath that armor, Centurion. And I do hate seeing constrained spears, Mister Lakan. That looked very uncomfortable.”

“Holy shit...” Marco could only gape at him. “I look at you, and all I can think is how badly I want to—”

“Indeed.” The drone suddenly stepped away and cut off the magical ‘allure’ that he was further tempting them with, causing them both to stumble heavily, still sorely aroused. “That was just a minor demonstration of how enticing we can be. But for as tempted as I am to go further, this is your time, not mine. I hope you will forgive me for teasing the two of you, but I could sense your earlier ogling of me. It is futile to hide or deny it since as Changelings, we are very attuned to such things,” he reminded them with a wink, causing them both to flush and look away.

“I will leave you to your lovemaking now. Oh, and Mister Lakan? Please remove your ruined garment immediately so I can repair it. Do not dawdle, as the spell I used is only reversible within the first few minutes.”

“Th-thanks,” was all a sorely sweating and shaking Marco could ask as he began shrugging out of his half-ruined trousers, to which the drone only smiled.

“You’re welcome. But before I leave, understand that encouraging passions is something of a reflex with us. We are very good at it, so please do not be offended or embarrassed,” he requested, waiting for Marco to finish removing his splotchy green garment. “Consider it a form of flattery, as I do your interest in me. In time, I might even be willing to indulge it… if both you and the Queen approve, that is. But that particular pleasure can wait.” His hole-studded horn flared and the chitin-covered door before them audibly unlocked; Gilda had been so distracted that she hadn’t even realized they’d arrived before it.

“Uh... no offense taken.” Gilda could hear the dry note in Marco’s voice as he hurriedly removed his caught boots, having to sit up despite his intense arousal to do so; she was suddenly afraid to speak for how her own voice might sound. “Oh, and uh… please don’t do anything with what’s on the belt. It’s weapons and ammunition.”

“Worry not. After seeing your cannons in action, I have no intention of examining or even touching them,” he promised as he accepted the garment and bathed it in fresh magic, causing the ripped threads to somehow re-ravel themselves back into their original strength and form.

“There you are. Be assured that you will have absolute privacy here, even from the awareness of the Queen herself. Food and drink are available in the cupboards and counters to your left, including various spirits—though we request that you not overindulge on those, as too much can taint your love,” he warned them.

“No problem…” was all a wan Marco could say. “I’m not sure we’ll get around to bathing, anyway...”

“Holy shit,” was all Marco could say after he had departed, still staring after him when he was gone. “He had me about ready to...” he couldn’t even finish the sentence.

“Me too,” Gilda admitted in some shame. “I’m sorry, Marco.”

“He got both of us, so I can’t be mad, girlfriend.” He rubbed his hand behind his head and then went to the counter to fill a bowl and a mug with water. “Christ almighty, I can’t believe I was nearly ready to go do a guy again! —and please don’t tell Tara or Chris I said that! They’ll never let me live it down.”

“My beak is sealed, dweeb,” she promised, feeling her wings rise to full rigidity as he passed her the bowl, waiting until they’d both taken a long swig of the deliciously cool, pure and refreshing water. “Much better. So shall we?” She suggested as she passed the bowl back.

“Love to.” His top garment unaffected by whatever odd magic the Archon had cast, he carefully unslung his rifle and put it aside on the counter beside the pantry after removing the quiver and ejecting the loaded ‘bullet’, pointing the business end of it away from them the whole time he did. That accomplished, he removed his armor and shirt next, putting them in a pile beside the rifle.

“There. Now, where were we…?” he asked in a rhetorical air, turning partially towards her to show off his naked form.

* * * * *

In the end, neither of them lasted long, their act a simple celebration of being alive and in each other’s arms again. But despite its short lead-up, it was suitably intense, leaving her trilling her pleasure and calling his name. She wasn’t sure how long her climax lasted, only that she never wanted it or the moment to end. But end it finally did, leaving her rigid and arched body slumping back to the floor even as Marco nearly fell off her from his own release, having to brace himself against the carpeted floor with his hands.

That he is… she granted as the strange vision faded away. But I love him anyway! was her final thought as a blissful sleep claimed her.

Another hour and three more lovemaking sessions later, Gilda was awoken not by a knock, but by a gentle pressure on her mind followed by an increase in the light level of the room.

“Fuck the Tribune…” Marco growled tiredly, not caring that he was naked and excited before the drone. “Not literally, of course.”

“What’s in it?” Gilda asked as she struggled to shake off her sleep and sit up.

Her nose twitched appreciatively as the switchel-like scent reached her. “That smells good.”

Mere seconds after taking it, she felt it soaking into her system swiftly, causing her talons to flex against the sheets and herself to stretch her stiff and still-sore body out hard.

For just a moment, the movement against Marco aroused them both again, leaving them on the verge of another round. None of which was missed by the perceptive Archon, who studied them with an almost academic interest. “Remarkable. Overcoming the effects of the drink and ready to go again so quickly? I daresay you two would make excellent drones, and I would greatly enjoy seeing an example of human lovemaking so I can both bask in it and later copy it. Unfortunately…”

He bodily separated them with his aura, moving them to opposite edges of the bed without touching or stimulating anything untoward. “I cannot, and neither can you.”

“Hey!” they both squawked in protest, to which he met their glare head on with his pupil-less gaze.

A quartet of Kingdom flags fluttered in the breeze along with the standards of the City and Southern Territory, to which the Queen had answered by raising her own rarely seen banner to the top mast of her airship. It was orange and blue with crossed sabers beneath a helmeted Changeling head bracketed by their distinctive dragonfly wings.

“Don’t be jealous, cub,” she replied with a wry note in a whisper, but he didn’t seem to appreciate the tease, giving her a brief glare.

Meeting the Tribune
Baki OST - Confrontation (10 minute extended HQ)

It went right through a noble’s eye and burst out the back of his skull. Weapons were raised in shock, but then just as quickly lowered as the blade and spike were withdrawn from the slain soldiers to reveal Cloven parasites impaled upon them.

Beaks dropped open to see it. “But… they were alive!” one of the mages said in disbelief, and Gilda shivered at the implications.

“Though I do not know how the Cloven managed to start controlling live creatures, it matters not. We can still mitigate this threat, but it must be done immediately. We will need to scan all your soldiers and staff to make sure we get them all. With your permission, Tribune, we will send a century of drones to check your headquarters, and then have turma-sized patrols overfly your battlements to look for Cloven puppets there.” The large chain-wielding drone gave orders like he was an officer himself.

It was only then, after he’d seen the Talon and Knight formations to witness their casualties and get a sense of their anger, that he was led back to the fore of the formation to see Gilda herself.

“Are you quite through destroying your own career yet, Behertz?” he asked her acidly.

The Tribune looked ready to grab her by her armored collar and throw her over the side, but he restrained himself, perhaps only due to the presence of the Queen listening in beside them.

Before he could reply, she heard a stifled snicker at the dig from Fortrakt, which immediately gained the Tribune’s attention and ire.

Gilda was impressed, recognizing that talking back like that went against every fiber of his being. Wow, cub. I just hope that if I’m relieved of duty, you don’t go down with me!

“That is more than acceptable,” Gilda told him through a glower. “I trust you agree, Tribune?”

34: Gilda vs Cipio

Author's Note

Moving right along, here’s the second part in what’s turning into a three-chapter mini-arc. There is no sex here, but some mildly suggestive content involving hints of wingplay and an aide to the Tribune who might have certain proclivities. That’s hardly the emphasis, though, and I’ll keep it simple regarding background music. Battles of wits are no less epic or worthy of music than physical ones:

ECHELON | Most Epic Hybrid Battle Music | 1-Hour Epic Music Mix

As always, I thank my eager prereading crew of Silentwoodfire, AJ_Aficionado, ASF, Wechsel and Silverblade5. They liked it, so hopefully you will as will. Have at it just as soon as I post the standard boilerplate:

—Firesight

34: Gilda vs Cipio

Ten minutes later, following some clipped closing remarks from the Tribune where he dismissed his honor guard and ordered his senior staff to coordinate a search of the city for additional Cloven-infected hosts, he sat opposite Gilda in the Queen’s personal meeting room—to her surprise, it appeared to be only that, given there wasn’t a bed or any form of erotic artwork to be seen—at the far end of a long, low table lined with seats and cushions.

The ones on her side were taken up by Giraldi, Fortrakt, Imlay, and Miles Fortuna, while a single seat next to the Tribune held an unhappy Optio Virgo, who stood poised with quill and parchment to write down orders or otherwise take the minutes of the meeting. He was further backed by a rather striking leopard-spotted Magus eagless and a pair of heavily armed bodyguards, with two battle-scarred earth griffon Paladin tiercels posted behind the Tribune whose scratched and scorched forms indicated they had already seen considerable action.

They might have been more intimidating had the Senior Scimitar not stationed two equally bloodied and only half-healed Ravens at the opposite end of the room, who had declined further treatment until their more gravely wounded comrades were tended. Obsidian Ire and Karin Kazal were present as well, though the drakina stood against the back wall with her wings folded, glaring at the Tribune over crossed arms.

But he ignored her and the Starshina who stood watch over the room from a corner to glower at Gilda instead, saying nothing, with the two sides of the standoff separated by a quartet of sleek black-armored Changeling Guard drones with colorless pupils—their ‘Silencers’? —who stood impassive but had already announced they had orders from their Queen to prevent any physical altercations.

Gilda had no intention of testing them or causing one if she could help it, but she couldn’t speak for the Tribune, given it was clear to her from his stance alone that he was in no mood for concessions or to partake of Queen Lepidoptes’ hospitality. Though the Changeling monarch had told them that good food and drink were available in the cabinet, they had made no move to find them, glaring at each other for the better part of a minute before Gilda finally spoke.

“Enough, Tribune. Since it’s dumb and dweeby to just sit here and stare, let’s get down to business. Your aide said you wanted to debrief me? Well, here’s your chance,” she told him in Equish so Imlay would understand her, wishing Marco was there. He wanted to come, but Imlay had told him no, saying he didn’t trust him not to make an already tense situation worse.

Probably just as well, Gilda silently granted, placating Marco by asking him to check on Chris and Tara instead. Her thoughts lingered on him only briefly as she gathered up the sheaf of talon-written documents her underlings had produced, stacking and aligning them by banging their lower edge on the table a few times. “These are our battle reports. For all that we went through and for as much as we learned about Cloven and human capabilities, I suggest you read them carefully.” She slid them across the table to him.

In response, he tore them in two without looking at them, his green-eyed gaze never leaving hers. “You did this to my orders, so I’ll do it to your reports,” he informed her in Equish as her beak clenched; she could only imagine what Fortrakt and the others were thinking to see several hours of painstaking work and cramping talons dismissed. “If you want respect and for me to listen to you, Behertz, you can start by knowing your place and obeying me as you’re supposed to.”

“And so we did,” she told him with a low trill through a clenched beak, her curled talons dragging across the chitin-covered table hard enough to make noise and leave furrows in the organic material. “Because we had no choice and no other way to reach Aricia. But make no mistake, Tribune—if I had any option other than staying at that crow-begotten Lake defending what wasn’t an abandoned Changeling hive, I would have taken it regardless of your instructions.”

To her surprise, he grinned. “So in other words, you openly admit that you would refuse to follow the orders of your superiors?” He glanced at his still-anxious eagless aide, who immediately wrote something down. “That does not speak well for you or the command chain you shouldn’t be wearing, Behertz. You swore an oath to Queen and Kingdom that you would obey lawful orders—including mine! And this is not obeying them!” He slammed the remains of her missives down on the table in disgust, crumpling them up before her.

She wasn’t impressed, meeting his glare evenly. “Yes. That was the oath I swore—not the humans! You risked them without any regard to their importance or the fact that they do not serve the Kingdom!” she fired back, feeling her already-intense ire rise further along with the pink gathering at the edges of her vision.

His eyes narrowed at her tone. As she watched, he glanced over at an impassive Imlay, who remained standing behind her with his rifle held ready, leaving her wondering if he ever relaxed or slept. “Irrelevant. I serve the Kingdom, as do you! And if I think its interests are served by risking them, then I will do so without hesitation. We are at war, Centurion, and with the survival of our very race at stake, I do not care about diplomatic niceties! And neither should you!”

“Crows take it! You think this is about niceties?” she snarled at him, her wings flaring in anger hard enough that they brushed against Fortrakt’s in the cramped confines of the Queen’s meeting room, who she could feel flinch slightly at the unexpected contact.

But even though she glanced at him and saw him flushed—she couldn’t tell if it was more due to anger or embarrassment—she didn’t pull away, letting him do so instead; he moved fractionally backwards to where they could flare their wings without accidentally touching. “By the Ancestors themselves, do you not understand that you gambled the entire Kingdom by endangering the humans?”

Though his aide blushed to see it, fumbling her quill for a moment, the Tribune just smirked briefly and rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. I wagered a decade and a half of human lives against an entire Cloven army, including the massive factory that replenished them and the Overlord who controlled them—a more than reasonable trade!” he told her angrily.

“It was a great victory when we sorely needed one, slowing the Cloven advance and buying the Kingdom time to redeploy forces from the Ibexian border! I would be more than happy to give you and your soldiers due credit in my report to the Queen, were it not for your insubordinate conduct and the crow-damned fit you’re throwing.”

“A ‘fit’?” Gilda leaned over the table to glare at him, feeling her wings flare further with their outer edges curved forward in ire. “A ‘fit’ does not even begin to describe my feelings on this matter, Tribune! You should have evacuated us the moment you learned our location! It was well within reach of the city walls and could have been done in under an hour!” she informed him angrily, talking right over him when he looked like he wanted to snarl a reply.

“Shut up and listen!” she said vehemently as his beak began to open, causing him to flinch like he’d been slapped; she guessed he’d never been talked back to like this since making Tribune. “If the Cloven wanted the humans that badly, you could have induced them to attack the well-guarded walls of the city itself defended by human weapons, which could have had the same result at far less risk or loss of life! And with the Changelings of Queen Lepidoptes out there providing us intelligence on enemy activity, we could have easily planned our own offensive operations to take out the Cloven factory and Overlord!”

Either due to her insubordinate attitude or what he thought was her mistaken reasoning, the Tribune’s anger only grew, causing his wings to flare hard and suddenly enough that they brushed sharply against his aide’s. The contact caused them both to jerk back slightly, exchanging a furtive glance of their own as the aide sidled further away, her blush deepening. “You are a recently promoted Centurion who is neither a strategist nor aware of the greater situation the Kingdom faces. So kindly spare me the lecture on military affairs, Centurion.”

Gilda exchanged an angry look with Fortrakt, whose own wings she saw were partially flared a half a body length behind her, looking like he was only barely restraining himself from jumping into the conversation headfirst. “I got us this far, moving my unit twenty leagues through hostile territory, commanding up to two centuries of mixed forces through at least six separate battles. I fought and led from the forefront, so spare me any lecture on my inexperience or lack of military sense, Tribune!”

“She speaks true,” Giraldi confirmed calmly; she noted that he alone seemed serene, sitting with his wings relaxed. “It is as I told you outside, sir. She led us, not me. And did so superbly.”

“She did,” Imlay finally spoke. “For getting us to safety and risking her life repeatedly, she has the respect and loyalty of my Marines, Tribune. We’d gladly have her as our commander from here on out.”

“As would I,” Obsidian Ire added from where she was leaning against a wall in back with her arms crossed over her chest, her wounds healing beneath patches of chitin while still wearing her battered armor. “The Centurion commanded my clan sisters well and even rescued us when we initially disobeyed her. For saving our lives and proving as able with her wits as her blades, she more than earned our respect, Tribune Cipio. But for such a major error in judgment regarding the humans, I am having severe reservations about ever obeying your orders again.”

That earned a stare from the Tribune. “You swore an oath to aid the Kingdom, drakina, in exchange for the future liberation of your lands. As I am the military commander of this district, that means you obey me.”

“I swore no oath to you, nor would I,” the tall dragon female retorted. “My loyalty lies with those who will help bring that liberation about. And currently, that does not include you.”

Tribune Cipio stood up. “Then we will duel for that loyalty, and the terms of my victory will be your obedience to my orders!”

Obsidian Ire lowered her head and inhaled hard to make the gaps between her chest scales glow bright, earning an alarmed look from the Paladins and magus behind him, the latter of which raised her staff to cast a spell. “And when I win, you will surrender your command to her!” she pointed at Gilda, who wasn’t sure if she was more honored or panicked by the prospect, holding up her wings to symbolically form a barrier between them.

“By order of Queen Lepidoptes, there will be no fighting here,” one of the drones reminded them, speaking in a sharp female voice. “This includes declared duels. If you insist on having them, you must leave this ship.”

“Stand down, all of you,” Gilda instructed in strained tones. “You honor me with your trust and confidence, Obsidian Ire. But for as much as I might like to see his face ground into the dirt, I’m not ready for that level of leadership,” she admitted, to which the dragon female stepped back with a parting glower, allowing the air in her lungs to cool. “I know the Tribune’s quality as a commander. We need him, but only if he can acknowledge his mistakes, both as a military leader and as a diplomat!”

“I made none, on either front. But you have decided to deliberately undermine my authority, and for what, Behertz?” Tribune Cipio leaned over the table again. “Perhaps because you are physically involved with a human? And were only stopped from having sex with him again because the war broke out?” he suggested in contempt, earning a shocked look at the news from his eagless aide and a far more disgusted one from the two male Paladins behind him.

He grinned evilly when Gilda’s cheeks went red and her wings flared in full fury, their leading edges arched forward to point their tips directly at him. She felt the pink in her vision growing along with her rage, only able to restrain it by reminding herself repeatedly that to give into the Tribune’s provocations was to play right into his wings.

But it wasn’t easy as Cipio recognized that he’d found a sensitive spot and twisted his talons in deeper. “Yes, I was told about your indiscretions with the human named Marco Lakan by our superiors in Arnau. But even if I find the idea of laying with an alien ape appalling, it does not affect my judgment regarding you. But as you were reeking of stale sex and human spoor even in the receiving line, it is clearly affecting yours!”

The wide-eyed aide fumbled her quill again as her beak dropped open and talons began to shake. But Gilda barely noticed; her vision turned bright pink as her temper flared into white-hot fury. Her feathers ruffled hard and a roar built deep in her belly; for a single terrifying moment she felt certain she was going to completely lose control; upend the table and launch herself at him regardless of the Silencers eyeing her warily or the consequences she would incur after.

She knew that he was trying to incite her into making a fatal mistake. She knew that attacking him outside of a declared duel would result in her arrest and automatically forfeiting her rank and chain regardless of her prior standing, followed by imprisonment or even potential execution. But in that moment, she didn’t care, willing to do whatever was necessary to answer the slander of her mate and protect her human friends.

But before she could take the final, fateful leap, she felt a strangely soothing mental pressure and a set of restraining talons against her lower back. It was quickly followed by a magical touch against her foretalons that made them flex, not in anger but in sensual memory.

The former belonged to Fortrakt, she instantly sensed without even looking back, with her onetime junior partner once again trying to keep his head on behalf of both of them, acting to save her from herself. The latter she recognized as Karin Kazal’s, even though a glance at the mirror to the side showed his horns were not aglow. Despite that, his aura gently caressed her digits, trying to calm her.

Not willing to give the Starshina’s actions away, she glanced back at Fortrakt instead. He met her gaze evenly, letting her see the anger and worry in his eyes. “Don’t let him goad you, Gilda,” he told her gently, starting to rub her back near the base of her tail in an action she would not only have never allowed not long before, but probably slammed him through the nearest breakable surface for taking such a liberty with her. “You’re a much better and more honorable griffon than that, even if he isn’t.” To her surprise and no little amazement, he deliberately insulted the Tribune.

Cipio stared at him in disbelief while the Paladins behind him were watching through narrowed eyes. “Is everycreature in this room insubordinate and insane?”

“No, sir. Just you for risking the humans,” Fortrakt turned back to him, earning an impressed look from Gilda.

“How dare you—” The Tribune stood up again, earning a warning gaze from the Silencers.

“He speaks for me as well. Your words are an affront to not just the Centurion, but all of us, Tribune Cipio,” Giraldi said in an unusually quiet and emotionless tone, which gave Gilda a strong feeling of severe anger.

“Every Guardsgriffon you see before you has laid with an ‘alien ape’, and none of us regret it in the least. As I do not wish to see the Centurion sacrifice her honor and the favor of Queen Lepidoptes to answer that affront, I will stand in her stead and offer a duel. But as I also do not wish to violate the Queen’s rules, would you care to step outside the airship, sir?” He stood up and walked halfway towards the Tribune, his head lowered and war hammer displayed.

“Me too!” To Gilda’s surprise, Obsidian Ire stepped up and put a set of talons against the back of her neck. “I didn’t know she was rutting that brown-skinned human, but I can’t say I really care, either. Though I have no interest in them myself, they are certainly warriors worthy of respect for their powerful weapons and their willingness to risk themselves alongside us. But as you have offered them none, Tribune, I will be more than happy to duel you outside on the Centurion’s behalf, if the Optio proves too little a challenge.” She puffed some violet smoke into the air.

Gilda felt her cheeks warm again, this time at the loyalty of her comrades. “Thank you, Obsidian Ire. Thanks, all of you. You honor me greatly, and I won’t forget it. But nocreature fights my battles for me. And besides, I don’t want to duel or relieve him of duty—I want him to see reason. So please step back, Optio,” Gilda requested, finding she could suddenly control her temper at the reminder that she was not alone and her friends stood with her.

Huh. And who would have thought that the ponies were right about all their dweeby ‘friendship’ trash? She suppressed a smile, as well as a sudden flashback to the image of a griffon eagless being groped by multiple sets of dragon talons to feel those of the drakina on her. And Archon Archex said that really happened? Where? How? And to whom? She almost desperately wanted to know.

“I see. Whether now or later, I am more than willing to meet your challenges. So tell me, do you agree with all this, human?” Tribune Cipio addressed Imlay next.

“I have a name, and it’s Corporal Michael Imlay, sir.” For the first time, Gilda thought she might have heard an element of anger in his voice, directed at someone other than Marco. “I’m not an officer, but I do agree. It’s clear from listening to you that you don’t know what we can do and just why the Cloven want us so badly. Meaning you’re liable to get us killed and corrupted through sheer ignorance, which could cost the Kingdom dearly,” he said calmly, his eyes unreadable behind his goggles.

“And as for the Centurion and Marco Lakan, what she does on her own time is her business, and his. Yes, we know about them and we don’t care. He’s a good kid, even if he sometimes has a big mouth and a bad attitude. He fought alongside us effectively and without hesitation, so I’m not about to call him a coward, either.”

“Thank you, Corporal.” Gilda bared her throat back to him. A big mouth and a bad attitude… she then echoed with her thoughts. So do I! I wonder if that’s where my attraction to him comes from? she asked herself idly before putting it aside, nodding at Fortrakt to indicate he could let her go before nodding in turn up at Obsidian Ire, who removed her talons and stepped back. Seeing that, Karin Kazal withdrew his aura from her foretalons as well.

She found herself given pause, strangely aware of the sudden lack of their physical and magical touch against her, and even at least slightly bereft of their affection. But as surprised as she was to feel any form of touchy-feely after a lifetime of hating the very idea of it, she set it aside and focused her attention back on the Tribune again.

“I do hope that you note where their loyalties lie, Tribune. And the reason is that since they were there, they know I’m right. Corporal Imlay is absolutely correct—you don’t understand what the humans can do! So I’m once again telling you to your face that to risk them like that was a grave and potentially fatal mistake for not just Aricia, but the entire crow-damned Kingdom!” She leaned over the table to spit out the words, then took a deep breath to try to restrain the still-present pink at the edges of her vision, fearful it would yet induce her to attack him if she wasn’t careful.

“Spare me. The only fatal mistake I see here is yours in challenging me, Behertz,” he growled back. “Are you quite through burying yourself and your career, yet?”

Mastering her emotions again before replying, she deliberately sat down and leaned back enough to clasp her talons before her while propping her elbows on the table. “Not even close, sir. And the only career in danger here is yours. If you’re unable to admit to that error, then I’ll just have to make sure that you can’t ever issue such orders again. As such, by the power and authority granted to me by our Queen and now-Legate Narada in Arnau, I am keeping the humans under my direct command. As such, you may not use them in any operations without my explicit approval.”

His feathers ruffled and talons clenched hard against the table. “Your authority only lasts as long as you have that crow-damned chain, Centurion. And I have already contacted Arnau to demand that it be removed.”

She gave him a sneering smile back. “But that demand was clearly not granted, or else you would have come here ordering my arrest,” she instantly recognized, causing his cheeks to go red and Fortrakt to smile as Giraldi nodded slowly in agreement. “In fact, given that you showed up here exactly as I ordered, you were told to obey me, weren’t you?” She curled her foretalons like she was digging them in deeper.

He closed his eyes tightly for a moment, and this time, she could tell that it was the Tribune who was having trouble holding onto his temper. “I was instructed to hear you out and then make a report back after meeting Queen Lepidoptes. And thus far, that report is going to be quite scathing.”

“As will mine to Queen Molyneux,” Gilda said easily, gratified to feel herself relaxing and her own temper cooling as she sensed herself getting the upper wing in the exchange. You can tear up our reports if you want, but that doesn’t mean she and her military advisors won’t get their own copies. I’m sure she will be quite interested to know how you treated alien soldiers as expendable pawns and discounted the deadliness of their arms. To say nothing of how you insulted not one, but two badly needed allies essential for the Kingdom’s survival,” she suggested coldly.

“To which I will tell her that the humans make excellent distractions for the Cloven, given their outsized awe of a few cannon-equipped soldiers. I’m also sure that she will be equally interested to know how you insulted and derided the commander who gave the Kingdom its most crucial and crushing victory thus far,” he responded instantly. “A victory that has stabilized the front in the Western Territory and bought our armies the time they need to regroup and mobilize. And if the cost of that was a few dead aliens or some of their single-shot soldier ballistae in the claws of the Cloven, then so be it.”

Gilda stared at him in disbelief as Fortrakt’s jaw dropped open and Imlay rubbed his eyes.

“With due respect, our ‘cannons’ are not single shot, sir,” the Marine Corporal told him, hefting his rifle from where he stood with it, tapping the curved metal protuberance beneath it.

“This magazine, or ‘quiver’ as I have heard other griffons refer to them, holds thirty bullets. They’re not cannonballs, they’re pointed metal accelerated to incredible speeds that are very accurate and lethal. It can not only far outrange most of your crossbows, but my weapon, called a ‘rifle’, is repeating—in its fastest fire mode, it can launch all thirty bullets in two secondsif I choose,” he told them to looks of disbelief from not just the Tribune, but the Paladin sentries behind him.

“That is not possible.” Cipio eyed the strange weapon warily while the Magus behind her fractionally raised her stave again; Gilda suddenly wondered if the Tribune was thinking, as she was, that at such an impossible output, Imlay’s single rifle could kill everycreature on his side of the room in mere moments.

“Be assured that it is, sir. By the Centurion’s command, we have a demonstration ready for you. And since I have permission from my superiors to explain our weapon capabilities, I will do so: Each shot from our rifles can kill at a distance of a quarter-league, meaning that had the Cloven captured us, we could have easily breached your defenses by sniping your soldiers from where you couldn’t fight back or find them, followed by using our heavier weapons to blow open a hole in the wall to allow the Cloven to flood in. All of which I would be more than happy to show you.”

“You exaggerate,” he said, though Gilda was gratified to hear an element of uncertainty in his voice. “Our walls do not so easily crumble to a few small cannonballs. And our new bowcasters could have easily slain you in that instance.”

“Even if they were shrouded from visual and magical sight by corrupted mages?” Karin Kazal asked in annoyance. He ignited his horn to hide Imlay from view for a moment, causing the Magus behind Cipio to raise her staff in warning, its end glowing. “A simple invisibility spell would suffice. Or perhaps I could simply teleport them from place to place to make sure you can’t pin them down, allowing them to continually kill your soldiers until they fear to defend the walls?” He zapped Imlay’s location to produce a flash, followed by two more in the room; one of which was behind the Tribune, causing his head to whip around.

“So where is he, Magus?” the smug Starshina asked the suddenly nervous eagless who pointed her stave to and fro, casting a spell on both locations to no visible effect. “In the time you take to find out, your commander could already be dead. So again I ask: is he in either place? Or neither?” He dropped the stealth spell to show that he hadn’t moved or even touched Imlay at all.

“By my Ancestors, I swear if you do that again…” the unnerved Magus began to threaten, to which Karin Kazal smirked and depowered his antlers.

“As much as I would enjoy a contest of aura, Magus, I am not about to do so here. The point, Tribune, is that I know exactly how I would employ the humans against the city using ibexian magic. And as the Cloven already corrupted far too many of my team, that means they have the knowledge and ability as well. Or did it never occur to you to wonder just why they wanted the humans so badly?”

When Cipio didn’t immediately reply, Gilda decided she’d finally shaken his confidence. Which means it’s time to press our advantage! “Corporal? Show him one of your rounds,” she ordered him, to which he hesitated only briefly.

“Yes, sir,” he finally obeyed, going for one of his spare quivers to pop a single round free just as Marco had, tossing it onto the table and letting it roll to a stop before Cipio. “That’s a round, or bullet. It’s what you would call our ‘cannonballs’,” he informed the Tribune. “And I can promise that it’s a lot more deadly than it looks.”

Cipio stared at it in disbelief, along with his shaking aide; a glance at her parchment showed that her writing was ragged and occasionally streaked with ink. “This tiny thing is dangerous? Our crossbow bolts are far bigger than that!”

“They don’t have to be big when their cannons can fire them through the air faster than the speed of sound,” Gilda told him, causing him to look up sharply. “No, I am not exaggerating, Tribune. At that velocity—that is the word, right?” she glanced back at Imlay to receive a nod— “its pointed tip can punch through all but Paladin armor and heavy Fortis Knight shields. And even then, they have special armor-piercing bullets that can get through those, too,” Gilda flashed back to Marco’s swapping his quiver out in a near panic, reloading his rifle with them when confronted with a charging corrupted Paladin his regular rounds had not stopped.

“In summary, sir, the humans and their weapons are the only reason we survived long enough to make it to the Lake,” Giraldi spoke up again, having sat back down to Gilda’s right and slightly in back of her. “They smashed no less than three Cloven attacks involving a combined six centuries of ground soldiers almost by themselves, and their heavier cannons proved effective against even the hardened Elder Ram forms I’m sure you’ve encountered,” he offered, to which the Tribune looked surprised and at least one of the Paladins grimaced.

“In summary, had they not been there, we would have been wiped out in the initial ambush and had no chance at all to make it to Aricia. And if that does not impress you, then perhaps simple numbers will: Their weapons were so powerful that the Cloven had to muster a full millennium of mixed pure and corrupt forms before they could hope to overrun our force of thirty griffons backed by a mere fourteen human Marines. And three human civilians who were also equipped with such arms,” he added as an afterthought.

“If you will not take her word for it, then take mine, Tribune,” Miles Fortuna stepped up for the first time. “We saw those weapons in action. Their range and rate of fire are incredible, as is the damage they inflict. Not even our repeaters compare. And if they fell into the hooves of the Cloven…”

“Then the Cloven would be almost unbeatable,” Karin Kazal finished for her from the corner he sat in, leaving Gilda wondering if he was staying there so he could keep watch over the entire room.

“By the Ancient Rams of the Rodina, your decisions risked the Ascendancy as well, Tribune. You may not care, but I do. For that reason, I will defend the humans—and the Kingdom—to the last, knowing that if they fall, my nation is next. And I will defend the Centurion for being smart enough to know that the humans must be protected at all costs.”

But the Tribune still seemed unconvinced, drumming his talons on the desk. “And your opinion of these fanciful claims, drakina?” He addressed Obsidian Ire next.

She regarded him coldly before speaking, giving Gilda the impression that making him wait for an answer was a measured form of disrespect. “Sorry if this disappoints you, but they are true, Tribune. I, too, saw the power of their weapons for myself and would likely not be here without them. In fact, it may interest you to know that I only went out there with my sisters to see just why the humans were so important to the Cloven,” she said simply.

“When we arrived, we were as skeptical as you to see their soft bodies and small cannons, believing they would quickly fall before a determined attack. Though we initially intended to do what damage we could to Cloven formations before fleeing and leaving the Centurion’s entire force to their fate—no offense, Grizelda Behertz,” she added with a glance at Gilda, who looked up sharply— “we quickly discovered two things:

“First, Cloven flyers were now quite capable of killing us when they couldn’t before, meaning that any attempt to escape by air would result in our deaths. And far more importantly, that human weapons could turn the tide of battle in favor of either side. Even a few of them could obliterate enemy soldiers almost as assuredly as the fire of a Dragon Lord. And just as our ibex friend here finally realized, that alone meant we could not let the Cloven have them, or all would be lost for both our races.”

She then turned to meet Gilda’s glare. “You have every right to be angry at me, Grizelda Behertz. But such was our plan. And had all been lost and our defeat seemed nigh, our final act before dying would have been to incinerate the human bodies and melt their weapons to deny the Cloven their prize. The only reason we didn’t when we were on the verge of being overrun was because the mental assault of that accursed Cloven Overlord prevented us from acting.”

Though Fortrakt looked as aghast as Gilda felt, Imlay could only nod thoughtfully. “Understood, ma’am. And I don’t hold it against you. I can safely speak for all my Marines when I say we’d rather die and have our bodies destroyed than be captured and turned against our friends.”

In response, Obsidian Ire bowed her head. “Thank you, Corporal Michael Imlay. And since I didn’t say so before, thank you for saving us when we were crippled with two of my sisters wounded. We couldn’t have made it back to the hill without human aid.” She extended her right arm towards him.

“My pleasure, ma’am. For what it’s worth, we were very impressed with you as well. In the end, you had our backs, and that’s all we ask.” He clasped her foreleg like a griffon, giving the tall female a respectful nod.

Gilda waited until they were finished before she addressed Cipio again. “Are you satisfied yet, Tribune?” she asked him pointedly. “Are you finally ready to admit that you were wrong? Or are you going to continue to act like a crow-damned fool who can’t accept what no less than three officers, a Raven commander, and several foreign soldiers are telling you?”

“Centurion…” Giraldi said softly as the Tribune’s eyes flashed again, the former holding up a wing before Gilda to forestall yet another explosion of temper from either side. “With apologies, sir, we are all short of sleep and have had too many close calls in the past day to give proper respect. All we really want is for you to see that you cannot so casually sacrifice the humans, who wield weapons far beyond anything we have. That the Cloven would concentrate so much force against them should by itself indicate how powerful they are, and why our enemy would be so desperate to claim them.”

But the Tribune remained unmollified. “Even if true, it changes nothing. And chain or no, I will not obey your orders absent a direct order from the Queen, Centurion. If that is a problem, then I will happily duel you over these terms,” he suggested in a low voice, speaking beneath narrowed eyes.

She smirked at the clumsy attempt to goad her, still sensing she had the upper wing. “I’m afraid that you’d have to wait in line, sir, given I already promised duels with Obsidian Ire and the Senior Scimitar over your orders.” She glanced over at the latter, who didn’t react. The former, however, bared her teeth with her smile. “And speaking of the Senior Scimitar, that brings me to the question of your most crow-damningly idiotic order of all.” She glared at him as he abruptly stood up and gave a low trill at the near mortal-insult.

In response, she turned fractionally away from him in an open show of disrespect, causing his wings to flare harder; they went so wide that they brushed those of Optio Virgo again. She flinched hard and nearly fell over at the renewed contact, earning a smirk from Gilda and what sounded like a snicker from Fortrakt.

“If you’re through rubbing wings with your aide, you’ll be pleased to know that Miles Fortuna faithfully carried out her orders to alert the Cloven when we took refuge in what we thought was the abandoned Changeling hive, even though she rightfully found them insane,” she informed him, earning a glare from the Tribune and squeak-like sound from the young aide, whose mind now looked decidedly elsewhere.

“And by doing so, she nearly started a battle between the humans and Ravens right then and there! It wasn’t just them, either—I was ready to kill her when I saw what she did! It was only by the grace of the Ancestors that we didn’t fight and wipe each other out!”

He stared at her in disbelief after another glance at his aide. “And you’re blaming me for that? I didn’t instruct her to do it in front of you! That was her choice, not mine,” he said, sounding suddenly flustered.

Gilda glared at him, scarcely able to imagine what Miles Fortuna thought to hear it, though she could hear the other eagless’s beak beginning to grind. “Is that your excuse? By the crows, you put her in an impossible situation! She thought that if we knew her orders, we’d try to stop her, and she was right!”

“The Centurion speaks true, sir. And with respect, how else was I supposed to do it?” the Senior Scimitar asked him pointedly, not even caring that she was speaking out of turn. “If I went far enough away that they couldn’t see me, my absence alone would have been suspicious! They would have thought I was corrupted and probably killed me!”

“Then that would have been the preferable choice, given it would likely have prevented suspicion from falling on your team, who would have survived you,” he said coldly, eliciting a glare. “But there was no need. Had you just stealthed yourself and done it out of sight, then no suspicion would have fallen on you.”

The Senior Scimitar stood up sharply and stalked towards him, her wings flared in anger, stopping only when a Silencer stepped forth to interpose himself. This time, it was the Raven eagless who looked ready to challenge him to a duel on the spot, leaving Gilda almost fervently hoping that she would. “By all our Ancestors, the Centurion is correct—you really are a crow-damned fool!”

He stood as well. “Raven or no, I will not suffer your insolence any more than hers, Senior Scimitar!”

“Sorry, but you will suffer both hers and mine. I see you are unaware that the humans can see right through magical shrouds, Tribune Cipio,” Gilda said mildly to a nod from Imlay. “Yet another example of your appalling and inexcusable ignorance regarding them.”

Cipio looked at her like she was crazy. “No, they can’t. They have no magic except whatever weak wards the ponies gave them to prevent scans of their weapons or being ripped from their grasp.”

Gilda’s grin turned evil even as she wondered in what world magical wards cast by the Pony Princesses themselves would be considered ‘weak’. “Senior Scimitar? By my order, dim the lights. Then stealth yourself and hide in the room.”

“By your command,” she said without removing her enraged gaze from Cipio, making a waving motion with her wing at a crystal on the wall that instantly dimmed the sunlight coming through the ceiling, reducing the illumination to twilight levels. That accomplished, she bobbed her beak once to tap the nightshade crystal around her neck. After she faded from view, she triggered a flash gem on her own volition to force eyes to flinch away so they couldn’t track her outline as she moved around the room.

By the time the Tribune’s vision cleared, she was gone and Gilda couldn’t find her, meaning the Raven eagless was remaining so still that there was not even a telltale distortion in the air of her passage. She waited a beat to let the Tribune get even more angry and impatient, noticing the black-eyed guard drones at the room’s side entrance seemed to be staring intently at something.

One caught Gilda’s gaze and motioned to the Tribune’s right, in between him and his clearly unhappy aide, causing her to grin at what she guessed the angry assassin had decided to do. “That’s long enough. If you would do the honors, Corporal Imlay?”

“My pleasure, sir.” Grinning thinly, Imlay removed a small cylindrical device from his belt and made a motion with his thumb talon against it that resulted in a soft click. It immediately lit up with a violet beam that caused the area just to the right of the Tribune to dimly fluoresce, revealing the ghostlike outline of the Raven warrior with her twin blades drawn, one each at the throat of the Tribune and her aide.

The former swore violently and belatedly raised an armored gauntlet to block the threatened blow while the latter shrieked like a cub and stumbled back from the seeming specter, her eyes wide, spilling a jug of ink over the parchment she’d been writing on.

“Believe me now, Tribune?” Gilda asked smugly as behind her, Karin Kazal openly laughed.

“I will credit you with having an impressive set of antlers, Senior Scimitar—figuratively speaking, of course. I immensely enjoyed that. And in case you think it’s some trick, Tribune Cipio, please allow me to illuminate the situation further…”

The ibex buck’s antlers ignited with a far more intense purple light as he gained a malicious grin. It instantly and quite vividly lit up the Senior’s Scimitar’s stealthed form, showing her full outline and posture as she returned her blades to her back, silently sheathing them before she deactivated the spell and stepped away with a parting glower at Cipio.

“That is why I couldn’t do it while stealthed, Tribune. I had already learned that at night, those odd lights of theirs could find me even from far away. And if I went somewhere hidden to do it, my absence alone would be highly suspicious.”

“And even if she wasn’t stealthed, you will note that the light still makes her wings glow, since that’s where her internal magic is most concentrated,” Giraldi added, to which the Raven eagless flared her wings to show how they lit up under the violet light. To Gilda’s surprise, however, the Changeling drones in the room did not fluoresce under its effects, leaving her wondering if that was a product of their natural magical suppression, and if their disguises would fail to show up under the light as well.

“By all the crows, what human sorcery is this?” the still-flustered Cipio demanded to know as he stared after her, looking for a moment like he wanted to draw his blade.

“It’s not sorcery. We call them blacklights, sir,” an unsmiling Imlay said as he returned the small cylindrical object to his belt, which Gilda noted was significantly weaker in effect given its small size than the larger lights mounted on other Marine rifles. “Never mind why or what they are. But we discovered a while ago that they could illuminate magical surfaces, making them ideal for seeing through shrouds or any other form of invisibility magic. All my Marines are equipped with them. And we were using them constantly to make sure nothing could sneak up on us.”

“Then how by all the crows did he—” the Tribune glanced over at Karin Kazal.

“And before you accuse them of teaching me the trick, I learned it by simply observing the strange light and then duplicating it, as have corrupted griffon mages,” the Starshina anticipated his question as he extinguished the glow of his fully-healed horns. “I would be grateful to the humans for showing us a means to defeat Raven stealth, except that the Cloven now know it as well. That means your best warriors will now be far less effective in battle—no offense, Senior Scimitar.”

“None taken, Starshina,” Miles Fortuna said as she stepped back to Gilda’s side. “And sorry, but not sorry, Tribune. You can report me to the Council of Crows for threatening conduct if you wish, but I will be happy to tell them in return how you were willing to waste all our lives on an idiotic gamble that nearly failed right at the start.”

“It was far from a waste, Senior Scimitar.” With effort, the Tribune visibly mastered his raw nerves and racing heart, his talons clenched into fists that sat hard against the table surface. “Need I remind you of the Cloven army we eliminated? Or the Overlord?”

“I’m sorry. And just who is this ‘we’ you speak of, Tribune Cipio?” Obsidian Ire growled from behind Gilda. “Their strength was spent on the Centurion’s force. Their Overlord fell to the Changelings, not us!”

“Because of my plan. Because of the soldiers I sent you. Because of the arrangements I made with Queen Lepidoptes to protect you. Because of the risks I carefully weighed and accepted! Because of the risks it was your duty to accept without question or second guessing! We won a great victory, yet all you can do is whine over its cost and act like my eight-year old daughter!”

Gilda paused before speaking, once again having to hold her temper at bay. “Spare me such insulting comparisons to your cubs, Tribune. You didn’t take our toys away, you nearly took our lives away! Yes, you sent me soldiers, but only in numbers that were not even remotely adequate to the task!”

“Which was deliberate to bait the Cloven into attacking you, not knowing that a thousand Changelings were backing you!”

She rolled her eyes hard. “Yes. And by your own plan, they couldn’t help us until we were on the verge of being overrun with nearly half my force slain!” she immediately retaliated. “And speaking of those soldiers, I will be keeping the survivors to form my new unit. At this point, I’m sure they’d much rather serve under me than you.”

He grinned unpleasantly in return. “Sorry, but you can’t, Centurion. Your chain only grants you the right to command internal security forces like the Auxiliary Guard and Peacekeepers. Not the Knights or Talons I gave you. So, I could order them taken from you,” he reminded her through narrowed eyes.

Gilda guessed that he’d made a hasty review of available documentation regarding what she could and couldn’t do with her Diplomatic Command Chain—the same review she had made the first night she’d been awarded it, reading through several scrolls she’d been given by then-Tribune Narada.

I wonder what she would think of what I’m doing now? Or does she already know? “You could, except for the safety of our diplomatic guests, I’m ordering you not to. As I have already fought with them and they now know human capabilities well, I wish them to comprise my escort force. And if you studied the rules of them, you know that bearing command chains of your own doesn’t override the authority of mine!” she reminded him, stretching out her neck over the table to show off the chain before smiling sweetly and settling back.

She let him seethe for a bit before continuing. “Still, if you insist on taking my Knights and Talons from me, I suppose I’ll just have to commandeer the Paladins you have guarding your headquarters, including those two behind you. I do command them!”

He looked up sharply while the Paladins themselves sneered in contempt at the threat. “You are not taking away my best soldiers, Centurion.”

“You don’t have a say in the matter, sir.” She hissed out the word. “I will have my orders carried out regardless of whether you like them or not.”

“And vice versa. So where does this leave us, Centurion? With subordinates forced to report to two commanders working at cross-purposes while we wait for the Queen to realize what an arrogant idiot you’ve been and remove your chain?”

“I could say the same right back to you, Tribune,”she snarled, noticing a scent of cider in the air around her with her latest inhalation. “Because be assured, I will be writing a report to her explaining exactly what you did and what it could have cost us—which is everything!”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, spare me such melodramatic tripe, Centurion. Even if they’re repeating, a few human cannons in the hooves of the Cloven are not going to topple the Kingdom, and we’ll develop countermeasures quickly enough,” he promised, then sneered.

“But if it makes you feel better, go right ahead. I will proudly defend my actions before the Queen herself if she desires. But you, Centurion Behertz, don’t have a wing to fly on in issuing these orders. And when that chain is removed for your extreme misuse of it, you and your subordinates will be severely punished for your insubordination and willful disobedience.”

Despite the dire threat implicit in such a statement—the penalty for a soldier deliberately disobeying orders in wartime was death—she didn’t flinch from him. “The very fact that I’m standing here before you with my chain still around my neck says otherwise,” she answered instantly. “And even if it’s removed, I would strongly advise you not to order my arrest. Our human friends would not take kindly to that. And might well refuse to obey you.”

“So now you put them above your oath of service? Above the Kingdom itself?” he stood and shouted at her, his wings flared forward in fury.

“They are my oath of service! My duty as diplomatic liaison is to defend them and their interests!” she shouted back, her wings quickly taking the same posture. “Serving the Kingdom means keeping them from being killed and corrupted at all costs! And by all the Crows of the Kingdom, how do you expect me to not stand with them when one of them is my mate?”

His eyes flashed as his rattled aide fumbled her quill again, her flush growing and wings flaring in something other than anger despite her best efforts to restrain it, suddenly in danger of brushing the Tribune’s again before she could edge further away. But Cipio didn’t notice, his attention fixed straight ahead. “That you are allowing your feelings for one of these alien apes to cloud your judgment does not speak well for you, or your ability to be dispassionate.”

“Dispassionate? By the Ancestors, how can you be so unfeeling?” Fortrakt could restrain himself no longer, leaping up to shout at him, and this time, it was Gilda who held him back with a paw on his leather-clad chest. “We suffered horribly out there! Or did you not notice all the empty places in our formation when you were inspecting us?”

Cipio’s face crinkled as the two halves of his beak began to grind together in another sign of extreme anger. “I am neither impressed by your casualties nor moved by them, Decurion. For I have seen far worse than that over the past day!” he stated angrily, then got up to walk around the table from the side opposite his aide to stare him in the face. To Gilda’s surprise, the Silencers allowed it though they watched him carefully; she could only guess that it was because they could somehow tell he wasn’t going to attack.

“You are not owed an explanation, but since you are grotesquely ignorant of what happened here, I will grant you one: we had no inkling of anything wrong until wounded adolescent dragons arrived on the back of an injured and dying adult who crashed into the city, claiming their island had been overrun and the Cloven were coming!” he grated out, trying to cow a trembling Fortrakt with his size and station.

“We had but minutes to act before the first attack went in! Even forewarned, we only barely beat it back, and the only way I could relieve pressure on our soldiers enough to solidify our defenses was to make them attack you!” He rounded on Gilda next.

“So don’t you dare lecture me on your losses, Centurion! And don’t speak to me of the dead you’ve suffered! Do you want to know how many orphaned cubs and Caleponian foals will be sleeping in the streets of Aricia tonight, having lost their families? Or how the healer houses are so full of wounded civilians that our Magus can only barely balm because I have no choice but to place priority on healing wounded soldiers?” He slammed his fist down hard enough on the table to crack the chitin surface, his fury strong enough to make Fortrakt flinch.

“By the Ancestors themselves, I have spent the last day trying to save the city and all the surviving soldiers I could, dealing with everything from Cloven attacks to civilian refugees to disorder in the streets!” he shot back.

“Which is to say nothing of damaged airships that fled from further west with only a third of their crew aboard! Or nearly an entire legion lost fleeing Tierra that fell to swarms of corrupted and pure Cloven forms that then impaled themselves against our defense! We defeated them, but only because our civilians threw themselves into the fray with far too many centuries slain! Even with their help, we only held on by the tips of our wingfeathers! And after all that, you have the crow-damned gall to attack my orders and undermine my command?”

Satisfied he’d finally gotten their attention, he pulled back and partially furled his wings, walking back to the other end of the table before retaking his seat there. When he finally spoke again, his voice was calmer but still very icy.

“You and your soldiers are not the only ones who have suffered severely, Centurion. And you are far from the only force who needed rescue this past day. All of which means that you are not special to me regardless of whatever exotic weapons the humans hold. I am trying to save a city, not a century. And so far, I have. That is the case I will present to the Queen. And that is what will ultimately cost you your career and your chain—unless you back off and publicly accept my authority here and now!”

His vehemence gave her pause, and for a moment, Gilda couldn’t come up with a retort. But just as she saw the flaw in his logic—if saving soldiers was so important, then why had he been willing to sacrifice not just hers, but over a century and a half of additional Talons and Knights on top of them? —the door to the room opened between two of the Silencers and the armored form of Queen Lepidopes strode in, flanked by Archon Archex and the other large blue-trimmed drone.

“Please excuse my interruption,” she said politely with a bared throat, entering the chamber to a bow of her Silencer sentries, who she then dismissed with what Gilda was certain was a mental command. “But I think this has gone on long enough. As it is now clear you are unable to reach an accord on your own, I believe it is time for me to intervene.”

“You promised us that you wouldn’t eavesdrop on our conversation, Queen Lepidoptes,” Tribune Cipio reminded her, looking oddly uncomfortable for a moment as the two large drones took station on either side of the table where the Silencers had been. The latter exited through the doors the Queen had entered, closing it behind them.

She met his gaze evenly. “I haven’t been, Tribune. But my drones have been listening and have told me that you are at an impasse. Even without their report, I could sense that your emotions are very dark and bitter, and only growing more so as this conversation goes on. It is clear that you two are not listening to each other, and unless you are, this meeting will go nowhere,” she said with a look at each end of the room.

“I would normally be happy to let you both vent your anger, but in this instance, I cannot let it go on indefinitely due to the eggs we keep below. Our younglings are feeding on ambient emotions even before hatching, but they cannot do so selectively. For that reason, we are careful to only feed them positive ones. At the moment, I am shielding them from yours, but you are beginning to affect my drones as well. So for the sake of my Hive, I must ask you both to quiet your passions and control your tempers.”

The Tribune’s expression softened, but only just. “With greatest respect, Queen Lepidoptes, this is an internal Kingdom military matter, and not something you need concern yourself with. I will be more than happy to end this conversation and leave once the Centurion accepts that she is not in command here. Because if she doesn’t, I’ll have her dragged out and into a jail cell.”

“That’s an empty—” Gilda started to growl, but the Queen held up a gilded hoof to reinforce her gentle mental pressure.

“And with respect to you, Tribune, my ship has been accorded the status of embassy by your Queen. Thus, you are on foreign soil here—of which I am the head of state. Meaning that even if you had the authority to arrest her, you may not remove her without my permission,” she reminded him calmly.

“I offered it as neutral ground to settle this dispute, but it is now clear to me you cannot do so on your own. Your positions are too intractable, and I can tell from your emotions alone that you are simply talking past each other. So, I will take it upon myself to mediate.”

As she spoke, she went to a rather ornate cabinet and opened it to reveal various drinks, including outright spirits. Grabbing a series of bottles and bowls, she began assembling them before her with her magic, gathering enough drinking vessels for all.

“And do you really think that offering us refreshments is going to solve anything?” The Tribune asked in strained patience as the familiar scent of the honey wine reached Gilda’s nose.

“I do,” Queen Lepidoptes replied easily as she began to pour it. “For I have found over my many years that simply being a barbird is sometimes the best form of diplomacy available. In proper amounts, a good drink both soothes passions and boosts them, enabling beings to empathize more easily. Though there tends to be a fine line between just enough and too much, I am quite good at walking it now.”

“I am not about to imbibe anything alcoholic, Queen Lepidoptes. And I remind you again that this does not concern you—”

“I’m afraid that it does, Tribune, as the safety and security of my Hive is directly affected by what happens here, and the decisions you make. For that reason, I must insist that the two of you reach an accord before this meeting concludes.” She poured her own drink last. “I have my own perspective of these events, unique from either of you. And thus, if you are not willing to listen to each other, then it is my hope that you will at least listen to me.”

The Tribune made no move to accept his bowl, giving his aide a warning glare when she looked interested in hers. He waited until she had resumed writing before answering. “With all due respect, Queen Lepidoptes, what would you know about military operations and tactics?”

She gave him a cool look. “A great deal. Aside from the fact that my drones must become able warriors in order to fight mating rounds with griffons and otherwise pass as soldiers in Kingdom society, all Changeling Queens inherit the memories of their predecessors. As my line stretches back for two millennia, I have the experience of many military engagements in my memory, Tribune, including the great Pony/Gryphon conflict and even the long-ago War of the Celestial Sisters,” she informed him, causing him to fall silent.

“Between that and my mother’s tutelage, which included studies of the great campaigns of Prelate Salvio Gaius and even the writings of the pony Sun Master himself, be assured that I am fully trained in all forms of military affairs, including tactics and set-piece battles,” she told him, eliciting a grin from Gilda to see the look on the Tribune’s face.

“In fact, I could recite you chapter and verse on everything from the Battle of Stalliongrad to last year’s failed attempt by ibexian irregulars to raid the Cheetahean peninsula. So if you believe that years of military experience is the measure of a leader’s worth, then I have literally centuries of it. Making me the most experienced and able military leader here,” she informed him in a dry tone.

Gilda had the distinct pleasure of seeing the Tribune momentarily squirm. “Be that as it may, Countess—er, your Highness—You are not responsible for an entire city. I am.”

“No. I am simply responsible for an entire Hive,” she corrected him before Gilda could mull too deeply on the mistaken address, a sudden edge to her voice. “One that comprises thousands of individual drones, hatchlings, and eggs that I am telepathically linked to and must tend at all times. And before you say that I don’t have that many drones here, I remind you that my Hive’s members live all over Aricia, and are no less endangered than your own civilians. We have already lost eighteen drones in the past day—nothing compared to your casualties, perhaps, but given we are all telepathically linked, every death is keenly felt.”

“I’m truly sorry, Your Highness,” Giraldi offered his regrets before Gilda could. “Forgive me, but I must ask—were they…?”

She bowed her head sadly as she shook it. “Fortunately, those that fell to the Cloven were able to poison their minds to make sure they could not be possessed—a failsafe we use to prevent knowledge of our Hive from falling into the wrong wings. But it is not perfect and there is always a chance the Cloven could overcome it. Indeed, had they corrupted even one of us, your plan to kill the Overlord could not have worked because the Cloven would have known we were there, Tribune Cipio. And likely amassed a much larger army with multiple Overlords before striking.”

Cipio stared at her as she finished passing out full mugs and bowls, all carved from crystalline chitin. “You didn’t tell me that.”

She raised an eyeridge at him. “You didn’t give me a chance. You simply delivered your orders and cut communications after to make sure your plans wouldn’t be intercepted,” she reminded him coolly, to which the Tribune fell silent again. “Please drink, Tribune. Please drink, all of you,” she invited again, to which Gilda took her bowl and nodded at the others to indicate they could do the same.

“And what is this?” Cipio asked suspiciously, sniffing at the golden liquid.

“A honey-based wine,” Queen Lepidoptes said easily. “The Centurion has already tried it.”

“I have,” Gilda confirmed, feeling her temper start to cool and the pink around the edges of her vision receding as she drank it for the second time; she wasn’t sure if her mellowing mood was more due to that or the gentle and soothing mental pressure of the Queen. “It’s good. And I agree it’s something they could potentially market to the Kingdom later.”

“Thank you, Centurion. May I offer you this as well, Corporal Imlay?” the Queen invited, noting he’d made no move to take his mug.

“Thanks, but no thanks, ma’am,” he said politely. “Maybe later, when I finally go off duty.”

“I believe I will try it,” Karin Kazal said, to which the Queen promptly poured him a bowl. He sipped at it with his bearded muzzle, then blinked. “Surprisingly good, if a bit weak. I could use something stronger after this ordeal, though it seems almost too much to hope that you have the beloved beverage of my Rodina as well.”

In response, Queen Lepidoptes smiled and produced a small glass jug with odd ibexian text that immediately caused his eyes to light up. “Рубин Родины!” the Starshina exclaimed in delight. “One of the best of all vodkalf labels. You are truly a hospitable host, Queen Lepidoptes.” He accepted a short glass in his aura, pouring himself a drink of what looked like a clear, water-like liquid; the sheer amount of alcohol in it wafted through the air and was enough to make Gilda’s eyes water when it hit.

“Of course,” the Queen acknowledged with a nod. “As we occasionally entertain individuals of all races here, we stock their favorite spirits. I have no doubt that we will be eventually adding some human ones as well.”

The Starshina didn’t reply immediately as he threw back the contents of the mug and exhaled happily. “By the Ancient Rams themselves, I needed that… may I offer you some as well, Senior Scimitar?” He turned to Miles Fortuna. “Come now. Surely you acquired a taste for it while on infiltration missions in the Ascendancy?” he suggested with a wry grin, not waiting for her answer before pouring her some in a bowl.

The Raven commander looked annoyed for only a moment before she relented with a nod. “I did. But I had to be careful with it given the average ibex could drink me under the table, even when I was transformed into one.”

“A shortcoming you will have to fix if you wish to pass as one of us,” he told her with a twinkle, “and your training starts now.”

“I remind you that you are on duty as well, Senior Scimitar,” the Tribune glowered at her, to which she glared back.

“As my mission for you is complete, and you clearly did not expect me to survive it, you will forgive me if I ignore you and indulge in a simple celebration of survival, Tribune. Especially since I consider such orders every bit as foolish as the ones you gave me yesterday.” She upended the bowl and coughed hard as her eyes watered, earning a grin from Obsidian Ire and a roar of laughter from Karin Kazal.

“A strong spirit, is it? Then as I find this Changeling drink a bit too cloying—no offense, Queen Lepidoptes—I might like some too, Starshina,” the drakina requested politely.

“Of course, my Drakon friend.” He poured her some next, watching as she sniffed at it once, then upended it into her snout and gaped, briefly venting flame that was less violet than bright orange.

“By the Ancient Dragon Lords… that even burns me!” she croaked out, but despite that, she passed back her mug for another pour as the Tribune could only watch in disgust.

“By the Ancestors themselves… have all my soldiers lost their collective minds?”

“No. They just know how lucky they are to be alive and are rejoicing in it,” Queen Lepidoptes answered for all of them. “One of the great ironies of war is that it can turn the most implacable of enemies into friends, like the Starshina and Senior Scimitar there. And sometimes even more,” the Changeling monarch said with a sideways glance at Gilda, who was just able to stifle a blush and restrain the impulse to look at Karin Kazal. She then raised a chalice in toast. “To alliances and friendships, both old and new.”

After her call was echoed by all—Imlay at least raised his canteen in toast—she waited until the Tribune had reluctantly taken a sip of his drink before speaking again. “There. Now, as I promised my perspective earlier, allow me to give it: I must mostly side with the Centurion in this matter, Tribune Cipio,” she began, topping off bowls and mugs.

“To begin with, you must understand that the Centurion's anger over your actions is very real, and her concerns are valid ones. You gambled not only the lives of your own soldiers and civilians, but those of a foreign power who had sworn no oath to the Kingdom and were guests of Queen Molyneux herself. And though I understand your reasons for doing so and recognize the great victory that was won, I also recognize that Centurion Behertz is correct—that the potential for disaster was very real.”

She held up a gilded hoof in the human manner to forestall a protest, which Gilda supposed was necessary given her four fairy fly wings didn’t furl and couldn’t be raised singly to make the normal griffon halting gesture.

Whether due to the motion or her gentle mental pressure, the Tribune stayed silent. “For it is not the human weapons that are dangerous so much as the humans themselves—by which I mean not their physical abilities but their expertise in warfare,” she explained.

“From the information my Hive has already gleaned about humanity, the one thing I can say for certain is that they are appallingly good at it. And thus, if the Cloven gained access to their memories and training, their fighting doctrine would evolve by leaps and bounds even without access to human cannons. Meaning we would be faced with a far more dangerous and deadly foe,” she continued calmly despite the anger still evident on the Tribune’s face.

“It would also mean that the Cloven would much better understand human fighting doctrine in turn and make it easier for them to devise countermeasures, including new and more deadly soldier forms specifically tailored to fight them. We already saw an early attempt at that with the use of spike-equipped ground soldiers at Lake Languid that were designed to counter the human range advantage. Each became what I can only describe as a miniature siege engine, enabling them to pin enemy forces with a bombardment from one group while storming them with another,” she said to a sharp nod from Gilda, who resisted the temptation to chime in.

“So, with the greatest respect, Tribune, I do not feel that the Centurion is exaggerating when she claims you endangered the Kingdom by deliberately endangering the humans. For to borrow the Sun Master’s phrase, one must not only know thy enemy, but thy ally. It is clear that you do not understand the full capabilities of the humans, which could be fatal to not just the defense of Aricia but the entire Kingdom.”

“Thank you, Queen Lepidoptes.” Gilda couldn’t quite keep the victorious grin from her face or the smugness from her voice, earning a narrowed gaze from the Tribune.

But her grin dropped quickly as the Queen turned to her next. “But at the same time, you, Centurion Grizelda Behertz, are badly overreacting and deliberately undermining the Tribune’s authority at a time when obedience to orders is essential,” she rebuked Gilda next.

“You sought to make clear your severe displeasure over his actions and show him why they were so dangerous? Be assured that you have done so, but you cannot berate or bully him into obeying you any more than he could do the same to you. To continue to try is to needlessly antagonize him—to potentially damage troop morale and the all-important military principle of unity to the detriment of Aricia, and all to seek satisfaction where none can ultimately be found,” she said, and Gilda found her expression falling the more the Changeling monarch spoke.

“Given griffon military culture, you should know better than anycreature that he cannot take back his actions, or even apologize for them. To do so would be to show weakness to both his underlings and enemies, whether inside or outside the city walls. Whether you agree with his decisions or not, he is the ranking officer and cannot appear as weak or kowtowing to a subordinate, even one bearing a command chain of her own,” she went on, leaving Gilda thinking she was explaining it as much for Imlay’s benefit as her own.

Imlay himself remained standing silently, though he was clearly listening closely. “Now all that said, I grant your concerns were valid and needed to be aired. But in seeking to extract a proverbial pound of flesh, as humans say, you have moved well away from your original purpose,” she explained softly, looking between them repeatedly as she began preparing a second drink; this one steaming and smelling of some form of tea.

“In my view, you are now engaging in little more than chest-fluffing and headcrest-flaring, to use your own terms, abusing your authority as diplomatic liaison in the process. It has gone well past the point of being productive or even effective. And thus, for the sake of the Kingdom, the humans you are responsible for, and your very mate, it is time to let this go.”

She finished the tea preparation and floated them both an ornate bowl that looked like it came from Feudal Neighpon, filled with a steaming liquid that smelled of spice and honey. Once they were served, she served herself and sat down between them on a plush pillow, sipping at her own cup.

“The war has just begun. And the Cloven will come again, using the bitterly won experience they have gained here to plan their next offensive. Much needs to be done to prepare for them or an eventual counterattack to drive them from your territory, but this cannot happen while the two of you are butting heads like stubborn rams. For this to work, you will have to meet each other halfway. And that starts with an acknowledgement of the other’s concerns. As it was your decisions that initiated this, I would ask that you go first, Tribune.”

Despite the invitation, he didn’t right away, continuing to glare at Gilda. She couldn’t sense what he was thinking, but the perceptive Queen did—or at least, Gilda guessed that the Changeling monarch was picking up the emotions roiling beneath the surface of his still-angry features.

Queen Lepidoptes confirmed it with her next words. “Do not make this a question of honor or showing weakness, Tribune. There is no cause to stand on ceremony nor anycreature else to impress. I’m sure all present will agree that what happens here, stays here.”

Glancing at her slightly nervously as he realized his state of mind was an unrolled scroll to her, he took a very deliberate sip of his tea to steady himself, struggling to master his emotions.

“Very well, Your Highness. To hear the accounts of the Centurion and her soldiers, perhaps you are right that I didn’t think this through fully. I saw an opportunity to take down a Cloven Overlord and its entire army, but it is possible that I didn’t correctly weigh the risks against the rewards. I also didn’t consider that the humans had sworn no oath to the Kingdom, and that I had no right to spend their lives like my own soldiers,” he granted somewhat grudgingly, and Gilda got the distinct impression that even that would not have been forthcoming without the presence of the Changeling monarch.

“Nor had my hive, Tribune.” There was the barest note of rebuke in the Queen’s voice. “Your plan demanded that we reveal ourselves and abandon our home of seven centuries. You also gave us no say in the matter when you issued your orders, forcing my drones to prepare for imminent battle and evacuation on very short notice. You instructed us to protect the humans from being overrun until the Overlord appeared, and we did. But I do not think you appreciated how difficult and dangerous your plan truly was for us, as well as the Centurion’s forces. Or that it could have been compromised from the start had the Cloven captured any of my children.”

For the first time, Cipio looked chagrined, closing his eyes and looking away for a moment. “I… understand that it cost you your home. For which I am sorry, Countess—er, Queen Lepidoptes,” he slipped again, causing Gilda to exchange a glance and grin with Fortrakt at where she guessed the confusion was coming from.

“But at the same time, I must point out that you are far from alone. You lost your home, but so have countless others in this conflict. As I already told the Centurion, Aricia’s streets are now filled with griffon and Caleponian refugees, including far too many orphaned foals and cubs.

“It is all we can do right now to care for and feed them. And with respect, it was ultimately not possible for you to remain out of the war. I appreciate that you trusted me enough to reveal yourself, but if you truly wish to live among us openly, then I don’t have to be Queen Molyneux to say that she would require you to prove your worthiness by fighting—and dying—at our side.”

“And so we did,” she reminded him evenly. “Despite its wrenching cost. Our casualties to this point are nothing compared to yours, perhaps, but as our minds are linked to at least a limited degree, I remind you that we feel every loss keenly. Nor can we turn off these empathic abilities, as they are part of our very being and essential to our survival. That meant we also felt the full rage and despair of your soldiers when they thought you had callously abandoned them and all was lost,” she said softly.

Gilda grimaced. She didn’t want to think of what Queen Lepidoptes had sensed from her during her multiple temper tantrums at being told they were to stay, but yet again, the Queen answered her unspoken question almost before she could form it.

“The Centurion here was particularly upset, with good reason. We told you that they had arrived at Lake Languid, but not what they had gone through to get there. I don’t know the story myself, but we could tell from their emotions alone that they were in dire straits—that they had been fighting all night just to get into a position for rescue, only to be denied evacuation for what they felt was no good reason.”

“You got that right!” Gilda snarled, not even caring that she might be speaking out of turn. “To use the human phrase, we went through Hell to get that far, Tribune, surviving an ambush in the woods and an extended siege at Bale that even included an attack by possessed adult dragons—oh, and did you know that the Marines had weapons that could shoot them down?” she asked him pointedly, causing him to look up in surprise.

“Surely you jest. With but small cannons?” he asked incredulously as the Paladins behind him exdhanged a disbelieving look.

“With giant enchanted arrows they’re also equipped with, though I’ll let the Corporal speak to those. They’re the biggest reason we’re still alive! That was what you risked being turned on the Kingdom!” Gilda felt her ire rising anew and the pink in her vision along with it, suddenly having to restrain another urge to launch herself across the table to throttle him.

This time, the Queen seemed to notice, staring at her warily; a glance at the door showed her that even her two escort drones perked up and took notice. “I am uncertain if you are aware of this, Centurion Behertz, but you and your two subordinates are emitting a sharp cider scent that contains an odd and very potent magical mixture. Though I do not recognize its source, it seems to enhance your emotions, and possibly your strength as well,” she recognized cautiously.

“They are?” Cipio gave her a suspicious look that made her think he was suddenly wondering if she was somehow a Cloven infiltrator. Behind him, his Paladin guards and Magus tensed, ready to draw their weapons. “Care to explain, Centurion?”

“We are. And by your command,” Gilda replied shortly, taking a deep breath and another gulp of the honey wine to keep her temper from spiraling out of control again. What I wouldn’t give for a swig of Marco’s whiskey! “As I’m sure you’ve heard, Tribune, the human civilians and I were poisoned with zap apple cider spiked with fertility potion, along with Optio Giraldi and Decurion Gletscher here,” she recalled bitterly as her remembered anger over the attack roiled her emotions anew.

She took several deep breaths before continuing. “It was done by Ibexian Adepts at the orders of the Ascendancy’s Capricorn Conclave. Their intention was to get us to rape or kill the humans in the hope it would thwart any chance of an alliance or trade agreement. It failed.”

“She speaks true,” Karin Kazal admitted quietly, having to look away. “Though my team was not involved in that operation and was unaware it was happening, we certainly learned of it after the fact. And given all that has happened since, I am relieved that we did not succeed, given the great need for human soldiers and weapons now.”

The Tribune nodded but didn’t look at him. “I did hear about that—indeed, the whole Kingdom did. But weren’t you cured of it after?”

Gilda’s beak clenched as she exchanged a glance with Fortrakt, who grimaced. “We thought so, but apparently not. We were severely sick and had to be gradually weaned off it, but just in the past few days it’s been coming back hard. Speaking for myself, whenever I get mad or… emotional” —she just caught herself from saying aroused— “it kicks in and the zap apple part of it makes my emotions stronger,” she confirmed to a frown from the Tribune and brooding nods of confirmation from Giraldi and Fortrakt.

“We can’t stop it; all we can do is be aware of it and try to redirect it to things like combat, where it makes us stronger and faster. Still, I’ve been worried about it, too. I was hoping to get us scanned by healers once we made it to Arnau to see if it can at least be suppressed.”

“I see…” the Queen said cautiously, leaving Gilda certain she was able to read between the lines of what else the ‘odd magical mixture’ did. “I, too, have heard of this attack—we do keep up with the news, of course—and at the time, I was greatly relieved that war with the Ascendancy did not result. But even if it provides boons in battle, I would exercise extreme caution, Centurion, as its effects appear to be a double-edged sword. I know not if it can be fixed, but I will be happy to offer up my Hive’s expertise if it will help. We have our own ways of dispelling foreign magic.”

Gilda gave her a curt nod. “Thank you, Queen Lepidoptes. But right now, I feel my anger is justified, so I’m not going to fight it. Don’t worry, I’ve had plenty of practice controlling it by now. So no, I’m not going to attack him. Or be goaded into a duel I can’t win.” No matter how badly I may want to…

“Pity. For I would have thought you would duel on behalf of your so-called mate if you truly seek to honor him. But perhaps he is not worth such honor,” the Tribune said, earning a glare from Gilda and a frown from Queen Lepidoptes.

“That will do, Tribune,” she told him in a deceptively soft tone before Gilda could snarl a reply. “Insults of subordinates do not become you or your station. And I would say the same to you with regards to your superiors, Centurion.” She turned to Gilda next.

“You are my guests, and I expect all of you to comport yourselves properly. By my order, there will be no duels or blood spilled here. Indeed, there is no need for it. Not when I can promise that you will reach a resolution by the time you leave this room.”

Though Gilda had no idea how she thought she could guarantee that, she held her tongue, unsure if it was more due to Fortrakt’s comforting talons against her lower back or the Queen’s gentle mental pressure again. “That’s up to him,” she said. “And I’m still waiting for an acknowledgement of error regarding human capabilities, Tribune.”

But instead of directly answering her, he addressed Queen Lepidoptes. “You are also correct, Countess—er, Queen—that I do not currently know enough about the humans to protect or properly employ them in battle, so I will endeavor to learn—to see if these wild tales are true. Such information would also be useful if the Cloven ever succeeded in corrupting some of them. But even so…”

He turned his unrepentant gaze back up at Gilda, who guessed he had yet again accidentally addressed the Queen by the title of her griffon disguise. Countess, eh? Sounds like she’s been masquerading as a mid-level griffon noble!

But the thought was lost as she found herself pinned with a stare. “Even so, this information changes nothing, Centurion Behertz. Given the same circumstances, I would make the same decisions all over again on the grounds that the opportunity was there, and the potential boons of victory were so vast. We are in an existential struggle, and ultimately, even the humans must be considered expendable. Even if one of them is your mate.”

Gilda’s talons clenched, feeling her ire rise further. She felt an explosion trying to break free of her throat, but to her surprise, Fortrakt beat her to it. “Then by all our Ancestors, you’ve learned nothing!” he shouted at the Tribune, tears in his eyes from what she was sure was cider-roiled emotions crossed with endless combat and lack of sleep.

“And by all my Ancestors, I will have your rank for that!” the Tribune retaliated until the Queen magically restrained them.

“Sit down, both of you,” she commanded, reinforcing her words with a surprisingly firm magical shove that forced the two tiercels back into a sitting position. “The raw emotions in this room are intense and dangerously dark, and I can tell from them that you are simply trying to placate me with a few token concessions, Tribune,” she told him bluntly, causing his flush to deepen.

“This will not do. But when words alone fail to suffice, I can offer an alternative,” she said with a slow exhale of breath Gilda guessed was meant to cleanse her thoughts of all the extreme anger she was sensing.

“An alternative, Your Highness?” Giraldi inquired politely, leaving Gilda to note appreciatively that he alone seemed to have kept his composure.

“Yes, Optio. As I’m sure you all know, Changelings of the same Hive can communicate telepathically, but it is not a simple sharing of thoughts. We can also use it to share experiences and instantly impart knowledge. It is in fact the same ability the Cloven draw on to pass information and learn rapidly, though their version of it is far more crude. Theirs must go through an Overlord, given Cloven soldiers do not have an individual will to act or an ability to plan and reason on their own.”

“And what of it?” the Tribune asked irritably, looking more than ready to leave.

She gave him a look of strained patience. “If we choose, it need not be limited to the drones of my Hive. I can extend it to other beings in a limited manner, within a certain range. In so doing, you would be able to not just see, but directly experience all that they did, including witnessing the immense power of human weapons and the savagery of the Cloven attacks they defeated.”

She paused as Gilda exchanged a surprised look with Giraldi and Fotrakt; she could also hear Miles Fortuna and even Karin Kazal shifting uncomfortably in the corner behind her.

“Understand, I do not offer this service lightly, as it will force not just me, but any drones present to participate. Understand also that it can be a very overwhelming experience for those unaccustomed to it. You would be surprised how different and disorienting it can be to see through the senses of not just another being, but another race. Nevertheless, when used properly, it is a very powerful tool of empathy and understanding—one that can show both sides of this dispute what the other went through over the past day.”

Gilda glanced at Giraldi and Fortrakt again, earning a sharp nod from each. “Fine. If that’s what it takes to show him what a crow-damned fool he is, we’ll do it.”

“For I cannot censor or edit the experiences. By taking part in this, you will show not just the Tribune, but all your comrades everything that happened to you in the past day…”

Two story tracks are available from here. You can either follow the T-rated one, or the R-rated/M-rated one. Just click the appropriate link below:

—Firesight

===> next: Chapter 35 (R-rated)
===> next: Chapter 35 (T-rated)

35: Through the Eyes of Another (R-rated)

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay on this one, folks, but it gave me fits as I tried to feel out its proper scope, determining whose perspectives should be included and whose to discard. Also not helping was a massive push being put on by my job to get a software release done, which (I hope) is finally over and done as of today.

This chapter does contain some sexual content, including a couple R-rated moments as certain scenes from the past day’s events are replayed. It’s not prevalent, but it is there. So if you want the T-rated version of this chapter, go here:

33: Through the Eyes of Another (T-rated)

Chapter contains: Giraldi and Optio Virgo vividly fantasizing about males in general and Ebon Umbreon/Tribune Cipio in particular. Also shows Giraldi popping a boner over getting to fire the fifty from his perspective, which is then shared by Gilda and the others through the memory magic.

As always, I thank my superb prereading crew of Silentwoodfire, AJ_Aficionado, ASF, Wechsel and Silverblade5. They gave the chapter rave reviews, and hopefully readers will as well. Have at it just as soon as I post the standard boilerplate:

This chapter is brand new content, taking place not long after chapter 9 of the original story. You are not only invited but strongly encouraged to check out the original Feathered Heart if you haven’t already, as it inspired many of my own works.

—Firesight

35: Through the Eyes of Another (R-rated)

Gilda glanced at Giraldi and Fortrakt again, earning a sharp nod from each. “Fine. If that’s what it takes to show him what a crow-damned fool he is, we’ll do it.”

But instead of immediately accepting, Queen Lepidoptes turned her gaze on Gilda again. “Before you agree, think carefully if you wish to participate, Grizelda Behertz,” the Changeling monarch admonished her. “For I cannot censor or edit the experiences. By sharing your memories, you will show not just the Tribune but all your comrades who take part in this everything that happened to you in the past day.”

Gilda mentally froze. She picked up on the hidden meaning of the Queen’s words immediately, her mind racing.

“Is there an issue, Centurion?” Tribune Cipio asked icily as he saw her hesitate. “Perhaps something you don’t want me to see? Like a failure of leadership that cost lives? Or a lie you’ve been telling this whole time?”

She looked up sharply at the insult to honor. “I haven’t lied about anything, Tribune.”

“Then there should be no issue with acceding to the Queen’s request,” he said with a sneer, and Gilda realized that Giraldi and Fortrakt were now giving her questioning looks as well. “I have nothing to hide. Or are you afraid of learning that I haven’t lied? That everything I did was not only justified, but necessary?”

She ground the halves of her beak together as her mind raced, trying not to look at Karin Kazal behind her. She could feel his gaze on her, but whatever he was thinking, he gave no indication, leaving Gilda guessing that he feared speaking up might give himself away.

What should I do? she wondered half-frantically. I might be willing if it was just me, but there’s the Starshina to consider, too...

But before she could form a reply, an uncomfortable Imlay cleared his throat. “With greatest respect, ma’am, I would rather not have my mind scanned,” the Marine Corporal said. “You’ll understand that we’re still trying to keep our full capabilities secret. If my memories are shared, then the Cloven might gain the ability to use or counter our weapons by corrupting whoever they were shared with.”

Queen Lepidoptes nodded. “I see. A sensible precaution. In that case, I must ask that you leave the room, Corporal Imlay, as I cannot exclude you from the spell’s effects if you remain. Be assured that you will be safe from it outside these walls.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said with a nod, turning to leave.

“I must decline as well,” Miles Fortuna added as he exited between her two sentries. “No offense, Your Highness, but even if they are currently helping us, Raven capabilities and tactics must be kept from the ibex. And even yourselves.”

“We already know them, Senior Scimitar,” Karin Kazal said in some annoyance, and Gilda could pick out the tension in his voice as all three Ravens left the room. “That said, I admit to having the same reservations, given there are… certain things I would not wish to share.”

“Like an attempt at betrayal?” The Tribune suggested, earning a glare from Gilda and a growl-like bleat from the ibex buck. “Fine, leave if you must. I have no wish to see what lies inside the mind of a crow-damned goat anyway. So what will it be, Centurion?”

She closed her eyes and nodded slowly as she reached her decision. “I will respectfully decline to take part as well, Queen Lepidoptes. But not because I have lied about human weapons!” she immediately added to an angry glare from Cipio and at least a slight exhalation from Karin Kazal. “It is only because there are some… private experiences I wish to protect.” She allowed herself to blush slightly, hoping it would simply be assumed she was talking about an encounter with Marco.

“How convenient,” Cipio said with a second sneer. “Well, if you’re not going to participate, then I fail to see why I should.”

Giraldi gave him a cool look. “I would think that she’s trying to protect you, sir. Unless despite claiming the idea to be appalling, you truly wish to experience her laying with an ‘alien ape’?” he suggested mildly, causing the Tribune to make a face and his uncertain aide to give another barely audible squeak.

Gilda bared her throat to him, trying to hide her relief. Thank you, Giraldi! she mentally told her quick-thinking second. “Even if he does, I wouldn’t share it. As both my subordinates saw human weapons in action, and even used them in the case of the Optio, I see no reason to stay and indulge the Tribune’s voyeuristic tendencies. So, I will step out as well.” She rose to leave after one final wingslap at him, but she couldn’t quite force herself to meet his probing gaze.

“In that case, we’re done here, Behertz,” the Tribune said after studying her for a moment. “I won’t take part in this, either. And I will be telling Queen Molyneux that you’re lying.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you are lying! Between your tension and your posturing, you’re acting just like my daughter does when she’s done something wrong!” he shot back, pointing a metal-clad talon at her. “I’m not sure what you’re hiding, but it isn’t just rutting a human, is it? There’s something you don’t want me to know, which means that I need to know it!”

Gilda froze, her eyes going furtive. “I…” She shot a pleading look to Queen Lepidoptes, realizing too late that her reaction had only confirmed his suspicions.

To her relief, the Changeling monarch came quickly to her defense. “Your parental perception does you great credit, Tribune. But in this case, you are jumping to an incorrect conclusion. I am aware of what she wishes to keep private, and I agree that she has good reason to do so. So if you will not believe her, then please believe me when I say it is irrelevant to this discussion.”

“And you’ll forgive me if I cannot take your word for it, Queen Lepidoptes, given her grandiose claims and the repeated assaults on my honor that the Centurion has made,” he replied, his glare never leaving Gilda even as the Queen’s eyes narrowed at having her word questioned. But the Tribune took no notice.

“She demands that I trust her while clearly withholding information under the cover of rutting her human lover? I will no more allow that than I would allow my inebriated sixteen-year-old son to avoid admitting he ate an entire rum cake by confessing to snacking on a dessert scone. Which he tried last week, by the way.”

Gilda stifled an urge to swallow, suddenly feeling for a moment like she was a cub being interrogated on one of her many Equestrian misdeeds by her long-absent sire. But she forcibly purged it, willing herself to meet his gaze and put some steel in her spine. “I am not your son, sir.”

“No. You’re my subordinate, which means I tolerate lying to me even less!” he instantly retorted. “So out with it, Behertz! Tell me what you’re hiding, or we’re finished here! And between that and your obvious emotional compromise, I will convince the Queen that your judgment cannot be trusted!”

As she sensed all eyes turning on her, Gilda felt trapped. She considered asking Queen Lepidoptes to explain it but quickly realized that would come across as being ashamed or embarrassed of her actions, which would itself be a lie and would dishonor the Starshina still sitting silently behind her. “Even if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Try me,” the Tribune said in some contempt, drumming his talons on the table again while his aide kept glancing between him and Gilda. To her credit, she was still trying to take the minutes of the meeting despite her distraction and the ink-stained mess she’d made of her parchment; Gilda might have been amused by the young eagless’s obvious interest in her relationship with Marco if the situation wasn’t so serious.

“You must see our memories of the human weapons, sir. You can’t leave until you do,” she told him again, if far more wanly.

“I can and I will,” he replied instantly and quite hotly. “I still have a city to save and a great deal of work to do before the Cloven come again. Last chance, Behertz. You’ve taken enough of my time and attention today, so if you want me to stay and take part in this, then I suggest you start talking. Now.”

Realizing she was trapped, she looked back at Karin Kazal, who closed his eyes and nodded slowly. “The protection of the humans is paramount,” he reminded her in a quiet voice. “And privacy concerns do not override it.”

“You’re right, Starshina,” she admitted in an equally subdued tone, recognizing he was giving her permission to reveal what happened. “Very well, Tribune. Though it may still cost me my post, I’ll do it. But I won’t tell you, since I think you’d use it as an excuse to leave anyway. I’ll show you. I’m in, Queen Lepidoptes.” She bared her throat, praying a confused Giraldi and Fortrakt wouldn’t take what they learned too badly. There’s no question the Tribune will, though…

“Cost your post? But what could possibly—” Fortrakt started to ask before Karin Kazal cut him off, speaking in a resigned tone.

“I must say, you very neatly trapped her, Tribune. You would make a good interrogator for the Capricorn Conclave. Very well, then. If the Centurion is staying, then I’m staying, Queen Lepidoptes,” he announced. “But I still decline to participate directly. I have mental magic of my own and can use it to protect my memory.”

“Though I’m sure you do, it will not suffice here, Starshina. The spell is two-way and cannot be overridden. Given your well-disciplined mind and experience with memory magic, I will not object if you wish to take part. But I must ask you not to resist or interfere, given it will disrupt the greater spellwork and potentially cause severe pain to all present,” Queen Lepidoptes told him. “I know what you fear, and why you feel you should stay. Though unquestionably honorable, it is also unnecessary. Not when I am here and can deal with any… issues that may arise.”

Gilda heard him exhale softly. “Understood,” he finally said, then addressed the Queen in his native tongue: “Мне можно просить убежище для себя, центуриона, и своих товарищей, если бы дела происходили ужасно?”

“Да, хоть, не думаю, что нам нужно будет. Лишь Трибун плохо отреагировать таким. Мне можно выдержать.” Whatever he asked, the Changeling monarch answered in fluent Ibexian, leaving Gilda no idea what they were saying.

But Karin Kazal seemed at least somewhat mollified by her statement, standing up to take his leave with a final magical squeeze of Gilda’s foretalons. “Thank you, Queen Lepidoptes. Then for the same reasons as the Ravens, I feel it best to not participate.”

“Well, then. As I have no interest in reliving another creature’s rutting, I will also leave,” Obsidian Ire decided before the Queen or Tribune could reply. “I trust that the experience of the Centurion and her subordinates will be illuminating enough with regards to human weapons.”

“As you wish.” The Queen closed her eyes briefly before turning her gaze on Fortrakt, whose head was visibly drooping. “But upon reflection, I must ask that you leave as well, Decurion Fortrakt Gletscher.”

He looked up at her, but only after an uncharacteristic delay as it took him longer than usual to process her words. “Me? Why?”

“Because with greatest respect, your lack of sleep and accumulated battle stress is telling, as your focus is slipping and emotions remain quite roiled. I fear that in your weakened state, you will lack the discipline and dispassion to take part in this properly. In contrast, Galen Giraldi remains calm and alert. Am I wrong in believing that the Optio has seen more than enough of human weapons to make up for the Decurion’s absence, Centurion?”

Gilda exchanged a look with Giraldi, recalling all he had seen and done over the past day. “He has. By my order, please leave and look after yourself, Decurion. I release you from duty now, so get yourself some sleep and a meal.” The Changelings had opened the ship’s galley to their visitors, having brought along a surprisingly voluminous and varied stock of food.

He exhaled slowly and nodded. “By your command. But please call me if you need me,” he requested with a bared throat and slightly clumsy salute, pulling himself up to shuffle tiredly out the door.

“Very well, then. As a smaller roster is preferred, I also request that you dismiss your guards, Tribune,” the Queen addressed Cipio next. “They are not needed here, and their presence will only complicate the spell. The more minds and memories there are, the harder they are to pull and assimilate at once. Especially for those inexperienced with this form of magic.”

“If the Tribune’s staying, then I’m staying!” the eagless Magus replied before he could answer. “By all our Ancestors, I don’t trust this… situation!”

“That is not advisable, Senior Stave,” the Queen warned. “Because it is possible you will react instinctively to what you are experiencing and lash out with your magic. If you wish to stay, you must leave your casting staff outside.”

“But that would leave me unable to properly defend the Tribune! And if that’s a danger, why was he allowed to stay?” she leveled her staff at the Starshina still standing just outside the room.

“Because she knows that unlike you, I have some self-control, Magus,” Karin Kazal told her irritably through the open door, ignoring the stave pointed at him. “As the Queen stated, I have experience with shared memories since the Capricorn Conclave occasionally employs them to impart knowledge of locations or other information. And thus, I would know that what I’m seeing and feeling isn’t happening no matter how vivid or immersive it is. Can you say the same?”

“Karin Kazal speaks true,” Queen Lepidoptes said before the blue-eyed eagless could retort. “Allow me to put your worries at ease, Senior Stave—the Tribune is safe in my presence. Indeed, everycreature here is.” She cast her gaze at Gilda briefly, who took it as reassurance.

“Leave us,” Cipio said at length to the two Paladins behind him. “The Queen is not going to hurt me. And you, too, Magus. Wait outside. I will summon you when needed.”

“By your command,” they reluctantly chorused, turning to leave. Once they had, Karin Kazal waited until Fortrakt had exited the open door before closing it behind him, saying something under his breath in his native tongue.

“And me, sir?” Optio Virgo asked in what Gilda interpreted as a tentative but half-hopeful tone as the doors closed. “Should I stay?”

“That, too, is inadvisable,” the Queen warned. “Given her youth, obvious unfamiliarity with combat and lack of mental discipline—no offense, Optio—she is likely to react… unpredictably to what she sees.”

“I have seen combat!” the eagless spoke up in her own defense, though her voice sounded slightly shaky to Gilda. “Just this morning, defending my own family and later fighting at the Tribune’s side! And though I may not be much of a warrior, I am a scholar, Queen Lepidoptes. I can study and focus as well as any griffon.”

The Tribune glanced at the Queen, then over at the young eagless, frowning at the messy state of her writing. “She speaks true. She is a soldier of the Kingdom, and by my order, she will conduct herself as one. I made you my adjutant, Optio, and in that capacity, you will stay since you’re going to be writing a report on this for Queen Molyneux. But I do suggest you cap your inkwell to prevent any more spills,” he pointed out in some annoyance, causing her to cringe. “And kindly control your wings around me. Sorry if this disappoints you, but I do not fraternize with subordinates.”

“By your command,” she said slightly weakly, putting down her quill and fumbling the cap of the bottle before finally sealing it and setting it aside.

“Very well. I will hold you to your word, Optio Rubens Virgo. Then as our roster is set, let me make it clear what is going to happen,” Queen Lepidoptes said once the doors were shut, and they were alone. “This spell will open your minds and memories over the past day to everycreature present in this room. It is normally a simultaneous sharing, but to keep it from being too overwhelming given your inexperience with it, I will only share one individual’s recollections at a time,” she told them.

“To avoid any impression of favoritism, I will alternate sharing memories from individuals from each side of the room, starting with those of the Tribune since he bears the highest rank. I will then replay Optio Galen Giraldi’s memories, followed by those of Optio Rubens Virgo. And finally, those of Centurion Behertz will play.”

“Saving her for last? Why not first?” Tribune Cipio asked, to which the Queen gave him another cool and what Gilda took to be a slightly annoyed look.

“Because I don’t want what she reveals to overshadow the experience of human ‘firearms’,” the Changeling monarch answered evenly. “That is what they term their cannons.”

“And it is a term well-earned, given it can be justly claimed that their weapons are fire-based. As you are taking part yourself, will your memories play as well, your Highness?” Giraldi inquired.

“No. Not because I am unwilling, but because the nature of the spell is that the caster’s memories do not play, in order to facilitate the transfer. Were it otherwise, I could not perform this incantation. Given my near-total awareness of my hive and all activity within it, the experience would be so overwhelming that your minds would simply not be able to assimilate it,” she explained.

“And though such an ability may sound desirable, trust me—even limited forms of omnipotence can be both the greatest of gifts and the gravest of curses. To be connected to my drones at all times means I feel everything from their births to their deaths; from their joys to their fears and sorrows. That is the burden I bear as Queen.” Her eyes turned very old for a moment, earning a concerned glance from Archex and the other large drone.

“I do not envy you that burden. But I do not seek to add to it here. Before we begin, is there anything else you need from us, Queen Lepidoptes?” Giraldi asked politely, looking to Gilda far more at ease than she felt.

“Nothing except your presence, and a willingness to open your minds to me, Galen Giraldi,” the Changeling monarch replied evenly, glancing at her two large guard drones, who bowed low and departed. Once the doors were sealed behind them, she nodded.

“Now, then. My first instruction is that all of you should sit down and relax. I will make this process as gentle as I can, but I warn you again that it may be overwhelming at times. I also remind you that despite how intense or real it may seem, always keep in mind that everything you experience is a memory and not happening now…”

Unsung Heroes
UNSUNG HERO | Best Epic Heroic Orchestral Music | Epic Music Mix by @ThomasJCurran

Gilda felt her heart begin to race as the Changeling Queen ignited her long, hole-filled horn, which began to glow with a soft orange aura that shortly expanded outwards to envelop the entire room.

As it bathed them all in a magical field that caused an odd prickly sensation while it quickly collected around her head, Gilda sensed it soaking into not just her mind but her very soul, seeking access to the memories within. She reflexively tried to fight it for a moment only to feel the pressure recede in response, letting her get used to the odd and unquestionably alien intrusion before pushing deeper. It took a few tries for her to finally accept the friendly but still-foreign presence, but after a minute, her body relaxed and her mind relented, her head lolling forward as her eyes shut.

For an uncertain amount of time, she was aware of nothing else but her own slowing heartbeat and breathing, feeling as if she was entering a trance. But suddenly a series of other presences registered on her mind, appearing almost ghostlike behind her eyelids. She didn’t know what to call the odd effect, but she quickly recognized the ethereal forms of the Queen followed by Giraldi, then those of the Tribune and his aide, leaving her the impression that those more distant to her entered her awareness last.

Nothing more happened for several minutes—or at least, that’s how long it felt to her, though she dimly realized that she didn’t have any real sense of the passage of time while under the slowly deepening spell. She wasn’t sure why the delay until she picked up a stray thought from Giraldi that the Queen was trying to make sure they were as calm and relaxed as possible before proceeding.

Wait—how had she read his mind?

You are correct, Galen Giraldi, the Queen’s voice suddenly sounded directly in Gilda’s head, momentarily startling her. I do not wish you to be agitated, especially at the start of the process. So as much as possible, empty your minds of fears and worries. I promise this will not hurt you. Nor will anything you see.

Her voice was both soothing and commanding. Despite how dweeby it made her feel, Gilda clung to the Queen’s words like a lifeline, trying to obey as best she could despite her lingering anxiety. She reminded herself that whatever happened, she was doing this for her human mate as well as the Kingdom.

That even if everything went to the crows over it, she could still find friendship and love with Marco and his friends. And serve the Kingdom through Queen Lepidoptes if she wished.

That is correct, Centurion. So fear not what may come of this, the Queen’s thoughts answered Gilda’s unspoken worries again. It is time. I remind all of you again that this will enable you to not just see, but experience all that your comrades did, she told them yet again, to which Gilda inwardly swallowed even though she knew that Giraldi and the Tribune could sense her anxiety. It is an intense process even for those familiar with it, and thus, we must move slowly. And I cannot emphasize enough that nothing that you may see, hear, smell or feel in these next few minutes is real…

She didn’t give them a chance to respond before Gilda suddenly felt a fresh magical effect wash over her, settling on her head.

And then abruptly, she wasn’t inside of her own.

* * * * *

She suddenly found herself in what looked like a well-appointed military office, face-to-face and beak-to-beak with a civilian eagless she was arguing angrily with.

But she was seeing things from a higher height, and the weight and heft of her body was also much different than what she was used to. She felt far stronger and swifter than she had ever been, her body and mind honed by countless duels and battles with everycreature from the Harpies and Minotaurian mercenaries to Ibexian irregulars.

By the Ancestors… she heard Optio Virgo think in astonishment, and Gilda was hard pressed to disagree with the sentiment as she found herself not just seeing but experiencing everything through the eyes and ears of a different griffon, even able to register the scent of the eagless opposite him to the trill building deep in his own throat as he exchanged insults with her.

His feathers ruffling as his thoughts were bleak and bitter, he found himself with a strong desire to duel the other eagless for ownership of their home and custody of their cubs, who Gilda somehow knew was his… wife?

Stunned by the intensity of the aggrievement and pure rage she felt, it took a moment before Gilda realized she was now seeing through the thoughts and senses of Tribune Cipio, who she only then recalled that Queen Lepidoptes had said would be the first individual to have their memories replayed. Ignoring the faint smell of smoke in the air, the two griffons were on the verge of not just declaring their marital bonds sundered but outright battle, as each accused the other of infidelity and putting their career above their cubs.

The former was an accusation the Tribune knew himself to be guilty of, justifying it in his mind by the certainty that his wife had done it first. But even as he readied himself to issue a ritual challenge to his Uxor, a former Magus Knight who had retired from active service to run a healer house and always kept her stave on her back, a shrill shriek of violently vibrating crystal suddenly sounded over the base which immediately got their attention—a rarely-used alarm that Gilda recognized from Gauntlet training indicated a dragon attack on a base or city.

Startled, the Tribune and his Uxor rushed out onto the balcony to see a badly burned and visibly wounded adult dragon to which a collection of smaller figures clung, flying low over the city trailing blood as it was chased by startled sentries. But instead of turning on them or breathing fire, the large creature crashed hard into the parade grounds almost directly in front of his headquarters building, skidding to a stop on its belly as it was unable to land properly with three of its four limbs visibly broken and hanging limp.

Shocked, Cipio grabbed a communication gem, shouting for reinforcements and ordering every available Magus to converge on the threat. But instead of attacking, the exhausted and equally injured adolescents on the adult’s back spilled off and held up their talons in a gesture of surrender. Battle-scarred and wearing battered armor, they openly pleaded for help from the century of soldiers surrounding them with crossbows leveled, claiming their clan was conquered and Isle had been overrun… by the Cloven of the Sun!

Their fight forgotten; the Tribune ordered his shocked wife to secure their cubs in an underground bunker beneath the headquarters building while he went outside to meet the invaders. In a show of courage that left Gilda admiring the size of his figurative sac, he fearlessly flew up to the adult dragon and spoke to him despite the faint glow still in its throat. It warned him that the Cloven had corrupted almost every adult of his clan and were now coming for the Kingdom, intending to use his former brethren in a devastating first strike as they invaded.

The dying drake then begged him in a weak and raspy voice to save his remaining children before succumbing to his visibly gruesome wounds, including severe scorches, bites and slashes from other adult dragons. His passing elicited sounds of wailing from the adolescents as their final uncorrupted adult fell; in all his wildest dreams, Tribune Cipio never imagined he’d see dragons cry!

Neither did Gilda as she witnessed the affair through his senses. But there was no time to ponder it as his own adjutant suddenly tried to kill him, pulling a blade and leaping onto him to slash his throat. Shocked, he only barely parried the attack, performing a well-practiced midair flip to slam the eagless onto her back. Her ribs were broken from the hard impact but she still staggered after him after he rolled off her, seemingly unaffected by her injuries.

Recognizing her lifeless and emotionless eyes, to say nothing of her bloodless wounds and a slight scent of decay, he effortlessly parried the thrust of the crippled griffon, knocked the blade out of her talons and then stabbed her in the skull through an eye before his aghast staff. A series of screams were then heard around them as several more assassination attempts were made; another minute passed before the assailants were put down and he was satisfied there were no more immediate threats.

It was then, under the protection of a dozen Paladins, that he opened his aide’s head up… to find a cleaved Cloven parasite inside.

A moment of utter dread filled him to see it, causing him to stumble back in shock. But to the Tribune’s credit, he shook himself out of it swiftly as his equally shocked subordinates requested instructions. Realizing that he had to act quickly as the surviving score of adolescent dragons claimed again that their corrupted brethren were invading the Kingdom, he ordered alarms and a call to arms to be sounded across all Aricia just as a dark cloud of bat-like creatures started to descend on the city.

They overwhelmed his available airborne patrols with sheer numbers, killing and corrupting entire decades of soldiers while causing terror among the populace of Aricia, strafing the streets with spikes as they attempted to kill as many civilians as they could. Worse, they were each carrying several spider-like Cloven parasites which rained down onto wounded and panicked civilians and—he quickly learned from watching it happen—they didn’t have to wait until you were dead before burrowing into the brain. Far from a passive threat, they attacked with venomous bites that would paralyze and cause excruciating pain until their victims died, allowing them to take over the newly created corpse.

There was soon carnage in the streets as injured griffons and Caleponians alike were felled in such a manner and turned into Cloven killing machines; mindless corrupted creatures who felt no pain and didn’t stop coming until their spine was severed or the parasite within them was slain.

Still, despite the havoc they caused over the next hour, they could not by themselves fell the city. As his stunned soldiers organized and began to sweep the skies of the flyers, that fact alone made him strongly suspect it was a diversion even as the Aricia Maior begged him to send his Auxilia into the streets to assist the overwhelmed Peacekeepers.

But he did not, instructing civilians to barricade themselves inside. He instead placed priority on securing his base and solidifying the city’s outermost defenses, ordering his on-duty Magus to abandon healer duty. He told them to concentrate on shielding vital facilities and to charge up the inactive lightning orbs studding the fortress city’s ramparts and towers, and then join the soldiers flocking to the battlements to repulse the ground attack he was certain would come quickly.

He was not disappointed as a veritable wave of pure Cloven crashed against the city’s western walls mid-afternoon, attempting to surmount the formidable obstacle by building an enormous ramp with their bodies. And they nearly succeeded before massed volleys of crossbow and lightning bolts along with great gouts of adolescent dragonfire brought them down, leaving a massive pile of smoking and stinking Cloven corpses at the outer wall’s base as the initial assault was repulsed.

But it was not without loss as the Cloven had new forms that had not been seen or described in the previous war, including a porkupike-based one that could provide accurate fire on the battlements. They succeeded in picking off scores of soldiers while their innumerable razorbat forms could also attack from above; they swiftly proved that they could easily overwhelm any airborne force smaller than a Turma that wasn’t ready for them.

The Tribune—and Gilda along with him—knew that the situation was grim as the opening attack had cost him a third of his available garrison while centuries of previously off-duty soldiers were still staggering in or remained trapped in the city, fighting desperately to defend their friends and families or even strangers from the claws of the corrupted. He received reports that the latter were being steadily ground down by civilians alone, thankfully, as griffons and ponies alike learned quickly to stab skulls and stomp or slash any parasites they saw before they could find a new host.

Struggling to reconstitute his already-battered Auxilia into a mobile defensive force and find a way to counter the unexpectedly potent Cloven airborne threat, what followed over the next several hours was a desperate series of attempts to stave off not just an invasion but outright annihilation of the city’s population. As Gilda watched, the Tribune continually and quite skillfully shifted his ragged and reeling forces from one crisis to the next, including repulsing several surface attacks and at least one Diamond Dog attempt to breach the city’s walls by burrowing under them.

Despite his best efforts, which Gilda grudgingly admitted were performed well under severe pressure, the latter produced the first of two crises that left the Tribune certain Aricia would fall as the canine creatures succeeded in tunneling under the city’s defenses.

They sent century after century of pure Cloven forms backed by a veritable flood of parasites swarming into the city. With no other option, Cipio threw himself into the struggle directly along with his headquarters Paladins and the adolescent dragons who incinerated innumerable Cloven; they fought superbly along with countless civilians who battled with personal blades and just their bare talons to stem the tide of pure and corrupted Cloven alike.

Just as Cipio had told Fortrakt, they succeeded but only at horrific cost, sacrificing a full millennium of griffon soldiers and civilians along with several centuries of Caleponian ponies, many of whom suicidally charged the enemy to break up their formations and stomp parasites underhoof.

Their combined efforts along with the fiery breath of the dragons were able to hold the line before his harried Magus finally succeeded in collapsing the tunnels on top of the remaining Cloven, sealing the breach. But they had little chance to celebrate as late afternoon came and the first refugees from fallen bases further west arrived, including two damaged airships with hundreds of fleeing soldiers and civilians but less than half their crew aboard, and the ragged remnants of a Talon legion that had barely escaped their base at Boardeux as it was immolated by at least six adult dragons.

There was little of it left but a few battered centuries of soldiers exhausted from the flight. Only sky griffons had been able to fly that far, meaning that the more numerous earth griffons had fallen en route to not just death but corruption.

Expecting the worst, Cipio ordered civilians into basements and bunkers as the captured Talons attacked on the ground with siege engines taken from Tierra just a few hours later, succeeding in bringing down a section of the outer wall. The effective assault forced him to order the dragons to head out and destroy them under Magus protection, who stealthed them as they flew in at low altitude. To their credit, the drakes and drakinas succeeded despite the loss of another six of their number, saving the city and removing all doubts in Cipio’s mind about their courage or combat ability.

The attacks on the city finally slackened somewhat as evening was reached, allowing his exhausted forces to catch their breath and his Magus to attempt at least rudimentary treatment of the wounded. It was only then, when he found a moment to collapse in his office and allow his wife to treat his wounds, that he received a surprise message.

It was from Queen Lepidoptes, who Gilda gathered had been his lover; she had given him a special gem some time earlier that enabled direct communication for arranging liaisons.

Initially appearing through the magical projection as a striking tiger-striped and orange-eyed goshawk-headed eagless wearing finery, she announced that she was in fact a Changeling Queen, revealing her true form with a flare of green fire.

Though the Tribune was as shocked as his Uxor—who said nothing even as his infidelity was laid bare before her—he grasped at the lifeline the alicorn-like ruler offered to provide him intelligence and outside help, starting by giving him the location of a massive Cloven factory at Harness and information of where they were massing to strike next.

Forewarned, he was able to defeat another millennium-sized assault on the north side of the city by mostly pure Cloven creatures. Able to shift his defenses in time, he broke up the attack using his own long-range ballistae that had finally been pulled out of underground armories along with pounding them with cannon fire from his two available airships, who continued to operate with only very limited crews and half their guns available.

But they weren’t able to incinerate most of the bodies, meaning they would probably be recycled into new soldier forms within hours, and worse, his beleaguered defenders reported that more advanced Cloven forms with enhanced abilities were starting to enter the fight.

For reasons he didn’t understand, the Cloven didn’t attack again right away as darkness fell. The rest of the evening was spent in an Ancestor-blessed lull that allowed him to try to reorganize his dazed and depleted garrison into an actual army using not just his Guard soldiers along with the city’s Peacekeepers and his own Paladin contingent, but the surviving Knights and Talons he had recovered from further west.

They collectively lacked any officer over the rank of Optio, meaning he was only able to lead them on an informal basis since the Auxiliary Guard was not normally able to command regular military forces. But that situation was resolved when, after hours of trying, the Council of Crows was able to overcome magical interference to break through on the communication gems to Arnau, leaving him relieved to learn it was still standing and Queen Molyneux was safe.

Told in turn that he was alive and the ancient fortress city of Aricia had held fast against the Cloven onslaught, they immediately named the Tribune commander of all Kingdom military forces in the Aricia district. The Queen herself authorized him to wear a gold chain that gave him the authority to command the Knights and all lesser service branches, ordering him to hold the city and tie up all the Cloven he could while the Kingdom cleaned out the forces to their rear. They would then solidify their defenses further east, forming an impenetrable wall along the west-facing slopes of the Falcine range.

Left unstated was that he was being asked to potentially sacrifice the city for the sake of buying time, but he accepted his orders without hesitation, asking only for the possibility of evacuation or relief later if the Kingdom could spare sufficient forces. To be sure, the news was not all bad—scores of elite Ravens were entering the fray courtesy of the Council of Crows labs in the city he hadn’t even been aware were there. It was only then he learned of their new bowcasters, but also that there weren’t enough of them to affect anything except isolated engagements.

Through it all, Gilda began to grudgingly marvel at everything Tribune Cipio had been through and accomplished in those eleven hours since the Cloven initially invaded, and he wasn’t done yet. Finally able to turn his attention back to the city itself, he dealt with disorder in the streets as pubs and homes were broken into, with drinks and various illicit substances flowing freely. To his great disgust—and Gilda’s as well—a few dishonorable griffons decided that if they were going to die and the Kingdom was crumbling, then they would drink and loot, or even rape and kill to their heart’s content.

Declaring martial law, Cipio ordered several centuries of soldiers into the streets along with all his Peacekeeper patrols, instructing them to come down hard on any rioters and even kill them if that’s what it took to restore order. Faced with one particularly large upheaval in the center of the city where the Maior lived, he went to the scene himself, personally putting down the ringleader of the riot in a duel that made Gilda very glad she hadn’t challenged him herself.

Having cowed the mob by crushing their commander and brutally breaking both his wings, he ordered the other offenders thrown in irons and sent down to the mines for badly needed gems and ore. He then issued a proclamation through Optio Virgo warning that ‘those that would betray their Ancestors and honor’ would be not just killed, but publicly executed using ancient Imperial methods that maximized pain as their limbs and wings were torn from their bodies one by one.

Gilda could tell that the Tribune meant it from his thoughts and anger, furious at the far-too-many culprits for thinking only of themselves when the griffon race required unity now more than ever.

By the Ancestors… and I thought I was being brutal when I threatened the ibex with being eaten! The thought crossed her mind, to which she sensed agreement from Giraldi, followed by an admonition from the Queen to stay silent and simply watch.

Nothing more was said or thought by them after that. The streets more or less secure, the Cloven resumed small probing attacks again as midnight passed. Their limited nature gave Cipio the distinct impression that the Cloven were simply trying to weaken resolve and keep Aricia’s defenders from sleeping as they massed for a future assault, shrugging off the multiple millennia of forces they’d already lost attempting to storm the city.

For what did losses matter to a foe who could recycle their dead and those of the Kingdom into new and deadlier forms in mere hours? And what did all his efforts and defensive measures mean when each of those same hours meant that his forces grew weaker while the Cloven grew stronger?

Realizing then that simple attrition meant their end was assured unless he could somehow destroy the large Cloven factory that Queen Lepidoptes had reported at Harness—and just how had he been so easily taken in by the Empire’s ancient foe? How had he allowed himself to become her lover? —he weighed his offensive options with his Talon and Knight advisors along with the ranking naval officer present, who had previously been chief engineer of an escort airship.

Cipio wanted to use the two airships to destroy the factory, only to be told that they could not do so on their own. That to attempt it would likely get them swarmed by vast numbers of spike-firing flyers they could not fend off or worse, corrupted adult dragons, against which their smaller escort ballistae were only marginally effective without heavy Magus help. They were also severely short of trained gunnery teams, given they had been forced to cut their anchors and flee for their lives minus most of their crew.

He immediately promised to assign them Guard soldiers or even civilian volunteers to take their place, but his hope for a quick and decisive strike was dashed when he was told that bringing them up to cannon competency would take days when they had only hours. “We could probably teach them to hit stationary targets, but not moving ones,” the airship’s eagless officer said in a resigned tone, saying she would nonetheless start training new gun crews upon receiving them.

Feeling trapped and increasingly besieged as he ordered Optio Virgo to write out a missive requesting volunteers, he had then received a new message from Arnau, saying that a diplomatic convoy carrying human soldiers and civilians had been forced down some thirty leagues west of Aricia and needed rescue. He was strongly advised—but not ordered—to locate and extract them, with the Council of Crows informing him that human soldiers had portable cannons that could greatly assist the city’s defense.

To Gilda’s disgust, he glanced at the report and dismissed a rescue attempt out of wing. But as much as she had initially thought otherwise, he was not being callous. His reasons were practical, as he knew immediately that he could not send a rescue force of air carriages or airships over such a long distance, especially not knowing exactly where they were.

And from his perspective, what was the point of saving them, anyway? From what he knew, the humans couldn’t fly and could barely run, and so what if they had a few single-shot cannons designed for individual soldier use? The Kingdom had tried those some eight decades earlier and found them completely impractical, but he supposed that if you were flightless, they might be less so.

In any event, he couldn’t see that the alien apes would be much help or much of a threat if captured, so he mentally wrote them off with an apology to their Ancestors, making Gilda’s beak clench.

But this time, it was Giraldi whose calming presence stayed her angry reaction. He made the proper military decision based on what little he knew at the time, he told her with his thoughts. To attempt a rescue over that distance would have been to potentially sacrifice centuries of soldiers and worse, his sorely-needed airships with success highly unlikely at best. And even were it otherwise, there is no point in holding his ignorance against him when he had no way to know differently.

His mental words only slightly mollified her. But Gilda still allowed her temper to cool, noting that Optio Virgo seemed afraid of its intensity, sensing from her thoughts that she had almost no temper to speak of and was in fact frightened by highly emotional displays. She was certainly an unusual griffon, Gilda granted, wondering what the Tribune saw in her.

That earned at least some mild indignation from the eagless Optio, but as she didn’t like provoking other griffons, she didn’t push it as the Tribune’s memories continued along with the lull in battle. It allowed him the chance to fully restore order to Aricia’s streets and complete the reorganization of his forces, giving him just over a millennium and a half of effectives—which he found only barely enough to hold the city against the intensity of the attacks they’d faced thus far.

As the night wore on, sentries on the outer and inner battlements reported hearing odd noises far off to the west. They were described as ‘very weak pops’ at the furthest edge of their hearing, punctuated by sharper booms that sounded like very distant explosions.

Though he didn’t know what to make of them as he inspected his still-shaky defenses, hearing a few such sounds himself as the early morning hours were reached, enemy activity remained low, and patrols were also reporting seeing both fewer flyers and lesser numbers of pure and Corrupted Cloven.

Though instantly suspicious that the Cloven were trying to induce an escape attempt or tempt him to lash out at their factory where his airships could be ambushed—to say nothing of starting to feel tired after scrambling from crisis to military crisis over the past day—he found the lack of further attacks odd given all the efforts they’d made to crack Aricia’s defenses since the invasion started.

Why were they now allowing the city the chance to catch its collective breath?

Though tempted to send the Ravens out for reconnaissance, he refrained, not wanting to remove his best soldiers and weapons from his mobile defense, which required him to shift forces rapidly by air to deal with various threats.

As the night wore on further, the Cloven still failed to strike again. Though thankful for the continued reprieve, he knew it was only temporary, guessing the large Cloven factory at Harness could be churning out five or more millennia of soldiers for their next attack on the city. The certainty left him wracking his mind to find a way to destroy it with his available forces, before they could overwhelm the city’s defenders with sheer numbers.

And then fresh word was received from Queen Lepidoptes over her personal communications crystal that griffon-escorted humans had somehow arrived at Lake Languid, requesting their immediate evacuation.

Stunned by the report—how had they possibly gotten that far through hostile territory, given that was well over twenty leagues away from where they’d been reportedly shot down? —she said they numbered a mixed force of nearly fifty soldiers and civilians, and from what her drones overheard, the Cloven had been concentrating centuries and then a full millennium of pure and corrupted forms against them. That though they had repeatedly emerged victorious, she could tell from their emotions alone that they were exhausted with many wounded, desperate to reach the relative safety of the city.

Cipio knew that the Lake—which he had occasionally taken his family to when they were younger and he wasn’t so estranged from his Uxor—was only twelve leagues away from the southwestern edge of the city walls, putting them in reach of a fast-flying column that could include earth griffons. He wasn’t sure why their hated foe would be so interested in the bipedal creatures who he had never laid eyes on before, but he also recognized that their obsession with the alien apes might explain the dearth of Cloven activity against the city.

Turning the situation over in his tired mind, he listened as his acting second—a Talon Centurion he’d hastily promoted to sub-Tribune to bear the proper rank—offered to piece together a rescue force and personally command it. But another of his senior officers, this one a wounded Knight eagless Optio he’d promoted to Centurion, disagreed. She said that saving such a small number of soldiers wasn’t worth the risk regardless of whatever exotic weapons the humans had.

“It could easily cost us more than we would gain,” she said coldly, claiming that if the humans were there, then the Changelings should rescue and hide them instead.

He didn’t answer right away, though her words left Gilda wanting to throttle the obtuse and ignorant aide even worse than the Tribune. But she was also having a hard time staying angry with him as she got the full sense of the enormous burden he bore and the innumerable attacks he’d already fought off that day, sensing him hiding his fears from his subordinates while weighing the pros and cons of an intervention.

He stared at the map, his eyes shifting from the location of the lake to where the Cloven factory had been marked at Harness with what looked like small blue gemstones, then back to his own forces ensconced in the city, which included wooden tokens that represented his two borrowed escort airships.

As an idea occurred to him—he still didn’t know why the Cloven so badly wanted the humans, but perhaps he could use it to his advantage—he ordered everyone out of his office as he picked up a quill and began to write orders, telling Optio Virgo to summon several individuals in turn.

What followed over the next hour was a series of one-on-one meetings with the ranking Raven, wingpicked Knight and Talon commanders, and the senior airship officer, where he gave them sealed orders that only contained their immediate instructions. Terrified of what would happen if his plans fell into Cloven hooves from a captured soldier, he directed them to share nothing with their subordinates and to destroy the missives after committing them to memory. And to fire an electrical bolt into their own brain if they were in danger of being captured.

They didn’t understand their orders, which he deliberately didn’t explain. But he told his underlings in no uncertain terms to obey them, saying only that all would be revealed later. He reserved his final set of instructions for the Changeling Queen, telling her what she needed to do and then blocking communication before she could reply, saying he would only reopen contact when the climactic battle began.

He felt at least some mild guilt over what he was doing, recognizing that he was likely sacrificing foreign guests of Queen Molyneux while forcing the Changelings to reveal themselves and likely lose their home. But as the survival of not just Aricia but the entire griffon race was at stake, he spared it no more than a moment’s thought as he allowed himself a sparse meal and a single drink of rum, recognizing that there was nothing left to do but wait.

The die cast, he finally had an overdue audience with his Uxor as dawn neared, who had kept their family in the headquarters bunker all day while occasionally lending her services as healer to help wounded soldiers. They were far more subdued after their earlier confrontation, recognizing how meaningless their squabbles and longtime estrangement now were.

She asked him for orders like she was in active service again, to which he told her to keep their cubs safe and continue to help the wounded they were treating in the bunker. She agreed but then asked if the city stood any chance against the Cloven, isolated and besieged as they were.

His initial silence spoke for him, and Gilda couldn’t help but feel a moment of sympathy for Cipio as the pair discussed what was to become of their family. They debated allowing her to try to evacuate their cubs to the east with the aid of her magic to reach friendly lines, only to conclude that their odds of survival out there alone against Cloven-corrupted mages were nil. It was also grotesquely unfair—to say nothing of outright dishonorable—to do so when many more could not.

Agreeing that if it was their fate to fall, they would do so as the family they were supposed to be, his final instructions to his wife before they parted were to not let herself or their cubs be taken. A badly subdued Gilda didn’t need to read his thoughts to know what he meant as the two parted with not a hug but a respectful exchange of salutes. When she departed, the Tribune retook his place in his bunker to await word, trying to sleep but finding himself unable to.

Nothing happened for another hour until the west suddenly lit up with fiery flashes and an endless series of sharp pops—were they the human cannons? Their soldiers must have been armed with many of them for that volume of fire—that flared up and died down repeatedly.

His sentries on the outer wall reported seeing a corrupted adult dragon approach the lake, release a few gouts of flame and then disappear in a fiery flash, which led him to guess that its body had simply been so damaged that its flame had finally burst its chest. But beyond that, there was little indication of what was happening except the fact that the battle continued as dawn approached. Reactivating his communication crystal to Queen Lepidotpes, he found it contained a single coded message:

ATTACK NOW!

Offering a final prayer to the Ancestors, he ordered the airships with adolescent drakes and all his available Knights into the air. They sped west for the Cloven factory at full throttle just as he received additional word from the Queen that the Cloven Overlord was slain and the bulk of the humans were safe. The announcement was swiftly followed by the distinct booms of naval ballistae being heard over the horizon, and for the first time since the previous day had broken, Tribune Cipio allowed himself to feel a small measure of hope.

A hope that shortly turned to triumph as additional reports flooded in of uncoordinated Cloven attacks on the city walls by small groups of soldier forms and corrupted that were easily repulsed. Standing on his balcony, he watched as the sun rose on a scene of destruction to the west and his returning airships, as well as reports that the Changelings were on their way with the rescued humans.

Dispatching soldiers to escort them and directing an awestruck Optio Virgo to put together a small honor guard to greet the Queen, he hoped the revealed Changeling ruler wouldn’t take offense at his absence. But as he wasn’t about to meet her directly given the two of them together would make a very tempting target, he allowed himself to relax briefly and pour himself another drink, thinking he might even try to sleep soon with the city at least temporarily secure.

He resolved to himself that he would do so after finding and hugging his cubs. Once he’d debriefed the unexpected leader of the human escort force, that was—a recently promoted Centurion Grizelda Behertz, who he was surprised to learn held such a lofty rank after being a mere Gladio under his command but three short years earlier.

He couldn’t help but marvel that she had somehow survived all the attacks on her command, leaving him to guess that for as much combat as her force had endured, she’d just stepped back and let her more experienced subordinates fight for her.

All of Gilda’s newly gained sympathy for him evaporated in an instant as his aide returned to report that she had defied his orders, drawing on the authority of her diplomatic command chain—which he wasn’t even aware she bore—to issue her own. In them, she directed him in no uncertain terms to greet Queen Lepidoptes with a proper honor guard while insulting him heavily in the process, calling him a fool for issuing the orders that had crushed the Cloven and saved the city.

Gilda had barely begun to feel his rage at having his authority and command questioned by an eagless nearly thirty years his junior—especially after all he had accomplished in the past day! —before a wave of near-nausea washed over her and her perspective shifted.

* * * * *

No longer seeing things through Cipio’s senses, Gilda found herself back outside Arnau beside the human encampment, awaiting the departure of their convoy.

But the height and heft of her body once again felt off and she spoke with a voice she didn’t immediately recognize. She also didn’t recall informing Raleigh directly that his demands for a human-only carriage were denied, watching as he stalked over with his disgracefully obese form to confront Gilda about it.

The sight of herself speaking with Imlay’s squad caused her to mentally start—by the Ancestors, she looked and sounded so different from seeing herself in a mirror or hearing herself speak! —but the body she was in took no notice of her surprise. It was quite large and strong, to say nothing of very well-practiced in combat, but its owner felt no need to flaunt it. And unlike her own typically hot-tempered thoughts, her mind and emotions were quite level; her voice deep and clear as she—no, he—stood to Gilda’s left and slightly behind her as she met the escorting human Marines.

This is Giraldi! She finally realized simultaneously with an equally startled thought from the Tribune, who she sensed was even more shocked to feel himself in another body for the first time. But as her second’s memories hadn’t opened in the middle of an attack or any other crisis, Gilda was given a chance to more fully appreciate what she was experiencing through his senses, from the feel of the breeze against his face to the smell of the grass around them to a twinge in his hip from an old injury he’d suffered fighting ibexian irregulars as he moved.

His tiercel form felt alien and yet perfectly normal to her as the discussion that preceded their departure and then the flight to Catlais were replayed in quick succession, ending with their convoy being shot down by the Cloven-employed lightning trap.

It allowed her the chance to perceive what had happened from inside an air carriage to suddenly hear a massive crash of thunder and feel the carriage shake, causing severe consternation among Chris and the wingless Marines inside. But their coach was unharmed and able to land safely; to Giraldi’s credit, he commanded the situation well, opening the door and ordering the other earth griffon present to be ready to fly the seven humans aboard to ground.

At one point, he glanced outside to see the previously insulting Paladin commander throw himself in front of Marco’s crippled coach to block another lightning bolt, leaving Giraldi deciding that perhaps he wasn’t dishonorable after all. He could only briefly see Gilda and Fortrakt trying to save the stricken carriage before his view of them was blocked, offering up a prayer to the Ancestors that they would be able to do so.

His own carriage alit somewhat roughly in a clearing a minute later, coming in sharply for a very hard landing as the Marines spilled out and took a defensive formation with their cannons pointed outwards, relieved to be on solid ground again. He admired their practiced efforts and the discipline of their soldiers in shaking off the sudden attack, though he could all but smell the sweat on them and hear their pounding hearts as the adrenaline rush coursed through them.

Their male human scent was pleasing to him, and he had the passing thought that he might enjoy being more immersed in it. But he could give it no mind as he hurried to help the stricken coach, praying again that all inside had survived the crash.

To his great relief, they had, though Marco and the overweight human named Raleigh—and how could a human who couldn’t hunt possibly get so heavy? —needed healing. Gilda then saw their discussions and Nydia tending the wounded, including what happened during the two hours she’d been sleeping after being healed.

But little occurred of note except for Giraldi taking the time to try to steady a badly shaken Chris as he sat on a stump, rubbing his lower back like a father would a frightened cub. As he did so, he found at least one stray memory from what he guessed was the night of the cider trying to rise up within him, finding a focus in the human tiercel’s voice and scent.

Wait—did this mean he had been with not just Tara, but Chris that night?

A sudden swelling sensation in his loins told him that he had. Putting the question aside no matter how much he suddenly wanted to stay in the other male’s presence and comfort him further, he busied himself with setting their defense and seeing to the treatment of the wounded.

When told Gilda was asleep, he glanced over at her and said to let her rest, recalling from an earlier conversation with Fortrakt that she had gotten very little the previous night. Though he might have teased Fortrakt and Gilda over the fact that they’d technically slept with each other, he had not, knowing it might not be appreciated given the seriousness of the situation and how much losing Marco had hurt his new commander.

Once everycreature was healed and Gilda herself was up again, they finally set off, letting the newly revealed Ravens guide them—and Giraldi found himself both relieved and disappointed to learn their true identity, given he’d fully intended to fight the obtuse and insulting Paladin commander later for slurring their human friends. They headed for the food-filled cart, to which Gilda sensed some disfavor from the Tribune, over her having not detected what he found from the available information alone to be an obvious trap.

But his smug sense of superiority vanished as the ambush itself was replayed, and with it, the first demonstration of human weapons. She picked up what she could only describe as a stunned sensation from the Tribune and his eagless aide as the exotic Marine cannons opened up on the charging force of corrupted griffons and large animals; their metal tubes mowing down an attack that initially looked overwhelming with terrifying speed and lethality.

Giraldi himself was barely able to register the individual cracks of human cannon fire as a near-deafening cacophony of it erupted, hurting his ears but leaving him in awe as he watched the massive Cloven assault on their rear crumble before them.

Though Gilda took great satisfaction at Tribune Cipio’s shock to see the human soldiers lay waste to what initially appeared to be an unstoppable assault, she—and Optio Virgo—couldn’t help but be mesmerized as they saw the battle unfold through Giraldi’s eyes. He fought to defend the fore almost by himself from the attack of corrupted Caleponians but kept stealing repeated looks at the humans, watching as their long tubes belched short blasts of fire and the air around him soon smelled of an acrid smoke that he guessed belonged to some form of explosive powder.

Gilda also couldn’t help but admire her second for how easily he engaged in combat without panicking or losing awareness of his surroundings, which was something she had severe trouble with at first. At various points, he glanced up to note that Fortrakt was commanding his sky griffons against their airborne enemies surprisingly well, and also saw how effective the Ravens were in dealing with the threat to the front.

As he put down a mere six corrupted corpses around the cart—he had an inkling even then of what they were facing but couldn’t consider it just then—they cut down a score of corrupted creatures with their blades and buzzing repeaters, though the sound of the latter was dwarfed by human cannons.

He further noted with great satisfaction how the human civilians and especially Tara held their ground—except for a sobbing Raleigh—and dealt with the forces charging them from the flanks, leaving only one final corrupted Talon for him to kill once he’d put the attacking Caleponians down. He did so promptly, though he was given severe pause when he saw a panicked Tara briefly level her weapon at him when he appeared before her.

Thankfully, she recognized him in time and did not fire; Gilda felt her heart race—or was it Giraldi’s? —as the events of the battle unfolded anew. But she also beheld her own shocked and dumbfounded expression as she found there was little she could do, able to fire exactly one bolt in the ground battle that felled a captured Talon Centurion and take out a single corrupted when she took flight to join the airborne battle.

The ambush was smashed in under a minute, ending with another demonstration of human firepower when they were able to kill a shielded griffon mage with what Gilda now knew was a grenade. That caused a mental cringing sensation she could sense from the Tribune, as he realized that human weapons in the hooves of the Cloven could take down magic shields as well as punch through metal armor.

So, still think we were exaggerating about human cannons, Tribune? Gilda asked after the combat replay was fully concluded. As you saw, they had ‘rounds’ that could easily punch through Paladin armor as well!

Please be silent, Grizelda Behertz, Queen Lepidoptes interjected as she paused the playback. I remind you that a cacophony of mental conversation is not conducive to this process. You are taking part in this to share and learn, not accuse and argue. Once she was satisfied that her instruction had been obeyed, she resumed replaying Giraldi’s memories.

The next hour was spent destroying their dead and planning their next steps, while also attending to the wounded bodies and psyches that the battle had left behind. Giraldi found himself shaken by the certainty that they were facing the Cloven, though he carefully hid it, knowing from long experience that commanders had to project confidence at all times. At Gilda’s direction, they taught the humans about the Cloven and succeeded in getting through to Arnau at least briefly on a Marine communication device, leaving the Tribune and his aide impressed by its range and clarity.

They marched to Bale soon after, but not before capturing the ibex, causing Gilda to grimace to see their wounds and severely damaged antlers. Though she felt no sympathy for them then—and neither did Giraldi—she did now after all they’d been through, recognizing from the ragged and desperate look on Karin Kazal’s face when he materialized from out of the summon dome that the three ibex had been through ‘Hell’. It left her guessing that he was the only one still even partially battleworthy by then, trying to protect his two remaining teammates for just a few seconds more.

But yet again, she couldn’t linger on the thought as they were captured and put in the cart under the guard of a single Raven. Stopping half a league out from Bale to receive the reports of Ebon Umbreon and Occulta Bellator, Gilda was given severe pause as she saw those events through Giraldi’s eyes, and not for battle.

It was only as the memory replayed that she recalled something sexual had nearly happened then, with Giraldi himself feeling a sudden rush of what he knew was the cider effect through him. For a long and lingering moment, he felt strangely compelled to kiss and caress Ebon Umbreon, not only greatly admiring his lithe form but his unquestioned honor and warrior ability.

Against all odds and their still-dire situation, he found himself suddenly and quite sorely wanting to sample the Shadow Decurion’s tiercel body right then and there with tongue and talons, and worse, found himself willing to do so regardless of danger or anycreature watching. He knew the idea was ridiculous and wrong—never mind the poor timing, but why, by the Ancestors themselves, would he be interested in rutting a male he’d only barely met?

And yet, he couldn’t help it just then, feeling his fur and feathers start to tingle fiercely. The pink around the edges of his vision only grew as it seemed to form an inviting halo around the other tiercel, leaving him aware of little else but his scent and sleek form. A sudden and severe tightness in his loins told Gilda he was starting to get aroused, and the odor of the other male said that he was as well, their beaks beginning to drift closer and wings starting to rise.

Her nearly forgotten body suddenly sitting bolt upright to feel her first hint of male arousal—so different from her own form of it! —Gilda found herself urging it to happen along with an equally enticed Optio Virgo, though she knew perfectly well that they couldn’t affect events that had already occurred. Even the Tribune seemed both stunned and enrapt to feel it, and his eagless aide was suddenly filled with lurid fantasies that seemed more suited for a Neighponese comic than a report-writing adjutant.

And then, to Gilda’s great annoyance, she intervened to stop it in Giraldi’s memory, ordering them back to business while barking out orders. Snapped out of his unlikely reverie, it left Giraldi feeling light-headed and a bit dizzy, wondering where such strong urges had come from while barely daring to hope that his interest in the other tiercel might be mutual.

Crows take it… Gilda then heard Optio Virgo’s almost forlorn thought, leaving her wondering why she wanted to see it so badly. Tribune Cipio clearly agreed, giving his new aide what she could only describe as an askance mental look.

But Gilda also couldn’t help but note that he hadn’t objected to it or expressed any sort of disapproval, even though it had unquestionably been at a very bad time. She might have teased him over it despite the Queen’s admonition to remain silent, if she didn’t know how badly it could backfire on her when it was time for her memories to replay.

Once again, her thoughts couldn’t linger on such subjects as they entered the steadholt and set their defense within it. For the first time, she felt an element of approval from not just Giraldi in his memory, but the Tribune regarding her actions as she intimidated Karin Kazal into giving up more of his magic, and then went down into the spell-sealed cellar herself not knowing if she would ever be able to escape it.

He also mentally acknowledged the devotion of her human mate and equally honorable bravery of the accompanying Marine, granting briefly with his thoughts that for a race so different from griffons, they showed a very griffon-like sense of honor and duty.

Watching from outside the cellar’s entrance as she was, Gilda then got to witness the sudden explosion of Decanus Nydia’s stave as the shelter spell was brought down, sending wooden shards into her face with the magical backlash knocking her out. She was immediately attended by Chief Jacobs, but Giraldi himself couldn’t spare her much attention as Marco came running out to explain the situation, already looking a little pale from the stale air.

They got the mothers and cubs out promptly, though Giraldi spared a moment of concern for Gilda when he saw her standing over the fallen Magus, who had a crossbow bolt she had fired in his head. Guessing she was having trouble accepting the act, he judged it best to let her be for a bit, resolving to only pull her out if she lingered.

When the mothers and their offspring were then revived by the human healer, Gilda got to experience Giraldi’s paternal side for the first time. She quickly came to appreciate how he was instinctively able to calm and reassure the cubs, speaking to them softly not as a soldier, but as a sire. They took to him readily—Ancestors knew she’d never been good with cubs herself—to another strong sense of approval from the Tribune, leaving him noting that thus far, Giraldi had impressed him far more than Gilda.

But that quickly changed as the Cloven attacked again halfway through the night and they were faced with one crisis after another, starting with an underground assault from the Diamond Dogs. Yet again, the Marines impressed Giraldi with their accurate cannon fire and well-practiced efforts, cutting down the invading Cloven almost as quickly as they appeared. They left him almost forlornly wishing that he could wield their weapons, doubly so as they pulled out their ‘fifty’ from storage gems and used it to kill the final three Elder Ram forms after the first was downed by another launched grenade.

It was all Giraldi could do not to get aroused as he saw the human heavy cannon annihilate the nearly impervious pure Cloven forms. He paid close attention as it was reloaded, noting the placement of the large talon-sized pointed cannonballs and the actions the human Marines took to fire it, reasoning that the lever they pulled was a charging handle not unlike what they used for their crossbows.

He would get his chance to use that knowledge swiftly as another three centuries of pure Cloven arrived, only somewhat whittled down by the larger human ‘rifles’—Ancestors, their range and accuracy were incredible to be able to strike them down so far out! She heard his thought echoed by that of the Tribune—while also feeling a strong sense of pride in Chris that he was getting to take part with his curious wood-wrapped cannon; he couldn’t help but note that it made the loudest boom of all short of the ‘fifty’.

The battle unfolded as Gilda remembered, Except that Giraldi was not able to see much from where he waited inside the main hall with Spear Jade Jumentum; he stood sentry with her while the human fifty covered the courtyard and the open gate. All the combat was erupting behind them out of view as the Cloven tried to come in over the back wall, at least until Giraldi felt an odd sense of foreboding that he had learned from long and bitter experience on the Ibexian border meant to expect an ambush.

Recalling that she had sensed the same thing, Gilda heard herself order ground and aerial reinforcements to the front entrance over the human radios, sending Giraldi and Jade Jumentum to help cover it. But there was nothing he could see or smell in front of them as the human heavy cannon stood silent at the top of the stairs behind a row of curved boxes they had emplaced—’Claymores’, the Marines called them, which was an odd term given he only knew that to be a form of olden earth pony sword; one used historically by the Shetland ponies who lived in the isthmus between the Celestial and Lunar seas.

And then he saw Gilda hovering above the courtyard, screaming into the radio to use them, her eyes wide and fearful. Though confused, the Marines did so, causing a massive series of horrifically strong detonations from the boxes that impossibly leveled the area in only the outward direction. The explosions revealed another century of infiltrating soldier forms advancing under the cover of a corrupted ibex aura, with a third of their number already slain by the brutally effective weapon.

The battle that erupted was sharp and desperate as the startled and sorely endangered Marines swore violently and began mowing the revealed Cloven down. Instantly reading the situation, Giraldi ordered Spear Jumentum into the sky and to load an incendiary bolt to take out the Porkupikes firing on them from the rear.

They succeeded in killing one while a heavy Marine rifle slew the second from the balcony behind them, eliminating the threat. But before Giraldi could turn his attention to the corrupted ibex, he saw his Centurion strike.

Gilda grimaced as she watched herself swoop down on one of the ibex with murder in her eyes, not appreciating how close she’d come to being killed before an airborne Jade Jumentum grabbed her by the collar to pull her up and away, causing a soldier form’s tail-swung spikes to only barely miss her.

Way to keep your head, Grizelda Behertz, she told herself before the Tribune could, grateful he said nothing though she could sense the severe disapproval in his thoughts. But then their attention was grabbed by the big human gun falling silent as it needed a reload.

The Cloven took that as their cue, with their entire remaining force of forty pure and corrupted forms erupting into a full gallop towards the gun while razorbats ignored the airborne griffons to strike from above, their massed spike fire driving the Marines away.

As Gilda scrambled to counter the airborne attack, it fell to Giraldi to stop the ground one. Facing the charging corrupted force, he fired his heavy crossbow once to detonate an explosive bolt in front of the advancing soldier forms to slow them, then leapt on all fours for the abandoned human cannon, recognizing instantly that it was the only way to stop the Cloven assault.

His mind racing and praying to the Ancestors that he remembered the procedure properly, he tore open the top of the metal box by yanking on a large latch to reveal the massive talon-sized bullets, then quickly found the end of the chain—by sheer luck he spotted the end ‘round’ quickly and fed it into the hot and smoking tube, setting it in place as he’d watched the humans do before slamming the top shut.

Once it was closed, he yanked the charging lever—he hadn’t noticed before, but doing so caused the chain of bullets to shift towards the weapon with the closest one disappearing into the cannon barrel—and hefted the heavy weapon, finding it awkward but carriable. But then he wasn’t sure how to fire it until the Marines told him; he glanced over at them to see them making a motion with their thumb talons downwards like he was holding the grips in his fists.

Fumbling with it briefly, the weapon fired once. Gilda could feel everything from the intense and nearly irresistible recoil of the human cannon to its heavy weight in Giraldi’s grasp, which she instantly realized that she could not have hefted. But he had no chance to consider the consequences of his actions as he pointed the weapon downstairs, bracing himself as he used it in earnest for the first time.

It rocked him back again, but the three rounds he fired struck home, taking down one ascending soldier form and even the corrupted griffon behind it. Finding that the cannon tended to kick hard enough to disrupt his aim the more rounds that erupted from it at once, he quickly settled on a strategy of short, controlled bursts that each took down two or three Cloven at a time.

Finally seeing how he could both wield and control it, he began marching forward with it to meet the Cloven attack, feeling indestructible as he watched them crumble before him. He could feel a bruise forming against his side where the weapon was braced against him as the recoil of individual cannon shots struck him repeatedly, but it was dwarfed by the feeling of sheer power and triumph he felt. One that only grew as he advanced, noting briefly the human Marines grabbing their weapons and hurrying out to the sides to support him, trying to keep the remaining Cloven from flanking him.

He paid them little mind except to appreciate their bravery and loyalty, risking themselves alongside him as he used their cannon to swiftly exterminate the Cloven assault force. She could sense the sheer exhilaration he felt to wield such a destructive weapon, including the feeling of utter invincibility it gave him as he advanced with it on two legs like he was a human—even Tribune Cipio noted he was remarkably well-balanced like that! —to mow down the charging Cloven as assuredly as if the entire line of them had been sliced by a scythe like a stand of grain.

Finally taking to the air to target the entire courtyard as he saw Gilda and the Ravens defeating the airborne threat, he obliterated the attack as the chain of cannonballs was swiftly slurped up by the greedy weapon. With each enemy soldier that fell, the pure exultation and elation he felt grew until…

He had just taken down the final corrupted form with a loud and victorious roar when he felt a sudden and quite delectable swelling and throbbing sensation in his crotch. His wings starting to stiffen and suddenly having trouble holding him aloft, he looked down to see he was quite rigidly and exquisitely erect, with his cider-enhanced spear dangling deliciously in front of him.

It was in danger of touching the horrifically hot metal of the cannon’s tube, which he could feel against its sensitive head. But instead of subsiding at the threatened injury, it only engorged further, and he couldn’t help but encourage it, half-hoping the human males would see him in his state.

By the Ancestors… Gilda couldn’t help but shiver to feel the alien but irresistibly good male sensations. She sensed her thigh muscles clenching around the ghost of a foreign phallus and heavy seed-laden sac that felt impossibly attached to her; her real talons dipping low on her body to stroke the erotic object that wasn’t even there.

They closed on only air to her great frustration, but the steady stream of sensations she and an amazed Optio Virgo continued to feel were not to be ignored. So THIS is what it feels like to have a tiercel spear? She heard the other eagless ask for her, equally overcome by the intense pleasure coursing through Giraldi’s fiercely throbbing, tingling organ. He was both embarrassed and delighted to see that in his upright state, he was fully displayed before the awestruck and clearly interested male Marines, who kept trying to steal glances at him.

For a single moment, Gilda—or was it Giraldi? —found himself sorely hoping that they would inspect his stature more closely. And that he could thank them properly later, turning them on as they had him with their Ancestors-blessed cannon, leaving him ready and eager to fire his own.

Despite the just-concluded combat, the tiercel-tucking fantasy he suddenly engaged in with the two male human Marines was fierce as he turned to his memory of Gilda watching him. He apologized for his untoward display even as he was desperate to indulge it; wanting only to bury his suddenly sorely-aroused and eager member in the tail of a human or griffon male.

“Ancestors…” She dimly heard Optio Virgo call out, realizing through their shared minds that the two tiercels in the room were now quite fiercely and painfully erect, with herself and the Tribune’s adjutant likewise groping at the ghost phallus attached to them.

The latter began making light thrusting motions with her hips while Gilda was trying to resist the urge to do so even as her teats went rigid and began to bulge slightly on her belly. Her sensation was promptly echoed by one from the other eagless; Gilda couldn’t see her but could feel her mammaries becoming equally engorged and eager to be touched, surprising her as she’d never thought of them as anything erotic before.

But the moment passed as, perhaps sensing everycreature was getting dangerously aroused and distracted, a startled but otherwise unaffected Queen Lepidoptes proceeded to show them the rest of Giraldi’s memories.

To their equal disappointment and relief—far more the former for Optio Virgo and the latter for the Tribune—Gilda felt her excitement ebb quickly as they discussed their next steps and settled on use of the ibexian summoning gems to escape the steadholt, with Giraldi offering up a silent prayer to the Ancestors for her safety and that of Fortrakt as he took over the defense and watched the pair leave.

She then saw the climactic battle of Bale unfold as well over a full millennium of mixed pure and corrupted Cloven attempted to storm the town. And as she watched through Giraldi’s eyes, she realized that they very nearly succeeded; she felt her guts clench as hard as her second’s did when he saw red flares go up from the Ravens to indicate the approach of adult dragons.

But though suddenly and sorely afraid, swearing silently to the Ancestors that he would not decline the chance to have sex with Ebon Umbreon or any human tiercels if he survived the night, Giraldi calmly directed a retreat into the main hall under the cover of ibexian magic as the Marines hurriedly readied their ‘Stingers’ on the second floor balcony. They did so as he observed from above, taking to the air as Gilda had so he could see everything that was happening around him.

As he watched, storage gems were produced and two large rectangular boxes appeared out of them as a quartet of Marines swarmed over them, readying them for use. Within seconds the Marines had hoisted them to their shoulders, saying their ‘seekers’ were already ‘tracking’ the monstrous creatures as they came in for the first pass.

“Backblast clear!” they warned as one, to which there was a great eruption of smoke and flame out the back of the large, shoulder-hefted tubes that would have severely burned anycreature standing behind them.

Launched one after the other, they rose into the sky on two bright pillars of fire with a sharp whooshing sound, seemingly propelled by the great gouts of flame they emitted from their tails that reminded Gilda briefly of the launch of a ‘rocket’ in Apollo 13. They shot almost straight up at first but then arced over sharply to target the nearest dragon, with the twin trails of light visibly converging on the glowing hole in its chest.

Both hit, and the detonations that followed caused its upper torso to explode with all its contained conflagration, with the edge of it catching Ebon Umbreon to the horror of Giraldi. He had been harassing the drake with his repeater and slashing at its already-ripped wings in an effort to deprive it of flight, heeding the warning to flee a fraction of a second late. But he flew free of the dissipating flame despite being severely singed, diving for the ground to escape the horrific heat.

There was little time to celebrate or for Gilda to note with satisfaction the fresh shock of Tribune Cipio at the feat as the surviving dragon made a pass, but it didn’t assault the Main Hall directly. Instead, it laid a tall curtain of fire just upwind of it so the poisonous smoke and vapors would be carried inside and suffocate all within.

Or at least, that was the guess of Giraldi’s thoughts. “Gas!” Gilda heard Imlay shout as the Marines hurriedly donned odd masks and Giraldi ordered his griffons to do the same with their beak-fitting vapor scarves, tossing spare ones to Chris and Marco while recognizing to his great relief that the dragons were not trying to kill them directly. But they were still no less endangered as the Cloven reached the dwelling despite additional Claymore detonations and fire from the balcony just as they slammed the front doors shut and hurriedly barricaded it with benches.

A second series of whooshes and close-range detonations that shook the hall followed as the other dragon was brought down—was that the one Gilda herself had seen slain from a distance in the air near Harness? —but Giraldi did not witness it.

He was instead shouting orders inside the hall as the two Ravens dove through the open skylight to crash to the floor before Karin Kazal slapped a magical shield over the smashed opening. The Marines hurriedly threw up additional barricades on the high ground of the stage where they could target the doors and windows, which were already being pounded on, guarding their final line of retreat to the basement below.

The mothers and their terrified, crying cubs were ushered through along with a freaked and shaking Raleigh, ordered to take refuge in the cellar, but not before a series of shotgun and pistol blasts erupted in the corridor behind them that told both Giraldi and Gilda that Tara was present. Realizing that meant she was protecting the mothers and cubs from pursuing Cloven, the action was over before he could intervene and Tara finally appeared with a badly broken leg, leaning on a Marine who’d been guarding the cubs along with her while clutching her pistol and a borrowed blade as her leg hung at an awkward angle.

Despite her obvious pain and injuries, she limped to the forefront and reloaded her wide-tubed cannon with strange cylindrical rounds, ignoring Imlay’s order to retreat until she was forcibly picked up and carried there, directed to cover the cellar’s ‘back door’.

Her actions earned admiration from Giraldi and the Tribune alike as the cubs and mothers finally made it into the cellar. Gilda couldn’t help but sneer when Raleigh somewhat weakly asked for a weapon, to which a harried Chris told him to “move!” and all but shoved him down the stairs before he took position in a crouch at the edge of the stage behind a stone table, aiming his wood-wrapped rifle at the front doors.

They had little time to prepare themselves before they were smashed in by Elder Ram forms, who acted as a shield before Stavrou’s fifty cut them down again; the noise was painfully loud and close to deafening as it echoed in the closed-in space of the hall. Though he could cover the front door, the windows and the skylights were still available for ingress; the razorbat forms began pouring in while rifle fire from above told Giraldi that the Cloven were also trying to come down the stairwells from the balcony.

He dispatched the Ravens to seal the stairwells with explosives, which they did in just seconds before rejoining the main effort along with the Marines who had been on the balcony. They held fast against the onslaught for another minute, with every Cloven ground soldier who made it through the doors and windows instantly gunned down. But then the ibexian shields faltered from the sheer number of spike hits and the ceiling crumbled around the skylight, to which Giraldi reluctantly ordered two Guardsgriffons to cover the breach from the air while they began an evacuation to the cellar.

They did so, buying a few seconds but also perished to Giraldi’s great regret, wondering if there was anything else he could have done as the Marines and griffons made a staged withdrawal to the basement, team by team and fuga by fuga. They made it but couldn’t recover the bodies of the two brave Guardsgriffons as Giraldi himself grabbed a wounded Chris and ran below. He didn’t see what happened to him, only the spikes sticking out of his back, praying he wasn’t paralyzed as the Ravens brought down the cellar opening behind them, trapping them and all but guaranteeing their death by slow suffocation if not the claws of the Cloven.

They reorganized as best they could despite their shaking forms and smoking gun barrels as more noises were quickly heard above them; a pounding sound was swiftly followed by cracks in the ceiling appearing from heavy impacts against the floor above. Griffon and human alike watched with horror as it began to crumble from repeated hits of Elder Ram forms, threatening to bring it down on their heads.

With no way to stop them except to fire through the floor—which Imlay wisely ordered his Marines not to do given that would only weaken it and hasten its collapse—they had nearly broken through, leaving Giraldi about to accept his death.

His life flashing before his eyes, he thought first of his family, praying to the Ancestors that they were safe in Arnau, with a fleeting vision of his cider-fueled time with Tara then passing through his mind. It was swiftly followed by a surprisingly incestuous fantasy—or was it a memory? —of his last meeting with his two sons when he was teaching them to fight.

But whatever its nature, his thoughts quickly shifted away from it, finding himself regretting only that he hadn’t taken the chance to enjoy the company of Ebon Umbreon. But he’d barely been able to think it when the first summoning gem was activated, and his surroundings suddenly changed—to Gilda’s surprise, for as long as it took for the summoning process to complete on her end, it happened instantaneously to him—to find themselves in a cracked and dragon-scorched depression surrounded by a still-smoldering corn field.

Not knowing why they were there instead of their planned destination of Harness, a quick but very tense discussion with Imlay and Ebon Umbreon followed as the Marines quickly formed a perimeter, just inside the edge of what Giraldi guessed had been a Caleponian irrigation pond.

Surmising that there was a good reason why they’d been summoned to that location instead of the hilltop steadholt, and as they were shrouded from sight by the smoke, Giraldi ordered his remaining forces to stay put. He further directed Decanus Nydia and Chief Jacobs to see to the triage of the wounded, with even the ibex assisting them.

They stayed out there for another hour not knowing when or if they would ever be summoned for a second time, fearing both the coming dawn and the lifting of the smokescreen that hid them as the incinerated corn crop slowly stopped smoldering. They were starting to discuss trying to make a run for an abandoned half-destroyed house they could just see in the distance when they were overtaken by the ibexian summoning magic again, finding themselves in a dark and foreboding forest instead of the village of Yoke.

And this time, to Giraldi’s great relief, Gilda and Fortrakt were present, allowing all to be explained. Gilda was gratified again to sense that both Giraldi and the Tribune were impressed by her improvisation and ability to change plans on the fly, as it became clear to them that she’d made the right choices under severe pressure to abandon the attempt to reach Yoke and head for Lake Languid instead.

The march to the main camp and hill over the hidden Changeling hive followed. Though there was no combat, there were still some severely tense moments when Miles Fortuna had launched a flare to alert the Cloven of their location. Feeling her anger rise anew, Gilda was nevertheless impressed at her former First Spear’s enormous sac as he simply walked between the lines of Marines and Ravens, who had their weapons leveled at each other.

He then talked both sides down, likely saving the situation; she was happy again when she sensed some chagrin from Tribune Cipio at seeing how close they’d come to turning on each other.

Watching herself through Giraldi’s eyes, Gilda couldn’t help but marvel slightly again at how he heard her voice—by the crows, she sounded so different to him! —but also noted that he wasn’t just placating her by saying she’d led them well. He truly believed it and believed in her, even having the passing thought that she was growing into command quickly.

Their reinforcements received, they readied for battle with Gilda impressing the Tribune again by rattling off her orders with surprising speed, setting a solid defense that neatly merged human and griffon capabilities. The battles around the south side of the lake then unfolded as they had before, though Giraldi was not witness to the rescue of the wounded dragon females or the intervention of the human Marines to guard their retreat route across the gorge.

But he did see Gilda successfully commanding the airborne battle and then attempting to escape the sudden appearance of a corrupted adult dragon who targeted her, calling for the Marines to ready more of their ‘heat-seeking sorcery’. They did so swiftly as Giraldi could only watch Gilda’s flight helplessly, certain she had just made a fatal mistake when she dove into the gorge to try to escape the drake.

And you called ME a crow-damned idiot, Behertz? She sensed the Tribune thinking at her, to which her beak clenched but she didn’t otherwise reply. He was right, after all.

Giraldi’s eyes then caught a distant flash just as the corrupted dragon filled the canyon with fire, which he thought might have been an exploding gem. Pulling out his spyglass crystal, it showed that an uninjured but visibly shocked Gilda was present with Karin Kazal, who had teleported out with her to the gorge’s rim but appeared to have no more power.

With his sharp eyes, he could just see the ibex buck motioning at her to flee, but in what he found to be an incredible show of honor, Gilda repaid his rescue by ordering him onto her back and taking off with both of them, trying to flee a fiery death yet again. He heard a call over the communication gems from Miles Fortuna for Gilda to fly out over the lake and turn towards the hill. To his relief, the latter did so as the Marines called ready, though he had to yank a confused Obsidian Ire bodily backwards out of the way as she stood behind the shoulder-hefted weapons.

Yet again, human ‘stingers’ streaked up and then out to intercept the wounded dragon by targeting the flame venting from a hole in its neck, but when they hit, the bright flashes and deafening booms forced everyone to flinch away.

By the time Giraldi’s vision and hearing cleared, Gilda and Karin Kazal were nowhere to be seen as the remains of the twice-dead dragon fell into the lake and produced a large wave that washed over the shoreline, leaving him praying to the Ancestors again that she hadn’t been too close to the blast.

With the dragon defeated, the few remaining airborne Cloven withdrew as their unseen Overlord understood that the grounded ones did not have the numbers to storm the hill. Despite calling repeatedly to Gilda through the human radios and being increasingly certain she was dead, he relaxed when Gilda herself finally replied five minutes later. She said she had been knocked out by the force of the blast and sent skidding across the water into a cove, but that she was now okay and returning with the Starshina.

She arrived soon after with Karin Kazal taking nearly weightless leaps through the trees behind her. Though Giraldi sensed that she wasn’t telling the full truth about what happened out there and wondered why her cheeks were slightly flushed and her focus seemed off, he didn’t press the matter, just happy that she was alive.

The rest of his memory replay was almost anticlimactic after that, as the display of human firepower became something close to routine while Gilda got used to seeing things through her Optio’s senses, marveling at both the great strength of his body and the cool head he always kept.

The skill of the humans in the set-piece battles around the abandoned hive was then demonstrated as they left many centuries of dead Cloven clustered around the hill and up its slopes, even able to slay large carrier forms with their heavier rifles and blast great gaps in ground soldier formations with their grenades.

The final phase of the battle for Lake Languid then unfolded through Giraldi’s eyes as they saw the massive Cloven army arrayed against them and the increasingly awful tactics employed to try to overcome human firearms, beginning with the flood of parasites and ending with the appearance of the dragon-like Cloven Overlord.

Not even Giraldi was immune to the feelings of helplessness and terror it induced, though he alone seemed to muster up enough will to resist the mental onslaught, grabbing a heavy repeater in an action Gilda had not seen to fire it up at the beast. But as great as his despair was, it paled in comparison to the awe and joy he felt to see Queen Lepidoptes and her Changelings appear to turn the tide of battle and bring down the monstrous creature, saving them just as all seemed lost.

He again had hidden it well, but his relief was palpable, and he once more silently swore an oath to the Ancestors that he would find a way to indulge his newly discovered interests and urges before long. But Queen Lepidoptes wisely didn’t linger on that, and Gilda’s mind gave what she could only describe as another slightly nauseating mental lurch as her perspective shifted yet again.

* * * * *

This time, Gilda found herself inside the body of another eagless, reading a news scroll while staring down at the remains of a half-eaten lunch of raw meat and melon. Far from thoughts of humans or Cloven, the off-duty Optio Rubens Virgo was enjoying the final day of her weeklong leave with her parents, wondering what to do with herself until it was time to return to her unit in Tierra.

A staff officer of minor noble lineage assigned to the Talon legion based there, and a rare griffon of her age who was more interested in art and intellectual pursuits than fighting and mating, she thought of going to one of the few museums in Aricia she hadn’t seen yet only to freeze when a shrill sound was heard across the city.

Recognizing it as Gilda had to be a warning of a dragon attack, she ushered her family into the basement and pulled on her Decurion armor, which she wasn’t that good at carrying or fighting in, given she’d only been awarded it a month earlier. It had been a reward less for her combat prowess than her ability to be a good report writer and administrator for one of the legion’s ten cohorts, after all.

Finally going out on their rooftop balcony to take a wary look, she was relieved to see no dragons or fresh-set fires. She had barely started to relax when she spotted a dark cloud of what looked like the nibbler gnats she hated wading through on Gauntlet exercises descending on the city out of the sky. Squinting as they got closer, she realized that they weren’t mere insects, but a far larger swarm of unusually large and lethal-looking razorbats. As she watched, they attacked any and every civilian they saw with wing slashes and spikes, sending them scurrying and shrieking as a series of large and dangerous looking spiders rained down on them.

Certain she was having a nightmare, she watched agape until she felt something hit her left pauldron. Startled, she looked over to see a black, red-eyed arachnid that looked like a poisonous shadow weaver, with a massive and dangerous pair of pincers that dripped something so vile it ate a hole in the metal plate of her shoulder armor, just starting to scuttle towards her head.

Her arachnophobia immediately reasserting itself, Gilda’s guts clenched to see and feel it, so she didn’t blame the other eagless for panicking or emitting a schoolcub shriek. She slapped at it with her opposite talons and threw it to the ground before grabbing a blade off her belt with a fumbling set of talons and stabbing it repeatedly. It was only then as she stumbled back inside her clan’s home and slammed the door shut that she realized a call to arms was sounding across the city, meaning all soldiers—even poor ones like her—had to report to the Auxiliary Guard base and armory immediately.

Still not knowing what was happening, she ordered her frightened family to stay inside and their attendants to take up arms from their private vault, warning them to kill any black bats or spiders they saw. Though nervous, they promised to obey, but then she turned to see her uncle enter the room, his hind leg broken from what appeared to be another griffon’s bite with what little was left of his blood still dripping from a slashed-open throat that had turned his normally white-feathered chest crimson.

She stared in horror as he staggered towards her with lifeless eyes despite his gruesome injuries, more certain than ever that she was having a nightmare. She was only jolted out of her shock by the scream of her younger brother and his plea to their Ancestors to save them, going for an old scimitar mounted on the wall in a display of heirloom weapons her line once wielded.

Though she had no experience with a sword, she grabbed it and swung it towards his head. To her surprise, it sliced right through thanks to its olden but still-active enchantments, severing his spine with ease. He crumpled, but to her renewed horror, she then saw another shadow weaver-like spider emerge from a hole in his head, likely looking for a new host.

It was only then she realized what they were facing; she had to stifle a second urge to scream even as she grabbed an old shield from the wall display and simply pounded the nightmare creature into pulp. Their foe now plain from not just old myths and legends but her studies of history—the Cloven of the Sun! —she recoiled in horror as her younger siblings began to cry, and worse, two of their attendants immediately abandoned her family, saying that they had to defend their own.

Two others remained, but not trusting them, she waited until the outside attack died down before leading her clan to the City’s Main Hall, where her father was friends of the Maior. To her relief, they let them within their hastily established defensive ring after scanning them with mages; she was stunned at the number of wounded, and worse, orphaned cubs and foals crying for their lost parents, brothers and sisters.

She was then reminded that all soldiers regardless of rank or service were to report to the Auxilias base armory, ordered to join the city defense. Though initially torn between her sense of duty to clan and Kingdom—she wasn’t much of a soldier, and her younger siblings were begging her to remain—she decided that she wouldn’t be helping either by staying, hugging her family goodbye before taking flight over the city, heading for the base.

Praying for their safety as she left, she was halted by Peacekeeper patrols who were searching for any more corrupted, who held her at arrowpoint until they were satisfied that she wasn’t one of them. Entering the base itself, she found a chaotic scene of a downed and quite dead dragon with soldiers scrambling to organize for battle, with steel claws, crossbows and quivers being passed out even before armor was offered, or soldiers were assigned to units.

Though she initially thought she’d be ordered to join an aerial group or patrol the perimeter—she could only hope she remembered how to fly in formation—the harried Centurion took note of her Talon armor and higher rank, asking if she could command a Turma. Cringing slightly at the thought, she explained in some embarrassment that she was an administrator, not a combat commander.

Though receiving an odd look—all griffon soldiers were supposed to be combatants first regardless of specialty, but between her organizational ability and noble lineage, they’d been lenient with her—she was then invited to join the Tribune’s staff, given he’d lost several of his officers.

Escorted to his headquarters bunker under guard, she was introduced and a brief interview with him followed. A clearly powerful and battle-tested earth griffon that instantly intimidated her, Tribune Cipio turned out to be a competent and no-nonsense commander, and she realized quickly that she had best give prompt and truthful answers to him.

When asked if she was a good writer, she wrote a few quick lines out on parchment to demonstrate the quality of her script, trying not to let her anxiety cause her claws to shake. When asked about her previous duties and recent promotion, she explained that she was assigned to a sub-Tribune in Tierra as a supply clerk but had ended up over time administrating the entire unit because she was good at requisitions and reports.

It was a talent for which she was promoted to Decurion and made an adjutant, excused from combat training so she could keep the cohort’s paperwork at bay. And, she suspected, allow the sub-Tribune herself more leisure time.

Though the Tribune had a few choice words for the Talons after that—words that for once, a listening Gilda wholeheartedly agreed with—he immediately named her his new adjutant and promoted her to Optio so she would bear proper rank, warning that he would expect her to be a soldier first and not a glorified ‘parchment shuffler’ regardless of her nobility or administrative talents.

Swallowing at the thought, she immediately agreed and set out to work for him, writing and disseminating his orders while attempting to untangle a chaotic supply system. The more she saw of him, the more impressed she was, finding his presence equal parts reassuring and intimidating, commanding and supremely confident despite the dire situation they faced.

As she watched, he rose to meet each crisis and repulsed attack after attack, often fighting at the forefront; she’d even gotten to see him in action directly as they faced down the gravest threat to the city, thwarting a Diamond Dog raid that forced her to take flight with an improvised decade and fire a crossbow for the first time in a year.

Though badly shaken afterwards as she’d somewhat clumsily fought off razorbats and corrupted griffons along with the rest of a mixed decade which took two dead and four wounded, he noted appreciatively after the attack was defeated that she hadn’t shirked her duty, which he said was more than far too many nobles he’d known over the years would do.

Improbably, she even found herself taking a personal interest in the Tribune as she accompanied him to put down a riot, ordering her to take the names of the ringleaders for future punishment and then write out a proclamation declaring martial law on the spot.

By the Ancestors, he was so different from her previous commanders!

It was an odd feeling to find herself with a strong sexual interest in the middle of an existential war, yet here she was, unable to stop fantasizing about him, to a mental groan from the Tribune and the immense amusement of Gilda as she read his thoughts.

Though the young eagless had kept them to herself, her flights of fancy were increasingly blushworthy and lurid as she watched him win battle after battle. And as her fantasies often involved besting and winning him by seduction instead of a mating round, Gilda found them more worthy of a pony mare than a griffon eagless. Not that I’m one to talk at this point…

Those fantasies came to a screeching halt as she met his Uxor early that evening;a civilian Magus who was both protecting cubs and healing soldiers in the deepest recesses of the headquarters building. Forced to remain present as a surprise message was received from what she quickly inferred was the Tribune’s love interest, she was as shocked as Cipio to learn that he had in fact unknowingly been the consort of a Changeling Queen, listening as she offered him the location of a Cloven factory and advance notice of where the Cloven were massing for their next attack.

Forewarned, the final major assault of the day was defeated as darkness fell. Her claws cramping from constant writing, she sent a series of reports to Arnau on their situation and battle actions once communications with the capital city were reestablished.

Though most of the news they received back were military reports, they were also advised that a convoy containing human soldiers and civilians had been shot down by corrupted mages somewhere southeast of Tierra, and as they were still alive as of an hour earlier, it was strongly suggested in the missive that the Tribune extract them in order to gain the protection of human weapons.

She didn’t know what those were, but the Tribune apparently did. He scoffed at what ‘a few small tubes’ might do for them, judging the distance too far to attempt a rescue even if they knew the exact location. Gilda again felt her blood boil at the casual dismissal of what the Marines could offer either side, but Optio Virgo herself remained silent, knowing it wasn’t her place.

She had heard of the humans, of course, finding the pictures of them fascinating—who would have thought that a non-magical race of primates could evolve into sapience like equines, ungulates and predators? —and idly wondering what new knowledge they could offer her after the war. But such purely intellectual pursuits seemed remote at best just then, leaving her wondering if she would ever be able to enjoy them again.

Hearing those thoughts run through the aide’s head, Gilda had the passing thought that the other eagless was incredibly dweeby, but also trying hard to do her part despite her fears and unlikely attraction.

Do not judge her harshly, Tribune, Giraldi’s voice sounded next to sense Cipio’s scowling disapproval. She fought despite being frightened, and she did not let her feelings for you affect the performance of her duties. As you already saw from my memories, she is hardly unique in desiring others at unlikely or awkward times. If you did not hold it against me, then do not hold it against her.

Gilda could only pick up the equivalent of a mental grunt in reply, and a passing thought from Cipio that it was a distraction he categorically did not need just then. But once again, she showed her devotion to duty by obeying him unreservedly, including to talon-deliver orders to a succession of individuals summoning them to the Tribune’s office. Once that was done, she set herself to untangling the severe supply bottleneck at the armory, as most of his regular officers were commanding units to make up for the losses they’d already suffered.

Though that told her that he didn’t think she could command a unit despite her rank of Optio, she let it pass, vowing to serve him however she could. She spent the next three hours establishing a steady flow of supplies and armaments, and it was daybreak when she suddenly heard distant naval cannon fire somewhere off to the west. Summoned back to the bunker by the Tribune, she found the mood one of relief and celebration at the news they had received of a resounding victory that had crushed an Overlord and its entire army.

But even as she tried to offer him her congratulations and found herself fantasizing about him even more fiercely—by all the Ancestors, he had both a brilliant mind and a warrior heart! —she was directed to take on a duty she was in no way ready for; ordered to put together a small honor guard and meet the arriving Changeling Queen.

Trying not to betray her sudden surge of anxiety—did he really trust her to meet and greet the first publicly seen Queen of the secretive insectile equine race since the days of the Gryphon Empire? —she barely squeaked out the ritual response as she could only pray that the Tribune’s instructions to their Queen would be well-received.

To say nothing of her coming in his place. But once again, she tried to carry out her orders to the best of her ability, causing Gilda to feel a moment of guilt at how harshly she had treated Optio Virgo upon their initial meeting.

She saw how afraid the other eagless was to meet the Queen and how panicked she was to receive Gilda’s orders, leaving the latter only then understanding how badly the Optio was being put on the spot and worse, caught between two commanders and two conflicting sets of orders before a foreign royal.

The memory replay ended with Optio Virgo presenting Gilda’s orders to the Tribune with great consternation. She watched as Cipio’s face went red to read it, leaving her praying to the Ancestors that Optio Giraldi was right that his inevitable explosion would not be turned on her.

But the playback ended before Gilda could find out, leaving her deflated. I’m sorry, Optio Virgo. I was aiming for Cipio, but you got caught in the crossfire… she felt compelled to apologize to the other eagless as her vision swam again, but this time, instead of shifting into another new perspective, she sensed the Queen’s connection to her deepen and the recesses of her mind begin to open, knowing it was finally her turn to share her memories.

This is it… Gilda thought, trying not to let her anxiety rise as for the second time in a day, she invoked the ritual griffon prayer. May the Ancestors preserve and protect me!

Fear not, Grizelda Behertz. The Queen’s reassuring voice sounded in her head. You are among friends here, and once they experience events as you did, I truly believe that they will not hold them against you… her voice trailed off as Gilda’s awareness of her surroundings and the others present faded into the far distance, finding herself back in Arnau readying for departure yet again.

But this time, she was in her own body as she began to relive the past day’s events for a second time; a spectator to her own memories that left her unable to do anything but observe.

36: Love in War (M-rated)

Author's Note

Welcome back to C&C yet again, folks. I elected to break up what I thought would be the final chapter to this mini story arc one last time both because it was running over again, and to make sure I got something out before heading out on vacation. Las Vegas, here I come!

Needless to say, this is very M-rated, so if you don’t want that, go here instead:

36: Love in War (T-rated)

Chapter contains: Gilda’s abortive encounter with Chris, Tara and Marco in the clearing after the first battle vividly replayed and having severe sensual effects on her onlookers, including most especially Tribune Cipio. Accidental exhibitionism and involuntary voyeurism along with the usual cider effects of boob/ball/cock enhancement are the themes of the day.

As always, I thank my superb prereading crew of Silentwoodfire, AJ_Aficionado, ASF, Wechsel and Silverblade5. They enjoyed the chapter, and hopefully readers will as well. Have at it just as soon as I post the standard boilerplate:

—Firesight

36: Love in War (M-rated)

As her memory replay began, Gilda felt herself being pulled into the equivalent of a mental embrace as the Queen’s aura enveloped and entered her mind.

Though she wasn’t sure if it was simply part of the process or the Queen trying to reassure her before her illicit acts were laid bare to her commander and comrades alike, she found herself immensely grateful for the presence of the Changeling monarch, who felt far more comforting and motherly than her own mother had ever been.

I know what happened. And I know what you fear, young eagless, the far older female said soothingly, but I can also see that you neither regret it nor would take it back even if given the chance. For to do so would dishonor the Starshina as much as yourself, the Queen thought, now able to read Gilda’s mind directly.

To do so would be to forsake an encounter so unlikely and intense that you still believe the experience to be Ancestor-sent, she further surmised, to which Gilda could feel all the emotions she went through then starting to flood back to her, causing her to internally tear up as she sensed the truth of the words. And therefore, to do so would be to forsake not just the experience, but the Ancestors themselves.

Yes… Gilda acknowledged, uncertain if the others could hear her thoughts or not. As she suddenly had no sense of their presence, she guessed that they couldn’t—that the Queen had imposed privacy to give her a moment of comfort before they proceeded.

I swore an oath to the Ancestors themselves that if they spared me from the dragon, I would never again turn down a worthy partner as I already had repeatedly. And even if it costs me all friendship and honor, to that oath I hold! She struggled not to start crying.

She sensed a mental smile and something akin to a kiss on the head that sent a wave of warmth through her. Then in the eyes of this Queen, you are a true Gryphon, Grizelda Behertz, as honorable as you are beautiful and brave. And know that such exquisite honor will shortly be seen by all…

With those words, Gilda had a sensation of being pulled down deep into her mind to be surrounded by her own memories, which played dreamlike before her.

They were chaotic at first as the innumerable events of the past day vied for attention. But with the Queen’s calm and practiced guidance, they turned from a tempest of rapidly shifting and dangerous gales that threatened to toss her battered psyche to and fro into a steady but gently flowing tailwind. One that she could simply stretch her wings out and be effortlessly carried along by, requiring no effort to remain aloft in.

Ironically, it is those experiencing their memories for a second time that often have the worst trouble with them, anticipating the events to come and trying hard to alter or avoid them when they cannot, the Queen noted, her presence suddenly manifesting next to Gilda in the griffon form she had initially appeared to Tribune Cipio in. The shapeshifting Queen took flight alongside her as she somehow flew forward into the flow of Gilda’s own recollections, watching and feeling along with her as they began to unfold anew.

So as we begin, my final advice to you is this: Fear not this foray into your past, Grizelda Behertz. Be not embarrassed of your errors or ashamed of any mistakes you made. They are inevitable in not just military affairs, but in life itself, and are in fact essential to gaining experience and wisdom. And always remember that I am right here with you, she said as she took position on Gilda’s wing, flying alongside as effortlessly as any sky griffon.

By your command, was all Gilda could think to offer back as her awareness of the Tribune and two Optios returned. Their presence left her realizing that they were now tuned in to her, watching as the events outside of Arnau began to unfold again.

* * * * *

For Gilda, the memory replay passed as if she was a spectator in her own body, not just seeing but experiencing the events unfold for the second time through all her senses.

But as the Queen warned, she was frustratingly unable to affect them even when she knew she was about to make a mistake. Or answer the thoughts and emotions she sensed being thrown her way by the Tribune and others, as her mind was almost—but not quite—completely given over to the replay.

With the small sliver of outside awareness she retained, she dimly realized that was why the Tribune, Giraldi and Optio Virgo had not answered any commentary on their own replays. They simply could not, being mentally muted while their memories unfolded.

But even though all three—and the Queen herself—were in Gilda’s head with her, her impressions of them remained dim and distant as she found herself back outside Arnau, readying for departure to Catlais just as Giraldi’s playback had begun. But in contrast to his starting by chatting with Raleigh, her replay began slightly before that with her meeting the arriving Paladins, who were none too pleased to be there.

She responded to their insults by giving as good as she got, receiving a strong sense of approval from Giraldi and a more grudging one from the Tribune to see her deal with their insubordination, to say nothing of their ugly attitudes towards her relationship with Marco. After all that had happened in the past day, she’d almost forgotten how she repaid their slander in kind, implying that their ranking Paladin—who she did not then know was a Raven Decurion named Ebon Umbreon—spent the bulk of his diplomatic sentry duties servicing Saddle Arabian spears.

I will grant that you have a sharp wit, and that you guard your human mate’s honor like a griffon would, Behertz, Cipio said to her with his thoughts at one point, but unable to reply, she hoped she would remember the remark enough to thank him later. Or insult him when he soon saw Tara approach and sensed Gilda’s attraction to the human female, wondering mentally just why such soft creatures would be of any interest to a griffon.

That earned an indignant response from Giraldi and sharp rebuke from Queen Lepidoptes, who headed off an argument by saying to simply watch and listen if he wished to know. Unless I miss my guess, you will learn soon enough, the Queen told him, to which she felt the Tribune make a mental face and Optio Virgo trying hard to mask her hope.

The Tribune also wasn’t entirely pleased with the casualness and informality he sensed from the human soldiers, wondering why they couldn’t seem to get proper military address right as they kept calling Gilda “ma’am.”

You should have come down hard on them early and often, Behertz, he told her, to which Giraldi pointed out that would be counterproductive, given the Marines were there to assist her in having time with Marco behind the back of the human Ambassador and his aide.

She needed their cooperation, for which it would be unwise to antagonize them, he reminded the Tribune, who was unimpressed.

Be that as it may, they need to show proper respect to your rank and station. And regardless of the race of your mate, I do NOT approve of you using your duties and diplomatic command chain as a cover for some crow-damned tryst, Behertz!

But once again, Giraldi answered with far more patience and respect than Gilda would have granted him. One of the first lessons I learned from you as a young Decanus on the Ibexian border was that respect is not simply gained through rank, Tribune. It is gained through word and deed, he recalled in what Gilda knew was likely an attempt at placation by appealing to the Tribune’s pride.

As you can clearly see, their military culture is somewhat more informal than our own, and having been among them for many weeks, the Centurion was fully aware of that. She needed them willing to help her, and thus, treating them like fresh-to-the-Gauntlet fledglings would be ill-advised, he reminded his fellow tiercel again before his mental tone turned very dry.

And with all due respect, sir, if you find this affair questionable, then I suggest you take it up with now-Legate Narada in Arnau. It may interest you to know that she set all this up as a reward for services the Centurion rendered to the Kingdom, including the veritable dragon hoard of information Grizelda Behertz gained on humanity along with myself and Decurion Gletscher, he noted idly, earning a mental snort.

What services? Winning the humans over by willingly rutting them? Cipio suggested contemptuously, earning a brief surge of anger from Giraldi that was quickly quashed.

Hardly. Perhaps you are unaware that it was Centurion Behertz and NOT the Council of Crows who guessed the odd human tubes were in fact cannons? It was a remarkable insight that eluded our best arcane theorists for weeks. THAT is why she was promoted, he explained as they boarded the transports and took flight, leaving Gilda at least dimly aware of how fast her memory was playing despite the background chatter.

But the Tribune was unimpressed. Then the Council of Crows is blind and that dragon-rutting excuse of an eagless is a soft and overly-sentimental idiot, he answered. His words caused Queen Lepidoptes to pause the playback, freezing Gilda’s memories just as she was focused on a passing but quite vivid fantasy of Marco’s erect spear staring her in the face.

Though she had quickly forgotten about it not long after it happened, it had flashed through her mind briefly when she spoke with Marco through the window of his air coach. She’d been actively recalling undressing and orally pleasuring him as they anticipated their coming time together in Catlais, recalling in that instant its size, shape and spicy scent as his exotic organ hung poised horizontally before her open beak.

Her playback frozen, she suddenly couldn’t hear the thoughts of either tiercel as she guessed Queen Lepidoptes was lecturing them in the background on remaining silent and not arguing. But Optio Virgo’s presence remained, giving her a good look at Gilda’s memory of Marco’s impressive stature.

Ancestors above… is THAT what a human spear looks like? The younger eagless asked with her thoughts, but Gilda still couldn’t answer as she sensed the Optio’s presence somehow moved closer to the memory, fascinated by the exotic phallus. So smooth and gently curved. No bulb or sheath, but a slightly flared head and hints of a medial ring along with a nest of fine fur at its base…

She began suddenly and quite vividly imagining it inside her beak and nest instead of Gilda’s, for which Gilda might have rebuked her if she was able to. Or if she didn’t find it a form of flattery for her mate, especially for as much as the Tribune was disparaging him.

Its shape and scent are pleasing, and given their upright forms, it is at the perfect height for our bodies. And is it true what I heard that they don’t fight mating rounds? Optio Virgo almost fervently hoped, making Gilda abruptly understand that in a huge rarity for griffons, the other eagless didn’t mate in large part because she didn’t like the idea of fighting for sex and wasn’t even sure she could. And if so, maybe the other humans would be interested in me?

Gilda felt a strong sense of loneliness from Rubens Virgo just as she regained awareness of Giraldi and Cipio along with the Queen, who had apparently finished scolding the two males. Now mind your manners in my presence, or I will mute you, she just caught the end of her lecture, sounding like a mother addressing two arguing cubs.

She sensed surprise from Giraldi followed by a mental recoil from the Tribune at seeing the same frozen image of Marco’s erect spear, but the Queen didn’t let them linger on it, immediately restarting the flow of time in Gilda’s memories to show the end of the midair conversation with Marco through the window of the air carriage.

Though Cipio mentally expressed more disapproval at her breaking vigilance to speak with her mate with the connivance of the Marines—who demonstrated what their ‘blacklights’ did for the first time when Jamal used a small one to see Gilda right through a shroud spell—it quickly disappeared when word of approaching adult dragons was received.

Watching as she dealt with the surprise situation, he acknowledged that Gilda made the correct choice to land immediately instead of attempting to go around or under them. But before they could, the lightning field attack erupted. It struck down the Paladins en masse and sent Marco’s carriage plummeting, with the initial barrage of bolts focusing on the front of the nine-seat coach to kill three of the five griffons carrying it.

She only then remembered how she’d been briefly knocked out by the concussive blast and sent plummeting, leaving her in deep appreciation of how Fortrakt had made it back so quickly and been able to rouse her in midair. She shortly found herself reliving the experience of trying to save the stricken coach by putting the burned and splintered remains of a harness extension on her back without a proper yoke.

It dug into her sensitive wingbase just as painfully as it had before, causing her beak to clench as she trilled her agony at the intense pain, which she could also dimly sense was being fully felt by her onlookers.

An anguished Optio Virgo mentally pleaded for it to stop while Giraldi and the Tribune simply endured it without a mental word, though she could feel Cipio’s astonishment at the lengths she was going to and the pain she was willing to endure to save her mate and human friends.

In the end, they only barely did, though Gilda thankfully hit hard enough to stun herself so she didn’t feel much of being thrown back in the air, bouncing on the ground twice before finally skidding to a stop through what she hadn’t realized then were a series of brambles.

Her heart going a league a minute and her breathing coming in gulps as she only slowly recovered her senses, she forced herself to rise and check on an even more injured Fortrakt, who the watching Gilda silently vowed to thank more properly later given she hadn’t had the chance before. Telling him to hold on for the Magus, she painfully made her way over to the crashed coach, only to watch its door get kicked open from the inside by a heavy human boot and the Marines spill out.

Her relief was palpable to all as she found Marco alive with the only serious injury belonging to Raleigh, starting to arrange for treatment of the wounded after setting defense and discussing the situation with humans and griffons alike.

The injured included her, and once treated, she received the increasingly grim reports regarding the extent of the lightning field above them as well as the dead ponies and griffons they’d found nearby, trying to make sense of their mysterious situation.

The Ravens were shortly revealed, and their far more effective and practiced reconnaissance became essential as they led the way to the overturned cart. But not before Gilda confronted Chris, Marco and Tara about the weapons they’d been hiding, which were finally pulled out of storage gems at her instructions to arm themselves.

The Tribune and even Optio Virgo were intrigued to hear all the exotic jargon and witness the varied forms of their civilian firearms, with the former noticeably surprised when Marco slid a quiver out of his ‘pistol’ full of brass cylinders capped with domes of copper-covered metal to show a Marine.

To see and hear all that, I grant that there is much about these cannons I need to know before I can properly employ them, Cipio finally conceded to a satisfied sense from Giraldi. The Tribune also couldn’t help but note the conflict between the civilians and the human military ‘officer’, to which Giraldi gently corrected him to say the Corporal’s rank was roughly equivalent to Decanus.

In the end, Imlay was not willing to use force to disarm them despite his orders from Raleigh, so he let them go with a threat that he would change his mind if his Marines came under friendly fire.

Such deadly arms in the talons of untrained civilians? I would not have allowed that, Cipio had to say, and the Queen did not rebuke him this time as he wasn’t addressing Gilda directly.

As you will shortly see, for them NOT to be there would have cost the battle, sir, Giraldi replied briefly before falling silent again.

The ambush at the cart soon erupted as it had before, though this time, the Tribune saw it unfold through Gilda’s eyes. Even though she had already guessed the nature of the human weapons, she was still stunned by their power and incredible rate of fire as even their civilians proved effective with them, gunning down corrupted Talons and Paladins alike charging in from the flanks as they guarded the cart and the rear of the Marines.

Gilda knew that her emotions were replaying as well, experiencing them all over again. And she knew they weren’t ones favorable to her as her certainty of defeat was followed by bewilderment and shock to see the humans simply mow down what initially appeared to be an overwhelming assault force, wielding exotic personal cannons the Kingdom had no answer to or equivalent for.

She was reminded again of how useless she felt, though she was finally able to target a corrupted Talon Centurion with her crossbow and later take flight to kill a possessed civilian earth griffon. She also recalled her mingled fear for Marco and the pride she took in both him and his friends as they stood their ground and fought well, with Tara proving especially effective as she fluidly switched between her trio of cannons to show her mental guests all three in action.

Gilda sensed understanding dawn on the Tribune as he watched each of them used. Now I see. So their smaller talon-held tubes are only for close defense while the larger ones are for foes further out. And the thicker tube that one human eagless carries creates some form of scatter blast not unlike an airship cannon’s grapeshot, which is both inescapable and deadly to attacking infantry at close range… he realized as he beheld Tara annihilate a succession of captured Paladins and Talons with each type of cannon, the final blowing gaping holes in their heads and torsos.

Indeed. These cannons of theirs are clearly the product of countless centuries of development to have such strength and specialization, Giraldi agreed, sounding far more thoughtful than he had at the time. And I also note the use of different types of cannonballs, for lack of a better term, meaning their ammunition is just as varied and specialized as their weapons—not unlike all the different kinds of crossbow bolts we employ. But why did they develop such unique and powerful arms when it must have taken ages for them to exceed the power of simple crossbows?

Maybe because they had to? Optio Virgo chimed in with her own observations, though she seemed far less freaked than she had upon beholding human weapons for the first time in Giraldi’s replay. As they cannot wield magic, run fast or fly, they had to be able to defend against those who could. And just as the ponies knew so many centuries earlier in the war between our races, crossbows alone do not suffice against an airborne enemy like us. They needed something with far greater range and striking power to overcome such advantages, and this was the result.

You may be right, Rubens Virgo, Giraldi agreed. But regardless of the answer, they are truly an innovative race to have accomplished all this without magic. As the discussion continued—and this time, Queen Lepidoptes allowed it because they were exchanging observations and insights instead of insults—Gilda found herself regretting her inability to chime in.

She would have told them to wait a few minutes for the answers to their questions if she was able, but the thought was fleeting as she relived the immediate aftermath of the attack. They included her own difficulties and struggle to come to terms with all that had happened, not the least of which was the certainty that they were fighting the Cloven.

And that was to say nothing of the total inferiority of griffon arms to human ones, all of which left her wondering what in the name of the Ancestors she was supposed to do now.

To her surprise, the Tribune expressed something close to sympathy after hearing her forlorn thought. Just this once, I won’t blame you for being at a loss, Behertz. For as I’m sure you saw, I was no different to learn of the foe we faced. And as such powerful and lethal arms that humans employ are completely unknown to the Kingdom, there is no doctrine nor experience that can be drawn on in employing or countering them, Cipio further conceded to feel Gilda’s reeling psyche.

Though she needed a few minutes, she did finally recover and offer instruction to the humans, Marine and civilian alike, regarding the nature of their ancient enemy. Somewhat to her surprise, Cipio did not disparage Marco and his civilian friends for reacting badly to their first combat action, reasoning that—much like for the griffons he had commanded in the past—experiencing actual battle for the first time was quite a shock regardless of your training.

He did, however, react with disfavor towards the lack of discipline and celebratory attitude of the Marines. He mentally remarked that winning one fight did not win the war, and that they seemed far too enamored of their own combat power, leaving them vulnerable to overconfidence and a dangerous belief in their own infallibility.

Though he agreed, Giraldi pointed out that Imlay came down hard on the worst offenders while also taking time to both comfort and critique his civilian charges. He is clearly a veteran soldier to recover so quickly from an unexpected battle, he then observed. And having spoken to him since, I believe he would make an excellent officer in our own armed forces.

I agree. It is also clear he is used to fighting other humans with the same arms, which explains the thick armor they wear, Cipio further observed. Though its non-metallic nature is odd… what is it made of? And how do their ‘firearms’ even function, when our best blackbirds and arcane theorists could not make such weapons practical for anything smaller than an airship or siege engine? He wondered openly as her playback continued.

By then, Gilda was only barely aware of their ongoing discussion, their words forgotten almost as quickly as she heard them. She relived how she’d been filled with such questions and doubts when, needing comfort as much as information, she went off to speak with Marco and his friends after checking in with Decanus Nydia and Spear Jade Jumentum.

The peripheral chatter of her onlookers quieted down as they all observed the disassembly and ‘cleaning’ of the human cannons for the first time, along with hearing an explanation as to why they were doing it. Gilda then asked for the capabilities and backstory of their weapons, to which Marco and Chris in particular gave her all she could ever ask for, leaving her mind spinning anew as their thousand-year tale of development and use was related.

Though it was unquestionably good information to share, sensing all three of her griffon onlookers and even the Queen herself listening closely as their capabilities and history were recited, Gilda realized only then that in all her consternation about having what happened with Karin Kazal replayed, she’d completely forgotten about her earlier encounters with Marco and his friends.

But she was helpless to stop it or even feel any measure of anxiety as all four of her onlookers were shown quite vividly what happened in the chat’s aftermath; her intense desires and sensations put on full display along with what the cider did to her and her human friends.

Gilda didn’t recall the exact progression of events until she relived them, but they’d been discussing having statues erected to them in the Hall of Heroes if they died in a half-joking manner, with the three humans offering open invitations to let Gilda and Fortrakt molest their naked sculptures to their heart’s content.

Excitement and a strong cider smell around her followed; it happened so quickly she wasn’t sure which came first. Regardless, its effects were both incredibly obvious and impressive as the wave of magical passion swiftly overtook them, with Chris and Marco forced to free their rapidly swelling spears while the bulging breasts of Tara stretched the fabric of her garment and threatened to burst right out of her shirt.

Looking down her belly in the memory replay, Gilda saw her four griffon ‘boobs’ were likewise growing and becoming exquisitely sensitive. They did so to the astonishment of her audience and a sense of delight from Optio Virgo, quickly reaching the size of more than a human handful each.

In contrast to her exultation, Giraldi was fascinated by the sight as Gilda sensed cider surging within her for real as the memory replayed, causing her breasts to swiftly swell in echo of the experience along with the two tiercel spears in the room. The former’s mind flashed strongly back to the night of the cider while the Tribune was initially appalled, but the latter also couldn’t seem to tear his attention away as his mental focus shifted repeatedly between the human spears and Tara’s equally impressive breasts.

And that was to say nothing of feeling the human talons soon placed upon Gilda. She sensed the shock of Cipio—and outright enjoyment of Optio Virgo—to feel Marco’s fleshy talons start feeling up her wingbases in earnest. It left her feeling almost helpless to resist his advance as his friends shortly joined in, deciding that if they could die, they didn’t want to do so without showing her their love and appreciation.

It was a sentiment an overheated Gilda shared as, guided by Tara’s soft digits, her griffon talons went to the human woman’s massive chest-mounted mammaries to close on their feminine forms and push her shirt up fully. She bared the enormous and still-swelling human breasts to her hungry eyes, though she quickly lost sight of them as they began to make out.

Even the Tribune was stunned by not just the pink-rimmed view of their teat-capped mounds—despite the first term he tried to assign to them, Gilda refused to call them ‘udders’, even with her thoughts—but the delicious feel of her smooth and furless flesh as she felt everygriffon’s claws flex in echo of her own squeezing the mammary masses. They likewise smelled Tara’s scent and felt her soft lips against Gilda’s hard beak, leaving them marveling along with her how well a human muzzle could fit a griffon one

Ancestors above… came Giraldi’s thought as Gilda had a fleeting sense that even the Queen was surprised, given how the entire encounter had come like a bolt from the blue. I can now recall my own experience with Tara Fields when I did exactly this! I could not get enough of her human femininity as exemplified by her magnificent mammaries. Their soft but firm feel offset by the exquisite tautness of her teats… their perfect size to grasp with griffon talons… he all but exulted, his spear going supremely rigid along with the Tribune’s even as Cipio tried to mentally pull away.

He did so despite his own surging excitement and flaring wings, which Gilda could just sense through what little remained of her outside awareness as they brushed and then locked pinions with those of his aide’s. It caused them both to gasp audibly and stumble forward slightly against the table, pushing them even closer together and leaving them unable to untangle themselves.

Despite her own intense distraction, Gilda tried to take note of his discomfort and helpless excitement at what he was experiencing so she could use it against him later. But even her peripheral thoughts were then scattered by the remembered sensation of Marco’s hands reaching low on her belly to find and fondle her teats.

That elicited an audible set of squawks from all present, the Tribune included. Stop this… he just managed to plead shakily through a clenched beak as multiple sets of human hands began groping Gilda’s growing mammaries, causing not just Rubens Virgo but Giraldi and Cipio to start grasping at their bellies to feel Gilda’s anatomy as if it was their own.

Please, I don’t want this! he tried again, but his shaky thoughts were quickly overridden by the excitement and delight of the two Optios who were mentally urging even more from Gilda and her three human lovers, particularly as Optio Virgo continued to rub wings with him.

More came in the form of Chris inserting one digit, then two into Gilda’s eagless nest. It caused her to passionately squawk and her legs to nearly buckle at the sensation, which was redoubled in Gilda’s mind for knowing that Chris was in fact a tiercel tucker suddenly and sorely tempted by her feminine form.

Ancestors above… so THIS is what it is to be an eagless! Giraldi marveled as Optio Virgo was equally shocked at the sensation, having never experienced anything foreign in her nest before.

Ancestors above… so THIS is what it is to rut! she rejoined, now openly rubbing her wing against Cipio, who couldn't pull away, wracked by alien sensations of erotic intrusions into what felt like his own eagless body. She began to self-pleasure, trying to imagine herself in place of Gilda as her three human friends availed themselves of her increasingly eager body.

Indeed. An unexpected lesson, but for myself, a welcome one in human lovemaking to go along with their warfighting, Queen Lepidoptes broke in, sounding intrigued despite the intense and unlikely sex Gilda was still experiencing—that she was now experiencing as well.

How interesting. I cannot help but note the emphasis they place on teatplay, which as I think about it makes perfect sense given their position and prominence on human females. Though such erotic acts occur occasionally among ponies and ibex, they are almost unknown among griffons who have not been outside the Kingdom—at least, not until we Changelings introduce them to its pleasure, she couldn’t help but add with a self-satisfied note.

With greatest respect, Queen Lepidoptes, not all griffons are unaware of it! a husky-soundingGiraldi told her. My wife rather enjoys having her teats nipped, tweaked, and tugged, though hers are certainly not as large or deliciously soft as those of Tara Fields!

Oh? Then I stand corrected, Galen Giraldi. Your wife is a lucky eagless to both know of it and have a mate who will indulge it. And given how much you appear to be enjoying the feel of Tara Fields, I do believe we will have something new to try later, Tribune! she told Cipio as Gilda felt the nubs of Tara’s teats settle happily into the space between her thumbs and foretalons; their hardness contrasting nicely with the pillowy softness of the surrounding sensual surface which was still expanding into her grasp.

And though the Tribune kept making motions like he was trying to snatch his talons back, the feel of the human female’s flesh against his digits was inescapable and they continued to flex hard, trying to squeeze and fondle Tara’s flesh in place of Gilda. And worse, he kept attempting to bare his wings and belly to the probing human hands that continued to caress and probe her, producing even more unfamiliar sensations within him.

But that was nothing compared to the gasp and slack-jawed reaction Chris elicited from the two tiercels by sliding a third finger inside her eagless opening to stretch its sensitive flesh further, reaching up with his thumb to rub her anal opening in turn.

Even Giraldi squawked and his legs buckled at the sensation of the dual penetration, leading him to start pushing back and humping his form downwards against the feel of four phantom human digits within him, with three inside a piece of anatomy he did not even possess.

But it hit the Tribune even harder as he gave a surprisingly female trill and fell onto his back. He did so just as Chris and Marco began working to lower Gilda onto hers in her memory so she could be taken by all three at once, teaching her—and her onlookers—a host of human slang terms for various anatomy and erotic acts along the way.

‘Tits’ and ‘pussy’. How wonderfully educational, the Queen said in approval, then turned her attention back to the resisting but writhing Cipio, who couldn’t keep himself from pawing at his belly where he felt human hands against Gilda’s swollen mammaries. He writhed hard against his rigid wings from the fingers wriggling within her slit, though it was only as Chris began worming his thumb digit inside her rapidly loosening tail that he squawked and his spear gave a sudden spurt.

Ancestors above… I can’t take this! Please stop this, Queen Lepidoptes! He all but begged her.

But the Queen refused with a mental shake of her head. Discomforting though you find it, I remind you that you wanted to see what she hid, Tribune. Consider this an exercise in empathy that will accompany your lesson in human firearms, she told him in some measured amusement as his aide outright orgasmed with a loud trill and call to her Ancestors, outpacing Gilda’s memories. It is something Changeling drones do early and often, in order to better pleasure—and thus extract love—from both genders.

I see. This is an unexpected but welcome encounter to witness—I had no idea the Centurion had a tryst with our three human friends! Giraldi told her. He remained upright though his real talons had found Gilda’s, squeezing them, their wings freely intermingling. This is what we all experienced with them before, Tribune, and I find my lost memories flooding back to feel this, including my own turn with all three of them—and the Centurion HERSELF! he marveled, then her sense of him changed slightly as a sudden question occurred to him.

If it is not too prying, I wish to know, Queen Lepidoptes—can Changelings shapeshift into different genders? EvenGiraldi’s mental voice sounded slightly breathless as he drank in the exotic sensual sensations, welcoming them even as Cipio struggled against them.

We can indeed. But it is not ideal, as it requires considerably more magic, and it is not as… instinctive to us as our true gender. As it is harder to hold such a form and not our natural state, we tend to be less effective at sex and extracting love that way. But that is NOT to say we cannot make use of such abilities! she mused as Gilda found herself fighting desperately to change the course of events to come—to allow her human friends to have her right then and there.

She did so with the benefit of hindsight, knowing that both Tara and Chris would shortly be wounded and her attempts to be honorable would result in steadily building sexual pressure followed by an encounter she eventually couldn’t stop. But just as Queen Lepidoptes had warned her, she couldn’t alter past events. She was forced to experience it exactly as she had before, with Gilda herself stopping her human friends at the last possible moment, fearful of what would happen if they were caught or the Cloven attacked.

Crows take it… she felt more than thought, taking some solace from the fact that the sudden ceasing of the encounter was just as disheartening to her audience—even Tribune Cipio, who wasn’t far from a climax of his own by then. He remained on his back propped up slightly by his exquisitely arched wings, which had stretched the fabric of his dress uniform around them so taut that it was starting to fray at the edges.

The respite allowed him to recover some of his senses and nerve as he struggled to regain control of himself. By all the crows of the Kingdom, Behertz… So THIS is what you didn’t want me to see? he mentally guessed, to which Gilda was glad she couldn’t answer. An encounter with not one but THREE humans at once? And surrendering yourself to them without so much as a mating round? Ancestors above, have you no shame or sense of duty?

She clearly does, given she stopped it despite how intense her desire and the cider compulsion was. Queen Lepidoptes replied for her. It was an impressive display of willpower—one I daresay is worthy of a Changeling Queen. So tell me, are you angry about that, Tribune, or the fact that you so clearly enjoyed it?

She nodded down at his throbbing spear that still hung high over his belly, which Gilda could just perceive at the edges of her awareness as a glowing ethereal shadow against the side of her mind. If she was able to, she would have also taken immense amusement in the fact that the Tribune had pinned himself on his back trapped by his own erect wings, in the position her human friends had tried to put her.

There is no shame in the Centurion’s submission, Tribune. As combat was just concluded, no mating round was needed to prove their worthiness since they already fought bravely and willingly at her side. This time, it was Giraldi who spoke up on Gilda’s behalf.

Though she did not initiate it, she was willing to offer herself up to them as a reward for saving her—for saving us all. I cannot fault her for that, especially given I saw such post-action affairs happen many times following battles on the Ibexian border. Particularly between those new soldiers experiencing—and surviving—their first fight.

Galen Giraldi is correct, Gilda heard the Queen project as she paused the playback again, this time with Gilda playfully pouncing Marco and pinning him after he tried one final tease.

By griffon standards, her actions are not unheard of or even particularly untoward. Your race thrives on the thrill of battle and the passion derived from it, especially enjoying powerful weapons such as the humans employ. Trust me—as my Hive has lived among you for a full millennia, we know your proclivities well, Tribune. And how to exploit them to gain love. There was an amused note in her voice as she observed his aroused state.

B-but that doesn’t mean— his mental voice started to sound severely unsteady to Gilda as his wings arched harder, causing an audible rending sound in the stretched and more fragile fabric of his dress shirt around his wingbase.

Powerful weapons, exotic anatomy ideal for our relative heights and talons, soft and sensuous bodies paired with a surprisingly griffon-like culture that produces able warriors… Giraldi added in an almost seductive air that suggested he was trying to get a fresh rise out of the Tribune.

Sensing he was succeeding as Cipio took another ragged breath, he dug his talons in deeper. After such a terrible trial by fire, I would happily go on my back for them just as you have, Tribune Cipio. And for saving us, let them probe, penetrate, and fondle me to their heart’s content… he said in something approaching a purr as he engaged in a vivid fantasy of himself in Gilda’s place, laying back as three sets of human talons felt up his form from wing to tail.

It quickly escalated from there, ending with him orally pleasuring Tara’s eagless nest out from below while Chris rode his spear and Marco took his tail, reaching around to stroke Chris’s ‘cock’ and cup his human apples in turn.

Even with her eyes closed, Gilda could tell the Tribune gaped not just mentally but physically as he couldn’t block the image from his mind. As it soaked in, he trembled. He trilled. And then his back arched hard as he came explosively all over his belly, face and chest; his mind modifying Giraldi’s fantasy slightly to imagine his talons reaching up to cup Tara’s chest-mounted mammaries from behind while Marco’s spear turned Saddle Arabian-sized and shaped as it slowly spread his sphincter, overcoming its weakening resistance to push deeply and effortlessly into his tail despite its enormous girth and head.

His climax lasted the better part of half a minute before his furred orbs finally emptied; the erotic eruptions they powered gradually subsided to slower and weaker squirts. Superb, Tribune! Giraldi offered his approval by mentally basking in the alternate image of the scene, exulting in the secondwing sensations he felt through their shared thoughts. I believe that you finally understand not just the danger of human firearms, but the nature of our attraction to these honorable and deliciously amorous ‘alien apes’.

Correct again, Galen Giraldi, the Queen approved as Cipio continued to helplessly spurt all over his formal uniform, turning the increasingly sodden front of it from dark blue to nearly black as the mingled scent of his seed and cider hung heavy in the air around them. His heaving chest caused the taut and now-wet material of his dress shirt to tear in several places, revealing a layer of enchanted armor underneath it instead of his bare body.

And an excellent showing, Tribune. You loved the idea of being with the humans so much that I was even able to draw some fresh power from your climaxing to the fantasy alone, for which I thank you. After a month apart and this awful past day, I daresay you needed that. And fear not about your uniform. We will clean and repair it before you leave.

As an open-beaked and panting Cipio could only groan and paw weakly at the air in response, an audible moan from behind him then told Gilda that Optio Virgo was finally regaining some awareness of her own. She seemed to still be basking in her afterglow, leaving Gilda taking some small comfort in that at least one eagless had gotten off on the whole illicit affair, even if it wasn’t her.

Though her attention remained mostly fixed on her paused playback, she had enough awareness remaining to hope she would remember it enough to tell Chris, Tara, and Marco about the Tribune’s reaction to the scene later.

And once they were fully healed and rested, she vowed they would finally finish what they’d started back in the clearing the day before; her desire to do so only further fueled by the approval she’d received for the abortive affair from the Queen and Giraldi.

The former of which was studying the Tribune as his splayed wings slowly slackened and still-erect spear steadily oozed the last vestiges of his surprisingly copious seed directly onto the lower edge of his armor, right through the hole in the silken fabric that had torn there.

Interesting. It would appear that you have been at least slightly enhanced as well, Tribune. Your spear and sac are noticeably larger than they were before, even without my aid. That could happen if the cider scent around us is also infused with that pony fertility potion the ibex force-fed them, the Queen mused, causing the Tribune’s brown eyes to flutter open in surprise.

You may be right, Your Highness, as I believe I have noticed that effect myself previously, Giraldi admitted with a wry note as he continued to enjoy the picture of his sexually spent superior before him; an image of his twin teenage sons suddenly flashing through his mind. It showed him training them to fight and sitting back to watch the pair grapple, with one trying and nearly succeeding in pinning the other on his back, ordering him to submit when he refused to.

Noticing their immature sheaths and sacs were nearly touching as they wrestled, Giraldi had an abrupt and unbidden vision of his two sons in a romantic embrace, imagining their spears suddenly emerging as their simple spar somehow turned into a mating round. Surprised at the thought as well as how powerful the fantasy was, his own spear started to surge out of its sheath as he suddenly scented cider around him.

And then, to his surprise, his fantasy began coming true as the cheeks of his sons flushed and they locked eyes, their beaks suddenly drifting closer as he caught a glimpse of their young spears emerging, looking bigger to him than they should be at that age. And were their sacs swelling before his eyes…? But then they abruptly remembered he was there and quickly climbed off each other, with everygriffon making hasty excuses to be elsewhere.

He suppressed the memory in some embarrassment, not entirely successfully; it was clear to Gilda that it still had some hold over him. I wasn’t entirely certain I didn’t just imagine it, though. Still, I have been wary of being aroused around others since, for fear of what it might do to them. Before he could stop it, the image of his two sons suddenly turned into a very incestuous fantasy.

But the Queen herself was unperturbed. I see. We have employed that potion ourselves when we needed its effects without use of our own magic, but only in very small doses given its highly addictive nature and severe withdrawal symptoms. Certainly nothing like you three imbibed. If you wish, we will see about purging or at least suppressing its effects.

S-so now they’re infecting ME with this? Tribune Cipio suddenly sounded close to panic as he struggled to mentally right himself and force his stubborn arousal away, only to find it growing more intense the more of the cider-soaked air he inhaled, even after his earlier climax.

By all the crows of the Kingdom, I’ve seen enough, Countess! I want out! NOW! he demanded, so flustered he accidentally lapsed into calling the Queen by her griffon persona again.

* * * * *

Gilda suddenly felt the magical hold on her slacken and the intrusive magic recede, allowing her to think and speak again. “Very well, Tribune. As you have seen the full power of human firearms by now and it is clear to me that for this to continue would make things worse and not better, I will end it early. I trust you will not object, Centurion?” She floated both Gilda and the Tribune another bowl of honey wine.

Though she didn’t, Gilda still found herself frustrated over the abortive encounter. “Crows take it…” was the first thought she voiced as she struggled to recover her faculties, dipping her beak into the bowl to take a long draw. She leaned heavily on the table in front of her, her relief at finding a way out of revealing what happened with Karin Kazal warring with regretting that what she had revealed had ended when it did.

“Welcome back, Centurion,” Giraldi bared his throat to her despite his still-erect spear. “As far as this griffon and officer is concerned, you have nothing to be ashamed of.”

It took her a moment before she could reply, taking a second sip of the chilled but sweet wine while trying to refocus her thoughts. “Thanks, Optio. Ancestors above, I’m sorry to put you all through that.” She just caught herself from saying that she’d completely forgotten it had occurred for fear of what came later, which would have been as much admitting that there was something even worse that she didn’t want them to witness.

“Don’t be!”an amazed Optio Virgo exclaimed as she pulled herself up, earning a glare from the Tribune at his erect wings still brushing against his. “By the Ancestors themselves, that was amazing, Centurion! Your human friends are so wonderful and loving! I just wish it had continued! And that I could have been there in your place…” Gilda could just pick up the spoor of her arousal over the heavy scent of cider in the air.

“I, too, am not upset at all, Centurion,”Giraldi added, his excitement still in evidence and face full of wonder, as well as what Gilda judged to be fresh fantasy from his suddenly distant expression.

“Nor do I blame you for this. In truth, I am rather envious. For just as Marco Lakan mentioned, you did not know if you were going to survive the night, so why would you not take what might be a final opportunity for intimacy? And better yet, something far more remembered and pure for not being caused by the cider poisoning?” Unlike Cipio, he wasn’t hiding his spear, letting it hang proudly horizontally from where he sat, drawing the other Optio’s gaze.

“It was caused by it!”Cipio finally rediscovered his voice before Gilda could thank him. He knocked the bowl of wine offered him aside as he struggled to hide his still-enormous erection, covering it with both sets of talons only to find it was already so large he couldn’t.“I could smell it on her friends and can smell it around her now!”

He then tried to roll upright but failed, his stiff wings preventing him from doing so. “By the crows, Behertz, if that’s what it’s still doing to you, then how can you possibly be trusted in battle or command?”

“It’s doing it to me, too, sir,” Giraldi reminded him gently, sitting back slightly and spreading his legs without shame to show off his own enhanced stature, earning a gape from both him and Optio Virgo. “The cider you smell is coming from both of us. Though it may have caused some untoward urges at times, it did not negatively affect my combat performance, nor hers.”

“Maybe you can deal with it, but she clearly can’t! Not if that’s what she’s taking time out to do in the middle of a military operation!” Still trying to cover his spear, he started to stroke it before he caught himself.

Gilda bit off a curse, mostly for the presence of the Queen, who she judged was starting to look outright annoyed. “I’m sorry, Tribune. Did you not see me risking my life to get us to Lake Languid? Or commanding the action there through Giraldi’s eyes?”

It took him a moment to reply, his breathing still ragged and cheeks flushed as he again tried and failed to roll upright, causing his spear to slip free and bounce off his belly into full view of a wide-eyed Optio Virgo again. “I saw him running things far more than you! I saw you make multiple mistakes that nearly got you and your force killed, from not recognizing an obvious ambush to making the most crow-damningly stupid move possible when chased by an adult dragon!” he told her, his voice uncharacteristically shrill as his wings and spear refused to subside.

Despite it—or maybe because of it? —he continued to berate her, trying valiantly to roll himself upright around his still-stiff appendages, finally succeeding on the third try to lean heavily against the table. “Again and again, you had to be bailed out of trouble by those smarter and better armed than you! I also witnessed your dereliction of duty to defend your force while he got everything organized for march and defended Bale in your stead! So what did you do except get healed and act like a pony herd with three humans, Behertz?” he shot back.

“That will do, Tribune,”Queen Lepidoptes broke in again before Gilda could, feeling a soothing mental pressure against her growing pink-rimmed ire even as the Changeling Monarch started to sound exasperated. “You are not being fair to her, and you know it. The ambush at the cart was only obvious in hindsight and could not have been anticipated—unless you knew the Cloven were present,”she told him with far more patience than Gilda felt.

“But as unlike you, she had no advance warning of their return, that attack could not be foreseen—even Optio Giraldi and three highly experienced Ravens did not realize the danger that the corpses posed until it was too late. Nor do I take any issue with her actions on the road to Bale, or her defense of it. I instead note her unquestioned bravery and willingness to risk herself on behalf of all, not just her human mate and friends.”

His cheeks flushed further at their mention as his wings instantly went fully splayed again, causing him to clutch his head as he sidled closer to the table to hide his stature beneath its lip. “Crows take it… that does not excuse her indulging with not one but three humans who… who…" His eyes glazed, paws flexed and hips bucked once at whatever he was imagining, leaving Gilda guessing that he was remembering her paws on Tara’s chest and all the human hands upon her in turn.

“Who what, Tribune?” she dared him to say something despite her own lingering excitement, feeling her breasts still bulging and nest tingling. Still charged with cider, she decided to take pains to show them off to him by standing upright and crossing her forelegs as humans and dragons did, earning a fresh gape at the sight of her melon-sized mammaries displayed proudly and freely with surprisingly little sag.

“Turned you on? Made you want to be with them after you said you found the idea appalling? Or worse, be with them as an eagless in my place?” She grinned evilly as she dug her talons in deeper, earning a half-strangled squawk from him as she sensed her words made the idea tighten its hold on him further.

Bet Tara would be proud of me for doing this to him! Smiling, she was about to continue the tease only to fall silent when the Queen gave her a warning look. “As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t need to be excused, Tribune. She demonstrably didn’t let it affect the performance of her duties, from leading her force to gaining the information she needed. And I remind you again that she pulled back when most would not have been able to. For as much trouble as you’re currently having with it, would you have?” she asked gently but pointedly.

“Enough!” Cipio said in an uncharacteristically shrill tone, sitting up to leave despite his still-exposed spear and rigid wings. “You have your opinion, and I have mine! I’ve seen enough and will be recommending to Queen Molyneux that Centurion Behertz be relieved of her command chain and rank due to severe emotional compromise and clear dereliction of duty, to say nothing of that crow-begotten love poison still in her which could infect everycreature around her!”

He uncupped his talons from over his crotch to look down his body briefly and again gaped at what he saw. “Crows take it… now release me from this room before that poison does anything else to me!”

The Queen’s eyes narrowed. “You do not give orders here, Tribune. You are my honored guest, but here and now, you are severely trying my patience and hospitality. If it makes you feel better, I know from our own experience that the effects of the fertility potion will pass once your excitement subsides. I will be more than happy to purge its magic from you myself, and deal with any withdrawal symptoms it may cause.”

“Then by all the crows, purge it right now!” he demanded imperiously.

She lowered her head and her gaze turned something close to predatory. “I will—once you apologize for your slander and stop acting like a frightened teenage eagless unable to deal with her first heat. For the one thing I will not abide, Tribune Cipio, is your cowardice in attacking Centurion Behertz simply because you cannot deal with what she made you feel—especially given what the two of us have done in the past,” she reminded him sternly.

“What we’ve done?” he echoed in a near panic. “By all the crows, don’t tell them about that!”

“And just why, by the Hive Mother herself, would you be ashamed of it? You should be proud of yourself, Tribune,” the Queen told him in clearly strained patience. “We worked long and hard to allow you to accept your sensual interests—to finally find the love and physical pleasure you had for so long lacked. Do not forsake that here. For in doing so, you forsake me.”

“But that’s… not…” he clutched his head, seemingly unable to drive the persistent fantasies away, leaving Gilda regretting she could no longer see what he was thinking.

“Not what?” the Queen challenged him. “Not important? Not relevant? Both are lies and you know it. And there is no lie more offensive to a Changeling than denying obvious enjoyment of love and lovemaking.”

“Okay, I definitely want to hear more about the two of you now,” Gilda said with an exchange of smirks with Giraldi. “You know, Tribune, if you need more fantasy material, maybe I’ll ask the Queen to show you my first time with Marco a few days back when he took me in the tail. Or a couple hours ago, when he finally ‘took my teats’,” she suggested with another grin at Giraldi, who smiled back as the Tribune gave another slightly strangled sound as his hips bucked and talons flexed again, his eyes suddenly locked on Gilda’s exposed breasts

She stepped forward enough to drape their edges over the table. “Oh, and for the record? That encounter you saw with Chris, Tara and Marco wasn’t my only one. How about I show you our second near-sex experience later that night? I woke up under the covers with all three to find them naked and aroused against me, with my talons on Tara’s ‘tits’ from behind? Bet you’d love that.”

She paused long enough for him to create the image and shiver before giving him a leering lick and a caress of her own anatomy. “A word of warning, though—I wouldn’t recommend doing that to Tara for real without her explicit permission. She’s liable to shoot you otherwise.”

“For my all newly discovered inclinations towards tiercels, I know that I would not turn down the chance to be with Tara Fields again,” Giraldi admitted with a smile, though his voice turned somewhat more placating.

“That said, there is no shame in admitting to untoward desires, Tribune, even when they involve ‘alien apes’. Nor is there any shame in the Centurion’s actions. In my view, she kept her head, displaying exemplary honor and attention to duty despite severe temptation,” he further offered on her behalf, earning a grateful glance and bared throat.

Her former First Spear nodded back at her before turning brooding. “Indeed, she did so later as well, when it came to stopping me from taking… improper actions with the Shadow Decurion at what would have been a very bad time. So had it been me there instead of her, I do not believe I could have held back,” he admitted, going downcast for a moment before looking back up.

“And with respect, Tribune, that ‘love poison’ is within me, too. As such, if you wish to relieve her of her post, you would have to relieve me for the same reasons at a time no competent officer can be spared. So as the Queen says, be careful not to act on your emotions, sir. And take great care that you do not hold your own inability to deal with what you felt against Centurion Behertz—or me.”

This time, the Queen remained silent, letting Giraldi take the lead as Optio Virgo slowly pulled herself back up into a sitting position. She said nothing at first while gawking at her own set of belly breasts, which were already showing signs of significant enhancement.

“Ancestors…” she muttered again as she reached down to caress one, though her lesser exposure to the cider meant it was not on Gilda’s scale. “Look at me! I had no idea they could get so big and feel so…” her voice trailed off as she caressed one and visibly shivered, giving each teat attention in turn.

“Well. It would appear your aide has no qualms about the effects of the potion, Tribune,” Gilda said with a grin, cupping her top set of belly breasts to present them to his wide-eyed gaze. As she did so, she gave the other eagless a friendly smile and nod, resolving to apologize to the young but earnest officer later for treating her badly when they first met. Should probably introduce her to Marco, too… but only after she knows the ground rules: that he’s MY mate! “She doesn’t see it as a poison at all.”

“She is not me!” he said after turning his head and doing a double-take at the sight of his aide’s slowly swelling mammaries, causing his talons to start making grasping motions again. And when he ripped his gaze away to look forward, he again found himself staring at those of a standing Gilda in the face, who decided to lean over the low table to give him a good look down her belly as Tara sometimes did to turn heads. She grinned as it worked and he gave an involuntary lick of his beak, his eyes wide as he stared at her melon-sized mounds which weren’t much smaller than Tara’s had been.

“Why are you complaining, Tribune? You wanted to see what the Centurion hid, so she showed you despite the severe violation of privacy it entailed.” Her thoughts were scattered as Giraldi spoke; his voice immensely amused as he stood up like her to show off his own enhanced stature.

Taking his cue from Gilda’s stance, he crossed his forelegs over his feathered chest just like his Centurion was; she was impressed to see that he stood more than a full head above her like that. “And I would further note that just as the Queen promised, it was irrelevant to the question of human firearms. In fact, I would point out that the encounter only occurred because she was seeking information on them. Which she did gain.”

“As always, Galen Giraldi speaks true,” the Queen said with a respectful nod as Gilda caught his eye and bared her throat at him again, noting his gaze drifted briefly over her belly just as hers found his superb spear. “And though we didn’t see her flight across the countryside with Decurion Fortrakt, whose own selfless bravery and officer ability is worth noting, we did see her in action at the lake, Tribune,” she informed him, and Gilda couldn’t help but note the irony of the Changeling Queen being the only one among them who looked unaroused.

“I was watching her the whole time through the eyes of my drones, so take it from me that she performed superbly even when out of view of the Optio. And that is to say nothing of her courage in risking her life repeatedly and commanding nearly two centuries of forces successfully in the battles of Lake Languid. Her subordinates said as much, and even Galen Giraldi, whose judgment you appear to trust, believes in her. Why can’t you?”

“But… she…” The Tribune was at a rare loss for words.

“Um… if I may…” Optio Virgo spoke so tentatively and demurely for a moment that Gilda flashed back to meeting Fluttershy in Ponyville, though that image was belied by the fact the other eagless was still attending her enhanced teats, continually rubbing them while repeatedly glancing at an upright Gilda and Giraldi.

“For what it’s worth, I agree with Queen Lepidoptes, Tribune. The information they gave the Centurion on their cannons will make an enormous report for Arnau and help us immensely in employing the human weapons. And speaking for myself, I found the whole conversation and discussion of human history fascinating—especially what I heard from Christopher McLain. By the Ancestors, he seems to be just as much an intellectual as I am.” She blushed again, earning a grin from Gilda at both her support and the thought of the two together.

“If I want your opinion, Optio, I’ll ask for it,” he growled at her, but Gilda quickly noted he was unable to look at her. “And as you’ve been inappropriately fantasizing about me this whole time, it’s clear you are as emotionally compromised as the Centurion! After you write your report, I will be reassigning you elsewhere!”

The Optio’s beak dropped open and her splayed wings finally slackened. “But sir! You need me to disseminate orders and deal with the supply situation! And by my Ancestors, I s-swear that I didn’t let my feelings for you affect the performance of my—” Her eyes were beginning to glimmer, but she stopped speaking at an upraised armored hoof from Queen Lepidoptes.

“She didn’t. And neither did Galen Giraldi or Grizelda Behertz. But you are, Tribune Cipio.” For the first time, Gilda was certain she heard a note of outright anger in the Queen’s voice.

“At this point, it’s quite clear that you are acting on your fears and inability to accept your enjoyment of the Centurion’s act, rather than what is in the interests of the Kingdom and the city. Do not deny it, as your emotions are an unrolled scroll to me,” she warned him as he looked ready to protest. “It is unbecoming of you as both a military commander, and as the consort of a Changeling Queen.”

He looked up sharply despite his still-flustered face and ongoing arousal, with Gilda noting in both anger and amusement that he was still doing his best to hide his newly cider-enhanced stature beneath the lip of the table. “I am not your crow-damned consort just because you seduced me once or twice! I had no idea you were a Changeling before yesterday evening! And I would have had nothing to do with you if I had!”

The Queen’s eyes narrowed further. “Really. Lies do not become you or your station either, Cauda Cipio,” she said, causing Gilda to take immediate notice that she called him by his first name.

“For if memory serves, you came to me that night at the Maior’s dinner party. And far from only seeing me ‘once or twice’, you kept coming back to me over and over again upon learning that I could give you the love and sensual pleasure you had forever lacked in your life. Your Uxor simply could not satisfy you no matter how many mating rounds you fought, and you did not understand why. I showed you why, and it should be obvious from it in turn why you enjoyed the experience of the Centurion’s time with the humans. Which makes your denial of that enjoyment—and the love we shared—a grave insult to both the Centurion and to me.”

“Enjoyment? Love? Crows take it… I am not here to have sex!” he slammed his fists down on the table in disgust as his wings and spear still refused to subside, finding himself unable to look anywhere without seeing an erect spear or massive mammary. “Least of all as an eagless with a trio of alien apes! Or as an unwitting tuck toy of a deceitful, shapeshifting seductress!” he spat out, clutching his head again.

“Is that so?” Though the Changeling monarch’s voice remained calm, her aura suddenly turned icy, causing Gilda to exchange a shocked glance with Giraldi as she sensed that Tribune Cipio had finally crossed the line with the Queen.

She then bodily picked him up with her magic and dangled him over the table. Her spellwork pinned his arms away and silenced his speech while letting all see his newly cider-enhanced stature, which only seemed to grow even larger as Gilda watched.

Though she wasn’t sure if it was because of the lingering cider in the air or the work of the Queen, she didn’t particularly care as the Changeling monarch spoke to the Tribune like a royal talking down to a disrespectful subject.

“I have been patient with you despite repeated affronts, Cauda Cipio, as I understood all you had been through and the awful burden you bear. But as you are now acting like little more than a prideful fool in deep denial of his own desires and worse, willing to punish others in order to hide from them, I can see that I am going to have to strip you of that pride before it costs the Kingdom dearly.”

“Be my guest,” Gilda all but leered at him, expecting she would be dismissed shortly so the Queen could mete out whatever punishment she was planning in private. “As you have offended an incredibly important ally, you have turned this into a diplomatic incident, Tribune. Therefore, by my order and on the authority of my diplomatic command chain, you will stay put and atone for your offense by any means she sees fit.”

“Thank you, Centurion. That should cover matters from your side of things. As for mine, I have no intention of harming you, Tribune Cipio. Quite the opposite, in fact,” the Queen informed him matter-of-factly.

Unable to speak, he gave her a shocked look as Gilda dropped back to all fours and very deliberately turned her back on him. Just wish I could stay and watch his punishment! For a moment, she was suddenly sorely tempted to stay and ask the Queen to resume the playback, just so she could see how Cipio took finding herself accidentally groped by Guerrerro and later waking up in the Main Hall to find all three of her human friends with their bodies bared under the covers against her—and just how had that happened given she still didn’t remember undressing Tara?

All of which was to say nothing of what happened later with the Starshina, which she was certain would blow his mind and leave him even more of a mess. If he can’t deal with desiring humans, just imagine how he’d feel forced to lust after an ibex buck!

But even as the image of it brought an evil grin to her mind, she wasn’t about to risk it or betray the confidence of Karin Kazal when she no longer had to. So she turned to leave, nodding at Giraldi to do the same, deciding in her uninhibited state that their mutual excitement—whether Giraldi’s painfully erect spear or the bulging breasts on her belly—weren’t grounds to wait.

“On behalf of the Kingdom, the humans, my forces and myself, I thank you for all your efforts to aid us, Queen Lepidoptes. Be assured that I will be giving a glowing report on everything you’ve done to help the Kingdom and settle this dispute to Queen Molyneux herself.” She paused long enough to bow deeply to her along with Giraldi, then turned to sneer at a suspended Cipio.

“And don’t worry, Tribune—I won’t tell her how you’re so emotionally compromised that you can’t stop thinking about being an eagless or groping human ‘boobs’—unless, of course, you see fit to use what happened against me.” She took a malicious glee in the look on his face and the sudden twitch of his organ hanging in the air.

“You are quite welcome, Grizelda Behertz. And please tell Queen Molyneux that I wish to meet her later. I believe we have no less than seven centuries of ‘air to clear’ between our races, to use the Pegasus term,” the Queen replied.

“Of course. Though based on what your Archon told me, I wouldn’t recommend trying to seduce her.” Gilda couldn’t resist saying it even as she bowed low before the Changeling ruler for a second time alongside Giraldi, feeling her still-swollen teats tingle with residual excitement when they touched the warm floor. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to spend all this desire on Marco. I will then eat and write up my own report, which will not be torn in two before the Queen and her advisors get it.”

“Centurion?” Optio Virgo called to her, causing her to look over at the other female. “If you like, I will collect the shredded pieces of your individual reports and rewrite them so your soldiers don’t have to and can rest. My script is excellent, and you can sign your names to them later. As I know you’re all very tired and the Tribune is dismissing me from his service, it’s the least I can do.” She went downcast, suddenly blinking back tears at what Gilda assumed was his rejection of her.

Touched by the offer, Gilda exchanged a surprised look with Giraldi. Wow. Guess she’s not as dweeby as she first seemed! “Why, thank you, Optio. That’s very kind of you. I would invite you to join my staff, but as you’re a Talon and not an Auxiliary Guardsgriffon or Paladin, I’m afraid that the Tribune is right. I can’t command you.”

“Then I volunteer!” she said eagerly, stepping forward despite her half-flared wings. “Please, I want to help you!”

Though Gilda strongly suspected that the main reason the other eagless wanted to stay was to be around the humans she found so desirable and fascinating, she shook her head. “I know you do, but I can’t accept your offer. I’m honored that you wish to serve both me and the humans, but as a Talon, you answer to the Tribune’s command chain, not to mine.” She nodded up to where he remained suspended in the air.

“Do not take this as punishment or rejection, young Talon. If you wish to help the war effort, you can serve the Kingdom—and by extension, the Centurion and humans—by ensuring a steady flow of supplies to frontline soldiers from the Aricia armories,” Giraldi suggested gently to her crestfallen look.

“These are very important duties, Rubens Virgo. As your talents appear to be organizational, work on keeping our forces armed and fed, and perhaps on creating rest and rotation schedules for our exhausted and hurting warriors. Doing so will go a long way towards solidifying the city’s defense, and improving its long term prospects,” he further encouraged her, though the eagless remained downcast.

“I concur, Galen Giraldi. I am flattered by your interest in aiding us, Rubens Virgo, but I agree that for now, your scholarly skills are best used elsewhere. Which is not to say that you can’t join us later,” Queen Lepidoptes said upon feeling the Optio’s ill-hidden anguish. “So worry not, Optio. Once your immediate duties are finished, I think the Tribune will be much more amenable to assigning you here,” the Queen promised with a wink, causing him to gape and squirm in her magical grasp.

“If he does, I will be more than happy to accept your services, Optio Virgo,” Gilda assured the newly hopeful eagless as well, already imagining her reaction to meeting Chris. “With your permission, we will take our leave now, Queen Lepidoptes. And do return the Tribune to us intact. As much as I hate to admit it, we need his experienced military mind and ability to effectively command a city.”

“Worry not. That is exactly how I intend to return him to you. However…” She gave him a lazy, lascivious look. “Upon reflection, you and the two Optios may stay, Centurion. As he has insulted all three of you as well as myself at this point, to say nothing of witnessed your encounter with the humans directly, it seems only fitting that you witness his.”

Unable to speak or cover himself, Cipio flushed and shook his head violently as the face of Rubens Virgo lit up, her wings flaring back to full excitement while her drooping tail suddenly rose high over her back.

For her part, Gilda blinked, then grinned. “Well. I would not wish to offer offense to a trusted ally by declining such a generous offer, Queen Lepidoptes. And as the Tribune told you to stay earlier so you can write a report on the proceedings here, I would suggest those orders remain in effect, Optio Virgo. Unless, of course, the Tribune objects?” She turned a leering gaze of her own on him as he hung helplessly in the air above the table, but again his beak worked but no words came out despite his frantically nodding head.

“Well. I didn’t hear any contrary orders. Did you, Optio Giraldi?” Gilda asked him with a very evil grin, to which he answered in a playful air.

“I did not, sir. And I must point out that a simple head nod does not suffice as new orders, given its meaning is unclear—is he saying ‘Yes, I object,’ or ‘yes, she should stay?’” he mused aloud, unable to hide an element of mirth. “With such ambiguous instructions, I would say that his last stated orders remain in effect and Optio Virgo should remain behind to keep recording the proceedings.”

Gilda didn’t think her respect for him could grow any further, but it did. “Flawlessly argued, Optio Giraldi. Well, you heard him, Optio Virgo. Since I can’t override Tribune Cipio’s commands in this matter, you should continue to stay and observe.”

“By your command, Tribune…” she said in a weak but giddy voice, suddenly seeming unsteady again as she sat back and turned her eyes on him again, grabbing at a fresh sheet of parchment. Dipping her quill in ink, she began to draw an image of him with one set of talons while reaching down her belly to paw at her hidden mammaries with the other as he stayed suspended in the air, almost lovingly drawing his outline as the Tribune himself could only stare down in disbelief.

“Very well. We are your humble guests, Queen Lepidoptes,” Gilda felt her own breasts begin to bulge once more as the cider within her freshly surged. She felt her inhibitions fading further, leaving her considering everything from teasing him again by standing up to show off her enhanced anatomy—though she liked the idea of it, it was still tiring and hard to balance for any more than a few seconds, especially with stiff wings—to even letting Giraldi grope them from behind in full view of the Tribune, as he clearly enjoyed Gilda doing with Tara in her memories.

“Thank you, Centurion Behertz. Feel free to help yourself to more drink as well. I have various griffon rums available, if you prefer something stronger. If you are not used to it, I would avoid the ibex vodkalf, though.”

“But if I may be so bold as to offer one final suggestion, Queen Lepidoptes…” She paused to savor the moment, wanting to see the look on the Tribune’s face as she said her next words. “Why stop with just the three of us? You said it was punishment for insulting us? Then perhaps we should invite our outside friends and comrades in to see it as well, given he insulted all of them over the course of our earlier meeting?”

This time, it was the Queen’s turn to blink and grin. “As I know how much he would secretly enjoy such a spectacle, I find that an excellent idea.” She said as Cipio began to shake while his spear swelled further before the Optio’s astonished eyes, who immediately shifted her artistic efforts to depicting the phallus floating before her.

“Very well. Allow me to summon them. But as I would not force them to observe this, I will inform them of what they are to witness, then ask if they wish to see it…” She closed her eyes, her sly smile slowly dropping as whatever unspoken conversation she was having unfolded.

And then abruptly, she sighed, her playful mood instantly vanishing. “I’m afraid that I have some troubling news, Centurion. I have just communicated telepathically with Karin Kazal, wishing to both invite him inside and relieve him of his fears regarding you. Unfortunately, he assumed that revealing your secret to the Tribune was a foregone conclusion, and once he knew, all would know,” she began ominously, causing Gilda to look up sharply, a sinking feeling entering her gut.

“So therefore, not wishing it to be sprung on them or told to them in some tainted manner by the Tribune, I regret to report that he revealed what happened between you both…”

Since the next chapters in story order are the T-rated chapters 35 and 36, click on the link below to be taken to chapter 37:

—Firesight

===> next: Chapter 37

35: Through the Eyes of Another (T-rated)

Author's Note

Hello, folks. Upon reflection, I decided that the version of chapter 35 I initially released was R-rated enough in enough at least two places to justify creating a T-rated version. So here you go. It still does contain some suggestive content, but nothing that exceeds PG-13.

If you want the R-rated version of chapter 35 instead, go here: