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

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, she decided. But that said, do I tell her about what happened with Reyes as well...?

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.

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 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.

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. 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.

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, with his bowl of stew only barely touched.

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.

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 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.

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 the humans 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? Or did Reyes after her tease of him that followed?

“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. “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?”

“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 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.

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 far 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, 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.”

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’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?”

“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 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.

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.”

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...”