Glenda's stomach growled and she glanced at the shelves of snacks near Gimme More's sales counter. She could really go for a fish jerky. Or—she sniffed toward the door—a griffon scone from Guillaume's cart just outside. Her right claw reached down to the purse on her shoulder strap.
Empty. No bits.
She would just have to fly to the Guto river and catch a fish or two later. It was possible Gilda might spot her a griffon scone in exchange for a promise to pay tomorrow. Guillaume surely wouldn't. Gilda's scones were better, anyway.
Her stomach growled again. To be fair, this wasn't the first time she'd been hungry because she spent her last coin on a book. Probably not the last, either. She stared at the fish jerky and wet her beak with her tongue.
"Got any bits, weirdo?" Gimme More asked from behind her cash register.
Glenda mumbled something rude in Old Ponish.
"What did you say?"
And it wasn't just hunger wrenching her belly, of course. She was meeting her favorite author! Her stomach swirled with excitement, her paws vibrating on the floor. She held the newest of his four books in her claws. Closing her eyes, she sniffed deeply, luxuriating in the scent of paper and ink and binding, the tips of her left talons running along the fore-edge, feeling the texture of the pages.
It was absolutely worth being hungry. Books were better than food, any day.
"Late, late, ever so sorry I'm late!" came a voice behind her.
Glenda jerked straight up and spun towards the door of Gimme More's shop. Despite her best efforts not to, she squealed and her tail fur poofed out.
Stygian stood about a body length inside the store, motionless except for his eyes, which scanned the twenty or so folding chairs packed tightly into the small open center of the shop.
"What?" Gimme More grumped from behind her cash register.
"Oh dear," he said, walking to the lectern at the front of the shop. "Was I that late?" Stygian asked the shopkeeper. "All the guests left? I'm terribly sorry, but I met a yak on the path up the mountain from the train station and had to backtrack twenty minutes to let him pass me before I could continue. The path is a bit on the narrow side."
Gimme More just leaned on an elbow, planted against her cash register. "Weirdo's the only customer who came in the first place."
"Indeed?" Stygian looked at Glenda, making eye contact.
Glenda slumped down in her chair, staring at her knees and holding the books tight to her chest.
Stygian's hoof tapped the lectern. "I've never had a book signing with but a single attendee before. Would you mind if we just skipped the formalities and went to the meet-and-greet? I'm Stygian. May I have the pleasure of your name?"
She clutched her books to her chest and wrapped her wings around her arms before looking up at him. Cool, Glenda, be cool. Don't let him know you're the least griffony griffon in Griffonstone. "I-I'm, uh, Glenda."
"Glenda?" Stygian said, his ears perking up as he studied her face and coat. "Half-osprey, half-snow leopard. I see. I seeeee. Excellent, Princess Twilight instructed me to extend her salutations to you, should I bump into you."
"Oh!" Glenda shouted, flaring her wings and sitting straight up. "S-she said that?" One of the books slid from her grip and as she fumbled to catch it, the other three fell, clattering onto the floor. Her talons slit the cloth-bound cover of the one she caught, ruining it.
Her eyes boggled and she slumped down in her chair as both Stygian and Gimme More stared at her. She lifted the books one at a time back to her lap. She stared at the slashed cover, picturing the six bits, twenty coppers she'd spent on the damaged book, and the food they might have purchased instead.
Stygian moved from the lectern to the small signing table set up to the side. "Miss Glenda?"
His blue eyes beckoned her. With a deep breath, she dropped out of her chair and slunk to him. The grit of Gimme More's store ground into the pads of her paws. With the books clutched tightly to her breast with one arm, she hopped along on just the remaining arm and her rear legs.
After placing the books on the table in front of Stygian, she forced herself to meet his eyes.
"All four? By the princesses, my publisher and I thank you! Spelled G-L-E-N-D-A?"
She nodded, beak clenched tight.
His magic rearranged the books into order. He flicked the first one open, dipped a quill in an inkwell, and signed it:
To Glenda,
The biggest book lover in Griffonstone,
From another book lover.
𝒮𝓉𝓎𝑔𝒾𝒶𝓃
"Thank you!" Glenda squeaked as he levitated it to her and opened the second book.
"Of course, of course. I didn't realize I had any readers in Griffonstone, to be honest." He dashed the same note and signature into the second book.
"Then... then why did you come here?" Glenda asked before slapping her claws over her beak. Her tail swished uncontrollably and her left leg twitched as an urge to bound away, out of the store, fought its way up her spine.
"An excellent question!" he said, the pen flourishing as he dipped it into the inkwell and signed her third book. "I'm actually doing research for my next book here in Griffonstone, so I thought I would make it a stop on my book tour while I was h—"
As he closed the third book and passed it to her, he noticed the fresh claw marks across the title on the new book. "Oh goodness, that will never do," Stygian said.
"But—"
The damaged book disappeared into his saddlebag, replaced by a clean copy.
"But I did that," Glenda said, holding up a claw and letting the sun glint off her razorlike talons. "It wasn't blemished. I fumbled it."
"Oh, don't worry about it. I have dozens of copies in my basement."
"I—I—but that's expensive…"
He signed the fourth book, adding PS: I know this book is in good claws! beneath his signature, and passed it back.
Four. All four of his books! She hugged them to herself, eyes closing as she sniffed the paper-and-ink deep into her lungs while a rumbling purr of contentment vibrated deep in her chest.
The fur on her tail poofed out again.
Stygian sniffed loudly. "Are those griffon scones baking outside? I haven't had a griffon scone in a thousand years."
Glenda's eyes popped open and her stomach growled again. "You don't want those scones. I can... there's a griffon near the center of town whose scones are better. The best."
"I trust you." Stygian stood up. "Lead the way."
"G-go? Us?"
Waving a foreleg to encompass the shop, Stygian said, "No reason to continue bothering this shopkeeper."
Gimme More grunted.
"We can share scones and coffee and talk about books."
Glenda gave a little squawk, her feathers poofing out to match her tail fur.
"Hey, nerd," Gilda said to Glenda. Then she noticed Stygian, stood up straighter, and brushed her feathers out of her eyes. "Hi."
Glenda smiled. She knew Gilda tried to be polite to pony customers, now that more and more ponies were visiting Griffonstone and bringing bits.
"Good afternoon, my fine merchant! My companion Glenda here assures me your scones are the best in town. Two, please. And two coffees."
"Ten bits."
"Gilda!" Glenda put a claw on Stygian's shoulder, stopping him before he could pay the exorbitant amount.
Gilda scowled, feathers ruffling.
"Y-you can't be serious," Glenda continued in a tiny voice, forcing herself to make eye contact with the bully griffon three times her own size.
Gilda rolled her eyes. "Fine, four bits, nerd. Who's your nerd friend?"
"This is Stygian, Gilda. He's a famous writer."
"Griffonstone is where famous writers go after they've screwed up," Gilda said.
Stygian laughed. "Not like the old days, is it?"
"Three bits," Glenda countered.
Gilda huffed. "Three and a quarter."
With a nod, Glenda removed her claw from Stygian's shoulder. Stygian levitated the bits to Gilda before lifting two hot scones. Gilda poured two mugs of coffee. Glenda closed her eyes and sniffed, almost light-headed with the combination of hunger and the wonderful scent.
Stone picnic tables were scattered about the town center—a concession to the increased trade and tourism of the last few years, since Twilight took over Equestria—and Stygian carried the scones and coffees to a table and sat down on a mildewy stone bench.
Glenda flapped the short distance, books still clenched to her breast, sitting opposite him. After placing the books carefully on the table, Glenda took a coffee and scone in her claws. "Thanks," she said. "I usually can't afford scones. Gilda lets me trade work for them, sometimes."
"Indeed?" Stygian raised the coffee mug to his lips, paused, looked at a smudge on the rim, and then sipped the steaming liquid anyway.
Glenda's eyes narrowed. She met with the pony ambassador, Small Talk, at least twice a month as part of her archives work. Small Talk had lost her cool more than once, flaring her wings and screaming, when a plate or cup wasn't pristine and sanitized.
"This coffee's good," Stygian said, slurping loudly. "The well water in Griffonstone is hard and moderates the natural coffee acids."
"Oh?" Glenda sniffed the black liquid. She'd never had coffee before. It was something ponies—or wealthy griffons—drank.
Stygian's eyes closed and he smiled as he sipped.
With a sip of her own, Glenda gagged at the bitter heat, then snapped at her scone to absorb the vile taste. Oh, beaks and talons, Gilda's scones were so good lately! The best in the whole city. The crumbly sweetness absorbed the coffee's vileness.
His eyebrows rose when he nibbled his scone. "Excellent. Better than a thousand years ago."
"You had griffons in Equestria back before... before...?" she gestured at his first book, which described his adventures with the Pillars and his fall into the Pony of Shadows.
Stygian laughed. "Yes, certainly, but I lived here for several years." He looked around, eyes narrowing, and pointed east. "Over there, somewhere. It eroded away, but I had a small room cut into the side of a hill."
Glenda's eyes widened and her spine went straight, tail flagged vertical and its tip quivering. Her talon tips carved furrows in the glaze on the ceramic mug as her grip tightened. She leaned across the table, her beak only inches from his snout, and she whispered, "D-do you speak Old Griffish?"
"No, nopony can," he said, and waved a hoof at his throat. "Our voices aren't evolved for it."
"Oh." Glenda deflated, slouching to plant her elbows on the table. Her tail flopped listlessly into the dust.
"Why do you ask, Glenda?"
She took another bite of scone and washed it down with the horrible liquid. "I've been studying Old Griffish, I can read it fluently, and I found one phonograph record of an old, old Griffon Lord speech, but nogriff actually speaks Old Griffish anymore, not since Ponish displaced it. Apparently, my great-grandma knew it, but she died before I was born. My pronunciation is probably horrible, other than the words on the phonograph."
"Ah! Say, 'Hello, my name is Glenda.'"
She stared at him. "What?"
"I know the words, even if I can't say them. I can coach your pronunciation. You must let me help you—I haven't heard Old Griffish in, well, a thousand years!"
Glenda popped the last of the scone into her beak, chewing slowly, and then licked the last crumbs off her talons. Her eyes scanned the town center. Gilda was serving Grimdark, one of the local teens. Gilda leaned down to pull a tray of scones from her oven and Grimdark's tail thrashed as he eyed Gilda's bum. Other griffs walked or flew back and forth on their own business. Two pony expats, Wet Ink and Outside Box, were inspecting a shipping crate in front of their import-export office, a gray delivery mare holding a clipboard and glancing around nervously with crossed eyes.
Stygian stared expectantly across the table as Glenda looked back at him.
"I-I can't, not here," Glenda whispered.
"Pardon?"
"Old Griffish needs to be loud, right?"
"Well, yes. It's all squawks and screeches, with an occasional beak snap, as you well know."
She gestured to the crowds as a blush warmed her cheeks. Gilda caught Grimdark examining her bum and picked him up, one-clawed, by his throat. His usual black-and-red coloration was turning black-and-blue as Gilda frowned menacingly at him.
"Very well, I shan't pressure you," Stygian said. "Tell me, what's your favorite book?"
Glenda reached for Stygian's second book.
"...Don't say mine."
Glenda frowned, a gesture mostly of the eyebrows, given her stiff beak. "I really like Daring Do. Daring Do and the Eternal Flower is probably my favorite!"
"What do you like about Daring Do?"
"How clever and brave she is!" Glenda found herself sitting up straight and even raising her voice. She didn't usually do that. Stygian had her more excited than usual.
"Agreed, although my favorite part is how much research Miss Yearling does. I'd been to several of the ruins she described, back before they were ruins, and she got them exactly right."
Glenda nodded and gestured to Griffonstone around them. "Her Griffon's Goblet got a lot of the details right, even the street names."
"Does Daring Do have much readership in Griffonstone?"
"Just me." Glenda shrugged her wings. "I've been pen-pals with Princess Twilight since I met her at the Convocation of the Creatures—a big diplomatic conference at Mount Metazoa three, maybe four years ago. She sent me the complete Daring Do this Hearth's Warming."
Stygian whistled. "You're a quick reader. Hearth's Warming was barely three months ago, and at last count there were twenty Daring Do books."
"Yeah!" Glenda smiled and leaned across the table. In a whisper, "I'm the fastest reader in Griffonstone."
"Tell me, on days when you're not attending book signings, what do you do?"
Glenda looked down at the coffee in her mug. "I'm the Griffon Lords' archivist, and I've been watching the library since it got rebuilt last year so they could move the government archives into it. I also do whatever day jobs I can find. Starting last month, the Equestrian ambassador hired me for paperwork, since her embassy staff is so thin. That's how I afforded your books!"
"Archivist and librarian? No wonder you're a fast reader. How'd you find that calling?"
Glenda hunched down and wrapped her wings around her arms. She stared at her coffee. "When I was twelve, mom's new mate tried to kill me, so that mom would go back into season. I escaped out a window, but I didn't even have so much as a scarf against the blizzard that was blowing."
Stygian's eyes widened and his ears wilted. He reached across the table and touched her claw with a forehoof. "That's—that's awful. What happened?"
"I hid in the library, since its walls made a good windbreak, and I could make an improvised igloo out of books to insulate myself from the cold, and I've been there ever since."
"I—I'm sorry."
"Ancient history," Glenda said.
"You don't seem to enjoy your coffee."
"It's... bitter."
Stygian turned to Gilda and waggled his mug high. "Topped off please, cream and sugar for my companion!"
Carrying the carafe, Gilda flapped across the town square to them. "Another bit," she growled. After Stygian paid her, Gilda topped off their coffees and dropped a few paper envelopes of sugar and powdered milk next to Glenda's mug.
Glenda ripped the envelopes open with her beak, poured the contents into her mug, and stirred with the long talon on her index claw. The drink turned from black to medium tan and she licked her talon.
That... that wasn't too bad, she thought, as she tapped her talon against her beak, rolling the few drops of creamy sweetness around. She sipped at the mug and her eyes closed in bliss as the richness rolled over her tongue, a soft moan escaping her beak.
After swallowing, she clacked her beak loudly. "Oh, that's... that's good."
"Yes, I'm surprised coffee lost its popularity here in Griffonstone. It grows well in the mountains. When I was last here, those slopes" —he gestured— "were covered in coffee fields. Of course, everything was much greener then... griffons seem to have lost their interest in agricultural work."
"A few griffs grow cooking herbs or garden vegetables, but that's it."
"Indeed?" Stygian flourished his mug. "Most ponies drink tea, but the five years I spent here as a colt, only coffee could be had. One more difference I must learn to get used to, I suppose..." He stared at the mountains. "Griffonstone was much bigger in those days. Much larger than contemporary Canterlot, and Manehattan was little more than a few huts and some fishing boats."
Glenda took another sip. "Why did you come here? Originally, not today."
"I was a colt, fourteen, before my time with the pillars." He gestured to her copies of his books. "Equestria was in a dark age. Celestia and Luna had thrown Discord down, but not yet restored order and law, much less culture. Libraries and universities, even town halls of records were burned for heat in winter, or from simple spite. Equestria's very history and culture were lost. But the Griffons?" He trailed off, eyes dark and lost in the depths of time.
"What about us?" Glenda said, leaning forward, talons digging furrows into the mildew covering the stone table. The coffee soured in her stomach. Old Griffonstone... he'd... he'd actually seen it! What had it been like?
"It was the reign of Grover the Third, the very height of the Golden Age of Boreas. Editions of all of Equestria's greatest works of literature and history were here, in the Royal Scriptorium. I worked making copies to take back to Equestria. Griffons saved the ponies' history. We only know what the pre-Discord era was like because of what the griffon scholars preserved here." He stomped on the dirt of Griffonstone's town square.
"I—I had no idea," Glenda whispered. "There are a lot of Old Ponish texts in the library, but I've only been learning that language for a year or two. Raven Inkwell mailed me an Old Ponish reference book."
He rubbed his horn with a forehoof, eyes slitted. What did that mean? So much odd body language. Glenda's feathers ruffled in consternation.
"Twilight was not exaggerating when she told me you were the one griffon I had to meet."
Glenda squawked in surprise. Her tail wrapped around her hind legs.
"Glenda," Stygian said, reaching across the table and touching her left claw with his right forehoof, "Will you take me to the library?"
"Of course, but why?"
He pointed his horn at her stack of his books. "That's the real reason I came to Griffonstone. My actual first book is in that library somewhere. I hope."
Glenda unlocked the library's front door and gestured after you to Stygian. He entered and lit his horn, and Glenda lit a lantern from the small brazier she always left burning at her desk.
There weren't any snacks left in her desk, she thought. The scone had taken the edge off her hunger, but her stomach still rumbled. She was most certainly going to have to kill something, even if it was just a chipmunk or a rat, as soon as Stygian found his book and left her for his hotel.
Standing in place, Stygian turned a full circle, glaring into the darkness past the bubble of light her lantern and his horn cast. "It's bigger than I remember. Tell me, how many kings were between Grover the Third and Guto's Fall?"
"I don't know. I dropped out of school and went to work when mother's new mate ran me out of the house. And the books I've read since then," she made a deep double-wing gesture, "were mostly pre-Fall."
Stygian levitated a book off the nearest shelf and flipped to its title page. Elaborate calligraphy and illuminated margins glowed in the light of his horn, although the pages were yellowed and brittle with age.
"Gridlock's claw writing and illumination," Stygian said. "I recognize it. She was one of my teachers."
Glenda bobbled the lantern and grasped for it, stopping herself a split-second before she would have grasped the hot manifold. She let it hit the floor and then grabbed it on the second bounce, picking it back up by the handle. "You—you knew Gridlock? This whole shelf is her work!"
"Indeed." Stygian replaced the book and wandered deeper into the library. Glenda flapped to follow him, hovering halfway to the ceiling.
After a few moments, Stygian turned back to her. "We're alone?"
"...y-yes?"
"Care to work on your Old Griffish? Nocreature is here to hear you."
Glenda landed and shuffled in place, her huge rear paws leaving prints in the dust and holding the lantern in her right claw, staring at Stygian's forehooves.
"Start simple. What's 'Glenda' in Old Griffish?"
Her wings shuffled and her tail thrashed.
His levitation took the lantern from her claw and he sat down in front of her. "I really would like to help you. It's... it's sad that so much Griffon culture was lost after the Fall. Griffons preserved Pony culture and history during our Dark Age, yet we haven't helped griffons preserve their history, or even their language. I'm just one little pony and I can't change the world, but I'm willing to help you."
Glenda met his eyes, sucked in a deep breath, flared her wings, clenched her eyes, and squawked.
Stygian smiled. "Very close! A little more vibrato on the second syllable, and cut the first syllable off more quickly."
She squawked again.
"Perfect!"
Glenda leaped and hugged around his neck, almost knocking him over. His coat rubbed softly against the feathers of her face and neck, although his brown cloak scratched her arms uncomfortably. "T-thank you!"
"Of course, Glenda."
"Oh!" She flapped back into the air and grabbed his face in her talons, squeezing his cheeks until he made a surprised pucker. "Teach me to say 'library!'" She squawked again.
"Very close, but no vibrato on the first syllable, and the third syllable ends in a rising screech."
She squawked-screeched. Stygian's ears flattened to his head.
"Sorry! Too loud?"
"No, perfect," Stygian said. "Perfect. Just perhaps too close to my ears. And yes, that was pronounced exactly right."
"Was 'Glenda' a popular name in Old Griffonstone?"
"No, but for a reason." Stygian continued walking, deeper into the library, away from the clean areas that had just been renovated, into the ancient sections. Their steps kicked up clouds of dust and Stygian's magic brushed cobwebs from their path. Stygian spoke loudly to be heard over his shoulder. "The Queen Mother, King Grimswald's widow, was named Glenda. It was the height of impropriety to name a chick after a member of the Royal family."
As Stygian searched the stacks, Glenda interrogated him about many more words that hadn't been on the phonograph record: scone, mother, daughter, fish, chipmunk, lantern.
"How do you say 'pony?'" she asked finally.
"That one I can pronounce," Stygian said. "It's just the Old Ponish loanword. Caballito. Although pronounced dripping with derision, in the old days..."
"Really?"
He shrugged.
Glenda took a few hurried steps and walked next to him, instead of behind him, her osprey eyes fighting the gloom. They were meant for spotting fish underwater, focused from high above and against the glare of the sun on the ripples. It was always a struggle for her to squint into the shadows, but that was why she always carried a lantern. "You're the only creature, besides me, to be back here in centuries."
"Memories," he muttered. "So many memories. It only feels like a decade ago, not a millennium. I keep expecting Master Grange to fly over a bookshelf and scream at me for laziness."
"You couldn't have been lazy. You've only been... uh..."
"'Saved.' I like to say, 'saved.'"
"Saved for four or five years and you've written four best-sellers."
He looked at her, his blue eyes glinting in the torchlight. "But I was always working on my own projects, not doing the copying and calligraphy assigned to me by the scriptorium. That drove Master Grange to... distraction."
"I can't imagine what it was like," Glenda muttered. "Griffons who loved books..."
"What I remember most are the meals. The others all understood Ponish, and I understood Griffish, so we could talk easily enough, back and forth. They weren't 'Old' Griffish or 'Old' Ponish back then, of course! We always had some new book or another to discuss, or some debate over the details of a translation. Imagine, a dozen griffons and a few ponies, shouting or squawking at each other over how to translate iambic pentameter!"
"I wish I had somegriff to talk about books with. Gabby goes to Equestria a few days a week and reads their newspapers, and their smutty romance novels, but that's the closest to another reader I've found. The Pony ambassador is pretty well read, but... she seems to see me as the help, somegriff to give orders to, not as somegriff to have a conversation with. I still have to call her 'Excellency,' not her name. And I'm 'Hey, you,' to her."
"Some ponies are like that," he said. "Twilight warned me to avoid Her Excellency if possible. However, it takes a forceful personality to deal with the Griffon Lords, so she is best suited for her duty. Oh! Oh my! This looks familiar."
He turned down a particularly narrow aisle and Glenda found herself pressed against his flank, their movements falling into time with each other.
"The skylights are gone," Stygian said. "Not covered with dirt from above—gone. Bricked over."
Glenda looked up. The smooth marble of the ancient ceiling was interspersed with regularly spaced squares of red bricks. "The Fall of Guto, after the Arimaspi, wasn't overnight. It took a good decade or more for Old Griffonstone to collapse. They probably started fortifying the library before they abandoned it."
Stygian stopped and lowered the lantern, bending down, nose almost touching the spines of the books on a shelf at his knee-height. "Here. Glenda, take the light, please."
Magic tickled her claw as she grabbed it from his aura. He lowered himself to his belly and opened the book to its title page.
Glenda leaned forward, bringing the lantern closer, to read over his shoulder. The title page was in Old Ponish. Glenda read it out loud and then translated from Old Ponish to modern, "The Romance of Griffonstone, by Lightless Dark. Lightless Dark?"
"A little play on words," he said. "None of the ponies working in the scriptorium used our proper names to sign our work. A new land, new friends, a chance to be a new pony. Glenda, you pronounced the Old Ponish perfectly. Beginner, you say! Ha!"
"Were there many ponies here, back then?"
"No. Never more than five in the Scriptorium, and for a short period, only me."
"Whom did you romance?" Glenda asked. "One of the other ponies?"
With a chuckle, he flipped to the first page. "No, 'romance' in the old sense. A narrative of great adventures and larger-than-life characters. It's drivel, a naïve teenager's fantasies, but I wonder if I can clean it up into something publishable."
"It was a dark and stormy night..." Glenda read, translating out loud, and then snorted a half-suppressed laugh.
Stygian grinned up at her. "Did I invent that horrible cliche? I shall never forgive myself."
She kept reading: "...and the beautiful Princess Gladia of Griffonstone stood in the rain on her tower's balcony, flaring her clipped wings and wishing she could escape the evil necromancer's imprisonment..."
Stygian slammed the book shut. "My Luna. It's worse than I remembered."
"Princess Gladia of Griffonstone?"
"A physically small—but magically gifted and extremely well read—unicorn rescues her from the tower, they have... um, romantic liaisons—"
Glenda snorted, turning it into an unconvincing fake cough.
"—and go on many more adventures before living happily ever after." He frowned. "Perhaps this story is not as good as I remembered."
"You, I mean, the pony adventurer and the griffon princess..."
He stood. Glenda noticed a blush on his cheeks, even in the poor lighting.
"May I borrow this book?" Stygian said. "I'll copy it, it shouldn't take me more than a day or two, writing in shorthoof, and return it to your library here."
"Of course! For that matter, you can keep it."
"No, no no-no-nononoNO. Ponies have stolen too much from Griffons over the years. Even your language—you, Glenda, you grew up speaking Ponish, correct? You think in Ponish?"
Glenda nodded.
"This library is part of your heritage, a treasure Griffons will need someday. I'm not going to plunder it! Even if it is the worst book in the library." He smiled at her.
She smiled back. Then, with the most embarrassing possible timing, her stomach growled.
"I haven't had a good Griffonstone supper in ten centuries. Will you come with me? You are the local librarian, who presumably controls the acquisitions budget: it'll be my publisher's expense account's treat, while I ply you with fine food and drink to unethically sell more copies of my books. Business only," he smiled, "no pleasure."
Glenda hunched her shoulders and dipped her head as they entered the Eagle and Chick. Her wings trembled against her flanks. She'd walked or flown past this restaurant dozens of times, hundreds of times, always raising her nose to sniff the wonderful melange drifting from it. She'd made a few bits helping scrub the floors and walls that time the burst pipe flooded the kitchen.
She had never—never—expected to actually darken the customer's entrance. The menus posted on their board outside didn't list the prices and she knew exactly what a menu that didn't list the prices meant.
It was, quite simply, the most expensive establishment in Griffonstone. The Griffon Lords were known to hold their meetings in the dining room on the third floor since it was nicer than Government House itself.
The headwaiter, Garçon, hustled up to them, a menu in claw. "Ah, Monsieur Stygian, we were hoping you would visit us tonight! Monsieurs Gimli and Griffle were hoping to—Glenda? What in Grover's name are you doing here?"
Glenda hunched further, her beak and wingtips almost touching the floor. She and Garçon were the same age and had attended school together before Glenda had become a homeless 'tween and dropped out.
"Good evening, my fine publican," Stygian said. "I'll be in Griffonstone for a least a few days and I'll catch up with those two tomorrow or the next day. My colleague Glenda and I would like a quiet table for two, if you please."
Colleague? Glenda straightened up.
Garçon stared for a few seconds, his beak opening and closing silently. Then, "Of course, sir. Please follow me." He grabbed a second menu and led off toward the back.
Glenda trudged behind Garçon and Stygian, tail stiff in nervousness. They weaved around several other tables. About two dozen griffs were seated in the restaurant and the smell of fried, broiled, and raw fish and game swirled around, driving Glenda's hunger to new heights. Stygian was the only pony, she noticed.
A large fire crackled in a huge stone hearth, fighting back the cool night outside the windows. Rough-hewn boards, worn smooth by centuries of paws and hooves, creaked under them as they walked. Chairs and benches were covered in deep red leather. A few griffons glanced at them, the noise of conversations of clinking dishes swirling around them.
Garçon waved to a booth and Glenda slid in, wrapping her tail around her hind legs. The wall was also of rough-hewn boards, hung with framed photographs.
Stygian waited for Glenda to settle and then seated himself.
Garçon dipped his head over a menu as Stygian took it from him. Glenda reached for the second menu and Garçon dropped it on the table before she could grab it.
He returned to the waiter station, leaving Stygian and Glenda alone.
"What's his problem?" Stygian asked.
"H-he... knows me," Glenda said. "He knows I can't afford this place and probably thinks I've latched onto you somehow."
"Well, I find his attitude in need of improvement." Stygian levitated up the menu and then flipped it to the opposite side.
Glenda could see the pony dishes listed on the side of the menu that faced her, which meant Stygian was looking at the griffon cuisine. "Y-you like griffon food?"
Stygian lowered the menu and met her eyes. "If I wanted pony cuisine, I'd have ordered room service from the hotel. Ah! Salmon, herb-dusted and sauteed. That takes me back to my colthood, indeed."
"Stygian? This place is expensive."
"Honestly, Glenda, my publisher is covering this. Indulge yourself."
"River trout!" she shouted, then looked around and lowered her voice. "My favorite. I almost never get to eat it, though. Three-quarters of the time I catch one, Gilda swoops down and takes it from me before I can land."
"Kleptoparasitism," Stygian said.
"Bless you." The menu gave her a choice on the dish: steamed, broiled, filleted and fried, en papillote, or seasoned but still squirming.
An elderly griffon in a bow tie and white apron pushed up a wheeled cart loaded with dusty wine bottles. She glanced at Glenda then turned her attention to Stygian, passing him a sheet of parchment. "I'm Grapeshot, the sommelier. What are you planning to order, so that I can help pair it? Vegetables?"
"Pair it?" Glenda asked.
The griff shot a nasty look at Glenda and clacked her beak.
"I'm planning on fish," Stygian said, "but opening with the potato-bacon soup. Glenda? Fish, game, red meat, fowl?"
Glenda looked down at the menu, which she had unconsciously crushed by balling her talons into fists. "Fish."
"A Prench pinot gris, perhaps?" Grapeshot suggested. "We have a Châteauneuf-du-Poney. Only four years old, so probably a bit young but still good."
"No, no," Stygian shook his head, "Prench wines never appealed to my palate, something in the soil alkalinity, too much blackcurrant in the bouquet..."
Glenda just watched them, not really listening, since she didn't understand the difference between tartness and low pH or the difference between a sweet wine and one with residual sugars. Stygian settled on a Crystal Empire pinot noir.
The sommelier's feathers ruffled indignantly. "Sir is sure sir wants... ahem... red wine with fish?"
"Most positive, Madam Grapeshot," Stygian said.
Grapeshot's tail drooped as she pulled the bottle from the bottom of her cart. It sparkled in the light of the lamps and the fire. The dark wine inside glittered like a gem instead of sloshing and refracting like a liquid. The caustics thrown by lamps onto the opposite walls were angular instead of curved.
"Is that literally crystal?" Glenda blurted.
Grapeshot shot another glare at her. "Who are you, again?"
"Glenda is my invited guest," Stygian snapped. "She's the one griffon I've met who appreciates fine literature, and I, for one, have found the best pairing with wine is a discussion of literature."
Grapeshot clacked her beak down on a hot response, took a deep breath, and spoke to Glenda much more softly: "The bottle is empire crystal, but the wine is a mixture of grape and crystal berries. The crystal berries—"
"Ah!" Glenda said with a squawk and a wingbeat; her right wing knocked one of the framed photos on the wall out of level. "The crystal berries' magic gives it the appearance of a gem until the bottle gets opened and the spell collapses. The older the bottle, the stronger the refraction."
"Exactly. This bottle is nine years old, so the spell is quite strong." Grapeshot smiled at Glenda, then extracted the cork and held it to Stygian, who sniffed delicately and nodded once. Grapeshot poured a tiny splash of the wine into Stygian's glass. "How do you know about crystal berries?" Grapeshot asked Glenda, and this time her voice was polite.
"I read a lot," Glenda said. "The lower slopes, in the valley below Griffonstone, could probably grow crystal berries quite well, but decades of polluted runoff would give them a nasty flavor."
"Very interesting, Glenda," Stygian said. Stygian levitated up the glass, swirled the bloody red liquid around, and took a single sip. He nodded to Grapeshot and gestured to their wine glasses. "I approve. A little bright and with a hint of astringence, but it should pair well with the meal."
Bright? Astringence? Glenda assigned herself some reading. She would have to order a wine book from Equestria for the public library, first, though.
Grapeshot poured a half glass for each of them. Glenda held the delicate stemware in her claw and lifted it to her nose. The scent—the scent was almost impossible to describe. Layers of fruit, but also the sharpness of the alcohol and the soft hints of... of... of what?
Grapeshot left the half-full bottle on the middle of the table and retreated, pushing her cart.
"Crystal Empire wine affects the three tribes differently," Stygian said. "It carries magic, but we each manifest our magic differently. You'll probably feel it in your wings and talons. It'll make my horn clumsy if I drink too fast."
Magic. That's what she was... not smelling but sensing. "Confession time," Glenda said, sniffing at the glass again. "I've never had wine in my life."
"Really?" Stygian said with a sip. "This isn't the best bottle I've ever had, but it's quite decent. Not too aggressive, so I do hope it won't require an acquired taste."
"I've only drunk alcohol a few times. I got a bottle of terrible rotgut once, from somegriff smart enough not to drink it. I woke up sick the next morning." Glenda grimaced.
"Don't drink too much right now, it'll taste much better with the meal."
One of the assistant waiters dropped a plate of bread, cheese, and grapes and took their orders. Glenda opted for river trout en papillote—poached in a parchment envelope with wine and vegetables—because, first, she had never tried that before, and second, she wasn't sure how a pony would take to his dinner companion bloodily dismantling a live, flopping fish.
Glenda sipped at the wine. Her feathers ruffled in shock at the tiny bubbles that played over her tongue. She drew back from the glass and cocked her head, focusing one eye at it. "Carbonated?"
"No, just a tiny hint of sparkle."
She sipped again, the taste sharp but fruity and sweet and... and good. "I like it."
"Excellent! It's a shame wine has become a rich-creature thing..." Stygian looked across the dining room at Grapeshot, who was now at another table, serving one of the Griffon Lords and two high-ranking bureaucrats. "I've learned all the modern jargon and cant for wine. Clarity and astringency, minerality and residual sugar. I've had too many fancy meals with dukes and publishers and ambassadors not to force myself to learn it..."
Glenda saw a deep sadness on his face. "But?"
"But," Stygian continued, "when I was a colt, when I was a young stallion adventuring with the Pillars, well, wine was not limited to ponies who could afford it, ponies who built a huge cellar to impress their peers and moon and stars forbid they ever actually drink any. Canterlot and Manehattan turned wine into an elite thing over the centuries. When I was young, winemakers were farmers and field workers. Everyday ponies. Even the poorest family would have a bottle with dinner at full and new moons. It's a shame wine is no longer such a common thing. Apple cider has displaced wine as the common ponies' drink, and... and it's sad."
Glenda nodded and took another sip. "This is very good, though."
"It is! Grapeshot is skilled. It pains me to say this, but wines are objectively better than they were when I was young. The vintners' art is much improved. Besides Daring Do, what other books do you like?"
"Shadow Spade!" Glenda said, then took another—rather larger—swig of the wine. Stygian was right: it was starting to hit her wings, of all things. She felt like she could fly to Canterlot and back in ten minutes, the smaller feathers poofing out and the alulae trembling. She pushed the glass a few inches away and folded her claws together on the table.
"Indeed! I met Ms. Noir at my publisher's Hearth's Warming party last year."
"You met her?" Glenda leaned forward. "What's she like?"
"Rather... firm. She's a retired Canterlot Police detective, and was a bit suspicious of me because of my..." Stygian gestured with his glass, swirling the wine around inside it. "My past."
"Oh." Glenda took another sip of the wine, found her glass empty, and hefted the bottle. Goodness, it was heavy! "Was she rude?"
"Oh, heavens no," Stygian said. "Just aloof. Those eyes, just like Shadow Spade's, taking everything in, trying to—"
"To find your angle!" Glenda said, then clamped her beak down, biting her own tongue when she realized she'd interrupted him. Rude, Glenda, rude.
"Exactly! Just like..." he trailed off and gestured a hoof at her.
"Shadow Spade and the Crystal Key," Glenda said. "When Shadow Spade interrogates the Duke's dead son's marefriend!"
"Those eyes," Stygian said, and leaned over the table, eyes narrowing into a glare at Glenda.
Glenda burst out laughing. Stygian's angry face was exactly how she'd seen Shadow Spade in her mind's eye. She slapped her claws over her beak and looked at the dining room, afraid her outburst might have attracted attention, but no, the other griffs at their tables didn't even glance at her.
Stygian's glare turned into a smile and he sipped his wine, emptying the glass before pouring himself another from the rapidly depleting bottle. "I'm not following my own advice and waiting for the meal."
Glenda took another sip. Was her head getting light? This wine was strong. She'd better walk home, that was for sure. There weren't many crimes in Griffonstone, not compared to other realms, but flying while intoxicated was an automatic jail sentence (unless you were a Griffon Lord, of course). She tore off a hunk of bread and ate a few grapes.
"Tell me, what about Shadow Spade do you like?" Stygian asked.
Glenda opened her beak and pointed a claw at him, then realized she didn't have an answer. She nibbled on a talon for a moment before realizing what she was doing and tucked her claws in her lap under the table. "She always knows what's going on, even when the reader and the other characters don't."
"Agreed, agreed," Stygian said. "Ms. Noir's writing is very—ah! The soup."
The assistant waiter arrived with a deep ceramic bowl and placed it in front of Stygian.
The smell wafted up on tendrils of steam. Heavy cream, fatty bacon, gold potatoes, hints of herbs and vegetables. Glenda leaned forward and sniffed deeply, her tongue sticking out ever so slightly.
"I'm surprised you didn't get a soup," Stygian said, and levitated a large spoonful to his mouth. "Gracious! Wonderful."
"Oh," Glenda said, "I wasn't too hungry."
Her stomach growled.
Stygian raised an eyebrow then levitated the spoon, handle first, toward her. "This is rich enough I won't be able to finish it. Have a bite."
"I kinda... I always thought..."
"Ponies can be a little uptight about eating after each other, but I lived in Griffonstone, remember? You think it made it five years without any regurgitated meals?"
Glenda snorted as he waggled the spoon at her. After plucking the spoon from his aura, she dipped it in the soup, stirring and leaning close to get a better sniff. She scooped up a large spoonful. Oh, it was good! Hot, almost hot enough to burn the insides of her beak, but the rich cream contrasted with the smoky bits of bacon. A large hunk of potato melted on her tongue and the earthy herbs filled her nose. Carrots and rosemary, she guessed, along with black pepper.
"Oh, that's good." She licked the spoon before giving it back. "Can you recommend other books? I seem to mostly read novels. Shadow Spade, Daring Do. What else should I be reading?"
Stygian recommended a number of history and philosophy books as they traded the spoon back and forth, quickly emptying the soup bowl between them.
Their meals arrived, delivered by two assistant waiters, Garçon glaring from across the restaurant. Glenda ignored him. In fact—she fought the urge to giggle—she didn't give a damn about Garçon's attitude anymore. Her conversation with Stygian was simply too pleasant to let somegriff like Garçon affect her.
Stygian levitated knife and fork and bit into his salmon, pink and glazed with butter and seasonings. "Excellent! Better than one thousand years ago. Of course, then, I was a lowly apprentice scribe eating in the scriptorium canteen. Yours?"
Glenda swiped with the index talon of her left claw, splitting open the parchment envelope on her plate. Fragrant steam billowed up.
Once, years ago, Glenda read a book that claimed that birds of prey didn't have good senses of smell, so she always assumed griffons got their sense from their feline halves. Either way, as she leaned in and the medley of fish, herbs, and who-knew-what-else swirled around her, she thanked the universe for her acute nose. A sharp peppery-lemon note hit her first, followed by the succulence of the trout's flesh and the butter.
She squawked and ruffled her feathers before she could stop herself. She looked at Stygian.
"Do you realize you just squawked in Old Griffish?" he asked before popping a forkful of salmon into his mouth.
"I did, didn't I? Could you make it out? Was my pronunciation okay?"
"You said, 'Exquisite.' Your pronunciation was perfect."
Glenda closed her eyes and smiled, a purr rumbling deep in her throat. Perfect, he said! Perfect!
Spreading the parchment wider, she bent down and took another deep sniff. Then, a hesitation hit her. Could she just tear into it with her beak, or...?
A glance around the restaurant showed her all the other griffons—including Lord Gestal—were skipping the knives and forks and just tearing into their meals with their beaks. She ripped a strip off the trout and raised her face to the ceiling, glup-gulp-gulping it down.
Excellent! She tore off a few more strips, then forced herself to slow down, skewered one of the halved new potatoes on a talon, held it like a lollipop for a moment, and popped it into her beak. Also good!
One bite of the sauerkraut was enough. She spit it into a napkin and balled it up.
After they finished and the waiters removed their meals, Glenda said, "Read me your book." She popped another grape into her beak.
"I'm sorry?"
"The Romance of Griffonstone."
"What, from the beginning?"
"No, pick the best scene."
"That would be like a father picking a favorite child."
She opened the book to a random page and pointed.
"Here," Stygian said, looking at the text, "our hero Lightless Dark and his lover, Princess Gladia of Griffonstone, are both fleeing the evil necromancer—at the time, that wasn't a tired cliche, I invented it—and are hiding in the Royal Scriptorium, among the scribes of the Griffon King."
"Lover?" Glenda said.
Stygian smiled and gave a tiny shrug. "The Old Ponish word had far more shades of meaning than the modern. It meant, yes, physical love, but also a convergence of two lives, a meeting of two souls, and a tragedy if they were parted..." He trailed off, a look of sadness washing across his face for a moment.
What was that sadness, that darkness in his eyes? A lover remembered, a thousand years dead? Glenda brushed his forehoof with a claw. "What was that scriptorium like?" Glenda asked.
"Wonderful. All the most well-read and educated griffons worked there, copying both ancient works and new. Well, new at the time! It was the place I've felt most at home, at any point in my life."
He looked back at his book. "You're fluent in Old Ponish," he said. "You were being falsely modest when you said you were just a beginner."
"I've studied it for less than two years," she said. "But I can read it, yes."
"You're gifted. If griffons got cutie marks, yours would be for languages."
"Gifted. Such a useless gift. Why couldn't I have a talent for something that pays money? Who needs to hire a translator when every land uses Ponish?" Glenda planted her elbows on the table and buried her face in her claws. "Bookish griffons. There's no such thing. I've never had a friend, other than Gabby, and she's more of an acquaintance. I start talking about books and she realizes a delivery she's late on goodbye! No other griffon likes books, and they all look at me funny. I'm more like a pony like Twilight or Raven than I am a griffon."
"No! No no no nonononooooo," Stygian said, touching her forearm with a hoof. "Not at all. You're like... you're like how griffons were, in the old days. In the good days, in the griffon's golden age. You're like the griffons I called 'friend.'"
They stared into each other's eyes, and Glenda nearly accused him of making that up, of trying to make her feel better, of spinning a story... but those deep blue eyes were so... so sincere. She thought about the tens of thousands of ancient books in the far back of the library. Surely those books weren't the work of only a clawful of pony expatriates. Griffons must have produced them.
"Really?" she said.
"Really," he replied. "You would have been apprenticed to the Scriptorium early, aged eight or nine, and been given the best education outside of the Royal Family. I suspect you would have been a senior scribe eventually."
A waiter offered dessert, but they both declined, far too full. He put a small mint in front of Stygian and a hunk of pumice in front of Glenda. She honed and cleaned her beak and talons with the stone while Stygian chewed his mint. It was a high-quality hunk of pumice: she used a piece of hardwood to hone her beak and talons at home. She held her talons up in the light of the lamps and they gleamed, sharper than they'd been in years. She slipped the pumice into her shoulder bag.
Glenda poured the last of the wine, little more than a splash in each of their glasses, then emptied hers. The alcohol was really getting her now, her wings floppy and her head buzzing. Stygian waved at Grapeshot and tapped the top of the bottle. The sommelier quickly brought a second bottle of the same vintage and refilled both glasses.
Once Grapeshot disappeared, Glenda said, "Read me your book."
Stygian took a large sip of wine. "I may butcher the pronunciation. I haven't spoken Old Ponish since the... the Pony of Shadows thing, and I'm quite drunk."
"Really?"
He laughed. "I've had just as much wine, but I'm half your size."
Glenda blinked. She was a small griffon, but in the other claw, he was a tiny pony. "I'll forgive you. Read. Please."
He cleared his throat and Glenda closed her eyes, just listening. Lightless Dark and the princess ran from the necromancer's undead minions, ducking into the Scriptorium. Lanterns glowed brightly with the finest oils, illuminating the polished marble of the floors and walls and varnished wood of the work tables. Griffons and ponies hurried to find a hiding place for the young lovers. A bookshelf was swung out, revealing a small secret chamber where the most valuable of the manuscripts were hidden.
The background noise and even of the smells of the restaurant faded away, Glenda focusing on Stygian's voice, precise and melodious, his accent strange but pleasant. How long, Glenda asked her, how long had she thought about how alone she was, and wished a partner to just be with her and read with her? Listening to Stygian read, not just a book, but his book, to her, years of loneliness seemed to wash away, like dust under a rainstorm.
The bookshelf slammed back into place and locked, plunging the two into darkness. Pressed against each other in the tiny space, the sweat of their bodies mixing together, feeling each other's heartbeats, their panting breaths into each other's faces, Gladia bit Lightless Dark's ear, clamping it in her beak, running her tongue—
"Actually, this scene gets a little... um, heated," Stygian said. "Perhaps I should find a different one to read."
Glenda just smiled at him. "Nogriff else in the restaurant can understand a word, only us two speak Old Ponish. Keep going."
After another swig of his wine, he continued reading. The princess's claws scratched down Lightless Dark's spine and his own mouth moved to her neck, kissing gently at first, and then more desperately, his hoof rubbing up-and-down the powerful flight muscles in her chest, their tails twining together—
He turned the page. "Hello, what's this?"
Glenda's eyes popped open and she took a deep breath, realizing she had been panting in time with the princess. "What's what?"
"Somecreature wrote something in the margin. I can read the date—only two hundred years ago, eight hundred since I wrote this drivel. Someone read my book!"
"I didn't know anygriff went back into that part of the library for centuries."
"This must be... hmmm, middle Ponish? I can't read these notes at all."
Glenda turned the book around on the table and looked at the red ink. "That's middle Yakyaki. It says, 'Preposterous, nocreature took lovers outside their species in the old days.'"
"Hmmph!" Stygian took an angry sip of wine. "Ignorant, uncultured, unlettered fillystine."
"What do you mean?" Glenda asked before emptying her own wineglass.
"That really was the Golden Age of Griffonstone, when I lived here, when I wrote this." He tapped the page with the angry marginalia. "Learning, culture, art, science. All species lived here, scholars having fled their own homes for the freedom of the Kings of the Line of Grover. Creatures took lovers of any species, if the love was there. Even modern Canterlot or Manehattan is more uptight than Old Griffonstone."
"Did... did you...?"
"A gentlecolt would never kiss and tell. Let's just say that I became a stallion in Griffonstone—" he gestured expansively with his wineglass "—and leave it at that."
She grabbed his hooves in her claws and leaned over the table, her beak almost touching his nose. "Finish reading the scene to me."
"Embarrassment forbids me," he said. "Although after I've copied the book, you're more than welcome to read it to yourself."
"I'll help you copy it. Your horn will cramp up. We can take turns."
He smiled, one eyebrow rising. "That's not necessary, of course. I can't impose upon you with my pet project."
She leaned in a little further, until her beak did touch the tip of his nose. "You must let me. I can't wait to find out what the two young lovers' adventures are. And I want to hear the rest of that scene, in particular. It was getting… exciting."
He rubbed his nose against her beak, ever so slightly. "Excellent, I accept your offer, Glenda, with sincere thanks."
She leaned back and popped the cork back into the half-full second bottle of wine. "I suggest we start on the copying after breakfast tomorrow," Glenda said.
"An excellent idea, I'm not in the mood to squint into a lantern at my own messy hornwriting all night. Morning sunlight will be much more conducive."
Glenda pointed a claw at the other patrons of the restaurant. "You know, griffon food is good, but I've never tried pony food. A pony breakfast is reputed to be wonderful. Really start the day on a strong paw. Waffles, melon, oats, honied yogurt."
"My hotel is said to have the best pony cuisine in Griffonstone. Would you wish to meet for breakfast?" Stygian asked.
Glenda extended a claw and scratched under his chin. Stygian's ears perked straight up. She squawked in Old Griffish: "What if, instead of meeting me for breakfast, you just woke me?"
"Perfect."
Author's Note
Note 1:
"River trout!" she shouted, then looked around and lowered her voice. "My favorite. I almost never get to eat it, though. Three-quarters of the time I catch one, Gilda swoops down and takes it from me before I can land."
"Kleptoparasitism," Stygian said.
"Bless you."
Note 2:
Convocation of the Creatures is one of my favorite comics. I recently re-read it to my kiddo as a bedtime story and that gave me this idea for a pairing. My main hobby is raptor photography, and ospreys are some of the most beautiful, graceful, and deadly birds around—in fact, the old-fashioned adjectival usage of "fell" comes to mind—so I have always had a soft spot for Glenda.
Note 3:
This story ends before they head back to his hotel room. That scene is here:
[Adult story embed hidden]
