Eight. Months.

That was how long it had been, since the Event. How many things could change in such a relatively short time… Micha would never in her wildest dreams have been able to tell. At least prior to the Event.

Now however?

She saw things from another perspective entirely. Quite literally so, in fact.

In a gesture that had become a routine as of late, the griffon hen flared her wings wide for balance as she grabbed the edge of the laundry basket with a claw and rose up on her hind legs, craning her neck to look herself over in the mirror.

What eight months prior had been a fairly fit human male… was now a quite clearly pregnant griffon hen, a mix of a bald eagle and a wildcat, with green highlighted feathers surrounding her eyes. She pressed a free claw against her belly, feeling the heat radiating out from the two cubs growing within her.

Eight. Months.

And it had all happened so darn fast it felt like her mind was still reeling from the sheer speed of it.

Wake up one day covered in fur and feathers, and the wrong gender to add insult to injury. Discover the rest of the ship’s crew suffered similar fates.

Discover whatever caused that also caused the overwhelming majority of the world’s population to disappear with predictably bad results.

And not even a few days into that, and they had been fighting monsters, gearing up with whatever they could find at the time, shutting down two nuclear plants not a week into their adventure.

The ensuing months hadn’t been any better, ranging from acting third party to sort out issues in Ireland, retrieving artifacts for shady UN offshoots hiding in their bunker, to all-out war against ex-cartel members and cultists in Mexico, all the while keeping a whole fifteen thousand tons of ship running smoothly before they finally set up their base of operations near Rotterdam.

The strangest in that?

Her claw rubbed circles on her pregnant belly.

The mental part.

Monsters, Gods and magic, she could see that.

What had come unexpected… was how real ‘the mind is a slave to the body’ idiom was. Griffons like her didn’t think like humans, and much as she wanted to believe the contrary, the sad truth was a griffon’s body comes with a griffon’s instincts.

An urge to hunt. That she could get used to, having hunted back when she was still human. The ‘call of the wilds’ was something she could keep in check handily, provided it was regularly given an outlet. Griffons had a risk of going feral, she was certain it wouldn’t happen to her.

…

Except that wasn’t all instincts were about. She had come back as a hen in her prime… with the ensuing implications.

Really, it was a reality most who came back the wrong gender faced: they suddenly swung the other way, and they all took it in their own different way.

Not even a month after the Event, Micha was already active and mated for life to another griffon, her fellow Officer Vadim.

By September, following an unfortunate series of events, Micha and her went at it unprotected… leading to her current predicament of feeling like someone had stuck a medicine ball between her hind legs.

All in all, it went so fast it felt like her mind was still reeling from whiplash.

And yet… she didn’t dislike her current situation. She didn’t dislike Vadim, the cubs within her or even Andy. She loved them. The steps she had taken since her return felt natural for the person she had become.

Though maybe she was a bit curious how that would have unfolded any other way. How it would have gone if she had come back a male griffon instead of a hen. Or if Vadim had been the hen instead of her. Or… what would have happened if her fiance from before had been there all along.

Micha stared in the mirror deeply, mind flashing to a weirdly distant memory of a girl back in Gdansk.

With a growl, she averted her gaze and dropped back down to all fours, talons clicking against the bathroom tiles. No sense worrying about such things. She was happy and content. Dwelling over stuff she had no control over and that didn’t even cause her any kind of distress was just nonsensical. Micha flapped her wings idly and went back to her morning routine.

The bathroom wasn’t very big, but it showed Micha and Vadim had done their efforts of modifying the place to better accommodate griffons like installing a squatting toilet – a far better fit for quadrupeds like them- and lowering all of the furniture initially designed for humans down to their height so they wouldn’t need to rear up on their hind legs all the time to reach stuff. Along with that, since griffons on all fours were only half as tall as humans, they had added a couple perches in the bathroom (all over the house for that matter, for the sake of being efficient with their limited space), one of them supporting a large ceramic bowl that looked like a giant bird bath in which they stored spare clouds, both to clean themselves up, and to replace the bits of cloud they used for bedding.

Because when you can touch clouds and they’re actually fluffy on an unbelievable scale, why not make a bed out of them? Unlike bedsheets, you don’t have to clean them. And fur-on-fabric was an issue griffons had with their thick coats.

Outside the bathroom’s little round window, Brielle was still dark. It was still early January, so even there in the Netherlands the sun wouldn’t be up before at least eight. The sole things lighting up the little fortified town then were the sodium street lights, casting an orange glow on the narrow paved streets, small patios and canals.

A groggy Vadim stumbled inside the bathroom right as she was squatting down over the toilet.

“Mornin’...”

“Do you mind?” She squawked lowly in fake outrage.

“Only one bathroom in the house...” He paused, yawning, before he went over to the sink to start brushing his fur. “Can’t help it. Slept well?”

“With Aleksei’s potions and rituals? Better. At least now I’m not waking up every two hours because the cubs keep kicking me in the bladder.” She clicked her beak. “I swear they’re going to run us ragged in four months when they come out if they keep half the energy they have now...”

Vadim paused his brushing, partly turning away from the mirror.

“Remind me of that this evening after the fleet meeting. I might have some idea as to how we could… care for them… properly.”

She threw him a look.

“You know we’re both busy, and I said might. We haven’t even picked names yet!” He added quickly.

“I’ll hold you to that then.” She shook her head. “By the way, did you wake up And-”

“Hyah Mom!” Said cub chirped joyfully as she burst into the bathroom, giving her adoptive mom a quick hug before she flapped her little wings and hopped onto a perch where she had left her clothes.

“Sure, make it a party while I’m on the toilet. I don’t mind.” Micha glowered in mild annoyance, which only elicited chuckles from the other two.

Funnily enough, the mirth disappeared from Andy’s beak the moment her mother snagged her tail as she tried to slip out of the bathroom.

“And where do you think you’re going young lady?”

“Kitchen? For cooking?” Andy smiled innocently, attempting a puppy-eyed look that only earned an unimpressed response from Micha.

Nevermind the fact she had grown immune to it overtime, or that Andy knew her parents didn’t like her in the kitchen unsupervised for obvious reasons.

Sure she loved cooking. Sure she was a great help.

Still not a reason to have the griffon equivalent of a three-year-old girl alone in the kitchen.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, hmm?” Micha tilted her head to the side. “Feeling a bit scruffy maybe?”

A three-year-old cub that also liked making attempts at waging war against preening and basic fur care.

“I’s not scruffy!” Andy squawked out in protest.

The feathers sticking out at odd angles atop her head begged to differ. Protest she did, but that didn’t prevent Micha from preening her as soon as she’d done her business, the cub squirming under her talons, to little avail.

When you’re covered from head to toe in fur and feathers, proper care really does become necessary, unless you fancied finding hair all over the furniture and in your food.

After their morning ablutions, the three of them got dressed, generally opting for some lighter clothes in spite of the wintry cold outside. Griffons were innately geared for cold weather, so for them clothes were more of a matter of utility and decency. While Vadim quickly slipped into his set of orange high-vis coveralls, Micha’s own didn’t fit anymore, for obvious reasons, so instead she elected for a pair cycling shorts and a sailing parka, both a perfect match for the clothes she had Andy wear.

Which in and of itself was rather cute to witness. Though Andy and Micha didn’t have the same feline half, both were bald eagles on their fore half with the sole difference that the highlighted feathers were green for Micha, and red for Andy, but both in the exact same place around their eyes.

They quickly cooked up some eggs and lard for breakfast, with Andy ever too happy to partake in the cooking, before the trio finally left the little dutch house they had claimed for themselves just as the first rays of sunlight were cresting the horizon, hitting the old windmill of the northeast bastion nearest their house, it’s huge shadow keeping the abandoned playground next to it in the shadows.

It was hard not to like the looks of the place, obvious signs of disuse or not, even at this season. The weather was cold, but not dreadfully so, a very thin layer of snow and frost covering the landscape all around, not enough to freeze up the canals, but enough to leave sheets of ice in odd spots here and there to trip people up, with a faint morning mist blanketing the region, though the rising sun meant it was quickly disappearing as the griffons spread out their wings and took off, Andy clinging to Vadim’s tail as her adoptive father towed her through the air.

The little quaint, but tightly-packed brick houses of the old town had hardly changed since their arrival, but the influx of inhabitants meant the previous marks of abandonment and disuse were slowly fading away as more and more took the time to get settled and repair their new properties, previously barred windows now lit up, smoke rising out of chimneys here and there, and a couple vehicles and boats moving about in the streets and canals.

Still… even then, only a small fraction of the town was occupied, with plenty of room left within the safety of its moat and bastions. Brielle may be small, but all told, the WSU and all the locals they had managed to gather were less than three hundred souls. A lot by post-Event standards, minuscule on a pre-Event scale where Brielle could have comfortably housed three thousand people within the boundaries of the moat, let alone all the smaller communities and neighborhoods outside.And Brielle was but one town among many on the island of Voorne-Putten, though all others were still left deserted save for one isolated farmstead or two.

Though it did highlight their continued issues with workforce shortages, it at least had the benefit that anyone could just about pick whichever house they fancied provided they were willing to put in the work to repair and adapt it.

Another detail that was rather easy to take note of this early for three griffons up in the air as they climbed and turned towards the Maasvlakte and the small silhouette of Amandine moored off in the distance was how much the lights reinforced the impression of activity around the region.

You had the Maasvlakte lit up brightly, a bright industrial jewel a distance away from Brielle, blinking periodically from all the navigational lights and lighthouses kept active.

Brielle itself was a more muted light, a mix of sodium-orange lights with a few whiter house lights.

And then were a few odd spots around Voorne-Putten Island. Bridges and choke points where guard teams kept a vigilant eye on the premises.

But the rest was just… dark. The large metropolis of Rotterdam with its high-rises and modern buildings was completely dark, not a single soul having chosen to live there as soon as the WSU moved in. And beyond, vast expanses of abandoned and flooded polders turned into growing swamps and saltwater marshes remained dark, a darkness they knew hid a fair few monsters and stray beasts that thankfully soon learned Voorne-Putten wasn’t theirs to roam anymore.

It really summed up the world right then. A rare few flickers of civilization here and there, against dark expanses of abandoned cities, towns, villages, and the wilds now occupied by countless dangers recent and ancient.

The flight towards the harbor wasn’t long, even flying at a leisurely past coasting along wing currents. Down below they could already see the increased activity around the ships as all three were moored close to each other near the container terminal, with a few auxiliary crafts and the commuter ferry looking positively tiny compared to the larger cargo vessels.

Amandine had received her share of modifications over the course of their travels. While still technically a pure cargo, the roll-on/roll-off freighter had added a fair few tools to her arsenal to better tackle the difficulties and threats of this new world. While some just helped her endurance over long voyage like the two containers welded in place on the main deck housing a chicken coop and a greenhouse, or matters of utility like the helicopter visible through the open hangar door, others were far less benign and borne of the increased threats of demonic piracy and zeebeasts scouring the seas.

Armaments. In that respect, Amandine might now have been classified alongside some of the merchant raiders of the early 20th century, former purely civilian crafts modified with gun mounts, which in this case meant a quartet of 40mm Bofors in single mounts, a pair of fixed torpedo launchers near her side ramps, along with around a dozen miscellaneous deck mounts for machine guns of various calibers.

Though the added weight did hamper the cargo capacity, Vadim and Micha had yet to see a situation where that actually would be causefor problem. With less than 0.1% of the pre-Event population on the planet, freight volumes had quite obviously gone down, leaving cargo vessels like Amandine with quite a bit of unused tonnage to adapt.

When the three landed on the port bridge wing and made their way inside, they found much of the ship quiet, much of the navigational systems shut down while moored with the passageways inside fairly quiet. Hardly anyone was living on the ship at the time, save those that had to keep watch overnight and keep the generators running.

Where they did find people however – the entire crew actually- was when they made their way down to the cafeteria, everyone among the crew of thirty already gathered for the meeting Captain Prateek had announced would be held that morning.

As ever, Amandine’s crew looked like the eclectic bunch of wildly different species that it was, a colorful mix of nationalities sitting down in groups at their own tables. Ornithians, Abyssinians, ponies, griffons and the works, all were there, some in coveralls, others wearing more casual clothes from the prolonged time spent ashore.

As for the Captain, he was pacing back and forth near the back end of the room in front of a projector screen with Alejandro by his side, both clad in their dress blues, though in Dilip’s case, the Diamond Dog Captain also had a shoulder cloak to hide the stump of his arm from the battle of El Tajin.

Quietly, the little family of three sat down next to another pair of griffons just as Alejandro surveyed the room to check everyone was there. The Chief Officer checked the time, five minutes early, before shrugging and rapping his throat.

“Everyone please pay attention. Now that we’re all here,the Captain will now make an announcement.” Alejandro squawked out, quickly bringing silence to the whole cafeteria before he pressed a button, putting on a Powerpoint for all to see.

“Thank you Alej’.” Dilip nodded towards his Chief Officer before casting his eyes over the whole crew. “First off, Happy New Year to you all. May fortune smile on us and the tidings be fair, we will need it. You may wonder why I had you all assembled here… and there are several reasons behind that.” He explained calmly.

“Yesterday, we had a meeting among Captains, in order to decide what our actions shall be in the coming months.” The canine paused, then looked towards Alejandro. “If you’ll bring up the next slide? Yes, that table.”

A small spreadsheet covered the slide in question, with three rather recognizable columns labeled after each ship of the fleet.

“As most of you are probably aware… organizing with current resources is no easy task, and we still have trade routes to ply and expeditions to carry out. However… somebody needs to hold the fort. And after much deliberations and arguing, I can tell you we stand last on rotation. What this means is… Rhine Forest will be first to leave port from the end of January, due to return mid-to-end March for a regular trade cycle and one mission of nuclear material recovery as per commissioned by the HPI. Next… will be Fugro.”

“Hold on, so when does that mean we actually get to leave port?” Schmitt interrupted, the large orange dragoness serving the role of Chief Engineer sitting in the front row.

“If our plans hold up? We should regroup with Fugro mid-June and head down in the Mediterranean for exploration… and making contact with a colony in Egypt to address the Suez situation.” Dilip folded his one arm behind his back as he explained.

“So in the meantime...” Schmitt continued. “We’re just holding things together here? No leaving port?”

“More than that actually. We have several projects underway in terms of developing the Maasvlakte, Brielle and the island of Voorne-Putten. That’ll take some work already. Then… there is always the possibility of carrying out expeditions, not with Amandine, but we can charter smaller crafts if we manage to salvage some. I have some notices from the HPI mentioning we could get some fair payment if we recover art pieces from Amsterdam. Maybe even London. Such missions will however only be brought to consideration if groups volunteer for it. In the meantime, I hope we all can appreciate the locale and start building up our lives. I notice some are already well underway, hmm?” He looked pointedly towards the griffons.

Andy just waved back cutely, not having a good enough grasp of English to understand.

“Is that a problem sir?” Micha tilted her head to the side, frowning.

“I never said it was. Making things harder for organizing crews… yes.” He conceded with a nod. “Truly problematic? No. We can, and we will make arrangements. I do have to give a word of caution however, with current limitations, any of you that takes the leap should know this will be difficult and might require some sacrifices.” He warned, surveying his crew and the few couples he knew had formed. “But such talks are not the second reason why I had you assembled here. Nor is it about how duties will be assigned in the future. For that, please consult your respective department heads.”

He took a pause, grabbing a glass of water from a nearby table as a very… corporate-ish slide appeared on the Powerpoint with pie charts and graphs.

“As you likely know… we have already arranged in our operations of Amandine a stand-in for wages, privileges and looting concessions. That, however, is something solely tied to the operations of this vessel. Lacking our previous company, Amandine currently doesn’t have an owner.” Dilip intoned slowly. “To that effect, and after consulting Artyom in virtue of his status as our union rep, we have reached an agreement on how this ownership issue will be addressed.”

Dilip paused, watching looks of dawning understanding appear on his subordinates’ features as the deciphered the slide in front of them.

“Practical arrangements for the WSU are… a complicated matter will likely won’t see settled for years. Currently, what I offer you and will hold up to a vote, is that M/V Amandine becomes its own privately owned company of which we will all hold equal shares.”

He didn’t even want more shares than the rest. Either way, he still was the Captain and that had nothing to do on whether he was a major shareholder or not.

“This ‘Amandine company’ will itself act the role of subcontractor to the WSU. Fair warning however, that relationship will undergo changes as time goes on and we develop more utilities and civil bodies in the WSU. For the time being, all Captains and Chief Officers have agreed this was the simplest way to settle things administratively. All ships are subject to such a shares system, and depending on what we decide today, meetings will be held regularly to oversee ship operations...”

“Wait, so we don’t get more shares depending on our duty?” Hawthorne – their helicopter pilot- inquired from the back.

“No. I want to insist that you don’t mistake shares distributed, with wages and privileges obtained from fulfilling a job on this ship. Those are notrelated in the slightest, and the aim behind this decision is to ensure everyone is duly represented in the handling of this vessel. It gives you a way to put your own words forward, and it makes me – us all for that matter- accountable towards our peers for our actions.”

Though his initial explanation was accurate, it took the rest of the morning to fully detail the arrangement to the last bit, and to assuage any inquiry and worry voiced by the crewmembers, of which there were many. There were questions about to which extent ownership of the vessel went, which items fell under those terms, what kind of decisions they could expect to be taken each meeting, and many more questions about how the relationship between each vessel in the fleet and the WSU was going to develop...

...many of which Dilip couldn’t quite answer.

It was as he had said it: most aspects of their blooming organization were still being set up, like how they would be governed, which roles they had to define, ensuring the whole scope of their operations was viable…

A bizarre mix of statecraft and mercantile operations they were discovering one problem at a time as they cropped up, and the shareholder system for returnee crews was just the first stone on the structure. Many more would come, and some would have to be torn down to make room for better masonry the more ships and souls joined the fray.

But concerns like those were to be dealt with in the coming months, if not years. All things considered and carefully explained, the crew actually agreed to Dilip’s system in full, and from then on the Captain let Alejandro and Schmitt take up the lead of the meeting as respective department heads to begin explaining what they would be doing while shoreside.

The deck crew for one, would mostly spend their time on watch keeping the territory of Voorne-Putten secure, with some extra tasks like helping out in development projects here and there whenever needed, and the odd jobs for specialized personnel like Vadim and Boris – both griffons counting as medical personel- winding up assigned to the little clinic that was still being set up in an old retirement home for naval veterans in Brielle.

As for the folks from engineering, their time would be spent keeping Amandine maintained and ready to leave port with her generators running, all the while assigning a few to shoreside jobs that mostly involved either construction, industrial development, or plainly keeping the current and water running.

Last were the veterans, and though technically spread across Engineering and Deck for common tasks, the squad of four also needed to help train the ‘Brielle Brigade’ as it had been dubbed.

In fact even their two pilots had some sorties planned with the helicopter to seek out and reactivate some offshore installations like sensor towers and navigational relays, maybe even take an aircraft out to Belfast and establish a more regular liaison than could be achieved by ship.

…

Provided they actually found a plane that could carry passengers and pull of the trip of course. The Super Tucano was neat as close-air support and air recon, but it certainly didn’t have the range for a single trip over Britain and to Ireland, let alone back. This was yet another task added on an ever-expanding to-do list which itself only promised to grow more pages whichever way things panned out.

If more folks joined the colony and solved their current workforce issues… neat. But more folks needed more accommodation, amenities, food, equipment and the likes, all of which needed to be handled.

And if the current workforce shortage kept up… then the list of tasks would keep growing anyway because they needed to counter the shortage, and expand their capabilities, and also tackle all the issues that cropped up in the various colonies allied to the WSU.

In short?

Work. Work. Work.

The crew had dispersed soon after the meeting came to its conclusion. With the duties spread out and little chance of changes regarding that for at least a couple weeks, most returned to what they had been doing prior to New Year. For some, it was decidedly more active than others.

In Aleksei’s case… it looked like her afternoon was going to be rather boring. Good. She could use the rest after spending the night keeping an eye on the generators.

The little house she had picked on the east side of Brielle (actually not too far from where Vadim and Micha lived, she could see the old mill out of her window), she had worked on a bit so it would be tailored for her… ‘secondary duty’ as fertility cleric of Epona, for a lack of a better term. And the go-to religious authority on Celticism in town.

Out the front windows, the facade overlooked a narrow brick street that followed the course of one of the many canals in town. Aleksei had taken the time to make the oils to paint runes and sigils on it, signifying her abode would be a safe place to all who sought out her advice and help, their faint lunar glow making the building stand out from the rest, a fact only heightened by the presence of vines and plants all over the building thanks to the magic that permeated her place, keeping the plants green and lively despite the cold season.

In practice? Nothing too complicated. A few wards. Spiritual protection. Comfort. Translation. Their full power was aimed at the relatively large living room and adjoining office one immediately encountered upon crossing the threshold.

Should she call it a sermon hall? Because that was exactly what she’d used it as in the past weeks, and visibly it had its effect, even on locals, despite the Netherlands not really being Celtic. They were more of a… Nordic-Germanic mix?

It didn’t seem to prevent anyone from attending her sermons, or the few that came afterwards seeking out life advice she never felt she was the best person to ask for… yet here she was, her living room looking like a temple from all the decorations and runes added to it, with tables and benches ready to be moved at a moment’s notice and way more plants than reasonable.

Although… as plants went… she heavily suspected the garden out back would end up like a jungle come spring, with the obligatory standing stones if she had the resources to make them.

At least her office looked somewhat normal for a marine engineer like her, with a fair few screens up and displaying readouts from various installations around Brielle. Mainly the LNG power plant, and the pumping station. Other than that, maps covered the walls.

Germany mostly, or rather, the Black Forest, each map covered in various post-it notes, crossed, arrows and drawings. Even a couple photos from her last trip there looking for the legendary horse Bayard that Epona had tasked her with finding.

They had found a lot of things there. Monsters included. A couple lone settlements even.

A magic horse with the ability to leap over rivers and adjust his size at will though? Not even a trace.

…

Aleksei felt a sinking feeling deep in her gut. She groaned in annoyance. Every time she thought about her quest, her vow to become male again, her geas reactivated and reminded her she was supposed to be out there looking for Bayard.

“Oooh this fucking sucks...” She grumbled through a gritted beak in her own native tongue.

And boy did she rarely speak Latvian these days… Still clutching her stomach with one set of talons, she grabbed for her maps with the other and set to mentally plan out her quest. Immediately, the feeling abated… for now. She knew it would be back with a revenge, until her wings carried her to Germany and she resumed her quest.

Which at this point she wasn’t sure which was the most painful. The geas dragging her back into the quest, or her feelings of being increasingly drawn between her feelings for a certain demigod Earth Pony and the inevitable fact she would close off that relationship if she kept on the same course.

The hardest part?

Epona hadn’t even asked her to take the geas when she became a cleric. That idea was all her own, and she was regretting it plenty.

With an odd mix between a groan, a trill and a sigh, she jotted down a few more notes on her map of the Black Forest before pushing it aside and downing a glass of water. Plan all she wanted, she still had to go out and request to be freed from her normal duties to resume that quest, and previous experiences over there also showed she would need to find someone to go along with her.

Pavlos and Mikhail? Nah… doubtful. Rhine Forest was due to depart soon and she wouldn’t ask dragon and rider to follow her twice if the first time had turned up nothing.

Who then? Maybe…

The doorbell rang before she could consider any alternative. Quickly, she checked the time on the clock hanging on a wall in the living room, but this wasn’t the time for the evening’s sermon yet, and most chats she had with attendants seeking advice were after the fact.

The doorbell rang again.

“Come in!” The hippogriff squawked out, exiting her office hastily just as whoever had rung walked in.

It was another hippogriff hen, one she had come to know fairly well in the last few months actually.

Sri. The hen walked in shaking a thin layer of snow that had built up on her coat, shivering slightly. Hippogriffs weren’t too well-suited for the cold, and thus most like Aleksei or Sri were wrapped up in multiple layers at this season. In Sri’s case, it looked like the hen had invested quite a bit in the clothing department, wearing a wind shell over M/V Amandine’s signature orange coveralls, along with gloves, hoof wraps and thermal underclothing.

Not the most comfortable of arrangements for creatures with wings and feathers, but it beat catching a cold.

Unlike Aleksei though, Sri hadn’t had her appearance altered by pledging fealty to a deity, so where Aleksei was at alicorn levels in height with all the curves and swan-like appearance you could expect from her fertility domain, her Indonesian shipmate was noticeably shorter and more plain, her avian half bearing the lithe aspects of a gannet, with an ivory coat that made a sharp contrast with her fiery red crest and tail feathers, a match in color for her eyes. A redhead in short.

“Sri...” Aleksei blinked. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon before the sermon. How are you doing? Satisfied with this morning’s meeting? Feel free to hang your coat by the entrance, I have some tea over in the kitchen if you want.”

“Brrr… Some tea would be great, thanks. I’m from Jakarta, never was meant for colds like this.” Sri shivered as she shed her coat and hung it by the door before following Aleksei into the kitchen.

“And here I was born in Riga, and you don’t see me doing too well against it either.” Aleksei joked before her look turned somber.

Well… thinking about it she had thought for her entire life that she was fully Latvian. And yet… it had taken a divinity revealing it to her to unearth the fact her mom may not have been the good wife she pretended to be while on a trip to Bali.

Sort of explained why she was a hippogriff and not a griffon, come to think of it.

She hated her mother for it.

But… now was not the time to dwell on thought like that. Sitting down on her haunches in front of a kitchen table that had its legs shortened to suit quadrupeds like her, she poured Sri a steaming cup of mint tea.

“So what brings you here then? Not satisfied with what we decided for the ship this morning?”

“Wha- Oh no. Not at all.” Sri shook her head firmly. “I can hardly complain about that, it’s more than fair. If a bit boring that we’re stuck here in the near future. Some of us, at least.” She looked pointedly towards the taller hen across from her.

“I won’t leave until I’m sure my duties are covered. Can’t have the electricity shut off while I’m gone, can I?” Aleksei tucked a few crest feathers behind her ear and clicked her beak. “But I can’t not go either, that’s how the geas works. Enough dawdling though, you came here for a reason, right?”

Sri shifted on her haunches uneasily, Aleksei seeing her tail feathers swish behind her.

“Well… uh...” Sri mumbled something under her breath in what Aleksei assumed was a native dialect the translation ward didn’t pick up. “You know, I value your advice. I was… lost when I came back. I hated this body, I hated myself and what I had become, I didn’t know what to do or if it was good or bad. But now it’s alright. I got to meet Epona, and I’ve never been more comfortable than now. I learned to set aside my life from before, and enjoy the new one I’ve been gifted.”

“Thanks?” Aleksei tilted her head to the side.

Not that she would ever qualify herself as someone suited to give out life advice. Most other times people came up to her, she just referred to Celticism and the ideologies of various deities in the pantheon, rather than actual life experience.

That said… she had a calendar with a fair few conversion ceremonies planned out. Weddings even, though most were locals that were already married and just wanted to reiterate their vows under the banner of a new religion.

“So… can I have your opinion on something?”

Ah, there it comes.

“Of course. Go ahead, I promise anything you say here will stay private.”

“Right...” Sri paused, clicking her beak a few times. “So you know how me and Bart are a thing?”

By which she was referring to the Belgian unicorn currently serving as Amandine’s gunsmith. Not originally from the crew, they had picked him up in Zeebrugge shortly after their Return, and the ex-army pony now counted as a reliable member of the vets’ squad.

“Since Mexico, right?”

“Havana actually. We hit it off the night I converted to Celticism, at the party.” Sri blushed slightly.

“I take it it’s less about you and more about him, then?”

Sri nodded.

“I like him. I mean… I really like him and I’m a hundred percent certain the feeling’s mutual. I just want to take things to the next step, but I’m afraid he… You know how he was before?”

“Can’t say I do.” Aleksei shrugged with her wings.

“He told me. He had a wife and a daughter at a time.”

“He lost them?”

She nodded.

“Car accident he said. They always let their daughter go to school by bike. One day, her teachers didn’t see her turn up on time. A hit and run. She was dead when they found her, the drunk behind the wheel didn’t even call the police.” Sri told her. “He said that broke their couple, that it didn’t matter how long they had been together, that losing your own child is the epitome of failure in life and that it was enough to break up a couple that had been together for just short of fifteen years.”

There was a pause in the conversation, as Aleksei mulled over her words.

“And you think that would make him...” She searched for words. “Unlikely to go further? You can’t fault his reasoning, losing one’s child isn’t something you ever truly recover from. Divorces leave a mark, too.”

“But… do you think I could convince him otherwise? I don’t want to pressure him, but he really is the one.”

Aleksei eyed the other hippogriff critically, watching her fidget slightly, teacup cradled between her claws.

“I’ll say… I’m definitely not someone you should consult for relationship advice, Sri. But I can give you word of caution. Romantically, you may want to wed him on the basis of the pair-bonding and eternal loves that comes with it… and I can’t fault that. Today’s world is one where you seek out stability and that definitely does the part.” She coughed in her beak. “However… I hope I do not need to remind you the actual point of a wedding ceremony in our faith, is to make and raise children. Ignoring the fact it would be extremely counterproductive at this point with Bart, are you ready for that?”

Aleksei didn’t even need to hear a reply from Sri’s beak, her features were enough of a tell. Though the Indonesian was far more comfortable with her feminine situation than she originally was before converting… it was still a decidedly male mind in a female body.

Sri lowered her gaze, the claw reaching up to her belly all too visible.

“Too soon eh? I understand, unlike griffons we don’t have instincts to push us along.” Aleksei nodded.

“But I want some… eventually. I...” Sri hesitated. “I had kids before you know? Back home in Indonesia. It’s the best thing that can happen to you, and if I’m to treat this life as a new one, I won’t miss that chance just because I’m apprehensive.”

“Which is good to hear then.” Aleksei grinned. “Just don’t force yourself on it. You have more control over whether or not you have children than human women ever had, and Bart isn’t any more ready than you are. You said it was a new life? Break him in on that idea, ease him in in regarding the world the way you do… and only then can you envision a wedding. Understand? And if there’s anyone that could ease his pain about that loss… it should be you.”

“Thanks. I can always rely on you for advice. I… I do need some time to get ready for kids. But I want some, that I’m certain of.” Sri asserted, now sounding more confident. “Say… in practice?”

That, Aleksei was more confident talking about.

“If you’ve paid attention to the griffons, then think of it that we work in a similar way. You know your trigger for ovulation is food, at least triple your average daily calorie intake, but then it’s warm if you want to lay eggs, cold for a pregnancy. Big word of caution though… is that if you turn at any point in time into your seapony form before laying eggs, then it will be a pregnancy regardless of temperature. And given that Bart is a unicorn… if you go with eggs, you’ll have hippogriff children. Pregnancy… you might get pegasi, unicorns, or hippogriffs.”

“Plural?”

“Clutches of two are the most common, yes.” Aleksei made a gesture with her talons. “It might prove difficult if your uh… potential children come out as ponies though.”

“Why?”

“Pony mares have teats. We hippogriffs don’t. Beaks ya know? We can produce the secretion needed for regurgitation, but that’s not suitable for foals.”

“So I’d need formula?”

“Eeyup.” Aleksei nodded. “Or I know a few potion recipes that can act as a stand-in. It’s manageable, but it’s a difficulty you must consider if you’re serious about your project. And try to make Bart think about it if you’re going to ease him in on the idea. It takes two to make children.”

“I will. Promise.” Sri chirped, looking more cheerful than when she’d first come in.

There was a brief pause where the both of them sipped their tea, with Sri idly looking at the furniture of the office, though it was clear she was searching for words.

“What’s on your mind?” Aleksei decided to break the silence just as she finished her cup, setting it down with a clatter.

“What’s next?”

“If you don’t mind waiting I was about to prepare for the sermon before y-”

“I don’t mean the usual schedule.” Sri leaned forward. “What I mean is, are you planning to resume your quest soon? I’m aware… actually I don’t think anyone in town isn’t, that your last attempt didn’t turn up much. You’re going back, no?”

Aleksei crossed her forelegs over her chest and reclined back in her seat, wings uncomfortably pressing up against the back of her seat as she stared at the ceiling.

“I have to. Problem with that would be that last time I was there, I had Mikhail and Pavlos along, and they’re on Rhine Forest’s roster, so they’re leaving soon...-ish. Why?”

“When you came to Rotterdam from Germany, did you pass through Limburg?”

“Yes. Of course. That’s the shortest route. Why the question?”

“Well… let’s say I’m trying to better my relationships with Bart. That I know his daughter is buried in Diest where he used to live. And that it – sort of – is halfway where you need to go, knowing it’s difficult for you to assemble a team to go there, what with the workforce shortage.” Sri tilted her head to the side while looking Aleksei dead in the eye, her orange irises bearing a confident look.

In turn, the cleric leaned back in her seat with renewed appraisal for the fellow hippogriff across from her.

“Did you come here with that in mind?”

“I might. What of it? Bart still needs to visit his daughter’s tomb, and I’m fairly confident this would help him. It helps him, it helps me, and it helps you because you assemble the team you need.” Sri grinned. “What, then?”

“Alright, you’re in. I’ll make sure to plan a detour by Diest, just slip me the address of the cemetery so I can at least ask Roberto if there’s anything he wants us to look at while we’re their.”

“Gear?”

“We’re heading into the Black Forest for upwards of three weeks, and it’s winter. Expect snow up to your neck so make sure you have a few sets of thermal underwear. You’ll need it. I think Bart being a pony he can withstand the cold better than us, but warn him as well. Though given he’s the gunsmith, make sure he preps us guns at least 7.62. I know they kick hard, but given the size of some of the monsters in the forest, 5.56 won’t do shit. Maybe even big game hunting rifles if he can find some.”

“Alright, I will. We should be able to put the right guns together for the job. When do we leave?”

“Whenever I can convince the Captain, and I know he won’t be too happy about it. Now…” Aleksei threw a look through the open door and towards the window on the street side, where she could see a few figures gathered outside the house. “… if you don’t mind, I have sermons to hold.”

Author's Note

There it is. At long last.

New story. New adventures. New parts and details to add to an expanding worldbuilding.

Take note however, that unlike my previous story, I will *not* be able to keep up a regular, weekly update rate. I'm far too busy as of late to pull that off, while keeping the story and its quality consistent.

Hope you enjoyed the first taste though.