Hi! I’m Geordi. I’m a griffon, as you may have guessed by my original name that starts with a G… Anyways, I was born in a little town called Whitelake, some miles off of Griffonstone towards the greener pastures filled with cows and cow dung that is Greenleaf. Whitelake was sort of the purgatory between smelly country hell and smelly urban hell, but it was a nice enough city when you got used to it, small, friendly and out of the way.
I made beautiful scarves there, and I knew they were beautiful because even if our city was hot as if the sun had taken offense, cute griffon ladies came from Griffonstone to buy them!
And that was before Princess Celestia once stopped by my humble little shop and bought one when she visited. I don’t mean to brag, but, after that, Princess Luna visited too, and so did that big supermodel from Canterlot.
Little ol’ me was good at making pretty and artsy scarves and it would be false humbleness to say otherwise.
Well, I made them because I liked making scarves. I liked the art… Selecting the right fabric, tinting, finishing it. It paid for my bills, yes, but that was secondary. I was lucky enough to be born in a place where one could spend their entire lives surviving on the universal basic income and live off my hobby, if I was prepared make a few sacrifices.
It was nice enough, until then the economy went to the shitter.
Turned out some northerner dickhead decided that he should be king of the griffons, and the northerners agreed. Some noble bird called Gilad ‘The Lion’, for fuck’s sake… He was the governor for the northern griffonian territory, the Snow Mountains Hold, and I never saw the guy, but he messed up my life good!
Yeah, sure! Fuck our lives because you have the blue blood! Not even considering he threatened to split Griffonia from the Equestrian Confederation, the unified commonwealth of interdependent nations that made up our world under the wise guidance of Princess Celestia; making him king meant upturning the entire democratic process which endured for centuries since King Grover died.
The only thing I asked was WHY?!
Make no mistake, the griffon chancellor was a corrupt prick and everybody and their moms knew. But the government investigated itself and came to the conclusion that it had done nothing wrong. It took months before some pokehead in Canterlot blinked twice and went “Wait! That’s illegal!”
Shit hit the fan hard, but the powers that be always had to investigate the problem rather fixing it, and so griffons were stuck with a corrupt jerk nobody liked, and since news were actually meant to make you depressed so that you would buy more newspapers, they flooded the stands with news of more and more scandals and schemes every day. I didn’t know what worried me more: that they might be making those up to sell, or that they might be true!
Griffons took to public demonstrations of discontent that invariably turned the population against the local militias of the cities and if shit hadn’t hit the fan already, it did so again. Meanwhile, nobody did anything about the racist, xenophobic, isolationist pricks that wanted to put their governor as the new ruler of the griffon nation.
“At least he’s not Gail!” The angry political experts cried from their tables in the shitty bars, in between large gulps of beer.
Of course, the griffon representatives in the Hall of Friendship, Canterlot, started seeking a solution by angrily shouting at each other like five-years-old children and ‘The Mare’ went “Hur-dur… Griffons are entitled to choose their own leadership. Duuuuh…”
I hope she strangled herself on that stupid scarf.
Well, then, fine. Brilliant. Whatever. That was why the basic income was good. I could survive until that mess blew over, even if nobody cared for my scarves anymore.
Then the enlightened griffon Chancellor, the dumbass in charge aforementioned Gail Silkfeathers put his greasy paw on his beak and hummed to himself after eating another donut bought with the money he had stolen from the public coffers. “Ya, know? I don’t like the idea that they’re getting me out of my office. We actually need money to fight a war. No, not my money! Griffonia’s money! What is that? We don’t have any? Puh-lease!”
Public security? Gonna fight a war, bitch!
Public health? Take some vitamins, bud!
Public Schools? Why do poor griffons need education, anyways?
Public lighting? Pffff… That is why the sun and the moon are up there!
Homeless shelters? What homeless? I don’t see any!
Basic income? Caw caw caw caw! Just turned it all to muskets.
War economy, mobilizing the Griffonian Standing Army and propaganda. All that cost money. Lots and lots of shinny golden coins with Celestia’s dumb face on them the jerks that depended on him remaining were happy to give him.
To make things worse, that cunt in Mount Aris taxed to the high heavens everything that went to Griffonia because she didn’t like neither the Chancellor nor the jerk up in the north. Also, it didn’t help that the northerners shunned the hippogriffs and spoke… Let’s say ‘bad things’ about them at every chance.
To understand that it is important to understand the geography of the region. And also, how little forethought our leaders had in the past. Hippogriffia was the entryway for almost everything that came from the whole world except for Saddle Arabia and other griffonian cities. The large cargo ships needed the hefty infrastructure in Beachhome and that was a coastal city in the strait Griffonia shared with the hippogriffian nation. The Strait of Dove.
The thing was that they had to go through hippogriffian waters because in the south was a giant magical storm that sunk everything that got too close (no wonder the hippogriffs worshipped that thing), and to the north was the Frozen North. Yeah… It’s a little-known thing: the Frozen North is the whole north. All the way from the Crystal Empire to the northern lands of Griffonia and full of cold monsters that they said could chill your blood with a stare. And that was an important little detail.
That whole thing worked nicely with Her Royal Highness Princess Celestia (Hail Her Radiant Self) making sure that no one abused the whole thing.
But once Queen Novo decided that fuck the griffons, big food companies started buying all the poultry and fish coming from Beachhome and other griffon coastal towns because the northerners started hoarding all the game meat they used to sell. The fish coming from Mount Aris? So expensive you’d think the damn things were raised on Princess Skystar’s bath water!
So, not only griffons were out of education, homes, public services and healthcare, they were also running out of food and money to buy what food remained! Not to mention that the saddle arabians were scared mindless of the big bad griffon up in the north. Some stupid legend… I don’t know. The important thing was they shut every direct contact with anything that vaguely resembled a griffon.
And then, when things were about to derail out of control the ponies were busy with some dumb shit the two younger princesses worked up and the world abandoned Griffonia like it was a ticking time-bomb about to blow. Which it fucking was because everyone had abandoned it to its own fate!
Not surprisingly, nobody had money to waste on pretty scarves anymore. Bills went as high as Luna’s stars, and I had no means of income. I lost my home. Then I lost the paper box I was living in because the jerks in the local militia needed some poor bastard to lash out on. I didn’t even get angry at them, the situation being what it was.
Then, one day, while I sulked under the rain, came the recruiter with the nice green uniform and black cap.
“Hey, come fight for your country, citizen!”
“You mean, fight to save the Chancellor’s ass or to unfuck Griffonia?”
“Yes!” He said with a huge grin.
“Nah.” I closed the invisible flap of my invisible box.
“But we have food! Beds! Showers! All the stuff we stole from you and pretty ladies love a griffon in uniform! Eh? Eh?”
And that is how I joined the glorious Griffonian Standing Army!
The Piercing Cry of Harmony
The recruiter guy was nice enough to give me a voucher that entitled its owner to one night, a bath and a breakfast in one of the inns in Whitelake. It was the worst inn in town, but I supposed it was better than a non-existent cardboard box.
The bath was cold, the night was too short, and the breakfast was a cream-cracker (hard to chew when you have a beak rather than teeth) and coffee that was, ironically, too hot.
When I was done, I went to the tram station. From there shuttles pulled by earth ponies or teams of griffons would take travelling groups of griffons elsewhere. I was supposed to show up before eight and a cart would take us (me and the other guys) to Fort King Grover, next to Griffonstone.
The cart was a cart. It had two wheels and a box with a pair of wings. A griffon guy, brown and sand, wearing a beret that was in the middle between both colors and with a checkered pattern held a paper with my name ‘Geordi’.
There was something weird about that picture. Wasn’t that when one arrived somewhere that someone would hold a sign with their name? Anyways, I approached the dude in the sunny and hot morning pawing lightly on the beaten sand of the patio next to the administrative building with the ticket booths.
“Hey.” I said in my unwillingly youth and excited voice. “I’m Geordi.”
“Awesome.” He threw the sign away. “Hop on aboard and let’s get going.”
“Uh…” I looked around to see other groups and different methods of transportation, but no one else near us. “Where are the others?”
“You’re it.” He mindlessly hitched himself to the cart.
“I mean… They could just tell me where to go and I could fly there myself!” I flapped my wings to show them off.
“Yeah, they pay me to haul your ass, not to be reasonable.” He explained with dull indifference, fastening the strap to his belly. “Let’s go, bro. I only get paid after I leave you at Fort King Grover.”
With a sigh I hopped aboard and held on to the edges as he took flight and made a sharp turn towards the green covered hills under the morning sun.
The sun was warm, and the wind was nice enough as he didn’t fly too fast. While I was typically tired all the time, after eating something and drinking actual coffee, not to mention after a decent night of sleep, I didn’t feel like taking a nap, or something. I just sat there and watched my hometown become smaller and smaller in the distance with its calm lake, the small town square and the downtown neighborhood where I grew up, went to school, got rejected by every single griffon girl in existence and learned I had a passion for soft tinted silk.
I had often dreamed of moving to Griffonstone and striking it big in the capital, but that wasn’t how I had envisioned it. I imagined I’d save enough money selling my scarves, then I’d buy a store in Griffonstone’s market, make my brand known from Canterlot to the Crystal Empire, marry a cute cosmopolitan, sophisticated Griffonstone girl, get rich, old and tell my grandchildren of how I made it by making others happy with my art.
Instead, I was riding a glorified wooden box with wheels that flew due to being attached to a griffon and heading towards a fort with the name of a dead dude and without a single Bit to my name.
Shouldn’t have left my dad’s home by the lake. Fucking dreams.
The time passed and my chauffer didn’t fly too high, nor too fast, and it was a pleasant travel, despite my mood, which improved because of that, and I propped myself in the front, closer to the guy pulling me, somehow still with his bonnet on his head.
“Hey, you’ve been doing this for long?” I asked friendly. “I mean, transporting guys for the recruiter?”
“Nah. I just started a couple of years ago.” He kept flying straight and didn’t look back.
“What happened? Lost your job to the economy too?” I insisted on a conversation since he was okay with it enough that he didn’t tell me to shut up.
“Kinda.” He finally looked back at me. “I already worked hauling stuff here and there. One day I joined the GSA, but it was in the time before they had someone haul dudes to the Fort.”
“Really?” I frowned. “You gave up on the army? Can you do that?”
“Yeah. Back when they asked that you presented yourself in the Fort.” He looked forward again. “Now they don’t trust you enough to do that because you’ll think about it while you’re travelling.”
“Oh…” I sat back on the floor.
***
Griffonstone was huge. Like many times the size of Whitelake, even with the lake included. It was a monster of a city! I imagined it would be a large city, but it was larger than I had imagined. My chauffer explained we had to fly around the city because there were rules about flying above buildings if you were hauling stuff. Apparently having a cart strapped to yourself was reason enough that the local militia would ruin your day and confiscate your cargo.
So, we circled around at a safe distance. Still, I could see the rich estates around the city, the ruins of an old castle my ‘guide’ told me was the place King Grover actually lived, the different districts that made the city with the large mansions and vast walkways surrounded in large well-known stores, and also the more traditional neighborhoods with varied homes and other commercial districts, some office buildings and also apartment ones peppered the city and seemed to be concentrate around the downtown, getting taller. It looked a bit like the Manehattan I had seen in the news. Though I suspected the pony city was even larger.
A large central square in the middle had King Grover’s statue and I could see it from afar, so easy it was to see in the empty space. There I also saw the well-known Griffonstone Hospital and the Chancellor’s Palace. It was, of course, not the same place where King Grover had lived and there seemed to be a gathering of griffons in there.
There was a sarcastic remark to be made around there, somewhere, about the king’s castle being in ruins, kinda forgotten by the suburban zone, but I was too enthralled by the big city to think of it.
Also, my guide directed my attention elsewhere. “Hey, there it is. Check it out! Almost makes me regret giving up!”
To the westside of Griffonstone was a river, nothing particularly impressive, but it was rather sizeable and had several houses that grew from the city, following a beaten dirt road that snaked close to the river as it streamed northward, skimming the city.
But, to the South… First of all, kudos to the Engineering Corps… They had carved the river around the fort, so it formed a running water moat around its star-shaped walls and then streamed down the soft hills to the city.
But the fort itself was huge. Epic huge. With tall, fortified walls topped by cannon emplacements. The star shape had cannons pointing in every direction and with overlapping fields of fire, and it was so obvious even a dumbass that had never seem that sort of thing could see it. Huge beasts shining in the sun with griffons in green uniform dotting the areas around them, posing for the photographers.
The sort of thing they sang about in the Manehattan Opera House. White walls, stained by the age and ancient combat scars made it seem even more real, and as we drew closer, I could make out the individual cannons on top of the walls and also the many flags that dotted the battlements with a black crowned griffon head against the green background that was the Griffonian Standing Army’s flag.
Inside, several buildings of many sizes and shapes, but what drew all attention was the tall pole with a large griffonian flag in the wind showing the tan background with the crown and griffon wings in golden and white, and the formation of griffons in uniform, perfectly spaced between themselves in front of it.
“Wow… That is so cool!” I blurted out, my beak hanging and my paws holding on to the edges of the cart.
It looked almost like one of those trippy works of art that made you go cross-eyed! As the guy pulling my cart spiraled around the fort, I could see moss growing in certain parts and it all made the whole thing seem so real. Those were real cannons, and I didn’t know the details, but they looked just so cool, and in a few of them I could see the blackened muzzles of real weapons, used in combat before. It gave the place such a cool aura of authenticity!
I wasn’t sure what was up with me, but the place was just so awesome. Maybe I was hyped. I never really thought about joining the military before they literally bought me with promises of a clean bed and warm food, but there was something about that place that was just so… Endearing? Maybe I was just an impressionable young idiot, but if anything, that place seemed powerful. Like someone, somewhere, knew what they were doing. And they were the ones that helped protect their world. From magical monsters, and also from some dickhead griffon that thought that the solution to the problems Griffonia faced was to replace the elected leader for an authoritarian dick nobody, but his friends liked.
You know what? It sucked. It really sucked. But at least I could be part of the solution, because it was damn obvious that the Chancellor was not good, but he was better than his opponent and, in the end, I wasn’t going to defend the Chancellor. I was going to defend my right to choose!
I was going to fight for freedom!
“Hey, I gotta set you down near the path. They don’t let you fly too close to the fort.” My conductor said and pointed a claw to what seemed a gathering of tents by a path that led into an open gate. It was the road that snaked close to the river and led to the fort.
“What’s that? Are they having some sort of festival?” I kept staring down, trying to see more than a few griffons and the coverings of some assorted colorful tents.
“Yep!” He eased the cart to the ground, right at the beaten dirt path conveniently by the entrance to the fair, as he said. “They’re having a fair. It’s meant to commemorate our victory in the last deployment of the Army some ten years ago.”
“Well… Thanks.” I hopped off the cart and waved at him as he soared without delay.
“Good luck, buddy!” He waved too, before he turned and flew away as fast as he could towards the city that was quite a distance away. Huh…
Well, there I was. No turning back.
I spun on my legs to see the tents. Welcoming music lured me in and so I trotted up the snaking path. It smelled of food and sounded of merry children. For a moment I almost forgot I was there to enlist.
I also remembered I had no money, so I just rushed past the tents with the foods, drinks, games and whatnot until I drew close to the fort’s proper. Its gates opened invitingly and was flanked by more tents where small griffon kids and their parents listened to big, muscular and impressive griffon guys holding their beaks high and proudly talking of the proud Griffonian Standing Army. The first line of defense whenever monsters attacked.
Which almost never happened in Griffonia, since most of the evil bad supervillains always attacked the ponies, but yeah…. I got the feeling they meant to transmit. They were the stout defenders of Griffonia, damnit! I doubted Princess Twilight and her friends would show up with the Elements of Harmony when the northerners failed to get their guy made king and things went south!
Go GSA! Yay!
That put a spring in my step as I still ignored all the tents that required me to have any money whatsoever, and I honestly wasn’t interested in the ‘propaganda tents’. Fortunately, I found what I looked for right by the drawing bridge that allowed passage over the river-smelling moat. The gatehouse looked gargantuan, by the way. I could see the pointed ‘teeth’ aiming downwards from the lifted gate and the place where they would fit the ground and the steel-reinforced hardwood doors wide open in that day.
A large sign with red letters won white painted planks welcomed all.
WELCOME TO FORT KING GROVER!
Open gates day!
And right next to it was a small green and black tent with a table covered in the same green linen and a pair of cute griffon girls wearing the green uniform with the black cap. Delicate reading glasses in front of emerald eyes that went great with her uniform and green coat and plumage, while the other also wore the uniform, but the plumage in her head was an alluring shade of lavender with pink highlights at the tips of her forward-swept feathers that topped her head to compliment her lividly pink eyes.
It was as though someone had paw-picked them for the job.
Why did I suddenly have the urge to stop and think about things?
Then the green one winked at me and made a cute small smile with the edges of her shiny beak. When I came to me, I was already at the table staring at her and the sign that said ‘RECRUITMENT’.
“Hey there, cutie.” The lavender one smiled so sultry I was led to believe she wanted to offer something other than the chance to fight for my country.
“Hi!” I blurted out. “I’m here to… You know. Join!”
“Awesome!” The other squealed and dove under the table to return with a clipboard and a pencil. “Name? Age? And identification number, please?”
“Oh! Sure!” I gasped a little at the surprise question. “I’m, uh… Geordi! I’m eighteen and…”
Someone’s strained loud and obnoxious coughing interrupted me. On the other side of the drawing bridge was another recruitment booth, but instead of a tent of green linen, it was white linen with a rustic and bulky wooden table. Behind it was an older looking griffon lady, but damn did she look strong and fit. Silvery fur and a pristine white head with gray eyes behind glasses she adjusted with a smirk.
Next to her was a cute young thing with a cyan coat and deep blue eyes to go with the silvery-blue plumage in her head, but with blue highlighted back-swept feathers on her head. Both wore a curious looking blue satin cape held on their necks with small chains made of iron.
“Are you sure you want to die fighting for a corrupt politician, young tom?” The older griffon lady spoke with a croaky voice and whistly, pleasant accent while her younger companion flashed her pretty eyes at me.
“Wait a fu… What the heck?!” The green griffon girl in the uniform babbled out and I looked at her and her. Damn… She looked like she was ready to breathe fire at the other two. “You can’t do this!”
“Yes, we can.” The older griffon explained plainly. “There is no war yet and the Chancellor does not even have the approval of the Hall of Friendship. We are well within our rights to recruit among the general population as per the Hall of Friendship’s resolution that grants griffons the freedom to chose their leadership. Sanctioned by Princess Celestia more than a week ago.”
“Oh… Ex-cuse-me!” The younger griffon with the blue cape snerked, despite her accent and made me look at her. “I’m pretty sure that there are no laws which forbid us from coming here and offering an alternative to your filthy corrupt Chancellor.”
The lavender one in the green uniform of the GSA gasped loudly, which drew my attention and she pointed a pink finger at the two griffons behind the other desk. “Lies! All accusations against the Chancellor are still under investigation and there is no reason whatsoever to believe that he is either corrupt or disloyal to his wife!”
“Actually…” The older griffon sat behind the wooden table deadpanned at them. “We didn’t know that.”
“Well, it’s still not true!” Lavender insisted and her friend shoved the clipboard on my chest.
“Here Geordi! Sign this and you’re ready to go!” She tapped insistently at the signature line at the bottom.
“Wait!” The northerner girl put up her paw. “You want to be with us! We’re much cooler than these losers siding with the corrupt Chancellor!”
“No! They’re not!” The lavender griffoness cried and pulled my beak to stare back at them. “They’re evil griffons that want to enslave the good griffons that are friends with the ponies!”
Okay, that was going well! I hadn’t even joined yet and there were three cute girls fighting over me! I guess that the recruiter was serious about cute girls liking griffons in uniform.
Hum… There was the GSA with two cute girls but on the other side there was the northerner griffons with a cute and different one, with the sexy accent and the badass-looking MILF. But the cute lavender girl was right… I had heard that the northerners didn’t really like the ponies. And the ponies are really, really important for the stability of our country!
Guess I was signing in with the GSA, after all.
“Now, now… There is no rush!” The big older northerner griffon lady with the cute accent waved a paw at me and them held her paws together in a demure way. “Remember that we are a different and exotic culture inside your own country that you don’t fully know. You’ll be part of an exotic and exciting culture in the snowed mountains. We will make a proud warrior out of you, not a mindless soldier that will do nothing but follow orders. Our leaders care about us!”
I held my beak in contemplation. That was a good argument. I already knew what waited for me with the Griffonian Army. I mean… Griffons were griffons anywhere, but the guys I knew... Let’s say that I was never very popular and with that came bullies. The ponies never really cared that I got bullied in school or that people made fun that I liked making scarves.
Had I been born in the north I would be a badass warrior that hunted monsters! Yeah! My mind made again, I turned to the northerners.
“Whoa, whoa!” The green one with the glasses yelled and drew my attention back. “That is some bullshit! The ponies are the reason we have a decent nation! They helped King Grover unite the griffon kingdoms and made us strong! Together we are all stronger! Not to mention that it is thanks to us being part of the Equestrian Confederacy that we have public schools, hospitals such as the one in Griffonstone, and griffons can get life-changing treatments for free!”
“Oh, that is rich!” The young northerner griffoness laughed. “Chancellor Gail screwed all that up!”
“Yeah!” The lavender one shot back. “Because you northerners are making this mess!”
That was a good argument. None of that would be happening if the northerners hadn’t put it inside their heads that their governor should be the king. I supposed that was settled then, and I picked up the pencil to sign my papers.
“Wait!” The younger griffoness on the other side shrieked and the older griffoness smiled all superiority.
“You want to be on our side. We have meat!” Her friend grabbed a huge, whole cut of red meat and put it on the table as the older showed it with a flourish of her paw. “Bacon… Barbecues every day. Spiced sausages.”
Hmmmm… Bacon…
“This is dumb!” The lavender one accused. “We have meat too! Our mess hall here on Fort King Grover is packed full of meat dishes!”
“Why, yes…” The older griffoness insisted. “But I mean quality meat. Roasted, right off the bone, or cooked with exotic raspberry mead… Real food, for real griffons.”
“Yeah!” Her younger friend grinned. “Not like that pony-approved crap!”
That thing did look delicious, and my mind flooded with all sorts of luxurious meat cuts to the point I thought my beak leaked.
“Oh yes, you know what you like, do you not, young tom?” The older one grinned. “Good food, good drinks, and pleasant company are the hallmarks of The Lion’s army.”
“That the heck is a tom, anyway?” Green whined. “Your northerners are so creepy!”
The lavender one raised a finger and spoke all professorially. “Never mind that! Remember that the Norhterners wish to remove all our friends of other races from Griffonia. Not to mention that Sultan Withen of Saddle Arabia and Queen Novo of Hippogriffia are very justified in their fears of ethnical cleansing and plain genocide if The Lion is made our king!”
“Did you hen just accuse us of war crimes before the actual war?” The young northerner screamed. “For real?!”
“I merely pay attention to the rumors!” The green one with the glasses adjusted them and both raised their beaks in disdain.
And to be fair, that did sound right and really bad. I certainly didn’t want to associate with griffons that thought it was okay to openly hate the hippogriffs and antagonize the saddle arabians. So, I frowned at the northerners and turned to the lavender and green girls. Both nodded at me and saluted.
But then the younger northerner griffoness tapped their table nervously. “Waait! We have revolver muskets!”
She dropped one such weapon on their wooden table. And it was a marvelous thing. A shiny barrel and silver inlays for decoration and that characteristic cylinder. The northerners really had some seriously superior weaponry, didn’t they?
And it didn’t stop there! The younger griffon placed on a table an ornate and badass axe with cool looking carvings and a sword with bent guard that looked so awesome.
Meanwhile the older griffon smiled superiorly again and showed the weapons with her silvery paw with metallic silver talons. “Northerner waraxe. Notice the traditional runes, shimmering with magic, or the griffon skysword, so nimble, so deadly. Not to mention the traditional northerner revolver musket, right out of Stormvalley Armory; its revolving mechanism mystifies pony forgeries and weaponsmiths to this day.”
The lavender griffon on the other side didn’t even give me time to process that. “The Griffonian Standing Army has superior tactics and superior numbers!”
The other one nodded and crossed her forelegs. “Not to mention that we don’t use our weapons as tools of discrimination! Fight for freedom!”
Before I could even turn to look at the GSA recruiters, the older griffon smiled and raised a finger. “I will personally give you a tour of our capital, Griffindell. I will explain to you all the culture that the ponies have robbed from you and I will present to you tales of the creation of your race, forgotten, and lost to the Windigos.”
But just as soon as I had stared at her, the lavender griffon on the other side showed me a bunch of vouchers. “I’ll give you tickets for premium meals at the mess hall! Only the best soldiers get them, and you deserve them for staying with the good guys!”
“I’ll get laid with you!” The younger northerner cried.
“I’ll…” The green one in the GSA uniform started, putting out her paws, but then she closed her fists and made a disgusted grimace. “Screw that… I’m not getting paid enough for that.”
I stared ostensibly angry at her, and the northerner girl let out a despondent “Ha!”
“What? Do you seriously believe she’s gonna put up for you because you’d be enlisting on their army?!” She blinked her eyes behind her glasses and shouted at me. “Are you that horny or just dumb?!”
I cocked an eyebrow as I seriously considered which one it was as I looked inside myself, when the older griffon cleared her throat and I looked at her knowing smile. “Yes, young tom. We treat these things different from the southerners. Exotic and different culture, remember? My young associate is quite skilled. If you accepted her proposal, I would even teach you a few things. For your mutual enjoyment.”
Well, that was… Uh…
The lavender griffon pulled at the feathers in my head. “Seriously?! They are evil!”
The other grinned desperately. “Come on Geordi! What would Princess Twilight Sparkle do?”
Yes… She was right! Those griffons were evil! What was I thinking?!
But then again… She looked so cute with that blue cape, and she had such a cute accent. Her older friend sure looked like she knew stuff… And I always had a ‘thing’ for older females… Oh, man!
“Are you still thinking?!?!” The lavender griffon shrieked desperately at me while she shook my shoulders.
Well, I was. But then, it struck me.
Under the Celestia’s sun and by the soft grassy breeze that smelled of unhealthy carnival food I realized that it wasn’t about me. That was about something larger than me and my boner for the northerner accent.
Okay, really bad choice of words…
But it really was about… More!
I squinted and I could see it, in the valley bellow, right in the middle of the large city. The statue. His statue, reminding griffons that it was better to be together. King Grover, the one that made Griffonia what it was in the present. It was about his legacy! It was about making the right choice!
I inhaled deeply and made the bravest expression I could. “I am sorry, northerners… But you are wrong!”
The green griffon lady with the uniform gasped with a hopeful expression and her lavender friend smiled, joining her pink paws together.
“This is bigger than any gift or privilege one side or another could give me!” I spoke, as sure of myself as I had never been in my whole life! “This is about doing the right thing! Choosing the right side! The one that stands for unity and for all that is good! That will defend the hippogriffs from discrimination and will not…”
I frowned fiercely. “I repeat: WILL NOT! Allow for the shadow of division and authoritarianism to darken the bright skies of Griffonia! I will, so help me Harmony! Stand with the right side! The good guys! I will fight for a united and strong Griffonia!”
In that moment griffons cheered all around me! Some whistled and pumped their fists at the sky. Others flew above and pirouetted in the blue sky to the sounds of whoops and piercing cries of joy! Damn, I could swear I heard a piercing cry in the distance.
The lavender griffon girl offered me the clipboard with my papers and a proud smile in her face while her friend in the green griffonian uniform offered me the pencil with tears in her eyes.
I signed with gusto to the sound of more cheers!
“Congratulations, Geordi!” The lavender one held my paws and smiled. “You are now a griffonian soldier!”
“Thank you, girls! You really helped me see the light!” I smiled at them.
Finally, the green one gave me the paper with my information and a stamp. “Get a move on… They’re waiting for you inside.”
“We still got hundreds of griffons to sign in!” The lavender one pointed at the gates.
I looked at the paper, and then at the pair talking to the griffons in the line. I looked at the two northerners and one guy talking to the younger one while he held the revolver musket with a huge grin.
I looked back at the paper and then at the open gates into Fort King Grover.
Well, I did make a choice for what was good, and I did say that it was bigger than me…
I raised my beak and took another deep breath. Then I took the first decisive step towards the open gates.
Something Smells Rotten In Griffonia
Standing in the middle of the inner yard, surrounded by several buildings and the fort’s massive walls I looked at the paper in my paw. It said I must go to Provisions, so I started looking signs that indicated individual buildings to the visitors and to the new recruits such as myself. The tall pole and the great flag in the center drew my attention, though. Some griffons in uniform stood in formation next to it and the air still smelled of carnival food, but the day started to heat up to the typical Griffonlandian wet and hot hell.
But nothing would keep me from completing my enlisting process after I had chosen the ideals of democracy over those misguided northerner griffons and their king nonsense.
I saw one reporter-looking gall taking a photo of the guys in uniform by the flag, then she moved to take another of the visitors walking by.
Visitors that seemed to be everywhere, from adult griffons interested in the inside of the fort, hearing about the inner workings and others touring about the place, following the signs that led them to a museum and to the battlements at the top of the walls, all under supervision from my future brothers and sisters in arms.
Lots of children running around and some youths, like me, talking to the soldiers. Well, I hoped that the GSA would get a lot of recruits that day… Especially after I had consented to being put in the line of fire for the country.
Well, what was done was done and I was proud I had done it! Now… Provisions?
It took me longer than I would be willing to admit finding the large sign that read ‘Recruits this way’, complete with an arrow that pointed at the only building that had an open door by the fort’s gates and that also had a large sign above said door that read ‘PROVISIONS’. Well, at least I had found it.
I let a grin show and put a spring in my gait as I made my way to that door. It was a simple door on the closest corner of a simple white building with a dark green roof made of tiles. It had a few windows, but they were all closed and painted black.
Oooh! Maybe they stored stuff they they didn’t want just any bird peeking into! Kinda cool, honestly.
By the door was a nice poster that showed a proud griffon, all brown and white, sitting with his chest puffed out forward and a serious expression towards the horizon. Above him a formation of griffons flew above and beneath, large and solid letters spelled:
TIGER
‘WE’LL MAKE A ~~LION~~ OUT OF YOU!’
Except someone had extensively scrawled over ‘lion’ and written TIGER above. Huh… Okay. Guess they would make me into a tiger, not a lion… Odd, but I wasn’t judging. I suppose it was good enough if that was what the army needed me to be.
Anyways, passing the door I found myself in an atrium with a booth under another ‘Provisions’ sign and a few other unmarked doors. The floor was laid with reddish-brown tiles and the walls were white masonry that had seen better days. The ceiling was the same white masonry with a conspicuous and tired-looking magical light hanging from a small chain.
Not very pleasant, but I wasn’t there to judge the architecture! Not to mention that there was a framed photograph hanging on the wall and it showed a group of griffons in scorched combat armor, helmets and posing with their muskets, pikes, sabers and big grins.
Below the caption read ‘In commemoration of the victorious deployment of the 4th Regiment of the First King Grover Division of the Griffonian Standing Army in defense of Griffonstone in the year 999 of The Age of The Sun.’
There was also a quote underneath the caption, by First Lieutenant Garth.
“Aaaaaah! AAAAH! Kill it! KILL IT WITH FIRE! AAAAAAAAAAH!”
Oh! I remembered that! It was all over the news when I was just a little kid! A horde of horrible giant flying spiders took over a warehouse Griffonstone and the GSA deployed troops from Fort King Grover to fight them while the engineering corps took care of their nest. It was a huge fight and a whole neighborhood came down in flames because of the spiders. Or was it because of the guys with the fire grenades panicking? I couldn’t remember. But they killed the spiders anyways. And it was also probably a good idea that they were thorough.
Anyways, I wasn’t there to appreciate art either. I made wide and confident steps to the provisions booth with a wide grin and puffed-up chest.
“Hi! I’m a new recruit!” I declared happily.
On the other side a mildly interested old griffon lady with small glasses and broken white feathers atop her gray head read a book, but she looked up from it and stared at me.
“Gee. So you are…” She grumbled.
“Uh… I’m supposed to present here.” I said with blinking eyes. “Right?”
“Give me the paper, genius.” She put out her yellow paw and I did as she ordered. “It’s missing your id number… I swear… The idiots they put in there…”
Oh… Yeah. It was missing. But I chose to believe that it was because the girls were too busy in an epic fight for me to notice the thing was incomplete.
Then she picked up a stubby pencil. “What is it?”
“Oh! It’s seven, seven one. Three, nine zero. Eleven, four, dash twenty-four!” I didn’t even stutter! “Whitelake!”
“Yeah… Stay there.” She grumbled and vanished past a door on the other side of the booth.
So, I just sat my rump in the floor and stayed there, tapping my forepaw in the floor, waiting.
Something heavy crashed past the door and the old lady seemed to swear, or something. “Uh… Do you need any help there, ma’am?”
She swore again, but I didn’t understand anything she said. So, I just stayed there until some guy arrived. I supposed he was another recruit, like me. But unlike me, he was actually built like a fucking soldier, and just standing next to him made me feel conscious there was dude that looked like a built to fight next to frail little me.
“Hey…” I tried being friendly.
“Hey.” He said drily. Well, so much for friendliness. Looked like a brute, I didn’t care.
But we didn’t spend much time trying to avoid each other as the old lady returned with a large burden of stuff wrapped in a single bundle made of coarse white fabric. She threw it on me, but I managed to catch it without toppling despite the thing being a bit on the heavy side.
“You’re responsible for your uniform and your equipment. If you break it, tear it or stain it you’ll have to pay for it or work for it. The Saaaaarge can get creative, so I recommend you be careful.” The ‘Saaaaarge’? Oh boy. Other than that, she also gave me two slips of paper. “Go by the armory and grab your musket. Enjoy it… I lost my bonus so you could have it. Also, report to the barracks, this is your bunk. Welcome to the GSA, I guess… And for the love of the Idol of Boreas, don’t go into the female barracks.”
“Thanks.” I told her, despite resisting the impulse to tell her both that I wasn’t an idiot and that my store probably paid for a lot more muskets than her bonus. Instead, I meant to ask which way to the barracks. “Uh, where…”
“NEXT!” She looked over me to the other guy. Ugh… Fine. I’ll figure it out myself.
I put the whole thing on my back and held the slips in my beak, walking out of the building. Some more guys walked in, one hippogriff included, talking excitedly and laughing, probably going the same way I had come and that was great. We needed people to fight the northerners if it ever came to an actual war.
Yes, I wasn’t even concerned about my financial aspects anymore. Someone had to do something about that whole mess, and I was one of the good guys! Fighting for a united Griffonia that stood with our friends the ponies and the hippogriffs.
But that was the goal. At the moment I had to figure out the means of achieving that goal. The armory was to the left, according to the signs, and the recruit barracks to the left. Considering that I carried a bit of a load, I took the right to the barracks.
It was a building stuck near the fort’s wall, made of red bricks and white masonry with rectangular windows. A lot of rectangular windows in line as though aesthetics were an afterthought. A red slanted roof and a small staircase for entrance in a central hall and it had a wing of three floors on either side.
Well, it was a place to stash griffons, not a fancy Canterlot café, so I supposed it made sense it looked… Uh… Like that.
I didn’t even have expectations, but I supposed that it could have been much worse. I supposed that the Chancellor was serious about winning the coming war if we could live in such a… Uh… Well, it looked sturdy!
I mean, if losing the war meant being forcefully removed from the government and facing any sorts of retaliations the northerners might have in mind, I suppose I would make everything in my power so that my soldiers won the war. And not to mention that most anything was bound to be better than my invisible box!
Granted, the one next to it looked much better, almost like it was a small luxury hotel, but I supposed that they couldn’t have the officers mixing up with the grunts. Or something. I once read a book about a soldier that said that. Anyways, I wasn’t exactly on a position to judge.
Some griffons stood by the left wing and others in front of the other wing of the building. Males in uniform to one side and females to the other as one of the guides showed them off and talked to a group of excited griffon children.
I supposed I didn’t have a lot of time and I would be seeing that building a lot for a long time, so I went on into the entrance. Past the doors was a nice hall with a gramophone playing some classical music and two griffons in uniform and looking mean by the door.
“Welcome, recruit.” The one on the right said with a nod. A big guy with horrid orange fur feathers, and white plumage on his head, plus serious green eyes, but that smiled warmly. “Your bunks are to the left. Odd numbers on the first door, even on the second.”
The hall had a stairway in the deep end and a pair of doors to either side. I supposed that the right was the female dormitory. Cool. I checked the number in the papers the old lady gave me and it said my bunk was 22B, so I made my way to the second door.
I was quite happy, actually. I mean… I heard that being in the army sucked, but things looked great despite a small hitch here and there! There was going to be food, housing, baths… And they were going to make me a TIGER! Yeah!
“Oh. Hi, ladies!” I said mindlessly to the two cute griffonesses walking out the door I was just about to go through… Wait, what?
I looked back at them, who frowned at me with shock and disdain, but that was before I turned again to see a lot of young griffon girls screaming and shouting at me while a barrage of… Things. Random things hit me. They ranged from common items such as pencils, pocket watches, one of the scarves someone had bought from me, an empty cardboard box, a plank (that really hurt), fake flowers, a paint brush and a hanger.
But that was before one of them slapped me in the face and screeched something about a pervert in the female lodging.
Then one of the big ones dragged me outside. Big, scary, with tan plumage and a darker body that shoved me leaning against the wall and I instinctively covered my face.
“Dude, what is wrong with you?!” She barked.
“It was a mistake! I swear!” I whined covering my face. “The guy in the door said I should go left!”
“Come on, Genette.” One of the girls that had just come out and crossed with me put a paw on her shoulder. “One of the guys had mistaken you for a male on your first day, remember?”
She groaned, rolled her eyes and offered me a paw to help me stand. “Sorry, dude. I just reacted- you know?”
“It’s okay…” I mumbled and then chuckled nervously. “I guess it was my mistake anyway.”
By the main door one of the griffons covered his beak, shaking in his best effort to not burst out laughing while the one that had talked to me frowned and scratched in between the white feathers in his head.
“Sorry, dude… I just… Anyway… right side, then.” He pointed with a thumb.
“Thanks.” I grabbed my bundle of stuff and put if back in place between my wings and rushed out of there as fast as my ashamed self could.
It was only after I had crossed into the other room that it occurred to me just how dumb the whole thing was because griffons went around naked all the time… I sat there and frowned. Maybe it was some girl thing I didn’t understand.
Anyways… It was a long hall with windows and small lockers in between double bunks. Numbered bunks, so it was easy to find mine… 22B, the lower one. There were other griffons in there and we greeted each other standoffishly. I didn’t know anyone, but I supposed that not all of them would be from Griffonstone. Maybe I’d find one of my old friends from Whitelake.
I opened the bundle. It was closed with a string around its mouth and there I found my very own green uniform and black cap! Neat! It was actually a green long jacket with sleeves and black buttons.
The cap was black, and it had the emblem of the GSA in brass. Alright. That was kinda nice. I wore the jacket and the sleeves were just a bit long, but nothing the cuff couldn’t fix. Then I put the cap. The large door in my locker had a mirror, and that was nice. I looked nice, smiling at the mirror like a big handsome soldier!
I would dare say that the green uniform went rather well with my bronze-colored self and the black cap too, with the golden highlights in my white crest feathers. It even went well with my golden eyes! Cool!
Er, not that looking good mattered for a soldier, I supposed, but it was nice anyways.
Looking back into the sack where my uniform was, I found another one. It was actually a piece of armor! It looked light and thin, but my fingers tingled when I held it. That thing was magical! Magical armor! The Griffonian Standing Army issued enchanted armor to its soldiers! I could barely hold a happy yelp holding the thing so awesome it was!
Of course, I had no idea what the spells in it did, but they just got me an enchanted armor!
Once worn, it would cover the chest and back, it was a series of metallic pieces strewn together over leather, and it came with a thick white cloak to wear underneath. Sweet! It had a cyan cape and the helmet looked like a metal plate to strap to the head, but I supposed that it should work, especially if it was enchanted too! Furthermore, a backpack, complete with a canteen and a bedroll!
That was awe-some!
Maybe I should also go grab my musket. I looked at the other slip of paper… That was cool. I mean, I was never particularly excited about guns, but I supposed that as a soldier they would become quite important to me. The slip had what looked like a serial number, or something.
I stashed everything in my locker, and it didn’t have keys… Well, alright. That wasn’t school anymore.
Well, off to the armory! I picked the paper slip in my beak and walked off in my sparkling new uniform! Even nodded to the guys by the door, despite our previous interaction. My mood soared a bit and my steps matched it.
Finding the way to the armory was easy enough and it seemed as though the entrance was forbidden to the visitors (which sounded like a good idea), but I found one of the senior female soldiers sat in the grass, talking to some kids. While she showed them her musket. She was a pretty yellow with a light pink red and vivid red eyes, wearing the combat version of the uniform, with the armor, helmet and cape. Even had the backpack and other equipment I didn’t really know what it was.
But it was cute to see the young fledglings that excited about her and the army. I mean, that was a profession that was as valid as any other, right? Once they grew, they would become defenders of Griffonia, just like Little Ol’ Geordi here! And if things went according to plan, they wouldn’t have to worry about fighting those stupid northerners. Only… Giant… Flying… Spiders…
But I would probably have a medal or something!
Anyway… I approached them, since they were on the way to the armory and one of the kids didn’t seem to be having that much fun. They differed a little from the others, with their gray fur and feathers. His head was a darker gray that went nicely with his blue eyes that seemed so annoyed.
Maybe against better judgement I decided to talk to them and coming closer he seemed to be a little boy griffon, so I lightly punched his shoulder. “Hey, little guy. Not enjoying the tour?”
“This is stupid.” He groaned and rubbed his shoulder. “You’re all going to die.”
“Hey, that’s not very nice!” My sister in arms (I could call her that, right?) put her musket to the ground with the butt down. “This guy is going to risk his life so that you can have a nice and peaceful life here in the city! When monsters come, we will protect all the cities in the nation, no matter where.”
“Do you really believe that?” The grumpy kid groaned, and the other kids sided with me and the lady staring at him. “You guys wouldn’t last a second in a fight against some of the draugr my grandfather has slayed and he’s not even a warrior. He’s a smith in Frozenshore. Gee, I bet that The Lion has eaten caribou larger than you two combined!”
What?
“Kid, what the heck is a… Druger?” My female colleague scrunched her face at him.
“Draugr,” he repeated himself with a raised beak as though the little snot was one of my jerk teachers from school. “They’re undead griffons that the Windigos reanimated. They haunt places in the north. They’re like zombies, or something.”
“Are you making this up?” One of the other kids, a cute purple and pink girl frowned at him.
“You wish!” He waved a dismissive paw at her. “My grandfather once showed me the head of a draugr he slayed!”
Eh… Didn’t sound that bad, to be honest if some old griffon smith could kill one.
“Your grandpa showed you the head of a dead griffon?” One of the kids didn’t sound particularly convinced.
“He brought it home when he followed Lord Garet in a hunt against a horde of draugrs coming south near Frozenshore.” The kid explained with all the calm of one of those politicians that had the answer to all the problems of the world.
The ones that were usually lying, by the way. Which probably were all politicians. Whence the present situation my country found itself in.
“I miss grandpa and grandma…” The kid whined.
“Whatchu doing here, then?” Another of the kids pointed at the gates. “Door’s open.”
“Wish it was that easy. Dad brought us to the south because ‘living’s easier here’.” He sat and pouted. “I’m totally going back north when I’m old enough. You guys are hecking lame.”
“Oh yeah?” I took offense at that! “Well, the GSA killed all those spiders some ten years ago! Flying! Spiders!”
“They call it Loyalty’s Day in the North.” The kid grinned like a little cunt. “Oh, wait… They don’t. Because in the North they don’t name their weekdays after stupid pony stuff!”
I took that offense at that too! “How can you say that?!”
I was about to launch on an incredibly mature set of decisively reasonable arguments like the adult that I was, but luckily for that dumb kid, my companion stopped me short.
“Shut up, dude. It’s a child.” She frowned. I pouted. And the kid chuckled.
Yeah. Fine. Whatever. Dumb kid could go to the North and stuff his beak in the snow, or whatever it was that they did there. I had better go get my stuff because I was gonna get our northerner problem fixed.
So, I made my peace, even though that kid was deathly wrong and should be corrected and kept going my way. Seriously… Parents these days. Although they were right bringing their kid south. His grandpa was the problem.
The armory, on the outside, looked like provisions and had a simple entrance, though it had a larger door on the building’s broader side. The same roof and the same walls that had seem the passage of time for a while. And, once I had opened the door and went inside, saw the same floor and ceiling. A much nicer guy on the other side of a wider booth that made me think of a bar. If I had ever been to a bar, that was.
“Hello, recruit!” The much younger male welcomed me with a raised yellow paw on his foreleg covered in brown feathers. “Let me see the slip they gave you.”
“Here!” I grinned at him, and he made a serious expression for a while before nodding satisfactorily at the paper.
“Alright. Just a second.” He put it in on a spike with others and turned to the wide window behind him. “Hey! Next one please!”
Meanwhile I distracted myself with the featureless room. There wasn’t anything to see, other than the empty walls. Shame. They should have put another photo of another awesome victory of the GSA. Some kids certainly needed that.
Without delay the griffon on the other side put a long bundle of stuff on the table. Coarse white cloth wrapped around something rather obvious and secured with a cotton string. But while that guy opened it, another griffon arrived. Another young guy, much like me, but he was all sapphire and yellow, with his crest feather fallen over his eyes.
“Get this open, recruit.” The other told me and talked to the other in the meanwhile.
It was kind of heavy, but I supposed it made sense since it was a weapon. Opening the thing was easy and the cloth revealed my musket (of which I knew little), the bayonet inside it’s white and black scabbard looked like a wicked knife… Wait…
I cocked an eyebrow, picking up the musket in my forepaws, sat in my haunches. The thing was bulky and heavy, it was also shiny metals with silvery inlays of mountains in its body and some burnt white wood. Most importantly, it had a cylinder in what I supposed was its firing mechanism. That didn’t seem right. I thought that the northerners had muskets like that. What the heck?
“Uh… Sir?” I called the guy on the other side, and he came back to see the thing in my paws.
“What the fu…” He picked it up and examined the gun. “What the hell is this doing here?!”
He turned to the window behind him, holding the weapon. “Hey, you.”
An older looking female griffon, with silvery feathers on her chest and white feathers on her head that looked strangely familiar with her glasses, if it wasn’t for her thick moustache, appeared on the window.
Wait… I wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something wrong in that whole scene!
And the griffon on the other side of the table certainly noticed too. “Just who are you, ma’am?”
“I work here, lieutenant.” She spoke openly, so obvious it was.
Now, I did think that there was something strange about her visage, but I couldn’t really put my talon on it. And, apparently, neither could the guy she called a lieutenant. He scratched his head, staring at her who just stood there innocently enough with her glasses and her big moustache.
“You new here, or something?” He finally asked.
“Yes, sir.” She spoke again, so honestly there was no denying that she was exactly where she was supposed to be and that there was nothing wrong happening at all. I supposed it was her way of speaking that struck us with such undeniable sincerity.
“Well, okay then.” The lieutenant shrugged. “What the heck is this?”
He showed her the revolver musket. “It’s a northerner musket in my armory. This thing should be… I don’t even know where it should be! Certainly not here!”
She shrugged. “Maybe it should be here.”
“How so?”
“I guess Geordi is kind of lucky. Hum?” She smiled broadly.
I just stared at them. It kinda made sense. In a strange way.
“No.” The lieutenant growled, however. “Get him the standard issue equipment and get this thing to the brass.”
She made a bored frown and took the whole bundle away when he pawed if off to her. “Yes sir…”
Then a griffon guy brought another similar bundle. “Here you go, sir!”
He thanked him and gave me the new bundle which he opened for me and that was the goods! An authentic (I supposed it must) griffonian musket. The irons were black and proper, while the woods looked like fine varnished oak, the trees all over Griffonland! Well, I didn’t know much about muskets, but that one looked like the ones I’ve seen in photos and whatnot.
“There we go!” The lieutenant. “Look here…”
He showed me some markings on the side of the iron firing mechanism with a serial number and the armory it had come from: Griffonstone Ironworks. Oh, hell yeah!
“This is your weapon. Take care of it. You break it, someone is gonna be pissed and I’ll have to give you another. And you don’t want to meet an opposing army with a bad gun.” He told me, all seriousness and I met his concern with my own.
“Yes sir. I understand.”
But then he frowned. “And I swear that if I catch you opening cans with your bayonet, I’ll make you lick the floor in every bathroom in the fort.”
I blinked at him. “Yes sir. I understand.”
“Great.” He smiled a bit. “Now get out of here. This place can’t get too crowded for security reasons.”
I nodded and walked outside with the things back in their bundle and tucked under my wing. There was a small line of griffons waiting to go in and that female soldier kept things organized. That was great! More griffons fighting for the right cause!
I made my way back to what would be my home and in the entry hall I saw a griffon in uniform affixing a few notes in yellowish paper to the cork noticeboard. Something about mail and some pony princes. The important one was the third I saw. Apparently, we were supposed to go to an introductory session in the auditorium.
I raised an eyebrow, reading and re-reading that thing. Why did I suddenly start feeling like I was back in the freaking school!?
Although, ‘before lunch’ was an awfully vague way of informing the starting hours… I supposed I better get there because I sure didn’t want to give off a bad impression in the first day!
Wait… “Uh… Where’s the auditorium?”
“It’s actually just a large classroom.” The griffon turned back to me, despite already being on the way out and shrugged. “Third floor.”
Yeah…. School.
Anyways, I better get this stuff stored and move my tail, but back to my bunk I see that my partner had arrived, and it was that guy that ‘talked’ to me in provisions. Of course, he had the top bed. Still, I decided to be friendly.
“Oh. Hey.” He did the same as me and stored his stuff in his locker on the other side of the bunk bed.
“So, uh. I didn’t catch your name.” I stashed the musket in the locker. It was almost funny that it had a proper compartment for it.
“Oh. I’m Garrick.” He turned to me with a nervous stare.
“Well, hi Garrick. I’m Geordi.” And the conversation ended there. He probably didn’t think that I was good enough to be his bunkmate of something.
Not the first jerk I had contact with and the meeting, or whatever that would be was a good excuse to get away from him, so I nodded a cold ‘see you later’ and made my way back to the hall. To my right were the stairs and I climbed them all the way to the last floor, to find the double mahogany doors to said auditorium open.
It was an ample room someone had built a stage with a pulpit on and then filled with the worst and most uncomfortable chairs they could find. It was the sort of place that made one think ‘why?’ when you could had put a bunch of sitting pillows and those would’ve been fine because griffons were gonna sit on their haunches anyways and most would just keep their forepaws on the seat and their backs would be away from the rest.
Aaaaaanyways… I found a place for me and sat my ass in the semi-crowded room filled with young griffons like me, each one on a hard wood foldable seat. They talked to each other excitedly and once again I felt as though I was back at freaking school.
At least varnishing on the seats was nice.
Then that guy Garrick came and pointed at the seat next to mine. “Hey, Geordi. Is this taken?”
“Eh… No.” I tried showing disinterest as that might have shooed him away, but no. He sat right there with one of those ‘friendly smiles’ griffons would give away, oh so generously.
“Thanks, bro!”
Great. I got picked up by one of those jerks that needed a sacrificial loser for their amusement. Maybe he’d go away if I ignored him.
It took an uncomfortable amount of time, just sitting there and ignoring that dude while the ignored me, but eventually the room filled with griffons. I didn’t count how many, but those were a lot of good patriotic griffons willing to fight for the good cause of maintaining our great nation whole! I supposed that under that light the guy on my side was cool too.
They closed the curtains on the few windows the room had and turned off most of the lights but there was enough light that we could see well enough in the dark and the first thing I saw afterwards was a large, bulky and plain massive griffon walking the middle of the room with his wings opened just a little so that he looked even larger than he already was.
All green with dark brown, almost black head in such a way I initially thought he wore the uniform and a black cowl, for some reason. His brown eyes seemed to be perpetually stuck in a frown as he walked all the way to the stage and then turned one hundred and eighty in a fluid practiced movement only to open his wings and cast a shadow on the white wall behind him when they put a spotlight on him.
That monster was the corporeal form of the Griffonian Military staring down at us.
“Welcome to the Griffonian Standing Army, you excellent creatures of exceptional skills and attributes!” For some reason I expected him to open his speech differently… Still, his voice boomed like he had somehow mastered the secrets to the griffon version of the Royal Canterlot Voice. “I have the undoubtable pleasure of meeting you in this most excellent of mornings! My name is not important and you will know me as the SAAAAarge!”
“During the course of the following months I will help you achieve your potential and become the best creatures you can be into the mold of excellence expected of the chivalrous fighters that shall defend the ideals of harmony!” He grabbed a small card from the floor and frowned at it. Somehow, even deeper than his frown already was. “While it is our duty to protect the sovereignty of our great nation, we must also not forget that the whoever our enemy, everycreature has feelings and every soldier on the battlefield is also a mother or a father, a son or a daughter, lest we forget our own vulnerability and the toils of our mortal souls in the petty struggle of wars that should have been avoided for friendship trumps all! As an addendum, we must also remember that even unthinking monsters LIKEWISE have the capacity for pain and emotional distress and that it is our duty as rational beings to provide them comfort within the boundaries of the reasonable when dealing with such threats!”
“Thus, I conclude this exhilarating and pleasurable meeting with the opportunity to remind you, my fellow creatures and citizens of the Equestrian Confederation that, with no exception, all of you unique and special individuals are accepted into our midst and that our decency to each other must never allow us to look down upon our friends! Did I make myself clear you in-no-way-whatsoever inferior and very accepted, non-problematic creatures?”
First of all, holy shit, that guy had some lungs on him. And second… What the fuck?
He cleared his throat after a second. “I am also bound by royal decree to inform you that as per the decision of her royal highness Princess Twilight Sparkle of Ponyville in the process number twenty-one, twenty-four of the year ten of the age of harmony in the friendship court, I am not allowed to physically or emotionally threaten or cause damage to those under my tutelage, or punish them in any way whatsoever that has not been previously delineated in the annex 8b of this process, and that any creature who feels the aforementioned conditions have been breached is urged to communicate the fact to Her Royal Highness through the expedite royal mail as per the instructions delineated on annex 10f.”
“Those will posted in the main hall.” He concluded calmly, stashing the cards under his wing. “Now, I serenity urge all of you marvelous creatures to respectfully and professionally welcome First Lieutenant Giane with the Blackfeather Division of the GSA Intelligence department.”
He stepped down from the stage and I think he muttered something, but I was too far away to understand. But I got distracted by the lovely griffon lady that walked into the stage and that the spotlight fixed on to. Her coat was a gorgeous shade of green that tinted her white bang feathers and went with her darker green eyes. She also wore light green eyeshadow that highlighted her eyes.
And maybe I saw wrong, or something, but I could swear that the young griffon lady that brought the magical projector reminded me of someone. Cyan coat, deep blue eyes with an adorable silvery blue plumage and back-swept feathers on her head. I could swear I had seen her somewhere, even with that weird moustache… I wasn’t one to judge, but that looked weird, so I elbowed Garrick next to me.
“Hey… Did you see someone like the chick with the projector when you arrived?” I did my best to keep my voice low while allowing him to hear.
“Nah…” He frowned at her and shook his head. “I don’t think so, bro.”
Well, maybe I was seeing things, so I just made myself as comfortable as possible in that seat and watched as they set up the projector. Someone coughed in the musky room.
Cute Giane tapped with her talon something that looked like a stick and spoke into it. Her magically enhanced voice still didn’t beat the previous one. “Hi! Welcome. And thank you Saaaaarge!”
The projector shone a painting of Chancellor Gail, blue of body and white of head, strong and serene, with a paw on his chest and with griffons flying in the sky. Fort King Grover in the background under the sun.
She cleared her voice once. “Uh… So, the traditional job of the Griffonian Standing Army is two-fold: we’re supposed to protect the citizenry whenever monsters attack and also guarantee the sovereignty of our individual nation within the Equestrian Confederation. That is true for all nations under the wise guidance of the Royal Pony Sisters and Added Princesses, but our case is special, if you don’t already know.”
She signaled the other griffon caring for the projector and it shone a map of the world for us to see, with the Frozen North at the top connecting our continent with the Equestrian Heartland by Yakyakstan and the Crystal Empire. To the south the ocean and to the west the circular islands of Hippogriffia, far enough to the south that it was safe from the Frozen North and to the north of the stupid magical storm that kept the south access to the Strait of Dove impassible. Then, to the southeast, Saddle Arabia with their precious desert.
Way past the ocean, cities like Manehattan, Baltimare and all the other pony areas with the badlands to the south. The, further to the south, past another body of water, the zebra lands, kirin lands and whatnot. Further west the pony lands, the dragon lands and more unpleasant stuff.
“This is not commonly known among the general populace…” Giane signaled the other again and the image on the wall changed to a map of Northern Griffonia. A line divided Griffonland hold, the large majority of Griffonia’s territory, from Snow Mountains hold. A border city indicated by a dot was called Thunderpeak and there stopped the verdant green and rocky landscape of our nation. Northwards everything was a sea of white snow with dots named as Frozenshore, Griffindell, Brokenhorn and such spread among the whiteness. It had a lot of mountains, though. And an arrow to the northwest pointed at the Frozen North.
It was a simple, non-fancy map, but it got the job done.
“The northerner griffons have been responsible for stopping the migration of monsters from the Frozen North…” She kept waving her finger at the projection until her shadow pointed at the right place. “Since times beyond historical records. For some reason we don’t understand they decided to stop their responsible duty and shut all commercial routes to the southern Griffonia. That has caused the game meat market to crash and also robbed our forgeries and smitheries of the high-quality iron in their mountains, which ruined several sectors of our economy and caused the present economic situation.
She signaled the griffon lady by the projector and the image changed to a painting of… Holy crap was that our enemy?!
“This is a photograph of Lord Gilad of Griffindell, who has been dubbed The Lion by his peers, with his wife, Lady Gwendolen of Griffindell.” She frowned a little at the griffons murmuring in the audience but kept her eyes to us as she spoke. “He is the elected governor of Snow Mountains, though we suspect that the electoral process is continuously botched in there because he is re-elected every cycle with unanimity. Celestia’s Royal Justiciars have investigated the situation several times, but they have never come up with anything worthy of mention.”
She shrugged. “We suppose that the northerner, less educated griffons believe they owe him some deference for cultural reasons that are not relevant. It would be in line with their position that Gilad should be crowned King of Griffonia.”
She kept beaking off about the demographics and geography of the region but all I could hear was the sound of how next level awesome that absolute unit of a griffon was! The image wasn’t a photograph either… It was a composition that showed said griffon, all dark brown with a fierce stare from his brown eyes in his white head. The dude wore a heavy cloak on his back with a freaking axe in front of him! Next to him, I supposed was his wife, that Gwendolen of whatever, but damn, did she look hot! All white with a fluffy chest and black wings in her back. Her feathers became black in her neck and her smooth feathery head made her look like she wore a cowl, or a mantle. Not only that, but she held her hopeful stare to the stormy skies above and her paws held each other before her chest in the demurest of ways.
Speaking of the skies, there was a massive fleet of ironclad airships surrounding a massive beast of an airship that seemed to drag a storm with it, and below them was a veritable legion of griffons in black and golden armor before a massive black fortification. No, massive was the wrong word. It was epic, like those stories from a certain writer that the present one will never be like.
Huh… What a weird thought that was. Still… I meant to tell Miss Giane there that the picture she showed looked weird given the context of the present political situation, but she didn’t acknowledge mine, or any of the other raised paws in her audience.
Instead, she just kept speaking and signaled her assistant to cycle the projector to the next image. “… and so Chancellor Gail is forced to intervene in public services in order to retain funds for the renovation and mobilization of the GSA, else we will be overrun with barbarians once Gilad has lost his bid to reform the Griffonian political system.”
And it was a colored photograph of the fat blue and white griffon otherwise known as Chancellor Gail laying on his back and laughing his ass off at something in a luxurious pool at a cloud mansion. He laid on one of those floating chairs, holding a coconut and straw with a paw while his other foreleg held close to him a giggling pink griffoness.
Laying on the edge was a large and not so young white and black griffon lady I was sure was the big name justice in the nation and there was a hunk of a blue hippogriff oiling her back, while next to her was Griffonstone’s Mayor pointing a thumb to his graying out yellow chest and boldly saying something while his opponent in the last election, some old purple griffon lady giggled at him and… OH MY SWEET CELESTIA WAS THAT A…
The laughing griffons interrupted the girl from the intelligence department while her assistant covered her beak and giggled at the image in the wall. When Miss Giane finally looked at the wall she cawed and almost jumped off the floor with her wings flaring violently.
“Turn that thing off!” She beat her wings nervously, but her assistant didn’t do as she asked, so she tackled it along with the tray and brought it down below the stage, but I supposed that the damage was done, and griffons didn’t stop laughing even with The Saaaaarge threatening to measurably and reasonably discipline us.
Of course, it didn’t help it when Giane ripped of the carrousel with the slides off the projector as though she was ripping off the head of a monster that refused to die, screeching, and flapping her wings in the process.
And then, as if that wasn’t enough, she plucked a few slides off the dead thaumatical machine and gasped after each slide she looked at. “Oh my gosh is he shoving… OH MY GOSH!”
Meanwhile, as griffons made crass jokes about the Chancellor and our money, I paid attention to the assistant Miss Giane had brought and she looked eerily familiar to me, smugly looking over the whole situation. The only thing that didn’t fit was that thick moustache.
Hum… My paw held my jaw in profound contemplation. There was something fishy going on, and it wasn’t the smell from the kitchen.
