“Dear Levin,
The day I met you was unlike any other. And I say this because I couldn’t understand how someone so capable of basic comprehension lay so uselessly in front of me.
Your bright blue eyes stared up into mine like our gazes were meant to lock since the beginning of time. And as pathetic and helpless as you did look, I decided to take you in. For...some reason. It was circa 21st moon, when the world was practically already ending. What was the harm in taking advantage of a country that was already in shambles?
Trojan’s troops were invading Ponyville at the time- destroying houses, enslaving the townsponies, the ushe. And then suddenly…
...you.
Like a fresh blue hibiscus in a field of sage. You were there, crying, and wailing, and begging for someone to show you the kind of attention you craved. I was too busy leading battalions to notice, however, your baby blue coat hadn’t allowed that for long.
And then our eyes met. And I was absolutely repulsed at something so drooly, so snotty, so...cute. As worthless as a piece of excrement, but as promising as a basket of muffins dropped on one’s front step. Opportunity, if you will. And how could I pass that up?
The moment I realized I could whip you into shape. To meld you into the perfect little spawn, the perfect little soldier. So I gave you a chance.
And then you started drooling on my thumb.
Griffon talons are fairly rough, so I can vaguely understand the teething practice a little now. But then, I was unprepared. Unwilling. Afraid.
Yes, I can admit, no matter how deep I was in the tears of tiny foals and their fathers’ blood, I still can’t shake the feeling of your drool on my talons. It is by far the most disgusting thing I can think of, drool. So icky. But when you saw my beak curl into a grimace of disgust, you laughed.
“...did I make an infant laugh?” I asked myself, as if to check my mug in the mirror and see if I was thinking clearly. And even then it was still such a foreign concept to me that I was completely undermined.
“Sir! Sir!” I heard a soldier call to me. He was wearing one of those hideous Troy helmets that let your mane come out of the top of it. Out of every oddity I’ve come across, that would have to be something I’d leave in Ponyville. Add that to my lists of tangents and don’t tell your father.
“Canterlot’s Royal Guard has arrived! Finally. Should we fall back?!”
“...retreat, for now. I’ve found something worth my time.”
That’s the last thing the old me has ever said. The ignorant me. The me that wasn’t open to promise just as much as I would’ve liked to think.
I entered the ship with a scowl on my face as I tossed you like a football onto the observation table. As Trojan let the hovercraft rise off the ground, I glanced toward the shaded glass windows and relished in the fact that my troops made it away unharmed. The tanks were rolling out of town, the ground rumbling with them. Seeing the look of defeat and exasperation on the enemy battalions’ faces knowing they’d lost brought me great serotonin.
Enough of that. I focused back on you once again. The drool on my talons marked my way in, one single, glossy claw mark branding the floor in awkward places. With a scowl, I hurriedly swiped it onto my flank, tiger tail lashing with anger.
“What is your source, gremlin?” I hissed through my teeth. I could see tiny pearls of my...somewhat aggressive saliva flecking onto your face. You didn’t really seem to mind it, though, clapping your hooves and looking up at me, as if to exclaim,
“Again! Again!”
I was perplexed. The confusion curled my brow upon instinct as I stepped back. “Trojan! Get in here! It can talk!!” I shouted. My loyal assistant, at the time, came rushing in with his broken goggles dangling from his horn. I rolled my eyes in angst and anticipation, jabbing an accused claw at him. “It can talk, Trojan. It can relay information.”
Trojan, paying absolutely no attention to me, only scooped up the child and began rocking it side to side. I responded with a canted brow, gaze following in the rocking motion. “What are you doing? Is that a sedation tactic? Where did you learn that?”
“Relax, Birdie. I’m puttin’ the grub to sleep.” Trojan replied. For some reason, I only grew even more furious, my wings flaring and some stray feathers falling to the floor. Your father preens me now. I’m terrible at self care.
“...to sleep? He could relay any possible weaknesses their horse goddess might have. It could be important, and you’re trying to subdue him?!”
“It’s not sedation. It’s not subduing. It’s sleep.” Trojan replied by gently tapping the brunt of my beak with his hoof. Every hair of mine stood on its end as my face puffed up like a plate of bad fugu. I still hate when that happens. “Relax, bird boy. Besides, he’s a foal. Infants like these are borderline incapable of relaying anything important, much less anything to do with this ‘horse goddess’ you’re obsessed with. Go fix yourself a plate, you look famished.”
That reminds me. Trojan’s been cooking. A lot. To the point where I can barely keep to myself without him calling me for dinner. I wanted an assistant, not a housewife. If I was interested in one of those I would’ve enslaved some mare to come and work on the ship.
So why’s he being so weird?
Either way, I had realized that he was right, and went to make myself something to eat. But as you already know, I had my suspicions about you. So I watched, and I watched, and I watched.
“Upsies!” I heard you chant while Trojan held you, tossing you up and down as per your demands. I didn’t get it. How in the world was he so in love with someone so insignificant in the eyes of the universe? Something so small, and weak, and gross?
“You want upsies, baby man? I’ll give you upsies!”
And then he tossed you into the ceiling. Or, well, almost.
Like a baby bird, you spread your wings and began to soar all around the area. I choked on my birdseed and jolted up from my throne on the airship just to fly up after you.
...and that, Levi, was the first time I felt responsible.
For you.
Now, it was a feeling I couldn’t parse. I couldn’t tell, right then, whether it was that warm, fuzzy feeling of responsibility and being genuinely worried about someone’s well being, or if it was the pounding sensation I felt in my head after I’d become concussed just chasing after you.
I watched drearily, Trojan inspecting the large dent in the ceiling of the airship.
“That smarts,” he said. Gods, he’s such an idiot. I move past it, though, with groaning complaints, struggling to heave myself up from my cold, metal slumber. “Oh, bird boy.” Trojan yanked me up by my claw before I got a chance to reach out for help. Which, I wasn’t gonna. You know the old me by now, Lev.
“What the hell, Trojan?! The damn thing’s not a weapon! Or, at least, I don’t think it is…”
That was the first time I’d ever been calm in what the old me would consider a dire situation. Trojan, for a changeling, was quite blissfully unaware of my feelings. The atmosphere was so dense to him that you could cut it up and flambé it like baked Alaska.
This, Levi, is the start of when I would learn to love you.
Trojan ran a hoof through his mint green mane and locked his teal eyes with mine. I felt my face start to melt. Was it melting?
The room grew very hot in that one spot. Like I’d forgotten to force Trojan to fix the air conditioning.
“Trojan, go fix the air conditioning.”
I could see the rusty gears in his head just being replaced with fresh ones. With the roll of my eyes, I shoved him into the other room.
Computer geeks are weird."
“Dear Levin,
Today was just as queer as any other- no pun intended. After all, I was just on my way to lead another battalion into town once again, to finish what we’d started. However, I ended up ordering Trojan to keep things in a more aerial position since we were carrying more “precious” cargo.
By then I’d just chalked it up to me finally finding something of value and wanting to keep it out of enemy reach. Suddenly it doesn’t make sense. I found myself going back on that day just as often, weighing my options. What would I do if there were suddenly more of you? Suddenly dozens of different other foals of similar appearance, bearing your wings, or your cry, or, hell, even your smile?
Well, nothing.
They wouldn’t be able to take those things away from you. You were always special in my eyes from the get-go, I just hadn’t been open minded enough to see.
From the moment our eyes met, you became my everything. And that meant keeping you out of the way of enemy fire. So, I watched from a distance. With you, huddled up in my wing like the saccharine little bundle of joy you were. Since the other night’s excursions, I’d just decided I would keep you in proximity the whole time as I watched the town’s destruction. The children crying, the dozens of ponies scooping them up and hurrying them into hiding spots; behind hay bales, behind tanks, behind debris wasn’t enough to distract me from my duties as your captor. And even then, I wasn’t even good at being that.
Until they arrived.
When the invasion was just about over- I realized with a smirk that there was no stone un-burned. No house that was un-flipped, no one that could hide from my ‘righteous’ light. You’ll realize now why I reflect on this with such chagrin, right? Even then, I watched as two guards were brought forcefully into the ship by its ultraviolet glimmer and gleam- a large beam of pearlescent light burned brightly inside the room; that’s when I realized their presence.
One was obviously very battered and bruised just from the commotion outside. His uniform was tattered and dented in a few places, the supposed gleaming iron turned dusty and pale. He glared daggers into my eyes as a petty attempt at intimidation- but I would have my reservations as well if I were attacked by an assumed ally.
His friend was a mare, just equally as tattered and bruised- both shared the same emerald eyes, I’d assumed they were either married or twins at that point. Nothing was off the table with these two- nothing will ever be off the table with strangers, Levin. Anything is possible.
Then again, the griffon’s greed embedded deep within my heritage played a key factor in why I wanted to ‘harness’ what knowledge I would’ve thought you to have. But I could tell that this exact assumption played blissfully at the edges of their judgemental gazes. That was an assumption that was very on the table, if anything.
I have led many battalions. I have conquered many lands, those of whose protection had failed to see the man behind the slaughter.
But these two, to see a griffon leading those attacks? Conquering what would have to be land that belonged to an ally? If this information were released, I could get every large kingdom in Equestria to turn against each other and really hit them where it hurt before they’d even notice.
Then again, they would catch on.
One single griffon, leading an army of what was most likely several renegade changelings to conquer land that didn’t belong to them? If anything it would only strike them as a select few looking to deviate from the path and conquer any small land they could to build a sizable kingdom to play with. I wasn’t about to take that chance and blow my cover. Well, more than I already had.
So I ordered my personal guards to escort them to the cells. It wasn’t very likely that they would make it out alive, especially not with the way they looked at you.
“Is that a foal?”
“What the hay else would it be?”
“What does he want with it?”
“Screw that, he might hurt it, we gotta take action.”
“Action?” I gave them a glare that didn’t match my malevolent grin, stroking your adorable tuft of mane like I was showing off a new prized pet. “Pray tell, how will you take out this ‘action’ against me? Are you planning a strategy? Oh dear, not in those cells…”
I knew exactly what I was talking about by then, Levi.
The cells I was planning to throw them in were completely soundproof. Electric force fields and preventative spells to keep them from using their horns and wings. In this case I’d have no trouble since they both happened to be earth ponies, but hypothetically it would work either way.
They wouldn’t be able to see or speak to each other for as long as I would keep them in there. I was absolutely insane. But I didn’t have any qualms about it as long as I was getting what I’d promised myself since rebirth.
World domination.
I watched them get tossed into those little electric boxes like fleshy pieces of garbage. And again, I had no qualms.
“I think we’re clear and ready to head into Canterlot,” I heard Trojan call from the front monitoring system, staring out the wide-view window and smiling at the scenery. Somehow, in helping me with my devious plans, he’d found time to start cloud watching. I cradled you and rocked you back and forth while I approached him, then bundling you in a wing, and saying,
“Troje, you do realize that you don’t have to mann the controls right now? I usually fly the ship, don’t I? I’m the leader, I’m generally supposed to do all of the external work.”
“Oh yes, like demanding people to do things for you.” His gaze averted as his goggles flopped down over his eyes, yet he took no time to adjust them and just turned to look at me with those large compound eyes of his. Bugs could be incredibly freaky if you worked with one up close. “I’ll do it for you, before you demand me to.”
“I...but…” I found my gaze falling to the iron tiled floor. Surely, I was coming down with something. I felt my heart drop in a way that made me feel....smaller. Insignificant, in the eyes of the stallion standing in front of me. I felt...small.
“I can do things without you ordering me to, sir. Just let me handle things for once, alright?”
And then he just brushed past me.
What on Equus was that?”