To Save our Legacy

~Zees von’s a good Fang, I tell ‘ya!~

At the bulky, battle-scarred griffon’s claim, his wing comrades replied with a deafening cacophony of cheers and whistles of their own, celebrating as any griff worth their talons would be, by guzzling down a tankard or two of root beer in celebration of their newest catch; in other words, me, being the source of their merriment.

I, of course, didn't share in their enthusiasm, rubbing the ropes around my wrists that chafed uncomfortably against my skin.

They had caught me completely by surprise, to my eternal shame. Part of that surprise was the fact that finding griffons, a species which I wasn't expecting to find, much less be on the lookout for them, so far to the west where my journey was taking me day after excruciating day. They spoke Aërish, or as I have come to know it, your daily, throaty German, meaning they hailed from somewhere within North Essia, their proud birthplace and home to most of their kind. That much I could easily tell, both from the language and their medieval customs. My Aërish was a bit rusty, but I was able to catch most of it, more than enough to learn who I was dealing with.

No surprises here when I learned they were procurers of rare goods. You know, of the living, kicking kind of goods. You see, my personal story with griffons was far from a happy one, a dark contrast to my dealings with ponykind, for example. Had it not been for exemplary griffs like Gallus or Gabby, who strived to overcome the flaws of their kind’s way of thinking, you would've found me laughing and cheering in mad glee at the sight of Griffonstone burning down to its core, the petrified tree it was built upon crumbling under it and bringing it all down to Tartarus, such was the sheer volume of spite I held for them.

Too many chances had been given to their race by creatures far and wide over the centuries, ponykind included. But without an Empyrean to properly take the reins and drag them out of the gutter they’d dug themselves into, their race as a whole did nothing but disappoint time after time after time until degenerating into what I stumbled upon during my first visit, to the point where I was on the brink of excluding them from the Heptarchy after they had requested membership; well, more like pleaded for it, drawn by the juicy promises I offered. No different than the rest, yet their case was one of desperation, a race seemingly condemned to see only the financial value of such an alliance rather than the peace initiative it truly was; a parallel to a political situation on Earth that had been endlessly raging by the time I’d been snatched away from it.

This feisty band, however, who laughed and clinked mugs together, proved to me that little had changed for them after all these centuries, each and every one of them a slave to their own whims and desires. They’d gotten the jump on me just as I’d made the halfway point on my journey to the border of the Smokey Range, ten whole days into my journey, just shy of starting my crossing of the Continental Bridge heading for Mithyana, at which westernmost’s end laid the Changeling Hive. The second one, for that matter.

What had drawn a bunch of creature traffickers so far from home, and so deep into the mainland, eluded me. The closest settlement from where they’d made camp for the night was what was once known as Las Pegasus, for what my poor sense of direction could more or less hint at. I believed I’d caught a word or two about something big happening there a long time ago. I also thought I might’ve overheard something about a tomb near there or something? None of those two things struck any matches in my memory, but from what I’d learned and could see in their saggy, almost empty saddlebags, their efforts had bore no fruit. The flock was on their way southwest towards the coast to catch a ride across the South Luna Ocean, heading towards Farisia in order to ‘do business’, if you catch my drift. They’d see if what little trade they could make out of their ‘goods’ would pay for a trip back home to continue with their enterprise of trafficking, both the living and the not.

A small reprieve was that no word had been mentioned about Maretime Bay or any of the other two settlements while they’d dragged me off for the better part of a day before they’d made camp. That also came with a painful reminder of how, with Twilight’s alleged ‘cloaking spell’ no longer hiding the ponies, it wouldn't be long until somecreature noticed that they were back, and began nurturing a bursting intent to disturb them, before deciding to act upon it. Needless to say, I’d keep any harm from ever reaching the coast or treading in from the mainland. That, I could promise you on my life, but I had to be there in the first place to hold that promise.

My ‘capture’, with emphasis on the quotes, had been a product of my lack of proper attention to my surroundings. The thestrals had been generous in their help, restocking my meager inventory with something more palatable and durable overall, as well as offering some helpful directions. One I dutifully acted upon was avoiding the, once famously known, Spring Dew riverlands, which now had become nothing but an endless bog of half-sunken land and thick, sticky fog. Great for clearing the sinuses, but not so much for crossing over.

The culprit? The mother of all storm fronts guarding access to the north of Equestria in all its rainy, thunderous glory. I did say it: you can only stack so many clouds together before calling in some nasty weather. A shame, Cloudsdale had been a marvel of a city to witness in its time.

That had driven me to tread around the Smokey Mountains through the south instead of taking the road north, and eventually coming to meet my new friends, who had me surrounded and bound tight like a sack of potatoes before I’d broken from my daydreaming. I’d been doing that a lot lately. A byproduct of my loneliness, I guessed.

It was depressing to see Equestria in such a state. Time had erased almost all traces of ponies ever inhabiting this place, with little remaining beyond more prominent, sturdy structures located in major population centers, from whose half-buried-half-crumbled skeletons and a myriad of wildlife had made a home. Every desolate landscape, every hour spent in silence with nothing but my thoughts to keep me grounded in reality was like a cold punch to the heart. Discord's words thundered in my ears. Ponies had indeed fled Equestria. And those who perhaps hadn’t weren’t around anymore to prove it. The silence of nothing but untamed wilderness around me, which in any other time would've soothed a troubled soul, now haunted mine every single waking moment.

These ragamuffins had been the first intelligent contact I’d made since leaving the Wandering Woods behind. No race had stepped in to reclaim the now empty land, or if they had done so, it had ended in failure to establish anything big or permanent. Its own brand of magic aside, Equestria had nothing that couldn't be found on its sister continents. Perhaps the political troubles between races were too much of a risk. Perhaps there hadn't been a real need for it. Perhaps they believed these lands to be cursed. I simply didn't know the reason.

The griffons, however, had little trouble scrapping the land in search of anything of worth to trade with. If it breathed and glared at you, even better. No disrespect towards the Farisians, whom the griffons were hoping to trade with, but… let’s say some of the zebra tribes and hellsteed herds wouldn't say no to some ‘unpaid’ labor force if it knocked on their door.

And by unpaid labor, I mean slaves, my next stop if I wasn't careful enough. I wasn't too worried, though. These featherbrains had been smart enough to disarm me of my twinblade, but not my gauntlets. They thought they looked stupid on me and saw little value in the gems attached to them. I swallowed down the urge to make a verbal rebuttal and gave silent thanks to Faust. In truth, I was biding my time, taking the chance to milk some more information from them. I reasoned they ought to know a thing or two since they happened to travel so much.

~An easy von, too!~ Another griffon, this one younger with a dusty, dirty-copper coat and rusty golden feathers, added after swallowing a beakful of beer. ~Didn’t up put zhat much ov a kämpfen.~

After some more nods of agreement, that same griffon took another swing to drain the rest of his tankard before feeling peckish and addressing me directly.

“Oy, meat!” He called to me in broken Equish, earning a few guffaws from his mates as they tuned in into another session of ‘humiliate the prisoner’, an old favorite for these birds. “I hav eine Frage vor you.”

I barely made the effort to work with his heavily accented Equish, instead keeping my sights on the dancing shapes of the cackling flames from the bonfire around which the band had congregated for warmth and dinner.

Unhappy with my lack of cooperation, the griffon chirped at the nearest griffon from my seated position, who promptly struck me on the back of my head with the butt of a spear he’d been keeping close to my neck, just in case I was the feisty kind of prisoner.

They’d find out soon enough.

Hissing in pain, and unable to properly nurse the throbbing ache with my hands bound, I shot my deadliest scowl towards the smirking griffon. He took my prolonged silence as an invitation to taunt me further.

“Ja, you hat eyes of Tagträumer vhen vee covghten you. Not making gut job ov payink attention. Easy prey,” He cackled some more, proud of the day’s catch, even if I hadn't really put up that much of a fight in my in-between-worlds state.

“Vhat hat gotten you so vlost in Tagtraum, meat? Eyes ov hope, ja? Mate, perhaps?” The griffon made a blind guess, hitting the proverbial jackpot when a glimmer of longing crossed my eyes, prompting him to lick his beak in the dirtiest, most disgusting show of perverseness I had ever had the disgrace of witnessing. “Yeeees, could üsen eine Frau ov your kind, vfreak. Vun to break.”

‘Oh, my Frau wouldn't even leave your bones behind after she was done chewing you,’ I thought to myself, hiding a smirk of pride under my constant scowl.

~Vhat type ov crveature ist he, eigentlich? I haven't seenen anythink like hëim~ Another griffon, with a dark-green coat and muddy brown feathers, missing his left eye with a nasty scar running across it, asked the group.

~Me neither. Verhaps ve can sell him as Merkwürdigkeit.~ The griffon sitting across the previous one, with a dirty white coat and a sickly little amount of red feathers clinging to his sorry hide, proposed after tearing another chunk of meat from the unfortunate critter who’d become his dinner. ~Verhaps ze zebras payen higher. Zhey like new things to try zheir potions on.~

‘Yeah, how about no?’ I shuddered.

The first griffon, who I could only guess was the leader of this entourage, turned in his seat to face the smallest member of the group. And by ‘member’, I mean another fellow griffon, with the tiny difference between them being that this one had tightly bound claws and wings, in the same predicament as I was. The only spoil these traffickers had managed to acquire was something that could eventually bite them back, and from what I could make out, they’d been accompanying them for a while. The rest of their booty was little more than rusty gimmicks and a loose piece of treasure or two, no doubt scavenged hazardously from the ruins of old.

~Vhat do you sayen, Exkremente? Schould ve sell ze two ov you together? I don’t think our Kunden vould bat ein eye at your scrawny hide.~

While the lead griffon scratched his navy-blue neck feathers in a pensive manner, the younger griff cowered under his predatory gaze; a stone-hard piece of moldy bread, his only meal, lay forgotten at his foreclaws.

He couldn't have been older than Gallus when I first met him, and that scared, hopeless gleam in his blue eyes caused many memories of our first meeting to resurface. A phantom passed before my eyes when the bound griffon gulped loudly, yet offered no retort to the older bird's mocking, only shrinking further into himself. The trapped griffon was seated at the opposite end of the campfire, but the roaring flames painted enough shapes upon his frame to let me get a good picture of him. And I say him, for the length of his neck feathers and head crest, as well as the bulkier shape of his overall frame, not to mention the noticeable sheath half-exposed by his forced sitting arrangements.

His fur resembled that of a snow leopard, dots and all, with a matching tail closely tucked around his feline rear legs, which was being systematically and nervously squeezed between his bird-like foreclaws. His plumage was of a milky white around his chest fluff and head where it mixed with another layer of lighter gray feathers alongside his scalp and crest, topped with a few loose dots here and there inherited from his feline rear. His wings followed a similar pattern with easy grays and white hues under a noticeable layer of grime and filth marrying them and his beautiful coat in a sorry display of squalor.

A rare breed of griffon, I couldn't help but wonder. Around ninety percent of all griffons followed the dominating pattern of a lion’s rear with bird of prey upfront, most of them revolving around brownish, greenish, rusty, or similar tones for fur while their feathers always would present a wider range of colors. Traces of other feline species amongst griffonkind were rare, usually reserved for more isolated populations alongside the Outer Reaches of the once glorious Griffonian Empire, where the harsher conditions molded the path of evolution in search of alternatives.

This poor griff, who was moments away from getting a face full of claw if he didn't follow suit, had to be from somewhere up near the frozen reaches of North Essia, if what knowledge about their kind I had amassed was to be trusted. It made sense for him to have fallen victim to these traffickers. It’s not every day you’d see a griffon of his breed. No doubt he would make for a fine sum to some sick collector who was short of a fur-and-feathers rag for his bathroom or something. Although, listening to the griffons rant about their catches, I was unsure if they actually knew about the rarity of their prisoner, since they were treating him as little more than common crap.

~Hey!!~ The griffon honcho was one loose screw away from losing his patience. ~I’m talkink to you, you Federverschwendung!!~

“Lass ihn in Ruhe.”

Just as the lead griff was about to pounce into the trembling ball of feathers the poor cub had been reduced to, my neutral-sounding warning rooted his paws in place, making his feathery head jerkily turn toward me in a grimace of deep surprise. The rest of the crew followed closely behind, the griff holding the spear faltering in his grasp from the surprise.

I cast a bored look around. “Yes. I speak Aërish, don’t sweat it.”

As I nonchalantly cleaned the filth from my overgrown nails, I had to remember to file them down after I was done with these birdbrains; a cacophony of alarmed chirps and rattles filled the campsite.

~Zhis vreak can understand üs!! He’s been listenink all zhis time!~

~He knovs vhere Heimatbasis ist!! The Federlied clan vill learn ov us iv he escapen!!~

“SCHWEIGEN!!”

In the end, it hadn't been the griffon prisoner who had driven the lead bird past his limit, but the panicked squawking of his crew. Standing tall and flaring his wings in dominance, the lead griff demanded silence and respect. That guy had a short fuse. The twitching of his right eye was all too similar to another grumpy griffon I’d had the displeasure of making acquaintances with.

All to my advantage. It would make him easy to rile up if needed.

With heavy stomps of paws and claws, the lead griff strode around the campfire, careful to avoid the burning logs while glaring cold daggers at my nonchalant self, his crew whimpering and shrinking down as he passed beside them. You can see what the griffonian concept of leadership more or less consisted of.

He came to a stop in front of me, chest fluffed and feathers ruffled, his neck plumage close enough to tickle my nose had I bothered to raise my gaze from the dancing flames, now blocked by his looming frame, to meet the death glare his golden-yellow eyes were raining down upon me.

Passively meeting his bloodshot orbs, using my bound hands to scratch my beard lazily, I continued with my disinterested attitude.

“What?”

His predatory eyes narrowed further.

“You speak our language. How?” He demanded, in surprisingly perfect Equish.

I saw no reason to deny him. “We have an identical language back where I come from. I knew some of it already; the rest. I learned here.”

My brief explanation wasn't enough for the ragged-looking griffon, his every pore dripping with suspicion as he forced his way closer to me, enough for my poor nose to catch the stench of dead meat and many weeks' worth of poor hygiene on his beak.

“Faust above, you fucking stink,” I spoke without a filter, motioning my hands to cover my violated nostrils as I shied away from him.

My loud mouth earned me a collective gasp from the griffon entourage, quickly followed by a low, threatening growl from the head honcho. His claws dug into the moist ground below us in a poor demonstration of restraint. His beak parted to deliver me a first-row seat for peering at his needle-sharp teeth hidden under the bony structure.

The griffons were afraid. Not for my well-being, of course, Tartarus would freeze over before a griffon gave two shits about another creature who wasn't themselves. They were worried their boss was gonna tear me into sizable bits for him to munch on later. Damaged goods weren't gonna buy them their ticket back to the shattered peninsula of Ng’gamia, at the easternmost end of South Essia, where their Heimatbasis was located. A hot spot for criminals of their kind, and all kinds for that matter. It seemed that an age or two hadn't changed a thing about those sun-scorched lands.

His left claw trapped my neck in a sudden lunge, his sharp talons digging deep enough to paint red pin pricks on my tender flesh.

“M-Mein Fhürer?”

The boss griff snapped towards the sole female of their group, sending a death glace at her quivering form, and giving me precious seconds to finish loosening the straps binding my wrists, although I kept my hands in place so that the griffon about to tear my neck open wouldn't suspect a thing. I just needed to be patient.

~You avready hav your toy to play vith.~ He spat, losing interest in his underling immediately after and returning his attention back to me. ~I’m personally vreaking zhis Frischfleisch before headink vor Zebrabwe.~

‘Toy? What does he mean by t-’

Behind the looming predator, virtually salivating at the idea of breaking me into his plaything, I noticed the poor, shackled griffon curl against himself even further, taking special care to protect a particular area of his anatomy in his retreat.

‘... Oh.’

Yeah, these wastes of good stuffing weren't gonna fly away from this one.

The claws around my neck squeezed harder, now fully cutting through my skin and drawing blood. My full attention was again on the griffon currently choking me.

“Listen to me, meat,” He snarled, his tail trashing behind him with a dangerous lack of patience and self-control. “I have half a mind to cut off your tongue just to be sure.” His glare hardened, his tongue coming to lick his beak for a second before curling down back into a snarl. “But, our buyers don't like it when ve have too much fun with our cargo.”

“That's too bad.” I squeezed out, gagging from the pressure of his claws on my neck. A minute more and I'd surely pass out from a lack of oxygen upstairs.

“However,” The imposing griffon growled, his predatory beak coming too close to my delicate complexion for my liking. “This place isn't short of freaks to trade with, so don't doubt for a second I won't eat you alive if you ever mock me again!!”

“Duly noted,” I swallowed hard, giving in to his forceful demands.

Seemingly satisfied by having tamed his newest acquisition, the leader of the flock loosened his grasp on me, allowing life-giving air to flow once again into my lungs. Chest out and proud, his cocky saunter saw him back towards his previous place to finish his meal.

Not two steps away from me in his victory parade, though, I had one last thing to say.

“Just a teensy, tiny thing…” I croaked. My throat was sore, my now-unshackled palm climbing to rub against the bleeding skin. A flash from my gauntlet and the prickled wounds had closed up, leaving dry rivulets of blood sliding down beyond the rim of my soiled shirt.

With his tail twitching in annoyance, the lead griffon turned on his paws to make good on his promise to tear me a new one if I didn't shut my trap.

His eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second, fixed at the sight of my free hands, the glowing gems in their gauntlets alive with magical energy.

“Wie-”

With a telekinetic shove, I sent the predator straight off his paws and into the moribund fire, the flames roaring to life once again when they found fuel in the greasy fur and feathers of the unfortunate griffon.

His cries of agony were swallowed by the cacophony of feline and avian cries of surprise and horror, the whole flock rising up in a roar as their commander burned alive, flailing his limbs in a desperate attempt to find a hold on the charred logs which crumbled to ashes under the weight of his back.

Too stunned to react properly, I dispatched my self-appointed ‘guardian’ with a quick shove of Binary, once it had reached my hand after summoning it from the discarded equipment that was my stuff. Hitting him with the flat end of the blades, one over the stomach and the other at the top of his feathery head, the griffon fell on his beak like a sack of apples, his spear quickly clattering down at his side.

I quickly kicked it away for good measure and took in my surroundings, adrenaline flowing free and sharpening my senses. The remaining seven griffons scrambled in their places, reaching for their choice of weapon resting tucked behind the logs they’d cut and arranged as seating accommodations, only to find that my telekinesis had already launched them too far for them to immediately reach them.

Rising sharply to my feet, I made a point by walking into the middle of the campfire and planting a boot into the still-struggling head griff, sinking him further into the flames and preventing any other griffon from aiding him. With a flash, I summed my translucent armor to protect myself from the flames and glared a day's worth of mockery and inhumane treatment back into the flock of traffickers, whose feathers ruffled and muscles paralyzed in the presence of a demon.

I felt the lead griffin claw feebly at my legs, yet I completely ignored him. It wouldn't long until the fire fully claimed him. That motherfucker deserved it, and this band of assholes were gonna get it soon, too.

My eyes came to rest first on the shackled griff, his gorgeous, deep-blue eyes full of dread, as were his feathered peers’. I had no intention of harming him. He’d drawn the short straw in all of this, just like me, and his resemblance to an old friend tugged at my heartstrings. His bounds made it impossible for him to make a swift escape, and neither would they allow him to dodge the carnage that would ensue, or make a retaliatory attack to force my hand.

I took care of all that with a simple spell.

“Protego.”

I summoned a protective dome over his hunched form, trapping him inside where he'd be safe until I was done. His avian instincts screamed at him, rejecting the confinement I’d placed him in. He clawed at the shield as much as his bound limbs allowed him, but my magic was too strong for his feeble, malnourished attempts.

Now that I knew the young griff would be safe, I focused on the dead meat in front of me.

“So, here's the deal,” I called out to the mass of struck-eyed predators, pressing harder on the griffon under my feet, rejoicing in the snapping of bones and cracking of flames as they cooked him alive. One of the griffons gagged, his stomach unable to take any more of it. The rest stared at me, unblinking, as if death itself had come to greet them.

I cracked my neck and offered them their choices. “You can either try and fly away like a band of starved chickens so that I can hunt you down like the motherfucking animals you are...” I pointed the solar blade at them in a dare. I wasn't gonna let a single one get away and risk them finding the pony settlements to the east. It was their choice on how I’d make that happen.

Before me was the lowest scum the already-disappointing griffon kind had to offer. In another time, they'd be apprehended by the proper authorities and delivered the appropriate sentence for their crimes.

That night, I'd make my own justice.

“... Or you can fight me and die with a sliver of honor.”

The fastest way you'll get through a griffon was tugging at their honor; bits, or your preferred choice of currency, coming in at a close second. But since we all were short in that department, my taunt was enough to rile up some feathers, especially from the one who had in turn taunted me with the mention of my mare.

Puffing up like an angry parrot, the offended griffon rose to his paws, flaring his wings in preparation. The rest quickly followed suit, yet left space for the first griff to tackle what they surely still believed was easy prey.

They should have learned a thing or two from the thestrals.

With a mighty roar, the copper-furred griffon lunged at me, pumping his wings to soar over the charred remains of their boss, talons at the ready to make an origami figure with my remains. His lunge was telegraphed. In a heartbeat, he was upon me, but I was ready to counter. The lunar blade parried his foreclaws with a nasty hit, primal instincts recoiling them in pain against his chest, bringing him out of his gliding pounce for me to step aside over the charred remains of their boss. In his wobbly path, his belly became deliciously exposed. The solar blade didn't waste a second to claim the first blood of that night. Sinking the ivory blade deep into his guts, the griffon, so sure and mighty over his easy victory, barely squeezed out a final gurgle before becoming limp in the air.

Straining my muscles, I lifted the still-impaled bird above my shoulder for everygriff to see. These fuckers weren’t gonna play cat and mouse with me. If anything, I was the cat in this little romp, and I had little desire to play around with them.

Making sure to meet each and every one of their stares, I dropped the dead weight clinging to my blade once I felt I had presented my case. The dead griffon joined his comrades in a flurry of sparks and embers. Two down, six to go.

The sole female of the group made a knee-jerk choice. From the struggle of fight or flight, the latter ruled over and quickly put her wings into overdrive, the hen struggling to get as far from the fight as her feathery appendages and adrenaline-induced panic could carry her. I wasn't gonna pull back on my promise to put them all six feet under, though. Severing the link between the blades, I launched the solar blade in a straight path, and it homed in on the fleeing griffon.

It struck home, severing her left wing at the shoulder joint. The previously airworthy griffon cried out in mind-numbing pain, falling back into the ground right on the border of the reach of the campfire’s light. A sickening crack accentuated her fall. I hoped it was her neck so I could move on to the next one, but either way, she wasn't gonna make it far if I needed to finish her off with the sound of so many bones snapping like toothpicks.

My ranged attack left me with precious seconds without both blades to wield. I summoned the solar one back, but it’d take a few moments to reverse the inertia and come back to my hand. One-Eye and Sickly-Feathers saw their chance, a single blade unable to fend them both off.

With one going high, and the other one going low, the pair scurried alongside the border of the campfire which had served as momentary respite to enact the ol’ pincer movement on me. With a roar and a screech, the griffons flared their talons at me. Having to deal with both at the same time, it was time to be creative. Instead of parrying one or shoving the other with telekinesis, I sent a power wave straight at my feet, catapulting me up way higher than what my legs could ever carry me. As the two griffons collided in a mess of claws and feathers, I twirled my body in the air as I felt gravity at work, using the accumulated inertia to send the lunar blade into a straight path downward.

That night, I killed two birds with one stone, the shimmering blade cutting its way through One-Eye’s thick neck like butter and burying itself into Sickly-Feathers’ scalp with a sickening crunch.

As the lunar blade flew out of my left hand, I reached out with my right one to catch the solar blade in mid-air, dripping bloody tears down onto the ground as I plopped down into the twitching pair. As I reached the ground, I rejoined the two blades as my feet made contact with the soul, pushing down on my latest victims for good measure with my weight. Another sickening crack twisted my stomach as the lunar blade cut its way fully into the griffon’s head and dug itself into the ground. A few more death throes, and the two griffons went limp, a pool of blood growing under them, popping and sizzling as it evaporated against the infernal heat of the roaring campfire.

Three to go.

Taking a second to reclaim my blades from their tight grip on the unfortunate birds, and swallowing down the bile that threatened to climb up my throat, I went to search for the next griffon to meet the pointy end of my weapon.

It didn't take me long, since before I could fully reclaim my bearings I was body-slammed by one of the remaining members of the flock, flying us both into the muddy ground, sliding over it until I bumped hard against something. A loud chime revealed it to be the shield I had trapped the young griff inside, a startled squawk muffled by the translucent dome followed. The griffon that tackled me had the advantage and wasted no time in beginning to claw at me from atop, searching for a weak spot on my armor as his beak sought to tear my face off.

Without my weapon, I had to compromise. Crossing my arms over his neck and snapping beak, I kept the rabid griffon at bay, leaving my tender side exposed. His frantic attempts succeeded when a lapse in my concentration allowed one of his claws to pierce my armor, sinking right into the scar from my confrontation with the thestrals. Just my fucking luck.

“FUCK!!” I wailed in pain and rage, fuming when a victorious smirk momentarily ceased his attempts to sink his beak into me. His cockiness spared me a momentary oasis to muster the necessary concentration to cast a telekinetic shove straight into his chest, separating us both explosively and earning him a few broken ribs for good measure.

As the copper-furred griffon panted and wheezed, fighting to suck in air into what might even be a punctured lung, I cast a quick healing spell to at least stop the bleeding. If that fucker had punctured a kidney or something, I was beyond screwed, for such a grave wound couldn’t be treated in the middle of the wilderness with mere healing spells.

That was something to fret about later; for now, I had a job to finish first. In a heartbeat, I crossed the distance between us, not even bothering to resummon my shimmering armor. I grabbed the struggling griffon by the scruff of his feathers, forcing him on his back and planting a boot on his chest to secure him. With the entirety of Tartarus’ own rage fueling me, I shoved my fist into his open beak, securing his head straight with the other one. The gems in my gauntlet shimmered blue past the rim of the yellowish bone. Static electricity began to build up, fluffing his feathers and making my arm’s hairs stand at attention.

His eyes narrowed to pinpricks once he realized what was about to happen. His claws left his aching chest to try to free himself from my grasp, but it was too late to stop the lightning bolt I summoned, the electricity surging straight into his guts. Equus’ avian-like population might’ve been partially resistant to lightning bolts on the outside. On the inside, however…

As the smell of yet another charred griffon filled my nostrils, I dropped the dead bird unceremoniously, rubbing my hand due to the aftershock of the spell.

Fear had taken hold of the remaining two featherbrains, who hadn't added anything substantial to that night’s ‘mock the cargo’ comedy session, too absorbed with devouring the rabbits they’d snatched from their burrows before reaching the edge of the forest where they’d made camp. Clinging tightly to one another as they quaked in their fur, the reek of urine mixed with the stench of death and blood permeated the air.

Feeling like warming up my other gauntlet, I created a negative temperature and pressure zone above my stretched palm, aiming it at the roaring flames and sucking them up into a concentrated ball of death, slowly gyrating above my gloved hand. It was always easier borrowing from what already existed than creating it from scratch, and I was already reaching my safety limit before damage began spreading through my soft, inner tissues.

In the newfound darkness that befell the campsite, the glow from a single orb of fire became eery, shining in the teary eyes of the griffon pair as the moon painted their silhouette against the dark outline of the trees behind us. Just as I was about to deliver the last strike and proceed to hate myself for the rest of my journey, a new sound was allowed to reach us in the reaffirmed silence of a dead bonfire. Originating from beyond the rim of the woods hugging our resting place, it halted my frightening march towards the sole remaining griffons, their features relaxing momentarily into a grimace of puzzlement.

Fearing we were being stalked by a bigger, or more numerous threat, I closed my fist and extinguished the orb of flames, this new, potential threat taking over my attention for the time being. As the pair sniffled and used each other as a lifeline, I strained my ears to discern the nature of the sound amidst the symphony of a tranquil forest.

A more energetic bout of activity struck a chord in my head, revealing the nature of our, indeed, stalkers. It was from their nature that I also drew the conclusion that we all hadn’t been turned into a meal yet thanks to the fire keeping us warm, an instinctive fear keeping them away.

And I had just extinguished the only thing keeping them away…

“Fuck… again”

My mind went into overdrive, coming up with a single viable solution that would spare me the need to fight until my lungs gave out. The pair of shivering chickens either hadn't heard what awaited us behind the trees or were too afraid to care for it. What I needed to do was to kill two birds with one stone… fuck, that’s the worst time to use that expression. It would, however. finish the work for me and grant me a head start.

Holstering Binary, I reached with my telekinesis for my bag, caring not for the few supplies the griffons had scavenged from it to enhance their dinner, and began walking backward towards what I hoped was the place where the young griffon was still trapped under my spell.

“You have five seconds to flee before I torch you alive,” I announced darkly, using my heels to feel the way towards my destination without taking my eye from what little the moonlight descended over the griffons.

The griffons needed no further incentive as, in a heap of limbs and feathers, the scrawny pair began pawing it away from me and straight into the woods, using the short run to gain momentum and immediately taking to the air once they felt enough air under their wings to lift them up.

The silhouettes took to the skies and began winging it above the tree coverage, my sight still fixed on them, counting the seconds. Just as I could discern the edge of the campsite in my peripheral vision, another, more vivid bout of activity shook the forest, composed of a cacophony of chittering and screeching, of the nature and intensity only one species of creature in Equestria could produce.

Without any warning for the unfortunate souls that thought wholeheartedly they’d escaped certain death from me, an amorph, sticky projectile was shot into the skies with a wet *splurt*, followed quickly by an identical one, shooting the pair out of the air with immobilized limbs and forcing them down like stones until they became lost amidst the cover of leaves.

I forced myself to listen to the mixture of blood-curdling screams and viscera being ripped out as a nest of giant bola spiders sucked them dry to the bone in a feeding frenzy.

I was, without a doubt, the worst bastard this world had ever seen.

A magical chime, this time more measured, filled the air as my heel bumped with the shield trapping the young griffon. He’d stopped struggling a while ago and simply watched the carnage I’d inflicted upon his abductors. Needless to say, he wasn't that thrilled when I dispersed the shield around him. With nothing separating us both, his fear-struck eyes narrowed to pinpricks, believing he was about to meet a similar end.

“Incendio.”

Drawing from the last reserves remaining in my gauntlets before needing a quick recharge, I cast the several chopped logs around the campfire aflame, the previous sitting arrangements now acting as a poor, temporary barrier between the giant arachnids and us while the flames took care of the bloody remains of the griffon flock. I had neither the time nor desire for a proper burial, much less any passing words I felt they deserved.

With that temporary relief shielding us, I could finally focus on my young friend. The poor cub was paralyzed from head to tail in fear. Had he not, I'm positive he would've already winged it far from here, in the opposite direction of those two unfortunate souls, of course.

With considerably more light available as the fire slowly consumed the thick logs, I was finally able to take in all his features. My previous description had to be sadly complemented with a sickly amount of bumps, bruises, cuts, and all manner of different signs of abuse, some older while others looked to have been done only a day ago, tops. Most of them had healed or were in the process of healing. He was a young griffon, a battle-scarred example of his species. Most of those scars he'd eventually brush off, and perhaps come up with some fake war stories around them to impress the chicks.

A few lacerations, however, weren't healing as they should, the first signs of infection already manifesting in his thick, snow-ready fur and plumage.

“Mph, this isn't looking good…” I mulled to myself, focusing on a particularly nasty cut right over his right side, the griffon favoring the other one as he remained trembling on the ground, his blue eyes never losing mine as a part of him surrendered to the inevitable.

“B-Bitte…” The young griff croaked out with a parched throat, although water was far down on the list of his priorities. A feeble claw rose to shield as much of him as he could from me.

With a flash of my gauntlets, his bindings came loose around him. Yet, the poor cub made no attempt to flee or even stretch his wings. He remained rooted in place, almost wishing that the earth would swallow him.

“I mean you no harm.” I dropped Binary at my side and raised my hands to prove that I meant it. The smallest amount of reassurance lessened his trembling to something more manageable, yet fear still clung to his heart in a vice grip.

As I took the moment to properly readjust my bag and the twinblade’s holster at my back, I tried a different approach.

“Sprechen sie Equish?”

A glimmer of understanding shone in his teary orbs. Wetting his lips, the young griffon shuffled nervously under his ruffled wings, his leopard tail curling around himself.

“... Little…” He changed his chirp and strained his vocal cords, tasting the foreign word in his tongue.

“Good.” That was more than enough for me. I could work with the balance between my broken Aërish and his basic Equish. “I will help you with your wounds, okay? Verletzungen heilen.”

The griffon was still reluctant to accept my offering and shied away from me as I tried to offer a helping hand.

“Look,” I rubbed my forehead tiredly, feeling the drain from the previous fight slowly crawling up my limbs and demanding rest and recovery. We had to hurry before the bola spiders had finished with their meal and perhaps felt peckish about trying foreign meat. “I can’t begin to imagine what you must have gone through with those fuckers. And I know gutting an entire flock of seasoned griffons in a single go is far from the best way to introduce myself.” I took a knee in front of him, once again offering a gloved hand as I pointed with my head to the roaring flames behind us. “But that fire won’t fool the bola spiders forever, and they sounded more numerous than to be satisfied with just those two bags of skin and bones. Wir müssen gehen. Jetzt.”

The urgency of the situation proved more than enough to overcome the language barrier. Running his sight back and forth between my open palm and my reassuring eyes, the griffon swallowed loudly and finally gave in, reasoning that, had I wanted to harm him or tear him apart like the rest, I wouldn't have wasted time making my acquaintance with him. Reaching with a trembling claw, its digits cracked and caked with dirt and filth, the cub took hold of my hand.

Taking his gesture as an invitation, I gently balanced on my heels and slowly guided him to his paws. Uncurling himself from the tight ball of protection he had curled himself in, the griffon rose on shaky legs. However, while abused joints cracked and popped into place, the griff was unable to keep himself up for more than a moment before a searing flash of pain contracted all the muscles of his right hind leg. A quick analysis revealed yet another gash running horizontally for the better part of his flank.

“Hurts…” He squeezed out behind clenched teeth, resettling his weight around his three remaining limbs.

“Of course it does,” I cursed inwardly, my heart aching for the poor chick. He was considerably more battered than me. If we wanted to make for a quick escape, I’d have to think of something. “What of your wings? Können Sie fliegen?”

The griffon gave his wigs a tentative ruffle before following my request. What should’ve been two gorgeous wings full of spotted gray and white feathers, now held an unhealthy amount of plumage in a striking form of disarray. There was no way those limbs were gonna catch any air under them in that state. The impossibility of that solution was accentuated when, as he tried to stretch his right wing, another stab of pain quickly brought it back to, the griffon folding it against his side.

“S-Sorry…” He apologized in his most defeated chur, his head hanging low as his limbs began to tremble once again, this time from exhaustion as they fought to keep him upright. “J-Jüst, leavn me here. Rette dich selbst.”

“Like shit I will.” I stubbornly rebutted, catching him by surprise with a slight jolt. It seemed my exhausted limbs would have to suck it up for a little longer. There was always time for a terrible night’s rest after we’d put a reasonable amount of distance between the quickly carbonized remains of the campfire and us.

Summoning Binary to my hands, I rotated the handles to sever the link between the two blades. I didn't miss the tiniest twinkle of cub-like curiosity breaching through weeks, or perhaps months of fear and abuse in the young griffon’s eyes, bringing the first smile that had graced my lips since perhaps leaving the thestral enclave behind.

While not my preferred method of carrying them, I holstered them loosely against the rim of my pants, the blades resting against the length of my legs. Their length was enough to almost pinch the ground with each step, and their loose weight usually brought me off balance while traversing rough terrain. But it did free my back, and I had no time to think about crafting a rough splint. After we had acquired some distance I'd look into treating him to the best of my abilities, but I needed every bit of my remaining strength to leg it out if there at a brisk pace.

“Come on.” I motioned to him once the only thing obstructing my back was my bag, shifting my stance sideways and waving a hand in invitation.

The griffon remained as still as a stone, either not understanding my invitation or still too untrusting of me to consider it.

“Um…” He clicked his beak nervously.

“Dude,” I tried once again, this time more sternly. I could almost feel a thousand spindly legs daring the flames until a particularly braver one thought about going around it and ambushing us from the sides. “This is far from my preferred choice of introductions, but we really, really need to get out of here, or would you rather be turned into spider food? Believe me, it's not a pretty way to go.”

A mental battle was being waged in the young griffon's mind. Time was ticking dangerously low by the time a clear winner stood out.

Swallowing loudly, the griffon cub limped on his three, relatively healthy limbs and, hesitantly, clung to the straps of my bag with his claws while his rear legs came to balance themselves against the small of my back. He was careful not to dig his feline nails into my delicate skin. Once he’d wriggled himself into a comfortable position, I felt him visibly relax once the weight had been lifted from his underfed frame.

“O-Okay.” I felt him shuffle nervously one last time before gently nudging the back of my head with his beak. “I vready.”

“Great job.” I congratulated him in a friendly manner, claiming a small victory when I caught a tiny, shy smile from the corner of my eye. His added weight was no bother to me, his avian heritage and magic lightening his body in a similar manner to that of a pegasus or a hippogriff. Also, the fact that, if it wasn't for his generous coat, I could bet my arm I'd see his ribs under his hide.

“Just make sure not to wriggle too much back there. Also, don't open your wings, or you'll drag me off balance and we both will be having dirt for dessert tonight, okay?”

Feeling him nod behind me meant I didn't have to repeat the message in my poor Aërish. I made a mental note to catch up with it if the cub was to be hanging around us for the time being, not that I had that much reference material to freshen up my memory.

Whatever, I'd deal with that later. For now, our task was to not get eaten by a nest of overgrown spiders. Fucking things; I might've lost much of my phobia around them while in Equestria, but those abominations were nightmare-inducing on any day of the year.

Grunting in effort, I hoisted the both of us up and dusted off my pants, making sure to pay attention to the edges of the hanging blades. With the weight-lessening runes deactivated, they felt like carrying two oxygen tanks from my days of scuba diving, meaning I was familiarized with the load and painfully aware of how annoying it was.

The heat from the fire I‘d started hit our backs furiously, almost taunting us to step into it and join the carbonized remains of the griffon scum. The riverlands were humid and frequently sprinkled with rain. I wasn't worried about possibly starting a massive forest fire.

“What’s your name, by the way?” I asked as I took in our surroundings, choosing the best path to follow to resume my journey while heading directly away from that place.

“... Gaius.” He answered after a second of hesitation.

“Hmm, that's a nice name,” I commented amicably as I began the trek, quickly falling into a steady rhythm. With the moon and the stars as my sole guide, I angled us back north-northwest into the Continental Bridge.

“You can call me Alex.”