To Save our Legacy

“Very well, let's get a good look at that wing, ja?”

Just as the thunderstorm clouds were beginning to pile up in the night sky, we’d found shelter within the privacy of a musty hole, no taller than me, and carved haphazardously within the stone of a particularly rocky hill, the cavern too small to be called a proper cave. It looked, and most importantly, smelt more like the den of some predator or another. I couldn't quite picture which dangerous creatures inhabited these parts of Equestria anymore with nature in such a state of disarray. I only hoped whoever inhabited it had abandoned it in favor of a comfier place, although chances were it was simply out hunting under the cover of twilight.

There weren't any discarded bones or leftovers as far as I could see. Some good news for me, at least.

However, we'd be in for a rough awakening if we weren’t careful. My newest friend and I had opted to seek shelter from the incoming rain and spend the rest of the night while we were at it, having completed a long, tiring run with what little strength we could scrape from our tired muscles, tearing through grassy hills and muddy flats, our bodies painted faintly silver under the fading moonlight.

Well, I did most of the running since Gaius was still reeling from his injuries, but you get the idea.

With enough distance put between the late griffon slavers’ campsite (and the nightmarish abominations that now stalked it) and us, we could breathe a collective sigh of relief and hunker down for a little while, and use the chance for some R&R. My legs screamed for rest after carrying a load of two, and Gaius needed to have his wounds checked over by someone who actually gave two shits about his pitiful condition.

The journey across the empty stretches of Equestria's borders had been shared in a mostly awkward silence. My ragged breathing as I burned kilometer after kilometer worked in tandem with the young griffon's shyness and lack of trust to fill our shared trek with little more than the sounds of nature to guide us.

Gaius had been the one to spot the den just as I was about to finish bordering a nearby sparse of woods to resume my beeline towards the Continental Bridge and the lands beyond. His Boreal Eagle upper half, a majestic, endemic species of the Frozen North, had granted him the ability of nightvision, allowing him to spot the hill clear as day when all I could see was darkness over black, mixed with a void of color cascading down the outline of the hill.

Congratulating his quick spotting, we’d silently agreed to spend the night in the relative safety it provided, as long as its owner wouldn't come knocking in the dead of night. Lighting up a feeble fire close to the exit so as to not flood the cave with foul-smelling smoke, we settled down in its humid guts, with the luck of having found shelter just ten minutes shy of a heavy downpour that begun to nourish these lushful lands, encouraged by the quick coming of Autumn.

Good timing; it'd erase our scent and mud trail in case some nocturnal predator wanted to add us to their late-night dining menu.

With the settling tranquility of our new accommodations, I reasoned the top priority was to first check on the young griffon’s condition, and assess if his state was good enough to accompany me to the Hive and back to Maretime Bay where he'd get proper medical attention. If it wasn't… well, I guess he'd have to rough it up or wait here for my return. I was unsure which of either choice would be the best one.

Sad as it may be, not even a lost griffon cub in distress could derail me from my mission. It sounded cruel and insensitive, I know, but the stakes were simply too high and the risk too real over my family for me to push it back any longer than absolutely necessary.

Gaius, as skittish and jittery as the moment I’d met him, hesitantly complied with my request for a checkover after a bit of careful bribing. Having settled near the very back of the den, he shuffled his fluffy body closer to me as he stretched his wounded wing as far as the pain would let him. Hissing through his beak, his limb unfurled halfway before the metaphorical needles stabbing his flight muscles became too much to bear.

A quick analysis revealed a myriad of problems. Just as I’d hinted previously, his unhealthy amount of remaining feathers were in serious disarray after what I could only approximate were several weeks lacking proper care and preening. New ones were starting to grow to replace his missing primaries and secondaries, but he'd have serious trouble bringing himself aloft with what little was left clinging to his bony appendages, even with his griffon magic kicking in overdrive. His undernourished muscles would not help his cause, either.

No severe wounds marred the outside of the wing that would entail such a harsh reaction when bending the limb outwards, meaning the culprit had to be inside his feathery appendage.

Not bothering with decorum, I reached out with my hand to grasp the troublesome limb, using my uncovered fingers to feel under his soft plumage, just as I’d done with Zipp after ceasing the blood loss from the wound the timberwolf had inflicted upon her.

Faust, that felt like eons away…

A smirk found its way to my lips when, unsurprisingly, the telltale reaction from one of Equus’ denizens experiencing my ‘magic fingers’ for the first time didn't skip Gaius. With a light startle and an amusing, crooked beak, the griffon settled down on his haunches and gave me free rein to examine him at my leisure. I could hear the gears turning as he allowed his mind to indulge the new, strange sensation.

Something told me that, besides fierce clawing and abusive hitting, the amount of friendly contact he’d enjoyed in recent times gravitated around the null digits.

His bones seemed in good condition alongside the rim of the wing, as well as the joint mid-way that would allow the wing to extend its span to the fullest. Nothing out of the way. What little muscle he still carried seemed strained, as was expected, but nothing torn or sprained too badly.

I ended up finding the root of the problem at the shoulder joint, where the wing met the body. The bone was out of the socket and painfully forced down from its proper place. It was a miracle the ligaments hadn't snapped alongside it, which would have rendered the cub permanently flightless. A young one's flexibility allowed him to avoid that, perhaps, but it was an issue that needed urgently correcting.

Luckily for him, it was a relatively easy fix, even out here in the wilds, but it would be an unavoidably painful one for him. In his feeble state, I wasn't gonna risk forcefully putting him to sleep to spare him from the harrying experience. I also needed his immediate output to see if I’d done a good job with the wing. I was a doctor, but not that kind of doctor.

… Did I say that already?... Perhaps…

“Okay,” I announced once I was positive of the nature of his problem. “I’ve found the issue, and I can patch you up right now…”

“... But,” Gaius said with a leading inflection, the cub smart enough to smell me out.

“But, it will hurt like Tartarus and you'll want to rip my face off after I do it.”

Dread began oozing out of him as he retreated the wing in a heartbeat, raking his claws against the stony ground to put some distance between us. His sudden efforts won him yet another jab of scorching knives along his injured wing.

“Scheiße!!” He wailed as he clutched his injured limb.

Something told me he was too young to use that kind of language, but griffon cubs were not foals, and their average upbringing was utter horseshit compared to your day-to-day Equestrian foal, with loving parents and supportive friends and a healthy environment and yada yada yada.

Heck, calling him a cub was already a stretch. That griffon had seen more and had endured more than any creature his age, or any other age should ever have to suffer through. I could see it in his eyes, a worrisome lack of warmth and life behind the fear and pain that shone behind the dim light of the fire.

I needed to be more tactful. “Look,” I tried again, my heart reaching out to him, but his condition wasn't safe enough for a later fix when he was feeling more up to it. “The alternative is you straining that joint to the point it snaps and sends you into a literal world of pain, rendering you unable to fly for a few months, if not for the rest of your life if the damage spreads too far.” Flooring my hands palm-up over my knees, I laid the choice plain and simple for him. “It's your call.”

Keeping his weary gaze fixed on me, he searched for any hint of deceit in the alternatives I’d offered him. Sniffing the stale air tentatively and squeezing his fluffy tail hard between his foreclaws, Gaius debated whether to continue trusting me or to finally call out my non-existent bluff in the open. We’d held onto the mutual trust of a pair of scruffy wastes running for their lives, but given what he must have lived through, I couldn't blame his young mind for making him act like the king of the scaredy cats. I could only try my best to have patience and offer him my help and sympathy, even if there was little time I could spare.

Another mental struggle storming in his head concluded with a firm result. Gaius’ nervous gulping told me he'd take his chances with me, and claw my face off the moment I tried something funny, as I had pointed out.

Smart choice; I'd have done the same.

Gaius shuffled back to engage with me on the terms of our previous arrangement, claws extended and at the ready under his skinny frame. With little trust behind his actions, Gaius extended his injured wing once again, swallowing hard and mustering the guts to soldier through the pain.

“Do eet.”

Happy with his choice, I dragged my knees closer to his side and felt once again around the joint to pinpoint the best place to unleash my course of action.

“Okay then. A big pull, a stab of pain, and it'll be over, okay? I promise.” I gave him my best reassuring look.

Swallowing the limo in his throat, Gaius nodded and clenched his eyes, hunkering down in preparation.

“On three.” I squeezed harder around the joint and lit my gauntlet to help me apply the necessary force. “One, two-*Crack!!*”

“Seine verdammte Mutter!!!”

His survival instincts kicked in hard right after his cursing, a claw flying true to rip off the source of the pain from him, only to meet the blunt end of the lunar blade, mere centimeters away from my face. Hopefully, the deafening drumming of the heavy rain had muffled his wail, should some creature out there be listening.

The cold, unforgiving metal of the blade’s sharp edge brushed dangerously over the scaly tissue of his avian wrist, quickly landing him back in the real world. My stony face was enough to let him know he better watch where he sent those deadly weapons of his, or else I'd be having chicken for dinner, and quite possibly breakfast too.

Not that I’d ever do that, but it got the point across.

With the message well and clearly imprinted in his narrowing pupils, Gaius jerkily returned his claws close to his body and skidded back until his rump collided with the end of the den.

“S-Sorry…” He stammered with a droopy head.

Keeping the blade in the air a second longer for good measure, I returned it back to its resting place against the wall of the cave. The poor griff couldn't physically shirk himself further into a ball of embarrassment.

“Right…” I said as my weapon clinked against the wall while I changed my pose to a cross-legged one. “Wing?”

Gaius, slowly uncurling himself to a proper resting position, gave his wing a tentative roll in its socket. The feathery tufts over his ears perked up when he found himself able to fully extend the limb, the cub giving it a test flap or two with little of the expected soreness around the lower part of the limb.

“Good, just stay off that wing, and no flying for the time being. I'll check on it periodically and assess when it's safe for you to do so, okay?” Gaius quickly nodded, his bristling happiness breaching through to light up the gloomy den.

“Very well. Anything else bothering you that I need to check over?”

Gaius gave his malnourished body a run-over both with his sight as well as with his senses. Most of his attention revolved around his injured flank, the culprit of that nasty limp on his right rear leg.

“Hmm, vack leg veel bëtter,” He summarized with his broken Equish. “Griffon volk make me valken very distance, hurt müch.” He clenched his hindquarters, coming out with a half-meant grimace from his beak. “Bëtter nov, only… uh… pum pum, pum pum.”

“Throbbing.” I got the message from his clenching and relaxing claws. “That's good. We’ll have to check that frequently too, in case it gets infected. Here,” I said, reaching for my bag and extracting a glass jar, barely bigger than my fist, full of a foul-smelling, greenish paste; a healing salve, courtesy of the thestrals. Opening the lid, I dipped a finger into the concoction and snuck it under my shirt to smear a healthy amount over my wound, caused by a claw from that previous scuffle, allowing me to save my energy for healing spells until tomorrow came. I nudged the jar in his direction, feeling his apprehension rising once again. “It's disgusting, I know, but it'll keep the germs away from that gash.”

A quick whiff was enough to scrunch his feathery features into an adorable pout, as if he’d just given a nice, long lick to an oozing lemon. Still, he chose to continue trusting me and grabbed the offered jar. Peering inside with a curious eye, his features furrowed into a grimace of disgust, his free claw coming over to cover his violated nostrils.

“I zinking zees hav more germs ëinside...” He nasally spoke from behind his protected beak. With another word of reassurance, he caved in and dipped a claw inside, sticking his tongue out with a childish ‘blegh!’. Wiggling his rump into reach, Gaius gently spread the salve over the gash running across his flank, his tail rising up and well away from the smelly paste.

Feeling a chuckle rumbling in my chest, I took notice of the dried blood cacking the fur around the gash, as well as marring his coat in several other places, obscuring what should've been a gorgeous set of fur and plumage, thick and fluffy to face the worst of winters.

Now, his malnourished state had left him with dry patches of fur in several places, no doubt reminders of the ‘fun’ times that the griffon hen had surely inflected on the poor guy. The spots over his feline half were dulled and muted over his light gray coat, filthy with specs of dirt, mud, some stubborn leaves and twigs, and what I feared were an assortment of dried-up fluids taking up the better part of the fur covering his underbelly.

This griffon was in serious need of some urgent rest, as well as a healthy dose of pony-patented hospitality. I prayed there was still some figment of youth to be recovered from this broken cub. Few members of his kind had ever fallen into my good side, much less having carved a spot in my heart. Something all of them shared, one blue-furred-and-feathered griff taking the medal, was little more than the broken remains of a childhood full of abuse and difficulties.

Gaius was no different. The good news was that I knew well what was eating him on the inside and how to approach it. The bad news was the actual need for a steady approach in the first place.

Once he was content with his work, Gaius returned the jar to me, falling back into his usual silence. I sealed the jar tight and returned it to my bag. Thankfully, those wastes of feathers had focused on pillaging the tastier bits of my restocked supplies and had left the rest more or less intact. I wasn't too worried about my, once again, diminished supply, though. I now had two predators rolled into one at my side. His keener senses would find our dinner on the road, should he wish to accompany me. I only wished I could head back straight to the Bay with him.

“Z-Zhank you…”

The sound of his shaky voice dragged me out of my short daydream. A quick peek found him nervously drawing circles with a foreclaw on the loose rock in front of him, his eyes not rising to meet mine.

“Hmm?” I urged him with a sideways dip of my head.

“Saving me,” He answered, barely over a whisper, his tail coming to coil itself around his rear legs once again. “Dankeschön.”

“I wasn't gonna let myself get dragged into slavery by those Hurensöhne. And, neither was I going to let them drag you into it, too.” I brushed off his gratitude with a bored shrug of my shoulders, yet my heart filled with warmth from his appreciation.

A shame that it wasn't meant to last.

“Um,” Gaius set to carefully test the waters. “Vas eet really nëcessary? Zee, um…” Unable to find the words, he squared his shoulders and motioned his elbows up, syncing his foreclaws to horizontally grasp the empty air in front of him, as if he was grabbing something. The exaggerated movements of his arms told me he was mimicking my bladework.

‘... No, Gaius. By Faust, it was not necessary.’

“The sentence, most likely,” I replied with a pensive scratch of my beard, keeping my front as my mental walls struggled and creaked as they held up the weight of my mindless actions back into the deepest corners of my mind. “The means, however…”

With the sentence left to hang in the air, Gaius nervously fumbled with his claws before adding his two bits.

“I-I ünderstant…”

“No, cub, you don't.” I was quick to counter despondently, brushing his stammered sympathy off. “Someone as young as you wouldn’t kno-”

“You knov nothink!!!”

It seemed that I’d struck a nerve. His sharp rebuttal fired the alarms in my head. As he got up on all fours in a display of firm stubbornness, ignoring his injured limb, I reached behind to coil my fingers around the reassuring chill of my blades’ handle, just in case.

“Enlighten me, then.” I offered without passion.

Narrowing his predatory eyes, Gaius sought to prove my bluff wrong.

“I mëight veing young, ja! Vut I seen müch!” His left claw balled into a fist, which he slammed into the ground in a heap of frustration. “I come vrom mine-villach. Reichhaltiges, vlenty mineral ünder snow.” The bubblier he boiled, the more he slipped into Aërish, making it hard to understand him the more heated he turned. “Clans vight Minotauren vrom moüntains, vant mineral too. Zey ambüsch villach, griffon vight bravery! Zey…”

Just as he seemed to reach the summit of his anger, the words got caught up in his throat, his heated rebuttal coming to a swift demise as a shadow fell over his blurring eyes.

I needed no further explanation, for his story was that of around ninety percent of young griffons you'd find wandering lost and alone on the streets of Griffonstone.

“... But they overran your village and killed everygriff, including your parents. A sibling too, perhaps.”

Cold and tasteless, but it hit the nail on the head. His resolve crumbled like a pile of cards under the strength of a hurricane. And just as quickly too. Where a glimmer of strength and determination had hardened his message, now the first true tears I’d seen him shed began to pool around his blue orbs.

Without the constant fear for his life keeping the soft tenderness of emotions under wraps, and under the newfound calmness of our precarious arrangements, the past finally had the chance to catch up with the poor griffon.

His breath hitched in his fluffy chest, and the sound of his hiccups that preceded the downpour filled the abandoned den. Just as I caught his claws racking hard against the stone as he struggled to keep up his composure, I dragged my rear closer to him with a stretched arm, seeking to comfort him.

“Nein!!!”

His sudden wail made me recoil in surprise. His features became stony, and the tears raining down his cheeks were now loaded with rage. “Papa say I need to ve schtrongën!! I schtrong, I survive!!” Gaius smacked his tail hard against the floor. “I survive alovn in vild!! I survive the snow, I survive cavture, I survive du!!”

Oh, something inside me didn't like that last accusation.

“Don’t be mistaken, cub.” I caught myself by surprise with his tantrum quickly growing old in my already throbbing temples. The searing rage cruising from his veins was blinding him from the actual truth of his fate. “You are alive because I willed it so.”

“Vhat are you talkën about? I vould hav eshcapen myselv eventually. It vas a matter ov ti-”

“You were cowering like a stranded kitten!!” I snapped, rising on my knees since the ceiling was too low to use my towering height to my advantage.

Gaius’ claws scraped the loose stone as he reined himself from taking a retreating leap back and proving my point, feathers ruffled in a pathetic show of intimidation.

“You were being starved and abused by them. I wouldn’t have bet an arm on you making it to Zebrabwe alive with those monsters, much less making it through the night on your own, here of all places!!”

Gaius' rear collided once again with the back of the cave, sending a pang of fear up his spine when he found himself without an escape route.

I wasn’t finished. “Up there, the worst that you had to soldier through was the cold, but here,” I pointed with my thumb at the den’s entrance, softly illuminated by the light of the full moon now that the feeble fire I’d lit had been bested by the wind and humidity of the storm. “You’ve seen what kind of monsters lurk around here without ponykind’s control and supervision, and I’m not talking about the griffon scum!”

“I-Ich…”

“‘Ich’ nothing!” I cut off the fastly crumbling griffon, his bravado melting away under the strength of my stare. I wasn't meaning to be a jerk to him, much less after all the crap he’d been through with that flock of slaver motherfuckers. But I needed to cut the horseshit short and quick with him.

The only thing his griffon pride was gonna earn him was a warm and cozy spot in the belly of some beast, if he didn't end up trapped by another flock of wandering birds before that, or worse. “The world out there doesn’t give a shit about how much you can ruffle your feathers and make yourself look big. It doesn’t care how brave you make yourself believe you are now that your wings and claws aren’t bound by rope!”

Seeing as how he wasn't gonna lunge at me, if his trembling legs and beak were enough of a dead giveaway, I lost the grip on Binary I hadn't even realized I’d searched for once again, and took a deep breath. I was feeling too tired and mad at myself and everything else to drag this conversation on any longer.

I was starting to feel detached.

Returning my back to the mossy walls of the den, I let out a sigh and rubbed the bridge of my nose tiredly. “Fucking hell… According to that sick code you griffons share with the dragons, saving your scrawny flank makes your life mine. Congratulations!!” I cheered darkly with a clap. “You’ve traded one form of slavery for another, only this is one you cannot escape from without breaking the code and being shamed by everygriff you encounter until the end of your days. Is that it? Is that what you want to make of this?” I pointed back and forth several times at me and the griffon to get the message across.

Gaius jerkily shook his head in a brief ‘no’, my harshness having catapulted him back to his shy, defeated self as he whimpered at the idea of falling back into the abusive grip of another creature.

Peering into his scared, leaky eyes dragged me down from the self-anger-fueled cloud I’d summed above myself. With another sigh, this time of shame, I changed my approach and addressed him with kinder eyes.

“Look,” I started once again, offering my hand in a peaceful gesture. I’d let my temper get the better of me. I was better than that. “I am deeply sorry for your loss, and all the crap I’m sure you've been through. But your sob story is only one amongst dozens I’ve heard by now. But the only thing I can always offer back are words, and the promise of keeping you safe should you trust in me. I too have lost my family. Twice now.”

A glimmer of sympathy shone on Gaius' deep-blue orbs for a second before being swallowed down by his apprehension.

“And I fear that I’ll lose my new family again if I’m not careful enough. Getting captured by a flock of slavers was a tremendous slip for me. And their fate, terrible and cruel as it might’ve been, I felt was more than deserved...” I retreated my offered hand and squeezed the knuckles against my left palm, swallowing down a lump of bile as the fresh memories of that battle flashed before me.

“... But I needn't have delivered it in such a way. I was angry, and sad, and afraid, and frustrated and, and... This journey is taking its toll on me, and the longer I drag on, the… t-the…”

My daily dip into the self-pity pool was interrupted when, over the skin-peeled knuckles and leathery gauntlets firmly clutched within my fingers, dark tendrils had begun to emanate from its power gems, swirling and quivering around the central one. From the LIMstone, being fed magic by its smaller sisters, purple, dancing ones had begun to mix with the others. A haunting omen. A captivating sight that chilled my blood to its very core.

I was slipping, and I’d been doing so for a while. The more I pushed on, the worse it got. I had to be careful. I would not let it take over me.

“... I happen to know, Gaius.” I managed to squeeze out once the ghastly sight had vanished when I regained some semblance of control over my oozing, poisonous emotions. “I wished I didn't, but I do know. And I’m so, so sorry…”

The griffon had remained as still as stone while I poured out my heart and choked on it. Shifting his sight from my gauntlets, my hands having failed obscuring their haunting shine from his keen eyesight, and my own eyes, squeezed shut to keep the tears in and failing miserably at it.

Once again, I’d made it about me. I couldn't keep the images away, visions of what might be if I failed, on this task and my original task. All the tasks, one after another, piling up and crushing me down until I crumbled, only to sculpt me back into what I needed to be to get things done. I was no less of a monster than the griffons who sought to enslave us. In the loneliness of what used to be my home, there was no place to hide from myself.

My family, my marefriend; figures I’d relied upon in the past, preventing a lost human from giving in to the side of him that screamed survival. Figures who had knocked him down a peg or two when his thirst and ambition would see him breaking the promises he once held and cherished.

Little remained of that human, leaving only what could be spared to fulfill his fate according to her vision. I was already a slave before those griffons captured me. I had been for a long time by then. I wouldn't allow Gaius to become one, too. He deserved a fresh start, just like Gallus had got. Just like many students who had flocked into the School of Friendship had got.

Faust, why do you need to have given them such similar names? She’d never run out of ways to mock me.

The softness and warmth of a griffon's feathers, few and frazzled as they might’ve been, enveloped me as I lay prone against the heat-sapping wall, hugging my knees tight like the stranded kitten I’d accused Gaius of being.

“I… I-I’m sorry, Gaius.” I sniffled hard and I shrunk further into my own ball when I felt his hold on me become tighter, unable to even meet his warm gaze. “This is unbecoming of me.”

The young griffon, moved by my bleeding heart which, at that moment, felt as dead and empty as I was feeling myself; had snuck his way closer to me as I chased fate after fate, possibility after possibility in my thoughts.

Whether out of pity, empathy, or a mixture of both, two lost, crushed souls hurt together in the silence of the night. One was still young, full of life and potential, buried deep after weeks, or perhaps months of suffering under the claws of your own kind, who would treat you like little more than an animal.

The other one…

“Doës it get easier?” Gaius mewled from under the tears we were sharing in silence, his frame tightly pressed against my left side, his tail coming to coil around my clenched legs. A side-look told me that, in a twisted, unfair sense, his pain was a mirror of my own, only he was at the beginning while I had crossed the end and I didn’t dare look back. “Zee pain.” He asked, almost begged while a foreclaw clutched at his fluffy chest.

What I could only describe as a brotherly side of me couldn’t stand to watch the defeated griffon clutching me tightly any longer and I managed to overcome my muddy pity, bringing my efforts back into aiding him. The physical wounds were always easier to remedy, but the scars we wore within would take months, if not years to heal, if they ever did in the first place.

Sneaking a hand through the free space his partially stretched wing allowed from my shoulder, I surrounded the cub in an embrace of my own, pulling him closer and rejoicing in the superior warmth he provided, one I’d been craving for and only made possible by his winter-tested coat and plumage. As his head came to rest over my shoulder, I laid mine over his fluffy scalp, gently running the tip of my nose over one of his feathery ear tufts in a reassuring gesture.

“It does,” I whispered through the spotted feathers of his head crest, squeezing him tighter to my side. “But not by yourself, it doesn’t.”

A blue, sleepy eye peaked from over my jacket which he’d nuzzled his beak into, asking the wordless question. Stitching my best attempt at a smile, I winked a teary eye at him.

“The first and only ingredient required is a bunch of friends.”

I got no answer from Gaius. Exhaustion from the day’s events and the security our shared company provided had finally claimed him. A day of many emotions and a renewed promise of freedom.

With his gentle breathing settling in, and his grasp on me not lessening, he made it clear what our sleeping arrangements for that night would be. I didn't mind, we both could use each other's company. We’d both been alone for some time, and I believe I’d previously mentioned how therapeutic cuddling with some of this world’s inhabitants was.

Some of them, anyway.

Wiggling a bit to find a comfier position against the curved wall of the den, I whispered a protection spell over its entrance, hoping it would hold against the owner’s wishes of coming back in should they return from their hunt.

I was starting to like Gaius. It seemed we both had some stuff to get off of our chests before a true working partnership could bloom between us. Half of me wanted to ask him to simply wait here for me until my return. Again, should he wish to accompany me back to the Bay. I feared whatever horrors we might find on our way to the Hive, and the monster that was sure to await us inside its labyrinthic guts would prove too much for him, especially in his still-wounded state.

The other half, however, was the one who was tired of being alone, the one who understood the power of friends working together, the one who craved company when all my loved ones were far away, the one who wanted to give this poor griffon a chance of being a young cub with all his life ahead of him...

My selfish side won over. I would take Gaius to the Hive and back. I’d introduce him to the ponies and give him a task to keep him occupied.

As my eyelids slowly became heavy over my weary eyes, I’d already mulled over a thing or two for him. The only thing left was to hope that the ponies back at Maretime Bay would be as welcoming and encouraging of him as they had been for me and Sparky.

“Trust me, little cub.” I brushed his side tenderly as I settled in for the night, jumpstarting the telltale purring that would dig the final nail in the coffin of my exhaustion and lull me to sleep. “You’re gonna love it at the Bay… I wonder if you've ever seen the sea…”

“And… vas she pretty?”

I did a double take at my young companion’s inquiry, almost tripping over a nasty-placed rock jutting out of the ground, camouflaged under the foliage of the first brownish leaves dying and returning to the earth. Skipping on one leg until I’d regained my balance, I peered into Gaius’ eyes, his sudden shyness masking any mirth he might’ve felt at my clumsiness.

“Uuuh…” I droned as I shook my smelly clothes loose after the startle. They, and by extension I were in urgent need of a rinse and bath in the closest stream I could find. But we were so close already to my destination.

“Vhat?” Gaius exclaimed, the underlying squeak from his beak denoting his embarrassment under my crooked gaze. I couldn't blame the little guy for being curious, but…

“Dude. What I’m telling you happened more than seven hundred years ago. She included.”

“I-I know zat!!” Gaius boomed with a blush exploding on his avian features, rubbing his foreleg nervously as he averted his gaze to omit my teasing smirk. “Yüst vondering, only…”

The red on his feathery cheeks only increased tenfold as my booming laugh echoed with the rolling breeze that danced around the browning leaves of the trees above our heads.

Gaius had been an excellent companion through the last leg of our journey. When I confronted him with the urgency of it, he’d initially become hesitant. Gaius had had enough of wilderness and roughing it up, and he simply wanted a safe place to lay low for some time. With the death of his family and the destruction of his village, deep within the Boreal Peaks, according to him, Gaius had little left in life to win or lose. His lack of mourning during the few times the topic had come up was worrisome. Whether it’d been long enough that he had no more tears to cry, or the slaver scum that had snatched him away as he faced the frozen reaches alone had beat it out of him until little was left to spare.

Even still, it hadn’t taken much to definitively win him to my side. Our prompt escape from the slavers had left him without an immediate purpose. Again, little to win or lose; all that was left for him was to wander aimlessly until something big and mean claimed him. He hadn't sounded that horrified by that outcome, just… resigned to it. Even more alarms rang in my head and the choice was completely made there and then.

Everything productive I’d done since my arrival had been harm, curses, and rage against fate and the chances delivered to me. I was becoming toxic; I wasn't blind to that fact. Even if deep inside I knew nothing I could ever do would repay the harm I’d done, I’d nurture this life in exchange for those I’d extinguished. I can’t pinpoint the burst of brotherly responsibility that gripped my heart every time I peered into his sad, sparkle-less eyes, but I wouldn't shy away from it, just as I hadn't done so in centuries past.

He deserved better, and I’d give him better with the help of my pony family.

The prospect of being alone once again overcame the lingering doubts chipping at his trust and, with a promise sealed, Gaius would accompany me to wherever I needed to go and back home where I’d give him a proper place to live and the best friends he could ever ask for. I didn't miss the tiniest, briefest of smiles when I laid out my end of the bargain to him. It warmed my heart to see how, deep inside, there was still a young griffon trapped inside the shell he’d built around himself.

Not revealing the actual nature of our destination, for under no circumstance would I involve Gaius with the changeling queen awaiting me; we’d set out as a team of two. Once the night and the rain had passed, we bolted out of the den, only to find ourselves face to muzzle with the biggest, fiercest chimera I’d ever heard of or had the disgrace of encountering.

For a brief moment, my adrenaline-bathed brain short-circuited thinking how in the seven layers of Tartarus that thing could fit into the den that had housed us for the night. Then, behind the foul-smelling breath of dead and decaying flesh coming from the creatures’ lion jaws, I noticed the still-fresh blood from, most surely, the den’s previous occupant dripping from its fur. Chances where that it’d followed the scent of its latest prey back to its den to see if it could catch a few scrapes and, would you look at that, it hit the jackpot!!

We were that jackpot. The way its three heads began salivating at the sight of us was comprehensive enough.

Have you ever faced a three-headed monster? Not fun. It took me more than an hour until I could bring it down, going after one head at a time, while Gaius clung to the tallest branches of the tallest tree his keen sight could find within reach. Poor guy was mortified when he found me panting and ragged on the ground with the downed monster at my side, a few more bite and claw scars to add to the collection, while he’d turned tail and cowered for his life. Some team-mate he made, as he sulked.

I didn't blame him, of course. He’d made the smart choice, after all.

No more significant scares bothered us during the last days of my journey. While my wounds grew in number, Gaius’ scars slowly but surely disappeared under his plumage and coat. Whilst our choice of menu was relegated to my diminished supplies and whatever we could hunt or gather on our way, some luster was returning to his fur and feather, and a healthier amount of bone peeked from under his skin. His recovery was exemplary, no doubt fueled by his youth. According to him, he was eighteen winters old, putting him at the tail end of a griffon’s puberty period according to their development rate and lifespan. I understood then why he didn't like being called a cub, not that I’d stop teasing him with that. He’d looked so ragged and malnourished that any guesses regarding his age I made would've been completely off.

Not only was his condition improving, but his general mood was, too. Curiosity and wonder painted his features more often than the taciturn demeanor that would cast a shadow over him every time his thoughts drifted back to the past. Now that nature wasn’t out to get him, he could properly enjoy it, seasoned with the countless stories he’d wring out of me. Having lived in a tiny griffon village up in the Frozen North, where thick blankets of snow and nasty blizzards were the norm; such lushful landscapes and thrilling stories from yours truly captured his attention with a rapt eagerness.

And it was during one storytelling session, while we trekked under what my poor sense of direction identified as the Whispering Woods, that I’d managed to tease my newest companion a bit more, to my merriment.

Once my belly laugh had run its course and Gaius had got the venomous glare out of his system, I reached down and ruffled his crest feathers in a friendly manner.

“Well, if it’ll please your hormonal rush,” I playfully teased to an adorable pout of his rosy cheeks. “Yes, Gabby was a very pretty griffon. She was a pure ray of sunshine, that one, always going out of her way to make everycreature feel and be their best. She did something with her feathers that I've never seen on another griffon.” I sent a hand to the back of my head, motioning as if I were tying my hair in a ponytail. “She wore them in a ponytail, like… you know?” I wasn't sure if I was making myself sense to the listening griffon. “Very charming.”

With squinting eyes, Gaius tried his best to picture the image of my old friends while hopping dexterously over a fallen log blocking our path. My heavier ass was too lazy to follow him, so I simply levitated it out of the way once Gaius’ paws were back on the ground.

“I zzzzz… thinking I know vhat you mean.” The griffon hummed in though, correcting himself as best as he could. Since we'd be joining the Equish-speaking ponies on our return, he wanted to improve his domain over the ponies’ language. I was more than happy to offer as many pointers as he needed while he slowly got the hang of the correct pronunciation and tenses. “Sche sounds like eine nice griffon.”

“She most certainly was.” I offered with fondness in my heart. “A true rarity amongst griffonkind.”

Apparently, Gaius knew exactly what I was referring to. “Yeah. Griffons not very nïce most time…” His words hung in the air as an omen.

An omen that caught me off-guard. “Is that also true so far up north?” I asked with a dip of my head.

“Mhm,” Gaius answered in a short, clipped response, likely not feeling too proud of it either.

“Wow,” I replied with genuine surprise, using my telekinesis to push apart a bunch of stubborn branches grown for the specific purpose of bumping an average-height human in the head. “I would’ve thought you guys had it rough enough up in the northern wastes to spare being a dick to each other.”

“Vamëly vas alright.” A steady twitch of his still-healing wings rooted the griffon in the present. He’d gone through too many trips to the past to want kill the mood with another one. “Vee shared nest, make z-ugh, things together and care little vor other vlocks. Papa make most of hünting. Uh…” Gaius clicked his beak in search of the needed word but failed. “Verkaufen, part ov hunt, rest vor us.”

“Mhm.” I nodded in acknowledgment, making sure he knew I was listening.

A happy shake of Gaius' tail told me he was happy with me lending my ears. I couldn't imagine how much time he’d spent with only himself for company, to only be able to listen to the storm we all have in our noggins.

“Yes. Mama be müch time at nest. I vas… um.” With a bit of unrehearsed theatrics, Gaius made himself look as if he was having the worst tummy ache in the history of griffonkind, rolling around the ground like a dying soldier and getting twigs and leaves all over his coat and wings.

I couldn't hide an amused smirk. “You were sick. You were a sick hatchling.”

Gaius nodded with a little pride once again, this time directed at himself. “I hatched during bad vinter. Not müch vood…” He rubbed his foreleg and averted his gaze, a very ponylike gesture I’d learned that clearly meant shame or nervousness in him too. “Hard time.”

“I can guess it was.” I offered in sympathy, earning a thankful smile from the griff for my efforts. “The few times I… ups.” I caught a small indentation of the path through the corner of my eye, forcing me on a small skip over it, or else I’d have tripped and made a fool of myself to my young companion. “The few times I visited the Empire showed me that under no circumstances should I ever underestimate the North.”

“Empire?” Gaius’ head cocked to the side cutely. “Vhat empire?”

“The Crystal Empire. Never heard of it?” I asked. A single shake of Gaius' head told me he didn’t. “Huh. I mean, I know it’s been a while, but the Empire was a big shot up north, before and after its disappearance.”

“Not much zings vrom outside reached mein village.” Gaius reflected, scratching the feathers on the back of his head. “Closest I cän zzzzzthink about is Minotauren clans in mountains.” A few seconds passed before it struck him like an arrow “Vait, vhat do you mean ‘disappearance’?”

The smile touching my lips grew wider as I peeked down at the puzzled griffon. “You want another cool story?”

With a vigorous shake of his tail, Gaius was more than ready for another of my stories, reminding me a lot of my pony family when these same words had touched their ears and made them dream of times long past. With a feline hop, Gaius reached my side and matched my pace, his big, awestruck eyes demanding me to start. I couldn’t resist playfully shuffling his neck feathers, eliciting a short, but meaningful purr from the adorable griffon.

“Very well. It all happened during t-”

As the words turned into ash in my mouth, and the wonderful feeling of my scritches left his fluffy neck, Gaius was quick to smell something was out of place. Landing back from his happy place, Gaius gently headbutted my side when he saw me standing limp in the middle of the road, sight fixed at some unknown spot in front of us.

“Älex? Vhat is wrong?”

“...”

He couldn't have known. How could he? But I knew full well where we were. Centuries and the autumn landscape had made their work known, but nothing would ever tear the memory of this place from my mind.

Without uttering a word, I resumed my gaze towards the end of the row of trees, flickers of open skies peeking from behind the dense vegetation. Gaius fumbled for a second with his limbs before falling in tow with a half-flap from his wings to catch up, puzzled and visibly worried with my sudden change of demeanor.

Before he could repeat his question, I’d reached the limit of the upper half of the forest, standing in a very familiar spot with the immensity of the Mithyanian landscape unrolling before me.

My sight was fixed on a clear landmark, jutting out from the sea of trees. Gaius, having reached my side, followed my line of sight to find the prominent landmark too hard to miss.

“Oh, ist zat vhere wwwe are going?”

His shot in the dark struck true. With a silent nod from me, Gaius’ attention was once more upon the slender, crooked spears of the Hive’s stony crow. Where in the past a barren, desolate waste surrounded it, all work from its unreformed occupants, life now bathed the valley and clung to its wavy sides all the way to its uppermost reaches.

“Looks like a mountain.” Gaius offered, barely over a whisper as he drank in the privileged sight from our vantage point at the peak of the cliff, the exact same point Discord had teleported us during our impromptu rescue mission.

The day I…

“A hive.” I shook the storm clouds away, hardening my focus into what, or better yet, who awaited me. “That’s a changeling hive.”

Gaius was too transfixed to notice my gauntlets charging up.

“Changeling? Ist zhat some sort of cre-YIKES!!”

Two magic-charged shots were fired into the horizon with me studying their trajectory closely. As the hum of power died in the gems of my gauntlets, I saw the projectiles remaining on their course until they’d disappeared beyond my sight. The magic had remained strong and was not affected by the Onyx throne’s influence like had happened the last time. Whilst it was destroyed during the changeling revolt against their old Queen, I wanted to make sure she hadn't gone hunting for the pieces and reassembled it. Without magic, I might as well just lie down in front of her and let her suck me dry, like she’d tried to do more than once in the past.

This time, things would be different.

Once I was confident I would be allowed to face my old enemy at my fullest capacity, I went to find my companion. Gaius was pressed hard against the ground, foreclaws gripping the feathers of his head as he whimpered and shook like a leaf, perhaps thinking we were under attack.

‘Tsk, way to go, you fuck face.’

While I scolded myself, I lowered myself down to my knees and brushed a hand over his scalp.

“Hey, hey, Gaius, it’s alright.”

My gentle touch took a bit to register in his mind. One eye at a time, he peeked around at our surroundings, landing on me once he was sure we were indeed out of immediate harm.

“Forgive me,” I apologized with a parting pat on his fluffy head, bringing myself up to my feet. “I needed to be sure that magic worked correctly around here.”

Raising himself up onto all fours and shaking the dirt of his coat, Gaius glared at me a little before wondering. “Vhy wwwould your magiks not vork here?”

“That is another story for another time.” I brushed his curiosity off this time, feeling the dread of the incoming fight already tightening its icy grasp around me.

“... And could not you hav jüst vloat a leaf around to check?”

Chuckling at his snarky retort, I peered over my shoulder to see him giving me a weird look, catching my own reflection within the smooth surface of the solar blade, jutting out from my back where it was affixed.

“Levitating stuff around isn’t what’ll help me down there.”

‘For the most part, at least.’ I finished off mentally, gripping my gauntlets and tightening them against my palms.

With a huff and a ruffle of his wings, Gaius shelved the issue for the time being and began to prepare himself for the definitive leg of our journey.

“Vhatever, should we get going? Ve better find way to go down. I should not fly yet…”

“You’re not coming.”

Gaius stiffened up and slowly retracted the two steps he’d taken alongside the rim of the cliff. With feathers ruffled and ear tufts dropped in defiance, he stood his ground.

“Vhat do you mean I am not comink?!”

“You’re not,” I replied, short and simple, with a sweet smile that only managed to grow the vein in Gaius’ temple. Loosening the straps from my bag, I unceremoniously looped it around Binary and threw it straight into his puffed-up chest, where he fumbled with it for a moment, trying to keep the precious supplies inside.

Pointing with my thumb, careful not to cut myself with the twinblades attached to my back, I directed his attention behind me. “I remember there was a bigger clearing not far in that direction. If it's still there, go and wait for me. Light a fire tonight so that I can find you. It shouldn't take me longer than that to come back. If I'm not back by dawn, take my stuff and head back east until you reach the coast. It's around two weeks travel with a light ste-”

“Woah woah woah!” Carelessly dropping my bag in front of him, Gaius stood on his hind paws to meet my height, a stubborn gleam in his narrowed eyes. “I am not going anyvhere! I hëlp you, you hëlp me. That vas zee deal!”

“It's still the deal, Gaius.” I tried to reassure him while I ran a careful eye over my gauntlets, checking for any dents or damage on the LIMstones and their smaller sisters. They were worn out and a few stitches were becoming loose, a sign of repeated use. Perhaps Izzy could mend them for me, for I was positive they had some more action left to see before I was back home. “You've held on your end of it.”

“Not iv I not coming!!” He flared his wings to stabilize himself in his bipedal stance. I was rejoiced to see he’d done so without a hint of pain. They were healing as quickly as the wounds on his body.

“It's dangerous down there, Gaius. I don't want you to…”

“All journey is veeing dangerous!!” He cut me off.

“... Point taken, but still…”

“Still vhat?!!”

I saw I wasn't making any progress with him. The way he was acting told me it wasn't simply a matter of childish stubbornness or a griffon trying too hard to adhere to the code with him. I could read him like a book, knowing well what had truly coiled its tendrils around his heart.

With a long sigh, I finished my quick inspection and went down once again, this time in a squatting manner as I offered a hand in front of me.

Gaius brought himself down, his stubborn frown still present to defy my choice. But my reassuring smile and warm eyes collapsed his defenses quickly, leaving his true fear out in the open.

“... Bitte. P-Please, don't leave me älone…”

I said nothing, simply laying my hand and waiting. Gaius made a brave attempt with his best try at puppy eyes and pouting beak, but I was too trained in the arts of cuteness to be affected by it. In the end, he saw that he wasn't making any progress with me. With defeat painted on his every feather, Gaius reached with his own foreclaws to grip my offered hand.

It was almost alien to me by then. So many years living amongst hooves had made the action of a hand gripping another hand, and the motion of interlocking fingers with another seem almost otherworldly. There was something to the act, something more powerful and definitive than holding a hoof. That's what I wanted to transmit. I knew the last thing he wanted was to be left alone again, especially with the both of us hitting it off so well these past couple of days traveling together.

But my reasoning was the same as with my pony family. Fighting an old and seasoned changeling such as Chrysalis meant every ounce of love you held was a liability, be it toward friends, family, or loved ones alike. This dance was between her and me. One of us wasn't gonna walk out of it, and Harmony's curse on me or not, I'd give my dammest to make sure Chrysalis met the destiny she deserved.

Squeezing hard on his scaly appendage, I sealed the silent promise. I'd come back for him. Tomorrow, the day after, the week after… I knew not what awaited me inside the Hive, but I had a family waiting for me back home and, if fate would have it, a new, feathery member to add to it once we’d returned. I simply didn't want to leave him exposed in the wilderness waiting for too long.

Letting go of his claw, I felt my heart break at the sight of his sagged wings and droopy head. But the choice had been made.

“Sit tight, Gaius. I'll be back soon.”

“... Okay.” He acknowledged with little life behind his words. Without anything else to say that'd conceive me otherwise, Gaius began making his way toward where I had pointed, casting one last, sad look behind him before scampering off within the tall bushes until the ruffling died down to an eerie silence.

I waited for a bit to make sure his stubborn flank wasn’t following me. Once a few minutes had passed without a sign of a scurrying griffon trying his best to remain undetected, I started my own way toward my destination.

Bordering the cliff until reaching the slope would take the better part of the morning, and I didn't wish to waste that much time. I had magic this time however, meaning I could be somewhat more… creative.

“Aaand, it’s another gold for Spain…”

Cracking my neck and loosening my knees, I stood at the border of the cliff, balancing on the balls of my feet with the tips hanging in the air. Rolling back and forth twice as an Olympian jumper would, I let gravity take hold of me for a brief moment before firing my gauntlets.

Starlight was the one that showed me this trick. While her mastery in levitation was still leagues above my own, the art of applying telekinesis to oneself was a tricky spell to master. I didn’t need to master it completely, though; just enough to use it to slow down nasty falls such as the current one I was embarking on. It was a devilishly tricky, but undoubtedly helpful spell.

By the time the row of branches had begun to fill my peripheral vision, I’d enveloped myself in the levitation bubble and started, as I had described to the gifted unicorn once, ‘pulling myself up by the laces of my shoes.’ Defying the laws of physics was always so fun and dangerous… and fun.

With a reverse somersault, and because I had a non-existent audience to impress, I landed on my feet with a cushioned *thump*, the magic working to absorb and dispel all energy from the fall. I struck a pose and everything, but the magic cushioning my fall didn't work correctly on the twin sword strapped to my back, making it feel all the weight from the fall and promptly dropping clumsily to the grassy ground when the magnetic attachment proved to be not strong enough.

“Tsk. Full tens if not for you, you worthless piece of overpriced junk.”

Firing my gems, I summoned Binary to my hand and lifted it back to its proper place. Before me stretched the lower half of the Whispering Woods. A new half, grown thanks to the tender care of the reformed changelings in their efforts to transform a barren wasteland that would surround each and every changeling hive that ever settled, into a lush paradise they could be proud of.

Where dangerous, sharp protrusions of bone-dry rock and empty stretches of volcanic dirt welcomed us when our impromptu party had first embarked on the rescue operation, a healthy forest, packed full of endemic flora, now complicated my efforts in keeping myself oriented, even if the tallest peaks of the Hive could be discerned in irregular intervals from beyond the leafy cover.

I needed around two hours until I could leave behind the trees and stand before the full might of the Second Changeling Hive. Realistically, it should’ve taken me much less, but something was slowing my steps to a casual walk which was anything but relaxing or pleasant. As countless memories flashed before my eyes, every step became heavier, and every meter I advanced made me want to retract back ten. I was confident in my abilities. I was smarter, more powerful, and more prepared than the last time I met her. Heck, this time I had magic to defend myself with.

And yet, her message still bugged me. The simplicity of it, I guessed, just chafed at me. Chrysalis was not one to act like that. For being the Queen of Equus’ quintessential infiltrator race, she was far from being plain and subtle. Her usual way of doing things would’ve entailed kidnapping one, or all ofmy friends while she was at it, and replacing them until she could stay my hand. Even if she was alone now, I’d expected something more… something that was less…

“Talk. She wants to talk.”

There was nothing to talk about. Starlight had given her a chance. Twilight had given her a chance. All of Equestria, during the Second Battle of Canterlot, was willing to give her and her ‘companions’ a chance. After having blown up half of Canterlot, to boot!

“They took my life…”

The entrance to the Hive awaited me. Well, a multitude ofentrances. Centuries hadn’t been enough to get rid of its labyrinthic guts, it seemed. Just great. At least it hadn't collapsed in on itself like Canterhorn Peak had. A small glimmer of hope filled me when we thought that some changelings might still be around and taking care of the place, until I remembered who was waiting for me inside. That flicker then promptly died off into nothingness. I could only pray that the changelings, in the face of what was transpiring in Equestria, had found another place far, far away from here to live and grow with the new opportunity of freedom they had carved out for themselves.

According to Ikko, no creature had seen a changeling in as far as their memories reached. That didn't surprise me much, for it was their specialty after all. Permanent hiding was better than extinction, after all, for Chrysalis’ Hive was the last changeling hive to survive on the face of Equus. The fate of the others… well, I’m sure you can guess, considering how changelings were back then.

Steeling my nerves, I saw no reason to dawdle anymore. I had come there for a single reason. I would not falter, I would not show pity. If Chrysalis wanted to talk, we’d talk, but not before I had torn her vocal cords off so it would be me doing the talking.

Choosing the widest opening, I forced my feet to begin the march into the dark catacombs of the Hive. At least, I’d expected for it to be dark and gloomy, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the bioluminescent lichen that, being the only organisms in Equus who could establish an actual symbiotic relationship with changelings, and therefore always painted the interior of the Hives with its greenish, feeble glow, had found a way to survive without them, providing the same gentle illumination it had done the first time I and my companions had ventured inside.

While its shape-shifting properties had disappeared alongside its inhabitants, kilometers of tunnels and galleries still stretched before me. I could already feel a headache building in my temples. There was no way I could remember the way we’d taken to reach the throne room last time, nor did I have a changeling with me to guide me through its morphing corridors. Considering half of our time had been spent tricking the changelings, and the other half running from them, it left precious little time remembering details like how we entered the lair of one of Equestria’s most dangerous enemies..

The long way it’d have to be. Knowing Chrysalis, she’d be waiting for me in the place her brethren betrayed her, surely ready and eager to deliver her ‘oh I’m so wicked and evil please bow to me’ speech. I wasn't gonna give her the chance to. I was more than fed up by now with her and all the single-minded, villainous scum whose asses we had kicked over and over again.

“What is she even trying to do?” I asked myself while debating whether to take the left or right tunnel to follow. “Is she seriously trying to lure me in and trap me… for what? Is she planning to conquer the Bay? She has no drones to aid her, and the gang already knows about her and her ways.” I had made sure to give them a quick crash course on how to spot and nullify a changeling before I’d finished packing the supplies. “Is this a personal matter? That’d be too much like her; she always did take things very personally.”

As I traversed tunnel after tunnel, gallery after gallery, I racked my brains trying to find the actual reason for her summons, creating all sorts of scenarios and anticipating them in my head. Crafty was a changeling’s middle name. I had to be prepared for anything.

“How did she even escape in the first pla-OUCH!!”

My mental ramblings had made me misjudge the height of the current tunnel’s height, making me bump my head against it as I exited into a wide, ample gallery. Tendrils of bioluminescent moss and lichen gripped and fell from the ceiling’s jutted spires, raining down like crooked stalactites, providing generous illumination.

I recognized that place.

“The nursery…”

The birthplace for all changelings under Chrysalis’ command, where she’d come and, well, do her thing. As a swarm-like species, they relied on the Queen to produce and maintain the brood. A special trait of changelings was that, theoretically, they could take the seed of any species they could transform into and produce offspring from it. The born changelings would inherit a natural shapeshifting affinity from their parental progenitor.

Chrysalis liked to… experiment, as I had the disgrace to learn firsthand when she’d first trapped me, before her attempt to overthrow Equestria’s leading figures.

My rage boiled tenfold as the tainted memories of her ‘fun times’ with me flashed before the empty chamber. As if I needed any more reason to despise her…

The scenery before me, however, was simply depressing. Where countless generations of enslaved changelings had been hatched here to terrorize Equestria, and a precious few were hatched in the freedom of Thorax’s new kingdom; now nature had reclaimed what it was due. The bottom of the chamber, gently curved in a concave manner to better host hundreds of eggs at the same time, was now completely sunk under a lake of murky water, creating some kind of pond where algae and a myriad of other bugs had taken residence. A few cracks in the ceiling allowed some tendrils of light to peek through and help nourish this new ecosystem. And yet, nature’s work or not, it was painfully evident that nothing had made use of this place in centuries.

A few other familiar landmarks welcomed me as I shambled blindly through yet more kilometers of tunnels, frequently making marks to avoid going in circles, yet never finding a single one no matter how far I delved into the core of the Hive. I remembered the throne room being somewhere around the highest point of the structure. That’d made it relatively easier to leave once I was done with Chrysalis. I just needed to find the twenty-meter-wide gap in the wall where the Onyx throne once stood, repurposed as a nice flower garden by the reformed changelings and their borderline hippy tendencies.

It was so weird and fun at the same time, seeing them carry themselves around, learning to be something else besides a mindless slave in an endless pursuit of feeding on love.

Sleeping chambers, feeding chambers, healing chambers, podding chambers… it was chambers all the way down for the changelings, and every single one of them that I passed through or beside bore the same marks of countless years of abandonment.

The dripping of infiltrating water through the numerous crevices was my only companion, frequently joined by the tumbling of loose pebbles hitting stone as the Hive suffered from the passage of the centuries.

My cavernous journey must’ve lasted at least three hours before I reached my destination. Every now and then, a hole in the wall, perhaps frozen in time from when the Hive superstructure had stopped shifting and morphing its guts, would reveal to me how much I had climbed. Progress was slow and painful.

I was moments away from snapping and literally blowing up the structure to make my own passages with magic before my eyes fell on a very familiar structure. Three archways, a central one with two smaller ones, one on each side, signaled the entrance to the throne room. That vision was seared into my memory. I knew where I was, and that the time had come. As the sun had reached its zenith, I fired my blades, overcoming the natural glow from the bioluminescent flora, and took heavy, rage-filled steps into the room.

The echo of my steps was deafening against the nerve-chilling silence. I sent my eyes everywhere, fighting to pierce the darkness in every corner. The prominent hole in the back of the room, which should’ve allowed me to see inside the cavern as clear as day, had collapsed alongside half of the room itself, swallowing the place where the garden, and the Onyx throne prior to it, had once proudly stood.

Two test fires of my gauntlets told me that they too were working correctly. I’d need every edge, every advantage…

‘Just what the fuck is she playing at?!!’

My blades’ glow revealed a generous area around me, yet the gloom of the cavern seemed to swallow everything else beyond it. Adrenaline dripped from my every pore, making my body steer and lunge at shadows, twisting and turning every time I thought I’d heard something scurrying behind my back.

I won’t lie, I was more terrified than I was angry. If she wanted to talk, why the game of shadows? Was she trying to play with me? Is that how she wanted to do things this time? Last time she hadn't bothered with such preliminaries.

“CHRYSALIS!!!” I boomed to the emptiness surrounding me. “COME OUT SO THAT I CAN END YOU!!!”

One minute. Two minutes. Nothing. I tried to bolster the shine of my blades to widen the light bubble around me, but the drain was beginning to become annoying and I needed to be on my A-game.

This time, there were no breaches in the ceiling for the midday light to peek through, meaning that the darkness had nothing to counter it. It was from that same ceiling that my friends had hung, podded and dreaming whatever dreams Chrysalis had bewitched them with as she fed on them to her heart's content.

We’d arrived quickly, meaning that the damage hadn't been severe, yet the act remained as monstrous as the day she tried to attack Canterlot with those other two abominations.

This was the place where it happened. My feet had carried me to the exact same spot where I did it. The day my pony friends learned how far I would go when I was beyond pissed, when some creature like her dared to bring such disharmony to my life and risk the lives of my loved ones.

It was here, in this exact spot, where I…

“Ah, finally…”

Binary was out of my hand before I could assemble a thought, flying straight and true toward the origin of the voice, coming straight from the same archways I had crossed but a moment ago.

There'd be no talking this day. I’d played her little games one too many times. This day would be under my rules. This day, I'd claim my vengea-

Listen.

Rainbow swirled before my eyes, taking hold of me. In a flash, my muscles weren't mine to command, nor were my thoughts my own. As my body spasmed and froze, a presence took over me, uttering a silent command my power gems were allowed to understand.

Binary froze in the air, its tip lodged in the changeling Queen’s broad neck, enough to pierce her chitin yet not deep enough to draw her greenish blood from beyond it. She just stood there, a fangy smirk denoting her momentary victory.

She hadn’t changed since the last time I’d seen her. Her empowered state, achieved thanks to the bewitching bell’s magic-stealing properties, was gone as per their defeat, leaving her still in all her mightiest. No more, nor fewer holes marred her slender body from what I could remember, meaning she’d kept herself at least well-fed to appear to me in such a state, a concept that terrified me beyond words. Had she already infiltrated the populated territories? Or was it something else? Chrysalis was as cunning as she was wicked. I didn't believe for a second she’d present to me as weak and feeble.

“Heed your master, Empyrean.” She purred, not even acknowledging the lunar blade impaled in her exposed neck.

“SHUT UP!!!” I wailed in rage, to her and the presence taking over my actions. I kicked and struggled, trying to regain control of my body, yet her presence was as overwhelming as it was commanding. As the rainbow swirl intensified, I felt myself falling to my knees, my hold on Binary faltering no matter how hard I pushed to lodge a few precious centimeters more into her throat.

Why? Why in the seven layers of Tartarus did Harmony have to choose THIS. EXACT. MOMENT. TO. INTERFERE?!! Why was she even interfering in the first place? I was about to rid this world of one of its oldest, AND most dangerous curses. Countless lives had been lost at their hooves. All changeling hives except hers had been eradicated during the times before Equestria was even formed. Why was she holding me back now?!! She wants me to…

“She wants you to listen, Empyrean,” Chrysalis spoke once again, almost reading my thoughts. Hell, as far as I knew, she might have been doing exactly that. “That is why I summoned you here, after all.”

“DIE!!!” I raged, giving one hundred percent effort to break free as all my efforts went to enact a push in Binary.

Chrysalis, however, saw no reason to fear me. Her unnerving, screeching laugh filled the ample room, making me grind my teeth to the point that I feared that I might crack them from the effort.

“Yeees, my little morsel. We’ll get to that in due time.” Effortlessly, mockingly so, Chrysalis sent a hole-filled hoof against the flat surface of the lunar blade, sending it scattering into the air as if it had been nothing but a pesky fly. At that moment, I felt harmony’s hold on me lessen, bringing me back control of my magic. I used it to resummon Binary to my side while I dragged myself up to my feet, feeling my limbs ache and protest from the magic-induced shock.

It was when I’d shaken the support out of me and pushed back the throbbing ache of my temples that I felt Binary within reach of my hand. I wasted not a moment to prepare a second lunge, but when my aching eyes, sparkles of light still flashing before my retinas, sought out my target, they found her already mere centimeters away from my face.

Tsking with her tongue, Chrysalis shook her head as if she were scolding one of her larvae.

“Now now, I wouldn't try that again if I were you.” That taunting undertone of her voice, smooth, almost seductive, as if two creatures were speaking at the same time, fueled my nightmares for many weeks after our first encounter. “We know better than to antagonize our ‘guardian angel’, don’t we?”

Her sudden proximity startled me, making me trip over my own feet. falling flat on my rear with Binary clattering at my side, a shield already up and around me before she had the chance to take another step.

Another wicked laugh. From all I’d heard from Equestria’s worst villains, hers was the most unnerving one. Evil and genuine, no restraint and all emotion. Ironic, considering the trademark of her race.

“Cute, Alexander,” She rolled my name over her tongue, savoring it like a piece of candy. “But it didn't save you last time.” From her crooked horn, a haunting, greenish glow began to emanate. At the same instant, I felt a force pushing against the translucent dome, slowly but surely rising in potency, seeking to strangle me. “What makes you think this time will be any different?”

The walls of my shield began to crack and tremble against her might. The green glow in her horn intensified, filling her eyes now as a hungry grin stitched itself across her fanged lips. She was making me work up a sweat but, with fear tightly gripping my heart, I wasn’t gonna let her get me so easily. I was a fool to have believed she wanted to talk and not simply end me there and then.

A counterattack was already forming in my mind when I felt my grip on the shield beginning to slip. As my panicking eyes fell on Binary, resting on the ground outside the dome, I began to web a spell that would…

“Then again,” Quick as lighting, her push against the shield disappeared as I was pouring even more magic towards it, almost causing a feedback loop in my gauntlets if I hadn’t cut the spell immediately after. “I did promise that I simply wanted to talk. So,” Taking calm steps around me, not even bothering to check for any attacks I might be mustering against her, Chrysalis had lost all her murderous intent in the blink of an eye. “Let us talk.” She called from over her shoulder, not lessening on her easy gait towards the eastern end of the throne room, cast in shadows like the rest of its outer perimeter.

I was beyond puzzled. She had me where she wanted me. I knew she had the magic necessary to end me, and she had just thrown away her best chance to do it. What was her plan? Was she still trying to lure me into a trap?

Did she genuinely just simply want us to… talk?

“What is the meaning of all this!!!” I demanded in rage, Binary back into my grip, burning as hot as the sun and as cold as the moon on each respective blade, ready for seconds.

With a bored look on her slender features, Chrysalis cast her sight over her shoulder, half of her face obscured by her billowing mane. “Do I need to explain the meaning of ‘talking’ to you, Prince of Knowledge?” She taunted, making my grip on Binary tighten. “And here I thought you were the smartest creature on Equus… Ups.” A hoof came to her muzzle to hide a polite giggle. “Apologies. Second smartest. That cute little alicorn of yours beat you to it, didn't she? Isn't that why you’re here, at this time, in this place?”

I wasn't gonna take more of her horseshit. Enough times she had played with me and came out unscathed.

“Faust help me, parasite, I swear I’ll…”

“Although,” She interrupted me rudely, caring little for my, in her eyes, childish threats as she plopped her rump onto the ground, seemingly satisfied with the place she had reached inside the cavern. “You have a new alicorn plaything now. Isn’t she the cutest little ray of sunshine? Oh, I simply could just… gobble her up.”

“I WILL END YOU!!!”

“Ugh, again with that…” Chrysalis rolled her eyes, releasing a tired puff through her nostrils, unbothered by my heavy stomps as I tracked her, blades at the ready, trails of steam and condensation forming around each respective blade. “There’ll be time for that later. But first…”

“There is nothing to talk about between us!!” Only a few more steps and I’d be within reach. Nothing would stop me this time. I’d strangle her with my own hands if that’s what it’d take.

“True.” She acknowledged calmly, slowly motioning her head upwards to peer at the darkness above us. “But there is to them…”

Her horn went off again. I summoned another shield in front of me, preparing for another attack, yet nothing came for me. In my rage-fuelled state, I hadn't even noticed the striking lack of natural illumination, provided by the bioluminescent denizens of the hive. At the command of their Queen, equal parts lichen and moss fired up in greenish glory, filling the cavern with the light I so desperately sought.

It was the moment my eyes followed the glowing trail, drawn involuntarily upwards as they filled the cave with light, that I wished I hadn't.

Dozens, hundreds, countless pods hugged all available spots on the walls, climbing all the way up the roof and beyond my sight. Lifeless, without their telltale glow when somepony occupied them, yet a shadow could be discerned from the inside, meaning they weren't without an occupant.

A fear like no other sunk its icy claws in me. Was I too late? Had she already… somehow. Had she?

“Talk to them, Empyrean.” Chrysalis continued from her place, as calm and caring as before. “Tell them what you told me. Tell my children how you’d fix Equestria.”

‘... Her… children?’

“They held on. They held on for as long as they could.” Chrysalis, seemingly satisfied with her work, ceased her casting and stood up once again, describing a lazy arc around me as she too sent her attention to the podded changelings. “That old fool made sure of it.”

With a dip of her head, she motioned towards another corner of the room. Feeling as stiff as the stone that once had trapped her, I followed her line of sight. There, tucked against a free space on the wall, were the remains of an opened pod, the fluids long since having dried up, giving it an almost stony, fossilized appearance.

And, right beside it, what I could only describe as an altar of sorts stood precariously over a stony base, made up of loose rocks and pebbles from around the room. The pair of huge, moose-like horns that rested atop it, however, was all I needed to know regarding who Chrysalis was referring to.

“... No…”

“You promised them, Empyrean.” Chrysalis continued as I felt my grip on the blades falter, my murderous intent slowly trickling away, being replaced by dread. “You promised them when you and that… accursed Starlight Glimmer,” The amount of venom in her voice when her name came up was staggering. “Turned them against me. Tell them about their great future amidst your vision.”

“T-Thorax…”

Tears began to blur my vision, but Chrysalis cared not for them, continuing her path past the altar.

“Tell her, Prince of Equestria.”

A brief flash of her horn tore my sight from the altar, questions of by whom or why had it been erected forgotten in the sea of pain and shame swallowing me. Following the queen’s casting, a gash appeared in one of the pods, not too high up the wall opposite from us.

A tear was opened on the lifeless pod, and a body was dropped unceremoniously from it, hitting the ground with a wet, sickening *splotch*

The stench of death and decomposition almost threw me off my feet, twisting knots in my stomach until I could taste the bile in the back of my mouth.

“Tell her of the future you were going to build for them. For all of us.”

Fighting down the urge to puke a week’s worth of meager meals, I slowly approached the pale figure, draped on its side with a few tendrils of viscous, smelly fluid trickling over its smooth surface.

The pod had done its work as best it could, having preserved the body to a state of mid-decomposition while an exposed corpse would’ve turned to little but bones by now.

And yet, with spindly limbs and a hollowed body, thin and frail after centuries trapped in the pod without a meal, the corpse of my old friend, and one of my best students, brought me down on my knees once again, Binary discarded and forgotten at my side.

“Tell her, Empyrean.” I felt Chrysalis’ breath on my ear, yet I couldn't bring myself to care anymore.

“... O-O-Oce… O-c-c-cellus?”

Even in this state, I could see she had grown up to be a proper changeling in the years after my absence.

There she laid, however. Dead, and half-rotten at my feet.

“They are dead, Alexander. All of them.”

My vision blurred completely as countless tears streamed down my cheeks. A knot sought to choke my throat, forcing pained, ragged breath in and out as I struggled to comprehend what was in front of me.

This was no changeling hive anymore. Chrysalis had summoned me to a tomb.

“Dead, Empyrean.” I felt her snarl at my side, yet her words seemed so far away…

“Dead, because of you.”