A Day in Stalliongrad

“Are you alright?” you ask. He removes the fork from him.

“Yeah.” Says he with rasp, while removing himself from the situation, unsuccessfully, as his leg is grabbed by Spooky’s magic.

He’s clearly trying to show toughness, as if nothing happened, while he is injured. You don’t shrug a stab by fork and a frontal fall off like nothing.

That’s *cool* and *badass*.

It’s self-destructive.

“Your name.” This mare, she gets straight to business.

“I’m sorry I interrupted your cutesy teatime, pony, but I don’t have to tell you anything.”

That’s not nice. You need a comeback “Hey, what’s wrong about being cutesy? Nice collar, by the way.” You really like the wreath. It gives of an interesting dichotomy of wannabe tough griffon and cutesy.

You know what it is. It is the perfect example of an uber-gay. Now is your chance – get him.

“Your name, now.”

“Oh, and while you’re at it, could you tell me your number.” You quickly add a wink.

Perfect, philanderer. Hey. Why is he ignoring you? You need a new plan.

This isn’t the right time.

It’s always the right time. All’s fair in love and war.

“Or what, you lovey-dovey ponies? Going to hug me to death?” A hug would be nice right now.

“You better tell me what I asked you, or I will report your racist ass.”

“Report me to whom? The police? They don’t care.”

The police would care. Using stereotypes, demeaning, disorderly conduct, and insulting creatures are crimes in Stalliongrad. She would also be committing a crime of holding him. Though considering her being the nearest authority figure and his breach of the peace, no creature would charge her.

There is a pause. “There is a lot of magic on you, teleporting magic mayhap. You aren’t from here, are you?”

There is confusion on his face. His head swivels to the left, the right, then he looks behind him.

His face is everything she needs to know. “You are coming with me.”

“Why should I do that?”

“I’m a public officer, and you are an undocumented immigrant, unless you show me otherwise, you are coming with me.”

With more force she takes his right talon, guiding him off the area. He, giving her a death glare, accepts his fate. Follow them this could be interesting.

Immigration: The communist party made a simple calculation – more workers means more proletariat means more power. Therefore, Stalliongrad has an immigration policy that can be summarized as ‘please, immigrate to us’. Getting a visa or citizenship is easy.
Getting out is harder.

This is boooooring. In some weird curiosity and schadenfreude, you were expecting him to get into some troubles. But no. He doesn’t even have to pay a fine or anything. She, in a show of unspectacular reasonableness, led him into the nearest townhall to get him documented. He too got down from his agitation and is now completely bored, having to answer questions to bureaucrats, even worse than your interview.

Stalliongrad loves its paperwork.

Spooky is also here, probably to prevent him from escaping. She is occasionally looking at you.

Inner Empire: The conversation with you had a goal. She wanted to thematically lead it to tell you something – still wants to. But she either doesn’t have the right words to convince you or doesn’t find the situation opportune.

Why are you still here? Well, maybe you could still get him. You, by overhearing him, got his name and where he came from.

“Do you have a residence?”

“For the third time, no.”

“I am sorry, sir, it is procedure, the other questions were for form 333-B and 342-A. We are now only at form 129-A-II. Do you have any family or acquaintances?”

“No.” He is supporting his head with his talon.”Bloody kill me.”

“Sir, you need to put in suicide from 15-A for that.”

His feathers are ruffled. He takes in a deep breath. His face shows utter defeat. “Never mind that. Do you know where I could get any place to stay at.” The cake-destroyer’s feathers are semi-well preened, despite being a complete mess. You look him up and down like a cake. Damn. Those muscles”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot,” the office worker mare digs something up from a filling cabinet, “here. With that you can file for a dwelling.”

“Uhm, ok?” He fills it out. After he is done, she takes it away.

“It will take about a week or more.”

“Thanks for nothing.”

You see this face. It is one of a tired creature and now he has to sleep on the concrete floor of the city. Or maybe you could help him out, let the golden rule speak. Now is your time, you step to Lionheart. Show him how eleemosynary you are. This your chance to get him.

What does ‘get him’ even mean? Do you even have a plan?

Honestly, you have no idea what it means, something about being uber-gay – you’ll figure it out as you go.

“You can crash at my place.”

“We don’t know each other.”

“I’m Lost Red Thread. Now we know each other, how about you crash at my place.”

He stares incredulously at you. A moment passes, it takes him some time.

Griffons are more solitary, especially those from Nova Griffonia. One does not simply invite some creature into one’s home nor be charitable to others without something in return. He’s processing the culture shock.

“You ponies are actually like that.”

What does he mean?

Spooky is looking at you as if you have slighted her. Before you can leave, she approaches you, “how about we see each other tomorrow again.”

“I can’t,” finally, an excuse, “ I have an appointment around the time.”

“Then the day after tomorrow.”

He accepted your offer, there was no real choice for him.

Until the time that his arduous pencil pushing came to an end, the sun set. The walk is not long. There were no small amounts of him grumbling to himself. Occasionally he looks around, clearly uncomfortable.

A thought is circling in his head, something bothering him, grumbling is his way of processing. You would never grumble, you don’t need to, you have the voices. While griffons live here, they are a minority, as a Nova Griffonian he would need to acclimate to that fact.

“Something bothering you.”

“No.” That’s a blatant lie.

“Why did you even travel here? Couldn’t you have used like a train, or flown, wouldn’t that have been safer,” and cheaper, “and cheaper.”

He pauses. “Why did you so easily invite me in?” He is diverting the topic. His right, he doesn’t have to tell you.

Because you don’t have any friends.

Because it is the right thing to do, to help a creature in need.

“Well, why not?”

Lionheart sighs. “For all you know… you could… be inviting a murderer.”

“That didn’t cross my mind. Normally, I expect the best from others. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.”

“You ponies,” he stops midway, taking a break to think, you too stop, “are you all naïve like that?”

“From your rant I thought you already have an answer to that.”

“How would you react when a creature immobilizes you?”

“I don’t know, probably with less prejudice. I don’t know if all ponies are like that, you shouldn’t be asking me that. I mean if we are all like that, then that what you would consider naïve would be normal for me.”

He sighs. “You are better creatures. I’m just a bum, and you just invite me in your home without even thinking about it. I only know one griffon who would do something like that.”

He is distraught.

You need comforting words, an answer.

“He is right, ponies are friendlier, more sociable, and charitable. It is inherent to them, it’s in their nature. From the time they grazed the meadows, it was a biological need. He is a predator. What else could you expect from him? Other than a thief and an isolate.”

“You have thousand times more in common with a griffon, a changeling, or this self-proclaimed lumpenproletariat than you will ever have with the ruling class. His material conditions created him. He can become a comrade and he can change, nothing is unchangeable, not even his ‘nature’. The working class needs to show solidarity.”

“These answers seem awfully fascistic and communistic. What if I want to say something else? I want to comfort him, not give him a lesson in politics.” You ask, mumbling.

Yes, either say something fascist or communist, or you won’t get any ass.

Lionheart looks around. “Who are you talking to?”

“Lionheart, you aren’t inherently bad, and griffons aren’t. We are more communal because we were taught to. You can be too.” You say, “we are comrades, no matter if griffon or pony.”

“Oh, gods, you are commie.”

“Not really. Maybe? I’m not sure myself, the voices are giving me weird suggestions.” He looks oddly at you, “But honestly, you are in a communist state. Did you really expect to not meet communists?”

His eyes swerve towards a mosaic picture on an apartment wall behind you, portraying a pony holding a hammer and hoof iron, a red star is around the hammer and iron. “Yeah, fair – whatever. Just don’t bother me with that nonsense.”

You continue to walk, his inner instability still raging on.

You won’t be able to help him with that, he can only do that by himself by opening himself up.

Exactly, open him. Open him like a can opener, see what makes a griffin tick.

You open the door to the apartment. “This is my quaint home.” You proclaim with false confidence.

Lionheart sees through it, “it’s impoverished.”

“Hey, it’s not that bad.”

He as a counterpoint points at the tapestry that is slowly peeling off the wall. “It’s okay, I’m used to worse.” He says, staving off your fears. He smells the air. “Did you burn something?”

“Yes.” The smell is persistent. “Make yourself at home.”

“Where do I sleep?”

“At the…” wait, you don’t have couch, “… with me.”

The door was ajar, the bed visible. “I’m not going to sleep with you in this small bed.”

“Oh,” slightly saddened you say, “oh well I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“No, you won’t.” He says, “this is your apartment, your home.”

“Oh, no, really, it’s nothing. You are my guest.”

“It’s your bed. Don’t you have any common sense?”

No.

No.

“No.” you snicker at your bohemianess. “In fact, if you sleep on the floor, I will too.”

Actually, it’s not that bohemian. Cuddling is culturally appropr—

Shut up, nerd.

He is at a crossroad. He doesn’t want to deprive you of the right to your bed. And he definitely doesn’t want to sleep on the floor. “If this gets uncomfortable it’s your own fault.”