Collateral Damage

Chapters

07 - Epilogue - The Fallen Angel of Thunderpeak
Introduction
01 - Things Taken For Granted
02 - Downward Spiral
03 - Alone
04 - Under New Management
05 - Thunderstorm
06 - Fates

07 - Epilogue - The Fallen Angel of Thunderpeak

Gabby waited in the hotel’s lobby, or whatever that place was. Locked doors everywhere, guards at every corner and one of the blue-caped weirdos behind every shadow. It seemed more like a prison or one of those camps nobody enjoyed going to, and they knew it. A kindergarten where someone would give her an angry glare if she looked like she was not busy with something, if she was being too friendly or too reclusive. The pigeon nets covering practically every external leisure area were particularly offensive, but at least using the pool was fun enough.

At night, she talked to Mister Le Grand again, and he agreed with her. The place looked like a weird combination of vacation and company meeting. According to Miss Gracielle, it was too much like a correctional institution. When they asked her how she knew, she pretended she hadn’t understood the question. Anyway, the conversation had ended with that because there was always one of the blue capes behind a piece of furniture ready to tell Gabby to keep her distance from the others.

In the end, that place wasn’t so bad. If only they stopped treating her like she had a communicable disease…

The night was comfortable with the magically maintained temperature in the rooms, and even with the overly meat-rich meals the northerners insisted on serving. She liked creamy, sweet things, but couldn’t complain.

In the morning, they gave Gabby her favorite saddlebags with a few personal effects and her documents. If they hadn’t killed a griffon in front of her, kidnapped her, and then some creepy lady hadn’t put her paws all over her, that wouldn’t be half bad.

The cobblestone in front of the building kept the glossy shine from the rain of the night and the trees swayed in a soft, chilly breeze. Gabby sat next to Madam Gaetana, the older, big northerner griffoness with the high collar cape. Stern with a no-nonsense stare while a carriage approached.

What was she doing there? Gabby still had no idea, but she supposed that since the northerners had given her the saddlebags, she was going on her trip to that Griffindell place. There wasn’t anything she could do about it anyway, so she might as well enjoy now the worst had passed.

When the carriage door opened, the sight of the henna painted yellow griffoness made Gabby reel a step back. Seeing another griffon in there whetted her curiosity, though. A young, blue, and creamy yellow griffon. Very young, with his blue eyes cast to the floor, and feathery crest flat on his head. And wearing that weird red scarf. Seeing Gabby, he perked up a little, though.

Entering after Gabby, Madam Gaetana greeted him. “Good morning, Gallus. Did you sleep well?”

“Peachy,” he mumbled.

After the old griffoness sat herself in between Gallus and Gabby, the latter looked around her to the younger one with a sheepish smile and a small hum. “Hi?”

“Hi.” He responded, but didn’t seem to be in the mood for a conversation.

“I will take both of you to the teleporter. Someone waiting at Thunderpeak that will take you to Frozenlake whee another will take you to Griffindell along with a caravan. It will be a tiring and long journey, but I can guarantee your safety. If anything, both are loyal and competent.”

Gabby said nothing, and Gallus mumbled a grumpy response she couldn’t understand. They spent the rest of the journey to the teleporter in silence, and their arrival was an almost pompous affair. Armed griffons in green uniform clearing the plaza before the facility, even before they disembarked. Despite all the security, they went straight to the teleporter room. They didn’t talk to the receptionist and the operator unicorn already knew what to do. He didn’t even look at them.

As soon as they arrived, an invasive cold replaced the sudden nausea of teleportation. Gabby shuddered and wrapped herself in her wings. She didn’t complain, but wished the annoying military griffons had at least packed something for the cold.

“I had forgotten how dumb cold this place was,” Gallus complained in a sour mood.

“Worry not.” Gaetana pipped like someone’s happy grandma. “We can get you some clothes while your bodies remember how to deal with the cold. Come.”

She escorted the two to the fancy bar and hotel reception that was part of their teleporter operator company. As soon as she opened the door for him and Gallus looked inside, Gallus gasped and then grimaced with a groan.

A steely-blue furred griffoness with a silvery head, and a longsword on her back greeted them. Blue eyes twinkling with joy, waited patiently like a predator in an ambush. Cyan ‘eye shadow’ pulled along with her sharp, aquiline facial structure in a giant grin as soon as her eyes landed on Gallus. Her feathers, silvery and cyan, perked as much as she exposed herself, sitting on the floor and opening her forelimbs like she expected Gallus to run at her for a hug. Unfortunately for him, she was close enough she grabbed him, despite his protests.

“Gallus! The cutest blue-blooded butt in the world!” she warbled with the chirpy accent of the northerner griffons.

“Gwineth,” he responded with antagonizing disdain, “the most vulgar griffoness to ever disgrace the world with her presence.”

“I missed you too!” she chirped even chirpier, messing up his feathers with exaggerated petting.

Then she looked at Gabby and twisted her beak. “Who’s pigeon?”

“Gabby!” she growled. “My name is Gabby, and I deliver letters.”

Gaetana intervened while Gallus tried to free himself from her embrace. “Gwineth, under orders from Lady Gwendolen herself, you will escort Gallus and Gabriella to Frozenlake. Make haste, you must join the first caravan before they depart to Brokenhorn.”

“I can take them straight to Griffindell.” The other complained.

“You will take them to Frozenlake, unharmed. And you mind their safety first. You will join the caravan and you will not create any problems. You know how important Gallus is. The Allmother will be watching.”

“Oof…” Gallus finally freed himself. “I haven’t been here five minutes and I already hate it all over again.”

Gabby waved her paw. “Can we get some clothes, please?”

Introduction

Gallus was a griffon. Like most griffons, he hailed from Griffonia, but Harmony had been so kind as to allow him to live in Ponyville. It was a place where even a griffon could make many friends and allowed them to challenge the idea that all griffons were jerks. Truth be told, he considered himself a jerk, but! But he used his powers of jerkiness to the benefit of his friends. That was about as much as one could expect from a griffon who had come to the ‘friendly place’.

Most had an idea that he was important, as he was the griffon in Princess Twilight Sparkle’s school. There were others, but everybody knew Gallus. And that was not a good, but the important thing was that when the offer to enroll came, he didn’t even care what it was about. He took it. He held it with his talons as though his life depended on it.

Gallus was not particularly ‘nerdy-smart’, but he was ‘clever-smart’, and he could see Griffonia was like a beached whale begging for mercy. He knew the griffon nation was ripe for all sorts of trouble. Really, any griffon with half a brain could see that. From shady politicians, and shadier politicians promising to fix the problem to deep-seated corruption that bled the nation dry. It was almost like a philosophical matter. The problem with Griffonia was the griffons.

Of course, many claimed to have the solution while not being shady politicians themselves. But there was a dangerous and vicious griffon lady living in the northernmost hold of Griffonia who thrived on being shady. The kind of griffoness that liked it when the horny kids talked about her as ‘dommy-mommy’. And not in a funny way. She had a thing about telling griffons who they could marry and really, really hated ponies and hippogriffs, and griffons that mingled with ponies and hippogriffs. Like Gallus.

And she was important, too. Sufficient to say, griffons living in the northernmost hold of Griffonia didn’t like hippogriffs, and that they had their own champion to fix Griffonia. Not only someone to succeed the present Griffonian Chancellor, but to be crowned King of the Griffons. Because, apparently, griffons thought that democracy was overrated! ‘Complex’ could barely describe the situation. Unfortunately for Gallus, that griffon who would fix all Griffonia’s problems was his half-brother. And more than that, he was married to that griffon lady.

Gallus was effectively hiding and shielding himself behind Princess Twilight Sparkle and her school. There was a problem, though. Schools close during vacations and Gallus’ friends, most of them coming from different places of the Equestrian Confederation, went home. Gallus, however, was not going back to Griffonia. No sir, no way, no how. He could have stayed with Sandbar, but Gallus had grown close enough to Silverstream that they might be called more than just friends.

It meant making a choice. His legal guardian lived in Griffonstone and hated the fact he had joined the School of Friendship. Grandpa Gruff was not his grandfather, but he was old and treated Gallus as though he were his grandson. The truth was much more complicated than that, and another thing Gallus would rather not deal with. That was a theme with his past.

‘Yeah, cool’, he said casually when Silverstream invited him to spend their vacation together. Silverstream understood Gallus’ situation and probably didn’t want him in trouble, so he traveled with her to Mount Aris. Queen Novo had a problem with the angry griffon lady saying that hippogriffs are a blight upon the world. Fortunately, Her Majesty believed Gallus was a good rooster, especially since he wanted nothing to do with the northerner griffons or the drama in Griffonia. She kindly accepted the teenager rooster to live in her palace with her niece and her daughter.

Hippogriffia was the best holiday location in the world by several standards. Like a paradise, even compared to the nice and welcoming pony cities. With two of his friends, Gallus was hopeful about his chances for a more mature adventure. Who could say? He was happy he was safe from the mess Griffonia had become, and there was nothing keeping their relationship from developing. A young griffon could dream.

01 - Things Taken For Granted

The salty smell of the sea, the cool breeze of the beaches, entered the room. The delicate forms of seashells, starfishes, and cute crabs in the curtain made dancing shadows on the bedsheets. Those were white and cyan, soft as Gallus imagined Silverstream’s belly to be. Everything in that place reminded him of the sea and of nice, comfortable things. From the colors to the shape of the furniture, everything was delicately curvy like the waves, a seashell, fishes, and stars. The hippogriffs owned their identity as the seafaring creatures they were, but also the ‘cloudiness’ of the Pegasi. Very much like the typical pony decorations which showed hearts, horseshoes everywhere, his room had a white ceiling with the top of the walls painted like fluffy clouds. Hippogriffs being half-pony and half-griffons seemed to hold the best of both worlds.

While stretching on his giant nest-like hippogriff bed, his neck popped, and he yawned a lungful. The bed was like someone had made a nest out of a cloud. The edges raised like a nest, fluffy and white like a cloud. A small regret crept up over him, though. It was not like he didn’t like the girls; he was sure he loved Silverstream, and even her cousin, but waking up and just staying in bed, without all the overexcited energy and fanfare over breakfast, was nice. He could just enjoy his wonderful bed.

The two royal hippogriffs were probably at the beach, doing beach things. Not fond of the sea, Gallus had told them not to wait for him before they went to their rooms last night. He turned on his back in one fluid, cat-like movement. The blue walls of his room invited some more sleep, but Silverstream would be cross with him if he didn’t join them, eventually. As always, his griffon brain told him it would be boring, but he knew it would be fun.

He flipped himself like a pancake again and stood on his legs with a groan, arching his back, and raising his wings all the way before he folded them and hopped off the bed. The perfect balance of breeze and cold air and made his feathers and hair stand. Whatever-that-stone-was on the floor was too cold, so he hurried his way to the bathroom.

His bathroom was significantly larger than it needed to be, filled with perfumes aligned with the salty aromas of the hippogriff islands. It maintained the cutesy pony-like sea themes with the seashells, colorful crabs, and laced curtains, reminding him of the froth of waves. His sink was literally the shape of a giant clam, and the little soaps all took their shapes after seashells. The bathtub? It was a giant seashell, and the water poured from an amphora held by the statue of a cute seapony baby. It was like a luxury hotel, except for free. But Gallus just yawned again and turned a bored stare at the sink.

He washed and vigorously rubbed his face before he took another gander at the young, barely awake blue griffon in the mirror. His feathers were a mess, and he pawed half-heartedly at them with little success in straightening them out. With a frown of mild annoyance, he gave his paw a good lick and began batting his feathers into submission.

Once he was tired of the game with questionable success, he walked to his bathroom’s window. Down below, way down Mount Aris and across the city, a passenger ship was coming into the port. Its steam horn blew a salutation to the beachgoers. Hippogriffs, ponies, even yaks, and some griffons cheered and waved at the ship, either from the sand or from the air.

Mount Aris was probably the safest place in the world. Among the options he had available, at least. The moment just struck him with just how fortunate he was. Lucky that Silverstream liked him, and that Queen Novo had sheltered him. Also, that Skystar liked him too, he supposed. The alternatives were going back to Griffonstone and lying low on Grandpa Gruff’s house, watching the paint peel off the walls, or… He rather not think about the other alternative. Harmony had granted him a gift to be allowed to hide away in Mount Aris with his marefriends.

Well, his marefriend Silverstream and her socially challenged cousin who couldn’t land a date to save her life. They even let her tag along and nobody looked strangely at them since the polyamory was perfectly fine for the ponies and hippogriffs too! Heh… Try that on Griffonstone.

Gallus was important. ‘Member of nobility’ kind of important, but nocreature cared about that in Mount Aris. Certainly not Silverstream or Skystar, who were themselves part of royalty, but that was beside the point. And Gallus wanted nothing to do with the political issues going on in Griffonia. The more he repeated that inside his head, the fresher the air going into his nares seemed and the happier the seagulls flying around sounded. He was perfectly fine with spending the rest of his still long life among ponies and hippogriffs and would be happy if he never had to see another griffon in his life.

Once he finished relieving himself in the squat toilet, he went back to his room. A complaining empty stomach directed his eyes to the door, but the bed seemed so soft. It was soft, like a cloud, and the sun was shining on it like it called Gallus back to it. It invited him to sleep just a little longer and before he knew, he was already splayed on the soft mattress, letting go a happy sigh through a smiling beak. What was the point of vacations if you’d wake up early, like in school season?

Hard knocking at the door made him jump. The sun didn’t seem to be so high that he had slept through the morning, or something. They banged at the door, more insistently, and haven’t even given him time to respond.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.” He said with a yawn, stumbling his way through the room. “I’m sorry I slept too long, Silvers-”

It was not Silverstream or Skystar knocking on his door. On the other side of the door was a big, lime colored hippogriff in golden armor staring down at him. The sleepiness vanished in an instant; the certainty of something going wrong hit him in the stomach like a baseball bat.

“Please, come with me, Gallus.” The soldier forgone a greeting and told him with a flat tone that truly did not fit the peaceful and relaxed vacation destination that was Hippogriffia.

What was he going to do? He followed the guard and, before he knew, he was standing before Queen Novo and General Seaspray. And none of them had the usual friendly, accepting smile of their kind.

It was a grand hall at the back of the palace, where an ample balcony replaced the back walls, all in bluish marble and white gypsum. Queen Novo, with her exuberant mane in multiple shades of purple feathers and magenta eyes filled with pain, looked down at Gallus from her throne at the top of the dais. A small table where an announcer would speak during meetings was empty and only the queen and her general met Gallus. It was too big a room to be that empty, much like Gallus’ stomach, which was now filled with butterflies.

The guard waited outside after closing the door behind Gallus’ tail. Novo’s frown and Seaspray’s insistent avoidance of Gallus’ stare clashed with the festive and pony-like beach themed decoration. The gold and blue curtains dancing in the breeze felt like a mocking slight. The seats flanking the hall, where important hippogriffs would sit to listen to the queen and her herald, were as empty as his hopes of a tranquil vacation.

He stopped before the hole in front of the steps. The guards used to say that was where Novo would throw her enemies and the currents would take them to a shark vivarium. It was nothing more than a quick way her water-bound subjects could just swim up and meet the queen. There was an underwater waiting room underneath the throne room for them, but those thoughts failed to ease Gallus’ worries.

“Did you call me, your majesty?” he sat and wrapped his tail around his legs.

“I am sorry, but I have some bad news for you, Gallus.” She said from her throne and keeping a neutral tone, staring at him squarely before she turned to her general. The sympathy in her eyes and her voice had the opposite effect of what she wanted. A shiver crawled up Gallus’ back.

“This morning…” Seaspray started, equally careful with his words. Keeping a serious tone, despite his warm voice, that reminded Gallus of Miss Sparkle’s brother. “This morning, I received a report from one of the palace guards. He witnessed another taking money from a griffon lady, confirming to her you are living here in the palace.”

Gallus gasped and stared at Queen Novo, but he saw no further reaction from her. Seaspray was not done yet. “There is more. This was not the first time, but now… she also paid him for information on how to reach your room and to leave the servant’s door in the pantry open.”

‘Oh, shit!’ Even though the words crossed Gallus’ mind, they barely even began to describe the gut-wrenching fear that twisted his stomach. They had found him in less than half a month. And Queen Novo probably noticed his apprehension because she spoke immediately after.

“Gallus, listen to me.” The hippogriff queen said, and he did. He did not like her anxious frown, though. “Normally, I would just scoff, brush this away and have the guard disciplined and replaced. But… worrying things happened at Griffonstone in the past days. General?”

Maybe if he still felt like he had a floor under his feet, Gallus would have understood all General Seaspray was telling him. But the best he grasped was that Griffonstone was full of revolutionary griffons who wanted to replace Chancellor Gail with a northerner griffon lord called Gillad Ironfeathers. Gallus knew him. The griffon whose followers had called him ‘The Lion’ had been urging griffons to stand up against the supposedly corrupt griffonian government, sever relations with the Equestria and its allies, and proclaim him the new Griffon King. Of course, Gallus knew him. He was his half-brother. But it was not his half-brother that worried him. No. Not by a long shot.

“But what happened?” Gallus asked, opening his forelegs in surprise. “Griffonstone’s been like that for months.”

According to General Seaspray, a couple of nights ago, Celestia showed up in Griffonstone and spooked the northerner sympathizers. He spoke of sides being taken. Griffons being stabbed, shot, and kidnapped in the night. There was a bombing at a hospital—who does that?—skirmishes all over the city. Scary stuff!

Then Novo spared her general from delivering the kick. “Celestia and Luna have gone missing after their consort died in the fighting.”

“Well, that never happens, does it?” He said raising his voice with a frustrated frown. His sarcasm failed to hold the fears he had been hiding from for the last couple of weeks. They had come back with a vengeance. But Celestia’s consort had died? That was a next level of fear-inducing news. Gallus barely knew him, but hearing that the Princesses disappeared along with his death painted a horrifying image in his thoughts.

He let escape a deep sigh. There really was going to be a civil war in Griffonia.

Novo lowered her eyes. “Officially, nobody knows anything, but a couple of hippogriff officers in the Griffonian military informed us that Celestia’s consort’s death devastated her. Something scared her in a way no one’s ever seen before, and she teleported away in between ravings of doom and changeling infiltrators hiding everywhere. Luna… She just vanished after looking into a terrible crime in Ponyville.”

“Crime in Ponyville?” Gallus’ feathers splayed with his laughter. “The worst that ever happens in there is that somepony stepped on another pony’s petunias!”

Details then became fuzzy in Seaspray’s recounting of the intelligence they had received. Gallus could barely believe what he was hearing. While they knew next to nothing about what happened in Ponyville, there was a coup d’état in Griffonstone. It mostly failed, and the young griffon almost laughed, because Chancellor Gail was never in town, doing his damn job.

But that was not all. In the middle of all that, an old Second Griffon War general came out of the blue and started pulling some grim skeletons out of closets. The soldiers at Fort King Grover literally rebelled.

There was a mass exodus of northerner supporters, with help from the military. In the end, the military took control of the city on behalf of the northerners. The entire intelligence branch of the Griffonian Standing Army was… Gallus grimaced at the word Seaspray used: ‘purged’.

The rest of the world, with Princess Celestia’s disappearance, dropped Griffonia like a ticking time bomb and watched from a safe distance. And just because misery loved company, there were rumors of hippogriffs living in the griffon nation having to hide from the north-supporting soldiers that now controlled the capital. The first had arrived at Hippogriffia during the night. Novo’s eyes filled with horror as Gallus listened to Seaspray’s words. Too close to the Storm King’s attack that had claimed the life of her husband.

“I don’t know what is happening, Gallus. I don’t know what is going to happen, but I am afraid I can’t guarantee your safety here.” The queen finally said, but her beak twisted, and her lavish crest deflated. “I… You are a danger to Skystar and to Silverstream. You can’t be with them. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to do.”

His puppy-eyed stare did not help at all; she avoided his eyes for a moment before talking to him again. “I can pay you a passage to wherever you desire, and I will offer you some money. But you cannot stay here. If you truly like Skystar and Silverstream, you will understand.”

Dammit, he understood. She was properly scared out of her mind. He just didn’t like it. He also agreed, but it if filled his stomach with acid.

Suddenly, they were in a hurry too, because since Gallus was going away, it would be better for all involved if he did while Silverstream and Skystar were away. Next thing he knew, he was in his room, hastily grabbing his things while Seaspray patiently waited for him by the door.

What was he supposed to do? Queen Novo didn’t really have to kick him away! She could keep him safe. How hard was it? Just keep all the griffons out!

Oh. Right.

He didn’t have the luxury to sit on his hind and be picky about the stuff he grabbed. A backpack with his identification documents already inside and a couple of rubbers. Beak rubbers and griffon-grade condoms. He rolled his eyes at his own denseness. As though he would have had the chance of actually having sex with his marefriends inside Queen Novo’s house.

The problem, or silver lining depending on the point of view, was that he didn’t really have much more than that. He grabbed a couple of issues of Super Ponies that Skystar had gotten him interested in and shoved them inside his backpack. A few Bits he had saved along the years. Not much. Why would he save money? Princess Sparkle practically took care of him, and he even had an allowance. Grandpa Gruff always took care of him since he arrived at Griffonstone, money his half-brother sent him. Even then, Queen Novo said she would give him some. But he took his money, anyway.

He shook his head, putting the pouch with a hundred or so Bits in his backpack while he raked his brain for where to go. Maybe Ponyville. No, no. He shook his head again. The school was closed, his friends had gone to their homes, and he’d be alone. He could ask Princess Twilight Sparkle for shelter, but she was away with her own problems to deal with. Griffonstone! He had to go to Griffonstone and stay with Grandpa Gruff! It could be dangerous, but then again, so was Ponyville. Queen Novo said Luna vanished while there! Northerner agents could be looking for him everywhere, but at Grandpa Gruff’s house, he would at least be safe. Kind of. He didn’t know and his grimace at his thoughts showed it. Grandpa Gruff would shelter him, wouldn’t he? He was the one that had taken Gallus away from the north to begin with.

General Seaspray watched him from the door, and he never tried hurrying him, but Gallus could see he was not comfortable. His frown showed it through his composed military pose. Head held high, wings tight by his flanks against his golden armor, and an apologetic stare in his blue eyes.

Gallus sat in the middle of his comfy room. The soft breeze teased his feathers as he looked one way and another. Nothing there that really belonged to him. He frowned… No point in delaying the inevitable, even if his eyes filled with tears.

“I… I think I’m done.” He told Seaspray, donning the backpack behind his back. Gallus was a big boy, and crying wouldn’t help. He could see the pained respect in the general’s eyes.

Things happened fast from there. Even faster than before. The general walked with him, and Gallus noted the guards standing in places they normally wouldn’t. He and Seaspray took the servant’s exit from the palace and there was an ordinary carriage waiting for them. A pair of hippogriffs waited hitched to it while Seaspray opened the door for Gallus. All that was hidden under a shed meant to shelter carts bringing supplies to the palace. It hid a fleeing griffon tom from his marefriends and the creepy griffons from the north just as well.

The carriage had a decent but squeaky spring suspension that kept it stable and comfortable enough in the well-cared for streets winding down Mount Aris. The interior smelled of the sea breeze like it had impregnated on the stuffed bench. They were a creamy white in the interior’s cyan satin finish with little seashell prints. Gallus and Seaspray sat in silence in the back, but Gallus looked out the window, to avoid looking at him. The sunny, clear skies hurt his eyes, and during a turn on a cliffside road, he let escape a sigh. The beach protected by the bay and the Hippogriffian Archipelago beyond opened for him to see past the buildings of the city.

Seaspray called his name to the jingling of coins. A pouch hung from his talons, brown and inconspicuous, and on his other paw he held a white and gold ticket. Gallus lacked knowledge about the different shipping companies, but the blue sailfin logo should be easy to find.

“Five hundred Bits ought to get you anywhere.” He spoke. “We booked a passage under the name of Gaius for Beachhome. There you can take the teleporter and go wherever you must. I should not tell you, but her majesty struggled the whole night with this decision. She even told me that if you asked, she would let you stay, and we would find a way.”

“But that would be dangerous to the girls, and they are already looking for me in here…” Gallus concluded for him.

The large hippogriff nodded. “Secret Service is spreading a rumor that you, the princess and Silverstream will be dating away from the queen in a luxurious beach cassino. The news outlets fell on it like it was a fresh fish in the market.”

Gallus shot him the ‘really?’ stare and the General shrugged.

“That ought to get their attention and keep the northerner agents off your back for a while. If they are so concerned about their precious prince dating hippogriffs, at least they are predictable. It should let you board the ferry without them bothering you.”

Gallus thanked him, and his attention returned to the window. He was not in the mood for much conversation. Outside, hippogriffs started the morning routine in the touristic capital of their nation. Not too different from Canterlot, with its cafes and fancy bistros. That was another door fate had simply closed for Gallus. If the princesses hadn’t vanished at the worst possible time, they might give him some shelter. But there was no use crying over spilled milk. He rested an elbow on the window’s frame and his chin on his paw. A sigh escaped. He already regretted not going to with Silverstream and Skystar to the beach that morning. One last time.

Although, had he done that, he might already have been caught.

Owners and waiters pushed tables and seats outside, others watered the plants or set up the ubiquitous ‘remember, we are a beach town’ decoration. Tourists and residents were already out and about in the easy-going city. Mansions, stores, food places, restaurants and cafes, snack bars… Things scrolled past his window, but he barely registered them. His thoughts were a cold fog of worry and denial. It was a good thing they had given him a ride, or he would still be sitting in front of the palace’s doors.

Too soon the buzz of mana battery operated cranes and winches filtered through the glass. On the other side, the cargo port had full docks with kirin and pony sea-fairing sail and steamships waiting while they waited for clearance to continue their trip to Beachhome.

The carriage made a turn to the left, towards the passenger terminal, and once it stopped, the general held Gallus’ shoulder.

“Good luck, Gallus.”

He thanked the tall adult and made sure his backpack was secured on his back before he hopped off the open door and didn’t look back. Maybe if he put on a brave face and did his best not to look like he had just been kicked out, all the northerner spies would miss him. Hopefully, they’d fall for the distraction the hippogriffs had come up with.

Past the large glass doors, the white marble on the floor and all the sculptures pretending they were waves reminded Gallus of Cloudsdale’s cloud sculptures. Literally, clouds made of clouds, except waves made of stones. But Gallus was not there to see the decoration. He kept avoiding stares while making a beeline to the line of check-in desks at the back.

Most of the queueing creatures were off to the left where the ticket selling desks were. Without a queue in the way, Gallus walked straight to the check-in desks by the back wall. The plaque of the blue sailfin was easy to identify, and he kept his eyes below the chest line, walking among hippogriffs going to their own desks. Only once he arrived, he looked up to see the adorable and cheerful honey-colored hippogriff lady behind it. Yellow curious eyes all over him and a perky, loud greeting.

“Hi, mister! Welcome to Flying Fish Freights and Ferries! How can I help you?!” she quipped while her bouncy manners made her little cyan cap jump from her head.

He held his grimace back and gave her the ticket, speaking almost as though he was sharing a secret with her. “Hello. Beachhome, please. It’s already been paid for me in advance.”

She took the white and gold slip, hummed while her eyes scanned it and Gallus coughed into his fist. She turned it around and nodded. Finally, she piped and grinned again. “All righty! Beachhome, single, medium class, no luggage! You can proceed to the lounge number five, Mister Gaius! You almost missed you ship! Aren’t you a big boy traveling alone?”

‘Mister Gaius’ glared at the perky attendant. “I’m not a child, you know. I’m almost seventeen.”

“You sure are not!” She said with a giggle and returned his ticket to him. “Bye! Have a delightful trip, Mister Gaius!”

Annoyed, but sufficiently in a hurry, he let it go, and walked past the desk while he put the ticket in a side pocket of his backpack. A large, gray and white griffon wore a little cyan jacket about to burst open with all the fluff and muscle in his chest. Gallus avoided staring at him and hurried past the door he opened for him and into the corridor on the other side.

It was a simple corridor with magical illumination fixtures on the ceiling, elegant milky globes shedding a comfortable light in the mostly unused hallway. Gallus shared it with hippogriff and griffon security, watching as creatures streamed out of a door. A red carpet strip and a sign asked them not to linger and to follow it to Arrivals while Gallus read the signs, looking for Lounge 5. A mercifully short and uneventful walk took him to an open glass door waiting for him.

Cyan dominated the lounge, closely followed by white, and Gallus was sure someone meant the things looking like clouds were sculptures of waves. Posts and ropes separated the long hall into different lounges for individual companies, each decorated with different colors, but most of them had the same furnishings. Coffee tables, sofas, sitting pillows, like they all bought at the same store, and just painted in their colors.

He stopped and gasped. Not only he was probably the last passenger to arrive, given how full the lounge was, but that place was full of griffons. Of course it was. The line connected Griffonia and Hippogriffia. Every single catbird that had business in the hippogriff islands probably used that line. And every single one of them stared his way and gave him a weird stare. Instead of blocking the door with a grimace, he coughed into his wing and walked with his head down to sit on one of the pillows close to the entrance. It gave him a good view of the lounge and thankfully, nobody seemed to mind his presence anymore.

Only then he noticed how stiff his posture was and how much his paws trembled. There was no need for that. It was not like some northerner agent was going to try and nab him in the middle of a lounge full of witnesses. Kidnapping was still a crime. Thus, he did his best to slow his breathing down, but his stomach never stopped hurting. Everywhere he looked, a pair of eyes stared at him. Pretending he was not seeing anything, Gallus took off his backpack and picked up one of his comics to read. He could not care less about Mane-iac and her plans to undo every mane-do in the world; his eyes kept glancing over the edge of the comic. Making sure no one was sneaking at him.

Wide glass panes allowed a glorious view of their ship. A magnificent early steamship berthed to a dock under the sun in the clear sky. Hippogriffs flew everywhere, busying all over the steamship and carrying ropes and random things. Designed to allow the passengers to lounge about on an upper deck, it was basically a flat seafaring structure with what looked like a two-story house on top. Most distinctive were the cyan painting, the sailfin painted on the bow, the tall twin exhaust towers, and the paddle wheels.

Gallus frowned behind his shield. No griffons worked on the vessel, at least.

“How do you fare, lad?” a masculine voice rattled him. His comic dropped from his shaking paws.

A mid-aged griffon stared at Gallus. Large and imposing, he was crimson like blood with golden feathers. The hen next to him, elegant and motherly, was turquoise and gray. He wore a fancy black waist coat, shiny with the pristine and quality material, complemented by a top hat. His wife, Gallus assumed, wore a bare-back cyan dress with white frills she must have bought on Mount Aris. Both shared a concerned stare over him, and he imagined his reaction to being addressed didn’t help.

“Goodness gracious, child.” She gabbed and raised a paw in a calming gesture, showing fingers adorned with gold and sapphire. “You look rather faint, as if you were about to swoon. Pray tell, what ails you?”

“Could you tell us where your parents might be?” The male asked right away, just as concerned as she was.

“I ah… I’m kinda traveling on my own. I know what I’m doing. But thanks. Yeah. Thanks. I’m just kinda nervous.” He concluded and offered them an awkward, strained smile.

While the male nodded at his words, the female chuckled and smiled warmly at him. “It’s alright, sweetie. You can travel with us if you—”

“No!” he cried and startled her. His wide eyes could barely convince anyone, and his stuttering let his dread at being found too evident. His face contorted into a frown; he hated his clumsy reaction and changed his expression into a grin, a forced and false one. “I mean… No. I don’t need it. It’s not a good idea. That is… I don’t want to be a bother. And… Uh…”

“All aboard!” a yellow hippogriff in the company’s colors yelled from the door leading outside.

Gallus hastily collected his comic book and excused himself, carrying his backpack on his beak and leaping from his seat. The couple tried talking to him again, but the blue griffon ignored them. He rushed to the exit in between other passengers and ended bumping against one of them as he talked to the company’s employee. It earned an angry stare, but he managed to put some creatures between him and that couple.

Thank the heavens nobody made an issue out of it either. After presenting his ticket, he rushed past the hippogriff as soon as the griffon in front of him was through the door. Outside, Gallus put on his backpack again and hurried across the cobblestone platform, cutting in front of several passengers and ignoring their complaints. Before stepping on the boarding ramp, another hippogriff employee of the company gave him a stern frown, but said nothing to his sheepish, apologetic grin. Upon getting Gallus’ ticket, the hippogriff shook his head and stowed it away, gesturing the griffon onto the board.

What mattered was that Gallus seemed to have lost the couple and was boarding the ship. It swayed softly in the calm waters of the Hippogriffian archipelago, and the steel and wood ramp rocked with it. Below, the water was so clear Gallus could see the colorful corals on the seafloor and a team of seaponies making the final verifications of the painted wooden hull. Several round windows dotted the front half of the ship. But that was not all. Several hippogriffs in the company’s uniform kept watching the boarding passengers and at least one of them kept his eyes on Gallus too long for comfort.

As soon as he stepped on the tightly fitted planks of the deck, its openness seemed filled with eyes searching for him and it wrecked his nerves as badly as the crowded lounge. Griffons that did not disembark and lounged about the deck, crewmember hippogriffs, and even a pony family, all watched him. With all those griffons embarking after him, he decided he wanted a roof over his head, because the crewmember hippogriffs too were making him nervous. The entrance to the superstructure was mercifully lacking in griffons, and a couple of cute hippogriff attendant ladies greeted the anxious and hasty Gallus despite being ignored.

The inside too reminded him of the lounge. Wide windows showed the deck outside, and comfortable seating waited for the passengers, but eyes everywhere still looked at him. A bar sported a plaque saying they dealt with underdeck cabins. That seemed like a good idea, but he decided for it when he glimpsed the fancily dressed couple looking around the deck outside. Gallus used all the self-restraint in his kernel not to gallop like a stampeding panicked pony to the reception desk.

Short of crashing against the fancy varnished wood and golden strips of the counter, he squawked and coughed while startling the older hippogriff mare on the other side. Before her dark gray self could complain, Gallus raised a finger.

“Cabin! I need one!” his voice came out too loud and earned him an awkward stare.

“Is everything alright, young sir?” she asked, raising an eyebrow and her voice showed concern more than anger.

He half-hid behind the counter when the rich griffon hen looked his way through the windows. His words blurted out at the attendant. “No! I mean… No. I’m just. Tired. Exhausted. I gotta take a rest. Like… Right now!”

“I see.” The hippogriff on the other side didn’t seem particularly convinced, looking the way he was looking. “Do you need me to call security?”

At his negative response, she asked him for his embarking card. At his confusion, she quickly explained she understood he had no reservations, but that it was not a problem either. She turned to look at the key rack behind her with a single, solitary set of golden keys. “I do have a canceled reservation for the Royal Suite. That will be two-hundred Bits.”

“Two-honking-hundred?!” Gallus yelped and immediately clacked his beak shut as all the nearby passengers turned to him. “I-I’ll take it! Here!”

Almost slamming the golden coins on the counter, he urged the mare to hurry. She laid the keys for him to take them, but gave him a worried sideways glance. “Sir, are you sure you don’t want me to call security?”

“No!” He cried and yanked the keyring from the table. “Just… Ah… Nothing!”

He held it in his beak and turned around. Only three ways out of the lounge. One was a door at the back marked ‘crew only’. Another was the glass door through which the rich couple was about to enter. He dashed for the stairs down and found an internal corridor with a couple of chatting hippogriffs. A plaque showed the Royal Suite was past the double doors at the end of the corridor.

He galloped, barely restraining his impulse to take flight, and shoved a hippogriff mare out of the way. Someone complained about him running, but Gallus ignored them. Did not even look back, slamming against the doors and struggling to fit the key. Once he managed to open the doors, he jumped inside and locked them. Finally, he stood with his back to the door and breathed.

“Dammit, get a hold of yourself, man!” he shut his eyes forcefully, holding his head in his paws. “They were just some nice creatures worried about you. I probably drew more attention to myself than I would have gotten.”

Having said that, he raised his eyes to his room and his beak hung open for longer than it would have been acceptable was he staring at Silverstream’s hindquarters. It was not a room. A room had a bed, a wardrobe, maybe a window and some lighting. That place had a giant bed, three windows with a secluded little office, which even had a safe and a set of sofas. And the office was secluded because it was hidden behind the room’s own bathroom, and the bathroom had a shower and a squat toilet. It even had a small bathtub. It was almost as good as his room in the palace.

He even had a phone with a handwritten paper, in exquisite penmanship, with the numbers for a kitchen, room service and the laundry. Beyond all that, the place was full of shiny whites, cyan arabesques, and golden metals. The room even had fancy magical light fixtures, an elaborate Saddle Arabian rug and garment holders like elegant statues of velvet in the shape of hippogriffs.

Gallus was awestruck. The ship didn’t even seem that large to need those things. Well, he may spend the entire trip secluded inside his room, but he had a pleasant view out of the ship’s bow and all the luxury he could ever want. For better or worse, all he had to do was wait until they arrived and keep those doors shut. Just in case, he closed the curtains in front of the windows.

02 - Downward Spiral

Gabriella was a griffon, and she lived in Griffonstone all her life. Unlike Gallus, Gabriella liked it in Griffonstone, and she was not a jerk. Gabriella was one of the nicest griffons to ever warble in the streets of the griffon capital. Her friends called her Gabby, and as a griffon who spent all her life in Griffonstone, Gabby knew the places and paths of the great griffon city. She needed it for her job: delivering letters. But as an employee of Griffonstone’s Post Office, she often had other responsibilities. Delivering packages, for example.

The office had flying carts for such jobs. Enchanted carts, inlaid with gold, brimming with spell-carrying gemstones. All to ensure that packages arrived at their destination with minimal hassle or damage. Unfortunately, all the magical flying carts were occupied with what Gabby’s co-workers termed ‘premium’ deliveries. By that, they meant the sender had paid for ‘premium’. The usual bribes so they could expect their parcels to arrive on time. That was basically how all civil services worked in Griffonstone lately. And the damnedest of all was that Gabby knew her co-workers, most of them, not to be bad griffons. It was just how things worked. The boss got his extra, and the involved employees got their extra. Nobody complained. Complaining rocked the boat, and that was just how things worked. Nobody judged. They felt like they needed something more in their income with how bad the economy was. Who was she to judge?

To be fair, Gabby was never sure of what a poor economy was, but she had noticed the prices had been raising in the last months. Maybe that was what they meant. Gabby could understand salaries not cutting it for those griffons with families.

Meanwhile, supplies to the hospital were ordinary ‘government stuff’. Delays and misplacement were common until someone figured they were supposed to sweeten the deal under the table. Nothing worked right at Griffonstone unless you paid extra, and the government didn’t. So, who cared? Gabby even wondered sometimes if just adding the bribes to the prices chart would be easier. But again, who cared?

Well, Gabby cared. That was why she grabbed the delivery order to the hospital. She put on a brave face and pulled the heavy cart with all the boxes out of the garage. It didn’t take long for things to go wrong: the road in the most direct route was closed. And it was a doozy.

She simply stood there, looking up at the rubble. Blackened stone and bricks, a thick layer of dust and husks of collapsed walls. A burned, demolished building literally closed the street. It was an apartment building, not unlike the others still standing in the street. What had happened? How could that have happened? Gabby would probably never know.

Being a griffon, that should not be a problem, but Gabby was stuck with one of the non-fancy, not to use crass words, carts. Unlike the good ones, it had a bad suspension and none of the pretty gold inlays. It didn’t have articulated wheels, much less eased the load with magic, and the idea of it flying seemed like a cruel joke. At least it still had the old sign saying it was the property of Griffonstone’s Post Office. As though anyone would ever try to steal the poor, tired old thing.

Eventually, she accepted there was no way through the rubble. Struggling, Gabby turned the cart around and trotted down the street. She passed a couple of abandoned carts with broken down wheels. Litter surrounded them and no noises came out of the cheap apartment buildings. Most of them had deep cracks on their walls, and one had water streaming from its entrance hall.

That street may not have been one of the fanciest, but had always been one of the livelier ones. Always full of cheerful cubs running around and playing outside, griffons walking up and down the street. Others would talk to each other from their windows, hanging clothes out to dry. As the day was coming to its end, a thick smog would raise from the heating systems. At least during winter, when griffons would turn on the heating furnaces. Mothers would yell at their cubs to help them get the drying clothes and sheets before the soot got impregnated on everything.

Not a soul other than Gabby herself walked outside to listen to the murmuring of the running water. Broken windows let torn curtains hanging out, stained and swaying in the petrichor-smelling air. A griffon glared at her from the dark in his apartment on the second floor as though she was doing something wrong just by being there. He slammed the windows shut before she could utter a greeting.

Gabby pouted and fixed her stare on the street forward. She understood. Yes, there was a fight. A scary fight on the streets. There were cannons, explosions and alicorns involved, but it was not like the city could stop. Gabby was working. She was delivering supplies to the hospital, wasn’t she? Someone somewhere needed help with something, especially after such a dangerous and dramatic event as the fighting that took over some neighborhoods.

She trotted down the street, frowning at all the trash, the abandoned clothing and household items. The distinctive felling that authorities would have already fixed any significant damage was that street home to richer griffons sprouted and remained. Although Gabby doubted the authorities would have had time to fix everything yet. News came slowly and unreliably. All she knew was gossip from her co-workers, and it got bad in some places.

It was depressing and uninspiring, but she had a delivery to make. The squeaking from the cart’s wheels helped little, and she had to keep a steady pace or suffer with the inertia. However, Gabby believed a positive attitude could conquer any problem, so she kept her head high, as a professional postgriffon of the Griffonian Post Service.

Turning on the T-junction in front of a wall of gloomy rowhouses, she soon reached the parallel street to go around the collapsed building. What she saw made a small frown show on her brow. Instead of a collapsed building on the way, there were sandbag walls and a raised wood platform with armed griffons in green uniforms. For better or worse, that was the uniform used by the soldiers in the Griffonian Standing Army, and it was probably a good thing. They were there on behalf of the authorities, and they were going to fix things. Eventually. But the sandbag wall closed the street. Her frown deepened, and she continued trotting up the intersecting street. At least, it was slightly cleaner.

She came to the next corner and saw more sandbags. After a moment of glaring like she could order them to move, Gabby simply kept going to the next corner. There, she saw much of the same. With a complaining groan, she kept going to the next and stopped, angrily stomping at the paving stone upon seeing more sandbags. Then movement caught her eye. A cart crossed the street two intersections away, going the same way she was. A happy chirp later, she was trotting on her way to follow. Reaching the intersection, her beak opened in a silent gasp.

Down the street was yet another sandbag wall and more armed griffons at the top of a pair of wooden towers. The cart Gabby had seen, the kind griffons used for transporting nondescript things under a cloth-covered frame, was in the middle of crossing an open gateway. Two armed griffons on the ground watched the cart pass and one of them elbowed the other, watching Gabby approach. They shared some words and approached when she stopped before the improvised gate of barbed wire.

“What’choo got there, missy?” One of them asked, approaching with his musket on his back while the other remained close to the gate.

He was a green with light green under his also green uniform loaded on the doohickeys military service griffons wore with their uniforms. Leather and cloth pouches, a canteen, and a blade under the tip of his gun. He frowned at Gabby while the others kept looking at her from behind the sandbags and the top of the watchtowers.

Again, someone stared at her as though she were doing something wrong. Her feet shifted while she was still under the weight of the heavy wooden pulling bars. Thankfully, the straps had a good padding, probably from lack of use, but her eyes kept shifting between the armed griffons. The city continued past their blockade, and occasionally, Gabby could hear a series of distant bangs.

“They are supplies, sir.” She said, keeping her voice cheery. “They need them at the hospital. At King Grover’s Plaza!”

“Screw them!” A soldier behind the sandbags, a brown and cream young griffon, said and dropped a bucket of cold water on her enthusiasm. “They’re helping the traitors. That place can burn for all I care. Let’s put grab her for sedition and give it all to our docs.”

Her stomach dropped and her beak hung at his words, but before Gabby could react, the griffon that had remained seated by the barbed wire gate spoke. He put the butt of his musket down on the cobblestone and turned back to his friend. “Stow it, private. They’re helping everyone. Like they’re supposed to.”

“But you can’t pass either, ma’am. We’ve isolated this area. Brass is looking for seditious individuals and we cannot allow any civilians through. Curfew starts in a couple of hours, though. I suggest you go home.”

“But the hospital needs these! Precisely because of all the fighting in the city! I’m kinda in a hurry.”

“Don’t make someone else’s problem your own, ma’am.” The musket-carrying griffon next to her admonished in a gloomy tone. “Things are not well, and you don’t need the headache.”

“But it is my problem!” She retorted. “I am with the city’s post office!”

“Fine. If you must…” the soldier by the gate said, shaking his head. “We have the entire neighborhood surrounded. Go around through Silverwing Garden.”

Gabby frowned. “I can’t pull a cart through there. City ordinance says I can’t even fly over it with one of the fancy flying ones.”

“Well, then I suppose you have to go the other way around!” the military griffon said, pointing with his thumb, “because you’re not passing through. And if you insist, I’m getting you under arrest for interfering with a military operation.”

With a last glare, Gabby decided discussing was not worth it and was potentially dangerous. The last thing she needed was ending up in jail, or something worse, because she ‘interfered with military operations’. She had to back up and walk sideways to turn the rigid cart around, but she managed without further irritating the officer.

She walked back the way she had come with a frown pulling down at her beak and knotting her brow. Angry thoughts shoved aside, she mentally reviewed her knowledge of the city. If Stoneway Drive was closed to passersby, then she’d spend hours going around. They built the dumb place along a promenade. One of the few places the rich, grumpy griffons couldn’t get away with prohibiting freight transit, but it was a wide obstacle.

As she walked and made the turn into the intersecting street, the way she had come before, her frustrated frown turned around into a smile of determination. The hospital still needed its delivery, and she would make sure it arrived. She strained a bit before getting the cart to trotting speed, but soon got used to the new pace. The squeaking of the wheels was still annoying, though.

Time seemed to breeze past her along with row houses, apartment buildings, a few griffons minding their own business. Block after block before she finally reached a junction without the sandbags turning it into a dead end. Unfortunately, the next five streets ended in a T-junction going the wrong way or had also been closed by the military. Tired and frustrated, she kept going. And when she noticed, she had entered the ‘bad part of town’.

The Bonepile used to be called Snowpile because of all the traditional games and competitions during winter, but that was before Chancellor Gail enacted his war-austerity measures. Prices soared, and things like the basic income granted by the Equestrian Federation vanished into thin air. How did that work? It baffled Gabby, but she always considered herself lucky to have her job. Snowpile was never a rich neighborhood, but it was decent enough. Gabby would know, often delivering letters and packages there.

Now it was like a ghost town. The newspapers said rich griffons building up and moving to places like Stoneway Drive, raised prices and forced griffons out of their neighborhoods. With the recent developments in the Griffonian economy, the once mid-class neighborhood turned poor and then became simply destitute. Such things were complicated, and Gabby knew she lacked the understanding to make sense of it all. Basically, things became more expensive, jobs closed, and griffons saw themselves forced to live off the basic income. Then the Chancellor ended it. Poor griffons were left with nothing but memories of a nicer life and anger at griffons that actually could find jobs. Griffons like Gabby, pulling a cart full of stuff through their turf.

The transition was not immediate. It started with piles of trash, depredated trash bins and dirty, abandoned houses. Then the walkways turned into a forest of mismatched colorful tarpaulin hovels and improvised cardboard homes. Abandoned businesses and ransacked houses sheltered those with a slightly greater standing in the pecking order of their parallel society. Another thing Gabby wouldn’t ever understand, but that was how it worked.

Originally known as Quiet Row, the newspapers quickly nicknamed it Needle Row. To Gabby’s understanding, homeless griffons started gathering for protection. Politicians kept throwing the issue around like a hot potato and the strained civil services failed to deal with the problem. The issue kept growing until it escaped control. Burned trash and piles of wood, unnamable residues and a stench of rot and disease like a physical wall assaulted the senses. Debris accumulated in bends and the clogged central gutter spread the trash with the recent storms.

A mob of disfigured griffons occupied the place. Not a single healthy one in sight. They hobbled and idled about with nothing to do other than waste their time rotting the mind and the body. Some talked alone, others seemed entertained by things that only they could see. Either lying on the paving stone or on old cardboard, others had old and ragged blankets. Entire families abandoned and left to fend for themselves. Such an ugly sight. Few had the courage to do something about it until other things became news and the city forgot about fifteen hundreds of its citizens.

Did the Chancellor know of that? What about Princess Celestia, the Mare, the figurehead of the Equestrian Confederation, know of that? Had the leadership of the griffons up north heard about it? Did anyone care?

The little Gabby inside her head panicked and screamed at her to turn around and get out of that place as fast as she could. She should even abandon the cart and fly out of that place. Grimacing, Gabby kept walking, albeit slowly. Her eyes darted from one side to the other and her legs quivered. She kept finding things to focus on. A brown-dirty griffon slept on a cardboard for bed, and someone was coughing inside one of the plywood and tarpaulin hovels to her left. To her right, a griffon of unidentifiable colors sat with his back to the stone wall his hovel leaned against. He kept scratching his chest, but at the same time, barely seemed present at all. In the next hovel, a young, disheveled griffon lady with white feathers stained yellow looked at Gabby and closed the curtain her home had for a door.

Screaming distracted her and a pair of griffons so dirty Gabby couldn’t see their original colors fought over something she couldn’t see. On the other side of the street, a small group of friends shared a plastic bottle filled with a white paste they each drew a lungful of air from. Chuckles and cheerful expressions of delight followed. Right next to them, a group of griffon ladies wearing broken feather accessories beat a screaming griffon on the ground.

“Don’t move, missy.” A griffon said. Out of nowhere, he stood in front of her. “We don’t wanna hurt you.”

The sudden stop hurt her knees and the cart dragged her feet in the abrasive stone for an inch or two. Still, she obeyed with wide eyes, staring at the sharp metal stick he held before her. He had a sad look in his eyes, wearing a tattered black beret and showing flimsy forelegs holding his improvised weapon. When she came to, she looked over her shoulder to see three griffons climbing on top of the cart and cutting away the ropes securing the cargo. Rummaging into what she was carrying.

“Hey, Doc. Come’re.” One of them called another griffon to the cart.

“This is for the hospital! They really need it!” She cried but gasped again at the griffon holding an improvised weapon in front of her.

“It’s nothing personal, ma’am.” The approaching griffon told her as he began looking over the things the others had unpacked from the cart and laid on the cobblestone street.

He had a larger frame than the others, navy blue under a torn green trench coat and cyan feathers on his chest and head, mostly clean, but completely neglected otherwise. A strap under his trench coat held a holstered black revolver.

“Quit staring” he told her, and Gabby apologized, instead focusing on the open boxes and undone leather wraps strewn around the paving stone. The griffon began inspecting the cargo and pawing things off to his assistants—flasks, tubes, vials, and some packets—while mumbling to himself. Eventually a smile appeared on his face. “Morphine, penicillin, permanganate… Ah… Iron, arsenic. Atropine, iodine… First aid kit, phlebotomy kits… Trauma kit, thank Celestia. Transfusion kits… They need it more at the hospital. Get those back in.”

Noticing Gabby staring at him again, he shook his head. “Field doctor at Fort King Grover. You can say I chose the wrong side when the separatists bombed the hospital and started this mess. Griffons here took me in, so I help however I can. Now quit judging.”

“I’m not! It’s just… These belong to the hospital!”

“Yeah, yeah.” The griffon hopped to the street. “Hospital belongs to Griffonians. We’re just redistributing before the politicians can steal it all. The town is such a feathering mess right now I don’t even know who’s stealing from whom. We’re not taking everything, anyway. My guys will escort you out to the other side, but never come back here. I can’t guarantee your safety.”

“Yes, sir…” she said, with her wings sagging.

The mention of separatists made her think. Was that what it was all about? The northerner griffons that wanted Griffonia to separate from the Equestrian Confederation? Were they responsible for the bombing at the hospital? For the fighting in the city?

“Why did they bomb the hospital?” one griffon raiding her cart asked from the top of the pile.

The sight of him broke Gabby’s heart, but she said nothing. Younger than she was, probably not even legally an adult yet, and covered under so much grime, it dulled his disarranged navy-blue fur and cyan feathers. Some might find it funny, but it occurred to Gabby those griffons couldn’t even care for their hygiene properly and she suppressed a grimace. It would be insensitive.

“Princess Luna raided a museum at Thunderpeak that was a front for something.” Doc kept a somber tone, still examining the items they retrieved from the cart. “All I know is that she kicked a hornet’s nest. Then came this northerner cunt with the sword that went out of her way to make as much chaos as she could. She’s basically the reason I told my C. O. he could stow his crap because I wasn’t siding with the northerners. All her idea. I hope Celestia turned her into a red smear on the ground.”

While Gabby listened, the griffons raiding her cargo fulfilled Doc’s promise of not taking everything, but their packing work was shoddy, to say the least. They also fulfilled his promise of protecting her on the way out. Gabby noticed no one being overtly aggressive towards her, but she saw jealous eyes and aggressive stares.

Under their guard, she left the Needle Row. It was such a strange contrast, like the undeclared borders between two nations buffered by a no creature’s land both sides avoided. The ugly shacks gave way to assorted detritus and a few griffons scavenging whatever they could find out of the trash. Fifty hooves away, griffons walked around showing preened feathers and pristine clothing or accessories. Employees chatted amongst themselves, closing the stores, and locking them down with padlocks—often more than one—and in a hurry.

The smelly gutter, the dirty walls, and the forest of broken hovels stayed behind with the sick and neglected Griffonstonians. Griffons with the military, wearing pristine uniforms and carrying shiny long guns, stood about in the street. They watched as the shopkeepers concluded their end-of-day routine. Costumers seemed to not care much about what happened around them, neither store owners, employees, or griffons-at-arms. Everyone just did what they must or hurried along, not wishing to be caught outside after curfew hours.

Before Gabby even left the street, it was mostly empty except for herself, her squeaking cart, the dark storefronts, and the dim public illumination of gas lampposts. Soldiers too, glaring at her like Gabby’s very presence bothered them. She pressed her step onward, not wanting to bother them. She decided not to bet on the chances of them acting on their annoyance towards her.

As the pony princesses of the day and of the night changed one for the other, Gabby reached the access to the central square. It was behind a wooden palisade. More concerning were the lines of carts and of griffons waiting to cross the gates. With no viable alternatives, she joined the line of carts, envying the line of walking griffons that moved much faster. The right side went into the plaza and the other came out. Nothing special about the griffons trying to enter or leave. Gabby supposed they worked or had business at the hospital or one of the many public services buildings in the area, despite the late hour. With the mess the city was, they better be working overtime to fix it. Truth be told, the ones which did not belong were the ones with the firearms and the green uniforms.

Once again reminding herself she had no choice, Gabby stood at the end of the line of carts. Every time it moved, she strained her joints and used her talons for leverage against the cobblestone to move the complaining cart. Occasionally, there was some angry shouting, or screaming, but it ended quickly. Part of her thanked the fact her unprivileged size kept her from seeing what was happening. The atmosphere was that of complaining griffons, and everyone knew griffons were not patient creatures.

When it was finally her turn, even her mood had deteriorated to the point she considered her thoughts about efficiency almost justified enough to voice. She stopped at the improvised palisade and gate, not even caring about the long weapons everywhere, and glared at the soldier that mindlessly scribbled on a notepad.

“Name and business in the area?” he asked in a tired monotone, never taking his eyes from his booklet.

“I just been robbed.” She groused. “I had to come via the Needle Row to bring this stuff to the hospital because you closed all the other streets.”

“Haven’t we all, ma’am?” The soldier mumbled before he sighed and looked at her from his notes.

He was a handsome ‘Griffonstone brown and white’ rooster under his green uniform. The green helmet that looked like someone’s plate helped little, but at least the griffon talked to her like he still had a shred of empathy inside. “I’m sorry, ma’am. The local militia is full of loyalists smuggling undesirables out of town instead of doing their job. You should have avoided that place, anyway. Now, name and business, please?”

Next to him was a bored green and gray lady, also wearing the green uniform—no helmet—and waiting for Gabby to answer his question. Was there even any point in complaining about the military closing roads left and right? She supposed he was correct that she could have spent even longer going around the other way around, though. Even if she was in a hurry. The whole thing was so frustrating and tiring.

“Gabriella of Griffonstone.” She responded with a tired frown. “I’m taking supplies to the hospital. City’s postal office.”

“The feathering hospital shouldn’t be helping the loyalists, anyway.” He noted what she said down while the female soldier frowned, and her eyes scanned her own notepad.

“I just want to help…” Gabby sighed. “I’m doing my job.”

“You need to leave the kindergarten, ma’am. There is a civil war about to blow. Keep your head down and opinions to yourself. And be damn glad the brass didn’t tell me to commandeer this stuff. Now get moving, you’re in the way.”

“Ah… She can’t. Madam Gaetana is supposed to see all griffons coming through at least once. This one is not on the list.” The female soldier told him, showing her own notepad with a wing. “And she really looks like a Saddani.”

“Do you even know what a fucking Saddani is?” the soldier turned and snapped at his colleague while pointing a talon. “Do you see the size of this line? It keeps growing. The northerner broad ain’t here, and I’m not going to waste everyone’s time because the northerner weirdos like their lists.”

Northerners. Civil war. Princess Celestia showing up. The bomb at the hospital… Even before all that, with the living cost hikes and all the riots… Gabby never paid attention to any of that. Maybe she should have. But then again, she was just a mail delivery griffon trying to do her job. It didn’t matter who was in the government or out of it. Mail wouldn’t stop and she felt like the whole thing was so far above her it shouldn’t be bothering her.

Despite Gabby’s patiently waiting while the two argued, the griffons behind her started complaining and that silenced both. The male soldier made a gesture for Gabby to move, harshly ordering to get out of the way. She obeyed before his lady friend made a problem out of that.

Those military types were cuckoo in the head! Who would build a wall at the entrance of the central plaza? It was the access to most of the government offices and the largest hospital in the region. And to make it all worse, they closed all the entrances. Debris of a fallen building obstructed one, and the rest they turned into gateways or closed with tall sandbag walls. Why did griffons not simply fly over those? Griffons not hauling a heavy and dumb cart, that is.

But that was not all. Gabby rarely visited that part of town, but she remembered the lively square. It was usually filled with griffons selling things, like the awkward lady that sold delicious scones. Often, there were ponies and other creatures visiting, taking photos of King Grover and of the Chancellor’s Palace. Recently the plaza would often fill with angry rioting griffons in front of it. That day griffons with guns sat at the rooftop of the Chancellor’s Palace, watching as griffons went about their business and floodlights scoured the dark clouds. Then, Gabby knew why griffons weren’t flying over the sandbag walls.

The imposing stone statue had seen better days. Pockmarks scarred the body of the great monarch of the past, and his once majestic crown missed a spike. One of his paws was completely gone, like a finger from the other. His tail had broken and lay abandoned by the statue’s base, which had been mostly scorched black. Missing pieces of his brow and wings marred the king’s stern expression and majestic pose. It still stood, though. Watching over the plaza and giving Gabby a sad frown. What would the great king of the past think if he saw what griffons were doing with his legacy?

The Chancellor’s Palace, with its twin winged façade and once beautiful, crystal-clear windows, had been covered in boards. The pike fence had all its golden-painted bronze tips removed—or stolen—and the thin metal bars had been shored up with sandbags behind them. Those were everywhere, at a second glance. At the top of buildings, their entrances, and nesting weapons in front of the chancellor’s palace. And griffons too. Carrying guns, walking one way and the other, sitting in front of buildings and on the rooftops. All of them wearing the green uniform.

What griffons Gabby found who were not soldiers walked in straight lines, going directly where they needed to, and most of them went to the hospital. Before she knew it, all the frustration had turned cold in her stomach, and she followed in their example. The plaza was no longer a place for sightseeing.

The hospital was the largest building in the plaza, even if its façade seemed smaller than the Chancellor’s Palace and didn’t share its fortification. Instead, boards closed several windows broken windows. The main doors seemed new but had sandbags closed them. Griffonstone’s hospital was a symbol, much as the palace, of the Manehattanite architecture that spread around the world in basically every large city. It appeared the ponies had the right idea both in the city plan and architectural ethos. The design accommodated the important things that made cities and organized them with the lifeline of the cities, such as mana distribution for internal lighting, water and sewage. It was also a symbol of how much the ponies had assisted griffons, but the city still needed working civil services to function properly.

A griffon in a friendly blue ‘security’ uniform directed arrivals to the side of the building. Like a glorified clerk, repeating over and over that griffons should go to the food court. It was in between the buildings, under the central wing. ‘Just go there and you’ll figure it out’, said the tired griffon with the blue cap. So, that is where Gabby went with her unwieldy cart and all the griffons.

Maneuvering the cart took her around the statue under unfriendly stares from the soldiers, but she pretended not to see them. Even her patience had limits and her whole body ached from lugging that thing around. Not to mention the scare in the Needle Row and the annoyance at the gate. Pulling the thing into the alley was frustrating too, especially with all the griffons idling about like they just wanted to occupy the space Gabby needed. She wiggled her way through, though, ignoring a complaint or two. At least nobody got their feet crushed.

The hospital was built in two blocks, each with two wings and three floors, with a connecting wing in between. There was an unloading area in the second block, accessible through a small alley nestled in between the wings and around a garden. The kaleidoscopic flowers of all colors and vibrant green of the foliage were a pleasant addition, though. At least someone was benefitting from all the storms.

Not only did the garden made the alley into a constricted pathway, but griffons filled it. So many grumpy griffons begrudgingly moving out of her way, only because she insisted. Only when she reached the fenced garage door, she realized those griffons were all in a line, a chaotic line into the hospital. The best she could do was repeatedly, and politely apologize, asking that they made way.

Gabby did her best to park the cart out of the way, by the closed gate into the loading area—right in front of it. It was easier said than done with all the havoc and noise. It was a minor miracle she got it where she needed, with a grand total of zero crushed toes. After some struggling with the belt straps, she trotted in between the griffons—ignoring angry complaints that she was skipping the line—to the covered area under the connecting second floor.

The realization hit her like a slap to the face that she was, indeed, skipping the line. The food court had a pair of closed restaurants and almost every square hoof of the gray granite floor was taken by a moaning, groaning, crying, griffon. Each one of them either complaining or holding a limb, a wing, or a hasty, bloody dressing. The ones that were conscious, at least. All spilling from the food court under the central connecting wing into the alleys flanking the garden. As if that wasn’t exposed enough. Among them were griffons wearing little white ‘nurse caps’, going around, and talking to griffons, changing dressings, and moving griffons around, trying to organize that mess.

Every color in the rainbow presented itself on the griffons in there, sitting on the floor, laying down with nauseated stares or unconscious. A few elderly, many of them hurt and tired. A few had sitting pillows, but most just sat there on the floor, or on the concrete walkways flanking the garden. Griffons everywhere, and barely any walking space. Some of them yelled, demanding help, saying they had been waiting for hours, complaining their loved ones were dying. Crying cubs and weirdly apathetic adults staring at nothing. Gabby walked among them, trying to find the exposed floor that wasn’t occupied or covered in blood, vomit, and similarly disgusting things. The cleaning staff was nowhere to be seen.

Maybe Gabby’s rattled nerves and depleted energy were to blame for her uneasiness, too. The worse were the griffons yelling at the staff. Every pointed and aggressive word made her flinch, but it helped Gabby find one of the nurses. A pink griffon lady with a crumbled little white hat, almost zoning out while an angry yellow and white hen yelled at her. She said something that made the angry hen storm off in the middle of that pandemonium and that let Gabby approach her.

“Hello? I’m from the postal office. I have a delivery to make.” She told the nurse.

She was about as young as Gabby, now focused on her job of tying a grimacing griffon’s wing on itself until she finally pulled a leg of the bandage with her beak and looked at Gabby with big red eyes. “What’s that? Delivery?”

“Dispatch told me they are supplies.” Gabby explained. “Ah… I’ve been robbed on my way, though. There are probably some missing things. I hope it still helps, though.”

“Ouchie.” The pink griffoness grimaced, the broken feathers in her crest raised with her little hat. “Are you hurt?”

Gabby shook her head. “I just need to get this stuff delivered and go home. You guys seem to have your paws full, and I had a long day even before I picked this up.”

Pink frowned and looked one way with a groan, and another with a sigh. “Uh… I dunno. Get inside and look for Miss Goldina. She’s my boss and she will know what to do. I’m up to my withers with work here. This was supposed to be an improvised reception and we’re doing triage and small dressing here. It’s a mess!”

Gabby did not really understand what she had told her, and her first instinct was to reach inside her saddlebag, grab the papers and asked pinky there to just sign them, but she had gotten through some rough terrain for that delivery. She was going to do it right and thanked the nurse just as she was going to give a couple of papers to the griffon with the injured wing, just ignoring Gabby by then. It was probably best to leave her alone and figure it out on her own, so Gabby excused herself and left.

The hospital’s main block, the one with the façade towards the plaza, was likely the one where Gabby would find Miss Goldina. If she remembered correctly, that was where the reception used to be and where griffons would get directed to clinics or emergency. It had a nice entry hall, very spacious and with a central information desk. There was also a fancy candelabra of hundreds of crystals.

The painted glass on the door into the building didn’t let her see anything on the other side until she opened them. It was like Needle Row again, but instead of dirt and soot, it was the smell of blood, rot and worse things that gave her pause. It seemed all the problems in the city got piled into the hospital.

The reason the main doors were closed was that the hospital staff had turned the lobby and reception into an impromptu emergency room, including the space the main doors would use. Like the wards had filled, so they started piling injured and distressed griffons into the corridors. When those filled, they moved the reception outside and started filling the actual reception with patients for triage. And then finally moved triage outside too. In inside was a mess that didn’t know if it wanted to be emergency or ward, and outside was another mess that wasn’t triage nor reception. And Gabby was not even a professional, but she understood that such a mess was a ticking time bomb.

More weeping and sobbing. Not just cubs, but adult griffons crying with pain or sorrow. Everywhere Gabby turned to more griffons, blood smears on the floor and walls. Injured, sick, and unconscious griffons strewn on mattresses on the floor, smirched with unidentifiable stains. Some of them had a place to lie down, other had nothing but the cold granite floor. The ones Gabby called ‘less bad’ sat on their corners, waiting, or allowed healthcare griffons to clean wounds, set bones, or just talk to them. Some brought them medicine in little cups or applied injections. A couple of janitors tried to keep up with the bodily fluids and discarded packages left in the wake of trying to keep griffons alive.

One patient lied under the grand staircase, missing half of his hind leg, with a bloody, dripping dressing covering what remained. He slept, though. Almost peacefully. His injuries torn his coat in several places. Some of his fur and feathers were missing in patches where it the nurses had cleared it away and black stitches held his skin together. Just looking at those wounds made Gabby’s skin crawl.

Bottles with tubes that went with needles into griffons… Gabby didn’t know their name, but they hung from improvised fixtures on the furniture, doors, and coat hangers. Some held clear liquids, others held vibrant red. One griffon, wearing a blood-stained white coat over his blue pelt, slept on the stairs to the second floor. Another doctor, with his overalls too dirty with crimson, seemed to perform a surgery in the corner with help from another, while a third literally held a magical lamp above them.

And in the middle of all that, one nurse consoled another. A very young, lime colored, little griffon lady sobbing into her fluffy chest covered in golden feathers. She was a golden statue of a griffoness that someone had enchanted with a life spell. Her fur and her feathers were of the purest gold and her eyes were shiny amethysts, even dulled with weariness. She was petting the younger one and saying soothing words in the middle of that overcrowded and dysfunctional emergency room. The crumbled nurse hat, along with her unkempt feathers, completed the figure of one who could only be ‘Miss Goldina’, and she was probably on her second or third shift.

After she sent the crying nurse to rest, she turned to Gabby with a tired smile. “Hello. You look a little lost.”

“Hi!” Gabby grinned best as she could at the easy to look at lady, though her eyes had lost much of their shine and her smile wouldn’t be as radiant as usual. “I’m from the post office, and I brought some things for you. Someone needs to sign for them. But… Well, I’ve been robbed on my way here. I don’t know how useful it will be.”

In the grand scheme of things, maybe what ‘Doc’ had stolen back at Needle Row would help those griffons more than they would at the hospital. Anyway, Gabby’s job was not to ration things; it was to get them where smart griffons said they needed to go. Miss Goldina said nothing about it and just said she’d sign for the material. That would be the end of Gabby’s participation in all that.

The crying and moaning had become background noise, but the eventual screaming rattled her. Everywhere Gabby’s eyes landed, she saw a griffon in pain, with way too much red outside, or missing parts. Some of them, Gabby, couldn’t even tell what was wrong. Maybe Goldina noticed that too and wanted Gabby out of there before she ended becoming another patient.

Gabby’s wing reached into her saddlebags and, as though it was on cue, the glass door to the improvised triage and reception burst open. If that hadn’t scared Gabby enough, the commotion that followed would have.

Two griffons entered. One was a very young adult, the other middle-aged, and both dragged along a young hen. Her beak hung open and her head kept twitching, same as her paws, opening and closing, while they dragged her across the floor. A crying older griffoness followed. The males, the young and the older female, all shared a similar appearance and shades of off-white feathers and pelts that were tan, leaning towards the color of bricks. Finally, came the pink nurse that had talked to Gabby when she first arrived.

“Priority! Priority!” she cried.

“Somebody, please help her!” the older hen screamed while tears streaked down her plumage.

Chaos descended upon the room, and helplessness grasped and squeezed Gabby’s heart. Even if her first impulse was to help, there simply wasn’t anything she could do other than get out of the way. Miss Goldina left her and the unsigned papers alone to watch from the sidelines while the older hen screamed and sobbed. The young female twitched and jerked like some evil unicorn was trying to pull her apart and the professionals did their best to contain her limbs. Things happened in a flurry that Gabby’s eyes could barely pierce. She couldn’t help putting herself in that young hen’s place, or the older one’s—her mother?—and a grimace crept into her beak while her paws shivered.

“She was waiting in triage and suddenly crashed.” The pink one told the griffon in the white coat after he jumped awake and stumbled down the stairs. She said several other things. The older griffoness mentioned words like ‘pixie dust’, and ‘client’. Gabby, somehow, stopped listening. She refused to let the implied images fill her head.

The doctor shouted things Gabby mostly didn’t understand. Miss Goldina directed griffons into working. Patients and hospital workers watched from afar, too many eyes on that family. Gabby caught herself staring at the commotion of tired and dirty griffons trying to hold the young, pretty hen in the middle of flailing limbs, unnerving guttural bellows, flasks, syringes, and containment belts.

It was only when calm was restored and the young hen was safely contained and sedated that Gabby noticed a griffoness she had not seen before; she had arrived in the middle of the commotion. She moved the mother and her two male companions discreetly away and allowed the others to work in peace. The mother was still crying, like an inconsolable cub, but at least the situation seemed under control.

The new arrival didn’t seem like she belonged there. Large, physically powerful, she was perfect in every sense of the word. Gabby blushed at the sight of her. A mid-aged griffoness, deep blue with cyan feathers and silvery highlights, wearing a flowing cape made of blue satin. Red stained the feathers above her elbow, but her paws were clean. She helped calm the mother, even though Gabby never heard what she said. Her presence seemed to dominate the place and griffons just did what she told them. She pointed and griffons hurried to get things done, and at her orders, someone brought the panicking mother a glass of water.

As suddenly as it had started, things seemed under control again, with the convulsing griffoness now resting calmly on a mattress sheltered under the reception desk. Miss Goldina approached Gabby with an easy chuckle, distracting her from the blue caped griffoness. “I’m sorry about that, dear. Let me see those papers again.”

Thank Celestia, Miss Goldina glanced over the papers and started signing one after the other, even after Gabby again confessed that someone had robbed much of the material, but she didn’t reveal the identity of the thieves. Meanwhile, Gabby could see the large blue female slapping away a nurse from their patient under the desk. The young hen had awakened and mumbled incoherent words. Gabby was not sure of what was going on there, but the blue-caped griffoness seemed to have some harsh words not only to the nurse, but the young griffoness’ mother and the two males. It confused Gabby, but nobody seemed willing to challenge her.

Miss Goldina didn’t seem to care much about what was on the papers and signed them all in a hurry. But while she was finishing, Gabby saw, over Goldina’s shoulders, the large blue griffoness was walking towards them. Prowling like a cat encroaching on their prey, and when she spoke, Goldina gave a startled jerk.

“Hello, and who might you be?” Her voice sounded stern, like she belonged in the military, or Gabby’s old school. In detention, more precisely. Like the last creature a cub wanted to see.

Her pronunciation of the Common Equestrian came out filled with whistles and hisses, but more importantly, when she approached, Gabby noticed she was much older than her initial appraisal made her believe. A fierce stare and a commanding tone like someone’s evil grandma. Miss Goldina silenced immediately, not a peep more, while the other sat by her side. The delicate chain of iron links which held her swaying cape tinkled over her fluffy blue-silvery chest.

She looked and sounded so different. Was she a northerner griffon? Was she helping? She must be someone important.

Gabby stepped back and sat, gasping once she noticed the older griffoness had talked to her. Words failed before she could respond, so intense was her gaze, scrutinizing every inch of her. “I’m Gabriella. From the city’s post office. Ma’am. You can call me Gabby.”

“Nice to meet you, Gabriella.” The older hen smiled. Maybe it was her fierce aquiline visage that seemed more pronounced than in the southerner griffons, but it scared Gabby like she was dangerous. “Are you from Greenland Hold?”

Gabby tripped on the words. They refused to come out like she wanted at the sudden question. “I am… I’m from Griffonstone. Yes. Ah… But… Ah, mom was from there. Yes.”

Behind the older griffoness, Goldina shot Gabby a pleading stare. What she meant, what she was trying to tell her, Gabby did not know. But then, the pink griffoness nurse squawked from one of the adjacent rooms, hiding behind the door’s frame.

“Madam Gaetana! Come quick!” pink yelled.

Turning, the older griffoness glared at the pink nurse at a distance, but when her pink paw beckoned anxiously, the old griffoness sighed and gave Gabby one last stare. “I am not done with you. Wait here.”

As soon as she was out of earshot and Gabby still recovered from her intense glare, Miss Goldina shook Gabby’s shoulders. “Go! Now!”

“But… But she said…”

“No buts, deary! Now! Leave the cart.” The urgency in her purple eyes scared Gabby into obedience. “Hurry!”

She stood and backpedaled. What had just happened? Goldina silently pleaded for her to leave and, as inconspicuously as she could. Gabby’s confused inaction turned to motivating fear. She walked and then trotted out of the door. Weaving her way past all the griffons on the granite floor, then on the grass and cement walkways between the building’s blocks and the garden. A griffon with a ‘security’ cap had taken the responsibility of watching over the cart. Looking at the griffon and the cart, Gabby bumped against another griffon on her way out.

A young soldier, using the green uniform and carrying on his back a musket that was almost too large for him, stared at her. A beautiful combination of brown and white, typical of the city, with golden eyes fixated on her. The old griffoness walked out of the building and looked the other way. Recognition sparked in his eyes and the soldier urged Gabby on, speaking in a hushed tone.

“Behind the Civil Services Department building. They’re dealing with a collapsed wall. You can slip past the checkpoint.”

Gabby wasn’t sure why she was fleeing from that griffoness, but they had convinced her she must.

03 - Alone

Gallus spent the first half of the boat trip sitting on the bed. Staring at the door. It would open at any second and some big, brutish northerner griffon would drag him across the ferry and all the way to Snow Mountains. Somehow. The idea made no sense whatsoever after minor scrutiny, but he was sure it would happen.

With the windows bolted into the wall, he knew he had to focus on the door. Merry noises upstairs reached him with images of all the fun the other passengers were having. He would not expose himself to join them, though. Among the festive griffons, he imagined the rich couple searching for him. He kept his post, watching the door, but the princess-sized bed was so soft and large. His eyes became heavy, and he found it difficult to focus.

He woke up with a gasp. The movement of the ship changed, and seagulls kept squawking outside along with the noise of moving carts and shouting griffons. The windows showed the sea on one side and a harbor on the other. Groaning the sleep out, Gallus sat on the bed. He had not only laid himself into a slumber but also covered himself with the silky sheets. He groaned again, but at himself, mumbling complaints and hopping off the bed. In the bathroom, he stared at his blue self in the mirror before he set his crest of feathers straight. Then he let out a gigantic yawn. All his anxiety from before became little more than a background worry, but he reminded himself he was not safe yet. Hopefully, General Seaspray’s lie would throw off the northerner agents a little longer, but carelessness would certainly get him into trouble.

Laziness too. The more he waited to get to Grampa Gruff’s, the worst it would be, and he still had to go through the teleporter to Griffonstone. Gallus donned his backpack, but before leaving the room, he opened the door to a sliver and peeked through to see a mostly empty corridor. Only a creamy hippogriff mare walked on the carpet, checking the individual rooms. Coming out of his, he made her perk her ears and gasp at him.

She half-angrily told him they had already docked some time ago, and that he had fifteen minutes to disembark. Gallus nodded, thanked her, and waved his paw at her before climbing the stairs up. The lounge too was mostly empty, with only a pair of hippogriff crewmembers minding the earnings of the bar while three others swept the floor. No one paid him any mind beyond a quick stare, and he was fine with that. On the deck, more crewmembers minded whatever shipboard duties they must. Gallus focused on the ramp going down to the docks, happy the rich couple was nowhere to be seen. Were they good or bad, he had dodged them.

Coming down from the ship, a small passenger terminal dominated the view at the end of a small pathway made of red cobblestone in the concrete. A few bushes kept eyes and passengers away from the rest of the harbor and the working areas. Even if they were meant to look at the terminal, griffon architecture was much less conducive to prettying up compared to the pony and hippogriff decorations. There was a lot of white, some yellow and red, wood. The yellow and red Griffonian flag, the Equestrian Confederation Flag, the city’s flag. Some lampposts with round glass tops for the gas lights flanked the path, but they were off during the day. The down-to-earth path led arrivals straight to the terminal, which was mostly a boring, white and glass building. Before it, a small plaza joined all the pathways from the passenger landings.

Griffons had taken the architecture of places like Manehattan, stripped it of anything that might make you happy, and filled them with griffons to get some job done with minimal enjoyment. Yay. He had been back on griffon lands for minutes and he already felt like a griffon again.

Double wood doors, welcomingly open, led into a lounge where a few griffons and hippogriffs talked to the officers behind a line of desks. Security was abundant: griffons wearing the city’s local militia leather armor, green and blue. Others waited in lines, but as a Griffonian citizen, Gallus had priority. He went to one of the free priority desks, greeted the guy on the other side, and quickly grabbed his identification document from his backpack. The sandy griffon hummed, looked at him, hummed again. Meanwhile, Gallus kicked himself for immediately identifying himself. There was no other way, though, and he fought back a grimace while the griffon wrote down something Gallus couldn’t see.

A couple of minutes, agonizing minutes later, the sand-colored griffon returned Gallus his document. “Welcome back, Gallus. You’re free to enter Griffonia. Please note there is unrest and fighting in the capital. We advise against traveling there.”

Gallus thanked the griffon, stashing his identification and making his way in between the desks. Security didn’t bother him, though it seemed some griffons had trouble with their documents. A couple argued with a clerk and waited until an official arrived. Background noise: Gallus wasted no time with the woes of others. Past the counters was another lounge where friends greeted each other, family members celebrated someone’s arrival. Nobody paid attention to the lone blue griffon, and Gallus was happy as punch with that.

He had been to Beachhome before, and it was quite the big town. Probably larger than Griffonstone, with all the jobs related to the hasty logistics of moving fragile produce out of there. It was the reason the city had the holy combo of teleporter, harbor, and airdocks. The city was the farming hub of Griffonia, with giant farms employing a silly number of ponies. Although, the livestock farms employed mostly griffons. There were also more specialized agricultural businesses, like the vineyards and wineries up north, making use of the cold that bled from Snow Mountains Hold further north.

Gallus shivered. Just thinking of that place gave him the shudders, and not only of cold.

Most creatures didn’t know, or didn’t care, but Griffonia was divided into holds, which were like counties or states. Griffonland had Griffonstone, which was the administrative center. Greenland was where all the farms and the big port were, while Fernland was an ugly swampland hosting most of the heavy industry. Then there was Snow Mountains that most griffons didn’t even remember existed. It was basically a frozen land of barbarians stuck in the last century, who provided game meat and iron. Taxes, too, Gallus supposed.

Walking out of the terminal, he found the great port of Beachhome under cloudy and sooty skies. Noisy warehouses surrounded the way out past the chain cordoning and carts hauled stuff in every direction. The entrance and exit of the harbor proper were a wide plaza with a central statue of a sitting griffon. It was a stone goof, covered in creeping vines and grinning at a little plant growing in his paw. He had a name, but Gallus forgot what it was. It welcomed the newcomers to Beachhome, and a cobblestone path channeled passengers to and from the terminal to the exit. The smell of fish reminded them it was a harbor-town meant to keep commerce alive in the hopes Griffonia wouldn’t implode, and the statue reminded them the hold dedicated itself to farming. In the distance, more warehouses and industry buildings changed into a griffon copy of Mannehattan. Just not as big nor as clean. Griffons skimped on the magical cleaning of industrial exhausts. It was probably only because of the ponies and weather teams the air was breathable.

A line of wagons, carts, and carriages waited, almost in an organized manner, making a line around a parking lot with white markings that went mostly ignored. Their owners sat on them, looking bored and hoping some tourist or lazy bird would hire them for transportation. Most griffons just flew after passing under the gate: it was bad manners to fly inside places like the harbor, not to mention dangerous—safety rules reserved the air for working griffons in a hurry. If a mana battery somewhere is about to explode, that was probably more important than you missing your ship.

It was not an awful place, and if Gallus was in a good mood, he might even find it pleasant. The plaza had seats, a gazebo, food parlors and even a city-owned gift shop in the center, by the statue. Some friends lounged about, a family with three cubs walked around happily. An older teacher sat with her class, talking to bored little cubs. The problem was indeed Gallus’ mood.

The wagons interested Gallus the most. Some of them were closed and would take him inconspicuously to where he needed to go. He still remembered the etiquette, though. You were supposed to go to the first one in the line. A gray and white griffon hen with a red beret and a green scarf around her neck waited in a green, well-maintained, and enclosed wagon. He walked up to her and cleared his throat.

“Hey. I gotta go to the teleporter.”

“Sure thing, kid.” She said, giving him a bored, appraising stare. “That’s fifteen Bits. Upfront.”

Gallus fished the coins out of his coin pouch and gave them to her. Salty, but he would rather remain inconspicuous. She told him to hop aboard and make himself comfortable. Nice and simple, like he wanted. He found a small but comfy sitting room on wheels. It had a rainbow flower rug, a few sitting pillows, and a small bedside table. It even had a magical lamp hanging from the ceiling.

As the wagon started moving, and another promptly moved to take her place in the line, Gallus closed the tarp on the back. He took off his backpack and sat to relax on one of the pillows. His conductor told him it would be a while, as the teleporter was in downtown and traffic could be nasty, but he didn’t mind it. He simply told her he wasn’t in a hurry and took one of his comics out to read. It helped distract his mind; the damp hot air barely bothered him, and when he was just short of finishing, the wagon stopped.

“We’re here, buddy!” the griffoness announced.

Wasting no time, Gallus stashed his comic, thanked her, and hopped off. They exchanged goodbyes, but his attention had turned to the new location. All teleporters Gallus knew had a semicircular plaza in front of them. The usual fare occupied the place: food, entertainment and a lot of local militia officers looking for troublemakers. Or escaping nobles. Gallus grimaced, staring the other way when a griffon in leather armor looked at him.

He hurried his way across the plaza, ignoring all the fanfare and tourist traps. His head remained straight, not looking to the sides, barely nodding to whichever creature greeted him until he crossed the doors into the building. It was a state-of-the-art magical facility, the likes only Canterlot unicorns could buy. That was, run-off-the-mill builders could build most of the thing, just not to the advanced magical machinery that required enough magical crystals that Princess Cadance could probably afford a new palace every time they built one. But ponies paid for most of it, anyway. Griffons were not in the business of making other creatures’ lives easier.

Probably because most of the money came from the Equestrian Heartland, most of the decoration also came from there. Suns, moons, stars, and feathers everywhere, colorful furniture and paintings, not to mention the company logos. Most of them were owned by ponies, after all. Gallus also had a rudimentary understanding of how it worked. A company rented the space and equipment to provide teleportation services. Some companies also offered shops and what not, maybe a fast-food restaurant. Without the time spent traveling, as with an airship, most companies wouldn’t offer cassinos or fancy restaurants. Gallus would rather avoid any place with too many creatures, so he preferred companies without the added nonsense.

He followed the indications for the twelve companies, each with a ticketing desk within an over-thought kiosk. Most of them had plaques, or pamphlets easily available and mentioning the price of teleportation for a single creature and all the places they ‘linked’ to. Other than the unneeded mountain of posters and laycreature-level information about the facility. All three companies Gallus initially visited showed Griffonstone at the top of the list. Unfortunately, they had crossed them out. Noticing his frown looking up at the plaque, the earth pony attendant behind the desk for Lickety-Split Teleportation Services offered assistance.

Everything in the kiosk was orange and gold, including the earth pony mare and her little feathery headdress. Gallus could imagine some PR genius looking for a promotion, patting himself in the back for his brilliant idea of uniform for a griffon city that made the pony look like a hooker. Gallus talked with her after clearing his throat.

“I need to go to Griffonstone, please.” He said, trying his best not to sound too helpless. There were other means of transportation, but those would take too long and leave him too vulnerable. He wanted to make it to Grampa Gruff’s home as soon as possible.

“Griffonstone’s closed, sweetie.” The cute, gold-eyed mare told him with a smile.

“Closed?! But I need to get to my guardian’s home!” he squawked.

“I’m sorry. The union and the consortium have both asked companies to not link there and to evacuate all employees.” She told him with a sad frown and orange hoof pointing. Gallus’ eyes followed it to another kiosk near the end of the hall. “Wild North Teleportations is the only one still operating in and out of Griffonstone for now. Probably because they are an all-griffon company.”

Wild north.

Griffon-only.

The feeling when one sees a cockroach out of the corner of the eye and knows to be disgusted even before registering it was a cockroach made him squirm. It churned in his stomach and made the hair on his back stand. And much like so, seeing the kiosk, even at a distance, only reinforced it.

It was a simple and elegant affair, only a niche for the attendant’s desk. All white and gray, with fogged glass making the name plaque. The logo showed a gray cloud and a lightning bolt. Below it, and behind the desk sat a pink and white, cute griffon lady. She stared at nothing like she had perfected the Royal Guard art of standing still.

Gallus turned to the pony attendant. “I can pay extra…”

“Sorry. It’s not a matter of money. We don’t want the consortium, much less the union, to be angry at us. The city isn’t doing well and there were talks of Princess Celestia ordering ponies to clear out of there. That carries some weight. I’m really sorry…”

“Of course…” he sighed and thanked the mare before starting on his way out of the building.

Gallus wasted no time and took a ride to the airdocks. He’d buy an airship ticket to Griffonstone. That failed: no airships going to Griffonstone. Duh. Maybe ride an airship to a nearby town and then wing it from there? Nope. Too far and he’d be traveling alone like a dumbass kid running from home. Hire an escort? No money, and too conspicuous. Join a caravan? No dice. Nobody would go to Griffonstone, anyway. They might as well hand him over to the northerners as far as Gallus could trust other griffons.

Gallus sat on a bench inside the airship station and sighed, oblivious to the other griffons coming and going and the luxurious decoration. The northerners would search for him as soon as they confirmed he was not with the princess. They’d go to Ponyville to look for him—one-hundred percent sure—and they’d flip every rock in Griffonia until they found him.

Gallus noted, with a grimace and a glance outside the airship station, that the northerners must already be looking for him. But he never even saw anyone that looked like a northerner. That unnerved him. They could have hired locals to find him, but nobody seemed to pay attention to him. It wracked his nerves even more than if they were chasing him. The air was damp and hot, but it seemed suddenly ready to boil him.

He found it difficult to believe Ponyville would harbor him without Princess Twilight Sparkle. That they’d protect him from the northerner griffons. Queen Novo might have him back, but that was too dangerous. His sister-in-law’s agents would find him and would end up hurting Skystar and Silverstream just to get to him. Maybe even Queen Novo. The idea of trying the Yaks through Yona made him laugh, and the changelings… the northerners could do something horrible if the changelings got involved. With Princess Celestia and Luna gone, there might be no way of stopping them.

No. Gallus had only one chance and one option: getting to Grampa Gruff as fast as possible. He would shelter him. He would be a pain under the tail, but he would help him. Even if that would get him hiring the griffons he was trying to hide from.

On his way back to the teleporter, on another ride, Gallus felt as dumb as his coin pouch was lighter. When he noticed, he was already before the kiosk and staring at the pink griffoness under the ‘Wild North Teleportations’ plaque. She smiled at him.

“Greetings. Welcome to Wild North Teleportations!” she piped. “How may we help you, mister?”

All of Gallus’ willpower went into not wincing at the whistly accent. He blinked at her inquisitive intonation and coughed once. “Hi. I’m Galsius. That’s G-A-L-S-I-U-S. And I gotta get to Griffonstone, please. It is an important family business, and uh… kind of a private matter, too.”

“I understand!” she kept her friendly but professional attitude. “May I see your identification, please, Mister Galsius?”

He hesitated, cursed inside, and then smiled at her. “Sure. One second.”

She kept staring at him while he rummaged inside his backpack. Meanwhile, Gallus raked his brain for a way out of that situation with little success; he kept remembering he had no other chance. When it became awkward, and the griffon lady coughed into her fist, frowning at him, he stared at her with an apologetic stare. “Oh… I can’t seem to find it.”

Her confused frown turned into an annoyed one. “Then I believe we cannot help you. Sir.”

“I can pay…” he said. Desperately begging with his eyes, despite his best efforts.

“I doubt you have enough money to make it worth enraging my boss.” She told him dryly. “I also disapprove of you wasting my time like this. I shall call the authorities if you don’t leave.”

The young griffon groaned, sticking his forelimb into the backpack. After a second, he produced his identification and offered it to her with a defeated sigh. “Fine. Sorry. I’m just looking after myself here. Just don’t get anyone else involved, please.”

She hummed with a malcontent glare at him before squinting at the document and his finger over his actual name. It was a desperate attempt, an almost comical shot at not getting himself identified by the very griffons he was trying to hide from. To Gallus’ surprise, the clerk created no further problems. He almost burst, laughing with anxiety as she typed, produced a ticket, and gave it to him.

“That will be one hundred-fifty Bits.”

Salty, but teleporters were expensive for a reason. And it was not like an airship ride would be much cheaper. Not to mention… holy feathery fuck. It worked! With no complaining whatsoever, Gallus fished the coins from his pouch and exchanged them for the ticket with a huge grin on his beak.

“Is that it?” he asked as his grin became almost desperate.

“Yes, sir!” her tone became happy again as she pointed further into the facility. “Just follow the gray line. One of our employees will take you to the teleporter platform. Have a nice day!”

He did as she told him, and there was not much to see other than creatures enjoying a meal at the fast-food places or buying stuff. Gallus ignored the myriad of stores, bistros, and lounges. The hall was wide, but lower than the facility itself, which looked like a warehouse from outside. A glorified warehouse. All the magical machinery that made the teleporters work and the administrative side of operating the companies were behind the walls and in the floors above. Not to mention the storage for all the added services.

The rainbow of colored lines on the marble floor split apart, guiding users to their desired company’s facility on either side of the long hallway. Lots of wasted space in between, but again, the culprit was certainly the magical machinery. The gray line took Gallus to a small waiting area. Fogged glass panes, covered in a gradient of white and gray, separated it from the main area with a narrow, privacy-preserving entrance. A large gray griffon stood by a door on the other side, among sofas and a little coffee table. He locked his eyes with Gallus as soon as he crossed into the company’s space, the cold, dark gray eyes of a northerner griffon. Caught off-guard for an instant, Gallus wondered how many griffons one needed to kill to look badass like that.

“Sir.” He greeted Gallus, offering his paw, and reminded the younger griffon he might be in danger. “Your ticket, please.”

Gallus cleared his throat and reassured himself the larger-than-normal guy did not know who he was. He groaned a response and showed the ticket, faking hurry and irritation. It worked. The northerner griffon simply watched and thanked Gallus for using their services, not even caring that the younger griffon had pushed the door open himself. Stepping into the black stone corridor, Gallus silently thanked Celestia that the door was not locked.

The garish white walls and mirror-sheen black floor reflected his blue back at him, but they were not the worse. It was the giant black statue of the griffoness at the end of the corridor. She was lying on her belly, with her wings stretched upward and staring down at the corridor, poised to judge anyone entering. Collars, bracelets, and arabesques made of white gold adorned the thing, and a pair of diamonds made its eyes. Gallus’ tail found its way in between his legs with that thing staring into his soul.

He winced after a heartbeat and made an audible groan. “These freaks.”

The door to the right also was a white to gray gradient on glass with white gold for fittings and so was the one further down the corridor. The latter let pass a griffon lady, though. Her fur was a velvety shade of red and her feathers were like the delicate pink petals in a rose. The forward-swept feathers on her crest twirled on themselves at the tip, much like real petals would. Vibrant pink eyes locked on him, and she smiled like it was probably not acceptable for an adult to smile at a teenager. He blinked and hacked dryly, sitting on the floor.

“Welcome, Mister Galsius.” She told him with silky words, walking towards him and taking his ticket. Gallus focused on the fact that the attendant outside had used the stupid fake name he had made up on the fly. Thank Celestia indeed, but he almost let escape a chuckle. “Thank you for using Wild North Teleportations.”

“I ah… I just want to go home.” He told her, trying to hide behind the aloof ‘I’m too important for you, hurry it up’ tone.

“Absolutely.” She kept a smile on her beak. “Our teleporter is down at the moment, and we apologize for the inconvenient.”

Gallus suppressed his grimace and his desire to turn tail and flee from that place. Maybe he could walk to Griffonstone? His rational side told him it wouldn’t help; he had already entered the belly of the beast and they would just find him eventually. “You can wait in the lobby of our hotel while we remediate the situation.”

He coughed again. It would be alright. They hadn’t recognized him. All he had to do was keep a cool head. “Yeah. Great! I mean, sure. That is acceptable if there is no other way.”

She kept her smile and turned with a sultry, fluid movement like she was a sheet of velvet in the breeze, with her tail swishing through the air after her. An unnerving smoothness filled her movements, a majesty in her voice that unsettled him. Gallus kept his eyes on the black stone of the floor before they found something else to focus on and followed her.

The door at the end of the corridor opened to a luxurious two-level lounge. Glasses clinked from the tables in front of a fancy bar, its glass counter gleamed under the white walls behind. A couple of griffons sat with their daughter at one of the black glass tables, sipping their drinks. Behind the counter, a black griffon lady waited, her professional attentiveness rendered her as still as a statue. Above the tables, a milky crystal orb hung from the ceiling, bathing the room in a soft, cold light.

Down half-a-dozen steps, the lower level housed a fountain, but rather than a sprinkle of water, it had an internal lake made with river stones and a small, black storm cloud raining above. It filled the air with petrichor and made a calming rainy background noise until a lightning flashed and took over the lounge for an instant. Black iron and white leather made the furniture surrounding the fountain. Stylish and fancy, with a touch of luxurious and exotic, just like the image the evil bitch up north wanted the world to think of her.

A corridor in the back led into the rooms, and the wall above it held a painting of a griffon lady. One Gallus knew well. It was a bust of a white griffoness with a gradually darkening fluffy chest and black wings. Her white face showed very sharp and aquiline features, like most griffons, but fiercer, somehow. Gray eyes, full of arrogance, stared at him, and a cowl of black feathers rested behind her head. Finally, an obsidian beak turned with a coy smile. Behind her was a serene prairie dimly lit by the sun of the twilight hours. Gray mountain with the snowed peak dominated the background, sharing the sky with a dark storm.

Gallus squirmed, mumbling under his breath. “She’s getting so bold they’re hanging her on the damn walls now.”

“Was there anything you needed, Mister Galsius?” The red and pink griffoness asked from behind him.

Gallus cleared his throat. “No. Thank you very much. I’ll just sit here and wait.”

He failed to hold back a scoff as he made his way down the stairs and hopped onto the sofa and still held a displeased frown, but had to admit it was more comfortable than the bed in the ferry. His backpack left to rest next to him, Gallus kept his eyes on the steel and black glass table before him. A selection of fashion and real-estate magazines covered the table. A lightning in the trapped cloud cracked and filled the room with a flash again.

“Stupid gimmick…” Gallus mumbled to himself.

His eyes turned from the cloud and the internal lake. After a couple of minutes avoiding to stare at anything that annoyed him in that lounge—mostly everything—Gallus reached into his backpack and grabbed one of his comics to read. He had not read it yet, but focusing was difficult. His eyes kept escaping the pages to look at movements or noises that distracted him in the lounge.

Little bugs scurried around in the internal garden, plants bobbing under the drizzle. A poster hung from a wall, showing Gallus’ half-brother in all his aquiline glory, tan and white, powerful, majestic A. F. Most griffons might not even recognize the scratchy letters; it was a pandering note urging the smart and strong griffons to go north and join the Lion. Lord Gilad was going to fix Griffonia. A couple of lines below repeated the message, but in the Common Equestrian ideograms. Gallus silently scoffed at it and focused on the comic again. To think some griffons were dumb enough to think replacing their Chancellor with a king. Democratically elected chancellor, one should mention. His eyes rolled and, again distracted, drifted to the bar.

The family was still on the upper floor, enjoying their drinks and snacking. An entirely gray griffoness and her mate, a darker shade of gray, talked discreetly over their drinks and food. They looked like northerners… rugged, big. Almost feral. They probably had a farm nearby to be traveling this far south.

Their daughter had gone to the bar. Her pelt and plumage were a fortunate shade of gray that seemed to shimmer like silver in the internal magical lights. She stood with her hindlegs taut and showed a lithe figure of the kind to be found in those magazines Gallus was not supposed to look at. While her forelimbs supported her weight at the counter, she enthusiastically asked for something, and the tip of her tail flicked frenetically. Then her eyes met his. Her beak, made like a work of art in quicksilver, pulled with a sultry smile and she wagged her tail for him. Gallus quickly shifted his eyes back to the colorful images in his comic.

Next thing he knew, the griffon lady was prancing behind his seat and the silver, tufty tip of her tail licked the sofa and tickled his flank. She walked around the sofa while Gallus remained still, staring into his comic. She cradled a plate on her left wing, carrying little snacks of ham and honey that she then left on the table before climbing onto the sofa.

“Hello,” she said in the mostly forgotten High-Griffonese, only presently spoken in Snow Mountains and lost to most griffons in existence, with all its hisses and whistles. “I do not believe I have seen you here before.”

“I am Gracelyn of Brokenhorn. I don’t believe I have met you before.” She scooted closer to him with a sweltering smile. Her eyes inspected Gallus up and down with her growing smile. “Although I certainly should have.”

His eyes darted around the room, desperate to look at anything that wasn’t her because the comic wasn’t working anymore. He failed miserably; the warmth from her body absorbed him and filled his head with very adult thoughts. He stammered, both at a loss for what to say and rusty with his High-Griffonese. Probably blushing so hard while he didn’t dare look away from his comic anymore. “I’m a… Gal…sius. Galsius of Griffonstone.”

She giggled, but not like Silverstream would and much less like Skystar. She was also not the first to give Gallus such a stare, as Silverstream did that too, but also not like that. The lady next to him turned him into a piece of ham hanging from the ceiling for her to peck at. She held his shoulder and whispered silky, hissy, and whistly words at him. “Drop this silly pony thing and let us do something more spirited.”

Gallus hacked and stuffed the magazine inside his backpack he then slung over his shoulder. He quickly hopped off the sofa to flee. He was not dumb enough to think that was just innocent flirting… And proposing. And while tempted, he also considered his situation. He wanted out of that place. He would find a way to travel to Griffonstone. For now, he rushed his way around the sofa, ignoring whatsherface and her mewling pleas and excuses.

The older, red and pink griffoness intercepted Gallus at the top of the stairs. He didn’t even see where she had come from, but meant to walk around her, ignore her. Until she spoke. “I am terribly sorry for the delay, Mister Galsius. The teleporter is now functioning, and you will be at Griffonstone within minutes.”

Was it something in the way she spoke? The pure professionalism, or genuinely helpful manner? Suddenly, he was not so sure he ought to leave; he had paid already, after all. Thinking back to the rich couple back at Mount Aris, he had been overreacting, too. He gave the older griffoness an awkward smile and told her he was ready to leave and followed her through the corridor. He never gave the other so much as a backwards glance, though.

The other door in the corridor opened into the actual teleporter. It was a simple room with a round platform made of pink crystal and golden accents. It had rails around it and all sorts of crystal doohickeys in every color of the rainbow. Next to it was a crystal table with more colorful crystals and gems, along with dials, meters, and lights. A light brown and yellow griffon guy stood next to an orange unicorn scrutinizing the table and all its thingies.

With his backpack donned, Gallus climbed the steps and turned around even before his escort told him to. The unicorn sighed, and his horn lit with magic.

“Griffonstone… Please remain still. You may experience some nausea and disorientation, but it will pass momentarily. The staff at your destination will assist if necessary.” The unicorn spoke with the tired monotone of a thousand repetitions.

Before Gallus could ask if he was alright, his horn shone with amber magic. Everything took on a blinding shine and when it was over, a white and gray mare replaced the orange unicorn. She observed her set of instruments under the watch of a creamy white griffoness. Third on the room was a black and gray griffon frowning at Gallus, still standing on the platform.

“We have decoupled. Waveform returning to baseline.” The new unicorn piped.

The dark griffon approached Gallus as he stepped down. “Welcome. You are now at the Griffonstone teleporter facility. Wild North Teleportation thanks you for your preference. We have luxurious accommodations if you wish for—”

“No, thanks. I have my home.” Gallus interrupted while walking past the guy so fast as to be rude. Thankfully, he experienced none of the disorientation or nausea. He just wanted out of that place.

If the facility was the same as the other, he ought to know the way out. It was. A quick sprint took him to the grand hall behind the ticket desks. The exit was in sight and the way clear. The entire facility was all almost devoid of traffic or working griffons. A pair, wearing the Local Militia leather armor, stood watch by the abandoned ticket desks. Unsurprisingly, only one had a clerk sitting behind it.

Again, donning his busy face, Gallus beelined to the exit and walked past the guards, sparing the couple of law-enforcer griffons not a glance. He kept going and going until he made it outside and the teleporter facility plaza opened itself to him. And it was nothing like the one in Beachhome.

It smelled. The breeze carried a rancid, sweet smell that was not quite intrusive or strong. It simply remained to remind Gallus something smelled bad. Mounds of grime and discarded trash accumulated under the benches and by the planters with brown, withered plants. More alarming were the dirty griffons loitering around. Some wore torn clothes and dragged patchy blankets or just lied to sleep on dirty cardboard sheets under the elements. Gallus was sure one was sniffing something from a bottle, and it was probably bad because he blacked out immediately.

What should be a gift shop was a broken husk of a building. Glass shards still covered the stone pavement, and the masonry on the walls had black soot. What had happened there? Nothing good, that was for sure. That place looked like it wanted to hold Gallus with invisible paws and suffocate him in the thick air. He leaped and flew.

Veering towards the richer part of the town, things seemed nicer and much more normal. Griffon ladies wore fancy dresses and elaborate bonnets, talking in between the rich houses. Tuxedo wearing gentlegriffons walked up and down the sidewalks with their friends or female companions. Cubs played in their spacious backyards or chased balls and themselves down the street. Everything was clean and devoid of burned and destroyed structures. Some griffons greeted Gallus as they flew past. Nice carriages waited for their owners outside of the pubs and stores, well-groomed assistants sat patiently nearby. Others followed the pavement stone up the slope.

Gallus flew up to a plateau where the houses became a ring of mansions surrounding the inner streets which were themselves flanked by nice, not as opulent, houses. Cut stone was a privilege for civilian construction, and so were the ceramic tiles in the roof, but those marked Gallus’s destination. Memories of flying home with ice cream after school and of chasing friends under the afternoon sun returned with the sight of those roofs. He had finally reached his destination upon seeing the two-story brick and wood house in the middle of the others.

As politeness asked, he landed on the sidewalk and trotted with a grin past the open gate. It was shoulder-height—any cub could leap over it—existing for decorative purposes only. Gladly smiling, he pranced up the stone path, nickering that Grampa Gruff had let the grass grow out of control. Regardless, he knocked on the door and warbled.

“Grampa Gruff! It’s me! Gallus!” He waited patiently, but no answer came.

Nothing crashed to the floor or scratched as the grumpy griffon hurried to open the door. “Hello?”

The butterflies in his stomach chased away the warm nostalgia, but he knocked again. No answer. A frown crept into his cheery, then worried expression and he flew above the house. He could see no activity through the windows on the second floor, only furniture covered in white sheets. Gallus chuckled. Desperation had taken over his eyes as he justified it in his thoughts that Grampa Gruff was probably renovating. No answer from the backyard door. He flew to the front yard and knocked harder.

“Come on! This ain’t funny, you old jerk!” his voice strained and a sharp sob accompanied it.

Gallus sat before the door and chuckled with a forlorn, quickly withering grin. It would be alright. Grampa Gruff was probably just busy with something. Maybe he went to the market. Yes, that was it. There was no need to panic; just sit tight and wait. He should be back soon.

The dusk showed up before Grampa Gruff. With it came a quickly worsening cold. An old griffon in a blue uniform stopped before the fence. His gray feathers had lost their gray shine and took on the fading shade of old age. His blue eyes lit like the streetlamps he had been tending on his way up the street upon finding Gallus.

“Gallus?” he gasped. “Is that you?”

“Hello, Old Mister Grayson.” Gallus said with a smile, despite his chattering beak and chill clinging to his fur.

“Goodness gracious!” the old griffon smiled warmly. “It is delightful to see you again, Gallus. I hadn’t seen you since… the last vacations, was it? What are you doing here?”

“Well, I… I live here. Or I lived… I used to live here.” Gallus had hugged himself with forelimbs and wings, chuckled at his self-deceiving lie. “I’m just waiting for Grampa Gruff to come home.”

The old griffon, poking the gas lamp lit with his sparker stick, listened to Gallus, but shook his head once he succeeded. He spoke with a touch of worry in his tired voice. “There must be a mistake, son. Mister Gruff has moved from this house almost a month ago.”

“For real?” Gallus cried. The sarcastic anger almost warmed Gallus enough to flare his wings. He swore under his breath, though. “Oh, man! What now? Where did he go?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know. You should leave the town, kid.” The old griffon let his cheerful expression melt into sadness. The happy marks of old age at the corner of his eyes turned bleak. “It is not friendly right now. In fact, you should not be out at night. The military and their northerner friends turned the city on itself. Some griffons have become desperate.”

“I… Ah…” the old griffon looked away. “I would offer you a place to stay, but my home burned down because of a fire in a warehouse the military had taken over to shoot their cannons at something. But I don’t think my daughter can afford to house another griffon.”

“It’s alright Mister Grayson.” Gallus smiled and steeled himself, standing from the floor and resting his wings along his flanks. “It was great seeing you. Later.”

He left his old home’s front yard and took the sidewalk, but he did not fly. He just didn’t want to walk in the same direction as Old Mister Grayson. In fact, Gallus never stopped to think about what he was going to do, much less where he was going. He simply wanted to be out of there. He only stopped after three blocks among the upper mid-class homes. Panting softly, he kicked his brain into thinking again.

Rather than his situation, he focused on the surrounding street. It worried him how so many of the houses he had grown up playing around had dark windows. Only a couple in the entire street shed light from their windows, and even then, through the curtains. Griffons were supposed to be getting ready for dinner. The smells of homemade food should be filling his nares along with the smoky tinge of the heating furnaces. He stopped and looked around. Not a soul shared the streets with him. Two streetlamps remained dark, and silence had claimed the cobblestone street. To make it all worse, the dark clouds lit with lightning and distant thunder echoed.

Crashing glass startled him. Further ahead, in the shade, a trio of griffons stood on someone’s lawn. They wore heavy clothes and one of them threw a brick at a window, shattering it whole in the second attempt. Another leaped inside and the first followed. The third looked at Gallus and drew a revolver from his heavy coat. The shock was all Gallus needed to leap into the air and fly in the opposite direction. Hiding behind the roofs, only stopping after he was out of that hill and with his paws firmly planted on the ground. Partially to catch his breath, but also because he was so cold from flying in the nightly chill.

There seemed to be a party going on, with griffons hanging around and talking. A few tables covered in tacky, fruit-themed sheets had bowls smelling of alcohol and fruits while stands sufficed for griffons buying and selling… What were they negotiating? A griffon lady in shades of green and wearing a blue and green feathered headdress walked past him. Her tail wrapped around and pulled a grinning guy’s neck as she led him into a closed booth.

“Oh, man…” Gallus winced.

A tan and white griffon lady with a similarly large headdress of colorful feathers approached him. Another two followed. Her visage was heavy with strong colors for makeup, but her green eyes offered him some worry as he caught his breath again.

“Are you lost, sweetie?” The first asked, smiling, but her breath carried a strong smell of alcohol that almost made Gallus retch. He took a couple of steps back. “You look cold.”

The other giggled. Purple and a soft shade of green, her feathers also had green highlights that her headdress mimicked, wavering to one side and the other. She too talked to him, with a slurred voice, and ruffling wings. “One-twenty Bits and I can warm you, deary!”

The third shoved the second and her inane giggling to the side with her body. “Cadance’s mane, Gemma. He is a chick.”

Chastised, the second shrugged, getting her giggling under control. Not the stench in her breath. “Looks mature enough, to be fair. And I’m just talking about cuddling!”

“I… Ah… Gotta go,” Gallus told them, frowning and stepping away again. “Excuse me.”

He was not rude, Gallus would have said, but swiftly walked around them and ignored tan’s pleas that she wanted to help. Where the heck had he ended up? Still shaken by what he had just witnessed and confused by the dark buildings, and even avoiding drunk griffons everywhere, he tried taking stock of where he was.

Around the plaza, the streets were dark with the lack of functioning public illumination and the privacy walls covered in cheap fake plants helped none. Someone had set up a weird sort of carnival with large leaves and vines hanging from a folding screen. There were soft fruits everywhere, most of them fake, along with cheap torches for lighting and cheap fake trees.

Then he saw the decorated sheets hid lewd griffons, kissing, touching each other. He pressed his step to come out of that place until he finally saw salvation. A hotel on the other side of the street. Why not? It had a decent-looking decoration, and the teleporter was probably closed. Gallus decided not to further test his luck that night. Most importantly, the hotel had no degenerate griffons doing dirty stuff in the open, that was for sure. The frowning, seething, young griffon guy by the entrance was a good sign inside was safer.

As soon as Gallus untangled himself from all the smells of filth and alcohol, and awful music with horny-jail worthy sounds, almost like he popped out of that mess, the griffon in front of the hotel’s entrance grinned. They greeted each other as soon as the griffon resumed his grumpy expression upon Gallus’s approach, but it was too late.

“Greetings. The neighborhood used to be… hum… cleaner, but there’s been a raise in lazy bums and the local militia says they have bigger problems than ‘a few hookers trying to survive’. Of course, except nobody wants to travel anymore and the ones who do will not come to a hotel with a feathering red lantern right outside the doors.”

“I’ll bet,” Gallus retorted, following the other griffon into the building.

It was more like a big house than someone renovated to accommodate griffons in need of lodging. He had ended up on the edge of one of the commercial zones in town, on the way to the teleporter. What mattered was that he was inside and safe.

The living room turned into reception and had a desk next to the stairs. Once behind, the owner turned around and eyed Gallus with a malcontent frown. “Are you… How old are you?”

“For real?” Gallus glared at him.

The owner was quite young, although certainly an adult. Covered with an orange pelt and yellow feathers with no outstanding characteristics other than his accusatory glare at Gallus. “There are laws…”

“I’m fifty Bits old, pal,” Gallus growled, pointing at the sign with the prices. All rooms were fifty Bits, a testament that all rooms ranked ‘premium’, and a meal was twenty-five. “What? Are you gonna kick me out of your lame guesthouse? It’s night outside!”

“Fine! Fine! Just buy a dinner too, alright?” the owner rolled his eyes. “My wife’s gotta earn her money, too.”

“Deal!” Gallus grinned.

What that earned Gallus was a subpar room, but a room. Located opposite to the entrance, so he couldn’t hear the ‘partying’ outside. Dinner was not so bad either, and delivered to his room. A juicy chicken breast with tomato and fine herbs sauce, well above expectations for that place. The bath was good enough, especially since he had a magical shower. Gallus even felt bad for the owner. He really was trying, only the economy wasn’t helping. He was one of those griffons that stayed with Griffonia through its worse and he could admire that, after calling him an idiot. But Gallus refrained from thinking about that. He had his own problems to deal with. Looking inside his pouch of coins, he fished one-hundred-fifty-five Bits out of it, and those should be enough for him to teleport to Ponyville in the morning.

He went to bed, but sleep didn’t come quickly. He wondered what had happened to Grampa Gruff. Gallus had known him since an early age, and growing up, Grampa Gruff was the closest thing to a father he had. Although, more like an educator, a grumpy one, but that did like Gallus. They played well off each other.

He had told Gallus everything. That his mother was a northerner noble lady, and his half-brother was ‘the Lord of the Black Gates’. His father was another noble his mother had dated after her original mate died. More importantly, that Gallus’ half-brother was the ruler. Officially, as far as Canterlot and Griffonstone were concerned, the governor for Snow Mountains hold. The northerners treated him as the king. There were some feudal obligations. Ancient pacts. Weird exceptions. Northerner griffon nonsense Gallus wanted nothing to do with.

His brother had sent Gallus to live in the south after their mother died in his birth. It was not like he had abandoned Gallus and Gruff in Griffonstone, though. Their money came from his half-brother. It afforded them a very comfortable life, even when Griffonia’s problems started. And it was not like Gallus lived isolated, either. He visited his older brother growing up. He even had fun learning about the northerner traditions and helped big brother in a hunt once. It was just those never sat with Gallus, as something he’d want to get involved in.

Gallus liked his older brother. Gallus liked Grampa Gruff, like… a father? Maybe not that much. Gallus was always kind of alone, but he sure liked Gruff as his guardian. And his brother, as you would love a brother, they just had to live apart because Gilad wanted an easier life for Gallus than hunting monsters and living under the eternal winter. It was only after his brother married—or mated, as the northerners would say—his wife that things got… awkward.

She had insisted Gallus stayed in the north and mated a ‘proper northerner lady when he came of age’. She wanted him prepared for some grandiose vision of hers. Her ideas never sat right with Gallus, and she scared him from the first time he had seen her. But the last time he saw her, he was terrified.

It was supposed to be an innocent trip to know the ‘oldest griffon city in the world’. For a school project. Gallus had taken Skystar and Silverstream to see Griffindell, but his brother was not there. He was busy dealing with a host of monsters. That is what the northerners did: they hunted monsters. Unfortunately, that left Gwendolen alone. And, alone, Lady Gwendolen was… Deranged. Gallus and the two hippogriff fillies swore to never speak of it again.

In the dark of his room, far from the noises in the plaza, Gallus let out a long and tired yawn. Yeah, it was better for everyone involved if he stayed away, and instead of worrying about the crazy north, he accommodated his head on the ‘okay’ pillow. Let his body relax on the ‘good’ mattress. That time tomorrow, he’d be at Ponyville. It wouldn’t be ideal, but that would be good enough.

Thunder crackled above. The small blue griffon found himself in a much too large room. Tall windows wept with thick lines of water continuously running down the glass. The flash of lightning broke the absolute darkness outside and instants later thunder rattled the windows. A massive door stood before him and kept the storm outside, but the flashes of lightning crawled underneath. The planks of the cedar flooring shone under the light of the storm, but a thick dust ruined the varnishing and attacked his nares. Sets of furniture laid on the sides, out of the way and under stained white sheets. The corridor to the kitchen, laundry and office threatened to swallow the tiny griffon with its impenetrable black.

With his tiny beak open, he frantically looked at the covered furniture and at the chandelier, which also hid under sheets. Lighting flashed again; thunder rattled windows. A piercing cry shattered the dark. The shade of a monster prowled outside; its ruffled feathers shone through the windows and its shadow entered beneath the door.

“Oh no! Oh, my feathers, no!” His tail slipped between his legs and under his stomach, his trembly legs carried him backwards. “Princess Luna! Help!”

Lightning blinded him. The monster cried again with the thunder. A pure fury that locked his joints and filled his stomach with butterflies. Silence, and then three polite knocks echoed into the room and chilled his blood.

“Go away!” he shrieked. His tiny wings flared, and his meek feathers ruffled.

The doors shook with violence, threatening to fly from the hinges and exploding into splinters. She screeched outside, yelling at him.

“Silence these filthy words! Speak the language of your kind!” he understood her sharp voice that almost sang the words. It startled the miniature griffon so much he jumped with a squeal and collapsed under his little wings. Her wrath passed, though.

“I have found my beautiful wayward child!” Her overexcited voice filtered through the door, soft and sing-songy as the High-Griffonese was while talons scratched at the door. “Let me in! I want to look at you!”

“My mom died when I was born!” he shot back at her, angry, shrill, despite obeying and speaking the same language. “You are not my mom!”

All the scratching stopped. The sudden silence grasped at his stomach.

“Oh. Does my little plume wish to be left alone then? Queen Novo has abandoned you. Princess Twilight Sparkle has more important matters to worry about than a feisty griffon tom. Your companions have their own matters to mind, each with their own people. Your old acquaintances will not harbor a teenager griffon who eats like an adult and works like a cub. Now, look at you, my little plume. You have scorned your heritage and the customs of your kind, and now you shun your Mother when I welcome you under my wings. Fine then. You are a big griffon. Be alone, then.”

Silence. Only the rain pelted the glass, and a tiny blue griffon wept in the dark.

Singing birds woke Gallus, and the sunlight through the window warmed him under the creamy sheets. He could remember dreaming about something, but could not remember what to save his life. He had no time to waste and spent none before getting prepared to go to the teleporter. Hopefully, leaving Griffonstone would be no problem, and after learning that his stay did not include breakfast, he just walked out the hotel’s doors.

The square was a mess with broken wooden panels, the remains of a fireplace, and more used condoms than he cared to count. With abundant sunlight and lacking armed griffons or hookers, he could see his estimate of last night was close enough. That was Cottoncove Street, one of the many streets that joined King Grover Avenue, connecting his plaza with the teleporter in the richer, nicer areas of town. Rather than fixating on how badly that all could have ended, Gallus pressed his step. A short walk should take him to the teleporter facility.

An uneventful walk took him to the same dirty, dilapidated, and abandoned plaza before the richly adorned and pristinely maintained teleporter facility. For better or worse, the fancy glass doors were open. Gallus walked in, more annoyed than worried, swiveling his head constantly. At least nobody seemed to look for him. The local militia griffons in their leather armor barely paid him any attention and all the passersby griffons worried more about dodging the beggars and the filth.

Once inside, he found the lounge empty. Almost. There was a single, solitary griffon lady behind the counter for Wild North Teleportations. Of course, all the other companies had evacuated their personnel from that dumb city. He should have followed their example, but that was a mistake he was about to rectify.

Gallus groaned and stomped his way to the counter with the cute green and pink griffoness watching him, only to pipe a happy greeting. “Greetings! Welcome to Wild North Teleportations! We thank you for your preference!”

Gallus could appreciate sarcastic humor. Just not in that situation, or when others directed it at him. With both being the case, he restrained his bad mood and slammed his coin pouch at the desk. “I’m going to Ponyville.”

“Of course, sir.” The attendant pipped again and began counting the coins. “I am terribly sorry, but this is not sufficient. Teleportation out of Griffonstone to Ponyville is five-hundred Bits. You only have one-fifty-five.”

This one didn’t even ask for his identification.

“Twist the knife, will you?” He told the irritatingly well-mannered griffon lady. “You can buy an airship trip straight there for five hundred!”

He could swear he saw a griffon staring at him as the light bounced off the glass pane with the company’s name.

“Well, you can buy an economic class ticket with your money…” the attendant responded politely.

“Fine.” He groaned, taking the money from the desk and went on his way outside.

That was why they let him leave the lounge back in Beachhome. Gallus grimaced and frowned; his throat closed with fear. They had him ever since he stepped inside the teleporter at Beachhome. But screw them! He would not give up. Gallus was going to the airdocks to get an airship ticket, or he was going to fly all the way to Ponyville if he had to. He would fight them! He would…

The light was playing tricks on his eyes. He could swear he saw ‘her’ in the glass doors of the facility. White and black, with an arrogant smile in her glossy beak and her crown of black feathers standing like the crest on a cub with a new toy.

“Feather’s sake… I’m seeing things now!” he growled and shook his head.

Walking out of the glass doors, a pair of griffons blocked his path. Gallus was not small, but they were monsters compared to him. Both wore the green jacket of the Griffonian Standing Army and carried revolvers on their shoulders.

“Ah, excuse me.” He said with a frown and tried walking around them, but one of them held his shoulder.

A grim-looking griffon, tan and white, with deep gray eyes and not a shred of softness in him. He spoke with a serious tone that brokered no games. “You are Gallus. Gallus of Griffonstone. No?”

“No, I’m Gallus of Getthefuckoutofmywayville!” He tried pulling away, but it was like trying to yank open a fortress door with his bare paws, even after he held the griffon’s forelimb with his own. “What the feather! Let me go!”

“Listen, son.” The other griffon, a slightly shorter and less grim griffon of white feathers and gray pelt, murmured to him. “Some powerful griffons want you to go see them. Since we care about our jobs, our families and our lives, we’re gonna make you if we must. Now, I have cubs, and I don’t want to hurt you. Neither does Gunther here, but… These are tough times. Let’s not make a scene.”

He grimaced again and his options came to him in a flurry of ridiculous suggestions from biting that guy to making a scene, and he was about to accept the latter. Another griffon came to them, laughing jovially and trotting easily, drawing attention to him, yelling. Making a scene.

“Whoa, hey! Nice job guys, I’ll take it from here. I’m sure our nation’s fine military has more important birds to catch than a kid traveling on his own.” He laughed. “Right?”

“Sir, please do not interfere.” Grim said and raised his right paw, going towards his holstered revolver.

“What’s that? We should take him to the local militia? Why, I absolutely agree, they are the ones meant to deal with lost kittens, after all. Am I right, my fellow griffons-in-arms?”

Either by luck or because that guy really knew what he was doing, the griffons minding their business or walking around the plaza started to paying attention to what was going on there. They stopped walking and glared, judgmental creatures that griffons were, assuming the worst and giving proper stares. Just as planned. It worked. The two grunts let go of Gallus and made a hasty retreat.

“Come on, kid.” Gallus’ rescuer slash new abductor called and gestured for him to follow.

Gallus followed the griffon, but was not sure why. He was a nice, swell-looking guy covered in cyan and white. Either a cool dude or a complete idiot to stick his neck for some griffon he had never seen in his life. Gallus supposed he needed an idiot at that moment, anyway.

“You are putting this griffon in danger, Gallus. Things would be much easier had you chosen to go with the soldiers.” A voice in his head told him sternly, like a mother whose cub disobeyed her, and Gallus ignored it. He was not ready to go crazy yet.

04 - Under New Management

Gabby had taken the day off. She needed it after her adventure through Needle Row and the hospital. She asked a neighbor coworker to take the note to her boss and bunkered in her home with her crafting materials and gallons of soft Rosé Punches. A healthy breakfast later, she started her ‘Mental Health Day’. It yielded several cute little things, but the best was the new brooch for her saddlebags. By the end of the day, she was all peachy again, and when morning came, she left home with a new brooch in her working saddlebags and a peppy bounce on her step.

She cheerfully greeted the milkgriffon on her way out of her front lawn. The young gray-green and green griffon with the blue cap looked so tired and dreary, but his face lit up with a smile when he saw her. Gabby even earned a polite tip of his hat. Old lady Gertrude, watering her flowers on the windowsill, too replied to Gabby with a similar joy. It didn’t matter the plants had withered and died; it was all about the attitude!

A couple of cubs rolled past Gabby’s way, play-fighting over a doll. A bit too intensely for her tastes. “Hey, play nice, you two!”

Ignored, Gabby rolled her eyes and frowned at the pair. Seriously, Miss Geraldine really ought to reign her cubs in. Gabby stopped for a second, looking at the row house in cyan. It had seen some better days. She never saw Miss Geraldine or her mate lately, either. He used to take such good care of the sidewalk, taking such pride in keeping it pristine and clean. Now the grass grew wild and in between the paving stones. Miss Geraldine no longer cooked her strawberry pies, much less left them on the window to cool. Gabby never found her spending the day yelling at the youngling rascals trying to steal them.

Come to think of it, there used to be a lot of teenager toms that bothered her and Miss Geraldine, but they seemed to have vanished. Gabby did not miss the unwanted attention. She was sure Miss Geraldine did not miss her pies getting stolen. Or the older griffons in the neighborhood complaining of the youngsters and their antics. Sure, the neighborhood with all its row houses was not very rich, but it had its personality. Griffons were seldom friendly, but they all cared for each other in their own way. And the noisy teenagers frequently caused trouble, but they brought a lot of life to the street.

Things had taken a sharp turn towards… a bad thing. What was it called? Did it mean anything? What had caused it? Gabby couldn’t remember, but taking a turn towards her job, she found an old warehouse which belonged to a young and excited couple. The hen had inherited it from her late dad. It used to be a rundown storage for building materials, and they had turned it into a shipping company. She ran the administration and her mate hauled orders around. Gabby knew because they had asked her some tips, and she helped to the best of her ability.

All that remained was a husk of the building. Dilapidated and burned, missing its roof and showing its skeleton of bent metal. Broken cannons lied in the small plaza that served as a yard and a crater showed the black soil beneath with cracked stone tiles strewn about. Even with all the rains, the blood smears remained impregnated into the stone. The scene did not fit inside Gabby’s head. She knew what a cannon was, of course; the soldiers showed them whenever she went to the festivities in Fort King Grover. She knew their terrifying voice from when the soldiers fired them for the Blue Moon festival. Literally, once in a blue moon, when griffons tried to not be so… Griffon.

Their thunder echoed in Gabby’s little home a couple of nights ago. She had never forgotten, of course, but she didn’t think about it until that moment. It also was not the first time she saw the destroyed warehouse, nor the abandoned cannons, but it finally hit her that something quite serious had happened in Griffonstone and she could not hide from it. A regret that she should not have kept avoiding the bad news in the newspaper crept up her spine.

She quickly resumed her walk, eager to leave that place. After all, griffons still needed their mail delivered, no matter what happened in the town. It was her job to deliver it. Far from that place. The trip to the office was not much different from the usual grumpy griffons painstakingly responding to her greetings or being busy with something else. Something was different, though. Did the streets look dirtier, or did griffons act more jittery? They still walked along, but they were all so standoffish.

Her destination was the city’s main post office. It distributed mail to the other offices, but it also distributed mail to the users within its region. Gabby was there for the latter job. It was a brick triangle building aiming at a small plaza with a fountain in the center. By itself, it was nothing out of the ordinary, with a double door entrance, black-painted wood, and glass, with a second and third floor like a stack of pizza slices. The carts would all be parked in the back, with a large sorting area and garage, but Gabby entered through the main doors after taking a deep breath and donning a smile.

Merry greetings accompanied her first steps into the room but fell on gloomy colleagues and co-workers by the front lobby. No users. All the counters remained closed, with Gabby’s peers gathered at the front.

“Gabriella,” her boss greeted her drily. “Good. Come in. We were just about to start.”

An angry gray griffon with lighter feathers and a streak of silver to show for his age, Gerard beckoned her closer to the circle of griffons. All forty employees in the office were there. Almost like a party, but grim and quiet.

“Yes, Mister Gerard?” she asked, keeping her smile, but the stares she received made her legs weak.

The older griffon took a second, looking at her co-workers, and they gave him a shower of apprehensive stares in return. Gabby frowned and made an awkward chuckle. “Uh… Guys? What is going on?”

“There is a new administration.” Gerard spoke lugubriously. “It might be the entire nation. I’m not sure, nobody really seems to know what is going on and my boss is… The entire Civil Services Department is freaking out. A lot of heads have rolled and some of them literally. Chancellor Gail is gone… nobody knows where he is, or what happened. There are talks of military personnel being executed… and all city services are getting scrutiny from whoever is in charge. And ah… They really don’t like the ponies. My superiors have ordered me to fire anyone who… has pony friends. So… I need you to gather your things, Gabby.”

Gabby chuckled again with a confused frown. “Is this… This is not funny.”

“You’re fired, Gabby.” Gerard told her drily. “Effective immediately, and I ask that you don’t take too long to leave. I… I am sorry, but I need to think of the others. And… Being associated with one who is friends with ponies is dangerous now.”

“You…” her voice broke, and she turned around, looking at the others. She found sympathy, but most of all, she found fear. And no backing at all. “You can’t do this! I am a civil public servant. Nobody can fire me without just cause!”

“This is not about you, Gabby!” Gerard raised his voice, sitting so he could use his paws for angry gestures that startled her. “They’re holding families hostage and demanding griffons living abroad return. I have to do what they tell me! Please, don’t make this any harder than it has to be!”

She wanted to say something. To show how angry she was and tell them how unfair that was, but she failed to produce anything to say. With her eyes stinging and the moistness invading her plumage, she turned and dashed away from them, into the inner areas of the building. She passed a hallway and several doors before she reached the lockers. Gabby did not really have anything of hers to take. She just did what she was told and didn’t think about it. Maybe the little heart and feather magnets counted, so she collected them. What else was she supposed to do?

“Gabby!” one of her colleagues, an older green and white griffon lady called Grena, came to her. Looking for support, Gabby turned and wanted to tell her how frustrated she was, but Grena’s utterly terrified stare gave her pause. “You have to leave!”

Gabby’s confused frown became one of anger. “I know! I…”

“No, dear! That is not it!” the other’s frantic shaking stopped Gabby. “There is someone looking for you! She said you’re dangerous and that they need to catch you, for the good of Griffonia. The others are stalling her, but Gerard is scared mindless. He is going to tell them you’re back here. You have to run. Now!”

Panic took over the young griffoness and filled her with a frantic energy. It translated into looking at the door to the entrance and then the door leading to the sorting area. She stumbled on the words before she could talk properly. “I’ll… I’ll get out through the cart loading area!”

“Good luck, Gabby! Be careful! She’s not alone.” The older griffoness told her, walking backwards, towards the entrance and giving her friend a final stare. “Good luck.”

Gabby wasted little time pondering her options; she felt as though she had none. She also had nothing of value in her locker. Her documents and her money were still in her saddlebags. She kicked herself into motion and rushed down the corridor to the back of the building. The green door into the sorting area was closed, not locked—as it should. Gabby locked it behind her. The lights were off, and the mountains of small packages and letters untouched, but further down the doors of the garages were open. Bless her colleagues that left loaded carts abandoned in the garage and then just pulled them out in the morning like they were not late by some twelve hours.

She didn’t bother with the lights and hurried past the bags of mail and piles of boxes all the way to the stepped garage where the gold-inlaid carts waited for their loads. It consisted mostly of a large indoor space for maneuvering the things into their bays and Gabby crossed it as fast as Rainbow Dash. Rather than galloping right out the garage doors, she hid behind the wall to look outside. One of the loaded carts was already leaving with cargo for another office, heavy with stuff under a tarp and ropes. She let escape a squeak when someone tried the locked door all the way back.

“Ma’am!” a male voice told her in an anxious tone. Gabby squealed, tensing her whole body, and almost panicking when a griffon in green uniform rushed to her from the street outside.

He was a dark shade of tan with pristine white on his feathers, quite young, and his yellow paw held hers before she flew away. His golden eyes were as scared as she was. A violent bang against the door and words uttered in a language Gabriella couldn’t understand sacred them both. The soldier’s words came urgently and hushed. “Ma’am, hide! Quick! Get behind the cart!”

He shoved her into action, and his hurry made her act. Just as pair of loud bangs echoed inside the garage, followed by cracking wood. She hid behind the cart, and from beneath it, she could see back into the garage. Four griffons wearing green jackets and helmets of the Griffonian Standing Army rushed out of the doors and a very distinctive lady followed them.

She was probably one of the most beautiful griffon ladies Gabby had ever seen. Way up there with the golden griffoness, but her beauty was different, shapelier. A beautiful yellow pelt covered her along with shiny feathers in the same color, but not like the one in the hospital that had a metallic sheen to her color. This one looked like a flower. A vibrant yellow, like a daffodil. A painting covered her right foreleg, a tattoo creeping up her limb, and then her neck and face on the right side. She even had a brooch on the feathers of her forward swept crest, but it was too far for Gabby to see any details.

The young soldier that told her to hide went into the garage to talk to the pretty yellow lady and pointed towards the plaza. She didn’t believe him, even if two of the soldiers ran outside and in the direction he had mentioned. Gabby acted out of panic rather than forethought, and she bolted when the griffoness distracted herself by looking under the carts in the garage. From behind the cart and into the first alley she could find.

She bumped into a wooden crate and broke something inside. Gabby never stopped but looked back at the angry griffons loading things out of an apartment and apologized. She ignored their angry shouts and leaped, flapping her wings. They took her at full speed in the cramped space between apartments. Windows and brick walls zoomed past before she managed to gain height in her panicked flight and went from the crowded alley into the clouded sky, hoping to Celestia nobody saw her. Finally, she directed her frantic flight to take her home. As fast as possible, but after cruising over a couple of blocks, she realized they would be waiting for her there and stopped to a hover.

“Oh, no! What do I do?” she cried to herself, holding her paws together. Griffons flew around her, casting annoyed stares, but Gabby didn’t care. The bad griffons were probably looking for her right now.

“Miss, are you okay?” a mid-aged griffon in shades of tan, wearing a brown beret hovered next to her as others started to stop and cast concerned or confused stares at her.

All those griffons stopping by her, hovering above a busy street, were bound to draw attention she did not want. She squeaked when she saw one of them wearing a green shirt. She saw it was not a uniform in the next second, but fear drove her to flee and ignore their cries for her to stop.

But flee where? Fly where? She saw in the last days they were everywhere and a panicked griffoness flying frantically above the buildings was bound to draw attention, too. Her lungs seemed incapable of providing her with enough oxygen. She was painting and her head started spinning. Panic took over her again, and she landed on the sidewalk. Not so many griffons in that street, but her panting and wide eyes still drew their attention to her. Annoyed glares and confused frowns scared her further.

The shadows of flying griffons passed over her and made her squirm. Gabby forced herself to walk, trying to join the moving griffons. She grimaced, hiding it as best as she could, and did not know what she was doing! Two of the city’s local militia law enforcers, wearing their leather armor and carrying pistols and magical stun batons, came towards her in the opposite direction. A couple of mid-aged males, completely indifferent to her.

Maybe they would help her? Gabby had grown up to think of the Griffonian military as the brave soldiers that would protect Griffonia if the other nations invaded. Or something like that. Under the peaceful rule of Princess Celestia, even if the griffon government was iffy, everything was peaceful. The military mostly helped Spike’s friends deal with monsters. The big ones that the military couldn’t ward off from the smaller cities. Meanwhile, the local militias kept citizens safe from bandits. They just helped when there were any problems.

Gabby had read something about the northerner griffons being monster hunters. Something about the monsters up north being worse than the usual monster and the northerners dedicated themselves to keeping them from reaching the south. Why did those griffons have a problem with her? And why did the soldiers side with them? Her breath came out broken, looking at the two officers. What if they took her to the scary military griffons?

She could not afford to take that risk. She must leave town. Somehow. Maybe go to Ponyville? She knew the princesses were busy with something important, but it would be safer if all Griffonia would become like Griffonstone. It sounded reasonable that it would if the military were trying to kidnap griffons at the northerners’ behest.

She must flee the town, but she couldn’t just fly away to the neighboring one! They would find her. She needed somewhere she could hide. Like an airship, but airships and the teleporter, for that matter, had all sorts of controls of who went in and out. How was she supposed to flee the town like that?

“Hey, you!” A griffon shouted from above.

Gabriella’s wings flared, and she dropped to the pavement. The other griffons walking next to her stopped their conversations and distanced from her. Others understood quite fast what was happening and saw the griffon in a green uniform yelling at her from above. They fled before anything spilled on them and others backed away, still confused. Gabby was alone inside a ring of scared and worried griffons exchanging distressed stares and promises of not knowing her.

When she locked eyes with him, a feverish panic bubbled inside her and her body did things like it had a mind of its own. Gabby backpedaled, and thoughts of what they would do to her flooded her mind. Dark rooms and sacks to cover one’s head left the pages of thriller novels and she winced at the horrible things they could do to her. They had her in place of someone else. She did nothing wrong. It had to be a mistake!

“I didn’t do anything!” she cried. Her voice broke. “Please!”

“Don’t move, ma’am! I said don’t move!” His aggressive voice startled her, and her composure was a dam already accumulating cracks.

The two militiagriffons approached her. One by each side and the one on the left looked up at the soldier. “What is your business with this fine young lady, soldier boy?”

“Keep out of this, sir. We are acting under the authority of the Griffonian Standing Army. I will charge you with sedition!”

“Sedition?” The officer glared at the soldier above. “It is you, musket-jerking assholes, that sided with the northerners and helped them take over the city. And now you’re taking citizens away whenever those creeps point fingers. I know this lady. She is nothing if not a helpful and beneficial member-”

A sharp bang interrupted him. Everything became red. Gabby barely understood what had happened before she heard the cries and flapping wings. A few feathers flew around her, and only then she noticed the warm stickiness on her limbs and in her feathers. The law enforcer lied on his side with a hole in his head oozing red, and the soldier held a gun in his paw.

Gabby screamed. They kept yelling as she laid on the ground and covered herself with her wings and her paws, immediately regretting it because of all the iron-smelling stickiness. More bangs filled her ears and made them ring. Her mind blanched, her joints locked, and before she knew, someone had landed on top of her. They shoved her head against the ground. They yelled, but she never understood what they said.

Had she passed out? One moment she was on the sidewalk, griffons started yelling and loud bangs surrounded her. Someone attacked her and pushed her to the ground. In the next, darkness surrounded her. A gloomy room offered her weird smells and stuffy air. Gabby inhaled a gasp. Her back and her chin hurt, and so did her shoulder. She was leaning against an icy wall covered in white plaster. The returning image of mister militiagriffon with a hole in his head yanked helpless sobs from her.

What did they want with her? How far were they willing to go to get it? They killed that griffon. All that red. The warm, iron-smelling red. At least some kind creature had washed it off her, but she didn’t remember any of that and the metallic smell remained. They could not scrub the images that kept returning to her mind’s eye, either. A whimper escaped her, followed by more silent, meek sobbing. She held herself with all her strength, like she was afraid she would flee from herself. Her beak clicked trembly, and her quiet sobbing filled the room, and in its stillness, memories added screams and bangs to it.

Eventually, a door grated open with a fresh breeze. Several tapping feet entered the room, and the door creaked before banging closed. Locks ground into place. The sound of flipping paper fluttered and finally, a voice caused her to look up.

“You are Miss Gabriella. Is that correct?” asked a male griffon, stern and serious.

The griffon stood by the table, sitting on the floor, and looking over a folder filled with papers. He purposely showed her black and white photographs of her. Gabby could see not much more from her position, but he was not alone. The old griffon lady Gabby had seen at the hospital was there, and so was the yellow one with the tattoo. It was a red henna painting of roses and vines on her right foreleg, shoulder, neck, and half of her face. The brooch Gabby had seen earlier made a pair of black and white wings stuck in her crest. A third one, wearing the same cape they wore, was there too, along with a couple of female soldiers, and they all stared at Gabby. Silently watching her while the male showed her the photographs. Telling her all about her routine and the things that she liked to do in her free time. All the things they knew about her.

He was… Gabby didn’t like to make judgments, but she didn’t like him. A black griffon with a white head and an exuberant crest of snowy feathers and blue eyes. His uniform was impeccable, and he scared her. It was the way he looked at her, like she was unimportant, barely relevant. Like she was wasting his time, although he was there because of her. It was the disinterested look in his eyes when they aimed at her after looking at the papers. The icy coldness that touched her blood with his stare.

“As you can see, we have a significant file brimming with information about you. We know many things, but I still don’t know if Gabriella is your name. I asked you a question, ma’am.” His voice came dry and direct. Devoid of emotion and emphasizing the word by which he called her like it was an unearned title.

She wanted to answer his question; it was so simple. If not because it was polite, because she feared what he might do if she failed. She really did, but her voice collapsed. Her words became a sob, and she hid behind her wing again.

“Ma’am, if you will not cooperate with us, you will force us to make a series of assumptions.” His matter-of-fact words and emotionless tone caused another whimper to escape. She wanted to help, but she couldn’t keep up.

“I am,” she sniffled, looking up at him through her wing’s feathers. “I did nothing wrong. Why are you doing this to me?”

“If that is the case, then why did you run, Miss Gabriella?” his tone turned frustrated. Intimidating. “Answer me, Miss Gabriella. Why did an innocent, good citizen of Griffonia flee when sought by the authorities?”

“I was scared!” she whined and then sobbed, still looking at him from behind her wings.

“But why were you scared if you did nothing wrong?” he insisted, letting his voice softer. “Help me understand, Miss Gabriella. Help me help you out of this situation.”

She was terrified. Just scared. What was she supposed to tell him? They went to her workplace looking for her like she was a criminal fleeing from jail, and they killed a griffon just because he was trying to help. What else was she supposed to feel? She didn’t know what to answer. There was no answer she could give.

“I will ask you again.” Her interrogator cut her thoughts short. “Why did you try to escape, Miss Gabriella?”

“I just told you. I…”

Maybe her mistake was letting her frustration and tiredness show, and she regretted it. The griffon abandoned his calm demeanor, replaced it with a wrath Gabby had seldom seen before.

“I’m tired of this! Filthy liar!” he yelled at her so loud her ears hurt, and she found she couldn’t control how shaky her whole body had become. “You were ready to run back to your pony friends! What were you going to tell them, disgusting hooflicker?”

“What was it? Who were you going to report to? Canterlot? One of your ‘friends’ in Ponyville? Perhaps Princess Twilight Sparkle’s assistant? What were you going to tell him, Miss Gabriella? What was your mission? Oh, you chose the wrong side in this mess, little hen. We have ways of making you talk you don’t want to see!”

He was wasting his breath. All she understood from that point was angry yelling, danger, and panic. The little griffon lady shrieked and covered her head with her paws, trying to make herself as small as she could in her little corner of that gloomy and scary room.

The yelling griffon only stopped when the old griffon lady went to them and held him by his nape, kindly pulling him away.

“That is enough.” She said with her whistly and clicky accent. “Go take a rest.”

He clicked his tongue and gave Gabby one last fiery stare before obeying and storming out of the room. The closing door startled a whimper out of Gabby again, but all she had to offer were more shivering and sobbing. Someone petted Gabby behind her head as she had hidden it under her wings.

“Forgive that fool.” The old griffon lady told Gabby. “The intelligence branch of the military had to be purged. We are left with young officers who know little of the trade and are desperate to prove their allegiance. They were not trained by Our Mother to understand and to guide Her Children. And you are friends with some important ponies. You must understand you are dangerous in quite a few ways.”

“I’m sorry.” Gabby sniveled, looking up at her. “I don’t know what is going on… It wasn’t wrong a few days ago.”

She was difficult to define. She looked much older than Gabby had originally thought back at the hospital, and far from frail. In fact, her sheer physical presence fooled Gabby once again into thinking she was younger than the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes implied. She had such a strong, comforting touch and even with her northerner accent, her words soothed the shivers out of Gabby. “I understand, Gabriella. Change is often hard. My name is Gaetana of Thunderpeak, and you must understand that I am ultimately trying to help you.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll try to tell you everything you want to know.”

What followed were a series of questions about Gabby’s day-to-day life, after she confirmed Gabby was from Griffonstone and her parents from Greenland hold. All she had to say was that she worked at the mail office, and she made deliveries. Most griffons would find her life dreadfully boring, but the happiness at simply being alive more than made up for it. She loved her job and, more often than not, she just hauled letters around. Yes, she was friends with ‘those’ three fillies from Ponyville, but she never talked about anything out of the ordinary and had little contact with their sisters in Greenland. Obediently, she told Gaetana their names and addresses.

Yes, she was friends, closely, with Spike, and he truly was like Princess Twilight Sparkle’s younger brother, but he was just a friend. She never talked about politics, about the Equestrian or Griffonian government, and just barely spoke about her job. It was quite boring, after all.

At one point, not as nervous anymore, Gabby asked her what was happening, but Miss Gaetana told her that the more she knew, the more in danger she would be, so Gabby simply kept answering her questions. Even if they seemed strangely disconnected from one another or from the strange political climate of Griffonia.

The old griffoness asked if Gabby had nightmares when the storms arrived at night, and no, she didn’t. She asked about Gabby’s eating habits and about her desires and aspirations in life. What did any of that matter? Gabby had no idea. Fear drove her to answer with honesty, anyway.

At one point, the door opened and the scary soldier who was talking to Gabby earlier told Gaetana they had found them and that they already had mobilized. She became angry and told him she was to oversee all operations. Whoever they might be, Gabby did not know, and neither of them mentioned anything that served as a clue. Gaetana stopped her questions to Gabby, and the latter was happy because she was becoming tired and afraid she might answer something wrong.

On her way out, the old griffon lady told the pretty lady with the henna paintings—whom she called Gervina—to take over. Fortunately, the soldier followed her and left Gabby alone in the room with the two caped ladies and a couple of female soldiers.

“This would all have been much easier had you not ran from me, Miss Gabriella.” The pretty yellow lady said, both frustrated and sad. Her yellow fur was so much prettier up close, even in the ominous room. Velvety, like the petals of a flower, and her complex henna painting of vines and flowers made her a work of art. But she shushed Gabby when she tried apologizing. “I need to ask you some important questions about yourself and your family. This may be hard to understand, but some griffons are like weapons that Princess Celestia has engineered to harm our race.”

How did that work? Gabby simply accepted it because she had neither the mental energy nor the understanding to counter what she was told. She wouldn’t know even how to talk about such matters, so she simply resigned to answering the other’s questions. A constant dread she might give her the wrong answer still hung above her.

Had she ever had any diseases? No, neither her family. She had had no disease more serious than a few colds and some stomach or intestine conditions. Maybe a couple of rashes. Nothing dangerous or lasting, for sure. She gave lung diseases a special attention but had suffered from none. What about birth defects and difficulties at birth? None, to her knowledge, Gabby was born a perfectly normal griffon chick, same as all the rest of her family. Any difficulties urinating or evacuating her bowels? No, and no, all worked normally. Had she ever mated? No. Any close relationships? No, not like that. Ever had sex? No, with an emphatic blush, and she obviously birthed no cubs.

“Are you telling me the truth?” Miss Gervina asked with a frown and Gabby babbled a positive response. Why would she even doubt her? Still, Gervina’s sustained frown showed she was not convinced. “Now relax. I need to examine you. It will not hurt.”

Having said that, Gervina held Gabby’s cheeks and stared into her eyes. She seemed to look for details. The griffoness pulled Gabby’s eyelids, like the doctors usually would, but she also held her face and made her look to one side and then the other. And still holding her head, the griffoness pressed her fingers behind Gabby’s beak. The discomfort made her open her mouth and Gervina took several seconds looking at her beak and the soft insides of her mouth. Gabby’s urge was to back away, but the fear held her pinned.

Truth be told, Gabby had absolutely no idea what the other griffoness was looking for and simply submitted to her examination, fearing consequences. No doctor ever had stuck a finger inside her mouth and then tasted her saliva at the tip of their talons. But she was not done. Gervina held her neck and her fingers massaged Gabby, expertly searching for something. From the base of her skull and down her neck, kneading her muscles without so much as prickling Gabby with her talons. While Gabby never understood what she was doing, at least it was almost pleasant.

Sitting in front of her, Miss Gervina was about a head taller than Gabby, and so much stronger, too. Her presence was so intimidating and her touch so steady. She grasped Gabby’s shoulders to sit with her back to the wall instead of cowering in the corner as she was. Her fingers kneaded under Gabby’s shoulders before Gervina held her foreleg firmly and told her to not move. She poked her thumb’s yellow talon into Gabby’s skin under her leg’s plumage. Gabby startled, but resisted the urge to pull back, complain, or even whine. It was probably important, especially because Miss Gervina tasted her blood, too.

Then she pulled Gabby’s wings open and examined her feathers. Primary feathers, secondaries, and even the tertial feathers. She pulled at a few and tested their ability to interlink and smooth out when she ran her fingers over them. When she urged Gabby to turn around and show her back, Gabby had started to feel like a product Miss Gervina was examining before buying. The constant stares from the other griffon lady with the blue cape and two soldiers scared any thoughts of rebellion away.

At least until Gervina pulled her tail and ran it on her paw to examine the tuft of dark gray fur. Gabby pulled her tail back in between her thighs with a gasp. The larger griffoness firmly ordered her to stop and made her sit with her back on the wall again before pulling her tail away. Gabby closed her eyes with a blush while Gervina’s fingers pressed into her belly like she was looking to feel something inside her.

“Stop tensing up. You are making it harder on yourself. I will not hurt you and I have examined hundreds of griffon ladies. You have nothing down here that other ladies don’t.”

Gabby’s eyes shut so hard they hurt while Gervina’s strong fingers felt the little mounds of her teats and kept kneading over her groin. She supposed the other was feeling around for her organs, or something like that, but it hurt. Miss Gervina seemed to know a lot more than Gabby too. But her eyes teared up when her fingers kept pressing around her lady bits and into her labia.

Finally, she withdrew. “There. It wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Gabby closed herself with her wings again and let a soft sob escape her. Indifferent, the younger griffoness wearing a blue cape delivered her clipboard to Gervina, who started writing. The former then tried comforting Gabby, patting her head softly.

“It’s over sweetie.” She spoke before turning to talk to Gervina. “What’s the verdict?”

Gervina never stopped writing on the clipboard but responded with an aloof tone. “She is at least ninety-eight percent Saddani with some Shaddani, but it doesn’t matter. Her blood is so filthy with pony magic she might as well be a hippogriff. Her maidenhead is intact. At least she’s not lying. Normally, we’d just let her go with a notice not to leave the town, but she has some relevant relations. We’re sending her to Griffindell.”

Gabby looked up when the younger griffon in the blue cape wiped her tears off. “I don’t know what any of that means.”

“You are going to meet your future queen, sweetheart.” The griffoness soldier, bringing her a dishful of food, said with a cheery tone. “I wish I could get that luxury. You should eat. The worst has passed.”

Gabby still didn’t really understand, but her nostrils filled with the smells of the food. Chicken fillets dipped in a brick-red sauce, and she was hungry.

05 - Thunderstorm

“Come on. We need to vanish into the city,” the griffon told Gallus. “Without all those griffons around, they are sure to do something rash if they catch us.”

His rescuer kept pressing and guiding Gallus into the smaller alleys, and then making a turn left. And another, and then a right one. Another, and then a left before going straight for a couple of blocks and turning left again, then right. Not running, but racing. Gallus himself wasn’t even sure where they were anymore when they reached a crumbling house. More like the collapsed remains of someone’s home. The cyan griffon urged Gallus down a hatch within the tumbled brick walls. After closing it, he urged Gallus into a dark basement and only then the young griffon realized just how dumb he’d been.

“Hey, what…” he started, but the older griffon shushed him, lit only by the thin beams of light that filtered through the broken planks in the door and the floor above.

“I’m Gary. Don’t worry. I have friends in the local militia and we’re gonna help you.” He said in a hushed tone, still peeking out through the disjointed planks again. “We’re not sure why, but the military is helping the northerners snatch some griffons and hippogriffs away. Any idea why they were after you?”

Gallus knew. He damn well sure knew, but he would not open his beak about it. He simply shook his head slowly in the dark. Too shaken by the realization that only dumb luck had saved him from Lady Gwendolen’s agents. In fact, his careful side poked him that there was nothing keeping that dude from delivering him to the northerners if he found out just how powerful the griffons looking for him are.

“It’s alright.” He reassured Gallus with a smile, unknowing of his thoughts. “Just keep calm for now. I’ll get you to my home and away from those thugs. Then we’ll figure out what we’re going to do next.”

Gallus said nothing. Gary failed to convince him, but he still seemed to be the best chance of keeping away from those thugs and from the northerners. One should not question when luck bailed them out of the beast’s talons, so he sat in his corner and stayed quiet for a while. His savior kept peeking outside through the gaps but was not nervous. The young griffon was too anxious and well-rested to sleep, but lost track of time. Soon Gary spoke again, much cheerier than before.

“Alright. The coast looks clear.” The adult declared, startling Gallus with his mirthful tone.

“They just moved on?” Gallus remained unconvinced.

“They don’t have that many griffons to be looking everywhere all the time.” Gary shrugged. “It is the Griffonian Standing Army we’re talking about. And the northerners are far from home.”

Gallus glared at him. His anxiety at that guy ‘thinking the coast looks clear’ went unnoticed, and Gallus kept it to himself. He was probably right anyway, and Gallus simply followed the griffon out of their hidey-hole. For better or worse, the adult seemed to know what he was doing. Unlike Gallus.

The sun was high in the sky, peeking from behind the clouds. His stomach’s dragon roar-graded rumble ruined the moment. Gallus had missed a breakfast for the first time in a long while. His feathers lowered when he remembered what he had left behind, but his complaining stomach drew the other griffons’ eyes to him.

Gary chuckled. “Come on. We’ll get you something to eat at my place.”

He seemed too nonchalant about the whole situation, but Gallus was the one that literally walked into the enemy’s den. He couldn’t really judge the other griffon. At least this Gary guy seemed to know what he was doing because he kept them out of the areas with the most activity and they hardly crossed anyone’s path. Yet Gallus kept his beak shut as they made their way through the nicer part of town, where the ‘upper-middling’ griffons usually lived. At most, he told Gary his name.

They crossed into a pleasant neighborhood, with little white fences and cute two-story houses for small families. The one Gary steered Gallus toward had a pristine grassy lawn, complete with a small stone path to the green door. White windows and a greenish roof made it look like the picture-perfect cover of a real estate magazine.

The only thing that bothered Gallus, other than his hunger, was that he again saw the black and white griffoness in the windows, as though the light played a prank on him. At a second glance, it was only a greenish-white and brown cute griffon lady staring at them from inside. Instead of a scary apparition, it probably was mister Gary’s wife.

She had seen them approaching from the window and the door unlocked just in time for Gallus and Gary to squirrel inside. For all of Gary’s jovial mood, they were still hiding and scurrying along the streets, after all. The nice griffon lady inside closed the door after them and grinned all friendly at Gallus. While Gary had a handsome coat of dusty cyan, her feathers were a greenish white that made her emerald highlights stand out and contrasted nicely with her brown fur. Gallus even blushed a little, looking at her and the smile in her delicate yellow beak.

Inside, their home was still the picture-perfect cover of a magazine. An internal decoration one, this time. Neatly spaced furniture, spotless tablecloths, and vibrant flowers for decoration. A painting of the couple hung from a light-green painted wall, and Gallus found not a single mote of dust. Not that Gallus didn’t like it or was jealous; he was smitten that the little house was just as perfect as its owners, sitting one next to the other and smiling at him.

“Oh, goodness, he is such a handsome young rooster!” the hen giggled, but cleared her throat, offering Gallus her fist for him to bump, which he did. “Welcome!”

“This is Gallus, Greta.” Gary said. “Gallus, Greta. My wife. The grunts had him, but I got him away.”

“Good job!” his wife said, as she offered Gallus a glass of water. “And you better just lie low for a while. You can stay for however long you must.”

Gallus took the glass and lost a second, looking at the impossible reflection of the black and white griffoness glaring at him from it. Miss Greta asked if he was alright, and he frowned. “Yeah… I’m kinda stressed out. That’s all.”

He chugged down the water and ignored the stupid vision. He had never stopped to notice how thirsty he was, too. At that, Miss Greta’s smile made him feel a touch like too much of a cub, but he did not refuse it when she offered him another helping. Following that, Miss Greta told Gallus and her husband to check the guest room upstairs and get Gallus settled. She was going to whip them a nice lunch for three.

Gallus carried little to leave in there. It was a simple visit to have a look at where he would spend the night. It had a nice, comfy single bed, a small bathroom and a dormer window because it was an attic bedroom. Kind of cool, the young blue griffon thought. It had a very ‘pony’ feeling, with its pastel colors, soft shapes, and a couple of heart decorations, along with a neat desk. It was the room a couple would have in their perfect little home for their cub. But that was just Gallus being silly and feeling like a loner.

He left his backpack on a coat hanger by the door and decided he could use a bath before lunch, so Mister Gary left him alone. The bathroom had a magical heating shower, which Gallus felt a touch self-conscious using. Magical energy used to power such devices could be expensive, and the piped water like that was a luxury. Not in Ponyville, and the School of Friendship with a much more efficient central heating system. But that was Griffonstone, and everything remotely comfy was expensive. Fortunately, the day was warm and so was the water from the house’s water tank.

While the shower and its powers of introspection poked at Gallus’ insecurity about his current situation, the bath washed away most of the worries and tenseness in his back. He even had perfumed soaps and a fluffy towel. He could almost feel like he was back at Mount Aris.

A sigh escaped him under the shower. Hopefully, Skystar and Silverstream would be angrier at Queen Novo than at him. Was that a tear? Nah, it was just the water in his eyes, but he sure would like to listen to Skystar awkwardly talking about her clam collection—she thought it made her interesting—, or just to hear Silverstream laughing. Heck, he could settle for one of her endless monologues about random subjects. He eventually tired of feeling sorry for himself and of wasting Gary and Greta’s water.

He toweled himself dry, preened his feathers, set his crest straight, brushed his fur with the soft ‘fur brush’ and did the same for his contour feathers with the stiffer and more spaced brush for feathers. Looking at himself in the mirror, he frowned and set his crest straight again. Since he was going to stay at their home, he might as well make himself presentable for lunch.

Maybe he was just hungry, but the food in the dining hall in the School of Friendship never smelled so good. He almost tripped on his own feet down the stairs to find Miss Greta setting the table. Bread, minced meat with tomato sauce, some pears and at least three different sodas. A lot of meat at that. Now, Gallus absolutely loved Ponyville and Mount Aris, but that seemed like a lunch for griffons.

“Oh. Wow!” He grinned at the giggling griffon lady. “This looks… and smells so delicious! I don’t know what to say, you guys…”

“Make yourself at home, Gallus.” Mister Gary said, pulling one of the sitting pillows for him.

He did. Gladly. Gallus even allowed Miss Greta to serve him the food like he was her own little cub. Prench bread, overflowing with minced meat and tomato sauce, spicy and thick. Tasty enough to make a mess and not even care about it. Caramelized pear slices, so soft they melted inside his mouth, too. The cherry on top was that the three sat to eat together, and Miss Greta wanted to hear all about his adventure and his friends in Ponyville. He was kind of famous, after all. Again, Gallus felt a touch conscious about talking all the time, telling her everything like they were a little family of their own, but she was so nice and charming.

Once the meal was done, he helped her wash the dishes, and it came as a surprise that she wouldn’t leave for work. Miss Greta stayed with Gallus for the afternoon and made sure he was perfectly comfortable all the time. He’s suffering enough, she said. She explained Gary would get things set up for them to take him back to Ponyville in the morning and all he had to do was wait. She had taken the day off work because she didn’t want to leave a young rooster like Gallus alone.

At some point, his teenager fantasies about how she was subtly coming on to him won. She gave him a puzzled frown when he slapped himself across the face.

The day breezed past along with cheerful conversations, delicious snacks, a slice of milk jam pie, more soda than any teenager should have access to, and games. Ticket to Ride, for example… Gallus had never played it, and would rather play some outdoor game or sport, but that was just not workable. He had a lot of fun with Miss Greta, and that was what mattered, other than that he felt safe.

As night approached, Gary came home with three—one, two, three—pizzas. Large pizzas, and not only that, a fourth one was a dessert pizza with strawberry, white chocolate, and condensed milk. It was obscenely sweet and tasty to the point Gallus considered eating it instead of the others. Although the garlic and cheese, Canterbrese and Neigherita pizzas deserved his attention too.

While Miss Greta fixed their dinner and set everything on the table, Gallus and Mister Gary sat in the living room to talk. They had set everything up and, come morning, he was going to take Gallus to the local militia headquarters. They would get him safely out of the city and back to Beachhome, where he could go wherever he wanted. Including Ponyville. They’d take care of him all the way.

Gallus was not sure about trusting the militiagriffons, but once dinner was ready, the serious conversation ended. Gallus didn’t even really understand what was there to do, since Garry had brought them pizza. You just ate the things. While they talked, Miss Greta had organized their dining room into what could only be called a dinner in Gallus’ honor. So much pizza, Gallus feared he might not walk out of the door in the morning. The delicious soda with options in different flavors was a bonus.

They talked about frivolous things as they ate, and Miss Greta started by telling her husband what they had done during the afternoon. Soon enough, they started talking about anything Gallus wanted to talk about. He had not expected to have such an enjoyable time during his flight from Hippogriffia. It too came as a surprise when he saw the reflection of the black and white griffoness in his glass full of orange soda.

She was not staring at him with superior grace or arrogance. She seethed in silence. Gallus’ grin, listening to Miss Greta talking about her business trip to Ponyville, turned sour.

“What are you doing eating this disgusting pony junk food? Your body is a work of art meant to find nourishment in meat and fruits!” She complained inside his thoughts like Twilight when she once found Gallus pulling a book by the top of its spine. Not that Twilight would invade someone’s mind, but the tone was there. Like Gallus committed a crime.

More than being worried he might be going insane, Gallus was angry at how in-character the vision was with the bitch herself. Lady Gwendolen, not Twilight. Twilight was nice and cool; Gallus’ sister-in-law was a murder begging to happen. He glared at the image in the cylindrical glass, but failed to dispel the image, and worse, the griffoness’ stern frown deepened as though she challenged him.

Strawberry was fruit, as far as Gallus was concerned, and chocolate came from another: cocoa. She could can her whining. He responded by opening his beak wide and humming happily as he laid a cheesy slice of pizza on his tongue. He took almost half the slice in a single bite, inhaling deeply, savoring both the melted cheese, the strawberry, and the chocolate. The grease clung to his beak, and the burning, furious, seething, impotent wrath he saw reflected in his glass of soda was almost as sweet. Then he took a greedy gulp of the terribly sugary and bubbly beverage.

His smile held a serenity he had not experienced in a while, and Miss Greta commented on how happy she was that he was enjoying his stay so much.

Eventually, dinner ended, and Gallus went to bed, not sure what he was so happy about. The bed was soft and warm, yes. The window showed the dark sky taken by the clouds. Wind rushed along the roof and a distant thunder echoed in the distance while the rain sprinkled the window.

Gallus woke up suddenly. He was in his bed, in his room, in the School of Friendship. The thunder woke him up and the tall windows lit up with lightning in the dark. An eerie blackness filled the other side. Was there a griffon screeching? He wasn’t sure.

The room was dark, and he turned on the lights. They seemed uncannily weak and gave the furniture and everyday objects strange, haunting appearances. A grimace pulled his beak as a lingering uneasiness filled him. The dark outside threatened to swallow him if only the thin glass would cede.

There must be a problem with the mana batteries in the school. Yeah. That explained the weak lights. Thunder rumbled in the distance; he could barely hear it. Was it cold? He wrapped his blanket around him, but the shaking didn’t stop. His beak clacked, the unearthly shadows of his backpack in the corner, the reading light in his desk and the even the sink in his bathroom filled him with apprehension.

His grimace grew. What in Tartarus was that? Gallus was a grown rooster. He was not afraid of the dark. It was just some dumb problem with the mana batteries. He needed a glass of water, and he hopped off the bed. His brushing steps echoed otherworldly on the carpet. The door, a tall archway closed by the painted wood, seemed bizarre. The decorative pattern was all wrong, but it called to him. It dared the young griffon to open the door, and he reached for the knob. He held it. Slowly turned it. The metal rattled, and the mechanism unlocked the deadbolt with a resounding clack.

“Oh, shit…” the noise echoed like the night wanted everyone in the corridor to wake up. He shushed the door twice, edging it open through its creaking.

The corridor on the other side was mostly dark, only the frames of the windows seemed to catch an alien light coming from nowhere in contrast to the gaping dark outside. Something moved in the corridor and his muscles tensed before he even understood there was something there. That glass of water started to not seem so refreshing anymore.

The tip-taps of approaching paws filled his ears and made his hair stand on his back all the way to the tip of his tail. “Ah… Silverstream?”

It was obviously not Silverstream: the steps in the dark missed the pointed clopping, but his hopeful thoughts were trying to fool him. Thunder roared. Lightning flashed to reveal the shape of a massive griffoness in the dark as though she were the storm itself.

Her striped black and white wings filled the corridor, the immaculate onyx of her fierce beak shone like black gold. Talons like black steel glided gracefully with her steps on the stone of the corridor and clicked like the inexorable march of time. Leonine shoulders danced in the dark as she prowled toward him with her crown of raised feathers at the top of her head, and her stormy eyes shone in the flash of lightning.

Gallus screamed. Pure motivating terror made him slam the door and fumble with the thumb-turn before he could twist it. He locked the bathroom door too and then closed the curtains. He only stopped when he was under the bed.

Silence reigned, except for the thunder outside. No steps. Only the pitter-patter of the rain against the windows, the howling wind, and the flashes of lighting leaking in under the curtains. His paws trembled even after he hid them under his chest. He dared not utter a word as his breath seemed horrifyingly loud. The shadows of her paws crawled from under his door. His stomach dropped.

“Go away!” He cried in the northerner High-Griffonese. Because he knew that otherwise it would only make her angrier or because he wanted her to understand him. Gallus himself was not sure. “I’m not letting you in!”

Her talons clicked against the door; a wave of exhilaration filled the room with her voice even with her stern way of speaking. “My prodigal son has come home!”

“Shut up!” He screamed. “You’re not my mom! Mom died when I was born!”

Her feathers and her fur brushed against the door on the other side. “I love you, Gallus. You need guidance and few griffons have the privilege of my attention.”

“I know your love!” he more whispered to himself with a sob rather than responded.

“I will find a cute, appropriate queen for one of my favored sons. Submissive and demure to love her ferocious little Astrani.” She spoke and her voice was silky and delightful before it turned fierce, like the thunder in the storm. “Or perhaps a mature and fiery one to take care of you. I know you more than you will believe.”

“Shut up!” He cried. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

Her voice turned serious and stern. “You will not return to your degenerated friends, Gallus. They have abandoned you. I am the only one who wants you. You belong to me, and it is time you returned to my hearth. The time of doing things of cubs is over.”

“Go away! I’m not going back to Griffindell! Mister Gary and Miss Greta are going to help me! I’ll go back to Ponyville and never think of you ever again!”

She laughed. Like a mother listening to her child telling her all about how he was going to leave her and take care of himself. The room jolted, and the curtains jostled. The flash of lightning turned yellow with sparks flying outside. Metal screeched like the wheels of a train cried before it stopped, and floodlights shone through the curtains.

A harsh voice ordered all to disembark and drew Gallus to the window. The placid plaza before the School of Friendship turned into a grassy open field between his windows and the eye-burning lights. The young griffon climbed onto his bed and put his paws on the icy glass to look outside.

Shades of griffons broke the intense glare while hippogriffs joined in front of his windows. Gallus watched slack jawed as all the colorful hippogriffs stood with their backs to him. Thunder roared and lightning flashed above the brightness, but they were not thunder nor lighting, instead flashes at the tip of machineguns, roaring and spitting fire. Blood and gore splattered against the window and feathers flew. Gallus screamed and fell from his bed on his back.

Princess Luna stood over him, out of nowhere and unannounced. His eyes widened. She could help him! Luna could shelter him, and he was going to ask her, but the princess put her hoof on his beak, and a feather before her lips asked for silence.

“Depending on what you do, the lives of countless creatures will be lost.” Luna whispered to him. “I know it is not fair… But fate has saddled you with this. They will capture you one way or another, therefore you must go with the hippogriffs on the train. You will know what to do.”

Gallus simply stared at the princess of the night with wide eyes as she spoke again. “There is no time. I know you wanted to go back to Ponyville, but you are carrying much of the future of the world on your back. You must step up. You must help me.”

Gallus woke up in the dark with a scream, back on the comfy bed in the attic bedroom. A storm pelted and rattled the window as Mister Gary walked into the bedroom, making soothing gestures. He never turned on the light, either. “Gallus. I’m sorry. We have to go. Now.”

He was already awake by the time Gary talked to him, so Gallus jumped off the bed and donned his backpack without a second thought next to follow Gary downstairs with anxious and quick steps. He meant to ask what was going on, but he never had the chance. Miss Greta was already waiting downstairs and covered Gallus with a black hooded cloak like the one she wore, while Mister Gary put on one too.

“They found out you’re here and we had to change the plan.” She said calmly. “We’ll get you to a safer place. With the others. Preferably to leave as soon as possible.”

“Why are you guys doing this? You’re putting yourselves in danger.” He asked, just as Greta finished tying the cloak around his neck. “You don’t even know me.”

“I let a friend down…” Gary said. A sad shame crept into his voice, and he avoided Gallus’ eyes. “I was scared and let fear drive me into kicking her out. Now I can’t help thinking some horrible griffons may have killed her and I may never know the truth.”

Greta had stopped to listen to Gary too, and her husband frowned when his eyes filled with determination. “I am not doing this again. I am going to get you to safety.”

Done with the dramatics, Gary led them to the backyard door of their homely little house. After a quick look outside the square window, Gary slowly unlocked the door and came out first to signal for Greta and Gallus to follow. The trees danced in the dark, adding their creaking and rustling to the heavy splashes of rainfall. Blades of grass barely rose from a carpet of water like the storm tried to drown the earth.

While he took the time to lock the door again, Greta urged Gallus on to the back of their yard. The thick layer of water made walking a frustrating exercise from what could have been a fun romp in another situation. The heavy rain on his cloak made difficult to hear anything and didn’t help cope with the dark. Almost on cue, three of the planks making the fence swung a passage open. An old griffon lady, using a jacket for an improvised raincoat, waited for them as Greta sent Gallus through first.

“Hurry, sweeties.” The old lady spoke in a croaky, hushed voice. “They’re coming.”

Gallus didn’t know who she was, but Miss Greta thanked her and urged Gallus onward. They sprinted around the old lady’s house to meet someone else at the corner before the sideway opened onto the front lawn. There a pair of griffons waited for them. An old mister Gallus also didn’t know and a much younger hen. Her black-spotted black pelt made her almost invisible in the dark, but Gallus saw her swishing tail that ended like a cat’s more than a lion’s. She also wore a leather garment, an armor that made Gallus think she was with the city’s law enforcers. She had the build for it too.

“Hey, young mister.” She greeted Gallus with a calm voice.

“Gilmara is the Lord Protector of Griffonstone, Gallus.” Greta soothed him after seeing his anxious expression.

“You’re a militiagriffon!” Gallus grimaced. “How are you not working with the northerner weirdos?”

“I’m doing my job of protecting the citizens from the violent thugs, kid.” She told him just as Gary joined them. “If the politicians fleecing the city were not enough, we now have these northerner jerks stepping on my turf.”

The black-on-black griffoness with few outstanding feathers gave Mister Gary a revolver and another to Miss Greta. Not the standard issue wheellock pistols that the local militia law enforcers throughout the Equestrian Confederation used. It was one of the modern six-shooters that Gallus had heard about and that used modern ammunition encased in brass cartridges instead of the crystal balls filled with subduing spells. Only then he saw she had a bulky, long gun with her, but Gallus didn’t know what it was.

He almost complained she didn’t have something for him, given that he was the one the soldiers would be looking for. Any sarcasm died before he could voice it: focused cones of light danced inside his rescuers’ home. Gilmara urged them to move, and Gary led the group, scurrying into the empty street. The older griffons would stay, it seemed.

To say it was raining was an understatement. Water poured from the sky, intent on drowning the city, and the distant thunder unnerved Gallus. He could hear it even over the racket the rainfall caused against his cloak. The cold air clashed horribly with the wet hotness under his raincoat like the rain took offense. The dirty water clung to his feet and every time he stepped into the film of dirty water on the cobblestone, he felt like dying a little more. For better or worse, everything was so damp he could barely smell anything. Barely hear anything, and with all the curtains closed or lights turned out, he could not see much either. That accursed thunder kept reaching him, though. Like a monster prowling about.

Gallus did the only thing he could and followed the black griffoness leading the way along with Mister Gary while Miss Greta brought up their rearguard with him in the middle. Were those enough griffons? The soldiers went to that friendly couple’s home; there was nothing keeping them from looking for him under that rain. They were probably scouring the streets of the city just as those griffons he didn’t even know scurried along with him.

It would have helped to ease his nerves if anyone had told him where they were all going. He supposed nobody found the time to explain it to the ‘kid’. Even if getting him somewhere was the point of soaking under that rain to begin with. His eyes found the dark, flowing water over the cobblestone on the sidewalk, and he chastised himself for being so grumpy when they were helping him. It was just… That nightmare still haunted him, and all the accumulated energy of urgency kept him from focusing. Thank Harmony they were moving. He could not stand still.

He started gathering the sparse information in the flashes of lightning reflected off the walls and roofs. They had left the comfortable residential neighborhood to enter one of the more favored griffons who could afford larger houses. Almost mansions, comfy two-story houses, but still not where the truly rich griffons lived.

The big difference was the size of the homes, and how much expensive glass they could put on the ostentatious windows. And when lightning flashed, Gallus could see ‘her’ moving shade in the reflection with her crown of raised feathers, looking down at him from the panoramic windows. Her visage haunted him, and he could hear her conceited laugher in the thunder. He shuddered and kept those things to himself. How could he even tell the others he was seeing things in the reflections while they snuck around town? He’d look like a child.

“Wait! Hide!” Lord Protector Gilmara’s hushed voice brought him from his exhausting waking nightmare.

She shoved him to the side, not so harshly that Gallus would trip, but enough that he understood something was wrong. Miss Greta and Mister Gary both understood it too, and the four of them hid behind the stone fence decorating someone’s house. Gilmara was closest to the edge, with Gallus right next to her, and he watched while she looked around it. He chanced a glance over the stone and mortar to see the bobbing lights of a trio of flashlights further ahead down the street. The rain, for better or worse, severely limited the range of their flashlights, but still allowed Gallus to see the griffons awkwardly walking on three legs while holding the things in their fourth leg. A fourth griffon among them sat in the middle of the street, and all of them wore green raincoats. The rain didn’t let Gallus discern if they carried weapons, but he could hazard a guess.

“Fuck. They must have the entire area covered… No. They are trying to herd us in a direction or setting up a confrontation.” Even under the rain, Gallus could hear the worry in Gilmara’s voice while she kept watching the soldiers around her corner of the fence. “These are not the typical moron grunts, either. They really want to catch you, kid.”

She turned to look at Gallus, as well as Greta and Gary behind him, but her expression under the raincoat turned Gallus’ stomach. Looking in the same way she did, Gallus and the other two saw someone in the small pathway between the house and the stone fence. Against the weak yellow light of the magical public illumination across the terrain. A shade of a griffon lady, patiently sitting on her haunches, with her wings menacingly open and wearing a cape. It billowed in the wind, despite the soaking rain.

“The Mother of Storms demand you relinquish the cub unto me.” She shouted over the downpour, speaking in a heavily accented Common Equestrian. The soldiers further down the street heard and moved into position behind statues, walls, and fences. Quickly, as though it all went according to plan. “She then will deem your continuing survival a gift of good-will, Saddani.”

“The Mother of Storms can go suck a big, fat one!” Gilmara shouted back at her.

Mister Gary sat on his haunches, with his forelimbs free to aim his revolver, and shot at the griffoness just as she closed her wings around herself. Then the gates of Tartarus broke open.

“Kill the hooflicker!” One of the soldiers shouted and bullets started flying.

Energy filled Gallus, but also the realization that he was in danger. Real, immediate danger to his life. He always thought that he would raise up and be brave in such a situation, but what he did was drop to the wet grass with an unwilling cry.

Gilmara stood at the stone fence and shot her weapon at the soldiers with a deafening boom. Gallus’ sense of reality had been offended enough when he noticed Mister Gary shot a second and a third time, but the griffoness on the side of the house simply stood there, with her wings closed like she expected her feathers would stop the bullets. Gallus chose sanity, and accepted Mister Gary had missed, because she never even flinched and charged towards them, opening her wings and screeching.

The black hen hid behind the stone fence, covering Gallus with her warm body. Pebbles flew, and a salvo of bangs filled the air above the storm. Miss Greta pulled Gary to hide, and Gallus saw the griffoness he had shot at lunging at them. She had covered the entire distance with two pounces and was already so close that Miss Greta too missed a shot and screamed in a panic.

The agile griffoness jumped over Greta, talons sizzling with blue lightning magic, and she soared over Gallus to land at Gilmara, slashing her talons teeming with magic at the leather armor. Gallus made himself as small as he could behind the stone fence with a scream as the pebbles kept showering him.

“Miss Grisa, you’re in the way!” one of the soldiers on the other side yelled.

The gunshots barely diminished. A barrage of ear-ringing bangs and clacks hurt and deafened Gallus, but he heard Gilmara struggling with their assailant. All he found the courage to do was tremble and hide behind the stone fence, as still as he could under his wings. Something splashed in the pooled water on the grass, and he found Miss Gilmara’s gun at paw’s reach. She was still wrestling with the cape-wearing griffoness, talons flying at each other. If he reached, he could help her. The racket stopped him. The repeating bangs, the clacking of bullets against their shelter… Gary and Greta hid and shot at the soldiers across the neighbor’s lawn. He held his own limbs to himself and closed his eyes as tightly as he could.

A boom filled the air and the caped griffoness collapsed on her side. The red liquid of life oozed from a grievous wound on her chest and washed away in the downpour. Gilmara held the gun, also lying on her side, but alive. Panting heavily, dragging herself over the wet grass toward the stone fence. Several scorched cuts marred her armor, and she hissed, rubbing her paw over a bloody cut in her neck.

“Fucking witches.” She sheltered herself next to Gallus and the other two, but the noises of the gunfight no longer reached him. The soldiers called each other for a retreat.

“Is anybody hurt?” Gilmara yelled over the rain, and harshly held Gallus, examining him. His nerves were so rattled, the young griffon never resisted, but his cheeks burned with shame after hiding through the whole confrontation. Next to him, Greta examined her husband, and he had a nasty wound on his left shoulder.

Gallus did not know what a bullet wound ought to look like, but the straight laceration immediately dawned the idea of a grazing bullet on his layperson understanding. He grimaced at how much the gory thing must hurt.

“You’ll be fine.” Gilmara pointed at the houses across from the street. “Come on! We gotta go! That racket ought to have drawn others.”

She wasted no time and tolerated no laziness, shoving Gallus to run and urging the other two to follow. Curious griffons watched from the dark behind the windows of their ostentatious houses, but no one bothered them as they crossed through the lots. Encountering a picket fence, the group leaped with help from their wings to clear it. Gallus hated how the thick raincoat hindered even such a short flight, but it was certainly better than getting his hind caught by Lady Gwendolen’s loremasters.

The large houses, obscured by the dark of the night and the thick rain, provided a decent cover for the four griffons. Gilmara led them through front lawns and backyards. Hopping over fences, dashing madly, brushing the walls, avoiding outdoor furniture, and getting raincoats unstuck from the eventual pointy fence made progress slower than Gallus liked. The rain gave no signs of letting up, and he worried about the grazing bullet wound on Mister Gary’s shoulder. The rain and their frantic flight made it impossible to see it, but that could not be healthy.

With half an hour of running around, Miss Gilmara decided they ought to change stealth for speed. Flying low in the wind and rain was dangerous, and not only because the raincoats made flying even more difficult. Gilmara was probably the only one that knew what she was doing in their group, though. Gallus was just glad nobody turned out to be following or chasing them until they left the urban area. He was completely at the mercy of the adults.

The wind didn’t cease, much less the rain, and in the complete darkness, Gilmara took the group to a higher altitude. A constant, creeping fear followed Gallus while he followed their leader in the dark, that they were being watched. As absurd as it seemed, and he kept telling himself he was just scared all the way until they finally arrived at their destination.

Details came scarcely in the dark and rain, but the adults met someone after they landed on a horribly muddy open ground. He saw the outlines of buildings and strange shapes that held little meaning to his exhausted self. Gallus was just happy everybody just let him be.

Soon enough they left the rain to enter a leaky, but dry room. Dim oil lamps provided some light, and the windows had been closed with boards and curtains. It was a living room. Old and abandoned, with decrepit furniture that belonged in a dump, but that was not what shocked Gallus. It was all the big-eyed hippogriffs staring at him from the corridor. A hippogriff stallion, with a soft and welcoming smile, greeted Gallus in the poorly lit room, carrying a tray with glasses of water. The smell of potatoes, chicken and herbs was more welcome than Gallus would have thought, but he wanted the water after that mad dash and nocturnal flight. Gilmara talked in silence to a hippogriff mare.

“We’re bringing all the hippogriffs here.” Greta told him after a gulp of water while an unknown griffon looked over Mister Gary’s wound. “The northerners really don’t like them and… Well… They were told to leave, but not all of them could make it. We’ll take them by train to Saddle Arabia, and from there they can teleport to the Equestrian Heartland until this mess gets sorted out. Miss Gilmara is talking to Bubbles; she’s sort of the leader. They’ll take you with them and take care of you.”

Of all the things she said, Gallus heard one word, and one word alone. “Train?”

06 - Fates

Too drained from the experience, Gallus had accepted a quick, warm bath in what was an old mine worker’s quarter. Someone had tied some moldy rags to the exposed piping, and they still leaked, but at least it was possible to bathe. Fortunately, the old furnace still worked, and the ancient pile of coal was dry. It was a comforting warm bath.

After the bath washed away the sweaty unpleasantness of rushing through town under a heavy raincoat, Gallus crashed into one of the bunk beds that the hippogriffs offered him. He blacked out immediately. No more dreams for him, fortunately, although he knew it would be a quick nap.

He woke up to the warmness of another body against his back. It took him a moment before he realized that Miss Greta had snuggled up to him and she breathed softly in his nape. He relaxed from his startled tenseness and blinked in the shadowy room. The sun peeked through the gaps in the windows, but Mister Gary was nowhere to be seen. A hippogriff mother laid on the bed across from him and held her little foal like it was the most precious thing in existence.

Making out their colors in the shade was difficult, but the exuberant feathers made up the mother’s ‘mane’ drew his attention. However, Gallus focused on the peaceful slumber that had claimed her foal. Imagining what they may have gone through was easy, and still there was nothing wrong in the world while that little one was in their mother’s loving embrace.

Gallus tried sleeping again. It was so comfortable, but the black griffoness he had met in their escape walked into the room. Gilmara spoke with all the authority of a griffon used to dealing with bad griffons and rough fighters. “Everyone! It’s time. Get up and get yourselves ready. We’ll be departing in half an hour!”

She also kept banging her gun’s barrel on the door frame for emphasis. Miss Greta stirred next to Gallus and yawned while he stood still as a statue with a blush on his face. She didn’t seem to notice, though, as she pecked the top of his head softly and greeted him, telling him to get ready.

“Gary and I will stay with you until you’re safe and sound in Ponyville. Or wherever you want to go.” She gave him a sleepy smile, and he responded with a sheepish grin.

After the awkwardness washed off, Gallus busied himself with a quick breakfast of bread and salami with orange juice. It was not much; just one paltry sandwich for each, though the younger foals and Gallus received a second helping. They had water too, but moods never improved much. Despite a few happy foals ‘having an adventure’, parents and adults remained quiet and sullen. Gallus was just happy that nobody kicked in the door while they slept.

Just in time, as they finished their hasty breakfast, kitchen utensils hanging from the wall started clanging. A rising, low rumble filtered from the ground. As they left the dilapidated building, Gallus could see under the light of the raising sun. They were in an old mine, indeed. In the workers’ quarters, amid other derelict wooden buildings that held the administration. Among the buildings was a small train station with several sets of rails. In the distance, an old steam locomotive filled the air with fumes, chugging along and pulling their ticket out of Griffonia. Five old passenger cars which once brought the workers to the mine would carry those hippogriffs to safety in Saddle Arabia. And along with them, Gallus.

He did not smile or cheer like the rest of them. Gallus kept staring at the pony driver as he pulled the whistle and the wheels ground against the rails. Watching the black metal monster breaking into the station. Gallus’ beak made a grimace; the screech of metal filled him with dread as he kept telling himself it would be alright. It was only a dream, and nobody would pay him any mind, anyway. They would be alright; Gallus had had nothing more than a bad dream. The she-devil in Griffindell messing with him, trying to intimidate him. Nothing more.

***

Gabby decided that whoever those griffons were, they were not nice, but she supposed that compared to some of the public workers in Griffonstone, they were at least helpful. And if she compared them to creatures like King Sombra, they were not so bad after all. They gave her some nice food, fresh water, and even took her to a nicer room. An actual room with a bed, some reading material that didn’t interest Gabby, and her own bathroom. And she really needed a bath.

The only thing that appeared strange was that the young griffoness with the blue cape—Gabby later found out she was a ‘Loremaster’—told her not to get romantically involved with any griffons she might come across. She was not sure why, but that wasn’t Gabby’s intention, anyway.

Gabby took a quick bath and barely had the energy to dry herself up. It was a spartan room with barely any decoration, no curtain to cover the windows, not a desk, table, or even bedside furniture. It smelled nicer than the other room and looked cleaner. More importantly, it didn’t have soldiers staring at her like she had done something wrong, and she was tired enough to sleep anywhere remotely safe. She locked the door to her room and locked the windows, too. The room quickly became a touch too warm, even with the storm outside, the windows kept clacking, voices kept talking in the corridor, but she slept anyway.

She slept so well that, come morning, she could barely remember anything after they took her to her room. Nothing had changed, but the storm had ceased, as it always did in the morning. It was a tired, dreamless slumber that recharged her energies and even her cheery mood. But she barely had time to wash her face and preen herself when someone knocked.

On the other side was a griffon in the green uniform, with the golden buttons and frilly accessories that they used, as well as the green and black hat with a golden griffon. He was polite and direct, telling her to be ready within ten minutes, as they would take her to better accommodations, and she would have breakfast there.

One of those big, burly griffons that does well in the military. He never asked if she wanted it or needed anything. What was she going to do? Say no? She used her ten minutes allowance to make herself presentable. Coming out of her room, she found the soldier sitting across the corridor, patiently waiting for her. Maybe someone had told them to be nicer to her?

Now that she was not having a nervous breakdown, Gabby could see more of the house they had brought her to, and it was not a nice place. It was decrepit, missed finishing on the walls, and had holes in the ceiling and floor. What should be a living room had its windows replaced, and the door reinforced with planks. Stands holding long firearms were all the furniture. Not a plant, or anything that was not related to hurting griffons. A room to the side of the entry room had a desk and one of those fancy magical communication mirrors that Gabby couldn’t afford. Another was an improvised bunk room. Were they in some sort of military building? Probably someone’s country home they had commandeered.

She didn’t have a long time to examine the place. They were never truly aggressive towards her, but they expected her to leave, so she did, and walking outside, she found a carriage. It was a closed carriage, with glass windows and cute green curtains that went well with the caramel wood frame. A pair of griffon guys just waited there, hitched to the carriage. A griffoness in the same green uniform waited and opened the door, waving Gabby inside. Gabby boarded it immediately. She had a feeling that making those griffons wait was a bad idea.

The soldier griffoness hopped aboard after Gabby and slammed the door shut with her tail before sitting in front of her. She just stared silently as the carriage started moving. The little gray one rubbed her paws together and let escape an uncomfortable chuckle.

“Hum. Hi. I’m Gabby. Nice to meet you.” She said and then wished she could unsay it with another chuckle, looking away.

To Gabby’s surprise, the female soldier smiled candidly at her. “I know. Don’t worry, Miss Gabriella. You’re not in trouble or anything. It’s just… things change. Griffonia is changing, and we need to keep up.”

She didn’t have any particularly distinguishing characteristics. Just a young military griffon lady traveling with Gabby. Maybe she was there to make sure she wouldn’t try to flee? Who could know? Not Gabby. Orange fur and yellow feathers covered her, and she had beautiful honey eyes. Gabby would imagine she was not the king of griffoness who would hurt someone. But she was in the military. So, maybe Gabby just didn’t know. She kept talking to Gabby, smiling softly and speaking frankly.

“You seem like you’re too naïve and too nice for all this. I’m sorry… everyone is scared. For better or worse, Princess Celestia brought a sense of stability to everything. Now that she’s gone missing, the northerners got bold. They are in a hurry because things are in motion, and they have to grab what they can. And to them, griffons are important. We gotta deal with all that together.”

Gabby was not sure of what the other was trying to say but felt as though she was trying to help.

“Just don’t take it all too personally. It is not you… It’s the ponies they don’t like. And your family grew too close to the hippogriffs, but there is nothing you can do. And they know that.”

Gabby didn’t answer, but her sheepish stare down must have been enough to satisfy the soldier. She didn’t feel like talking after that, and laid on her seat, letting her head rest on her paws. The wobbling of the carriage helped relax, even if the trip over rough terrain proved the suspension to be too stiff.

‘Don’t take it personally,’ she said. Gabby had taken a job to deliver supplies to the hospital. It should have been routine; walking into the plaza was commonplace. Suddenly, everything had changed. Along the way, horrible—worse—things could have happened to her. She was lucky the griffons in that horrible place, Needle Row, never became hostile to her. And the only reason she had to cross that place was that the military had closed the other ways. Then she had to deal with the military again to enter King Grover’s Plazza.

Once she managed to reach the hospital, it was a mess, and she had to sit there, exposed to sick, injured, and dying griffons. Blood and pain were everywhere, and it was because of the military and the northerner griffons. When someone finally talked to her, Gabby was told she had to flee because of the creepy old northerner griffoness. She practically sneaked her way out of the plaza. And then, in the next day, they went after her anyway. She was so scared she fled and then they killed a nice griffon who was just trying to help. She still remembered the coppery and sticky smell all over her.

Then they put her in a chilly, gloomy room. An angry, scary griffon in uniform yelled at her, slammed his fist at the desk, and accused her of doing things she didn’t even understand. They asked her personal questions, and they touched and examined her in all the worst ways possible. They said she was something she barely understood and the only thing that came across was that she was a bad griffon. That her family had been bad griffons. And that she made bad friendships. They even made fun of her.

‘Immature.’ Gabby thought. ‘I’m not immature. I’m normal and sane.’

Now the soldier lady was telling her not to take it personally. Gabby was not grumpy. She would not hold grudges, but she clenched her fists. She wanted to tell that soldier lady some things, but her throat ached. It had closed with all the spiky words she wanted to put out. Ane then her eyes filled with prickly tears. Gabby said nothing. She stifled a sob, and just laid on her seat, with her head on her paws, hoping that the worst really was over. Maybe one day they’d let her just go back to delivering letters… everything used to be so simple.

How long did the trip last? Gabby couldn’t put her talon on it, but it somehow seemed to last longer than any of her trips would last, even across the city. Maybe it was because even the military ought to stop at their blockades and gates with angry griffons lacking patience and goodwill. Despite the turmoil, griffons, particularly those fortunate enough to avoid unwanted attention and keep their jobs, continued with their lives. The city’s noises remained constant, but after a while, Gabby found herself too indifferent to distinguish them. Finally, they were all gone, replaced by singing birds and the earthy smells of the countryside after the torrential rain of last night.

“We’re here.” The soldier lady’s voice had softened.

Out of curiosity, Gabby stood to sit again and the view from her window had transformed. They were no longer inside the city limits; they were passing in front of the military-owned club outside of Griffonstone. Gabby had been there once to deliver a letter to a big-name officer, but that was years ago.

The dirt road skimmed a chain-link fence. Several sandbag protections followed the fence along the way, and each harbored a couple of soldier griffons in green uniform and large floodlights aimed at the sky, albeit turned off during the day. Behind them were a few buildings and sports areas like a hoofball field, complete with bleachers and support buildings. In the background was the hill, with Fort King Grover overlooking the city below and using the river as its moat. The very river that flowed from an artificial lake next to the club and where several boats and festive piers dotted the shoreline.

Griffons in green uniform worked placing more sandbags, digging trenches, and setting up huge weapons Gabby didn’t know what to call. There was a lot of movement in the green, open areas with working soldiers. Digging, building… Gabby saw them putting together a wooden tower and one of the large floodlights being fixated onto the ground.

The soldier lady chuckled at Gabby’s gawking beak. “This is the place where the brass used to come and waste our taxpayer money with their families. The northerners commandeered it and turned into a gilded cage where they hold all the griffons they like. Makes me wish I had some of those unfathomable qualities they’re looking for, or pony friends for that matter.”

Gabby frowned. There were outdoor pools and more outdoor sports courts than Gabby knew outdoor sports. A large glass terrarium, a water tower. Another building certainly housed mana batteries because Gabby recognized the connections from the facilities strewn around the city, except those could provide magic to the houses in entire neighborhoods. Although the entire club occupied a similar area, anyway.

Eventually, they made it to the entrance. Walls made of massive cement blocks, reaching as high as a house, replaced the chain-link fence. The griffons in green uniform build it, replacing sections of the fence going in both directions from the entrance. And the entrance… Gabby knew little about civil construction or military installations, but that leaned more towards the latter. Sandbags, barbed wire, wooden towers, and the foundations of something massive surrounded a tiny checkpoint with a manual gate. Two soldiers stood guard before one of those big, heavy-looking metal weapons set on a sandbag protection.

Although griffons they were, not the griffons in green uniform Gabby had been seeing. They wore black and golden plate armor and carried heavy tools for killing, along with their firearms. Axes, spears, halberds, large hammers for war. A strange mixture of old and new. Something about them quickened Gabby’s pulse in a bad way. They seemed wild, fierce, almost feral. Their facial structure was sharper, and their bodies had significantly more bulk than most griffons Gabby had ever seen. Maybe it was the stares she received when looking out her window, but she couldn’t help hiding from them as the carriage passed the gates with no wait.

Her companion was not so intimidated, casting dreamy stares out her window. “I gotta get myself one of these northerner hunks…”

To Gabby, they were more intimidating than beautiful, but she could not judge another’s taste. She instead focused on the obnoxious and large, black on yellow sign.

NO FLYING WHATSOEVER

YOU WILL BE SHOT

Written in big, friendly pony ideograms at the top and another language below. Letters like angry scratches probably said the same in the northerners’ own language.

The griffoness sharing the carriage laughed at the sheepish stare Gabby gave her and made a dismissive gesture with her paw. “Oh, don’t worry about them. They have their own quarters, and they are all so polite. They just look big and scary, being monster hunters that joined the Lion’s army. You know, just in case Chancelor Gail didn’t want to let go of his bone. I mean, even Princess Celestia said that the Lion can be king of the Griffons, right?”

Well, yes. Gabby had seen it in the newspapers. Princess Celestia supported the northerner governor to become the king of the Griffons. If that was what the griffons wanted, but that was before. And was that what had happened to Griffonstone? Were that why streets were closed and there were so many homeless griffons? The smart griffons that talked about politics, saying the Lion was going to fix those problems instead of making them worse. Maybe that was part of the process? Maybe the Lion was going to give Gabby her work back when it was all over? Somehow, Gabby doubted. Living with the ponies seemed a lot more attractive than gambling on that. If Gabby would ever have such a choice, that was.

But Gabby didn’t word any of her thoughts or questions about the situation. She had the distinct feeling that those griffons would not appreciate it if she started saying she was unhappy with the situation. She simply forced a smile, and that satisfied the lady officer.

Once past the gate, the dirt road turned to cobblestone and a quick trip took their carriage to what Gabby supposed was a hotel. It had a central block and two wings with multiple, repeating windows over three floors. Red banners fluttered. Two of them hung from the ceiling of each wing of the building, reaching inches from the ground and showing an insignia of black and white griffon wings. Meanwhile, the entire central wing held a luxurious entrance with white pillars and glass panes. Massive wooden doors with rampant griffons painted with gold greeted Gabby. Another carriage had arrived first, though. She had to wait for a few seconds before disembarking.

“Miss Gabriella. Let me give you one critical piece of advice. If one of the blue-cape-wearing ladies tells you to do something—young, or old—just do it. Don’t fuck with them. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you are. I’ve seen them humbling some of the richest and most powerful magnates of Griffonstone. From politicians to magnates. Owners of teleportation companies, multimillionaires that do business with other nations and get to talk directly to Celestia herself. Generals, commanding officers… Doesn’t matter. Do what they tell you.”

Gabby answered with a meek ‘okay’ while the officer opened the door. She hopped off the carriage with her eyes to the cobblestone road, and when she looked up, she saw two more griffons in front of the entrance. One of them was a beautiful and very athletic griffon lady covered in two shades of gray. Her dark feathers, with even darker highlights, gave her an exotic and impressive appearance along with her hale physique.

Gabby could not believe her eyes and her beak hung open in silent awe. That was Giselle, the fastest griffon alive, and next to her was none other than Gustav Le Grand! With his similar, but inverted, shades of gray and his unapologetic mustache. He was missing the chef’s hat and scarf he typically wore in the newspapers and photographs. Instead, he wore another red scarf, one with a long leg hanging from his neck and showing a brooch in the shape of the same black and white griffon wings. In fact, the pretty griffoness with him also wore an identical scarf, which was odd in Griffonstone’s damp heat.

But none of that mattered too much. Gabby’s eyes grew wide and shone. What a twist. The last thing she expected to happen, after so much pain, was to meet celebrities of such caliber. She sat on the cobblestone and held her cheeks with a delighted gasp. “Oh, my gosh! Hi! I can’t believe!”

The male griffon greeted her with a gallant chuckle. “Oh, hon hon hon. What a delight, mademoiselle, meeting you, too. Greetings! What would be your name, hm?”

“I’m Gabby!” she hopped in front of him with a wide grin. “It can’t believe it! I love everything from your shop in the Market Square!”

He let her enthusiasm draw a thick laughter from him. “Ah, I am immeasurably pleased to hear so, Miss Gabby! I will let my employees know that their hard work on my recipes is appreciated.”

“Ah… Who are you?” the stunning griffoness next to him seemed unfazed by Gabby’s enthusiasm. “And you?”

Gabby explained, talking too fast, so excited she suddenly had become. “He is Gustave Le Grand! Owner of the most successful brand of pastries in the world! The most delicious, creamy, and wonderful pastries ever baked in the history of ever!”

He chuckled again. “Well, not to brag, but Princess Celestia herself does frequently order from my bakery at Cantelot. Why, I often travel there to make her birthday cakes personally.”

“Ah… I don’t eat that crap.” Giselle barely seemed impressed. “It’d ruin my figure and my performance.”

His glee deflated and almost reminded Gabby she was supposed to be sad and intimidated. Instead, she explained it to Gustav with all her enthusiasm, which resisted against her recent experiences. “Miss Giselle is the fastest griffoness alive!”

“Not as fast as Rainbow Dash, I would wager.” Gustav stung at their athlete acquaintance with a mischievous grin, twisting his mustache between his fingers.

“She is a pegasus pony. It is a different weight class, you know,” Giselle polished her talons at the fluffy feathers in her chest, “I guarantee I can out-fly her any day.”

“What about you, ma chérie?” Gustav turned to Gabby. “Have the griffons from Snow Mountains selected you for any impressive deeds?”

“Oh…” Gabby’s eyes fled from his and her fingers fiddled with each other. “I’m just a mailhen. I have a friendship with Princess Twilight Sparkle’s assistant, and family members of the Mane Six. So, I guess I am worthy of some attention?”

“Don’t say that word,” Gustav candidly admonished her, lowering his tone and gesturing for caution. “The northerners don’t like griffon ladies referring to themselves as hens.”

“Yeah. It’s a pejorative word in their middle.” Giselle rolled her eyes and tossed her head. Gabby frowned at the silly nitpick, but Giselle went on. “Like when you call a pony horse, or a thestral by bat-pony. Go figure. These weirdos… the examiner had her paws all over me. I mean, I get it, but…”

Gustav cleared his throat and interrupts her. “Maybe we should enter and see our lodgings?”

Thank goodness he interrupted her. Gabby barely even had the time to feel bad remembering her experience. Still, she appreciated his intervention and obliged when he chivalrously gestured for her to walk first. Not that it was necessary, as the doorway comfortably allowed the trio to walk into the building after a northerner in armor opened it from inside and greeted them. At least Gabby thought it was a greeting. She didn’t understand what he said.

They entered a lobby transformed into a meeting room. A double line of joined tables offered food and drinks to a dozen griffons milling about, talking, and enjoying breakfast. Some of them showed little restraints in socializing while others preferred to sit in their corners, a few entirely avoided the food. It looked like a party, or a social meeting, but it felt more like when Gabby was once summoned for jury duty.

More interesting than that was the painting directly in her sight as soon as they entered. In the back of the hall, a pair of curving stairs cradled a wall, and it held a giant painting which was probably larger than any wall in Gabby’s home.

It showed a family. A dark brown griffon with a white head and brown eyes, proud like a king, dominated half of the painting. He wore a single diadem with a ruby and a dark metal armor combined with dark gray fur. To his left was a young griffon lad of purple fur and mustard colored head wearing a similar armor, but also not as tough-looking, more like a kid, barely an adult, probably. Next to the younger griffon was a young and beautiful griffoness, a hen with a yellow body and white head. But on the other side of the painting was perhaps the most beautiful creature Gabby had ever seen in her life. A tall and alluring, exquisite griffoness. Her haleness put Giselle’s to shame with her white and black physique. Her most distinctive traits were the black, white, and silver feathers and fur, but also the sharp facial lines and icy-gray eyes, along with a crown of black feathers behind her head, raised like a natural crown. She had a white body with black stripes on her hindlegs and black wings closed on her flanks.

Behind them, the background showed a black mountain covered by a city with a thousand lights and a dark, stormy cloud above.

“Yikes,” Giselle said with a frown. “I like hot griffons as much as the next gal, but these birds need an ego check.”

“I would be careful with a loose beak in this place, mademoiselle.” Gustav said in a low, secretive tone. “These are your new rulers. Lord Gilad Ironfeathers, more commonly known as the Lion around these parts, and his mate, Lady Gwendolen of Griffindell.”

Gabby’s eyes lost themselves in that painting, even as she kept listening to their conversation. Something about ego, important griffons and dangerous opinions. Her beak hung open at the lifelike painting. Something about the black and white hen made her back tingle.

“I don’t like’er.” Giselle twisted her beak. “Looks like some broad that wanted to be a stuck up Canterlot noble.”

“She’s beautiful…” Gabby said, still guzzling the details with her eyes. “All of them are.”

“Well, she still gives me the creeps.” Giselle never relented. “They probably paid a hefty ‘spruce-up fee’ to the painter, anyway.”

“Perhaps it would be better if we sampled the food?” Gustav gestured to the table. The concerned frown convinced Gabby such a line of conversation might not be a good idea.

Not that Miss Giselle ever stopped complaining, but Gabby at least agreed that the breakfast looked strange, to say the least. While it offered a few options in fruit juices, the beverages included water and a hot, spiced wine, Gabby would avoid in the Griffonstonian heat. She frowned at the lack of coffee, milk, and perhaps a nice yogurt. There was no bread to be found, much less any cakes or sweets. The food the northerners had offered was lean meats with a multitude of sauces and a few selections of sausage, eggs, and whole fruits. Instead of eating, she and Gustav stared at the table. Giselle didn’t mind it, though, ready to sample the bacon and sausages.

“Hello, Miss Gabriella.” Someone startled Gabby’s feathers straight. She never saw her approaching or where she had come from, but the old griffon lady from the hospital simply arrived. The same one in that awful room and whose recollection made Gabby bump her hindquarters at the table in retreat.

“Nice seeing you again, Miss Gabriella.” She graciously granted Gabby a smile framed in the raised collar of her blue cape. “Don’t worry, I came here to tell you that my personnel will go through your possessions in your home.”

Gabby said only a meaningless and confused ‘aaah…’

“Prepare for a long journey. You are to rest in this day and prepare to take the teleporter to Thunderpeak with another griffon we are busy locating. You will both travel to Frozenlake, where you will join a caravan on its way to the capital. And do not worry, a trustworthy griffon will escort you along the way. You will be safe.”

Gabby simply remembered what the officer lady had told her and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“If you have no questions, enjoy the meeting. We have granted you an extraordinary boon. Please, be cognizant of the importance we have given your case, expediting your transfer to the capital. Lady Gwendolen expects meeting you greatly.”

Gabby’s words failed her other than acknowledging what the older griffoness had told her. The large northerner hen turned to the others and started talking about how important they were. About how honored she was to house them before her peers could adequately transport them to their new homes in Snow Mountains hold. At least for the time being, until Griffonstone stabilized again, and it was safe for them to return and resume their lives.

It might have had something to do with the armored soldiers that suddenly seemed to guard every window, pillar, nook, and cranny, but no one was ready to complain.

***feather scene transition***

They told Gallus to relax and that the worst was behind. The constant swaying and repetitive noise of the traveling train helped significantly. Griffonland hold was not particularly beautiful, but the hilly terrain made for an interesting scenery scrolling past his window. The benches for passengers were old and unceremoniously meant for menial workers whose boss thought poorly of. They were barely more than planks and irons screwed together for minimal seating convenience and attached to the floor. It really couldn’t hold a candle to the comfortable and charmingly quaint trains in the Equestrian Heartland, or the ones the powerful and rich griffons used, Gallus supposed.

Even though the lovely Miss Greta constantly checked on Gallus, almost to the point of being intrusive, he mostly had time to himself and to think. She, Mister Gary, and Gilmara stayed in the front car, which had a restaurant and a kitchen. Of course, that was not your rich griffon train, so they were both small, but that was not a problem. The hippogriffs managed to make use of its facilities and a few busied with a potential lunch on the rails for everyone.

Gallus did not want to think. Last night’s dream haunted him. Whenever he closed his eyes and let the swaying rhythm of the train take him, he’d startle awake. With nothing to do, benches that were just too uncomfortable, and dreading another nightmare, he decided strolling around the busy passenger cars was a better idea.

Lots of bored hippogriffs in that train, ranging in between all age groups. Enough to fill the five passenger cars, but still not as many as Gallus supposed would live in Griffonstone. Being one of the few griffons also fleeing, Gallus drew their attention. The equine-birds had clumped together in groups of acquaintances, families or friends, and Gallus spent some minutes of small talk with a few of them.

They explained that news of Princess Celestia ordering ponies to leave Griffonstone and that hippogriffs should do the same never reached everycreature. Many of them had made their lives in the griffon capital and, despite griffons not being the friendliest creatures in the world, they had never been in real danger before. In fact, several hippogriffs even joined the Griffonian Standing Army to defend the loyalist government. Almost all of them went north when the military launched a preemptive strike. Unfortunately, nobody knew that the Griffon Chancellor mobilized the army against Celestia’s will.

It came as a surprise. Most creatures didn’t even believe there would ever be a war, and they certainly had not expected whatever happened in Griffonstone. The general feeling was of confusion and disorientation. Nobody really knew what was going on. Only that Celestia had told all ponies and hippogriffs to leave and then vanished shortly after.

Details then became fuzzy. Some said there was a coup d’état, but it mostly failed. Northerner agents tried to assassinate Chancellor Gail, but he was not in his official residence in the city. Something the present griffons confirmed with a hint of dark humor: the Chancellor was never where he was supposed to, doing his job. Other confirmed that an old Second Griffon War general that had retired came out of the blue and started pulling some grim skeletons out of the intelligence agency’s closet. The soldiers at Fort King Grover literally rebelled. There was a mass exodus of northerner supporters, but the military stayed and now the city was controlled by them with the northerners.

The rest of the world, with Princess Celestia’s disappearance, dropped Griffonia like it was a live bomb and watched from a safe distance.

Others told Gallus that before the northerners attacked the hospital in Griffonstone—who does that?—Princess Celestia had showed up and she helped the weather team deal with a magical storm. She had had instructed them to transmit her orders and that may have been part of the problem. There was already a lot of chaos. As the dust settled, the saner griffons were helping hippogriffs leave before the northerners got to them. What were the northerners going to do? Opinions varied: most believed the northerners just wanted everyone who was not a griffon out of Griffonia. Other thought they would arrest the hippogriffs and then return them to Hippogriffia. Gallus kept his beak shut because it had been just a stupid dream.

“Why do the griffons from the north hate us so much?” one of the younger hippogriffs asked.

“I don’t know.” Gallus, barely older, told the hippogriff colt. All he knew was that Lady Gwendolen hated the hippogriffs, and that she filled the northerners with that hatred. Something about mixing pony magic and griffon magic. He just shuddered and reminded himself that it was silly to think that Lady Gwendolen could mess with his dreams or that she knew where he was. Or that he put all those hippogriffs in danger just by being there.

When clocks reached noon, moods improved significantly. The food was nothing outstanding: soda and more salami sandwiches. They might not be amazing for one used to tasty, quality food, but it filled stomachs and made foals giggle. Miss Greta and Mister Gary shared their meal with Gallus, and he was so proud of the injury he suffered in their scuffle. A couple of hippogriffs even complimented him for putting his life in danger to save the life of another. His wife kept the conversation away from the more dangerous topics, and while Gilmara was nowhere to be seen, Greta had charmed the younger hippogriffs, along with Gallus, into thinking about nicer things.

For example, she said the Saddle Arabians already knew of the situation and that their own military was waiting for their arrival, ready to get everyone back to Hippogriffia and to the Equestrian Heartland. It was not ideal, Gallus supposed, but he knew the pony authorities would take care of him until that mess blew over.

After lunch, Miss Greta introduced Gallus to a group of hippogriff teenagers that shared his newly gained love for comics. Turned out he wasn’t the only silly birdbrained moron that thought of taking comics with him when fleeing. He, three hippogriff colts and two fillies spent most of the afternoon enjoying the rhythmic chugging along of the train together. The air was hot and damp, but the open windows let it flow as they snaked their way around the hills. At some point, they had crossed into the swamps of Fernland hold, but that made little difference.

Gallus knew a little about the line they had taken. It was supposed to be an express line for cargo joining iron from the north with the budding industry in Fernland. Then the line would connect to the harbor in Beachhome with a hub in Griffonland. The idea was to bring in iron from the north and coke from the Kirin Islands and make it all into steel. Not only the harbor in Beachhome would import the coke, but it would export the steel. Steel that would be sold all over the world and would finally get Griffonian economy out of the gutter. Griffons would finally have something to be proud of their nation.

Of course, it went nowhere. Those possibilities got yeeted into the pile of broken promises griffons had grown tired of hearing. And that was why they wanted change. That was why so many were ready to stab their democracy in the back for a king. Especially when the northerners would sing high praises of his moral integrity.

But none of the teenagers on that train worried about that. They had comics to discuss. Character arcs, memorable villains, and epic moments that defined the best issues ever! One could talk about it the entire afternoon, and they did. The sun set behind the crawling terrain, outside their windows, and their hearty discussion slipped into the night.

The restaurant car became filled with hippogriffs. Mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters helping their young foals and siblings with the hot dogs for dinner. Gilmara sat with Mister Gary and Miss Greta for dinner, along with one of the hippogriff couples. They talked calmly over their food, but that didn’t concern Gallus.

Gallus sat with his new brothers and sisters in comic appreciation. Their table had a selection of those, a plate full of hotdogs, more soda than they could drink, and most of the excitement that could be found on the whole train. All carefully curated as not to ruin the precious pages with tomato sauce or overly sweet beverages of questionable colors, of course. Still, theirs was the noisiest table in the car.

The adults had closed the curtains, as the distant flashes of lightning bothered the little ones and the pelting of the rain on their roof was enough already. But Gallus could barely hear it over the heated discussion. Would Mane-iac’s plan work in the real world?

Metal screeched outside, and the walls groaned like an invisible alicorn tried to rip them apart. Surprised, Gallus flayed and flew at the edge of the table with his stomach. The glasses with soda and the hotdogs flew everywhere along with the comics. Some hippogriffs cried and fell from their seats. The magical lights went out. The screaming of the steel wheels grinding against the rails filled the air and sparks turned the night into day outside the white curtains in front of the windows. They jostled like an invisible force tried to rip them apart.

Thunder ripped outside and before Gallus knew it, Miss Greta had tackled him to hide under the table. Others had done the same and several scared eyes shone in the dark of failing lights, under the tables and benches when harsh floodlights turned on outside with clacks and buzzing. The rain pelted the roof of their car and foals started crying, despite their parents shushing them. Some hippogriffs stared back at Gallus with blood trickling down their foreheads, and one of them was unconscious. Her family kept a quiet vigil over her, though.

“Get out of the train, in an orderly fashion.” A male voice, magically amplified by a megaphone, boomed above the repetitive drumming of the rain.

Gilmara stood from the floor and so did Mister Gary, giving Greta and Gallus a serious, grim stare. “Stay here.”

“They’ll kill you!” Gallus tried to yell, but the fear locked his throat. His words came out in a loud whisper, simultaneously too loud and too soft.

“It will be alright.” Gilmara walked past him and Greta. “Let me try to talk to them.”

“Come out and surrender, and we will not harm you!” the male with a megaphone insisted.

Gallus’ beak opened and closed. No further words came out of him, but he tried telling them they would all be killed. All the hippogriffs. The adults and the foals too. The kids he had spent the day talking about comics, too. Miss Greta and Mister Gary. They were all going to die!

“I will not say it again! We will open fire! Leave the train, immediately.” The angry griffon with the megaphone put a grim tone in his voice that make Gallus’ bones quake.

What about Miss Gilmara? She was Griffonstone’s Lord Protector, the griffon in charge of the law enforcement, and she was trying to help the hippogriffs. Gallus shuddered just thinking about the things her death at the paws of the northerners might instigate. All the issues her absence would cause. All the griffons still in Griffonstone that needed help to get out.

Mister Gary walked out first, followed by Lord Protector Gilmara. They tried reasoning with the griffons outside and distorted shadows moved in the curtains in front of the harsh lights. Someone was making gestures and the guy from before yelled. Without the megaphone, Gallus couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he could hear Gilmara’s distinctively feminine voice arguing among the other voices.

Sobbing and screeching hippogriff cubs surrounded Gallus. Miss Greta’s warm body held him tightly, but she too tensed with barely disguised sniffles. In the middle of all the spilled soda, hot dog buns, and wieners, the red of sauce made his feathers stand. Hippogriffs hugged together, covered in wasted food, shaking, and giving him scared stares that sunk his stomach. What was going on inside their heads? Gallus barely had an idea, but the incessant beating of the heavy raindrops against the metallic roof filled his ears and drowned his thoughts.

His eyes shut as hard as they could. Machine guns firing in the rain, screaming and crying haunted him in between the noises of the arguing adults and thumping rain. His breath escaped control, and Greta whispered to him while her paw softly flattened the feathers on his crest.

She shushed him, like a caring mother, and told him “It will be alright.”

His breathing turned to panting and Luna’s words came back to him. They would catch him anyway, and he would know what to do when the time came. And he did. He let escape a scream and shoved Miss Greta with all the might in his limbs. She cried for him to stop, but his legs, filled with anxious energy, carried him through the restaurant car, among the hiding hippogriffs, and out of the door. The heavy rain immediately drenched him, and the lights almost blinded him. By the gravel of the track bed, a big griffon in green uniform shoved Mister Gray’s face into the wet grass and another held Gilmara’s forelimbs, forcing the quadrupedal griffoness to sit helplessly in front of him.

“Stop!” Gallus cried, coming out of the car. “I am Gallus! The northerners are looking for me!”

A distant thunder growled in the distance. The soldiers stopped. It was difficult to see in the harsh contrast of dark and intense light, but a black and white griffon walked into view. He wore a soaked green jacket and a kepi of the Griffonian Standing Army. Most importantly, he wore a red scarf around his neck. Gallus didn’t even need to see to recognize the symbol it bore.

“I will exchange myself for their safety.” Gallus told the griffon.

“Who did you say you were?” the officer demanded. Gilmara and Gary yelled at Gallus to not tell him anything, but he ignored them.

“Gallus. I’m Lord Gilad’s half-brother and Lady Gwendolen is looking for me. Ask Madam Gehenna.” He told the officer, looking up at him, but full of confidence in his voice.

The griffon’s white feathers perked as he looked down at Gallus, smiling proudly about his catch. “Madam Gehenna is not here. Madam Gaetana is overseeing the Loremasters in Griffonstone, but she is not here either. This is my op.”

“I’ll go with you, if you let them go.” Gallus said, still unwavering.

“Funny.” The other griffon chuckled cynically. “Explain to me why you think you are in a position to bargain with eight machineguns aimed at you and your half-blood friends.”

Gallus frowned. Ignoring the officer’s over the top edginess, something was amiss. He took a long while, staring at the line of floodlights, griffons in uniform, and machineguns. The white-headed griffon, with an arrogant smile, humored him until Gallus groaned and glared at the convoluted clouds in the darkness above.

“No Loremaster would have allowed the southerners to take charge of something so important as capturing me. They didn’t know I would be here, did they? They would have come, or at least ordered him to look for me.” Gallus frowned. The rain hit his face fiercely and lightning danced inside the moving dark. “Because if they did, they’d just take me by force and that would be it.”

“What are you rambling on about?” the officer’s eyebrow raised, as confusion replaced his arrogance.

“Fine. You won. I’ll go willingly if you let the hippogriffs and the griffons inside the train leave.”

“I still fail to see why you think you have any power of bargaining here.” The white-headed griffon scoffed. “This is interesting, but I’m taking you in. And I am also taking in these traitors and the half-bloods. And there is nothing you can do about it.”

“I’m not talking to you,” Gallus told him.

The clouds answered for Gallus. Griffons flinched at the ear-shattering boom that came with the flash and the windows in the train rattled. A floodlight exploded, hit by lightning, and sent a couple of soldiers scrambling away. As the commotion died down, a female officer approached. Her soaked feathers were a light gray while her fur leaned towards the charcoal under her uniform, and she also wore the red scarf.

“His name is on the list, captain. He also matches the description.” She told the officer. “They really are looking for him. And… ah… I would really like not to piss off Madam Gaetana, much less Lady Gwendolen.”

“It’s just rain.” The male officer started, but relented and groaned almost as quickly as the words left his beak. “Fine. Take the kid in.”

He growled before turning to Gilmara and Mister Gary. “And you take your filthy train. I’ll see you two again, and while you’re away, tell the Saddle Arabians they are standing on imperial territory that we’ll be reclaiming soon enough.”

“Open your eyes, dude.” Gallus told him with a grim frown. “Whichever Loremasters are overseeing the situation back in Griffonstone let you come by yourself because they knew you’d do exactly what you were trying to do.”

“She knew I would be here.” Gallus pointed up at the clouds hidden in the dark. “But she never told them. They would have come otherwise because they’d never let a southerner deal with capturing me. But they are not here. It’s only you, and a bunch of hippogriffs they’d let you take the fall for murdering. For the northerners, it would put the blame squarely on you and on the Griffonian military. When news reached the Hall of Friendship back in Canterlot, it would be you name while the northerners could say they had nothing to do with this. Congrats. You’ve just been welcomed into the Court of the Harpy.”

“The northerners will never like you. The Loremasters set you up, and your future queen thought it was amusing. You’re just lucky she used you, too. You are tainted, and they will never see you as an equal. All they need from you is to make some cubs they can educate into proper Children of the Harpy.” Gallus pointed at the scarf around his neck. “Wear that stupid piece of cloth proudly.”

Gallus received no answer but an empty stare as the female officer came over to Gallus and put a wing over him. “Come on. Let’s get your highness out of this rain.”

Gallus walked with her, but he took one last glance at Mister Gary and Gilmara while the soldiers ushered them back into the train.