Look Up The Mountain, Then Look Down

In Aquila was a statue - of three griffons proudly standing. One griffon was wearing older 10th century equipment, his sabre mid-swing. The first revolution, dismantled by the royalist counter revolution. The second griffon was holding an old bolt-action rifle to the air. The second revolution, where the Discret dynasty held fast against the rebels. The third griffon held a battle rifle, and looked proudly at the horizon. The third revolution, where the kingdom stood strong against one final attempt to turn Aquileia into a socialist republic, even when the Herzland attempted to use the chaos to their advantage.

And now in-front of the memorial was a fourth griffon, pointing a revolver to a child's head.

The little griffon shivered, but did not dare move her body. The cold that pressed against the back of her head made her little paws curl as her entire body shook. She sniffled. She couldn't say anything. She could only hope that her lack of action would be enough to keep her safe.

The gunman that held her hostage was old - an old griffon wearing the jacket of his old uniform, the patch worn and weathered, but displaying its insignia, a royal fleur with two bayonets diagonally crossing through it. While the girl was quiet, the griffon frantically shouted names.

"CORPORAL SEBASTIEN BESSON! SERGEANT ADRIAN LEVETT! PRIVATE FIRST CLASS HENRY LAJOIE!" He shouted, and kept listing many, many more.

Cécile's car pulled up, making sure to back up around the corner. She and Dusk stepped out, looking over the scene. Immediately, an older griffon woman sprinted right at them.

"That's my girl! Officer, please!" The mother screamed, collapsing down to Cécile's talons. "Please! Please save her! She's all I have, officer! Officer, p--"

"Ma'am, calm down." Cécile muttered. "What happened here?"

"He just..." She sniffled. "He grabbed my poor Anabelle, tore her from my talons! That monster...!"

"Backup will be here soon, ma'am." Cécile said, gently helping the mare stand up. Ushering her to the side, she joined Dusk, who came closer to the crowd to take a further look. It was apparent that this situation would be far from easy to defuse, and Cécile had to establish order.

"This is the police!" She shouted, making the crowd disperse as she showed her badge, while one talon held her holster. "Let the girl go and lay your gun down!"

He ignored her, still shouting out the many names that he seemed to have in no short supply. Dusk frowned. He understood why this was happening. He, unexpectedly, took his own gun out of his holster and handed it to Cécile, who was too stunned to realize the moment Dusk got on his legs and raised his hooves up, taking steps towards the gunman.

"Kid, what are you--!" Cécile hissed, trying to reach a talon out, but not wanting to agitate the gunman, especially not when she had to keep her gun trained at him. "Dusk-...Shit, putain!

The gunman was tense at the sight of the approaching stallion, shouting at him. "Don't come any closer! Don't come any closer or else I will--"

"26th Infantry Division!?" Dusk shouted to be heard.

"...What!?"

"You're from the 26th Infantry Division, aren't you!?" Dusk shouted from the distance. "I recognize the insignia!"

"...Yes. Yes, I am!" The griffon nervously said. Dusk noticed that this had a double effect. He looked at Cécile and the other griffons with spite - furious that it took for a foreigner to arrive and identify this. Yet, when he looked at Dusk, his eyes softened, and so did the grip on the revolver.

"The names...!" Dusk cried out. "Are they your battalion mates!?"

The same thing repeated. The veteran was so furious that nobody even bothered to ask this, and yet this foreigner...He knew, he asked, he was curious. He was listening.

"N-No!" The old griffon said, affirming the barrel against the girl's head. "They are, and were soldiers all across the Aquileian military! The names I list - were the ones who were abandoned by this treacherous country! They...They fought fiercely, with courage!"

Dusk played his cards carefully, but his knowledge was helpful enough. "The 26th saw heavy combat during the third revolution, right!? You refer to that!?"

"Yes, young man...!" The griffon cried out. "And I will not stop until every damn camera and microphone is here. I want Queen Vivienne to personally come here! Do you know how many of my friends were left to fend for themselves? When the government refused to help them!? How many became homeless!? How many were robbed of basic help, left to fend for themselves and treated like we did nothing!?"

"You saved Aquileia's future!" Dusk shouted. It didn't matter of course, whether communism could have helped the country, but politics had no place when a child was under a gun's barrel. "What the government has done is wrong, and I know that your comrades need more than just memories and prayers! But this will not help! The 26th are heroes!"

"What good are heroes when they're treated like dirt!?" He shouted. "This is what I must do - so that this ungrateful country, this ungrateful queen, understand that we have given everything we had, and sacrificed our souls to--"

"So you will traumatize the poor girl for the rest of her life!?" Cécile suddenly shouted from behind. "Damn it, man. Think! Do you really want the world to vilify you!? You fought to protect the children of Aquileia, have you not!? You represent your comrades - those who live now and those who fell!"

The old bird gasped. Slowly, his eyes gaze down upon the terrified, wet eyes of the girl who looked up at him. She had been doing so for the last minutes, hoping that if the words were not working, perhaps the sight would.

The griffon then saw movement before him and gasped, pointing his pistol right at Dusk. He did not flinch.

"You're a hero, sir." He said. "You gave everything for your country, and even more. Please, let the girl go. You've fought so hard for the future where children can safely thrive in a better Aquileia. Even if the world doesn't understand or recognize it, it's a monumental achievement. A colossal one..."

With those words, the veteran's grip on the girl loosened, and she was able to break out of his hold.. The girl ran as fast as her paws and talons could take her, jumping right into the talons of her mother, who collapsed and sobbed, holding onto her and crying into her neck. Cécile immediately positioned herself between them and the armed veteran, acting as a potential shield.

"...It's all such a shame." The old man wiped his tears. "I can't believe I could...Do something like this..."

"...It's a shame that the world is like this, sir." Dusk softly, but firmly said. "But what we must do does not always regard what people will think of us."

"...Hmph." The old bird nodded, eyes trained at the stallion. Cautiously, carefully, Dusk stepped forward. He now faced the griffon, face-to-face, and no longer needed to shout. Dusk could not salute, he was not a soldier, and yet, he could speak.

"...Thank you for your serv--..."

The stallion thought again about the words, briefly looking at all the decorations upon the griffon's uniform, his accolades and his patch, then the scars upon his beak and the arthritis in his talons. Most importantly, he saw the name on the tag. Dusk's head tilted back up to the equal height. Then, he smiled.

"...Thank you for everything, Lieutenant Badeux."

"...So many years...So many years I wanted to hear...t...these words..." The Lieutenant did not wipe the tears off his eyes. His beak was proud, tilted ever slightly upwards. Though he did not intend to smile, that's just what he did. He extended his talon to shake it, and Dusk reciprocated.

The two stood, hoof and talon locked.

"Make the future good, friend. You are it, after all."

Dusk was still smiling when the blood and pieces of brain splattered against his face.

The stallion stood - a mixture of a delayed reaction and soon, disbelief. He stood there with the talon still held, though it only served to bring the limp body into him. He did not budge when the dead form of late Lieutenant Badeaux embraced him, leaning against him like a passed out drunk against the wall. He did not understand just at what moment the veteran pointed the pistol at himself. Either he was too fast or kept it hidden, Dusk couldn't register that fact.

Dusk shook, his eyes widening and his blood freezing, his whole body shaking as he slowly starting to faint - his mind trying to confirm this as a bad dream, yet not being able to.

The last thing Dusk remembered before this all became a bad memory he'd forever try to put away was Cécile running over to him.

***

She invited him to her house. Allowed him to use her shower, and now, as he dried himself of the viscera, he sat in her kitchen. She poured him a cup. Not wine, that was for good memories. Not bourbon - for celebrations. Just plain whiskey, something to help ease the day.

"...He had a good reason to shoot himself." She suddenly said.

He shivered, still wet and scared. "...W-...H-How can you say something like--"

"Because everything you told him, the recognition you've given him and the respect you've shown - something that he needed all these years...He finally got it. He wanted to make it his final snapshot, the last things he wanted to feel before death. Considering his age, I'd even think it was a rational choice..."

Dusk had nothing to say. Cécile sighed, hating herself for making the young one feel so tense. She had to fix it.

"I will be honest..." Cécile sat opposite of him, pouring the alcohol into his cup. "I was bullshitting when I tried to look all stoic back then." She said. "Not even the years of experience I have working with homicide and crimes against griffonkind can help steel me against it all. Seeing a corpse, fine. Shooting an armed suspect, no issue. But the one thing I could never imagine doing...Is touching a dead body immediately after death."

He sipped the drink. "So...you'd be fine touching it if it's long-since cold?"

"Yes." She flatly said. "Death doesn't bother me once it's a done deal. But touching a corpse that's cooling down and becoming stiff? No. It terrifies me. What terrifies me more is to think, maybe they're still clinging onto their consciousness?"

"But..." Dusk sighed. "Does what happened today not bother you at all...?"

"No. Don't get me wrong, I do not disrespect him - but I also think those stuck in the past should learn how to move forward. Otherwise, they subject themselves to a toxic loop of nostalgia, a vestigial husk that hates the world and the future because they cannot learn how to thrive in it, because they cannot accept that everyone has "their moment", yet, the moment passes. Death is inevitable. Change is inevitable. Happy moments, sorrow, love and hate, ecstasy and depression - this is all on the agenda of life. To be in denial that your worst day has yet to come, or to refute that the best days of your life are over, what use is that? Just live, putain...It's more than some can do."

She took a big sip, finishing it.

"What worries me is not the dead man. Did you not think of the little griffonette?"

"I..."

"The old bird shot himself. So that happened. Now what about the little girl? Do you not worry that this event will shape her future life? Post traumatic stress disorder?"

"I do, but..." Dusk sighed. "The future, it's...I-I guess it's...Look, I'd rather not talk about it. I will just say that, the past is important too. It's...It's what brought us here, after all."

"The past..." Cécile shook her head. "Detective, the past can't matter when the future is all you have now."

"...But, you have so many pictures here. Are they not all of memories that--"

"Don't--" She was about to hiss at him, briefly raising her voice. Yet, what use was that? She calmed down, softly sighed. "...Nadine. My daughter."

"...Oh." He picked up easily on her tone. "I'm sorry, I--"

"It was in 1030. Twenty years ago." She said. "The third and, I hope, final revolution. When the Herzland attempted to send "peacekeepers" to stabilize Aquileia, an excuse to annex eastern territories. A war on two fronts - with them, and with ourselves. Nadine, she...She was taken from me during a terrorist attack. I do not wish to say more."

"But Nadine, she..." This wasn't easy for Dusk. "She lives on in your past, r-right? As long as you remember her, she'll always be by your--"

"Detective, I...I don't..." Cécile softly shook, standing up from the table. "...I don't remember where she was buried. All I...All I remember was the setting sun...There was a field of flowers before two mountains...There was a valley, there in the distance. It's...It's not relevant. I'm sorry. I don't want to talk about this."

"Cécile..." Dusk felt his throat dry. "I'm sorry, I--"

She turned around. "Good night Detective. I've prepared my guest room for you."

Left alone in the kitchen, Dusk quietly sat. Today was a difficult day, and he could not comprehend half of what happened.

Yet, he eyed her wallet that she'd left on the table...And the documents within it. He would need them for this case.