In The Doghouse

Roaring with unmatched fury, the storm tore its way across the west coast of the Griffon Kingdom, blotting out the sun and darkening the sky until not a sliver of light could be seen. It was an all-encompassing, omnipotent sort of thing, this storm was. Bulbous, deformed clouds with black bottoms sucked out all joy. Wind, harsh and judgmental rushed from the Shining Sea to assault the rocky crags and sharp, stone covered beaches. Deafening cracks of thunder echoed again and again, never once letting up or quieting. Lightning snaked in brief but brilliant flashes in the fortress of clouds, flashes so bright to be blinding. Rain, colder than it had reason to be poured down on the unfortunate ground and whatever lurked there. Spring had come to the Griffon Kingdom.

Out in the wide, deep reaches of the ocean an island sat, a relatively tiny thing in comparison to others in the kingdom. Though small, it served a necessary duty to the kingdom, for it was the first line of defense against a Diamond Dog attack. Nothing but a fortress of the oldest and hardest stone sat on the island, piled high in misshapen and haphazard ways. Blocks several times taller and wider than any griffon were stacked together from ages gone by. A wooden fort eventually gave way to a stone one, but that one had been destroyed, and the next one built on the corpse. So it had continued. It was an unlucky fortress, to be sure, and no soldier in their right mind would volunteer to be stationed on such a dull speck of rock. Only new recruits and those that offended the higher-ups found themselves marooned on the desolate place that eventually became known as Verbannt Isle: the island of fuck-ups and expendables.

And Gilda had somehow, for some reason, despite years of dedicated, impeccable service to the kingdom, with not a single blemish on her record, who had taken a city with only five troops during the Zebra Wars, ended up in this place. Not once had she cursed at a superior officer. She had always followed orders. When she was enrolled in the Military Academy she graduated a year ahead of time at the top of her class. By the gods, she was going to go places. And she had gone to this hellhole. Gilda gritted her beak so hard it hurt. She could still see that amused look when her Commander told her about her new assignment as the First Lieutenant of Verbannt Isle. Bastard.

Currently the eagless was sitting at her desk, eyeing with an ever-growing sense of dread the paperwork that had piled high over the past few hours. It wasn’t anything of importance, just documents that needed to be signed about the shipments of supplies brought in by ship. A flash of lightning jumped through the hardy glass window and illuminated the room for a moment, brighter than the brass oil lantern hanging from a hook on the ceiling. Gilda turned and observed the rain with her golden eyes. There was so much it was impossible to make out any shape, just a few indistinct blobs. It was supposed to be noon, but it sure didn’t look like it.

Again the paperwork called to her, like a dying animal intent on taking its killer to the grave alongside itself. There was the regular shipment of dried meat, jerky, and fish. Some fruit, though it wouldn’t be anywhere near fresh. Their fruit was always the kind preserved and stuffed inside jars. Some would no doubt be rotten, of course. Only the best for Verbannt.

Gilda ran a talon through her purple-tipped feathers, resisting the urge to run herself through with a dagger. Despite her fate to be trapped on this island until retirement, she resisted the urge to end her own life. She wasn’t serious about killing herself, but every single day she would contemplate tying a rock to herself and jumping into the sea. At least that would give the Isle a bit of excitement, losing their First Lieutenant to suicide. Keep the boys entertained for a bit.

That was another thing she hated about Verbannt. There were plenty of tiercels on the island, but not a single one she would bother to fuck. Back on the mainland there were no shortage of attractive tiercels to hook up with, but it seemed that the military had decided to send all the ugly ones to this piece of crap island. None had the impressive wingspans she desired or the muscle needed to survive a night with her. Hell, the sexiest thing on the island was a rock right on the edge of the coast shaped like a dick, balls and all. Flying by that thing during patrols had given Gilda some ideas.

Sweet talon sheaths. She was desperate. First a rock and then what? A Diamond Dog?

Being trapped on the island had been slowly wearing away at her sanity. Only a year and already her psyche had taken a major blow. It wasn’t just the isolation, but the occupants she shared the island with. Fresh, green recruits that had just reached adulthood and left the nest made up about half the soldiers, and all were complete and utter morons. They strutted around with their chests puffed out, proud that they’d been stationed at the nation’s first line of defense against a possible attack by the Diamond Dog Empire, while not realizing that there was no chance in Tartarus that the dogs would ever attack. Emperor Dorgath was a peace-lover, and he preferred diplomacy over war. That, and the troubles brought on by his own aristocracy kept him occupied with keeping his throne.

It was a bit ironic that Dorgath, who favored peace, could probably secure the throne by starting a war. Just spread some propaganda to the masses about how hostile a nation is being, gather support by the war-hungry nobles and he’d establish himself as a hero. Heroes were always in demand.

The second half of the island’s troops were minor criminals, those that were court-martialed for disobeying orders or committing one a small offense, like property damage during a drunken fight; something of that nature. Depending on the nature of the crime or who was affected you could end up on the island for a measly year or a decade.

Gilda was different from both of those. No crime had been committed under her name, and her years of experience spoke for itself. It wasn’t fair that she had wound up on this rock, and the only reason she could fathom as to why she was shipped her was due to jealousy. Gilda hadn’t come from a noble house or powerful family. The eagless was the second hatched of a family of farmers, with barely any bits to its name. She, however, had worked unbelievably hard, studying for twelve hours per weekday and training during the weekends to get into the Military Academy, and she had succeeded. Then came her impressive performance and years of service and victories. A few of the houses had grown to hate her for showing up those under its banners, but Gilda had thought she was safe from their wrath, but apparently not.

A sharp rapping on the door captured Gilda’s attention. She gave a gruff “Enter” and the door to the spartan office creaked open, the head of the smallest tiercel Gilda had ever seen peeking around the entrance. The top of his red-feathered head barely came to her chest. His uniform, a standard brown vest that covered his barrel and had holes for the wings, looked unwashed. His pupils danced about the wide eyes, his entire body shaking like a treetop in twister. Awkwardly he shuffled over to the desk in a three-legged gait, one set of talons holding a tan envelope.

“F-first Lieutenant, I have a letter for you,” he stammered out, holding the envelope out with such trepidation you’d think Gilda would rip his arm off.

A letter? Now that was interesting. She hadn’t gotten a letter in ages.

With a deft swing of her talons she plucked the letter from his grip, scanning the surface for the sender. The script was written in a deep black ink in a spidery, neat writing, clearly marking out her name and Verbannt Isle. There was no return address or anything that would discern the sender, which was odd; the post wouldn’t send something without a return address. The envelope was sealed shut with a blot of wax, stamped with the profile of what looked like a goat with two misshapen horns.

Gilda waved it in the face of the griffon, who squeaked in fright and shied backwards. “Who sent this? There isn’t any return address.”

“I d-don’t know ma’am. It was in with all the other letters that the courier ship brought. I was told to bring it to you.” The tiercel looked like he was about to pass out from fright.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Gilda with a sigh. “Just get out of my sight.”

In what seemed to be a streak of red the griffon scrambled out of the office and shut the door behind him a little too loudly, the sound echoing like the thunder outside. Gilda observed the letter some more, trying to find any hint of the sender. It was perfectly normal with the exception of the seal. A goat with two different horns? Seals normally had initials or a family crest, and she didn’t know any house that had a goat for a crest. A unicorn, sure, they were mythological. But something you’d put on the dinner table? Wait. Did the head just wink at her?

Gilda held it closer to herself but didn’t see the head blink. She really was going crazy. Not wanting to waste any more time she broke the seal with a flick of a talon and pulled out a folded square of paper. She unfolded it to find a brief message, scrawled in the same writing that was on the envelope.

Kill them.

So it was some hatchling’s dumb idea of a prank. She was ready to throw it away when the writing suddenly writhed and moved on the paper, like a worm dropped in a bowl of water. It grew and moved even faster, and Gilda dropped it to the ground and jumped back, a claw at the ready to shred it to pieces. The ink leaped from the page and formed a puddle on the ground that grew larger and began to take on the silhouette of a griffon on the floor. Suddenly it stopped and shifted, becoming three-dimensional and solid, forming a solid black griffon. The black soon changed, white feathers with purple tips sprouting from the chest and head and the hindquarters turning brown. What had once been ink was a perfect replication of Gilda.

“What, what are you?”

The doppelganger smirked, the same smirk that Gilda had used before and shot forward in a blur, the talons ripping the throat from the lieutenant and sending her to the ground in a heap, her blood forming a sizable puddle on the floor. The faux-Gilda stood and watched her handiwork before picking up both the letter and envelope and throwing them into the fire. She turned and walked out the door, closing it softly behind her.

Soon Verbannt was filled with the screams of the dying drowned out by the roaring of the lightning, and a chilling, mocking laughter riding on the wind.