You know that feeling right before something is about to explode in your face?
You can see the little incidental action that’s going to backfire in the milliseconds before it actually does – that one smidgen of wire crossed with another or your claw touching a piece of sensitive metal.
That moment, right then, is one part extreme panic, two parts hoping your tail doesn’t catch fire, and the last part knowing that all that work you just did? Yeah, you’re going to have to do it over.
Great.
Needless to say, my face was in a world of pain and I could barely open my beak to draw in a breath. Even better, I couldn’t see a thing thanks to that flash before my little device decided it didn’t want to play around anymore. The hearing in the left side of my head was totally gone and there was a blasted ringing sound on the other like someone was tolling a bell at close range.
So there I was, blind, deaf, and confused (and fervently hoping my tail hadn’t caught fire again) as my brain tried to re-catalogue exactly what I had done wrong.
The device should have worked, no problemo. I had built it up to the specifications given to me by my nest mate, down to the tiniest, niggling detail. I’m not one to lavish praise on myself, but I had paid more attention in creating this thing than anything else I’ve ever done. And it was a griffing good job, too. So what had happened?
I felt something touch my shoulder and I flinched away, feeling my body fall into something hard and metallic. My claws clambered around, shifting aside the great amount of junk I had piled all around my workspace with what I imagined was a series of very loud crashes and bangs. I winced at the thought of all of my spare doohickies and thingamabobbers crushed and smashed. It was almost enough to bring a tear to my eye.
Not that I’d be able to feel it anyway.
With my immediate area figured out, I blinked several times in hopes of getting my seared retinas to cooperate. A stray thought flickered through my brain with a sardonic flippancy as I fought to recover: Always wear your goggles, Kalyn, it said, taunting me. If I had sight right now, I’d be kicking the owner of that voice in his hind.
I felt that light touch again, recognizing it as a feather rather than some kind of mechanical abomination I had inadvertently created, or worse, a hippogryph’s vicious talons. Of course, if it had been a hippogryph, I probably wouldn’t have felt anything before the darkness became complete.
My body shuddered involuntarily at that as my vision cleared up enough for me to see the vague, small, light brown blur in front of me. Another gryphon—no doubt come to investigate and see what other kind of mess I had made. All I could hope was that it wasn’t Rell.
“Kalyn!” the gryphonic shape in front of me screeched from close range, enough to make my damaged eardrums shriek in response. I debated whether or not to scream back in the combination of the pain and annoyance that was already working its way through me, but that would just be bad form.
I tried to speak and hoped I sound at least semi-coherent. “Whadya wan there? Whozzat?”
As the flare of light slowly faded from my vision, the gryphon in front of me grew clearer. I could make out some features, starting from the soft, downy pseudo-feathers to the enormous, deathly cute eyes.
With a flash of recognition, I realized it as my little sister, Valyrie, concern etched across her beak and in those impossibly huge eyes.
I was glad I hadn’t decided to scream at her.
“Oh, hey there, Val’,” I enunciated clearly this time, able to actually hear more than the general rumble of my vocal cords. I hope I sounded at least a tiny bit confident, but I still really couldn’t hear inflections.
“Are you okay, Kal’?” she responded worriedly, flapping her tiny wings in agitation. I felt my heart melt again at the sight—she was just too darn cute for her own good.
I checked myself over with my newly returned sight, noticing I’d lost a few feathers around my neck and that the fur on my leonine bottom half was somewhat singed. I reached up toward my face with a claw, happily finding that my beak had not been rearranged in the explosion. Lastly, I checked my tail, bringing it close to my eyes to make sure it hadn’t spontaneously combusted even after all the danger had passed.
You may not think that can happen, but trust me, I would probably be one to find the way.
Shrugging with my customary ‘what can you do?’ vibe, I ruffled the feathers poking out of my little sister’s head. “Yup, I’m fine, squirt. Just got a little singed. Whatcha doin’ home so early? Weren’t you with Rell today?”
“I’m not a squirt!” she responded with a tiny growl as she leaped onto my back and cuffed my neck playfully with one of her claws. “And Rell took me home because she had to do something outside the Aerie.”
I paused for a moment as the ramifications of that shifted through my mind, examining and dismissing each possibility as it presented itself.
Rell wasn’t assigned to any duties outside today; in fact, she was supposed to be watching my sister and the clutch of nest mates as they adjusted to the world outside the Nesting Aerie.
So what could she possibly be doing outside?
Disobeying an order from the matriarch was one of the biggest no-no’s in the entire mountain range, right up there with conspiring with Hippogryphs. Dirty things, no better than dung beetles, but at least the beetles smell better.
I clacked my beak at that last thought, chuckling softly as I resumed my pace, Valyrie gnawing on one of my wings. There was no way Rell would have any sympathies with those dumb birds, whatever the reason she was outside. Still, I couldn’t help but have a niggling feeling that I should investigate. As another of my nest mates, I did have a personal responsibility to her, even if she didn’t feel the same way.
All those thoughts and more shifted through my brain as I walked out of my workshop and into the bright and airy Invention Aerie, the cub on my back ceasing her gnawing for a few moments to take in the sights. I was just as enraptured by everything as the first time I had seen the place, from the various species that inhabited the world moving through the streets, to the streams of lava flowing through quarter pipes and pooling in circular holding tanks.
Steam issued from the anvils and giant, iron buckets holding the unrefined magma, disappearing into one of the many vents built into the ceiling. Mechanical contraptions ranging from lifts to the skeletons of trains being built for the ponies in Equestria were everywhere; griffons flitted around with goggles around their feathered heads and metal gauntlets around their dextrous claws.
A few of the nearest shops held griffons busy welding and building projects too big to fit inside their own workshops. A series of metal tubes and whistles sprouted from the workshop to my right, filling the cavern with a shrill tune every so often.
The clatter and rumble of hundreds of griffons, and even a few ponies, working, shouting, and screeching melded together with the smell of heated metal and meat from the nearby tavern.
I felt my mouth watering as the scent of expertly roasted giant boar kebab wafted through my nostrils, spices and flavoring very much evident and reminding my stomach that it hadn’t had anything to digest in quite a few hours. With a gentle pat on my chest and a leonine yawn, I looked back to Valyrie with a grin.
“Hungry?”
“Starvin’, Kal! Can we please go get somethin’ to eat?” she asked with a blink of those eyes. I felt my grin grow wider.
“Sure thing, little fluff,” I assured her as she glared at me for calling her that, “but first, let me see how far you’ve come with your hovering.”
Her face lit up at that, her eagerness to show me her newfound skills enough to make a voice in my head ‘daww’. She concentrated, twisting her beak and sticking out a tongue for luck as her wings opened.
Within seconds the tiny griffon began to flap, the downdraft tickling my back as her claws and paws lifted along with the rest of her body. The wings struggled powerfully as Valyrie screwed her eyes in further concentration. Finally, she opened her eyes with an exclamation of victory, grinning wider than her face should let her.
“Bravo!” I laughed as I clapped my claws together. “Now how about the landing?”
Her face fell as she looked down, her wings instantly ceasing to beat as she panicked.
I maneuvered myself under her so that she fell back to his rump with a small ‘oof!’. Chuckling again, I reached around and patted her head.
“Well, you’re making progress, Val. Maybe next week you’ll be able to land without freezing up. You’re doing good!”
I felt her curl up on my flank and sigh. “I don’t know, big brother. I just get so scared when I’m so high up. Do I have to learn to fly?”
“Well, you don’t have to,” I began cheerfully, “but it’d be mighty difficult to get around the Aeries without being able to. Of course, you could always live with the earth or unicorn ponies—they don’t fly.”
“Those ponies are so silly without wings.” She laughed, forgetting her earlier sadness with a turn of her childlike mind. “But I like them. Maybe I could help them like you help us! I could do inventions! I know how to read skema— samanti— uh...”
“Schematics?” I supplied helpfully as I continued on my way to the tavern, waving to a unicorn beating a piece of molten metal into shape with a hammer.
“Yeah, those!”
The thought of my sister helping the flightless ponies filled my heart with happiness, imagining her all grown up and inventing all sorts of things for the Equestrians. Making friends and having fun, learning all sorts of things even I’d never be able to understand. It felt right.
“I bet you’d make a great inventor, too, little fluff. A really great one!”
*****
It was the knock that shook me awake completely, but I had been feeling subconsciously ill at ease for the past few minutes. Something in the way my feathers were twisted and the soundlessness, aside from my little sister’s snores, was off.
When I opened my eyes, I figured exactly what was wrong. The candle Valyrie required be near her nestside had burned down to the last bit of wick, leaving my little workshop completely lightless. My eyes quickly adjusted with the adrenaline beginning to work through my system as I picked myself up and started toward the door.
“Kalyn,” someone hissed from outside the doorway, almost a whisper to anyone but a gryphon. “Kalyn, wake up!”
“Rell?” I asked in the same fashion, opening the door with a slight squeak of hinges. I winced in the darkness, glancing back at my sister to make sure she hadn’t woken up. Another thing to add to my checklist of things to do—oil the hinges.
“Kalyn, thank the Matriarch,” came her relieved reply as she lightly stepped in, her talons scratching across the floor.
Even though I could barely see her in the low light of the dormant forges outside, I knew every detail. I imagined the fair, feathered plumage and neatly groomed fur on her bottom half, her posture and physique every bit the dominant female in my group of nestmates. Despite that, her most distinguishing feature was the three black dots below her left eye.
Right now, though, I wasn’t paying anything but her cooly glowing eyes, pits of amber surrounded by a sea of white feathers.
“What’s going on?” I asked, attempting to sound casual. By the way she rolled her eyes, I was willing to bet I wasn’t putting on a great act. “Whatcha doin’ here so late? Where were you this afternoon?”
She glanced around nervously before answering, quickly padding out of the light from the door. “I need your help, Kal’.” That didn’t answer any of my questions, but I kept silent, waiting for her to continue. “It’s something important, outside the Aerie. I don’t want to talk about it here, but... I just need your help.”
Okay, outside of the Aerie. Definitely not something illegal. I sighed, air whistling out of my beak as I thought it over. My nestmate was the one asking, so could I in good conscious refuse? I doubt any other ones of our group would, but I was a bit more old fashioned in nest loyalty. Still, there was one thorn in the paw.
“Val’s here for tonight. I can’t leave her,” I whispered softly, hating myself for having to say no. “I can drop her off with one of her nestmates tomorrow—.”
“No, no, I need help tonight,” Rell interrupted, her eyes still darting around. “We can bring her with us.”
I clacked my beak in horror at that. “Outside the Aerie at night? Rell, she can’t even fly! If I drop her—”
“I’ll carry her,” she replied fiercely. “Come on, I’ll wake her up.”
Without even waiting for my response, she brushed passed me and stood over Valyrie’s nest. I sighed again, knowing how Rell was when she was like this. Nothing could dissuade her from her goal and she would be bringing anyone she could to complete it. Fortunately, most of her schemes had a habit of panning out.
I just hoped this one was like the others.
“Valyrie,” Rell cooed to the chick, who was currently twitching cutely in her sleep. I felt my heart melt as my nestmate brushed her claw along my sister’s face where the beak met feathers. Val squeaked and woke up with a purr, her sleepy eyes glancing between us.
“Mornin’ little fluff,” I greeted her with a tight smile, feeling a sense of dread start to creep into my chest. Just the thought of her falling— no, Rell was the best flier in our group. She wouldn’t drop Val.
A squeaky little yawn erupted from the hatchling. “Why’re we up so early?”
“Just goin’ for a little flight,” I replied, staring pointedly at Rell. She stared back with a challenge clear in her eyes. I glanced away, unwilling to hold the gaze. Yep, she was definitely the dominant one here.
“I’ve got something cool to show you, Valyrie,” Rell began with a smile on her beak.
“Something cool?” Val’s eyes perked up considerably at that. If there was anything that could excite my sister, it was something unusual and new. Which was probably why it was so easy to distract her with my whizzing gadgets and other toy-like devices.
I grimaced, realizing that at the very least, my inventions were unusual, even if they didn’t always work. Lovely.
Rell nodded, extending a wing so my sister could clamber up onto her back. “Yes, little one, something you’ll find especially interesting.”