Cartography of War

by Daetrin

Know The Terrain

They went without a fire that night, and Rose wasn’t about to argue, but as she crunched down the last of the watercress she found herself aching for the bright, jovial evenings she had spent with her friends. Fire shouldn’t be something you feared. Gérard gnawed at his jerky equally gamely and, she thought, equally gloomily.

“Is it really a secret why he did it?” Gérard looked up at her and she pointed at his bandages. “Why he attacked you. If you were doing something important, why would he mess it up?”

“Not a secret,” he told her. “Just complicated. Perhaps.” He considered for a moment. “At heart, I think it is because he has never really lost. I know that we cannot win the war, but he does not accept that. So being here, away from the fighting, not attacking, infuriated him.”

“Because he couldn’t use his special talent.” Rose understood that well enough. Some soldiers really did have cutie marks related to combat, though not many.

“If you like.” He looked briefly startled at her comment. “He is too competent to dismiss, but too unruly to be granted command. He has been her hidden talon for years, but for this I was made his superior. And he must have thought I was not competent for this, so he removed me to do things himself. Thinking he could prove he could take command.” Gérard clicked his beak. “Of course, he did not know everything when he decided that.”

“Who is ‘her?’” Rose asked, suspecting it was the same ‘she’ he had mentioned back at the camp.

“Ah, of course. She is Aquila’s Talons, Wing-Commander of All Armies, Aida.”

“Oh.” Rose heard much the same reverence in his voice when he pronounced the name as she’d heard in ponies talking about Princess Celestia. And since Celestia was commanding the pony forces, there was some symmetry there, though Aida probably wasn’t a god. “So what will Aida do if she finds out?”

“If he performs well, a commendation. If ill, he is a traitor.” Gérard sighed. “So I wish him luck.”

She stared at him a moment, startled, then narrowed her eyes. “Your mission was that important?”

“Among other things.” He waved a claw in vague dismissal. “He might even be right. Only time will tell.”

He was definitely maudlin. She could understand that much, but wasn’t entirely sure what had brought it on, not when he’d remained at least somewhat cheerful through injury and a hard slog. By the time she finished her dinner no answer had presented itself, and she very nearly asked, but Gérard preempted her. “Sleep, Rose. Tomorrow will be a long day. The further we are from the camp, the harder it will be for Ganon to find us.” His voice was worried enough that she didn’t protest the order.

But that didn’t mean she obeyed it. After she closeted herself in the tent she updated the maps by the light of her horn, a tiny track inching toward the coast, and added in another pair of gryphon silhouettes, labeling them as Kree and Ganon. Then, belatedly, put Gérard’s name next to his mark, and changed the camp from a tent to a gravestone.

She wished she had Scarlet’s gift for writing, that she could record more than cartography of her journey. Her friends deserved more than a few markings on a sheet of paper, and all the little details from Gérard would probably interest somebody. But she didn’t have the talent, and the only paper belonged to her friends. They were half-ruined by water anyway, and she wasn’t going to desecrate them further.

Fitfully, she drowsed, dreaming of writing, but woke again with a start as Gérard stepped into the tent, bringing with him the sharp scent of blood. The smell jerked her to her hooves. “What happened?” She stared at him, wondering if the other gryphons had come back after all.

He stared at her, puzzled, until realization dawned. “Hunting,” he explained, hunkering down just inside the tent. “No need to worry.”

“...Oh.” Rose had no objections in theory; everything needed to eat. But the reality of having to share a tent with someone whose breath stank of blood and death was something else entirely. She swallowed bubbling, atavistic panic, but something of it must have shown in her expression, for he raised an eyebrow at her. After a moment, she just shook her head, burrowing back down into her bedroll and trying to recapture sleep despite the jangling of her nerves. Her mind was so occupied by diet that it took her a moment to realize just why he’d gone hunting in the middle of the night.

Then she thought about slipping away the next time he did it.

It didn’t last long, as a fantasy. There were still the other gryphons out there, though whether near or far she couldn’t tell. And wouldn’t be able to, without him. There had to be some sort of irony in that, something Scarlet could have labeled and enjoyed, but Rose didn’t find it funny at all.

By the time the long night ended she was again exhausted, but at least she had made something of her insomnia. “We should turn south,” she told Gérard as he finally washed his beak off with a tiny splash of water from his canteen.

“Oh?” He tilted his head at her, merely waiting for her to go on.

“Well, you followed the river on your way over here, right? And I bet Kree and Ganon are searching along it too.” She unrolled a chart and highlighted the river course. “So the fastest way to get away from them is to head away from it.”

“It would be,” Gérard admitted. He opened his beak again, then closed it with a click, gesturing for her to go on.

“Instead of trekking along the Baltimare by hoof the entire way, where they’ll be looking, we can just go to this river instead.” She put her hoof on a nameless branch of blue snaking up from the southwest. “And raft along it all the way to here. It won’t take much longer and more of it will be away from where they’d be looking.”

Gérard nodded thoughtfully. “Have you ever built a raft?”

“Not...exactly.” Rose grimaced. “Sharp Eye showed us how to do it once, and it didn’t seem hard. Have you?”

“Only once, long ago. But I expect we shall manage. You are right, that is the more discreet path.” He inclined his head to her. “Lead on, Rose.”

She hadn’t expected it to be that easy. Once the idea had come to her she’d spent half the night sleepily marshalling arguments in case he objected, and his immediate agreement was oddly disappointing. And it made her wish she had some clever motive or plan to take advantage of his amiability, but she was just finding the best way.

Maybe he knew that.

Gérard seemed to have few handles, at least compared to other people she’d known. It was difficult to tell what he was thinking or feeling, although at least half of that was because he was a gryphon. The vague tales from the front didn’t give her much to go by either - gryphons were fast, gryphons were vicious, gryphons were aggressive. Before the war, there hadn’t even been much trade with them, which made her wonder where and how Gérard learned to speak Equestrian.

His accented words broke into her thoughts. “Rose, would you be willing to tell me about your friends? I know you do not share my attitudes, but I would like to know more about those whose deaths I own.”

She bristled at that, though she knew he was only trying to be respectful, in some strange gryphon way. So she didn’t reply immediately, just putting one hoof in front of the other as she threaded her way south. It would probably take another day or so, but the occasional boggy patches would soon grow into a full-fledged swamp, and even she would have to be careful finding a path through. Much like her conversations with Gérard.

“All right,” she said at last. It wasn’t as if she were going to gossip about their darkest secrets. “But not all at once. I don’t - don’t think I could do that.”

“We have time,” Gérard murmured. She glanced back, but she didn’t think he was making fun of her, despite the wry tone. It was just the situation they were in. “Why don’t you start with Mercy White?” He prompted. “I will try not to upset you this time.”

She frowned, not really certain what to tell him or how to start. How do you capture an entire person in words? But then, she supposed he didn’t need to know Mercy like she had, only enough to satisfy whatever obligations he felt he owed. “Mercy was quiet. Serene. She made it seem like nothing ever bothered her - I’ve never seen her panic. But she cared for all of us, was always there when we had trouble.”

A fresh stab of grief stopped her, but Gérard didn’t press, letting her get to it in her own time. For a time she just focused on finding the path, putting one hoof in front of the other, but finally she resumed. “We were her family. She...lost her husband during the Nightmare Winter, so when the war came she was happy to join us out in the wilds of Equestria.”

“That was a hard winter for everyone,” Gérard said. “Some of us thought it was the end of the world when the sun would not rise.”

“It almost was. I still don’t like to think about it.” She remembered the darkness well enough, and the nightmares, though she was still hazy on the cause. There had been someone - somepony? What she knew for certain was that Celestia had finally brought the day again, presiding over sun and moon, and all of Equestria had celebrated the summer.

Then the next winter brought war.

“And she crocheted us all these amazingly ugly scarves but we still wore them because she made them. Only I left mine behind because I didn’t want to risk ruining it and it wasn’t supposed to be cold anyway. But Goldy packed his in the cart and I should have taken it with me...” The words tumbled out, near-incomprehensible at the end, but Gérard remained blessedly silent.

“Anyway,” Rose muttered. “We were all she had.”

She heard the click of his beak, but she couldn’t tell whether it was meant as a reply of some sort or if he’d simply thought better of saying something. When nothing else was forthcoming, she glanced back at him and ventured her own question. “What about yours?”

“Mine?”

“The dead gryphons. You said they were friends.”

“They might have been. I do not know if they were involved with Kree or not.”

“It doesn’t work that way! Friends can make bad decisions, but that doesn’t stop them from being friends.” She looked back at him. “Unless it’s different for gryphons.”

“Hmm.”

“And if you can expect me to trust you even if you might kill me then I don’t see…”

Gérard laughed. “You are right. I should not hold their decisions against them now that they are dead. Betrayal is a hard thing, but I should not look for it where it may not exist. Thank you.”

“...you’re welcome?”

“When you first asked about them, I was not certain you could be afforded the honor, but I think that question is answered now.” He considered while she tried to decide how to take that. “You prefer to know about lives rather than deaths. Hmm. I did not know most of my squad outside of our assignments, but I think Grizelda was not too dissimilar from your Mercy White.”

“Mercy wouldn’t have attacked anyone,” Rose objected. “She was a healer!”

“She was also not a gryphon, Rose,” Gérard chided her. “I think they were alike, but I expect we look for different things.”

“Mm.” Rose didn’t much like Gérard comparing her friends to any gryphon, but she hadn’t really thought of the gryphons as existing beyond the war and the fighting. She hadn’t thought of them as people.

Which made her realize that she hadn’t thought of them as being part of Gérard’s life, either. She was lonely, with her friends dead and only a gryphon for company, but Gérard was no better off. Possibly worse, depending on what awaited him at the end of the their journey.

“Grizelda was also white,” Gérard said, which made her the gryphon Scarlet had taken down. “And while not as serene as your Mercy White, she did try. But I think it was because she had a half-dozen suitors and didn’t want to encourage them. But for her, too, the squad was her life. Cadet as soon as she was fledged, never cut by blade or arrow. Fitting that she kept that record even in death.”

“That’s -” Rose cut herself off before she could say ‘terrible’ or ‘awful’ or some other such word. It must have been something to be admired for the gryphons, no matter how bleak a life it seemed to her. “Impressive? I mean, it sounds like it. Is that why she had so many suitors?”

“Oh, Rose. But you are not a hunter. The most dangerous prey is the most enticing, and a prey that has bested so many is prized indeed.”

There was something odd in his voice, and she looked at him speculatively. “Were you after her too?”

He barked a laugh and shook his head. “No, not I. I am too damaged, too tired. Too dishonored. She was a trusted comrade, but no more than that.”

“Well, I’m sorry for your loss,” Rose offered. Even if Grizelda had been attacking her friends, death was a terrible thing regardless of the gryphon attitude toward it. The rest of his explanation was too tangled for her to puzzle out, as if he’d forgotten for a moment that she had no knowledge of gryphons outside of him.

“Tch,” Gérard began, then sighed. “Thank you, Rose. You really do mean that, don’t you?”

“Of course!” She frowned back at him before stepping around an incongruous boulder, standing upright as if placed by some ancient titan.

“Then I do thank you. I doubt many, gryphon or pony, would be so forgiving.”

“It’s not about forgiveness. It’s about being a decent pony. Although,” she admitted reluctantly. “If you had killed my friends, or ordered them to, I don’t think...I don’t think I would be able to talk to you. But...if it weren’t for Kree, what would you have done?” She asked in dread curiosity.

“Passed you by.”

She waited for him to add something, but apparently that was all. “Really?” She ventured.

“Truly, Rose. Your group was no threat, and since you were not soldiers there was no honor in combat. And, forgive me, you were simply not important enough to distract us from our mission. Unless you are important and I simply do not know.”

“No, I’m ordinary,” she said, a trifle dazed. Everything might have been avoided, if only.

“I very much doubt you are.”

“What?” She stumbled over a rock that she could have sworn wasn’t there a moment earlier. “What did you say?”

“I am one of the few who have met ponies, if briefly. They were not like you.”

“Wait, I -” She stopped a moment, verbally and physically, to sort her thoughts. “Is that where you learned to speak Equestrian? What happened to them?”

“They’re dead, I’m afraid.” Gérard waved a talon vaguely. “Pawns, killed in the War of Houses. Eight years back, now.”

“Oh.” She found she wasn’t surprised, but she still mourned those poor ponies, lost to the gryphons even before the war began. “War of Houses? Are you always at war?”

“Not always.” He snorted, but it was amused rather than offended. “But yes, that is how I Iearned to speak your tongue. It was a project of mine, even though only my wife understood why I did it.”

“Oh, you’re married?” Rose brightened. The thought of Gérard having a family went a long way toward making him more equine.

“Not anymore.”

“Oh. Then, what -”

“She was the first casualty of the War of Houses.”

“...Oh.” She stared openly at him, and for once he didn’t meet her gaze.

Gérard had his talons wrapped around his beak, looking upward at the slowly purpling sky. She couldn’t read his expression, but his entire posture was slumped rather than alert. Only his ears remained pricked forward, twitching now and then. He looked miserable.

She turned all the way around, opening her mouth to give him some words of comfort as she lifted her hooves to offer him a hug, but before she could get out more than one syllable he’d pulled away, blurring backward into a defensive crouch. His eyes glittered as they focused on her, the predator’s gaze once again sending a jolt along her spine, a whiplash of fear that rocked her back on her hooves.

A long moment of startled silence stretched between them until Gérard let out a long breath. “I did not mean to startle you,” he offered at last.

“I’d say I startled you!” She found her voice. “What was that about?”

“Tch. It would be appropriate for a prisoner to take advantage of her captor’s moment of weakness.”

“But I wouldn’t -” She began, then stopped. He raised his eyebrows at her and she scowled back. “No, I wouldn’t. Maybe I should, but I couldn’t exploit...being sad.”

“No?”

“No. It’s just...it’s not what a good person does.”

“We all must strike a balance between honor and duty,” he murmured.

“It’s not about honor at all. It’s about what’s...right.”

“From whence all honor comes. In truth I expect you understand it better than most gryphons.”

“Being a good person isn’t that hard,” Rose protested.

Again he lifted his eyebrows at her. “When the choices are easy, perhaps not. When the choices are hard…” He clicked his beak. “Well, that is when you kick me in the side.”

She winced. “I still feel bad about that.”

“You should not. It was an excellent kick.”

Rose gave him a frown, not sure whether he was joking or not, and was about to respond when Gérard held up a talon. “Rose, do your maps say what dangers might be in this area?”

“No...” she blinked at him. “That’s part of what our team was supposed to find out.” It was no accident that they’d had a trained archer, a powerful unicorn, and a pegasus weatherwind with them.

“Ah. Well, I think we may have stumbled onto one.”

Comments

[Daetrin]

4193501

Yeah it's less...involved...than perhaps it should be, but I have no interest in protracted angst either. I suppose if I were writing this more closely like I did Triptych I would do that but I just don't have the energy for it. So far as surrendering...she hasn't yet, just yielded to the situation. So far as her non-hostile attitude...well, I'm more using the xenofictional construct, so these aren't human reactions. She's a creature for whom in-group community building is written in at a deep level, so it's more confused social signalling.

And the name is just a name I'm afraid, one that fit really well but with no particular references nonetheless.

[FinalFan]

4193537 I don't have a problem with how it's progressing. I know little about the expected human psychology in a situation like this, but in addition to the "it's ponies" defense: she is on the opposite side of a war from him, true. But they are bound closely together by their trek, and cooperating to complete the journey, unless she manages to escape; and there's significant risk in escaping a gryphon who won't kill her when gryphons who will be only too eager to are in the vicinity. She knows that he neither led nor participated in the attack on her friends, and that in fact he himself was injured by the same party that did do it. Showing small kindnesses even to one's enemies is hardly unknown in war. And the gryphon's own attitude, I suspect, would make her feel petty being too antagonistic.

As far as her grief being insufficient ... couldn't she just be repressing a lot of it due to the situation?

[TheGrandNil]

So... When are these two gonna bang?