A Cavalcade of Cards

by QueenMoriarty

Back Then

There was a time when griffons were not good. There was a time when the only thing that griffons knew was avarice and want. Other cultures might have called such a period by names like the Dark Ages, but the griffons knew better. Their history books only start at a point where most griffons had already settled in what would become the Groverian Homeland. The most despicable thing recorded in griffon history is the casual murder of their fellow griffon for pointless baubles, and the clear contempt with which every single word of those chapters is written was one of the big selling points for griffon-pony alliances being feasible.

But just because that is the worst thing in their history books, does not mean that was the worst they ever were. Every griffon knows that there was an age before the Unenlightened Days, and there is not a single griffon who will dare to speak of it. The most that was ever said by any griffon to a pony about that bygone time was said in hushed tones, in a secret place far from both their homes.

"What we did in the dark must remain there. To a griffon, there is no greater mark of disdain than to simply not be proud of something, but we are ashamed of what was done in those days. What we became, we must never be again. It was forgotten, for the sake of peace between our races. Please, don't ask me again. It is the only way that you will ever be able to love me."

So what was done? What secrets lie buried by time, what deeds that the most unashamedly rude and selfish race in Ungula do not wish to remember?

One might think that the answer would lie within some secret pony library. After all, if even the pre-Unification era is so thoroughly remembered by all tribes, surely some trace must remain of the great evil that the griffons had done. But even in the deepest recesses of Star Swirl's journals, no trace can be found. Griffons do not appear in pony history books until the time of King Grover, and there are none who could even begin to tell you what it was like before.

Clover the Clever once had a dream about a lion with the wings of a pegasus and the head of an eagle. Her mentor simply told her that mind magic was a wonderful thing, and spent the next two months teaching her everything he knew about the mind.

She never asked him why, or which village it was that she had woken up in the ashes of. They were in the habit of running into dragons, after all.

---

There was a time when ponies were not powerful. The earth ponies were a humble sort, needing only enough strength and cleverness to keep the vermin away from their food. When there were too many ponies in the village to feed, then there would be a council meeting, and it would be decided which ponies would leave to start their own village. The rebellious young were advised to simply wait until their parents had another foal to slip away, for there is no explorer more eager than the one who does not dare turn back.

But because the earth ponies did not need to be strong or clever to be happy and full, they were not prepared when the sky turned against them. When the monsters came out of the sky and snatched up their young and their old, or took the bales of hay from their shoulders and did not bring them down, or tore the roofs from their huts in the middle of raging thunderstorms, the earth ponies were not ready.

Some of the villages that were hit began to worship the monsters. They called them gods, and praised them for taking the weak so that there would always be enough food. They tore apart their own houses, and used the bits to fashion crude altars to their new gods. When the monuments were taken as well, the earth ponies only doubled their fervor, as they proclaimed it a sign that the gods were pleased with them.

Some of the villages fell to despair. They ripped their own crops out of the ground and laid them all about their fields as though a great storm had rolled through, and the birth of children was only cause for weeping and the cursing of the parents. These were the villages that the monsters passed over, as even they could soon see that there was nothing of value in these places.

But there was one village, and it was worse off than all of the others. Because one of the ponies who lived there was that most dangerous of animals, the clever earth pony. And he stepped into the town square one day, dragging behind him the body of an earth pony that none in his village recognized, and so they did not ask questions. He told them that he had found the body in a field, and they believed him.

The clever pony then ripped open the chest of the corpse, and broke off a bone from the pony's ribcage. At that moment, one of the monsters caught the scent of meat, and descended from the sky. All the ponies screamed and fled, but the clever pony with his bit of bone stood where he was, and did not run. He brought the bone up into the air as the monster came down to strike him, and the two met, and the pony won.

When next he was seen, the clever pony wandered into one of the villages that worshiped the monsters. Behind him, he dragged the body of the monster he had slain. He threw it at the half-built monument they had erected, and then turned his face to the sky and screamed.

"YOU ARE NOT GODS! THE GODS DO NOT BLEED! LEAVE US!"

Some declared him a heretic. Those who did not, and there were many of them, said that he was right, and they taught themselves how to fight with bones. But not all bones in the body are so strong, and more often than not both pony and monster would die in the clash, so most of the body was wasted. Luckily, the monster-worshipers were very easy to crack open. One need only tell them to look up.

---

There was a mountain that overlooked all of this. On this mountain, there was a cave. In this cave, Star Swirl the Bearded and Clover the Clever had spent nearly all of this time nursing a griffon back to health. As they spoke with him, they learned of the mind-consuming greed that plagued his kind, and how their simple offering of food had freed him, if only for a few days at a time. They learned that the heavy clouds that had gathered over the earth pony lands were filled with griffons, warring with each other over the bits and scraps they had stolen.

"The ponies are as far gone as the griffons," Star Swirl lamented one night, as the three of them looked down. The ground in this part of the world rose and fell quite regularly, so that there were hills and valleys all very close together. Over each hill, just out of sight of all the others, there was a village. The earth ponies were scarcely further apart than two rocks in a river.

"There must still be hope," Clover insisted, but both the griffon and Star Swirl shook their heads.

"Desperation has made monsters of your kind, and mine were already thus." Garr turned away from the landscape, and slunk back into the cave. "What shall remain of them, when all this is over?"

"They will destroy each other." Star Swirl took off his hat, not wishing to shake his head and make bells ring.

"Unless one of them is destroyed first," Clover declared. The other two looked at her, and they paled in horror at the look on her face. "This is not the only place in the world with earth ponies, after all. These ones do not even understand metalworking yet."

"Better to wipe the griffons out," Garr spoke up. "We have nothing. No culture except what we steal, no conscience unless it is given."

"The only culture that these villages have anymore is built around the griffons. If we destroy the griffons, then these ponies will destroy each other. No, Clover is right. Better the road that has yet to go anywhere than the road that has already reached its end."

And so, it was with a heavy heart that Garr took the fire that Star Swirl had lit, and shared it with the earth ponies.

Author's Note:

The shame of the griffons was that they became gods to the ponies, but they only inspired further atrocities.

Also, for anyone who wants to contest earth ponies being super-strong, and so totally not needing to use bone weapons, this is required reading before you continue.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Griffons have classically had a taste for horseflesh. Sapience on either side is only a boundary if the griffons let it be one.

In any case, very apt use of the prompt, and definitely appropriate for this week of horrors.

[devas]

Now I'm wondering what the fire that Starswirl gave Garr and that the griffons gave to the ponies was.

[QueenMoriarty]

7682887 It was fire.

[Pretentious Narwhal]

It's always satisfying when you successfully guess the card.

[Ice Star]

The first few lines made me think of 'A Carnivore's Prayer'. Did you perhaps draw inspiration for that with some of the dynamic here? Also, it seems that I'm now reading these in no order at all.

[QueenMoriarty]

8160285 Congratulations, you have embraced chaos. Be careful, he likes teh butts.