25th of Blossommonth
You can say hooray now, because I’ve laid my egg already!
I actually laid it two days ago. I was too tired to tell you straightaway. But now you know. It’s quite a huge egg – as big as Sven’s head, as far as I see it. It’s white in color with brown and black specks here and there. The shell is smooth and quite nice to feel. Sven can’t stop hugging it and laying his head on it.
It was painful, to be honest. I had to get Gravel to hold my beak shut while I was pushing the egg out, while Sven held my body to stop me from moving around so much, so it won’t damage the egg. It fell into a big nest I had made beforehand. That is where I will sit on it until it hatches.
I don’t know how ponies feel when they’re about to give birth, but for me I felt like something big was coming out of my crap-hole. Of course, it's not actually coming out of my crap-hole, but it feels like it. Quite dizzying and uncomfortable.
I have to think about feeding my little fledgeling now. Ponies have breasts to feed their foals milk, as far as I learnt from Sven, but we griffs don’t have anything like that. It makes sense anyway – sharp beaks would pierce and hurt the mother. I will find a way to feed, of course, it shouldn’t be hard. Hopefully.
I will also have to think about raising the fledgeling. Teaching him or her to know right and wrong. To be honest, I don’t feel very capable. I’ve never been a mother before. I also will have to teach it about life, and all its ups and downs. Well, the down would come first, since this place is not exactly the kind of place I want my fledgeling to grow up in. But, I can’t move anywhere else. I can only hope that it would grow strong and well into a fine griff.
Would there be a future for him or her? I really really hope so. There has to be more than this boiler room, at least for him if not for me.
But first things first, get out of this boiler room. Alive. And sane.
Goodnight Eabha.
***
27th of Blossommonth
I LOVE the egg Eva. So smooth and nice to touch!
I cannot wait to see it hatch. I would be so fortunate to see a little griffon come out of its egg, and be there when it first opens its eyes. I would be a big brother to this little griffon, as much as I am a younger brother to Matilda. And I would surely take care of it to the best I can.
I cannot wait, truthfully. Matilda says that we must wait a month for it to hatch, and she must sit on it for most of the time. I asked why, but she doesn’t know. That doesn’t matter, because I am more interested in the baby griffon.
I would play with it, put it to sleep, and carry it around on my spotted back, kiss it, hug it, tickle it – so much more that I am too lazy to skrif it out.
But I will have to wait. And truthfully, I cannot. I am too thrilled to wait for the hatching. But, unfortunately, I will have to.
I imagine it will have the same colors as Matilda – brown on its headfeathers, and white all around, with a splash of red around its eyes. But that is just my imagination. Its colors may be different, but we will have to see.
I hope the month passes by quickly. I can’t wait!
***
30th of Blossommonth
I’ve been observing miss Hawkrose, and I can say something is up. She has been peeking through the door, silently watching us, before going off to do other things. I don’t know why she is doing this, but I don’t like it, and it creeps me out.
The pipes have been playing up, and I have a feeling that it is going to become a normal thing. Probably they are growing old and rusty. I don’t know what to say about it.
I wonder, should I let Gravel say hello to you and allow him to write to you? He has become better after all, except his mouth. Actually, I’m worried that he’ll talk nwil and tell you all sorts of things which are unsavoury, so maybe not.
Anyway, leave these two be. They can go kiss their own flanks for all I care. Daren lew Eabha.
***
Matilda will kill me for this. But here goes, because I like to annoy her.
I am hundred percent sure you can guess it is me, Gravel. Indeed, it is I. And indeed, I will talk about a lot of things that are savoury and wonderful to hear. Lots of it.
If you’re wondering, it is now very late. Matilda and Sven are sleeping, and here I am trying to use the moonlight to write. It is quite difficult to see properly, so my writing will likely be messy, thereofre making it hard to read. On top of that, I know Griffish, and I am obviously writing in it, so it would take twice as hard to decipher whatever I’m saying to you. I am an absolute genius.
Matilda is kinda annoying, to be honest. I get it that she has been here for longer than Sven or I, but that fact makes her a bit bossy. Which is also charming. I kinda like it when she gets angry at me, because it makes her look cute. I’ll leave whatever this means to your interpretation, and to whoever-reads-this’s interpretation, because I am a complicated griffon who is the only one that can understand himself. Matilda obviously doesn’t.
Sven is okay, I guess. A bit passive, a bit aggressive, but overall an okay pony, except that he’s not okay with me. I wOnDeR wHy.
If you wonder why Matilda keeps putting “nwil” everywhere in this book, it’s because griffons like to use the word “pee” as an insult, as well as the fact that she’s a jerk. And yes, I am writing this in Equestrian.
Now back to Griffish. I speak two languages, maybe even three. I have green eyes so deep they can pierce your soul if you ever look at it. I have large wings with feathers brushed immaculately, so much so that each feather gracefully flutters when I flap my wings.
On top of that I have the best built chest any male griff could have. And you know what’s better? I have the hottest fluff any male could ever dream of having.
sTiLl wOnDeRiNg WhY mAtILdA iS nOt AtTrAcTeD tO mE yEt…
I mean, my looks are ten times more likely to make you sweat than Celestia’s sun. I hope you understand what I’m saying.
I’m basically saying I’m a stud ~ And a great and powerful stud at that.
I’m talking to nopony/nogriff in particular. I’m just scribbling my thoughts down so that it can be recorded in this book. Forever. Love you (the book), you’re cool.
Go ––––– odnight.
I hope Matilda reads this.
I think I know the right food for the baby. Gravel soup
11190900
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCf2ZZLHy-k
11190469
I'll admit, haven't read this at all yet, but it's funny that it took you that long to realize it when the description of the story basically says that right away
Poor Egg. The genetics will be all over the place.... Maybe Celestia will be nice and it will be a Pegasus. But I kinda have the feeling, that Miss Hawkrose knows where the egg is and is prepared to go in to snatch it...
To be honest, no mother ever is until they suddenly are--there is always a degree of guesswork and ad-libbing with parenting.
We'll be the judges of that, Gravel.
Because you're still too full of yourself, most of all.
Oh great--he's a male Trixie in griffon form. That would explain so much, actually.
You didn't write it in there for any other reason except with the expectation that Matilda would read it, you doof.
Beyond Gravel being an unrecoverable troll though...it's nice to see that the arrival of the egg has at least cast a small ray of sunshine on the group. I daresay they need one after recent events. I just fear it's going to be fleeting, or that something will befall the egg before it hatches.
11190959
Either that (and I'm inclined to think it's not the egg, or else why would she wait at all to do anything about it?), or she knows something about the problematic pipes that the rest don't but is deliberately hiding why. Which raises further concerns. Part of me worries that she knows full well that a critical failure of some sort is imminent, but she's negligently choosing to do nothing about it. Not only could that greatly endanger the workers, let alone the boiler itself, it shows how little she cares about both.
Though the thought also occurs that she could be in hot water (or will be soon) about it herself, as she'll get in trouble with higher ups if the problem comes to light, since it's her responsibility to oversee the boiler and ensure such problems didn't happen anyway. So she could be hiding it so to try and avoid that fate. Maybe she thinks if she pretends it's not there then, should it ever go critical, she'll just blame it on the workers instead and dodge the punishment herself.
11191130
Well, it would be the equivalent of real life if she waits until the egg is hatched, if you see what I mean.
And regarding the boiler: She does not sound like an engineer, why should she understand, that the boiler is in danger. In fact; it would be beneficial for her to wait until something does not work anymore; if she calls a mechanic on the word of the workers, that something is wrong and nothing is wrong... well, it would be her fault. If something goes wrong, she simply can say, that nobody told her and it is the workers fault. Basically, she has nothing to lose if she acts like that.
11191164
I don't, actually. If she doesn't want an extra baby creature to deal with, then getting rid of it while it's still in its egg would be the easiest course of action. If, however, she wants the hatched kid to stick around instead, with the thought that it'd just mean more hands to work the boiler, then she doesn't have any real reason to take it away at all, unless she wants to ensure Matilda isn't distracted from her own work caring for it, at which point she'd, again, would be better off taking the egg from her before it hatches, not after.
If you're implying that she's waiting to see whether or not the egg is valid and will hatch at all, that wouldn't actually change anything at all, because getting rid of the egg in advance will simply ensure it never hatches if it is, and if it isn't, then it's not worth keeping around anyway.
Because it is routinely implied Hawkrose does in fact know a thing or two about the boiler she is overseeing, and may even know more details about it's functions and how its getting used than the workers who are simply there to keep it running--she just doesn't do the dirty work of operating it herself. She does, after all, have seem to have texts and manuals on the boiler's inner workings in her office, as Matilda mentions their existence more than once, so she could always pull out one of those to look something up even if she didn't know anyway.
And surely she does know something about it, because when the problem first started coming to our attention in chapter 7, Hawkrose started acting more squirrely than usual at around the same time, being away and absent more than usual, and notably more short-tempered than usual. Matilda at one point even wonders if she's going mad, so something's definitely been eating at her.
If I'm right that she knows there's a problem but isn't acting to fix it, then I'm guessing the problem's already developed enough to the point that it's going to require more than just her workers are capable of doing to fix it themselves (as well as disrupt the boiler's services in the process more than probably). But as alerting the higher ups that the problem had slipped past her attention long enough to get to that point (because it is implied it began stealthily without anyone's notice, which is a thing that can happen), it's going to put her in hot water either way, so...back to burying her head about it and hoping she escapes the ensuing punishments (I doubt she will be so lucky either way though--if the boiler IS going down, I expect she's likely going to end up going down with it whether she likes it or not).
...though that all said...I suppose it could also be possible that she does know there's a problem...but as of yet doesn't know where the source that's causing it is, and without knowing that, obviously nobody can fix it.
Huh. So we have the last of our trio of protagonists finally speaking up. Gravel seems like there's some hidden depths to his male Trixie impression.