The Visionary
Not too far East of Equestria, across the dividing waters, the griffons built their homes in the tall, jagged mountains of the land, forming great castles of stone and cloud above any other structure in the world. The land was harsh and not meant for lesser beings, allowing the griffons to thrive, unopposed. The closest things to be considered rivals in the same land was the occasional dragon that would flap by, but when attacking the griffons on their own turf, even a fully grown wyrm stood little chance.
The proud race tended their ranches, keeping their stocks of beef, pork, and lamb high, but the true delicacies were found in their aerial cages, suspended from the floating butcher shops. Dangling from powerful steel chains, a giant sphere, enchanted by the highest illusionists of the griffon race to hide in plain sight, lured in many avians, both common and exotic.
The highest delicacy of the Kingdoms was the most difficult of the birds to prepare and capture. It was the meal of the king, and if luck should have it, those he spent his evenings with. He was the only one who knew its proper preparation, the brutality and delicacy both required to bring it to its peak potential. Tonight, he was preparing the dish, giving a crooked smile to the crimson bird in its cage.
“Fair ladies, do you know the secret to preparing the rare fire bird?” A dark chuckle followed the question, coming from a large, dark kitchen.
“No, Grace.” A unified response came from another room, composed of three effeminate voices that giggled in kind.
“The trick... is to kill it, without allowing it to return, or turn itself to ash. So of course, the first thought is to drown it, right?” Another chuckle came. “Well, that would work if it didn’t take so long. The bird heats up much hotter than you’d think. All you accomplish is an empty, heated pot, if you’re lucky. A puddle of molten kitchenware is more likely. So, if you can’t drown it, what do you do instead?”
“We don’t know, Gallows.” The griffon ladies giggled again from the next room.
“Of course not!” the king snapped, halting the giggles. After a long pause he laughed again, encouraging nervous laughter from the three. “Only the king knows.” He stared hungrily at the phoenix, bringing it to back up to the edge of its cage.
“But I’m feeling benevolent today. See, I’d like an heir sooner or later, so I’ve been looking for a suitable queen. As such, a wife capable of preparing my prime dish would prove beneficial, don’t you think?” Before allowing them to answer, Gallows continued. “You freeze the bird.” Confused noises came from the girls. “Not over time, of course, but sudden, and instantly. Freeze the creature so fast that it can’t even react. ‘But my Grace,’ I hear you thinking, ‘How does a griffon accomplish such a feat?’”
Out of fear for the king’s last outcry, the women stayed quiet, only irritating him again, earning a scoff of disgust.
“While our magic isn’t as advanced as the ponies, we have found better utilization for it in our technology. You should all know this, unless of course you were born in a brothel and spent your days learning where to stick your talons and what to rub.” An awkward silence dropped from the room and Gallows shook his head with another chuckle. “They’re really running low on good candidates, aren’t they?”
With a disappointed sigh, Gallows opened the bird’s cage. With a new courage, the phoenix let out a cry and reared its head back to ready a blast of fire breath. Gallows laughed as he thrust a talon into the cage, grasping tightly around the bird’s throat, strangling it and halting the attack. Taken by surprise, the phoenix tried desperately to ignite itself. It was the creature’s last thought, however, before Gallows crushed a small blue ball in his free talon and the crimson feathers were encased with a sudden blue and white frost on their tips.
“A well timed mana pill, filled with powerful ice magic, will allow us to channel an icy death into a creature with our touch. With enough power of will, one such as myself can destroy even a creature as heated as the phoenix.” Gallows grinned as he pulled the limp, frosted phoenix out of its cage by the neck, forming a mild snowfall in his other talon, forcing the snow crystals to dance to his whim. “We don’t have natural access to magic like ponies and dragons, but by pulling magic from the world itself and storing it into these capsules, we can wield it as if we did.”
The griffon females noticed a blue light coming from the kitchen, circling the snow in Gallows’ talon. Chilled by the sudden silence from the phoenix, the instant drop in temperature, and the eerie presence that Gallows gave, the ladies drew closer together.
Gallows noticed and frowned. “Do you fear it? A weapon under our own control?” He let his breast quake with mad amusement. “Such delicate creatures you all make yourselves out to be, bending down before a male.
“You know, the ponies have their females in command, strong and proud like our own soldiers, yet still retaining their capacity for daintiness and fluff.” Gallows stopped playing with his magic and slammed the phoenix down on a chopping board with enough volume to make the griffon ladies jump. “So why are our whores so timid? Is it because you weren’t suitable soldiers? Not creative enough minds to invent or smart enough to work in spellcraft? Then what use are you to me?”
Though the girls stayed silent for the longest time, one of them giggled, assuming that a challenge had just been issued to her. “Isn’t that why we were invited into your bedroom? So you can find out, your highness?”
Gallows grinned to himself, plucking a new pill from under his wing and crushing it like the former. “I suppose you’re right on that.” With a harsh shake, the frozen feathers fell from the bird, as he pulled the rest off by running it through his free talon, heating it with the new spell he’d absorbed.
Warm, but still uncooked, the now naked phoenix was decapitated with a single swing of the king’s cleaver, and his legs soon followed. Gallows then placed it; blood, bones, and all, into a pot. He grabbed hold of the cookware and the water began to boil.
The ladies sat in the room quietly, uncomfortable and nervous about the silence. They sat there, unwilling to move or speak, until Gallows entered the room with a large cooked bird on a large silver platter, garnished and decorated with various herbs and oils.
The scent was heavenly, and the appearance was divine, but with the disgusted look Gallows threw at them, and placing the platter so close to himself, it seemed that they were not invited to partake. Gallows ripped off one of the legs and leaned back in a large,plush chair and bit into the meat. “Mmm, there truly is no better dish out there. Remember if you can, girls, that if I were to ever decide on one of you, keep as much blood inside as you can.” He daintily dabbed at his beak with a napkin before taking another bite.
“Of course, your grace,” piped up the one in the center. “Just to ask, have you decided which of us to wed?”
Gallows continued to chew, looking the three of them over with a look that mocked deep thought. “Hmmm… when I truly think of which of you three whores I’d consider for marriage… I think I’d pick option four.” He snapped a talon as the girls looked on in confusion.
“So, none of us?” the one on the left asked.
“Correct,” Gallows answered, finishing off his leg and dangling the bare bone before his eyes. He gripped it firmly, and encased it in an icy coating, giving it the shape of a longsword, and, in one swift motion, separated the girl’s heads from their bodies.
Blood began to spray from their stumps as their heads hit the ground, and Gallows reached out to carve off a piece of the phoenix. A large gob of blood splashed onto the piece he was cutting, but he ignored it and brought the slice to his mouth and motioned with a claw to a servant that had been hiding in the dark. The servant was quick in their duty to not upset their master and gathered the bodies as the doors to his room opened. Three more workers came in to help clean the scene up as an ancient and frowning griffon walked up to Gallows.
“Was it truly necessary to do that, your grace?” the wizened griffon asked in annoyance.
“I have no use for ‘working girls’ with no talents outside of prick pleasing,” Gallows replied without looking up from his meal. “Do we truly have no better candidates, Gaillard?”
“We do not, majesty,” the old griffon replied. “You have been displeased with every eligible and ineligible female I have brought or forced to you. Some more displeasing than others,” he spoke with disgust, looking at the cleaning crew soaking up the blood from the floor. “It is fortunate that the country knows not of these lengths you go to for a queen. They’d brand you a tyrant and revolt.”
“And this is why you are paid so handsomely, Gaillard,” Gallows said as he had many times before. “When will this lecture halt?”
“As soon as I’m not stuck cleaning up your messes,” Gaillard groaned. “I bring women in droves, many more than eager to bear you a child, and you either kill them, destroy their lives, or order someone else to do it for you.”
“None are of the worth I seek.”
“That’s always your rebuttal!” Gaillard countered.
Gallows looked up to the old griffon with a dark look in his eyes, dropping Gaillard’s stomach in an instant. “Then perhaps you’re useless to me as well if you can’t do this much.”
Gaillard gulped. “If perhaps you could tell me what it is that you seek, maybe I’d be able to find it.”
Gallows returned to his cooked bird, ripping off the other leg. “There is only one, and you haven’t been able to find her.”
Gaillard frowned. “Some flighty female from your youth? Didn’t she leave the land going on six years ago?”
“Don’t insult her Gaillard, I’ll have your tongue.” Gallows took a bite from the leg.
“But from that noble mind of yours, do you not understand that a fling from your younger days is not the ideal mate material?”
Gallows let out a bored sigh and threw his talon out, grasping Gaillard by the throat and bringing the two of them beak to beak. “Do I care what you say on this matter, Gaillard? Have I ever? Regardless of if we were young, I want her now. The snark and mettle of that one; her uncaring, unflinching eye in the face of her superior… made her my equal. I will accept nothing less than a creature on my level!” Gaillard made a choking noise as Gallows tightened his grip. “I’ll not accept anything beneath me, and if it turns out that means you as well, dear uncle, then I will not accept you either!” Gallows threw Gaillard over the table and face first into the pool of blood from his victims, causing the servants to jump in fear.
Gaillard’s eyes looked upwards and locked gazes with one of the horrified looks of one of the three whores he had offered his nephew. He felt terror within himself, but it was drowned by disappointment. “Very well, your grace,” he started, pushing himself back up onto his feet. “She isn’t in the kingdom though.”
Gallows smiled. “This I know. I know where she is.”
Gaillard felt his heart stop. “You lie,” he spoke in fear, throwing his head back to look again at Gallows.
A hearty laugh echoed in the room as Gallows dropped a talon over his eyes. “You suddenly realize how easily you can meet the grim fate as these three? If I have no use for you you’re just as disposable.” The king’s laughter continued, bloodcurdling cruelty ringing loudly in each note. When he collected himself, he swept his palm back along his brow, locking eyes with his uncle. “So I’d hold my tongue if I were you, Gaillard.”
“Then why would you have me continue this charade? Why take the heads and hearts of so many other women if you knew where the one you would take was?” Gaillard pleaded for answers.
“To see how long you would continue throwing useless wenches my way. To see the point you’d give up, but you’re more stubborn than I believed.” Gallows dropped the now bare leg bone back onto his platter, grabbing hold of the icy blade and carving up another, larger slice of phoenix meat. “So I guess now that you know that playing matchmaker is no longer of use to me, I suppose that you’d better come up with something I can put value in…”
Gaillard felt a shiver run down his back, obeying immediately as Gallows shooed him off with one talon.
Gallows continued his meal as his mess was cleaned up; finishing around the time his servants cleared the last drop of blood from the floor. With his privacy now available, he returned the platter of bones to his private kitchen and made his way to a night table by his massive bed. Atop the table was a small, simple, wooden box. He opened the box and saw a grub worm resting within. It looked up at him in a sort of knowing fashion.
“Tell me, little oracle, where is she?” Gallows asked. He let the little creature onto his talon, delicately stroking its back with a claw. “Still with the ponyfolk then?” He paused, and then smiled. “So they’re almost done? Only one more before they return with their weapon.” He beamed with joy. “These ‘elements’ of theirs; adorable really.
“What about the dragon?” Gallows asked, continuing to pet the worm. “Good. The oaf almost threw the schedule off. Let’s make sure to keep him off course until his part comes in.” The grub seemed to jiggle in agreement.
Gallows chuckled in unison before asking his next question. “Have you decided on our fourth then?” The grub crawled up Gallows’ talon and arm, resting at his shoulder before giving out a mild clicking noise. “Hmm. An interesting choice… I can see why you would make such a selection; fierce determination, and now a reason for vengeance as well.
“I can see a use for their ally as well. Let’s send for them, add their piece to the puzzle for our big picture.” The griffon king laughed quietly to himself in the dark. “The world you promised is coming closer with each step the ponyfolk take. I pity any who come against you and I, my friend.”
Gallows walked over to his balcony, looking down on his empire as clouds passed underneath his gaze. “Let us command the very world from here, and purge any who would not see me as king.”
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4546036
Which bit?
4546817
Yeah, you did. Different worm this time though.
macgyverservices.net/grubworm1.jpg
This seems to be both in the SpitDash and AppleDash folders. Which one is it?
4637785
Both. There are romantic conflicts as well as there has often been options in shipping groups for friendshipping.
I hate gallows already
Is the worm referring to Applejack? I can't really see Aj wanting revenge against RD/Spitfire, much less harming either of them; because you know doing something against Spitfire would hurt Rainbow. It doesn't seem like Applejack wants that in the slightest despite any mental and emotional torture that may be coming her way :/ but then again I'm appledash biased so what do I know. I love this story so far by the way
4766669
The worm is referring to many different creatures. It is implied that one of the party is in there though. Also I completely agree, AJ would never do anything to hurt her friends in any sane mind, but even the best of us have thoughts we don't like being there or thinking about. To have that played with...