Heroics... sound a bit daunting.
You've always been an above-average soldier, don't get yourself wrong. But you always knew you could do better.
A lot of top-notch pegasus, pumped up to jump and fly in the face of danger, would always go into the newest regiment of lancers, kind of a flying-knight group that every filly and colt always thought were really cool.
You probably thought they were cool too, but when you, y'know, went into the whole military career path, you started to think running into a group of ponies with a pointy stick would be detrimental to your health.
You're also really happy in hindsight that you chose to go into a much more slower army role, since the country you were enrolled with was entirely annexed by the empire you're currently serving in, with most of the lancer regiments sent in and obliterated not long after. You'd be lying to yourself if you said you dodged that bullet - you dodged a lot of bullets with that life choice.
Speaking of dodging bullets:
You decide that you probably shouldn't try anything right now.
To be honest with yourself, you're not really sure why you brought the gun anyway. And even if you did try to use it... you did you even reload it?
Whoops.
The griffon says that he's met quite a few ponies that said they were friendly, and says he was pretty sure they all tried to steal from him. He didn't like that very much, so he feels perfectly obliged to point a gun at you in case you try to do it too.
The griffin also wants you to explain yourself, because, like, you're in the middle of a big empty desert, and he really hopes you weren't sent over here to steal his bowl. Since he's the one holding a loaded gun at you, and you just threw yours on the ground, he also says he feels in a position to ask the questions here, so you better 'splain up.
Lying? Ha! You're pretty sure Any pony'd know that you're good at lying...
Wait. That isn't a good thing.
No, you're pretty sure that no pony would now how good you are at lying, because you're so good at it. There you go.
Anyway, one of the most important things to do when lying, as you well know, is preparation. When command asked you to join the lancer commission, you had to really deceive them. There's actually a few keys features to how you went about it.
One: Pretty obvious, really. You make sure the lie-ee (In this case, a somewhat peeved griffon) is not entirely aware of your intruthfulness before the act of lying is conceived. You should therefore act as truthful as possible. In the case of this griffon, he probably doesn't know you, so the issue is merely persistent with the continuation of your present form of attitude, ie, being somewhat terrified, but in a stable condition to carry out--
-Two:
The griffon says you're taking too long, and he might just shoot you anyway.
You say you're patrolling the nearby region (You thought about saying desert, but the desert is really big) and you mean no harm.
In a way, this is sort of lying too, because you know for certain you weren't asked to patrol the desert.
Now that you remembered, you actually forgot the reason you're here, because the brief got lost in a sandstorm a couple days ago.
Whoops.
You hope that the magi in Canterlot grant you a +1 for deception due to your use of lying, which you know you're good at.
You also tell the griffon that you don't know much about any bowls, and really don't care about stealing them. In fact, you decide to use that +1 in deception again, and tell him that you've actually never used a bowl in your life, and have always preferred to eat soup and porridge in mugs, or mug-equivalents.
Nice.
The griffon sort of just looks blankly at you for a while. You think maybe you'd overdone it with the mug thing...
And then he speaks again.
The griffon asks if you saw a cave in the region you were patrolling. He says it's very important to him and his associate, who's sitting next to him, and wants you to lead him to it if you have seen it.
He also asks for your name.