//------------------------------//
// Aux Armes 
// Story: A War 
// by Comma Typer 
//------------------------------//

She woke up with a yawn, alarms banging in her head, scratching her face with her sharp claws—careful not to scar it.
A gray morning out the circle window.
Rattled nest for a bed, sticks sticking out. A pillow of cloth and loose change. Cracked, decaying wooden planks around her served as walls. Broken pictures of herself as a fledgling and a rainbow-maned filly—down on the floor, glass shards here and there. A stone table, stone chairs, stone plates where a box of stone scones stayed still in a stale state.
Barebones inside Gilda's house.
Alarm ringing outside. Bells jingling.
Whooshes.
Swung her head toward the window.
Flocks of griffons flying.



"Town square" was surely in a town but it was in no way a square. It was just an open space where hay, sticks, stones, and trash flittered about in the growling wind. There was no such thing as a crowd in this place: griffons bumped into each other, then bursted into arguments of who provoked who. Everyone joined in, young and old and those in between.
A ruckus as the storm clouds brooded.
"Order! Order!" a pompous voice commanded. To no avail.
Gilda pushed her rickety scone cart full of hard rock scones, held up by rickety wheels and handles. A portable oven was attached to it.
An old griffon pushed his way through the crowd, budging by. "I demand that I get three scones and nobody else gets it!" he shouted, banging the cart with a fisted claw.
"That would be ten bits, Grampa," she replied, making a "give me your money" gesture with her claw coupled with a deadpan face.
He groaned as he parted with those ten bits and received three scones. Took a bite of it.
Another tooth chipped.
"That looks fine!" another griffon shouted, rolling up his non-existent sleeves as he approached Gilda's grandfather. "I'll pay you twenty bits for that!"
Felt and heard his stomach rumble.
Gave the scones in exchange for bits unparted.
Gilda watched him, a pained expression on her for a moment before reverting back to a bored, apathetic front.
"May I have everyone's attention, please?" another voice requested.
Yet above the din, the commotion, of an infighting populace. Words, insults hurled and lobbed; others asking for a fight.
"Attention!"
All stopped. Turned to him who stood on the rooftop of a house.
"Thank you," President Gestal said, seeing most, if not all, of the Griffon Kingdom's inhabitants gathered into one square, or at least something that was called a square.
Silence, though the thunders echoed through the vast sky.
"As you may or may not know," he began, "there is an imposing enemy on its way to attack us, to take our land. I've already sent the entirety of our military to confront this threat—even some volunteers—but that is not enough. We need the help of each and every one of you to stave off King Sombra and his mindless foes who wish nothing but our death. We have to rally, to unite, under the single banner of Griffonstone, of the Griffon Kingdom."
Raised a claw to the air, an open claw.
"This morning," he continued, raising and rousing his voice, "we shall not be a quarreling gathering! No! Who we shall be, who we shall become, are the glorious griffons of days old, the griffons who heralded and cherished an age of gold when—"
"I'm joining if you give me thirty bits!" a griffon in the crowd broke out, shaking a fist at him.
"Yeah!" another griffon yelled, joining the first complainer. "What's in it for me?"
And the crowd erupted into an explosion of arguments, demands, entreaties for bits.
From behind the house, two griffons carried a huge metal safe and dropped it on to the roof, bending the poor house though Gestal kept his stance.
All became silent again.
"The council expected such a response from you," he said. "Which is why I chose to take out the one and only safe from our bank. This is the whole treasury of our dear kingdom. It is unfair if we do not give you good reason to fight."
They flocked to him, punching and prying the safe, trying to get to the bits.
Gilda left behind with her scone cart, looking away.



The Baltimore harbors provided anyone entering "The Best Town in Equestria" nothing short of a breathtaking view of the city. On a boat or a ship surrounded by a great extent of water, Baltimore was in every direction. In the evening, the skyscrapers and the parks were illuminated by an extravaganza of lights, even some airships dotting the air as they passed by while they shouted and screamed the names of their sponsors and advertisers.
A passenger steamer docked. A ramp was dropped on to the harbor and several ponies landed on the sturdy concrete.
Gilda, meanwhile, did not land on the concrete for she hovered about, first amazed and then puzzled at the dazzling, dizzying sights of the city.



Woke up, drooling.
"Gilda?"
Rubbed her head and eyes. "Wh-What's going on? Who are you?"
A gasp. "You don't remember me?!"
Gilda jolted awake, scratching the train window in the surprise.
"Yikes!" Gabby held the seat's railing tighter, eyeing her mailbag. "I didn't know you were down and out!"
"Down and out?!" Gilda yelled.
Grabbed the mailpony by the throat.
"Are you taking me back to Griffonstone?!" Gilda shouted to her face, the sheer force shown by the wavering feathers on Gabby's face. "Because, if you are, you're not going to like what's happen next!"
"N-No, I'm not!" Gabby shouted back, shaking her head fast. "Honest! Honest times infinity!"
Gilda paused. She looked to her right, out the window.
Endless tracts of grass glistening under the moonlight. A tower, like a lighthouse, shone the brightest.
Gilda let go of her.
Gabby breathed in, breathed out, holding on to her neck.
Gilda slumped back to her seat.
The air was cold. Under the flourescent lights that emanated a blue-green tint, here were some ponies who sat in the same carriage, but most of them were sleeping. Those who were awake gave them an odd look before they returned to their newspapers or their own conversations.
Gabby closed her mailbag, then looked at Gilda straight in the eye. "What are you doing here, anyway? You're not supposed to be outside the kingdom!"
"I'm not supposed to," Gilda shot back. "Doesn't mean I'm not going to."
Gabby gasped again. "You're...you're fleeing from your duties?"
"I can't flee from duties I haven't taken up," Gilda said matter-of-factly. "Let's face it, Gabby: No one in their right mind would think that we stand a chance against those crazy powerful ponies. They have everything we don't have. That alone should make us surrender."
Gabby gasped yet again. "B-But, does that mean you don't care about what happens to other griffons like me? What happened to your optimism?"
"Who said I was optimistic, anyway?" Gilda asked, giving her a questioning look. "I see things as objectively as I can. What do I see? A doomed country, that's what." She brushed her gaze off to the outside.
Gabby sighed. "But, where will you go? Have you ever thought of that?"
A pause, Gilda never looking away. "There are a few options. I can ask for asylum in Canterlot. From what I've heard, the Princesses aren't as mean as the others make them out to be. Of course, Canterlot's also the home for all the uppity snobbish ponies who look down on 'outsiders' like me." Another pause as she tapped her chin, thinking. "There's the Blazing Coalfields. Everything's dirt cheap in those towns. Doublehitch would be better than nothing."
"What about Cloudsdale?" Gabby suggested.
Gilda gulped. "You did not just say what I think you just said."
"I did." Gabby smiled. "That old pony friend of yours from way back—she lives in Cloudsdale, right?"
"What if she's enlisted?" Gilda asked. "If she's the same pony she was when I went to flight camp, I wouldn't be shocked to see her home empty."
"But, what if she isn't?" Gabby prodded.
A pause, the two griffons looking at each other.
"Come on! It's worth a shot!"