The forest grew cold at night, cold enough that even a mare who hadn't groomed her thick winter coat in weeks shivered, huddled tight under a pile of leaves she'd desperately pushed into her shelter to offer her some covering besides the branches that formed the walls. Viv wanted to burrow into the ground, to find some scrap of warmth deep in the earth. She found that when she was this cold, her horn would not light, her form of vision took too much focus. She probed around with her hoof for the little pile of food she'd gathered, barely enough for a day of walking, and made sure it was still there. She couldn't wait longer. She couldn't survive on her own, especially if this land had winters so cold.
The morning brought with it just a little warmth, and her determination only grew. She tore her shelter down and took her cloak back, then she wrapped the food in the hood and tied the hood shut. Despite her magic still feeling weak, she persisted.
Once everything was gathered, she went back to that trail, decided to go left, and began the long walk.
Viv had never been hunting before. It was not a tradition she knew of besides old stories of ponies who would hunt animals for fur and leather. So she was experiencing a hunting trail for the first time as her magic scanned across broken twigs, hard packed earth, and unfamiliar scrapes in the dirt. When more paths combined with it, she had to spend several minutes examining them, to find which direction was the origin of the paths, and was most likely to lead to the starting of the trails.
When the trees suddenly stopped, Viv hesitated. She couldn't hear anything but the calls of birds, but the edge of the trees didn't stop the trail. It continued into a field of grasses. Stomach tight and desperate, Viv stopped and ate. She felt primitive, mindless, eating grass like a common animal, grass not farmed or carefully prepared, just old dry stalks from the ground.
But it filled her belly, and she continued to follow the trail down a gradual slope, and then to a stone wall. Excited at the confirmation that she was nearing civilization, she spread her magic further ahead before following the trail at a canter, passing by stones and then over a small bridge before the path spread out, becoming a town square judging by the pillar in the middle, like some kind of marking stone. Examining it with her magic didn’t show her any markings she understood, just scratches, as far up the column as she could reach.
Despite it clearly being in the middle of an area where beings would move about often, she couldn’t hear anything at all. No sounds of bustling movement, or of creatures staring at her.
Walking away from the column, she scanned until she came across a stair. Unlike any stair she might have seen before, attached to a house, it seemed to be held up by part of a tree, and lay against the tree, no a building. She hesitated before starting up it.
“Hello?” she called out, nervous as to the response she might get.
But there was no reply, and she got to the top of the staircase, surrounded by branches that would touch against her side or ears, making her flinch. At the top of the stairs was a door. Simple, wooden, painted with some paint that flaked easily when her magic passed over the old surface. It didn’t open to the slight pressure of her magic, so she knocked.
There was an angry grumbling noise from inside, but no movement. After a few moments, she knocked a second time, frowning as she finally heard someone get up and stomp their way through the house to the door.
“It’s the middle of the day! Who in the world--”
There was the sound of the door opening, and complete silence.
“Excuse me, I am in need of assistance,” Viv said, nervous and wondering why this person wouldn’t say anything.
“George!”
Viv flinched at the exclamation, stepping back but stopping as she reached the edge of the landing.
“What?”
It was a new voice, a deeper one.
“There’s a pony on our doorstep in the middle of the day, asking for help. The world has gone mad.”
There was even more movement, and George got to the door, only to laugh.
“Little pony, what is your name?”
“Vivid Colour,” Viv replied quickly.
“Vivid. Such silly names. Can you not see?”
“How did you know?”
“Because your eyes are… White. Just white, it is near the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen,” George said. “Now, it’s midday, We must go back to sleep, and ponies are known for being stupidly trustworthy, so if you work for us for a week, We will let you rest here for that long. You can work, can’t you?”
“Um… Of course,” Viv nodded quickly. “I can use my magic to see.”
“Then come inside, and sleep until the sun goes down.”
“Thank you… George,” Viv said as she carefully walked inside. “You are kind ponies to take me in.”
“Oh, we aren’t ponies,” the first voice said, almost laughing. “We’re griffins.”
As the two griffins left the room, presumably to a bedroom, Viv stood there, processing the new information.
For one thing, it suddenly made much more sense why they lived in a tree and had very odd names. Secondly, though she had no idea if griffins normally slept through the day, she was quite willing to chalk it up to racial differences even though it seemed bizarre.
She listened as the griffins settled into a bed, or something similar, and then she touched her horn to the floor and spread her magic to get a better understanding of the room she'd been left in.
The door had an old rug in front of it, so thin and worn it could be mistaken for a few layers of cloth just left there to fall apart. There was a wide flat piece of furniture with thick mattress-like straw-stuffed cushions on top of it. It was clearly used to sit on or lay on, and would be her bed for the moment, despite it being the peak of daytime. It was ridiculous, to be asleep now, and awake when it was coldest.
She shivered a little, before continuing her scan.
The room had a small table with two cushions against the wall, and a bookshelf that had many small things she was too worried about breaking to examine closely, the pressure of her magic possibly being enough to damage them.
Not wanting to explore the house further, she went to the couch or bed and laid down. But she did not fall asleep quickly. She was thirsty, her hooves hurt, and she was confused by how she might have ended up in the griffin lands.
A hundred years ago, the griffins had been pushed out of the griffin isles by the invading English, who then founded Bitain. The griffins had fled to neighboring lands, but then vanished over time. Now they were rarely seen at all, had she somehow been carried to a coast on which they had settled? The answers would have to wait, apparently, until nightfall.
Viv shifted on the surface, which was certainly more comfortable than stones, though bruises from the nights in the forest were beginning to make themselves felt and she couldn't get comfortable.
Viv put her hooves over her head, curling up tight and trying to stay calm. The strangeness of it all was overwhelming, frightening. Despite having been left alone, she felt like she was being watched, judged.
She pushed her magic out from herself, and into the cushions, stuffed with hay or straw, or something similar. She could grip each individual strand and stalk, crushing it. Each little snapping noise calmed her, distracted her from her own mind, like rain on a rooftop.
Slowly, as her magic worked its way through the cushion leaving it much softer than before, she relaxed more and more until she could actually let her mind drift off, and fall asleep.
She woke up to laughter that pulled her from some horrible dream full of saltwater and panic. Her pounding heart slowed, and she remembered where she was all over again. It surprised her that she was so warm, until she shifted and realized she was covered with some sort of blanket.
“Awake, little pony. The sun is setting.”
Viv stretched a little before turning towards the sounds of movement.
“What is your name? I remember George, but you are…”
“Grace,” the griffin replied as she stepped closer.
Viv turned over and sat up on the couch, smiling.
“That is a remarkably pony-like name, ma’am.”
“Well, we live on the border with Equestria, so it isn’t all that surprising my parents were comfortable with giving me a pony-like name,” Grace chuckled, moving around Viv to adjust something on the couch, likely folding or straightening the blanket.
“The border of Equestria… The distant land of the alicorns? That’s where I’ve drifted?” Vivid asked incredulously as she spread her magic to the floor so she could sense her surroundings.
“Alicorn, singular,” Grace said before humming to herself and then chuckling. “But yes, you are currently in the town of Starcross, on the SouthEastern shore of Equus. The last griffin settlement on the continent. Now, we have much work to do while the moon is in the sky, you do not appear to have sufficient clothes, but if you will work and work hard, then I will acquire some winter clothes for you.”
“What sort of work?” Viv asked cautiously as she followed Grace’s movement out of the room into what seemed to be a kitchen, judging by the metal stove her magic brushed against.
She was struck by a sudden smell she couldn’t place. It made her stomach ache, but her mouth water. Yet she couldn’t place it.
“There are three things you could do, which would be of great help to us. Sewing, shearing sheep, or plucking chickens.”
The first two, viv understood and was quite willing to do, but the third gave her pause. She had to remind herself that griffins ate meat, and that they would be asking for chickens to be plucked, not to use the feathers, but to eat. She then also placed the smell which had left her terribly hungry. The smell of rendered animal fat, almost sweet, and mixed with herbs and spices.
She shivered, and backed away from the kitchen slightly.
“Do be calm, Vivid. We prepared some oats for you. We deal with ponies often enough to know you do not eat meat.”
Viv wished that the assumption was still true for her, but at the same time she could not deny her body’s response of desire to the carnivorous smell.
“Thank you,” she finally managed to whisper, proceeding to the other side of the kitchen where a table was.
She was pleased to note they used pony style cushions and a low table, so she simply sat and began to eat.
“That looks so strange,” George said after a few moments.
“What? Did I--”
“The way you spread your magic across your bowl,” Grace interrupted. “We are used to a unicorn’s magic being very direct, used to grab something, but you use your magic like…”
“A pool of water,” George finished, when Grace hesitated. “It’s quite beautiful.”
Viv became aware of a claw, as George pressed one finger against the edge of her magical field. She was careful not to take hold of the digit, but was aware of how she pressed back against the claw, the intrusion.
“Why does it feel so solid?” George asked, fascinated.
“I press against things to sense them, to percieve them. I do not see, even with magic, but I can sense each thing my magic touches as though I was pressing against it with my hoof. I can feel your claw.”
The intruding finger was quickly withdrawn, and Viv chuckled. “It doesn’t bother me. Just… It can be uncomfortable for some, when my magic grabs them.”
“Well, I find it quite interesting,” George said, voice amused as they all returned to eating.
“So why were you wandering around out here, and why do you call Equestria distant, where do you come from?” Grace asked Viv as Viv ate the oats, smiling as she tasted honey within.
“Bitain, across the sea.”
“You mean the Griffish isles,” Grace countered, a slight danger in her tone.
Viv paused, clearing her throat before nodding. “Indeed, and I regret that my people caused the displacement of your people.”
“Oh, it’s not your fault, certainly. You were cast off as much as we were. But to be clear, I would not mourn the deaths of your fellow Bitish ponies.”
Viv turned her head down, away from the griffins, as some part of her heart hardened, like a wall going up to protect from an oncoming flood, she numbed some part of herself to her past, and just replied with one sentence.
“Neither would I.”