Ring-aling-aling-aling-aling
The strident keening of the adviser's alarm clock ripped her from the ether of her dreams. She opened her eyes to the darkness of her chamber, groaned, then reached behind her head to fold her pillow over her ears. The clock was an antique that unfortunately lacked a snooze button, and the two tiny bells above its round glass face emitted a rapid series of ear-piercing chimes that could wake the dead. It was perfect for rousing a deep sleeper such as her. However, its lack of a snooze function, or even a mechanism for locking the tiny hammer in place, meant that she was forced to endure the brass siren's penetrating cry until its gears wound down.
She uncovered her ears when the shrill twanging finally petered out, and groped blindly for her glasses she had left lying on the wooden stand next to her bed.
The somnolent mare rubbed the sleep from her eyes before donning her specs. She sat up. It was dark as night in her chamber. Other than the ruddy glow produced from the coals burning dimly in her hearth, and the fingers of pale moonlight bleeding through the cracks between her drawn curtains, everything was black. She focused her magic until her horn began to flicker. A pulsing orb took form before her. Like an arcane light bulb, it ignited the walls in a soft aquamarine luminescence. The light source she had conjured would most likely die out within ten minutes, but that was more than enough time for her to complete her morning routine.
She turned her head, squinted, adjusted her glasses, and the alarm clock's report of 4:01 AM came into focus. Usually, only the cooks and the guards were up at this hour, but this was the final day of the week. It was the morning she had to retrieve the financial report from the treasury... Yay for her.
She allowed herself another yawn and scratched her belly. A few nods and sighs later she managed to find the will to kick away her quilt and roll out of bed, lamenting the days when the treasury would simply send one of the financiers as a runner to deliver the report. But, due to an investigation that led to the discovery of treasury workers embezzling funds, and then forging reports in an attempt to cover their tracks, the silver mines had become two prisoners richer, while the treasury itself became two treasurers poorer. Since that day, Sombra trusted no one else but Ethey with the handling of the financial documents.
After a quick trip to the privy, Ethey cleansed her face and hooves in a basin of cold water. She brushed her mane till her tussled midnight blue tresses were straight and smoothe as strands of silk, then she bound her hair back with her cherished skull ribbon. She had her usual sleepy-eyed staring contest with her reflection in the vanity mirror before she finally got around to applying her cosmetics, which consisted of only black lipstick and eyeliner, dark colors that contrasted well with the whiteness of her ivory fur, yet matched the glossy, black polish coating her hooves. While she did own other cosmetic items, she could hardly be bothered to use them. Ethey was a minimalist with her own particular style; foundation, mascara, eyeshadow, they required too much time and effort for her to consider them to be practical. Besides all that, with her deceptively youthful appearance, too much makeup made her look like a porcelain doll, and she wasn't about to give Blue Blood ammunition for his farcical array of lackwit japes.
After giving her reflection one last look of appraisal, she hopped down from her stool and braved her bedroom's obstacle course of longboxes and strewn about graphic novels. She shambled past her drafting table, with its botched drawings and abandoned projects covering it like a crude quilt sewn and stitched from the cloths of apathy, skirted around her game table with her ongoing Ogres and Obliettes campaign carefully preserved amongst a myriad of empty soda bottles and crumpled food wrappers, then arrived at her wardrobe.
Ethereal Moon rummaged through the few articles of clothing she owned, until she found the parka her king had presented to her on her birthday a few moons past. The coat was black and lustrous as raven feathers, soft as velvet and finer than sable. The decadent rim of soft fur lining the hood was dyed a beautiful deep purple, her favorite color. Sombra must have really put a lot of thought into its customization. The raiment itself was every bit as luxurious as it was adorable, a valuable piece of finery to be sure, but the thought that it was a gift from her beloved king was what truly made it irreplaceable. She smiled confidently as she pulled the zipper up to her neck, feeling as though she could brave anything in that parka of hers. Anything, even the harsh tundra of a predawn New Haven.
The adviser tried to keep her teeth from chattering as she trudged up Peddler's Road. Crunch, crunch, crunch, came the rhythmic sound of the slush yielding beneath her tiny hooves, her breath steaming in plumes in front of her. The tawny firelight emitted from the spherical street lamps shone upon the surface of the fresh fallen snow. The stars were still out, and in the cold, dry New Haven sky they burned like torches. Far off in the distance the northern lights painted the horizon beyond the snowy mountains in a star speckled conflagration of pink and violet and purple. Beautiful was the hamlet in its twilight hours, like a picturesque postcard of a sleepy town nestled amongst the winter snows on Hearthswarming eve. It's beauty never ceased to enamor Ethereal Moon, cold as it was.
There were a few citizens already out and about in the predawn hours, to open their shops or set up their stands along the road. There was a roper roping, a baker was baking, a haberdasher haberdashering, and a cobbler was cobblering. A shoe shine boy wearing a newsboy cap was already hard at work polishing a guard's gauntlet to a mirror sheen with an oiled rag. His tip jar already had quite a few coppers in it. A barber was setting up his barber's pole near his chair in his open air station. Being the only barber in town, it wouldn't be long before he could afford to move his chair into his own shop. Perhaps he would eventually take on an apprentice or two.
"Madam Adviser," A patrolling town guard saluted her as he passed her on the road.
"Morning," Ethey replied, her greeting steaming in the frigid wind.
The shoeshine boy and his customer both noticed her when they heard her voice. "Madam Adviser," they greeted her in unison.
"Good morning, boys." The adviser dug into her coat pocket for some change and tossed a copper into the boy's jar as she passed them. The kid had a pretty good work ethic to be awake and on the job so early. Ethereal Moon was one to admire that kind of initiative.
The colt in the newsboy cap looked more surprised than grateful. "You want me to shine your shoes, Madam Adviser?" he called after her. "I have only one customer ahead of you, and I'm almost finished with him."
"Not wearing any." The adviser stopped and turned around to present her painted black hooves to the spirited young colt. They shined pristinely in the lamplight, like starfire glancing off the surface of polished onyx.
The boy looked at them with wonder. "Pretty," he commented. "I could still clean them for you."
Ethey put a lot of time and effort into her hooves; she wasn't about to let some kid with an oil rag and boot brush touch them. There were however plenty of red cloaks back at the palace with scuffed gauntlets and calloused hooves. "Tell ya what," Ethey said, "come by the palace around noon today, and I'll have a whole line of customers ready for you. Do a good enough job, and there just may be a silver in it for you."
The boy's eyes widened. "A-a whole silver?"
No, half of one, Ethey nearly derided, but then she considered the child's age and profession; a silver coin was probably more money than he made in a week. "A whole silver," she promised. "Plus all the tips you're likely to make. The King pays his guards well, and they all live in the palace and eat for free, so they have more money than they know what to do with."
"That right?" The youth scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Maybe I should start considering a different career."
His customer laughed. "Lad, when the day comes you turn sixteen, and you'd rather wear these heavy gauntlets than polish them, just let me know. I'll put in a good word for you. Until then, you mind finishing up? I don't want to be late for my rounds."
"Yes, sir," the boy said, startled, as if he had just remembered he had a client. "Sorry, sir." And after bidding the adviser a hasty farewell he turned himself around and got right back to work.
Ethereal Moon was approaching the crossroad that intersected the path just before the street widened out into the main plaza. The treasury was just around the corner. Thank Celestia, because her ass was getting numb from the cold. Either that, or she had frozen it off.
"Morning, little pony," a street vendor called out to her. Her stand was strategically located closest to the corner, all the better to be noticed by more customers.
"It sure is," Ethey addressed the Yak stalking her produce stand, but she did not break her stride. The cold was sapping her desire for conversation. All she wanted to do now was get to her office, where she could tip scales and crunch numbers in front of her fireplace.
"You look cold, tiny pony," observed the Yak, who's thick frame was well built for the climate.
"As a Wendigo's minge," Ethey replied curtly, passing her stand, then turning the corner.
"Tiny pony is funny! " The vendor laughed a boisterous laugh, her tepid yak breath billowing in the frosty air like ash from a volcano. "There are two ways Svetlana likes to stay warm. Would tiny adviser pony like to know what they are?"
Shivering, Ethereal Moon pulled her hood up before she forced herself to turn around. "Let me guess, they both involve smashing things?"
"Good guess, but no," Svetlana replied. "Also. Kind of racist. Not cool."
The adviser lowered her head, thinking of what she should say to that. She had little experience interacting with yaks. She had always thought they prided themselves on their proclivity to smash things. "Sorry if I offended you. I, uh... I hope I didn't come off as a bigot. Some of my best friends are yaks," she said, which was a damn lie.
Svetlana favored her with a forgiving smile. "Is okay," she said. "As I was saying, two ways Svetlana likes to stay warm: Svetlana likes to snuggle up to her big, strong bull." She shrugged. "But, since he is fighting up north, Svetlana does not have that option at the moment. And, unless you have a thing for yaks, and you can find yak who has a thing for tiny ponies, I doubt that is advice that will be useful to you."
I really hope this conversation has a point. "And the second thing?" Ethey said impatiently.
"Coffee. Delicious, thick, black, strong Yakyakistani coffee -- so scorching hot it will melt your insides -- so strong it will give your heart attack a heart attack."
The conversation suddenly became interesting. "Coffee -- you actually have some?" Ethey asked hopefully. It had been months since she had had coffee. At the moment, she would have been willing to trade a stack of her most valued comics for a single cup.
The grocer disappeared behind her stand for a moment. When she returned she held a steaming french press in her cloven hoof. "Just had some brewed. Svetlana normally charges five coppers a cup." She smiled playfully. "Buuuut~ Svetlana just happens to have the adviser's special going on today."
Ethey approached the Yak's stand, thirstily eyeing the steaming black liquid in the cylindrical container. "That's not necessary," she insisted. "I have money. Five coppers, right?"
"No, no," insisted Svetlana. "Advisers drink free today."
"But, you're running a business, I can't just--"
"Advisers drink free!" Svetlana pounded her stand, nearly smashing it in the process.
"Okay!" Ethey shrunk back at the Yak's sudden display of fury. "I-if you insist."
The Yak's bovine rage dissipated just as quick as it appeared. She smiled warmly and said, "Oh, but Svetlana does insist." She reached for the french press. A thick pillar of white steam rose pleasantly from the foam cup as the black liquid warmed its confines. "Tiny pony want sissy cream with that?"
Ethey adjusted her glasses. "Sissy-what? No, I'm good. I'll just take it black. Never had coffee from Yakyakistan before; I'd like my first experience to be an undiluted one."
"You make good choice, little pony. Yak hate cream. And that pumpkin spice stuff, don't get Svetlana started on that." The Yak grocer sealed the cup with a slotted lid.
Ethey took a cautious sip. The liquid burned her lips, but the warmth trickling down her throat was a welcome sensation. The jolt of energy she felt from the powerful elixir was instantaneous.
"Suddenly tiny adviser pony not look so sleepy." Svetlana smiled at her knowingly. "Good stuff?"
Ethey gave the coffee a look of approval. "I'll say," she agreed. "I just took a swig and now I feel like I'll be up for a week."
The Yak let out a hearty laugh. "Coffee beans from Yakyakistan are as strong as her people. Now all you need is that big, strong bull to warm you by the fire."
Ethey didn't have a reply for that. She took another sip from her cup to distract herself.
"Or stallion," Svetlana added awkwardly.
"Or neither," Ethereal Moon suggested. "Bull or stallion, the guys aren't exactly lining up at my door."
"Such self-deprecation," The Yak scoffed. "You probably intimidate them. Males can be so timid at times. They lay their eyes upon true beauty and their brains go to mush."
"Yeah, that's gotta be it," Ethey replied dryly before she took another sip from her cup. "Anyway, thanks again for the coffee. I really needed it."
"You just remember to come back and give Svetlana your business. I will always have cup ready for you."
"Thanks again." Ethey waved to her before she turned and continued her way up the northern road.
The twilight of the Eastern sky beyond Sombra's palace was just beginning to yield to the azure dawn when she arrived at the large double doors of the treasury. The sun would be rising soon, and The King would be expecting the report on his table by the time breakfast was served. The adviser had little time to waste. She carefully placed her coffee on the ground, and fumbled for the keyring in her coat pocket. Just need twenty minutes, she promised herself. In and out; I can be back at the palace by sunrise.
Ethey could feel the key catching the lock's tumbler with a satisfying clack. After the door was unlocked she stowed her keys back in her pocket and turned to retrieve her coffee. That was when something in the sky caught her eye. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her muzzle, squinting. The sky to the south was bristling with winged dots. There were hundreds of them, if not thousands. At first she thought Sombra's soldiers were returning from their campaign, but she hadn't received any news from the front in over a fortnight. As far as she knew The King's army was still fighting to capture the territories up north. Why would they be approaching from the south?
The closer they came, the faster they seemed to be moving. Stranger still, they appeared to be Griffons. Every single one of them. The flying units of Sombra's army were very diverse, there should have been at least a few Hippogriphs or Pegusi scattered amongst their ranks.
A sudden feeling of dread began to tug at her, as if a voice inside her was screaming for her to bolt herself inside the treasury and hide, but her curiosity took priority over her instincts. She stepped out from under the door's awning to get a better view of them.
A group of about fifty of them broke away from the rest of the flock and seemed to be heading toward the palace, while the others stayed their course.
Once they were close enough to the town, the larger group swooped without warning. They lobbed objects at the structures below them. Mere seconds afterwards multiple explosions and screams erupted from the road, while pillars of smoke began to rise from the market street.
Ethereal Moon felt her heart jump up to her throat.
Alarm bells began to ring.
A frantic stallion turned the corner from the main road, his eyes wide and wild with panic. A Griffon giving him chase dove upon him with a downward thrust and impaled him through the back. The long, curved blade was sticky, steaming and red when it exploded from his chest. There were no screams when the stallion went down. More red trailed the snow in the short distance he slid, then he came to a stop. His panicked eyes were wide and unblinking as the Griffon wrenched his blade free with a horrible steel-on-bone scrape.
The color drained from Ethey when the killer looked up at her. Without warning or provocation he immediately charged toward her, an ear piercing scream tearing from his beak. Flecks of red were sent flying from his bloody cutlass as he furiously whirled it over his head.
Ethey retreated for the treasury as fast as her little legs could carry her. In her haste she attempted to push the door open before remembering it could only be opened in the opposite direction. She only managed to crack the door open by a mere hair's breadth of space when an open talon struck the frame of the door, forcing it closed. The adviser, shaking, turned and pressed her back against the door, the Griffon looming over her with the perversion of a smile on his beak. Ethereal Moon could only look pleadingly into his eyes. "Please," she began, but she couldn't seem to form any other words.
The brigand laid the edge of his cutlass beneath her chin, then lifted her head upward to expose her supple neck. "Hmmm, baby back ribs."
Pirates! Ethey realized. Her hoof brushed something on the ground just then. Something hot. "I, uh," she quivered. "I'm riddled with parasites, you know." She surreptitiously curled her foreleg around the coffee cup. "You don't want to eat me."
The Griffon seemed too preoccupied with his relishing in her terror to notice. He pressed his blade firmly against her throat in preparation to slice it open. "When you get to Davey Jone's locker, tell them--" his one liner turned into a shriek when the splash of searing coffee scalded his face.
Ethey took advantage of the opening she had just bought herself and retreated into the treasury, leaving her would-be attacker to writhe in the snow. She locked the door behind her, for all the good that would do her. Her first thought was to seal herself in the vault, but since the Griffons were armed with black powder weapons it would be easy enough to blast their way in through the ceiling or the back wall, then she'd be cornered. She could play the 'stupid bitch' trope from every horror movie she had ever seen and hide under her desk, but that would be the first place anyone would check. That only left her with one option.
There was a violent pounding on the door just as Ethey was slipping out the back through her office window. She closed it behind her so as to conceal her means of escape. Hopefully her pursuer would waste some time searching for her in the treasury while she found a safe route to the palace.
Screams, explosions, and the clashing of steel echoed through the alleyway as Ethey scurried blindly down the narrow backstreets, running, ducking, hiding, looking carefully around every corner before scuttering to the cover of the neighboring structure. In the distance she could hear the tolling of the town bell, as numerous voices resonated for a call to arms. That meant that the town militia would have been made aware of the attack. By now every citizen who had volunteered to sign on for civil service would be racing toward the armory to equip themselves. The smarter ones among them would have already purchased their own arms and armor to keep in their homes. Many a creature would be kissing their wives and hugging their children before rushing out their doors to meet whatever was threatening their town head on. Meanwhile, the untrained among the populace, the weak, the young, the old, the lame, and the cowardly were either barricading themselves inside their homes or making their way to the palace for protection.
That was Ethey's current objective: get to the palace and assist in any way possible. It was all the adviser could do. It felt cowardly to hide behind stone walls while others were out fighting and dying, but she wasn't exactly a soldier. How could she be blamed? She couldn't fight her way out of a wet paper bag. No, she couldn't fight. She would just get in everyone's way. On top of that she was too valuable to The King to let herself be captured or killed.
Ethey slid to a stop when she turned a corner and came upon a dead end. There was nothing back here but some empty wooden crates and frozen barrels. She must have been behind the shops near where the Peddlers' Road began. There was a solid wall at the end of the alley. She would just need to get over it somehow, and she would be within spitting distance of the palace gates.
Ethey put her shoulder into one of the empty shipment crates and pushed it up against the wall. She then toppled a barrel over and rolled it to where she left the crate. She tried to stand it onto the shipment container, but she couldn't lift it, no matter how hard she tried. It wasn't a good time to be reminded that she literally had no more strength than that of a little girl. She tried one more time and gave it her all to heft the barrel, but she finally decided that it was an exercise in futility.
Ethey scanned around the alley for a smaller crate she could stack on top of the larger one, when a familiar-looking Griffon slid into view from around the corner. His face was red and badly burned, his eye pink and scorched. He seemed to be unable to open the other one. Now, he really did look like a pirate.
"There you are, you little bitch!" He came at her, cutlass in talon, quicker than Ethey would have believed.
Desperate, the adviser leapt on top of the crate she had pushed against the wall and attempted to grapple with the ledge. She couldn't reach, not even when she stood on her hind legs. She cried out for help in the hope that a nearby guard might hear her, when she was abruptly yanked off her improvised platform by her hair, then slammed so hard against the wall all the breath was driven out of her.
The pirate raised his cutlass. There would be no one liners from him this time. He was angry, the lust for murder written plainly in his burned and bloodshot eye. Ethey instinctively covered her face, as if that would somehow protect her from the blow. She knew better, but the reflex was purely reactionary.
The walls of the alley suddenly resounded with an eardrum-splitting crack.
Ethereal Moon dared a timid peek between her hooves. A thick leather cord was wound tightly around her persuer's wind pipe, his beak opened wide in a silent scream of agony. His face purpled as he clawed frantically at the lash around his neck, but there wasn't enough slack for him to so much as wedge a finger beneath the whip's constricting grip.
The wielder of the whip then yanked him back, and sent him careening into a pile of crates with a loud crash. That was when the advisor beheld her savior, and for the second time that day she was too stunned to speak.
"Bonjure, sha~" Shantae sang, in a jovial manner that seemed entirely inappropriate for the situation. Slung across his chest was a bandoleer of throwing knives and tactical pouches. A pair of leather vambraces were cinched tight around his corded forelegs. He wielded his whip in his right hoof, and his kukri was sheathed at his hind leg.
It took a moment for Ethey to regain her faculties. Her brush with death left her heart pounding so hard she could hear the rhythm of her pulse in her ears. "Where... Where in Tartaras did you come from?"
"Shantae spied you skulking about de alleys from de main road." The Cajun Earth Pony looped his whip into a coil with a practiced flick of his hoof. "Shantae wanted to make sure de belle fleur of his life was safe."
"How could you have spotted me with all the crap going on?"
Shantae smiled as he indicated the bullseye on his flank. "Ain't nuttin' gets past Shantae, sha," he boasted.
"Shantae?" The Griffon Shantae had sent reeling into the pile of crates was wheezing as he staggered to his paws and claws. "You're Shantae?"
"Oui." The bounty hunter turned to confront him with a shit-eating grin. "You been lookin' for Shantae?"
The Griffon tried and failed to stifle a cough. He rubbed his throat where the whip had left raw red marks. "You have no idea how deep the shit you're in, cowboy. You, that so-called king, those poxy whores of his; you're all so dead, you don't even know it." His grip tightened about the pommel of his cutlass.
Shantae secured his whip to a small fastening hanging from his bandoleer, then his hoof moved toward his blade. "Dis is not recommended." The sheathe rasped as the kukri cleared leather. He pointed it in the pirates' direction. "You should stick to attacking girls a quarter your size. Dey seem to be closer to your skill level, mon amie."
The Griffon, enraged by the taunt, raised his cutlass and charged. And then their dance had begun.
Ethey could only watch, wide-eyed and trembling.
Sparks flew as their blades kissed, the chaotic rhythm of sharpened steel filling the air. Eventually the pirate and the bounty hunter came to a standoff, when they locked their weapons together in an attempt to overpower each other. They circled, kukri and cutlass competing for dominance, as if an unspoken agreement was made to let the victor be decided by who could exert the most brute force. Suddenly the bounty hunter disengaged with a swift pirouette. The abrupt absence of resistance threw the Griffon off balance. He had to step wide to keep himself from falling forward, and that split second he left himself open was all the time Shantae needed to rebound, redirect, and lay the pirate's exposed throat open with one powerful backhoofed strike that bit all the way to the spine. When the bounty hunter pulled his blade free, the wound across the pirate's gaping throat wept a scarlet curtain. The cutlass fell loosely from his lifeless talon, and when he landed facedown in the snow an island of red quickly expanded around him.
Shantae buried his blade into the slush beneath him with a deep thrust, then pulled it out clean before returning it to its sheath. "Woo'dao, sha!" he cheered. "Wudn't dat some shit?"
With her back still clung to the wall, the only reply Ethereal Moon could frame was, "I-I didn't understand a single thing you just said."
"Heh," Shantae chuckled. "Yeah, Shantae gets dat a lot. S'like yankees don't get Ponish 'r' somthin'."
The adviser forced herself to tear her gaze from the still-warm carcass, with its mutilated throat exposed for the world to see. "I don't suppose you could escort me to the palace?"
Shantae cleared his throat. "Shantae typically abhors escort missions, but... Shantae supposes he could be convinced."
Ethereal Moon frowned. "Convinced? You just saved my life! What are you going to do now, leave me here to fend for myself?"
"You can think of the save as a favor." The opportunistic bounty hunter flashed a smile from behind those scarred, severed lips of his. "But dis thing you ask, it is a service, no? A service Shantae will provide, of course. But, it all depends."
Ethereal Moon liked the sound of that not at all. But what choice did she have but to take the bait? "Depends on what?" she conceded with a sigh.
At that, Shantae smiled and said, "What's it worth to you?"
The rest of Starlight Glimmer's night had been filled with restless sleep. She couldn't help but wonder if she had made the right decision. She was sure at first, but now, she was second guessing herself. Would her friends have truely made the same choice as her?
She would close her eyes only to wake twenty minutes later in a cold sweat. She dreamed of the mines that would be her new home. In her dream, the cot she lay upon was uncomfortable, and the one blanket she was given was thin, and hardly effective for staving off the chill in her cramped cell. The heavy iron collar around her neck was just snug enough so as to never let her forget that she was wearing it. She had to constantly endure it, even as she rested. The meals were bland, though they were nutritious, all the better to keep the miners properly fed so they could be efficient workers. The closest thing there was to a privy was a shallow trench in the ground. Privacy was a luxury not granted to anyone. Every waking second was toiled away in cold caverns and stifling tunnels. It was a bland, undignified existence; meaningless and devoid of all hope.
She closed her eyes, then woke again. This time she was crying. It was a different dream. Her friends were asking her why she had made the decision that she had. They looked at her with opened throats and accusing eyes, telling her that she might as well have killed them herself. She began to weep into her pillow. She decided that, once she had been delivered to the mines, she would end her own life. The rest of her life would have no meaning, and her friends were dead because of her. The least she could do was surrender her own life in penance.
She closed her eyes again, but when she opened them she was waking to the sound of an explosion that rattled the entire palace. She tried to sit up, but she lacked the strength. With her body as atrophied as it was she couldn't get up on her own without exerting herself. She heard bells, screams, and more explosions in the distance. What was going on?
A sudden sound at her door caught her attention. It opened, and in walked someone she didn't quite expect. A young girl, most likely a stewardess. Her face was streaked with tears. She pointed at Starlight with a sniffle and said. "She's right here. That's her."
"Good," a deep voice said. A Griffon entered the room after the girl. He wore a black bandana knotted behind his head. There was a sash around his waist, from which hung a scabbard housing some kind of curved blade. He didn't look like a guard, nor did he look like a servant.
"Uhm, hello?" Starlight said uneasily.
"Miss Starlight Glimmer?" said the Griffon, his voice deep as a growl and rough as gravel. There was a grading rasp to it, like steel on stone. The most perturbing thing about him however was the look on his face. His beak was smiling, but his eyes weren't. They were cruel eyes. Unkind eyes. Tinged with madness, and expressing the desire for nothing but to inflict pain.
Starlight felt uncomfortable under the Griffon's hostile gaze. "Y-yes... Who are you? What do you want?"
The Griffon didn't answer her. He instead looked at the stewardess he followed into the room and said, "Thanks for the help, love. Would'a never found her without you."
The girl nodded, then very timidly said, "I'll be going now, sir."
"I don't think so, poppet." The Griffon seized her by the hair, then yanked her so hard she was pulled off her hooves. She started to scream. "I still have some use for you."
"Hey!" Starlight tried to come to the girl's aid, but her enfeebled body rendered her unable to so much as sit up. "What do you think you're doing? Leave her alone!"
The girl frantically clutched at the burly Griffon's talon as she was being dragged across the floor by her mane, her hind legs kicking wildly against the rushes. "Let go, please!" Her cries were so fraught with anguish, they were barely intelligible. "You said you'd let me go if I brought you to her!"
"An' I mean to keep that promise." He dragged her all the way to the window.
Starlight thrashed for all she was worth to get out of bed, but she couldn't. She just couldn't.
"You promised you'd let me go!" The terrified girl repeated as she attempted desperately to gain her footing. Beads of red were beginning to run down from her torn scalp.
"You callin' me a liar, sweetheart?" He savagely yanked her head back, then slammed her face against the glass, a sprawling web of cracks expanding at the point of impact. The young mare's protestations escalated to hysterical pleas for mercy as her blood began to run in rivulets down her face.
Starlight turned toward the chamber door the Griffon had neglected to close behind him. "Someone!" she cried out as loud as she possibly could. "Anyone! Guards! Sombra! I don't care who, just, somebody get in here!"
The brute continued to ram the hapless girl headfirst into the pane, until the deep cracks were spread across the window's length. She was dead or unconscious by the time he lifted her off her hooves, and then he sent her lifeless body crashing through the glass. The window was shattered, and so was the poor girl, when she hit the ground far below.
The cold morning air immediately filled the room, and Starlight was suddenly horrified beyond words. That was, until the Griffon began to approach her. He cracked his knuckles and said, "Now that I've improvised us an exit, you'll be comin' with me."
"Get away from me, you psychopath!" Starlight feebly crawled back until she was pressed against the headboard of the bed. The fear in her was so prevalent she gave not so much as a passing thought to how undignified she must have looked, like a terrified rabbit cornered by a fox.
"Psychopath, me?" The Griffon clicked his tongue chidingly. "Such an ableist term. I'd prefer to be referred to as 'pathologically high spirited,' if you'd be so kind."
Just then a streak bolted through the doorway. It slammed into the unsuspecting Griffon and took him to the ground. The sword sheathed at the pirate's sash was sent sliding across the floor when they went sprawling. Joji had the Griffon mounted for a brief moment, raining down blows as hard and as fast as he could throw them. The brigand brought his arm up to check a punch. When the following hoof came at him he caught it in his talon. He freed up a leg and sent the teen reeling back with a hard kick to his chest.
They both scrambled to their feet at the same time, then they rushed each other. A grappling match then ensued. Joji managed to get his arms around his opponent, then propelled him backwards until he had him pinned against the wall. "Miss Starlight," he managed through a labored grunt, "run!"
Starlight couldn't run. She couldn't even get out of bed without assistance. She didn't know what to say. She tried to speak, tried to scream for Joji to just forget about her and run away, but the words just wouldn't come.
Joji looked back at her. "Starlight, just run, I can handle--" Joji never saw the dagger, but he felt it when the pirate slipped it out from under his sash and plunged it deep into his belly, all the way to the hilt.
Starlight finally found her words, and they came tearing from her lips in a shriek. "Joji!"
The youth went down, and suddenly he was a boy again. He cried out piteously as he held the gaping wound in his belly, tears running freely from his eyes as he twisted and writhed on the floor. The Griffon then leapt on to him, and drove his blade deep into his sternum. Joji's cries turned into a grotesque cacophony of gasps and gurgles as the bones cracked. When the dagger was ripped from the center of his chest, Joji's unseeing eyes were staring lifelessly at the ceiling.
"Swing and a miss, kid." the Griffon growled as he glowered distastefully at the blood on his dagger. He approached the bed and used the quilt to wipe the blood off of it before he returned it to its sheath. "Did he think he was gonna get some ass for helping you, or something?"
Starlight couldn't take her eyes off the body splayed in the center of the room. "He was just a boy," her voice quavered.
"An' now he's friggen wormfood. Funny how that works, innit?" The Griffon grasped the sheets covering Starlight Glimmer and tore them away. "Now then, come along, poppet. The captain's just dying to meet you."