The Equestrian train system was both the oldest, and the most expansive in the world. It connected every ground based city in the country, and the majority of the smaller towns. It was said that any given pony was no more than a day’s trot away from a station. That between the trains, carriages and canals, one could get almost anywhere in the country in only a matter of days.
So Edmund was surprised to discover that there was only one train a week to Griffonstone, and while it started in Canterlot, it seemed to go through every single town and village along the way before making a long stop in Baltimare. Luckily the next train was leaving that day, but while the train left Canterlot Station just after noon, it wouldn’t arrive in Griffonstone until the following afternoon.
He was not looking forward to spending a full day stuck inside of a train, a train with no first-class accommodations and a dining car that would be staying behind in Baltimare. Twenty-six hours stuck sitting on a bench that was too small for a griffon chick, let alone a full grown tom.
At least he was able to buy both of the tickets on his bench, as well as the pair of the bench across from his. It would give him some room to stretch out his legs and wings. There might have been enough room inside of the train cars for a pegasus to hover, but only a pegasus.
Edmund expected it to be a miserable trip, a trip he still didn’t understand why he was even taking. His father’s rambling about a princess hadn’t made any sense, and there was nothing in the morning paper that could have set him off.
Still, it was not wise to go against the elder griffon’s authority, so no matter how much he didn’t want to, he was off to Griffonstone.
The train was only half full when it pulled out of the station, but it seemed just moments later it stopped at the first of many small villages along the way to let a few ponies off. The whole first leg of the trip was like that, starting and stopping over and over again. Otherwise, it was a fairly quiet trip for the eight hours it took to get to Baltimare. It gave him a chance to catch up on his reading, plowing through one of the trashy romance novels that the ponies in Canterlot seemed to love.
They did pick up a few griffons from the village just outside of Baltimare, but Edmund paid them no mind. It was only once they pulled into the station that Edmund realized that something had happened. The platform was filled with griffons, hundreds of them all packed in and fighting for a position closer to the platform edge. There were a number of uniformed ponies trying to hold back the crowd—and all but one was an earth pony—but it was barely enough.
He could hear the shouts and cries of the griffons over the sound of the train’s breaks as it lurched to a stop. Never before had he seen so many griffs in a single place. Young and old, hens and toms, it was like every griffon in the city wanted to get on the train. The whole crowd started to press forward the moment the train car doors slid open, even as the station staff tried to force them back to allow ponies to get off the train first.
It only took a couple of minutes to get most of the ponies off the train. They quickly grabbed their bags and left the platform at a full gallop, trying to avoid being crushed.
Edmund looked down the length of the car, towards the only pony remaining in it. “What in the world is going on?”
“I don’t know,” the mare replied. “I’ve never seen it this crowded before.”
He frowned, fluffing his wings out and then pulling them back against his sides. Outside the griffons were still being held back from the train, even more ponies having joined in the line to keep them in place. One stallion in a conductor’s hat was at the head of the crowd, checking tickets one at a time before letting a griffon through.
If everygriff on the platform had a ticket for the train, it was going to become an extremely uncomfortable trip.
“Excuse me, sir?” A voice asked from behind him.
Edmund turned, finding another conductor standing next to his bench. The stallion had a professional look about him, but there were still lines of worry across his face, his ears twitching every few moments.
“Yes?” Edmund asked.
The conductor cleared his throat. “The train is going to be full all the way to Griffonstone.”
“I can see that, what happened to cause it?”
The stallion glanced back out the window towards the platform before returning his attention to Edmund. “The reason I wish to speak with you, is that you have the only empty seats left on the train. We are trying to rearrange every creature so we can get more griffons onboard, and if we can move two ponies to the open bench we should have enough room for a family.”
He lifted an eyebrow, looking the stallion up and down. He was surprised they wouldn’t just put a single griffon on the bench (there was simply no room for two unless one was a chick). Of course if they were trying to shift ponies around to keep a family together… well he wasn’t so selfish not to help those in need.
“Fine, go ahead,” he said with a wave of his claw. It was going to make it tighter for him, but he didn’t really need the other bench, it was just for his convenience. He could deal with it.
A smile flashed over the conductor’s face. “Thank you so much. I’ll arrange a refund of your extra tickets once we reach Griffonstone,” he said before turning and trotting away.
Edmund sat up as the stallion headed down the aisle. “Yes, but what is going on? Why are so many griffons trying to get to Griffonstone?”
The pony came to a stop, turning back to look at him. “I don’t know, sir. It’s been so crazy here that I haven’t been able to find out, every ticket sold out within an hour as well as an extra train tomorrow. There was something in the evening papers, that’s all I know.”
With a sigh, Edmund sank back down onto the bench. “Thank you anyways,” he said, tucking his tail around his hips as his wings fluttered in frustration. While he wasn’t happy about the situation, it was pointless to try and take it out on the stallion, he was just doing his job and getting mad wouldn’t help anyone.
Griffons soon started to file into the train car, a few of them glancing his way but otherwise they stayed preoccupied with each other. He watched them very carefully, while many of them were young—a few of them still hadn’t even grown into their primaries—a number of them were middle aged or older. Many of the young ones appeared to be students judging by their saddles bags. They all looked a bit frazzled, with feathers out of place and puffed up, yet there was also an air of excitement around them. Many of them were talking to each other in hushed tones about something he couldn’t quite make out.
A pair of ponies entered the car between the griffons. Both were unicorns and both had heavily packed saddle bags hanging from their flanks. The two of them, a stallion and a mare, stopped at the bench across from Edmund, pushing their bags under the seat (the mare having to use her magic to force it into the tight space) before sitting down.
“Thank you so much,” the stallion said as he sat on the bench. “You have no idea just how much you helped us.”
Edmund just gave them a flat look. “Do you at least know what has gotten everygriff so riled up?”
“You don’t know?” The mare asked, pulling back in shock even as the stallion pulled his bag free with a yank of his magic, digging inside for a few moments before pulling out a copy of the evening newspaper and passing it over to the griffon.
He took the paper in his talons and unfolded the front page, revealing the headline to him.
Griffon Kingdom to Become Part of Equestria!
Edmund just stared at the paper, reading the words over and over again as if somehow they would start to make some sort of sense. Finally he opened the paper and started skimming over the story, his stomach dropping all the way down to his paws as he suddenly understood exactly what his father’s ranting had been about and what the old tom wanted him to do.
The two ponies watched his reaction, his eyebrows rising up into the feathers of his crest. “You really didn’t know?” the stallion asked.
“No, I did not,” Edmund replied, slowly folded up the paper and rested it on the bench next to him. “Though clearly my father somehow knew about this. He sent me to Griffonstone this morning.”
The ponies glanced at each other, eyes narrowing as they made small motions with their eyes and ears. Finally the mare turned her attention back to Edmund. “I’m Linecast, and this is Linotype, we’re with the Canterlot Chronicle. We were covering the Baltimare Garlic Festival when Celestia announced the treaty this afternoon. We’re hoping to be the first press to reach Griffonstone.”
A small smile crept onto Edmund’s beak. While ponies seemed to put an inordinate amount of faith in friendship and fairness, they weren’t really that different from griffons when it came to the important things in life.
Even more griffons were pressing into the train car, starting to fill up every available bench and even crowding into the aisle. Most of them were trying to press two to a bench, which often resulted in a griffon being forced onto the floor. The only ones with any reasonable amount of room was himself and the two reporter ponies, even the other pony in the car was shoved up next to an excited griffon hen.
“Now, you said that your father sent you to Griffonstone. Who is your father, and how did he know to send you this morning?” Linecast asked, having pulled out a small notepad from her saddle bag. It hung in the pink glow of her magic, the tip of a pencil was pressed up against the sheet.
“My father is Ambassador Greycrest,” Edmund replied, finding no harm in being honest with them for the moment. “I do not know how he knew, perhaps Celestia decided to inform him before making any official proclamations.”
The two ponies shared another look as the stallion pulled out his own notepad, this one held in a dark green magical glow. They both wrote something as the train car grew louder as more griffons started squawking at each other due to the lack of space.
“If the ambassador is your father, then who are you?” Linecast asked.
“Edmund,” he replied with a shrug of his wings.
“Well, Edmund, do you mind if we ask you some questions?” Linotype asked, a predatory gleam shining in his greenish blue eyes.
The night had settled over Griffonstone, pulling down the familiar chill of the high mountain air, but it had done nothing to temper the spirits of the griffons in town. There were a number of bonfires burning all around the town—thankfully no buildings—with griffons gathered all around them, talking, laughing, or passing around some hard won drinks. There was a spirit of celebration about it, a feeling of relief, like heavy rains after a long drought. It had calmed down slightly since that morning, when Gilda had announced that the referendum on the treaty had passed, and would become official in mere days.
There had been a small part of Gilda that had hoped the griffons would come to their senses and reject the treaty, freeing her of her new unwanted title. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what had happened. Instead, nearly three quarters of the country had voted for it, and unlike herself she had made sure that they all had time to read over every line of it.
And now the griffons were celebrating becoming a part of Equestria—with a few exceptions, judging by the brick that had gone through her window that evening—but they were a small minority. If anygriff had told her just a few weeks ago that the griffons would want to live like ponies, she would have laughed in their face.
At least they weren’t breaking out in song! She couldn't even begin to imagine just how bad a thousand griffons all trying to carry a tune would be.
Gilda herself was lying down on the roof of her home—a place that had been meant to become a bakery but now had turned into some kind of throne room. Her stomach was pressed against the clay tiles and her wings were spread out to help break up her shape in the dark. She was hiding from all the griffons that had been trying to see her the whole damn day, not that she would ever admit it.
The fact that it gave her a good view of the town, and all the celebrating griffons, had nothing at all to do with why she was up there.
A few moments later, there was a wash of air as Grandpa Gruff flared his wings to land on the roof, dropping with a thud at her side. The old buzzard pulled his wings closed as he gave her a stern look with his one good eye. “Hiding doesn’t make you much of a princess.”
She just rolled her eyes and looked back over the town. “Do you see a crown on my head? I’m not trying to be a princess, at least not right now.”
Gruff snorted and slapped his tail against her flank. “Try? Who the hell tries to be a princess? It’s a part of who you are now, Gilda. You don’t stop being a princess just because you took off some stupid crown.”
She folded her foreclaws over each other and rested her chin on top of them. “I don’t want to be a princess. What kind of job is that for a griffon?”
“It’s your job,” he replied, moving to perch on the edge of the roof, his good eye never looking away from her.
“It was supposed to be your job,” she replied.
That made him chuckle as he pulled off his fez, setting it down on the roof between them. His bald head glowed brightly in the moonlight. “No griff would have wanted me to be a princess. They like you, but they just put up with me.”
Gilda let out a snort, finally lifting her head to look back at him. “You raised half the griffs in town, myself included.”
“Hardly,” he said with a snort of his own, though there was just the smallest hint of a smile peeking out of the corner of his beak. The old tom was the closest thing she had ever had to a father, much like a half a dozen other cuckoos who had grown up under his wings. At the moment he only had two beaks to feed, Grizzle and Gallus, but they were both a clawful.
“Most of them didn’t amount to much,” Gruff finally admitted. “I don’t like to fall into that sentimental sap of saying you were meant for great things, because that’s a pile of minotaur manure. You were always going to make the life that you wanted, and when you found something you wanted you sank your talons into it and never let go.”
Gilda wanted to protest that, but found that she couldn’t. “I never wanted to be a princess,” she said.
“No, Gilda. You just wanted to make the griffons here happier,” Gruff replied, and before she could say anything in protest he preemptively cut her off. “Oh, don’t try and deny it. That’s why you like being a baker. Your scones put smiles on their beaks, and you like how that makes you feel. These last couple of years you’ve done everything you can to make Griffonstone a better place.”
“Hardly,” she scoffed. “I just wanted a proper bakery.”
Gruff turned his head to look at her with both of his eyes. “And why did you want that? If you just wanted to bake you could have used your cart, so why did you have to build a shop? And why did you hire your friend and that pony? And why did you put it right in the center of town? Hum?”
“Because I wanted to make bits!” she snapped.
With a chuckle, he slowly shook his head. “You’re just like your little sister. You never cared about bits.”
“Gabriella is not my sister,” she growled. “We just grew up together because you were the only one stupid enough to feed either of us.”
Grandpa Gruff smiled, then reached out to place a claw on the small of her back, resting it between the base of her wings. “Gilda, you want to make this hellhole just a little bit better,” he said, the hardness of his voice melting slightly. “The griffons around here would never have accepted me leading them, but you’ve connected with them. You did make this place better, even if it was just a little bit, and they remember that. They made you the princess because they knew that of all griffons here, you would actually try and make this better for everygriff.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, slowly letting out a long breath as she let that sink in. “Do you really think I can do this, Grandpa Gruff? That I can lead all of us and somehow restore the Griffon Kingdom to its former glory?”
“Nope,” he replied.
Gilda’s eyes shot back open as she glared at the old bastard. “Thank you for the vote of confidence,” she snarled.
He just shook his head. “What former glory, hum? A bunch of nobles fighting over every last talon and leaving the scraps for the rest of us? No griff wants to go back to living like that! I think that you and those ponies can rebuild the kingdom into something better than a bunch of griffs worshiping that damn idol.”
“Really?”
He reached out and gently ran his talons over the feathers of her head. “Really.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. It was one thing to have Princess Celestia think that she could somehow make Griffonstone a better place, but Grandpa Gruff?
A moment later he pulled his claws away and grabbed his fez, slamming it back onto his head. “And you had better do it too, as you still owe me all the bits I spent raising you,” he said, then leapt off the roof.
Gilda watched the buzzard vanish into the night, then turned her attention back to the town. She had no idea if Gruff was right, but he had always been there for her. When she went to a pony school, chased after her old friend, or tried to build a bakery, he was always there for her. He might have been hard, he might have been mean, but he had always believed in her.
And if Grandpa Gruff could believe in her, then maybe she really could find it in herself to be a princess.