The moment the carriage door opened, I was assaulted by humidity. The air felt thick, like I could reach out and cut it with my talons. The air conditioning in the coach was no match for the soup that was rushing in to replace it. I hesitated to step out, letting a few of the other passengers take the initiative first. A couple of hippogriffs and several ponies walked outside like nothing was wrong, like the air wasn’t trying to suffocate them.
Maybe that’s just the nerves talking. I took a deep breath of that hot, heavy air and held it. There wasn’t anything stopping me. The air was humid, but I could still breathe. Yonder lay opportunity, a land that could hold anything and anyone.
I guess that was what scared me. Regardless of my fear, the train wouldn’t stay here forever, and I only had a one-way ticket. I let the breath go and stepped out of the train car, forward into oblivion.
The air was warm, but the sun was warmer. I could feel the heat through my feathers almost instantly, and I knew I’d be drenched with sweat in no time. I slung my bag over my shoulder and walked down the platform, slipping past several groups of passengers standing around talking amongst themselves.
The whole time, however, my eyes were drawn upward, towards the mountain itself. To call it a spectacle would be an understatement—it was tall and steep, though that alone wasn’t what set it apart; two great walls of stone wrapped around the sides of the peak, resembling a pair of huge outstretched wings, extending from a tall spire at the summit. They seemed to float in place separately from the mountain, cradling the city on the hill and protecting it from some huge, invisible attacker.
I could see two clusters of buildings, one around the base of Mount Aris, and the other at the summit. A smattering of others filled the space between the two main groups, built in random places along the winding path that climbed the steep slope. It zigzagged back and forth a dozen times on its way up to the top. Judging by how small the buildings looked from here, each wing was probably at least a mile long from the spire to the tips near the base.
I had to stop for a moment to marvel. I’d seen pictures of it before, but none of them did justice to the scale of the place.
“Gallus!”
Before I had more time to gawk, my vision suddenly filled with pink and blue and my chest was crushed in a wickedly tight hug.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so happy to see you!”
Silverstream caught me off guard, to say the least. I returned her hug briefly, but cut it short with a step backward. “Good to see you, too,” I said.
“How was the trip?” she asked, smiling wide.
“It was alright,” I said, smoothing out the feathers that she’d ruffled on my back. “About like any other train trip I’ve ever taken, but I haven’t ever slept on a train, so that was new.”
“That’s my favorite part! I sleep like a baby every time I come back from Ponyville.”
I yawned. “Honestly, I’ve had better. Didn’t care for all the rocking, and it was… noisy.”
Silverstream giggled and beckoned towards me with an outstretched claw. “I bet you’ll sleep well tonight once you’re settled. Speaking of which, we need to get moving. Follow me!”
We left the platform and went down some stairs that led to a stone walkway which paralleled the beach. More hippogriffs were out there in the sand, and I could see a few seaponies hanging out in the shallows near them. Families, maybe? Silverstream had mentioned that a lot of hippogriffs went back and forth between land and sea.
“So, how did you know exactly when I’d be here?” I asked.
“Pssh, it isn’t rocket science, Gallus,” she said. “We get two trains every day at the same times and I figured you’d be on one of them, so I just came down here to watch for you. Good thing you were on the first one, otherwise that would have been a waste of thirty minutes.”
“Fair enough,” I said, and we continued our walk. The path was level down by the sea, but it quickly turned upwards, and so we climbed.
We passed a building on my right, and I again found myself staring. It looked strange, the walls composed of some kind of faintly translucent material that looked like glass but clearly wasn’t, this particular one the color of solidified orange juice. Large panels of this mystery material were set into a wooden frame. It and most of the other buildings I could see were round, the ovular wall panels bound together at the top by more triangular ones of the same material, coming together in a point like a circus tent.
“Gotta say, these buildings are… interesting,” I commented.
“Yep! Aren’t they great?”
“I was thinking more like weird.”
Silverstream’s ears flattened a bit. “You don’t like them?”
“No, they’re fine!” I said, covering my tracks. That hadn’t been worded well. “I just haven’t ever seen buildings made of… whatever that stuff is.” I pointed to the building, which at that moment, a tall hippogriff was walking out of with a small bag. She gave me a funny look, to which I replied with an awkward smile and wave.
“Oh, yeah. I guess our buildings do look a little different. We used to make them like ponies do with more wood and stuff, but we had to build differently when we went underwater. Now that we’re back on the surface, we decided we liked how open the buildings underwater felt, so that’s how we build them now!”
I decided not to mention my distaste for the fact that I’d be visible most times of the day, or at least my silhouette would be. “Are they sturdy?”
“Mhm! They’re totally safe if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said, dismissing my concern with a wave of her claw.
I shrugged and we kept walking for a few feet before Silverstream darted ahead and spread her wings, taking to the air. “Come on!” she shouted over her shoulder.
I followed suit. I hadn’t gotten the chance to stretch my wings in the last forty-eight hours, and I could feel the stiffness in them as I flapped hard to keep up with her. She was light and fast, apparently just a little more so than me; she gained a considerable lead on me before she noticed me lagging and waited up.
“Sluggish?” she asked as I closed the gap.
“Just smelling the roses,” I said with a chuckle.
She giggled and started off again, this time keeping her speed in check. Our flight up was leisurely, allowing me time to take in more of the scenery. Mount Aris was an island, or at least it had been until the rail line was built. The causeway across the shallow bay that separated Aris from the mainland was obviously built by creatures, just as were the massive stone wings that surrounded it on all sides but one.
Below us, the path up the side of the mountain zigzagged lazily to and fro. I could make out the faint multicolored dots of what I assumed were ponies making their way along it. It figured that the majority of the traffic on that path was tourists; it made little sense for a hippogriff to trudge up the mountain when flying was infinitely easier.
As we gained altitude, the humidity steadily decreased alongside the temperature. Where it’d been hot and muggy at the beach, it was much more pleasant and dry as we approached the altitude of the summit.
Now I get why they chose to live up here, I mused. The city at the top of the mountain came into view bit by bit as we rose. A great stone arch chiseled into the visage of two hippogriffs facing each other marked the official beginning of the city. It sat a little past halfway up the grade, and from there on, it was a forest of activity and color. Much like Griffonstone, most of the buildings in the city appeared to be built atop large trees, the weird carousel-shaped glass huts occupying branches in random sequences, nothing like the regularity and structure of Ponyville’s buildings.
It reminded me of home. I still needed to decide if that was a good thing.
We lowered our angle of ascent, closing in on a landing atop the mountain, and I shook that thought from my head. Of course it wasn’t like Griffonstone. Hippogriffs were probably the only species more enthusiastic to be alive than ponies. The streets below me were full of color and life, hippogriffs out and about in droves; I could already hear the dull roar of activity, even from the air. It was as polar opposite a place to home as I could hope for.
I smiled to myself and looked ahead to Silverstream. “So, what’s the game plan?”
She slowed down and fell in beside me. “Seaspray is really in a hurry to get this going, so we’re gonna drop by your new place for a minute and then go right to him.”
“No sightseeing?”
She shook her head. “Nope! I have to get you there S-T-P!”
I cocked an eyebrow. “S-T-P?"
“Sooner than possible!”
I frowned, slightly disappointed. I’d never so much as seen anywhere as stunning as Mount Aris before, so I’d been hoping for some time to explore the city. It made sense, though. I wasn’t exactly here on vacation.
We came in for a landing in the middle of what looked to be a market square. Our arrival was a mere drop in the bucket, hardly noticed amongst the general bustle of the crowd as they went in and out of the shops that lined the outside of the open space. Now that I was on the ground, I could get a better feel for the way hippogriffs liked to build. Some houses were free-standing, like the ones on the beach at the base of the mountain, but the majority of the homes were built in the trunks of the small forest of thick trees that grew up here. They still made use of the glass carousels toward the tops of the trees, building rooms atop forks in the branches.
“My new place?” I asked. “You mean I get my own… hut? Carousel? Whatever they’re called?”
“House,” she corrected. “And kinda, sorta. You won’t be alone, but you’ll have your own room and share the place with another griff.”
“So, like an apartment?”
“Yep!”
“Huh. I kinda figured I’d be staying with you or something,” I said.
She laughed. “I wish, but we don’t have a spare room up here. I wouldn’t make you just sleep on the couch for the whole summer.”
“That’s still better than if I’d gone home,” I muttered. Silverstream looked back at me with a grimace. I’d picked at the sympathy again without intending to. I’d already done enough of that to get myself here in the first place, so I elected to ignore it. “Shall we?” I gestured toward the path to start us moving again.
I’d lost my sense of direction, but it felt like we took a road northeast out of the market square. The forest of tree houses formed a sort of canopy above the path, providing some shade which I was thankful for.
We walked for a couple of minutes on this street, took a right at the first intersection we found, and then stopped at the fourth house down that road. It was fairly small compared to the others on the row, but it was still a very large tree. I’d seen the remains of Ponyville’s old library hanging from the ceiling of Twilight Sparkle’s castle; this looked to have a similar diameter, large enough to fit an entire not-so-small room inside of it. On either side of the tree about ten feet above the ground, two branches—either about as thick as my wingspan—split off from the trunk, and perched atop those branches were more of the translucent circus-tent-room-things.
Silverstream had been wearing a key alongside her usual pearl fragment necklace, and she leaned up close to the lock to use it, not bothering to take the necklace off. The door opened into a dark room, thin streaks of blue light slicing across from windows on the far side of the tree. Silverstream flicked the lights on with a sweep of her tail and turned to me.
“Here we are!” she announced, singing the last word.
I stepped into the den and took a look around. The decorating was sparse, just a simple picture of some kind of purple flower hanging on the back wall. The den was dual-purpose, a small living room with a row of countertops and a stove on the right wall that formed a tiny kitchenette. On either side of the room was a hallway, which I assumed led up to the bedrooms.
“Cozy,” I commented, the faintest hint of sarcasm in my tone.
“Very cozy,” she agreed, apparently missing it. “Your room is gonna be up the ramp over here.” She gestured to the hall on the left side of the room.
I walked over to it and immediately noticed that it was more of a tube than a ramp. The hall was round except for the floor, and I could easily tell that it was hollowed out from one of those big branches I’d seen outside.
I climbed the ramp. The tube was just tall enough to keep me from freaking out about how enclosed it felt, but still not open enough to make me feel comfortable. At least it was short, only rising a few feet from the level of the den before it opened out into the bedroom, which felt very opposite to the common areas of the apartment. The big panels of translucent stuff—I decided I was just going to call them windows now—made the room feel much more open, despite not being all that much bigger than the den. The ceiling was much higher, even affording me enough room to spread my wings and hover a few feet off the ground. The room was round, with a bed on the far side from the doorway. Next to it was a nightstand, and that was it. No decorations, just a crystal light fixture hanging from the center of the ceiling, and no...
“Uh, Silverstream? Where’s the bathroom?”
“Why? You need to go?”
I blanched at her. “No. But I didn’t see one anywhere. Don’t tell me I have to go outside.”
“Oh!” Silverstream giggled and pointed back toward the hallway. “It’s downstairs. There’s a hatch next to the stove that goes down into it.”
Again, I blanched. “A hatch?”
Silverstream nodded at me, expecting me to fully understand, but when I kept staring at her for a few seconds, she took the hint. “Let me show you.” She led me back down the tube hallway and into the den, pointing to what was—sure enough—a handle sticking up out of the floor. I inspected it, lifting up on the door and swinging it up against the back wall.
“No latch,” I observed. “Privacy isn’t a huge concern to hippogriffs, is it?”
“Well, you don’t want to get locked in down there, do you?”
My mouth went dry as I thought of being trapped in a small, dark hole in the ground. I took a quick breath and tried to push the idea out of my head, instead sticking my head down into the hole. Sure enough, it was just as advertised: A small, windowless basement about six feet by six feet, a toilet, shower, and sink all packed in tight with just enough space to maneuver.
I closed the hatch, and then immediately had another thought cross my mind. “So, what if something falls on the hatch and traps me down there?”
“There’s a hatchet in the medicine cabinet,” said Silverstream. Her face was just deadpan enough to tell me that she wasn’t kidding. “And the door is designed to break off pretty easily.”
Once more my stomach twisted itself into a knot as I thought of trying to hack my way out of a small subterranean bathroom with nothing but desperation and a tiny ax. “Can I just ask, why? Why not make the bathroom a normal room?”
Silverstream shrugged. “I dunno. I didn’t design the house, Gallus."
I blew a breath up into my crest. “Right.”
The room was silent for a moment as I took it all in. This place was definitely going to play with my fear of tight spaces, especially that bathroom. Everything looked pretty barren, and I would always be visible from all sides when I was in my room.
My thoughts must have been plainly written across my face because Silverstream’s eyes saddened. “Do you not like it?”
“I... no, it’s fine,” I said, scratching the back of my head. I turned in a circle, looking around the den one more time. I really didn’t like how low the ceiling felt.
“I can try to find you a better one if you—”
“No,” I said quickly. “It’s going to take a little getting used to, but I’ll be fine here. No worries.”
“Well, I don’t want you to hate the place you’re living in,” she said.
“I don’t hate it,” I clarified. “I just…I don’t really know how to process all this. It’s a lot to take in.” I paused for a moment and looked over the room again. As I did, one of the lessons from school played through my head.
I folded my wings in and lowered my gaze. “Thank you, Silverstream.”
“Aww, you’re welcome! Like I said, it wasn’t a big deal. I’d do this for any of you guys,” she said with a smile. “Go drop your bag off in your room and let’s go. Can’t keep the General waiting!”
I smiled and scurried up the tube, dropping my saddlebags just inside of the door to my room.
My room.
I smiled wider.
My room that I’d basically conned her into giving me.
My smile drooped.
Out on the front steps, Silverstream locked the door behind herself and started walking down the road the way we had come in. The whole fifteen minutes I’d been here had been a whirlwind of information, but I still had questions that needed answering. “So,” I began, “What’s this roommate of mine like?”
“His name is Typhoon Swirl,” she said. “I’ve never met him, but my dad was the one that found the apartment for you. He’s another sailor in the Navy, but that’s all I know.”
I nodded and then felt the urge to laugh. “So, let me get this straight. I came thousands of miles to take a job that I didn’t even ask for, and I’m moving in with a strange hippogriff I’ve never met, in a city I’ve never been to.”
Silverstream laughed too. “Yep!”
“I love it.”
The Hippogriff Navy’s headquarters was located near the sea-level portion of the city, though it was very different from the other buildings. In fact, it wasn’t much of a building at all. Instead of a free-standing structure, the headquarters was carved into the side of the mountain itself, directly underneath the right side wing. The stone wings opened to the west, so that meant it was on the south face of the mountain, I told myself. I could see multiple levels of windows above the main entrance, so the labyrinth inside must have been fairly extensive. It made me wonder if the whole mountain had tunnels running through it.
Silverstream dropped me off in the main lobby, which looked a lot like any waiting room I’d ever seen: plain white walls and a row of chairs with some more-than-likely outdated magazines on a table. I checked in with the receptionist, and less than a minute later, she took me back further into the base.
For being underground, I had to admit that the base was more spacious than I expected. The corridors had obviously been designed with flyers in mind; it was common among griffons to not be fond of tight spaces, and I assumed that also rang true with hippogriffs and pegasi. Being able to fly meant that I was a lot more conscious of how much room I had above me than land-bound creatures, or at least that was what Sandbar made of it when we’d wandered into a discussion on the differences between griffons and ponies a few months ago.
General Seaspray’s office was on the third floor. On the way up the stairs and down the stone halls, I passed a number of hippogriffs who looked… surprisingly casual. I’d expected uniforms, and I’d also expected them to be more formal than what these griffs were wearing. It was a simple yellow vest with a two-layer green neckline. Some of them also wore a green bandana on their heads, but others didn’t. I decided to chalk it up to utility. It didn’t make much sense to wear something fancy and official-looking when it’d probably be ruined by the sea anyway.
His office was at the end of a long hallway that led back toward the front of the base. The door was open, and the receptionist announced our presence by knocking on the doorframe. “General Seaspray, Gallus the Griffon here to see you, sir.” She patted me on the shoulder with a smile, and then left me alone.
I stepped into the office, and that was right when my nerves decided to kick into gear. I’d done well to not sweat the upcoming interview all day, but now that I was here, the butterflies in my stomach decided it was the perfect time to swarm. Before me sat a hippogriff who commanded an entire navy, and I had to impress him enough to let me stay here and serve under him for the next few months.
No pressure.
He looked up from the paperwork on his desk and smiled. “Mister Gallus,” he said, his voice carrying an accent very unlike that of the other hippogriffs I’d heard. It was the sort of posh voice I’d expect out of nobility, though I could tell from the scars on his cheek that he was not a member of that group. “So glad you could make it on such short notice.” He stood and reached across the desk, offering a clawshake. I stepped forward, perhaps a little quicker than I should have, and shook it.
I didn’t know much about the formalities required when speaking to a general, but I’d seen enough movies to know that I needed to end every sentence with a ‘sir’. “Glad to be here, sir,” I said.
“Quite a grip you’ve got there,” he said, lacking the smile I thought should have come with a statement of that nature. He let go of my claws and returned to his chair. “Have a seat. This shouldn’t take terribly long.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. I took my seat carefully, trying to keep my posture from looking too relaxed. The General’s gaze was calculating and piercing; I could feel him analyzing every move I made and didn’t make, which left me a nervous wreck. His face remained painfully neutral and flat, which gave me no clues on how I was doing.
General Seaspray reached down into one of his desk drawers and produced a thin folder, dropping it on the table between us with a brazen slap. He opened it up and pulled out the first few pages, pausing to put his glasses on before he read. “Right, then. Gallus the Griffon, resident of Griffonstone. You want to be a part of my Navy.”
“Yes, sir. I do.”
General Seaspray hummed. “Fascinating,” he said.
Of all the responses I could have expected from him, that one wasn’t high on the list. “Sir?”
He didn’t acknowledge my confusion. “I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a griffon apply to join my ranks. If I may ask, what led you here? To this job, of all things?”
“If I’m being totally honest, it wasn’t my idea,” I said. Seaspray cocked an eyebrow. “Sir,” I added.
“You’re not a part of my Navy just yet. You can leave off the ‘sir’,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said. “It wasn’t entirely my idea. My friend Silverstream…”
“Silverstream brought you here?” he asked, turning his attention to the paper that I assumed held some sort of application form. “That explains a lot of things. I thought I recognized you from somewhere. You go to Equestria’s Friendship School with her, don’t you?”
“Yes, that’s me."
Seaspray nodded, but the lack of a smile on his face wasn’t encouraging. “Now I know why they sent you to me instead of the recruiter downstairs. I knew this had royal claw marks all over it the moment it landed on my desk.” He didn’t seem to be speaking to me in particular, but his eyes stayed locked on me.
I wanted to hide.
I breathed a sigh of relief in my head when he took his stare off of me and returned his attention to the papers on the desk. He removed the others from the folder and read through them, leaving a heavily pregnant silence in the room for several agonizing minutes. With every tick of the clock that I was now acutely aware of on the wall behind me, I felt my hopes wither.
It wasn’t going to work out. Maybe I could spend a few days here with Silverstream, but unless her family was going to pay the rent on my apartment, I’d have to go back to Griffonstone.
Or maybe I could rough it out here? Find some odd jobs, maybe go out in the wilderness and spend my summer foraging? I’d done worse before.
“Alright, Gallus, here’s what we have,” said Seaspray, pulling me from my thoughts. “This is very peculiar. According to this, the royal family has ordered me to provide you with a temporary job for the summer. Not much else here, other than some background information and a temporary work permit authorized by your guardian, one Grandpa Gruff. Swell name.”
I held my breath.
Seaspray removed his glasses and placed them carefully on the desk. “I can’t say I’ve ever had this happen before in my twenty years as a general, so you’re going to have to bear with me.” He paused briefly and leafed through the papers again. “I suppose we can start with you telling me a little about yourself in your own words.”
“Alright,” I said, letting my breath out. Apparently, his wings were tied into giving me a job, and I felt my nerves calm. Now it was just an interview, and one with a guaranteed position at the end of it. I decided to go with the abridged version. “I’m not super interesting, really. I grew up in Griffonstone, it was alright, and then last year I got sent to school in Equestria. I made some friends, and life is pretty good now.”
Seaspray frowned and shook his head. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to give interviews, so I must be a little rusty. Let me be more specific. I have all the details I need of your history right here, but I need to know how you see yourself. What kind of griffon are you? Why do you think you’ll be a good sailor?”
“Ah, okay.” I mulled it over in my head for a moment. “I guess I’m just… chill. I’m good with just about anything, I’m a pretty quick learner, I can handle myself in a fight, and I like green. Being a sailor is probably not much different than any other job, once I get trained for it. I know how to work hard, and I work well with others. Anything else, I can learn along the way.”
Seaspray wrote something quickly on the bottom of my file. “Good enough,” he said, flipping the folder closed. “Let’s move on. I assume you’ve taken a fitness assessment?”
I shook my head, and Seaspray scowled. “I swear, I’ve never seen a more disorganized…” he muttered, cutting his sentence short. “That is the first thing you’ll do when you leave here.” He took out a notepad and hastily scrawled something across it, tore the page off, and slid it across the desk to me. “Take that to the medical department. The secretary who led you in will tell you where to go.”
“So, is that it?” I asked.
“Almost. I still haven’t quite figured out what to do with you.” He stood and went to a file cabinet on the wall to my left, pulling out the top drawer and another file, this one stuffed to the brim, unlike mine. He skimmed through several pages, leaving me with a little more time to think.
I didn’t like this. Seaspray was obviously very unprepared, and even more obviously wasn’t happy about it. I felt unwelcome sitting in that chair, like an intruder that someone had dumped in his lap. Looking at it from this perspective, I could see exactly why. A General of the Hippogriff Navy was being forced to play along with Silverstream’s harebrained scheme, which she had somehow gotten the Queen to go along with. Of course it was going to ruffle some feathers.
Finally, he looked up to me. “Here we are. We have an opening in the shipyard right now. You’ll be part of the crew that helps outfit our ships for their patrols. Loading supplies, all that manner of thing. It doesn’t require much in the way of training, and it won’t land you in any real danger. The last thing I need right now is an international incident if you get hurt out there.”
“So I won’t get to go out on the boats?” I asked.
Seaspray deadpanned. “You can turn it down if you’d like.”
I got the message loud and clear. “I’ll take it.”
“Good,” he grumbled. “Go down to medical and get yourself evaluated. If you pass, you start at seven o’clock tomorrow morning, sharp.”
“Thank you,” I said, rising to leave.
“The sir is mandatory now.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, saluting him in what I assumed was the proper form.
Apparently, it wasn’t. He snapped a rigid, straight-backed salute to me. “You have much to learn, recruit.” He said my new title with a thinly veiled sneer. “Dismissed.”
I power walked out of the room as fast as I could.
My physical evaluation went smoothly. I tried to keep myself in adequate shape on my own, so they deemed me fit for service, though the hippogriff who did the evaluation recommended that I start a regimen of exercises to bring myself up to the Navy’s standards. She gave me some information on what to incorporate into my workouts and sent me on my way.
It was mid-afternoon when I stepped out of headquarters, a new job under my belt and a sense of dread in my gut. I knew when I wasn’t wanted, and Seaspray had made it abundantly clear that he was unhappy about my presence. If the whole summer was going to be like that, I wasn’t quite sure that it was worth it.
Heck, I bet this arrangement isn’t binding. I could probably walk up to him and say I want out any time, and he’d instantly take me up on the offer. It would have made a lot of things easier for a lot of griffs if I hit the eject button, but that train of thought derailed when I thought of Silverstream. She stuck her neck out and jumped through a lot of hoops to get me here. If I screwed it up, it’d probably look worse for her than it would for me.
And so my mind was made up. I was sticking with it, for better or worse. I walked along the beach with a bit of pride draped over that hollow feeling of dread. I was now a navy griffon. Regardless of my rank, something felt official about that: something honorable.
A hippogriff soared over my head out to the water, and when he was about five feet above the surface, a swirling flash of light consumed his arms and legs, replacing them with a fish tail and fins. He let out a whoop and plummeted the remaining distance until it culminated in a thunderous splash.
I laughed. Being able to breathe underwater looked fun. I hoped Silverstream would take me down there soon.
Realization dawned on me. “Crap,” I muttered. Silverstream hadn’t told me where to find her when I got done. I didn’t know where she lived, and I didn’t know where to find someone who did. I didn’t have any money on me, and I was on my own with an empty stomach. I clicked my beak and kicked a pebble, launching it into the water a few feet away. “Now what do I do?”
I spent the next several hours looking for an answer to that question. I started off trying and failing miserably to skip rocks at the beach, but quickly grew bored and decided to try exploring the town a bit.
I only succeeded in getting myself lost several times. I started in the lower city, but most of that was devoted to retail space, so I flew up to the top of the mountain. It certainly looked a lot smaller from far away. Up close, the city at the top of the mountain sprawled out in a complex, seemingly chaotic tangle of buildings and roads, and I got lost in it almost as soon as I landed. I wandered on unfamiliar streets for the better part of half an hour before I aborted the mission, taking to the air to reset. I flew out from the mountain a bit, trying to retrace the path Silverstream had taken me on that morning. It took me several tries before I found the right market square to land in, but once I had that tiny bit of familiar space, I made my way to the apartment in short order.
Scatterbrained as she was, at least Silverstream had remembered to give me a key to the place. Since I’d been operating near sensory overload all day long, I thanked my lucky stars that she had remembered; I doubt I would have thought to ask. I pushed the key into the lock and turned it.
Lo and behold, the door was already unlocked. I need to go stare at the ceiling for a while, I thought as I stepped into the den. The lights were on, and there in the kitchen, holding a bowl of cereal and staring at me with wide eyes was a hippogriff with golden-yellow feathers and a pale red mane and tail.
He continued chewing and waved his free claw at me. “Sup,” he said, beak still partly full.
“Hey,” I said, closing the door behind myself.
The hippogriff swallowed. “You the new tenant?”
“Yep, that’s me.”
“Sweet,” he said, taking another bite. “I heard I was getting a new roommate but I didn’t figure you’d be here this fast.”
“I didn’t either,”’ I said, which earned a smile from my new roommate. He set his bowl down on the counter and crossed the room towards me. “You’re Typhoon Swirl, right?”
“Yep, call me Ty,” he said, offering me a clawshake.
“Gallus.”
“Right on,” Ty said. “Can’t say I expected a griffon when they told me about a new tenant. You new in town?”
“Yep, brand new,” I said. “Just got off the train this morning.”
“Gotcha.” Ty motioned for me to come with, and I followed him to the kitchen. “You hungry?”
“I haven’t had anything today. I’m stuffed,” I said.
Ty smiled at my snark, gave me a nod, and pointed to the cereal box he had sitting on the cabinet. “Then you, my friend, are in for a treat. Cinnamon Blasted Oat Munch, the breakfast of the gods. For dinner.” He produced a bowl for me and filled it, the flakes and clusters of cereal ringing against the porcelain bowl. I took the bowl and went to take a bite, but he stopped me. “Bro, you’re not going to eat it dry, are you?”
“I’m not much of a dairy guy,” I said. I had to admit, milk tasted great, but I wasn’t a fan of the after effects it had on my stomach. Lactose intolerance was pretty much universal among griffons.
“Fair enough,” said Ty, leaving me to eat. This still counted as pony food, or at least it fit with the universally vegetarian diet of Equestria, so I wasn’t super enthusiastic to try it. When I took a bite, I was only slightly impressed. The cinnamon was good, but it didn’t mask the blandness of the cereal it was on.
“Well?” said Ty.
“It’s good,” I lied. As unenthused as I was, it was still food, and my stomach screamed for more. I took to shoveling it in as fast as I could, just to get my hunger sated.
“Few can resist the charms of cinnamon sugar,” said Ty. “So, what brings a griffon like you out to Mount Aris? I can’t say I’ve ever seen but one or two, and they were just tourists.”
“Yeah, griffons don’t get out much.” From what I remembered of the few history lessons I’d had in school, the Griffon Empire had only opened its borders to outsiders in the last decade or so, and there hadn’t been a lot of traffic across them since then. “I’m here to take a job for the summer.”
“Mm, whatcha doing?”
“I joined the Navy,” I said.
For some reason, Ty pumped a fist in the air, his mouthful of cinnamon oats the only thing keeping him from shouting. He held up a finger while he finished chewing, and as soon as he swallowed, he said, “Dude, welcome to the family! Have you gotten a job assignment yet?”
“I’m working in the shipyard. Resupply or something like that.”
“Respectable,” said Ty. “I’ll probably be seeing you there tomorrow. My ship is about ready to come in for service.”
“You’re a sailor?”
“Yep, first mate on the Eidothea.”
I hummed. “That’s cool. What are the odds we’d be rooming together, both of us being in the Navy?”
“Pretty good, honestly,” Ty said. “A lot of the sailors live in apartments up here. Seems like every other week, someone puts up a request for roommates on our bulletin board.”
“How many other sailors are there?” I asked.
“About two thousand of us stationed here at any given time. We’ve got several bases spread out around the South Sea, though. This one here is the main one.”
I nodded and finished the last of my cereal. My stomach still felt half-empty, but at least the cinnamon crunch stuff took the edge off.
“Wait a second. Did you say you were here just for the summer?” Ty asked.
“Uh-huh, through the middle of August.” I could sense where his next question was heading, so I continued, “It’s a weird arrangement, or so I’m told. General Seaspray wasn’t too happy about it.”
“I didn’t realize we did temporary positions. That’s weird.”
I chuckled. “I don’t think they did until today.”
Ty laughed and took my bowl over to the sink to wash it. “Alright, so I guess let’s get the ground rules out of the way. I don’t ask for much, but there’s a couple of things I can’t let you get away with. First off, washcloths do not stay in the shower when you’re done with them, and dishes in the sink are a no-no. Otherwise, the place is yours, you can go as crazy as you want without getting yourself or me evicted.”
“Sounds fair to me,” I said.
“Anything you want to add for me?”
I didn’t really have a response to his question. I could count on one claw the number of times I’d lived with anyone else, so I wasn’t sure what sort of rules I’d want. I hadn’t ever thought of it. “I’ll let you know if anything bugs me,” I said. “Changing the subject, I don’t want to be a mooch, but do you have anything else to eat around here? I haven’t had the chance to get groceries and I’m broke.”
“I may or may not, depending on various circumstances,” he said, sauntering over toward the fridge. “What do you have in mind?”
“Anything with meat in it?”
“I got you,” Ty said, pulling the fridge open. He pulled a plastic container out and offered it to me. “I made some salmon last night. You’re welcome to the leftovers.”
I took the container and looked down at what was the first cut of meat I’d seen in weeks. It was just food, but for some reason, this was the thing that made me want to break down crying. An entire day of hunger and confusion culminated in this moment. “Thank you,” I said, my voice quavering a bit. “I’ve had a really crazy day; would you be upset if I took this up to my room and locked myself in there for a while?"
Ty shook his head. “Nah, do what you gotta do. I was about to head up to my room too when you came in, anyway.”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
“No problem!” he said. I took the container and climbed up the hallway, slipping into my room like a hamster scurrying up its tube. Because of the small, round-ish entrance, the door looked like a hatch. I swung it closed and looked around the room. I could tell it was evening from the amount of ambient light, but the translucent panels didn’t give any details on the specific time. I took my fish and sat down on my new bed, which creaked softly as it assumed my weight.
I lay back on the bare mattress, stared up at the translucent blue ceiling above me, and smiled. It had been one heck of a day, only the first of what would surely be many to come, but I was here, and that was alright by me.