The bell to Gerel’s shop chimed, and at the sound of it, his breath caught in his beak. Excitement filled his lungs. So rare was that melody during the rainy season when the Manehattan neighborhood of New Shirdal received fewer tourists. The artifacts of the griffon homeland always drew many a window shopper, when Gerel still bothered to tantalize them with the sight of his Shirdalian artifacts in the window that is. That was before he realized window shopping was too generous, too easily done for free, and that Manehattan was a city of good guards, bad thieves, and poor griffons like him who didn’t fully realize what they were getting into by leaving their island homeland.
Maybe one day he would finally pack up his many treasures and see how gullible the griffons in the Griffonstone colony were, and if those who never knew the wind of an aerie under their wings or the sight of island coasts would be gullible and soft enough to hear his sales pitches galore.
Gerel’s feathers ruffled with delight and he placed his large, curved talons atop the glass of his display case. He began to drum them upon the thick pane with practiced ease, waiting for the sound of hoofsteps to reveal their owner.
Eventually, a little pony mare pushed her way past copper-headed spears, feather jewelry, baskets woven with gold patterns, and a variety of other gleaming wares. Across her cheeks and muzzle were painted freckles of gold and her mane and tail of orange-gold held a feathered fascinator while earrings like sundrops hung from her ears, multiple rings and clips crowding each one.
Her eyes watched him, their color as brutal as sunfire. She smiled with a distant glee and curtsied with the elegance of a born paraplegic given motion for but a few seconds. Everything about her, from the yellow skirt that covered her mark to the gold-trimmed ruffles of her scarf, reeked of an imitation of wealth. Yes, she was more dolled-up than most ponies that came to his shop, but she was not the gleam and shine that griffon claws craved. He knew a good customer, as all griffons knew how to hunt something as gorgeous as wealth like they hunted goats.
“Good day, Mister Griffon. I see that you sell artifacts of your homeland here?” Her accent was more nasal and horrid than most ponies of the city, riddled with the holes of quintessential urban ugliness. Her lips were contorted forward in a way a beaked creature like Gerel found even less natural than normal pony ways of speaking.
He was already filled with the flash-forwards of how she might slaughter the ‘r’ from the end of her words. “Good day, miss. You have seen true. Is there any piece I might interest you in?”
She said ‘griffon’ in the same manner the unarmored earth ponies such as herself told him to ‘go back to Griffonstone’. As if he could be from such a place! Still, few had the odd false glitter of a mare like her, with her voice too loud to offer any hope that she might have more than shabbiness under all the crisp gilded highlights pained in her mane and short-cut tail.
“Why, I find this to be an intriguing trinket.” The way she pronounced the ‘t’ of every word made him consider pulling a few feathers out to stuff his ear-slits. Or, at the very least, close up shop and head to the pub early.
Gerel’s only solace came from her accent not bearing the uneducated stench of Tartarus’ Kitchen, where the worst of any animal in this city lived.
She pointed almost forcibly, gesturing to the case his talons rested on. Inside was a shining array of what ponies called Griffish dueling pistols. They were laid out to give full range to show off the enticing color of their metals: silver, bronze, gold, and more. The contraptions were all but useless to ponies except as mantelpieces and paltry equalizers in non-magical duels among unicorns. An earth pony like herself would only find mileage by purchasing such an exotic piece to start conversations.
“I see,” he responded, lathering up his voice with false intrigue. Already, it sounded like he was applauding her for a purchase not yet made.
Her eyes hungered for the gold-accented pistol before Gerel could flaunt his full selection of merchandise. “You would not happen to sell the other accessories for these contraptions, would you?”
There was a whisper of astonishment in her voice, like a mare with eyes that devoured like hers could not believe that he could carry the very ‘accessory’ — goodness, she really was a brain-dead sort — that made this more than a particularly tacky tool to bludgeon with.
“No madam, Gerel’s Grand Griffish Goods does not stock ammunition of any variety. My shop is one meant to showcase many of the authentic crafts of Shirdalian Island to Equestrian ponies. If you want a dealer in weapons, I am not the griffon to seek.”
What was she? Certainly not a prostitute, they were an even lesser lot than she. This mare at least offered the impression that she might be literate, and she was willing to be seen in daylight. No prostitute would do such a thing, and their stench was notorious. This mare could bathe herself and had meat on her bones. Unless she was hiding scars and ribs under those fine clothes — too close to the garb of a proper mare of wealth than a pitiless whore — he could find little to suggest he grab the guards from the nearest street corner and have her infested flank hauled to a station under suspicion of such a nasty crime.
“Ah,” said the mare, tilting her head so her eyes glittered all the more peculiarly, “I have no need for the other accessories. However, I am intrigued by this piece of yours.”
She had approached his case and drew her forehoof upon the surface in relaxed circles, leaving smudges. With much of the distance between them closed, Gerel could see that she might not be a mare at all. Under all her gold trimmings she looked to be nearing marehood — not in it. Only her louder, deeper accent that added to her vulgarity helped create an illusion of age.
“A weapons dealer I am not,” Gerel said, arching a feathered brow, “but do you have any proof of age to make such a purchase?”
She smiled kindly at him, batting her eyelashes so they framed her red-glowing irises just so. The mare tugged her elaborate gold-threaded shawl laden with noisy trinkets closer around her withers, so anything below her high-necked ruffles was hidden. The mare rested a hoof over her throat, where something might have lain under the fabric she bunched up and held with her hoof in the flawed imitation of sophistication.
“I am a mare of bits and well past the age for such a thing, as you can see. Now, Mister Gerel, I do not know how you treat the hens of your island so far away. That concerns me not. What you must know is that in Equestria, a mare is not asked about her age! It is a big, big offense!”
She uttered her last sentence with a girlish gasp that prompted Gerel to rub at his eyes and the ruby tint of his vision. How could such a mature mare hold such effortless expressions of youth?
“The pistol is one hundred and twenty bits. Everything about it is talon-crafted and not one bit less would be proper for a tool like it. Do you think I would sell gold leaf excuses? Madam, I am a griffon, and we resort to no such dishonor. Only real metals are dealt with in this establishment.”
While humming atrociously off-key, the mare withdrew the necessary sum of lovely gold bits from a tough, worn coin-purse so unlike the rest of her clothes with her ruby red magical aura. She laid each one out for Gerel to count gleefully. When all was said and done, the mare flashed him another flutter of her eyelashes, made all the more epileptic than seductive from the concrete layers of golden eyeshadow she caked on them.
The bell to his shop rang again, signifying that his customer had left. Her magic had deposited her new purchase into her overly decorated mare’s saddlebags — something so horrendous that they had to be a custom order, as no respectable pony designer would have crafted something even he knew was a fashion abomination.
Soon, the ruby light in Gerel’s amber eyes had dimmed. His recollection of the day’s transactions faded into the usual humdrum fog of shopkeeping. Why would it not?
All in all, nothing had been out of order.