//------------------------------// // The Grand Imperial Cotillion // Story: The Princess's Bit // by Mitch H //------------------------------// Giles kept an eye on his second file. Gillie as usual was being Gillie. Gillie's file leader was more inclined to follow his lead than the reverse, but no coolie worth his salt would trust that featherbrain to lead a drinking party to a bar. They'd transferred old Gilead into Apple as part of the reorganization - and to get him away from his mate and fellow trouble-maker Mickle Joe - but Giles swore it had just made him the worse. And now he was talking up one of the local hens. Ciutat d'Ales was, contrary to the wishful expectations of the troopers of Apple, not a bar district, but rather the local griffish neighborhood. Not quite desperate enough to be a ghetto, but there was griffish daub and wattle beneath all the red tile that, at a distance, otherwise made the district look like the rest of Barkalona. That meant that the local market, instead of being full of dogs and ponies, was full of grey-feathered, brownish, and yellowish griffons, some of them a breed Giles had never seen before. The grey ones looked a bit like the master sergeant, if none of them quite so towering or imposing, but the yaller ones were short, slight, with narrow beaks and sly expressions, like they were up to something. And none of them spoke a word of Common. It might as well have been another Perroish district, for all the griffons of Apple Troop could converse with the locals. Gillie's attempt to get in trouble with the local bints was as futile as he was trifling - the hen was trilling laughter and incomprehensible yips of the local brand of foreign, and not having any of it. Giles gave a wing-swat to the file leader and jerked his head at the would-be lothario. Then he flitted off to find the sergeant. Sergeant Gustav was standing at the gate leading into the market, his chest proudly displaying, his crest nodding as he talked with the local boss - the alcalde. Giles joined the gaggle of other coolies and well-turned-out troops that the sergeant had collected, all of them posing like bloody Crab-Backs On The March. They all had their best regimentals on, buffed and the enchantments turned up to Maximum Glitter. The line of coolies and troopers Giles joined glowed like fancy jewelry in the southern sun, outshined the bright red roofing-tiles, the lackluster goods, that sad little market itself, and the sad little continental griffons that couldn't even speak common Trottish. Well, aside from the alcalde, the sergeant's fast new friend, who had a bit of Equish. Which was close to Trottish. Or vice versa, if you asked the ponies. They'd been sent out with orders to make a brave show of it, so the Guards were all gussied up, and were not digging through stalls looking for contraband or rousting the local toughs or, otherwise indulging in any of the usual tricks of the trade. The Langdockiens with whom they were patrolling jointly weren't taking it any more seriously. In fact, the Dockiens had considerably more game than Giles' griffs. The Langdockiens didn't have fancy uniforms or good equipment, but the grey-brown griffons and pale-pastel ponies had something much more important - they could yip the local patois. Giles thought he knew where at least some of the younger grey-brown fledgelings and kits running around the market had come from, if the Langdockiens had been stationed here as long as he'd heard they had been. He did his best to look brave and noble for the little crowd of said kits and fledgelings, peering awestruck at the line of griffon Guards from the safety of doorways, windows, and around the corners of market-stalls. They weren't here to impress the kits, but their elders, and hopefully their old-enough-for-trouble elder brothers - or sisters. Giles sometimes wondered what might have been if there had been recruiting parties come through Aerie Tarvie, to offer them the duchess's bit and take away the adventurous, the trouble-making, the brave. But then, the Guard wasn't marching up country out of Barkalona to recruit in this country's Aerie Tarvies, were they? Just in the city, where it was convenient. The lieutenant came trotting by with the sergeant from the Langdockiens, and the lieutenant took Sergeant Gustav and the alcalde off somewhere outside of the market, talking a mile a minute. Gustav took a coolie and two troopers off with them, leaving the rest to collapse from a line to a gaggle.  "Ah! Lance Corporal-" the tall Prench sergeant began, holding out a hoof to prevent Giles from rejoining his squad. "What was it? Jiles?" "Giles, Sergeant au Vin." "Ah, yes, you Islanders, such traditionalists. 'Ow do you evar keep your zelves straight when evarypony's names zhart with ah 'g'? Even your sergeant, I knew ah Gustave, you know." "Gustav is a brave name for a brave tom," Giles said loyally, suppressively. Never take sides against the regiment. "Hmm, yes, but zis tom was a baker. Ah proud one, moved to zhe imperial capital, proclaimed himself ze grande. I worry about old Gustave, eet is not a good place for arrogant griffons, Canterlot during, how you zay, the wars? Not even ones that just laik to brag on their eclairs." Giles turned to look at the tall, yellowish unicorn with the thick accent.  "As I said, a name for brave toms. What can I do for you, sergeant?" "Ah, not much, not much. This is an easy posting, Perroencia. We keepez ze Princess's peace, and ze recruiters, zhey snatch up the angry young curs, the eager young toms, the adventurous colts, and zhey go elzewhere. To peacock about, with zheir zilly spears and zilly hats, and keep compleat ztrangers from keeling each other over the boundary line between zis burrow-mine and zat olive grove, or whose gran-tante ran off with whose granpere and left a burrow full of angry zister-wives with no cur to call zeur own no more. Neutral-like, you zee. "You zee, zhis is how the empire, zhe works when we all do our parts. Languedock zends 'er foals to Perroencia, Perroencia's bitch pups to Bitalia, an' whatever they breed in Bitalia, zome fourth provincia I don't even know. "Lance Corporal Giles, ze Griffish Isles, zhey never participated in zee gran imperial cotillion, did you? Well, not until zee Princess, zhe starts zhipping captured rebels to ze New Territories. But zhen, one day, zis beeg bristling ship limps into harbor, full of Islanders. And I have to ask: "Have you finally come to join the dance, Islander? Or is it some other jig you're planning, to pipe us all? Where will you be taking the pups and foals you take from my zity?" Giles had no answers for the possessive Prench sergeant, but thinking it over, later, he was sure that he hadn't been expected to have any. Giles was just a lance corporal, a coolie. He was a messenger. So, after they returned with their small catch of winged recruits, and Charlie returned with their pack of furry bipeds drawn from some dog district, Giles went to find Sergeant Gustav, and deliver the message as expected. What the sergeants and officers did with it, he had no idea. But he'd be watching, to see what Death had delivered him into all those months ago, had spared him for. That night Giles dreamed of the recruiters who never came to his little hill village, to take away his kin before they went to the big city to die. Purse Strings watched the hopper feeder gears turn, as the slight screeching of underlubricated teeth grinding against each other slowly faded before the oilcan ministrations of Corporal Smooth. "So far, so good, boss!" the hopperpony said to Sergeant Gang. "Hey, Queenie, I think we're ready to open the feed from number six!" The dog grinned that unsettling toothy grin of hers, and threw a lever. The mechanism clanked loudly, and coal - mundane, common Perroencian anthracite coal - tumbled out of the gravity-fed screw onto the bucketed conveyer belt in a thunderous roar that filled the access gangway with a tooth-rattling avalanche of sound. The dust from the shutes, which normally would have been carried along by the gasketed conveyor, threatened to come billowing up out of the unbolted access hatches. Reina's claws tinked against the nearest metal frame, and the clouds pulled back on themselves unnaturally, leaving only the terrible noise.  Black Gang looked at the casual display of dog geomancy, and shook his head.  "It's weird seeing that without shielding," he screamed. "How have I never heard of dog magic before?" "Queenie don' know, cavall negre," the little bitch screamed back. "We always been here. An' the cavalls locals, they know." "Rock affinity's always been an earth pony thing," Silk Smooth bellowed. "But buck it, it weren't none of mine, and if she can rockhop, let her bop. I say she's just a dog-shaped earth pony. So long as she don't mess with my tools, we're harmonic." "I don't give a liquefied horseapple about any of that," Purse roared irately, itching from the coal dust and the dog smell in the close quarters. "Is it working? Are the engines feeding and working?" "Well, this here is a good start," Black Gang yelled. "Come on, honorary earth filly. Let's go see if number two is taking what you're sending." The bipedal dog bounced back out of the way as Silk Smooth replaced and bolted the access hatches, and the mind-rattling noise returned to the grumbling hum that Purse knew to expect from this part of the ship. The number two engine was taking what they were sending, and so were the rest. The coal emergency was at an end.  Finally. Purse Strings went to go find the boss folk and report the success. And then he'd get a Celestia-damned shower, and wash all of this coal dust out of his coat. Ping looked down at the unresponsive mare, whose peaceful sleeping face told nothing of the mysteries she represented beyond the veil. "When was the last time anypony saw her?" Ping asked Fruits Basket. The ensign's pink outsider had brought Nightfang's unresponsiveness to her officer's attention several hours ago. The bat-hen's sister was the ship doctor, they wouldn't be able to keep this quiet. "Her wingmare went blind around about 0430, on a basic perimeter sweep. She was ghosting cover, it could have been any time within a forty-five minute window." "Sunlight! They're supposed to rotate every half hour. What in Hades, Basket?" "These aren't Night Shift matrons, corporal. It's something they do on the side. They might have been cutting corners." "Well, Nightfang cut her throat on that cut corner. She's crapped up beyond all belief. Something jumped her but good. We're going to have to break down her field, and do a full dress assault. Whatever got inside knows how to bar doors, it'll be clever. You saw what happened with that night nag and Lieutenant Lulamoon. And Durian's still in the infirmary, we're down two mares now." "You want to-" "Yes, shadows take it. Activate the next cadre. We need more dreamers on the line. Quantity has a quality all its own." "They're not as well trained as the first rank shieldmaidens. And we're barely weekend dream-warriors as it is. They'll be tripping over their own spears." "Good thing they'll be holding the shield wall, then. This can't wait. The longer we leave Nightfang go, the harder it will be to stitch her back together." Ping fell silent, expecting the ensign to leave and make preparations. Where are they coming from? There's nothing visible for tens of miles, no known nightmare fields in the region… He looked up when she didn't move. "Go on, move!" The assault was an absolute clusterbuck. Two more mares were injured, not enough to put them in the infirmary like Durian and Nightfang, but bad enough to take them out of night patrol. Luckily, both of the casualties were second cadre, and thus no great loss. But now Ping was fearful of what else was lurking out there, invisible, traceless, in ambush for his shieldmaidens. Mother of Dreams, they say you're coming. If you can help us, come quickly. But if this is some sort of harbinger… Mother, hear our prayers.