Past an afternoon of shopping and the griffon pastime of haggling, evening came and it was time for dinner at home. To Garlan’s chagrin, they did not fly back to the apartment but instead rode a jeepney there to, in Gary’s words, “capture the authentic commuting experience.” How desirable the authentic hot, sweaty, and jam-packed experience was remained another matter for Garlan.
Beyond heavy traffic and colorful city lights turning on for the winter holidays, things got quieter: less traffic, less noise, less of that smoggy stench. The buildings shrunk from skyscrapers back to stubby compounds and complexes while trees and other greenery sprung back to familiar numbers.
When they got home, Ginger prepared for dinner at the lot: took out a long table and set up the chairs and drinks. As was promised, it wouldn’t be Ginger doing the cooking but the street food mogul himself: Garlan with the dirt-cheap sidewalk bites his adoptive country offered.
With the stall unlocked and taken out, Garlan put on the wok, turned on the gas, and poured liters of oil into the frying bowl. Before his relatives and family, he put on a show: throwing food packs up in the air, juggling them before dumping the contents into the scorching hot cooking pool. Fishballs, squidballs, and everything else sank in that ocean of oil, heating up from frozen stiffs to sizzling morsels of gut-busting flavor that made beaks salivate. No apron and no hat: it was how Garlan rolled at his best.
“So this is what you do every day, huh?”
“That’s right, Gerry.” Garlan took out his tongs to stir the food. “Almost right, though. I would’ve worked every day, but my wife convinced me that a day-off per week was good. I still disagree: more days you work, more money you make, but even I appreciate rest once in a while… especially if it’s with my honeybunch.” A glance toward said honeybunch made her cheeks blush, and his cousins teased the lovely couple; even the children joined in the fun.
They stood by the cart to watch food golden into fried edibles. When all was fried to perfection, Garlan took out the sticks. “Here you go, everyone. Poke everything and eat your heart out,” in his trademark flat and non-caring voice, topped off with his standard serious grump face. It had its uses: it cut down on people trying to eke conversation out of him; conversation on the job chipped away at his concentration, and mistakes happened when he wasn’t focused.
They jabbed the sticks into the tasty bites, building up their queue of food on the stick to create a stacked skewer. With sauces prepared ahead of time, they dipped their food sticks into them. Only after that informal ceremony came the actual eating.
“Wow!” cried Gladys with huge eyes and a loud gulp. “Is that... is that really fish? It really does taste like fish!”
Though pride swelled in his heart, his voice stayed flat: “It’s mostly fish. It’s balled-up fish paste, ground out globs of super-crushed fish. But if it feels like fish, tastes like fish, and smells like fish, it’s fish to me and the hundreds of customers I get every day.”
That sparked a bonfire of questions about his wares: what made them up, what the foreign terms meant, how they were prepared. He answered in short bursts, keeping an eye on his fledglings chowing down on the food: a rare treat to have when he always admonished them on lean meat and less fat.
With Ginger mingling with the cousins and his brother, peace lay in his soul: a good family, a good life, and a good path to a bright future here. In his self-indulgence, he imagined it to be a good life fashioned by his claws and paws: a good apartment, with an eye forward to move eastward and find a nice house with nicer neighbors too. Living was stuffy in the middle of the capital metro, so relocating to proper suburbs would—
“Hey, Garlie?”
Almost dropped a plastic pack of fishballs straight into the oil. He scratched his beak, made himself look busy, silently grateful he hadn’t splashed scalding oil onto his brother’s face. “Yes, Gary?”
The brother chewed on an empty stick; he’d turned it into an enormous toothpick singling out specks of food from inside his beak. He then shot the stick to the cart’s attached trash bag and cozied up to Garlan, leaning on his cart while reeking of beer. “Well, I was thinking of...”
Griffonstone again, hm? He kept his beak shut. Gave his brother a second to compose himself, not to derail his train of thought.
Gary took a clean stick and gestured at Garlan with it. “Yes, I think I know what you’re thinking.” His smile turned sheepish, but his voice stayed confident. “See, I was wondering if—“
Cut off with a sigh. Garlan stirred the wok some more: no time to wait. “If it’s about Griffonstone, drop it.”
That froze Gary right in his tracks.
Dealing with his younger and more ambitious brother was a delicate process, so he breathed another sigh to draw out the time. Then, slowly, “I had a feeling you’d bring it up sooner or later. You talked about it a lot: Griffonstone, how things seem to be getting better back in the old country. But things are better here, better for me and my family, and that’s that.” Another sigh as he racked his brain on what to ask. “So… okay, do you need bits? I heard they can go a long way in propping up Griffonstone—“
“It’s not just the money.” Gary stood straight and held himself up on a claw against the cart, trying to look cool and casual. “We’ve had that going for a while from Princess Celestia herself when she was still in power… but you know the story: we just hoarded ninety-five percent of it. Things got worse when she tried to prop us up.” Garlan had read it on the news: local towns criers announcing the new injection of bits into the treasury, only for their kingdom’s before/after pictures to match each other and prove nothing happened.
“Then what do you want?” he asked, dumping more frozen food into the wok. “If it’s bits you want, if it’s bits everyone else wants—“ he threw a claw toward the cousins enjoying their stickfuls of food, cracking open beer bottles and cracking up at jokes “—then fine. I’ll do my best to find places and jobs for you here or some other city on Earth.”
Gary scratched his semi-fluffy head. “More bits won’t fix it. You know that. I really think you know that, because it’s not just the bits but it’s everyone, and if we can get everyone in this together, then—”
“Did you come over here because you miss me?”
Outed. Gary’s head dropped, but he perked up just as quickly. “I won’t deny it. I do miss you, Garls.”
A blank look was all Garlan would give: flatly staring as if he saw a ghost but cared none for it. “Had an inkling you’d say that.” He hung his tongs and crossed his forelegs, hovering to keep balance. “So you miss me and you want me to come home. That’s what this is all about?”
“Well… it’s not just that either. I’m…” Shook his head, claw on his shaking head. “Look, I… I tried my best to make Griffonstone a better place.”
Garlan wished Gary could get a move on: the food was getting hot. He could manage a minute before reaching for his tongs. “I saw you try before I left. At least you’re not swindling anybody, so good job, I guess.”
“That’s the thing!” Gary pointed at him, at his own revelation. “I… I didn’t want you to leave, but you were leaving because it was a bad place, so if I could make everything better there—help Gilda and her crew, clean up Griffonstone’s trash, get friendship going and start a griffon renaissance or something, then maybe you would—“
Garlan’s claw stopped his blathering. Gary obeyed, looking up and down and everywhere else in shame. The wok sizzled and the cook took his tongs.
Back then, Gary had pushed himself on Gilda to sell more cones and to improve his recipe with the help of Gladys. Coupled with his aggressive volunteering in reconstruction with a power tool injury every so often while cooking stew for the young and old without accidentally concocting poison—it was a dreadful sight. Gary hadn’t been home as much: the house would be empty all day, with Garlan out in the streets selling venison and small meats while his brother was out in other griffons’ houses doing odd jobs or in Gilda’s hut making scones.
Gary leaned closer, pleading with his eyes. A nascent tear welled up. “They… these cousins miss you too, but I…” Closed his eyes to stop that tear from showing up. "I… I want you back home more than anyone else. That’s the truth and nothing but the truth!”
He leaned back, knowing the personal space he invaded. “When the portals opened up, I thought it’d be one more way for Griffonstone to improve. A whole other world with magicless creatures inventing wild new technologies? They could help us a ton! I devoured the news, asked outsiders if they went to Earth and how’s it like there… they didn’t need idols filled with magic or whatever: just a desire to do good, make their own lives better, and bam! lives got better. We had human volunteers in Griffonstone and still have a few now, but they came much later, after some time and after… after you left. You… did Ginger show them to you? All the photos?”
Garlan tapped a talon on the cart, eyes fixed on his brother’s. “I saw like ten.”
“I sent forty through the week.”
“I was working through the week. I didn’t have time—”
“You’re always working! You never have time!”
Garlan’s claw stood still, frozen over boiling oil, close to dropping his tongs. A quick look later, Gary shrank away.
“S-sorry about that, Garlie.” He flapped his wings, rolled his tongue. “Yes, it’s not up to me whether you stayed or left, but I had to be here somehow, somewa: to go heart-to-heart, face-to-face, because… because it looks like you’re staying here for good without a plan to visit us—m-me. To visit me.” Looked back up to him, twiddling with his claws, pitiable but hopeful.
“You’re making just things worse,” Garlan said right after, accusing him with his pair of hot-end tongs. “Sentiment’s nice and good, but sentiment won’t pay the bills. You’re asking me to return to a pecking order of short-sighted pigeons who see nothing but bits.”
“But then all the good griffs would leave!” He counted on his claws: “Gustave, Giselle, Gallus, Gunter, Gordon, Vermouth Roux—even lords like Goldstone are talking about leaving for cleaner skies. Meanwhile, everyone’s called me crazy for staying there—“
“You still are.”
“—and I wanted to help them see that, maybe... just maybe, with Twilight’s friendship lessons and every other creature’s help, we could rise from the ashes and be good again… or at least not be a dumpster fire.”
Gary then leaned his weight on the cart and sulked, contemplating.
Garlan sighed one more time, popping a piping hot fishball into his beak: battled the stress on his burning throat. “I let you in this house so we can have a good time, not to guilt trip me into bailing you out.”
“It’s not a guilt trip and you’re not bailing me out, I swear.” Gary stood up again, though looser now: alcohol taking hold. “It’s... well, it’s me asking you to search your heart, your feelings—”
“You’re guilt-tripping me now.”
“You’re here making a name for yourself around here... but, the Griffonstone back there isn’t so bad anymore. You could go there, serve your food there—they’ll be over the moon to give you bits fer’ good food, and you can take pride in making their day better. I’m sure the hatchlings over there would turn your product into a grand salami!”
“It’s grand slam.” He paused as he made his own stick of food. Pointed the stick towards a six-pack of beer lying by Gary’s chair. “You’re getting disoriented. I suggest you head back to the table with your cousins, knock yourself silly, and forget this ever happened. If you keep doing this, you might say something you’ll regret.”
“I’m completely of sound mind tonight!”
Garlan paid him no mind. He put his claw over the wok, picking something up with the tongs and turning it over for his stick. “I’m set for life here, Gary. This country, this world, has treated me good, given me a chance to move up in life. Wherever you go in this world, there’ll be people who’ll help you up or at least do decent business with you.” Garlan held on to the wok, the frying bowl and its dumplings dividing the pair of brothers. “What has Griffonstone done but turned me into a sniveling gold-hoarder?”
“But don’t you miss home? Your childhood? Your old relatives back home? Don’t you miss me?” Before Garlan could snap something at him, “We used to have good times even after Mom died and Pop left—“
“Mom died because she refused to give her coins to a wandering medicine merchant, and Pop never returned from enacting ‘revenge’ on said merchant for ‘abandoning’ Mom. For all I know, he’s rotting in a Canterlot dungeon for a life sentence’s worth of murder.”
Gary hung his head over the wok, risking oil splashes on his neck. “We can change Griffonstone so none of that has to happen again! There’d be no more orphans like us if we can do this. We won’t be destitute anymore if we unite, join forces, band together—”
“And risk ourselves as potential casualties in your little crusade? Gary, Griffonstone can die in a ditch for all I care. Even if we did find that stupid hunk of metal, what’s stopping one of us from pawning off the Idol of Boreas for a hundred bits? Apologies to the Princess of Friendship, but trying to shore up Griffonstone is as useless as beating a dead horse.”
“Then we’re doing miracles because we’re resurrecting a dead horse!” Gary took out his phone, holding it perilously above the round oil vat. His claw scrolled through innumerable photos of Griffonstone, wobbly in Garlan’s eyes as they sped by. “I know it sounds impossible, but much of Equestria sounds impossible too: defeating Nightmare Moon, Discord, Sombra twice, the Legion of Evil—“
“Because ponies’ friendships are literally magic,” Garlan said, moving his tongs around, close to hitting Gary’s face with its scorching hot business end. “Harmony’s on their side, not ours. We’ve got nothing but a contentious clutch of creatures.”
That made Gary turn the phone off, pocketing it away.
“Look, Gary, you’re forgetting that two Element-bearers went to our place, and the Princess of Friendship herself did a few friendship summits there too! I tried being friendly with my fellow neighbor… and, well, no wonder some of the pony volunteers dropped out by the end of the week. If my neighbors can’t accept a friendly griffon like me, what’s the point?”
“B-but… what about just coming back? Just to visit?”
Seconds passed. The sizzling continued. Garlan took up sticks and stuck more food onto them: an effort to shoo Gary away without a word. “After lying to me, turning this whole innocent visit into another plea to return? I doubt it. You should’ve come clean about it. Your heart’s in the right place, and it’s different without you here. Now, yes, I do miss you... but I don’t know. I’m just not coming back.”
Only hissing oil remained. The griffon poured more frozen pieces into the mix, kept stirring with his tongs. Food turned around, spinning in a spectacle of sweltering heat without any of his brother’s hyper-optimistic delusions.
Gary had been a great nuisance leading up to the departure, either with his never-ending smiles or his pursuits to save Griffonstone without sticking to something tried and true, something like selling food. That had provided a steady stream of bits, even if meager. Yet here came Gary, trying out everything from working at the royal palace which had rotted from royalty centuries ago, through rebuilding houses for a fee only to be rejected nine times out of ten, to wishing for an Element of Harmony to personally help him out somehow even though they had their own business. In other words, he’d scammed himself.
The grumps too. Humans were much different from ponies; they didn’t share the pastel horses’ enthusiasm and energy, but they still smiled more than griffons. The humans at the Equestrian embassy and the portal terminal had been happy to bring him over with grins and everything. Maybe it was the special feeling of being chosen; they’d said more humans came over to Equestria’s universe than Equestrians to Earth’s.
No matter: he lived and worked here with a happy family. A good future too: colleges and universities would accept his children and boast about their griffon graduates. The possibilities proved endless too: he could sell food like this forever, add more items to the menu like ice cream, eventually set up his own restaurant. Even jump to another industry entirely if there’d be more money to make there.
His face set in stone, focused forever on the frying wok.
He heard a sigh from across the cart.
“Alright, Garlie,” he began, limp. “Maybe I was in the wrong about all of that. Y-yes, I think so… but I’m here. I’m still here. Call me stubborn, but I am here, you’re here with me, and so I ask you to visit us just once—to go this one time. I’ll cover your stay—I’ll even renovate the old family house so we can all stay there for the week!”
Too loud: the partying stopped and everyone’s eyes were on him and Garlan. The cook swallowed a gulp but not his pride. How long had they been listening to this? None of them were strangers, fortunately, but Genaro and Gwen—too innocent and too young for this—witnessed it too. Maybe they’d heard everything. They’d probably ask about everything when all was said and done; hopefully, they’d be too tired to ask and they’d just sleep when it was all over.
The look on their eyes: Gerry, Geronimo, Gladys. Their eyes silently spoke not of anger nor disappointment but of memories. Their beaks mouth ancient memories: the times we met, the times we went around, the times we argued our heads off, the times we thought so much about our bits, the times we were still together and still saw each other every day and could trust each other a little in the chaos that was home. You still remember them all, Garlan… don’t you?
Ginger looked too: her face, unreadable. Disappointment? Fatal anticipation? Secret joy over him finally handling this pest of a brother? Then again, the kids with their confusion and their searching eyes: this Gary, their Uncle Gary, saying loud desperate words—it all looked like a big problem, and they hoped their Dad would fix everything like he always did.
Garlan closed his beak and saw Gary alone. Could’ve sworn he closed his claws, crossing them together and pleading for him on his knees to come back. He was not on his knees, but the pleading shot through faintly.
The cook poked a fishball with his stick. He didn’t pick it up: he forced the stick down, pinning lifeless food to the oil’s seafloor, squashing the cute thing under his grip. The stick’s sharp end began blunting, flattening—it was his instrument of reflection, of wondering what to say knowing full-well his decision.
A pair of grumpy eyes had its beak open, armed with a dull but expressive voice that was firm and final. “I’ll consider it. A visit, not a stay.”
And Gary lit up with glee, smiling and nodding all around with wings in happy flap mode. He wrapped a claw around his brother’s shoulder, extending himself over the wok again without thinking about becoming fried chicken and crispy cat in one go.
“Alright!” His shout caught the far-off human guard off his guard. “They’ll be super happy to see you back home! Hey, remember Greta? She’ll be over the moon about this!” He took out a stick and picked as many morsels as he desired in rapid fire, topping it off with a huge and dirty bite to wipe the stick clean.
Gary regaled his victory to the griffons on their chairs, proclaiming the triumphant tale of how he brought his brother back into the fold. Good cheer spread across the table, and they watched Garlan in renewed hope. As Gary said, “He’s a grumpy face and a bit of a jerk, yeah, but deep down, he’s got a heart of gold, you see?”
As that went on, Garlan focused all of his energies on serving up food and nothing else. Ten fishballs, seven squidballs, eight kikiam, five pieces of okoy, nine of those quail eggs in orange batter and some of those onion rings too for good measure—just looked at what he had, studied their faces, and estimated what to cook next. Dinner was far from over; this family reunion was just getting started.
As oil bubbles popped and food fried to culinary completion, he did not notice a concerned Ginger observing her forever-frying husband.