“’Tis said that to acknowledge one’s ignorance ‘tis to acknowledge one’s wisdom. Never have such words struck me any truer than today. For as most of you are aware, surprising and unsettling news has reached our Kingdom! Equestria, our long-time ally, has discovered life beyond this realm: A species called humans, the apex predator of their world.
“I am aware of the worries of our citizens. They fret that this new race shall alter the balance of power we have with our Equestrian allies. They fear that these humans will give rise to untold opportunities, and not all of them for the better. In this, they are correct—this discovery; this new species, heralds a potentially profound change for not just our nation, but for all races of this world.
“I am not omniscient, nor can I predict the future. Even with all the wisdom of our Ancestors, I am not armed with enough knowledge to even begin to guess what the future brings.
“But Gryphons! What I know is our illustrious history! What I know is our mighty race! Under a single banner, we crushed the Cloven of the Sun and routed the Elder Rams! United, we defeated Dragon Lord Diabla and fought Equestria to a standstill!
“Our race indomitable, we vanquished the Ibexian Supremacy and overthrew the Kirin Imperium! We thrive today because our progenitors have made sure to pass on an important lesson—that all obstacles can be overcome and that change is nothing but an opportunity to be grasped. And so we shall do the same!
“I have told our negotiators in Equestria to gather as much information on this new species as they can. Let us find out more about this human race. Let us examine their strengths and their weaknesses. Let us determine their worthiness of being among us. And as a token of good faith, let us extend the wing of friendship as a measure of respect to their power!
If they accept it, then we shall welcome them as peers and allies. But if they should shun it, then let them feel the terrible vengeance of our race! Let them feel the might of our many legions; our honed talons sharpened by stone, our beaks hungry for blood! Whether or not victory will be achieved, we shall proudly fly forth with our wings spread wide!
For we are Gryphons!”
—Queen Molyneux
Address to the Gryphon Kingdom
Fifty-Seventh Year of Her Reign
Such were the words of Queen Molyneux, reigning ruler of the Gryphon Kingdom. She was the latest in a line of griffon regents; the heir to an unbroken chain of succession stretching back over seven centuries to the Kingdom’s founding, rising like a Phoenix from the ashes of the Gryphon Empire that had preceded it.
Her speeches were always full of powerful and passionate prose, but this time with very good reason. Word had been received that Equestria had discovered a new world, and on it, an exotic and potentially powerful species wielding machine-based magicks never before seen on the world of Tellus.
No one knew then whether they’d be allies or adversaries, or the effect they would have on the balance of Tellusian nations, to say nothing of the day-to-day lives of those who dwelled within them.
But nearly a year after leaving Ponyville, none of it mattered to Gilda. Trudging through the frigid winds with a series of resigned steps that left claw and pawprints in the fresh-fallen snow, she had far more important things to worry about, chief among them her dwindling money. A month into her stay without more than a few menial jobs of manual labor, her savings were dwindling into nothingness.
It wasn’t that she had come there with no plan. She’d intended to seek her sire’s assistance in gaining entry to the Kingdom’s military, deciding her aggressive personality and predatory instincts needed a proper outlet.
But when she returned home to Aquilamra, the frigid northern city where she was born, she quickly discovered she could not expect any support from her family. Her sire had made that abundantly clear when he wouldn’t even recommend her to the regular army Talons, let alone the elite Wind Knights, stating she had ‘grown too soft in Equestria to be a proper soldier’.
Oh, by her Ancestors, she wanted to challenge him to a duel right then and there.
Could she begrudge him, though? Her first year in the Kingdom since leaving Equestria hadn’t exactly been a welcoming one. After leaving all the hurt and pain of the pony nation behind, she’d only returned home after a few months spent at the mostly-griffon fishing village of Nova Ocelota in the Canarian Maritimes, where she’d tried unsuccessfully to salve her pain by losing herself in drink and some work offloading fishing trawlers.
It hadn’t helped; she’d only ended up reeking of rum and fish oil—it had taken her weeks to get the stench of the latter out of her fur and feathers. Out of options and friends as she ended up in bar brawls and in constant trouble with the local constabulary over it, she’d moved on, flying across the Celestial straits to the Griffon Kingdom’s continent of Aresia, only to find she’d traded one set of issues for another.
For weeks, she had to relearn everything that her mother taught her regarding how to act like a proper griffon. But no matter how well she behaved or how proper her responses were, everyone instinctively knew she hadn’t grown up in the Kingdom and shunned her, denying her employment in anything but the most menial of labor.
An Equestrian griffon, they called her. No one dared say it to her face, though. Well, at least the older and more tempered griffons didn’t. The younger and more aggressive ones thought they could get away with it, reasoning that any griffon who grew up around peace-loving ponies didn’t know how to fight.
She disabused them of that notion promptly like any Gryphon would: she went up to them and punched them in the face. Needless to say, she got into a few good scuffles, earning a series of slashes, bruises, and even a few broken bones along the way. But she won most of her fights, which slowly built up her reputation, and in turn, earned a measure of respect from the other griffons.
She found it funny, though. Back in Equestria, if she ever got into a scuffle with a pony, even minor and light ones, she would expect a Royal Guardspony to come knocking at her door. Here, though, such fights were cheered on. Loudly, even.
Thinking of Equestria made Gilda’s mind wander back to the good friend she had lost. How much time had it been since she last saw Rainbow Dash? The question left a sour taste in her mouth, so she did her best not to think of ponies, trying to suppress all associated memories regarding Equestria. In its place, she told herself to focus on one thing: getting a job.
She passed through a few more stone huts, which were a common residential structure for anyone living in the North. The houses here were built from rocks carved and quarried out of the mountain, carefully placed; reinforced and extended with every generation. They were built to last in the harsh conditions. Understandable, considering this was the region where it almost perpetually snowed and had occasional bouts of hurricane winds and hail.
The way the city was built was a testament to how boring the North really was. It was just a stretch of frozen rock as far as the eyes could see, but it was… home? No, not even. She had grown up in Equestria near a Gryphon settlement north of Vanhoover, which was one of the few that had remained following the end of the Great Pony/Gryphon War seven centuries earlier. Sent there when she was six for reasons she was still not clear on, she’d been left in the care of her aunt before being sent to attend school in Cloudsdale, where she’d met Rainbow Dash.
The inevitable end result was that she spent her youth associating almost entirely with ponies, and culturally, that meant she was neither Equestrian nor Gryphon. She had lost her home and was now, essentially, a stranger in her race’s homeland.
Thank the Ancestors the town had barely changed in all these years. It was almost exactly the same as she remembered, even if it seemed much bigger to her six-year old eyes. She didn’t think she’d have more problems, like getting lost... well, most of the time.
She saw the recruitment hut, only a few steps away from her position. Its stone roof was draped with a banner bearing the Gryphon flag, consisting of a bloodied claw imposed over the Northern colors of white and blue. She could see a few griffons coming in and out, some younger males cuffing each other lightly as they squawked with joy.
They must have gotten the posts they wanted, she thought, her eyes narrowing. Stupid cubs getting everything served to them on a platter…
She shook her head sharply, knowing that mentally squabbling about complete strangers wasn’t going to do her any favors. She took a deep breath before walking towards the doorway and pushed herself inside.
The interior of the hut was warm thanks to the controlled heat produced by the firegems that ringed the inner walls. It also swathed the inside in a dark crimson glow; standard lighting for almost any northern griffon’s home. Even back in her Cloudsdale residence, Gilda had kept the practice, much to Rainbow Dash’s annoyance—she had commented that the light intensity was too low for her to see clearly, but for Gilda’s eagle eyes, it was more than enough illumination.
Rainbow Dash... Gilda sighed, half-wondering what her former friend was doing now. Remembering that ugly afternoon just brought a renewed feeling of jilted rage that quickly gave way to sorrow, which manifested itself as a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“Damned Pinkie Pie…” she muttered under her breath as her tasseled tail lashed violently for a moment. Her gaze turned red as she felt fire well up within her at the mare she held responsible for her breakup with Rainbow. Trying to push her surging emotions back before her temper got her kicked out of her last option to join the Kingdom’s military, she stepped forward as the recruiter called her name.
“Application, please,” he asked as he sat behind a standard grey table made of slate. Annoyed at having to present it in person—why couldn’t they just receive it in the mail? She grabbed her sheath of documents from her side-mounted knapsack and placed it all on top of the desk before sitting down on her haunches, awaiting their appraisal.
The recruiter, a male griffon with blackhawk feathers and a spotted leopard-like coat of a lighter shade than hers, looked at Gilda for a moment before his eyes went towards the documents, studying them closely. It included her birth certificate with her family bloodline tree, Equestrian documents that covered her absence from the Kingdom, and a rather grudging letter of recommendation from her sire.
“So you want to be part of the Guard, eh?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Gilda said even as she internally bit back the reply she wanted to give. No, she wanted to be a soldier, not a poor griffon’s version of it!
The male griffon continued to study the documents as Gilda shifted her hind legs a bit, attempting to remain stoic and calm as the recruiter looked up and appraised her. She tried to project the image of a strong, no-nonsense griffon that oozed with confidence she did not feel. She might have been holding her breath; she did not know. “It says here you were rejected from both the Talons and Wind Knights,” he tapped the small stack of documents he’d been reading with his feather ink pen.
Gilda internally grimaced, trying hard not to let it show on her face. “Only because I lacked the needed recommendations. My father believes that I am not yet ready for them.”
“Well, considering how long you stayed in Equestria, your sire may have a point,” the recruiter replied, nodding thoughtfully. His demeanor quickly changed when he saw the look on her face, and he wisely dropped that line of conversation. “Are you sure this is what you want? There are openings for the Auxiliary Guard units, but there is also quite a demand for work in the mines. The pay is much better, too.”
“Thank you, but no. I want to be a soldier,” Gilda replied with steel in her voice. Even if she was awash in gems afterwards, there was no way she’d be stuck digging inside an enclosed space, hauling loads of coal and crystals up through the dark, dirty and narrow tunnels that were a claustrophobic’s worst nightmare. Even if she had to brave the frigid Northern wind, Grizelda Behertz was a sky griffon at heart—no one would take the sky away from her! “I belong in the air securing the Kingdom, not stuck underground like a damned diamond dog.”
“Ah. An understandable sentiment for a sky griffon,” the recruiter agreed amicably. “Now, tell me, what do you have to offer to the Auxiliary Guard? Why should they take you?”
She blinked for a moment. Did he really just ask that? That line of questioning was something she’d expect a pony to say, not a griffon of the Kingdom. Gilda’s eyes stared at him for a few seconds, letting him stew a bit as he shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. She let her claws rest on top of the stone table that separated them and her talons began to scratch the surface, creating uneven lines on the slate surface in their wake.
The recruiter blinked at the painful sound and her display of strength, his feathers ruffling with discomfort before he nodded, eyes silently begging her to stop.
So Gilda did. She let go of the stone surface and raised her claws to her face. She wriggled them slightly before blowing out the dust from her talons and then rubbing them against her chest feathers. “Well, am I in or not?”
The recruiter swallowed, but smiled. “Welcome to the Guard, Grizelda Behertz.”
Gilda stifled a sigh. There it was—she was now a member of the Auxiliary Guards, and all it took was for her to ruin her talons. “Thank you, sir,” she said instead of saying something that might get her invitation revoked. “I won’t let you down.”
The recruiter gave a nod, bringing out a preprinted piece of parchment and placing a stamp on it, approving her application. He began to pass it to her but paused, and then gave her an odd look.
“Yes?” she asked, wanting to get out of his presence quickly.
“Uh, this has nothing to do with your recruitment, but what did you think?”
Gilda stared at him. What was this griffon going on about now? “Think about what?”
“Haven’t you heard the news?” When Gilda shook her head, the recruiter explained, “Equestria opened up some type of portal. They discovered a new species!”
Gilda blinked. She had heard word in passing about the news; she had even read the posted proclamation of the Queen’s Address to the Kingdom involving these new aliens.
But in the end, it mattered little to her. “I don’t know.” Gilda shrugged as she signed her induction documents and took back her approval letter. “Maybe we’ll get to fight them.”
As she entered training, Gilda was surprised to learn there was far more to the Auxiliary Guards than she initially thought.
She had expected to just be given a uniform and crossbow before being assigned to a unit immediately; sent out to patrol the borders of towns. She didn’t know whether it was because policies had changed or because she’d been under entirely the wrong impression, but the Kingdom, for whatever reason, didn’t agree.
Far from setting them loose with no training, she quickly learned that under the collective two-month basic training regime called “The Gauntlet”, reservist Guard, regular Talon and even elite Knight recruits were put through identical training; living and drilling together.
On most days, Gilda and the rest of the recruits would rise at dawn to do exercises like flight dashes and ground sprints in the rugged terrain and bitter cold of northeast Aresia, not far from the disputed borders with the Ibexian Ascendency. Such exercises were meant to build up stamina and speed in both air and ground combat respectively, and—she later realized—give them experience in the terrain and conditions they’d encounter when fighting the Ibexians, who were unarguably their greatest current rival and threat.
The rest of the day would be split between weapons training, making them use a variety of weapons ranging from the basic spears to blades to the more advanced crossbows, and general education, which encompassed a range of lessons from basic talon signals to the griffon command structure, including classroom lessons on battles of old both won and lost.
The latter were drawn heavily, she couldn’t help but note, from the Kingdom’s bitterest conflict, or more appropriately, the Empire that had preceded it—the Great War with Equestria. Ponies barely spoke of or remembered it, as with the sole exception of Cloudsdale, you often had to go out of your way to find a monument or memorial to it.
But in the Kingdom, it was different. Monuments and memorials could be found everywhere, most notably in the old Imperial capital of Mosclaw, which had to be rebuilt from the ground up after the war. The dead were honored, as befit griffon heritage, but there was little triumphalism about it, as despite the Queen’s proclamation, the case could be made that it was the one war the Gryphon race had ever truly lost.
But such were questions for military historians, not her. In the Kingdom military, ranks were mostly denoted by the type and amount of armor worn. Rookie soldiers, known as “Yearlings” to distinguish them from the “Fledgelings” they called raw recruits, began by receiving a single leather pauldron to cover their left shoulder. Climbing up the chain of command, more protection would be awarded; once you were ranked high enough, more protective pieces and hardier armor in the form of metal plates would be given.
The idea was that with higher rank, the more competent the Gryphon was. The more competent you were the more valuable you were to the Kingdom. The more valuable you were, the more the Kingdom wanted to protect you with additional armor. It thus promoted a single, unmistakable message to any soldier:
If you want to stay alive, Get Better.
Gilda also found it surprising that the ranks of the three branches of the armed forces were quite interchangeable. She was even more surprised when, in turn, this gave her opportunities in advancing her career. Far from the dead-end reserve formations she assumed the Guard was, there were indeed ways to be promoted out of it. In fact, if she merited it enough, she could apply for the Knights recommended solely by her own service record, instead of her sire’s word.
Such would take years of well-regarded service to the Kingdom, however. With that in mind, Gilda trudged through her unexpectedly severe training with singular focus. She made it a habit to always fly out at night after dinner, keeping her flying skills sharp. She went through all her drills, exhausted but unrelenting. Superiors and trainers always kept reminding her that she hadn’t been raised in the Kingdom—that as such, she was considered ‘soft’, maybe even unfit. She thoroughly proved them wrong.
After grueling months of training, she finally made the Guard with a solid recommendation, given the standard starting rank of Spear. Her reward was a second leather pauldron on her right shoulder to match the one on her left, and it fed her motivation to advance through the ranks.
When she was ordered to patrol through a brutally cold blizzard, she did so. When she was ordered to help out miners in clearing out a rockfall, she did that too. When she was ordered to stand sentry for sixteen hours straight in a silo to prevent Diamond Dogs from raiding a grain cache, she obeyed without complaint.
She quickly made herself a perfect Guard model, and the Kingdom, in turn, showed its appreciation: not even a year after graduating training, she received the rank of Gladio, gaining a leather vest and new insignia for her pauldrons. Granted, the pay still left much to be desired, but unable to spend much of it and with most of her food and lodging provided by the Guard anyway, she was surviving on what was given to her.
Only a year after being recruited, she also experienced her first Rotation: a required Kingdom practice of trading warrior units annually to different cities for the purpose of seasoning them. It ensured they would be adaptable enough to fight in a variety of environments and climates, as well as work with the local security forces with as little friction as possible.
Her Rotation had put her right in the heart of the southern farmlands, in the city of Tierra. A lush land full of plains with just a few ranges of rolling hills, it possessed the perfect climate to grow crops like grain, fruit and nut trees as well as various vegetables nearly year-round.
It was also the home of the Caleponians, earth ponies who had settled there after the war with Equestria as a token of good faith in the armistice agreement. Working the land for griffon steadholts, with the promise of being given land of their own and full Kingdom citizenship once a ten-year period of service was fulfilled starting when they reached adulthood, they had dramatically improved the Kingdom’s agricultural production.
Over the centuries, they had developed their own culture as they adapted to the demands of the more wild and rugged Griffon Kingdom, gaining hardier bodies and a rather interesting accent. They efficiently grew the bulk of the fertile region’s produce, which in turn kept the Kingdom fed and removed one of the former Empire’s major reasons for being an Imperial power.
While she was glad to get out of the freezing sky of the North, this warm region felt too much like Equestria, with all the ponies present and their staple diet of nothing but seeds, fruits and breads. Worse, little exciting ever happened in this region aside from the odd bout of spring storms. But even the weather had been quiet; the only disaster she had encountered since her arrival was when a younger earth pony accidentally backed his cart into a ditch and couldn’t pull it out without help, ending up hanging from his own yoke unable to unhook himself.
She and the other soldiers who found him had a very good laugh, but in the end, most of her days were spent lazily patrolling the borders of Tierra. For the rest, she was on the ground, making sure none of the Earth Ponies were slacking off during their periods of service. Today, she was keeping an eye on two stallions on their break as they began conversing about a race she had been hearing more and more of lately.
“Have yeh heard? These humans that Princess Sparkle fænd are two-legged apes!” the stallion with a red coat and bale of hay cutie mark told his companion, a stallion with a yellowish coat and scattered petals for a Cutie Mark. Both their manes and tails were of different shades of brown.
“Apes. By the sun itself, what are weh goin’ to discover next? Talkin’ dolphins?” the second stallion spoke. “So, what, do these humans bang their chests and make monkey sounds?”
“Actually, from what I’ve heard, they talk mostly in Equish,” he said, using the pony term for their own language. “Not anythin’ like we do, but enough to get along.”
“Begorrah, ‘tis odd! Have we met these apes before? Have we taught them our language?”
“Cannae say for sure. All I know is that these humans are quite the sharp ones with technology! D’ya reckon they can invent somethin’ to make the land till itself? Me back would sure appreciate that...”
Gilda rolled her eyes before she noticed the darkening sky. Hearing enough, she cleared her throat, grabbing their attention. “Sun’s going down,” she reminded them. “Finish up your work, or the Steadholder isn’t going to be pleased.”
“Aye, ma’am,” the stallion with the red coat said.
“Bloody slave driver,” muttered the other.
Gilda rolled her eyes again before she spread and flapped her wings. With a great push, she launched herself upwards, higher and higher, passing through a few clouds and dispersing them with her air streams with an ease that would have made pegasi proud. The wind moved around her as she expertly manipulated it with her feathered appendages and banked to the left. After a few seconds, she saw a garish square building made from stone and wood – the barracks. Aiming for it, she folded her wings and dove towards it.
With the wind hammering her feathered face, she thought back on the conversation she just heard, and the Queen’s speech addressing them, even though it had been given a year earlier.
In many ways, it was just the standard welcoming message to an established race, asking the obvious question: are you friend or foe? To offer them friendship immediately was a surprisingly generous offer from the Kingdom, considering that historically, alliances had to be earned when it came to griffons and there was almost no information regarding these humans. Usually, the Kingdom would test their mettle first in both diplomacy and warfare. So far, though, she hadn’t heard if these bipedal apes had replied, even though an entire year had passed.
She hadn’t given them much thought in the meantime, but under the orange sky of dusk and with the previous conversation in mind, her thoughts began to wander. Maybe they would yet get to fight the new species? After all, if they hadn’t responded to an invitation of friendship in a span of a year, it surely meant they were rejecting it, right? And if it came to a fight, she wondered how the Gryphon Kingdom would fare in battle against them.
It was a difficult question to answer. For what did she know of them?
Very little, aside from what rumor held. Chief among them that humans had superior technology. Gilda snorted at the thought—if anycreature but a pony said so, she might be inclined to believe it.
For ponies, anything beyond a spear or arrow was superior technology. The Zebrican Confederation had already far surpassed them in terms of alchemical weapons and tools, while the Gryphon Kingdom was experimenting with a new generation of rapid-fire crossbows and naval ballistae that were a far cry from the crude and somewhat unreliable ones the Minotaurs had originally fashioned for them during the war with Equestria.
But mere weapons were no measure of Equestria’s actual warfighting skill. Equestria could afford to be behind because they had powerful magicks and a very high proportion of magic wielders in relation to other races—unicorns made up a full fourth of their numbers, counting the thestrals. They also had a massive diplomatic advantage over other nations. For one thing, ponies were born to be almost non-confrontational to a fault, and for another, no other nation wanted to anger the long-lived alicorns who could control heavenly bodies at will and whose combat power, though rarely seen, was said to be nigh-unbeatable.
But even without the presence of the Princesses, Equestria was no easy opponent, not the least of which was because they were a geostrategic island surrounded by far weaker foes with hundreds of miles of tricky terrain to fall back on. Even taking them by surprise and caging Celestia in Canterlot with the help of a dragon clan, conquering the pony nation had proven pretty much a strategic impossibility and logistical nightmare for the former Gryphon Empire.
Even with their Weather Factory destroyed on the first day of war and their storm cloud caches destroyed, the ponies had plenty of pegasi to manipulate the weather, drowning the Imperial advance in downpours by miring their supply trains and most avenues of advance in endless mud and floodwaters, turning an initially rapid advance into a severe slog.
And that was to say nothing of wingblade-armed pegasus soldiers who could fly rings around all but the most agile sky griffons and wield storm clouds as weapons. Was to say nothing of earth ponies who turned out to be not just good at farming but fighting, able to both mete out and take horrific levels of punishment. Was to say nothing of unicorn archers who wielded an impressive arsenal of combat-effective spells as well as quivers full of enchanted arrows who could counter griffon mages and kill from distance.
Was to say nothing of the predatory bat-ponies the Empire had initially courted only to later betray, their entry into the war turning the night skies into killing fields.
Taken altogether, the wonder was not that they had failed to defeat Equestria, but that they came so close to doing so and remained in the field against such overwhelming advantages at the end. It had taken the ponies a while to be able to fight the experienced Imperial military on equal terms, but Equestria was vast enough and Canterlot far enough from the frontier that they could trade enough territory for sufficient time.
They had eventually learned enough to finally halt the Empire’s advance on the doorstep of Canterlot in the initial invasion, turning the Equestrian capital into a trap that nearly cost them the war right then and there. They had likewise turned the second Imperial offensive on Stalliongrad into a griffon graveyard in the year that followed, even if it had once again been a very close affair.
In the end, despite initial appearances, the two races were just too evenly matched to overcome each other. And in the end, they also needed each other, as even Gilda would grudgingly admit. But what of this new race?
Bipedal apes, it was said. Gilda had seen apes, and she had smelled them too. She had no idea how these humans would look, but if they were anything like the apes of their world, it’d be an easy battle. The animals were big alright, but were awkward and, outside of trees, lacking mobility. They couldn’t even run, let alone fly! True, there were a lot of egghead griffons claiming that the animals had some form of intelligence, but given the primates she’d seen, she severely doubted it.
All in all, information regarding the humans was still lacking. She had no idea how the Gryphon Kingdom would fare, though she knew if it came down to it, they’d win. Griffons were stubborn that way, especially when defending their homeland. Besides, the way the ponies described humans, they sounded really dweeby.
She spread her wings, slowing down her descent long enough to land safely on the soft earthy ground. She made sure the area was clear (something that the Gauntlet had drilled into her time and time again), confirming that there were no nearby enemies before she slowly relaxed and folded her appendages to her side. Her shift done, Gilda ran towards the barracks, hoping she was early enough to grab some fresh meat—there was no way she’d be beaten by the other two soldiers in her three-griffon Fuga and get stuck with bread and soup again; not after last night!
When she was a few more paces from the barracks, she saw the wooden doors open up, revealing three griffons moving outwards. Two of them wore forged shoulder plates, steel breastplates, and complete foreleg vambraces that ended in metallic claws, denoting Guard soldiers at least six or seven ranks higher than her.
It was the one in front that caught her attention, however.
He was a male griffon with barely light blue feathers blending well with his pale brown cougar coat. He wore no obvious metallic armor, but instead had leather-like clothing wrapped around his neck, sides, and underbelly with strategically placed metallic greaves. Around his neck was a chain made of copper weaved around it—a command chain that indicated he had not only the authority of his rank, but wielded authority over civilian security forces as well.
She immediately stopped, moved to the side and banged her enclosed claw near her shoulder while simultaneously exposing her neck in deference as they approached.
The center figure was Tribune Cipio, the Commander of the Gryphon Forces in the South Region and a son of a Kingdom High Lord. He had introduced himself to everyone that rotated to his unit in a manner that she would remember forever: he took down three overly-aggressive and overconfident griffons at once, who made the mistake of thinking he only had his rank because of his family and noble title, in under ten seconds.
It wasn’t just his skills, but also his leadership style that had earned him not just respect, but outright affection from his underlings. Tribune Cipio ran a tight unit and treated all of his subordinates, whether Knights, Talons, or even Guards, equally. He would take time to listen to concerns, though he had warned them that wasting his time was tantamount to spending a good amount of days in the brig.
Strict but fair, he was a model griffon military commander; a solid Tribune she was proud to serve. “Good evening, Tribune Cipio,” she greeted, thumping her right set of talons to her left pauldron again.
Cipio took a note of her before stopping. “Good evening. Making trouble, Gladio Behertz?” the Tribune asked with a sly smile.
“No, sir. Just making sure the Caleponians don’t get too lazy,” Gilda replied with an identical smirk.
“Good soldier. Carry on then,” Cipio replied, banging his own shoulder with his claw to return the respect, his neck stiff and straight before walking past her. She didn’t mind him not spending much time on her. He was, after all, her superior.
The sun had almost completely set as she entered the barracks. Going straight to the mess hall, her throat gave a satisfied trill when she saw that there was still plenty of fresh meat being served.
By my ancestors. How did I get so lucky?
~~~~~ Two years later ~~~~~
Gilda raced through the air, carving a broad circle around the large city below. Her sharp eyes darted left and right, trying to cover as many angles as possible, pretending she was in combat and attempting to evade airborne enemies.
It was the Fifty-Ninth Year of Queen Molyneux’s Reign; three years since her induction to the Guards, and her vigilance and disciplined work ethics had paid off as she finally earned her first metal shoulder plate and a pair of leather foreleg vambraces, gaining the rank of Decanus and making her the leader of no less than nine other Auxiliary Guard soldiers. She was also Rotated for the first time to the Kingdom's capital of Arnau.
The majestic city was built to be a stronghold as much as a seat of government, even more enduring than the Western Port Cities. The latter were constructed as the first line of defense for the Kingdom for threats from what ponies called the Antlertic Ocean, and griffons the Eagle Ocean, while Arnau itself was a fortress even more impervious than the original Imperial Capital of Mosclaw.
Like Canterlot, Arnau had been carved from the side of a mountain, taking many generations of careful planning and work. But unlike Canterlot, it was built primarily for defense, consisting of ten levels, each elevating sharply uphill, surrounded by thick and strong ancient stone walls that terminated into the sheer cliffs of the mountain. If anyone was foolish enough to fly up without proper clearance towards the royal palace, they’d have to contend with the patrolling Paladin guards wielding the newest model of rapid-fire crossbows, to say nothing of the lightning orbs that dotted the ramparts that could magically target anyone who came near with lethal bolts when activated.
The roads inside the city were split into two pathways. The main central road took the most direct route upwards, cutting through the ascending levels with an inclining smooth road. However, during battle, these roads would be blocked with heavily reinforced stone walls, forcing any invading army to take the longer, circling road towards the top. And even then, they’d have to contend with the well-placed checkpoints along the spiraling road—palisades using thick steel walls as their gates.
Defense wasn’t the only thing in mind when the city was built, though. Functionality was also part of its planning process. All flight passages and roads from the different regions led to Arnau, making it also the biggest trade capital of the Kingdom. Whether one was looking for precious gems and metals from the frozen mountainous North, fruits and nuts from the rich farmlands of the South, a variety of fish from the West, or even meat in the form of the game herds of the Eastern Steppes, any proud Gryphon would readily admit—Arnau had it all.
Gilda remembered visiting the capital city just once as a cub. Her mother had brought her there not long before she left for the Western Ports to go to Equestria. She remembered marveling at the splendor of the city; the patrolling green-armored Paladins and beautifully carved fortress walls. She remembered her mother beaming with pride as she beheld their capital, telling her daughter that the city was proof that Gryphons could do anything.
Even now, many years later, the image wasn't tarnished in her mind. The city was well-maintained, both structurally and socially. Though there were some rare cases of riots or other violent outbreaks, they were few and far between, coming as they did from a city where the vast majority living there were griffons.
Of course, that wasn’t to say her transition was easy. After living more than a year in the idyllic Southern Farmlands with minimal demand for work, Arnau felt like a very rude wake-up call. Patrols were far longer, and she had additional duties like goods inspector, Peacemaker (which was basically a civil officer that knocked out griffons before they could start anything stupid), and even had a brief stint as a help-claw at the palace, once getting close enough to spot the Queen for at least a few brief moments. Though overwhelmed at first by all her new duties, she persevered, and before she knew it, the busy city life became routine.
Until they received some very unwelcome news a week back.
“Gilda!”
Gilda glanced to her left, spotting her partner. He was not of her choosing, but his presence there was another Kingdom policy: any soldier with a high enough rank and armor would be assigned a partner of lower ranking from their subordinates. It had something to do with efficiently training rookies by giving them more experienced griffons to work with.
She wasn’t a big fan of that particular rule, even if she understood the reasons behind it. Her partner was a fellow Northerner named Fortrakt Gletscher. He was several years younger than she was and had only earned his second leather pauldron the previous month, which he wore proudly on his right shoulder. His feline coat was roughly the same shade as hers, though his feathers were the deep tan of a golden eagle.
And like any younger griffon, he thought to endear himself to his new superior by trying to invade her wingspace.
She’d responded by slamming him through a table, hard.
Thank the Ancestors he learned his lessons fast. Even more so when he was actually decent company.
“Gilda, crows take it, let me catch my breath!” Fortrakt called again, his tongue lolling as he began to fall back.
Heh, what a fledgling! she thought as she descended and perched on a crenel of the fifth level wall, only to take off again just as he’d caught up with her. An annoyed and panting Fortrakt followed afterwards, unable to close the distance, to which she looked back and gave him a smirk.
“What’s the matter, Fortrakt? Can’t even do a double fort-run without a break?” she teased.
“Stick your head in a cave,” Fortrakt muttered breathlessly. “Better yet, a dragon’s cave!”
Gilda only laughed as she continued to pull ahead of him, forcing him to flap harder to keep her in range. To be fair, fort-runs—a practice of simultaneous ground and air dashes—were exhausting. This was especially true for most Northerners, sky-griffons who were more enduring in flight than ground travel. However, she wasn’t going to tell him that. “Only when you stop being a cub,” Gilda replied, before she smirked and added the inevitable insult, “cub.”
“Not all of us have shed our down feathers,” he retorted, causing Gilda to roll her eyes. She wasn’t that old!
“Do you want me to drop you from here, Fortrakt?” she suggested, facing him with a smile. “Because you know how hard I dropped you on the ground that one time. Don’t think I can’t do it from the air!”
“Yeah, whatever you say, Decanus.” He fired her a mock salute.
She didn’t reprimand him because she didn’t mind it, knowing he was good at his duties and genuinely liked her. “Suit yourself, Gladio.” Gilda smiled for a second, rubbing his lower rank in before it faded—he was the youngest of her three Fuga leaders; which were a trio of three-soldier elements that made up her decade and were the lowest level of organization in the Kingdom’s military.
She took a deep breath and looked at the horizon. A web of paved roads from all regions converged as they approached the city. Spread in rows and columns down below were the green and yellow fields of local farmlands, tended by small figures, like ants. Gilda couldn’t identify if the figures belonged to ponies or griffons, nor did she care. Right now, her eagle eyes settled towards the Western Region.
“No matter how hard you look, you won’t be seeing the humans. I heard they only arrive three days from now.” Fortrakt reminded her, finally starting to catch his breath.
She looked at him for a moment before shifting her gaze back at the horizon. “Don’t remind me,” she growled low, to which he wisely shut up.
She knew he wasn’t wrong. The Gryphon Ambassador had sent word from Equestria just a week earlier that the humans were finally willing to start trade between the two species, and one of their major nations wanted to send a diplomatic mission to visit the Queen personally in order to begin the negotiations.
And only after three years of silence, she thought. Normally, that would be seen as an insult and earn a very cold shoulder from the Kingdom. So why are we still baring our throats and offering open talons to these... apes?
Unfortunately, she had no say in the matter. Five days ago, the High Lords and Ladies convened with Her Highness, and after days of silence, they announced that they had agreed to warmly welcome the new species to the Kingdom. They even planned a feast; chickens, game meats and even flying boars were being brought over from the Eastern Steppes, and grain import increased from the South. Bakeries all over the kingdom were gearing up and preparing for the mass production of various forms of bread, which Gilda grudgingly admitted ponies had done much to improve over the centuries.
All in all, Arnau had become very busy indeed in the last few days, and even more so for Gilda. After the patrol, she and Fortrakt were to report to the Eastern Gates to inspect the arriving goods, making sure nothing illegal was being smuggled in under their beaks. And with all the cargo coming in and all soldiers pulling double-shifts in the leadup to the visit of the alien apes, it left her exhausted enough that she couldn’t even enjoy her after-dinner flights.
And all because the walking and talking primates were visiting.
“So, you’re one of those ape-haters?” Fortrakt finally asked somewhat tentatively, sensing Gilda’s brooding mood.
“Does it matter?” Gilda answered shortly. Was she? She couldn’t tell, truthfully. Maybe annoyed, more than hate. For one, she was so sick and tired of hearing about these humans without ever coming across one — and all for so much ado about nothing. The last several weeks had been little except endless variations on “They are coming!” and “I wonder what they look like?”
And for what?
Even as more news came in, her opinion was unwavering. The fact that these humans were only extending their... well, whatever their claws were called now, well after the Gryphon Kingdom extended theirs three years ago, meant they weren’t taking them seriously.
So why should Gilda—or the Kingdom in general, she thought—care?
“Seriously, Gilda. Why are you so down on them even before we’ve met them?” Fortrakt challenged, breaking back into her thoughts.
“Are you serious?” Gilda gave him a look. “Never mind the fact it took three years for them to get back to us; these humans have probably already traded all the good stuff to those Equestrian dweebs. Even if they had something to offer, what’s left over for us? The warrior holds allegiance to whatever land they call home, but these humans seem little more than traders and peddlers, from what I can tell. So why are we putting out for them? What could they give us and what accord could we possibly expect them to honor?”
“No idea, but they are coming.” Fortrakt shrugged. “And like it or not, we’re going to welcome them.”
Gilda just growled, to which Fortrakt smiled. “Have to admit, I can’t wait to see you in a dress uniform.”
“Well, you can keep waiting,” Gilda declared. “I’m meeting with the Tribune later to see if I can get a leave of absence.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen, Gilda,” Fortrakt replied with a laugh as they concluded their patrol. “Everybody’s pulling double-duty, and just by asking, you’ll probably get us booted to kitchen or latrine duty. But who knows—maybe the Tribune will take pity on you and just have you nibble on some ape’s rear, eh?”
Gilda’s wing snapped out to try and cuff him, but the younger male just darted away, laughing.
Crows take him, Gilda thought before she shook her head and launched after him, giving chase. I’d sooner screw a stallion than a human!
It was just three days before humanity’s arrival.