//------------------------------// // Chapter 22 // Story: Hegira: Rising Omega // by Guardian_Gryphon //------------------------------// Earth Calendar: 2117 Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact) December 12th, Gregorian Calendar Hutch I set the DaTab down, and immediately got locked in a loop staring down at my claws, again, flexing them slowly and watching the way the light reflected off the talons. My claws.  Every time I saw a part of myself, or felt one of my limbs move in a somehow new, yet somehow familiar way...  Every time I caught sight of my reflection, especially, I seemed to get locked into a mental loop just drinking it all in. Fyrenn had said that was normal, and that while it would never fully go away, that it would get to be much more manageable. Life is full of surrealities, but I'd never experienced anything quite so... *Intensely.*  I guess that would be the best word.  I'd been shot, fallen out of a moving VTOL once over twenty feet to the ground.  I'd lost people.  Under my command, and in my personal life. Been plenty happy too.  Promotions.  Successful ops.  Lives saved.  Disasters averted.  Made friends.  Found love. But all of it seemed to be more...  Well just 'more,' as a Gryphon.  I'd always had more empathy than Aston did for the measures Fyrenn, and Neyla, and the others had taken to project Alyra.  To free the other children in the telekinetic program.  To try and make sure nothing like it ever happened again... Now it was hard to cope with the feelings of regret.  For not having been angrier, like they were. Aston and I had done plenty of research.  We'd talked for a couple of years about 'going golden.'  I think Fyrenn felt better about sponsoring us on short notice because he knew that we didn't need the standard orientation.  No loss from skipping it. I imagine the orientation covered a lot of ground on emotions.  I know my research had.  Lots of warnings about the intensity, and how that applied to both positive, and negative feelings.  I'd braced myself for things like love, and joy, and pain, and anger...  But what had taken me by complete surprise?  Was the curiosity. Anyone who tells you curiosity isn't an emotion is a dumbass.  I was a dumbass for a long time, I should know. It wasn't just me.   My feathers, which had turned out looking kind of like they belonged in Fyrenn's family line, just like I'd hoped.  My claws.  The amazing weirdness of having a tail.  The pure and unfiltered joys, so many joys, of wings...  My beak... It was everything.   Colors.  Sounds.  Shapes.  Trains of thought.  Emotions.  The texture of things against feathers, fur, and the scale-ish things on my forelegs...  Even the way temperature, and humidity, and pressure felt... About the only thing that wasn't much different was smell.  But even that was different, mostly because that way that smells trigger memories and emotions for Humans?  Gryphons have that, but it hits approximately a thousand times harder.  Same thing with taste. Aston's emergency acclimation crash-course volunteer, someone called Shierel, had moved right on to me when she was done with Laura.  It was odd, getting the hang of standing, walking, running, in so many new and different ways. Not so much a learning experience;  Apparently my new digs came pre-wired.  It was more about clearing away old cobwebs leftover from the ape-brain. Sheirel really seemed to understand the complexities of it though.  Apparently her mate was an emergency convert, and she had honed her experiences helping him through the process to the point that JRSF gave her a certification in it. She'd also told me that some of my experiences weren't unique to Gryphons.  All Equestrians had heightened senses, and emotions.  It was just different mixtures, and different patterns between us all. No surprises there.  I'd known my fair share of Converts to other species.  They'd always talked about some similar things.  But words can't do an experience like that justice.  To change what you *are* is such a deep, and profound thing...   It isn't something I think you can ever understand fully until you've done it.  You can't even begin to wrap your head, or your heart, around the most basic concepts you'd need for context. I felt one of Laura's wings over my back, and I closed my eyes, sighing a deep sigh of contentment.  Dear God in Heaven, when was the last time I'd ever felt contentment so many times in a twenty four hour period?   That used to be a 'maybe once a month' thing... She reached over my shoulders, wrapped my claws in hers, and held all four to the warm feathers of my chest.  Another odd thing to get used to;  Gryphons run *hot.*  Same way most avian things do, apparently.  Not as hot as Dragons, but our nominal temps are up in the same zone as 'Emergency Room or die' for a Human. Yet, somehow, I didn't feel overheated, despite the fact that most of Lucapa's buildings were set for seventy degrees.  Feathers and fur are amazing.  Apparently they can keep you cool when its hot, and warm when its cold in equal measure. And Shierel had said something about being completely insect and parasite immune, and very water resistant too, and having to do a little extra work to get water onto your skin when in the shower, or swimming... So much to take in.  I pushed it all away and just focused on the feeling of Aston pressed up against my back, and her claws, wrapped onto mine, pressed against my heart.   Fyrenn was teetering on being a stone cold lifeless machine if he'd shunned this contact for three years, in my opinion.  That, or whatever had been tormenting him had truly been a demon of some kind, to produce that much raw fear. Aston laid her head overtop of mine, and I pressed up into the warm feathers, resisting the sudden urge to sneeze as they tickled the tips of my ears.  Being able to change the direction your ears are pointing?  Absolutely amazing.  Game changer.  No idea how Humans survived so long without that adaptation. "All done?" I thrummed a sort of 'yes' tone deep in my chest, then answered verbally for good measure. "I am officially no longer a citizen of this planet.  Good riddance." Laura released my claws, and moved to sit beside me at the desk, brushing one talon gently against my cheek as she hooked my tail with hers.  I could see concern written all over her face.  There again, a beautiful surreality;  It was so easy to recognize it as *her* face, even though it was so different. Her voice too.  Richer, more tones, but her voice.  And full of worry. "This was all very sudden, Terrence.  And...  While I'm not at all regretting where we are now...  What we are...  Where we're headed...  I'm worried.  I don't want what happened to drag down all our good memories.  Taint our accomplishments.  I don't want to think bitter things when I think about Earth, and Humanity.  And I don't want you to be bitter either.  We have too much to look forward to...  And too much that we *need* to remember." I leaned forward and pressed my head against hers, taking her claws in mine.  It took me a moment to collect my thoughts, and she waited patiently, like we always did for each other. "I...  Don't want to feel bitter either Laura.  And I won't, in the end.  But there's a lot to process...  The world we lived in was never a good one.  And it was never good to people, especially the ones who needed it most...  And we served a role not just in keeping people safe, but in keeping them in the same place that we've always been as the Human race...  We're partly to blame.  For everything that's happened.  And I hate that it took so long for me to understand..." I took another moment to breathe deeply, and enjoy the feeling of her crest against mine.  The subtle beat of her pulse in her claws.  And then the rest of the thought finally came together. "I think seeing what happened to April, and Sonya...  What they did to those children...  Knowing that Generals, and Councilors, and Admirals, and other officers, and staff, and doctors...  That they knew about it?  Signed off on it?  I think that...  Might've...  Radicalized me.  It changed the way I saw everything else.  Killed all my excuses for the things we ignore every day when we're privileged..." Laura pulled away, and locked eyes with me, nodding slowly in agreement.  Her voice was an oasis to me, like a cold ice-pack against a throbbing wound.  It brought clarity and relief. "If something like that doesn't change you...  Move you, on a deeper level...  Then you're in a dangerous place.  I just want to be sure we can separate the way we feel about what's happening, and the people *most* responsible for it all, from the way we feel about people in general.  Especially Humans.  We *were* Humans Hutch.  And it will be years before we've spent more time as Gryphons, than as Humans.  In some ways we're *still* Humans.  And always will be." I nodded slowly, then pressed my forehead to hers.  We held the post for a long moment before I spoke. "I think I can live quite happily with that thought.  As long as I've got you to keep my dumb ass on the straight and narrow." She chuckled and broke the connection briefly to nibble my cheek feathers with her beak. "I'll keep you from being bitter.  But don't mistake me for the sort of someone who will keep you tidy and quiet and peaceful.  We don't wear old emblems and ranks anymore.  We're free to do what's right in the loudest, most straightforward way possible.  I intend to *misbehave.*" I smiled, and brushed her cheek with one claw. "Damn.  I love it when you talk like that." Skye I started when I felt the wing on my back, and boy do I mean I spooked.  Big bucking kick and all. I could tell from the sound Fyrenn made that it was him, and that I'd genuinely hurt him.  Par for the course for the kind of day I was having. Unicorn legs may not hit like Earth Pony hooves, but they still hit like...  Well...  Like a horse. Stupid.  Who is going to be here that would deserve that Skye?  Stupid. I couldn't raise my eyes to meet him.  Wheezing, he knelt to put his eyes and beak below my head instead, looking up at me in this stupid, funny, weird way with his head twisted at a hilarious angle, like some kind of eagle trying to see something hidden under a ledge. "Nice to know you haven't lost your spark of fight." Dammit.  Why would he do that?  Why the humor?  Why not yelling, or cursing, or a disapproving frown...  Why meet me with my own kind of sarcasm? I knew, deep down.  He cared.  Really.  Truly.  Like a brother should, and would.  But the question stuck with me all the same.  And I knew the reason for that too...   Just like I knew deep down that I'd spooked not just because of what I'd seen in the Nightmare's head...  Not even by half, really.  Some fears are more personal.  The bigger existential ones, and the pain...  The guilt...  What I'd done to Astris...  All that did was tear the scab and the scar off something much older. "Old habits.  They always catch up with you.  You sleep well for more than ten years.  Finally learn to sit and think.  Or eat.  Or read...  Without constantly looking behind you...  And then suddenly, in one day..." I threw up my hooves, and then sat back on my haunches.  Suddenly too tired to stand.  Fyrenn came to place one wing over my back again, and I felt my muscles tense reflexively, as much from fight or flight, as from holding back a sob. I'd bruised his already bruised ribs, and he still wanted to give me a hug. I wished he'd just yelled at me instead.  Or did that angry hiss thing that Gryphons sometimes do.  Then I'd feel like I was getting what I deserved. Something about the depth of his persistence, and his concern for me just somehow seemed to make the guilt worse.  Like salt into a cut. But then he pulled me to his side, and I felt, as much as heard the thrum of his words.  And they did help.  A little. "I know.  I don't know exactly what you've had to cope with...  That's for you to share whenever you're ready.  But I know what it does to you.  I know the constant hitch in your chest, near your diaphragm.  The tension in the shoulders.  The splitting headaches from holding even more tension above, and behind your eyes.  The way loud noises can turn a good mood into a panic attack, followed by that sickly sour taste...  Like...  Flipping a switch..." I wanted to tell him.  So badly.  It hurt.  Physically. Every word cut deep into my chest with an icy cool sense of relief, and catharsis... The exact choice of words.  The way he said them.  He didn't just know.  He *understood.*  He *felt* my pain.  In his own way, he'd been there. It hit me, like a sudden chill, that so many of us in our little messed up herd had experienced the same thing...  Traumatic betrayal, or abandonment, by family.  Fyrenn with Robert.  Neyla, with her first love.  Alyra, with both of her biologicals.  IJ, with the Hive.  Stan too, if the little bit he'd said about his own father was anything to go by... Even Kephic and Varan in their own way.  Not so much intentionally betrayed or abandoned...  But having your whole family killed in front of you...  That'd be enough to give anyone issues. Tell him you stupid filly.  Just tell him. I inhaled slowly.  Tried to make the words come.  But they wouldn't. No.  You don't deserve the empathy.  You murdered one of your own.  You don't deserve to be at peace. As if he was responding directly to that Celestia-and-Luna-damned voice in my head, Fyrenn spoke again, slowly stroking the top of my head with the tip of his right wing, in a cadence that I suddenly realized he was matching to just a few measures slower than my heart-beat.  He adjusted downward gradually as my heart stepped down from panic mode, to a more normal cadence.   A way to naturally slow my pulse and put me at ease.   Dammit why was he so good at caring, in all the little detailed ways that mattered? "Just because killing is easier for a Gryphon doesn't make it *easy* you know.  And doing it on a battlefield is very...  Different.  When it's a raw survival contest, it's much simpler to work your way to equilibrium.  When you have to pull the trigger on someone you care about..." Awwww.  Shit.  There it was again...  I was buried in misery, and hadn't even stopped to think about how much experience both he, and Neyla, had with that particular, specific brand of pain.  They'd both had to look someone in the eye who wasn't an enemy, in the conventional sense, and pull the trigger. To snuff out the life of someone they loved. At least it wasn't quite as bad for me.  Astris wasn't anything more than a fellow Pony.  From the little we'd seen of his life's memories, and the moments we'd shared, I had the overpowering sense we'd've been good friends...  If life had been less cruel. If I had been smarter.  Faster.  Better... Still.  I'd fired a weapon at enemies before.  I think I might've even scored one or two kills in the clutch.  Not knowing for sure definitely helped me sleep at night.  And so did the fact that both of those possible kills were Trolls.   Doubt I would have had to struggle much to reach 'equilibrium' even if I had to knife one to death slowly.  Knowing what they so often did to females of my kind in particular... But I'd never even watched another Pony die.  Not in person, anyways.   Let alone been the one to cause their death. Fyrenn started up again, as if he had somehow been following my mental spiral.  Maybe he had.  I suppose when you have to shoot someone you think of as a brother, you might be pretty well equipped to guess what I was thinking in that moment. "You don't have to be 'Ok.'  Not yet.  It's alright to be in pain.  It's *right* to be in pain.  You did something no one should ever have to do.  No one.  Something a lot of soldiers I've fought with would have lacked the moral courage to do." Courage?  What the everloving fuck was he on about? He put one claw gently under my chin and turned my head so I'd look up at him.  There were tears in his eyes, and I realized with a small jolt that they weren't from the bruise I'd given him.  He leaned in and placed his forehead against mine, whispering the answer to my unspoken question softly. "The selfish, easier thing would have been to let him suffer.  To scrimp and scrabble for some way to save him.  But even if there was?  We'd have never found it before that Hell he was living in made his life too painful to go on living.  And then we'd've thrown away the chance to save billions on top of that." He extended both wings around me, and I finally let the tears start to flow again, silently, as he began to recite something I vaguely recognized as a scripture from some Human holy book. "To everything there is a season.  A time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, And a time to die. A time to plant, And a time to harvest. A time to kill, And a time to heal. A time to break down, And a time to build up. A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance. A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones. A time to embrace, And a time to refrain. A time to gain, And a time to lose; A time to keep, And a time to throw away. A time to tear, And a time to sew together. A time to keep silent, And a time to speak. A time to love.  And a time to hate. A time of war. And a time of peace." He pulled his head away, and locked eyes with me again as I slowly lifted my head.  He nodded once, slowly, firmly, and then placed a claw on my shoulder. "Grieve, for our loss.  Hate our enemy.  Hate what you had to do.  But not yourself.  You made the only right decision.  I have led people into combat.  I have lost people in combat, because of decisions that I made.  I have shot a man whom I once called my brother.  I have tortured, and killed plenty.  I know war.  I know death.  We are old, old friends.  And enemies."   He gently squeezed my shoulder at each word of his next sentence, for emphasis.  Dammit.  Dammit.  Dammit.  Why did he care so much? "You did the *only.*  *Right.*  *Thing.*  And it's going to hurt a lot of nights.  It's going to be a lot of work.  Whether you understand it or not, you chose to make a sacrifice in that moment.  To shoulder this burden, so he could be *free.*  So others could live.  But it will not take you as long, as it did me.  You are *not* going to walk this path alone.  And you are not going to make the same mistakes I did.  I won't let you." He sighed, and brought one wing forward to gently brush the tears from my eyes with one of his primaries.  So soft.  Almost like a mother's fetlock.  His next words had a contrasting, steelier edge. "Now.  I don't pretend to know whether it will help you to cope or not...  But we are planning to go take a big, enormous, steaming shit right on 'the purple fuckstick's' front door.  Do you want to have a hoof in that?" I blinked the rest of my tears away, and smiled sadly.  If he wanted to care, at least I wouldn't push him away.  No matter what the voice in my head was clawing at me to do. He knew exactly what to say.  And he said it because he truly cared. And I absolutely did want a shot at payback.  That Nightmare...  That *thing...*  I was going to make her *burn* for what she had made me do. Maybe it wasn't time to talk about certain things, yet...  But I didn't want to go it alone.  The voice of Fyrenn's kindness was louder than the voice in my head.  Especially when it sang in harmony with the voice deep down that wanted some good old fashioned vengeance. Enough for me to push the darkest voice back a little ways into the corners again. As always, when that happened, it stopped pushing, and fell to circling in the shadows of my subconscious, almost the same way that Wisp mental projection had circled. PTSD is a *bastard* of a thing.  I don't recommend it. I snorted, and shook my head. “You really do know how to do this?  Don't you?” I could see from his expression that he'd caught my reference to our first meeting.   He held up one claw in a fist, and I bumped it with my hoof. And a new voice started up at the back of my mind.  Bright.  Clear.  Calm. Maybe not yet Skye...  But soon.   Soon you can ask him to be your brother.   Officially. Earth Calendar: 2117 Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact) Twelfth Month, Twelfth Day, Celestial Calendar Stan "I've seen that kinda energy in a crowd before.  I don't think any of 'em have really sussed out what just happened.  But when they do..." IJ nuzzled the side of my neck, and then just stood there with her head nestled in the crook for a few moments.  I moved my eyes up from watching the dazed, confused gaggle of nobles down in the courtyard, to watching the late afternoon sunlight bounce back and forth off the stone and glass of the city. All too soon, the moment was over, and IJ moved up to stand fully beside me, glaring down at the courtyard with an expression that someone who didn't know her well would have mistaken for mild indifference. I knew her more than well enough to pick up on the disdain.  She did a good job keepin' it out of her voice, but I could pick out the little inflections. "It will certainly make matters more interesting for the Princesses.  I am sure it will all seem very scandalous to them that we are headed for an official alliance with the Gryphons as well..." When she turned her head to face me directly, and I locked eyes with her, I caught a glimpse of something that was all too rare for her.  And something I always treasured seeing on that gorgeous, perfectly sculpted muzzle of hers. Something that came through louder, and clearer in her voice, as she finished her thought, than it ever had before. "I know that the revelations of this day have been difficult for many.  Yourself included.  But of all of us here in the castle, I think I feel the darkness, and fear the least." I sat back to my haunches, and did that head tilt thing that Fyrenn, in particular, seemed so fond of.  IJ took that as the unspoken question it was, and she sat beside me, close, but not quite touching. I couldn't wait for the day she would let up on her self control just a little bit more. "I grew up, if you could call it that, living under the kind of oppression everyone is so afraid of...  And because of the bonds I forged with you, and with the others?  Now I, and many others, are free.  Not only that, but we are reaching out and making the best of that freedom.  I never, ever would have believed three years ago that my people would one day freely come and go amongst Gryphons.  Think of them as friends.  See Ponykind as equals, and friends.  Think of you as the most important thing in my life." She leaned forward and brushed the tip of my muzzle with hers, surprisin' me more than a little. It was a gentle, soft, reserved gesture, but full of the kind of emotions I was always so desperate for her to air more freely. We both closed our eyes and held the moment.  The sun on the side of our heads was just the right amount of warm.  The smell of her breath was fresh, and tangy, like somethin' from a coniferous tree, with just the teeniest hint of light airy sweetness.  That was one of the things I loved most about her chosen form. "I know you must be struggling to reconcile the truth about why your world is dying, with the choice you made to come here...  But without you?  I might still be free.  But that freedom would seem less worthwhile.  I have *hope.*  Because of you.  If you are ever worried that your Conversion was without purpose?  Don't be." Geez.  Talk like that could make anyone want to make something nobler, and wiser outa themselves.  I hadn't realized, until she said it, just how much I'd needed to hear it.  I didn't exactly love Earth the way I did Equestria...   But then again nobody who grew up in 'Jersey ever really loved it either, in the conventional doe-eyed sense.  But we'dve died for it, and if you'd'a ever said a cross word about it, you might've been the one doin' the dyin'. It hit me just how much it hurt to see the place I'd come from destroyed.  And it also hit me just how little time I'd ever given myself to really think about it, or grieve properly.  Was that because of how busy I was? Or was that just an excuse to avoid sheddin' tears? Yeah.  Probably that second one. I opened my eyes, and smiled.  IJ smiled back.  God how I loved it when she smiled.  Seems like she and Varan were in a contest to see who could crack the fewest smiles.  Maybe they were tryin' not to think too hard about certain griefs too. Maybe that's why all those Ponies down there were so scared of Changelings, and Gryphons.  Never gave 'em any thought, because they were afraid of the emotions they might feel if they did... I leaned forward and planted a quick kiss on her lips, then moved to whisper in her ear, as a thought struck me like a bolt of lightning from the blue. "Marry me." She pulled back in surprise and blinked rapidly in confusion, her ears twisting back and forth reflexively with a mixture of curiosity, and bemusement. I grinned, sat back on my own haunches, and snorted through my nostrils, jumping in before she could finish collecting her thoughts to hit back with all the old standby arguments.  She'd always said she had to get her people to a certain point.  Find a successor.  Shift the load of responsibility. But right then and there, good ol' Stanley Carradan, who more or less cheated his way thru his political science courses, found an even better argument right from outa my sweetheart's own words.  Suddenly I had it all figured exactly the way it needed to be.  How to get us both what we wanted. "They are afraid of you, because they don't know you.  And because even if they did, the folks vouchin' for you scare them almost as much as you do, even though they're the big feathery protectors of the land.  But I can't think of a better way to show 'em all the reasons they should be friends with you, and all the reasons their fears are bunk, than to show 'em that you love a Pony.  And a Pony loves you." She closed her mouth with the sharp clack of teeth, and began blinking rapidly again, head inclined, staring downward into the middle distance in thought.  I pressed my advantage.  Hard.  If IJ didn't have a scathing comeback right away?  That meant there was a chance. "Look;  Your people are free already.  And I know they need you as you are right now, leadin' from the front.  But why can't I be a part of that?  I am not a distraction for you, any more than you are for me, I hope.  You're my anchor in all this.  Who knows how long we really have left to enjoy life?  Putin' it off ain't gonna help anyone.  And for your people to see an example of how to love the right way?  And for all the Ponies here to see how good it is for us too?  They say the weddin' ceremony is mostly for the families.  Well let's do a big one, for our whole *species!*  Make a huge splash." I leaned down and put my head under hers, lifting it as she in turn brought her gaze up to meet mine fully as I brought everything home for the grand slam. "The last royal weddin' here was crashed by a Changeling?  Right?  So this time?  We can do it properly.  Give 'em a contrast they can't ignore.  I don't wanna wait 'till this war is over, and half or all of us might be dead 'n gone.  I *love* you.  Marry me.  Please." When she began to nod, I felt like someone had been clamping down on my chest with a magnetic plate press, and suddenly released.  I ain't terribly much of a cryer, but I could feel the tears comin' on as she finally spoke.  Joy, and relief more than anything. "Now...  Is a time for slaying old fears, it seems.  And I'm tired of old fears.  I believe you are right...  We can make a start at a better world, by making our bond strong, before everyone.  We have both come a very long way from our pasts...  I would much rather share our futures, as closely as possible, than remain apart." I grinned, and pressed my forehead against hers, fighting hard with my lungs to keep my excited, relieved breathing even, and my sobs down. "You coulda' just said 'yes.'  Sweetheart." She reached up and nipped the side of my neck playfully, giving me the kinda grin I'd always dreamed about seein' on her face, but almost given up any real hope for. "I believe that is exactly what I said.  Sweetheart." Earth Calendar: 2117 Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact) December 12th, Gregorian Calendar Fyrenn Anticipation was going to be the death of me.  I hated waiting.  I hated the sense of limbo between possible futures, as the threads of providence and time worked themselves out at the moment of a critical juncture. Alyra was about to meet the man who birthed her.   I was about to go in and demand the EarthGov Council and Military consent to a fairly serious military deployment on their soil, after an incredibly fraught exchange of fire. Skye and Celestia were wrapping up a presentation of our findings about the Nightmare for them;  We'd carefully rehearsed and curated what would be covered, and what should be omitted. No one liked the idea of a lie, least of all Celestia, and perhaps my own distaste coming in close second...  But we felt there wasn't much of a choice.  Even if Martins could have somehow convinced the Council to devote every available scrap of resources, and every erg of energy, to a planetary evacuation by ship, the numbers just weren't on her side. The majority of Humanity was facing the same choice it always had;  Evolve or die.  If we had to tell a lie to save billions of lives?  Then a lie we would tell. But we didn't have to be happy about it. In service of telling the smallest lie possible, we had decided it was worth revealing the way Wisps could possess Ponies, and explaining how that tied into the Nightmare's justifications for war, and for leading and funding the PER. We needed them to fear her.  Enough that they would allow us to strike an important blow on Earth's soil.  And enough that they might start to take security measures to ensure they themselves weren't being manipulated. What they did not need to know was the way that the Nightmare had pre-planned Equestria's encounter with Earth, to the point of causing the Winnowing just to provide an extra stick to Celestia's carrot of Conversion. It struck me, with a sensation that sent shivers down my spine and into my tail, that we didn't know just how much the Nightmare might have influenced Conversion itself as an idea in Celestia's mind, and in the minds of all the mages and scientists who had worked to bring it to fruition. I heard a small sound at the end of the corridor, and raised my head, trying as hard as I could to banish grim thoughts and force a sense of calm.  I spied the figure of a familiar Gryphon, walking side by side with another, and a small Colt. I rose from my haunches, cast a quick glance at the sealed door of the conference room, then darted down the hallway to catch up with the group before they turned the next corner. "Ex-lieutenant McBride!  William!" He turned, and offered me a warm smile, which was quickly followed by a foreleg-claw shake as I closed to within reach. "Off duty it's Bill, please." I nodded, and inclined my head to the Gryphoness beside him, and the small brown eyed Pegasus colt shyly tucked under her right wing. Bill smiled, and gestured expansively with one claw. "This is my mate Shierel, and our son Miles." Shierel offered a claw and foreleg, which I shook, and then I proffered Miles a small wink, and a nod. "You've got a beautiful family.  You're all three quite blessed to have each other." The words brought nods and smiles all around.  Bill grinned, and pointed at Neyla's feathers in my crest.  Our relationship had only come up briefly in our first meeting, but apparently Neyla and Shierel were familiar with each other in passing, and Bill had taken the same interest in our story as everyone seemed to. "Apparently you're quite blessed too.  It's nice to see you didn't sit on your wings." I chuckled, and inclined my head. "This is not a time for turning and fleeing.  These are days that demand we stand and fight.  That goes to our own fears as much as anything else." An awkward moment of silence fell, and lingered, before Shierel gestured down the corridor with a wing, nodding to her mate, and using the other wing to herd miles along. "We'll see you after his checks are complete." Bill nodded, and then turned back to meet my curious head tilt.  He threw up a thumb claw over his shoulder, and grinned sheepishly. "Miles is getting his intake medical check-up.  Martins wants to move the entire next wave crew to ready-standby and keep everyone here, and secured over the next year." I blinked, and felt one ear flatten reflexively.  Something in my voice must have further surprised Bill, beyond the blatant expression, because he too blinked in surprise as I spoke. "You're part of Wave Two?" He nodded, and rubbed at the back of his head with one claw.  I could immediately sense hesitation, and more than a little emotional turbidity hidden beneath the surface.  The tone of his voice confirmed it, commendably even as it was. "Yes.  Site security is just a position I'm temporarily filling." The lack of further explanation wouldn't have been a point of curiosity by itself.  Even when paired with the quaver in his voice, it wouldn't have entirely been my business.   But when he'd first introduced himself to me at the pre-launch briefing, McBride had given me the abbreviated story of his Conversion experience, Miles' loss of birth parents the day after his own Conversion, the way the three of them had met, and the subsequent decision to form a family. It had lodged in the back of my brain even then, the way that what they had represented everything I wanted to see in Equestria's future, not dissimilar to the diversity and found nature of my own family. Seeing them face to face had brought that emotion, and that thought, back to the front of my mind.  And seeing the way Shierel had glanced at Bill when I made an offclaw comment about fighting, rather than running away, had wormed its way in too. I knew there was something there.  And I was starting to get an idea what I wanted out of the conversation in fully crystallized terms.  So I pressed, hard and bluntly, in the usual Gryphic way.  Bill was a military man, and that too would predispose him to accepting a blunt conversation. "It's good to see species diversity in the Genesis program.  But honestly?  Martins has not been shy in telling me, or anyone who will listen, that she can't seem to get enough Humans.  She has to turn away Equestrian volunteers by the thousands just to hold open empty slots that she hopes to fill with Humans.  The margins for future human reproductive health and genetic diversity will be razor thin unless she can stilt those ratios further." I fixed Bill with a sharp glance, not so much a glare, as a probing look.  I'd seen Varan do it enough that I felt competent to replicate the expression.  As he drew breath to reply, I gently cut him off. "I want to cut straight to the point here.  I saw the way Shierel looked at you just now.  I  understand the basics of your history.  Your family is similar to mine.  Infact, I think your son and my daughter could be best of friends.  They've both endured much more than they ever should have had to.  We're both Converts, married to natives, with converts for kids.  I like you.  I think we could be good friends too.  Your family, as much as mine, represents everything bright that I see in our future as sentient beings, not even just as Gryphons, or Converts." I sat back on my haunches, and folded my forelegs as Bill rustled his wings nervously, and cast a glance sideways and downwards.  I didn't give him a chance to argue, just a long enough moment to process, before making the thesis of my pitch. His head came back up and he fixed his eyes to mine as I spoke. "Neyla, Alyra and I...  The others in our family?  We are going to be the start of something completely new in Equestria.  A clan, and maybe someday?  Grown from that?  A nation...  Not bound to any one species, or origin, but joined together by diversity and unity for their own sakes.  Martins can find other qualified personnel.  Hopefully Human personnel.  I want your family to be a part of what we're doing." He nodded slowly, keeping his eyes locked with mine for a long moment before looking to the side, out into the middle distance, lost in thought.  I gave him all the time he needed to contemplate. At last, he sighed deeply, and nodded once more.  Though not entirely certain, there was a note in his voice of interest, and even relief, that gave me hope. "I have to talk with Shierel...  With Miles...  But truth be told?  I think they would both find your offer much more appealing than all this." I tilted my head, and flicked both ears forward. "And what about you?" He blinked again, and inhaled deeply before replying, tail swishing back and forth anxiously.  But I still heard that note of relief in his voice. "I'm not sure.  I...  Think I'm more nervous about learning a whole new culture, than I am about being shot into deep space..." In a blinding moment of clarity, I realized what was bothering him.  It was surreal, to stand on the outside and see something so similar to a demon I'd tussled with much of my life, expressed in another person's fears, torturing them the same way it had lashed me for so many years. I rose, moved forward, and placed a firm claw on McBride's shoulder.  My voice came out strong, and sure, as it always seems to in those rare moments when I finally truly understand the entirety of a problem, and the solution in the same complete view. "You're more afraid of failing to live up to the promise of what you've become, than you are of a century in a cryostat.  But that's a lie the part of you that still listens to the darkness tells you, in a little whisper, every night before your eyes close.  You can't make decisions based on unhealthy fear.  And you don't need to be with Humans to have access to Human culture either." His expression almost brought tears to my eyes.  I could see the first flicker of panic, indicating I'd hit on a deep, deep truth, followed by a forlorn sadness.  I did my best to bring home the argument, hoping for a moment of real catharsis. I knew that pain.  And felt a sudden desperation to do everything I could to be a part of the process of killing that fear. "Miles and Shierel will both, for a host of reasons unique to each of them, find more in Equestria that is familiar, and more that is conducive to peace, and a happy future.  And so will you...  If you can first accept that fact, and face your fear.  If you were getting on that ship for the right reasons?  I'd be the first to congratulate you.  But you're running away from your fears, and if you make a decision to go based on fear?  You will regret it.  Fight your fear.  Come with us.  Join our clan." Another moment of silence, shorter than the previous, passed, before Bill spoke.  His voice cracked slightly, but he managed to maintain composure otherwise. "I'll talk with my wife and son.  And I know how to get in touch.  I...  Will definitely let you know.  One way or the other.  And I promise I'll give it lots of thought, and prayer.  I'd be a liar if I said that you weren't hitting very close to a lot of truths..." I nodded once sharply, and clapped him on the shoulder.  That was the best response I knew I could hope for.  It was up to his family to do the rest now. "They should be ready for me any moment now.  I'll see you around, I hope." As I began to make my way back towards the conference room door, McBride tossed off a half salute, and smiled sadly. "They got you tied up in a bunch of red tape meetings?" I shook my head, and grinned. "Nah.  I'm pitching an all out assault on the PER headquarters, with Princess Celestia leading the charge."  The look on that Gryphon's face at the mental image those words conjured up was absolutely priceless.   I just hoped that same mental image would go a long way towards selling the Council on an all out assault. My idea was not only a way for the Council to save face, by giving command of the assault to a party with whom they had no acrimony, but it was also a potentially huge PR victory. The Princess of the Sun as the tip of the spear to strike at the heart of the PER? They would never recover from that.