I didn’t even try to beat the rain on the way back to the castle. I let it come down on me for half the walk. I could have teleported, shielded myself, or a lot of other things but sometimes it just felt nice to be rained on.
I pushed open the door and stepped inside.
“Sorry I was gone so long,” I said. “I ended up fixing up Gilda’s house. I think if we wanted to make a bunch of money we could stick around just casting repair spells. These griffons… what’s all this?”
A pile of rotting books was sitting on the floor, organized into a few different piles.
“We found a bunch of books!” Ruby Drop said.
“Welcome back, beloved,” Shahrazad. “While you were gone, we investigated some of the castle’s outbuildings. There was a small private library, and because I care for you so much, I had your apprentice bring the books here.”
“I can’t fix them,” Ruby said, sounding annoyed. “I’ve been casting repair spells like you showed me but it’s not enough.”
“Let me see,” I said. I picked one up in my magic, and it almost ripped apart in my grip. “No wonder you were having problems, these are in terrible condition.”
I could have fixed it myself. I had a lot of experience restoring books. I put it back down carefully without casting anything.
“It’ll be good practice for you,” I decided. “It requires a lot of power and finesse in using that power. With your magical reserves, you might even have to dip into using blood magic.”
Ruby blinked in surprise. “You mean you’ll give me permission to use it?”
“It’s your special talent, it’d be cruel not to let you practice with it once in a while.” Even with the problems her talent had brought her, it was difficult for a pony to resist the call of their mark. She’d been a pariah in her old village for her natural talent with one of the most dangerous techniques in black magic -- turning life energy into magic and vice-versa. It could be used to heal, but most ponies who learned it just wanted to supercharge their spells at any cost.
Also, I knew for a fact she’d been practicing in secret when she was sure I couldn’t possibly know about it. If I’d learned one thing from my own experience, it was that if she felt like she could talk to me about what she was doing, she was a lot less likely to kill somepony on accident.
“I promise I’ll be careful,” Ruby said.
“I know you will be.” I ruffled her mane.
“Did you have any luck looking for the ancient lost artifact down the street, beloved?” Shahrazad asked, patting the pillow next to her. I cast a drying spell on myself before sitting.
“I’ve got a feeling it’s not coming back,” I said. “Maybe we can ask Daring Do to come and sort it out, but I’m not going to jump into a pit looking for something shiny on the way down.”
“Perhaps the griffons can send for one by mail order,” Shahrazad joked.
“The big problem would be convincing them to pay for it,” I countered. “They’d rather keep using a broken broom than pay a single bit getting it fixed.”
“Where did they get the Idol?” Ruby asked, looking up from the magic circle she was sketching on the floor. “It came from somewhere, right?”
“Well…” I hesitated. “Good question. I guess somebody had to make the Idol of Boreas in the first place.”
“Indeed,” Shahrazad said. “And yet it was so precious that its worth was that of an entire nation. Perhaps you can ask your Princess Celestia when we return to Canterlot?”
“...Oh right… Canterlot…” I mumbled.
Shahrazad raised an eyebrow. “You did say there was a train today, did you not? I assumed you wished to be away.”
I really wasn’t looking forward to going back. Not with nothing to show for it. I’d been hoping for a vacation but so far all I’d done was get some useful updates for a travel guide, and the notes would consist entirely of ‘don’t go to Griffonstone’.
I was saved by a knock on the door.
“Oh hey, let me get that,” I said. “It’s probably Gilda. I bet she wants to tell me how I messed up fixing her roof.”
I opened the door and found myself looking at a griffon I’d never seen before. Not that I had met a lot of griffons, but the point is it wasn’t Gilda or Grandpa Gruff.
“Are you the pony who fixed Gilda’s place up?” she asked. She tossed her head, moving the dangling ends of a dirty grey bandanna out of her eyes.
“Yeah, why?” I asked.
She looked around, eyes narrowed, wary of any kind of trick.
“My house is one bad storm away from collapsing. I’ll give you ten bits to fix it the same way you fixed hers.”
“Wait, I--”
“Twenty!” she snapped. “I’m not paying more than that!”
I’d been about to tell her that I would have done it for free if she said please. I wasn’t sure she’d have understood that. Still, she looked more worried than annoyed. If her house was in such bad shape it might fall apart, I could understand. Most griffons wouldn’t lift a talon to help.
“Alright,” I sighed.
“Great!” she said. “I’m Gretchen.” She turned around. “And all you birds better remember I got here first, so she’s fixing my house before anyone else’s!”
“All you birds?” I asked. Gretchen flew off, and I got a look at what had been behind her. A line of griffons stretched down the stairs up to the newly repaired doorway. I groaned. It was going to be a long day.
“Ah, how tragic,” Shahrazad sighed. “Behold, Ruby Drop. The mightiest sorceress in Equestria has been transformed into a slug.”
“Uungf,” I retorted, from where I was lying face-down on the floor. I was trying to tell her I wasn’t a slug but I was too tired to make words good.
“I think she’s just tired,” Ruby said. She prodded me with a hoof. “She’s not slimy. Slugs are slimy.”
“You are wise beyond your years, Ruby Drop. My beloved would never be slimy, indeed. She is just so wise and generous, having repaired so many buildings in a single day, as if she had no limit to her strength.”
“Umhmhg,” I interjected.
“Do you think she’s going to die?” Ruby asked.
“No, no,” Shahrazad assured her. “She is immortal. If she was not, she would not take such liberties with her health! Gabriella, my beloved requires a refreshing cup of tea.”
“Coming right up ma’am!” chirped a voice that was too energetic and happy to exist. I looked up, blinked a few times because I was absolutely sure I was hallucinating and then had to decide that despite all evidence I was actually seeing things correctly.
“Ruby Drop, is that griffon wearing a maid outfit?” I asked.
“Miss Shahrazad had it in her luggage,” Ruby Drop said. She was a good kid, and totally unaware of how little that answered and how many more questions it begged. Ruby helped me up so I could get a better look.
The griffon was humming to herself happily and practically skipping as she assembled afternoon tea. Something about her made me think of Pinkie Pie without the inexplicable and terrifying powers.
And she even managed to look good in a maid outfit.
“Tea is served!” Gabriella said, bringing over the tray. “Did I do it right?”
“Actually, it’s... “ I tilted my head. “It’s at least as good as the maids in Canterlot. How did you do that? Where did these pastries even come from?” I levitated one up to look at it.
“Oh, well, I’m not really good at anything in particular like ponies, because I don’t have a cutie mark,” Gabriella said shyly, adjusting her skirt like she was trying to cover up her bare flank. “But I’m super good at improvising, and I like trying new things!”
“It looks great,” I reassured her. I bit into the scone I was holding. I immediately regretted it. I’d had to eat a lot of pretty awful stuff, mostly my own cooking, so I didn’t gag. I even managed to swallow and keep it down.
The apologetic expression Gabriella gave me implied I hadn’t managed as good a poker face as I’d thought.
“Sorry,” Gabriella muttered. “I got them from Gilda. She’s pretty much the only bird that bakes anything around here.”
I put the rest down. “Don’t worry about it. I’m impressed you were able to get anything together at all.”
“If a job is worth doing right, it’s worth doing poorly!” Gabreilla said brightly.
I couldn’t help but crack a smile. “I don’t think that’s quite how the saying goes. It’s ‘if a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.’”
The griffin smiled. “Sometimes! But you can’t always do something right. Like maybe you’re feeling sick, or sad, or you don’t have good scones. If it’s really something that’s worth doing, you still need to try it anyway, even if you know it won’t be perfect!”
I blinked. “That’s… huh. I like that.”
She brightened up even more, somehow. “Thank you! I just wish other griffons felt the same way I do.”
“Are you really trying to tell me they’re perfectionists?” I snorted. “I just spent all day fixing houses! This place is a disaster zone!”
“That’s the thing,” Gabby said. “Um, is it okay if…?”
I motioned to a cushion. “Go ahead.”
She sat down. “Before today, none of them even bothered to try fixing anything. They’d always talk about how there wasn’t a point, because they were going to leave and never come back.”
“Gilda mentioned something like that. Only dweebs and losers hang around, right?”
“Oh, no! It’s not like that, exactly.” The young griffon held up her talons. “It’s just that the grass is greener on the other side! They never felt like there was a future here. But if they’re getting their houses fixed…!” She clicked her talons together excitedly. “Maybe they think things are going to get better!”
“It will not,” Shahrazad said, very calmly. “I have seen it in my own land. Hope is a promise that tomorrow will be better than today. They have seen that promise broken too many times.”
“I don’t get it,” Ruby said. “Why are things different now?”
“Their old promise was with their king, symbolized by the Idol of Boreas,” Shahrazad explained. “In my kingdom, the promise was from the royal family, that we would provide for the people no matter what. In Equestria, that promise is fulfilled every morning when the sun rises.”
I snorted. “Equestria has hope because ponies work together. It’s not something that trickles down from Canterlot.”
“Maybe so,” Shahrazad allowed. “But in the living memory of the griffons living here, things have not gotten better. Not until a new ruler came to claim them.”
“What are you--” I frowned. “No. We’ve talked about this before! I’m not overthrowing the government!”
“There is no government to overthrow,” Shahrazad pointed out. “You have moved into the empty place where a king once sat, you have listened to the grief of the people. You have worked to make this land a little better. More than that, they see you doing it yourself.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Um…” Gabriella said softly. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if you stayed for a while? Just until things get better!”
“Won’t they all get sad again when Sunset leaves?” Ruby asked. “I know I would. Like when she ran off to Saddle Arabia without me, and I was stuck at school alone and didn’t have my special classes, and all my grades went down…”
“Okay, okay, look.” I held up my hooves. “Yes, sure. I could stay here and be a little warlord and take over. I’m aware that’s an option! It’s just really problematic, sort of speciesist, and I’d make a terrible ruler.”
“So how do you intend to avoid having all of this collapse again, beloved?” Shahrazad asked.
“It’s not like this is a problem governments haven’t solved before,” I said. “We just find some griffon who would make a good ruler, put them in charge, and back them diplomatically. At least then some local bird is in charge and it’s not some kind of weird Equestrian empire-building.”
“Even if Equestria backed somebird, they can only rule if the griffons listen,” Gabriella reminded me. “They’d need the Idol.”
I shook my head. “It’s gone.”
“Come now,” Shahrazad scoffed. “You expect me to believe that you cannot conceive of a way to retrieve it?”
“Alright fine, you really want to go over the options?” I sighed. “First off, the Abyss is probably miles deep. I wouldn’t be surprised if it went all the way down to Thestralia. If the Idol survived the fall -- and I’m willing to believe it might have since it was probably magical -- it’s not just a short hop down.”
“The wind is like, crazy strong, too!” Gabriella chimed in. “If you try flying into it, you’d crash and probably break your wing! Not that any of you have wings. Sorry. Sore subject? You kind of winced.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, only gritting my teeth a little. I just didn’t want to be reminded why I’d needed a vacation. Maybe working through the logistics would help me get my mind off it. I held up my hooves. “One thing at a time. We’re pretty sure it’s magic. So, Ruby, what’s the best way to find it?”
Ruby blinked at the pop quiz, but had the right answer immediately. “A detect magic spell?”
“Right. If it’s enchanted or made out of a magical material it should be easy to detect. But what’s the range on the standard spell?”
“About… forty meters?”
I nodded. “And if it was that close to the surface, someone would have found it by now. You could see it from the edge! So it has to be deeper. Maybe a lot deeper.”
“So…” Ruby thought. “You’d have to use a different spell. Maybe a divination effect? Those can go practically any distance!”
“Divinations won’t help much,” I said. “Without a part of the Idol or a personal connection to it, the best I could do would be a standard Scrying effect, and that wouldn’t show much around the Idol if I can even find it. All I’ll be able to see is what’s immediately around it, and that’s probably some variation of ‘a bunch of rocks that all look the same.’”
“So… what do we do?” Ruby asked.
I smiled and ruffled her mane. “We figure out something else. The Idol is just a symbol. I don’t believe for a second that the griffons here don’t really care about Griffonstone deep down somewhere. They leave and go to Equestria, but when things go south they come home.”
“I have no idea why they come back,” Shahrazad sighed.
“You’d go back to Saddle Arabia if you weren’t banished,” I pointed out.
“That’s different,” she said.
“Is it?” I asked. “It’s a wreck. The desert ate almost the whole country and the ponies there just hang on because of magic and trade.” I paused. “No, you’re right. There is one really big difference.”
“It’s flat?” Ruby guessed. I snorted, trying to hold back a laugh. Shahrazad soured, but still looked beautiful even when she was pouting.
“The ponies in Saddle Arabia don’t have much, but they do have each other,” I explained. “They come together, and that’s not just because they’ve still got their own little symbol of hope with the royalty. The griffons here aren’t like that.”
I looked at Gabby. She averted her gaze, looking away. “It’s complicated,” she said quietly. “I’m happy to share with everyone, but most griffons won’t. There isn’t ever enough to go around so they take anything they can because they don’t have what they need.”
“We could probably get more trade in here,” I said. “Maybe if there was more fresh food and clean water…”
Gabby shook her head. “It wouldn’t change how most griffons acted.”
I frowned and nodded. “Change has to come from them, not from the things around them. Even if I could magic up a feast…”
“Somebird would steal the buffet trays,” Gabby said. “I don’t like being negative about the birds around here because they’re all trying their best! Mostly. I think. It’s just bad habits and stuff, you know? That’s why I’m trying to break those habits! I just know if I work hard and be friends with everyone, it’ll make everyone happy and then I’ll get a cutie mark!”
“A…” I trailed off. “A cutie mark?”
“I know it doesn’t seem possible,” Gabby admitted. “But it could happen. Maybe if I learn enough about friendship…”
She trailed off and looked down, deflating. I could see a ghost of myself in her. A long time ago I’d had a big dream like that. Something impossible. Something nopony in the world could give me. It took me a long time to come to terms with my own limits. Letting a dream go wasn’t easy, and it still haunted me.
“Anything’s possible,” I said quietly. I stood up and walked over to her, taking her talon and holding it. “We don’t even know how ponies get cutie marks. Who’s to say you can’t be the first griffon to get one?”
“You really think it could happen?” she whispered. I could hear the hope in that voice.
“I have absolutely no idea,” I admitted. “I do know that no matter what a pony does, they can’t force themselves to get a cutie mark.” Three faces flashed in my mind’s eye and I shuddered. I could almost taste tree sap. “A cutie mark comes from the magic inside you finding a little bit of your destiny and showing it to the whole world. Or that’s what Celestia told me when I was a filly anyway, and she seems like she’s old enough to know.”
Gabby groaned. “Griffons don’t have magic.”
“You can stand on clouds, and you fly at least as well as a pegasus. You’ve got more obvious magic than most earth ponies.” I shrugged. “If you want my advice? Just live your best life. Destiny always finds a way, even if it takes a while.”
At least one griffon had to be part rooster, because I was woken up at the crack of dawn by the noise. I groaned and rolled over, covering my eyes with a hoof.
“Beloved?” Shahrazad asked groggily from the pillows next to me. “What is that infernal noise?”
“Go back to sleep and I’ll deal with it,” I mumbled, getting up and trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes. The sun had just crested the ragged horizon, the mountains keeping me from having any idea of the actual time.
I stumbled out of bed and to the washbasin, splashing ice-cold water in my face. Usually I was a morning pony, but I was still sore from all the work I’d done yesterday. It hadn’t even been all the work so much as the amount of detail I’d had to use repairing the houses.
“Sunset?” Ruby asked, trotting clumsily up to me.
I gave her a yawn and a wave. “Good morning.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she muttered.
“What?” I blinked. “What happened.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just… had bad dreams. Being all alone here in a new place made me think about what happened back in my hometown, and my parents and…” She rubbed her eyes, very carefully not sniffling.
I pulled her into a hug. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want to be alone again,” she said, hiccuping.
“Tonight you can sleep next to me, okay?” I promised. “You’re not alone. You’ve got friends back in Canterlot too, right?”
She nodded.
“When we’re finished up here we’ll head back and I’ll treat all of you to… I don’t know. Some kind of fun day out. I honestly don’t know what kids like these days, so you’re going to have to come up with a plan.”
“Okay,” Ruby said, getting control of herself. It was hard to remember sometimes that she really was just a filly. She’d had to grow up really fast, but that didn’t mean she was an adult.
“Since both of us are up, how about a magic lesson?” I asked.
“Okay. Good,” I nodded, watching the break in the stick start to mend. “You’re getting it! Just hold it a little longer.”
The crack sealed up completely, and Ruby’s aura faded. She looked at the stick, turning it over in her hooves.
“Did it work?” she asked. She bent it carefully. For a few moments, it seemed like it would hold, but then it broke in exactly the same place it had broken before, cracking on the same lines. “Aww…” she dropped the stick and groaned.
“You had it right,” I said. “That was a good repair spell.”
“Then why did it break again?” Ruby asked.
I picked up the stick with my magic and put it back together with the same spell I’d been teaching her to cast.
“You repaired it, you didn’t make it invincible,” I said. “The stick broke once, it could always break again.”
“But it broke in the same way!” Ruby protested. “That means I did it wrong!”
“No, it means that was the weakest part of the stick,” I said. “Bending it that way was how you broke it in the first place before you cast a repair spell. Because you fixed it in exactly the same way, when you bent it again it snapped in that same spot again. You’ve heard about how a chain always breaks at the weakest link, right?”
She nodded, rubbing her chin. “So that crack is the weakest link in that stick?”
“Exactly. You did good work, kid. I think you’re ready for something more difficult.” I produced something that I’d found when we were cleaning the castle. “You know what this is?”
Ruby took it from me, spinning it around in her magic a few times. “I think it’s a candlestick?” she guessed. “That or a weird club.”
“Probably a candlestick,” I agreed. “It’s also rusty, twisted metal. That’s two ways that it’s broken. Fixing it means bringing it back into shape and repairing the corrosion from the rust.”
“But I don’t know what it’s supposed to look like!” Ruby said. “How am I supposed to make it the right shape?”
“Is that the right question to ask first?” I asked. “What’s going to happen if you reshape it while it’s rusted through?”
“...The metal might break?” Ruby guessed.
I nodded. “You need to fix the rust first. It’s not as easy as cleaning it because you have to reverse a chemical reaction. After that, the shape is easy. It’s the same idea as fixing a book. You don’t need to know the words in a book to fix it, do you?”
Ruby nodded. “Okay. Rust first…”
“As a tip, it’s basically the same feeling as undoing a burn,” I said. “But you don’t have to be nearly as gentle. The metal can take a lot more force.”
“Oh! I know how to fix burns!” Ruby said, getting excited. The aura around the candlestick started intensifying.
“Take it slow and easy,” I cautioned. “It’s not fragile, but it could take a lot of magic.” I didn’t say it, but I knew I had to be careful with Ruby. Her cutie mark was for blood magic, after all. It was the most primal type of dark magic, converting life energy into magic and vice-versa. If she pushed herself too far, she might instinctively tap into it and hurt herself.
“Don’t worry, Miss Sunset,” Ruby said firmly. “I won’t lose control.”
I smiled. It was like she could read my mind. “I didn’t think I was that obvious.”
“You worry a lot.”
“It’s a bad habit.” I’d also spent a long time being a paranoid wreck. “Everyone’s got a few.”
“Oh! Are you doing magic?” Gabby asked. I looked over to see her watching from the open doorway of the palace entrance. “Can I watch?”
“Only if it’s okay with Ruby,” I said. I looked down at my student.
“I don’t mind,” Ruby said. “Gabby is really nice.”
The griffon grinned and ran over, perching near us and watching intently.
“Ruby, can you explain what you’re doing so Gabby knows what’s going on?” I asked.
Ruby nodded seriously. “I’m going to remove the rust, and Miss Sunset says it’s like something that got burned. That means I have to fix it from the inside out.” She glanced up at me for confirmation that she was right, and I nodded. “If you try to fix the outside first, you just cover it up. I have to use a spell that starts where the metal isn’t rusting and then uses that to help the rest heal…”
I sat back and listened as Ruby explained the magic to Gabby. Fixing all the houses in Griffonstone, was that just fixing the outside first and letting the rot linger? In Canterlot, when I’d been in the orphanage, the windows had been clear and unbroken and the floors clean enough to eat off of, but it had been… bad. It was clean for the same reason a tomb is clean. It made ponies feel good that they’d done something to help the lost and unfortunate. It wasn’t for the ponies inside.
Ponyville had been different. Ponies there were sometimes poor, and places were messy, but that’s because they were lived in. As much as I feared some of the fillies that played in the streets, they were happy and laughing and had the kind of foalhood memories I wish I’d been able to make.
“Ruby, will you be okay for a while?” I asked.
She blinked and looked at me. She’d been deep in a conversation with Gabby. “What’s wrong, Miss Sunset?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just going to go down to the market and get us something for lunch. I might poke around at the other market stalls, too.”
“Um, maybe I should go,” Gabby said, sounding unsure. “It can be hard to find a fair deal, and there are some birds you shouldn’t talk to…”
I smiled. “If I shouldn’t talk to them, I definitely need to meet them,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I’m just going to get a little food and maybe a souvenir or two. I’ll be fast.”
The sunlight was just starting to find its way to the ground through all the high mountain peaks and scattered, twisted trees clinging to the rocks. It was chilly with that kind of damp and lingering mist that meant the cold wasn’t planning on sticking around. In some ways, it reminded me of the Everfree forest, as strange as that might seem. There was a sort of wildness to it that had the same feeling of unbound nature that couldn’t be found in a pony town.
Maybe some of that feeling also stemmed from being surrounded by predators. Griffons watched me trot down the street, and even if most of them ignored me I couldn’t help but feel like a few of them were thinking about taking their chances and taking a swipe. In the forest, I would have just blasted something as a show of force if I wanted the watching eyes to go away, but that wasn’t what passed as polite society here.
I stopped at the first market stall I saw that had something approaching food for sale.
“Hmm…” I looked over the badly-woven baskets full of scraggly, rough-edged greens. It all looked like weeds at first glance, but I recognized at least a few things. “That’s musk mustard, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Purple mustard, but close enough,” the bird behind the stall said. “I foraged it myself. Don’t ask where, I got my own spots and if you think I’m going to just tell you my secrets--”
I held up a hoof defensively and smiled. “Woah, woah. I’m just here to get breakfast, not to cause trouble.”
She looked at me for a few extra seconds and still seemed skeptical, so I produced a few bits and gave them to her. “I don’t know much about what grows around here. What would you recommend for breakfast?”
The griffon snatched up the coins and pointed to a few baskets. “The purple mustard is good. The curly shock is fresh and sour, and maybe some prickly lettuce if you want something sweeter, but you have to remember to take off the center stem with the prickles.”
I gave her a few more coins. “Can I have enough for three?” I considered, remembering Gabby. I put one more coin in her talon. “Make it four, actually.”
She hefted the coins in her grip and felt the weight of them before putting them carefully away like she was afraid they’d vanish. “You gave me a little extra, so I’ll toss in a couple deerberries. I don’t want you saying you overpaid.”
I smiled. “Thanks.”
She started bundling things up when another griffon stepped over to look.
“You’re giving things away, Gretchy?” he asked, teasing. “That’s not like you.”
“Some of us like having repeat customers,” Gretchy retorted. Then she finished what she was doing and gave me the greens tied together with a strand of twine. “You’re in town where everybird can see you, Ghoshel? That’s not like you.”
“Come on, I show my face once in a while,” he protested. He looked down at me and smiled. “She just teases because she likes me.”
“I don’t tease,” Gretchy corrected. “I mock you because you’re the worst hunter in Griffonstone, and that includes the blind kitten Grizzy was taking care of who adopted a rat as her best friend.”
I snorted. Ghoshel’s cheeks turned red. “I’m not that bad of a hunter. I’ll have you know I’m actually here to--”
“Pay off your tab?” Gretchy asked.
“I was going to say I was here to trade some Rock Crawler meat for stone apples. But if you don’t want any Rock Crawler…” he rubbed his beak. “Or maybe you’re afraid the pony will run off if I start talking about eating innocent little creatures?”
“Oh, don’t mind me,” I said. “So what’s a rock crawler?”
“Hmmm…” Ghoshel thought for a few moments. “I’m going to try and explain it in a way a pony might understand. Pegasus ponies eat fish sometimes, and it’s a bit like a lobster. You know what a lobster is, right? It’s like one of those but instead of living in the water, they live in the mountains.”
He patted the bag he had slung at his side. Gretchy reached over and tugged it open so I could see the shiny grey chitin inside. They looked like the pill bugs that were always around in the forest but about as long as my leg.
“They’re bugs the size of your head that curl up into balls when they’re scared and live under rocks,” Gretchy corrected flatly. “He probably found them while he was hiding from all the birds he owes money to.”
“I don’t owe that much money,” Ghoshel whispered to me, winking.
“Really?” Gretchy asked. “Try explaining that to Geinhart, because he just spotted you.”
“Oh feathers,” Ghoshel groaned. A big bird landed next to him, looking much more like my mental image of a hunter than the griffon with the bag of bugs did. He was tall, strong, and looked like he wrestled with yaks as a side gig.
“Ghoshel, my favorite debtor!” Geinhart said, patting him on the back. “I thought you’d skipped town! Again! Without paying me back! Again!”
“I would never do that,” Ghoshel said. “Again.”
“Good,” Geinhart said. “So, how about those bits of mine that you’re holding onto? I’d like them back, along with the interest.”
“I, uh…” Ghoshel hesitated.
“You don’t have them,” Geinhart said, shaking his head sadly. “You’re really breaking my heart, Ghoshel. You owe me so much and here you are trying to cut a deal behind my back. I might just have to make myself feel better with a little thing I like to call ‘wrecking up the place’.”
He smirked and cracked his talons. I stepped in front of him before he could get any closer.
“I don’t want any trouble,” I lied.
“That’s fine,” the big griffon said. “You’re not involved. This is a private dispute. Why don’t you prance off and sing some kind of impromptu musical number about the magic of friendship?”
“Or we could try to resolve this without violence,” I said. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll buy everyone a cup of whatever people around here drink in the morning to wake up and we can fix this without anyone’s market stall getting thrashed or anyone getting hurt?”
“I think I’d rather-- oh, you’re stronger than you look.” Geinhart wiggled in my magical grip, trying to break free. I flipped him over onto his back.
“Thanks!” Ghoshel said. “I really owe you one. You can let him go in a few minutes, I just need to--”
I grabbed Ghoshel by the tailfeathers.
“You’re not going anywhere either,” I said. “I am absolutely not the pony to say this, but you can’t run from all your problems. We’re going to talk about this and fix it and… what do griffons drink in the morning anyway?”
“Black coffee,” Gretchy said.
“Great! Could you grab me a cup?” I tossed her a bit. “Sorry. I know it’s not your job, but I have to babysit these two foals and make them play nice.”
“I’m not a foal,” Ghoshel mumbled.
“Try not to kill either of them,” Gretchy said. She gave Ghoshel a worried look, then flew off.
“Okay look, if it gets me out of here without you yanking out my primaries, yes, I owe him a lot of bits,” Ghoshel said, before I’d even prompted. “I’m really not that bad of a hunter, it’s just been a few bad seasons! A lot of bad seasons.”
“The seasons are always bad,” Geinhart said, rolling his eyes. “Every year you owe more than you bring in. It’s your own fault for not being ambitious! You could go further out and find something better than bugs!”
“I work just as hard as you do!” Ghoshel protested.
I sighed. “So this is really just about him not finding enough prey?”
“There used to be tons of prey. It’s harder to find it every year. He might make fun of me for having Rock Crawlers instead of red pigeons or giant peak badgers, but he’s eaten plenty of crawlers and nobird has even seen a decent peak badger in a long time.”
“Tough times make for strong birds,” Geinhart retorted.
“Strong birds who take all my crawlers and then pretend they don’t understand why I need to pick up food on a tab.”
“Let me see if I understand this, because I can read pretty well even between the lines,” I said. “You’re in debt. You were trying to hide from him because you can’t pay him back and if you pay what you can, you don’t have enough left over to eat.”
Ghoshel shrugged.
“It’s not like I’ve been letting him starve,” Geinhart said. “I keep letting him run a tab.”
I rolled my eyes. “So talk to each other like adults and work out a payment plan! If he pays you some of his earnings every month, it’s better for both of you because you don’t have to track him down and shake bits out of his saddlebags and he doesn’t have to live in fear that he’s going to have his beak pulled off.”
“I guess we could do that,” Geinhart sighed. “The other birds are going to call me soft.”
“It’s a start.” I let them go. Gretchy appeared over my shoulder and offered me a paper cup. I took it and sipped at it. The coffee had no sugar in it, but some bird had added lemon zest and what I think was a sprinkle of chili powder. It wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever had to drink, even if I was pretty sure it was made of roasted dandelion and not beans.
“Is it okay?” Gretchy asked.
“It’s great, thanks,” I said, nodding. The bitterness was helping me wake up a little more, that was for sure.
“Excuse me, um, Miss Pony?” A tiny talon tugged at my tail. I turned to see three tiny little griffons. What was the right word? Hatchlings was for dragons, foals was for ponies…
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Since you helped him, could you help us too?” they asked. “We found a really cool rock in the mountains and we don’t know who should get to keep it.”
The griffon held up a piece of shale that was cracked open, revealing the curve of an ancient fossil.
“This is pretty neat,” I agreed. “How did you find it?” I turned it to look at the way it caught the light, revealing more details. I was pretty sure there was some kind of chemical wash you could use to make it more visible, but it was already a nice specimen
“We were playing by the steam and there’s a spot where the rocks come apart in layers like a book,” the lead griffon said. “I’m the one who found it, but Dottie is the one who wanted to go to the stream in the first place, and Ducky gave both of us some of the candy his grandpa gave him last week and he says we owe him.”
“And we can’t share because there’s only one,” the white and green griffon that I assumed was Ducky said. “They owe me because of the candy, right?”
“Did you tell them they’d owe you something before you gave them the candy?” I asked.
Ducky shook his head.
“It was nice of you to share the candy, but you can’t ask for something in return after giving it to them,” I said. “Otherwise everyone will only think you’re being nice to them so you can be mean later.”
My back leg was starting to ache. Something must have shown in the way I was standing, because a crate was put behind me.
“Here,” Gretchy said. “You might as well sit down.”
“Thanks,” I said, settling my flank on the crate.
“Hold on, hold on,” I begged, waving a hoof for mercy. “You’re all talking at once and I’m already totally lost.”
“It’s simple,” Ginger said. “I need a magnifying lens. Garth has one, but he wants a dragon scale. That’s no problem because Guppy has a scale, but they won’t give it up until they get their grandma’s necklace back from Galoo. Galoo will trade it but they want a new fishing lure that Gutenberg promised them. Gutenberg can make the lure but not until his wife cleans out his shop, but she can’t because she loaned the broom to Garthe, and he’s got it because he’s been cleaning his place every day waiting for a letter from the bird he’s got a crush on, but nobody’s been getting mail…”
“And that’s because of something with flowers?” I asked, my head starting to hurt.
“Yeah! The mail bird is all laid up because of allergies and there’s stuff that cures it but the only bird who knows where it grows wants a pineapple, and Garin gets those in from a hippogriff he knows. Garin is willing to trade one, but they need a new beehive because theirs got crushed in the last dry season storm. That wouldn’t be so bad, but it has to be reinforced so it won’t just happen again, right? And Gigi could do that but all her lumber is bad and she was supposed to get it from Gale. Gale won’t do anything until they get paid back for the bananas they gave Gunthest, but he can’t pay anything because he’s been spending all his money on pet for for the annoying little crow he’s raising, and maybe that wouldn’t be a big deal but the bird who knows where to get the nuts the crow likes is a kid and she’s trying to save up bits for a new bow, and she needs that because she wants to trade it for her friend’s Princess Luna doll.”
Ginger folded her talons, looking satisfied.
“Is that the whole thing?” I asked, exhausted.
“Yeah. I think that’s all.”
I rubbed my eyes. “Okay, uh… you know what, someone write me up a flowchart and I’ll get back to you on the specifics of what to do.”
“What, you can’t fix it?” Ginger asked. “That’s why we came to you!”
“Well the way it sounds is like everyone is waiting for someone else to make the first move,” I said. “And everyone in town is in debt to everyone else and it’s like a big tangled web and I have no idea how you keep track of everything.”
“Eh, it’s not like we have anything else to do for fun,” Ginger shrugged.
I rolled my eyes, but to be honest she was probably right. There really wasn’t a lot going on in Griffonstone. I think if someone had a board game they’d end up owing half the pieces to one bird and half to the other and then nobody would get to play anything because they’d all refuse to share on the basis that they didn’t even have enough for themselves.
“It wasn’t always this bad,” Gilda said. I looked up at her.
“Where’d you come from?” I hadn’t even noticed her walking up, and that was a bad sign of how distracted I was. At least I hadn’t gotten spooked enough to set her on fire. I’d never have lived that down.
“I walked over while you were trying to figure out how to order a Princess Celestia doll in the mail,” Gilda retorted. “Don’t bother. For most birds it’s not about the stuff, it’s about the principle of the thing.”
“You’re probably right,” I sighed, discarding my idea to try and solve everyone’s issues with some kind of massive and complicated chain of trades and swaps. “Otherwise one of them would have just solved it themselves.”
Gilda nodded. “Maybe if things weren’t so tight they’d be okay with it. It’s not like Equestria. Everbird here just hangs on by the edge of their talons, and if you let them get dull you lose your grip and the wind takes you.”
“Why are things so bad?” I asked. “There’s no way they’d build a whole city here if it was always like this. I saw what the food is like in the market. It’s all hunted and foraged. Why hasn’t anyone made a farm or something?”
“A farm?” Gilda laughed. “Here? Yeah, right!”
“I’m serious. There are crops that grow on mountains. Rice, uh… olives? I think barley but nothing’s flat enough for that… I’m not a farmer, but I know if you asked a farmer they could give you a list. You could at least have some gardens or something.”
“There used to be farms,” Gilda said. She pointed out to another peak. “See those steps carved into that mountain?”
I could barely make it out. Her eyesight was a lot better than mine, but that made sense since she was half eagle.
“That used to be a farm back when Grandpa Gruff was a chick. I think they grew berries, because you can find some little wild strawberries if you look around carefully and get to them first.”
“So what happened to it?” I asked.
“Same thing that happens to everything around here. It went bad.”
“Can you be a little more specific?” I asked. “Just saying ‘it went bad’ doesn’t tell me much.”
“She can’t tell you much because she wasn’t here to see it!” a scratchy voice cackled. Grandpa Gruff pushed through the crowd of birds that had gathered to listen to me fumble my way through trying to be an impartial arbiter. “I heard her say my name and I know that means she’s trying to steal my stories and tell them wrong!”
“I’m not stealing anything!” Gilda snapped, her hackles rising.
“Let’s all calm down before things get set on fire,” I said. “Here, Grandpa.” I flipped him a bit. “Maybe you could tell me properly?”
“Hmph.” Gruff snorted and looked down his beak at us before gesturing to the mountains around us. “Years and years ago, before the bad times, these mountains weren’t scraggly little rocks poking up through the mist, they were covered in green! It was practically a paradise! There were animals to hunt, fruit to eat, and soil to farm.”
“Sounds nice,” I prompted.
“It was nice,” Grandpa sighed. “But when the Idol was lost, our fortunes reversed. The night it was taken, a storm started. That storm didn’t go away for three years! The rain and wind just kept coming and getting worse and worse every night. The soil washed away, the prey left for better pastures, and griffons left every day for somewhere better. My parents told me it was divine punishment from the winds themselves.”
Gilda snorted. “Yeah right.”
Grandpa Gruff shook his head. “Believe what you want. Other griffons thought the ponies did it to us! The pegasus ponies control the weather in Equestria, maybe they were using it as a weapon to attack us!”
“Equestria wouldn’t do that,” I said.
Gruff waved a talon dismissively. “Of course not! But that’s what birds start to think when nothing makes sense for years on end! Equestria sent teams of expert weather ponies to try and solve the problem, but they couldn’t do anything.”
“They’re not all-powerful,” I said. “There are places in Equestria where they can’t manage the weather, too. The Everfree is close enough to Canterlot that you can see it from the castle, but the storms that roll out of there are impossible to contain, and even breaking them up is more trouble than it’s worth.”
“Even ponies fail sometimes,” Grandpa Gruff agreed, smirking. “The storm had to work itself out, and like I said, that took five years!”
“You said three years the first time,” Gilda mumbled. “Telling me I’m making a mess of the story when you can’t even keep the century right.”
“The point is it took years!” Gruff snapped. “Griffonstone was practically a ghost town after the rain stopped. Half the buildings collapsed and everything was damaged. The birds who stayed are the ones stubborn enough that the winds couldn’t blow us away and clever enough to find some way to survive.”
Gilda sighed. “I don’t know how true it is, but the weather is really bad around here. In the rainy season it rains basically every day, and then in the dry season we get chaotic winds.”
“What are chaotic winds?”
“Stick around a few more weeks and you’ll find out,” Grandpa Gruff mumbled.
“I took you to the Abysmal Abyss,” Gilda said. “You remember what that was like?”
“Yeah. It was constant hard gusts from every direction. Half of them didn’t even seem possible, like they came out of thin air.”
“That’s what it’s like, but everywhere,” Gilda motioned to encompass the whole town. “It sucks! And blows. And twists around in little tornados. There’s so much wind shear that you can’t fly half the time!”
“Hmmm…” I rubbed my chin, thinking. It couldn’t have always been that bad or they wouldn’t have built Griffonstone in the first place. I had a feeling Grandpa Gruff was telling the truth. If the weather went bad after the Idol was lost, maybe it stabilized the weather somehow, and that let them found the city in a place no one else would claim? It made enough sense on the face of things that it could be the truth.
“The windy season is why most birds are in debt,” Gilda sighed. “You need to stock up for the times you can’t go out, but no one actually has the bits to get it all at once, so they get loans or promise to pay the hunters and gatherers back later, and later never comes because they don’t finish paying off last year’s debt before they need to start stocking up all over again.”
“But they still let them get in more debt?” I asked.
“We’re not gonna let each other starve!” Gilda snapped. “We’re not monsters!” She looked away. “It just gets hard because the second you have even a little more than you need to survive, you have to use it to pay down debts because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Huh.” I sat back. “So it’s like the doll. It’s about the principle of the thing.”
Gilda nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly!”
“And you can’t just forgive the debts?”
“If you do that, it’s insulting to everyone that owes you! It’s like saying they’re a little chick that can’t take care of themselves! Besides, it would make you look weak. If you don’t ask birds to pay what they owe, they’ll just take advantage of you!”
The other griffons nodded, looking at each other in agreement. From the outside, it seemed obvious. They couldn’t ever get ahead if they had to keep looking back and trying to fix past mistakes, but they had too much pride to let go on their own. In Ponyville they’d just trade a token favor or two and call each other square and become better friends for it. That wasn’t part of the culture here, and I couldn’t just expect them to act like ponies.
But they’d come to me to arbitrate their problems precisely because I wasn’t caught in their web of debt. I didn’t have a personal stake. I could be the excuse they needed to fix things. Maybe they didn’t even care how I fixed it or how fair I was, just as long as they weren’t the ones looking weak. It wasn’t about justice, it was about saving face.
That meant what I really had to do wasn’t create a ledger and really try to understand who owed who. I had to solve things all at once and make them happy to be out of debt, and I knew just how to do it.
I was going to have to throw the biggest party Griffonstone had ever seen.