“As far as I’m concerned,” Silver began, his voice projecting to the back of the room. “The only Indecent exposure that I can see, is the one the media has perpetrated against my client.” He slammed his hoof on the desk and stared intently around the room.
“I ask you, good mare and stallions, where does it say that a stallion can’t imbibe on a hot summer's day, whilst holding a pet?” He shuffled the scrolls in front of him meaningfully. “Personally, I believe that the law has resoundingly over exaggerated the matter. They bandy about terms such as ‘menacing others with an unlicensed animal’ and ‘misappropriated funds with the intent to overthrow the government.’ for what is clearly just a misunderstanding.’” He shook his head sadly.
“But I ask you good ponies, tell me, which of you has not cast the first stone? Who hasn’t wanted to.” He glanced down at the report, his brow furrowed in concentration, “eh, Hmm, really, with a zucchini?” He blinked as he read further, trying and failing to rally himself, “W-What I meant to say is, what about the rights of the common pony, what about the integrity of, the integrity... oh who am I kidding, he probably sold that for the cat.”
Silver let out a deep groan. He just couldn’t conjure up the energy today. He leaned back in his chair, the imaginary reporters in his mind's eyes vanished and in their place, sat a dilapidated empty room, his room. The howling wind outside replaced the clicking of cameras. The scraping of the branches on the glass, the reporters questions.
He stared at the three small boxes in front of him on his desk. Each with a placard engraved in wood labeled, ‘bribe box,’ ‘blackmail box’ and ‘bribe with the intention of blackmailing box.
Silver threw the scroll in the blackmail box and leaned back in his chair. Most ponies in Eques spend their evenings curled up with a book, playing scrabble or thinking up some get rich quick scheme. Schemes that often ended with guards being involved and sentences like “what do you mean illegal? I pay my taxes!” And other phrases that sound bad out loud and worse on paper.
Doing this helped him stay sharp. Even after thirty years in the field it could always surprise you what ordinary ponies or in this case failed nobles were capable of. Like for instance, threatening a crowd with a cat, blind drunk and naked, (which was to say, shaved below the waist) and trying to incite a revolution. You couldn’t write that stuff, let alone prepare for it.
It wasn’t often that one of the nobility tried to take over the government. True, nobles, like most opportunistic predators, lived in a constant state of one-upmanship. Scheming occupied about sixty five percent of their brain capacity (1). But actually overthrowing the monarchy was different. You couldn’t vie for the throne when you had not one but two powerful and immortal monarchs. Pony nobles had to think outside the box, or in this case, outside of their fur.
Silver was starting to consider that maybe he was coming to the end of his career. Back in his hay day, he could have come up with a daring and full proof campaign on the spot. But now? Now it seemed as though the spark was fading.
Admittedly, a lot of that had to do with the predicament he was in now.
True enough, Luna's name was out of the dirt once more and now she was one of the most talked about mares in the world eclipsing her sister. His PR stunt had swept through Canterlot like fire, though thankfully not in the literal sense.(2)
He had already received about thirty messages from publications asking for a one to one interview. Including but not limited to The Canterlot Express, Cloudsdale Herald, Wings, Manes and Horns monthly, Fisherman’s Weekend and most curiously of all, Udders magazine.
That last one gave Silver pause, not just the name which Silver had many questions about. None of which he actually wanted answers to. But most disconcerting of all, was that it was apparently published daily. Was there that much demand to see and read about udders?
But sitting in a dower, dark, decrepit and all the other horrible words beginning with ‘D’ manor in the middle of
nowhere. Silver was starting to realise that all he had really done was create a temporary PR ceasefire.
He had to face facts. Luna was not going to get over her biases in two hundred years, let alone two months and sooner or later, ponies were going to notice that.
Then there was the cub to consider. As it stood right now, she was fine. Well, actually she was almost as disaster prone as her step-mother seemed to be. But she was still too young to know what was going on. She hadn’t gotten old enough to start asking awkward things like, “why does mommy look like she’s sucking on lemons whenever I walk into the room?”
Silver did his best impression of a turtle retreating into its shell as he slumped into his chair. Safe to say this was about as forward thinking as the pony who would look at a spot of land called Tornado Alley, nod his head and think “wow look at all this free real-estate, what idiot would pass this up?”
The more he thought about it in this sober light. The more he realised that it would take either a miracle or a disaster, to get those two together, though to his mind the two were one in the same to Silver.
He glanced towards his bed, feeling utterly drained. Perhaps he simply needed sleep. He always got dower when he pulled too many all-nighters in a row.
After all, he supposed he was technically speaking on vacation. He still had two months before the hammer would fall, two months before he was tarred and feathered, proverbially and the way things were going perhaps literally.
He had managed to get himself halfway towards his bed chambers when he heard the door handle to his room rattling hard. A muffled and panicked curse emanated from outside the thick wood a second later.
“Yes?” He said slowly, then added, “Doughy if that’s you? Just leave the pie where it is, I’m… I’m not hungry at the moment.” He said much to the horror of his own stomach, which burbled angrily at this lie.
Again he heard the desperate rattling and more muffled profanity. Rolling his eyes he moved cautiously towards the door and slowly undid the multitude of locks. You had to lock doors in his line of work. The princesses treated knocking as something that happened to other ponies.
No sooner had he slid the door open a crack, a figure stormed inside. Silver stumbled backwards, watching as the hooded form entered and slammed the door shut, pressing its back firmly against the door.
“What in Tartarus?!” Silver yelled at the shadow, it took a moment to notice that it was a griffon. It took him another moment to notice the strange smell of smoke emanating from him.
A loud bang echoed through the room as something punctured through the door like a knife stabbed into butter. Both Silver and the griffon flinched. A feather from its head glided down gently onto the floor and drew both of their eyes up towards the long, thin piece of metal jutting through the door an inch from the griffon's skull.
It made a springing nose as it vibrated. To Silver's eyes, it looked a lot like a fencing sword? He didn’t have time to ponder how this had just happened though. The griffon gave a strangled yelp and ran towards Silver's desk dragging it across the room towards the door.
“H-hey, you can’t do that!” Silver yelled. But if the griffon heard or even noticed him, he didn’t care. Silver's ears flipped back over towards the door. He could hear something, a howling sound, like tundra wind clawing against the door and getting closer and more intense with every second.
The stranger dragged the desk in front of the door and gave a gentle whimper as he walked backwards and stumbled into Silver. He turned on the spot and saw Silver presumably for the first time. It took a moment for Silver to notice that the griffon had no eyebrows, black soot all across his face and the tip of his tail was smoldering.
Silver spoke fluent Griffonian, but even if he couldn't, the terror in the griffon's eyes would have spoken volumes.
“Help me.”
Before Silver could respond, a rumbling filled the room. Bit’s of plaster fell from the ceiling landing in clumps around them. The griffon flinched and moved backwards, his eyes never leaving the door.
“It’s coming.” He muttered his lower beak trembling. His panicked gaze flickered around the room and landed on a window overlooking the garden.
“Listen,” Silver began, his gaze caught between the door and the griffon, “I don’t know what this is, but-“
Suddenly, the sound of the noise outside stopped, replaced by an eerie silence. The griffon muttered some sort of prayer, as his eyes now fixed on the window.
Slowly, ever so slightly the handle turned inch by ominous inch.
“Oh Sod this!” The griffon screamed, diving towards the window.
“Wait-.” Silver yelled only to grimace at the sounds of smashing glass. “-the window’s locked,” He finished lamely.
Silver ran towards the window. Staring out towards the figure that had crashed into the bushes below and was now racing through the gardens. Silver had just enough time to remember the presence at the door when everything exploded.
He threw himself onto the ground as chunks of wood and splinters rained down around him.
“What in the great fields above is going on!?” He yelled over the melee.
Not a second later Luna came into view, this wasn’t the Luna Silver was used to seeing. A dower set of eyes affixed with a scowl of grim determination on her muzzle. Her horn was pointed in bayonet fashion as she surveyed the detritus of the room with a look that would have launched a thousand screaming barbarians back home to their mothers.
Actually, in many ways it was exactly the same Luna Silver was used to seeing. But the effervescent magic and frost flowing around her in a maelstrom was new.
“Oh, Silver, good you're here.” Luna said in an astonishingly casual tone. “Have you seen some bestial griffon skulking around by chance?”
Silver struggled back to his hooves. “Have you lost your mind!” Silver yelled with utter bafflement, “Why did you blow up my doors!?”
“They were in the way.” She said, walking past him, eyes still searching. “Besides they were not you’re doors,”
“They were in front of my room, you can’t just do that!” Silver yelled.
“Silver please, you are being hysterical. Tis not the time for talk of petty door ownership.” She said, flipping over a desk with shocking ease, “We have been assaulted in our own bed!” Her scowl was sharp enough to cut through Diamond, “A griffon has snuck into my personal chambers, probably trying to ravage our innocent and fragile form in a fit of animalistic fervor.”
Silver stared at the ‘fragile and innocent form’ in question towering over him with swirling winds of permafrost, glowing blue eyes and the bits of thick wooden door around her hooves. For once in his life he smartly declined to comment.
“Still, that's no excuse to destroy my room!” Silver yelled but Luna was hardly listening at this point.
“Where is it, I saw it scurry in here?” Luna said, her eyes scanning Silver's demolished room, “Where did it-” she paused as she noticed the window, or the now lack of one.
Luna's eyes narrowed. She turned without comment and strolled over towards the now open hole.
Silver took a moment as life seemed to fork again, he knew the smart thing to do was to just ignore all this, find another room and wait until it was all over, then report back to Celestia.
But then, if he had been smart, he would have shut the door on the face of that smiling white alicorn when she had strolled up to his humble office one day and proposed a “simple” and “easy” job for him all those years ago.
“Wait.” He yelled, stumbling after her.
“Running shall only delay the inevitable!” Luna yelled through the window. “Come out and we promise that thine retribution shall be swift and only mildly excruciating!”
“Luna I must protest, you can’t just tear down the manor.” He beseeched, but it was like trying to tell an Earth shattering comet that it was being an inconvenience.
As if to solidify this point, Luna lit up her horn and all of a sudden the window, its frame and at least six hooves of wall went with it in an eruption of mortar, bricks and dust.
Silver gulped and stepped backward. Perhaps she could just tear down the manor. “Wait Luna, there are proper ways of handling these things, let’s get the guards at least.”
She turned towards him, eyes narrowed, “Silver, let us part some advice for thee, if you want a hated enemy vanquished properly then you can’t coddle them with meager threats of-,” she stopped suddenly, as a shiver ran down her spine. Brow furrowed, she glanced back at herself. Her eyes widened for a moment as though she had only just remembered something, then she lit her horn.
From inside her billowing ethereal mane. Something brown and white was levitated upwards and then into Silver's hooves. He blinked and stared down at the little cub, who looked back up at him inquisitively.
Silver looked down at the cub, then up at Luna. Somehow, somehow with more questions than he had before, if that was possible.
“What?” Luna asked incredulously. “Do not give us that look, she was skulking inside our chambers.” Luna turned away from Silver, drawing her chin up flippantly. “See to it that she is better kept on her leash or whatever it is you use.”
Before Silver could ask what the heck was going on for the seventh time in the space of five minutes. Luna spread her wings and lept from the hole in the wall, her outline silhouetted in the full moon.
Silver glanced down towards the little hatchling who was staring cross eyed at a snowflake on her beak.
He watched for a long moment in utter silence, even as Luna's horn lit up and bits of the garden blew up in thunderous displays of frost blue light. About approximately, seven thousand six hundred and twenty two questions flew through his mind in the span of about six seconds. But despite all of them the only one that left his lips was.
“Did Luna just refer to you as she?” He said, utterly baffled.
The little Cubs' only answer was to sneeze as the snowflake flew from her beak. It seemed as good of a response as any, Silver supposed.
With little else to do except go find help, he walked back through the trail of distraction inside the manor. At least a thousand bits worth of, let’s face it, improvement to the old manor stretching all the way down the hall.
He walked out of what remained of his room, hoping to see if he could find a guard and more importantly his niece. He had to know if she was okay. But he didn’t have to look all that far, because all at once he saw her slide from around the corner and come running towards him as though her life depended on it.
“Oh thank goodness,” Silver said, “Golden are you alrigh-“ the words died on his lips. Silver glanced just above her head and thought for a moment that a silverback gorilla was behind her. But they did not usually have beaks and wings or shouted blood curdling battle cries at the top of their lungs.
“I smash you good!” It roared from behind Golden.
“Ru-un!” She yelled, front hooves flailing violently as they all raced right for Silver.
Silver didn’t need telling twice, his hooves, used to a lifetime of nothing but fighting gravity and just barely winning, finally saw it’s moment to be of use and took over his mind. He turned on the spot, clutching the Cub against his amble chest.
And then…
And then Winder glanced down towards the patch of ground and frowned. He was frowning because he was pretty sure there was supposed to be a bouquet of carnations here and not a giant crater.
He was also almost sure it wasn’t meant to be on fire. The reason he wasn’t one hundred percent was mostly down to working with mad Lord Snap Case, who had thought it was a good idea to plant pots of dynamite in the garden as a cheap alternative to security and fireworks.
Winder had secretly dug them up and disposed of most of them. But perhaps he had missed one?
But he quickly realised that that was not the case, because contrary to most fire’s, this one was being cold and blue. Most ponies would not have believed their eyes at the sight of that. But Winder did, he always believed what he saw, after all, if you didn’t trust your eyes, whose could you trust?
Griffons had excellent eyes. It was what made him such a good gardener, able to catch a mouse in the act of chewing out his crops, or Lord Snap Case who was digging a moat at midnight to stop the supposed pixies from stealing his sock.
Or the giant explosions ripping his beloved garden to shreds. Admittedly that last one was hard to miss.
He had followed the trail of distraction, through the Impossible Maze, which now that it had a straight line burned right through it would have to be re-named. Then he followed it through the Field of Dreams, which was now the Field of some Dreams but mostly ash and through the hedge of Exploding Gezalias. Which despite everything to the contrary, were somehow perfectly fine.
Everytime he moved towards another stretch of the garden he’d seen another explosion of blue light appear on the end of it. Whatever was doing this was moving fast.
He had just turned a corner towards the front courtyard when a single blast went wide and struck the rooftops of the manor. Winder watched, as one of the last gargoyles clinging desperately to the aging hanging finally flopped to the floor.
Winder felt no great sorry for that gargoyles, he had not liked their leering stone gazed as a hatchling and liked them even less when they had been infected by one of Snap Cases occult artifacts and spent one summer catcalling down at him, snidely commenting on every mistake and loudly singing in the night. Only to go back to stone whenever Winder had tried to inform anyone about it.
So he was not that upset to see it go. But what had struck Winder was the shadowy outline of a figure next to it and the pinkish light that flashed in and out of existence.
By all rights anything that has been on the roof should and had been blown from sub-atomic particles into plus-atomic particles, (which is the same as subatomic only adding a touch more total annihilation into the mix.) But the figure sat there, unmoving and untouched.
Strangely, even with Winders eyes he could not make out the figure. It seemed almost cloaked in its own darkness. Separate to the night. But it was the pinkish hue that confused Winder most. He had seen that light many times before. His mother and father handled that very light since he had been a cub.
“Griffon stone.” He uttered, awe laced into his voice. But that couldn’t be right, to hold such a large amount? Winder knew even a single shard of it was worth more than he made in a year. Enough stone to block out an attack like that could run a country like Eques for a week, even with the faucet running and the oven on overnight.
Winder spread his wings, ready to take flight and investigate further. When suddenly something flew past him. A black ragged cloak and the smell of burnt fur and feathers, a voice yelling as it ran. “Leg it, every griffon for himself!”
Winder recognised him instantly as the one that had been in the basement. But that begged the question, where had the large one gone and more importantly what had been chasing him?
Questions like that never needed to wait long to be answered, as no sooner had he turned back in the direction the griffon had run from he caught another towering figure step around the hedge wall.
“Ahah?! Finally accepted your doom griffon, stopped running I see?” Something growled to itself.
Winder stared up at the night princess. Flowing with energy. Her eyes blue blurs of magic, her brow arched downwards and dangerously furrowed.
“Oh, Greeting night princess, I hope you are having a good-“ was about as far as he got before a shard of flaming ice sailed past his face leaving a shallow gash in his cheek.
All at once he found he had pretty much every answer he had wanted and some he really hadn’t. This had something to do with that ancient pony proverb he had heard that, “the curiosity killed the cat.”
As with a lot of pony phrases this was obscure and abstruse, Winder preferred the griffon line which was much easier to understand which went as such, “curiosity killed the griffon who decided to walk down the alleyway while dangerous thugs smiled at you and whistled innocently with spiked big clubs behind their backs.” Unlike ponies, griffon saying didn’t bother with interpretation.
Winder didn’t waste time talking. He always believed his eyes and they were telling him, like his brain and his legs to get out of here and fast before an irate princess of the night flattened him like his Mors famous beatle pancake.
He took two quick paces backwards, and dived into a bush right as shards of flaming ice flew towards him.
And then…
And then Golden threw the bookcase down as she ran. It had the same effect of slowing down the charging griffon as throwing a stick in front of a tsunami.
She made it back towards Silver's side as he whined, grunted and wheezed through the corridor. It had only been twenty seconds of running but already her uncle looked as though the phrase “go in without me.” Was on the top of his tongue.
If they survived this, she would have to consider that maybe her uncle could stand to lose some weight.
They both turned the corridor corner. Well she turned, her uncle, led by unstoppable momentum, hit the wall and like a pinball, ricocheted off the wall and convincingly back in the direction they were running. The little cub clinging to his back let out a mewing giggle as though this was just some wild ride in the cart.
“W-What *wheeze* do w-we do.” He muttered through his ragged breath.
“Keep running.” Golden yelled, she would have thought that was obvious.
“Where are all these *gasp* griffons coming from?!”
“You remember those ‘ghosts’ I told you about?”
“Y-Yes?”
“Turns out, technically you were right, they weren’t ghosts at all, or the gardener, they were worse.”
Silver glanced over his shoulder, as the behemoth gave another gut churning roar. “You know *huff* I’ve n-never wanted to be m-more wrong in my life.”
Golden would have liked to have been wrong as well.
All she had done was get up for a glass of water in the night and to check up on the little princess.
That was when trouble had sprung. Or rather had already stepped in, taken a bat to the shelves, the crockery and the front door before walking out with a jaunty whistle.
She had found the little princess room utterly destroyed and the room empty. At least she had thought it had been empty. Before she could even shout for help a hulking figure had lifted itself up from the pile of books like a tectonic plate shifting up from the crust of the Earth.
It had taken one look at her, then bellowed something in Griffonian, loud enough to crack the glass around the room and charged at her without warning.
Which more or less brought her back to the predicament she was in now.
“Gi meg den ungen!” The Mammoth yelled, knocking over a table like someone would knock over an inconvenient can in the street.
Golden turned a corner and spotted two guards running forward in their direction.
“Thank the fields, we’re saved!” Golden said, waving at them, “Help over there, some maniac is chasing after us.” She said pointing, her hoof towards the bowling ball of muscle.
The two guards snapped to attention, both of them grabbing at their spears as they ran past Golden and towards the hulking griffon.
“Halt,” one of them yelled, spear at the ready. “In the name of the princess, I order you to-“ was as far as he got, before the griffon lifted him up with one claw like a rag doll. Then slammed him onto his partner, Sending them both sailing towards the wall.
Golden watched the event play out in a matter of nanoseconds, gulped and yelled. “Never mind, keep running!”
They got about as far as the end of the corridor before her Uncle collapsed. His fur slick with sweat and cosmetic products. “Golden… I can’t keep running.”
Golden glanced around, looking for something, anything to save them. Most ponies experience life through their work. For example Architects saw the world as one big blueprint. Mathematicians saw the world as one big problem that would have been easily solved a millennia ago. If not for all those blasted variables, (which is math talk for other ponies) would stop existing and Golden, unfortunately for her, saw all problems as one big joke.
As such, the first idea that came to her mind was not something that would have come to a guard. But then, she had seen how well that had worked.
Golden slowed down and grabbed at silver plates and candelabras on some random cabinet in the hallway.
“Golden, what in the fields are you doing?” Silver asked.
“Something I really wish I wasn’t.” She said, and then slowly, item by item, she started to throw them upwards and into a circle and began to juggle.
Clowns magic wasn’t quite like other magic. Most got theirs through the elements or through loosened patches in the trouser fabric of reality. Clowns got their power through extorting chuckles and uncomfortable cheeriness in others. In many ways clowns were just vampires without the teeth.
Though if you asked any sentient species who has been subjected to ten minutes of honking horns, eye bleeding colours and custard pies or vampires. Most would be rubbing their necks gleefully without a second thought.
By overbearing their audience into uncomfortable forced laughter they can go to higher extremes of clownishness. Why this has not been used to take over the world, comes down to the simple rule. Whatever power is taken must inevitably be returned. In simpler terms clowns are often taught at pratfall university, whatever pie was thrown upwards must also come back down presumably onto the face of the thrower.
To most it was the rule of cosmic irony. But to clowns this was known as Dr Sod’s law (3)
Despite all logic, Golden began to juggle, throwing more and more objects in the line as she ran backwards, picking up more dinner plates as well as picture frames, a mouse trap and the confused mouse next to it, who had just been ready to chow down were now somersaulting air with his lunch.
The charging griffon, whose relationship to imagination was to occasionally use his left fist to pummel others instead of his right, had not expected this. It halted for a moment as perplexed as Silver had been. In his experience, when he chased things they ran in terror, they didn’t stop to put on a show.
Slowly his massive head cocked sideways. The smile forming on his beak was almost childlike. Which was marginally better than murderous rage moments ago.
More and more objects flew into Golden's spinning circle, until finally she reached the pinnacle of her skill. When she could juggle no more objects, she allowed her hoof to thrust up even harder than she should have done and braces for impact.
An ornate vase went flying upwards, pinging off of something on the ceiling. Then landed on her head with a crash. Golden stumbled backwards as the objects around her clattered to the ground. The typical cosmic stars and birds swarmed around her head.
The griffon let out a bellowing chuckle. “Stupid pony.” He boomed in broken Eques. Then seeming to finally remember why he was here, he took another step forwards towards Silver. Which was exactly when the chandelier collapsed on top of him.
After all, any clown worth their nose understands that cosmic irony worked both ways after all.
Golden collapsed backwards onto the floorboards, she was vaguely aware of a voice in her ears and the shaking of her shoulder. “Golden are you alright?” Silver asked.
“I told you officer I didn’t know where the wig and glue came from, I was only trying to clean the windows.” Golden slurred back as slowly her uncle came back into view.
“Snap out of it girl.” Silver said, shaking her shoulders. The sounds of squeaky toys rattled around somewhere inside of her as consciousness slowly came back to her.
“Huh?” Golden said, sitting back up and blinking slowly, “what happened?” She asked.
“Golden, that was amazing. How did you know the chandelier would fall?” Her uncle asked.
“What chandelier?” Golden asked, looking at the now prone griffon, “I was just hoping the juggling would distract him long enough to think of something to stop him, I didn’t even see a chandelier.”
“Oh…” her uncle said frowning, then he shrugged, “well at least that’s all sorts-“
Before she could stop him from uttering those dreaded words, words like, “all’s well that ends well," and “everything worked out in the end.” And all the other taunting saying, that was to fate what painting your flank red and waggling it into the face of an irate bull was to assisted suicide. Golden heard the groaning of the mammoth griffon who was already slowly lifting himself back upwards.
Golden turned, spotting a room just around another bend in the hallways. “quickly inside while he’s still down!” She yelled shouldering her uncle and the cub through the door. Slamming the door shut behind them.
“Okay,” she said between gasps. “We should be safe inside here for now.” It took her a second to realise what she had just said and already she felt fate's cold and vengeful hand on her shoulder. In the form of a shadow that fell across the three of them.
Golden cursed her big red lipstick mouth as she gazed upwards.
And then…
And then Luna horn ignited. A shower of ice shards as sharp as a spear tip flew towards the griffon. It ducked behind a wizened oak tree just as the shards embedded into the tree which caught fire in a blaze of blue embers. She narrowed her eyes as she watched him dive through the hedge wall and away from her.
“You can run, but we will find thee!” She roared, though this went without saying. In fact if she so wanted to, she could have simply teleported in front of him, or even levitated him towards her with a flick of her horn and ended it all right then and there. But what would be the point of swift retribution? That never taught any pony anything.
Luna was a fan of executing her monarchical right to cruel and unusual punishment. After all her sisters had written it into her constitution.
Well, okay, perhaps it did not say that exactly. Perhaps if one was to look closely enough. If one really squinted hard at the text, one might find a few nor’s here and maybe an against there. But only if one was pedantic enough to look at the fine print (or even the thick print.) But who really had the time to read the whole thing verbatim?
The nobility and peasantry certainly didn’t, they seemed to argue its meaning at court every day. So why couldn’t she interpret her own meaning?
Luna chased after the overgrown feline. Thus what precipitated was a game of "unstoppable ball of monarchical righteous vengeance… and mouse.” To its credit, the griffon was smart enough not to fly. Perhaps he knew that if he had, it would have led to the most one sided game of clay pigeon shooting, since the dragon Lord Storm Scale had taken the phrase ‘shooting fish in the barrel,’ and applied it to an Aviary.
She glided over a hedge just in time to spot the griffon's gloved talon flapping behind a cedar tree. Smiling, she muttered, “the games is over.” as she blasted it with a powerful spell of pure liquid fire.
She watched as the tree evaporated into a molten puddle. “A good try, but your time is up griffo-“ she paused as she noticed the rubber glove, and the distinctive lack of a griffon attached to it in the puddle of tree bark and goo.
Blinking, she glanced around, just in time to spot it dashing off behind her towards the front of the gardens. “Cleaver lion.” She muttered, eyes narrowing as she continued to give chase.
“Stop, please, I am just gardener.” He yelled over its shoulder as he ran, his eyes widening as Luna lifted up an entire hedgerow root and all over her head.
“Ha, a likely story.” She roared charging forward. “We have heard every excuse before, face your doom assassin!”
This was true enough, she had heard just about every excuse from an assassin's lips. Such as one pretending to be a maid who had only been trying to fix her dress, only to later try and stab her from behind. Then there was that overly enthusiastic tea salesman who tried to poison her in the streets. The latest one had been the sneakiest, a so-called ‘photographer’ who was ‘looking for the bathroom.’
And no, just because that last one had led to a court case that Luna had ‘apparently’ lost did not prove anything. No pony had given sufficient evidence to suggest that his peculiar picture box for frozen images hadn’t been trying to steal her soul.
She threw one last bolt of blue flame just over his shoulder, engulfing one of the exits to the gardens. The griffon gave a yelp and instead flung himself towards the front gate of the house. There, now Luna knew there was nothing but an open court and a fountain there.
Nowhere to run, Nowhere to hide.
She skidded around the corner as bits of cobblestone and granite were sent flying in her mighty hoof prints. Horn cocked and loaded she aimed down the barrel of her horn tip.
And stopped.
In front of her was a curious sight. Instead of one griffon now there were two of them. The one she had been chasing and the one she quickly realised was the one that had been in her room, the one with a cloak over his body. The griffon that had been in her room was holding a knife to the one she had been chasing neck.
It seemed shaky, its knife arm vibrating unsteadily against the other griffon's neck. As soon as she came into its view, it barked something at her, in its foul native tongue.
“We do not speak your gibberish words knave, speak in proper Equestrian if you wish to address us.” Luna said, stopping only to see where this circus was going next.
The griffon, the one who’s robes now resembled an erratic loin cloth with extra steps furrowed its brow, turned to the griffon, this so-called gardener it was holding hostage and barked at it instead.
“H-He is saying, drop spinning magical ball of blue fire or I get it.” The so-called gardener translated, then he turned slightly and spoke to the griffon that growled something else at him, “and by it, he apparently means my death.”
Luna snorted derisively. “What makes you think I care if two assassins are taken care of together? How about I dispense with the choice and end you both?” She sneered.
The gardener considered this for a moment and spoke back to the knife wielding griffon, who seemed unsure of what was going on, this was probably the last answer he had expected. No doubt in his experience hostage holding didn’t make you feel less safe.
“I cannot speak for this griffon, but I would consider it a great blessing if you did not dispose of me, besides a great many reasons, the top being that I am a faithful tax paying citizen and the second being that I have not finished planting the sunflowers.” He said so laconically that Luna wondered for a second if the griffon had been making fun of her.
“Nice try.” She said slowly, “we do not know what you are trying to pull, but we shall not fall for it.”
“I am not pulling anything, Nothing to make you fall.” He said gulping audibly as the knife pressed further into his neck. “I am just gardener princess. I only out here trying to find the other griff-” he gulped as the other griffon growled at him pressing the knife closer to his throat.
“Cut out this pathetic charade.” Luna yelled. Though she had to admit her conviction was wavering somewhat. This griffon was a convincing liar. “Tell your comrade to release you otherwise there will be repercussions. If you do this now we shall be sporting, you will receive ten seconds head start before your total annotation.” She said with a self satisfied nod, that was more than fair she thought.
The harsher smaller griffon yelled something into the place where Luna supposed an ear would be, it gasped as the knife was held closer to the neck, sharp enough that it cut through some of the tops of its feathers.
“What is he saying now?” Luna asked.
“He is saying enough talk, he is saying if you let him go with the cub, you can save your ponies.”
Luna's eyes narrowed, what did this have to do with that little thing or her staff? “What does it mean by this?”
The gardener spoke to the griffon, who gave away a sickening smile, one that was mixed with satisfaction and fear.
“Oh dear?” The gardener said.
“What?” Luna asked.
“Oh no.” He said, his eyes widening.
“I demand you tell me this instant!” Luna yelled.
“He is saying that there are two more of his group here. Trained killers, one of them is prideless.” He continued to translate his face fixating into a horrified mask as he spoke the griffon's words. “He is saying that if you do not give us the cub you will lose everything. He is saying that his chief will take all you hold dear.” The gardener's gulp was almost audible. “He is saying that his chief has no heart and no soul, that he has no mercy, he is also saying that only if you give him the cub can he possibly spare you from a fate worse than death.”
Luna looked from the griffon to griffon. Brow raised, “Is this right?”
The gardener continued on. “Yes princess, He is saying that even now they are rounding up your maids and servants, that there will be reckoning, that you will not make us slaves. That his leader will make your kind wish they had never been-“
There was the sound of a high pitched squawking and then the gardener was let there standing. The only thing that remained in place of the other griffon was a few loose feathers and the knife which dropped softly onto the floor by the gardener's talons. The so-called gardener blinked a few times then turned to see the knife wielding griffon, who was now lying prone against the fountain behind them.
Slowly he turned back to face Luna.
“What?” Luna said incredulously, as the gardener stared back at her with wide accusing eyes, “do not look at us that way, it would have gone on forever. We have heard those threats a thousand thousand times.” Luna said, she rolled her eyes. “Burn down your homes, crush your armies, hear the lamentations of your mares, et-cetera.” She muttered waving her hoof. “Honestly do those cretins not have an editor?”
“But-” the gardener began, “-he was about to explain his plan, if you had kept him talking, then we could have worked out what they were doing next. Then-“
“-we heard enough,” Luna interrupted, “two more of his kind to deal with in the manor, he wishes to hurt my friends and servants and my,” she caught herself before something else could slip from her mouth and instead added, “my sister's little experiment, that is all the information we needed.” .
Blast it, she knew she should have been more careful in that dream, that little rodent chaser's dreams were still infecting her mind it seemed. She had to be more careful in the future. She shook the thoughts away as she turned and began to walk back towards the manor.
“Where are you going?” The gardener asked.
“Back to the manor, to root out this infestation.” She said curtly not looking back.
“What about chief. The prideless lion?”
“What about him?” She said with a disgusted snort. “He will be dealt with in the same manner as the rest of them. First we shall offer him the branch of diplomacy, then we shall beat him thoroughly with it.” She said turning away again.
“Princess please, prideless griffons very dangerous.” He said following behind her. “He has powerful rune.”
“Whatever little pebbles he thinks will protect him are no threat to me, what could they possibly do that would hurt me.” She scoffed, lighting up her horn.
It went without saying that Luna was a firm disbeliever in karma or destiny. She was of the belief that one was in control of their own luck and destiny. Unfortunately someone had forgotten to tell them that.
Just after the words left her lips, she felt something clip her horn. It felt for the briefest of moments as though one of her six senses had been switched off. (4) She stood there immobile, senseless, then she almost collapsed, staggering she caught a tree branch and barely kept herself standing.
“Jeg hater dere dumme ponnier!” a voice yelled horsley from behind her. She turned, her gaze blurred and unfocused, and could just about make out the sight of the griffon she had just blasted.
Like her, he was swaying and holding onto the fountain with all his might. His other talon gripped a weapon of some description, a sideways miniature bow that was aimed at her. The bow string vibrated as if it had just been fired.
Luna lit her horn, magic flared ready to reduce this miserable ball of feathers to mulch when a crippling pain inside her skull made her gasp. The magic built up from her horn, went wide and struck the fountain rather than the griffon.
Luna clutched her forehead. What felt like a convention of blacksmiths banging hammers wildly in her brain, she slumped barely staying upright.
She could see then the faint outline of that griffon smirking as it drew another arrow from his side and knocked it into the flat bow. He lined up the arrow aimed at Luna's chest.
“Si dine bønner måne heks!” He spat aiming the bow at her chest.
“Noo!” The griffon gardener yelled out. Jumping in front of them both. Luna watched as he shielded himself in front of her.
“What are you doing!?” She growled pointedly, still clutching her head.
“Shielding you from arrow. Is obvious no?” The griffon whispered back defiantly.
“Thou does realise that I am several hooves taller than you and all it would have to do is lift that weapon up an inch to hit us?”
The griffon considered this a moment then added in a slightly deflated tone, “Ah, you have point.”
“We shall both have points in us in a moment.” she growled through the pain. She had to focus her magic. But it felt as though all her magic was blocked somehow. Not like what her sister had used, that had felt like it had flicked a switch. This had felt as though it had violently yanked out.
The cloaked griffon sneered, his trigger talon twitched and then suddenly everyone froze. The only thing that was still moved was the ground itself.
A gurgling sound rumbled under them. It was like the sound of a bursting dam being squeezed through a mouse hole.
“What is this, an earthquake?” Luna yelled over the rumbling.
“No, worse… bad plumbing.” The so-called gardener said as the other griffon staggered, dropped his flatbow and held on tight to the alicorn statue.
Then suddenly it seemed to stop. There was a sound, like water being sucked down a drain and then all three of them stared up at the alicorn state.
It all happened so fast that Luna had to take a moment to realise what she was looking at. One moment the griffon and the statue were there. The next moment he and the statue were about three hundred hooves into the sky.
She could only tell it was him because of the screaming. She watched as it flew into nothing and then, almost half a minute later she caught the parabola of water arch back down towards the earth.
She would be among the last to show sympathy to a griffon. But even she had to grimace as she watched it crash through the roof.
Though the grimace was mostly because of the pain around the base of her horn. She staggered nearly slipping onto the ground then felt something grab a hold of her and keep her steady.
“Are you alright princess?” The gardener griffon said, barely holding her upright.
“Unhoof me!” She yelled, staggering away, the shiver of revulsion lingering where those claws had touched her skin, a familiar and holy unwanted feeling. “Keep those dirty talons to yourself.” She growled, far louder than she had meant to.
If the griffon seemed perturbed by that outburst he didn’t show it, “You should take rest, that arrow likely tipped with griffon-stone.” He said.
Luna, tired, in pain and irritated, grabbed the griffon by the chest feathers and heaved him up to meet her eyes. “How do you know this griffon-stone?” She growled
She had only just heard of it from her sister a little while ago when she had ambushed her. The power had shocked her, but she had been assured it was a rare and extremely costly material. Nothing some simple brigand would have access to.
“My Mor and Far were rune makers.” He grunted out hurriedly, “I know from watching them, griffon-stone feeds off magic, like battery, it must have taken magic stored in your horn.”
“So not content to steal my land or privacy, you griffons steal my magic as well. Is there no end to thine avarice?” She said her muzzle centimeters from his beak.
“Is temporary thing princess.” He assured her, “but you must rest, otherwise could have long lasting effects.”
Luna opened her muzzle to tell him exactly where he could stick his rest, when a cracking sound made them both turn. What sounded like the swan song of a wounded mastodon flooded the air. Feeling rather than hearing sounds of floorboards crashing inwards from somewhere in the manor.
Luna's eyes widened, thoughts of the danger to her charge galvanized her and she pushed away the pain and disorientation in her mind. She turned slowly back towards this mysterious griffon. Wanting nothing more than to tie him up to a tree until she sorted this business out.
But….
“Fine.” she growled, against her better judgment she lowered him back down to the ground. “You want to help, then you shall assist us for the moment, until you are no longer needed and if I find out that you are lying then...”
The griffons cocked his head. “Then?”
”Then things get rather difficult for you.” She said with a genuine smile. She had quite enough with these griffons for one day. She stumbled, righted herself, aimed her addled body towards the mansion.
And then...