//------------------------------// // Chapter 12: Baltimare // Story: Millennial Heartstrings // by The Apologetic Pony //------------------------------// She nimbly retreated down a myriad of somewhat concealed passages and alleyways until we stopped well out of sight. I just flew alongside her for the entire time, or above her when I couldn't. Even though she’d ducked and jumped considerable distances without the aid of flight, she was hardly out of breath. To my embarrassment, I was... a little. ‘I think we lost him.’ I wasn’t sure he was chasing us in the first place. She leant her back against the exit of a street we’d just come from, letting her healthy muscles loosen, pausing. ‘I’m going to go crash at my place, join me or follow me there, if you want. Or... Whatever.’ The griffin shifted her weight back to a neutral and strode past me. Lacking much better, I went with her, to wherever ‘my place’ was. We talked and walked. ‘It’s not far. The name’s Laella, nice to meet ya. If you’re into the introduction kinda thing. And you! You must have a name!’ Laella seemed rather excited at the prospect that it might have just turned into a guessing game. ‘Let’s see, where abouts in the alphabet are we talking here? First half?’ I shook my head assuming she was referring to the starting letter. She might not have even heard of it; not a particularly common name. ‘Well that narrows it down. Rachel? No? Not r...’ This was going to take a long, long time. ‘P’ would be the last letter she’d guess. I could just let her assign me some random name; that wouldn’t be so bad. Then again, if I was going to have stories involving myself, I’d rather it be Philomena, or no name at all. But that didn’t appear to be an option in this case. She kept on racking through the names and deduced it was ‘P’ when we reached her house some minutes later. Which had exceeded my expectations. ‘Polly? No you're not a pirates pet! Er, we’re here. Not sure what you want to do...’ She scratched at the ground a bit awkwardly, her claws not marking the cobbled street. Did Lealla not want me in her house? I thought she’d invited me, but it hadn’t been with the greatest of enthusiasm, odd. ‘I’ll see you the same time tomorrow okay? Yeah, same place, bye,’ Lealla said, and then hastily slammed the door. She hadn’t invited me, obviously. I was left a little clueless at the closed door, must be very important to make her as hurried as she was, whatever or, whoever was in that house. A temptation existed in having a peek through a window, but it wasn’t any of my business. It would be an unfair invasion of privacy and betrayal of trust. Even so, it took quite the will to suppress it and fly back into the green outside the city. I don’t think the next day was eventful until the sun was long down, as it had been previous. The cheeky griffin was just lying on the bench this time, arbitrarily stargazing. She saw me quickly and cheerily jumped off the bench in greeting. ‘Heya!’ I squawked softly in response, ultimately failing to penetrate the seemingly eternal language barrier that stood between us. ‘Wanna meet my crew?’ What crew? The possibilities were so vast that she might as well have not said it at all. Lealla mistook my confusion as a kind of affirmative. Either that, or she had never been looking for any in the first place. ‘Come, I’ll explain on the way,’ Lealla gestured, walking in the opposite direction. Admittedly, I was more than on edge after that. For as unlikely as it was now, I did not want to meet the same fate as a certain Phoenix in Canterlot. A fate, I’d had a chance to reverse... ‘Are you coming or what?’ She barked from across the park. By all means, she appeared friendly and trustworthy. She wouldn’t put me in such a position, if she realised the predicament it placed me in. The again, that would be too perfect. I ran the risk of losing her if I didn’t and that was most certainly something I did not want to happen. Lealla had been shy at first, but warmed up quickly. Too quickly? Was it a case of the delusion believing she was a skepticist, a secretly uncomfortable stoic gullibly lending herself to doom, or a paranoid who’d seen too much? To her, the idle request could be thrown with little regard but to me presented an awkward set of circumstances, if innocence was to be believed. Time ticked infuriatingly on as the thoughts raced through my brain and the choice loomed as a giant, a black mallet loomed above it all. So what was it Philomena? Care to roll some dice? ‘You alright over there?’ I hadn’t noticed her return to me, as she now appeared much closer, supposedly concerned for my welfare. Nor, until that very moment, did become aware of the salty drops running down my neck and, I was... shaking. Such open grief was meant to be saved for the return to the long stretches of solitude, not for others, most definitely hidden from “fragile” mortals. Lealla saw them and recoiled, unsure what to do in my weeping. ‘Sorry... I- I, didn’t mean to upset you.’ Her words were brimmed with remorse. Lealla sat on the bench, offering an embrace. I gladly took it, resting against a fellow feathery chest as she gently ran her beak down my back. My shellshocked self wondered if this what was having the constant overwatch of death was like, full of intense emotion and camaraderie. I’d have to accept a reliance on others unparalleled to anything I’d experienced, if I was to do what I claimed I wanted to. It was to be worries of the creatures around you, not the ones that would be later born. The insights came with a darkening sky and the comforting Lealla. Some minutes later, she apologised again and started to mutter about how mysterious it was for me to be here. ‘I don’t get it. You're supposed to be frolicking with your pheonix friends, but you're here, right in Baltimare. Not to say it’s bad, but, why?’ Why was Lealla here? ‘It’s probably not in my place to ask your majesty!’ The boisterous girl roared with laughter at the old hierarchy, inadvertently forcing me off her brown thigh and onto the armrest. It was encouraging to see she’d recovered quickly and with seeming ease. But I still felt a subtle sensation, gnawing at me, yearning, to not grant her utter trust; I didn’t know why. Maybe my mind was just trying to save me from the pain that would come. And I wasn’t brave enough to overcome it. I could only hope that in time, I’d give up on saving myself as it were. If that was why. Time would tell, only not too late, I wished. ‘You don’t trust me, do you?’ Oh dear. I didn’t think she was quite that perceptive. I felt myself shifting awkwardly on the bench, looking away and tensing. The evidence couldn’t have been more damning. All the while, Lealla’s harsh gaze burned through my petite skull. But she kept staring, and staring. Eventually, it became comically apparent that this was just another way to tug at me. She bellowed with excessive volume and scraped her talons against the back of the bench in amusement. I could only sigh in relief that I hadn’t blown a precious chance right out of the sky. It was at the edge of what I’d consider humour and I was a little perturbed Lealla would go to such lengths for some simple skullduggery. Seemed like a real oddity of a trickster, this one. When the bench was shaking no longer, she wiped some tears from her eyes with her forearm, leaned close and innocently whispered in my ear. ‘It’s okay, I know, but it doesn't matter.’ Then she drew back, and reverted to the use of vocal chords. The more conspiratorial part of my brain told me she was implying more than just the trust, but I batted it aside. ‘If you don’t want to meet my friends, then would you like to fly with me? I could give you a tour of this place’ Lealla said, making a sweeping gesture with her arms. Sure, I’d be up for that. She saw my nodding, so we took off to the moonlit sky. We gently glided across the grand city, casting no shadows and spotting the occasional figure as we went. A soft, easterly wind kept us aloft, washing all that remained of the tears away. The sea lay to the to the west, and with the exception of the new, intrusive railway line, the town was otherwise surrounded by forest. Somepony had chosen the location well, evidently. Fisher's houses were naturally planted close to the docks; their boats, already small, appeared miniscule from altitude. Baltimare was prosperous, by most standards, so it hadn’t accrued the gloom I’d found in Yanhoover. But the distance between the affluent and poor was not large enough so that the rich could fully dominate the masses, just yet. There was none of the snootiness of the old Canterlot to be found, or, more of a silent minority if it did exist. Though they probably added some diversity to the place too: not a bad thing. Waves lapped against the port, which had seen many a creature grace its walkways. I speculated that this was the reason I’d encountered a griffin here; they weren’t very common in Equestria, their homeland was off to the east. Lealla didn’t say much, except to point out some landmarks: a humble town hall, a bar and even a rock farm on the outskirts. As for the griffin herself, only then did I gawk at just how gorgeous she was. Light brown feathers, bright green eyes and an impressive grey collar. Although it took on a tinge of the cerulean blue, tonight. She was reasonably sleek, but not lacking in strength, quite the opposite. Lealla noticed my staring and jokingly remarked: ‘Look who's interested!’ And here I was, an ugly clash of red and yellow against the night, flying beside her, that made me stand out like a bloodied combatant. For the first time in a very long time indeed, even by my standards, I was genuinely jealous of someone. Fortunately, the feeling wasn’t overwhelming and I was able to quash with haste, albeit a bit bemused at the infantile desire of mine. Soon after, (still airborne) Lealla nudged me a little with her head, playfully pushing me away. I retaliated by attempting to get on her back, but of course, she dropped, leaving me clawing at cool air. We skirted past each other, each of us attempting to outmaneuver the other, but little success was achieved by either party. Despite her superior acceleration, my smaller size allowed me to quickly dart around the griffin making it more or less even. To my delight, Lealla seemed to be finding it as fun as I was. Which was, very fun. After hours of similar shenanigans we finally called it a night and went back to our respective homes. Fatigued, and elated from the simple fun of physical competition. She thanked me, and promised we’d fly over the forest next time. I was going to look forward to that. In the meantime, I was plagued by yet more uneasy dreams, this time, of flying in a flock of my fellow crimson birds, but never forgetting that those were times when enough of us remained to do so... If only to escape my own, I wondered what griffins dreamt of. I didn’t see her for a few days, but we were both relieved to eventually find each other on that same bench. At night, again. As always, it seemed. This time, I was the one to hop up from the bench, but she was as friendly as ever. ‘Hey there, I’m so glad to see you again!’ Me too Lealla, me too. ‘I’ve been busy, with, um, stuff. Good stuff though, I’ll tell you about it later.’ There were a lot of things she was going to ‘“tell me about later,” I suspected. ‘Soooooooooooooooo...’ She was going to ask about an introduction to her ‘crew’ again, wasn’t she?