//------------------------------//
// 4 - Personal Belonging 
// Story: Summer Days 
// by Nicknack 
//------------------------------//

Monday morning, Sherry greeted me with with a change of plans.
 
“Hey, you,” she said, not looking up from her paperwork. She pointed a hoof over her shoulder at the wall-mounted patrol map of Farrington. “Go look over patrol route twelve; that’s where you are this week.”
 
One of the benefits of being a griffin was my eyesight; I could read tiny details of the map without moving. “Uh... the Artisan District?” I asked as I reviewed the intersections I’d have to turn on. I had heard stories, and it didn’t exactly sound like the nicest part of Farrington.
 
“The Artisan District,” Sherry repeated. “Five different shops have asked for more guards up there ‘cause of some ‘high-profile work’ they’ve got. One of my units can split up to handle all the evils in the Residential District, so that leaves you.” She looked up from her paperwork and met my eyes. “You’re a big girl, and nothing ever happens in the mornings, so you’ll be fine. If not...” She picked up one of her thick pencils and repeatedly whacked it on the side of her desk. “You know the drill.”
 
“And hammer,” I added.
 
She grinned. “Just don’t take any candy or job offers from strangers.”
 
I responded by snapping a salute and heading out to my new patrol.
 
The Artisan District was mostly made up of many different flavors of blacksmithing. That wasn’t to say that there wasn’t an alchemy shop here or carpenter there, but it seemed like every other building had a chimney and rang with the sound of falling hammers.
 
The patrol itself was easy to remember: only nine turns. That meant I spent the first half hour of my patrol looking around at the shops; it was actually pretty cool to see some of the various metal things getting pounded into their shapes. However, the pedestrians were as hard and tempered as the steel products that were being produced. After the third stallion shoved his way past me, I called out, “Excuse you!”
 
He turned around just long enough to yell, “Get bent, half-breed!” before continuing on his path.
 
After the shock wore off, I realized that it wasn’t the slur that bothered me; it was his offhanded, lazy attempt at an insult. It doesn’t even make sense, I seethed. Does he think an eagle and lion just made it and, bam, griffins?
 
That interaction was a little preview of the rest of my day. By lunch, I was ready to be done with that cramped and burnt-smelling district. By five o’ clock, I was ready to be done with Farrington.
 
I headed to the north gate; from where I was, it was the quickest way out of the city. I didn’t need Sherry to dismiss me; I just needed a sergeant or higher. So I walked up to the north booth and, as I rounded the lip I asked, “Permission to leave for—”
 
Lieutenant Starfall was in there, glaring back at me. The words caught in my throat as an inarticulate gurgle, which was lucky; two weeks in Farrington, and I was starting to default to the pony language for swearing.
 
Silence fell between the two of us; he continued to glare at me, and I just kind of froze in position. I found some words, finally, and figured since I was already there, nothing worse could come from asking, “Uh, sir? Permission to leave for the day?”
 
He continued to glare at me for a full ten seconds before he said anything. “What was the one thing I told you your first day here?”
 
“Stay—”
 
“Stay out of my way,” he spoke over me, nodding slowly. He opened his mouth and started to say something more, but instead, he shook his head, turned around, and disappeared through the door in the back of his booth.
 
Well... crap. I stood there, aghast at the whole situation. Not only had I pissed the lieutenant off, but he hadn’t officially ended our conversation. So now, I was stuck between what made sense—leaving the north gate—and the duty of waiting to be dismissed.
 
It hit me that Lieutenant Starfall might have done that on purpose, and he might be off taking an early dinner break just to spite me. Before I could go any further down that train of thought, a door on the inside of the arch opened, and Lieutenant Starfall walked through. He was grinning, which made my stomach shrivel, but I had to stand my ground.
 
He walked right up to me, staying completely silent until he was looming over me, well within my personal space. I gazed up at him, then I glanced down at his shoulder, where he had a black scabbard of a knife or short sword; then, I looked back up at him.
 
“I’m not going to hurt you until you force me to,” he spoke in a quiet voice. “But, since you can’t obey one order, let’s see what else you’re doing wrong.” His voice shot up ten decibels as he shouted, “Present guard!”
 
I stood up for uniform inspection, and slowly, he circled around me, making quiet sounds of disapproval. I shook, either with rage or frustration, but I kept staring forward and won my fight to ignore his presence.
 
“Your armor’s filthy...” he sneered.
 
“I’ve been in the Artisan District all day, sir.” The term of respect tasted bitter, but I tried to be as neutral as possible.
 
“And it doesn’t fit correctly.”
 
“Sir, it’s...” I blinked a few times. Because I’m a griffin, was the end of that sentence, but that was what he wanted me to say. “Being... worked on,” I finished.
 
“Oh?” he asked. “I wasn’t aware that the captain approved any custom fittings before officers’ six-month milestone.” He poked the seam between my helmet and shoulder. “Right here. This is unacceptable.”
 
I didn’t like being touched. I curled a fist in the dirt road, fighting to keep my posture. Fighting back will only make it worse.
 
Starfall must’ve seen my fist, because he put his hoof down. “Something you want to say, officer?”
 
In my mind, I imagined the start of the fight. I had a fistful of dirt—cheap, but effective. I’d only get one or two hits after that, so I’d have to make them count.
 
Then, I remembered my training, and how to look past the first few blows of the fight. If I beat him, it didn’t matter in the long term; I’d no longer be a guard. If I lost... I doubted he’d show restraint in “self-defense.” The whole thing just made me feel helpless. Finally, a dam broke in my eyes, and I yelled, “What do you want me to do about it?!”
 
He smiled. I wanted to punch it off his face. A splinter of logic kept my fist in the road, gripping dirt.
 
“I want you to go back to whatever hole you live in and think,” he almost spat the words. His face was blurry when it leaned down into mine. “Think, about what you’re really doing here, and whether it’s time to stop pretending you’re a guard.”
 
Then he stood up and exclaimed, in a sickeningly happy voice, “Dismissed.”
 
I was in the air before he finished the word, flying towards the mountains. Navigating them would be difficult, because I was crying so hard. At the same time, I didn’t want anyone in the city to see me flying home. I was too ashamed.
 

*              *              *

 
The next morning, before my shift, Captain Bulwark motioned me over to his booth. I knew what he wanted, but I couldn’t ignore him, so I walked over.
 
“Hello, Officer.” He turned his hoof around and waved.
 
“Sir.” I gave a salute.
 
He returned it, so I put my hand down. Then, he continued, “I have two things to ask you before your shift this morning.”
 
“Okay...”
 
“First... what happened last night, between you and Lieutenant Starfall?”
 
I glanced down at the ridge where the grass met the dirt road outside of Farrington. I sure as hell didn’t want to defend the lieutenant, but I also didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he could bother me. Then again, melting down in front of him probably wasn’t the best way to go about that.
 
Either way, I had taken his advice, and even though it had been a long, miserable night, I had come to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to let him stop me from trying to be a city guard. Snapping my eyes back to the captain, I answered as honestly as I needed to. “I tried to get dismissed from him. I forgot about his standing order. It won’t happen again.”
 
“Gilda...” Captain Bulwark started. “Er... Officer... Gilda...” He glanced curiously off to the side, and despite the situation, I took small satisfaction in seeing his “captain” act slip up. After shaking his head, he continued, “A lieutenant can’t just order you to avoid them.”
 
I shrugged. “Not outright. But what about other bylaws and stuff he can waste my time with?”
 
Captain Bulwark gestured a hoof at himself. “If he’s persistent about being unduly harsh to you, let me know, and I’ll put an end to it.”
 
“Thank you, sir.” I bowed. “But then he’d be annoyed with me personally, and I don’t really want to go near him if I don’t have to anyway.”
 
The captain didn’t say anything in reply at first, but eventually, he nodded. “I’m not fond of this outcome, but if it’s your choice, I won’t force you both together.” After a shorter pause, he added, “Anyway, I also wanted to know if you still wanted to get dinner tonight?”
 
I remembered our plans for Tuesday. “Oh yeah, that’s today...” Nodding, I looked south and started piecing together a schedule. If I got dismissed at five-fifteen, and it took about two hours to make a round trip... “Would, uh, seven-thirty work?” As soon as I asked, I realized there’d barely be any time before I had to leave for the evening—maybe a half hour.
 
Captian Bulwark picked up on it, too. “If you stowed your armor in the Guard’s locker room, would six-thirty work?”
 
“Won’t it get wet?” I raised an eyebrow, remembering the “locker room” at Junior Speedsters’ had really just been a big shower room that I avoided for that exact reason.
 
My question drew a confused, choking noise from the captain. “Er... the locker room has lockers...” He trailed off, I shrugged, and he shrugged back. “Anyway, it’s the first door in the hallway to the right of the lobby, near the armory.”
 
I nodded. “Okay, then. Six-thirty it is.”
 

*              *              *

 
My second day in the Artisan District was even worse than the first.
 
In a weird sense, I was completely aware that everyone was the same as they were yesterday. But at the same time, every shove, shout, and slur now had a little anchor of doubt in my mind. What was I doing as a guard? Maybe it’d just be better to quit...
 
I kept at it, but at the end of the day, I definitely went south to the Citadel to be dismissed by Sherry. She greeted me with some paperwork that detailed some new “Friends of the Community” crap. I flipped through it, scowling harder and harder at the inane tips about “being polite to citizens” and “avoiding unnecessary confrontations.”
 
About four pages in, Sherry cleared her throat, “So, do you hate leaflets or something?”
 
“Where’s the citizens’ version of this crap?” I asked, and Sherry chuckled.
 
“I think that’s called the law, Gilda.”
 
I didn’t have an answer for that, so I finished reading. There was a quiz when I got done, which took about fifteen minutes to fill out, so it was ten minutes before six when I was officially “dismissed.”
 
If anything, it made me glad there was a locker room; if I had started my trip home a half-hour late, I would’ve been late for dinner. Then again, the rate my week was going, I probably would’ve just cancelled my dinner with the captain.
 
The locker room was just what its name implied: a room lined with steel lockers and a long, stone bench set in the floor. The lockers themselves had grates instead of doors, so it was easy to see which ones were occupied. There weren’t any locks; I supposed that was because it was already guarded by... well, the Guard. I picked an empty locker and stashed my armor inside.
 

*              *              *

 
Half an hour later, I returned to Farrington after a quick bath in the lake. A day’s worth of sweat, smoke, and ash did not a pristine Gilda make, but now I was clean, I felt better. Iron was waiting for me under the gate; after greeting me, he asked, “Are you ready to go?”
 
“So soon? I just got here.”
 
He chuckled and stood up; then we headed into the city. Again, I let Iron choose the restaurant; today, he took us to a diner in the Business District. Its tile floor was a lot less elegant than the carpeting at Saturday’s restaurant. It was also brighter-lit, and there wasn’t any music—or if there was, I couldn’t hear it over the chatter of all the other customers.
 
When we sat down, Iron showed me that the menu had imitation ham sandwiches. To his amusement, I ordered, “Twelve of them, hold the bread.”
 
The food situation looked like it’d be better than Saturday, but all of the conversational topics put me on the defensive. Iron wasn’t trying to be a jerk on purpose, but kept asking about life at Sharfkral-Grat. I obliged him with what I could, but most of his questions I either didn’t know the answer to, or I didn’t want to give an answer to.
 
For example, halfway through my fourth slice of what apparently counted for ham, by pony standards, Iron asked, “So, what is your favorite memory from growing up?”
 
I don’t know, I mentally sneered. It was vague, and it forced me to think about my childhood. I picked a day that wasn’t as bad as the others and responded, “Probably when my older sister taught me how to fly.”
 
Iron looked at me, expectantly, so I continued, “I guess she finally had enough of our father’s ‘lessons.’ One day, she found me climbing back down to our cave, grabbed me, and took me to a sort of flat area. She spent a few hours with me going over various techniques and movements, and finally, I could sort of lose altitude at a manageable rate. Sure, it wasn’t really flying, I guess, but it helped the next time that father abandoned me on a mountain peak in order to ‘motivate’ me to fly back home.”
 
When I finished the story, I looked across the table to find a horrified expression. “That’s... insane!” Iron said in a loud whisper. “You could have died.”
 
“And?” I asked, annoyed at the obvious. Every time, Father had reminded me that he’d prefer that I fall to my death rather than trying to “climb down like an insect.”
 
Across the table, Iron kept staring back, wide-eyed. I didn’t know what his problem was; it was my childhood. I also didn’t know how to ask him that without sounding pissy, so I ate some more “ham” while I let him work it out. Finally, he asked, “Was he always like that?”
 
A weird feeling welled up in my chest: It sounded like he didn’t believe me. My past was hard enough to relive without ponies calling my honesty into question. “What if he was?” I asked.
 
Iron flinched at the heat of my words, but he quickly regained his composure with a little head-shake. “I just find it hard to believe—”
 
Suddenly, it felt like all of my frustrations from the past two days came back at once. Starfall’s inspection, prejudiced idiots in the Artisan District, “Friends of the Community,” doubts about being a guard... now, Iron was calling me a liar about my past?
 
I found myself standing up and pointing a shaking talon at Iron. “Why would I lie?” Captain or no, favors or no, Iron had no right to call me a liar. Not after what I had been through. The rest of my anger came out in a scream: “Who do you think beat me half-to-death before I flew here?”
 
By now, the restaurant was dead silent. In a low whisper, Iron warned, “Gilda...”
 
I’d had enough food and company for the night. Without another word, I grabbed my coin bag, dumped the top third of the bits onto my plate, and turned to leave. Behind me, I heard Iron swear, followed by the jingling of coins. I walked faster, almost running into a waitress on my way out of the restaurant.
 
Outside, it was still light, so I guessed there was some benefit to leaving dinner early. I headed for closest gate—the east one. I mentally cursed when Iron called out my name from behind me; he was faster on those stupid roads, and I couldn’t fly.
 
Sure enough, his hoofbeats gained on me, which only made me angrier. Before he overtook me, I turned around at him yelled, “What?”
 
He glared and cut back, “We are in public, would you kindly lower your damn voice?”
 
“Fine,” I hissed back. I turned around and kept walking; I couldn’t avoid conversation, but I could end it quicker by getting out of the city sooner.
 
Iron walked alongside me, but he remained silent for almost half a block. Finally, he let out an exasperated sigh, followed by, “Look, I’m sorry, okay?”
 
Hollow words, I seethed. I didn’t even acknowledge him as I shot back, “Last time I told someone about my past, she at least had the courtesy to not call me a liar to my face.”
 
“I didn’t call you a—” He paused to think about it. “Okay, if you cut me off mid-sentence like that, I suppose it looks that way.”
 
“How, then?” I stopped, jerking my head around to face him. “How does that sentence end without you calling me a liar?”
 
Iron stood there, trying to dig himself out of his pit. I scoffed and started following the road again. After a few seconds, he caught back up and apologized a second time. “I misspoke. I didn’t mean to call into question your honesty,” he added.
 
“But you did.” My voice cracked, and I realized why, specifically, I was mad. I thought I could trust Iron, at least that he wouldn’t judge me for my past. Even if it was accidental—I admitted—hearing him doubt me...
 
It hurt.
 
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Iron said, shaking his head in bewilderment. “If I could take it back, I would.”
 
I didn’t respond at first; instead, I walked over to the side of the road and sat down in front of a barber shop. Iron joined me on my right, and we were quiet until I realized it was my turn to speak. “Look, I know you didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just...”
 
“I should tread carefully around sensitive subjects?” he guessed.
 
“No,” I answered. “Well, yeah, but that’s not what bothers me. I’m not used to, you know, telling others about...” I looked out into the street as I tried to find the right word. “Things.”
 
Something patted me on my right shoulder, and I puffed up and jumped away before I turned to see what it was. Beside me, Iron put his hoof down and in the same movement, his ears flopped down. “Sorry.”
 
I frowned back, but all I could think was, Crap. Instinct or no, I didn’t mean to shut down his attempt at comforting me. I sat back down and replied, “It’s fine, I just...”
 
“Don’t like being touched?”
 
“Not without warning,” I admitted.
 
Iron nodded. “Right then. I’ll keep my distance... both physically, and in conversation.”
 
I didn’t like his compromise; it left a huge wall between us, and then, what was the point of enjoying each others’ company? Shaking my head, I replied, “It’s going to come up... just, watch how you ask things and I’ll... I’ll try to not fly off the handle.”
 
He grunted in agreement. After a short pause, he grinned and said, “Still, things didn’t turn out completely poorly this evening.”
 
“Oh, yeah?” I raised an eyebrow at him.
 
“Think of all those ponies who got dinner and a show.”
 
I chuckled weakly, shaking my head. I was just glad we weren’t wearing our armor; screaming in restaurants wasn’t really “preserving the peace.”
 
“But, it’s still early; do you want to head home now, or...?” Iron prompted.
 
I checked the sky; it was probably before seven o’ clock. “It is still early,” I agreed. “What do you have in mind?”
 
In Farrington, there were three main waterfalls that supplied all of the city’s water. The bigger two were used for industrial purposes and drinking, but the third one was too small to really be useful for anything. Farrington’s planners dug out the basin, and turned it into either a small lake or a large pond; a few generations later, it was a full-blown public park.
 
Iron took me there. Instead of going down to the water, we sat on a stone bridge that had been built over it. Below us, whole families of ponies were out enjoying the water on boats and inflatable rafts.
 
While we sat, watching the waterfall, I told Iron about the events surrounding Junior Speedsters’. I started with why I had been sent there, then how my friendship with Dash had made camp bearable. When my banishment came up, I only told Iron that there was a condition under which I could return to my tribe, but I didn’t specify what it was. He picked up on the omission, though, so he asked, “What was the condition?”
 
To answer, I looked down at my chest’s painted stripe. True to its label, the dye hadn’t faded yet, but I did note that some specks of new, white feathers were poking through. I’d have to redo it in a few months or so.
 
Regardless, I pointed to my chest. “I kind of like this. When you think about it, it’s my life’s story.” I pulled back the feathers and exposed the jagged, raised lines of flesh. “I got these scars when I was forced out of my tribe,” I clarified. Smoothing my chest back down, I continued, “Normally, there are little speckles of purple; those run in my family, for the girls.” Finally, I pointed at my stripe. “And this... is from when I almost fulfilled Father’s condition.”
 
“Your friend is the price of readmission?” Iron guessed. I was torn between being disturbed that he had put everything together and relieved that he knew. I turned to look out at the lake and nodded. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Iron turn and spit the word, “Disgusting.”
 
I looked over at him. I wasn’t that good at reading pony body language, but he had a severity about him that made me think something more than my story was bothering him. “You, uh,” I started before I knew what I wanted to say. “You seem to be taking this stuff about my father pretty rough.”
 
He turned to face me, chuckling bitterly. “Sorry, that’s the armor talking,” he said pensively, looking back out at the water. After a moment’s pause, he continued, “I’ve been doing this job for close to a decade, now. It never gets easier to learn about parents who hurt their children. It’s...” Iron trailed off and shook his head.
 
“Does that happen, uh, a lot? Here?”
 
Iron shook his head harder. “No. But...” He started slowly tapping a hoof against the inside of his other forearm. “Four cases, in the last ten years, is still four too many.”
 
I didn’t have any answer to that, other than an obvious “Well, yeah,” so I kept my beak shut. Beside me, Iron continued, “Either way, I lost my father too soon; I suppose that’s why I feel that everyone deserves a good one.” He looked back at me and shrugged. “Again, I’m sorry about earlier.”
 
I shrugged back at him. “You didn’t make it any worse.” Now it was my turn to look out at the water. The last of Tuesday’s light was beginning to fade; I’d need to leave soon if I wanted to get home. “We are who we are,” I mused, “whether or not there’s someone to help us along the way.”
 
Iron turned to face me, and I met his eyes as he answered, “That we are.”
 
“Good night, Iron,” I said quietly. As I stood up, I reached a hand out to pat him on the shoulder, but I thought better of it and put it back down.
 
He looked up at the sky before responding, “Good night, Gilda. Fly safely.”
 

*              *              *

 
I made it back to the forest around my cave during twilight. I landed and took a drink of water, but it made me sick to my stomach. I worried about it for a moment before I remembered the stupid, fake ham. It didn’t even taste all that great, I grumbled as I looked around for a stick. Puking was messy and unpleasant, but if something were making me sick, it beat the alternative.
 
After I was done, a female wolf came over to investigate my commotion. Meeting her gaze, I told her, “Go on. It made me sick; it’s not going to do any better for you.” I didn’t know if she understood me or not, but she turned around and headed away from the clearing to start her night’s hunt.
 
On the way up to my cave, I came across an unlucky squirrel in the treetops. After the quick meal, I flew up to my cave for the night, glad that, even though dinner with Iron started out rough, something had gone right this week.
 



 
Friday morning, I went to meet with Red to get the intel for my job.
 
His underground “office,” as he called it, was cold and dim, even in June. The bare, cracked stone walls and rugged utility of the room fit him perfectly; all it needed were some meat hooks and surgeon’s tools.
 
Red didn’t even look up from the maps on his desk. “You’re late,” he greeted me in his thick, fake accent. I didn’t know why he liked it, but I wasn’t about to question him on it, either.
 
I looked at the clock; he had it set eight minutes fast, and I was still there at one minute past the hour. “Up in the world, it’s seven-’til-seven.” That was his own condescending term for the streets of Farrington, “up in the world.” It made him chuckle, and distracted him from his maps enough to look up at me. I finished with, “I wouldn’t waste your time,” and it was true.
 
Red looked at the clock. “You know I set that fast to remind me of you.”
 
We were twin siblings, but he still bragged about his eight-minute head start on life. I forced a grin at his joke: A fast clock for Fast Hooves. I supposed that was one of the few “normal” things about us, but that was probably where the sibling bonding ended; thirty six years later, I still hadn’t officially joined his organization.
 
And now, I’m going to Manehattan. Forever. That was the point of my job today: a sort of “exit strategy,” to quote something I heard in a war drama once. It was a high-stakes job, but I didn’t focus on the odds of failure. I’d been stealing since before I got my cutie mark; the secret was to keep your wits about you and focus on the task at hand.
 
However, I also looked at the payoff: enough money to settle some old debts and atone for some sins. Without anyone looking for me, I could get away and start over in a new town. I’d have a new life, a new name, and in February, a new foal.
 
I walked over to Red’s desk, and he asked, “So, you’re sure about all this? I could give you everything you’d need. No risk, no frills, just you’d have to stay in the city—”
 
“Farrington’s no place to raise a kid,” I cut in. I was tired of our ongoing argument, especially because I wasn’t going to budge.
 
I got a sneer from the other side of the table. “Don’t get stroppy with me, love, just because you can’t be arsed to remember what month it is when you’re abroad.”
 
“I’m not getting ‘stroppy,’” I countered, “I just want to get on with this plan.” I patted the maps on his desk. They detailed the streets of the Artisan District, including Guard patrols. “The planning meeting’s one thing, but I don’t want to be late for the main event, either.”
 
Red looked at me crooked, which scared me. He could be about to burst out laughing just as much as he could be about to drag me up to the fourth story of the building we were currently in and throw me off the roof.
 
Luckily, he chuckled. “All right, then. Have it your way. Did the doctor say you’re good for this?”
 
I nodded. “That was the first thing I checked.”
 
“Right, then. You know the shop’s location...” He put a hoof on his map. “What you might not’ve counted on, is our friends in steel, they’ve almost doubled the guard around ‘ere.” He swept his hoof around in a circle, which included the shop I was going to hit. “If you were staying ‘ere, I’d’ve put more pressure in the Market District...”
 
“How big a window do I have?” I cut him off. There were several lines that converged within a two-block radius of the shop, but that didn’t mean anything. Guards were supposed to be regular, but they got off-schedule enough that there wasn’t any certain way to predict their locations.
 
Red had a gift for reading patrols—one of his many “talents”—which was why I needed his help in the first place. That was the only real capacity in which we worked together; I found all my buyers and merchandise myself.
 
He sat back and crossed his hooves across his chest. “That’s where things get fun for you, sis. The biggest window I can muddle out on all these double-patrols is a four-minute window where...” He traced a path between the shop and one of his safehouses. It crossed three patrols. “This route is unguarded, twenty-two minutes past the hour. And that’s your best bet. Still sure you want to do this?”
 
Four minutes... might as well be fifteen seconds. I shook my head. “My guy wants that sword hilt, he’s paying one-point-one for it.” I shrugged. “No one said it’s going to be easy money. Besides, the guards probably think they’re home clear by now...” A thought crossed my mind. “Where’s the griffin?”
 
Red pointed to a brown-colored path. “She’ll be here at twenty-two after.” It was, thankfully, on a far point of her path, compared to the shop. “Honestly, she won’t be all-that if you run into ‘er, especially if you wait until later in the day. My source says she’s ‘prone to mental fatigue,’ and she can’t run for shit with those claws.”
 
“I thought they were talons,” I mused, checking the map one more time.
 
“Who cares?” Red asked, and I agreed. Of everything that could go wrong with the job today, getting mauled by a griffin was a disturbingly real possibility. If that happened, it wouldn’t matter if they were called talons, claws, hands, or blades.
 
Or hooves.
 
I looked across the table, up at my brother. One last job, I told myself. Then I’m done with monsters.
 



 
Friday morning, Sherry assured me it was my last day in the Artisan District for “a while,” for which I was grateful. Even though the week got off to a rough start that sort of stabilized around Wednesday, if one more stallion shoved me out of the way, I swore I’d use him for “baton practice.”
 
About an hour into my patrol, an old stallion came up to me and asked for directions to the hat store in the Market District. After four attempts to tell him that it was just off the main road, and that it was “the giant hat,” I gave up, and decided to take him there myself.
 
It was only five minutes out of my way, and even if he were a little slow, the stallion wasn’t that bad of company. When we finally got to the street, I pointed at the one building that stood out like a sore thumb: a giant, wooden hat. “Hat store,” I stated.
 
“Oh... hat store,” he clarified. “I thought you said cat store.”
 
Slowly, I turned to him. “No...” I tilted my head. “I didn’t even know there was a cat store.”
 
“Well, where’s a guy supposed to go to get some pussy?” He screamed out, then doubled over laughing.
 
I watched, eyebrow raised, as he rolled on the ground, I seriously considered arresting him for “disturbing the peace.” Before I made up my mind, he stood back up, then patted my armor’s shoulder. “You’re a good kid... thanks for showing an old coot around.”
 
“No problem; it’s part of the job,” I said with a slight shrug. As soon as he turned around, I let my mouth fall open as I shook my hand in a huge, one-palmed shrug. Stupid asshole!
 
Anyway, with my crazy stallion adventure behind me, I headed back to my patrol. It’d probably take the rest of the morning to get caught back up on my laps, which only annoyed me slightly more than the fact that I had to do it walking bent-handed on crappy cobblestones.
 
The rest of the morning was a busy one, at least for me: two more ponies asked for directions, and around eleven, I had to break up a sales dispute that tumbled out into the street. They were just yelling at each other, so I didn’t have to waste any more time by arresting them, but still, I couldn’t gain time, either.
 
By the time it was nearly half-past noon, I was still about fifteen minutes short on my patrol. My mental grumbles about how it’d probably have to come out of my lunch break were interrupted when I heard a clamor, one street over. As soon as I heard someone yell, “Stop! Thief!” I bolted over to see what I could do.
 
The street was packed, but I saw a dark green stallion who was wearing a farrier’s apron and running in one direction. Shop owner... I noted. Further up the road, I caught a glimpse of a pony rounding the corner. Thief, I guessed. From what I saw, he—or she, I hadn’t seen enough to make that call—was a sapphire-blue pony with a red tail. I tried to remember where I had seen that coloring before, but I dashed over to the next street to try and cut them off.
 
On the next street, I saw her again—definitely female—and started to rush after her. Quickly, she gained about a block’s distance between us, mostly because of the crowd between us, but she was also fast. Captain Bulwark stressed that I wasn’t allowed to fly within the city, even at a low altitude, but she was a prime suspect in a crime, so I’d have to get creative in order to catch up.
 
The crowd was in my way. I needed to clear a path.
 
I flared my wings for balance and stood up on my hind legs. From my position, I could better see the red-maned mare, but that wasn’t all I wanted. Standing up would make it easier to run on cobblestones, and it loosened the armor around my chest a little...
 
With a deep breath, I unleashed a roar from Hell. Every pony in the street stopped what he or she was doing in order to stare at me. “Officer coming through! Move it or lose it, assholes!” I yelled in a voice that was still a few octaves deeper than my usual speaking voice.

The effect was near-instantaneous. After everyone had moved to a side of the street, I started running, two-legged, after the thief. Running like that wasn’t exactly comfortable, especially over long distances, but given the cobblestones, it was my only real option.
 
The thief had stopped to look at me, which was her downfall; by the time she turned her wide-eyed head back to the direction she was running, I was only two blocks behind her.
 
She turned down a street to lose me, so I turned down one that was parallel with it. A few shopkeepers glanced out their doorways as I ran past, but I ignored them; only one pony mattered, now.
 
After a few more blocks, I got lucky: there was a small, grassy park that took up an entire city block. I leaped over a fence and dropped down to all fours for more speed as I cut diagonally through it. When I jumped back to the cobblestones, I landed on two legs and kept running, dragon-style, alongside the thief. There was only one block between us now.
 
As I caught glimpses of her through various intersections, I started to wonder why she hadn’t turned down a street in order to throw me off. That answer came quickly, when I ended up on a narrow bridge over a drainage canal. The water looked relatively clean, but it was a twenty-foot drop down to it.
 
A quick glance behind me showed that there were four other bridges over the canal, like mine. In front of me, however, the thief was smiling at me from an intersection: she had somewhere to go from her position. I scowled as I realized that, as soon as I took off running to get one block over, the thief would also make a break for it. I’d never find her again if she had ten seconds to make herself scarce.
 
“Bet you wish you could fly, huh?” she taunted. My eyes narrowed; she was right. The way things worked was that I couldn’t break any “hard” laws while going for an arrest without good reason. Screaming in a street was one thing, breaking the no-fly law was another, and I didn’t even know what she had stolen—if anything.
 
Basically, it was a lose-win situation, and the thief knew it. She turned around, chuckled, and slowly sauntered away, swaying her hips at me.
 
I wasn’t going to give up so easily, though. As I glared at her stupid, sultry walk, I thought about ways to incapacitate her from a distance. I drummed my talons on my midriff, then felt the belt there. That works, I realized.
 
I grabbed my baton and drew back my arm, getting ready to throw it. I didn’t want to hit a moving target, though, so after taking aim, I yelled out, “Yo! Fotze!”
 
She turned around to face me, still smiling, if slightly confused.
 
My baton hit her right in the side of the head.
 
As soon as she slumped to the ground, I ran over to her street. By the time I got to where she was, she was stirring, so I opened up one of her saddlebags. Inside was a diamond about the size of a walnut. Good enough for me, I thought. I picked my baton back up, and in the same motion I used to put it back on my belt, I pulled out my trusty officer’s rope. After I tied her hooves together as best I could, I took her saddlebags off and put them around my neck, where I could balance them easier.
 
The thief came around, and struggled against my knots before she had a little panic attack of quick, short breaths. “Please... don’t do this...” she muttered in a much humbler tone than she had spoken to me in earlier.
 
My hind legs were killing me, but I could already tell this mare wasn’t going to be compliant, so I threw her over my shoulder and started heading south on three legs. “That’s not how the guard-criminal relationship works,” I said. “But it’s easy to figure out: you commit crimes, I catch you in the act, you go to jail. See? Easy.”
 
Despite my lecture, she kept struggling and trying to hit me. It was already awkward to carry a load that was roughly my size, but her struggling made it all the more difficult. After she bit my wing, I told her, “You’d be easier to carry if I ripped off a few legs, you know.”
 
She went limp, save for the shivers of her trembling. I rolled my eyes at how easy it was to frighten her; she ran fast, but she was just a coward.
 
I got back to the main road in short enough time, and it was still right around one o’ clock when I got back to the Citadel. I took my prisoner to Sherry’s desk, so that I could unload her and get back to my patrol. “Hi, Sherry,” I announced my presence.
 
She didn’t look up from the form she was filling out. “Is there a reason you’re twenty minutes late on your patrol?”
 
“Yeah, but I’m catching up,” I admitted. “I also brought you someone.”
 
Sherry looked up, and for the first time, I saw her with a wide-eyed, fearful expression. It passed, and she walked around to my side of the desk. “Is that...” Sherry pulled my prisoner’s flank away from my head to check the mark. It hit me in the ear hole when she let go, but from the other side of my head, I heard Sherry congratulate me, “Not a bad catch for your first real criminal. Let’s get her processed.”
 
She led me into the processing room, which was about the size of a large closet. A low-hanging shelf wrapped around three walls; on the fourth was the door and a lined backdrop used to measure height for the photographs.
 
I set the mare down on her right side, more or less in the center of the room. She tried to stand up, but she failed, and after lugging her around Farrington for the better part of half an hour, I wasn’t exactly feeling sympathetic enough to prop her back up. Instead, I satisfied some curiosity by asking Sherry, “So, uh... you know who this is?”
 
“Know her?” Sherry asked, incredulous.
 
“I’m Fast Hooves, and you’re going to regret this!” the thief snapped up at me.
 
Sherry’s voice came like the first thunderclap of a storm. “I don’t remember giving you permission to talk, you little piece of shit!”
 
I stood there, stunned. Sherry had a rough kind of voice, but she always spoke in a kind, quiet manner. Hearing her shout was jarring, to say the least.
 
Then, before I knew what had happened, Sherry grabbed my baton and swung down, hard, extending it and striking Fast Hooves in the chest, between her forelegs. Fast Hooves wheezed, then curled into a defensive ball.
 
Sherry raised my baton for another swing, but I snatched it back before she could bring it down. She reeled on me, snarling, and for a moment, I braced myself for a fight. Then, she got her senses back and shook her head. In a quiet tone, she stated, “Don’t feel sorry for her. That whole family’s scum.”
 
“I don’t know much about that,” I admitted, “but where I come from, fights end when one side loses.” I left out the part where that was usually because fights between adults in my tribe usually ended in death, but I felt that my point still stood.
 
Sherry didn’t respond right away. Instead, she looked at our prisoner with a look of hateful disgust that made me shudder. “Ask Iron what happened to our lieutenant,” she finally said.
 
I grunted in agreement, and I put my baton back on my belt. Sherry cleared her throat and I flinched as she pulled the saddlebags off my neck. “Anyway, let’s see what she almost got away with.” She put the bags on the floor, and then pulled out a golden sword hilt with several large recessions running down the shaft.
 
“Wow,” I said, impressed. I didn’t know how much it was worth in pony money, but it definitely looked expensive—and old. Sherry nudged the other bag open, and hoofed out the gem I had seen earlier, as well as four others just like it.
 
“Someone’s going to be very happy you caught her,” Sherry told me, equally impressed.
 
“I remember who it was, too,” I added.
 
Without another word, my sergeant loaded up the saddlebag and placed it around my neck. “Well, you better get it back to them; something like this is bound to be missed.”
 
I blinked a few times in surprise. Is it normal to trust rookies with such expensive stuff? I asked myself. Sherry saw my expression and added, “We’ve got records of her being brought in, your report, and the owner’s report... that’s enough to put her in prison for the crime. No use hanging on to someone’s personal belongings; they didn’t steal anything.”
 
I hadn’t really been looking for a reason not to get away from that room, so I filled out the first part of the arrest form and—after a moment’s hesitation of leaving Sherry alone with the thief—I headed back to the Artisan District. It struck me that, while I remembered seeing someone running after the thief, I really didn’t know who he was. However, I had a general location and I remembered his cutie mark, so it wouldn’t be too hard to find him.
 
The trip into the Artisan District was the easiest one I made that week; a few ponies in the street even stepped aside to make way for me. I grinned at that, and I regretted how it took me most of five days before I had a chance to scare everyone. As soon as I thought it, I remembered my training, and the oath, and why that was a bad idea.
 
Still, it was hard to argue with results.
 
As soon as I got to the street where the theft had taken place, I saw the dark green farrier. He was sitting on a shop’s front steps, holding his forehead in his hooves. Now that I actually had the time to look at him, I could see the creases of old age that crossed his face, but he was a dark enough color where it was hard to make out at a distance.
 
Sitting next to him was a white stallion who wore his mane in a weird, doorknob-like knot; his cutie mark was an odd type of sword that I had also never seen before. When I reached the pair, the farrier looked up at me blankly, but I could tell he didn’t really acknowledge my presence. I smiled as best I could as I took off the saddlebags and handed them to him. “These look familiar?”
 
He looked inside one bag and his face lit up. He clutched the bag to his chest with a trembling hoof, and he clenched his eyes shut. “By the fires... thank you.” The white stallion patted him on the back; then, he made a little grunt as he got pulled into what looked like a crushing, quietly sobbing hug.
 
I felt as if I were intruding on a private moment, so I turned around to carry on with the rest of my day. Before I could take the first step, though, the farrier cleared his throat and said, “I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”
 
I shook my head, remembering the strict policy against taking gifts from citizens. “No need; it’s part of the job.”
 
The farrier wouldn’t take no for an answer, though. He walked over to me and looked down at my hands. “I’m no expert on griffin anatomy,” he said, “but that can’t be comfortable.”
 
“Er—”
 
“And your shoulders... Hell, the whole damn suit doesn’t fit!” As he kept talking, he got more and more energetic. “No, no, no, this won’t do. Not for the guard who saved my business!”
 
“But... I can’t accept... anything,” I half-mumbled. I didn’t want to seem unreceptive of his gratitude, but at the same time, there were rules I had to abide by.
 
Comprehension dawned on the farrier’s face. ““Right, right, I’ll get it squared away with the captain first. But mark my words, you will have a fitting suit of armor come Monday!” Turning to the white stallion, who I guessed was his employee, he commanded, “You hear that? Monday. Make a list of everything we’re going to need to fix this.”
 
The white stallion simply nodded at his boss.
 
I was torn between interest in getting new armor and my sense of duty. Either way... “I need to get back to my patrol,” I said. “But thanks.”
 
“No need; it’s part of my job.” The farrier winked at me.
 
I turned and left, heading back to my patrol route. I was an entire hour down, which I probably wasn’t going to make back, but I had caught a criminal, so I had an excuse. As I got back into my rut, my fingers started to throb from walking. I didn’t know what was in store for me from the farrier, but I really hoped he’d clear something with the captain.
 

*              *              *

 
At the end of the day, at Captain Bulwark’s booth, he greeted me, “Rough day? I heard you ended up three circuits late and declined a bribe.”
 
His tone had just enough humor in it that I added, “You’re forgetting the cat store, sir.”
 
He let out a chuckle. “Cat store? That sounds like an interesting story.”
 
“Not really, it ended in a pun.”
 
“Oh.” Captain Bulwark nodded. “In all seriousness, I wanted to commend you on a job well done today, but also to give you a warning. Do you remember the stallion you met on your first day of training?”
 
Suddenly, it clicked: they were the same colors, just different genders. She was Fast Hooves, I remembered from her quickly silenced outburst, so her brother was... “Red Hooves.”
 
Captain Bulwark tapped a hoof on his nose. “While I want to stress that Farrington is a safe city, there is a criminal element. We’ll certainly work harder on getting you a partner, but until then, Sherry’s been instructed to keep you out of the Artisan District and to move your patrols around randomly.”
 
I frowned. “Well... that blows.” The captain matched my frown, so I continued, “...Like the winds... of good fortune... sir?” I shrugged.
 
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Anyway, since you brought up good fortune...” His eyebrows returned to normal. “Earlier, I met with a farrier who demanded I allow him to rework your armor. Given your performance today, I see no reason to deny him that.”
 
A lump swelled in my throat. I’m getting new armor? I had entertained the possibility earlier, but hearing the captain say it gave it a new level of certainty. “When... how do I do that?”
 
His eyes darted to the upper wall in his booth. “In ten minutes, I can escort you to the shop.” He looked back at me and added, “Given the hour, I don’t think it’s the best idea for you to go to the Artisan District alone.”
 
I nodded. “Uh, then after that, dinner?”
 
Captain Bulwark shook his head. “Unfortunately, this weekend’s going to be a busy one, and there certainly won’t be much time for meals with company,” he apologized. “Fast Hooves isn’t exactly going to be an easy criminal to process.”
 
Remembering my upcoming random patrols, I nodded. “Well, let me know when things get less busy, or if there’s anything I can do.”
 
A contemplative look crossed his face, and finally, he answered, “I should be free Monday night, after all’s said and done. But no...” He shook his head again. “There’s not much that regulation requires of you other than your arrest report.”
 
“Cool.” I nodded.
 
I stayed at the captain’s booth until his shift ended; then we walked to the Artisan District. On one level, I guessed it was now a dangerous place for me. However, that didn’t bother me. Not only was I getting permanent armor, signifying how I was a permanent fixture of the Farrington Guard, I was getting it as a reward for a job well-done.
 
The whole trip to the farrier’s shop, I glowed. For once in my life, I felt like I actually fit in.
 

*              *              *

 
Monday morning, when I got back to Farrington, the streets were quiet. A few ponies were out getting ready for the day, and when I walked past one, she stopped what she was doing to wave at me. I nodded and waved back to her, and I didn’t have to fake a smile, but I didn’t have enough time to stop and chat.
 
When I got to his shop, the tired-looking farrier let me inside. The heat was sweltering, almost like an invisible wall. In the back, the the farrier’s apprentice was sitting at his bench and hitting something with a small hammer.
 
My eyes drifted over to the window on the left side of the room, where I instantly saw what could only be my new armor. Instantly, I thought all the weird, violating measurements from Friday were worth it; my armor looked like a griffin, all the way down to two large, metal wings.
 
The farrier led me over to the stand, explaining, “You’d be surprised how little steel this actually took to fix.” He pointed at his apprentice. “He knows some Canternese secret or other, so he ended up reducing the total weight of the frame.” The farrier yawned. “He broke even on the wing-guards, though.”
 
I looked behind me, at the apprentice. He gave me an apologetic shrug, so I raised a hand and shook my head.
 
When we got to my armor, the farrier handed me the top half of my armor and prompted, “Try it on.” The top half was the part with the wing-guards, so I tested one out. It swung up on a hinge, and when it was all the way open, it stuck firmly into place. I had to work it a little to get it to swing back down, but I noticed there was a lip on the front, where my wing bone rested against the metal.
 
It clicked: I could open and close these flaps with my wings, which would let me fly, almost like a beetle. However, unlike bugs’ shells, these wing-guards were honed like a knife; apparently, these guys knew a thing or two about aerodynamics.
 
The main part of the armor was easy to put on; I could hold the top part on with my wings. To top things off, the farrier handed me my helmet; its new shape contoured to my head a lot better.
 
Once I was fully-armed—including my belt—I heard a cough from the other side of the room. The farrier’s apprentice raised a hoof, then beckoned me over to his table. At that point, I was floating, but I walked over to him anyway.
 
He gave me a pair of gauntlets.
 
As soon as I saw them, I got excited. I tried them on, and they were slightly tight, but they had cushioning and support in my palm and at the base of my talons. The only downside I noted was that they weren’t as sharp as my natural talons, but I didn’t need those in a Guard-approved fight anyway.
 
I walked around a little; it was like walking on a cloud. Literally. There was no discomfort, no added pressure from walking. In a moment of giddiness, I swiped the edge of an anvil with my talon covers; all I felt was brief discomfort. If I had tried that with my bare talons, my whole hand would be throbbing for hours.
 
When I made a fist, the gauntlet folded neatly, leaving a perfectly round opening in the center. I smiled, then grabbed my baton; its handle was the same diameter as my gauntlet’s hole.
 
I turned to the apprentice, then to the farrier. “I... don’t know what to say,” I said, trying to choke back tears. For the first time since taking my oath, I felt pride in being a guard of Farrington. It was overwhelming, but I managed to gasp out the words, “Thank you.”
 
“The armor’s duty,” he replied, reaching into the front of his apron and fumbling for a disturbing second. “But this is a gift.” Luckily for everyone, he pulled a round medallion out of his pocket. I took it and examined it; it was about four inches across, and it had the insignia for Farrington engraved into... black metal.
 
“Wrought iron,” the farrier said loudly, tapping the medallion. “Pretty much useless as armor, but then again, so is gold.” I looked at him, confused; he made a loop in the air with his hoof. Turning back to the medallion, I flipped it over, and the breath caught in my lungs.
 
The other side was bright, shiny, and bore a historical griffin insignia—the Dreikral. The emblem itself was simple: three crescent shapes, stacked to form a symbolic griffin’s claw. This version had mainly been used back before we broke into four separate tribes; however, all three tribes used a variation of it.
 
The Dreikral was antiquated, but so was my appreciation for my race’s culture.
 
It all fit me perfectly.
 
Looking down at my chestplate, there was a round indentation in the middle; with a light sigh, I put the medallion into my armor, Farrington-side out. In my head, I imagined my conversation with Iron, or rather, with Captain Bulwark. He’d be sorry, but he’d uphold me to the standards of the Guard.
 
“Don’t think we’re scrimping on armor, either,” the farrier added. “There’s three layers to that medalion. My lady-friend’s an alchemist, so it’s got a solid-diamond core.”
 
That hit me with a jolt, but instead of complaining about his generosity, I turned and bowed. “We’re even, now,” I said, “no matter how much that hilt was worth.”
 
He smiled and pointed behind me. “If you want to thank someone, thank him. He did most of the work on your armor, and it was his idea for the two sides.”
 
I turned to the apprentice, but he was already over at the furnace, melting something. “Tell him I said ‘thanks,’” I replied to the farrier.
 
He nodded at me, and I looked over at the clock; it was definitely time to head for the Citadel. After one final wave goodbye, I left the shop.
 
Outside, I looked to the right and left: north and south, respectively. I had twenty-five minutes to get to the Citadel, which was cutting it close, even if I ran. It’d probably be faster to head north, then fly around the wall to the south gate. However, with my gauntlets, I could probably make decent time if I stayed within the city limits, on the grounds.
 
Flying or running, I asked myself. North or south. I glanced down at my gauntlets, then looked at the emblem on my chest.
 
Then, I made up my mind and turned south.