//------------------------------// // 9-Meeting with the gryphon king // Story: The Tales of Prince Onyx // by Stanislas //------------------------------// Chapters 9 Meeting with the Gryphon King. Celestia was sitting on her throne, waiting patiently for her son to come back from school, the sun illuminating the room, she could feel the warmth of the sun shining on her fur. She was starting to fall asleep, when suddenly, a guard opened the door and ran towards her. “Your majesty, the gryphon king is waiting outside, he wants to have a meeting with you.” Celestia was surprised by that, but she didn’t show it. Never did the King of the Gryphon Empire came meet her, but what worried her more, is the fact that she didn’t receive a letter, warning her of his visit. “You can let him enter, I will meet with him.” The door to the throne room opened, allowing a gryphon enter, he was bigger than the ordinary gryphon but still smaller than Celestia, he was wearing silver armor and the habitual crown that royalty wore. He looked more like a warrior ready for battle than a king. His voice was deep and strong, like a commander of an army should have. “Celestia! how are you? I must say, I’m quite impressed at your castle, so much decoration, and look at this marvelous carpet, so soft.” He said, clawing at the carpet “Gryffin the gryphon! I think you and I know that you did not come here to admire the decoration of my castle, so what is the reason of this surprise visit?” She asked back furiously. “Dear Celestia, since when can a neighbor cannot visit another neighbor? You know, the northern territory can be boring sometimes, so I got this wonderful idea to come give you a little visit.” “Enough!! Gryffin, dont play that game with me, I already know that you never leave your castle unless you have something to gain from it, so WHY ARE YOU HERE!” any trace of patience was lost was now lost in her rage. “Well if you want to play like that Celestia... If you really want to know, I’m here to remedy a injustice, I have heard from my ambassador that you have adopted a son recently, but the son in question was a whole new species, so I was wondering; why is it the responsibility of pony kind to discover him? Why can’t us gryphon’s have our part in the treasure? So in fact, I’m here to take your son with me.” Celestia lost it, she was so shocked and so angry that the King of the Gryphon Empire had asked her that. It took ALL of her mental capacity not to shoot the King with a blast of magic. “WHAT!!! and what makes you think you have the right to come here. Take MY son, then flee just like that?” The king just started to laugh. “What makes me think that I have the right? Well because I have the right my dear.” Then he took out a scroll that was hidden in his armor. “This is a trust scroll, it says that if one of the 5 kingdoms find something and the other kingdoms have no knowledge of, any other kingdom can request to have it for studying.” He give the scroll to Celestia while he was talking. She quickly took the scroll with her magic and rapidly read thew it. She remembered when her and Star Swirl made this rule, it was supposed to help the other countries learn about each other, and not leave all the knowledge to only one country. “HOW DARE YOU! You take this centurys old rule that is used to upgrade the knowledge of each kingdoms for your personal use? This is not what a king should do!” “HAHAHA! But you are wrong Celestia, I don’t want to take Onyx for the fun of doing it, I want to take him with me to let me and my people learn about him... and why not, we can start training him at the same time.” “Train him, why would you want to start training him?” She asked, still shocked by what was happening. “Did you ever look at him in a military point-of-view Celestia? You ponies are too pacifistic. Your son has the biggest potential to become the most strongest warrior in all of Equestria! He has the same mobility as a diamond dog’s, but he’s not stupid like them, he can climb faster than any of us with his body shape, I’m sure he will be harder to catch than a baby gryphon who is learning to fly for the first time. My blacksmith’s already planned an armor set for him when he becomes older. With the right training I think he will be able to defeat any enemy in his path.” Celestia rose up from her throne and walked toward the king. “So this is why you really want him, make him a beast of wars, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I will never let my son get kidnapped by you.” The king took back the scroll and looked at her with his arrogant smirk. “You have no choice Celestia, you have written this rule yourself and if the ruler of a land doesn’t follow they’re own rule, how do you think your people and the other kingdom’s react? You don’t want us to bring the council of 5 against you... right?” Celestia was stuck and she knew it. The Gryphon king was reputed for always turning the rules at his advantage, but she couldn’t let her son go, she didn’t want to be alone again. “If you dare to take my son away from me, I will send the whole army of Canterlot after you, and don’t even think I won’t banish you after that.. I will make sure that your skull be thrown away into Tartarus if you dare take Onyx away from me.” The reaction of Gryffin was by far, not what Celestia thought it would be. “Hahahahahahaha, You’re funny Celestia... like if you would have a chance against the gryphon empire, but I have not come here to start a war between our two nation’s. In truth, I want to make you a deal, we will let your son choose who he want to be with, if he choose you, I promise on my Gryphon Honor, that I will never bring this idea up again and I will not talk about this to the council, but if he chooses me... you will need to let him go and don’t try to stop me or him.” Celestia did not take the time to give him answer, for her, she was sure that her son wouldn’t follow a gryphon that he never met before. “We have a deal, Gryffin” She answer back “Excellent, I will be back in three days, Onyx will need to give me an answer in three days.” Then he walked out of the room. Celestia let out a sigh and started to relax, until she remembered that it was now 5pm and Onyx should be back already, so she walked into the direction of her son’s room. When she finally reached the room of Onyx and she opened his door, she felt her heart miss a beat, Onyx was not in his room and the guard who was supposed to protect the door was gone, and with the gryphon king in the city who wanted his claw on him, she immediately thought the worse. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -15 minutes earlier- -Onyx room- Onyx was sitting at his desk, trying to draw Philomena flying in the sky. Onyx was proud of his drawing, the wings were just perfect, not too big not too small, he was gonna start to draw the tail of Philomena until he heard somepony knocking at his door. Thinking it would be Twilight or his mother he opened the door, but he was surprised when he saw Strong Shield in-front of him instead. “Strongy! Your back!” He said at the same time he hugged him but before he could, he quickly stopped the hug and pulled back. “I’m sorry... I know you don’t like it when I hug you.” Onyx said with a sad voice, but to his surprise Strong Shield hugged him back. Then he entered in the room and slowly looked everywhere. “Do you know where your mother is?” He asked, Onyx was still wondering why Strong Shield hugged him when Strong Shield had clearly stated that he didn’t want Onyx to touch him, he took his time to answer. “Um...She is in the throne room I think, when I came back from school she was in a meeting with the Gryphon King... When did you get back from your vacation?” Strong Shield who was looking at the half-finish drawing on the table, took out a little bag. “I just come back two hours ago, so do you want me to take you to get som ice cream?” He asked with a smile, Onyx took his shoes and followed Strong Shield who was already in the corridor. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Onyx was sitting around a table, outside of a little restaurant, eating chocolate ice cream. He took a look at Strong Shield who took a glass of something called Corolestia... “So, now that we both have something we like, do you want to hear where I was these past two weeks?” Strong Shield asked with a smile, it was the first time Onyx saw Strong Shield smiling and he was wondering if it was because of what he was drinking. “YES! I want to know, please tell me” “Well if you insist, I was in the north, in a really good spot, called the Gryphon Empire.” “The Gryphon Empire? But it’s so cold there, why didn’t you go to the south?” Strong Shield laughed at that and took another sip of his drink. “Yes... True, sometime it’s a little more cold than here, but the Gryphon Empire is beautiful, the city is four times bigger than Canterlot, they have mountains higher than here. Everypony there is friendly and helps each other, and if you look at north when you are in the north tower of the castle, you can see the ocean. and that is only for the summer, when the winter comes, apparently you can make so many snow ponies that they don’t know where to build them.” Onyx was looking at Strong Shield like he said that the sun moves by itself. “And this is just the landscape, the gryphons there are really friendly and are friends with everypony, I have asked them if they would be your friends and you know what, they said yes.” Onyx was looking at him happily “Wow it seems like a really good place, I would want to go there and visit them one of these days.” Strong Shield was now smilling and stared at him. “Well who knows, maybe one of these days, you will have the chance to go there and live a life of pure joy and smile, but remember, this sort of thing only happens one time in a life of a pony so if you have the change to go there don’t miss it” he than drank the remainder of the bottle. “Ok now, return to your room before your mother starts to panic, and remember we never had this conversation. I dont want your mother to know that im here, i want to surprise her, can I count on you?” Onyx nodded and walked away. Strong Shield look at him until he lost it, then a gryphon took a sit next to him. “How easy was it?” “Easy, he have trust all what I have say.” Answered Strong Shield “Good now take this money and go away before somepony sees us” The gryphon handed a bag of coins at Strong but he didn’t take it. “I don’t want your money, all what I want is this creature away from the castle.” then he rose up and walked away.