"Oi, Glimmer! Aren't ya suppose to beh doing something?" grumbled Hops, placing a bit more force on his glasses with a cloth than usual.
Glimmer Rain snorted awake and took her hind hooves off of a nearby barstool, which is bad manners even in a cesspit of a place like a bar. Smacking her chops, she wearily answered, "Er, you're asking the wrong mare to expect to have any sort of responsibility..."
Hops growled, slamming the glass he was wiping onto the pub table, something that an Earth pony even at Hops's age shouldn't be able to do. The sound of said slamming shattered all remaining sleepiness from Glimmer Rain, and therefore she stood up straighter.
"I thought you were going to keep a closer eye on your brother! He's not acting right."
Glimmer Rain yawned, "Oh, c'mon. He was behaving completely normal—"
Hops said, "—You mean the behavior before or after he got mixed into that bunch?"
Glimmer Rain asked, her lids beginning to close once more, "What, wasn't he always moody?"
Glimmer heard Hops sigh explosively. She straightened her posture again, which began to slouch once more, to a reaction to what she knew to be the spark in the short fuse that was Hops's quick temper.
Sure he received her attention and emotional sobriety, Hops carefully grunted, "Just... keep an eye on 'im, lass. I don't feel as easy as you do of his... activities."
Glimmer Rain rolled her eyes, and shuffled around in her chair until she could find an idle napping position again on the rigid, ascetic wooden platform. Nothing to worry about.
"Hops, get that stick outta your flank. After everything that's happened, I doubt he's going to do anything illegal."
Leif whispered in the darkness, "This is so totally illegal, that I don't even know where to bloody start."
Grid dropped the body of their prisoner without bending, leaving the almost-carcass to wetly smash into the cobblestone boulevard. There was a slight groan, then no more. Only the silent sound of arteriole blood leaking into the cracks were heard.
The pair stopped to —admire is too strong a word— observe the decrepit edifice in front of them, the remains of an old Gryphon synagogue. The early days of Fenris were planned here, and some of the old order still frequent the place even though the holy grounds and the blocks around it have been abandoned.
Or so Aryet, the still twitching body on the sidewalk, had informed after a quite... violent interview of rigor.
Grid harrumphed, "Having second thoughts... again?"
"And you wonder why everything ended up like it did. We should have just left the city to a higher authority to rot," Leif exhaled so the feathers on the tip of his mane directed upwards.
"Well, we were the higher authority around here once," Grid dangerously smiled. She had that glint of her eyes, the same glint that old veterans of even older wars have whenever they re-display their life's experience through tales. "And once we're done here, then I'm leaving you in charge like you wanted."
Grid turned, thumping a dull portion of one of her talons into Leif's chest multiple times, "So, no... turning... back. Intellegis?"
Leif grumbled in agreement, "Ita vero."
"Good, so enough of the high-school Gryphon squawk, and let's start the flames here," Grid amusingly declared.
Leif was confident. Confident that what he was doing was wrong, on so many levels.
He was about to send off a blazing effigy, a message of war, to those still remaining in Fenris that they wouldn't be tolerated any longer in this equine-ruled province (ironically). But this was once a place of peace, this residence of spirits and the mutual search of enlightenment, a holy location that Leif had once valued as a sanctuary. It was getting harder and harder to even think about the image of a dropping a lit match onto the synagogue's cool floors.
Now he was about to take part in making nothing but ash out of it. Grid was once in the same horseshoes as he was, but... she moved, exerted an aura, like she was enjoying pouring gasoline in every nook and cranny, as if it was something wind-blessed.
Everypony—and gryphon—had their demons after all.
A muffled shriek crossed the hall from Aryet. The pain wasn't dulling his existence, and Grid wanted a clean corpse, hence the hog-tying and lack of severed limbs.
As Grid poured the rest of the airship fuel, she groaned, "Why can't he just shut up?"
Leif offered, allowing his own jerry can to flood the flooring with its noxious fumed liquid, "Well you did just slice much of his—"
Another groan.
Grid said, "Let's get this over with, before he wakes up the neighborhood."
Leif smirked, "This area's been abandoned for years. I don't think anygryphon's coming back."
"I wasn't talking about the living, smart-arse."
He coughed, "...Huh?"
Grid hovered close, just for a lingering moment, as if there were beings watching them enthusiastically, "Ghosts. I don't care if you don't believe in them, but I do. Too much blood spilled around here for there not to be any malevolence left.
"So, let's go. Gotta finally put 'em to rest with a nice, controlled cremation," Grid said, quickly leaving the grounds with a trail of fuel streaming behind her. She left Aryet and Leif in the interior of the synagogue in the echoes of her footsteps.
She didn't look back, and Leif definitely heard the snap of a lit match.
So, that's why you came here, Grid...
Leif didn't ask anymore questions of doubt, or even say a word as he followed her out. Aryet's decries of his misery were getting fainter, his guilt distracted by the particular bone of Grid's reasoning. Grid always was saddened by every death, no matter how small, back in the past. That trait made her seem unreliable, erring in judgement, and unable to hide emotion in face of opposition.
But that characteristic made Grid honorable, something plainly missing in Trottingham to its core.
By the time Leif decided Grid's emotion-biased morality was to be allowed for in this new conflict, to even be respected and copied even, the lost souls of innocents roared in approval through the rising flames.
Leif estimated in around 10 minutes, the synagogue will collapse and officials would arrive at the scene.
They would find the grounds empty of its sacrilegious ideals. They would find the charred remains of Koi's lieutenant.
And whether they want it or not, they'll find hope in this city.
More than enough reason to escape the scene of the crime immediately.
"I entrust that you'll go through with this," Leif added.
Grid nervously chuckled, "Heh-heh, why wouldn't I? It'll be one big brawling—"
"— family reunion. You're family here."
"Glimmer Rain won't think that..."
Leif gripped Grid's shoulders and pushed them forward towards the bar entrance, "Yeah, well neither can't knock it 'till you try it. And I just burned down a damn church for this, so go on."
With a push, in went Grid, and so did Leif.
Leif walked through Hops's door and the pub's disgustingly warm atmosphere. It was the same the way Leif left it, except with a great deal more drunks and destitutes. It was nearing midnight after all.
That new mare, Trixie, was there, talking to Glimmer Rain and waving some sort of ticket around. Both were fine, one was enthusiastic and the other bored and somewhat annoyed, but when Leif's eyes inched towards the bartender, he saw just how pissed Hops was.
Hops began his scolding, walking towards the pair and making the liquid in any nearby glass tremble, "Where've you been, lad? Do you know what time it is?"
Leif, bewildered by Hops's rage, mildly retorted, "Well, I just got fired, so I didn't exactly have a reason to take a gander at the city clock tower."
Hops stammered at the news, though only for a nanosecond, and growled with a bare smidgen of gentleness, "You can't just wander around on these streets, job or no job... And why's that traitorous banshee of a gryphon here? She's been nothing but trouble for this family!"
Hops's mention of Grid, who, despite her bravado in her previous act, was trying her best to not meet Hops's gaze, prompted Leif to say, "She wanted to say something to Glimmer Rain. I'm just here for moral support."
Or in case of a patented Glimmer Rain tantrum...
Leif gestured to Glimmer Rain, sleeping in her chair and completely ignoring her assignment to watch over her adopted brother, and stated while ignoring Hops temporarily, "So, Grid, Glimmer's right there. I'll leave it up to you what you want to say to her, since you know her better than me. Take as much time as you want."
Glimmer stood with an unnatural stillness and couldn't say anything for a few moments, but she managed to eventually whine, "I can't do this..."
Leif whispered close to her ear so Hop couldn't hear of his somewhat-close-to-a-son's recent vigilanteeism, "I burned down a church, probably initiated a war that I'll die in, and sacrificed my beliefs in order to avenge every individual creature that was murdered by our actions a couple of years ago... all to see Glimmer Rain happy again. I already tortured her and Hops enough with my existence, and you're either the best or worst gryphon for the job of making her smile again."
Grid sniffed, "Really?"
Leif said, "I'm sure of it... or at least get her to be less lazy."
He turned towards Hops's direction and before Hops and Leif continued their shouting match, Leif mouthed, "Go on."
Grid and Leif trotted opposite ways, with Leif quickening the pace out of Glimmer's and Grid's vicinity.
Hops shouted, "I ain't done with ya, boy! You're not going anywhere unless you start explaining why you smell like diesel and guilt!"
"Oh yes, I am! There's going to be a storm from Tartarus in that room, and nothing you say is going to get me back in there!"