The pond I found was the first not-picturesque thing I had seen in Equestria. It was maybe eight inches deep, filled with muddy brown water and boasted an area roughly the size of a backyard pool. Mosquitos, dragonflies, and amphibians of all shapes and sizes called this pond home; and I got the distinct sense that each and every one of them filled the glorified puddle with lovely things like offal, spunk, and scores of slime covered eggs.
But it still looked a damn sight cleaner than I felt.
I scrubbed at my bad shoulder, trying to wash the blood and ichor off. Without soap, a sponge or even hands it was truly slow going. But I needed to feel clean right then. If that meant coating myself in elbow grease, then fine by me.
I had killed something.
I told myself it was technically a plant. I told myself it was old and alone and desperate and if I hadn’t done anything it would have killed and eaten me without a second thought. But all I could think about was the texture of its rotting hide as I punched through it with a fingernail the size of a clothes iron. It was like smashing an old pumpkin. That was what bothered me the most—how easy it was.
“Are you going to stand there moaning all day?” Lina asked.
I scrubbed at my shoulder more, trying very hard not to think about Lady Macbeth, “I’ll get moving once I get all the gunk off. The last thing I need is for the wound to fester.” That’s right tough guy, pretend nothing is wrong…maybe she’ll even buy it.
“Oh? And washing it in this dirty puddle is going to help?”
“For my purposes? Yes.”
“Jeez, if you’re so worried about infection, why don’t you just have me heal it for you?”
I blinked, “You can do that?”
“Sure, easy as pie.” She replied, voice oddly earnest. “I’m not just some cloak you’re wearing; I’m part of you now. True I have my own personality and goals, but since my being is naturally amorphous, yours now is too. If you wish it I can do anything from heal you to change your gender to give you wings and a horn. Heck, I could make you look like Discord himself if you really wanted to.”
I heard a small ding in the back of my head, like someone completing a task on a game show. Lina giggled, “Ah, that feels better.”
My eyes widened, “God damn it! That was one of my True Answers, wasn’t…” I clapped a hoof over my mouth before I could complete the question.
Lina cackled like an old hag. I could imagine her pointing a finger at me while doing so. I scooped up some more water and poured it on my shoulder. It hurt, but some things should. What shouldn’t hurt was Lina’s laughter. And yet she was getting to me. I felt cheated out of what I had rightfully strong-armed and my psyche demanded petty revenge.
“Point of clarification,” I growled. If she thought she could just get away with a fast one like that she was sorely mistaken. “You said “if I wish it,” implying that I would have to use a wish to get you to use your powers. However your explanation indicates that you had these powers even before we made our deal. What would occur if I requested something without these wishes owed?”
By now the water had settled enough that I could make out my reflection in its surface, and also Lina’s. She stared back at me, her head on top of mine, hands folded beneath her chin, scowling. I noted that she now had several glowing white bands about her arms and legs…five of them to be exact. They looked heavy and solid—like manacles without chains. Kinky.
“We would make out a new deal, only this time you would owe favors and not me.” She said, voice cold, “Now hurry up and make some wishes…these things itch.”
I thought about that for a minute. Lina was a lot stronger than I had first assumed. This was classic deal-with-the-devil stuff I was playing with here and if I wasn’t careful I would be the one in chains. However I wasn’t exactly awash with allies at the moment, and I would be a fool to ignore that kind of power out of hand. My banked wishes would keep me safe for at least a little while, so I should probably make use of the opportunity while I had it (and before Lina weaseled it out from under me).
I decided to start with the questions…since talking to Lina without asking questions was a pain in the ass. Now, all I needed to do was figure out what two things I most wanted to know in the whole wide world. No pressure right? Okay, to review I am stuck in a mystical fantasy land with an all-powerful god intent on turning said land into a Salvador Dali painting. That is bad and I wish to stop it. However it has been implied that in the very act trying to stop him, I move his plans forward. But…Lina has also freely admitted that my efforts to remove myself from the equation, while irritating, only hinder the plan slightly. That was a very obnoxious catch-22 but at this moment I was powerless to do anything about it. Well, except to learn more about the plan so that I could take conscious steps to oppose it.
“Lina.” I began, “I invoke my second True Answer. What is Discord’s plan to break free?”
Her scowl slowly turned into a big Grinch-like smile, “I have no idea!”
“Oh COME ON!” I bellowed at the water, “At least give me something!”
“Too bad, so sad.” Lina laughed, “There goes another…” she paused and looked at her manacles, all of which remained locked in place “Oh COME ON!” she yelled skyward.
I had to laugh.
“It’s NOT funny.”
“I disagree,” I said through the chuckles, “you give me a non-answer, the universe gives you a non-reward. Sounds fair to me.”
“But I answered your question! Why didn’t it count?”
“Well maybe, your answer wasn’t true.” I replied, “You must know something about the plan, who it involves, where it’s going to happen, how long it will take…”
“Wait wait!” Lina said like an idea bulb struggling to light, “As the boss was shaping the dreamscape I heard him muttering to himself.
“What did he say?”
“Mostly he was complaining about the dreamscape itself. Too dark, too few colors…things like that. But as he was hanging the bat-signal I remember him say, “come next spring I won’t have to worry about these problems anymore.” I didn’t think much of it until just now.”
I thought about that for a minute, “So…I have a year.”
“Give or take.” She nodded, “Does that help?”
A year. That’s twelve months, 365 days or even 524, 600 minutes if you like musicals. Enough time to meet someone and fall in love, enough time to turn your life around from rock bottom, enough time to declare and fulfill an elaborate revenge plot. In that kind of time there was no telling what I could do if I put my mind to it.
“It does, yes…” I replied, feeling tension leave my shoulders, “Thank you.”
I heard a ding as one of the manacles snapped open and fell off her wrist—vanishing into the aether as it went. She sighed in contentment. “Two down, one question and three wishes to go. What’ll it be chief?”
I opened my mouth to reply but quickly remembered I hadn’t thought of a final question. This was the last one so it had better be a doozy. I started pacing. It’s a bad habit I know, but it helps me think and it passes time so I’m not apologizing for it.
Unfortunately the operative word here was started. The instant I put weight on my bad leg a lightning bolt of pain lanced up my spine and I nearly toppled over in the pond as a result. Damn that timber-wolf. Suddenly I didn’t feel so bad about stomping its brains out.
Once the flashing lights stopped I turned my gaze back to the water, which still rippled in the aftermath of me sloshing around in agony. “I suddenly think it might be a good idea to switch gears. Lina, would you be so kind as to heal me?”
“Is this what you wish, master?”
Drat, I was hoping to sleaze a freebie out of her. Oh well, it was worth a shot, “Yes Lina, that is what I wish.”
“Great!” Lina exclaimed, and I heard the sound of cracking knuckles, “Just sit back, and relax, big guy. I’ll have you back to one-hundred percent in no time.”
I felt her shift on my back, a sort of rolling massage-like pressure rather than the skittering sensation from before. I felt her magic pool deep in my tissues and overflow out onto my skin…aching sublimely like love and possibly several substances that were illegal without a prescription. I felt the pain in my forehoof wane and wane until it was gone altogether. I felt the gash in my shoulder seal and pressures built up there release into nothingness. I would have been eternally happy with just that, but Lina didn’t stop there. I felt pains leave I didn’t even know I had…the kind that just sort of build up as you live. A cavity I had learned to ignore, joints threatening to go bad, toxins in the bloodstream and the digestive system, problems with my corneas, all slowly and languidly vanished in the waves of healing euphoria.
All too soon it was over and I found myself still standing in a muddy pool, now stinking to high heaven from whatever gunk Lina had sweated out of my system. I was still exhausted, but now it was the good kind…like I had run a marathon, or put in a hard day’s work at a job I liked. I climbed out of the water and stretched like a cat, letting out a satisfied groan as I did so.
“Was it good for you?” Lina purred in my ear.
“Baby,” I breathed, “If you handed me a cigarette right now, I’d smoke it.”
She laughed huskily, “Funny, but after clearing out all that gunk in your lungs I’d prefer you found some other way to express your satisfaction.”
“What gunk in my lungs?”
“Tar, dust, several chemicals I’ve never seen before…wherever you live has a lot of gross stuff in the air.” She snarked, “If you really want to thank me, just stick to the usual flowers, chocolates, and cunnilingus. Trust me, we’ll all be happier for it.”
I’m not sure if I was just getting used to her lewd humor or still high as a kite from whatever she did to me but I found myself laughing at that. “Well get yourself an actual body and we’ll talk.”
I started walking toward Ponyville again, noting the ease with which each step was coming. I felt like I could run all day, dance all night and still feel better than I ever did back home.
I turned my head to look at the brown splotch on my back, “Seriously Lina, thank you. You went above and beyond the call of duty there. And I appreciate it, a lot”
Lina didn’t answer right away, but when she did her voice was quiet and introspective, “It wasn’t anything special, mostly just a metabolism speed up and a lot of endorphins. There’s going to be a nasty backlash when you actually go to sleep tonight, so just try and make sure you’re somewhere comfortable or you’re going to start hating me again once you wake up.”
I blinked. She didn’t have to tell me that. In fact I was willing to put money down saying my not-knowing that would probably have screwed me over sometime soon, and she would have reaped the benefit. So why tell me?
I probably would have pondered that question all the way to Ponyville but it was about then that we ran into the griffon.
I kid you not, a genuine eagle-head-wings-and-talons-on-a-lion’s-body griffon, sitting at the base of a tree doing…well, things people usually do on trees a little bit out from the path far away from civilization. The fact that I was coming toward the path from the opposite direction meant I got an eyeful of something I STILL don’t even want to think about…and one freaked out griffon.
She keeled like a big red tailed hawk, ”eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
Which of course got me screaming, “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!”
”eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
“AAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
You get the idea.
The griffon snapped to action first and leaped at me with a snarl. I reared and tried to block with my hands before I remembered I didn’t have any hands. And now I was off balance and a big fat target. Her lunge ended up flipping completely onto my back, talons at my throat, and the fight ended before it had even really begun—so much for Daniel Travers, slayer of monsters.
“Kaer fdl abei puoy uo yeratre vre pfo, din klleheh ttahw!” She shrieked in my ear, and I felt something cold hit the pit of my stomach.
I couldn’t understand her…I couldn’t understand her at all. All this time I’d been operating under the assumption that everyone spoke English here, just like in the show. It shouldn’t have surprised me as badly as it did—this was another world not just some theme park on earth. But wait, Discord spoke English, so did Lina for that matter, why didn’t the griffon?
Maybe because one’s a nigh omnipotent reality warper and the other’s a voice in your head. I kicked myself for not thinking of it sooner
”Tihspi de, mrewsna!” the griffon pressed, “Se n itse tninwor uoy htiw uoye lgn artslliwiro.”
“I’m sorry!” I screamed, “I didn’t know anyone was here!”
The griffon cocked her head to one side, still angry but now confused, “Taht sa Gaius’ wega ugna lf odnikema nni tahw?”
“I swear, I didn’t want to see that either.” I continued, trying not to sound terrified, “Please don’t kill me.”
Her grip around my throat loosened and she poked me in the chest, “Regna rts mor fouy, eraerehw?”
Wait, what was going on? What did she want?
“What?” I squeaked out.
“Ni niar tseuqe kaepsyeht od ‘what’?”
Before I could answer another voice shouted through the woods, this one male but just as incomprehensible, ”Gilda! Gnit uo hseh tll aht iwsitahw?”
The griffon turned and shouted back, “Ssip agnik atsawie lihw emotnide lbmu ts ynopn g ier ofdrie w emos.”
”Tih ctacu oy?” the other one pressed, ”Ev il allit stisi?”
Okay, this was getting ridiculous. I was never going to get anywhere with these…things, if I couldn’t understand a word they were saying. Which meant that I needed a good translator, a pocket dictionary and five or six years of peace to really absorb the language, or a really good shortcut. Guess which one I had handy.
Oh Lina… I thought, putting a little singsong tone into it as I did so.
Dude! Lina snapped in the recesses of my mind, She’s practically mounting you! Why do you want to talk to me now!”
I mentally groan (and force down the inevitable “cannot unsee” image), ”Drop the sex-maniac shtick and focus. Can you make me understand her?”
Heh, no way. You know the joke, I could build a bridge to the Gallopagos easier than I could make you understand women.
Ugh…I meant, can you make it so I can understand her language.
Ohhhhh, I see. Yeah, I can imagine why you’d want that.
Urge to kill, rising, But can you do it?
Sure, easy as cake. Just say the magic words and we’re good to go.
A second griffon lopped into view, apparently running from wherever he was before. He was bigger and slightly darker than my captor but otherwise followed the same general pattern.
“Tisis ihtk ni ht Gilda? the new griffon asked, “Yse hpo rp senod erra cse htmorfh tra’e fonameht?”
“Gilda”—I can only guess that’s her name, shrugged, Nw otmo, rfs i ehk’n ihttn od it ubeu lcon. S’i htekilgn i rol-ocem altonare bmem erdi.
I got the distinct impression I was missing something important. I sighed, Fine…Lina, I wish to speak and understand any and all languages that exist or could possibly exist on the Equestrian continent as close to immediately as you can manage.
I could hear the irritation in her voice, You’re a dirty rotten cheater, did you know that?
Flattery will get you nowhere sweetheart
Ha ha...grit your teeth and hang on tight smartass, because this is going to suck
I clamped my mouth down hard just as the worst headache I have ever had impaled me like an icepick right between the eyes. I suddenly found myself seeing white as Lina scoured the corners of my mind with a wire-bristled pipe cleaner and shoved something that felt like a drill bit in the space that remained. It hurt, a lot. By the time it was done, all I could think was one thing.
Lina. What. Did. You. Do?
Didn’t care for that one much did you? she purred, Well serves you right for getting clever with you wishes…I had to really clean house to get you all that.
Wait, what?
She sighed, You know that thing about you using only ten percent of your brain?
Yeah…
Well it’s a damn lie is what it is. You use all of your brain, just not all of it at once. Every bit of space is important. So to stick that complex a translator into your head, I had to take something out. And that tends to sting a bit.
My eyes widened, That was NOT part of the wish you little…
Oh shove your righteous tirade up your glory hole Danny-boy. I didn’t erase anything important. You’ve still got all your personal memories, you’ve still got all your knowledge, you speak a pile more languages than when you got up this morning…and you don’t have all that stupid Pokemon nonsense cluttering up your thought processes. You should be thanking me.
I felt my heart shift in my chest, You…wiped my memory of Pokemon?
Yeah, you had about five or six YEARS worth of trivia stored in that noggin of yours. Facts, figures, data, statistics. All for some video game—whatever that is. Trust me on this, you’re better off without it.
Oh God, I could feel it now. It was like missing a limb or something. All that time coming up with the best team imaginable, all those conversations with friends and hours poring over strategy guides, all those mornings I had woken up early just to watch the anime…gone. Hell, I couldn’t even remember the theme song.
Lina was going to pay for this…she was going to pay dearly.
I snarled and shoved her away from the forefront of my consciousness and returned to my regularly scheduled conversation, already in progress. Opening my eyes I found everything going at matrix-speed. The male griffon’s mouth open mid-shout as the female griffon’s paw crawled forward toward my muzzle for a back-handed slap—her face etched with concern.
Lina…what the hell is this?
Oopsy, forgot to take you off brain-speed, hang on.
I felt a switch click in my head and things returned to normal just in time for a bitch-slap by a griffon.
“Wake up, stupid!” she shouted as she swatted me again…vaudeville style rapid slaps, not psychologist and restraining order abuse.
I groaned and tried to block her claws with my hoofs.
“He’s okay!” she crowed and her buddy sighed in relief.
That was odd, she sounded like she was speaking English. Whatever babelfish-type thing Lina shoved into my mind seemed to have done the trick. The griffon had a low alto-ish voice with a biker chick grizzle to it. She sounded like a fun gal to get in a bar fight with—not against of course, but on the same side as her might be worth the hospital bill.
“Thank Gaius,” The male griffon sneered. His voice reminded me of a Klingon’s, all arrogance and badly suppressed violence. “If Julius found out you broke the very thing he sent you out to find...”
“Yeah yeah,” Gilda snorted, “boiled in oil and fed to the troops deep fried. Can we tie him up now? This is getting awkward.”
I thought fast. These two were apparently looking for me…or something like me. Which meant they somehow knew I would be coming, which meant badguys. Therefore I would NOT be going with them under any circumstance and therefore needed to escape before Male-Klingon-griffon-dude tied me up and I lost the ability to run the heck away. Now violence was an option, but I was pretty certain anything less than a lethal amount of it would be an exercise in futility. I wasn’t prepared for killing two more sapient creatures right now (and, you know, they’d probably win). So plan B. I needed to convince them I was not the droid they were looking for and I needed to do it fast.
I needed to lie.
“I say,” I began in a bad British accent, “when cousin Pinkie told me this place was full of wild animals, I certainly wasn’t expecting this sort.”
Both griffons looked at me a little dumb-founded
Oh please let them buy it…
“I mean,” I continued, “interspecies congress, male-male-female-threesomes, ropes…throw in the saddle and the riding crop and it’s like a weekend back home!”
The female griffon blushed straight through her feathers and leaped right off me. Lina started laughing hysterically forcing me to tune her out as best I could.
The male griffon recovered faster, “You…speak Equestrian?”
I rolled over and got up, brushing some dirt from my coat as I did so, “Fluently, old boy, no thanks to the school system back home…bloody awful stuff, mired in red tape and no money whatsoever. If it wasn’t for cousin Pinkie and that scholarship I’d barely squeak by with ‘where is little colts room?’” I laughed like I was among friends, instead of pulling the stupidest Bugs Bunny bullshit I’d ever conceived, “Speaking of which, dreadfully sorry miss, sneaking up on you like that. Got myself a bit turned around don’t you know…they really should put up more signs.”
Gilda shook herself and tried to press forward with the conversation, “Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t mention it.”
Male griffon took this opportunity to cuff Gilda upside the head…psychologist and restraining order style, “You stupid hen!” he screamed, “You told me he spoke nothing but gibberish!”
My eyes widened in shock. He really just did that…right in front of me. What kind of sick moron does that?
“He did!” Gilda keeled, “I asked him simple questions and he garbled out something that sounded like he was speaking backwards!”
I know I should have just let this stand, but I didn’t really want Gilda getting punished on my account, “Ah…if I may interject.” I said, “I was rather frightened out of my gourd…slipped into the old country vernacular. You know how it goes.”
Both griffons looked at me like I’d sprouted a second head.
The male griffon narrowed his eyes, “What did you say your name was again?”
Me and my big mouth. “Oh…um…” crap crap crap…okay, what did I say? Cousin Pinkie right? If she’s anything like the Apple family that would probably make me some kind of Pie…what kind what kind...strawberry? No. Blueberry, Rhubarb, Shepard’s, Mince, Kidney…no no no NO! Come on THINK Daniel, he’s getting suspicious…what am I, what am I…what could you guess my name was just by looking at me? Two-toned, pinto…
“Well?” The griffon bellowed.
“PIE-BALD!” I blurted out, jumping at his tone.
I had to blink a few times…that could actually work, “Erm…yes, Piebald. My name is Piebald. A pleasure to meet both of you.”
I held out my right forehoof, as if for a handshake.
Hey, stupid! Lina laughed, They don’t shake hands here!
I pressed forward with my funny foreign greeting.
The Griffons looked down it, then to each other, “Sounds about right,” Gilda said, “All those ponies have weird names like that.”
Klingon-griffon snorted, “So, all we have here is a simple pony, lost in the deep dark woods where he should know not to roam…a shame.”
He fished around his midsection and withdrew a big ugly knife of the “sacrifice him to Tezcatlipoca” variety.
I felt the blood drain from my face. “I say…” I gulped, backing away from the sight “What do you intend to do with that, old chap?”
I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count… Lina mused.
“You are not the one we seek,” Klingon-Griffon replied, lazily stalking forward, “Therefore you are an intruder who has seen too much and whose corpse shall serve to keep the townsfolk away.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. What the hell kind of girls’ cartoon was this? I felt my rump hit a tree and my hoofs get tangled in the roots. There was nowhere to run without doing something drastic and getting-stabbed-anyway worthy.
The griffon smiled the smile of a predator, “Nothing personal “old chap” just good strategy. Gilda, hold him down.”
I whirled toward Gilda, keeping Klingon-guy in my line of vision, trying to think of a way to beat two sapient hybrid predators with nothing but four hooves and two brains (one of which probably wouldn’t cooperate). But something stopped me from just acting on frantic fearful instinct…Gilda’s face.
The smaller griffon’s eyes were wide in shock, like the order surprised her as much as it did me. She looked over at her boss, and then back to me…and in that moment I saw a way out. Deep down, this griffon didn’t want kill anyone. And if I was a deceitful tricksy conniving bastard (which was looking like a pretty good thing to be right at this moment) I could exploit that.
My eyes widened and lowered my head in pathetic subservience. Please don’t kill me that look said.
Gilda gulped quietly and turned back to face her commander, her expression shifting back to the one of lazy contempt she’d worn most of the conversation. Jackpot. “Really boss? Kill a pony for walking down the wrong road at the wrong time?”
Klingon-Griffon gave Gilda a very hard look. Gilda suddenly looked less sure of herself, “I mean, I don’t like the lame-os any more than you do. But that doesn’t mean I want to kill all of them.”
Klingon-Griffon snapped, the veneer of genial villainy cracking like glass and revealing the raw brutal animal he was inside, “I gave you an order, soldier!” he roared, raising his blade toward her “Now obey or my knife drinks of two this day.”
Gilda shuddered back at his anger, her resolution cracking as well, “Yes sir.” She said at last. The biker chick attitude long gone and only a young woman in an ugly situation remained.
She took a few steps toward me, the talons of one foreleg outstretched, "I’m sorry,” she whispered.
And there it was; my opening.
“So am I,” I murmured in my normal voice, just before I kicked her in the chest.
Unbalanced as she was, on three legs and expecting a meek little ponyvillian, she was caught completely off guard by the full blown two-hoofed buck and went flying. Right into Klingon Griffon. They both went down in a tangle of limbs, and I took those precious few moments to run the hell away.
From somewhere behind me, I heard the two creatures scrambling to get on their feet and Klingon-Griffon shouting, “After him you fool!” And the chase was on.
For the record, running as a horse is a bit trickier than running as a human. How fast you want to go changes what hooves go down when. And running as fast as you can in the middle of a forest is a very good way to trip and die even without dangerous predators chasing you. Honestly the only thing saving my bacon was the fact that I had better balance as a quadruped, and was far more worried about impending griffons than I was concerned about how my feet worked. I just fixed the classic “gallop” sound in my head and moved my hooves accordingly. It must have worked because the terrain began to fly by at car speeds.
I ducked and swerved around trees and under branches, trying my darnedest to put obstacles between them and me. However I had to keep at least one eye on the path. One pony might not be able to beat two griffons in a fight…but a whole bunch of ponies certainly could. Salvation, therefore, lie in Ponyville. And if I got lost, I might as well have stopped running and let the griffons kill me quickly. Waitaminute, where were they?
I risked a glance behind me. Sure enough, the pair were hot on my heels, but something was amiss…those sweet birdy forefeet weren’t so great at tearing up the ground and all the low hanging branches really kinda barred any sort of flight. So instead of mighty hunters of grace and beauty, the griffons loped after me in a kind of clumsy shuffle halfway between a big cat and an ape running.
I however was a horse, and was, therefore, winning.
Everything worked the way it ought to. Lungs took in crisp clean air that transferred energy to the bloodstream that allowed the massive pony heart to send gobs of energy through powerful limbs and down to heavy hooves that connected with the earth like bolts of thunder. Terrain flew by in green-brown blurs and the wind I generated blew my mane and tail back like flags in a storm. And for a moment, a great and glorious moment, I wasn’t running for my life. I was running for the sheer joy of life. Sure my death galumphed behind me, but before me hope glistened like the sunlight seeping through the edge of the forest.
And then some great big schnozwanger had to go and crush all my good feelings flat.
There I was, running a bazillion miles an hour, when big bat-like shadow descended from the canopy like an anvil. I should have seen it coming, I really should have. Why should I assume there were only two hostile griffons in the forest when three hostile griffons were just as likely? And why should I assume that they’re just going to chase me on my terms when herding me toward an ambush works every so much better? Of course all I could think at the time was a series of expletives as my face met the dirt once again and a big black fuzzy weight pressed me rest of me flat as well. But in hindsight, it shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did.
“Pony not struggle or Cobalt kill.” A voice garbled through a mouth full of fangs. My eyes fluttered open and I looked up to see something that was simultaneously the funniest and most terrifying thing I had run into since I got here.
A flying monkey.
I just got caught by a goddamn flying monkey.
Of course it wasn’t a cute little spider monkey with pigeon wings on its back and a little fez on its head, nooo… that would be too easy. I got the version made with a mandrill baboon and a bat the size of a hang glider. I got the version with glowing eyes and snarling jaws and too much intelligence to call it an animal, but not enough to actually call it sane. In short I got the flying monkey from the rated R action flick version of Oz…or possibly the horror movie version.
I made it a point not to struggle.
The griffon-griffons arrived a moment later, both short of breath. “Good job, Cobalt.” Klingon-griffon said between pants, “Now finish him before he gets away again.”
The monkey thing looked down at me, skin on its muzzle flaring as its fangs parted. I winced, shutting my eyes as I waited for the fall of the guillotine.
But it never came, instead all I heard was a sharp intake of air. And another. I opened an eye to see the bat-monkey sniffing at me with the deliberation of a Ringwraith. He—Colbalt I suppose—snorted, and then looked back up at his commander. “Him stink,” he said bluntly.
“So?”
“So, not normal stink.” Cobalt snarled, “Him stink of rust and swamp gas. Him not from forest.”
“Of course he’s not from the forest,” Klingon-Griffon replied, “there’s a town just beyond the borders, you ignoramus. Now obey your commanding officer or I’ll...”
“Him not from town either.” Cobalt spat back, “Him from other place. Place Cobalt never smelled.”
Oh crap…
“Cobalt think this Man of Earth.” The monkey said with the surety that only animal instinct could produce.
The two griffons blinked. And for that matter, so did I.
“Wait,” I said, “Man of Earth?”
Okay, that was a little too close to home for my comfort.
Gilda’s eyes lit up, “Well…that would explain why he showed up speaking in tongues.” She said tentatively.
“But not why he suddenly spoke Equestrian a moment later,” Klingon-boy retorted, “Making the pony’s own explanation the most likely. When you hear hoofbeats, think ponies—not zebra. That’s what I always say.”
“Since when?” Gilda snarked.
“Him not smell like pony.” Cobalt insisted, “So I take to Julius…”
He shifted his weight but kept me pretty well bound in chimp-like hind feet (goddammit, if there were so many thumbs around here, why couldn’t I have a set?) and started heading toward the nearest tree—me in tow.
Male Griffon sputtered and made one last effort toward even a semblance of control over the monkey, “How dare you disobey a direct order from your commanding officer! I’ll have your hide for this!”
The monkey’s bat-clawed hands hauled his bulk (and mine) up the tree with no difficulty, and no hesitation. “Cobalt make sure. Take to Julius. If Julius say him Man of Earth, Julius reward Cobalt. If him not, then Cobalt kill.”
Well I couldn’t argue with that logic. Apparently the monkey was smart enough to know when things are over his paygrade…which I suppose made him the smartest one there.
Cobalt leapt from the tree and started gliding, to where ever this “Julius” was. The funny thing is, we were gaining height despite the monkey’s less that aerodynamic shape. I guess the physics of this world were set on “it’s just a show, I should relax” when it came to flight.
You’re being awfully calm about this. Lina’s voice mused in my ear.
I sighed, They got me…not much I can do about it now, except relax and start plotting my escape.
Gilda and her friend shortly joined us in the air. The cranky one shouting up a Yosemite Sam sized storm of almost swears in Cobalt’s direction. Gilda meanwhile was quietly flying behind her superior—rolling her eyes at his ridiculousness. We never rose far enough above the treetops for me to get my bearings (dammit), just enough for me to get thwacked by a high branch or two every so often.
thwack!
*Ouch.*
Like so.
So…how’re ya going to escape? Lina asked me, Tickle him until he drops you?
And do my Wile E. Coyote impression a second time today? *Ouch.* I don’t think so. Heck, I’m still not sure how we survived the first time. Besides, *ouch*, these griffons seem to know an awful lot about a guy who just fell into their world today…I think I’d like to know how they did that.
*Ouch*.
Damn it.
“Do you have to hit every single one?” I shouted at the monkey.
Cobalt ignored me and actually lowered into the canopy.
“Ah! Okay, I ‘m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you!”
Cobalt didn’t care and kept sinking.
The trees however completely gave way to empty air—all but the most obvious branches having been clipped away from a landing path long before I arrived.
It was a false top—a smoke screen to keep any overhead pegasi from asking questions.
Beneath those precious few branches were nests. Not the bowl shaped nests everyone thinks of but the round beehive style nests that certain birds make…but these were as big as tents and put together with a craftsman’s touch. They hung ten or fifteen to a tree, all the way down the trunk like Christmas ornaments, and jostled with activity from within.
And there were griffons everywhere.
The area was littered with them. Some perched in the trees, some marching in groups, some fighting with bare claws, others with spears and swords and still others patrolled makeshift walls and towers bows in hand. They didn’t even all look the same. Sure the Lion-and-Eagle was the most common, but I saw whole squads of the flying monkey types, four-winged reindeer, and even a couple of things that could only be described as “owlbears” But despite the chaos of the form and function each and every…thing here moved with a lockstep precision that meant iron fisted order and a metric ton of training. And even as Cobalt neared the landing strip the sheer magnitude of what I was looking at hadn’t quite sunk in yet.
An army.
I was looking at an army.