It was a cool evening in Shady Hollow. The evening meals were being prepared in the households of the many commoners. In the house of a noble family there were two guests. They were visiting at the behest of a soon to be bride from the noble house. A gryphon who had been raised in the village but went off to travel the world and has now come back for his friend's wedding and his traveling companion, a hippogryph.
Velvet came up to Freya leaning over the edge of the balcony. Freya was staring at Condor from a distance with a look of deep sorrow. "You love him don't you?" Velvet says to the hippogryph.
"... Yes. Yes I do." Freya answers as she comes off the railing to turn to her hostess.
Velvet is at a loss as to why the hippogryph was being so shy about her love. She didn't have any political ties holding her back. "Then why haven't you ever told him?"
Frey looks at her hose in mild surprise at the question. "I have, many times. From subtly to bold and direct." Freya says while closing her eyes and pulling her head down in heartache. "But I know he will never love me back. Not in the same way."
"Why not?" Velvet places a hoof on Freya's shoulder, almost having to stand up on her hind legs to do so. "You two have been companions for years, and you are a wonderful hippogryph." She does her best to turn her head down towards the head of her guest with her hoof still resting on the hippogryph's shoulder. "How could he not have any feelings for you?"
Looking up at the pony she had met only yesterday she ponders a moment and tries to explain. "It's instinct. Imbedded into the very core of a gryphon's being." She slowly and deliberately pulls away from her host's embrace, trying not to be rude as she does so. "Gryphons mate for life. They only can only have one love their entire lives, and he already has one. He fell in love with another in his struggles before we met. He just sees me more like a sister."
Taken back by the explanation of the instinct of Freya's ancestors she gives a small gasp of realization. "Oh... I'm so sorry. This must be hard for you. You will never be with any..." Velvet tries to find the words but is at a loss, unsure of the grammar for a gryphon pony hybrid, they were so rare.
Freya knows what the pony wants to say and finishes for her. " 'Anypony'. Either works. Just use your own grammar." Shaking her head somewhat humorously, as if a joke was made. She corrects the earth pony noble. "And no, that instinct isn't as strong in me. don't feel bad." Freya lifts up her hind leg to emphasize the hoof at the end of it. "I'm only half gryphon. Even though I will always love him, my pony side will let me get over the pain eventually. It will be possible for me to find another in time." She puts her hoof down. "I feel sorry for him more than I do for myself."
Velvet looks at her funny. "Why is that?"
Freya pauses for a moment. "...How can I put it?" She scratches the back of her head with her talon while trying to form the words. "I can eventually overcome my sorrow while he cannot." She looks in the direction of the balcony she was leaning on. "The one he loves is forever out of his reach. If he ever tried to be with her, he would doom her to death or a fate even worse." Freya looks back at Velvet but quickly returns her gaze to the balcony. "But as a gryphon, he can never stop loving her. So he does the only thing he can. He silently watches over her from a distance."
"His love must be one special lady gryphon to do that."
Freya gives the amulet around Velvet's neck a quick glance that held a subtle panic in her eyes. She quickly recovers before Velvet sees. She sighs in frustration of trying to convey such a complex feeling to her. "I have only met her briefly in my travels. But from what I can tell, she is indeed very special. I'm sorry, but I need to rest." Spreading her wings, Freya jumps off the balcony and flies off to a tree at the edge of the forest surrounding Shady Hollow to rest.
Velvet watches Condor fly off to the other side of town to his old home. When he was out of sight, Velvet grabbed the amulet around her neck and looked at the gift Condor gave her all those years ago.
She had never parted with it. She fought her father to the bitter end to keep the memento when he said it was improper for a noble lady to accept such a gift. It was a gift from a dear friend that she looked up to like a big brother. Within it there were two tiny claws that were torn from his back paw in his youth by accident. They were held in the amulet's clear amber core. "Condor. I'm happy you're back home, we have so much to catch up on old friend."
Condor Was flying to the closest thing to 'home' he ever had.
Red Star and his family took him in when his mother died and raised him as part of the family despite him being a gryphon and not a pony. They were a noble family just as Velvet's family was. Which is what caused the political engagement of Red Star and Velvet. Condor was flying to their home to congratulate his adopted brother.
Upon reaching the door he asked if he could talk to Red Star out in the garden.
"I'm so happy you made it back for the wedding." The unicorn says to the gryphon as they walk through the garden's evening light. "I wasn't sure if the letter would reach you in time Condor."
"Yes, I simply had to come." He says, with a tone showing that he clearly had more he wanted to say than he did. "I know this is a political marriage but tell me, do you love her?"
At this question Red Star looks at his brother with worried eyes. "It still hasn't faded?" He stops as they reach the base of a large statue in the garden. "The old crush you had on her really wasn't a simple crush." Red star becomes nervous as the full weight of the situation fills his mind. "This makes things... very awkward now."
Condor turns around after pacing a few steps past his surrogate brother. "Red Star. I do not bear you ill for this." Shaking his head to and fro he fights back inner demons that had tormented him ever since his childhood. "She has always wanted children. It is dangerous for any pony mare to birth hippogryph because of their size, and Velvet is small even for a pony. If I try to give her them, she would die before she carried the first one full term."
He looks back at his sibling with a clear face of acceptance. "I am happy you are the one marrying her instead of somepony else. You were the only pony even in the family I could ever trust." Embarrassed, he shrinks back ever so slightly. "The only one in the family I ever told." He then looks Red Star right in the eyes with a dead pan glare. "That said, just answer my question already: Do you love her?"
Not sure how to proceed, Red Star picks up a small rock and throws it up at the statue's head. Just like when they were young, he misses it by several inches. "She is the most beautiful mare I have ever met." picking up a second stone he offers it to Condor. "We both know her family is rather corrupt." Condor manages to strike it right on the side of its muzzle. "Despite this, she has always had a heart of gold that captured both our hearts-" he give a small titter as he picks up a second stone for himself in his hoof again. "-though yours a lot sooner than mine." He throws it and once again misses. "She still doesn't care about money or power like the rest of her family, she just wants to help shady hollow in any way she can." He takes up a third stone in his horn's magic and tosses it right into the eye of the statue. "Even if our family's didn't arrange-"
"Cheater." Condor accuses him with a smile.
"-our marriage, I still would have proposed to her." Red star finishes without even letting Condor interrupt him.
Condor looks at his sibling with his smile growing even wider. "I am happy to hear that. You are still the same honest Red Star I knew all those years ago." he closes his eyes with a smile of contentment. "Though I know you don't need it, I still give you two my blessings." he loses the smile for a deadpan stare as he opens his eyes again. "There is however, one other thing."
"What's that Condor?"
"When we were young, your parents took me in despite the ridicule from the other noble families." He looks up at the silhouette of the house hidden behind the statue they had stopped by. "Your family sheltered me and fed me. Your parents even payed for my education in the public schools and fought hard to give me the same opportunities as the other students." He looks down from the house as his brow furls down in frustration. his voice becomes cold and bitter "But even with all this that I owe you,-"
Spinning quickly, Condor grabs Red Star by the throat and slams him against the base of the statue. Condor holds his prisoner's throat tightly. "-If you ever break her heart brother." Condor's eyes were focused with a desire to kill. "I will rip out yours with my own talons." It wasn't anger in his eyes, but the cold, bordering insane, instinct of an animal. "Just remember that when you take your vows."
Condor lets go the unicorn, leaving him to fall to his knees. Red star has a brief coughing fit as he regains his composure before standing. "As protective of her as ever. *cough* It's amazing nopony else ever figured it out."
"It's probably for the best." Condor backs up to give him room to breathe. His face was heavy with sorrow for what he just did to his surrogate brother. "Please don't tell her. It will only bring her pain."
"I won't lie to my wife Condor." Red Star says as Condor looks at him meanly. Red Star was in no condition to argue. "But I will do my best to never bring it up if I can help it."
Freya, daughter of a pegasus father, and a gryphon mother, sat on her perch as best she could with her back hooves. Such love as her parents had was rare yet she had come across it in her travels. Her dear friend and fruitless love interest Condor was almost constantly on her mind these days. He was in love with another yet Freya couldn't bring herself to be angry in her envy. It would only hurt him further and she just couldn't bear the thought of him being in greater pain.
He could never father her children, nor be accepted as her husband in the world of nobles Velvet was trapped in. But, in spite of knowing he would never be rewarded, he had chosen to be her silent knight. Just as the day he said he lost his back claws defending her. He would always be there, in the background, making sure nothing ever harmed her if he could help it.
O yes... Freya would get over her love for Condor and find another to love. But the dedication he held in his heart was so appealing, it would take a very, very long time.