Far to the north and to the east of a town in Equestria named Ponyville, there could be found a town within the High Confederation of Wings named Griffondorf. And that is largely where the similarities end.
Where Ponyville was located on plains near forests, Griffondorf was located on plains in the highland, with little in the way of forests nearby. Where Ponyville was known, if only regionally, for the quality of its apples, Griffondorf was known, if only regionally, for the quality of its wool. Where Ponyville was unimportant politically, Griffondorf was the seat of power for its duchy. And where Ponyville was populated primarily by ponies, with some other creatures mixed in and no griffons to speak of, Griffondorf was populated primarily by griffons and sheep, with some other creatures mixed in and no ponies to speak of.
But even within that multitude of differences, similarities could be found. The most critical of these similarities, at least for the moment concerned, was a bakery and café known as Die Marmeladenglas. It was no Sugarcube Corner, but was still impossible to not notice with its sensible construction, warmly decorated exterior inviting all to enter, and rows of blackcurrant shrubs flanking the front door, bearing so many berries that it bordered on comical. Die Marmeladenglas produced a variety of goods, but was best known for its pastries and doughnuts, particularly those filled with blackcurrant jam.
It was in this café at the moment concerned that two friends were taking a late morning snack of doughnuts and hot coffee at the table along the front wall, to the right of the entrance and closest to the door, where they usually sat. The first was, as expected, a griffon, although his golden-brown feathers stood in contrast with what was normally expected of a griffon’s appearance. He was dressed very sharply in a three-piece suit, combining a white shirt with a brown, herringbone patterned vest and matching jacket, a black tie banded in thin, silver stripes secured around his neck. Brass talon caps covered each of the claws on his front feet, a necessity in any town like Griffondorf, where many of the streets were paved with stone setts or cobbles. He was seated sideways in a low chair, back resting against the wall, utterly engrossed in the opened newspaper held in his capped talons.
The second was a minotaur, grey-furred with white in an agouti pattern, although that was less unusual than a minotaur in Griffondorf in the first place. He was dressed less sharply in a two-piece suit, selecting a light grey shirt and dark olive jacket, with a red necktie that gave the appearance of a pimiento to some. Rather than a newspaper, he was intently studying a chessboard that rested on the table between the two of them.
"So..." the minotaur began, "You're gonna move, right?"
"Of course I'm going to move," replied the griffon without so much as drawing his head back from his newspaper.
"Right. So, like, before winter sets in?"
With an irritated huff, the griffon released one edge of his paper and grabbed one of the pieces, not even looking at the board as his talon caps clinked against it, and moved it somewhere else on the board with no real consideration to strategy or even whether the piece in question, whatever it was, could even be moved in such a fashion. Immediately, he returned his full attention to his newspaper.
The minotaur, in turn, scrutized the board for a moment, before completely giving up on even a pretense of playing. "Alright, boss, spill it," he said. "What's eating ya up so bad you can't even be bothered to beat me at chess today?"
"Your defeat is well and truly assured," the griffon asserted. Still not diverting his attention from his newspaper. "And what, exactly, has happened to give you the idea that something's bothering me?"
"Well, for starters, you haven't said so much as one thing about my out-of-control cheating."
Only then did Jacoby Flynn tear his attention away from his newspaper, staring at the chessboard with eyes full of surprise. Sure enough, his opponent had been cheating, and it was very much out-of-control. Each of them had only made three moves, but Jacoby's king was somehow surrounded by every other piece the minotaur had in his control, and while it wasn't an obvious checkmate, it was still bad. To say nothing of the king he did still maintain possession of.
"Is that a lemon wedge?" he asked, pointing an accusing talon at the board. "Did you replace my king with a lemon wedge?"
"Yuh huh," the minotaur replied, "I also squeezed all the jam out of your doughnut and replaced it with mustard."
Throwing a glance to the doughnut that sat on his plate, seemingly undisturbed, Jacoby gingerly picked it up and carefully and slowly squeezed it. Sure enough, onto the plate fell a brown dollop of hot mustard. Unceremoniously, he dropped the pastry back to the plate, fixed the minotaur with a glare, and opened his beak-
"Snide remark belittling my sense of humor even though it's irrelevant to the question I asked," said the minotaur.
Jacoby snapped his beak shut, grinding his teeth together, before opening his beak-
"Angry shout to underscore the offense you're currently feeling at my refusal to play by the rules you've set," said the minotaur, lifting his cup of coffee from the table.
For several seconds, Jacoby's beak hung opened-
"And now a depressed slump of the shoulders and resigned drooping of the head," finished the minotaur, taking a sip of his coffee while Jacoby proceeded to do exactly what had just been described to him. The newspaper in his grab sagged down on the floor, even though he never released it.
After a few moments, he raised his eyes back up as the minotaur's cup went back down. "Am I really that transparent?" he asked.
"Look, Jake," the minotaur replied, holding his hands up in a show of nonaggression. "I'm not saying that your distress is obvious-" And then he folded his hands together and leaned forward on the table, which groaned under his weight- "But it's totally obvious. I mean, even if you weren't completely distracted from the game, look at you! You're reading an issue of the Shrieker, for crying out loud!"
"And?" Jacoby half-demanded. He brought paper back up and slammed it closed, as well as anyone could hope to slam a paper closed, and crumpled the edge of it in his talons, shaking it with half-anger. "Is there something wrong with an educated griffon wanting to keep current with recent events in the world?"
"From a news publication you've described, more than once I might add, as having the journalistic integrity of half a grapefruit?"
Jacoby was momentarily at a loss for words, eyes widening with realization. He had said that, hadn't he? "Don't obscure the issue with facts, Alexios!"
"Excuse me, Herr Flynn?"
Both griffon and minotaur turned from each other to see that a second griffon had arrived at their table. Dressed in a simple, slate grey jacket and matching cap, the carrier bag slung across his chest signified he was a courier, while the golden pin in the shape of an unopened letter stuck to his jacket's lapel identified him as a ducal courier. Why Griffondorf, being only a village (if still a large one), was selected as the seat of its duchy was a question that no one had been able to answer completely.
"Sorry to interrupt your, uh..." The courier shot a glance down at the chessboard, "Your, whatever, but I've got a parcel for you. From the Duchess, in fact. Instructions were to deliver it right away."
"From the Duchess," Jacoby repeated. The courier nodded once, and then fished a particular envelope from his carrier bag, handing it over into the other griffon's waiting talons. "Wonder what she wants." Without wasting a moment, he opened the envelope and removed the letter inside, unfolding and quickly reading it. Alexios leaned forward as if it would help him hear better, and even the courier was unable to mask his curiosity (as if hanging around after making his delivery hadn't done that already).
"No help here," Jacoby concluded, folding the letter again. "Just that I apparently have an appointment at half-past eleven today." Thinking for a moment, he reached under his jacket, into the front pocket of his vest, and brought out a pocket watch. "Which is fifteen minutes from now. Perfect."
"The Duchess hasn't wanted to see you in person for over a year, why would she change her mind now?" Alexios wondered aloud.
"Doesn't matter. Best not to keep her waiting, regardless of the reason," Jacoby said plainly, standing up from his seat at the table. He folded his newspaper and stuffed it and the letter into one of his jacket pockets, and then withdrew a pair of Willson-style goggles from its breast pocket, the lenses tinted grey to function as sunglasses. Those promptly went to rest on his beak even before he turned towards the door. "I'll see you at home, Alex," he said before turning his attention to the courier. "And you, friend, take a moment to rest. Use my chair. Have my doughnut, in fact. Untouched. Haven't had an appetite all morning."
The courier's face lit up brightly. "Danke!" he said happily, "Danke, vielen danke." With a nod of farewell, Jacoby made his way to the front door while the griffon that had replaced him at the table settled in and lifted the doughnut up to take a large bite.
As Jacoby stepped outside of the cafe, he heard the courier offered one final statement before the door closed behind him: "Lava! It's filled with lava!"
"Guten tag, Herr Flynn."
It took a few moments after the griffon sitting behind the desk in the receiving room of the Duchess' office turned back to the letter she was working on to realize what she had just seen, before double-taking as her attention snapped back to the newly arrived Jacoby. "Herr Flynn! You're, you're on time!"
Jacoby's expression was unamused. "What are you implying?" he asked.
"N-nothing! I only meant that, erm, I mean, I'll tell the Duchess you've arrived."
The secretary quickly made herself scarce, disappearing down the hallway behind and to the left of her desk. Jacoby huffed and took a moment to observe the receiving room, finding it almost identical to the last time he'd seen it. The secretary's desk, aligned along the center of the back wall and exactly one-and-a-half yards away from it. A large, neutal colored rug covering a portion of the hardwood floor. A bench along the left wall, a few potted plants scattered here and there, and walls sparsely decorated with painted landscapes. The large windows were the most defining feature of the room, although Jacoby did notice that the sconces along the walls and chandelier overhead had been replaced relatively recently with gas lamps. All in all, it was an absolutely dreadful place to be left waiting. Which was really fine, as the Duchess was opposed to anyone waiting to see her for any reason, particularly since it often meant that whoever they were waiting on was taking up more of her time than was necessary.
After a moment, the secretary returned. “Ah, yes,” she began, “Sorry about that. The Duchess said to count off exactly ten seconds, and then she’ll see you.” Jacoby simply nodded and mentally tallied the seconds as they passed, and on the tenth mark, walked down the hallway the secretary had used earlier. Almost immediately along the right wall was another door, which he promptly knocked on.
“Enter.”
Bidden, he grasped the knob, turned it and push open the door, stepping inside to meet whatever fate had been picked out for him.
"Herr Flynn. Never wonderful to see you."
The Duchess was, as was typical of her, seated behind her desk, although she did rise to her feet when he entered. Her office was as efficiently appointed as it always was, containing several bookshelves filled with books pertaining to the laws of Griffondorf, the surrounding counties, and her duchy, as well as books of geography and science, and even a few on history (insofar as they pertained to the politics of foreign nations), and little else aside from her desk (always kept tidy and organized), three chairs (one of which was reserved solely for her), and a cocktail cabinet against one wall, well-dusted but rarely used.
Like her office, the Duchess herself was efficiently appointed in a two-piece suit; charcoal grey jacket and white shirt with a dark burgundy necktie. She eschewed the fancier clothes other nobles preferred, claiming the 'extras' got in the way, and had no love of dresses, claiming that pockets were more useful than extraneous fabric.
"Your Grace," Jacoby said with a bow. He spread his wings wide in deference as he did (according to old stories, to allow his flock leader the chance to savage his wings, if he displeased her), but it somehow seemed sardonic to the Duchess, just as it always had. The feeling ended once the bow did, Jacoby making a beeline for the open chair to his left. "Been a while since you called me here last. I do hope it's under better circumstances."
"That, Herr Flynn, remains to be seen." With a dismissive shake of her head, the Duchess stepped away from her desk and towards her cocktail cabinet. "Drink?"
"No, thank you. I think I'd rather hear about the reason you called me here." Jacby promptly took a seat in the chair he'd approached, ignoring the fact that his host had yet to sit, and either not noticing or pretending not to notice the icy glare she shot at him. She took her time at the cabinet, extracting a snifter and filling it with a small measure of cognac, imported from the more temperate lands to the south and west. Further taking her time to pack everything away, she took her glass and, at leisure, returned to her desk, sitting back in the chair behind it and across from Jacoby. She took asip of her cognac, placed the glass on a cork coaster, and shut her eyes before taking in a deep breath, letting it out, and then opening her eyes once more.
"The duchy wishes to hire you, Herr Flynn."
Jacoby quirked his brow, and for a brief moment, he'd wished he had accepted the offer of a drink after all. "Would you mind repeating that?" he asked.
The Duchess folded her talons together and rested them on the desktop, chased silver talon caps shining in the afternoon sun. "There have been certain," she paused for a moment, searching for a word, "Occurances, about the Confederation. The first inside was a bit over one week ago, shortly after the river of lights in the sky. I'm sure you saw it."
Jacoby offered half of a shrug. "Even if I hadn't, it was on the front page of every paper for five days, and continues to grace the first two or three of them in many publications today. You suspect there's a connection, I would suppose?"
The Duchess eyes narrowed slightly, but only for a moment, before returning to impassive. "A connection is assured, at this point. And the occurances themselves can be best described as supernatural, if the reports are all to be believed. I would prefer not to bother with such things, but it's one thing to disregard the stories of a few country bumpkins. It's quite another when titled nobles start sharing them as well. I believe your alleged friend Count von Vergoldetflügal is among them. Who, like all the rest, has not done well to heed my warnings to keep these matters quiet, that they might be dealt with discretely."
The emphasis that the Duchess placed on her words was not missed by Jacoby, who looked off towards one wall, beak resting in his palm as he considered the information he'd been given. After a few seconds, he looked back to the Duchess, his own expression as impassive as hers. "You want me to investigate, then," he said, "And with any luck, find the cause of and, more importantly, a way to make these 'occurances' stop occurring."
"In summary, yes." The Duchess leaned back slightly, providing the illusion of greater space between herself and Jacoby. "Appropriate Letters will be issued, of course, and you'll be provided with as much additional information as can be provided. And, as I indicated, these occurances are not confined to Griffondorf. So far, all of them have been elsewhere in the duchy-"
"Deal."
"-which would require... wait. 'Deal?'" The Duchess was stunned, almost too stunned for words. Even then, it took her several moments before she could formulate a follow-up question. "What do you mean 'deal?'"
"I mean, 'deal,'" Jacoby repeated. "I'll do it. Done and done. I agree. I consent. You talked me into it. Where do I sign? Take you pick from any of those. You want me to investigate these little disturbances of yours? I'll do it, with one condition."
"Of course."
Jacoby leaned forward against the desk, propping himself up on his arms. "I want my Letter."
A moment passed, and the Duchess' brow quirked up in puzzlement. "You'll be issued Letters of Inspection and Investigation, as I've already stated."
"No. I want my Letter back."
The Duchess' quirked brow fast melted into a scowl. At times, Parliament issued certain Letters to individuals, granting them special privileges within the borders of the Confederation. The Letters of Inspection and Investigation that had been offered to Jacoby would respectively allow him to command entrance to private property and any structures and rooms therein, and access to private papers and information (that was not financial in nature), so long as he was able to demonstrate a reasonable suspicion for doing so. It would also protect him, and any other creatures he had designated as his deputies from legal consequences, so long as the actions in question were necessary for any inspection or investigation they were conducting. A Letter of Transport would allow him to move goods and creatures, and to own, operate, and even commandeer vehicles necessary to facilitate that movement. A Letter of Commerce would allow him to buy and sell merchandise, even in cases where he would not otherwise be allowed to do so, and to inspect financial records on reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. A Letter of Armament would allow him to buy, sell, possess and transport weaponry normally reserved for police and military personnel, so long as the purchase, sale, possession and transport thereof was demonstrated to be of benefit to the Confederation. With the right Letters, almost anything was possible.
Once upon a time, Jacoby Flynn had been in possession of a Letter of Marque, which was the right Letter for almost anything: So long as he remained able to demonstrate that his actions were in service to the Confederation, he enjoyed nearly full immunity from all legal prosecution, with capital crimes being the sole exception. Once upon a time, the Duchess requested of Parliament the issue of several Letters of Inspection and Investigation when a small group of citizens, noble and commoner alike, came to her with entirely reasonable concerns over large amounts of dangerous chemicals he had been stockpiling, including undiluted alcohols and various concentrated acids. Once upon a time, an intensive investigation determined that no illegal activity had taken place, but that Jacoby Flynn had abused the power granted by his Letter regardless, leading Parliament to revoke it for the safety of the citizens.
Jacoby Flynn never quite got over his Letter of Marque being revoked, once upon a time. Apparently, a new one was the price of his cooperation. A wholly insensible proposition. "Bring this matter to a satisfactory, quick and above all, quiet close," the Duchess began, her words carefully measured and her scowl deepening, "And I shall submit a recommendation to parliament with a petition to have another Letter of Marque issued to you." It was unfortunate for the Duchess, in this case, that Jacoby Flynn was the only who could both do what she needed, and was available.
"Splendid," was all that Jacoby had to say regarding his Letter. "So, we're done here, then? I'll pick up my Letters on the way out, do a little snooping, sweep whatever mess it is under the rug, and everyone's happy?"
For a moment, the Duchess was silent. "Yes, Herr Flynn. We are done here."
"Good!" Jacoby replied, sliding himself from his chair and straightening his jacket. "I'll see your secretary on the way out, then. Auf wiedersehen." And with that, he turned around and almost skipped out of the Duchess' office. For her part, she watched him leave, and scoffed immediately once the door had closed.
"Esel."