Trust?
"Eldon." Cato whispered, poking at the griffin. His brother's eyes fluttered open, and the smaller griffin grinned. He walked past the fire, getting their supplies together as the larger griffin re-entered the land of the living.
Eldon felt his wing catch as he tried to pull it in, and looked over to find that Roseluck had planted herself under his protective feathers at some point that night.
"Don't worry about her." Cato said, trying a few of the berries himself. "I told her she could, cuz she was cold."
"Was she? It wasn't all that cold last night."
Cato shrugged. "She was definitely shivering hard enough."
Eldon wasn't sure if he was alright with the fact that she was sleeping against him. But she felt warm now, and Eldon was happy to at least know that much. As much as he wouldn't want to admit it, he cared at least a little for this mare--how could he not by now? She'd helped him out and really been the one to foster trust between them, and he was thankful. He'd never really known anyone that would go out of their way to help him, outside of Cato. It just didn't make sense before. Family always came first, and there was no way around that.
Not that he felt okay with it. No, far from that.
But he was somewhat baffled about why she had seemed so nice so quickly, or why she'd fixed him up, or gone foraging, or any of it. She could have left him behind to find, and take the pressure off herself.
Eldon sighed, standing up and stretching. Roseluck didn't budge, and Eldon simply scooped her onto his back. He screwed with one of her arms for a while before it fell past his shoulder correctly and avoided the saddlebag, but she seemed to be fairly securely on his back. One of her hind legs twitched and Eldon jumped, mentally berating himself for letting such a stupid thing surprise him.
"Hey, she's in my spot!" Cato exclaimed, fluttering his wings. "How come she gets to be there?"
"She's tired, kid." Eldon replied as a grin spread across his face. "You've just been sleeping like a baby this whole time."
"Hey, I woke you up!"
"Fine, but she almost passed out last night-" He paused, looking at the darkness. "Earlier tonight. She's the only one that's going to have a shot at protecting you or carrying something heavy, so I need her rested." Eldon chuckled, craning his head backwards. "And besides, she looks kinda cute when she's asleep."
"Ooh…" Cato sang, smiling. "Eldon and Roseluck sittin' in a tree, C-O-U-RT-I-N-G." he mocked, sticking two of the letters on the same beat.
Eldon frowned. "She's a pony." He said. "I'm a griffin. Things won't happen."
"Oh, that's what you say…" Cato continued, still getting a kick out of it as he skipped ahead. "You make such a great pair, I wouldn't be surprised."
The older griffin shook his head with a chuckle, dismissing his brother's words without another thought. The pair quieted down, occasionally sharing a slice of meat or some berries. The forest was still slowly changing, as different types of trees suddenly became more common, only to be replaced by different ones. There was something Eldon liked about the place, now that he was used to it.
They came to a stream and Eldon stared at the water for a moment. It was fast moving and clear, so it wasn't going to kill him. He was used to crappy water anyway, but the pony worried him a little. He didn't know much about how she lived, and her body might not have ever gotten used to things like this.
Eldon carefully transferred the rest of the water they had into one container, figuring that if she hadn't gotten sick from that yet that it was better to be safe than sorry. He etched her name into one side with a talon, before filling up the rest of the bottles, minus the one that Rose had filled with painkilling stuff, and wading across the stream. Cato followed, hopping across a few rocks and meeting Eldon at the other side.
A few more minutes passed and the mare shifted, slowly coming to life on Eldon's back. She didn't say anything for a while, seeming content to run her hooves through little parts of fur around his shoulders and back. Roseluck looked at the bandage on his shoulder, touching at it gently. Blood had seeped through fairly badly, and she knew that they wounds hadn't been able to close very well. She looked back at his flank, which seemed to be getting on alright, and then back to his shoulder.
Honestly, she wasn't sure how he ignored it. One of the claw marks was adding to the blood stain as she checked it over, and the others definitely didn't look like a walk in the park. And only yesterday she'd gone on about how tough earth ponies were.
"You have all of these other scars from back home?" Rose asked, tracing one with her hoof.
"Yeah." he replied. "They don't like it when you get tired. And one time we had to put out a fire."
"What did you do, anyway?" She inquired. "Do you mind?"
"What do you mean?" Eldon asked.
"Well, if you don't want to drudge up old memories, I don't want to force you to."
"I don't care, really. So long as you're willing to listen."
"It's not as if I have anything else to do." Rose replied with a giggle. "And of course I'm willing."
"Well, I pushed carts of coal out of a mine. Sometimes I worked with a pickaxe or a sledgehammer as well, but most of that was when I was younger and smaller."
"How old are you now?" She asked.
"Eighteen, I think." The mare on his back spluttered.
"I thought you were like twenty something!" She exclaimed. "You- how can you be that young?"
"I'm pretty old, really. Most of the time griffins are out of the mines or dead in a few years, but I was going on six." He sounded proud, which frankly disgusted Roseluck.
"Oh…" Was all she said, trying to make her mind see things from Eldon's point of view. She found that it was near-impossible, although she felt a rush of gratitude for breaking her out. "How- how did it even get like that?"
Eldon didn't respond for a few minutes, sharing a glance with Cato. "I guess," He began, his voice unsure, "I guess I can start back from the first thing I really remember, which was one of the last times I saw my father. I remember learning to fly with him, and if I think about it real hard I can still remember what the wind feels like through my feathers." Roseluck stammered something out, before she gestured for him to continue. "Anyway, about a year later there was this big revolution, and I know that he went off to fight. It didn't last that long, and he was back within a few months, not to say that he fought from the beginning. He talked about how well things were going, and the freedom that we would have without the rule of the king. His name was Yeln, by the way. Anyway, he brought home the first books I'd ever seen, and then Cato was born. It was probably the happiest I've ever been, but obviously it didn't last."
Roseluck looked at the tips of Eldon's wings, pieces coming together on why they were misshapen, and why he hadn't simply flown away.
Eldon sighed, looking away as he tried to regather his thoughts. "About a month went by, and then we got a curfew. Soldiers started appearing around more, and things got steadily worse. My parents had a fight around that time, and a few days later Mom was gone. I still don't know what happened to her, and Dad never really seemed to be the same without her. But he tried to never let us see that, and he put everything into raising us. Years went by, and things got worse. Controls tightened even more, and the leadership began to clip wings. That's the day Dad disappeared." Eldon extended a wing for her to see, a somewhat clear cut showing itself off near the end. "And that's why I can't fly."
"Um." She said, annoyed that she'd let anything exit her lips before she was ready. "So it's just… It's just you and Cato now?"
Eldon nodded. "I always kinda hope that I'll see my mother or father again at some point, because as far as I know, they aren't dead." The air went silent. "So what about you?"
"Well," She began, her voice cracking before she cleared her throat. "I guess you know that I have a shop that sells flowers and plants and things. But I've got parents that live in the same town, and I-" She sighed. "I feel like an ass, telling you this."
"How come?"
"It just seems like gloating or bragging." She replied, laying her head flat on his back.
Eldon shook his head. "Come on, it's something to look forward to, right?"
"Yeah, I guess. You broke out for this stuff, and I'd say that it's worth it." She paused. "So what are you planning on doing when you get there?"
Eldon shrugged. "Build a house, get a job…"
Rose sighed. "If we make it back, I've got a guest bedroom with your name on it. You deserve that, at least."
Cato looked back, a grin covering his face. "Really?!" He turned to Eldon. "Did you hear that? Can we?"
"I'd rather not." The griffin responded. "I don't want to be in anyone's debt."
"You wouldn't be, I'd be getting myself out of mine."
"Maybe so, but I- I don't want to keep you from getting back to your life. And stupid as it sounds, I don't want to build my existence off of someone else."
It was stupid, Roseluck thought. But she knew in the back of her mind that she wouldn't have accepted it right away either. She had done everything involving her business on her own through her own means, and she liked it that way. Yet, in some way she figured that he wouldn't get along well in a society that didn't particularly love griffins. There hadn't been any conflict with the griffin Empire very recently, but the occasional griffin that did pass through didn't exactly give the species a good name.
Roseluck drifted through thought, thankful for the fact that she didn't need to walk. She was a lot less tired, but her legs still ached. She heard Eldon's breathing grow more labored, and it didn't take much for her to figure out that the painkillers were wearing off. Even though she'd had some training in nursing and the like, that had all been on ponies. She'd taken a big chance hoping that the antiseptic and painkillers didn't have an adverse effect on the guy. Luckily they hadn't, but then she'd put in a much higher concentration of stuff that would have left a pony her size feeling woozy.
But Rose waited, wondering if Eldon would admit that he needed help. In any case, she needed more water than what they had, so there wasn't much she could do now. From what she could find, she'd used all of the bandages.
Another twenty minutes passed as she drifted in and out of slumber, and they came upon another creek. Rose forced herself awake, sliding off Eldon's back and pulling a water bottle from his saddlebag.
"We need to replace these bandages." She said, poking at his bloody shoulder. Rose chugged down the water, feeling the cool substance rush into her stomach and stave off her fatigue. The mare refilled it with stream water, holding it up to what little sunrise light they had before nodding and walking back over.
"Why the water?" Eldon asked, hissing a little when she poured it over the cloth.
"We don't want it sticking to the wound too much when we go to replace it and pulling off the scab." She sighed. "Or however much of a scab you've allowed to form." She ran out of water and poked at the wound, furrowing her brow. "Would you mind submerging it over there? We're supposed to have warm water, but this is the best we can do."
"But-" He looked at the water. It was almost definitely freezing snowmelt. "Fine, if it'll help." He set down his saddlebag and walked over, stooping down next to the water. He looked at his shifting reflection and for the first time realized that he looked like shit. His face was grimy and the bandage on his cheek was bloody, and he just looked so tired. It could have been the moving water playing tricks on him, but it seemed so clear.
Rose gently pushed him to his side, easing his shoulder into the water and holding him steady. Eldon started to shiver, but the mare didn't yield. She knew he wouldn't thank her for forcing him to freeze his ass off, but it would hopefully be worth it. Roseluck reached her hoof underwater, gripping a corner that had come loose. She peeled it off and Eldon whimpered, some red tinged water making its way downstream.
The griffin didn't need to wait to pull himself free, and rocketed to his feet. He hugged himself, the same cut in his shoulder bleeding more slowly due to the cold. There were a few more points where he was bleeding, but they were small. She smiled, grating the bandage against a rock and watching the mostly congealed blood break free.
"It's definitely healing." Roseluck said with a smile, wrapping the damp cloth around his wound once again. "I would recommend you not to walk, but I suppose that's out of the question."
"It'd be nice if it didn't grate together every time I took a step."
"Oh yeah!" She exclaimed, pulling the cloth away before it stuck. She went through Eldon's saddlebag before pulling free the bottle of painkillers and walking back. Rose carefully poured it on, seemingly waiting until a certain point to stop. Not that Eldon particularly cared. He was too busy reveling in the sudden numbness that overtook his shoulder.
"I'll worry about taking you off of this stuff later. It's better that we just get free first."
"I agree." Eldon mumbled, his head still in the clouds. "You've got to give me this recepe."
Roseluck bit her lip. Maybe some of the water had evaporated, because he seemed a lot more mellow right off the bat. If he was getting a stronger reaction, she wasn't sure how things were about to go. "You sure you're feeling okay? Not drowsy or anything all of a sudden?"
Eldon shook his head, grinning at her. "Nope." He set off again, hopping across the creek and up the other bank.
"What…" Cato murmured, staring at Rose.
"I think I may have accidentally given him too much."
"Will it hurt him?" He asked. The mare paused, figuring that the two hour nap last time could have allowed the painkillers to wear down.
"No, but he looks a little hyper. Probably just like a kind of sugar rush. I think there's some short-lived caffeine in that type of willow…"
"What's a sugar rush?" The small griffin asked.
"I'll explain it later, alright?"
Cato nodded and stared at the stream, looking back at Roseluck. "I don't want to beg, but you should ferry me across this." He sighed. "I don't like water, and there's a whole lot more than in the last one…" He looked away, his face an angry red.
The mare took her eyes off of Eldon, who was splayed out on the ground, sniffing at a flower and smiled, lowering her head towards the ground. Cato caught on and crawled over her head, hugging around her neck when he got situated. Rose waded through, poking at Eldon. "How's it going?" She asked, watching his eyes flick to hers.
"Better." He replied, staring back at the sky. "I think I'm good."
"You had me scared for a bit there." She said, looking away.
"Yeah, I see you've got a new ride, Cato. Walking too hard for you?" Eldon asked, still looking a little woozy.
"Oh, hush." Roseluck spoke up, nudging the kid back on when he went to move. "It's no bother at all. He's light as a feather."
"If you say so." Eldon responded, pulling himself to his shaky feet. He felt like running up a tree. As soon as Rose had given him those painkillers, he hardly felt tired. It was like a dose of immediately digestible calories.
"You look hyper."
"I think you gave me a little too much." He responded, digging his talons into the ground in an effort to dissipate the extra energy. "I- well, it's better than the pain, but I don't like it."
Rose chuckled. "I think you're the first pon-" She paused, thinking. "Sapient life form to dislike caffeine."
"Why would you like this?" Eldon asked, pacing.
"Because for most ponies, they shake off fatigue with it. Of course, they ingest it, so it has less of an effect…"
"Look, I don't care about why anymore." He replied, running in place. "You fancy a little running?" he asked, not waiting for an answer as he took off. Rose had trouble keeping up with her armor, saddlebags, and Cato, and Eldon quickly noticed.
He stopped, feeling the high begin to wear off as soon as it started. He put a talon to his head, feeling more tired all of a sudden.
"I see that's worn off." Roseluck observed.
Eldon shook his head. "That was weird."
"Well that's what happens when you get a bunch of caffeine to your bloodstream." She replied, beginning to walk again.
Eldon felt himself blush, embarrassed that he'd let the stuff affect him at all. "Do you know how much further we have to go?" He asked.
"I wish I did." Roseluck replied. "But at this point, I just have a direction to go in and a road to follow." She gestured sideways at the road, barely visible through the trees.
"Yeah." Eldon replied, sighing. "God, I hate walking."
"Well, when was the last time you tried flying?"
Eldon stared at her, a huge grin breaking out across his face. "Oh!" He spread his wings, shaking out a few loose feathers. The ends were still pretty far from recuperating, but that wasn't going to stop him from trying. But man, the suspense… He was so excited, the first time he was going to fly in years something that was so close at hand.
Eldon brought his wings down slowly, twisting them around in their joints and getting them stretched out. They felt a little sore from lack of use, but he was sure they would still work. He'd kept them in fairly good shape, even if he looked like a moron in the process.
His first actual flap downward brought his talons off the ground, and hit his brain with a sudden blob of excitement. He'd gotten off the ground, and that meant that…
"You know, I'm no expert, but I think you're supposed to flap your wings more than once." Roseluck said with a laugh, her voice filtering into Eldon's mind a moment later.
"I'm having trouble composing myself." He shot back, noticing a bent feather in one of his wings that he quickly removed. "You know, it's been a while, you better not be expecting much." The mare just smiled and nodded, and Eldon shook his head.
He began to flap his wings again, rising off the ground shakily. The wingtips had not grown near enough to keep him in control to a high enough degree, but he quickly found himself not caring. He stayed below the canopy, smiling as Roseluck and Cato cheered him on. He swooped forwards, slowing up without any form of skill. His wingbeat went off rhythm, and he yelped as he spun to one side.
Eldon lost sight of the ground for a moment as the world spun, and suddenly the dirt appeared once again, contacting his face in a blow he never felt as his vision went black.
________________________________________________________
Ice water splashed over his face and he bolted awake, sitting up quickly and looking around. Roseluck put a hoof to his chin, turning his head a little to one side and then back again.
"That was a pretty nasty crash there." She said, fear evident in her voice. "You okay?"
Eldon's head gave a pulse of pain, but he nodded nonetheless. "I'm fine."
Roseluck sighed and stuck a cold bottle of water to his head, making him realize just how big of a lump had already formed. "You had me worried." She said, looking to one side at Cato, who was uncharacteristically silent. "You've got to stop doing things like this."
"I- I'll try." Eldon responded, wincing as Roseluck put a little more pressure to his head.
"Yeah, you better." She continued, sounding a little annoyed. "I don't want to have an extra thing to worry about, with everything else that's already going on."
"I'm surprised you're worried at all."
The mare appeared a little taken aback. "Why's that?" She asked, her voice rising.
"B-because we've known each other for a couple of days, and we're probably close enough that you don't need me anymore." He slapped a talon to his forehead. That was just about the worst thing he could say, even though he was thinking it.
"I- you-" She gritted her teeth, and Eldon pushed himself backwards a bit. "What the fuck is it with you and your assumptions!" Rose yelled, pushing a hoof into his chest before he could move any more. "You're not just an expendable griffin to me, like you think you are. And you better not think the same as me!" She huffed, pausing as she thought of how to continue. "We're a team, sure. But I don't plan on splitting up after this is over, and going our separate ways. I'd like to think that we're friends, and I'd like to keep it that way!"
Eldon stared, his back flat against the ground. "You know," he began, "Pardon me for not taking your trust easily. My entire life, I've never trusted anyone! Never, because that's what gets you killed! I know that you're friendly, and I'd love to trust you as much as you do me, but I just-" His voice cracked and he trailed off. "I just can't. I'm sorry." The griffin pushed the mare off and grabbed his saddlebag from the ground, tossing it over his back as he walked away.
Rose tried to get up to follow, but Cato grabbed her with a talon. "He's not going to say anything." The griffin said.
She shook her head. "I'm still going to try." She tried to jerk away, but he held on.
"He's gotten like this before, you know." Cato continued, and Rose tore her eyes off of Eldon to listen, watching the older griffin lay down a ways away. She was about to ask why, but the griffin explained himself. "Back a bunch of years ago, I'm not really sure when, he actually did try to make friends and all that. He had at least a few, from what I can get out of him."
"What happened to them?"
"Most of them are dead by now, I think." Rose gasped and Cato gave her a look that said 'I'm not sure why you're surprised' and continued. "I'm pretty sure he was numb to that by then, so that wasn't the issue. But one of his friends ratted him out after some number of years, and a guard came by to search. Of course, he found some things that we shouldn't have had, and wrote us up. It was a death penalty for Eldon, and probably me as well. If he was gone, I was way too young to survive in an orphanage."
"But he's not dead, so…"
"Yeah, he ended up giving away my dad's gold locket as a bribe. It was one of the only things Eldon had left from his father, and he had to give it away because of some loser."
Roseluck chewed her lip, watching the griffin out of the corner of her eye. She believed it without much question, by now. He never seemed to have any good luck to speak of, at least not that she could see. When they got back, she'd have to find a way to throw a nice party. By nice, of course, she meant away from Pinkie. She already knew that something like that wouldn't go well, not that it was a hard thing to figure out.
He wouldn't know anypony, and even besides that, something like that would probably make him nervous. If he had a hard time trusting her fully, putting him into any sort of situation like that would be a nightmare. Of course, if she did manage to talk him into staying with her, she wondered if he would worry about her being so close.
No, that was just silly. He'd already slept near her, and she knew he wasn't stupid. She'd patched him up, and he'd started to open up a little. Maybe he was referring to high stress situations. If push came to shove, she assumed, he couldn't trust her to help him before she tried to save herself.
The thought hit her like a brick, and she sighed. He'd already almost given his life for her, and part of her brain said that she wouldn't hesitate to do the same had he been in that situation. But… that seemed pointless. She wouldn't have. Rose wouldn't leave his side now, but she knew she had a breaking point somewhere. Eldon… she worried about the guy, maybe more than she should. But he- if he'd freed her and she'd ended up on her own, she wouldn't have made it this far.
He was strong willed, and he showed it. He never seemed to sleep, at least not near as much as she had, and yet through every cut, through every setback, he continued unabated. He was stubborn, and maybe saving her had been a stupid decision on a whim, but he hadn't tried to stop in the middle. He followed through, and Rose found herself feeling inferior.
The mare made a resolution in her head, nodding it as she finished. She would get him to safety, even if she had to risk everything to get there. And once they got back, well, she wanted to fix what he'd lost. She could show him so many things he'd dreamt of having, yet the things he seemed to be missing, whether he cared or not, were things she could provide.
If she did nothing else, she wanted to show him that he could trust her; that he could trust ponies in general. She didn't want him to end up suspicious of every move the townspeople made, especially when he was of a new species that the civilians didn't particularly love.
Rose shook her head. It was a daunting task, but it was something to take her mind off of the fact that they were being chased. She got to her hooves and walked towards Eldon, hearing Cato tag along. She offered him a hoof, which he took after a slight widening of his eyes.
"You ready?" She asked. "With how far we've gone, there can't be too much ground left to cover."
"I hope you're right." Eldon responded, feeling her nudge up against his side. He peered over, and she stared back with a grin.
"I know you don't want to, but you can trust me."
Eldon only nodded, looking away as she pulled her side away from his. He was warm, for such a cold morning. It put the fur on her side a little on end, before it went back to normal. Roseluck sighed, looking at Cato on her other side. He met her gaze a moment later, and she lowered her head to allow him to hop on. He did, tugging on Eldon's ear and whispering something from her back.
"Sure, we can buy mushrooms when we get there, Cato." Eldon replied with a chuckle. The group sped up slightly, eager to arrive just that much earlier.
Naturally, in their haste they didn't notice the small clouds of smoke, looming behind them against the backdrop of the colors of sunrise.