//------------------------------// // Check Your Bearings // Story: Cartography of War // by Daetrin //------------------------------// Rose considered herself to be in good shape.  After all, her team had spent most of the past three years trotting about the wilderness between Equestria and the sea, doing their part for the war effort.  But there was apparently still quite a gulf between civilian and soldier, because the pace Gérard set aimed to take no survivors. And It wasn’t even his best pace, since he was limping from the injuries hidden under the no-longer white bandages.  She was glad that it was only a few hours, because by the time he stopped her legs were half numbed and wobbling with fatigue.  “Sweet Celestia,” she groaned, dropping into the soft grass.  “I’m not even going to be able to move tomorrow.” “You’ll have to,” he said mildly.  “We’re still too close to the camp.” “What?  We weren’t expected back for a week, at least.  There aren’t going to be any ponies looking for me.” “It is not ponies that worry me.”  Gérard slid Scarlet Shimmer’s tent roll off off his back and began to assemble it, fumbling a bit with the unicorn-oriented design.  She watched for a moment before her horn lit and the shapeless mass popped into its proper form with a series of sharp clicks.  He snorted softly. “Tch.  Unicorn magic.” “What’s wrong with unicorn magic?” He paused in turning out the contents of his own, gryphon-style saddlebags.  “Wrong is not the correct word.  Dwgrhyfedd…”  He shook his head.  “I would have to teach you our tongue.  It is disconcerting for prey to have such powers at their disposal.” “Prey?”  Abruptly the weariness in her legs didn’t seem to matter so much.  She scrambled to her hooves, her ears flattened.  “Is that all we are?” He cocked his head at her.  “There are predators, and there are prey.  That is the nature of the world.” “Easy for you to say!  You’re not on the prey end of things.” Gérard deliberately looked down at the blood-tinged wrappings swathing his back and right side.  “Am I not?” Rose blinked at him. “Food, then bed.  No fire tonight.  Tomorrow morning we shall look at your maps and see what the best route is to the coast.” “Fine.” His constant commands were irritating, but not as terrifying as other pieces of conversation.  She started to remove her own tent, damaged though it might be, but Gérard disagreed without even looking up from his sorting. “One tent.  I don’t want to have to stay up all night listening to make sure you stay put.” She stomped a hoof, then stopped, feeling it was too petulant a gesture.  “I know I can’t do anything about this.  You don’t have to rub my face in it.” “What?”  He looked up at her, sounding genuinely baffled. “Treating me like a foal.  We both know I’m not as strong or as fast as you.  You could at least give me a little dignity.” Gérard turned to face her fully, eyes locked on hers with a predator’s focus.  “I am sorry, Rose,” he said.  “But how should I act?  We are adversaries, you and I.  It is your duty to escape or, failing that, ensure I do not complete my mission.  It is my duty to make sure I succeed.” “But then why keep me around?  You could kill me, take my maps, and be off on your own!”  She realized the insanity of arguing for her own death, but the gryphon’s behavior was so nonsensical she couldn’t leave it alone. “I may have to yet,” he said calmly.  “But one does not kill simply because it is convenient.  Death is too important to be treated so casually.” “Don’t you mean life is?” “No.” With his beak he tore a piece off a strip of something he’d produced from his bags, swallowing it hungrily.  Rose recognized it belatedly as dried meat and retreated queasily to the tent, only managing to down a pair of dried persimmons after her stomach settled.  She couldn’t decide which was worse, his habits or his conversation. By the time he climbed into the tent she’d hunched herself into her bedroll, as far from the opening as she could get.  She really didn’t want to think about sharing such a close space with a predator, and he was blessedly quiet, merely tying the tent closed and settling down just inside the entrance, leaving plenty of room between them. But she could smell him, sending a steady trickle of anxiety down her spine, and it was with that uneasy tension that she fell asleep. The nightmares, when they came, were oddly not of his talons and the feel of them pressed against her throat, but of his beak.  It tore at her, pulling off strips of Sharp Eye and Golden Glimmer and Mercy White, Sky Shadow and Scarlet Shimmer...leaving her a bare skeleton, and alone. She woke with a convulsive jerk, flooding the tent with warm golden light as she lit her horn by reflex.  For a vanishingly brief instant she could hope it had been a nightmare from beginning to end, and nothing was amiss with her world.  But then she saw his eyes shining back at her from the other side of the tent and knew that everything was wrong. When morning came, he didn’t need to wake her.  She was up, bone-weary and wary, the moment he stepped out of the tent. Rose wasn’t sure if what she had said the previous night had any impact, but he at least afforded her some privacy for her morning’s ablutions, and she finally was able to scrub away the dried gryphon blood in her coat.  By the time she was finished and had managed a meagre breakfast, Gérard had changed his bandages and was waiting for her.  “Could you get out the maps?” He asked politely. She stifled a no.  He was being more courteous, even if a refusal wouldn’t mean much.  It took but a moment to slide them out of her saddlebags, and he stepped over next to her to examine them. They were good maps.  The basic layout of Equestria had been copied from the Royal Archives, but the rest she had filled in herself.  It was mostly the work of her team, laying the groundwork for the supply chains that fed and armed and healed the ponies at the front, and partly the result of talking to other, similar teams on their brief stops in the forward bivouac.  It wasn’t just the topography and vegetation and rivers, but prevailing wind currents, local hazards, seasonal variations in the best routes.  They showed the connections between farm centers, mines, forges, and the staging points for the hazy line of the Equestrian Front. Gérard made a feline noise deep in his throat, reaching out to brush his talons against one of the unrolled sheets, then threw back his head and laughed.  It wasn’t a joyful sound.  It was pained, hysterical, born of a humor darker than night’s shadow.  She snapped the maps shut, taking several steps away from him as he clutched his beak with his talons to stifle the despairing laughter, his sides heaving. “Ow,” he said at last, the first concession he’d made to the grievous wounds hidden underneath the linen.  “Forgive me, Rose.  I was not expecting that.” “What, the maps?”  She frowned at him, more than a little put out by his reaction and suspecting that he really was more than a little insane.  “What’s wrong with them?” “Nothing at all.  They’re excellent maps, perhaps the best I’ve ever seen.”  He regarded her and them, running his talons through the deep blue fur that covered his head.  “And if I’d had them a year ago, we could have won the war.” She had a sudden urge to tear them into pieces, no matter that she’d worked on them for years, but he sighed and dropped his claws before she decided to follow through on it.  “Always too late.  Oh, you needn’t worry.  Even if I could magic these back to the front this instant it would change little.  The moment has passed.”  He waved at the rolled-up charts floating around her.  “Let’s see them again.  I’ll try not to upset you.” “It’s too late for that,” she muttered, but opened them again anyway.  The battle line was to the north, past the Foal Mountains, and while most of it was uninhabited and undeveloped, they’d still have to cross through Equestrian territory to get there.  That was fine with her, but she didn’t see how he thought he could get away with it.  Or for that matter, how he’d managed to get here in the first place. He reached out for the chart that showed the entire coast, tapping it with a claw.  She winced, but he was gentle enough that it didn’t tear the paper.  “There,” he said, pointing at the top spur of Horseshoe Bay.  “That’s where we’re headed.” “What  in Celestia’s name were you doing way down there?”  It was more or less the middle of nowhere.  The Hayseed Swamps covered the entire area, rendering it unfit for either pony or gryphon habitation.  That might change one day, but for now it was simply a big stretch of difficult wilderness. “It’s better you don’t know,” Gérard said seriously.  “When the time comes to ransom you back to Equestria, it is better that nobody feels you know something you shouldn’t.” “If it comes.”  She raised her eyebrows at him. “I would rather say when.  The ‘ifs’ are bad for either you or for me.”  His beak clicked shut on the beginning of more words and he shook his head.  “Where are we?” “You’re asking me?  You’re the ones that found us.” “I’m afraid things are much different on the ground than in the air.  But I suppose I should get used to it.”  He glanced back along her body.  “And from what I understand that mark means you are good at navigation.” “Yes.”  It was difficult to mistake the meaning of her namesake on her flank. “All right.”  She shifted charts.  “We’re here,” she said, putting her hoof on the campsite marker, southeast of where the Rambling River and the Everfree River joined into the great Baltimare.  “Or rather, about eight miles east given yesterday evening’s trek.”  Her horn shimmered as the cast a small spell, extending the track the appropriate fraction and adding a gryphon silhouette to it. “Only eight miles?”  He sounded disappointed.  “I would have thought we had gotten further.” “I’ve done a lot of walking.  I know how far we went.”  She retrieved a straight rule and did a few calculations, referring to her charts.  “Two hundred and twenty miles to your camp in a straight line.” He was silent.  They could both do the math.  Ten miles a day was probably the best they could hope to average, and a straight line wasn’t possible .“Well,” he said at last. “I suppose without you I would be lost.” “We can take the river for about fifty miles before it gets too dangerous,” she offered.  “From here to here.”  She slid her hoof along the map, stopping just before the Hayseed Swamps. “Perhaps,” he conceded.  “But we’ll have to stay out of the open.  We will simply go eastward for now, until we find a ford.” There was a ford to the west, but that was probably far too close to ponies for comfort, so it wasn’t worth a mention.  Rose carefully stowed the charts again, failing to stifle a yawn.  Ten miles wasn’t going to be possible today, at least. Despite stretching she could still feel yesterday’s exertions as a lurking tremble in her legs, not to mention the lack of sleep.  She’d had long days and bad nights before, but never that long or that bad. She turned her head, by habit looking for Sky Shadow to tell him of the day’s plans, but of course he wasn’t there.  He was in a grave eight miles away.  The pain struck her hard enough to drop her back to the ground, and she scrubbed at her muzzle with her hooves. “Are you well?” “Five of my friends were murdered yesterday,” she said fiercely, not looking up at him.  “How could I be well?” “Hmm.”  He replied, and left her alone.  She heard the sounds of him taking down the tent, clumsily, and other noises that she couldn’t identify, then silence.  Eventually his voice came from behind her right ear, making her jump.  “I am sorry, Rose, but we must get moving.  It is not safe here.” “For you or for me?” She asked bitterly as she clambered to her feet. “Yes.” She scowled at him and checked the sun, heading northeast.  Thankfully, Gérard didn’t try to push for the same pace, seeming content to follow her for the moment.  It made her shoulderblades itch, but it was just as well, because the gryphon was terrible at pathfinding. By actually watching where she was going and a spell or two, she was able to cover twice the distance with half the effort. Eventually he remarked on it.  “Are all ponies so adept in the wilderness?  I was given to understand ponies preferred tamed land.” Rose snorted, refusing to look back at him.  “Are all gryphons the same?  My special talent is finding a way, so that’s what I do.  I thought you knew about cutie marks.” “Tch.  I know the marks are important.  But they seem...uncertain.  Vague.” “Not to us.” “Hmm.”  Gérard fell silent again.  She risked a glance back and found him staring intently, even hungrily at her, making the skin on her back twitch of its own accord.  Even now that it seemed he wasn't intent on making a meal of her, his presence was uncomfortably, viscerally disturbing.  The thready trickle of fear dripping along her spine never really went away, even when he was being quiet enough that she couldn’t tell he was still there. By the time they broke out of the canopy a little past midday, into a narrow band of soggy grass bordering some unnamed tributary of the Baltimare, Rose’s legs were aching.  The ground squished somewhat alarmingly underhoof, a foretaste of the actual swamps downstream, but it was faster going than picking their way through the tangled undergrowth.  Behind her, Gérard made an unhappy noise but didn’t actually object, merely picking his way tentatively through the boggy ground. Rose found her way to the nearest stone, where moss kept it at least mostly dry, and dropped down to rest. Gérard crowded in beside her, shaking muddy water from his talons.  “A wonderful country,” he observed, wiping his hind feet off on the corner of the rock.  “At least, to fly over.” “We were avoiding the swamps,” Rose pointed out.  “It’s not worth it to lay track in a place like this.” “Why were you out here anyway?  There aren’t any pony settlements out here.  Or there weren’t, before the war.” She narrowed her eyes at him.  “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you,” she said pointedly.  “For your own safety.” He snorted.  “My safety is of little importance these days.  But your point is taken; keep your secrets if you must.  I am no inquisitor.” Gérard sipped water from a spouted canteen, then shook it, listening to the slosh.  “We will have to risk a fire this evening.  I would not trust this water straight from the source.”  He looked doubtfully at the sluggish stream. “Mmph.”  There had been a magic-powered distiller back at the camp, but it was Scarlet Shimmer’s, and she hadn’t thought to take it.  She relied on her team, just as they relied on her, and without them she was incomplete and off-balance. And lonely. It seemed to come in waves.  For a while she could lose herself in the travel, or even the occasional conversation, and feel some degree of normalcy.  And then something would suddenly bring it all back, and she’d be hit again by the realization that she was a prisoner a long way from home. She stood abruptly, taking several long steps away from the gryphon despite her weariness.  Gérard looked at her quizzically, his ears swiveled forward, his muscles going suddenly taut.  Ready to pounce.  She waved her hoof frantically at him.  “No, I just...I just need some air.” He inclined his head to her, relaxing ever so slightly, and she let out a long breath.  So the break wasn’t completely wasted, she pulled out the maps again, marking the agonizingly small progress they’d made and altering the bend of an uncertain blue line feeding into the Baltimare.  If she survived, at least she would have an incredible record of her journey.         If she survived.