Metro: Retribution

by RF and AG

Chapter 16: I'm on a Boat

        My eyes fluttered open briefly before shutting closed again, they felt as though there were weights attached to the eyelids. I had such a peaceful sleep too, and it came so easily for the first time in ages. No dream Khan there, no visions to annoy me, and best of all no mutants attacking me as I slept. That last one was less frequent, but probably the most annoying of them all.

        Wait … a peaceful and easy sleep? That wasn’t right, I never slept so soundly, or deeply; at least not since I left Exhibition. I forced my eyes open once more, pushing past the feeling of the being weighted down. It was a little blurry at first, but once my sight cleared up I saw where I was, or at least where I wasn’t.

The ceiling was completely made of wood, which was my first hint that I was not in the Crystal Palace or even on the train. The train at least had some sort of artistic styling covering the ceiling, while this was literally a wooden ceiling. A brown wooden ceiling that led to wooden walls. As my eyes continued to look around, there was something else I noticed, a sensation which came from my entire body, the feeling of still being in my armour, minus the weapons on my back.

I never slept in a room with my armour on, except when I was outside of a station.

It was at that thought that everything started to rush back to me. The first conversation with Cadance, that wasn’t surprising and yet had left me speechless, followed by the quiet and slightly awkward breakfast. Then the memory of Shining coming up to me with his plan to smuggle me out of Equestria via a large packing crate. Finally, my final conversation with Cadance which had ended abruptly with me passing ou-

“Ах ты ублюдок...” I said in a voice hardly above a whisper. That bastard had knocked me out back in the Palace. The moment I saw him, there would be hell to pay, and he would pay.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, forcing myself up into a sitting position. My entire body ached, which made sense since I was laying in one position for who knows how long. I still couldn’t get over the audacity that those ponies had to pack me into a crate. Yet at the same time, I couldn’t help but smirk at their creativity.

Despite how creative they were, Scowly was going to have a bad day the moment he showed his face around me. I grit my teeth in frustration, the audacity of what Shining had done was truly getting to me. Yet there was still a small feeling of being impressed with him, the pony had some brains, even if he didn’t use them right.

I was grimacing externally at that thought of being impressed with him, but I couldn’t help it. He had baited me with his wife in order to get me to drop my guard and let him do whatever he did to knock me out. Not to mention the fact that he had somehow snuck up behind me even with my good hearing, though I wouldn’t put it past him to have used his cheating abilities to do so. By cheating, I meant his magic, and whatever other bullshit that ponies had hide up their… sleeves?

Whatever, it wasn’t important. What was important was -

Knock Knock

My eyes bugged out briefly, head snapping to look at the door. If it was who I thought it was, I had to move quickly. It didn’t matter who it was, either way I was going to hide near the door. If it was a regular guard then I would let them pass, but if it was Shining …

Without a moment to hesitate, I leaped silently to my feet, crossing the room in a handful of strides. I was lucky that the wood underneath me was solid, not a sound was made as my feet deftly hit the floor, propelling me forward to my spot on the side where the door would open towards.

Knock Knock

“Artyom? You awake?” Shining called out from the other side of the door. I smiled almost maniacally, the anticipation of knocking him senseless filling my mind. Though… I couldn’t beat him up too bad, for I needed him in the Gryphon Empire … maybe just a choke hold and some body shots.

“Yes, come in.” I said, trying to make my voice as distant as possible. Hopefully he would buy it and come in, guard down and ready to be taught a lesson.

The door opened slowly, at first making me jump to the conclusion that he was being cautious. That of course was dismissed when he trotted through the door, head held slightly up. He was looking much more chipper today, or at least now. I didn’t know how long I was knocked out for after all.

The moment he cleared the door, I lunged. My arms wrapping around his neck and dragging him down with my momentum. The poor fucker must have been startled beyond a doubt for he wasn’t even able to coordinate himself right. There wasn’t much of a chance for that though, since the moment he was down, I rolled him on top of me to minimize his leverage, arms hooking around his neck in a tight chokehold while my legs wrapped around the lower half of his body, keeping him rather still.

My right arm was the one wrapped around his neck, gripping my bicep with all of my strength, while my left arm was hooked upwards to hold his horn. Now, I didn’t know if it would work, but I assumed that contact with the horn would cause a unicorn to be unable to cast spells. I was lucky that the gambit had paid off and Shining was unable to just magic himself away.

I don’t think the former guard pony had ever had training for such a situation, that or he just couldn’t react right, for all he did was flail about in my hold. It was rather humorous, to see Shining being beaten so easily, as well as seeing the fur on his face start to deepen in colour a little. That, to me, was beyond odd, since it would hardly make sense for his fur to change colour when it would only be his skin showing signs of asphyxiation.

Was his fur connected to his skin or something? Or was there even skin underneath the fur? Of course, that idea was scrapped for just being plain creepy. After a few more seconds of thought, I just chalked it up to another unexplainable feat that these ponies could pull off.

That line reminded me to check on how Shining was doing. Well, that, and the fact I could feel one of his forelegs tapping my side in a show of submission. Good, the bastard was starting to learn that even though he was my only support here, he couldn’t just do whatever he wanted with me.

After holding for a split second more, I let go of him in one shot. I didn’t ease him out of the choke hold, instead I just let go and pushed him off of me. The hacking and coughing coming from him didn’t deter me in using the heel of my boot to push him down, before giving a small and surprisingly gentle kick to the gut. After the chokehold though, the kick must have felt much harder to him.

“Never. Box. Me. Up. Again,” I stated, punctuating every word with a poke to his nose so that even his oxygen deprived brain could understand me. His head nodded up and down as he continued to gasp for breath, while his forelegs clutched his stomach.

My eyes didn’t move off of him, and for a good reason too. His horn gained a soft glow to it, which forced me to act quickly. There was no way that I would let him retaliate now, and not with his magic. So, once more, I quickly reached for his horn, wrapping my hand around it and cutting off his flow of magic.

“No magic. Agree and I let you up. Deal?” That was my offer and if he refused then he would just lay there, with my hand wrapped around his horn.

“Fine,” he choked out. Apparently, it took a long time for him to catch his breath, and here I didn’t think I choked him that hard. I was kind enough to actually let go of his horn, allowing him to get a soft glow to his horn. Oh no, he wasn’t going to go back on his word that quickly.

With a quick step as well as a quick arm action, Shining’s head reeled to the side with the residual force of my slap. He at first looked as mad as a drunk having his alcohol taken away, but when he got my glare and the sole finger pointing towards his horn, he calmed down. He must have realised that he went back on his word. I stepped back, giving him some space to which he utilized to sit down on his haunches and rub his neck gently with his hooves.

I, on the other hand, decided to pull a chair into the middle of the room. Yes, the room had a small table and two chairs to sit at. They were just like the rest of the room, made of wood. They were slightly varnished… or maybe polished, not sure, but either way they were not straight wood.

I spun around, to sit backwards on the chair, arms crossed over the back while my chin rested on them. I had no reason to fear retaliation, he even knew that he deserved it. Hell, I could have done much worse to him and hopefully that also was a thought in his mind.

“That … is a strong grip,” he said, rubbing his throat with his right forehoof. “Did you really have to hold the choke that tightly?”

I laughed out loud at his response, he had some set of balls on him. Once I stopped my small fit of laughter, my face hardened as I look back at him, “Could have gone harder. But then you would be on floor still.”

“Right, point taken,” he said as his forehoof now moved to rubbing the back of his neck while he looked away in a sheepish manner. “So, no hard feelings? Ya know… about the whole, me putting you in a box?”

“No, there is hard feelings, but we have more important task.” Yeah, I wasn’t going to let this slip away like that. I could see that there was a bit of defeat seeping into Shining’s face. I think it was only now that he was realizing the stupidity of his actions, as well as realizing that he wasn’t in direct control of me.

        He was slowly getting wiser and less hot-headed, even if he didn’t show it then.

“Where are we?” I asked, genuinely curious as to what was outside this wooden room.

Shining’s ears perked up at my question; he was undoubtedly glad to get away from the previous topic. “We are currently crossing over the Eastern Sea, also known as the Hoof-Claw Sea. Not really original, but I’m not one to argue with history and peace treaties.”

“So, we are on boat? A big boat?” I was a little confused, as I had never been on more than one of those small fishing boats from Tretyakovskaya station, otherwise known as Venice. Those were tiny boats in comparison to the one I was in, though that was just an assumption as I hadn’t seen anything more than the room I awoke in.

“Quite! This is actually a commercial passenger boat for the most part, but it is currently being, ahem, ‘utilized’ by the Royal and Crystal Guard,” he said, adding air quotations around utilized. That in itself was slightly humorous to see, as he had to sit on his haunches to mimic the action.

“I will have to see, later,” I said, rubbing my chin in thought before turning back to look Shining in the eyes. “How did you get me here?”

“That was actually pretty simple believe it or not,” he said with a chuckle but stopped when he looked upon my unamused face. “See, once you were carefully loaded into the train, we took off straight to Baltimare, I mentioned that city, right? Anyway, I had gotten in contact with the Royal guard battalion there earlier and they provided us with a cargo carriage to move you to the shipyards. I had to make sure that your respirator kept going though, since we were constantly prone to vegetation contact. From there it was just loading you up again before unpacking you in this room. Simple and efficient huh?”

“Quite,” I said lamely, deflating his little attempt at ego boosting.

“You truly do take the fun out of things, though I guess I can see why. Did I mention I was sorry for doing that? I was hoping you would just cooperate since then it would have just been easier, but either way I guess you were going to get magically knocked out. We didn’t have much choice, you have to realize that,” he said, trying to take a firm stand on the events.

“Still doesn’t earn trust,” I said in response. This was obviously an argument that wasn’t going to be won by either sides and we had more important things to worry about. “How long was I sleep?”

“Asleep? Not too long, just short of twenty four hours,” he said sheepishly, once more. I glared at him in response. “Hey, at least it killed a portion of the trip! We only have two more days till we end up in Ostia, which is the Gryphon capital by the way.”

I nodded simply, before standing up from my chair, moving to the door shortly after. I was not going to be cooped up in this room all day and if the guard had indeed commandeered the boat, I should have been able to walk around. Shining seemed to pick up quickly on what I wanted to do, moving to my side but not stopping me from going out the door.

“When I said ‘utilized,’ I meant that a whole crew of the Equestrian Navy have taken to crewing the boat. The ones who have any chance of meeting you, have been briefed on who you are, though I don’t expect you to run into them much, as it is. The deck is mainly clear except for a select few. Most of what the crew does now is below deck. Of course things were different when we were just using sails, but these new steam engines are a blessing.”

“Right, anything else?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t forget something important.

“Not really, you are somewhat free to roam around but under guard supervision, mainly to help keep you out of areas that would be prone to having ponies that aren’t sworn to secrecy. Though I doubt you will be using either one of the guards outside much, since I’m just the next door over. We got the only two VIP rooms on this boat, which also means we have access to the Captains and VIP dining room. It isn’t an impressive considering no matter what ship we used, we would have gotten the same thing.” Shining tapped his chin briefly before seeming to remember something as his entire being perked up slightly.

“I’m also going to need to brief you on the Gryphon Empire, just in case something happens,” he said as he rolled his hoof in a dismissive manner.

“What you mean? Are we not sneaking in?” I had assumed that was the only way to get me into the Gryphon Lands.

“That is the hope, but we should prepare just in case things go completely south,” he said, to which I nodded my head.

I grabbed the door knob, twisting then pulling open. I didn’t even realise that it somehow closed mid fight, but that didn’t matter anymore. The moment the door was open, Shining trotted through, with me in tow. The only reason I followed behind was because he at least knew where to go to get onto the deck of the ship.

I was a little surprised that there were no guards outside of my door, though I put it off as Shining not having assigned them yet. He probably wanted to wake me first, which wasn’t that good of an idea for him. Though he wasn’t exactly full of ‘good’ ideas lately, considering that he had done some pretty stupid stuff in the past few days.

The route to the deck was actually quick and simple, as all we did was turn right out of my room, turn left to walk up a small flight of stairs, and open a door. In all honesty, that had been the most enjoyable walk I ever had, short and hardly any stairs. Though of course there were some, I just accepted that if I were ever going to travel anywhere, there would be stairs to greet me. So why would a boat be any different?

I would have loved to ponder that question, but the smell of sea water hit my nostrils as Shining opened the door. How did I know that the smell was seawater, since I had never smelt it? Honestly, I just assumed it was, since the smell of salt was heavy in the air. It was a different scent than the rivers back home, the radiation though changed a fair amount of the smell, but I still remembered the fresh smell of water from when I was a child.

The next thing that hit me, when Shining opened the door, was the sheer brightness of the sun. I didn’t take my helmet, so there weren’t any sort of glass to potentially reflect the sunlight, no, I was taking the full brunt of the sun’s light straight into my eyes. It was momentarily blinding, forcing my hand to reach up and attempt to stop the light from entering my eyes. It felt weird not to see the outside in so long, even though most of my life was spent underground.

Of course, the direct sunlight back in Moscow was almost non-existent, except for a few rays seeping through the clouds every once and awhile. Here though, the sun was nearly blinding, so much in fact, that it made me wish I had kept a pair of sunglasses on my person. Though they would have been pointless except for right now.

“You look as though you’ve never seen the sun before!” spoke a voice that I didn’t recognize. I turned my head around to face where I had heard the voice coming from, squinting my eyes in the process to hopefully get rid of some of the glare.

It took a few seconds but when my vision cleared, I saw myself looking down at a pony who was wearing a white cap which had a black belt or something wrapped around it, and a black bill. On the hat was an embroidered picture of what appeared to be a sun and moon colliding. On this pony’s shoulders were a set of officer stripes laden on a small shoulder pad, but instead of there being stripes, they were stitched with with four alternating suns and moons. Yeah, this pony obviously was part of the Equestrian Navy, the symbolism was not lost on me.

The pony himself was a darker blue in colour, but not as deep as Luna’s coat colour. The pony’s mane was a bit grey in colour, making it seem as though he was a rather old stallion but with all the different colours that these ponies could take, I wasn’t too confident in that assumption. His fetlocks were much like Shining’s in that they were not perfectly trimmed, or maybe that was just how they were. Either way, this pony looked a little more gruff than Shining did, and that was apparent by the fact he has a moustache and beard.

        My mind completely blanked at the thought, not able to comprehend how a pony, who had fur in the first place, would have been able to grow a brown coloured moustache and beard, let alone facial hair! This wasn’t a choppy or scraggly looking beard either, this thing was full groomed and covered the entire bottom half of his face, which included along the sides of his muzzle. This was the type of beard that men aspired to have, and this stallion was defying nature by having it in the first place.

“No, I have seen sun. Just not so bright,” I said, finally finding my voice after the whole beard thing.

“Well it ain’t going to get any dimmer out here! The middle of the Hoof-Claw sea isn’t known for clouds unless a hurricane sweeps through, but we’re expecting clear skies the entire trip,” he said, beaming slightly. Without hesitation, the moment he finished talking, he reached up under the embroidered pads on his shoulders and fished out a pipe. As he plopped it into his mouth, he tilted his head to Shining. As if on instinct, Shining’s horn began to glow softly which caught my attention until the smell of tobacco hit my nostrils. I moved my gaze back upon the pony with the hat to see him taking small puffs out of his pipe.

“Name’s Admiral Galleon, and this boat that we have underneath us, is named The Fair Mare of Baltimare,” he said proudly, even though Shining had told me it was a commercial ship.

Somehow, the absolute silliness of the name was completely lost on him and Shining, while I was groaning heavily within my head. I dearly hoped the Gryphons didn’t have the same type of pun issue.

“Now, Artyom, I am assuming that Prince Shining Armor here has explained what is going on. Now, the deck here will only be of use to those who know of you and are sworn into secrecy so don’t go worrying your pretty little head off. All the crew that you see here and those below deck are completely out of uniform, since we are trying to pass as a commercial vessel, but that doesn’t mean they won’t give you a licking if you stir up trouble.” I couldn’t say that I was surprised that he would give me a speech like that, of course I should have been more surprised that he was so calm about what I was. I took a deep breath and inhaled more of that tobacco, but noticed there was a second smell hidden in there; a smell I knew all too well and explained why he was so calm.

“Right, well I have to be off. First Mate ain’t got a clue on how to navigate this thing, he’s a replacement after all,” Galleon said before turning and walking through a set of doors just behind us. They weren’t the ones which led down to our rooms, but instead they were right next to those ones. Probably a command area or something to that extent, but all of that was beside the point.

I turned my head back from Galleon and gazed upon the rest of the boat and the seemingly never-ending blue that surrounded it. While I didn’t show it outwardly, I was amazed by what I was seeing. Never in my life had I seen so much water, so much pure, clean water. It seemed to roll with the boat, parting slightly and continuing on. The sun reflected off the almost mirror like sea, making everything even more brighter. To see such a thing … it made me feel like a child again; first seeing the Garden’s in Moscow, or taking a ferry ride along the river.

“Hey, you going to just stand there all day? We’ve got some stuff to talk about,” I heard Shining’s voice ring out to my left which would have been the starboard side, if I remembered my ship terms correctly.

I turned around to find him sitting down at a table, one of many in the middle of the deck. They were probably built there so the passengers could eat outside or something, either way I made my way over to him. He was right after all, we did have a lot to talk about. Wasting no time, I walked over to the table, sitting myself down across from him. I noticed out of the corner of my eyes that ponies were looking at us, and Shining apparently noticed as well. He turned his gaze upon each one, forcing them to look away in a small show of defeat. Eventually the ponies went back to whatever they were doing, leaving me and Shining to have our conversation without being eavesdropped upon.

“As I said earlier, though we plan to sneak you in, I would also like to give you some knowledge about the Gryphons. If things go south, we will have to move you through the city in public,” Shining said.

“How will public react?” I asked, that being my first thought when Shining mentioned moving me through the public.

“Well, we’re a little bit lucky that the Gryphons are more accepting of beings that are not commonly seen. They don’t exactly fear anything, so as long as you don’t pose a threat to anyone the most attention you’ll get is a few glances or glares. Just keep by me and we can play it off as you being a member of my guard or something, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

“Now, from what you told us, the place you are looking for is basically in the heartland of the Gryphon Empire, though at the same time far enough away from civilization that we will not be intruded upon by any unwanted gryphons. Once we get outside of Ostia, we will be moving by hoof the entire way. There are pockets of badlands spread through the Empire, we will be sticking close to those to ensure that you can actually get sleep without worrying about running out of air.”

“Nice of you, Shining,” I said, a little surprised that he took that into account.

“Does it make up for the boxing issue?” Ah, there was the reason.

“No.”

He turned his head down and mumbled something that I couldn’t hear, but it was most likely some sort of curse at me. After he was finished with his mumbling, he looked back up. “Right, so, either way, the whole trip should be simple enough, get in, get out and no issues. I’ve been in contact with Cadance and she told me that the Ambassador in Ostia said that Alfasia was abandoned long ago when an earthquake struck the place. The city, for the most part, was pulled underground, leaving only a handful of destroyed buildings above ground.

“I don’t know who we can get in, but we also don’t know exactly what the place looks like. So when we get to Alfasia, we will most likely be staying for some time until you either find what you’re looking for or we give up. Because of this, we will be picking up a food drop halfway to Alfasia. We’re lucky that the Ambassador can pull some strings.”

“He knows about me?” I asked, slightly hesitant on having more and more know about my presence.

“No, he is in the dark with regards to the reason as to why we are is going to be sneaking into the Gryphon Empire. He’s also not been informed with regard to your species or psychological and historical profile, not that we have much in terms of that anyways. All he knows is that I and a small party are conducting an archaeological expedition into Alfasia. For the most part, Artyom I want you to trust me and let me handle the situations. Once we get to Alfasia, you can take over, since you’re the expert at being underground,” Shining stated.

“Flattery goes nowhere, Scowly.”

“Damn… and you even brought back the nickname. Come on, was it really that bad?”

“How did you put me asleep,” I countered his question with my own.

“It’s ‘to sleep,’ and I did it with a simple sleep spell. Learned it when Cadance was having nightmares after our wedding,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

I merely perked a brow in interest, as well as a show of mocking whatever had happened. If she got nightmares after their wedding, then the wedding must have been a massive screw-up. Of course I had no idea what the truth was, so for all I knew it could have been something truly gruesome.

“I’ll… I’ll explain later. Anyway, I just used that spell but with a small difference. Since you’re bigger than Cadance and we had no clue as to your magical resistance, I cranked the spell’s intensity up a fair amount and that is saying something considering that Cadance is an alicorn. Either way, I might have gone overboard and that was why you were asleep for so long,” he said, once more rubbing the back of his neck. If he didn’t stop soon, he could possibly lose all the fur from that spot.

I was about to reply, but was interrupted as the food finally arrived. It wasn’t much more than some pasta, but it had to be better than the attempts at pasta back in the Metro. That was from cans that had nearly expired or had been baked in radiation.

The moment the pony set the plates down and the utensils, I was digging into the pasta. I was hungry, so hungry, in fact, that I almost hadn’t noticed him shakily put a glass of water in front of me before backing away. It was weird that the pony was still afraid of me, yet he was most likely briefed on everything. It made me wonder what the difference was between that sole pony and the Admiral. At first I thought that maybe this ship did have some sort of civilian presence on it, but looking up from my pasta told me otherwise, as the pony who served us was dressed in a naval uniform.

I simply shrugged, not really caring about that thought. It wasn’t something important to what was going on, nor was it worthwhile thinking about. Maybe I would ask Shining or maybe I wouldn’t, either way, the pasta was a more important issue. I never considered myself one to indulge in exquisite culinary cuisine… mainly because the Metro lacked anything truly remarkable in terms of food. Now though, it was tough to think of eating anything else but Equestrian food. I had nibbled at the forbidden fruit before indulging in the entire orchard.

It took me a little under ten minutes to fully finish the food, which ended up being more than just the pasta. Apparently, during my all out feast on that dish, that ‘waiter’ brought out baked potatoes. At first, I was at a loss as to what it was, other than being a potato, but eventually I remembered that my mom had cooked them a few times. Once I realized just what they were and how to eat them, I dug in eagerly. They even had real butter!

Once the potatoes were eaten, I leaned back slightly on my seat, not to far though since it didn’t have a back rest. That meal hit the spot, and I was blissfully content with everything so far, but that feeling was ruined a little when Shining spoke up.

“Good meal huh? Despite what they have to work with, the cooks are good. Though we might have just gotten lucky with who was cooking,” he said, still nibbling on a baked potato. He took another bite and swallowed before speaking again. “So, we only have an hour left up here before the rest of the crew are given time up on deck. Anything else you want to know?”

I cocked an eyebrow at him before speaking. “You are nicer. Why?”

He looked confused at my question, not sure how to answer. He was about to counter my question with another, I was sure, but I stopped him by holding up my hand. He had picked up fast on what that gesture meant or maybe the Equestrians had a similar gesture with their hooves.

“Let me re state. You are… more open… friendlier? Speak more willing, and so on.”

He looked at me for a second, though that confused look had faded from his face. No, instead he was looking a little sheepish, as if he had forgotten to tell me something. Once more, his hoof was rubbing the back of his neck, probably encouraging the balding of that area.

“You see…” he coughed into his hoof briefly, “Cadance had a ‘little’ talk with me before we met up and before I boarded the train. I might have gotten the brunt force of a backlash from her.”

I glared slightly at him, if that was true than I was mightily disappointed in my travelling companion for bowing down so easily as well as that being the only reason to treat me better. I folded my arms as I continued to glare at him.

In return, his eyes hardened a little as he took a stand. “While she might have given me a verbal thrashing, that doesn’t mean that you should expect this all of the time. I’m only trying to be nicer so that we aren’t at each other's throats but I swear, if you do something to make me regret giving you a chance…”

Ahh, there was the Scowly I had grown to love… not really, but it sounded funnier. I folded my arms, a smirk replacing my frown as my eyes also lessened. It was hardly more than a second later before I gave a hearty chuckle at this. To be honest, I was glad that he wasn’t going soft on me, that just meant his reactions would be more hilarious when I proved to him what I could do.

“Good,” I said. Nothing more, since it seemed to deflate his little speech.

“Whatever…” he mumbled just barely loud enough for me to hear. He then proceeded to lean back a bit, lifting his gaze to the sky before taking a single deep breath. When he levelled his gaze back on me, I was greeted by his normal look that constantly lacked enthusiasm. “Listen, I need to explain a little bit about the gryphons. Not much, mind you, but just enough so that if we do have to go with the more public approach, you won’t be gawking constantly. Ever seen one? Rhetorical question, I know but trust me when I ask you this,” 

I just shook my head in response, keeping my mouth closed until it really called for it. If he had to give me a fair amount of information then I wanted to absorb it all before interrupting him. Maybe it would teach him a thing or two about manners… heh.

“Much like ponies, little is known about how they came to be, thanks to Discord mind you, but that is a different topic. Anyway, they are basically half bird and half lion, though if you were to simplify it to that they would most likely kill you out of having their honor disgraced. Their front half is of avian descent while the back is lion, and if you ever ask one what bird their front half is of, Celestia forbid you do that in the first place, ask if they are eagle or falcon for good measure. Actually, just don’t ask in general… in fact, you should just let me do the speaking.”

To that, I just rolled my eyes before doing the same with my right hand, that gesture was to encourage him to divulge more information for me to work with. I was lucky that I was rather well read or else his explanation of what a gryphon was, would have went right over my head. A mixture of stories, Greek myths, and even a faint memory of a lion from the zoo helped piece together what he described them as.

“Right, now according to all of our history books, the Gryphon Empire has been around roughly as long as ours, but not longer than the dragons, but that is just speculation considering more than enough knowledge was destroyed by Discord. It matters little, since the most important thing that you remember about the Gryphon Empire is that, while Equestria has a fair sized military, the gryphons are a militaristic society, focusing on developing soldiers. Each gryphon, upon reaching the age of sixteen, must enlist within one of the branches of the military, navy, or air force. After a three year service, they may leave and find another occupation. So, assuming you put the pieces together, it should be obvious what I am trying to tell you.”

“Gryphons know their shit,” I said with a smirk. I couldn’t have chosen a better answer based on Shining’s reaction. He froze in place for a few seconds before his head smacked the table, well it was his muzzle that made it to the table first, followed by his horn and forehead. Either way, it was a glorious thing to watch, mainly because I was still ticked at him for the box incident, but also because it was fun to tease him.

Once more he mumbled something under his breath… or maybe it was out loud, I couldn’t exactly tell since I was pretty sure the table was currently in his mouth partially. Either way, it took him a few seconds of wallowing in shame for him to raise his head to look at me. When he did, his eyes were once again in that unamused look that he seemed to always have.

“Right, moving on…” he said before coughing into his hoof. “The plan to smuggle you through is much like how we moved you to Baltimare, except you will need to be awake since it is a quick trip. The ambassador has an estate, given to him by the Emperor, outside of the city so that will be our staging area. Our cover story is that the crate contains sensitive material that the ambassador will need to look through before handing it over to the Emperor. We’ve done something like this before, though I wasn’t leading the operation.”

“So… for sure fail then?” I snickered at his expense. He just groaned before continuing.

“Either way, the guards are not allowed to open the crate due to multiple security clauses in our recent addendum to our peace treaty with the gryphons. From there everything becomes easy. When we get near the gates, we will stop for a moment in which I will speak to the guards who are carrying you, regarding if they are tired or not. That will be your cue to put your mask on, if you haven’t before hoof, since there will be vegetation outside of the city. Overall, everything should go smoothly.”

“I am amazed. Simple, yet covers bases. I approve,” I said, genuinely honest with my response. Shining had indeed come up with a good plan, but I still had one issue. “When will I go in box? Guards can search ship in port or not?”

“They can only do a ship sweep once the captain registers with the docks. Most of the time the guards will meet the ship at the exact port but thanks to our relations with the Empire, they are usually a little more lax and tend to allow the captain to do it himself. They keep watch, mind you, but that should mean that we have time to stuff you in a box, awake this time like I said before.”

“Ahh…” I said, before moving my hand to scratch my chin. “Good plan, see you later.”

The quick exit must have caught him completely off guard, since his eyes bugged out slightly. Why he did that at me leaving so quickly was a mystery to me. It wasn’t like I had just thrown a sailor over the side of the ship or anything.

“W-what? That’s it?”

I simply smiled at him for a moment before replying. “Yes, that is it. Нельзя же постоянно над тобой прикалываться.”

With that, I walked back to the door to the stairs, leaving Shining sitting at the table. It was getting dark anyways and we were nearing the time for the other sailors to get their time on the deck. Even though it didn’t seem like it, time had flown by and the sun was on its course to set. I had honestly lost track of time slightly, the whole being knocked unconscious thing had really screwed my sense of time.

It was a little test of perceptiveness, keeping my attention focused on Shining’s speech and lesson while also noticing where the sun was and how long we had ‘til the rest of the crew was allowed on the deck. I had been caught too unaware in the past little bit and I needed to get back on top of my game. Little exercises like that were always a good way, though it was something that I came up with. Though the Rangers from Sparta were amazing soldiers, there was always one thing that Miller told me I had over them; that was my awareness of my surroundings.

This also helped me to identify that the guards that were now posted outside of my door were the same one that had guarded me back in Canterlot. How curious… though I didn’t say anything about it nor show any physical signs that I had picked up on something. I knew in my mind that there was something else going on here and it involved Celestia and Luna somehow. For the moment though, I needed to keep it to myself as any one of these ponies could be in on this… or I was being paranoid again.

I simply shrugged at it, now was not the time to deal with it. Despite me being knocked unconscious for nearly a full day, I was actually feeling rather tired. Maybe it was the fact that the sleep wasn’t natural, or maybe that little bit of wrestling with Shining was more exhausting than what I thought, though I couldn’t see that being the case.

I froze momentarily, contemplating if maybe I had a concussion of some sort, but dismissed it quickly since I hadn’t shown any other signs, and I knew them all too well. Mainly from treating others, but I definitely had smacked my head enough times to get a concussion or two. Eventually I figured that worrying about the ‘why’ wasn’t worth it, all that mattered was that the bed looked comfy and my entire being really desired to lay in it. That desire was soon fulfilled as I flopped down on the bed, though not in my gear, which was actually lying on top of the sole table in the room. I had stripped down to my under clothing during my process of contemplating why I was so tired. It was usually easier to get it off then put it on, but wasn’t that normally the case?

I was lying face down on my bed, head just off to the side of my pillow; I had found out a long time ago that lying face down on your pillow would often spur lower back problems. I definitely did not need to be out due to a lower back problem.

I laid that way for what felt like an hour before flipping over onto my back, staring up at the wooden ceiling. I usually thought the best when I laid in my bed, it felt like a safe haven, a port in the storm of whatever I was currently dealing with. This time though, I had nothing to really contemplate… well, that wasn’t exactly true. There was many things that I could think about.

Be it the possible ulterior motives of the Princesses, or even the cause for the skittishness of the crew on the ship. Maybe I could have thought about why I was assigned the same guards as I got when I was at the castle, or maybe my mind could have drifted towards what would happen when we docked in Ostia. Those were all possibilities yet none of them could hold my attention long, maybe I underestimated how tired I was.

I sighed out loud before rolling onto my side, my eyes closing in an attempt to fall asleep. I calmed my breathing and focused on keeping my mind clear of any thoughts, a practice I had been doing back in D6 so I could actually get some sleep.

It didn’t take too long before I was out cold, my mind slipping into a comforting void, and not surrounded by a makeshift dream and Khan.