//------------------------------// // Bon Voyage // Story: Guiding Him Down a New Path // by Sai-guy //------------------------------// As I flicked the door closed with my tail, I had to keep myself from sighing. I knew that Guiding would hear it with those sharp ears of his, and I didn’t want him to worry any more for me than he already was. Let him think he’d made everything better. I took wing and headed for the library. He actually had made it better, though. It was just that things weren’t completely alright. The way that chick had stared at me with those wide eyes haunted me. It had been a long, long time since I’d been looked at with fear like that. I wasn’t a bully! I was just strong and didn’t always stop to think. And then things like that happened, and I ended up looking like some sort of overgrown monster in front of a kid. I hit my forehead with my hoof a few times, thinking about how stupid I’d been. Guiding had warned me, but I’d just ignored him like an idiot. I was lucky they were griffons — if they’d been ponies, there’s no way her parents would let her stay with me. Oh Celestia, what if I’d done that in front of my little Star? I felt tears threaten to spill down my cheeks, and I saw some of the clouds ahead of me darken. I wiped my eyes and shook my head, forcing a smile onto my face. This negativity was getting me nowhere. I was still going to take care of Gabriella, after all. Plus, Guiding had given me a wonderful plan to train her, and I’d see my little Star soon. The library was only a couple minutes’ flight away by now; I could see its roof among the others and its decorative carvings on the upper level. I laughed. It was quite a relief that Rising wasn’t pointing out how it was called a relief for the hundredth time. I swear, that colt would read random pages from the dictionary for fun one day and a fantasy novel the next. It didn’t make looking for him in a library very easy; he could be in any section, really. I made a quick circuit of the building and looked in each of the windows. It was still a bit early for him to be here, but it didn’t hurt to check. After a couple minutes of searching and finding neither hide nor hair of him, I winged my way off towards his school, which was only a few blocks away. Some nice city designer had been kind to the bookish foals and put the library right next to the school. As I made the short flight there, I scanned the ground for Rising’s telltale red and green. Finally, I spotted him arriving at the other side of the street the school was on. I smiled and swooped down to scoop him up. “Whoa! Hi, Mom!” “Hello to you, my little Star!” He fidgeted in my forelegs. “Mooom, not right in front of the school…” I nuzzled him too, and a faint blush shone through his coat. I smirked as I flew back to the library. “What, Mom isn’t cool enough to love you?” “No, y— I mean yes.” I laughed as I turned over to backstroke through the air, letting him sit on my barrel. “Oh, and going to the library almost every day is cool?” He nodded. “It is since I started doing light shows about the books!” I blinked. Since when did he do that? “What do you mean, Rising?” He closed his eyes and scrunched up his face as his horn glowed, and a caricature of a pegasus joined us in the sky. It was the same red color as his magic, and the proportions were a bit odd, but it was clearly a pegasus. This was a fairly common type of magic to see… from teenagers. Rising was nine. I stared at the little thing for a few moments, collecting myself. The way he’d said it sounded like he did this pretty often, so this wasn’t a fluke. Things like this made it hard for me to believe that our son was going to just end up taking over the business. Still, thinking about things like that wasn’t exactly what I needed to do right now; I had to figure out how to tell Rising that we were going to have a house guest while Guiding was away. As we passed over the edge of the library’s roof, I flipped back around and placed him down. His eyes were still closed as he kept the little figure flying in a circle around us. “Star, think you could make a griffon?” He looked up at me, and the caricature of his flickered and died. “Uh, yeah! I made one last week, I think. Let me just…” He shut his eyes again, and the tip of his tongue poked through his lips as he lit his horn. A vaguely griffon-shaped thing appeared in the air between us. The tail definitely looked like a pony’s, and the front legs were little more than sticks, but the beak looked pretty close to correct. “Hmm,” I said, looking at it, “that’s pretty good, but you might want to get a little better.” Frowning, he tilted his head and blinked up at me. “Why?” he asked as the griffon-thing vanished. Here we go. “Well, because one is going to be living in the room across from you till your father gets back, starting the day after tomorrow.” He stared up at me. “Surprise!” He sat down and crossed his forelegs. “There’s a griffon in my grade. Nopony likes him.” “Oh, Star, you know how your father feels about someone not getting a fair shake because of who they are.” I sighed. “He’d be disappointed that you’re acting like this.” He looked down at his hooves. “Sorry…” I put the tip of my hoof under his chin and made him look up at me, then I gave him a smile. “All you have to do is give her a chance. She seems like a nice griffon to me.” He grasped my hoof to stand. “Yeah, I’ll give her a chance. Dad can count on me!” Beaming, I offered him a hoof bump, and he accepted. “That’s what I like to see, enthusiasm! Now, let’s go learn about griffons!” He jumped up and followed me through the rooftop entrance usually reserved for pegasi. As it turned out, going to the library had been a bad idea. Far too many of those books had been about how warlike griffons had been in centuries past. It was hard to find much of anything about the last few hundred years of peace. That was probably why, as the griffons walked towards the ship, I heard Rising say, “But they have claws!” Guiding raised an eyebrow, looking at our son. “Yes, and?” “And paws too!” Guiding sighed. Smart as Rising was, nine was nine. “That’s not what I meant, Rising.” We both agreed that bringing him down to the docks was important. It helped broaden his horizons by exposing him to others who spoke, acted, or were just biologically different. He was sure taking these griffons better than he had reacted to seeing his first sea serpent, which was with open-mouthed terror. It was good progress. My husband looked to me, probably wanting a little backup. I tousled Rising’s mane then turned his head to look up at me. “My little Star, your father is doing business with these people, just like that dragon last fall. Don’t you remember how that went?” He hopped into the air. “He let me play with his fire! We even sculpted it!” I scooped him up with a wing and placed him on my back. “Yes, he turned out to be quite nice even with all his claws and spines. Now, look on the wife’s back. What do you see?” From his higher vantage, I was sure that he’d be able to see the chick, who stared around at everything from her mother’s back. I could be a clever pony when I wanted to be… if I had a couple days to work on a plan. We very neatly mirrored the approaching mercenaries, given that female griffons were larger than their male counterparts, like I was bigger than Guiding. “Oh, she’s got a little filly on her back.” “Remember, griffons call them chicks,” I said, “but anyways, now look at us.” They were almost to us by now, only a single ship away. I wondered if my little Star’s brilliant mind could piece together what I meant before they got to us. Peeking over my shoulder, I watched him look back and forth between us and them, his face scrunching up in thought. “Oh,” he said as they reached the gangplank. “Ooh!” Ah, that’s my colt! The family waited for a couple of dockworkers, a unicorn and earth pony team, to climb aboard with the last load of cargo, then they headed up. Personally, I would have just flown over. We had discussed the details of Gabriella’s stay yesterday, so luckily, her parents had dropped the formalities. Guiding and I greeted them, and I motioned for Rising to do the same. He nodded, turned, and walked the couple steps to the end of my back. I flicked my tail out into a sort of makeshift slide, and he slipped down to the deck. Meanwhile, Gabriella hopped off her mother’s back and landed between them. After they’d said their hellos, Rising and Gabriella both stared at each other, but when my husband cleared his throat, Rising’s head whipped around to stare at him. “The cargo is all loaded, and the tide turns soon. It’s almost time to set sail,” he said as the dockworkers came back out of the hold. Rising had long since gotten used to how this went, so he reached up and hugged Guiding around the neck. It occurred to me that the next time this happened, he probably wouldn’t need to reach up at all. He was pretty tall for somepony without his cutie mark, and Guiding had always been stocky. A squawk flattened my ears, and it took me a split second to realize that it was the griffons talking to their daughter. I was sure what they were saying must have been touching and heartfelt, but it was killer on the ears. As if connected by some sort of magical bond of parental bond, we all bent and nuzzled our respective children at the same time. I smiled and chuckled to myself, wishing there were somepony to take a picture and capture the moment. Then it was over, and Rising walked to the gangplank, then the griffons sent Gabriella along with him and waved. I stayed with my husband for a moment longer and pulled him in for a kiss. “I love you, dear,” I whispered. “Have a safe voyage, and hurry home. I’ll miss you.” He pressed his forehead against mine, the sounds of the docks fading away till all that mattered was the sound of our breaths mingling. He didn’t say anything, but I knew. It killed him to leave us like this… and the same went for me. His lips barely touched the end of my nose, then he pulled back just like the tide was about to. I heaved a sigh that only shook a little before I went over to Gabriella and my son. We walked down the ramp together as Guiding shouted orders to his crew. I found I just didn’t want to fly, not then. A unicorn stowed the gangplank away after we got off it, and we stood on the dock, watching as the unicorns magicked the mooring lines off the bollards. In short order, the Dancing Leaf cast off, leaving us waving to our loved ones. I found it touching that the griffons joined Guiding and the rest of the crew who could spare the time to wave. But it couldn’t last. After only a few minutes, they had to attend to their duties, leaving the railings, the port, and their families behind. I turned to look at my son and my new charge. “Well,” I said, “it’s time to head home.”