Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
March 24th, Gregorian Calendar
"April?"
A moment passed, and Sonya repeated her query with more force.
"*April!*"
The younger girl shifted in surprise, and sheepishly brushed away a lock of her hair, looking down at her sister as her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
"Sorry! Sorry! I was just..."
Sonya rolled her eyes, and gestured forcefully to the pavement beside her.
"You were just lost in another world again. Come on. We've been here five minutes too long already."
April sighed, and leapt from the top of the fire escape. The six stories passed in an increasingly elongated blur, and she momentarily found herself reflexively slowing, her telekinetic amp humming quietly, before alighting gracefully in the alley alongside her sibling.
As the two girls set off at a comfortably paced run, April glanced up at Sonya and pursed her lips.
"Do you think we could learn to fly with our spikes?"
Sonya snorted, and shook her head emphatically, her hair bobbing wildly around her ears as she pulled a sharp turn onto a deserted sidewalk.
"Of course not. Think about what kind of work it takes to lift heavier masses, or throw them. Now try to imagine doing that every second for even a minute, while still maintaining precise control."
April frowned, and returned her gaze to the pavement sullenly.
"Oh."
Sonya sighed, and steeled herself as she indulged her curiosity.
"Why the sudden obsession with flight anyhow? You've spent half of the last hour looking up at the sky like you wished you lived there."
April smiled slightly, and took a flying leap over a dumpster that threatened to block her path.
"I... Guess I do. The Gryphons look like they're so... Free up there..."
Sonya winced, and weaved to avoid an oddly placed stone buttress.
"This again?"
April frowned, and glared, nearly missing her cue to duck, and avoid a poorly hung steel pipe.
"Look at them Sonya! They aren't prisoners of anyone. Not even *gravity.* They're not like the Ponies either. They can *fight!* How could you not dream about being what they are?"
Sonya sighed once more, and her expression softened. She slowed her pace slightly, and glanced down at her sister with a sad half-smile.
"I do dream about it too... But I guess I've just learned not to hope the same way you do. All I can ever think when I try to imagine being one of them is to worry whether or not they're everything they seem to be."
April shook her head, and returned the smile wit an equal measure of melancholy.
"Sonya! You have to have a little faith."
Sonya barked out a harsh laugh, and quickened her pace once more, darting around a broken storm grate, and into an immense street-level drainage pipe.
"I can't afford faith sis. I work based on one thing and one thing only. Survival instinct."
April frowned again, and offered her sibling a concerned glance.
"But Sonya... The whole point is to get away from this kind of life? Isn't it? At some point, don't you have to have faith in something?"
Silence reigned, punctuated only by the slap-slap-slap of the sisters' disheveled footwear against the standing puddles of water in the tunnel. Sonya had no answer.
Just when Neyla began to wonder if Fyrenn had spent his childhood living out of a cave in the mountains, the Gryphons at last arrived at their destination.
As Fyrenn alit upon the red sand of the front yard, Neyla appraised the house carefully. It was a simple wooden two-story dwelling that looked as if it were close to two hundred years old. Adjoining the main structure was an empty garage.
The only thing that seemed out of place was a small mobile storage container, parked directly in the front drive.
Fyrenn gestured to the shipping container, and nodded.
"When I went in for service, I had most of my things from college and the academy boxed up and put into storage."
Neyla raised an eyebrow and gestured to the house.
"You never sold it?"
Fyrenn shook his head, and stared forlornly up at the peak of the roof.
"Couldn't. This area fell apart after the Phoenix Conversion Riots. Almost everyone buying in the market these days wants to live closer to city center. So it just kind of... Sat."
Neyla slowly made her way across the yard to stand beside her friend.
"Well, it's beautiful. And in remarkable condition too for a structure so old."
Fyrenn chuckled briefly.
"Yeaaaah well, it's been refurbished several dozen times over the centuries. It would probably qualify as one of the oldest buildings in the city, actually. It certainly beat living in a flat."
The red Gryphon turned away from the house, and made his way quietly to the front of the shipping container. With a deft series of strokes, he entered the key combination from memory, and the door clanked, and swung open.
Fyrenn stepped gingerly into the container, and Neyla followed as closely as she dared.
Once inside, she paused and blinked rapidly, carefully taking in the array of objects that confronted her.
The center of the container was free of clutter; A pathway of sorts. There were several dozen sealed storage crates, ten upright cabinets with clear glass doors, and a desk physically bolted to the floor.
Neyla found that the most interesting sights, initially, were held by the glass cases.
As Fyrenn began to peruse the desk, she carefully examined the contents of the structures in turn. The first contained something she recognized as a Cadet's daily-use uniform. It was an all black jacket and pants, with blue piping on the legs of the latter, and the collar of the former.
A series of awards studded the left breast, and a pair of crossed swords adorned the left collar tab, along with a collection of rank bars.
"This was yours?"
Fyrenn glanced up, paused, and nodded.
"I didn't go to college in the traditional sense. I knew I wanted to be a pilot, so I went to an attached military tactics program. The idea was that I would go from there straight into a basic officer position, do my time in whatever branch they plopped me in, and from there transfer to aviation basic."
Neyla stared back at the uniform and sighed.
"And when you lost your eyes... That was in the process of serving your mandatory time in the branch they assigned you?"
Fyrenn's voice fell as he pried open another drawer.
"Yes."
Neyla allowed the conversation to lapse momentarily as she examined the next item in the case. A black and red graduation robe. She stepped slowly, and carefully, to the next upright cabinet.
It was full of weapons. Two military standard issue assault carbines, a rail-snipe, and a dozen small laser pistols and rail pistols of various description.
"These are all yours?"
Fyrenn chuckled as he leafed through a sheaf of old-style papers in a folder.
"Of course. You are talking to someone who, literally, majored in the art of war. Weapons, tactics, history... I lived and breathed this stuff practically since I was old enough to understand the idea of a tank, or a plane."
Neyla smiled briefly, and turned to face the opposing row of cabinets. She was confronted with a fully assembled military grade flight suit, complete with hardened light armor panels and a full helmet.
"I thought you said you never flew..."
Fyrenn looked up, and sighed, his beak twisting into a sad smile.
"That was Dad's. He flew mostly F-25Rs, with a few stints behind the stick of an E-9C electronic warfare jet."
Neyla closed her eyes, and shook her head.
"The latter I am familiar with, but I have to confess that I have never seen an F-25R."
Fyrenn moved to stand beside the Gryphoness, and stared lovingly at the flight suit.
"The Morningstar was a sort of spiritual predecessor to the Scythe. They were almost all two-seaters actually. I used to think of Dad's RIO as a sort of adopted uncle. He died in the same accident they did. It was stupid actually. Really really stupid."
Neyla didn't press the issue, but to her surprise, Fyrenn pressed on as he returned to the desk.
"Mom went out on what they called a 'Tiger Cruise,' to visit Dad on the carrier. At the end, she, Dad, and my Uncle were supposed to come home together on the daily transport."
Fyrenn glared down at a stubborn drawer that refused to open. As he continued to speak, he applied increasing force to the handle, "They, and fifteen other crew and their spouses, all died when the transport pilot made a 'critical error.' He had been juicing on something nasty, and his judgement was all over the place. He set the flaps wrong, the catapult went off, the plane went up..."
At last, the Gryphon's emotions overpowered his control. He ripped the drawer directly from the structure of the desk with a startling 'BANG!'
"...And then the plane went down. At full throttle. Right into the sea. They couldn't even recover enough pieces of bodies to bury anything but empty coffins."
He paused, and glanced up at Neyla, the remains of the drawer dangling from his left claw.
"I was six years old."
Neyla stared, trying to process the influx of empathetic emotions as Fyrenn turned back to the desk, and began sifting through what was left of the drawer he had extracted so forcefully. She spoke slowly, doing her best to avoid allowing too much emotion into her own words.
"Mother died when I was twenty one. There was a fairly large battle between my family, along with a few other Sentinels, and a nest of fully grown Hydra. Father perished only a short while later in a battle I was not even party to. He had something of a reputation, and many families offered to take me in after that."
Fyrenn finished with the desk, rose, and moved to the first locked crate. As he effortlessly hefted the object down to the desk's surface, he raised an eyebrow.
"You didn't accept?"
Neyla shook her head, and chuckled.
"Call me stubborn---"
Fyrenn nodded emphatically, interjecting sharply.
"You're stubborn."
Neyla laughed outright, and shook her head, smiling.
"Well as a result of that, I refused to accept the idea of becoming part of someone else's clan. I have always had a strong rule; Either I will never be part of a clan, or I will see my own resurrected, and sit as its matriarch."
Fyrenn carefully unsealed the crate, and deposited the lid against the wall.
"I can understand that. You feel a tie to the history of your family name, and you refuse to let that history end as part of someone else's gains. And more than that, you have dreams you could only accomplish with a clan under your guidance."
Neyla smiled, and worked her way over to the desk.
"You remember all that? The time I explained it to you?"
Fyrenn nodded, and grinned.
"Every last word. It struck a chord with me in every measurable sense."
He glanced down into the crate, and cracked a wry face.
"Christmas decorations. Rusty Christmas decorations."
The red Gryphon swiftly resealed the crate, and exchanged it for another.
He opened the lid cautiously, then slammed it back down abruptly.
"Ooooh no. No no no. Absolutely not."
Neyla deftly snagged the container, and tossed the lid to the side forcefully. As Fyrenn struggled to regain control of the object, her claws came away with a large dusty black book.
She thumbed the pages open as Fyrenn groaned.
"Aaaah! So this is the fabled 'yearbook' of which so many of my squadmates spoke."
Fyrenn nodded, and held out an open claw.
"Please give that back. My college pictures are... Embarrassing."
Neyla raised an eyebrow, and tightened her grip on the book, silently continuing to flick through the pages, until she arrived at Fyrenn's old name. Isaac Wrenn.
"So this was you as a Human?"
Fyrenn winced, "As a much younger Human, yes. Scrawny, thin, and wild-eyed."
The Gryphoness thrummed appreciatively, and finally returned the book.
"As Humans go, you weren't so bad. I can't fathom why you were never approached by interested potential spouses."
Fyrenn snorted, and carefully repacked the crate before stacking it beside the Christmas decorations.
"Oh I was. Repeatedly. But I made it painfully obvious that I was married to war, and only war."
Neyla chuckled grimly, and stretched one wing absently.
"Why? Not that I'm ungrateful... But in my experience, Humans of that age are driven heavily by impulses of body and emotion."
Fyrenn shook his head, and removed the next crate in line.
"Not me. Other Humans might have a... Strong attraction to the birds-n-bees stuff... It always grossed me out more than I could describe. Scared me too. I didn't want to end up like all those other puppy-love-sick morons."
Neyla inclined her head, "I can understand that. But surely some of those seeking after you were interested in more than mere vapid physical things?"
Fyrenn sighed, and stared away into the middle distance as he slowly unsealed the next crate.
"By that time? Rob had already met Veritas. She rubbed me the wrong way in *every* way, and that put me well off my tea as far as romance was concerned. I suppose Gilchrist was a bad example to introduce me to formative romantic relationship stages... But for a long time it was all I had."
He began sifting through the crates contents absently as he continued. Neyla glanced over his shoulder, and realized they were books. Mostly cookbooks.
"My parents, and my Grandmother's stories about her husband... They showed me what a functional adult relationship was supposed to look like. That was all well and good, and none of that bothered me one whit. But I never got much chance to watch people go through the formative stages of love in a healthy way. It left me with a rather crippled sense of the process."
Neyla nodded, and gestured towards the books, sensing that she needed to inject some lighter material into the conversation's flow, for Fyrenn's sake.
"Were those your mother's?"
Fyrenn grinned widely, and nodded.
"Oh yes. She was the best cook in the world. The things she could do, even with meager synthetic drivel... Apparently she learned from her mother, who learned from her mother, going back quite a ways. I wish I had time to memorize them all, but I'm not much good with cookware anyhow."
To the red Gryphon's surprise, Neyla carefully reached out, and snagged the entire crate, carrying it carefully to the entrance of the container, re-sealing it, and setting it in the drive.
As she re-entered, Fyrenn pierced her eyes with a curious gaze.
She smiled, and nodded.
"In fairness, I will make you another deal. You show me the inside of the house too, and I promise I will memorize every single word of those cookbooks before we leave for Equestria again. We can try to work some of the recipes out together."
Fyrenn paused, then smiled as he hefted another crate.
"I think that's a workable arrangement."
Fully sorting the contents of the container took the better part of two hours. Neyla found Fyrenn's squirt-gun collection highly amusing, and reveled in the chance to skim his choice of novels and reference books as he completed the sorting process.
As the pair finally disembarked from the pod, the Gryphoness shot her friend a query in the form of words, and a curious expression.
"What will you do with all of that? It's not as if it can come with you."
Fyrenn nodded, and glanced up at the sky as a rumble of thunder rolled in from the distance.
"I know. I certainly don't intend to throw it away if that's what you mean. If I have to get rid of things that matter... Sentimental things... I prefer that they find a good home and good use in someone else's claws, or hooves, or hands."
Neyla retained her intrigued expression, so Fyrenn continued as he shifted the crate of cookbooks to the front porch of the house, and resealed the shipping container.
"I will send the flight suit and uniforms to a museum. The Christmas decorations are, I'm afraid, a loss. Too old and rusted. Most of the books can go to libraries, where they will hopefully aid in transcription efforts for the archive project. The weapons belong on a military base. The papers and miscellaneous things don't really matter at all. The squirt guns should find a good home at the nearest preschool."
Neyla nodded firmly, and smiled.
"That sounds like an admirable plan."
Fyrenn sighed, and gestured to the front door of the structure.
"So. Welcome to my childhood. Please tread lightly, and pardon the dust."
He typed a series of numbers into the locking mechanism on the door knob, then turned the whole apparatus, and pushed.
At first, Neyla was disappointed. Most everything within the foyer, living room, dining room, and kitchen were hidden under dust cloths. Fyrenn began to yank the white sheets away with abandon, however, so the Gryphoness took it as license to embark on a miniature adventure of discovery.
As she carefully removed the cover from the entrance hall table, she smiled widely. Tucked in between a bowl for keys, and a small clock whose batteries had long since expired, was a photo in an old style wooden circular frame.
The younger man on the right was obviously Fyrenn. The older woman on the left was smiling widely as well, embracing the younger man with one arm.
Neyla raised her voice to make sure she was heard.
"This is your grandmother?"
Fyrenn called out from the living room as he continued to tear off dust sheets.
"Yes! She was one whole half of the reason I turned out alright. Mom and Dad laid down the best foundation a kid could ask for; Grandma made sure I didn't destroy it in my fear, and rage, and sorrow."
Neyla caressed the photo momentarily, before reverently laying it back on the table. She swept the dust off as carefully as she could with one wing.
"She sounds wonderful."
Fyrenn chuckled.
"She was. She could cook almost as well as Mom, and she was just as tender and wise. She knew how to be firm too though. Church every Sunday morning, ten AM sharp, or I didn't leave the house for a week for anything but school. If I put a *toe* out of line, I got the belt something awful. And for that I'm immensely grateful."
Neyla slowly made her way into the living room, taking a moment to smile inwardly at the image of a great red Gryphon trying to set right furniture made for a Human a quarter his size.
As soon as he was satisfied that he had checked everything, Fyrenn moved towards the stairs, beckoning.
"Watch your head at the landing."
Neyla nodded, and found that she did indeed have to duck, even in quadrupedal stance, to make it to the second floor.
Fyrenn pointed to the door at the end.
"My room. All the way from age six, to age eighteen. Promise me you won't laugh. Please?"
Neyla shook her head emphatically.
"I wouldn't dare."
Fyrenn narrowed his eyes, but obligingly moved forward, and pushed the door open. Neyla followed him into the darkness, stopping dead still as the lights flicked on.
For a moment she stood in total silence. Then she sat back on her haunches, and gasped quietly. As she attempted to make sense of what she was seeing, Fyrenn brushed passed the dresser, reflexively flicking the switch on some sort of small music player, as he must have done thousands and thousands of times before.
As sound and words began to issue forth at a low, but still audible volume, Neyla swept the room once more with her eyes.
The vast majority of the walls, and ceiling, were painted to look like a cloudless night sky. Pinpricks of starlight hovered in the inky void, projected by an unseen holographic device doubtless tucked into the light fixture.
From the ceiling itself an incredible array of craft hung on invisible wires. Everything from ancient propeller planes and zeppelins, to starships that seemed to have sprung at lightspeed from the pages of some incredible flight of fancy.
It took Neyla several moments to completely take in the sight, before her eyes shifted to the furniture. There was a bed, made up with basic sheets and a pillow, a bedside dresser, a closet, a set of bureaus, and a desk with a chair.
The dresser held a small clock, and a series of model ships. The line started with a trireme, and a sailing galleon not dissimilar to Equestrian vessels, and ended with a modern Battleship. In between were older carriers and battleships, and some sort of oddly shaped lozenge of a boat that looked to have been clad in pure iron plates.
On the desk sat an aging computer box, keyboard, mouse, and touchscreen. Beside it were a series of notebooks, and sheafs upon sheafs of loose blue hued paper with white lines on them.
After Neyla managed to take in a complete image of the space, she stepped slowly to the desk, and began leafing through the blueprints and notebooks.
Her beak slowly fell open into an unashamed gape.
"These are yours?"
Fyrenn nodded, blushing furiously beneath his feathers.
"Yeah. Not much, I know. But it was a good pastime to keep my head off the bad things, and firmly ensconced in the clouds. It drove my primary school teachers nuts too. I would always finish my assignments early, and get right to doodling."
Neyla shook her head slowly, and turned over an unusually large blueprint that seemed to spell out a deck plan for some type of interstellar ship.
"These are anything but 'doodles.' These are astonishingly detailed, and quite beautiful."
Fyrenn snorted, "Yeah, and most aren't very practical."
Neyla grunted, and began flicking slowly through a notebook.
"I disagree. Some of your fire-arms look quite tenable, as do your lighter-than-air craft."
She paused, and shook her head in disbelief. Fyrenn stepped over, and glanced at the page. He smiled widely.
"I had *no* idea when I drew that... None at all."
Adorning the page was a somewhat stilted, but still fairly well proportioned sketch of a Gryphon in flight, the clouds parting around him as the sun shone down on his wings.
Neyla looked up and smiled.
"You see? Some of your fanciful things came true."
Fyrenn nodded, "The most important one by far, in any case."
Neyla flicked carefully through the remainder of the notebook, then set it down as Fyrenn shoved the desk chair to the side. He took up repose on his haunches, and carefully made an attempt to boot the computer.
The device sprang to life with a soft series of whirs, and the screen blinked momentarily, before switching to a loading graphic.
As the device came awake, Neyla reached up and gently removed one of the ceiling mounted aircraft from its string.
"This is intriguing..."
Fyrenn glanced back momentarily, and nodded.
"Messerschmitt BF 109 G. A Nazi machine, yes, but also an incredible work of military art. German engineering at its finest. Fearfully powerful for its time."
Neyla pointed up to the ceiling as a whole, gesturing to encompass the bevy of flying machines.
"You can name all of these?"
Fyrenn nodded without turning away from the screen.
"Sure. Even the fictional ones."
The Gryphoness glanced back at the dresser.
"What about the ships?"
Without even turning, Fyrenn began to rattle off the names.
"Greek Trireme, Spanish Galleon, British Man 'O War, Atlantic Clipper, Confederate Ironclad, British Dreadnaught, American Essex class Carrier, German Bismarck, Russian Golf-II Ballistic Missile Submarine, American North Carolina Class Battleship, British Queen Elizabeth Class Carrier, American Arleigh Burke Flight-Three Missile Destroyer, American Los Angeles class Submarine, Earthgov Illinois Class Destroyer, Earthgov Wake Island Class Battleship."
Neyla shook her head and exhaled slowly.
"And I have a sneaking suspicion you know almost everything there is to know about them all. All those ships, all those flying machines..."
She turned and watched as Fyrenn attacked the keyboard with gusto.
"What are you doing now?"
Fyrenn peered at the screen, and continued tapping at the keys at an incredible rate.
"I scanned most of my designs at one stage or another, and even modeled a fair few. I figured I would compress it all, and upload into an encrypted online storage locker. With any luck, if the HAP people manage to achieve the goal of 'copying the internet,' I can go back and retrieve them on the other side."
Neyla cracked a radiant smile. Fyrenn paused and drank in the pure joy.
At last, he broke the silence with a chuckle.
"What?"
The Gryphoness shook her head slowly.
"I think you were destined to be one of us from the moment you drew your first breath. All of this... I want to thank you for showing me. I believe I may have learned more about you from the contents of this room than I could have from a month of soul-searching."
Neyla paused to catch the tail end of the song on the music device, before it faded away. She reached over and snatched up the small touchscreen DaTab, and the speaker stand it had been mounted on.
"If you don't mind, I'll peruse this."
Fyrenn glowered good naturedly, and switched off the computer after completing his task.
"You leave no stone unturned, do you?"
Neyla shook her head slowly.
Fyrenn chuckled as he moved to switch off the lights.
"Well expect me to ply you stringently with questions too from now on. I refuse to let you have such an advantage over me for long. And don't think I'll be reserved either."
Neyla nodded her acquiescence.
As the pair prepared to leave, Neyla turned, and paused.
"What about that one?"
Fyrenn glanced over his shoulder, and squinted.
"What one?"
Neyla set down the music player, and darted across to the window sill. From behind the curtain, she pulled a small painted wooden object, and held it up to the light.
Fyrenn inhaled sharply, and clapped a claw to his beak.
It took him a moment to find his words again.
"That..."
He crossed the room and reverently, lovingly took the model aircraft from Neyla's claws.
"I thought grandmother had mis-laid that years and years ago..."
Neyla smiled down at the small, twin-tailed, twin engine vehicle.
"It has an important story, I gather?"
Fyrenn nodded mutely. Neyla realized that tears were forming at the edges of his eyes. At last, he spoke.
"My father... *Made* this for me. Hand crafted it from scratch. For my fourth birthday. I used to run through the house like a screaming banshee pretending I was a world war two ace... It was always my favorite."
Neyla sat back on her haunches, and gestured for Fyrenn to do the same.
"Tell me about it."
Fyrenn nodded, and sat, staring down at the little silver craft, and inhaling deeply.
"It's called a P-38 Lightning. When Humanity fought the second great World War, it was the most successful allied aircraft by a long measure. It had amazing range, good stability, devastating armaments... It was used in a secret and very dangerous mission to kill the man who orchestrated the first attack against the US in the war."
Neyla opened her claw once more, and Fyrenn gently laid the aircraft in it. She held it up, and allowed her eyes to follow its graceful curves.
"It is very beautiful. I can see why it was your favorite."
Fyrenn smiled, and wiped away his tears.
"Thank you for spotting it. I'd never imagined I would see it again... But it was certainly the main thing I had hoped to find."
The red Gryphon accepted the airplane back from his companion, and rose as she again took hold of the music player.
She cocked her head slightly as they exited the room.
"Did you get what you hoped for out of this?"
Fyrenn smiled, and nodded.
"And so much more. Did you?"
Neyla inclined her head.
"You have no idea."