//------------------------------// // Early Morning Workout // Story: Retired to Equestria // by Yet Another Mask //------------------------------// “You appear to be in a good mood,” Luna observed as she entered the dreamscape. Tonight’s setting looked to be something of Damien’s own design, a simple cliff overlooking the ocean and backed by a thick forest. He was already sitting on a cushion he had created for himself and was smiling contentedly. “Today was a very interesting day,” he commented as he willed the imaginary sun to drop below to the horizon and let night fall over his dreamworld. Luna smiled as she created a cushion for herself and sat down to observe the stars slowly come into existence. Although she saw the night sky every night when she raised the moon there was something different about seeing it come about by the claw of another, doubly so when the one forcing the change had complete control over the stars in the sky and could rewrite it to fit his whims. “We suppose this means that your time with Gilda’s mother was enjoyable then?” “Exceedingly,” Damien chuckled. “Got to fight her, show off a bit more than I usually do, and she was able to figure out our ruse right from the beginning.” He grinned as he moved the stars above them around absentmindedly. Luna raised a solitary eyebrow. “It is strange for you to celebrate such a failure,” she observed. “Bah, I never really expected it to last that long. Most of my entertainment came from messing with Gilda while practicing. Maybe if she were a little more skilled at lying she would’ve lasted longer but such is life,” he said with a shrug. “Now I believe you thought she’d last a whole two days if I remember correctly.” Luna huffed and looked away for several seconds before turning back. “Indeed we did. However if we remember correctly we never actually bet anything on our guesses.” Damien smirked. “But I believe you will find my desired prize rather… interesting,” he intimated. “And what might that be?” Luna asked cautiously. Damien’s choice of the word interesting to describe his suggestion could easily be enjoyable or distressing. Given his track record distressing was the more likely of the two now that she thought about it. “According to Pinkie there’s going to be a large celebration in Ponyville at the end of the month. Something called Nightmare Night.” He grinned slyly at her. “I believe you are actually the inspiration for it if I remember correctly.” “We have heard of this Nightmare Night,” Luna grumbled. “It is so nice to see that our time before our banishment was so well remembered in old mare’s tales and this most flattering of holidays,” she deadpanned. “Why do you bring this up to us? Out sister has already tried several times to cajole us into participating in this farce.” “Because I am planning on setting up a haunted house and want you to run through it. What better advertisement for a terrifying attraction than that even the mighty Nightmare Moon was left pale and shivering by my display!” he crowed. “You wish to use us as a publicity stunt?” she asked incredulously. “And what exactly would we be getting out of this?” “Well there’d be a chance to show that you can connect with your subjects, you’d have an excuse to leave the castle for a while, meet the element bearers, maybe make some friends, and if you can make it through the haunted house you’ll even be able to meet me in person!” He smiled as he ticked the reasons off on his talons while shooting her a sly look. “And you automatically assume we desire to see you in person after what happened to us last time?” Luna asked with a sarcastic smile. “Of course!” He grinned. “Ho else are you going to get your revenge?” Luna blinked at this. “We have no idea what you are talking about,” she sniffed. “Oh come now my dear, everyone likes a good bit of revenge. And what better time to get your revenge for my most dastardly deed than on a night dedicated to pranking one’s friends?” He smiled as he saw the spark of interest growing in her eyes. “Of course there’s no way I’ll be going down without a fight.” “We had heard something to this effect,” she admitted grudgingly. “We admit that this did little to endear us to the idea of such a holiday.” “I don’t see why not. Having an entire night dedicated to your ability to mess with others sounds grand. After all I-” Damien was cut off midsentence as he vanished from the dreamscape. Luna was left staring at the now empty dreamscape. Having lost Damien’s influence it had already begun to deteriorate and fade back into the collective subconscious. “He must have woken up,” she said wonderingly. Part of her worried that something might have happened, it was only two in the morning and Damien seemed to greatly enjoy being able to sleep in. “No matter, he shall tell us what has happened tomorrow,” she said with a hint of remorse at having their meeting ended so abruptly. Although her remorse had more to do with the fact that she now had no reason to ignore the pile of paperwork on her desk that she had put off doing by going to visit Damien. <=[XXXXX]=> Damien’s eyes snapped open to the sight of Tyra shaking him roughly awake. A deep growl echoed up from his throat as he snarled a quick spell that sent the griffon in question flying back towards the far wall. Instead of slamming into the wall as was Damien’s intent Tyra simply flipped back and easily landed on the wall without being hurt. Seeing he was awake and had stopped attacking, for now anyway, she leapt down from her awkward position and shot him a smirk. “Nice try, now get up. It’s time for some training,” she said happily. “Training?” Damien asked as he tried to process what was going on. His eyes snapped into focus as a new question came to the forefront of his mind. “How did you get in here? I locked the door before I went to sleep.” Tyra smiled cockily and produced a small key. “All the locks in your house use the same key. Gilda was generous enough to provide me with hers when I woke her up.” Damien’s eyes narrowed at this. “I thought she didn’t get up to head into the office until three,” he grumbled sourly. “Yes but she hasn’t done any training since she left home and I’m not going to let her go soft on me while I’m around!” She looked meaningfully in his direction. “She also mentioned that you never do any training either so I figured I should get you in on this too. Need to keep your skills sharp after all.” “My skills are sharp enough already. I don’t need training,” Damien grumbled. “It was enough to win against you after all, and I didn’t even have to use any magic either.” “Exactly! Think about how much better you could be if you actually had a regular training regimen!” Tyra exclaimed as she padded over to Damien’s bed and grabbed him by the tail. “I came to Ponyville to relax and be able to not need to train!” he protested as he tried, unsuccessfully, to wrest control of his tail from Tyra’s iron grip. “Bah! You never stop training!” she crowed as she threw him through his open bedroom door where he skidded to a halt at the claws of a smiling Gilda. “I hate you so much right now,” he growled up at her. “What can I say, I like to spread my suffering around,” she replied happily. “Alright! If you two cubs are done talking it’s time for some push-ups! Two hundred of ‘em ought to be enough to start!” Tyra shouted out at them. <=[XXXXX]=> Damien had to admit, despite his fervent wishes otherwise, the workout had been very enjoyable. There was something rejuvenating about pushing one’s body to its limits. Not that he was likely to let this incident repeat itself. As far as he was concerned he should only have to do what he wanted when he wanted, everyone else be damned. Besides the idea of designing the necessary spells and procedures to keep Gilda and Tyra from repeating today’s performance promised a good deal of entertainment. His enjoyable scheming about just how he was going to keep Tyra out of his room was quickly interrupted by the griffon in question. “Enjoying yourself?” she asked as she swung a claw at his face. “A bit,” he admitted as he ducked underneath the blow slid out of her reach. “Your constantly goading me into a fight is getting old though.” She barked out a quick laugh as she shot forward and slashed at him. “It’s only because you keep dodging! Get hit like Gilda did and I might stop!” “I think you also stopped because she has to leave for work in ten minutes. Can’t deliver mail if you’ve been beaten senseless by your mother after all,” he chuckled as he slipped past another strike and grabbed her outstretched talon. With a flap of her wings she managed to twist herself free of his grip and lash out at his kick from her new aerial position. “That only shows she’s gotten soft since she left the nest. Back when she was still living with me and Brandon she lasted much longer!” “I take it that’s your husband?” Damien asked as he dropped to the floor and rolled away just before Tyra slammed into the ground in an attempt to pin him. “That’s right. He’s the head of the local artificer’s guild. Smartest damn griffon that ever lived,” she boasted as she continued her assault on Damien’s rolling form. “I’ll have to scry him some time, doesn’t look like Gilda inherited much of his smarts,” he grunted as Tyra landed a glancing blow on his side. “She did take after me a bit more,” Tyra admitted as she pressed her advantage, raining blow after blow down towards Damien. Still rolling along the ground Damien snaked his tail around one of Tyra’s hind legs and yanked it out from under her. The scant moments it took her to regain her balance were enough for him to rocket up from the ground and grab her by the throat. “I noticed that,” he said conversationally as his other hand formed a spade and rocketed forward, only to stop scant inches from her heart. Tyra chuckled as she looked down at Damien’s talon. “And that makes another round to you.” Damien smiled wanly and released his grip on her throat. “And I suppose that just gives you another reason to try and wrest a win from me?” “Damn straight! I’ve never seen someone improve this fast. Need to see just how good I can force you to get.” Damien sighed tiredly. “So if I lose..?” “Now I’ll assume you did it to try and get me off your back and-” Her eyes snapped to a point behind Damien’s back and her eyes flashed dangerously. “Gilda! You aren’t going to leave without saying goodbye are you?” she shouted. Gilda froze in the act of opening the door and turned to give her mother a sheepish grin. “O-of course not,” she managed to choke out. “I’m heading out for work now, bye mom.” “And..?” Tyra asked. Gilda heaved a sigh and glared at Damien. “Goodbye freak,” she grumbled. Her goodbyes finished she quickly reached back for the door handle only to pause as her mother’s voice filed the air once more. “And?” Gilda’s eyes shrank as she turned back to her mother. “But-” “No buts Gilda, now come over here,” Tyra admonished her sternly. Suppressing a groan Gilda walked over to Tyra and gave her a quick hug. Before she could get away Tyra swept her into a massive bear hug and gave her a quick peck on the forehead. “MOM!” she cried out in horror as she struggled free. “I’m not a cub anymore!” Tyra chuckled as she watched Gilda rush to the door and shoot out into the early morning gloom. “You’ll always be my little girl,” she whispered to herself with a smile. Damien stood in the background in shock, trying to find something, anything, to say in response to what he had just seen. He had been planning on doing something to mess with Gilda in response to her part in helping Tyra wake him up so early in the morning. Petty to be true but he was a rather petty individual. But in the face of all that Tyra had done anything he could think of felt lacking. It certainly helped that every single thing Tyra had done had been wholeheartedly genuine, made the entire thing more embarrassing for Gilda. In the end he settled for walking over to Tyra and placing a forelimb over her shoulder. “I think I just might love you right now.” Tyra laughed for a moment before grabbing his arm and throwing him into a wall. “Sorry, I’m happily married.” <=[XXXXX]=> Tyra had, thankfully, ceased her attempts to continue the exercise regime after Gilda had left and it had fallen to Damien to make something for them to eat. “Now that Gilda is gone do ya think you could give me a little blackmail material on her? She’s pretty tight-lipped about… pretty much anything related to her past,” he started in conversationally as he laid several long thick strips of bacon on a massive iron skillet. “Blackmailing material?” Tyra asked with a tired smirk. “Preferably any embarrassing stories I can hold over her head. At best something her friends don’t know about so I can really mess with her.” He glanced over his shoulder and caught the annoyed glare Tyra was throwing his way. “Or you can just tell me something so I can understand the girl better,” he acceded despondently. “But they better be interesting or no bacon for you!” he shouted as he exuberantly swung his spatula towards her and pointed it at her menacingly, a wry smile. “Anything in particular you want to know?” she asked with a small chuckle. Damien was silent for a moment as he cracked open several eggs and began toasting some bread. “How exactly did the daughter of a high ranking bodyguard and a master artificer end up having to go to a pony flight school?” Tyra’s eyes widened slightly in surprise at his question. “You go straight for the hard ones don’t you?” she asked sourly. “Centuries of experience picking apart the psyches of the idiots that kept trying to kill me. There’s always something amusing about managing to bring a would-be hero to tears by tearing apart his motives, history, and failings with an hour of carefully chosen barbs,” Damien responded cheerfully. “Scrying spells and past reading tended to help a lot with that though.” He paused as he felt Tyra’s eyes boring into the back of his skull. “Don’t worry; I haven’t done that since I came here. Neither shattering psyches nor going behind the backs of others to learn about them. That sort of stuff makes people angry and angry people eventually decide I’m better off a corpse than a member of society.” Tyra glared at Damien for several more seconds before slowly starting into her story, “it’s true that Brandon and I are both very respected now but it wasn’t always like that. The griffon nation is made up of thirteen city-states and Castle Aeries. Each city-state is ruled by a Mane, but there are more Manes then there are ruling positions. Most of the… excess Manes join the Unified Council at Castle Aeries in hopes of becoming the Grand Speaker, the ultimate authority in inter-city disputes. But sometimes more ambitious Manes take it into their claws to try and supplant a ruling Mane’s family for control of a city, “This leads to most of the ruling Manes being understandably paranoid. Some of the more zealous ones will do everything in their power to discredit any other Manes in the city in order to prevent a coup. Pike, the Mane I serve, had the misfortune of being too successful while under the rule of one such Mane. Apparently the clawless worm thought that any griffon that had the loyalty of both the city’s greatest fighter and its greatest artificer was planning to take wrest control from its ‘rightful ruler’.” Tyra sighed angrily at the memory. “So he banished Pike. Banishment is a big deal for griffons. It basically labels us as disloyal, untrustworthy, and the lowest of the low, “With that sort of reputation finding a safe haven anywhere in griffon lands is impossible, even for a Mane. In the end he had no choice but to leave for another country. The minotaur archipelago was out of the question due to their distrustful nature. The changelings would have gladly taken him in but their queen wouldn’t have let him stay without pledging his loyalty to her, forcing him to remain there forever. The zebra tribes would have welcomed him but staying with them would give him no chance to gain enough influence to regain his standing with the griffons. Going to the buffalo would have had the same results so they were out as well. The only nation that would take him in, let him retain his freedom, and give him a chance at returning home was Equestria.” “And I take it that since loyalty is so highly prized among griffons you and your husband followed him into banishment?” Damien asked as he placed a plate full of bacon, eggs, and heavily buttered toast in front of her. She stared at the meal for several moments before continuing, her recitation pausing occasionally as she would take a bite of the meal in front of her. “Yes. Of course the bastard that exiled him made it quite clear that we would be welcome to stay, abandoning one that had been banished doesn’t have any social or political stigma attached to it because they are already seen as undeserving of such values. But we left anyway. Gilda was only two years old then.” A faint trace of wetness appeared in her eyes as old memories resurfaced. “It took ten years for Pike to build up a powerbase strong enough to go and usurp that old bastard. Ten years where I had to work whatever jobs I could find because ponies would never trust a griffon bodyguard and work for warriors is near impossible to find here. Ten years where Brandon couldn’t practice his craft in anything but secret due to his oaths with the guild. Ten years of Gilda growing up away from her people, from her culture. We did our best to impart our values to her but it was difficult for her. Ponies tend to be distrustful of the other races and she never really had many friends.” She smiled sadly. Damien chuckled good-naturedly. “Well she seems to be on the right track for making friends now. She’s still rather abrasive when it comes to most people but with Dash and the others to fall back on she’ll manage just fine,” he assured her. Suddenly his eyes gleamed mischievously. “In fact I think you should insist to meet with her friends today. Best to see how well she’s getting along right?” Tyra gave him a flat stare for several seconds before looking down at her meal and sighing. “You seem to have an amazing ability to turn what I was already planning on doing into something to be apprehensive about. I hope you’re proud of yourself.” “Oh believe me I am,” he said with a dark chuckle.