Education for Death
This is the Griffon kingdom and two griffons are here to register their clutch, they show their birth certificates from up to their great grandparents to prove they are pure griffon race. In their clutch were 3 chicks, only 1 male. The father tells the official he wants to call his son “Ray” and after looking at the list, Ray seems to be acceptable for now. Ray, Lola and Pearl, they are given a booklet to track their progress, with space for 11 more clutches, a subtle hint that the griffons need soldiers.
Kindergarten starts for a young, fledging Ray where he learns the fairy tales of the griffon race, he is told the story of the Sleeping Beauty but the roles are highly changed, the wicked witch is given the only name the Griffons want gone “Royalty” and the sleeping, entrapped princess is “Equestria” and who is our handsome prince? The Griffon Alpha, who seeks to free Equestria from a tyrannical ruler or so he thinks… As the story is told, the Griffon Alpha saves Equestria from the wicked Royals, this simple story has our little friend Ray idolize the alpha. “For the Griffons!” they chorus every morning and hear it echo in their minds.
Like many griffon chicks, Ray is taught that the griffons obey their alpha who has earned his place through battle and power, not by a corrupted bloodline. Ray hangs onto every word, he wants to be the best griffon he can be for his Alpha.
One day, Ray became ill and his mother could not be more scared, she knows that the chicks that become ill or unfit are taken by the officials and never seen again. She took every route she could, every medicine, everything she could do to keep the state from finding out, her heart sank on the day that her door was pounded by a strong claw and a large official stepped in “For the Griffons!”
She looked at him timidly and slowly parroted the oath “For the Griffons…”
“We have heard that one of your chicks has become ill and we want to get a look, why wasn’t this reported?”
“well, he wasn’t that weak so I didn’t want to waste your time” She was shooed aside as the official inspected the unwell chick lying in bed, his mother quickly came to comfort him, he was highly intimidated by the bulky and proper griffon, his chest feathers ruffled, his wings rigid and stiff and his eyes laser focused on the task at hand
“Madam, I love my son too, but if this mollycoddling doesn’t stop, we’ll step in and take over, do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand… I’m sorry.”
Ray recovered, unlike some of them who were sick for a little too long, and continued to pre-school where he is given the classic griffon education
“You see in nature, things kill other things, like the fox and rabbit” as he listens to the story being told, only one thing comes to his mind
“Poor rabbit”
Those words being said gave the teacher an aneurism “RAY! I told you that kind of answer is out of line; get into the dunce’s chair, NOW!”
“Yes sir” Ray is marched off to the corner of his class room where is sat in the chair of shame, where all the chicks who give the wrong answers go
“ONE, TWO THREE. ONE, TWO THREE!” the teacher asks his class if any of them know the answer
“Yes, that rabbit was a weakling and deserves to die”
“Equestria belongs to the strong”
“The weak don’t deserve to have it”
“Yes, YES! Listen to them Ray, they are real griffons”
“Real griffons? I am a real griffon too, I’m part of the strong and I will act that way, that rabbit deserves to die, I’ll kill it with my own claws if I have to but it’s not got any right to live!”
And with that, any chance that Ray had to be different is crushed; he is let back to his seat as the teacher tells them some home truths “Remember children, Griffons are a super race!”
And the chicks say the oath as he speaks. “For the Griffons!”
“Griffons are the strongest”
“For the Griffons!”
“Griffons are unconquerable!”
“For the Griffons!”
“Equestria belongs to the strong!”
“For the Griffons!”
“Equestria belongs to the unconquerable!”
“For the Griffons!”
With years and years of hailing and marching, Ray and his classmates become regimented; all of them ready for the higher education, led by the Alpha’s so called wisdom. Decades go by with more and more regimenting. Ray and his fellow griffons continue, bulldozing all others. Dragons, ponies, zebras, mules, donkeys and all others are crushed under the horrible blood thirsty griffon army. Our little Ray is the perfect griffon solider, seeing nothing but what the alpha wants him to see, saying nothing but what the alpha wants him to say, doing nothing but what the alpha want him to do. He kills all that refuse to surrender to the griffons and all who the griffons don’t consider worth their supremacy, he destroys every opposing ideal, every rival race.
So he marches on, hailing and marching, hailing and killing, along with the many other griffons who he has spent his life with, in them is planted no seeds of mercy, joy, laughter or hope, in their bodies is no remaining fear, fatigue, hesitation or sickness, desensitized and institutionalised like every other griffon he knows, his sisters like many griffon woman serve their home as child-bearers, blacksmiths, home guards. Like his father and grandfather before him he is a soldier, a thief, a silencer, a murderer. He like many before and like many will, like griffons always have, always will and always succeed in; has completed his education, his education of supremacy, his education of power, his education of murder, his education of slavery. Most of all, more set in than any other… His Education… of Death