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// 4 - Hello Lumberjacks 
// Story: Tarnished Silver and Clouded Diamonds 
// by David Silver 
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The cold was as bad as ever, but facing it with full bellies and rested bodies made it seem much less daunting. They picked their way through the village. The pathways were not cobbled. Much like Ponyville, most of it was just worn dirt paths running between the most-used buildings.

A voice called down to them, "Who are you?"

Diamond looked up first, spotting a griffon that seemed comprised of a snow leopard and an eagle. It was massive, and it was looming as only a huge predator could. Diamond cleared her throat. "I am Diamond Tiara, and this is Silver Spoon. Do you know the way to the woodcutters?"

The griffon pointed a talon to a building up ahead. "You're going the right way, but you're both terribly tiny for lumbering work. Are you some kind of wizard, or priest? You aren't going to be able to do anything to those trees otherwise."

Silver advanced with her head held high. "Diamond Tiara's going to review their management and find all the mistakes. She'll, like, have it running twice as fast and profitable!"

The griffon pointed at Diamond's tiara, which had survived the journey so far. "You may have a crown, but that doesn't mean anyone's going to listen to anything you have to say. You're just a tiny, misshapen, pony. Why should anyone care?"

Diamond stomped, crunching snow under a hoof and accomplishing little else. "Because I know how to run things properly. My daddy's run businesses bigger than this whole town, and I paid attention."

The griffon crossed his forelegs as he sat up. "You've got confidence, I'll grant that. Alright, tell me one thing you'd change, and make it good."

Silver tilted her head a little. "Do you work for them?"

He chuckled softly. "Work for them? I own them. These arms have taken trees down in the time it takes others to get started, and I've been working the trade for two decades now. So, again, what do you plan to change that'd make it better?"

Diamond's defensive posture shifted once it became clear she was speaking to someone worth talking to. "I'd want to do a review of the current process first."

He snorted softly. "It's lumber. This isn't complicated, at least until something tries to eat some of my boys in the field. Wolf packs, mountain worms, or worse. They cut into productivity. You got a fix for that?"

Diamond Tiara reviewed the few tricks she knew, but precious few of them had to do with avoiding wild monsters. "Have you considered fencing off the area? Fence off enough so you can cut down some trees and plant more, keeps the wildlife out, which would attract monsters?"

He rubbed his chin. "That'd take an awful lot of setup time, but it might be worth it, long-term. Alright, you got my attention." He jumped off the roof and landed in front of the two ponies, towering over them. "Funny-looking ponies, consider yourselves hired, but I don't pay pencil pushers."

Silver perked an ear even as she shrank back from the intimidating griffon. "Who do you pay?"

He thumped his chest with a talon. "Workers! You'll accompany a team out, help them, and plan this fence. Your idea, you get to make sure it happens right. Since you're too damn small to work the saws, your job will be to do whatever else needs doing, and keeping an eye out for attacks while you're surveying. I'll pay 1 silver piece a day, and you can use the company bunks."

Diamond soured internally. That wasn't a leadership position at all! "Who do you trade with?"

He raised a brow. "Huh? What kind of question is that?"

Diamond pointed at the griffon. "I bet you're being played for a sap. Let me see your ledgers."

He looked a bit nervous. "We don't, I mean we trade with whoever needs wood in the area..."

Diamond looked to Silver, trusting her to follow along. "He doesn't even have a ledger. The money just being thrown into the snow!"

Silver Spoon gasped dramatically and put a hoof to her forehead as if feeling faint. "I can't even imagine it! We got here, like, just in time!"

He grunted and started to look angry. "You're pulling my tail! We've been running fine for years!"

Diamond adopted an expression of cocky certainty. "And you have no idea why. When things start to slide, you won't know where, or how to react. You'll go under with the first market shift, and someone else will become the source of lumber, just like that." She tapped at her chin. "Maybe I should go work for them. I'm sure they'd like somepony to look over their numbers."

He brought a talon down inches from Diamond, cleaving through the snow as if it wasn't there. "You'll do no such thing! You think you're so smart, fine!" His words were cut off as he noticed something, and looked at Silver Spoon. "Where'd you get that bow?"

Silver blinked in surprise before pointing up the trail they came in from. "It was laying there with the arrows."

His face contorted. "No way... Look, kids, foals, whatever you are. You want to look over numbers, fine. I'll pay you half the extra profit you pull in, if you can prove you did it. In the meanwhile, I need that." He reached for the bow.

Silver danced away from the grasping talon, almost tripping over herself. "What, why?! Finder's keepers!"

"This isn't funny," said the large griffon with a scowl. "Let me see it. It looks familiar."

Silver Spoon pulled the bow free and held it up with a sticky hoof, which confused the griffon a moment before he returned his attention to the bow. "Yeah, right here." He pointed a talon at a tiny maker's mark of two crossed talons. "This is Bright Feather's, or was. He didn't come back... yesterday..." His expression darkened. "How'd you find this again?"

Silver Spoon pulled the bow close. "It was just laying there."

Diamond Tiara stepped between the griffon and Silver. "That's beside the point. Nopony cares about a stupid bow. Where do you keep what little ledgers you do have?"

He pointed a talon at Diamond. "Don't test my patience. Bright wouldn't put down his bow for any reason. He practically slept with the damn thing. Hiring you two's gonna have to wait, seeing as you're prime suspects for his death."

Silver sank to her haunches. "D-death?! We didn't hurt him! We didn't even see him!"

Diamond scowled at the griffon. "Who are you to--"

"Did I mention I'm also the sheriff?" The griffon raised a brow. "Go back to the inn and wait. I'll investigate, and if you aren't there when I get back, I'll just have to assume you ran away to avoid justice and hunt you down." He pointed at the inn. "Get."

They sullenly turned back to the inn and began retracing their steps. The massive griffon took flight and vanished up the path. Silver glanced at her friend as she walked. "Do you think the ghost will get him?"

Diamond sighed softly. "We should be so lucky. Why'd you have to pick that thing up?! We were so close to getting it."

Silver shrank a little. "I just... I'm sorry. I didn't know it would cause trouble. I just liked the look of it."

Diamond shoved lightly at Silver. "You can't even use it!"

"Can too!" Silver pulled it off her back and drew an arrow. She knocked it and pulled it back with quivering legs, barely strong enough to bend the bow, and it didn't bend much. The bow was clearly meant for someone much stronger, and likely larger. With a loud twang, the arrow launched, sailing for about twenty feet before coming to a gentle landing in the snow. Silver smiled even as she tried to hide the wince from her lousy firing position and the sting it left in her leg. "I just need a little practice." She quickly fetched the arrow and put it away.

Diamond rolled her eyes. "Well if we end up in jail, I guess you'll have plenty of time. Oh, wait, they'll take your stupid bow away."

Silver frowned at the mental image. "But we didn't... kill... him, or anypony."

Diamond stomped in the snow just in front of the inn. "We were there! Who do you think that was that got attacked? He's going to figure it out, and we're going to jail."

With shared foul moods, they stepped inside, where it was, at least, warm.

It wasn't long before another griffon stepped in, a female with a raven's forebody and a housecat for a back end. She quickly found them in the main room and approached their table. "So it was you?" She pointed at Silver accusingly.

Silver rolled her ears back. "I didn't!"

"I should think not," agreed the griffon. "A final insult on his good name, telling me my husband was slain by a little pony whelp. What is he thinking?! You're not even large enough to fit his bow, let alone take him down. If you did, you deserve what you took, and he deserves to lose it, being killed so pathetically. No, I refuse to believe it."

She frowned at Silver Spoon. "And what kind of pony would butcher a griffon like that? That isn't how ponies behave, even in their darkest times. No, he was clearly slain by something with a much harder heart, twisted and vile."

Diamond Tiara tapped at the table. "Does that mean we're free to go now?"

"Not quite." She crossed her forelegs. "That bull of a sheriff's certain. Certainly an idiot, perhaps. I don't want this going to trial. The shame of it, no matter which way it is found, is too much to bear. My husband doesn't deserve to even be accused of being killed at the little delicate hooves of... this." She waved a talon at Silver Spoon. "Koidon would shove him free of the last nest for such an insult, and me after for allowing it."

Silver nodded slowly. "Alright, so, like, what should we do about it? You know I totally didn't kill him or anything awful like that."

The griffon's features softened slightly and she reached for Silver, patting her on the head. "Poor thing. You're just as much a victim, but you will recover, my husband is dead. His wounds won't heal. Tell me everything. Leave out no detail, no matter how small. He always said I was too clever for him, let's put that to work to get us out of this shameful mess."

Diamond began to recount the tail of finding the cabin, and the ghost they met, including the grisly end and their fleeing of the cabin. Silver interjected when they got to the part with the bow, and the griffon frowned.

"The bow is a gift, or a curse. You were meant to find it. It was put there by the angry ghost as a gift." She sighed softly. "I'm not arguing with a Koidon-damned ghost. If she wants you to have it, keep it. But I think I know what to do."