"Yeah, so apparently boxing came from you guys, so these were easy to find." Dash said, handing Eldon some gloves. "I got a nice story from the guy at the store about the beginning of this sport. I don't usually box, but I figured it was a good idea for our first time, you know? Lots of padding and stuff."
"So where are we doing this?" Eldon asked, confused slightly at the foam and leather gloves before he figured out they had plastic cones on the inside to keep his talons from ripping the hell out of them. He'd been wondering. "I assume not here, unless Rose wants dents in her walls."
"I'd like to keep my walls dent free!" Rose yelled from her storefront through the open connecting door, before returning to a customer with an apology as they continued their business. The pony merely laughed in response, delving back into the conversation.
"So yeah, there's a place in town that does stuff with fighting. They mostly do martial arts, but there's also a boxing ring. A few years ago they had a fight between two big important griffin fighters. It was interesting to watch, especially with the punches they were throwing. One of those in the right place without gloves and you're dead. I mean, an average pony, especially a non-earth pony might be but them..." she whistled. "They just shook those things off."
"Well we need an advantage or two if we're expected to come toe to toe with magic."
"I suppose." Dash replied, chuckling. "We'll have to see if you can get in that one hit, eh?"
"Yeah right." Eldon replied. "Those guys were pros or something."
Dash shrugged, watching him flex his talons inside the glove before taking it off once again. With the kind of muscle mass he had, she doubted he was that far from their kinds of punches. "You ready to go?" She asked.
Eldon nodded. "See ya later Roseluck!" He yelled back to the flower mare.
"Don't kill yourself!" Roseluck yelled back, out of sight. She stuck her head through the doorway. "Cato gets out of school at three, so in case I'm not there when it's time to pick him up, make sure you're watching the clock."
"Sure thing." The griffin replied, "But you've got to remind me to check with the seamstress about the sling."
"Rarity? Yeah, fine. You've got to learn these names, Eldon."
"I've met her literally one time."
"Well it's not going to be the last."
"Touché." Eldon responded, laughing. Rose grinned.
"Well, get on with that then, you're burning daylight!"
Eldon waved a talon dismissively at her. "If it goes on as long as you think it will, there should be no issue."
"I guess you'll have to prove me wrong." Rose replied with a smirk, disappearing back into the storefront.
___________________________________________________________________________
"Okay, so basically boxing is just a bunch of rounds, and a judge ruling on who wins. But since we don't have a judge and this is for practice, I'll just call a break when it looks like you need one."
"What about you?" Eldon asked, "What if you need a break?"
"Please." Dash replied dismissively. "I know you're strong and all, but you don't have the finesse, the pinpoint precision that it takes-" Eldon laughed, cutting her off. "What?"
"You better live up to expectations."
"Yeah, you ready?" She asked. He stretched out his leg, , making sure it was good and loose. It still hurt a little, but he was pretty sure it was close enough to healed. Then he nodded.
Almost immediately a punch flew straight for him, and Eldon only narrowly managed to get out of the way, deflecting her hoof with a jab. Dash was on him again almost immediately, and he quickly found that his only option was to dodge the punches she threw by a margin that got smaller and smaller each time. Either she was turning up the difficulty or he was getting tired already. Maybe a combination of both.
He kept a close eye on his surroundings, however, making sure to stay away from the corners. The last thing he needed was a lack of space. He was at least confident that he could continue to keep Dash from winning if he could stay in the open and have space to move. While she had speed, he knew he could match her movements if he pushed hard enough. He was heavy but his work and rations had forced him to stay light. There was very little on his that wasn't muscle.
A blow from Dash connected, hitting him square in the jaw. He reeled, keeping the presence of mind to back up quickly, moving sideways to stay out of a corner. He lunged towards her, throwing a heavy punch that whistled through thin air. He ended up off balance, spinning around to face Dash and recover. Either he wasn't fast enough or his mistake had dissolved all possibility of dodging her next strike, because he hardly had time to focus on her before a gloved hoof hit him in the other cheek. His head jolted sideways, but he made sure to keep his distance again.
"Look at you, the big griffin steering clear of a little mare like me." Dash teased, giving him a moment to rest. "Not so dangerous without your claws, huh?"
"We'll see what you think whe-" Eldon hopped backwards, a punch sliding just beneath his chin.
"Well, you've got good reflexes, I'll give you that." Dash chuckled, watching Eldon closely. He couldn't say the punches hurt a whole lot. There was some force behind them for sure and it shook him up, but there wasn't much more than a slightly warm sensation in his cheeks. He calculated his advantages again. Unsurprisingly, he didn't see many. He moved sideways from a punch, another glancing off his chin as he tried to move in the other direction. There was height. She couldn't get as good of an angle in the punches as he could. That was clear, and the little rise she had to do to throw one upwards made it slightly easier to dodge.
The other one lied in the number of hits he could take. So presumably what he needed to do to get through her defense was to react to a blow in a way she wouldn't expect. As in by not reacting.
Eldon took one right between the eyes, his head jerking backwards as he reeled from the unexpected hit. Dash had an easily recognizable rhythm that she tended to break from in the most unpredictable ways. He could only assume it was her strategy. Dash sent another punch towards the side of Eldon's head. He braced himself, moving his head to meet her hoof. The collision hurt, but put her off balance enough for Eldon to throw a punch of his own. Dash got her other hoof up to block it, but it was solid contact.
She slid backwards across the ring, coming to a stop several steps from Eldon. She shook her hoof in the air, laughing. "I can concede, I've never seen a strategy quite like that one."
"Well I don't have as much to work with when I can't grip your arms. I'd say that'd be a pretty good advantage, if I could catch one."
"Yeah, well getting forced to use something else isn't a bad thing." She paused, taking a few deep breaths. Eldon grinned, glad he could at least get a fit mare like her slightly out of breath.
"What're you lookin' so happy about?" Dash asked, smirking.
"The fact that you're breathing heavily and I wasn't a pushover."
Dash grinned. "Always the optimist."
"No sense getting beat up about it." Eldon jiggled a gloved talon at her. "Eh?"
"I don't know how good puns were where you came from, but they're actually the highest sense of humor here and I'm speechless at the eloquence of that execution."
"Really?"
"No, not really." Dash laughed. "I mean, it was a good pun, but a good pun is still a bad joke."
"Touché." Eldon replied, chuckling to himself.
"Well get ready again, because until you have to get your brother from school or somepony passes out, we aren't stopping."
"Sounds good to me."
______________________________________________________________________________
Eldon wiped blood from his mouth, staring at Dash across the ring. She was far less damaged, but a few bruises were steadily appearing across her body, especially on her hooves where the vast majority of his hits had landed. As a result they had become a noticeably darker blue.
"I'm calling it." Dash huffed, poking at one of her legs gingerly. "You need to go get your brother, and frankly I want to get some ice on my legs before they turn into sausages."
"Blue sausages."
"I bet they'd still look appetizing to you, huh?" Dash smirked.
"Don't tempt me."
The blue mare laughed, pushing her way through the side of the ring and hopping onto the floor. "We better get that cut on your face under control. I don't want the citizens thinking that you're still getting beat up."
"It's not that bad."
"Yeah, well frankly you better hope you don't swell up. Because honestly it looks like it hurts already."
"I mean, not that much." Eldon lied. It wasn't horrible, but he definitely felt beaten up. But he knew he didn't bruise much at all, and under his feathers there was basically no chance that ponies would be able to tell. Besides, their sight wasn't as adept as any griffin's would be, so it couldn't be that hard to hide something like that from them.
He'd evidently been lost in a combination of his thoughts and the throbbing pain for long enough to not notice Dash approaching him with a wet rag. She pressed it to his forehead, wiping gently at the cuts. "At least we know that you aren't going to stop fighting until you're dead, if you keep it up like you do here."
"I guess I'm pretty motivated to survive."
Dash laughed. "Yeah, I guess." She poked Eldon on the cheek, trying to keep his concentration on her, rather than wherever it was. Not that he probably didn't have a lot to think about. "Why all the deep thoughts?" Eldon looked at her, and for a moment Dash thought he wouldn't tell her. Maybe she'd gone a little too far.
He sighed. "Well I'm glad we're doing this, and I'm thankful for the fact that I live in a society where I can own a weapon as well, but I can't help but think it's too little, too late."
"What do you mean?" As if she didn't know.
"Well I'm sure you've been told that the griffins that chased Roseluck and me out of the Griffin Kingdom are still alive and waiting out there somewhere." He paused, rolling the facts over in his head and screening some out. "Basically, long story short is that I also know that I need to integrate with this society as quickly as possible and as deeply as possible in order to make sure that I'm not under as much threat of getting kicked out. Because in my mind, having some ponies stand up for me and say that I'm a good guy is important, right?"
"Right." Dash confirmed, finding interest in the way he thought about the world. How he needed to think about the world, unfortunately.
"And the other thing is that there's no way Roseluck can support herself and me and Cato on her shop. I'm not saying that it's a bad business model or anything, but there's just no way. So I know that my next priority is to get a job of some sort, and start paying my keep. Besides, apparently even your most poorly trained workers get paid somewhat handsomely."
"It's not quite as handsome as you might think, but yeah."
"Well whatever. I'll learn the currency conversion later, then."
"It's not really hard. We've only got one type of coin." Dash pulled the rag away, staring at it. The part that she'd been holding to Eldon's forehead was crimson with blood, though he doubted that it was as bad as it looked. It had started out damp, after all.
"You only have one?" He asked. "You just have the bite?"
Dash giggled. "The bit. And yeah."
"That's strange. We have the big one, called the bracken, then the quarter and the tenth bracken. I've seen a few twentieths, but they're pretty rare."
"Why?" Dash asked.
Eldon was silent for a moment. "Well, what they did was adjust the prices very specifically, and they couldn't do that without small coins."
"You couldn't barter?" Eldon stared. "Yeah, duh, sorry. But I mean, that'd get rid of the crazy deals at the market. Whenever there's competition with low bit-valued items, the deals get crazy really fast. It starts as one bit for one apple, say. Then the second vendor undercuts them at like three bits for four, then two for three, and a bunch of crazy fractions with tons of apples." Dash pushed some gauze onto Eldon's forehead, wrapping a bandage around his head to hold it in place. "It looks like its slowing down, so it shouldn't bleed through. A clean bandage won't look too weird."
"I guess."
"You know, you remind me of this griffin from years ago that came over here, made a name for himself fighting. I don't know much about him other than the fact that he's called Jack and won a lot. I assume that was his nickname or something but nopony ever really knew his name."
"Why do I remind you of him?" Eldon asked.
"Probably because I'm sure you'll pick this up quickly, and honestly I don't know much about you either." She admitted. "Hopefully you'll spill the beans a little more some time."
"Only if you do in return."
"You've got yourself a deal, Jack." Dash responded with a grin. "Also, you have three minutes before your brother gets out."
Eldon looked at the clock, then Dash's smirk. "Shit."
____________________________________________________________________________________
"So where's your brother?" An orange filly asked Cato, blowing part of her mane out of her eye as they left the classroom. "Isn't he that big one, probably the only other griffin around town?"
"Yeah, he is." Cato grinned, proud that his brother had started to become known.
"I heard he was gonna fight Rainbow Dash today, do you think he could win?" Her eyes seemed to question him more than her words had, as if she had a huge sum of money bet on one or the other.
"I dunno, Eldon's strong but he hasn't had any training before. That's why they're fighting... well, practicing."
She frowned. "Oh, well what's he training for?"
He wasn't supposed to go into extreme detail. That's what Roseluck had said, anyway. Eldon had shocked a lot of ponies already, so he could see why. "He wants to be able to defend himself against griffins that might want to hurt him."
"Why would they want-"
"Hey, let's not just grill him with questions, Scootaloo." A white filly began, extending her hoof for him to shake. He did, after a moment of thought. She took interest in the way he wrapped his talon around it. "It's too bad Applebloom had to go, she loves to meet new classmates. But anyway, my name is Sweetie Belle, and hers is Scootaloo."
"Cato, in case you forgot." The griffin responded, idly kneading the grass below him with his talons and enjoying its feel. He still hadn't gotten used to all the greenery.
"Do you like it here, in Equestria?" Sweetie asked. "If you don't mind the questions."
"No, to be honest I worried that it would be harder to get ponies to talk to me. I guess I'm not as intimidating as my brother. I like it here, though. It's nice and sunny and I can do whatever I want."
"Whatever you want?" Sweetie asked. "Lucky..."
"That's not what I meant, I mean there are still rules and stuff but only the ones my brother has, not the government."
"Oh," she replied, nodding. "That's kinda weird."
"It's why we moved." Cato replied, grinning. "And it was a great decision!" Talking openly about anything to the other young griffins would have put him on some list somewhere to be watched, his brother had said, but here he could say whatever he wanted. There were social norms, he was sure, but that was probably the extent of it.
"So can you get a cutie mark?" Scootaloo asked, pointing to his flank. "Like, you know how Cheerilee has one?"
"Uh..." He looked at his flank and shrugged. "I've never seen them on griffins before."
"No cutie marks?!" Scootaloo rolled her eyes, watching a pink filly walk up. "How unfortunate." The new pony continued.
"What?" Cato asked, confused. "Why does it matter?"
The filly feigned shock. "It's only the most important part of a foal's life, when they realize their special talent and get their mark."
"So the mark represents it outwardly?" He asked.
"Well, duh!" She replied, giggling along with another filly.
Cato turned to Scootaloo. "I don't get why it's important." He whispered, ignoring the additional giggling, though he could tell it aggravated Scootaloo. "I mean, none of us are working yet, and I assume that you guys can do more than one thing well. So like basically it seems like you should figure it out on your own."
"That's what happens, then it pops up. Like confirmation." Scootaloo explained. "That's why we don't have ours."
"So like if you haven't learned about something in school that is your talent thing, you wouldn't be able to figure it out on your own. But something knows that it's your talent, because the mark appears. Do you like, subconsciously know the whole time?" The group became silent. "Or do you have the possibility of getting several marks but the first talent you find sticks? So they found they were good at eating and shiny things?" He asked, pointing to the spoon and the shiny thing, whatever it was.
"I dunno, I guess." Scootaloo said with a laugh before the other two could respond, now the offended looking ones instead.
"Hey, Cato." Eldon said, walking up to their little group. "Sorry I'm a little late."
"It's no big deal, I had company. And they explained how the marks work. So that one over there is good at eating and the other one does something with shiny things." Scootaloo and Sweetie were having trouble containing their laughter. Eldon looked at the angry fillies with confusion.
"Well I guess we should get going. Say goodbye to your friends, Cato."
"Actually, we're just walking ourselves home, so can we go with you?" Sweetie spoke up, the yellow one and the orange one tagging along
"Where's your sister?" Eldon asked. "I thought she would have been here."
The filly shrugged. "She's probably working on some urgent deadline. When she's not here after a few minutes I just go home."
"And you?" He asked Scootaloo. "I don't want to have your parents worry." And make him look like a weirdo.
"Eh, they work way later than school gets out. I walk home as it is." She paused. "I'm Scootaloo, by the way. How come you look kinda beaten up?"
He chuckled, both at realizing what a slow pace he had to take to stay with the kids' walking speed and at the question. He was sure he couldn't look that great, even if he didn't feel a lot of swelling. "Rainbow Dash was trying to teach me how to fight more effectively."
That piqued her interest, for whatever reason. "It doesn't look like you won."
"Well no," Eldon affirmed. "But that's why she's the teacher."
"So, you got enemies that need a good punching then?" She asked, grinning. "Gotta beat 'em up?"
"Sort of." He said, giving a nondescript answer. "I like to be prepared."
"Well, mister..." Sweetie began. He realized he hadn't introduced himself.
"Eldon."
"Yeah, Eldon. We should get ice cream!" He tried to remember what that was. It hazily came to mind. He was pretty sure Roseluck had some in her freezer. That was strawberry, and he'd definitely eaten those things on enough occasions to know what they tasted like.
"As long as you know your sister or parents aren't going to yell at me for doing it." He replied with a smirk, knowing that they would probably just lie to get what they wanted. Such were the ways of Cato, to a certain degree, and he assumed the lack of self control was universal. Ice cream was a sort of delicacy anyway, so he couldn't say he wasn't curious. It had been on his food bucket list for a couple days now since he remembered it existed.
They fillies looked at each other uneasily before giving him half smiles.
"Eldon!" A voice came, which he recognized as Rarity's before he had turned around all the way. "I see you've become the new foal magnet in town." Rarity cringed a little, annoyed with her wording.
"Yeah, for some reason." He scratched his head, missing her blunder. "They want ice cream."
Rarity glanced at the clock tower, a fair distance away. "I suppose if they don't eat anything else before their dinners, I could make an exception." She lowered her voice as the children rejoiced. "Has Cato ever-" Eldon shook his head. If he had, Eldon didn't remember it. But ice cream had never been a griffin food anyway, so there was no huge surprise there. "Well then ice cream it is!"
_____________________________________________________________________________
"What are cherries?" Eldon asked, as a stallion behind the counter pointed to an ice cream flavor he'd asked about.
"Dear, how do I explain cherries?" He asked what Eldon assumed was his wife.
She walked over from the bakery part of the counter, laughing. "See, this is why we need the choice cut beef flavor I was talking about. But it's like-" She struggled to explain.
"Ha, see? Not so easy!"
"Well just a little tangy but also sweet. That's the bland definition." She said, hoping that'd satisfy him.
"That's what he said about the raspberry flavor though." Eldon noted. He thought for a moment. "Supposedly it's pretty hard to not like ice cream, so just give me the cherry thing."
"Black cherry or regula-" The stallion started to ask before stopping himself. His wife chuckled.
"There are black cherries?" He asked. "What do those taste like?"
____________________________________________________________________________________
Eldon sat down at a table with the others, looking down at his cup of various flavors. He'd gotten a few things to taste so he knew what he wanted for the next time. Then some other foals had gone and grabbed tasting spoons, which he hadn't known were an option because all of his acquaintances had known what they wanted. It made sense to him now why they kept asking him if he wanted to try it, but he had just taken it as aggressive marketing. They needed to write a book for him, because apparently his complete lack of understanding for free society continued to baffle ponies and annoy him at every turn.
"What's up, bro?" Cato asked, pointing at his expression with his spoon. "Thinkin' you got the wrong flavor?" Cato, of course, had gone for the most colorful and exciting flavor. Maybe he should have just done that? He shrugged internally. At least most of the population knew the circumstances surrounding his appearance. Hopefully they'd take that into account next time he acted strangely.
"I don't know yet." He replied, throwing his emotions out of his mind as he took a bite. Unsurprisingly he enjoyed it. "Not this one, anyway."
"So what's the coolest thing you had back where you came from?" Scootaloo asked.
Eldon crossed his arms, thinking. He was too big for this chair. Damn, nice focusing skills. Okay, so he worked in a mine to find coal and iron ore. Mostly iron. He specialized in moving the carts because he was strong. They hit him when he was tired. Then he went to the market and bought food with slightly better than average wages which they ate as Eldon tried to undo the day's brainwashing on Cato and teach him something. Then he slept and did it again. He needed to spin something out of that in some way to make it at least sound like it didn't suck.
"The People's Palace." He finally decided. "It was this big building built before the revolution that got renamed. I don't remember what the original name of it was." His father probably did. He had talked a lot about it. Probably the only nice building left in that city, seeing as several had been demolished as relics of the old ways. They loved to say how they'd basically been in the dark ages before the current regime. Clearly, judging by the tech around here, that couldn't be true. "Full of marble and these huge columns..." He trailed off, not knowing much more about it.
"What do they do there?" Scootaloo asked. Persistent, that one.
"Um... I think the local party members meet there sometimes. The military goes in and out a lot too, so they probably have some operations in there."
"But if it's the people's palace, why can't you just go in?"
All the hard questions. "It's just like... a name, or something. It doesn't mean anything." He struggled to explain more, but ended up just giving an exasperated gesture. "Apparently you have the royal city thing, so I'll have to go there sometime."
"Also Manehattan, which is really big." Sweetie added. "They have trains, but underground."
"Subways, dear." Rarity explained.
Eldon took a bite of his ice cream. "So they ship their supplies around the city underground? Interesting."
"Well, they actually use them to move ponies." Rarity explained. "The city does business, mostly buying and selling things that aren't physically there. Not much cargo comes out, other than what goes through the port."
"How can they all be shopkeepers, and sell imaginary things?"
"They just-" She paused to think. The more questions he asked, the less made sense. Other ponies were looking.
"Let me try." A stallion said, placing a hoof on Rarity's shoulder. "I do a little business with the Griffin Republic, or whatever they're calling it nowadays. What'd you do when you were there? Oh, and call me Rich, by the way." Eldon shook his hoof. That was a little bombastic of him to just call himself rich but whatever.
"I was in the mines." He said shortly.
The pony nodded. "Well then think of what they do like this. The mine is its own business, and manages itself. But if there are multiple mines owned by the same companies, they need central management. Those guys are in Manehattan, working to make sure all the larger operations of the mines interact with other businesses and get where they need to go on time. As companies get bigger, the executives, as they're called, grow larger in number as well. It's a similar system to your government, in a way, but I'm sure it's much more fair."
"I can assume. Thanks."
"Oh, and in case it gets mentioned to you, companies can turn part of their companies public, breaking them up into little pieces called shares. All of those together make a stock. If you buy a share and it goes up and you sell it, you win. If you short a share and it goes down, you win. The other two opposites are losses. It's worth a trip sometime, to see the world's last bastion of true capitalism." Eldon nodded. "Ahh, you know what? I was in the middle of this, but you need it more than I do." He slapped a book onto the table, earmarked and with colorful notes sticking out all over. "Give that a read, and you'll be prepared for whatever the market throws at you, my boy!" He looked at his watch, and with a hasty farewell, left.
"I never knew that Rich would take such an interest in teaching the financially challenged." Rarity jibed, poking him in the side. Eldon turned over the book, called 'Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal'. He'd just add this to his long list of things to do.
"Capitalism." He said, feeling the word out. He hadn't heard it often. Well he had, but usually in the context of the government saying how bad it was. It was definitely a new word to say. "It's got a nice ring to it."
___________________________________________________________________________
Hammer beats sounded, interrupting their parting words as the small group loitered around outside. Eldon glanced at their source, watching a pony pound shingles onto his roof for a few seconds before losing interest.
"In any case, Eldon, you may as well come." She said. "If you're around, of course."
"Yeah, I'd love to." He responded. He'd never been to a party before but Rarity had been very specific on how low key it was. But also that there would be alcohol there, so Cato would have to stay home. He knew quite a bit about alcohol, for a change. He'd gotten drunk several times, usually on the day off he got each week. But there was no one to be drunk with, and he just ended up feeling desperately lonely and irresponsible. So he'd cut that habit before it could get off the ground. This was social drinking, however, which he assumed more for the tastes of fine beverages rather than with the express purpose of getting drunk, and gave him a perfect opportunity to study the social practices of the ponies when out of the public eye.
"Well let me warn you about a certain pink mare that'll be really excited to meet you." Rarity began cryptically. "You're lucky she wasn't in the bakery because you would've had your ear talked off. She'll try to throw a party for you or something as a welcome, so think about whether you want the attention or not so you can prepare an answer. Her parties are almost always fun and age inclusive, so Cato could tag along and meet a few foals, though he seems to already have made a few friends." She chuckled, pointing to the group of foals several steps away.
Eldon grinned. "I'm glad he's fitting in alright." He was honestly surprised at how well everything had gone so far.
Rarity beamed back, proud of her sister. "Oh! I just remembered. Dash asked me when you were planning on flying. Said she forgot to ask after because you had to go and her hooves were all bruised."
"I don't know." Eldon said truthfully. "I'd like to do it somewhere safer like over a pond, so that falling isn't as bad. They say you never forget, but it's been years. Cato's sort of experimenting with it, but his wings have a ways to go."
"Well I-"
The pony from the roof made a strange noise, hooves sliding along the shingles as he lost his balance, a rope he had tied around himself slipping from its knot around the chimney. Eldon dug his claws into the ground, finding grooves in the cobblestones as he burst into as full of a sprint as he could manage. He got under the pony as his hooves left the roof, flaring his wings and flapping them to slow down and raise him up on his hind legs. He caught the pony in his arms, careful to not impale them with his talons, and let him down onto the ground. He was lighter than Eldon was expecting. Maybe he was stronger than he'd thought. All he'd had to compare his strength to before had been pushing rolling piles of stones. Admittedly that was a narrow test.
Some clapping broke him from his concentration, and he folded his wings back in, turning to the ponies that had happened to be walking by.
"Did you see the wingspan on him?" A pegasus asked another, who nodded accordingly.
"Thanks..." The pony began, searching for a name.
"Eldon." Eldon replied, shaking the hoof of the pony, who introduced himself as Surehoof with a slight chuckle. Apparently the name only applied when on solid ground. "You know, I could do that for you if you showed me how to nail those on. I stick a little better." He pointed out, showing off a talon. The pony nodded, wiping sweat from his brow.
"To save me from doing the rest of that? Sure. What do you want for it?"
The question bounced around in his head. He wanted money. But he didn't know how much money was acceptable. What was too much money? Could he say a number that was too high and scare away this pony from continuing to work with him?
"Sorry, Darling." Rarity interjected. "He doesn't know the value of money around here yet." She thought for a moment. "He's a hardworking griffin. Stronger than a couple ponies, I would assume." She said the words playfully, as if teasing him. He wasn't sure how to take her meaning. "As soon as he gets going, I can't imagine he'll take too long. Why don't you pay him overtime?"
"Well, I-"
"You could pay two ponies to finish just as fast, I bet." She picked up one of his talons, pushing the pony's hammer into it for Eldon to grip. It looked humorously sized. "That's gotta be a one hit wonder arm right there. And just look at that grip!" Her eyes sparkled.
The pony put a hoof to his chin, thinking. "I'll tell you what. You finish as quickly as she's saying, and I'll give you that. If you're that good, I'll spread the word. A hired hoof of your size is always in demand." He grinned. "But I'm done thinking about this roof for today. Can you be here at like nine tomorrow?"
"Of course." Eldon responded. "Should I bring anything?"
"Just your work ethic." He replied. "Thanks for not trying to scalp me by using that catch as an excuse. But nice catch, by the way. Very gentle." He grabbed his fallen tools, bidding them goodbye and shakily opening his door.
"Well there you go." Rarity responded. "Your first real job."
"Yeah." Eldon grinned, tossing Cato onto his back as they started to walk in the direction of their homes, all the same way apparently. "Roseluck will be thrilled to hear this."
_____________________________________________________________________
"Really? Already?!" Roseluck exclaimed, pushing against his shoulder with a hoof excitedly. "I'm so happy for you!"
"Well I know it must be expensive to support us both, and even though you said it was no trouble I have a hard time believing that it isn't. So expect a little boost in income around here."
He staggered as the mare launched herself into him, hugging around his neck. "Thanks, Eldon." She hugged him tightly, happier than she cared to admit. She had been legitimately worried for a while that she wouldn't have the money to support them forever. They weren't in dire straits, but she didn't think she could turn a profit and avoid slowly eating away at her savings.
Roseluck felt him hug her back, pulling her in a little closer. Maybe he was feeling a little of what she was. His feathers had become much softer, the smell coming off of him no longer of dirt, sweat and blood. Well, there was some of that, but he'd been fighting. Everything she'd seen him as that first day... scared, hungry and tired, not to mention bleeding all over... She was so glad they'd gotten him out of there and safely back. Eldon had survived the griffins' attempts to off him, and the fact that he smiled at all, let alone so often had to be a twist of the knife to everyone that had tried to keep him under their talons before. And they even had a group of the royal guards here in town to investigate and scare off the griffins if they ever got too adventurous.
She found herself liking the hug, remembering the night when she'd slept under his wing. He was warm and emitted an aura of strength and intelligence, though she wasn't sure if the townsponies knew of the latter. She was thankful that Eldon had come along at such a time, but after those nights together she struggled to not feel a little more than gratitude. If he was a pony Roseluck would've taken him to a restaurant already. Well, maybe. She never was good at getting dates.
But Eldon was a griffin and that made everything weird. It wasn't even the griffin thing she was concerned about, not really. It was more that he didn't really get romance or courting. He needed to get used to it, maybe make a move on somepony himself before she wanted to let herself think that any of this felt at all right.
She sighed, pushing herself out of his feathers. Here she was again, deep in possibilities. Roseluck wasn't even sure she liked him. But at the same time she was pretty sure she did. Maybe with him having a job things would get a little less busy and she could think with a non-fatigued mind.
"Want a sandwich?" She asked, shaking off her thoughts and walking over to the fridge. "I picked up some actual meat for you today."
"Where'd you find it?"
"They just butchered a cow in the restaurant down the street, and they never really know what to do with all that before it goes bad. They were going to grind it up and freeze it for later but I offered them a few bits and they just gave it to me."
"Wait, it sounds like you're talking about a lot of-" Eldon's jaw dropped. "Woah."
"Yeah, what do you think?"
It was a pile of packages, of every cut Eldon could imagine. Well, except for the good parts of the cow that never seemed to be there when they got to the griffin markets, probably removed as 'tax'. Now he figured it was the business that wanted them instead, but still. "It's a lot of meat." He responded. The smell floated over, caressing his nostrils and making his mouth water. More than he'd ever expected to have even in his wildest dreams.
"A lot of the 'good stuff' is gone." She said, making air quotes. "Ponies aren't that great at using the whole thing like you guys probably are. Lots of waste. Meat is something you don't get often, like I said."
"Weirdos." Eldon responded. "Must just not know how to cook it."
Roseluck laughed. "I'll definitely let you take the lead on this. We'll see how fast you eat it, and maybe just grab stuff from the restaurant whenever they do another cow."
"Well, Rose," He began, pointing a talon up in the air excitedly. "Dinner is gonna be great." He looked at her stove, letting his finger fall slightly. He had a wood burning thing, and this was gas. And he had just ended up putting the blobs of meat down in the fire part where it was hotter and where he could really sear them. "Just gotta figure out how to cook it."
"Well you should bring Cato along." They both looked at the griffin, who was enamored in some book the school had given him.
"Oh yes." Eldon said evilly, rubbing his talons together. "Let the real education begin!"