David - 15th of Megan '15 EoH - NightDavid - 15th of Megan '15 EoH - Night
I would have given anything to know what a healthy changeling was like. As it was, I didn’t even know how long one was supposed to sleep for. Old me was fine after about seven hours, new me took only four. The pegasus I had traveled with last year needed five, and apparently unicorns needed eight.
Knowing how much sleep is enough sleep can be pretty important to understanding a patient's health. Everyone I knew would flinch at the thought of letting a veterinarian treat an injury of theirs, but any given vet knew far more about medicine than a doctor. The doc treats one species, the vet treats dozens. Not to belittle a doctor’s skills, but I could have really used the training a vet gets.
Though after thinking about it, I don’t think any vet would have an idea of how to treat an insect’s injuries ether. It was frustrating to think I could still fail to save Jade’s life. Sure I had patched up her outsides, but without knowing how much damage those bolts did inside, she could die from internal bleeding, or a ruptured organ anytime in the next few days.
I didn’t want that to happen. I was growing attached to the girl. She reminded me of myself at her age. We could be great friends, and she would benefit from my old life’s mistakes. It would be a shame for anyone to flush the best years of their life away like I had.
That’s the big reason why I was happy here. I may not have been born on this rock, or raised on this rock, but it was just as important to me as it would have been if I was. Religious folks I used to know always used the phrase ‘born again’ to describe the moment they became religious. I used it too now, only instead of a spiritual awakening I used it to describe the second shot I had been given.
I had wasted my old life. No lover, no family. No wealth to show for my years of service to my country. It hadn’t been my nation’s fault. It didn’t owe me anything. I simply never worked hard enough to claim a piece of the pie once I left the service. I gave my all to the war, and it left me empty, uncaring.
When I had woken up as a dog in a field five years ago with a hangover, missing my lighter and smokes I had decided one thing. That I would never look this gift horse in the mouth. Somehow I’d been given another go of things, the bitter old human I used to be was dead as far as I was concerned.
The new furry me would be different. I would have friends, I would find a place where I could live with someone I might fall in love with, get a job doing something to make others lives worthwhile, and never again spend an evening going through three packs with my friends Jack and Morgan, in a big old mope fest.
To hell with the old me. Except for everything he had picked up over the years. Dog’s gotta eat. No sense starting over from total scratch.
Especially not when you’re going to do stupid things like patch up a civilian in the middle of a warzone who apparently needed to die for her enemies to win. The griffon’s wording was pretty fresh in my mind still. Jade would legally inherit her hive due to some treaty as the last survivor of it, and this was bad because then the griffons couldn’t take legal ownership of the mine there without losing a trade partner.
An enemy desperate enough for a mine to swoop in and capture it on the heels of a larger unallied force’s own attack wouldn’t let a little thing like morals stop them from their goals. They were most certainly tracking the two of us down right now, and when they found us, they would try to kill us. That was as certain as the sunrise.
Even though Applewood was only two days away by my best reckoning, holing up in a town would just drag civilians into the fight. The enemy was willing to kill everyone, children included.
Running was no good either, they could fly and as fast a runner I was now, I couldn’t outrun anything with a pair of wings. This had left me with one option, set up an ambush and take out the party sent to find us.
I had kept walking until sunset, putting as much distance as possible between Jade’s hive and ourselves as I could. As the sun started to go down I’d found a nice glade next to a creek that was surrounded by some of the older cedar trees in the forest. My plan was to camp there for a few days.
It would only be spotted from the air if someone flew directly over it, and more importantly, the thick brush and thorn bushes would make approach easily noticeable unless they came from three specific directions.
The first was upstream, and the second was downstream. The river wasn’t very deep so someone could conceivably walk along the bank or even in the water. Fortunately the canopy was low, and the trees pretty close together. A griffon’s wingspan was about twice my height, they wouldn’t be flying between the trees. They would have to walk.
A few of my improvised claymores and the stream was completely secured. The water would prevent the fire from burning down the forest, and anything coming up or downstream bigger than a rabbit wouldn’t make it into camp.
The third entrance was harder. It was definitely a trail someone had cut through the brush. Not recently fortunately. Months had passed since someone chopped through the brush. Bombs wouldn’t do here. The brush was dry, and all of my explosives made a lot of fire. One blast and the whole woods would go up in smoke.
Instead, I turned to an old standby for defending a camp, punji stakes. My hands were surprisingly good at digging. It had been a delight to discover the things my new body could do. Within a half hour I had three griffon sized pits dug and lined with thin bits of cedar I had crudely sharpened with my knife.
There were plenty of leaves and grasses to cover the pit’s with. Once these stakes were hidden, anyone coming up the trail would definitely alert us to their presence. I just hoped that this glade had served it’s purpose to whomever had made that trail. The stakes probably wouldn’t kill anyone, they would mostly just take someone out of the fight and make a lot of noise. But I resolved myself to treat any injury that these caused to anyone other than the enemy.
Booby traps are not good at discriminating between enemies, third parties and even you if you forget where you put them. If I wasn’t facing a large group of heavily armed and likely armored soldiers with just my knife and the responsibility of protecting a patient, I wouldn’t have used them.
I would definitely clean them up before leaving. I never understood the kind of person who just leaves mines buried after they move on. Immoral bastards.
I was focused on making the breakaway lid for the first stake trap, when a terrified scream ripped through the air! A male scream. A male scream of pain mixed with rage.
“Help!” Jade shouted desperately.
Fucking hell! They flew directly overhead.
Jade - 15th of Megan '15 EoH - Night
I woke up with my chest not feeling quite so bad. I had just enough time to take that in, notice the pale orange light of sunset, recognize that I was still atop David’s cart, and tilt my head back to stretch my neck. I saw the griffons mid dive, one moving straight for me, and I acted with no thought.
My short sword seemed to fly from it’s scabbard, green aura holding it point first into the diving griffon. His eyes widened, tan wings flared to change direction, he slowed, but too little too late. With an awful ripping sound the blade plunged into his chest, and he let out a scream which echoed in my ears.
Red blood pooled on white feathers and darkened his tabard. His falling body wrenched the sword from my magic’s grip, and he slammed into the ground with a sound like dropping a watermelon, his spear sticking point first into the ground only feet away from my face!
“Help!” I screamed, my brain only then realizing what the hay was going on.
The other four griffons circled overhead for a moment, landing around the cart one by one. I was completely unarmed now, and they had big speary things. My hearts began to beat faster and faster, which sent rapid fire flicks of pain down my left side. One of the griffons nodded towards me, and grinned wickedly.
“Right lads, do your job.” he said lazily, “Oh, and we ain't telling the Captn about the cart full of loo-”
A piercing scream to my left split the air! The griffon soldiers wheeled around, spears immediately pointing towards the enemy. I twisted my neck just in time to see David hoist a screaming griffon up using a huge knife stabbed into the griffon’s back like a handle.
It was like someone stopped time. Everyone stood there as David pulled the griffon up, threw an arm around his throat, and squeezed hard, holding him there like a shield. I heard the knife scrape on something as he pulled it out and held it ready, eyes narrowed into laser-focused slits.
“Oorah motherfuckers!” David shouted.
The clearing exploded into action. The griffons charged forward, spears braced under a wing, one talon holding the spears straight, aimed right for the dog who killed their friend. A Griffonese warcry shrieked through the air, cloth and feathers rippled as the griffons surged forward like a rockslide.
David let go of the griffon he was holding, and in one powerful motion shoved him forwards right onto the point of the closest griffon’s spear. A heartbeat later David threw himself at the ground, three spears slicing the air where he had been a moment before. The griffons jumped back, readying another spear thrust, the one whose spear was stuck in his ally let go of the spear and drew a dagger.
David rolled quickly to the side, then forwards. He curled his legs under himself and then sprang up with a hop that put him inches from the dagger wielding griffon. His hand blurred, I heard a crack like a board breaking, and the griffon dropped. The remaining two griffons threw a flurry of spear thrusts, David turned one spear aside with his knife, then grunted as the other sliced a line along his ribs.
I had to do something! With the advantage of surprise gone, even I could see how much of an advantage the griffons had with their spears. He was going to die unless- The dagger the griffon had been holding caught my eye, its slim blade glittering on the ground.
I reached for it with my magic, the weapon was just barely in my range. My aura engulfed the tip, pulled it slowly closer. A second later and I had the entire blade gripped in my aura. As I struggled to get the dagger, David yelped in pain, as a second thrust gouged another line just below his first wound.
I turned the dagger sideways, and with all the force I could, slammed it into into a griffon’s neck. He didn’t scream, he just gurgled and fell over, the blade buried to the hilt in one side, the tip sticking out the other. I felt my own throat tighten as he fell, my hearts skipped a beat. Killing was the worst feeling.
With only one opponent remaining, David shot forwards, grabbing the griffon's spear by its handle. His knife seemed to float in his hand as he flipped it over, lunged forward and slammed it into the gryphon's skull. As the griffon dropped David retrieved his knife, and sighed a long, tired, sad, sigh.
“God… I’ll never get away from this, will I?” He muttered to himself.
I only saw it out of the corner of my eye. I was focused on the person I had just killed, eyes wide in horror. I had tasted his final emotion, it had been joy. He was happy I had killed him. It felt like someone had ripped my chest open again.
Why? Who would want to die? Without any hint of sadness. None. Just joy. Why?
I yelped as something tapped against my side. “Ahh!”
“Hey! Snap out of it!” David ordered three inches from my nose. “You did good. That throw saved both our lives. I know it feels horrible, but you need to rise above it!”
“I n-no!” I stammered.
David frowned. “Jade… Psychologically speaking, you shouldn’t-”
“No! I’m okay with killing!” I said quickly. “W-well… not okay, okay… I don’t like it. I don’t want to do it. But I knew I would probably have to one day… Not everyone is okay with changelings living in their town… I’m a scout, I would have been away from the hive a lot… They show all scouts how to use a knife…”
David’s ears stood up for a moment, “Oh good! You have some training, I was worried that you were completely raw.” His eyes widened in alarm, mouth stopping moving mid sentence. An instant later he held up a hand with two fingers raised. “Were you hit? How many fingers-”
I nodded my head rapidly, forgetting other species shook it for no in my haste. “No! I’m an emotovore! I can taste others emotions… He was happy I killed him.”
“Oh.” David winced, real sympathy on his face as he set a hand on my shoulder. “I can’t imagine what that feels like. I won’t pretend to know. You have my deepest sympathy... and pity.”
“Why pity?” I asked fearfully.
“Because odds are good we will have to fight off another squad soon.” David sighed sadly. “These ones will fail to report back, they really want you dead, and need you dead, so they will send more after us.”
“I-wait, what? Why?” I asked frowning in confusion.
David stepped back, slipping an odd thing which looked like a bunch of iron rings welded together off the hand he hadn’t been holding his knife in. “The box to your right, the green one. Pass it to me please. I need to patch myself up.”
Oh right! He was hurt. I quickly lifted the large box with my magic and set it on the ground next to him as he stripped off his tunic. His whole right side was stained dark red, almost black. “Owch…”
“I’m fine. Adrenaline is killing the pain at the moment.” David informed, sitting down and opening the box to reveal a ton of different things, most of which I recognized from my trips to the hive’s doctor. “As for your question, when I finished patching you up I had to ambush two griffons. One of them mentioned to the other they had to be sure you were dead, because of some international treaty. If you are alive, you legally own the mines under your hive. They want them, and can’t afford violating that treaty, or they will lose a trade deal with another nation.”
I blinked in confusion, “But… The Griffon Kingdom exports to everyone. They don’t buy things. You can’t offer them anything other than gold… Who is powerful enough to trade with a kingdom the size of ten normal ones?”
David shrugged, then took a small bottle and a cloth from the kit and started to wash the cuts. He winced every few moments, hissing in pain a few times. “Hell… That’s bone! I’ll have to sew this… Hold on, I’ll remember eventually…”
David was quiet for about a minute as he cleaned the cuts, then too my horror retrieved a needle and thread and began to sew himself up like a ripped blanket!
“I um...er… dose that even work?” I asked morbidly.
David looked up at me with a deeply confused expression, then his eyes lit up and he laughed for a few seconds before grabbing his wounded side “AH! Dammit girl! Don’t make me laugh yet… Yes, you can just sew skin back together. It fixes itself slowly and if sewn it heals very quickly. You… you’ve never had to deal with it have you? I thought you were shape shifters.”
“I’ve only been able to change for two days… Or more… If I’ve been out a long time.” I answered, looking away from him as he stitched through his own skin and muscle. It was… gross.
“The only times I’ve ever been hurt bad I just wanted to molt. I get a new exoskeleton every three months. If it’s not damaged too much my magic will regenerate… I’ve heard that I can regenerate any damage that doesn't kill me outright, but I’ve never had enough love in me to do it. It takes a lot of energy.” I explained slowly.
“Uh… Love?” David asked in the most awkward tone imaginable.
I nodded. “Yeah. Joy, delight, and that stuff will keep us alive and power us a bit, but love is what we’re supposed to eat. It’s best for us, and gives the most power.”
“So…” David asked slowly, squirming uncomfortably, “if I am going to heal your wound properly am I going to have to have sex with-”
I laughed and held up a hoof. “No. Brotherly and sisterly love works too.”
“Oh thank god!” David let out a held breath in relief. The horrified expression started to leave his face.
I felt the urge to tease him. Mostly to avoid thinking about the griffon still there, looking at me with his happy, dead, eyes. But also partially because watching the big, tough, warrior dog squirm was fun!
I put on a bit of a husky voice and smiled at him playfully. “But mom says that sex gets you the most energy the quickest. You’re pretty cute… and I would like to be able to walk soon.”
David’s ears and tail shot straight up like someone fired them from a bow! “Er, Ma’am, you’ve told me that’s not medically necessary, and while I am flattered, and I assure you that I do find your species to be cute assuming you are a typical example, I am in no way interested in being anything more than friends with you!” he stammered.
I felt a bit bad for making him squirm like that… but I also felt a bit insulted by his rejection.
“It’s because I’m not a mammal isn't it?” I demanded.
David facepalmed. “Even on another flipping planet, in another god damn dimension, people always assume racism first…”
I raised an eyebrow curiously.
David shook his head. “Jade, no, it’s not because of your species… Well, mostly not. If you do not, as I am aware many insect species do, possess an ovipositor and lay eggs inside your mate, then my refusal has absolutely nothing to do with your species. If it does, it’s because my species intercourse does not result in the male being eaten from the inside out.”
“Oh!” I giggled. It was like sharing secrets in the girls bathroom at school all over again! “We do have those, but we don’t lay our eggs in people. We make little pods out of dross and lay the eggs inside them to keep them warm. We’re not like those little black spiders or anything.”
David nodded, an expression on his face of actual interest. Which was a bit weird. I mean he had just been really grossed out.
“That’s actually really interesting!" He exclaimed in a completely honest tone. "I would love to learn more about your species biology… But just to clarify, I have no sexual or romantic interests in you, but I will happily be your friend. Okay?”
I tilted my head in confusion. Why was he being so insistent about that? “I’m just playing with you a little… I’m not interested in sex either, your faces were just really funny. You don’t need to keep telling me no. It’s a bit hurtful actually.”
David gave me a long slow look, shook his head and went back to sewing himself up. “Women…” he grunted.
Well, now I had to keep playing with him!
“What? I look old?!” I gasped in mock shock.
“Nope. Not going to play this game.” David said bluntly.
I shook my head and giggled. “You won’t have much luck with girls if you don’t play our little games with us.”
“I’m perfectly fine with that.” David said in an off hand sort of way, then nodded at a bundle of white fabric. “Would you float that roll of gauze over here, please?”
I giggled, cracking a grin. That was fun! I probably shouldn’t tease him like that again though. I gently picked up the roll of gauze he had nodded towards and moved it over towards him before realizing he was going to wrap his chest with it.
“Hold on, I’ll do it for you. I’m guessing it goes on tight?” I asked curiously.
“Yeah, just make sure you wrap it over the shoulders and around the ribs so it stays on. I’ll tie it off.” he answered, spreading his arms to the sides.
It was short work to wrap the gauze, and I only had to redo it twice because I had made it too tight. Once it was finally done, David stood up, tested how much he could move then tossed his tunic up onto the cart.
“I’ll sew that up later… For now we need to move these bodies. We are going to be staying here a few days.” he informed with a grim sigh.
“I um… why?” I asked baffled at his decision. “I mean they just found us, shouldn’t we move?”
David shook his head. “We will have at least a day before they are missed from not reporting in. You need to heal, now I need to heal. I’ve noticed that I heal up from cuts pretty fast, this should only take three days since I treated it. If I get into a serious fight right now, I am going to die because I can't move my right arm without pain. It will also be painful to move the cart for at least a day. So, we need to rest here.”
David paused for a moment then shrugged, “Besides, odds are pretty good that no other search party will fly overhead. Also now I know I’ll need to string up camouflage netting. Should do the tr-.”
A groan cut David off. He immediately spun, drawing his knife, and nearly dropped it as he grunted in pain. I quickly turn to see which of the griffons was moving, ripping the dagger I had used before from the griffon.
The griffon David had punched was pulling himself slowly to his paws and talons. His white feathered face was pretty mangled, and a few lines of blood dripped from the tips of feathers around his right eye. I whipped the dagger up in front of me, doing my best to ignore the blood covered blade.
David clomped the few feet over and grabbed the griffon by the collar of his tunic with his good arm, and used the red and black patterned cloth like a leash. He pulled the griffon right up to his face and looked him dead in the eyes “Jade, hold that dagger for a minute.” David said calmly.
I pulled the dagger closer to me, but kept it ready. My heart was racing again. If he wasn’t dead, what about the other ones? We could still be in danger!
“My name,” David said, leaning right into the Griffon’s face, “is Lieutenant David Pierce. I am a Hospital Corpsmen, formerly with the United States Marine Corps. You see that changeling on the cart?”
David roughly shoved the griffons face towards me, then pulled him back to stare right in his eyes again. “She is my patient, and if you even so much as spit in her general direction I will throw you to the ground so hard you will piss blood for a month! Understand me?”
The griffon nodded rapidly. “Yes! I understand, let me go I won’t-”
“That’s right. You won’t. Because you only have two options son.” David said, pulling his knife up into view. “First option, you agree to answer two questions, and you leave here with a pair of broken wings and that hamburger I made your face into. Second option, I make you eat every single feather on your friend’s bodies from a bowl made from your own beak. What will it be?”
“One!” The griffon squeaked.
David didn’t smile. Didn’t blink. He just leaned in closer. “Good choice. You’re going to answer me honestly, and tell me every little last detail. I will have follow up questions for each question. I’ll tell you when I’m asking the second one. First Question, do you have any children?”
I blinked, what would David even want to know that? I had been with him up until this point, but, why-
“Yes, three. They are with my wife back home in Eyrerock.” The griffon replied instantly.
David nodded, and let go of the griffon’s tunic, dropping him to the ground and leaning slightly over him to look down, knife held casually at his side. “Is there something I can do for your children? You concerned about them? You want them to go to school? What do you want? Tell me what you want. Script for me, your exit strategy. How do you get yourself out of this hole, which by the way, you’ve dug for yourself?”
The griffon opened his mouth to reply, but David simply kept talking over his words. “You can’t go back to your army, can you? No. You fucked up, you’re a wash, a failure. We both know what your Captain will do to you. Let’s make peace with that. Your life is over. Tell me the second thing I want to know, and go home.”
The griffon gulped, and nodded slowly. “O-okay… What do you want to know?” He asked in an utterly broken voice.
Sun’s light! David just talked all of the fight right out of him. A minute ago he might have decided to attack us when we turned our backs or after letting him go, but now, there was no way in tartarus he’d do a damn thing.
David knelt down slowly, getting as close as he could while staying on one knee. “Second Question, why did you attack Jade’s Hive? Tell me everything.”
David - 15th of Megan '15 EoH - Night
I set the griffon’s broken jaw before I let him go. He was a good sport after I applied some Applied Psychology. Told us everything, a bit more than I needed, but more than enough to work out an exit plan for Jade and I.
I even gave him a small bit of a penicillin culture, told him how to grow it, how to make the drug from the mold. That would let him keep making a living. No need to harm his family with the disappearance of whatever scraps of cash the King threw their way.
He told us that he was a part of the Black Kite Battalion, basically a few dozen special forces members trained to take strategic locations for the kingdom. The Diamond Hive as it turned out, had a large supply of a semi-rare gemstone which was useful for storing magical energy. Apparently all gems could store some, but peach quartz was the best. Their spies had determined there was enough in the mine to outfit a million troops with magical equipment, so orders had been drafted.
The Black Kites spent four months using minor disasters and planting rumors of a large supply of love energy to lure Queen Chrysalis to the Diamond Hive. The plan had always been to trick her into doing the dirty work. They knew she never occupied any place she attacked, so it would be smooth sailing an hour after she left, and she would make killing every last changeling inside much easier.
The Griffon Kingdom was a part of an alliance of superpowers, and if any nation under the protection of treaties between those big nations were to loose their head of state, the oldest living person within three hundred miles of their largest population center got the job. As that person for her hive, Jade now legally owned the mines, and if she managed to make her claim known, the Griffon Kingdom would, by the treaties they signed, lose all trade with their allies until they provided compensation for the damage they caused.
That’s why the kingdom had black ops teams like the Black Kites. That made perfect sense to me. Old me’s homeland did the same thing to protect its interests. A big nation with a powerful military has little problems throwing out the rules when no one is looking.
The mastermind behind this plan was an older griffon known as Captain Gearalt Maltese. A cunning bastard by the sound of him. My ‘friend’ told me that he wouldn’t by any means stop chasing us, unless we did something impossible to get away from his reach. That impossible thing did in fact sound pretty impossible to both Jade and I.
“You’ll need to go to Equestria.” He had said, “It’s not a myth. It’s real. It’s on the other side of the Kingdom, over the mountains, across the Crystal Empire’s borders… Kinda, they are a province of Equestria. You can also sail south from the coast, travel north from Zebraca across the badlands. Either way is very dangerous. The only safe way in is through the pass I mentioned, and if you go to the Kingdom, Captain will find you in a day.”
Jade and I talked it over after I let him go, with one last threat for good measure. We both agreed it was suicide to go through the Griffon Kingdom, and we both agreed for safety's sake we should stick together. In the end our only plan was to make it to Applewood, then head for the southern coast of Stalliongrad and get on a ship bound for Zebraca.
It would be a long journey, and I felt I was morally obligated to make sure Jade got to Equestria safely. Even if it didn't exist, the griffons thought it did, meaning she would be safe there. Though given the laws, it probably did, and people just thought it a myth because it was so far away and extremely economically powerful.
I would be fine on my own. I always had been. Jade, Jade wouldn’t. She couldn’t just grab an apple off a tree and eat it while traveling. She needed friendship to live, she needed company. As a medic, I couldn’t discharge her from my care until I knew she would be fine.
Besides, I could stand to have a friend for a while. Ninety years on his own makes a man hurt in many ways. Maybe in Equestria I would finally find a culture who would accept me, and find a nice place to settle down.
With that last bit of wishful thinking on my mind, I lay down under my cart for safety's sake, closed my eyes, and drifted off to sleep. Life had thrown me another adventure. This would probably be the last good sleep till the whole ordeal was done.