Brûlée staggered through the undergrowth, her head swimming as she tried to place each hoof safely. Her coat was soaked, her mane plastered to her neck, her tail caked with mud as it slid across the ground. She spared a glance at the sky. The sun would be setting soon, and if she thought the forest was hostile now, she knew it would be worse after dark. She needed to find some sort of shelter where she could rest for the night and wait for the storm to pass.
Amid the incessant hammering of the rain, the thrashing of branches whipped about by the wind and the steady plod of her own hoofsteps, her attention was caught by a sound that didn’t belong. A thin, high sound drifted through the rain, like somepony was whistling, though it was too faint for her to make out any sort of tune. Her ears perked up, flicking left and right in an attempt to work out where it was coming from, but this just meant more water got into them.
It was left, she decided. She couldn’t see anything, but it sounded like the correct direction. She turned and headed toward the sound.
She caught a hoof on a thick root sticking out of a puddle, slipped, staggered, then stopped her fall with the other hoof. She could not afford an injury, not now.
Setting off, she turned a little to the right, trying to follow the sound. It was louder now, but it didn’t sound as equine as before. It wasn’t regular or tuneful like somepony whistling would be. Something was up ahead. She could see a large shape through the shifting blanket of rain. A cliff? A hill? A massive tree? Whatever it was, it was worth heading for.
As she got closer she saw a jagged cluster of rocks jutting out of the forest into the air. It was dark, but looked shiny like glass, and it had big round bubbles in it like water suddenly frozen in a moment. What chance of nature or magical horror could have created something like this? As she stepped closer, it was clear what the noise was: the wind whistling through holes in this rock.
Brûlée circled round the base of the strange outcropping, looking for any sort of shelter. It wasn’t long before she found it: the mouth of a cave, raised about a foot off the ground. Not very big, but probably big enough for one little pony. She hoped nothing was living in there already. Pulling her wet mane out of her eyes with a hoof, she peered into the entrance from a safe distance. It was dark inside, and the rain running down her face didn’t help, but it looked empty. Good enough. She ducked her head down and started edging in.
She stopped. Eyes were looking at her from inside the cave, just a few feet away. A predator’s eyes, golden and sharp, unblinking. Brûlée tensed, and started to step very slowly backwards.
“Well, don’t just stand there getting soaked, come on in. There’s room if I scoot over a bit.”
Brûlée hesitated. The voice sounded female, but not equine. It had an accent, and also a stiff quality as if the lips didn’t move properly. As her eyes adjusted to the light she could make out white and brown feathers on a streamlined head, with a big curved yellow beak that darkened to black at the hooked tip, and big, pale gold eyes. Behind them in the darkness a leonine tail flicked.
In the end, it was her rump that decided for her. Her head was under the lip of the cave, out of the rain; her rear was sticking out, battered by the full force of the storm. She took a breath and stepped forward.
As she’d suspected, the cavern was really just a short, narrow tunnel, but with a little careful positioning the two of them were able to sit side by side, both facing the entrance, their bodies barely a hoof-width apart.
The gryphon held out a foot. “Hi. I’m Ava.”
“Er, hello. I’m Brûlée.” She looked at the claw, not sure what she was expected to do with it. She couldn’t help noticing the vicious talons at the end of the yellow fingers. “Do you live here?”
“Nah, I’ve just been here about an hour or so. I spotted this place from the air when the storm started.” She awkwardly let her claw drop to the cave floor.
Brûlée sat, her hooves tucked close under her, stealing nervous glances to her left. She’d never seen a gryphon before. They’d been taught in school about the times long ago when ponies and gryphons had been at war, and heard stories that before that, gryphons would sometimes hunt ponies as prey.
Despite her fearsome looks, this gryphon didn’t seem to be trying to eat her. She just seemed... bored.
Her coat was slow to dry in the cold, wet air. A breeze flittered around her body, lifting heat away from her everywhere it touched, and she shivered.
“You must be really cold. You’re wet through. That fur really holds the water, huh?” Ava shuffled slightly closer. “We’ll be warmer if we’re closer together.” The gryphon extended one wing over Brûlée’s body and let it rest on her back.
Brûlée found the gesture unsettlingly intimate. She’d known some pegasi growing up, even dated one for a few weeks, until he found something more interesting. But for that fortnight he was thoughtful, kind and nice. When they were alone he’d wrap one wing around her in a way that made her feel safe and warm and loved. Afterwards she’d seen him do the same thing to other mares, and once even a stallion. A few years later she’d seen him cuddle his son with one wing. They’d talked briefly about old friends then parted ways.
Did gryphons have the same habit? Did they feel affection like ponies do? Was it possible this chick was... interested in her?
No. She dismissed the thought. Ava wasn’t being affectionate at all. Just considerate. She was watching the rain, eyes half closed.
She leant slightly into the wing. It was soft, much bigger than a pegasus wing, and it was indeed warm. This wasn’t so bad.
The afternoon faded into dusk.
Neither said anything for a while. They simply sat flank to flank in the tight space, tails resting on each other, each appreciating the warmth of another body.
Through the narrow mouth of the cave they watched the hail being whipped near horizontal by the wind, and listened to the steady patter of rain punctuated by irregular whistling as the storm played around the rocks above them. Occasionally they’d hear the creak of a tree cracking or a thump as some leaves dropped to the forest floor.
Brûlée’s thoughts drifted to the town she’d left behind. The ponies she’d never see again. A few of them she’d miss, of course – the flower seller who always saved her his tastiest blooms, the mail stallion and his filly assistant with their daily comedy routine. Some others she was glad to be rid of.
She was brought back to reality by her body, making its hunger audibly evident. She blushed and turned away.
Ava chuckled. “You hungry?” she asked.
“Yeah. It’s been a long time since breakfast.” Yesterday, she didn’t add. She’d nibbled a little grass as she walked, before the storm started, but it wasn’t enough. She hadn’t been willing to slow down.
“I think I have something here.” Ava reached back and rummaged around in some bags.
Brûlée perked up, and even smiled a bit. Perhaps the day wasn’t as bad as she’d thought? Right when she’d been desperate for some warmth, for somepony to talk to, and for some food, she’d met this chick. Not what she’d expected, but few things in Equestria were as valuable as the kindness of strangers when you needed it.
The gryphon placed something on the ground in front of her, and her warm gratitude evaporated. So did her hunger, replaced by a tightening as her stomach revolted. In front of her face, just a few inches away, was…
It…
It was a rabbit.
It was half of a rabbit.
It was the back half of a rabbit.
The fur clung to the flesh in uneven patches where it had been ripped apart. In the dim light of the cave, the meat looked unnaturally red, like it was painted on with rubies. One of the thin legs was snapped, a little bone poking out the gash. There was a tiny little spine in there. A splodge of entrails were slowly easing their way onto the cave floor.
What she couldn’t see, she could smell. It didn’t smell of fresh blood, but of the gradual settling of the animal’s body into death. There was urine in there, and mud and ferns and bracken, and sweat and panic, and a whole signature of the creature’s last few minutes alive.
Though she hadn’t moved, every muscle in her body had tensed up, ready to fight or run. Her jaw clenched so tight it gave her a headache. She turned to look at her companion, who was idly preening a wing, and managed to struggle through her revulsion to deliver one word laced with a hundred questions.
“What.”
The gryphon looked up, a misplaced feather in her beak. “Hmm? Oh, did you need me to chew it for you?”
“Errr. No. No thank you.”
She stared at the offering a little longer, making herself breathe evenly, willing herself to calm down. It wasn’t going anywhere. It wasn’t going to do anything to her. There was no herd to alert, no foals to protect. The only predator here was the one who had generously offered to share her own food. There was no need to panic. Slowly, she took control of her equine nature.
She had to do something, she couldn’t just leave it there all night. Turning to Ava, she asked, “I’m sorry, could... could you take that away please? I’m afraid I... I just can’t.”
She realised Ava had been watching her with a frown. “Wow, you ponies really can’t stand meat at all, can you?” She snatched the rabbit in her beak and stashed it away in her bag. It didn’t entirely remove the smell, but it helped.
Brûlée relaxed a little. “No, we really can’t. I assume you haven’t met many ponies before?”
“Not so much.” Ava shrugged. “Only a couple of times, really, and I never hung around. I always though you just preferred not to eat meat, but that was... weird. It was like you were terrified of it or something.”
Brûlée sighed. “Yeah, I’m really sorry.” She looked down. “Normally I’d be better, but I’ve had a rough day. Couple of days.”
“Yeah, I guess they must have been, to land you all the way out here. We’re a good day’s flight from any pony towns. Which way are you headed, anyway?”
Brûlée paused before answering. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “I’m mostly just going... away.”
“Oh.” Ava looked out at the rain. “Yeah, me too.”
Brûlée was surprised. Ava seemed like the epitome of casual confidence. What could she possibly be running away from?
Ava watched the rain. Perhaps pointedly so. She didn’t seem to feel like talking.
It was night when Ava stirred. “By the moon, am I stiff just sitting here.” One by one, Ava carefully stretched each of her legs and wings in the tight space before settling down again. Brûlée tried not to think how sharp her talons were as she stretched them out like a cat.
Ava glanced at Brûlée’s back. “I didn’t see it properly earlier, but you’ve got one of those picture things, right?”
“You mean my cutie mark? Of course. Two in fact, one on either side.”
“What’s it for?”
“It shows what a pony’s special talent is. What they’re destined to do with their life.”
“Yours looks like a flame or something. Does that mean you could light a fire for us?”
“Sorry, it’s not a campfire, it’s a blowtorch. It’s something I use when I’m cooking.”
Ava snorted. “Cooking. I never did see the point of doing that. I went to a big town once, and all the fancy gryphons there were cooking their meat. I didn’t see why until I got a look at some of the stuff they were cooking, and it was days old, like they couldn’t get fresh meat there at all. What do ponies cook, anyway? All you eat is plants.”
Brûlée did her best to ignore the carnivorous angle. “We cook all manner of things, from breakfast through to supper. You can develop a lot more flavour when you prepare food. I’m a dessert chef,” Brûlée added with a touch of pride.
“A what now?” Ava asked.
“Chef,” Brûlée insisted. “It’s like ‘chief’. It means I’m in charge. Of a kitchen.”
“No, I get that. What was the other word?”
“Dessert?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve never had a dessert?”
“Depends. What is it?”
“Er, pudding? Cakes, pastries, tarts?” Ava looked blank; Brûlée was getting frustrated. “A sweet thing you eat at the end of a meal.”
“Sweet? Like how?”
“Like, it has sugar in it. So it’s sweet.” Very frustrated.
Ava was still confused though. “What’s sugar?”
“It... you...” Brûlée spluttered to a stop. She could have written essays on the subtleties of vanilla flavouring, delivered speeches on the different varieties of cream, taught classes on the importance of frothing correctly. But how could she explain any of that to somepony who’d never even heard of sugar?
She paused and took a mental step back, trying to think of the problem from first principles. Ava had clearly grown up away from pony civilisation. She’d never encountered the products of pony manufacture, so Brûlée would have to explain everything in terms of natural equivalents. Where in nature would you encounter something sweet?
“Have you tasted honey?”
Ava frowned, lifting her beak. Brûlée got the impression she’d be wrinkling up her nose if it wasn’t as hard as bone. “Yeah, but I didn’t much like it. It was way too strong.”
Too strong, okay. Clearly gryphons were sensitive to strong flavours. Brûlée tried another tack. “How about... maple trees?”
Ava thought for a moment. “Sure, yeah. There were a bunch of them near my father’s nest.”
“Did you ever taste their sap? In the spring it’s sweet, right?”
“Ooh!” Ava brightened up. “I know what you mean. I remember once, my little brother came back from school and showed me something he’d picked up from the ponies, where you make a hole in the tree and stick a bit of hollow bamboo in it and put a cup underneath, and you can get this nice tasting water out. Is that what sugar tastes like?”
Brûlée was smiling too. “Sort of. But if you take that sap and boil it up you can bring out a much more interesting flavour.”
“And then one time we found these ants with big orange backsides that look like honey, but they were actually quite sharp tasting.” She chuckled, “I must have eaten hundreds of those little guys.”
Brûlée sank down onto her front hooves with a defeated sigh. Try as she might, that barrier between carnivore and herbivore would not budge. Then she looked up and asked, “You’ve got a little brother?”
Ava smiled as she looked out the cave mouth into the pouring rain. “Yup. He’s still little, lives back at mother’s nest.”
Brûlée smiled. “It must be nice, growing up with a brother. What’s his name?”
“His name’s Gosling. Named after our great-grandpa or something, apparently.”
“And you went to school together?”
“No, I never went to school,” Ava said casually.
Brûlée blinked. This was news. “Really? Never? How did you learn stuff?”
“My parents taught me, and my uncle too when he visits. He’s pretty cool. He’s the one that took me to the town.”
“Is that normal for gryphons?”
Ava skewered her with a glance, pressing her beak uncomfortably close. “Are you calling us stupid?”
“What? No, I—” Brûlée stopped when she realised Ava had started chuckling. “Fine,” she said sulkily. “Really, though, is it common for gryphons to learn from their parents? I’m amazed they had time. And wait, didn’t you say your brother went to school?”
“How should I know what’s common? I’ve lived over the forest my whole life. I’ve got no idea what those shmancy city gryphons do with their chicks, just that my parents took the time to teach me. I’m the older chick,” Ava explained, “so when little Gosling was hatched I went to live in our father’s nest while mother looked after him. Her nest was more than a day’s flight away from ours, and a lot closer to a town with a school. So two days out of every... seven, off he’d fly to go learn with the ponies.”
“To a pony school? Were there other gryphons there too?”
Ava shook her head. “No, just him.”
Brûlée thought back to how little colts and fillies had behaved. “Wow. That must have made it really hard to make friends.”
“Yeah. The first half a year he didn’t like it there at all. Then one day he came back to the nest all excited, saying he’d made friends with a filly.”
“Awww,” Brûlée cooed with a wide grin.
“Yeah, it was sweet. They’d explore the town, and do dumb stunts, and teach each other neat tricks, and he’d come back and tell us all about them.” Ava’s voice suddenly went ice cold, filling with venom. “Until she changed her mind.”
Brûlée reared back, nearly hitting her head. “What?”
“Yeah, she and her friends decided little Gosling just wasn’t good enough to hang out with them any more. Just cause he didn’t have any bits to buy... whatever it is pony chicks like to buy. Stuck-up little—”
“I’m sorry,” Brûlée said with drooping ears. “Foals can be so mean sometimes. I hope he made some other friends.”
“Not likely,” Ava scoffed. “He’s not going back there any more. Not after what happened.”
“What, you’re keeping him out of school?” asked Brûlée in an accusing voice. “Just because some filly said something mean? That’s not—”
“It’s not us keeping him out!” Ava shouted, echoing loudly in the enclosed cave. “It’s that stupid little pony teacher that told him not to come back!”
Brûlée frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would she kick him out of school? Unless... unless he’d done something to deserve it?”
“He didn’t do—” Ava stopped, and her anger abruptly drained away. Her voice more subdued, she continued, “It wasn’t him. It was me. When he told me what that filly said, I... went and gave her a piece of my mind. And her stuck-up friends.” Her head sank till she was nearly scraping the floor with her beak. “And the rest of the class, and the teacher and... pretty much the whole town by the time I was done there.”
“Oh. You kind of made a scene then.”
“I kind of did. And the next time he tried to go to school, they took him aside and said they didn’t want to have a gryphon in school any more.” Ava snorted. “Said a bunch of the parents didn’t want a ‘wild animal’ in the classroom.”
“Ouch. That has to hurt. He can’t have been happy.”
“Tell me about it. We had a massive argument about it later, woke the whole forest up. He really hates me now.”
Brûlée asked, “I’m sure he can’t still hate you. He was just angry. When was this?”
Ava looked away, focusing on cracks in the stone. “Yesterday.”
“Wait, so you—”
“Yes! Okay? I screwed it all up for him.” She clawed idly at the ground, scratching little lines on the stone. It looked like she was even crying. “He could probably have sorted it all out for himself, but his stupid big sister had to go try and fix everything.” She drew a big wet sniff. “So... so, yes, I flew away.”
Brûlée didn’t know what to say. So, after a moment, she did the only thing she could: she leaned over and gave the gryphon a hug, wrapping her hooves around her neck and softly pressing into her feathers. Ava didn’t respond at first, stiffening under her. “It’ll be okay,” Brûlée whispered. She felt the gryphon soften, leaning back into her, sniffling.