//------------------------------// // The Taste of Blood // Story: Kindred Spirits // by Cottonmouth //------------------------------// A sharp ringing tore through the room, startling the sleeping griffon from her restless slumber. After nearly a full minute of aimless stumbling, she finally slammed her claw down on the annoying clock, silencing it for good. Gilda stifled a weak yawn, laying her head against the desk in front of her. While it was a pretty nasty piece of carpentry, her body was begging for rest after only a couple of hours of sleep. It was the same problem as before. Despite having no one to share the night with nor any activities to partake in, Gilda found herself struck by a strange case of insomnia, the same sleeplessness that had plagued her nearly her entire life. ‘Except for the week I spent with Spike.’ The shoddy desk nearly broke in half when her claw impacted the wood, sending a loud rattling throughout the room. Every time such thoughts had come up in her mind, a fit of rage coursed through her body, its target undefinable. Spike? Celestia? Herself? ‘Whatever. It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s gone, nothing but a goddess’ toy experiment now. No going back. I made this decision. Commit.’ Awakened by her own outburst, Gilda fought against the waves of exhaustion and dragged herself in front of a large mirror that hung above a rusted sink. A quick turn of a knob and a small trickle of orange-tinted water escaped the nozzle, cascading down into her open claw. Bringing the soaked claw to her head, she began smoothing and arranging her feathers, only occasionally looking towards the mirror for guidance. The mirror itself was a ghastly decoration with a single crack at the top that crept down to its center, eventually webbing out into a multitude of other smaller cracks. A frame of decaying wood surrounded the reflection, making it seem as if it had been stolen from some long-closed haunted house. But what disturbed Gilda the most, what made her only able to cast the rare glance towards the reflection, was the haggard and sorrowed visage that would stare back. She could never tell if the fractured mirror was to blame or if it was actually hiding something even worse. ‘How could this happen so fast? It’s only been one week... have I already given up?’ The griffon shook herself back into focus, hastily finishing her preparations. Her fur was matted and greasy and random feathers still poked out from her chest and head, but any care she had for her appearance had dissipated. A sad relief flowed through her as she turned away from the mirror. To her right, a mattress stained with yellow splotches was shoved up against the wall, with no sheets or pillow to accompany it. The only other construct in the room besides the sink and bed was the door, which shared the same decaying wood she had seen before. Gilda threw open the door, a loud creaking sounding behind her. She was greeted by a dust caked hallway, taking a left and traversing the hall until she walked into a pitifully small lobby with a single unmanned desk at its center. Her pace quickened as she rushed the double doors, barging through into the welcoming morning air. This was it. This was her favorite part of the day. Stepping outside. While that sweet first breath only lasted for a split second, it helped to rid herself of the terrible muskiness that pervaded her apartment. A look of disgust ran across her face as Gilda looked back towards the pathetic structure. It was run down, seemingly abandoned, and overall a sore sight. ‘But it’s cheap.’ With a sigh, she took off and soared high into the air, making her way towards a small building. Below her, a disfigured shanty town sprawled across a massive cliff side. Instead of overlooking the usual romantic lake or beautiful valley, the bottom of the cliff was marred with sharp rocks and a strange gloomy mist. The mere sight of the razor-sharp stones put Gilda on edge. It was no secret that many a griffon had ended their own lives by free-falling into the pit below. ‘Dagger Fels. What an aptly named town.’ Tucking in her wings, she swooped down and landed in front of a portly structure with a sign that read ‘DAGGER FELS PACKAGE AND MESSAGE DELIVERY’. After a quick minute of bracing herself, Gilda entered through the door-less passageway. “Gilda,” a squeaky voice called out. ‘Great.’ Behind the desk before her, a tall, thin, lanky male griffon attempted to give her a menacing glare. She knew him as Kaussic, the annoying idiot who co-owned the delivery company with his ever-silent brother, Bissin. While she hated both of them, at least Bissin kept his mouth shut. “Barely even a week into the job and you’re already turning up late!” Kaussic berated her. “This had better not become a habit!” “Oh chill out,” Gilda sneered. “I’ll just fly a bit faster and make up for the lost time.” Kaussic continued his glaring as she made her way to the backroom. Usually Gilda would have simply decked the asshole, but she needed this job to pay for the apartment. Two large shoulder bags which had been filled to the brim with packages and messages greeted her as she entered the backroom. To her left, the room expanded until it ended with a wall of wooden cabinets each individually marked for every town resident. The other owner of the operations, Bissin, was busy sorting boxes. He was the polar opposite of his brother, nearing obesity and displaying almost no emotion. Gilda spared no time in grabbing the bags and rushing out the backdoor. While Bissin rarely ever talked, every word she had shared with him had been forced and awkward. Not to mention, she was almost certain he was watching her any time she turned her back to him. The combination of the cool morning air greeting her and the thought of Bissin stalking her made Gilda shudder as she exited the post office. Fishing the list of deliveries and town maps from the bag, she took off into the air to begin another monotonous day of work. --- Gilda landed in front of a small house on the outskirts of town, double checking the address and package to make sure she was correct. Satisfied, she rapped on the rotting door with a balled claw. After a half-minute of waiting, the door creaked open slightly and a small female griffon eyed her warily, not even daring to stick her head out from her home. “Hello Ms. Merd, your package has arrived,” Gilda began in a monotone voice. The tiny griffon cast her eyes downward. “I didn’t order any packages...” she said timidly. “What? But it says your name and address right here and everything,” Gilda responded, pointing towards the brown-wrapped package in her claws. “... I didn’t order any packages,” she repeated. “But-” The small griffon shut the door quietly, disappearing from view and leaving Gilda dumbfounded. “Ugh... whatever,” she sighed as she returned the package to her bag and took back into the air. --- “Huh!? Who goes there!?” an elderly greying griffon threw open the door the second Gilda finished knocking. “Hello Mr. Tisir, your package has arrived.” The old griffon glanced down at the package before quickly looking back to Gilda. “You’re early!” “Huh?” “I said you’re early!” he barked. “I’m not expecting this ‘till tomorrow!” Gilda stared at the customer with uncertainty. “Well, you’re getting it today.” “No. I’m getting it tomorrow,” he retorted as he reached over and slammed the door in her face. -- “Oh yes... I’ve been waiting for these...” the gangly male griffon in front of Gilda breathed as she handed him the package. Not only did he appear sickly, but a foul odor lingered about him that made her want to vomit. “Wait!” he shouted as she turned to leave. “What? Is there something wrong?” “Don’t you want to like... stay and talk...?” he whispered. Before the vile griffon could even finish his sentence, Gilda had taken off in a flurry of feathers. -- Razor-tipped rocks cast long shadows as the sunset illuminated the cliff and the pit below it, giving the town an ominous and lonely emotion. From where Gilda flew, it was as if Dagger Fels would be engulfed in twilight at any moment. The whole day had been a nightmare. She had worked with maybe three customers who simply took their package without argument. All of the rest seemed to have a bone to pick with her. Physically, Gilda had barely even begun sweating throughout the entire day, her military experience making her more fit and stronger than probably any other griffon in town. Mentally, she was exhausted. Any motivation to do anything had abandoned her, leaving an empty, emotionless shell. The routine was almost over. Now to turn in her bags, check out, and go back to sitting aimlessly in her apartment, then start it all again tomorrow. Just like the good old days. Gilda touched down in front of the post office and wearily journeyed inside, walking past an empty front desk and entering the backroom. “Ah, Gilda!” Kaussic called from the other end of the room as she deposited the shoulder bags back on the table. “Came back just in time. I have one more message for you to deliver.” ‘Go screw yourself’ “Sure. One more. What is it?” “Not for the likes of you to know,” the skinny griffon sneered. “It’s top priority that this gets delivered as soon as possible to Sergeant Perdicion at the military garrison.” Gilda cocked an eyebrow at her boss. “They’re... using the Post Office to send their messages!??” She struggled to hold back laughter at such an absurd notion. “The coins they’re paying us nearly double our normal income!” Kaussic growled. “Look, if you won’t deliver this, I will!” “Whatever, I’ll do it,” Gilda sighed, returning to her normal jaded self. Kaussic passed a large rolled scroll into her claws, freezing before letting it go. “Remember. This is the military here. If you screw this up, I’ll be the least of your worries!” Grasping the scroll with one claw, she hopped through the back door and took to the skies. ‘Heh. Look at this thing,’ Gilda thought as she flew to the garrison and inspected the scroll in her claws. ‘There isn’t even any band around it! No one would even know if someone had...’ A wry smile spread across her face as she nosedived into a back alley. Making sure no one had spotted her, Gilda unraveled the scroll. Instead of words, large lines and a vast array of symbols spread out across the parchment, with various griffon cities being highlighted along with a large portion of the Central Wilds. ‘Dang. Just a map. No wonder they used the delivery service, this is probably just a quick glance for the sergeant.’ Despite not being the secret message she had hoped for, the map made the back of her neck tingle. ‘This seems eerily familiar...’ Suddenly it clicked. The eastern portion of the map which charted the Central Wilds was the same area that Spike had drawn out for her more than a week ago. Gilda centered her attention on the two mountains she and Spike had had stayed in. The first, which had nearly caused their deaths after the cave in, was now fully garrisoned and acted as an outpost for the military’s ever-expanding push into the Central Wilds. ‘I underestimated them,’ she thought, noting how fast the kingdom had expanded in only a weeks time. Refocusing her attention on the first mountain, her gaze drifted along the same path she had flown to reach Spike’s second cave. Along the way, a handful of symbols dotted the landmarks, causing Gilda to constantly shift between the legend and the map itself. ‘Squares for manticores... huh. Three manticores. I thought they were rare? Triangles... Oh cool! A sea serpent lived upriver from where we used to clean off! Circles are for... lhurgoyfs? I don’t even know what the hell that is...’ Finally her eyes landed upon the second mountain that housed Spike’s cave. The mountain had been emblazoned with a silver star. ‘Lets see, a silver star is...’ Gilda’s expression turned to shock as she saw ‘Adolescent Dragon’ next to the silver-star symbol. Frantically glancing back towards the second mountain, a small note ‘Purple, S. Hoard’ had been jotted down next to it. ‘Calm down Gilda. This thing is probably a week old.’ Even with her doubts, she darted around the map, eventually settling upon a handful of words and numbers she had missed nestled in the bottom right hand corner. It had yesterday’s date on it. A million scenarios as to why Spike had stayed coursed through her mind. ‘Could it be...?’ ‘No. I called his friends morons and told him off. Why would he stay for ME?’ Gilda’s enthusiasm withered away, her old rage beginning to set back in. ‘Doesn’t matter what he stayed for. The military will out him soon enough if this map is anything to go by. At the rate they are expanding, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re already knocking on his door.’ Breaking the deal she had made with Spike, Gilda let her mind wander back to their first hostile encounter, when she had been assigned to remove him from the area no matter the cost. ‘A Soldier of Andune will come, demanding that he leave and give over the brooch. He’ll deny of course.’ Her breathing quickened as she allowed her thoughts to turn sadistic. ‘The soldier will charge him, dodging his blows. Spike’s a hunter, not a fighter. He’ll get injured early on in the fight, probably by weapon or claw...’ Gilda dropped all barriers. This was past rage now. This was morbid, primitive, hateful thinking. ‘Who knows what happens next. He’ll bleed out slowly throughout the fight, getting weaker and weaker. Maybe the soldier will call out for a surrender, maybe not. It doesn’t matter. Spike wouldn’t give up.’ Her tongue ran along the rim of her beak. ‘His breathing will turn heavy, his movement will slow, and the soldier will charge again. Spike might breathe fire, he might swipe a claw. It won’t matter. The soldier will dodge then aim beak-first for his neck, ripping through his purple scales. Blood everywhere as a loud gurgling-’ A vile, sanguine, familiar taste rose up in the back of Gilda’s mouth. ‘Dragon’s blood. Spike’s blood.’ For a horrible moment, Gilda’s body fought with itself, half of her struggling to swallow the taste greedily while the other half begged her to rid herself of the poison. ‘What’s the matter now? I can’t handle a bit of violence?’ ‘This is Spike I’m thinking about! How could I imagine something so horrible happening to a friend and just shrug it off??’ ‘Even if he deserves it...’ ‘But no, this is going too far, I can stop this...’ ‘But why should I? Face it! He abandoned me for those stupid ponies!’ ‘And what would that make me, abandoning HIM when he needed ME the most?’ Her stomach twisted at the thought. ‘I might as well just slit his throat myself!’ The taste of blood filled her throat as a violent convulsion rocked her entire frame. With one final pulse, Gilda’s front legs buckled, her neck shot forward and yellow, lumpy bile spewed from her beak and onto the dirt below. She stumbled backwards then collapsed as shallow breaths echoed through the abandoned alleyway. While her mind had cleared substantially, a torrent of thoughts, images, emotions, and decisions still plagued her. One image in particular, however, stood out in her mind - that of Spike, nothing but a bloodied corpse now, being dragged out of his cave and dropped into the wilderness below. No more jokes, no more laughs, no more struggles. Just food for the flies. As gruesome as the image was, Gilda latched onto it. ‘I can stop this.’ The griffon rose back to her feet, slowly guiding her mind along this single track of thought. ‘Who cares what the hell he stayed for. Is he injured? Is he just a lazy ass? For me...? It doesn’t matter. He was my friend even after what I did to him. He tried to stop me from leaving.’ ‘And even with that, that was fine. I may have abandoned him for pathetic reasons, but at least it was something. How shallow, how malicious, how evil would I be to let him die like this?’ A new energy filled Gilda, adrenaline completely sweeping away all the mental fatigue from before. The line had been crossed. And frankly? Gilda was glad. She could have left Spike, and heck, even Rainbow, to bore themselves to death with those other stupid ponies. There was no way she could convince them otherwise. But the line had been crossed. This was life or death. This was in her claws now. Gilda wasted no time. Retrieving the map she had discarded during her convulsions, she shot out from the alleyway and into the sky. The town was now a black sheet below her, with no distinguishing features between any of the buildings. To her, that didn’t matter. She could go back to the post office and happily tell Kaussic a weeks work of insults as she walked out, but Gilda had already forgotten about him, his brother, and the post office. As she left Dagger Fels behind, her defining rage began to resurface. This time, she liked it. While yes, some of it was still directed towards Spike, Celestia, herself... heck, the whole world, it had a main target now. Gilda imagined the assassin-soldier landing in Spike’s cave, seeing what she had seen before. Would it be male or female? Would they be cocky? Confident? Maybe even a bit nervous? Big or small? ‘Doesn’t matter,’ she settled, ‘if they even so much as TOUCH Spike, I’ll rip them apart.’ Then a terrifying thought hit her. ‘What if I’m too late?!’ She imagined returning to his cave only to come face to face with the image she had plastered in her mind just minutes before. Gilda picked up speed, becoming a black bullet against the star-lit night sky. -- Kaussic double checked the shuttered windows, made sure the back door was firmly locked, and finally placed the crude blockade on the post office’s front entrance. Stepping out into the streets, he took a refreshing deep breath. ‘Another successful day of work, even with that annoying bi-’ A loud, thunderous explosion shot out from the plains that bordered Dagger Fels. Kaussic wheeled towards the sound in shock, his eyes widening in fear as he witnessed a tidal wave of gale-force winds rocketing towards the town. Before he could react, the wall of air struck him, sending him flying into the air only to slam him back into the ground a moment later. A pitiful groan escaped his beak as he gasped for air. Through his wavering vision he saw a dark blur shoot across the plains, quickly disappearing from view. ‘What. The hell. Was that?’