//------------------------------// // 14: Baldr // Story: Fimbulvetr // by Alkarasu //------------------------------// Vsevolod was a happy griffon. In the grim darkness of the far future, it wasn't that hard to achieve. In most cases, all it took was a decent meal. Though, he suspected that living with the ponies could make that simple happiness a bit... problematic. "Honored Ancestor! Why???" cried Kurgash, looking very green in the face. How she was able to change the color of the fur of her face was a nice little question that no one around was about to answer. The look of sheer terror that accompanied the color was a more pressing concern, though. "H-he was still so... young... so strong! He probably had a family! Why have you taken it all from him? Why?" "Kurgash, that was a hare," pointed out Vsevolod, licking his beak. "Yes!" "So... why all the crying and all?" "You killed him!" screamed the pony, starting to sob once again. "So?" the griffon was utterly failing to see the problem. At that point, the number of hares he had eaten was probably somewhere in hundreds, most of which were still alive when he got his claws on them. "You took a life of an innocent creature!" the pegasus pointed an accusing wing at him. The gesture was somewhat weakened by the still half-plucked state of the limb, but still, her disdain was clearly visible. "Kurgash, I'm a carnivore. I need to take lives of the innocent creatures, or I'll starve. I was pretty sure you knew that griffons do that." "I know... but... but... you killed him!" "SQUAWK! Pr-rey! Food! B-r-reakfast!" Helga was looking at the pony with amusement, licking the remnants of another hare off her claws. "C-r-rops!" It all started early in the morning when they've discovered that their food supply was finally exhausted. With Kurgash's help what should've lasted Vsevolod and Helga through all their trip to the closest Nomad encampment, was consumed within a week. The pony had no food with her, and that was another question that bothered Vsevolod. He wasn't sure how she was supposed to do the trip without any food, and finally, he's got the answer. It was under their feet all along, or, rather, under the snow. Kurgash quite expertly dug out some old grass and munched on it, offering some to the griffons. Looking at it with his stomach grumbling, Vsevolod thought that having a horse for an ancestor can be beneficial at times. While he was thinking about where they'll get the food that is actually edible, Helga had wandered into the small copse of trees nearby, and a minute later, emerged from it, holding a pair of hares. She threw one at Vsevolod's direction. Predictably, it was still alive and well. The hare had bolted away, but at that point, Hel's training had paid off - the prey had managed only a few hops before the young griffon caught up to it. Then it went the usual bloody way, and then he noticed pure terror and disgust in Kurgash's eyes. "Nopony... does... that! In the herds, I mean! I..." "Her-rds!" "Helga, please, not now. Kurgash, how many griffons are living with your people?" asked Vsevolod, already knowing the answer. "None, but..." "Then you had no chance to see how... we... feed, right?" "Yes, but..." "Kurgash, I understand that you've spent your entire life among herbivores. It's all right, after all, from what I know most of the returning people end up as ponies anyway. But you must understand that not everyone does, and those less... lucky do have to satisfy some... needs our bodies have, right?" "Sure, but..." "Well, we need to eat meat. It's not our choice, we can't really do anything about it. We do it, or we die. We can't eat the grass like you do." Vsevolod was a bit proud of how well he dealt with the problem of explaining the impossibility of vegan griffon to the naive native. "Honored Ancestor, I understand that, I'm not stupid!" huffed the pony, fluffing her feathers in irritation. "But... the hares are almost people! They even talk a little, in their own way! Not as good as the rabbits, but they are still good friends of the herds!" It took Vsevolod some time to digest that new piece of the information. It came into a conflict with his breakfast, but he managed to keep it in somehow. But still, the fact that he ate more than a hundred of possibly sapient beings made him queasy. "Are... are you sure?" he asked weakly, turning to look at Helga and pondering how he can explain the implications to someone who is as far from human moral standards as it's possible to be. While using about two dozen words she understood. "Yes! Some are even live with the herdsmates and travel with them around the Field! They are cute and fluffy, and smart... and you killed him!" "Pr-r-rey!" helpfully commented Helga. "Kek! Kerrrk!" Vsevolod was ready to scream in frustration from the world being unfair once again when he felt a familiar sharp needle of pain shooting from the mark on his hip. Following it, came the memory of cold and hunger that accompanied him during his first days in his new life. He knew that he should feel guilt from what he did, yet he felt none. Somehow, the sapience of the hares wasn't really important to him anymore. His mind knew that he should be concerned about it, but there was no real emotion tied to that concern. From his previous life as a human, he remembered that there should be something, but it just wasn't there. It was a reason to worry, but he had to push that for later. In the meantime, he spent several hours asking Kurgash about the hares and herds' relationship with them. What he had learned made his worries reduce a bit. While hares turned out to be rather smart creatures, they were no more sapient than pre-catastrophe dogs, and those were the ones kept as pets within the herds. The wild ones were, as the pony easily admitted, quite a bit more primitive. In the end, Vsevolod had to promise not to eat in front of Kurgash, but he had managed to convince her that taking wild hares off the menu completely wasn't really an option for him and Hel. He had made a mental note to learn more about the changes with the wildlife later, though. The road seems shorter when you get someone to talk to. By the time the agreement was reached, the trio had managed to walk far from the place of the cold-blooded murder of the hares. They were crossing yet another small ice-covered brook when their path was blocked. In front of them stood a pony of a kind the young griffon had never seen before. He was a bit taller than Teplovoz, but instead of bulky and massive build of an earth pony, he looked more like an Arabian horse, with thin legs and longer and more elegant barrel. The differences hadn't ended there, the muzzle of the stallion was noticeably longer and the eyes - smaller than on the ponies Vsevolod had met before. He was also the most dressed of the ones the griffon encountered - most of his body was covered in something resembling a heavy gilded carpet, and on his head, he wore a gem-encrusted fur cap. The newcomer was eyeing the griffons warily, but when he saw Kurgash, his muzzle had melted into a warm smile. "Greetings, strangers," he said in a pleasant baritone, nodding to Vsevolod. "Allow me to welcome you to the lands of the mighty Yazgy herd of the Yashel Urda. I see you've already met my herdsmate in your travels. I hope this little mare wasn't too much of a bother." Meeting the gaze of the stallion, Kurgash wilted a bit, nervously glancing to the side and then assuming a strange half-crouching position. She then inhaled and whinnied something, which made the newcomer raise a brow and whinny something in return. The mare huffed, hoofed at the ground and made a complex grunt-like sound. That caused the stallion to chuckle and turn to the griffons again. "Forgive my rudeness, but I haven't seen my kelesh for quite a while, and I miss her a lot. My name is Yangyr and by the will of Great Khan, I'm guarding the borders of the Field at the west. Who are you, strangers, and what business do you have in our lands?" "Cr-r-ops!" happily answered Helga, tilting her head. "Excuse me?" blinked the stallion, making a step back. "Ham-msters!" clarified the griffon, raising a claw and making a swiping motion. "I... see," slowly nodded the pony, relaxing. "You've heard of our pest problems and want to help? That's splendid news! Our crops are being plagued by the pesky vermin for decades, and we would gladly accept any help from somepony so, well, enthusiastic as you." "Sorry, my friend is not very good in your language," interjected Vsevolod, gently grabbing Helga's beak and stopping her from any further attempts at diplomacy. "We were hoping that you would allow us to live with your herds for a while, and we'll be happy to help with whatever we can in return. My name is Vsevolod and this is my sister Helga, pleased to meet you, Yangyr." "The proper address would be Mirza Yazgy Yangyr, just Mirza would be acceptable in the less formal setting," smiled and corrected the pony. "I will let it pass this time, since you are unfamiliar with our customs and meant no disrespect, but it won't be wise to make this mistake again, especially in the presence of my warriors. They might spank you for that since at your age a child is supposed to already know how to address his superiors." Vsevolod sighed and thought that living his life as a child is too much for his already strained sanity, but then Kurgash decided to interject. "They are not children, oh mighty Mirza! The younger one is..." "Silence!" suddenly darkened Yangyr, turning to her. "You forgot your place!" "I'm not your wife yet, so I can speak freely!" defiantly retorted the pegasus, huffing something complex again. "You may be the daughter of the Knowing One, but no mare in my herd would show such disrespect! Silence, or I'll make you!" the smile of earlier was replaced by a scowl, and from somewhere behind the mirza, a large group of armed and armored ponies emerged. Most of them were of the same kind as him, but there also were two of more bulky earth ponies, a small pegasus with short, stubby and very messy wings, and a unicorn with a similar build to mirza himself, but about twice as tall. The newcomers had encircled the trio and gazed at them silently, but disapprovingly. All, except for the unicorn, who turned to Yangyr and said in a concerned tone: "Yan, she's right, you know. Marry her and then order her around, do it now and she'll have your hide for a carpet." "I won't let some low-born piece of..." growled mirza, lowering his head and pawing the ground with a hoof. "Who do you call lowborn, you worthless mule?" gasped Kurgash, spreading her wings and opening her eyes wide. "Now he did it," whispered the unicorn with a sigh, motioning Vsevolod and Helga to move away from the argument. He led them beyond the small hill nearby, followed by the raging screams of the loving couple. "Now they'll be at it for hours. I wish my brother-in-law was a bit less ambitious." "Why?" asked Vsevolod, since there was really not much else to do, except making sure that Helga won't start talking about crops or hamsters again. He decided that the Wild matter could very well wait for the ears of the Great Khan himself, the situation was complicated enough as it is. "You see, stranger, Yangyr is of the pure Steppe bloodline, yet of very low birth. His father was pulling a scrap wagon for a living. I don't know how it's where you from, but here even the slaves find that kind of job demeaning. Yangyr's foalhood was as bad as you can imagine, some days they had to eat straw to survive. "He was a smart colt, though, he wanted a better life for him and his family, so he sought the ways to improve. I was one of his first attempts, you know. I'm not that big of a noble myself, but from the pit they lived in, I was like the Khan himself. Well, I'm not complaining, his sister is a good strong mare, and she gave me two strong sons already. So, it was me who invited him to visit the herd of the Knowing One. Sometimes I wish I hadn't," as on cue, the sounds of commotion behind the hill became even louder. Most of the warrior ponies came to sit around the unicorn, shuddering with every angry shout. "There he met Kurgash. 'Met' might be a bit of a small word here, he rammed her at full gallop while looking the other side. That's when this first happened," he motioned towards the hill. "I think that was the love at the first sight. But no matter what, if they are apart for more than a day, they always meet like... this. "And today... today Yan really did it. By their engagement, he rose high. But he's still as lowborn as ever, while Kurgash is the daughter of Timer Urman, who's not a Great Khan only because she's a mare. That she's adopted and he's from a pure line doesn't make their situation any better. He always a bit envious that she got something he never had just because those who took her was from the Urman herd. Of course, they'll be sitting side by side in the evening, looking at the Moon and whispering some sweet nonsense into each other's ear, but before that... wait a moment, I don't know that voice!" Instantly, every relaxed warrior was on his hooves, charging around the hill. The griffons followed them. When they've arrived, they've seen someone Vsevolod hoped never to see again in his life. On the riverside, stood Georgy, the Prince of Yelets. He was blinking at the body in front of him. A body covered by something resembling a gilded carpet, with a silly looking gem-encrusted fur cap that rolled several steps from it. Several dozens of griffon and pegasi, all armored and armed with something looking like crude firearms, stood behind him, and the muzzle of one of those contraptions was smoking. The young griffon holding it, looked at the gun in his claws like he had seen it for the first time. Vsevolod suddenly felt the chill of the Great Winter running along his spine again.