//------------------------------// // 4 – Harriet and the Moose [Slice Of Life] // Story: Addenda // by Miller Minus //------------------------------// Recommended Reading: None. Hey you. My name's Harriet and I'm a griffon born and raised in the town of Hawkthorne. I run the local meat distribution for all the hungry griffons in this town, and I even export to other places in the country. That's right, I run a business. Little old me. At least, that's how it looks on paper. What I actually run is Hawkthorne itself. Seriously, though, if you ever find yourself meandering through Hawkthorne and you get your stupid ass mugged in an alley by some scumbag, you could try going to the police. They'd draw up a sketch of the guy as well as you could describe him, they'd run an investigation, then they might find him and they might get your stuff back to you and lock him up in jail for a good while. You could do that. What you could also do is go to your local meat shop and ask for some help from your good friend Harriet. My boys will be on that mugger's ass in less than two days and he'll be handing you your stuff back with a bloodied-up talon or hoof, apologizing faster than you could well understand what he's even saying. And if we found out you were lying, well, you'd get a similar level of hospitality. The police wouldn't condone any of that, obviously. Why would they? Vigilantes can get power mad and go out of control and seriously hurt someone and blah blah blah blah BLAH. Freaking bureaucrats. Never can shut them up. That is, unless you can get on their good side. How? Simple. You fill their cravings for grade-A deer, elk, beef, pork, chicken—their mouths water just thinking about this stuff. Even ponies could be sated with a good meal. That's one thing I learned from running this business: Everybody has a price, and it's always way lower than they think. I inherited the business from my dad. He was a no-nonsense juggernaut of a griffon named Grisham. He built the whole business from scratch on one thing and one thing alone: Family. It's actually a pretty common thing that you find with griffons from this country. Probably over in Equestria, too. Sure, every creature has some kind of attachment to their family, but none like a griffon. If any shithouse, loose-talking mongrel tried to tell a griffon anything bad about each other's brother, sister, you name it? They'd get a fist full of freshly-sharpened talons right on their cheekbone faster than they can backpedal. Literally or otherwise. And that's how we damn well like it. Sure, sometimes family can do stupid things and get themselves into shitty situations, but there's no point beating each other up for it. And there's definitely no point siding against them. Besides, if you know you've got your ma, pa, sons, daughters, and siblings sticking out for you, it takes a pretty empty conscience to be an assplug on purpose. And who deserves to go down for shit that wasn't on purpose? I don't expect any other creature to understand. Growing up with griffons is a pretty unique experience. It's how I got my family values. Just my mom, my nana, and especially my dad. All my life, he's always been there to stick up for the three of us. He only really had to do it once, though. It was when I was nine. See, this prick from out of town had got drunk at a bar and talked a whole lot of shit on my nana. Lots of griffons and ponies in town thought she was crazy, and this birdbrain decided it would be a good idea to spread rumours about some shit in our walls that was making us all go nuts. Something-toes. I don't know. Started with an A. Turns out he wanted to cause a little uprising in the ranks of our employees and somehow find a way of worming his way into top spot. "Turns out" is a shitty way of putting it. Everyone wanted what we had. Ponies and griffons alike. Only thing was he was the first one who tried. It was me, actually, who brought it up at the dinner table one stormy, summer evening. The kids at my school had gotten talking and were making fun of me for being scatterbrained. I wasn't scatterbrained at all, but it got me so worked up that I couldn't hide it over supper. Dad got me to confess what had happened pretty quickly. Mom was silent and still. Nana just kept eating. My dad ripped one last piece of his drumstick, stood up, and at the same time as a lightning's crack outside, he declared, "I know who's responsible for this." We all heard him clear as a sunny day. Mom put her talons on his shoulder and pressed him to sit back down, saying, "Don't worry about it. What are dumb rumours?" "Dangerous," my Dad replied, swallowing a piece of gristle and leaving the rest of his meal on the plate. He kissed my mom's claw, placed it on the table and said, "Thanks for the meal, love. I'm going out for awhile." A chill went down my spine when he turned to leave. The smile he gave mom just up and vanished in that one half-turn, and the look that replaced it could make the dead turn in their graves. "Don't get hurt," mom called after him. "I won't." He lied. He was gone for an hour. When I asked mom and nana where he'd went they wouldn't answer me. They just said he'd be back soon and not to worry. I kept staring at his cooling meal on the kitchen table. Mom refused to clear it. When he did get back, he was soaking wet and beaten up something fierce. His lip was cut open and he had these huge gashes down the side of his face that would never fully heal. His beak was all scratched up and a piece of his neck was missing. Mom rushed to him and nana went to get bandages, but he just smiled and told them it was fine. "What happened?" I asked him, all scared and confused like the dumb kid I was. He bent down to me as mom kept rubbing some chemical on his wounds. It must have stung like a bitch, but he didn't have a tell. "Someone was spreading rumors about us, Harriet. I had to put a stop to it." "What did you do to him?" "He agreed to leave town." he explained. To this day, I'm not sure how much truth was in that. Definitely not a full measure. But that was all he said about him. With that, he just walked away from mom and sat back down where his cold meal was waiting for him. He took another big piece off his drumstick and sighed. My daddy wasn't one to waste food. I could tell mom didn't agree with any of it. Heck, I didn't either, really. I hated violence when I was that age. I was always the "had to be a better way" sort of kid. I was looking at him like he was some kind of monster. He noticed, put down his meal and said, "Nobody's gonna make fun of our family anymore, Harriet. That's what's important." And I said I understood. A couple strange things happened the next day. The first was that my mom cooked twice as much food as normal. Not just meat, either: Vegetables and carrot-cake like those soft ponies might eat. She even had me help, and wouldn't tell me who was going to eat any of that crap. Certainly not us. The second funny thing, which got right into explaining the first thing, was that the cops came by. Knocked right on our front door. Two griffons with shiny metal badges and small, blue notebooks. I was terrified. I though they were taking my daddy away. I thought if they tried he'd fight them right there. I thought he was outnumbered. And if he wasn't, that meant mom and nana getting hurt, too. Or me. If it started, I didn't think it would ever end. In hindsight, I think the cops were just in to ask some questions about what happened the night before, but they never got the chance. Before they got to open their notes, mom and dad welcomed them inside like they were responding to an invitation. They brought them glasses of wine and coaxed them to the dinner table when they started getting concerned. It was like my parents had been birdnapped and replaced with the most gracious hosts in the world. That dinner ended up being one of my most important memories. Laughing, drinking, congratulating, it went on all through the night. I even got to stay up late and talk with one of them for awhile about school and my favourite classes. They were awfully nice when they weren't hungry. We packed up some of the meat for them and gave them the veggies and cake in separate care packages for "their pony friends back at the station." And that was how the family meat business became the best damn company Hawkthorne had ever seen. That was actually the second time that I realized how important family was to, well, my family. The first time was just a few months earlier, when I asked my nana about my ancestors. That was when I learned I'm lucky to be alive. See, my great grandfathers and grandmothers lived in this ancient city far, far away from Hawkthorne called Grifforra. The griffonfolk were prosperous there: They had water, food, shelter, government, an economy, law enforcement, the works! The only problem was that they were sat real close to some prominent dragon nesting grounds. Sure enough, they were attacked. It was two of them. Males. Enormous beasts that cared so damn little for the smaller species like us. They swooped down and toppled a whole street of buildings, killing several of my own ancestors. Nana couldn't even tell me why they did it. It was like a sport to them, she guessed. When the griffons of Grifforra brought this up with one of their leaders, things got worse. It was a dragoness by the name of "Minerva" who started a river of tears when she'd heard what happened, apologizing like she'd done it herself. And then, after all those waterworks, she had the gall to then tell the relatives of the victims that there was nothing she could do. It wasn't that the dragons couldn't be punished. It wasn't that they had run away. No, Minerva just said that carrying out punishment on each other was not the dragon way. And apparently that was more important than several griffon lives. She offered to set up protection around the city until things calmed down. But the griffons told her to shove her protection directly up her snivelling, green snout. They packed up their things and abandoned Grifforra, splitting up into tribes and making their way all across the world. Lots of them couldn't make the journeys, but there was no choice. They needed to get as far away from dragons as possible to make sure a disaster like that never happened again. Filthy, gangly beasts. They think their size gives them extra rights over us. They don't know any decency like us griffons do. They thought they were the highest species, but they were the lowest dirt. I have more respect for worms. When nana told me this cruel story, she followed it up with something even crueller. She said dragons live for hundreds and hundreds of years. They sometimes even capped a thousand. She said Minerva was probably still alive. "Perfect," I said. "Why'zat?" nana replied, cupping her claw to her ear. "When I grow up, I'm going to find her and make her pay for what those dragons did." Grandma laughed. She patted me on the head and said, "Good luck with that, twerp." Now, my family influenced me a whole lot growing up—that much was clear. But there was one friend of mine who also owned a sizeable portion of the things that made me who I am today. He was a pony, of all creatures. And he went by the name of Moose Tracks. Shortly after the fiasco with the griffon and the cops, my dad made a new friend. This big, grey unicorn carrying a tightly-strung great bow over his shoulders. His "cutie mark", as the ponies called it, was of three sharp-looking arrows wrapped together in golden string. He said he had a business deal for my dad, and my dad loved business deals. He said he had a son who'd recently got his cutie mark. Go figure, it was a set of moose tracks. The stallion said he'd discovered his talents as an animal tracker. He said other things, too, like "survivalist" and "woodspony", but he focused a lot on the animals. He said with his bow skills and his son's tracking abilities, he could "increase your company's throughput" or whatever. I don't know. I wasn't listening. I was busy wondering where he had left the kid. Of course, my dad took the deal and offered to make the stallion and his son into employees. The stallion accepted, but said to not worry about his son. My dad didn't think it right, but hey, family matters were family matters. I met the kid when they made their first delivery—ten fully-grown bucks, all with red holes in various vital points on their bodies, all slung across the big stallion's back. The kid was there behind him, head down, not really paying attention to the whole thing. A unicorn himself, he had grey fur and a really, really pale blue mane. It was kind of a miracle I could even see his colours past the dirt and scratches he was covered in. Poor thing looked worn down from the hunt. I psssst'ed him over. It took a few tries, and even when he noticed me, he still didn't move until I motioned over to myself and whispered 'c'mere' twice. "Hey. You Dad's new tracker?" I asked him. "Um. Yeah. I think so." "Cool. I'm Harriet." "Moose Tracks. Nice to meet you... Miss." I scoffed at him pretty hard. "Don't call me Miss. It makes me feel weird." He nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah. Me too." "Why?" He blinked. "I've never met a griffon before." That didn't feel like an answer to my question. I couldn't wrap my head around this kid being raised by the high-walking beast of a stallion that hauled in ten bucks on his own. Speaking of which, not two minutes into our vastly engaging introductions, the kid's dad turned towards us and scowled at him. It made me gulp, and I wondered if my dad ever scowled at me like that when I wasn't looking. "Moose!" he hollered, "Come tell the good griffon what you've been meaning to say." Moose gulped. "Oh... Right," he muttered, before he turned his whole body toward my dad and lowered his head. He blurted as quickly as he could, "I'm sorry I couldn't carry any of the bucks!" "What the crap?" I asked. "The bucks," he explained. "I was gonna carry two and my dad was gonna carry eight." His head dropped. "...But I couldn't carry any." "Whaaaat the crap?" I asked again. Dad sort of turned his head curiously. "That's... alright, lad." He looked at the kid's dad and smiled. "Maybe next time." I blew out a quick huff. "How much do you weigh?" I blurted. "You're like ten! How can he expect you t—" "HARRIET!" my Dad shouted. I stuttered and sat down. He stared at me with a glare I'd never seen for years. So fierce and dangerous yet so disappointed. I didn't say another word. I should have known better. Family matters were family matters. The next few weeks was more of the same. Every other day the two ponies from out of town would bring in several beasts for us to harvest and sell. And every other day the kid would apologize for failing to carry a fully-grown wild animal across his tiny-colt back. Every now and again I would psst Moosey away from his dad to talk to him. Not that our talks were interesting at all. I just felt like cheering the poor sap up. It didn't take long for my Dad to offer a local, fancy apartment to the two of them so that they could increase their output. Daddy Tracks wasn't sure at first, but he accepted after a little pushing. The first night they stayed in that apartment I had recently turned seventeen. Dad and Mom suggested I run down to their place to check on how they were doing and ask if they needed anything. I thought it was a complete chore, but I always did what my parents asked. When I got there it was already late—the sun had gone halfway under the horizon. I was a few moments from knocking on the door when something crawled out of the alley and spoke. "Hi, Harriet," it said. "What the SHIT!?" I shouted back at the mess of a pony crawling out from under some old rags. "What's wrong?" Moose said. "He's making you sleep OUTS—" Moose thrust a hoof in my beak. "SHH! It's okay! Please." I spit him out and pushed him back. "Watch it," I warned. "Sorry, just... don't... wake my dad." I looked Moose up and down, left and right, back to front. Not a single bruise on him. I was shocked. "Why do you let him treat you like this?" "Treat me like what?" I swore and spit on the ground. I didn't care about family matters anymore. "Like a pile of trash? He's forcing you to sleep outside!" I hissed. "I chose to sleep out here." I scowled. That made it even worse. "Run that by me again?" Moose held up a small book with his magic instead of responding. There was a little leaf in between the pages. I don't remember what it was, but he held it pretty tightly. "He bought me this book today. Said it cost as much as one night indoors. He gave me the choice." I was speechless. I tried to take the book to look closer but he pulled it tighter in. "I always have a choice," he stated. And that got me curious. Moose and I sat against the walls of the little alley the sad thing called a bedroom. We spoke for a few hours. Just when I thought we'd have an actual meaningful talk and I'd break him out of his shell, though, he went back to being his usual, closed-up self. I tried to press him a little about what it was like growing up in that monster's shadow, but he just gave short answers and deflected like an expert. I didn't get anything out of him worth anything. Just pointless small talk about Hawkthorne. Nothing worth bonding over. But that was because I was doing something wrong. I was asking all of the questions. I was about to call it a night at the end of a fifteen-second silence. But in that silence, he looked up to me and asked me the toughest question I've ever been asked. "Hey, Harriet?" "Yeah?" "What would you do if your dad died tonight?" At first I was mad. What kind of a shitty question is that? No build-up? Just hey, what if your dad died? What are the next steps after that little event? What the hell? "I..." I didn't have an answer. I blew out all my air at once in a vain attempt at making him laugh, but he just kept staring at me, patiently waiting for the response. "I don't know what I'd do," I eventually said, glaring at him. He lifted his hooves up and squeaked, "No! Sorry! I didn't mean—! I'm not threatening your dad! Please don't—" "Whoa, hey! Calm down, you psycho. Hadn't crossed my mind." "I'm... I'm sorry, it's just... It was just on my mind... Like if... If my dad..." "What would you do?" He stared at me. He looked blank, but little did I know he was forming a careful answer. "I would find my mom, move somewhere new and use my tracking skills to help instead of hurt." "...Shit, huh?" was all I could reply. I left shortly after. I spent the whole walk home thinking about that damn question. My dad did everything for me. He was the food on the table, the roof on my head, the damn money that got me my schooling. If he died, I'd be the one to take over his business. And I wasn't anywhere near ready for that. Here's this ten-or-eleven-year-old kid, and yeah, he's being treated like garbage by his dad, but he has a damn plan. He knows where to take his life if something awful happens. Me? I would probably cry for weeks and run his business into the ground out of grief and a baby's worth of experience. I got so mad I ripped a fence post out of the neighbour's lawn. I put it back, though. The next morning I gave my dad a big hug. He asked what it was for but I didn't answer because "you survived the night" is kinda hard to explain. Then I asked him for a job in the business. I asked him if I could help the Tracks with their hunting. He said of course. I could only help on weekends because I was still in school, but I really looked forward to those days. Hunting with them was a hell of a time. They were just so fast and reflexive. They were a lethal team. The animals they hunted didn't stand a breeze's chance of moving a mountain. I learnt more about the animals on my hunting trips. I learnt about cuts of meat from my dad. I learned about styles of cooking from my mom. If I was going to own the business someday, I had to damn well be ready. Years went by and more and more griffons that worked for my dad went on hunting trips with us. The business absolutely BOOMED and it was all thanks to these two freaking ponies of all creatures. Moose and I became great friends, especially when he decided to stop being a mopey freak all the time. Growing up did that to stallions, I guess. But just as suddenly as he'd come into our lives, we never saw him again. One day after several weeks of nothing from him and his dad, my dad got a letter from Moose saying that his dad had been killed by some disease. Said he passed away in a hospital in some small town on the other side of the Whiteeth mountains and that he was not going to be able to hunt for us on his own. That was a lie. He could have done it just fine on his own. He might have needed help carrying, sure, but it's not like I wouldn't have done it. But still, I never saw Moose Tracks again. I wish I had the chance to tell him that he was responsible for getting me prepared to take over the business, but he grew into a smart stallion. He probably figured that out himself. My Dad retired two years ago as of writing this. The boys had trouble adjusting when I took over, but my dad told me to lead with an iron claw that dishes out everything that everyone needs, and not a scrap more. That worked wonders. I know every employee's name, now, and they all sure as hell know mine. My dad's so damn smart. So that's where I sit these days. At the top. Where my family belongs. Moose still writes every few months or so. I hope to see him again someday. He lives in Morroward now—that town opposite the Whiteeth mountains. He did exactly what he said he would after his father died and more. He reconnected with his mom and discovered a brother he never knew he had. He's even got a wife and a kid now. I really should start thinking of starting my own damn family. Everyone talks about it like it's the hottest gig in the world. I like my own family well enough, though. I don't see why I have to invite others in. Besides. I have bigger things to cross off my list. And right at the top of that list sits a green, scaly pile of bones of poisoned meat. Minerva. She'd had a lot of time to figure out why she hadn't crucified the dragons that killed my ancestors, and she was going to answer for it. One way or another.