Do Gryphons Purr?
Chapter Four
“Do Gryphons Purr?”
Astrapios the hippogryph strode out into the sharp morning sunlight, the claws at the end of his front legs barely making a sound over the equine clatter of his rear hooves. As the owner of Barely Eagle Magazine, the floating offices of which he now stood on the deck of, it was his duty and pride to greet the day the way he did, in a fashion he considered rather regal and imperious.
In reality, he was something of a laughing stock amongst the stevedores and fishermares of the primarily pony town of Port Dauphine, mainly because of his size. Astrapios was a very small hippogryph indeed. Barely the height of a young filly despite being in his middle age, the bizarre sight of him appearing amidst the dawn rays on the deck of his three masted clipper, standing in the spot usually reserved for some stalwart captain, was quite possibly the only thing that prevented Port Dauphine's residents from going mad with boredom.
It certainly didn't help that he was the sole purveyor of gryphon related adult reading materials for the entire less beaky side of the Dauphine, nor that he was possessed of the most twee and contrived Canterlot accent imaginable, a voice pulled straight from some old fashioned regency parody of the place.
Port Dauphine was an irascible place, much like the crabs and other crustaceans it was most famed for. During the long winter months it weathered ferocious storms, being as it was too far away from a pegasus cloudholme to warrant much in the way of climaculture, but in the summer it thrived, its residents blessed with an aquatic harvest quite unlike that of any other town on the Dauphine coast. It was the largest deep water harbour, too, and so did much in the way of trade with the gryphon autonomous regions. Caravels and hoys sat at anchor, nestled in long ranks of furled sails, fighting for space with imposing galleons and secretive dhows; even Zebrican junks and ur-xebecs had a spot here, fewer in number though they were.
Astrapios, now finished with his dawn routine, began to address the deliveries that had been left beside the ramp that linked his boat, named for the magazine, to the wharf. Large crates bearing the hallmarks of a local printer were the only notable objects, beside the usual supplies of food and fresh water. Finding ponies willing to print blue subject matter was getting harder and harder these days, especially those who had the skill to operate a lithograph. He had been relying more and more on buying up ten-a-bit erotic stories to fill pages, much to the chagrin of his dedicated clientèle. That's connoisseurs for you. They know what they like, and they like what they know.
With a claw, Astrapios opened one of the crates, levering open the wood slats with ease. The smell of new books filled the air briefly, before being overcome by the general odour of a hundred fishing boats and their various catches. The hippogryph paused only to place a tiny pair of reading glasses on the end of his beak, then pulled a copy of Barely Eagle Magazine from its nest of shredded paper padding.
Good binding, nice clear printing, good typesetting, he thought, deftly flicking through it, casting his expert eye on the new offering. Then he came to the first lithograph. Oh, but this won't do at all!
After checking a few more copies to see if the error had been carried over to all the issues, which it had, Astrapios stalked down the gangplank onto the dock, offending article in talon. Had he been a hippogryph of normal size, a wingless alce, or even a gryphon, the sight of him wrapped in fury would have sent the herd animals fleeing for their collective lives, just by dint of their instincts: big angry clawed thing, run!
But as it was, most of the wharf ponies simply ignored him, or cracked a wry smile. One, a bat pony mango salesmare, even fell over laughing, apparently having never seen a creature such as Astrapios before. The hippogryph roundly ignored them, and quickly left the harbour, taking one of the many narrow alleys that fed into the key side warehouses and businesses. On a different day, he might well have given them what for, maybe even snapped his beak at them to show that it all still worked as nature intended, despite the miniaturisation. He had no time for such games today though. All two thousand copies of Barely Eagle contained a dire flaw, and they were only six hours shy of the shipping deadline.
Equus Felix Fine Printing and Haberdashery was located right in the middle of Port Dauphine's Artisans District, which was a fancy way of describing a broad rectangle of workshops and small factories pressed up against the northern city walls, containing everything that wasn't a fishery or some fishery related industry. Many businesses actually shared space, with makers of notions and quills working alongside upholsterers and seamstresses. This was why, when Astrapios crossed the threshold into Equus Felix, he was nearly crushed by a falling tower of assorted buttons and reels of cotton.
“Oh sweet Celestia!” a slate grey pegasus stallion gasped. “I’m so, so sorry!”
“For goodness sakes!” Astrapios snapped. “You could kill someone if you're not careful!”
“I know, I know!” he cried, skittering around on the floor in a pitiful sort of way, trying to pick up the thousands of little accoutrements and clothing essentials he'd spilt. “Please don't tell my boss!”
“As though I have time to inform on you.” he said uncharitably, and carried on deeper inside the workshop.
Past a maze of elegant brass and nickel printing presses was a little office. Astrapios had only been here once before, and somehow it seemed even messier and less organised. Big boxes of inks and papers littered the floor, on top of which were piled trays of typeset lettering and the many types of wax crayons used in lithography. Small limestone blocks accompanied them, stinking of nitrate and tallow, apparently examples, or proofs of concept. Most held images of flora and fauna, or depicted stylised scenes from the recent past. Equus Felix did a lot of work for historians, Astrapios recalled, especially those who recorded the events of the gryphon autonomous regions, which was why he'd chosen them for this production run.
In the middle of all this, a white unicorn was busy tinkering with the mechanism of a lithographic press. Numerous small instruments and tools wavered in telekinetic suspension around her head. The mark on her flank was a black flywheel, barely visible under a slick coating of oil, turpentine, and any number of the foul chemicals used in the innumerable different processes the business carried out on a day to day basis.
“Excuse me,” Astrapios began, tapping his free claw on the varnished wooden flooring. “Can I speak to Mr Felix, please?”
“He's not here,” the unicorn replied, without looking up. “Public decency hearing.”
“Beg pardon?”
“I said he isn't here. Mr Felix was called up in front of the Outrages Against Public Decency Committee yesterday afternoon. He won't be back until next week.”
“Oh,” he said, rather deflated. “Well, can I speak to someone about this order?”
“If you're here about that smutty magazine,” she said, spotting the copy of Barely Eagle he was holding. “You're supposed to take all complaints to the local council offices.”
“I'm the owner!”
“I see, well...” the unicorn said, looking him up and down. “I'm Senn Feld, and I'm in charge until Mr Felix gets back. You're Mr Astrapios, right?”
“Yes, and there's a seriou-”
“You know you've basically gone and put us out of business, right?”
“What?” Astrapios frowned. “How do you mean?”
“Mr Felix did this contract for you under the table, see, because times have been a bit tight recently. But then the OAPDC got wind of it, and all of a sudden, we've lost all our regular customers!”
“I fail to see how this is my problem.”
“Oh Tartarus,” she sighed, laying down all the tools she was levitating. “It's really not, is it? Mr Felix shouldn't have done it. Stupid old bugger. He should have known those uptight bastards would have issues with feathery sorts getting all...getting...” she fumbled for the words, then blushed. “You know what I mean. No offence.”
“None taken,” Astrapios said, genuinely, as he'd heard much worse from drunk dock workers and sailors down the years. “Is Mr Felix going to be okay?”
“I suspect this'll all blow over sooner or later,” Feld sighed, putting a hoof on the printing mechanism and stroking it lovingly, as though for comfort. “But I doubt we'll put anything together for the Foals Guide ponies ever again. The way their editor was talking, it was like she thought our presses were tainted somehow!”
“Hmm,” Astrapios held up the magazine. “So I suppose there would be no chance of getting a lithograph fixed?”
“What's wrong with it?” Feld asked, in the manner of obsessives everywhere. “Mr Felix did the etching for your issue himself.”
Astrapios opened the copy of Barely Eagle to the first lithograph, then held it up for her to see. The young mare winced slightly, but professionalism won out, and she studied the convoluted scene carefully. “I don't see what's wrong with it.”
“The actress playing Hekate in this scene is supposed to be a hippogryph.”
“So? Looks like a hippogryph to me.”
“She's got no hooves! The poor lass looks like a bloody gryphon or something!”
Feld examined the picture again, then glanced at Astrapios. He lifted his back left leg off the ground and waved it about for emphasis. The unicorn pulled the magazine into her aura of magical influence so she could look at it more closely. Finally, comprehension dawned.
“Well I see it now,” she said. “Mr Felix has drawn this, um, mare with paws instead of hooves.”
“Quite so. Although we prefer the term 'hen' instead of 'mare', thank you.”
“And your customers are going to notice that?”
“Madam, Hekate is one of my most popular actresses. If for some reason she were to mysteriously grow paws without even a word of explanation, I would have a riot on my claws. A lecherous, sweaty riot, but a riot nonetheless.”
“Well, alright. I guess I can fix it. Can you pay for another print run?”
“Pay?! But it's your error!”
“I should have told you to get lost five minutes ago too, but I didn't, because I won't have it said that Mr Felix doesn't do right by his customers,” she said, keeping her eyes on the faulty magazine. “Even if they are smut barons.”
“Oh, very well,” Astrapios sighed. “Can you do it in six hours?”
“Three and a half, if you're lucky.”
“Right, excellent,” he said, pulling his wallet out from its hiding place amidst his feathers and retrieving an unsettlingly large amount of paper cash from it. “But remember, she needs hooves.”
“Yes, Mr Astrapios.”
*
Whom led Twilight into the big sonorous forest beyond the fields in complete silence, allowing the eerie sound to wash over them in all its many nuanced forms. The purple mare's brain was in full scientist mode, and she simply allowed herself to observe things. Nightmare Moon had apparently gone to great lengths to create a wholly functional ecosystem, which became more and more dense the further one got from the castle. Tiny glassy black insects began to appear, shaped like trapezoids and cubes, flying on elegant whip-like wings, with abstract planforms that recalled certain Cubist paintings Twilight had once seen.
Chasing these creatures between the jet boughs were things she wanted to call birds, but which propelled themselves along with odd corkscrew impellers, and made noises like a zither or sitar, occasionally being close enough and loud enough to overpower the constant drone of the rustling lunar trees. Beneath her hooves the ground was soft and pliant, almost mud, though it lacked any sort of moisture, and was more like a version of the silicate sea she'd first encountered. This sort, however, didn't cling to her at all, and actually seemed to leech particles off her. Twilight felt that if she were to go rolling around in it, she'd probably stand up cleaner than before.
Presently, the forest broke into a clearing, filled with more colour than she'd seen so far on the moon, though it was all still shades of the night; ellipsoid flowers of blue and dark green, on stems like sine waves, clustered up into neat bunches of three or four plants. They either grew or had been planted in a big spiral pattern, which lead into the middle like a galaxy formed around a supermassive black hole.
Standing in the centre of the glade were five statues.
Twilight noticed that Whom had adopted a reverent posture, usually reserved for ponies visiting the tombs of the great and good. She moved carefully inward toward the statues, making sure not to step over or crush any of the plants. Twilight followed her with equal caution.
When they came to the first statue, she suddenly realised that each of the statues was almost identical to Whom, though clearly not carbon copies, each was subtly different; longer wings, a fatter face, a more wavy manestyle. Each one was sat on a large base of black tinted gypsum, framed in marble, with inscriptions picked out in obsidian or some other volcanic material. The language was Old High Equuish, and Twilight furrowed her brow for a moment to translate it.
Y23 – 66 Whom Nopony. Fell in a Lake.
Beneath it were a set of smaller inscriptions just into the rock, in a dialect of Old High Equuish that was far less formal. Moon Her Sister Raised This.
“They still talk sometimes,” Whom said, sitting down on her haunches in front of the statue. “They're pretty slow now, though. Takes a year to hear us, or more.”
“I didn't know they were de-”
“Don't say that word. She hated that word. I hate that word.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Anyway, they aren't. They're still here. Just very slow,” she said, taking the pack of cigarettes out of the space in her raglia, removing one and placing it carefully against the statue. “Even Nightmare Moon can't cheat him, so she just slowed them down and put them here, where they'll be safe, where we can still love them.”
“Skies above...” Twilight whispered. “She really had issues letting go, didn't she?”
“She just wants us to be safe,” Whom said, wandering over to the nearest group of flowers, where she plucked a few of the fatter specimens. “She loved us all, even if it sometimes looked like she didn't.”
“I'm sure she did,” Twilight said, unconvinced. An abuse victim if ever I saw one. “Look, I didn't know about your the, uh, condition, of your sisters. We don't have to stay here. I still need to grab that squid eyeball,” the purple mare rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Maybe you could come with me? It sounds like you could do with a break, and I’ve got six more ingredients to go.”
“Oh, Twilight,” she sighed, smiling. “I thought you'd never ask,” she added the flowers to join the cigarette in offering. “Let me just finish up here and we can get going. I've always wanted to see Equestria.”
*
“Well, I wish you'd just told me in the first place, husband.”
It had taken until almost three in the morning for Emboss to explain everything to his wife. She was dealing with it all quite well, really, considering for a moment that he had been preparing to vanish in the middle of the night, leaving only a vague letter to the effect that he was going away on business and wouldn't be back for some time. It had been all rather silly, a coltish adventure fantasy tied up in righteous indignation and the need to right an old wrong.
“Mhm, me too,” Emboss said, feeling embarrassed. “I don't know why I didn't.”
“To think that you were going to just leave me here with the foals, too. That was pretty sexist of him, don't you think Dunya?”
“Professional mindset put aside? I would not take that from my bride.”
“That's Emboss for you, I suppose.”
“I just thought she would make a good guide, what with her knowing the territory and all that.”
“I didn't know you were a fillyfooler, Dunya,” Truth said, ignoring him for a moment. “How's that working out?”
“Oh skies, Truth, you can't say that!”
“It's our word, husband. We're allowed to use it if we want.”
“But you're not-”
“Not currently.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, and then the two mares began laughing like drunk hyenas. Emboss went beet red and took off his glasses.
“Fie on the pair of you,” he muttered. “I'll just go on my own.”
“Oh no you don't,” Truth said. “Dunya will stay here and look after the foals, like we pay her to do. You and I will go together.”
“W-what?” Emboss stuttered. “Really?”
“Yes, husband. I know how important this must be to you, and if it's important to you, it's important to me,” she smiled and put a hoof against his. “Besides which, if Celestia manages to pull off this Thiasus of hers, what kind of a world will it be for our foals? We have to try.”
“Thank you,” he sighed, hugging her in relief. “I was terrified for a moment back there.”
“Don't think I've forgotten about the fact you've been lying to me for the last ten years,” she chastised, shooting him a dire look. “We'll deal with that one later.”
“Yes, dear,” he winced. “Sorry.”
“At least we know why you never wanted to go to any of those Hearthswarming parties,” she laughed. “And there was me thinking you were just being anti-social, or that you didn't like any of my friends.”
“I like all of your friends, dear.”
“Yes, well, perhaps we can actually be seen together at those events from now on, hmm?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Right, well, not if we're flank deep in drunken Gods,” she bit her lip and looked around the study, pulling out one of the maps Emboss had rolled up on a top shelf with her magic. “How are we crossing the ocean?”
“Well, I was thinking we take a pegasus stagecoach to Port Dauphine, then pick up a ferry.”
“To where?”
“One of the gryphon autonomous regions.”
“Which one?”
“Well, whichever is easiest, I imagine. I was just going to ask the locals.”
“You haven't really planned this out very well, have you?”
“It was pretty spur of the moment.”
Absolute Truth unrolled the big map and laid it out flat on the desk, weighing down its corners with a quartet of cut glass cubes she'd bought Emboss for his birthday some years previously. It showed the Equestrian heartland in great detail, with Canterlot as the meridian. Off to the east, beyond the Everfree Forest and on the other side of the Roarke mountains, was Port Dauphine. Every little town and village in between was carefully mapped, each glade and river's course prescribed in beautiful calligraphy.
As those rivers travelled over salt flats they became heavy with mud, and turned to great estuaries as they joined together. Within these mouths onto the sea were dotted dozens of islands, some more than two miles wide, though the majority being far smaller. One or two even had small villages on them, the fact that their names were given in both Equuish and Old Equuish demonstrating their age. Ponies were not thought native to Equestria, and had travelled over the Dauphine while fleeing whatever had once been the homeland. The estuaries had provided safe haven from the antique predators of the mainland, kindling those ancient cultures and allowing them to thrive.
Beyond the coastline, the trend of islands continued, and though these were far larger, they were also far taller, being as they were the tips of oceanic mountain ranges. The cartographer had at this point included some notes on what avian species could be found there, and when, and detailed the existence of old pegasus ruins in amongst their lesser winged cousins. Whoever had put this map together had clearly been a polymath of some sort, as next came tide and current charts, complete with the best spots for fishing, and the locations of smaller islands where one could pick up fresh water, and perhaps some fruit.
On the other side of the Dauphine, however, things were far more vague.
The four gryphon autonomous regions were arranged in a rough quadrangle around their capital, Youdu, which like Canterlot was perched on a tall mountain they called Kunlun. Beyond that scant information, and the borders with the assumed underground limits of Zebrica, little was present. The cartographer did warn, however, that travelling conditions might change at any moment depending on what sort of gryphon or hippogryph wore the August Crown. Why exactly that mattered, Emboss wasn't sure.
“Off the edge of the map, then.” his wife said, rather solemnly.
*
Princess Luna ascended quickly to about a kilometre in height, but then remembered her reptilian charge and levelled off, slowing to a sedate ninety kilometres an hour. Below, Ponyville and its environs bathed in the sun, seeming so small and insignificant against the backdrop of golden fields and emerald forests. The many ponds and small lakes around the little town sparkled as sapphires might, and here and there clusters of ponies, flying and otherwise could be seen.
If the five cannot be convinced by normal means alone to unite with me, they will need to be coerced by altogether more forceful methods. But not yet. We will try once more, with the Rainbow one, and see if she turns out be more prone to sway than her applebucking friend. I do not wish to inflict upon this town more than I have already.
It was at this point the Queen of Tides realised that Spike was clinging to her back for dear life. She turned her head and looked at him. The poor little dragon had a grimace on his face that was somewhere between paralysing fear and incredible excitement. Had she been a normal pegasus or like creature, the claws he had would be tearing great rents in her skin. Clearly the whelp doesn't know his own strength. That could be useful later on.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” she asked, putting her head back into the wind.
“I have no idea how you do this all the time!”
“Oh, it just comes naturally. You know some pegasus never touch the ground?”
“I didn't know that!”
“Yes, the extremists. You don't see them much these days. Something about a war, horseshoes not fitting, I forget,” she said, resting her wings to glide for a moment. “Speaking of pegasus, where does that pony called Rainbow Dash usually live?”
“Big sky castle, just outside town! You can't miss it, it has her cutie mark above the door and a giant rainbow water feature!”
“They've all bloody got that, pegasai are ostentatious as Tartarus itself.”
“It's the only one in Ponyville!”
“Oh,” Luna swept her eyes about, spotting the unlikely agglomeration of clouds and rainbows floating a hundred metres above the ground some ways out from the edge of the little village. “Yes, I see it.”
The Princess angled downwards and allowed herself to simply glide, taking the power out of her muscles and drawing back on the magical output. Immediately, the low friction thaumic flight shell around her collapsed, and they fell under the normal conditions of air resistance and gravity, prevented from becoming terminal by her voluminous wings. Within a few moments the alicorn alighted on the broad landing ledge of Rainbow Dash's home and began to nose around.
“Stay on my back, youngling,” she warned. “You will fall through these as easily as an earth pony.”
Shod In Silver allowed herself access to the vertically arranged stack of Doric columns and big, open rooms that was Rainbow's inner sanctum, after assuring herself that the pegasus wasn't hiding in the shrubbery.
Domestically speaking, the place was a shambles that even put Luna's quarters to shame. Bizarre and mismatched articles of clothing, including more hats and pairs of flight goggles than any pony should rightfully own, were strewn about like fallen autumn leaves. Hats? That's odd. We never usually wear anything. Oh, but of course. The coronation. They must've had extras, or something.
Pegasus living rooms were usually laid out in pentagonal shapes made up of plush cloud sofas, the largest for the matriarch, and the smallest for her youngest daughters. Though Rainbow Dash lived alone, her house was no different. The theme of disarray and disorder continued, though. Pegasus are usually so clean and organised. She must never bring anypony back here. How sad. We shall have to rectify that when all this is over. It is the right of all to enjoy my night and its pleasures. Perhaps I shall organise a trip to the Hidden Delight for every member of Ponyville, just to say sorry.
“Rainbow Dash? Are you here? It is your Princess of the Night.”
“I don't think she is, Princess. Look.”
Spike was pointing at a note glued to a marble notice board propped up against one of the sofas, so that it could be seen by anyone who happened to just wander in.
Gone to find somewhere underground to live. Like, a nice cave. Totally dark, no clouds, no rainbows. Not coming back. Don't try to find me. Twilight, this means you.
It had been written on unlined paper, and had obviously taken more than one attempt to write, as many words were crossed out, poorly formed, or otherwise illegible. Several blue pinion feathers lay scattered on the floor, covered in ink, along with a mess of hoof prints and other signs of activity, which were slowly seeping away into the cloud material.
“Oh, bollocks,” Princess Luna muttered, in a most unregal fashion. “Okay Spike, you're a dragon, where are the nearest caves?”
“Hey, that's a bit racist, don't you think?”
“No.”
“There's a big salt mine a few hours walk away.”
“Do you think Rainbow Dash would know about it?”
“Probably not. Ponyville is all built on granite, anyway. There's no proper caves round here. If she was looking to get underground, it'd have to be those salt mines. That, or the old mines under Canterlot.”
“We can't allow that,” Luna sighed, rubbing her temple with a hoof. “The Elements have to all be in the same place! They need to get over this thing and work together. Oh, Tartarus take me, I have no idea what I'm doing!”
“No royal 'we', Princess? And your accent, it sounds so...”
“Normal, yes,” the Selenite Princess wandered over to the biggest cloud sofa and installed herself on it. “I've been able to sound like this for almost three years, really. Alicorns are very adaptable.”
“Then why on Equestria have you been putting it on?”
“My sister asked us to. She said we had to keep up appearances, and it was what ponies expected of me, so I did it. You didn't really think I was wandering around with all those 'thees' and 'thous' this whole time, did you?”
“Sort of, yes.”
“Skies above, Celestia was right,” she said, slumping her head down. “You ponies were expecting that from me.”
“It'll be alright, Princess,” Spike said, petting her head. “Why don't we go and find Rarity? She'll know what to do. I'm sure we can convince her to snap out of it.”
“Mhm, yes, well, about that...”
*
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and in all bad too
maybe even more in the bad ones
hey at least they ask no questions
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Hey, it's a quality magazine. I read it for the articles.
3064950
And you read the Guide to the Galaxy for the subtle shoe jokes.
3066112
The puns will last forever!
:nightmaremoon:
3125443
I'm so glad you like the different names. This fic actually started life as the Ninety-nine Names and was about a secret 99th name for Celestia that had the power to alter reality.
The idea for Cadence/Twilight's origin has been a headcanon of mine for ages. I've always found the idea of her being an illegitimate child, hidden from the world to be amusing and capable of driving a plot.
The Selenite Principality is a favourite location of mine too. It's supposed to be something like a negative image of reality, as though someone who only had memories of it had to recreate it in a totally barren space, and sort of got lost in artistry along the way. I sat down and thought about what kind of world I'd create if I was stranded somewhere for a thousand years imbued with the power of a God, then gave it a moonlighty, ethereal feel.
As for what the other alicorns do to the world, Twilight's aspects have yet to be established due to her age, and Cadence isn't actually a proper divine fully paid up member of the alicorns club, she just looks like one. What you'd have to watch out for is taking Celestia out of the world. Physics might break down or stop working, amongst other things.
I'm glad you liked Black Ode. I've always thought that earth ponies would actually end up producing a breed of thoughtful, intellectual, perhaps a bit too up themselves poet/bards instead of lacking as a clade in the smarts department. All that walking probably gives you a lot of time to think about stuff.
We'll certainly be revisiting the Selenite Court, too. It's just too much fun to pass up.
Thank you very much for your comments by the way, it's lovely to see what people like about the fic.
I suspect that hippogryph is going to end up with hooves and who knows what else.
I'm not so sure that bringing Whom to Equestria is such a great idea.
God or goddess gryphons, perhaps?
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Bringing Whom to Equestria is certainly going to have some explosive consequences, especially as encountering her once and former Queen of Tides is highly likely. One might also think of Luna as having Bad Habits in her divine aspect. She did invent cigarettes in this Universe, after all. Introducing those sorts of things to Equestria (not forgetting Twilight's recent discovery and purification of Uranium) will certainly shake things up. Me and my pre-reader were thinking about what unsuspecting ponies might inadvertently use radioactive materials for. A coffee warming plate for Twilight? Heating elements for a sort of hypocaust system? The commercial applications are endless. I imagine Fim and Flam might become involved.
DRAMA will be reappearing soon - but don't worry, they're not as sinister as they might seem. They only collect the meta data on important dramatic events, and only then if you're within three degrees of infatuation.
As for what kind of dramatic weather might befit a Godly drama, that's up to the Tripartite to determine. I imagine lots of stuff like thundersnow and perhaps the odd phallic hailstone.
On Godly Gryphons - that certainly would make sense, now wouldn't it? They actually have quite a complex little pantheon that I
stole from Greek and Chinese mythologycame up with entirely by myself. They're going to be a bit more interested in the 'Worship Me' angle than Celestia/Luna are.