A Griffon’s Foray into the Realm of Puppy Rearing

by PhycoKrusk

01 - A Quiet Night on the Town

In the High Confederation of Wings, in a small town known as Konservenstadt that sat on a river, there sat an old warehouse, abandoned when the cannery closed and moved upstream, and left unused when the business concerns using it left and stopped paying rent. It was filthy and in poor repair, but the fledglings of Konservenstadt knew better than to risk playing anywhere near it, although they would never say why. Although abandoned, that warehouse was not empty.

Below the ground, in the basement of that warehouse, several steel rusting doors barred access to the multitude of individual storage rooms that once held all manner of spare supplies. In one of those doors, a slot slid open and a pair of beady eagle eyes peered out into the basement corridor. “How’s the weather?” asked their owner.

“The sun shines fairly,” came the reply.

The slot slammed shut again, and several tense moments passed before the lock clicked and the door opened. The griffon behind it was in need of a bath, white feathers turned grey from grit and fur matted in spots from sweat. It was a stark contrast to the well-kempt and well-dressed griffon outside the door.

“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t answer” said Jacoby Flynn.

“You can’t be too careful in this business,” said the griffon who answered the door. “But enough of that. Come in, come in.” The griffon stepped to one side, and Jacoby entered the room behind him, immediately casting his gaze around. The room itself was what he expected from a small storage room in the basement of a warehouse, with an earthen exterior wall and wooden ones built around the concrete support beams. A single electric light burned overhead, and vents against the exterior wall led up to other parts of the structure, allowing air exchange (if not particularly fresh air). A concrete floor rounded out the construction.

The contents of the room consisted of Jacoby and the griffon who had let him in, along with three other griffons scattered about that eyed him warily and looked every bit as dirty as their comrade, as well as four large boxes- shipping crates, really- set along the earthen wall in front of him. “That’s it, then?” Jacoby asked, moving towards the boxes. “What’s in them?” His path was blocked by one of the griffons moving in front of him, somewhat aggressively, and then leaning left and right when Jacoby tried to maneuver around him.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” said the griffon who’d let him in as he shut the heavy door. “We’re going to take things in a slightly different direction.”

Furrowing his brow, Jacoby turned back around towards the door. “What do you mean?” he asked. An instant later, his eyes widened, and he looked to his right when he heard the chak of a firearm being cocked, and found the muzzle of an aging flintlock pistol aimed squarely at his beak.

“What he means,” said the griffon leveling the pistol at him, the one that had blocked his path earlier, “Is that we’ve been wise to your game the moment you knocked.” Jacoby stared at him for a moment- where had he gotten that pistol from, exactly- and then gave an irritated sigh and sat on the floor, raising his talons in the air and looking in no fashion pleased.

“Well, that didn’t take long. What gave it away, exactly?” Jacoby said, finding no point in prolonging his charade, “You let me in without opening fire first, so the password was certainly correct.”

“Anygriffon with even a little money could have found out that password,” said the griffon that had first revealed their deception, the one who let him in to begin with. He and one other stood a distance in front of Jacoby, with the pistol-wielding one to his right and the last of the bunch a distance to his left, boxing him against the wall and leaving no avenues of escape. “Why else would we use it as a decoy?”

Jacoby’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “A decoy password,” he repeated. “Of course.”

“It’s hardly a surprise,” the griffon who seemed to be calling the shots said, “Creatures like you are all the same. Just enough money to get into trouble, not enough brains to get out of it. Now, listen closely, while I explain how this is going to work.”

“I don’t need you to explain anything because I already know exactly how this is going to end,” Jacoby replied calmly, if suddenly, turning his head to the right, looking at the griffon training the pistol at his face. “You will be incapacitated by an electric shock to the throat, partially paralyzing the muscles and forcing you to focus entirely on breathing.”

He turned to the griffon in front of him. “You will be injected with a fast-acting chemical that will interfere with your nervous impulses, preventing you from fighting or indeed, even moving.”

Finally, he turned to the remaining griffon, standing just to the side of the previous one. “And you will be disabled in talon-to-talon combat, and then rendered unconscious, thus eliminating all threats to my welfare.”

The four criminals that had Jacoby surrounded were silent, both in shock at being given a prediction that seemed unlikely to come true, and also because there seemed to be a component missing from Jacoby’s plan. After a moment, the last griffon standing to Jacoby’s left realized what that component was. “And what about me?” he asked.

“Oh yes, you,” Jacoby replied, turning his head to look at him. “You, I won’t need to worry about, because my accomplice, standing to my right, is going to shoot you with his pistol.”

“What?”

The single, simple statement was all that was needed to touch of a firestorm of yelling.

“You’re working with him?”

“He’s lying!”

“We trusted you!”

“How much did he pay you?”

“He’s ly-"

Further argument was abruptly ended when Jacoby suddenly moved, leaning back and grabbing the wrist of the griffon to his right, forcing his pistol downward and away from him for just a moment before it discharged. As he predicted, the griffon on his left was struck in the shoulder, and fell with a cry on pain.

His left arm shot back to the right, talons all forward, to strike the pistol-wielder in the throat. Upon making contact, the runes of his talon caps flared brightly and discharged their stored energy, the electric shock causing the griffon’s throat to spasm. He stumbled backwards, struggling to take breaths that weren’t shallow.

Jacoby’s right arm snapped forward just as the two remaining charged, and with a whip! of compressed air, one was struck in the chest with a small dart that flew from inside the sleeve of Jacoby’s jacket. Even though it was pulled out almost as soon as the griffon had felt it thump against him, his legs were already turning to jelly more quickly than he could compensate.

With a flap of his wings, the final criminal gave a war cry and flew at Jacoby, talons outstretched to rake across his face, while Jacoby responded with a flap of his own wings, leaping to the side and up over his assailant. Lashing out with his own talons, he struck the other griffon in the side of the head, runes on his talon caps flashing and discharging another electric shock. Disoriented, hurt and confused, he slammed into the wall face-first and slid to the ground, stars dancing in his vision while Jacoby landed gracefully on the floor.

A moment later, the door to the room burst opened as several armed and uniformed officers of the duchy’s security force charged in to find four incapacitated criminals (one wounded), and Jacoby Flynn inspecting the seams of his jacket for tears. It was an absolutely unfair situation; they had their batons ready and everything!

“Herr Flynn.” One of them stepped forward from behind the group, grey-feathered and sharp-eyed, taking in the room as he did. Besides being visibly unarmed, he was further differentiated from his fellows in that the green jacket he wore was marred by the presence of a red band around one arm. More than merely the commander of this group, he was the chief officer for all security forces in the duchy: Aksel Krauser. “It seems you’ve managed to subdue them.”

“Yes, I did,” Jacoby answered, fixing Krauser with a hard glare as he approached, “No thanks to you or your useless intelligence. There was a second password, Krauser.” His wings flared out slightly, but they were quickly restrained. “And I can only wonder how you missed that small detail.”

“Mistakes happen, Herr Flynn,” Krauser replied, his face impassive as he came to a stop, only for Jacoby to move suddenly and close the distance between them until their beaks were scant inches apart.

“Do they?”

Jacoby and Krauser silently glared at each other for several uncomfortable seconds. The rest of the security detail waited as patiently as they could, starting to fidget after only a few moments, however slightly. Before they could decide to do anything else, Jacoby and Krauser separated and walked in opposite directions; the former towards the boxes the criminals had kept, and the latter towards the other officers, immediately directing them to place those same criminals under arrest.

With no ceremony, Jacoby opened the lid of the first box, closest to the exit, and peered inside. “Contraband,” he noted to himself, hardly surprised. He moved to the next box. “Contraband,” he said quietly as he opened the lid. The third box was a treat when he saw the contents. “Equestrian contraband."

The last box in the row, larger than the previous three, gave Jacoby pause. It was not the size that surprised him, but rather the fact that the lid had holes punched through it and was fastened with a heavy padlock. A padlock which, in truth, did not look terribly challenging. Almost immediately, Jacoby fished a small roll of leather from inside his jacket and unfurled it to reveal a small set of lock picks. Selecting the torsion wrench and a rake, he set to work on the lock, only for it to open on his second attempt. The focus of the criminals that had applied it was clearly not on keeping interlopers out, but on keeping the contents in. Curious.

Jacoby replaced his tools in their case, and then rolled and replaced their case within his jacket before removing the padlock and opening the box to reveal the strangest contraband he could recall seeing. Strange because it was looking back at him with a pair of amber eyes filled with fear, set on a canine and ever-so-slightly wolfish face covered with dirty, grey fur. Jacoby recoiled in surprise. The diamond dog inside the box- for what else could it have been- shrunk down into one corner of the box, wrapping his arms around himself and trying to disappear.

“Well,” Jacoby said after he had a moment to compose himself, “This is no place for you to be. Come on, let’s get you out of here.” He reached into the box, and immediately, the pup recoiled further and turned away, shutting his eyes tightly and raising his arms up over his head to protect himself. When nothing further happened to him, he slowly turned to look back up to the griffon looming over him, who certainly did not look like the others that had seen him in the box.

“It’s OK. Those bad griffons are gone, they can’t hurt you anymore,” Jacoby said to him with a warm smile, talons still outstretched. “In fact, I promise that if you stay near me, no creature will ever hurt you again.”

The pup hesitated for a few seconds, and then cautiously reached up towards Jacoby with both paws. Moving slowly so he wouldn’t be frightened, Jacoby reached the rest of the way into the box and lifted the pup out. Almost immediately, the diamond dog latched onto him with his arms and legs, clinging to the griffon’s breast tightly as if he were a sloth clinging to its mother. Almost immediately after that, his small form began to shake with quiet sobs. “It’s alright,” Jacoby said, backing away from the box awkwardly, unused to moving with another creature clinging to him.

“Not as rewarding as I’d hoped.”

The voice belonged to Krauser, and given its proximity, Jacoby knew he was approaching. This was confirmed when he came around from his side, and puzzled for a moment at the ball of dirty grey fur stuck to Jacoby’s front. “Herr Flynn, what have you found?”

“A puppy, Herr Krauser,” Jacoby replied. He sat on the floor, raised his talons and gently stroked the pup’s head with his brass-capped nails, and almost immediately, his quiet sobbing began to quiet and he started to relax. “A little, lost puppy.”

---

The Duchess was not accustomed to being bothered at her home, least of all with matters of state. But surely enough, she was enjoying her dinner when her butler informed her that she had been sent an urgent telegram, and so she excused herself to an adjacent room to read it.

Urgent Priority, deliver immediately
Head of Household c/o Griffondorf Postal Authority
Castle Falkenstein

Good eve Your Grace STOP Operation successful STOP Four criminals incarcerated and one live prisoner recovered STOP Full report by afternoon Krauser

With a satisfied nod, the Duchess instructed her butler to leave the telegram on the desk in her study, and then she returned to finish her dinner.

Comments

[_Ecocat_]

i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/190/470/131943655832.gif

>Ecocat<

[TehAussieGriffin]

An interesting set-up, some good characterisation and the dialogue is well structured. Just fix the following and it's a perfect opening:
1) "... a slot slid opened and..." take off the "ed" on open.

2) "The contents of the room consisted of Jacoby and the griffon who had let him in, along with three other griffons scattered about that eyed him early and looked every bit as dirty as their comrade, as well as four large boxes- shipping crates, really- set along the earthen wall in front of him."
A) First you mean "warily", B) Second when listing contents you go point-by-point, and this tries to hybridise that with a description. You seem to be getting more millage out of the latter, so might I suggest sticking with that? It also helps you set the tone.

3) “Why else would we it as a decoy?” USE it as...

4) "Jacoby replaced his tools in their case, and then rolled and replaced it within his jacket, and then removed the padlock and opened the box to reveal the strangest contraband he could recall seeing."
Now this is awkward because of something I used to do a lot more than I do now. You pause for breath where you don't really need to. If I can suggest: Jacoby replaced the re-rolled tools in his jacket before removing the box's padlock and observing the strangest contraband he'd ever laid eyes on.

However those are the only things I'd change, and I'm still not happy with a lot of my work.
A.G.

[PhycoKrusk]

4610144
I really thought I had gotten everything. Good eyes, and thank you for the suggestion. It does read more smoothly now.

[TehAussieGriffin]

4610336
HA HA! The smoothness has been doubled! ^^
Also, don't worry about not spotting things, I worked on this chapter of a Star Gate Atlantis cross-over and the guy still didn't get why I was insisting on all the changes I wanted to make. -.-
BTW, let me know if you want to proof read a Knight Rider / MLP I'm doing. It's two chapters of un-published glee.
A.G.