5 - Betrayer
Following Derpy into the mess hall, Gilda nodded across the rows of empty place settings to the head table where Gyre and Gimble were helping the ponies get settled. "Go on over, Derpy; I'll be there in a minute."
Derpy's eyes curled closed, and she nodded, trotting with hoofs high toward the others. Gilda let the smile she'd been holding in place slip and ducked into the kitchen. "Cookie, tell me you've got something ponies can eat ready to go."
Cookie blinked at her, a cookbook open in front of him, and her heart leaped to see the slices of eggplant he was salting, a pot of what smelled like a nicely spiced tomato sauce bubbling on the stove behind him. "I was gonna do this for supper, Praetor, but—"
"We can't wait. I've called a formal mess for lunch."
"For lunch?" He did some more blinking. "That never happens, does it?"
"It does today." Gilda crooked a claw over her shoulder. "I've got seven ponies and a baby dragon out there, and I'd like them to have something in their stomachs before the troops get here. 'Cause whatever HQ decides to send up the line at us, when it hits, I doubt we're gonna have a lotta free time."
One more blink. "Well, all right, then." Cookie folded the recipe book closed, grabbed the tray full of eggplant slices, and shoved it into the oven. "Gimme three minutes."
"You're a life saver, Cookie." Spinning, she forced herself to open the doors slowly, easily, like she didn't have a care in the world. "OK!" she called to the ponies. "We'll get you all taken care of here in a minute."
The stuff was great, too, Cookie pushing a steaming cart out and the two cadets serving the plates just as neat as could be. Gilda managed to keep the conversation light and focused on her guests—what adventures they'd been having lately, for instance, and how things had been going in Ponyville—but when they were finishing up, Gyre and Gimble collecting the plates, Gilda figured she'd better clue them in a little.
"Well, then," she said, patting her beak with a napkin. "Nice as that was, I'm afraid we're gonna be getting back to work here in a couple minutes." She gestured to the clock on the wall above them. "I'd like the rest of the garrison to meet you all, if that'd be OK, let them see that you're not really monsters bent on destroying ev'rything we hold dear, and tell them what we've uncovered this morning down in Catlatl."
"Of course," Twilight said from the end of the table nearest the windows, and the rest of them nodded in various ways.
Except Derpy: seated right beside Gilda, she had a more confused look than usual hovering around her forehead. "The other griffons think we're monsters?" she asked quietly.
Her plaintive tone struck Gilda right in the chest, and before she'd even thought about doing it, she was reaching out to pat Derpy's front hoof. "They won't think that once they get to know you."
"Good." Everything about the pony seemed to perk up. "Still, I guess I'd better get ready to do some extra-strength ambassadoring, huh?"
"Couldn't hurt," Gilda said, her ears folding as Gillian's screech echoed down the hallway, the tones and cadence of it announcing the cancellation of the day's classes and the formal mess about to begin. "I'll do most of the talking, though, so don't worry about that."
Motion at the doorway drew her attention away from the anxious pony faces, and seeing Godfrey step in nearly made Gilda gasp, all the clenched muscles along her back loosening like she'd been walking around with her wings bound till now. She hadn't wanted to pull him away from the site, of course—that was always the most important work—but with him here, about half the butterflies stopped swirling in her stomach.
The annoying not-quite-a-smile hovering around the edges of her beak made it pretty easy to mask how much better she felt, though. "Aedile." Knowing the answer already but in no mood to leave anything to chance, she asked, "You didn't leave the profs unsupervised out on the site, did you?"
"Not at all, Praetor." He gave her a bow of exactly the proper depth. "When Cadet Goddard brought down the news that we were having formal mess, our colleagues decided that they were much too famished to continue work."
"Good." Gilda let herself puff out a semi-relieved breath, Godfrey sliding into the space along the wall where he tended to stand during mess: as the garrison's Senior Aedile, he was entitled to the place at the far end of the head table, and now and again Gilda would insist that he take it, but he'd long ago made his preferences in such matters known. "Having Gloriana here to present her findings to the—"
"Gloriana?" All trace of Godfrey's smile vanished. "Praetor, when last I saw Professor Gloriana, she was with you and our guests."
"What? But—" Gilda glanced at the clock. "We left her at the second mosaic maybe forty-five minutes ago."
"Second mosaic?" Godfrey's eyes widened, a note of astonishment coming into his voice that Gilda didn't think she'd ever heard there before. "You found a second mosaic?"
But another sound started stroking her ears then, a sound that filled the sometimes hollow corners of her chest and made her rise to her paws and claws in respect: the shuffle and ruffle of approaching fur and feathers.
Her troops were arriving.
By tradition established before Gilda's grandparents' grandparents had been hatched, D Company led the procession to formal mess—"here, the last will be first" was how Godfrey had put it when she'd stood like this three years ago on her first day in command—the twenty-five griffon fledglings marching in with their two aediles and moving quickly to their tables. Under the circumstances, Gilda didn't even glare at their gasps and stares: considering who was sharing the head table with her, she would've been more concerned if they hadn't gasped and stared.
C through A Companies followed, and Gilda couldn't help noticing the holes left by those cadets who weren't in their usual places: Gyre and Gimble, of course, the two of them not down with B Company but standing at attention behind Twilight at the top of the head table; Gutierrez and several others she knew to be in the signal corps, and she let a silent prayer go up to the Cat Mother and the Eagle Father that she would hear one of them give the 'incoming message' screech in the next few minutes to douse her remaining fears about whatever HQ might be up to; Aedile Gillian, of course, still out at the company clerks' desk; those cadets who were on kitchen duty today.
And when Doc and the professors straggled in after A Company, the lack of Professor Gloriana made another little twinge pull at the scruff of Gilda's neck.
No time to worry about it now. Gilda stood till the last of the garrison had moved into place, the once empty hall now alive and warm and bristling, the air crisp with the unmistakable tang of starched uniform vests. She stood a moment more and looked out at nearly a hundred griffons, all of them also standing in silence and looking at her, her heart trembling with the mix of wonder and pride she always felt whenever it really struck her: where she was, what she was doing, and how privileged she was to be here doing it.
She nodded to Godfrey; he gave a chirp, and the whole contingent settled to their cushions. "Might be you've noticed," she said, putting a grin in her voice, "that we've a few guests dining in with us this afternoon." Starting with Twilight, then, she went down the table introducing them all—being sure to give Derpy her proper ambassadorial title, of course—and keeping her eyes and ears pricked for whatever reaction might be building out in the ranks.
As expected, Doc glowered along with several of the profs at their tables, but she was pleasantly surprised to see fewer ruffled crests among the recruits than she'd thought likely: less than half, certainly. "The thing is," Gilda went on, figuring she might as well get right to it, "we've just discovered that Princess Twilight and her friends aren't the first ponies to visit Catlatl."
The fledges on kitchen duty had started wheeling out lunch by then, but they stopped with a clattering of dishes, the static charge of so many feathers standing up making Gilda's throat go dry. Reaching for her water glass, she told them about the storm, about Derpy and the princess's balloon, about the Nine Jaguar mosaic they'd uncovered first and the later one they'd found of Five Waterfall defeating the wyverns. Three glasses of water she went through giving them the details, and while the kitchen cadets remembered pretty quickly that they were supposed to be passing out plates of Cookie's eggplant, few seemed interested in eating, the inaudible buzz in the room getting thicker and thicker.
But again for the most part, it wasn't a hostile buzz: disbelief, sure, uncertainty plain on a lot of faces, but by the time Gilda was reaching the end, excitement crackled everywhere around the big, low-ceilinged room. "Professor Gloriana's still down at the site," she said, "and I'll be asking—"
"Forgive me, Praetor." A deep and rumbling voice snapped Gilda's gaze to the far doorway, and the silver-gray brick of a griffon standing there sent her leaping to her paws and claws, an instinctive 'ten-hut!' squawking from her beak. Everyone except the ponies jumped to attention, and Grand Imperator Gustavus seemed to puff up even larger. "Might you be taking questions from the floor soon?"
"Yes, sir!" Details started tickling at Gilda's astonished brain: the Grand Imperator didn't have a cloud of lower-ranking imperators hovering around him, something Gilda had never even heard about happening when he ventured forth from HQ; his sides glistened with sweat and heaved with gasps, telling her that he'd flown long and hard to get here; and the expression he was trying without much success to hide was very nearly the same mix of lust and disgust that Gloriana had displayed while working with the ponies to uncover the wyvern mosaic.
"Good." Gustavus started along the center aisle between the cadets' tables, and Gillian entered the room behind him, her feathers flat with unhappiness. She wouldn't've left the clerks' desk, Gilda knew, unless Gustavus had directly ordered her to, and the thought tightened Gilda's stomach. Had he ordered the signal crew not to sing out, too? Or had he snuck into the garrison without the fledges even noticing?
"Please, please," the Grand Imperator was saying, waving his claws and giving that hearty smile he always seemed to be wearing whenever Gilda saw his photo in the newspaper. "All of you, at ease and be seated. I certainly didn't come all this way to interrupt your lunch."
Godfrey was moving about at the end of the head table—arranging a place setting, Gilda saw. "Of course, sir," she said, taking her own seat and gesturing to the new spot. "We'd be honored if you'd join us."
He nodded. "I wouldn't say no to a bucket or two of cold water." Wiping at his dripping crest feathers, he didn't quite flop onto the cushion Godfrey had laid out for him, but Gilda still couldn't help thinking that, while much of the Grand Imperator's bulk was muscle, much of it wasn't. "Serving a vegetable dish, I see." He let loose another barrage of that smile, this time aiming it at the other end of the table where Twilight sat. "In deference to our guests, I presume." With a bit of effort, he rose once more and bowed. "Grand Imperator Gustavus at your service, Princess."
"Thank you," Twilight said, and maybe Gilda was imagining things under the stress of having the Commander-in-Chief of not just the Guardian Corps but of every military outfit in the whole of griffondom suddenly stroll unannounced into her mess hall, or maybe the years Gilda had spent trying to become as much like a pony as she could had heightened her sensitivities, but Twilight's voice seemed more than a little strained as she went on: "I know you of course by reputation, Grand Imperator, but it's quite the pleasure to meet you under such an interesting set of circumstance."
"Interesting. Yes." Dropping back onto the cushion, Gustavus picked up the glass of water Godfrey had just set down beside a plate of eggplant and drank it dry with four big swallows. "An excellent choice of words, Princess." He lowered the glass, sniffed at the plate with his brow wrinkled, and pushed it slightly away from him along the table. "I've in fact been having a less-than-interesting time of late serving the Consulate, but that, I suppose, is the cost those of us in the soldiering business must pay when Equestria has princesses such as yourself around to keep the peace."
Gilda was fairly sure that hadn't been a compliment, and the continued guarded note in Twilight's voice made her think the princess had caught Gustavus's undertone as well. "Thank you again, Grand Imperator. I'll be certain to convey your compliments to Celestia, Luna, and Cadance when we're done with our business here."
"Business?" Gustavus's mask of pleasantness slipped even further. "And how exactly is anything that happens in Catlatl the business of ponies?"
To her credit, Twilight didn't so much as flick an ear. "I refer to retrieving my balloon, sir." Her gaze hardened a bit. "Though I'm hoping we can also assist in bringing out the truth behind the incredible mosaics Professor Gloriana and her team are currently studying."
For an instant, Gilda had absolutely no idea what Gustavus was going to do, the molten-steel scent of anger coming into the salty tang of his sweat, the fur along his back starting to bristle. But then he went smooth again, his smile returning, and he swigged down the glass Gimble had just refilled. "Of course," he said. "It was news of the mosaic that drew me here, in fact." He turned his attention to Gilda, and she could almost feel the heat there. "I'd brought my staff up to the garrison at Northern Marches last night for a surprise inspection, so when the signal came in this morning about the discovery here, well, I simply had to see it for myself."
Which was nowhere near the whole truth, Gilda could tell. Yes, Gustavus did pull surprise inspections: she'd been through one just after her arrival at Catlatl Garrison. The Grand Imperator and his flunkies had prowled the corridors and the city's streets for an afternoon, disrupting classes and the professors' work down on the site while grousing about the primitive facilities and criticizing everything she and her aediles did. They'd skipped dining with the cadets that evening, had slept through breakfast, and had pulled out before noon leaving behind nothing but two guest rooms reeking of alcohol: she'd never gotten even an informal review let alone anything like a written report.
But for the Grand Imperator to push himself unaccompanied all the way from Northern Marches in the couple of hours since that first message had gone out, that spoke of something more than just an interest in ancient artwork. "And in fact," he was going on, that weird intensity guttering at the edges of his eyes again, "with the level of interest this discovery has already sparked—" He gestured to the princess and her party. "—I believe I'll be taking charge of the situation personally."
In the stone-cold silence that followed, Gilda couldn't keep her feathers from prickling. "Sir?" she managed to ask.
"You've done an excellent job with the preliminaries, Gilda, and I'll be sure to note it in your record." That big smile rolled across his beak again. "I've always felt you were destined for greater things than this backwater posting, watching over raw recruits and dead rocks, and I'll certainly see to it that more opportunities come your way. But for the good of relations between us and our pony neighbors, as of this moment, I'm relieving you of command."
Two things glowed in Gilda's head then as absolute fact. First, she knew that something weird was going on here. And second, she knew that letting Grand Imperator Gustavus down onto the site right now would be the worst thing that could happen anywhere in the entire history of the world.
Why she knew that second one, she had no idea. But everything she'd seen and heard since joining the Corps—as well as everything she'd seen and heard in the last few minutes—told her that Gustavus wasn't concerned with the good of Catlatl, with the good of griffondom, Hells, with the good of anything or anyone except himself. So— "No, sir," she said.
The silence got even colder. "What was that, Praetor?" Gustavus asked, his voice a growl.
Swallowing, Gilda rose to her paws and claws. "I took two oaths, sir: one to protect and defend the Consulate in Aquileon and another to protect and defend the ancestral city of all griffons." She couldn't stop a growl of her own. "Now, I don't know what it is about these mosaics that's getting everybody so unbalanced: I mean, yeah, they're gonna rewrite a big part of our history, but Gloriana just about having a heart attack when we found the second one and you, sir, barging in here, ready to solve a problem we aren't even having—"
"Aedile!" Gustavus barked. He crooked a shaking talon across the table at Gilda. "I'm relieving the praetor of command! Escort her to the brig and detain her there!"
"What??" more than a few voices beside Gilda shouted, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dash and Derpy both spring into hovering positions above the table.
Gilda held up several foreclaws—no way she wanted to drag the ponies any further into whatever was happening—and they must've gotten the message since they didn't swoop over and start kicking Gustavus in the head or anything. A delicate clearing of throat, though, and Twilight spoke: "Grand Imperator, surely there must be some—"
"Princess?" He spat the word more than said it. "While you have absolutely no jurisdiction here and are in fact currently violating every treaty between our respective governments, you may of course register any formal complaint at your embassy in Aquileon. In fact, I'd recommend you head there right now and do just that." He craned his head around, his barbed glare aiming at Godfrey. "Aedile! I gave you an order!"
Godfrey blinked once. "Forgive me, Grand Imperator, but you're overstepping your authority."
A tremor twitched across Gustavus's face, and when he leaped up, he seemed to tower over everyone else in the room, even the unmoving Godfrey. "You'll be joining her in the brig, Aedile!"
Another slow blink from Godfrey. "May I remind you, sir, of Article 1, section 15 of the Guardian Corps charter? There you'll find both the statement that the Praetor of Catlatl Garrison is considered the first among praetors as well as a list of the post's special privileges."
Gustavus stared at him, and some more tickling happened at the back of Gilda's brain. She'd read that part of the charter after she'd joined the Corps but before she'd applied for the position as Catlatl's praetor, but no one had mentioned the list during the interviewing process and she'd just assumed it didn't apply anymore. Because it said right at the top—
"The praetor of Catlatl Garrison," Godfrey's quiet voice was going on, "can only be relieved of command by direct order of the Consulate or by a two-thirds vote of all currently commissioned imperators. Sir."
"Preposterous!" Gustavus waved his talons. "None of that folderol's been considered valid for more than six centuries!"
"And yet?" That almost-a-smile tugged at Godfrey's beak. "They've never been revoked or repealed." Everything about him sharpened, and the glare he gave Gustavus actually made the larger griffon take half a step back. "And should you attempt to act in contravention of the charter, sir, I will be more than happy to perform my duty and escort you to the brig."
"Hooray for Mr. Godfrey!" Derpy shouted, and Gilda almost wanted to join in. But she knew Gustavus, knew he wouldn't let something as small as the Guardian Corps charter stand in the way of whatever he was trying to do here.
Still, maybe calming things down a bit wouldn't be a bad thing. "Sir," Gilda said, "I'm not interested in turning this into some sorta knock-down, drag-out fight. If you'll tell me what's at stake, I'll be happy to help you—"
"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Whirling on her with beak clenched and eyes narrowing, he crooked a claw at his own chest. "I always knew it was a mistake appointing a pony wannabe like you to this post! But you had the credentials and met the requirements, and no one else wanted to be stuck out here in the tail end of nowhere! Besides, Gloriana'd been looking for her damn mosaics for so long, who knew that she'd actually find—?" He stopped and spun to face the stunned rows of griffons filling the hall. "All you aediles and cadets! Effective immediately, I'm reassigning you to my staff and declaring a state of emergency! This facility is to be evacuated at once by order of the Grand Imperator!"
No one moved, but the gaze of every aedile shifted to Godfrey, still in his place along the wall. Gustavus snapped his head over, too, and bellowed, "Well??"
"Forgive me again, sir." Godfrey stood as steady as the mountains outside. "But Article 5, section 18 of the charter calls the senior aedile and the cadets at Catlatl Garrison the sole responsibility of the garrison's praetor. Military courts over the centuries have interpreted this to mean that the senior aedile cannot be transferred without the praetor's express permission and that cadets cannot be pressed into active service until the praetor signs their graduation papers."
Gustavus roared, his wings flaring out like brandished knives. "The rest of you aediles, then! You're now assigned to my personal guard! Clear me a path to door, show me to Professor Gloriana's quarters, then escort me down to the site! I've wasted more than enough time already!"
Another frozen second, then Gillian rose from her regular seat among the cadets of A Company. "Sir?" Her claws went to her vest, and she stripped it off, slapping it onto the table. "Under Article 7, section 6 of the charter, I hereby announce my resignation from the Guardian Corps."
Gilda stared, unable to process it as one by one, the other aediles all stood, took off their vests, and said the same thing. What were they doing?? Why in the wide, wide world of Equestria were they throwing their lives and their careers away like this??
Because of her? Her heart crashed against her ribs like an avalanche down a cliff face. Were...were they choosing shame, dishonor, and possible court-martial just because they trusted her, trusted that she knew what was going on, trusted that, when she said 'no' to the supreme commander of the entire griffon military, she had a damn good reason?
Don't kid yourself, catbird, a part of her whispered. They know you haven't any more of clue than they do. They're doing it for the same reason you are: to stop Gustavus from taking control of Catlatl.
Slowly, Gustavus turned his glare to her, his muscles tensing, and Gilda caught her breath. He would lunge for the door, she knew, and she would leap to stop him. And when the others joined in, the entire garrison would become guilty of—
Blinding white light flashed at the back of the room. "Well, there you are!" a slippery baritone announced, and Gilda found herself staring past Gustavus at a thing unlike any she'd ever seen before. The limbs of four different creatures sprouted from a torso patched with hide, feathers, and fur, its wings and horns just as mismatched, its long, snaggle-toothed head part pony and part dragon. More light flashed around it, and a couple dozen suitcases tumbled to the floor. "If I'd been told we were going on holiday, I would've known what to pack! But as it is, I've had to bring one of everything!"
"Discord?" Twilight asked. "What are you doing here?"
The creature spread its arms—the one sporting a scrawny but perfectly normal set of talons, the other something that looked more like a hind leg than anything else. "You know me, Princess! I can smell a good time a thousand leagues away!"
"Ummm, Discord?" Pinkie whispered so loudly, Gilda thought the signal cadets must've heard it. "I've had good times before, and I'm pretty sure that this—" She twirled a hoof as if to indicate the whole situation. "—isn't one."
Gilda's feathers seemed intent on plucking themselves from her body. Catlatl hadn't been touched during the reemergence of the fabled Spirit of Chaos two years ago, but Gilda had read the reports about buildings in Aquileon turning to pudding and some of the capital's citizen transforming into things with the heads of lions and the hindquarters of eagles. Staring, she couldn't help swallowing, Discord slithering its gangly self between the tables of her mess hall.
"Nonsense, Pinkie!" The creature somehow snapped the digits of its lion paw, and a cushion appeared, unrolling along the whole front of the head table. "Growling and snarling and glaring at each other are the surest signs of griffons having a good time. Isn't that right, Gilda?" It tumbled onto the cushion, its body suddenly as floppy as overcooked pasta, its head practically splashing over the table to rest in front of Gilda. "And by the way," it whispered with a knife-slash of a grin splitting its face. "I prefer being thought of as 'he' rather than 'it.' If it's all the same to you."
"This is an outrage!" Gustavus shouted.
"I agree!" Discord sprang from the table, the air suddenly reeking of week-old cabbage. "I thought you griffons prided yourselves on being zither players without peer! So how is it that we aren't all dancing sprightly mazurkas?"
Gustavus spread his wings. "Is this what you've stooped to, Gilda?? Allying yourself with ponies and monsters against your own people??"
"No, sir." Gilda took a breath. "Only against you. Now, if you'll level with us about what's going on here—"
"Treason!" The Grand Imperator took a step away from the head table, bunched one set of foreclaws into a fist, and aimed the other set at the rest of the mess hall. "Any of you who don't join me this very instant will be charged as traitors and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, all oaths and charters be damned!"
His words seemed to echo from the windows overlooking the Wyvern Range, but as Gilda held her breath, not a single cadet, not Doc, not even the grouchiest of the professors, none of her garrison stood from their tables. And the fiery scent of anger that sizzled from Gustavus's fur and feathers took on the sudden sour stink of fear.
"Fools!" Gustavus shouted, but his fear stink was getting stronger, sweat still dripping from his sides, white rimming his eyes. "I shall be returning with both my personal battalion and the entire complement of Northern Marches Garrison, and then not a one of you will see the outside of a prison until the day of your execution!" He shot down the aisle between the tables and flapped out the door.
All her former aediles leaped to their paws and claws, but Gilda gave the loudest 'as you were' squawk she ever had, her mind turning furiously. "Everything we've done so far we can justify and support under the charter!" she shouted. "But anyone touches that pompous bag of suet, this all gets moved to a whole 'nother level!"
"But Praetor!" Gillian's wings vibrated, her muscles still tensed to spring her toward the door. "If he brings the squadrons up from Northern Marches—!"
Gilda cut the air with a talon. "As long as he doesn't head down to the city, I don't care what in the thousand feline Hells he does!" She swallowed, kept focused on Gillian. "And I know I can't make it an order, Gillian, but could you flap up there and make sure he's heading south instead of north?"
"Tut, tut," Discord said, stretched once again along the front of the head table. A snap of his talons made a glowing circle appear in the air, and Gilda could see in it quite clearly the railing along the signal platform upstairs as well as a brown winged spot getting smaller and smaller in the distance. "And I hate to disagree with you, Pinkie Pie, but so far this entire performance has been very much my idea of fun."
Gilda wanted to scowl at him, but she just plain didn't have the time. "All right." She raised her voice. "Cookie! Get out here! We need all paws on deck!"
The kitchen door opened slowly, Cookie peering out. Gilda nodded and went on: "First off—" Her throat threatened to close on her, but she pressed on anyway. "Thank you, all of you, but this place is about to become white-hot, and we need to be ready for anything. So I'm gonna ask you professors and aediles and Doc and Cookie—" Again, she had to force it out past the tightness in her throat. "Go. Get out. Now."
"Praetor??" Gillian's face looked like she'd just been kicked in the stomach.
"Get to Aquileon." Gilda let her gaze move from eye to anxious eye among those who used to be her staff. "Or to one of the towns or outposts or universities or anywhere they know you. Find griffons you trust and who trust you and get the word out about Gustavus going crazy here. You prob'bly won't be able to get things organized in time to stop him, but you can at least keep him from covering it up once he's done."
"But—" Doc didn't look any better than Gillian. "What's going on, Praetor? I've always known Gustavus was—what was your phrase? A pompous bag of suet? But what was he trying to do, storming in and out of here like that?" His expression hardened. "And odd that this would all be occurring right when we have such unusual guests..."
"Belay that," Gilda growled, glancing at the ponies and the little dragon along the table to her right. They were all looking back at her with varying degrees of panic or confusion— except for Dash, her old friend's face shining with something Gilda couldn't quite figure out. Pride, maybe? But why—?
No. No asking 'why' about any of the stuff that had happened so far today while they were still flailing around in the middle of it.
She shook her head. "No one here knows what's going on, Doc," she said. "It's got something to do with the mosaics, though, and we've got a couple hours to figure it out. So!" She clapped her front claws together. "Godfrey and all you fledges, the charter says you're stuck with me. The rest of you? Fly fast, hard, and in the shadows, but get the word out: something weird's happening in Catlatl, and Gustavus is sunk into it up to his flabby neck."
Doc opened his beak, but after a couple heartbeats, he just closed it again, nodded, and stood. "We haven't always seen eye-to-eye, Praetor, but it's been an honor serving with you."
Gillian gave a hiss. "We can't just—!"
"You have to." Gilda somehow kept her voice from cracking. "'Cause here's Plan A: we find Gloriana, get her to tell us what her and Gustavus are up to, and stop it if it's as bad as I'm pretty sure it is. But you all are Plan B. And knowing you're out there in case we blow it here—"
A squeak from somewhere among the cadets made her stop, and she realized the fear stink was still wafting around the room even though Gustavus was gone. Unsure what she should say, Gilda planted her foreclaws on the table. "Yeah, I'm not gonna lie to you, fledges. Things are likely to get a little itchy around here the rest of the day. But you all stay in barracks and don't lose your heads, you shouldn't—"
"Praetor?" Gyre had turned where she stood at the top end of the table, Gimble beside her. "We can help, ma'am. I mean, reconnaissance flights at least, or—" She swallowed so hard, Gilda could see her neck feathers rustle. "Something, ma'am. Please."
Her heart trying again to jam up her throat, Gilda nodded. "All right. Gyre, I'm naming you Cadet Praetor for the duration of these exercises. Pick an aedile—"
"Gimble," she said immediately, and while the smaller griffon flinched a little, he didn't step away or look any more morose than he usually did.
"All right," Gilda said again. "Surveillance only: you are not to engage whatever forces might be coming our way. Anything you see, you flash a message to the signal corps aloft here, and they sing it out. Understood?"
Both the fledges scratched a salute against the floor, and Gyre turned to the rest of the cadets. "Fall out!" she screeched. "Reconvene in fifteen minutes in the gym downstairs with full kit!" She grinned as fiercely as any griffon Gilda had ever seen. "Gonna go out on a limb here, folks, and say that this is not a drill!"
The hall burst into a kind of controlled mayhem, the aediles and the professors joining the cadets streaming toward the door, voices and wings rising and falling, talons clasping talons and even a few hugs getting shared. Gilda watched it all from the other side of the head table and caught Gillian's last heart-rending glance as her former aedile left the room. A minute, though, maybe two, and the hubbub moved out and away, the sound and scent of her troops fading, fading, fading into a silence that echoed from the walls and windows.
She looked to her left, Godfrey still in his place along the wall, Discord lying on the floor with oversized dark glasses perched on his snout and a silver-paneled sun reflector tucked up under his chin; to her right, the ponies and the dragon sat, Dash again smiling where the others weren't. "OK," Gilda said. "Time for Plan A."
***
"—teleport straight to the embassy in Aquileon!" Twilight was saying as they all followed Godfrey into the east wing; they'd stopped at the clerks' desk, Gilda grabbing the garrison's skeleton keys and passing them to her only remaining aedile so they could get into Gloriana's room. "Then I can let the Consulate know what Gustavus is up to!"
And as much as she wanted to take the pony up on it, Gilda shook her head. "Maybe you're a princess, Twilight, but you've seen how that makes some griffons react, and, well, Gustavus has been Grand Imperator for fifteen years. Who d'you think a buncha bureaucrats're gonna believe? And besides—" The thought made her already tight stomach go even tighter. "Whatever's happening here, it might be we'll need a little magic to get us through to the other side."
"That's right!" Dash flicked a wing. "And, I mean, c'mon, Twi! I'll bet the whole griffon government's in on it! It's totally a conspiracy that goes straight to the top!"
Applejack snorted. "A conspiracy to do what? I mean, I'm plum sorry to say it, Gilda, but just 'cause that big ol' general of yours blew up and stomped outta here doesn't prove that one single thing is really happening!"
"But it is." Pinkie barely sounded like herself, something Gilda might've thought an improvement if the earth pony's mane hadn't been hanging from her neck like tree moss. "I don't know what, but—" She shivered. "It's a doozy. And not a fun doozy, either."
"Discord?" Fluttershy's quiet voice stroked Gilda's ears. "You came here because you knew something was happening, didn't you? Something that you knew we'd need your help with."
When no answer came, Gilda looked over her shoulder at the creature, slouching along beside the pegasus. "There are some things," he said then, "that I can't say."
"Can't?" Rarity almost missed a step on Fluttershy's other side. "Surely you're not admitting that there's something beyond your capabilities?"
Discord stretched his upper body, bending and twisting in ways that made Gilda's spine hurt, till his head was hanging upside-down directly in front of Rarity. "A good question. Let me ask you one now." His weird little wings fluttered, and he rose into the air, his long, snaky body swirling in a slow circle above the whole group. "What exactly do you ponies think I am, anyway?"
A heartbeat or two of silence, then Twilight said, "Well, speaking scientifically, you're a draconequus, a legendary species of which you are the only—"
"No, no, no!" He swirled faster and faster, a breeze stirring Gilda's feathers. "Not what I am! What I am!"
"Wait." Derpy was blinking, one of her eyes spinning to follow Discord around, the other looking at Gilda. "Those're the same words, aren't they?"
Applejack had clamped a front hoof on top of her hat to hold it in place against the increasing wind. "A mischievous spirit of chaos, I reckon's what Princess Celestia called you that first time she told us about you."
A loud bell went off, and the smear churning overhead popped back into Discord again, his fore and hind paws spread, a huge smile on his face. "We have a winner!" His smile soured, and he dropped to the hallway ahead of them, one front talon poking himself in the chest. "Except that I seem distressingly solid for something that's supposed to be a spirit, don't I? I mean, yes—" He melted into a brown waterfall, a sudden scent of chocolate filling the air, and flowed over the stone floor to take his usual shape beside Fluttershy. "There's that, of course, but what kind of spirit has any sort of material form at all? I can't help but wonder..."
Apparently none of the others had any more idea how to respond to this than Gilda did because none of them said a word. A clearing of throat came from up the hall, though, and Gilda turned to see Godfrey standing by a door. "Professor Gloriana's room," he said.
The skeleton key opened it quickly enough, but the clutter of papers and books inside covered every desk, table, and chair—even the bed. Gilda looked at it with a sinking heart even as she heard Spike give a chuckle: "This is looking kinda familiar, huh, Twilight?"
"But where do we start?" Fluttershy asked.
Gilda tried to think. "The mosaics. It was the one with Eight Waterfall and the wyverns that really set Gloriana off, and she said something about some books she had about it."
"A manuscript." Twilight stepped past Gilda, her neck craning around and her horn glowing. "A twelve-hundred-year-old manuscript. So that's not going to be piled up with these: it'll need a special, climate-controlled storage unit."
"Here," Godfrey said; he was still standing by the door and pointing to a black metal box along the wall. Twilight started toward it, and Gilda moved to follow when—
"Uh-oh," that strangely tight little Pinkie Pie voice said.
Turning again, Gilda saw the earth pony standing beside a stack of wooden crates piled up to twice her height. Pinkie tapped one of the crates, and Gilda squinted at the stenciled writing on its side, the same words that appeared on all six of the things. "Mining geodes?" she asked.
Pinkie nodded. "We use these on the rock farm all the time. They're really, really good when you've gotta hard, thick patch you need to blast outta the way."
Cold rattled down Gilda's back. "Blast?"
"Ka-boom." Pinkie whispered it, her mane like a strawberry mudslide along the sides of her head. "They're specially enchanted, too, so it only takes a little bitta magic to set 'em off, and it can be any kinda magic: my papa has this lighter he bought in town, and once wunna these geodes is armed, all he's gotta do is stand within about a hundred feet of it, flick his lighter in its direction, and, well, I already said 'ka-boom,' didn't I?"
More writing on the crates was telling Gilda that each box held ten geodes, and thinking of Twilight's glowing horn, Gilda almost cried out. But the way the crates were stacked, the way they were settled half inside each other, the way they'd thumped hollowly when Pinkie had tapped them, it all told her that the crates were empty, the geodes removed. And that meant—
"The city," Gilda heard a voice that sounded a lot like hers say. "Gloriana's mining the city..."
"What??" Rarity had been using her magic to sort through some of the papers on the bed, but now she snapped her head over, the papers scattering. "But she's spent her life preserving the city, hasn't she? Why would she plant mines in it?"
"Magic." Twilight's voice, filled with astonishment: Gilda turned to where the princess and Godfrey stood in front of the opened metal box. A sheaf of brownish-yellow pages floated in the light of Twilight's horn, while Godfrey was leafing through a small, black-bound journal, his beak gaping. "This manuscript," Twilight went on, her eyes skimming across the cramped and faded writing, "the author was apparently a griffon who calls herself Glendora. She says she discovered how to use magic just before the Resettlement and that she—" Twilight looked over at Gilda. "She hid the secret in the ruins of Catlatl."
Stats
Page generated in 0.027 seconds
Total duration
998 users online
2,046,061 hits today, 2,004,447 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
There we go:
That should get things set up. Look for chapter six, the conclusion, on or about Oct. 16th!
Mike
Shit just got real. Really good chapter, even if I can't come up with any way this situation could end well.
Awesome friggin chapter!
sooooooo...
does Gloriana want to destroy the mosaics for the sake of some dark conspiracy or does she just want to find the secrets of magic (and blowing up the mosaics along the way)?
Well.
Apparently some long ago griffin had the prescient notion that this crisis (or one very much like it) was going to happen. Hurray for them.
And you know the situation's gotten bad when Discord's arrival is an improvement.
5088463
Yep, Godzilla threshold is fully engaged. Or I suppose in MLP context "Discord" Threshold.
Welp. That's a thing that happened.
Wondered who was going to try and destroy the murals. Guess we know now.
Oh, yes. They don't want the masses to know that griffonkind isn't one hundred percent innocent in their being displaced. (My guess is that some idiot bit off more than she could chew in an effort to outdo the lameo herbivores and....welll.......things transpired.....)
Not surprising that Discord showed up. These mosaics/secrets are obviously one of his apples.
hi hi
Another most excellent chapter.
Although, I must admit I suddenly find myself at a loss to tell what the various griffon ranks mean. I was under the impression that Godfrey outranked Gilda since the start, because it seemed like she deferred to him on occasion, but now I'm less certain of that.
Hah, knew this was going to start rolling down hill at some point with Gilda right in its path.
Lovin' the implications so far and what's going on. Don't know how this can be satisfactorily wrapped up by chapter 6 (given pace, I was hoping for at least chapter 7), but I look forward to it as always! (And, like always, it can't come soon enough).
So the Griffons could have had access to magic but there was conspiracy to cover it up! Dun DUN DUUUUUUNNNNNN!
YESSSSSSSS!
This is friggin AWESOME! I got goosebumps reading that last line! Perfect, just perfect. I can't wait for more.
Please keep writing, I'll keep reading!
5089000
he's her sergeant. Every officer knows that the sergeants are the most competent in the military
so, just a guess but I'm going to say Gustavius and Gloriana actually have different goals in mind.
hi hi
I just had another funny thought. It seems like at least part of the reason why Discord is sticking around is to bask in the chaos, since he isn't allowed to cause it so much anymore. (Although he was certainly vague enough to leave any conclusion in doubt.) But if that's the case, I could see him becoming something like the semi-mythical crows of old after a few hundred more years. A harbinger of troubling times, even though he doesn't actually cause any of it.
What is the point of having Discord here? Not in Catlatl, but in this story at all, if he's just going to say he is physically unable, or doesn't CARE enough, to get involved with events. I've seen this excuse in many other stories, but it makes sense why it HAS to be brought up. The dude is a god, who took over the world twice. So when some crisis arises, it makes sense that the Mane 6 or (more often) the Princesses have to meet with him, even if it's just to see if has any information. Here, there was no need for it. He just pops in!
The problem is that even though he's been shoved in, he's totally underutilized. His ego, personality and powerset is meant to dominate the scene, either by being very active and overwhelming (much like in the show) or being subdued yet sinister. Here, he gets some lines in, and then everybody just forgets about him and goes back to another task or conversation. Along with being frustrating to read, it doesn't even make sense. When the ponies showed up to this city, it caused this big diplomatic kerfluffle. So shouldn't this world's version of Satan, and a world conqueror, put the griffons here on guard?
See? Ya just can't trust them dang beakies! Time ta raise me another racist barn!
5088463
Catlatl seems like a place that is culturally important but strategically unimportant. There was probably a period where every new regime, or even every new general wanted someone of their choosing in charge of the place, meanwhile the commanders would vary between those who wanted commanding Griffindom's most important historical site on their resume, those who wanted a cushy job with no real responsibility and those who wanted the job because they were told it was important.
That would lead to constant turnover with more than a few incompetents in charge until they changed it up so only the best would go there because it would be impossible to get rid of any except the absolute worst. Eventually though griffins would tire of tying up the best in an isolated post so it turned into the area you would send those you could do without but who wouldn't embarrass anyone.
5089903 He's here for the chaos obviously. As in, he's making sure the chaos he wants happens. As amusing as a little dustup in a remote mountain outpost might be, if this secret gets out it's going to turn Griffon society on its head for decades - if not centuries. A prospect certain to delight the Spirit of Disharmony.
As for his role in the story, it's a bit soon to be judging that don't you think?
Gilda tired to think. tried
While it's great to hear that we'll be getting this mystery solved soon, I do worry that a single chapter is not going to be enough. I have confidence you though, so we'll see in a few weeks.
5089000
Praetor is commander, Senior Aedile is second-in-command, Aedile is sergeant-ish, and Cadet is cadet.
Oh. I see. The Professor just wanted to say goodbye.
5089695
like-
When Discord is about, you should probably leave
5088341
5088452
5088595
5089054
5089251
5090154
5088626
The adventure continues!
For one more chapter, that is.
5088454
5088612
5089556
Gloriana and Gustavus have the same goal, but after all these years, they're not really coordinating their efforts anymore. As for the mines, well, the question of where exactly they're currently located becomes a rather important one in the next chapter.
5088463
5089000
5089385
5091316
I'm not delving too deeply into the technicalities of griffon military structure since I'm mostly writing what TheJediMasterEd calls "a romp," but I'm loosely structuring it after the ancient Roman model. So you've plebes who are the cadets, then miletes who would be the regular soldiers. A junior aedile has a slightly higher rank, and a senior aedile is as high as you can get to without going through officer training. When you're commissioned as an officer, you're called a praetor, and if they want to advance you above that, you can become an imperator. And the Grand Imperator's in charge of the whole shebang. There are further gradations in there, but that's the basics.
So promising cadets get sent on to officer training rather than going into the milites, which means that when they come out, ready for their first command posting, they're younger than the aediles and a good deal younger than the senior aediles they'll technically be in charge of. Good praetors, then, know to listen to their aediles, and everyone lives happily ever after.
Catlatl, though, is a problematic post, both widely revered and widely ignored. So Gilda volunteering to go there was a boon for the Consulate: she had the required training to be a praetor so they couldn't ignore her, but since she'd gotten that training among ponies, they didn't like the idea of putting her in a position of authority over regular griffon soldiers. The semi-ceremonial post out in Catlatl, then, was just the thing. The cadets are all rich kits who are just there to get a gold star for their resumes and poor kits who are likely to remain milites their whole lives, so this "pony wannabe" wouldn't be able to influence them too greatly. Or so they thought...
5092259
Gilda apparently wasn't the only one too tired to think yesterday... Thanks for the catch!
Mike
5088590
5088683
5089695
5089903
5091484
5092508
In the next chapter:
Discord tells them what he really is as opposed to what he's pretended to be for the last bunch of centuries. And that's when we find out what this whole story has been about since the beginning.
Mike
5089083
5092472
It's all about:
Going out with a bang. Or covering up that bang for 1,200 years...
Mike
I don't know if it's been touched on, but I'm confused.
Why wouldn't you want magic? Unless it makes everyone life-stealing necromancers or needs infant sacrifices or something.. And don't Griffons have magic? The whole making physics weep with flying and clouds. Unless they mean *flashy* magic..
5093022 Because for centuries they've been telling themselves "We're just as good as ponies even though we don't have any magic. Heck, we're better because we don't have magic." It's a massive cultural inferiority complex/compensation mechanism - and this discovery is going to rip the band-aid right off of it.
"Thank Celestia for Discord" said nobody ever, right up until today.
And oh heck yeah, looks like the gryphon magic question really is the core of what is going on.
5092651 He's a horribly mutated griffon that resulted from one of my experiments trying to combine science with magic?
Dun dun dun!
5093022
5093161
Pretty much:
Twilight even points out back in chapter 4, I think it is, that griffons do have magic. But it's so small when compared to pony magic that griffons for thousands of years have told themselves that they don't do magic, that they don't need magic, that magic is ungriffonly. We'll be getting more into how this attitude has shaped Gilda's whole life in the next chapter.
5093339
5093389
5093613
It's all true! All of it! Oh, the huge manatees!
Mike
Gasp! That end paragraph!
The conclusion?
5093698 ME SHOULD NOT HAD PLAYED GOD!!!
Well. That escalated quickly. You fit the rising action of the entire story into one chapter.
5092651 You mean... the god of all chimeric species? I'm betting he holds the key to griffon magic. Or maybe he IS griffon magic.
5093767
5094096
One of my favorite:
Nutty structural things to do is spend anywhere from two-thirds to three-quarters of a story setting up the figurative dominoes, then I kick the first one over and let the whole thing slide and flip and crash down for the last act. I dunno why: it's just my idea of fun.
5093861
There are some things pony was not meant to know...
Mike
Planet of the apes. We know who is the "keepers of the terrible truth". Perhaps they are trying to prevent war with a magic superior species.
Damn, but things keep escalating. Would not have expected Gloriana in on this conspiracy. I do kinda feel like you jumped awfully quickly to the rank-and-regulations fight, not to mention flatmaning Pinkie. Still enjoying it! Time for a break!
This greedy lust you can't deny, you can't deny, BEEEEEEEEEETRAYER!
Veeery slowly catching back up on this story. Still love it to death.
Glad to see there's still a lot of surprises at this point. Not much else to say this early on in the larger plot but that it continues to be very clear and well-crafted.
Things are about to go Metal.