Room To Grow

by BlndDog

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The wooden sign on the door read “no griffins allowed”. Back when Kelp Town was still a city for ponies this tavern was famous for its strong, syrup-sweet cider. The old owner’s policy was not without reason; drunk griffins used to set fire to the building almost every winter. The stone and mortar walls always remained, but the thatched roof would be burnt down to the last straw.

Gemma stuffed her black clawed fingers behind the sign and put her weight on it. It came down along with the top half of the door. With her hatchet she broke the wood into strips; when she finished the entire door fit inside her bag with space to spare.

The room was dusty and reeked of decay. Ash from the big fireplace was trailed all over the stone floor, mixed in some places with pools of drink spilled long ago. Round tables, fifteen in all, were arranged neatly with eight inverted chairs hanging over the edge of each.

The shelves behind the bar were full of big glass bottles. There were stout brown ones and clear ones, ones with dimpled surfaces and ones that could have been beautiful vases. Most had more than a mouthful of liquor left inside. The corks were sealed with wax and cheesecloth, as if the owner had expected to return.

Gemma pulled her woolen cloak tighter at her throat as she crossed the dim room, searching for the cleanest patches of floor. She wished she had thought to bring boots.

Behind the bar were sacks of barley flour and fodder, both black with mildew. A collection of fruit pits and the husks of many maggots sat in a crumpling straw basket. The mice had eaten their fill long ago.

There was no lock on the trap door. It was a rather tight squeeze for a griffin, but the sight of barrels spurred her on.

There were eight in total. Untapped, and much too heavy to be lifted or rolled. Gemma licked her beak as she dug through her bag for her spare water skin.

The bung came out with a resounding pop, and Gemma nearly choked when the pressurized cider exploded into her waiting mouth and out through her nostrils. The drink was full of ice crystals, pleasantly fruity with barely any bite.

She drank until she was far past full, then filled her water skin until it threatened to burst at the seams. A lot had spilled down her front despite her best efforts to save it all; she looked like she had bathed in the stuff. The cider was still flowing strong when she stumbled up the ramp, blinking and shaking her head to stop the world spinning around her.

“Hey papa!” She called before she was out the door. “Papa! I… I f… found it! I found it!”

In her drunken excitement Gemma bashed her head on the doorframe several times before she got out. It did not hurt at all.

The sea wind was bitter cold. So strong was it that much of the broad empty street had been swept clear of snow. Beautifully curved snowbanks hugged the stone walls, piling extra high in places where deep-set doors and windows could shelter them. Gemma saw a flickering orange light several houses away, and stumbled up the gently-sloped street towards it.

In the west a dull winter sun was sinking into the restless ocean. The houses with their tall narrow windows seemed to frown down on her. Earlier in the day they had made her nervous; now Gemma found these stone giants rather amusing; big boxes full of colourful prey animals, with delicate latticed windows plenty big enough for a griffin to crash through. If wild boar or goats built these, nobody would ever be hungry again. And why would ponies with long stiff legs build their homes with so many stairs?

“Papa,” Gemma sang as she approached the house. It was a three-storey building with gigantic glass windows in the front. It used to be a tailor’s shop, but the sign had already been broken down into firewood. The toppled mannequins in the window display were all naked.

“Gemma!” A male voice called from inside. “Come in here! I have something for you!”

Gemma tripped on the threshold and fell forwards. Not realizing what had happened, her two lion’s feet continued to kick the air for several seconds.

The room erupted with laughter. Gus pulled her up with trembling hands. He looked down at his gloves when he felt the stickiness in his daughter’s coat.

“Did you save some for me?” He chortled, slapping her back. Gemma fell over and stayed on the ground this time, looking around with an outstretched neck like a confused bird.

“You can wash off later,” he continued. “Have a look at this.”

Gemma followed her father’s pointing finger to a mannequin in the centre of the room. A red cloak with a beautifully embroidered collar was draped across its back, glimmering in the firelight. Gold and silver threads formed the shapes of tiger lilies and buttercups, chrysanthemums and bloodroot. The back was topped with black silk bearing dozens of cruciform silver stars. It was closed at the throat with a silver brooch in the shape of the crescent moon.

“It’s beautiful,” Gemma breathed.

“It’s yours now,” he said. “A unicorn made it. See if it’s lucky.”

Gus had already helped himself to quite a number of garments, and now it was Gemma’s turn to laugh. His leather vest had become a sleek blue jacket. On his neck was an entire shop’s worth of neck ties. The hats were icing on the cake: there were eight in total, stacked one on top of the other.

Two of them were top hats.

“Too much?”

#

Gemma sat shivering by the fire beneath a pile of blankets. There was plenty of wood left in Kelp Town, but Gus would only use enough to make a lukewarm bath in one of the stone basins on the sea wall.

The top two floors of the tailor’s shop were living quarters. The furniture was covered with white tarps, and most of these the griffins did not touch. Gemma had found a mirrored vanity in the big bedroom, and now its door was stopped with several heavy trunks.

Gus finished waxing the leather panels of their tent and folded them once again. Tomorrow they would go to the old farm. Perhaps the hives still lived.

Gemma reached for the hawthorn preserve. After a month of nothing but smoked meat and undercooked rabbit, fruit of any kind was more precious than all the silk in the world. The sugary syrup she poured onto the last bit of her rabbit hindquarter. Its dry, stringy muscle became almost palatable.

Gus kept the bag of cider all night, though he let Gemma have as much hawthorn and peach as she could eat.

“Find a proper spigot tomorrow,” he said when they were both satisfied. “If we can only save a bag or two of this stuff I will cry. This may be the last batch I’ll ever taste; yours too.”

Gemma put her head on her folded hands and sighed. Her face had been numb since tapping the keg, and her brain felt like it was wobbling inside her skull.

“Ah, my poor daughter,” Gus laughed, patting down the dark grey feathers on Gemma’s head. There was a hint of genuine sadness in his voice. “You never saw this place in its prime. Whatever unspeakable things they did, the ponies fed us well. We used to eat ‘apples’ all year round. Big, sweet ‘apples’; bigger than your fist. Not these bitter little fruits that shrivel your tongue. Maybe I can show you. The ‘orchard’ is nearby. They’ll be dry and wormy. Ten years without ‘pruning’ or ‘weeding’! But I’m sure they still bear some fruit. Maybe you’ll like them.”

Gemma always blushed when her father started using pony words. But the prospect of fresh apples excited her.

“Go to sleep,” Gus said, his wandering hand coming to rest over her daughter’s eyes. “We will start late tomorrow, if you can move at all.”

Gemma asked him what he meant, but he just laughed and poured another cup of the last batch of cider.

Comments

[RoseOf1000Thorns]

This is interesting so far. I'll be watching you. >.>

[themouthofmush]

this is pretty good. there is a good attention to detail and the character interaction seem to be natural so far. i do have one question though: what's with the use of the quotation marks at the end of the chapter?

[BlndDog]

5573928 Quotation marks?

[BlndDog]

5573928 Oh, 'pruning', 'weeding'.

It's because he's usually speaking in the griffin language, but since they don't have words for anything agricultural they just use the pony words.