Room To Grow

by BlndDog

Chapter 7

Shivering in a muddy corner of the room, Gemma stared at the pile of blankets with equal parts longing and dread. They were all thick and well-used, but not by her. She did not recognize them beyond the colorful floral design that was typical of pony-made fabrics.

She had come to in the early afternoon inside the farmhouse. Her captors had taken her weapons. Only the fire kit was left, laid neatly on the table along with lukewarm water in an old steel pitcher, a block of frozen herring and some cold pan bread. Firewood was piled beside the front door, with some dry moss for kindling.

It’s alright, she told herself over and over again. They want me alive for now.

Not daring to start a fire, she pecked at the fish for a few minutes before giving up. The bread she eyed suspiciously, having heard stories of ponies baking ashes into cakes and selling them to unsuspecting griffins. In the end she only took a sip of water.

Looking once more at the door, Gemma made up her mind. She adjusted her cloak and approached the front door. Taking a deep breath, she opened it, and froze.

Five feet in front of her was a rectangular monolith covered with a heavy crimson cloth. A mirror; a very large mirror.

A sudden gust of wind made the shroud flutter. With a scream Gemma slammed the door and sat down against it, digging her claws into the floor.

No! Please, no! Anything but this!

Gemma squeezed her teary eyes shut and covered her face with her hands.

It's over! All over! I'm doomed!

She sat against the door crying and trembling. At any moment she would meet her end.

But as the sun crept towards the horizon Gemma’s hunger grew steadily, while around her everything remained still. The numbness in her limbs became unbearable. Her fear never went away, but the bread and fish on the table beckoned without end. The room was unbearably cold without a fire, and the blankets were not far away.

Gemma put her ear against the door. Outside all was quiet.

She pounced for the blankets and crawled inside. They were dry and surprisingly scentless, and the weight of the pile made her feel safe. Tucking herself into a tight ball so that no part of her body was within a foot of the outside air, Gemma turned around slowly and lifted the blanket just enough to peek at the door. It was still closed, and through the gap on the bottom she could see that there was nothing on the threshold.

Finally mustering up the courage, she dashed to the table. She took a quick drink, grabbed the cold bread and zipped back to the blankets. Still nothing stirred.

Gemma warmed up the bread against her chest and nibbled on it until nightfall. It was a little stiff from lying in the open for so long but still softer than the root bread that she was used to, and though it left her mouth dry it did not taste like ash at all. Before dark she made another trip to the table for water, with slightly more confidence than before. The contents of the pitcher had turned to slush, and she dared not put her mouth against the frosted metal.

The mirror outside remained inert all afternoon. Even so she refused to check on it.

In the warm embrace of the blankets sleep came easy. In the dying light Gemma relaxed. The strange things outside the door became an afterthought.

Maybe if I don’t look at it, nothing bad can happen.

Gemma thought that she was not fully asleep, but she did not notice the door opening. She did not notice the new scents in the room or the sound of water ringing against the pitcher. She woke up instead to see a bright yellow talon resting on the floor inches in front of her eyes.

A small figure beside the door was holding up a most peculiar torch. Made of gnarled brown wood, it gave a steady cool light without flickering. Gemma could see bright yellow fingers wrapped around the handle, but the rest of the figure was obscured in darkness.

She dared not move as she glanced around. She was still hidden under the blankets, but she kept her eyes narrowed. If she opened them fully they would flash against the torch, and she knew that she was being watched closely.

Reared up at the table was another figure, a small boy in a suit of some kind; rabbit skins, judging by the many seams, with fur facing inwards. The brown tuft of his exposed tail waved around nervously. She could just see the tips of long white feathers under the table. He looked so much like a Goldenhand griffin of the coast, indeed they all did, that Gemma briefly considered standing up to greet them.

But they were most definitely not Goldenhands. She would have understood their whispering if they were. Instead they spoke in a flowing dialect unlike anything she had heard before. Gemma could barely make out the syllables, and gleaned no meaning from it.

The boy at the table finished his work, and Gemma gasped.

Up to his shoulders he looked exactly like a griffin. She could see the white feathers on his chest through the collar of his suit, and his yellow hands were exposed and completely unremarkable. But the head was that of an entirely different creature, one that she had never seen before. A creature with the big, flexible ears of a deer as well as the deer’s habit of standing perfectly still and useless when spotted. His face was covered in short, tight-growing, light brown fur. He had a wide muzzle, not a beak. His head was topped with cream-colored hair, some of the strands clinging to his forehead with perspiration. His eyes were unnaturally big and round, almost bulging out of his head. Blue eyes, bright, but it was not a metallic brightness, more like the brightness of river stones.

The one that had been standing right next to Gemma moved its feet, and second later a single jade-green eye was all Gemma could see. With a scream she leapt straight up, and was immediately tangled in the heavy blankets. She scratched through them with her sharp talons, paying no mind now to the frigid night air.

“You are dreaming!”

It was the voice of a young boy, but the language he was trying to speak was not his own. His words were slow and hesitating, and he was far too scared to be convincing.

With one long swipe Gemma broke free. She had been trapped for only a moment; long enough for a rabbit to flee, but the three abominations had not moved. She forced her wings out of the ragged opening and lifted off, almost hitting the ceiling. The one that had been working at the table had a hand on his temple, making all kinds of odd shapes with his lips as he stammered out individual syllables. The other two were speaking at the same time in their incomprehensible language, their voices growing slowly in volume.

Then a few short words were shouted, and then total darkness. Gemma rubbed her right eye with one fist, keeping the other opened wide. She could see shapes moving about hastily and hear their talons and nails scratching against the floor. Though she was not a night hunter Gemma could sense these big creatures well enough.

Even a fleeting moment of darkness could fill an already disturbed mind with a thousand new ideas. Gemma expected to feel scaly claws closing around her ankles, and then a knife against her neck. They outnumbered her, and she knew exactly what they wanted.

Screeching a desperate cry for help, Gemma went into a dive. Her foot brushed against a stack of flatbread, dragging it off the table and shattering the ceramic plate under it. The pitcher toppled over too. She did not care about any of this, focusing only on her enemy. With one hand she grabbed a fistful of his feathers through his suit, and grasped one of his wings with the other. He screamed in terror, and the sound was like a knife to her soul, and had she been less terrified herself, had she been more experienced, had it been daylight or summertime she would have stopped. But it was a frigid winter night, and she was in a desolate farmhouse, and she was fully committed to what she was about to do.

His joint popped out of the socket with a wet crunch, and Gemma felt pins and needles snaking up through her fingers and rising up her neck. The boy screamed in agony, thrashing violently. She could not hope to restrain him, and did not try to. Out of the darkness came a small hand, tearing out feathers from her face and scraping her beak as it passed. She knew that it was not deliberate, and made no effort to fight back.

He screamed and cried and pounded the floor so loudly that Gemma thought he would bring down the whole house on top of them. She stood over him without moving a muscle. Her eyes had adjusted well enough that she could see the other two standing in front of the door, frozen in their tracks.

She did not notice the eerie blue light that was coming through the windows or the chime-like ringing of the air until an explosion rocked the house. Every wooden board of the wall recoiled, splinters and sawdust and ice crystals rained down, and through the temporary gaps in the structure Gemma saw the great shadow of something on the doorstep.

The door flew open, and the room was filled with dazzling blue light. The tall, slender figure was silhouetted against a slab of pure, heatless radiance. The light seemed to shine through her head at her eyes, and she was crowned with a blinding blue star.

Gemma scrabbled the floor desperately as she was lifted by some invisible force. The figure stepped into the room, its feet sounding heavily against the boards. The three beast-headed griffins had all gone silent.

It gave an order, abrupt but soft, in a distinctly female voice. The two creatures that were still standing lowered their heads and retreated into the light. The one with the broken wing grunted as he rose into the air. Suddenly he fell limp, and drifted out of the house with no more protest.

Gemma squinted as the thing approached her. It only seemed very tall with its long legs and slender neck; it was not as big as a full-grown griffin. As it came closer, Gemma saw the outline of a twisting horn within the globe of light that washed out the other features of its face.

“You will come with me.”

Gemma tried to scream, but her beak was being clamped shut by the same force that held her in the air. It restrained her more and more as she struggled until she could not move at all. The mirror came closer and closer. Its light nearly washed out her reflection. Only her eyes stood out, burning like rubble in a kiln, burning brighter and brighter as she drifted helplessly towards the great slab.

Comments

[Fernin]

Yay, it lives

And what a revival @_@

[BlndDog]

7522767 You can thank Nightwalker for that. He brought it up last week, and once somebody asks for an update like that I can't say no.

[Starlight Nova]

My first mystery story.

...Than why is there no mystery tag?

[BlndDog]

7522879 This came out before the tag update. And now I'm grandfathering it because I was here before the Mystery tag, goddammit!