My Little Fortress: Shadytrails

by PersonalGamer

[9] 19th Slate, 222

Taking a deep breath in order to calm his beating heart, Gunther used his free hand to try and smooth a few of his feathers down and at least try to look presentable. Breathing out again, he politely knocked on the section of wall that he personally considered to be apart of Isolde’s currently quarters in order to try and catch her attention. “Pardon me Ms Isolde, but is this a good time?”

The griffoness looked up from the notes she was paging through. “Hmm? Oh, sure, of course. What’s on your mind?”

Gunther found himself stuck on the spot as she turned her attention towards him. Her eyes were absolutely captivating… if she wanted to, he bet she could have spotted him from the heavens and swooped down to tear out his heart in mere seconds and he wouldn’t have seen her coming. Blinking his eyes and catching himself, he cleared his throat as he responded “S..Sorry. I just wanted to take a moment to thank you properly for inviting me along for this trip and for finding me something to do until one of the ponies breaks their leg.”

Bringing the hand that he had hidden behind his back out into the open, Gunther’s feathers seemed to gain a slightly reddish color as he presented her with a rose he had found a few days before.

Isolde’s eyes widened a bit as she reached out to take the flower. “Oh… thank you, Gunther. This is a lovely rose.” She pulled it close to examine the petals for a moment before looking back to him. “And you’re welcome. I’m glad to have you along. I’m hoping that we won’t have any need of your medical expertise anytime soon, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, and something’s going to come up eventually.”

She sat up a bit straighter. “I do wish we had something more interesting for you to do in the meantime though. I know that helping me to take stock of our supplies and looking for herbs can’t be the most interesting things in the world for you.”

“Oh, it’s not a bother at all. Working with you is an absolute pleasure.” Gunther was quick to answer before his brain caught up with what his mouth was saying. Deciding that stopping would only draw more attention to what he said, the doctor continued with “And to be honest a part of me is rather thankful that we haven’t had anything go seriously wrong so far. It allows us to hold off on the conversation on what’s going to happen to the body when someone dies. Always an awkward conversation…”

That brought a bit of pause, but Isolde figured that he was just joking. “Heh, yeah, that’s something I hope none of us have to worry about for a good, long time.” She set the rose next to her and said, “Maybe it won’t be too long before you’ve got somewhere to actually work though. I’ve been thinking that while we haven’t needed a doctor’s office yet, it probably would make sense to make that a bit of a priority. I’ve been thinking that if we build it a bit bigger so that your living arrangements are built into it, we could save some time and materials. That is, unless you object to the idea. I can definitely see how someone might want to distance themselves from work when they’re not working, if you understand.”

Gunther seemed to perk up a little as the conversation took a much needed turn for the better. “Oh! That would be perfectly acceptable for me. Besides, its generally better if I remain near the hospital and recovering patients. Allows me to respond to situations that may or may not arise faster.” There were also other reasons he didn’t mind in the slightest, but he wasn’t about to voice them anytime soon.

“What about yourself? Have you taken the time to consider where you are planning to set up your own little roost once we have the laborers and resources?”

“Ah, I’m glad you agree. Yes, that was definitely one of the perks I was considering.” She pondered his next question and tapped a talon to her beak. “I haven’t completely settled on any kind of urban planning yet, but so far the best I’ve decided is that we’ll probably want to put the houses down the hill. That way any furnaces we have won’t be spewing out smoke that then rises upward to the residences.”

She chuckled and shrugged. “I know, griffons prefer living high up, so I was thinking about seeing if maybe we could integrate the houses into the tree canopy somehow. I’ll have to talk to Jack about it and see if what trees around here are strong enough for that. It’s a shame we’re not near any cliff sides to just hollow out.”

“True, but if we hollowed out a cliffside I’d bet you the first silver coin we printed that one of the ponies would find someway to fall off and most likely die.” Gunther countered with a playful grin. “I have to admit I hadn’t considered the smoke from the furnaces. I’m glad we have your foresight to help guide us Ms Isolde. I’ll make sure that when it becomes time to figure out who gets to live in what tower, yours should be the tallest. Besides, by that point I’m sure you’ld love the chance to have such a wonderful place to bask in the sun.”

Gunther’s heart started to thump a little as the mental image entered his mind, but he quickly put it down with the promise to bring it up again later.

It was hard not to see how he felt about her, but she decided to let him stew in it a bit for now. With a little chuckle, she said, “Well, thank you, but as much as I’d like a nice, high place to roost I’ll have to consider a few things before settling on just where to, well, settle. I’ll probably have to meet with some people who can’t fly, after all, so at the very least any office I end up with would need to be on the ground. The two might not have to be the same structure, of course, but for now I’m trying to make as much use of our resources as we can.”

Gunther believed that he was keeping his feelings very much underwraps. Then again, perception was a tricky thing to do to oneself. At the suggestion of the ground floor office and the wise use of resources, the doctor offered “Well then, why not build a tower? Ground floor for the office, second floor for your bedroom and maybe have a garden on the roof so you have somewhere nice, sunny and peaceful to retreat to when you get tired of it all?”

She smiled gently and nodded. “It’s an attractive idea, certainly. Maybe I’ll see about asking Rosewood how much trouble it would be. The first step is figuring out of the trees are stable enough I suppose. That would be a lot more complicated if not.”

Nodding his head a little in understanding, Gunther sighed a little as he said “Fair enough. If you’ll forgive me I should get back to work with the plants. I don’t want to have to send a letter explaining to someones family that their idiot of a relative decided to nibble some strange plant and drop dead because I didn’t put a little warning sign in front of it.” There was good humor in his voice… as well as the tone of the long suffering.

Isolde chuckled lightly again and nodded. “No, that wouldn’t be good. Alright, I’ll let you get back to work. Take care.”

“You to Ms Isolde. See you around.” Gunther answered lightly as he turned to go about his own business. His heart seemed to calm down a little as a big stupid grin seemed to appear on his beck. That wasn’t so hard and she wasn’t unhappy with his presence. Good start!