Fimbulvetr

by Alkarasu

9: Muninn

The world was a dark place filled with pain. At moments the pain spiked, and he felt like crying. Other moments brought a bit of relief, and he fell even deeper into sleep that was his world. In his dreams he saw himself driving somewhere on the forest road, dodging elk jumping from the trees. He dreamed about soaring through the skies and trying to catch the wolves that pursued the chariots bearing the sun and moon. He dreamed of laying in the branches of the enormous tree, looking at a huge winged cow circling below, just above fluffy clouds. Below the clouds, the lush forests were consumed by the green flames with elk antlers on top.

Soft whimpering that finally woke him up was the most pitiful sound he had ever heard. It went on and on, drilling into his aching head and driving the last traces of sleep away. The whimpers were at times covered by a deep and tired voice, but it was hard to understand the words. He felt that he was laying on a soft surface, and something was gently pressing on him from above. His whole body was stiff and sent pangs of pain from even the slightest thought of moving. Gathering all of his courage and willpower, Vsevolod made an inhuman effort and opened one eye.

The room that came into focus around him was small. The walls and the ceiling were painted in grayish-white color, with a small window at one of the walls and a door at the opposite one. The whole contents of the room were two wooden beds and one tiny table. One bed was the one Vsevolod was laying in. The other was occupied by a thick wrap of gray cloth with a yellow beak poking from it. The wrap was the source of the whimpering. It also shivered slightly from time to time, but the movement was so weak it was hardly noticeable. Next to the bed with the wrap, slumped a large figure of a pony stallion, somewhat resembling Teplovoz, but smaller and dirty yellow instead of brown. Another difference was a short horn parting stallion's short blue mane. The pony was snoring softly, mumbling something incoherent from time to time. The air of the room was filled with heavy stench of something medicinal.

In an attempt to wake the pony up, Vsevolod opened his mouth, but instead of the words, he was only able to produce a soft squeaking noise, hardly above the whisper. His throat was dry, his tongue was heavy as a brick, and whatever made him able to contort his beak wasn't responding. Even the minuscule effort like that drained him of all his energy and nearly forced him to close the eye and fall back to sleep. Yet, the sound was enough to wake the sleeping pony.

The stallion grunted, snorted and suddenly rose to his hooves. Looking at the wrap before him, he sighed and lowered his horn. Vsevolod was too tired to be shocked, when the horn lit up with the purple light. After a moment, the wraps also lit up with the same light, and started to slowly unwrap on their own. The smell suddenly became even stronger. The stallion sneezed, then flicked his head, and the window creaked, opening a bit. The wraps continued to slide off, and soon, revealed Helga, covered in some sticky substance over all of her many wounds, and with a rough splint tied to her broken wing. The griffin was shaking a bit, and made a movement like she wanted to push herself from the pony, but it was so weak, that it looked almost like just another tremble. Stallion sighed at that.

"You know, for a one to go onto the Great Hunt at your age, and with a younger brother to boot, you sure are good at acting like you are scared of plain old unicorn," said the pony in a deep raspy voice. His Russian wasn't even slightly accented, unlike Teplovoz's or Copeinik's. "I'm not going to eat you, stop quivering like that. You'll only disturb your wounds, and you had lost enough blood as it is. Be thankful to the kid, by the way, he might be small but he saved your stupid life after you almost caused him to lose his. Still can't believe he brought that antler with him, you know. What is it, a family heirloom or something?"

While talking, the pony quickly checked over all of the wounds, applying more of the substance with a hoof at places. Finishing this he wrapped Helga back into the cloth, and turned to Vsevolod.

"Now with you, Wolf Flank. Let good doctor Podorozhnik check what that nasty wolf left you to remember you by... Oh, you are finally awake! Made me worry, your wounds are not nearly that serious! Now, does it hurt anywhere?"

Vsevolod blinked, then made another attempt on speech. This time he made a bit louder croak, but the anything more was beyond him. Still, even that pitiful sound seemed to please the unicorn.

"Hear the mighty roar of the great hunter! Don't strain yourself, kid. After what you did... Let me tell you, you either become the greatest hunter of all times, and maybe a king of some griffin tribe, or die really young. My money are on the second option, but if you ever become king, I'm reserving my right on 'I told you!' dance. Now, be a good griffon and go to sleep." With that, his horn flashed and Vsevolod felt that he can't stay awake anymore. The dream of pink fluffy minotaur dancing on a rain cloud wasn't too bad, though.

When he awoke next time, the pain in his body had receded, concentrating mostly in a single area on his hind leg. The unicorn was nowhere to be seen, and part of the wraps on Helga were missing, leaving her head and the good wing uncovered. She wasn't whimpering anymore, instead darting around the room with her eyes, and weakly moving the wing. When Vsevolod raised his head from the pillow, she looked at him and let out a squeak. He made an attempt to stand up, but the wave of dizziness quickly put an end to that. Instead, he waved to Hel with a claw and croaked.

"Hello there. Good to see you alive, my friend. It seems that..." he stopped to wait out the sudden coughing fit, and then continued. "...seems that we kind of won. I... damn, if one bite hurts that much... not envy you at all."

Hearing him speak, Helga visibly calmed down and stopped her attempts to move. She chirped sadly, waved her wing and relaxed. Then she pushed her head into the pillow and suddenly began to cry. The sight of proud Helga crying was too much for Vsevolod, and in a short moment he found himself crying as well. When the unicorn came in half an hour later, they were still sobbing in unison.

"Oh great, not that!" groaned the stallion, looking at the scene. "The last thing I need today is a collective breakdown here. Now, now, stop this at once! I brought some food that you might like! Now, who's a hungry grifflet?"

Vsevolod slowly stopped crying, turning to the pony. He attempted to smile, and shakily raised his claw. Helga wasn't as happy. She froze at the sound of the unicorn's voice and started to tear a hole in him with her scared eyes. The pony entered the room, followed by two flying cups. The smell from the cups suggested that there was some kind of broth in them. Vsevolod felt his mouth watering from the smell - a welcome change to its previous parched state. One of the cups floated to him, and before he knew it, it was already empty. His hunger had only increased by the small amount of food, so he offered the cup back to the unicorn and, with the most miserable expression he could muster, asked: "More?"

The unicorn was attempting to get some food in Helga, who, apparently, decided to die hungry and undefeated. He was a bit startled by the speed the food was gone, but quickly composed himself and chuckled. "I see some griffin is ready to recover, at least! Now, if you wait a moment while I get your sister fed, I'll see what I can do for you. She needs the food, badly, and she's posing a challenge every time I try to feed her. I'm starting to wonder if she lost her mind or something like that."

Vsevolod looked at Hel, pondering what he can do about it. He didn't want her to suffer, and he knew how important the food is to the sick. Then, a memory struck him. He inhaled deeply, looked Helga right into the eyes, and with all the authority he could produce, screeched: "Kek! Kek! Kerrrk!"

Helga blinked twice, turned to the unicorn, put her beak into the cup and promptly swallowed all of its contents. She then sighed contently and fell on the bed snoring, fast asleep. The pony looked at her with disbelief, and then turned to Vsevolod, raising an eyebrow.

"What was... that? I've met my share of griffins, kid, and none of them used that language... is it a language? Do you even speak... wait, you just did. Argh, it's too early for this... this. I need a drink." With that, the unicorn stumbled out of the room, taking the cups with him. For several minutes silence was interrupted only by Helga's snoring and distant clanking of glass. Then the pony returned, in much better mood, reeking of alcohol and carrying a bottle and a big bowl of the same broth. He handed the bowl to Vsevolod, sat at his bedside, and peered into the griffin's eyes with his already slightly misaligned ones.

"Now, little one, you will tell good doctor Podorozhnik everything he wants to know, and let's hope he'll be able to recall it all tomorrow. First of all, what's your name?"

Vsevolod took a good sip out of the bowl, cleared the throat still a bit sore from speaking Helga, and introduced himself.

"My name is Vsevolod. Before you ask, she's Helga, or, at least, I call her that."

"Interesting," nodded the good doctor, taking the bottle to his lips and sipping a bit. "You call her that, eh? How does she call herself then?"

"Heel-ha!" screamed Vsevolod, startling the pony and waking up Helga. She opened an eye at him, chirped, and went back to sleep. "Though, I'm pretty sure now, it means 'Fly, you moron!'. She used the same screech every time she tried to get me airborne."

For that, Podorozhnik took a much bigger gulp from the bottle. He looked at Helga again, and Vsevolod was quite certain that there was a lot of fear in that look.

"So... kid, be honest here. You have brought me the Wild one to heal. You claim that you can speak to her, command her, even named her 'Fly, you moron', and you are still alive???" At the end the good doctor was practically screaming in panic.

"I still don't know what the Wild one is," said Vsevolod, scared by the drunk unicorn scream. "Teplovoz wasn't clear of what it means, and Helga was away at the time. Playing with the elk, I think. The question just never really came up. I found... all right, she found me when I was leaving the Red Square. She keeps around since then. Saved my life three times at least. A good friend, if you prefer the ones who don't talk much."

The unicorn just stared at him in disbelief. He then had carefully put the bottle away. He rubbed his eyes with a hoof, and then gave Vsevolod the most intense and very sober glare.

"You went and domesticated a feral griffin right in the middle of the Forbidden City, then had her play with the elk. As if that was not enough for you, you then traveled from there to here on foot, murdered an entire wolf pack with your bare claws, and then sprinted for six kilometers carrying the griffin nearly twice your weight, while also carrying that stupid antler with you? Kid, if I wasn't the pony who removed that wolf's head from your flank, I would've had hard time believing you. I still do. Every single part of this story is impossible."

"And the part where I'm the 35-years old human with PhD in philology and applied linguistics, currently talking with a freaking unicorn while enduring quite a lot of pain in my furry cat butt is possible since when, exactly?"

"Since May, 23, 2015," sighed Podorozhnik, "You don't know anything, do you?"

"There was that pony near Moscow, he told me something happened that 'made the world proper'," answered the griffin, calming down. "He wasn't speaking Russian too well, so it was hard to understand what it was."

"Just my luck," sighed the unicorn again. "I guess, I would be the one to give you The Talk, then. I just so love crushing people's dreams and hopes, you know. Went to be a doctor for that. All right, kid, listen well.

"I don't really know what happened back in 2015, I'm not sure anyone knows. Yes, there's Archivists claiming they do. Then there's Umbrals, who also had some ideas of their own. Don't forget the Deerfolk and their beliefs, and don't even start on the old human religions and sects, each with their own explanation. Whatever it was, it took all of the world's population save for scant few, and made us all disappear. It then turned everyone who's left into different creatures. Ponies, like me, griffins, like you, minotaurs, changelings, dragons, Diamond Dogs... The list is quite big, and almost every year somepony discovers something new. Archivists say all of us were made into something from another world, so we can live in this one properly. Lunatics.

"Now, you might want to be ready for that, it all happened nine hundred twenty two years ago. Don't try to interrupt me, I know your next question. It's the same as mine in the same situation. 'How I'm here now', right? Right. Well, that's also part of what happened. Those who disappeared that day, return. Rarely, and nopony had found out how to predict it or how it chooses who'll return and when. They just pop into existence where they disappeared. Changed the same way those who remained behind were. That's what happened to you, that's what happened to me. That's what will happen to everyone who disappeared back then, I suppose. But if you are hoping to meet your family, friends... don't look at me like that, everyone does at first, forget it. They could've returned ages ago. Or will come back in ten thousand years. No one knows." The stallion looked at the bottle, but shook his head and continued.

"The world has changed. Those who remained, built their new lives, grew their children. Those children had their own children. Those born to this changed world had never seen the one that was before it. Only the ruins - for those born in the early years, only the big mounds of rubble for the current generation.

"That brings us to your friend. Her tale is a sad one, for she's one of the most horrible victims of the new world order. Your new kind is very independent, very proud and, sadly, very well adapted to living alone in the wild. In the time of the humans, most of the natural predators were nearly eliminated from the forests. It was easy for the newly returned griffons to take their place. The largest flying predator after the dragons, they simply had no competition. So, where ponies and others had to fight for the survival, griffons just lived. Of course, they also had kids, and they taught those kids all that is needed to live in the forest... but hardly anything else. The third generation was nearly unable to speak. The fifth were animals. Smart, very smart, very dangerous animals. Only those griffins who remained among ponies remained sapient. The Wild, though, still remain in the wilds. Since they are not sapient, every creature that is not griffon is food for them, so they hunt hares and ponies alike. Nowadays, your kind is strictly forbidden from living on your own. Any griffon caught in the forest that can't speak, is eliminated. The Deerfolk are less scrupulous at that. They just kill every griffon they can catch, they are even trying to attack those living with ponies. Many attempts were made to recivilize them, but your little stunt here," he pointed at softly snoring Helga, "is closest anyone ever came to that. If you would be able to keep her under control, there might still be hope for the Wild. That is, if the good ponies of this town won't kill her, and you, when you won't be able to keep your secret anymore. Don't worry, I won't tell, I want to see it to the end. Others are mostly born in this time, though, and don't really get the idea of pet alligators."

With that, the unicorn chuckled, grabbed the bowl and the bottle in his horn light, and added: "And now, go to sleep. I'm still a doctor, and you are still my patient. If you want to recover, you need to sleep more. That's how you catbirds function."

Vsevolod was ready to object, but his eyelids were heavy, the moment he closed his eyes, he was immediately asleep.

Comments

[Seeking Dusk]

The Talk. No, no, not that one. That one comes later.

[Doppler Effect]

A religion called the 'Umbrals'? There's a name to run away from very fast.

Pretty funny to hear the followers of Archive called lunatics though.

I was kind of assuming the "wild child" thing was relatively uncommon, but this makes it sound like it happened more often than not. Teaching things like building warm shelters and storing food for Winter seems like it would have to be universal enough that even with relatively easy survival those things would still be passed on. Is it that a griffon child acts so independently that they simply weren't spending long enough with their parents to learn even that from them?

[Alkarasu]

6705467

Pretty funny to hear the followers of Archive called lunatics though.

Well, they do claim that the Event was caused by pretty pony princess from another world, after all.

I was kind of assuming the "wild child" thing was relatively uncommon, but this makes it sound like it happened more often than not.

You must understand that good doctor wasn't around when it all happened, the story was told to him by someone else. So it could be not too common at the time, but that time was 900 years ago.

Teaching things like building warm shelters and storing food for Winter seems like it would have to be universal enough that even with relatively easy survival those things would still be passed on.

Now, why a griffon would need to build warm shelter or store food? Vsevolod was living with no real shelter through the coldest part of the winter with no problems, and there are plenty of self-preserving food running in the woods.

Is it that a griffon child acts so independently that they simply weren't spending long enough with their parents to learn even that from them?

Flight-capable griffon of Vsevolod biological age is self-sustaining. That's ten years old. Now, imagine normal ten years old kid running from home (like they do from time to time, even humans), but make it so he can safely live on his own afterwards, and due to his very nature, don't feel much compulsion for company (so he don't really feel the need to return). Then imagine the next generation, where the parents think it's normal to "throw the kids out of the nest" at the age of ten, and the parents themselves have the knowledge of forest-schooled ten years old. Add those who lost their parents to accidents, but managed to survive. And then let them breed freely in the forests for almost a millennium, with no natural enemies and with plenty of food.

[Celefin]

Oh, me like! The idea with the ferals and how you explain their existence is well thought through, there are stories about humans lost in the wild that remind me of this. We've seen that, even though the human mind still is a human mind, even the most civilized ponies have received and retain a strong dose of equine instincts.
Even Archive, after 300 years at that, as seen in the chase scene of the last update (our canine chase scenes now have illustrious company!)

Now equines are social herd animals and being alone is terrifying to them in the medium run. I expect the griffon returnees to also have received their share of apex-predator instincts, which in turn means that they are very territorial, but not very social. Not social at all, really.

You can fight those not-human instincts, but you can also give in to them.
An early returnee in a vast piece of countryside that was almost deserted even before 2015? He or she is likely to never meet another person for years or more likely decades, if ever. And if they do, it's also likely that the other one will be a predator as well, since those are much more likely to survive in the harsh wilderness than a lone, soft pony. Half insane from loneliness... I believe that being able to lose yourself to the old instincts of your new species could be bliss.

Anyway! Great update! We have befriended a wild specimen! How many points do we receive?!

The unicorn doctor is great. Seriously. And those recurring 'Great Hunt' references are beautiful, they sound like something universally eye-rolled at.

[Doppler Effect]

6707322

Now, why a griffon would need to build warm shelter or store food? Vsevolod was living with no real shelter through the coldest part of the winter with no problems, and there are plenty of self-preserving food running in the woods.

I don't think he enjoyed it so much that he'd choose it over living in a warm house though, or choose it for any future descendants...

Yeah, I completely understand though what you're getting at that they'd be able to survive it, and that they could be independent enough that they wouldn't stick around to learn much. It makes more sense to me now that you've put it in light of the doc's story being as imperfectly passed on to him as any other story.

[Alkarasu]

6707607

(our canine chase scenes now have illustrious company!)

Seems to be quite popular theme lately. Winter is coming, or something?

You can fight those not-human instincts, but you can also give in to them.

Especially if you don't see the reason to fight them, yes. And if you don't see the reason to fight them when you remember being human, what would motivate you to make your children less griffon?

they sound like something universally eye-rolled at.

Also, downright illegal and mortally dangerous, since they seem to involve lone underage griffons in the forest.

6707834

I don't think he enjoyed it so much that he'd choose it over living in a warm house though, or choose it for any future descendants...

Vsevolod is the first generation, and went into the winter right from the start. He might be uncomfortable in such conditions, but he grew in a world where he never was really cold or really hungry. He can't provide the same life for his children, especially not in the more or less "civilized" world of 922 AE, but in something like 10 AE, when the supplies of the old world are mostly exhausted and there's not enough population to produce the replacement. His children would be used to much harsher conditions and won't mind them that much. They will most likely know what they have to do to make themselves a warm shelter, but they would also know that they can safely sleep in the snow, and that the shelter will tie them to one place, making the hunting harder. So for them it might boil into one notion - they need to spend a lot of effort to make their lives harder.

[Goldfur]

It's good to finally have some detailed explanations of what is happening with the griffons. There is one thing that needs correcting though - you use the word "sentient" when you should be using "sapient". All animals are sentient, but only humans (and now ponies and so forth) are sapient.

[Alkarasu]

6709028
Oops.
Fixed.

[ValenceBond]

"And the part where I'm the 35-years old human with PhD in philology and applied linguistics, currently talking with a freaking unicorn while enduring quite a lot of pain in my furry cat butt is possible since when, exactly?"

*puts on the tin hat*
He's going to figure out that the Feral Griffons actually do have a language. He's already shown some degree of understanding.

"Though, I'm pretty sure now, it means 'Fly, you moron!'. She used the same screech every time she tried to get me airborne."

[Alkarasu]

6729548 My evil plans has been discovered!
Though, technically, most animals do have some sort of "language", and you don't really need PhD in linguistics to understand it if you really try. Of course, no one made an attempt with the Wild, since everyone hates them, so it might look like an achievement.