• Published 18th Aug 2016
  • 10,467 Views, 2,513 Comments

Anchor Foal: A Romantic Cringe Comedy - Estee



Having realized that the duration of Discord's "reform" may exactly equal his only friend's lifespan, the palace sends Fleur to assist Fluttershy with acquiring a social life and guarantee a next generation to adore. (What could possibly go wrong?)

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Sororibus Under The Skin

It felt as if the words should have horrified her: a confession she could never make, the final kick struck against the facade of her life being launched by her own hooves. But there was no horror in the first second immediately following the admission, as she continued to glare at the police chief who was backed up against the opposing iron bars. And it didn't feel as if she was reveling in the satisfaction of Honesty: the tiny consolation prize occasionally offered up by what now felt like the strangest of the pony virtues. It was more that...

...wear the mask long enough and you could learn to pretend it was your face. But there was still a constant weight, added to a continual low-level effort to make sure the thing moved properly.

She was going to prison, and that just might be the start of it. She was finally going to reap postponed consequences and if nothing else, she would finally get it over with. There wouldn't be any need to run, or lie, or... anything. There wouldn't be any need to do a single thing other than pay a price which had been put off for far too long.

Fleur was tired.

She wondered how long she'd been tired. Not just from having been caught at her domination scheme, or everything which had happened in Ponyville. There were so many reasons to be tired, and some of that had to come from the dedication it took to wear the same mask day after day...

Nothing about what happened down there in the cells would make her truly feel better. But there was a moment when the last of her own shout was still echoing within the speaking tubes, when it felt as if she had briefly discarded the smallest portion of an unimaginable weight. The strangest part was not having realized she'd been carrying that portion, but... she understood how easy it was to lose a tiny addition against the rest of the burden.

And then she saw the wide green-grey eyes, recognized some small portion of the helpless staring, and realized the idiot on the other side of the aisle between cells didn't know what proper expressions looked like.

Fleur took a slow breath. Her jaw muscles loosened. Lips relaxed, and she allowed herself the luxury of a small snort.

"Ponies," the Protoceran declared, and the word emerged with something of an accent.

Another breath. She took a careful step back from the bars, and then another. Continued until she could feel the thin ground mattress under her hooves, and sank back down.

Slowly, the police chief moved away from the opposing bars. Came up to where she'd started, and carefully lowered herself back to cold stone. Some of the dust on the floor jittered a little when she touched down. Not that the shadow blotch of a unicorn probably cared if her own coat became dirty.

The too-square jaw shifted a few times.

A little too softly, "And what do you think you are?"

Fleur's eyes closed again.

"It's not supposed to matter," she quietly answered. "That's what everyone always says. That as long as you have a griffon's heart, the rest isn't important..."

Silence for a while. It wasn't a very good one. Fluttershy's best silences seemed to have a way of muting other sounds. All this one did was let Fleur hear the air moving in the speaking tubes again. In and out, over and over.

"There's nothing in the briefing packet about your being an immigrant," Miranda finally said. "Your paperwork says natural-born Equestrian citizen, from Drayton. Not that you ever meet anypony from Drayton. It's barely a settled zone at all --"

"-- right," Fleur softly cut in. (She still felt tired. Far older than she truly was and yet, as everything rose towards the surface, far too young.) "Nopony's from Drayton. Small settled zone, and hardly anypony leaves. Spend two hours studying up on the place and you'll know enough to pass yourself off as a native, not that you'll ever probably meet any, or that anypony really cared to ask me very much about Drayton. And they have the sort of accent which you can spot within two syllables. The kind ponies expect you to get rid of, if you mean to live in Canterlot. So if there was ever a Drayton pony around, I'd know. And then I was from Baltimare."

She'd worked so hard on that plan. Even made the effort to master the accent, which had required listening to some very annoying not-really-comedy albums on a phonograph. It was the sort of routine where the accent was pretty much the only thing which was funny, it wore thin about as quickly as the bitch's, and she'd had to listen over and over...

"And you're telling me," came the tones of disbelief, "that the Princess didn't know that."

Fleur managed a small shrug. "When Celestia --"

"The Princess --" emerged as something close to a bark.

It triggered an exceptionally thin smile. "-- not my Princess." (And listened to the sharpness of the inhale with small pleasure.) "I have a President. Just don't ask me who that is, because we're too far away for the news to be current and if there isn't an election, there's an impeachment --"

She wasn't sure if the tones indicated warning or frustration. Not truly caring about which it was, however, was more of a certainty. "-- Fleur --"

"-- fine. When Celestia confronted me in the Solar throne room, she didn't mention it." It felt as if her head was drooping a little. There were ways in which you didn't really notice the weight of a mask until you put it on. Or put it on again. "And I was told that my paperwork was good. There's even supposed to be a birth copy in the master files at the Herdbook Registry. So either she didn't know, she didn't care, or she was holding it back to use later. Either way, I didn't exactly have a reason to tell her." Another shrug. "She'd found out about the blackmail, she was angry because I'd managed to target Fancypants and who knew that he was really her friend? Just because he never talked about it. And you expected me to give her something else she could hold over my neck?"

"Fancypants," Miranda carefully intoned. "You targeted --"

A little shiver ran through Fleur's confinement-roughened fur, something which seemed to have started in the floor. How much was the other mare shaking, in order to have the vibration conduct? Fleur understood vibration...

"-- that wasn't in your briefing? No full list of my supposed victims? I guess she really does protect her own. Every Guard in the room probably had the words locked under oath --"

"-- you can tell exactly what a pony's sexual interests are just by getting close to them," the officer half-choked out. "And you were blackmailing ponies with that. You just tried to kill one. How many other bodies --"

"-- one." It had been just over a whisper. She didn't understand why. "I told you that. One. And it wasn't anypony I extorted."

The next inhalation suggested she hadn't been believed. "So you want me to believe that you've been dealing with pedophiles by extorting them --"

"-- there isn't a single pedophile on my list," Fleur cut her off. "I know. I looked. I always look. They aren't as common as you seem to think --"

"-- which I can presumably believe in because of the lack of your clients' deaths. But you still found blackmail material," the officer half-hissed. "You used what you learned. Hiding things which might be illegal from the police --"

With faint bemusement, "-- I think you just went over why nopony would have believed me --"

"-- and letting those ponies just keep going --"

"-- the things you can hold over somepony's neck," Fleur firmly broke in, "aren't always illegal. Or immoral. They're just facts which the pony doesn't want anypony else to know. Something they're a little ashamed of, or can't quite figure out how to explain. That was Fancypants. There's nothing wrong with him. He's just... something you don't see that often. And because he's so rare... it probably feels like he's alone. As if nopony else would understand."

But he'd told Celestia. He'd let the alicorn know about something deeply personal...

Far too softly, "And what is he?"

Another snort. "And now you want me to just go around giving out another pony's deepest secrets. Looking to start a secondary retirement plan on the side? Because I'm pretty sure that Celestia will realize there's only one place you could have heard this. Any part of the continent you'd prefer to be sentenced to? Not that having avoided sex for two years makes you much of an expert on dating --"

"-- Fleur --"

Her head drooped a little more.

"-- he's asexual."

This blink was also audible.

"...he's what?"

The smile somehow found a way to become thinner.

"I'm going to let you have that one," Fleur decided. "It's not a word most ponies would know, because you hardly ever see it. Not when it comes to ponies, anyway. It's more common for a few of the other species. He's capable of love, Miranda. I think we've proven that he can form a pretty deep friendship. And he's talked about wanting children. I think that's why he hosts so many at his estate, the ones who go to school in Canterlot and just need a place to live. So he can have a sort of family around him. But... he's not interested in sex. He has a puzzle, but it's just a few pieces, and they mostly just have faint washes of grey. And he hires escorts because he wants to be seen in public with mares, and he likes the company, but... it never reaches the bedroom. It can't. And because it's so rare for ponies... I don't think he's ever met anypony else who was the same way. He hides it. He doesn't completely understand himself, he doesn't know if the world would understand..."

he wears a mask
and there's one pony where he lets himself take it off, somepony he can trust
I
he's like

"Why did you shiver just now?"

"I didn't notice." Her eyes didn't seem to be capable of opening under her direction. There was still too much to look at behind the closed lids, and so much of it occupied her nightscape in dream after dream. However, the dismissive little flick of a foreleg was just about automatic. "Are you stalling?"

She listened to the shifting of air. Miranda's breathing. The little current in the speaking tubes. Ventilation twisting around the cell. She wondered if somepony had crafted that. There didn't seem to be much consideration for warmth.

"Stalling," Miranda finally said, "to avoid the fact that you admitted to committing a previous murder. Directly in front of me."

Fleur silently nodded.

"And you know I have to ask about that. Who, where, and when."

I deserve it.

"Attempted murder," Fleur muttered. "Do you have any idea how stupid it sounds, having that as a crime? You don't get into somepony's bed from attempted seduction. If I'm going to be executed, it should at least be for something which had results --"

"-- Equestria barely has the death penalty --"

"-- and who said this happened in Equestria? Protocera has opinions about certain categories of crime: something this country should think about sharing! Once they finally find out what happened --"

It took a moment before the pain reached her, and that was the only thing which truly told her that she was standing again. Longer before her own shout stopped echoing against the ineffective barrier of flattened ears, and there went the last of her cosmetics in that area...

...she sank down again. Belly and barrel met the faintly-shivering mattress, pressed against inadequate softness and found no comfort. That kind of comfort no longer existed.

"-- home," Fleur whispered. "I committed murder on the last day I was ever home. I killed an innocent, someone who hadn't done anything to me. Who did everything for me, everything in the world, and she died for it because I killed her, Miranda. But she died twice, and I killed her both times. Once when she came for me, when it should have been me. And one more time on the last day of her life, after she'd already died. The same day my mark was inflicted --"

Somewhere near the bottom of the well dug by stun, "...manifested..."

"-- on me, and I didn't... I didn't even manage to..."

Perhaps this was the true backlash. Not magic tearing her apart from the inside, but words making sharp impact against memory. Breaking her from within.

But then there were two more words, and the officer's tone had changed.

"You're crying."

Was she? There didn't seem to be any sensation associated with it. She couldn't feel the moisture being absorbed by her fur, much less running down her skin after the trail had been saturated. Police officers lied all the time.

"Your whole face moves when you cry," Miranda told her. "Did you know that?"

Yes.

"It's like being bilingual," Fleur forced out. "You... switch back and forth."

And sometimes you slipped. You told a pegasus stallion who had no right to fly what the name of a poison was, and your teeth clacked. Spoke to children about not having been hurt when two had literally run into her: no squawk, no blood, no foul. Looked for comfort food on a horrible day, or tried to make some of your own...

"I need to know before we start, Fleur," the dark mare evenly began. "Is this a confession?"

The weight of a mask. You could put it down, if only for an instant.
The constant weight of guilt. The eternal burden of pain. Neither could ever be shed, and the pulling mass dragged her dreams into the dark.

Death was either where the dreams weren't, or where they went on forever.

I deserve it.

What would it be like, to talk? To finally tell somepony about the true crime, about the reason she needed to be punished and --

-- she'd slipped. She knew that. Something in her had broken, and words had flown free. Using the first crack in the dam to escape, just before the newest flood destroyed what little was left of her life.

But her time had already run out. She'd made that decision. To keep innocence alive that much longer.

It was just that... she hadn't even managed to...

...twice...

What was it like, to confess? It was the sort of thing which seemed as if it might fit on a trough list: the experiences you wished to have before you died. And once she confessed...

Equestria would imprison her.
Protocera might kill her.
I deserve it.

"...yes."

The word was like a single grain of wheat falling from her back.

"Do you want an attorney present?"

"...no."

One more inhale.

"Tell me what you did, Fleur."

"...it... it's not something I can just tell you, not separated from everything else." (And she was begging again, and she still didn't care.) "You have to understand why it happened. You need to understand Protocera. I don't think you do. Not if you don't realize why he had to die..."

An iron bar rattled. Pressure of a forehoof from the other side.

"Then tell me everything."

The darkness before closed eyes was changing. Twisting.

"Do you have seeds?"

"Fleur --"

"-- it's something a few of the gangs were rumored to be doing," she quietly said. "As a test before inductions. There's supposed to be some seeds. They bloom when you tell a truth, especially if it's something you've never told anyone before. And they ask you about the worst thing you've ever done. I always wondered what I'd have to try, if they did that with me. Most of them... it was posturing. Trying to make themselves look like they were ready for the next link, because we were all adolescents and... that's when you don't know where you stand any more. There can be some strange ways of finding out. Every adult griffon is supposed to have a sealed juvenile criminal record, Miranda -- but most of them just read as Public Nuisance. Over and over. Just about all of the gangs are play-acting. It's clubs with insignias. A few aren't. Some of those have... different means of induction. And I wondered... if one of the seed groups had asked me for the worst thing I'd ever done, and I said murder... they would have just laughed, I think. Because I was posturing. But then the seeds would have bloomed... and..."

It felt as if she was shrinking. Collapsing in on herself.

"...it's posturing, most of it. They would have seen the seeds bloom, and... I think they would have just run."

She seemed to have lost contact with her lungs.

"I always knew about the gangs, Miranda. I had some in my original neighborhood. But that was all posturing. Strutting around with feathers puffed out. And they knew me. They... thought it was dominance, to block the road with adults. But with me... they always flew aside. Immediately, every time."

"Why?"


The filly has been dead for years, for innocence always dies. The filly died, and the mare goes on.

The filly perished at too early an age. She died in pain as her soul twisted with terror, begging for everything to stop. But there's a ghost of sorts. It's made of restless memories and when they stir too much, when the weight of consciousness and eternal pain is no longer enough to keep them down... that's when the mare's nightscape fills with screams.

The filly is dead, and the dead never return. But there's a ghost of sorts and as the mare collapses within herself, it is that which first speaks.


"...they know I have to get home..."


There are strangers in the house. The dark house, which recently experienced its first moments of true silence.

The moans: those used to be the most constant thing, and so could be falsely thought of as the worst. They would push through closed doors (not that she had a door which could close, not that she'll be allowed to remain in the house), would kick their way into lowered ears and set up echoes inside the filly's mind. There were once little gasps, abrupt and sharp: the unpredictable punctuation in the continual run-on sentence of the litany which was read out to her every night. And sometimes... sometimes, there were worse sounds. The filly never found any words to describe them, or the way they made her limbs tremble with fear.

She always had to listen. She had to.

The horrible thing was hearing them.

The worst thing was the moment she got the door to the dark house open and heard nothing at all.

Silence.
Dead.
Silence.

Then it was the sound of pounding hooves. Trying to reach the bedroom.

The neighbors heard the filly's screams...

They said her mother was pretty. Everyone always told her that. She... didn't see it. Her mother was beautiful, because it was her mother. But it was stained fur and crust around the eyes and sometimes the blood flecks would be coughed into a pillow which never quite came clean.

They said her mother was pretty.
There are strangers in the house, and they tell the filly that her mother had been sick for a very long time.

She can hear some anger in the way claws and talons click across the half-clean floor (because she's small and it's a good day when she can clean half the floor in one go), and none of it is directed at her. There's a general feeling that this filly nearly fell through the cracks. Yes, the family was receiving payments from the government: things which took care of rent and food, because the weakest links must be protected. But no one knew it was this bad, with the filly essentially trying to keep up the house while doing all of the shopping and always, always galloping home at the speed of fear. It was just one bad day where the filly had to go out, and then another bad day, and because there were some gaps between them in which the filly could just stay inside and make herself listen to the rhythms of a failing body, no one did the math and realized that the total added up to all of the days.

Someone is standing next to her. Someone large, which puts her in his shadow. There are shadows in the dark house, and she has no reason to fear this new one. Not yet. It is sound which she dreads, and the sounds are gone.

She wasn't there when they stopped.
She was at school.
She has to go to school every day or someone will check to find out why she isn't there.
She doesn't have any friends.
She doesn't have time to make them.
She's shy. She doesn't talk much, and takes far too much upon herself. She doesn't tell anyone what's going on because it's her mother and she knows there isn't a cure, she's always known that. But talking about just how bad it is, when there's no cure and no treatment and her mother doesn't want to leave the dark house, wants to be there with the filly and it's her mother...
She's the filly who's forever running home, during lunch and any recess that seems long enough.
She has to go home...
The filly doesn't have a home.
Her mother is dead.
She did everything she could and her mother is dead.

That is the weight which presses upon her within warm shadows, drives her head down while rendering her voice into the barest of whispers. (Her throat is still raw from the screams.) It feels as if it will never lift.

The stranger is speaking gentle words which she barely hears. And then a noble head reaches back for its carrier bags, extracts something and carefully offers it to her. Beak presented in a way which represents no threat: just a request for her to take that which is held...

...oh.
The box.

She recognizes it, of course. Dark red, so deep as to nearly turn black, almost like painite captured in wood, from a tree no earth pony has ever grown and that's tradition. (There are earth ponies in Protocera, for there's just about everything in Protocera. Her teachers tell her that a griffon's heart can be found in any kind of body. You just have to look.) The trees are, in their way, sacred.

She's... supposed to take the box and...

Her mother is dead.

The filly has the option to ignite her horn. She doesn't. She was early to her magic, something which has arrived well before the mark or puberty or any other indicator of coming adulthood, and she could collect the box via glow. But the house is dark, and... she doesn't use her magic in public. She's the only unicorn in her school and displaying her field makes her feel different. More different.

Magic was for home. For her mother --

-- there are some who might say the filly's trick is a tiny miracle. To her, it's a cruel joke. She could take the pain away -- for a little while. What good are a few seconds of relief when the agony always comes back?

She used her trick as much as she could, until exhaustion set in. Until drain made four knees buckle as the migraine began, and then she'd keep pushing anyway because it was her mother and

her mother is dead.

And this is the box.

She takes it by mouth. Starts to move towards the bedroom, because... her mother is dead.

Her mother is still here.

All around her, griffons talk in low tones. Feathers rustle, beaks clack. Are there any relatives? No, none recorded. There was a father, but... he can't be found. It would have never gone this far if there had been family. When it comes to the bloodline, she's the last.

Two of them move with her into the bedroom.

Her mother's eyes have just been closed. Bits of crust are falling away onto the stained blanket.

The filly is small: early to her magic, but the growth spurt has yet to come. Her tears don't take very long to saturate her fur, and then it's even less time before they do their own poor job of trying to clean the floor. And she looks at the corpse of a dead unicorn and tries to remember that her mother is beautiful, beautiful for being more than her mother. It feels as if there must have been a time when she was a foal and her mother was healthy and happy and carrying her in the sunlight with special saddlebags and beautiful and

there's a corpse on the bed.

The griffons help her up to the mattress. There is one final nuzzle, and her mother is cold.

They gently offer assistance in every way they can. She's asked what she wants to take, and... she can barely ask for help with a hoof shaving. A little bit of mane, something she washed just last night. They go into the mourning box.

Her few things have been packed by others. She's escorted (and so many years later, deep in the cell, it adds a fourth layer to a joke which was never funny) from the dark house. She will never return.

She doesn't remember her father.
Her mother is dead.
The filly is an orphan.

She will be orphaned twice.


It was quiet, down there in the cells. Water dripped into the speaking tube, and... that was it.

Finally, "I'm sorry."

"It doesn't matter."


It's called The Great Chain, and that's something which has given minotaur sociologists some trouble. A nation composed of self-freed slaves has a certain inherent objection to the basic terminology.

(Griffons and minotaurs can get along quite well, even when the minotaur isn't Protoceran. There's just some concepts which usually need to be cleared up in a hurry. With any luck, that happens before the first attempted pin. Minotaur debates easily lead to wrestling, and griffons just have too many grip points for comfort.)

Griffon society operates on a chain of dominance. Griffon magic is about dominance: the ability to impose the strength of your personality on another, show them how much stronger you are and make them act accordingly. But it's seldom used. A weapon which everyone possesses --

-- every griffon --

-- isn't going to get pulled out very often, lest it trigger a cascading series of glares from half-avian eyes. Because if you try to prove where you stand via magic alone, then you'll get to find out. And it's magic which can be resisted (although there's always some degree of effect), plus if you try to bring your strength to bear and it turns out that you really don't have enough...

There are social clues which normally suffice. Little mannerisms: the way a tail is held, the angle of resting flight feathers. Any griffon can look at any other and know where the other stands. (If you aren't a griffon in body as well as heart, learning all of the little signs can be a hard education. The Protoceran majority is patient.) With a casual meeting, polite nods and minor knee bends are as far as anything has to go. But there are more intense struggles, because it's a mobile society. You attempt to move up a link, try to keep from being pushed back down. Something has knocked you towards the far end of the chain and now you have to recover. And adolescents have a somewhat harder time establishing their place than usual: the adults only stop the things which have gone beyond posturing and when their own memories of those days come back, try not to blush too hotly under their feathers.

It's partially about strength: of body, mind, personality. Economics, here and there. Political, always. Most of the truly intense struggles are between those on neighboring links, and that's because there's frequently a desire to prove that you need to be one stage to the right and therefore, somebody else had better make room. Election Day in Protocera is looked upon as being the first take at securing an office: impeachment attempts are just the opposition's way of making the winner prove that they should be allowed to stay there.

There's all sorts of ways to dominate, and griffons have tried every last one of them. This includes warfare, because a nation which runs on dominance is eventually going to see if it can dominate yours.

Protocera used to get into a lot of wars. They're deadly fighters -- if they can get close enough. (Even for the strongest, their magic has a range of a few body lengths, and eye contact is frequently required.) Closing the gap on some species presents a certain difficulty, and most nations know how to deal with something attacking from the sky: in particular, pegasi raids during the Discordian Era provided an early education on countering aerial warfare.

There were wars. The usual open rationale for them was some level of offense which had to be countered in blood.

Typically, there's a second motivation.

Griffons live by the chain. Who you're stronger than, and who's stronger than you.

How strong can you truly claim to be if you can't use it to take care of the weak?

The ascent of the chain comes with an ever-increasing amount of responsibility. If you're strong enough to shove another into a river as proof of your power, then you're also strong enough to help them cross it. Does your dominance come from the intellect which just created a new way to distribute resources? Use it to keep everything for yourself and you'll get to dominate a graveyard.

If you have power, someone else doesn't, and you can't use that power to help them... then what true good is power at all?

Not every griffon is capable of operating within the system. Some just want to enforce their will on others, and the opinions of those they encounter don't matter. A few work their way up by a link or three, decide they can't manage the responsibility, and slide back down. There's a small number who cower on the next-to-last link because at least that way, they know who's taking care of their lives and just as importantly, it isn't themselves. Too much effort.

But for the most part, it works. The ones who try to claim the top link recognize that everyone below will be looking to them for guidance: they wouldn't try to advance so far if they didn't understand that. And it means quite a few wars with Protocera are the result of someone deciding that they could run your country better than you. For your benefit, of course...

Griffons at war (and those with griffon hearts) usually fight to kill. They respect strong opponents. And if a battlefield is decimated, the enemy settlement lost and the victors hear the cries of a distant child...

...it doesn't matter what that child is. Species. Bloodline. It could be the direct scion of your greatest foe and it doesn't matter. There's only one thing to do, when it's the child of the enemy.

You track down the cries. (Griffons, especially those going for the one-on-twenty-four sport of the Hunt, like to think of themselves as great trackers. In reality, the near-universally weakened sense of smell doesn't help. By scent, they can track blood, a few other odors associated with prey, and.... that's about it.)

You find the child.

And you do the only thing which can be done.

Wars against griffons tend to have days where, from the enemy perspective, nothing appears to be happening. They are also days when the battalions are on the move.

In the opposite direction.

After all, it can take an entire army to fly a settlement's worth of children to safety. And when it comes to taking time for finding new homes...


"...I read about this. After the war ended, there were demands for reparations. Recovery --"

"You don't break up a family."

"But they took --"

"There was no one else left."

"And who did the killing? Who created those orphans in the first place?"

"What's the alternative? It was war! You were trying to kill us too!"

"Us?"

"And when it's a child..."


What's weaker than a child?

An infant enters the world. The newborn has no knowledge of anything. There are instincts, and no concept of when to fight them. No magic, no strength, no defenses. They're helpless.

What are you, as a griffon, if you can't protect the very last link?

To bring a child into the world is to take responsibility for raising it to adulthood. The making of a promise, and that promise will be kept. But the recognition of that promise requires another level of understanding: all children are precious.

And with that, the promise becomes transitive.

This is the child of the enemy, and you are the reason why no one is left to raise it? Then someone else has to take responsibility. Raise it properly: something which obviously requires love.

And you take them to their new home.
And they grow up, because you love them.
And they marry other children of the lost...

In terms of intelligent species, Protocera is the single most mixed society in the world. (There have been a lot of wars. None for the last two centuries.) When they need to draw on magic, they can ask their citizens for just about everything. The griffons are the majority, but... name a species, and it's probably there. Possibly in enough numbers to form a small neighborhood. Some rumors claim ibex, along with those even more rarely seen. The dragons are confirmed.

They understand generational succession. You struggle against those of your own years, but... how can you suppress the young? Everyone has only so much time to be at their peak, to be truly strong. Griffons resent those who cling to power long after they should have voluntarily relinquished their link, because what good does it do for the chain to rust from the top down? If your link is taken by the one you raised, then that's what's supposed to happen. You did your job, and now they'll take care of you.

You're proud to have your child succeed you. Even if that child is a unicorn. A minotaur. A dragon. An ibex (if those are actually around). Because their hearts are true.

You protected the very last link, so that it would have a chance to become the first.

Protocera is at least a dozen species united under a single flag. One flag and, so often, one way of seeing the world. And all of them agree on this:

There are no crimes greater than those committed against children.

Oh, there are limits, of course. Parents are allowed to shout. Spanking is understood, and... it's like a family's rough-and-tumble: no squawk, no blood, no foul. A reddened backside will eventually stop looking as if the fur is trying to glow. But if something has a permanent impact, was done with the intent to create lasting pain... then there is no greater crime.

Protoceran society isn't perfect. There are some who can't work with the chain. Others try abusing it to their advantage. Similarly, there are those who willfully hurt children.

And when they are found, every other griffon closes in.


Starkly, "Lynch mobs."

Fleur flinched. It wasn't the words: some water from the spray fountain had just hit her fur. Jolted off-course.

"No. For the most part, it's apprehending them so they can be brought to trial --"

"-- you just said 'for the most part'."

"Sometimes you wind up in a situation where there's only one way to stop them. You're supposed to be a police officer, and you backlashed me. What would you have done if I was at the triple corona, Miranda? Waited until I finished?"

Silence. It didn't last long enough.

"There were other ways to deal with him --"

"-- you haven't named a good one yet, and we're talking about me now. What would you have done?"

Far too softly, "Let's say you went triple and I tried for your horn anyway. Would you have cared?"

"Does he die? Fair trade, Miranda!"

Starkly, "Your life for his?"

"Mine for Sweetie's! For everypony who would have come after her! You have to understand! If you don't protect them...!"


There is an orphanage, if you can call it that. There's a waiting area, where griffons talk to you: one of them is shaped like a yak. Tissues are readily available. A table for the box. (She keeps looking at the box.) There's also a few beds and a kitchen because on rare occasions, children are there overnight.

The filly doesn't reach her fifth hour.

There are no Protoceran orphans. Not for more than a day.

Two adult griffons come: reeve and tiercel, male and female. They talk to her for a while. She's barely hearing her own words. She can't remember what she said...

And then she's being flown to her new home.

It's far away from her old city: getting there takes nearly two hours in the air, and it'll be the same just about every time they travel. There's a small community in the area, but that's the key: small. At most, there might be a hundred and fifty people. General store, medical practices, a small schoolhouse... they have the basics. If you want to see a movie (and there's a few special trips before the murder), it's going to take a while to reach any settled zone which has a cinema. But there's a lot of open space. This is a community which raises food and that means they need open space. Also pit traps, firewalls -- you don't want to ignite the wall unless you have to, but there are times when that's the only way --

-- the filly will learn about that soon enough.

Any griffon can perch on a cloud, but only a few are capable of molding them in the same fashion as pegasi. Still, they like to live close to the sky where they can, and the nature of a few Protoceran trees cooperates. Be careful about how you distribute the load and the baobabs can support homes. And with this family business, it helps to be a good distance above the action.

She can hear some of that action. This is a place which produces food, and some of it roars at them as they pass far overhead. Other portions try to snap. She's trying not to look, and that means she's looking at a wooden house supported by branches which look like thickened roots on a tree which somehow decided to grow upside-down. One storage shack floating off to the side is made of vapor: commissioned. There's a long, retractable ramp going from the house to the ground, and it's been patterned with small divots to support hooves. She's looking down from where she's been carefully strapped to the tiercel's back and she can see a porch --

-- there's a grifflet on the porch.

About the filly's age. Tawny in the portions with fur, blue-grey where there's feathers. (A griffon can resemble any combination of great cat and hunting bird: this one is cougar and peregrine.) Sharp eyes which can dance when the occasion calls for it, or quickly look away from wherever the trouble just happened because surely that wasn't them and not looking proves it. She's just about pacing in place, nearly turning on the spot, and she sees her mother, watches the careful drop in altitude, they're all getting the filly down to the wood and the grifflet comes up to her, says a few words...

...perhaps the words don't matter. Not compared to what happens next.

They bring her into the house. They don't pressure her to eat, not after the long flight and... not on the same day. Sun is going down, and she needs her rest. But the new bedroom isn't quite prepared yet, so...

There's a nest at the center of the birth daughter's sleeping place: a proper one, made of blankets. The grifflet helps her in. Then there's a few more words, the box is placed where the filly can see it, the grifflet comes in and...

It will take moons before all of the questions are asked, because the grifflet is stronger than the filly and knows it. The filly is shy and frightened and just lost her mother. There's a certain need to go slowly, when you have a new charge.

So there's only a few queries, gentle ones. And when the tears start, wings are curled against the filly. Holding her, as she cries herself to sleep. Still holding, when she wakes to a newly-risen Sun. Whenever she needs it, every time.

It is kindness in a moment of high emotion, and that emotion is sorrow. Something which sinks deep into the soul, never to be forgotten. And the filly is young, far too young for her own interests to bloom... but still, an association is made. The only one which could ever be created at all.

Two moons before she says "Dad" to someone for the first time in her life: it just slips out, and the reeve struts around looking ridiculously proud of himself for the rest of the day. "Mom" has its own association, and needs more time. But with the grifflet... less than a week. She has found something better than a friend.

The new bedroom will never be finished. Their parents quickly recognize that it's best to let the sisters share a nest. They keep finding each other anyway, and it gives the adults one place to look in the mornings.

And the caress of feathers is the touch of love.


"I think... they kick you into a new home so quickly because they know you need something. And they brought me to her... you have a drip somewhere. You know that. And I swear the mattress keeps shifting --"

"I can't picture you as a farm kid."

Fleur raised her head. (Her eyes remained closed. There was too much to look at.) "Sorry?"

"Seriously. You, out there with the -- the..." She could hear forelegs awkwardly shifting. "There's no earth ponies, there's something you have to do with the soil, it's got blades and you drag it with a harness..."

It didn't make her smile. Just about nothing could have. "What soil? -- okay, we had a little garden. That was mostly for me. Griffons are barely omnivores: the diet is about ninety percent meat. Fruit is to get quick sugars for flight. But my parents knew I needed to eat normally. They didn't even mind me having vegetables at the table. A lot of griffons think of that as prey food, and I used to know kids who just sort of lurked at the back of the schoolhouse during lunch. So no one would have to see them with celery. But Mom would soak mine in the meat juices while everything was cooking, and --"

"-- you just licked your lips."

"How do you feel?" Fleur quietly asked. "When you remember your mother's cooking? Before I was with them, I mostly ate things raw. Gave them to my birth mother, tried to keep her strength up. It's... a special flavor. You'd have to try it to understand. I tried getting one pegasus to have a bite, and... well, maybe you heard that story." Bitterly, "She sure seemed to be telling enough ponies, and she might have decided it was a crime. But you have to taste the real stuff." And at speed, "Which Mister Flankington does not have."

With perhaps less sarcasm than there should have been, "And you'd cook it for me."

"Not in prison," the former escort softly pointed out. "Not... from where I might be sent. But if they do ask to get me, I know what I want for my last meal."

She listened to the bars vibrating in their mountings for a second: something which was happening with increasing frequency. What was going on in the upper level?

"Fleur --" Something which was becoming the chorus in the song of memory.

"It wasn't a farm. Not the way you think of them."

"So what was it?"

"A ranch."

"A what?"

"A place which raises food."

"What's the difference?"


Griffons are nearly pure carnivores.

Griffons respect strength.

They want to be hunters, and many will try to find a chance to indulge the instinct. But balancing the demands of life with the needs of food supply creates the same problem for every sapient species. It isn't as if most ponies have the time to stand around and graze, and a griffon who hunts down lunch is going to be late for the afternoon shift.

So they go to groceries. But they still respect strength. And what's the fun of food which didn't give someone a challenge?

There are normal animals which they find suitable. A griffon will be reluctant to sit down for chicken, but an ostrich? Have you ever seen one kick? Seafood is fine, because marlins put up a fight and there is just about nothing which a griffon will not do for a serving of fresh shark. But for the most part...

Griffons eat monsters.

The non-sapient types, and obviously only the ones which are considered good eating. The Treaty Of Menagerie is in full effect: if something is trying to kill them and can't explain why, they feel free to return the favor. Rumors of griffons eating intelligent creatures are the legacies of the wars, lingering pockets of prejudice, and fear of the different. (The filly doesn't hear any of them because she's in Protocera, the mare only learns of it after the filly is dead, and the mare gets sick of the whole thing very quickly.)

So if you're eating monsters, and you don't have the time to hunt them down because there's a large percentage of a nation which needs feeding... then you have to breed monsters.

Also, you need something which the monsters can eat. Sometimes this means smaller monsters: the ones where the flavor is lacking.

Or if you really needed a use for chicken...


"...you're joking. Please tell me you're joking --"

"I thought Equestrian schools have international studies."

"It was second-year primary! I was still learning to find Drayton on a map!"

"They put it on a map?"


They bring her into it slowly. She's a ranch kid. There's a certain obligation to work and besides, if she doesn't go out onto the ranch itself, that's all the more time spent away from her sister.

The first test is feedings. Can she make herself get that close? Yes. On the third attempt, with her sibling supervising the whole thing. This sometimes means teasing the filly until her ears start to burn, but... you do what you must to get a charge moving. Or, when it's all too much and they rush back to their guardian, you cover them in your wings until they stop sniffling, and they're ready to try again.

It takes a while to get used to the feedings. She never does fully reconcile having to watch whips of jointed bone spear the food.

She's not suitable for the process of getting the monsters into the butchering areas, not without a lot of training. The filly eventually lets them see that her magic is already present, and they take a day to test her strength. Nicely above average, but -- that doesn't mean much when you're wrestling a slingtail. However, she can at least try to learn about cutting meat, and she's not bad at that. (Her parents, anticipating the reaction, give her only poor specimens to work on until the blood reflex fades once and for all. The vomit bucket is eventually retired with honors.)

The filly tries to do whatever she can around the ranch. She wants to help her parents. To be out there with her sister. But there's so much to remember. This gate has to be kept locked. You can't go here unless you run down the charge on the pegasus wonder first and lower the temperature in the area to the point where the linaories stop moving for a while. There's a very heavy door which blocks off this section, it's also where the firewalls are, and she hates getting close to it because the zanustrachs keep hitting it. The door is reinforced (minotaurs) and enchanted (unicorns), but every time one of them tries to ram it down, the metal gets damaged and the charge loses a little power. She's trying to learn how to recharge it herself because that'll save her parents some money, but... it's a process.

She doesn't like going near that area. The sounds of the huge bone spurs going into steel makes her jump.

At the end of a long day, she'll offer to use her trick on her family. Her parents appreciate the chance to have weary muscles assuaged. Her sister keeps giggling.

There's so much to learn. It can take years to master it all, and some of those years are passing.

The filly was early to her magic, perhaps too much so. But she's now old enough to think about her mark, and...

...she doesn't know what she wants to be.

Her sister has already declared intent: remain in the family business. The filly wants to stay near her sibling, but... she doesn't think she's suitable as a rancher, not full-time. She's growing up among monsters and there are ways in which she's becoming used to that, but...

...she keeps trying to fly. It takes moons, and she never truly understands how fortunate she is: one of the few who not only possesses the strength to move her eventual adult form, but who can master the necessity of projecting a field backwards. But it looks stupid. She's clumsy in the air. She can't really keep up with anyone and her sister laughs, although it's never cruel. The relationship between guardian and charge: you laugh, and then you show them how to do it better -- but there are limits to what self-levitation can achieve. Constant concentration, horrible at turns. It still looks stupid.

She should be able to fly.
She's a griffon --
-- and then she remembers.

Luckier than most? She can't see it that way. There are Protoceran pegasi and they can keep up. She has a griffon's heart, a true heart. But she doesn't have wings. There are long nights when she lies next to her sleeping sibling and stares at the ceiling, feeling as if her body must be somehow wrong.

She's growing up.
(Getting taller, but the true growth spurt awaits.)
(If it had come earlier...)
If you're a -- pony... and you grow up, you get your mark.

There's supposed to be a question laced into the search for a mark. The most crucial one. At the core, the mark is meant as the answer to 'Who am I?'

She's the filly who kept galloping home to see if her mother was dead.

Who couldn't ever truly take the pain away.

Her sister talks to her about that. There's a lot of lessons. Some of them are about opportunity. Trying not to control everything, because the filly managed to convince herself that if her mother died, it would be because she wasn't there and... that one takes a lot of talking. But most of them concern life. How to be a griffon, because her birth mother was sick and didn't get to teach her much.

Her sister is the smartest griffon in the world. But she can't answer the filly's question, because that's a pony's query. (She doesn't laugh at it, either. They talk about it a lot, deep into the night.) What is the filly supposed to do with her life? Because she's growing up, and...

...there are a few ponies in the community.

The filly who took care of her mother was often a little dirty. Her grooming wasn't exactly perfect. There were times when she went hungry so her mother wouldn't. Now she's getting more attention, proper nutrition, she cleans herself often and with increasing expertise because butchering meat (she doesn't think she wants to do that either) has consequences, and there's this soap which keeps the bloodscent off...

The filly is beautiful.

She doesn't see it.

Others tell her about it, in their own ways. She hasn't really gotten taller yet, but other parts of her body are starting to show the signs. One trip into the city finds multiple ponies staring, and then they look away because they realize she's too young.

There's also a neighbor: the only pony who lives close by. He only got here last year. Sometimes he comes over. Then he starts to drop by more and more. He's a unicorn whose body is soft, with padding just about everywhere but the horn. Even his eyes seem to bulge a little, as if there's an extra layer at the front. Or back. Something pushing them out...

He makes a living by keeping devices charged. If you can't do anything else, you can always sell thaums. But it takes him a long time to bring anything back up to a full state. He says that he likes to go slowly, do it right, but... she's noticed that he looks oddly tired when he's done. Too tired, for somepony who's claimed a certain level of strength.

Maybe they keep catching him after he's done a lot of other jobs.

And he likes to drop by, because she's a unicorn and it helps to have someone local to teach her about magic. Something which isn't exactly a specialty of the community schoolhouse. So he comes over for dinner, and then there's a lesson.

Sometimes he comes to see her when she's working on the ranch. For extra lessons.

In both cases, her sister is just about always there. Or shows up shortly after the lesson begins.

She's caught him glaring at her sister a few times.

The stallion looks at her in a different way. (She doesn't understand those looks: she just knows they're different.) And he keeps dropping by. He catches her alone a lot, although that never lasts for long. The sounds of the monsters makes him jump, and she understands that. Sometimes it makes him so nervous that he has to leave early.

He tells her that she's beautiful. Quite a few people have, but he's rather insistent on the topic.

But... beauty is feathers.

What can she do?

Maybe... she could learn how to take pain away. In a way which lets her help.

Sometimes vets drop by the ranch. (These are specialists. The ranch has some animals, because there are a few which can put up enough of a fight and for the smaller ones... the weaker monsters need to eat something. There are also those who treat the medical problems of monsters, and she's already decided it's going to take some working up to.) A few of them are ponies, marked for the occupation: others come from different species. And she's a unicorn (somehow) who has her magic, which means a number of them treat her as equipment. Hold this, move another thing over there and eventually, and now you're offering to help stabilize this fracture...

...are you that strong? Can you keep her from kicking against the pain? Completely still?

She is.

The filly starts to ask questions. One of the griffon vets, recognizing her sincerity, begins to answer a number. An animal has to be put down, and...

...ten minutes. Remember ten minutes of instruction and you can...


"Fleur?"

It took a moment to locate her lungs. Longer to remember why they were supposed to do anything.

Her tail briefly trembled. It had plenty of company.

"I was so stupid. He kept dropping by. But there was only so much he knew about magic: he barely had magic. Once I found the real books, I realized he didn't even have much for theory. About the most he really taught me was about being creative. He just wanted to see me. And I think she realized it, deep down. Not enough to figure out what he was after, but... she was always close by. I needed a lot of supervision as her charge, and not all of it was for the ranch. Something set off her instincts. She hovered around us, just about constantly..."

"This was a stallion."

"I'm pretty sure I said --"

"-- I can see ahead in the book, Fleur. Your first pedophile. But you said you murdered a female --"

Fleur heard the intake of breath. Back legs spontaneously kicking out, and the impact on the bars.

"-- no! Fleur, you -- there's one --"

"Yes."

No intonations. Nothing except agreement and agony.


It's early in the morning. Late spring. A school day. Ranch kids have things to do before they go to school, and the filly is making the rounds down the maintained firewall paths between enclosures: shut in on all sides, but open to the sky. And there are roars and screeches and the wails of things forever hungry, her fur is set on edge and she forces herself onwards because that's what griffons do.

She's getting close to the zanustrach pen, the giant metal door. She can hear them crashing around in there. It's hard not to hear something which weighs a bale-ton and keeps trying to relocate all of that mass to be directly in front of you. And the door is dented outwards because of course it is, they're going to need maintenance next season and it's hard to arrange that. You can't really knock out a battle of zanustrach in order to let them sleep through the work. A zanustratch exists as something which wants to beat the world into submission for the crime of allowing something like a zanustratch to exist. Sleeping potions mostly make them madder.

One of them, possibly hearing her approach, rams the door. It jumps. She tries not to, almost succeeds.

Check the metal. Check the charge, which she does by looking at a thin line of glow which, at full, runs up to about twice her height across the door. This is automatic and today, it should be automatically unnecessarily because her tutor dropped by the other day. He looked more tired than usual, but... it didn't take him anywhere near as long as it typically does to replenish the charge. Maybe he's figured out a new way to do it.

She can ask him about that. He'll certainly be around for the inquiry. But she thinks he's reluctant to teach her about device charging, because that takes away from his business. He would only come around for lessons, and...

...he's a unicorn. She's...

...shouldn't she feel more comfortable around him?

The filly doesn't like that thought, and tries to replace it through a glance at the door. The top of the glowing red line is where it should be.

Charging a device. She's not going to try that yet, not without knowing how, and this one is charged. But she ignites her horn, projects a thin line of her own energies and just -- puts it next to the red one. Comparing, while wondering how it's really done.

Maybe it's a good thing, for some griffons to have horns. She just doesn't understand the point in the lack of wings --

There's a sound she knows: that of massive flat pads pounding against the reinforced floor of the enclosure. It lets her brace herself, just before the zanustrach rams into the door again.

Ninety percent of the glowing red line winks out.

The filly stares.

...what did she do? The energies never touched! Maybe she wasn't supposed to even let her field get that close? There's barely any charge at all, she might have just cancelled the protection out, she must have and --

-- the sound is coming back.

It isn't deliberate intent upon recognizing a moment of weakness. That would take thought. A zanustratch charges at a barrier until something breaks.

And now she's trying, she has to try, her corona surges, but her tutor didn't give her the key for this and she doesn't know how to make her energies go in, the pads get closer and her horn feels like it's burning and her hooves are scrambling backwards --

-- the zanustratch hits the door.

The filly was moving backwards. She clears the impact zone just before the door hits the ground. The giant plummeting metal panel comes within two hoofwidths of her snout.

It doesn't matter.
There's something worse behind it.

There are six long, serrated spurs of reinforced bone. Those are mounted at the front. Four more replace the tail, and each of those can be flexed with the muscles at the base. There are eight small eyes and two giant ears and a mountain of grey-black meat covered in natural armor plating, and it is all charging at her because she is something which can die.

Her horn is already ignited, and it means nothing. Her death is coming, and she tries. She's a small target, she can change direction far more quickly, but the huge body takes up so much of the path and trying to get by through moving forward will not just put her in range of the tail spikes, but she'll be moving towards the pen. There are other zanustrachs in there and she doesn't have long before they realize it's open --

-- she's screaming, and she can barely hear it over the monster's roar. But there's a charged alarm at the side of the path and the charge should be fine because it's never really used --

-- her sister has taught her well. Her field projects, splits. Half of the bolt hits the alarm, triggers it, and a wail of sirens breaks the air, makes it seem as if Sun must shatter. The rest goes for the monster's eyes, and she manages to pinch a few of them. It creates pain, distracts the monster, makes it turn to one side --

-- not enough.

Never enough.

There's no real room to dodge. If she goes for the firewall --

-- there isn't time --

-- and she's galloping, because it's all she can do now, because she isn't a griffon and all she can do is gallop, she's not fast enough and it's closing the gap, her horn is blazing and if she could just fly, she could get above it, the monster is too big to leap but that's concentration and the fear is blazing through her like a corona gone mad, she can't seem to get off the ground, she's just skipping along the path like a toy and it's costing her speed, the bone spurs are getting closer and she can't reach the borders to set off the firewall and --

-- she's going to die.

(She should have died.)

The bone spurs are a featherwidth from her tail --

-- a blue-grey streak blurs past her, diverts up so that back claws can scratch at vulnerable eyes, tries to get the hover in order to do that much more damage and the monster has to slow in order to deal with the grifflet. The filly is gaining ground, but --

-- her sister is back there. Her sister is clawing at one stack of eyes and that'll do something, but it may not be enough.

Prey runs. She can't --

-- the filly turns. And her horn is still lit, the power is summoned and she just needs something she can do with it, her sibling is backing up in midair and the zanustrach is slower now, there's a certain look in the dancing eyes and --

-- instinct, perhaps. Several kinds. Including the need to protect.

Anger and strength and dominance invisibly surge through the air, target the intact stack of monster orbs. Everything her sibling can bring to bear. She's hovering to maintain the eye contact, she's pushing, coming closer because range is a factor and --

-- her sister is the smartest griffon in the world.

The zanustrach is a monster.

It can't jump. It can rear up, and the filly lacks the strength to pull it down again. But she tries --

-- everything she has.

The triple corona, achieved in an instant.

She tries to do something.

(She tried.)

It means nothing.

One of the spurs goes up. The tip hits an eye socket.

It goes in.

Almost through.

Her sister convulses. The monster crashes down, shakes its near-formless dome of a head. The grifflet is flung off the spur, crashes into a wall, and now the monster is coming again, there are more starting to emerge behind it, the last thought the filly will ever have is self-hatred and loathing and it should have been --

-- twinned screeches from overhead. They are rage and pain and loss, and they take up residence in the filly's dreams.

The sirens were set off: everyone heard them. The entire community, with a noise loud enough to reach Sun. An alert, in case things went critically wrong. The grifflet was just closest.

Reeve and tiercel swoop into the path: the female gets the filly in a paw pressure carry, the male recovers the lost. They blur towards the sky and as they do so, the reeve scrapes a back talon covered in chemically-treated steel against a long stretch of barrier.

The firewall catches. Coating reagents send hot spears of vengeance lancing across the path.

Wingbeats seek the sky, getting out of range of heat and the screams of dying monsters. Desperately pushing towards safety and any help which might be found.

(There is no help.)

The filly is screaming and crying. Sometimes she struggles, as if trying to get loose. To fall into the flames. The tiercel presses all the harder.

She screams, and she cries, and she tries to tell them that she didn't mean to do it, any of it.

It was an accident...

The grifflet's beak clacks.


The cell was cold.

"Fleur --"

"-- shut up, Miranda."

"I can get you tissues. Facecloths. Whatever you --"

"-- you wanted this. You need it to help put me in prison. And we're almost there. So just. shut. up."


They sent her sister home. There... wasn't much point to keeping her in the hospital.

The siblings no longer share a bedroom.

The adults aren't in the house. They're barely ever at the ranch. There hasn't been much need for them, especially over the last three moons. Most of the monsters were sold off. Something has to pay for all of the consultations with those who keep saying no.

They're in the city again. Trying to buy a miracle which won't come. Even the meetings cost, especially when they keep bringing in experts from around the world. More than just the monsters have been sold.

It feels like they hardly ever look at the filly.

(It feels as if they never should.)

Her sister is in the nest, and the filly is... just there. Watching. It's something she's good at. Standing still and watching and hating herself. Maybe that's all good for a mark. It seems appropriate to have one for that, because it's what she'll be doing for the rest of her life.

Sometimes she moves. Usually right after the stench appears. Cleaning the fur. Replacing blankets.

There's a bandage wrapped around one side of the grifflet's head. It doesn't conceal the dent where the lost eye should be. The other eye just -- stares. It doesn't focus on anything. It never dances. It has to be closed by touch. A dark pool with no true thought behind it.

The grifflet eats. If you put food into the beak, then massage the throat to make her swallow. The filly's trick is good for that. A few hours later, you get more stench. It never seems to fully leave. You can't use the soap on air.

The beak keeps clacking.

It's been clacking for moons.

The filly sleeps in another room now, except for when she sneaks in here. She's tried to snuggle against feathers. She's talked and begged and pleaded and screamed and sometimes the adults have to drag her out again. Today, she... offered to watch while they went into the city. They were too tired to turn her down.

They're tired all the time now.

They barely eat.

The filly sleeps in here, when she can. She has to. And with the adults gone, she can spend all of her time talking to the grifflet because... her sister was so quick with words. Always a saying, forever finding advice, practically has the whole of Solomon Short memorized. If you say enough things to someone, then they eventually have to say something back --

-- the experts all say it's brain damage.
Enough to do everything except kill.
The body can be maintained, if you work at it. But to cure this level of injury to the mind... that magic doesn't exist. A ranch is being liquidated to prove it.

And the beak clacks.

Constantly.

Mindlessly.

It's all the filly hears, when she has to stop talking. It's what she hears instead of sleeping. But she has to be in the room to hear it, because...

...it has to stop.

This is her sister. Her guardian. She was the charge, and...

...the filly should have died.

Her sister, bright and quick with a word or saying, always full of advice and just knowing the next thing to do. Who promised to be there, and...

...the filly should have...

The beak clacks. The sound echoes oddly in the sickroom. It echoes oddly in slightly different ways each time.

The clacking.

The mindless clacking.

Hearing that sound is the worst thing in the world. So it's what the filly deserves.

mindless
but
there's a way to
she could...
...if it doesn't work...
she'll know.
One way or the other, she would know.

Why didn't she think of it before?

Everything else has been tried. Everything which could exist in the whole world. But not this. All she has to do is --
-- this is proof. If her sister is still in there, if there's someone left to save -- this proves it.
If she isn't...
bright and quick and ablaze with life
...she would never have wanted to...
...it's the only way...

The filly is thinking, and every thought is pain.

Then she moves.

It's grey outside. Sun is almost fully occluded by thick clouds. The sort of day where you spend all of your time waiting for the rain to begin, and the world spites you. It does strange things to the light, but... she knows what she's looking for. She's seen two of the three around the ranch, well-separated. It's just a matter of finding the third.

Down the ramp.

It's a short search. Faster than she'd expected, and too quiet. (She... got used to the roars, after a while.) A mere summer hour, and she finishes before the humidity begins to drip from her fur.

You crush the leaves. You pour hot water over the petals. You grind the flowers.

Stir...

Back into the sickroom, quickly. There's a distance to cross from the kitchen and there's only a few minutes to work with. The mug is kept stable in her field, she waits until the beak is opening and then recedes her energies from the top of the container. Pour, close the beak, massage the throat...

The filly steps back. Watches the beak resume its clacking, as the mixture begins its work.

And she was told what happens, when a sapient drinks it. That as long as you can think, you'll live, and that means the first thing her sister will hear is the scream of an apology. She's sorry, she's sorry about the pain, but it was the only way, something in her sister is aware and there's someone to save, they'll keep fighting, they'll do anything, sell everything, the filly will work for the rest of her life to pay for it and it doesn't matter, any cries of agony just mean they can get her back --

-- and then the sound stops.


"Shut. The. Bloody. Buck. Up --"


...she... doesn't remember fetching the mourning box...

(she killed her sister)

She goes to the corpse. Carefully takes a single feather. The keratin of a claw tip gleams from the top of a dresser: with no natural movement left, the adults keep having to trim them. Have to keep stretching the limbs, because they're always curling in and --

-- a little bit of fur from the end of the tawny tail. That's enough.

(she killed her sister)

...saddlebags. She must have put them on at some point. The resealed box goes in, and...
...nothing else is important.

The filly goes down the ramp. Reaches the bottom, and...

...where is she supposed to go?

Just...
...how is she...
...it doesn't matter. She can just trot. Leave the community, go into the wild zone, and... what should have happened before the firewall went up, finally will. She just wants to keep her sister with her. All the way to the end.

So she trots. And the day is grey, the sky doesn't open up, she wants to cry and there doesn't seem to be any tears left. The world won't even cry for her. That's how much she's hated.

That's how much she deserves it.

She's lived here for a few years now. It lets her steer around certain residences. But ranches spread out. She's hardly explored every square wingflow --

-- that's her name. Someone just said her name and judging by the volume level, it may have been for the third time.

It's her tutor. That must be his house: the little ramshackle one. The soft unicorn is in the rough guess at a front yard, coming towards the border-defining gate. He's seen her, and he's worried. She looks... well, of course she's going to look like something horrible happened, because something horrible did happen. It's not what he meant. Just that...

He looks concerned. Awkward.

(Later, after the filly is dead, the mare will wonder how much effort that took.)

...is someone looking after...?

Her head probably moves. She's not sure. It might have been a nod. Some people believe the shadowlands exist so, yes, in that sense, someone might be.

Oh, the stallion awkwardly says. Good. Um. You... you look like... I know I haven't been by, but... it's not as if your parents need me any more. They did talk to me. I told them that you -- you didn't know, and...

(she killed her sister)

...it's going to rain, he thinks. Maybe she should come inside. Eat something. He can cook. She looks like she hasn't eaten for days.

The filly is about to shake her head. Keep moving. She doesn't need food --

-- bait.

All she has is herself. There's things you can lure monsters with, if you know how. Some of them are in a kitchen. She can... ask to borrow a few. It's normal household stuff until you mix it...

She moves towards the gate. His field opens it for her. There's a creak. Then the door, and --

-- her back is tingling. As if --

-- she turns around, sees the red glow working across the strands. He looks abashed. Says he was just smoothing her fur.

It's... pretty fur.

(They said her mother was pretty.)

She's a beautiful filly. It's been a hard time, for the last few moons, but... she should know she's still beautiful.

The filly doesn't understand. And... it doesn't matter --

-- does it?

Something about that felt...

...she's inside. So is he. The door closes, and she hears a click. As he passes her, a little projection of red surrounds the lock.

This is his home. Sorry it's... not all that clean. And it's a little dark in here. But the couch is nice. Why don't you sit there?

He hasn't cleaned up in a while. There's dishes on the sitting room table. Papers. A flare of field reaches for the corner of what looks like a photograph, tucks it away before she can see the image.

She's fairly small yet. (The growth spurt is a few moons away. It comes after the filly dies.) She doesn't take up much of the couch. The cushions have a strange smell. Like something soaked in and was never cleaned. There's a sort of crust on one corner...

...she doesn't want to look at the crust.

He goes into what she's guessing is the kitchen. Comes back out with two mugs. His wavering field sets one down in front of her. He drinks from his. She doesn't take hers up, not just yet. That, too, smells a little funny.

He's on the couch with her. Sitting close by.

He -- knows it must have been hard. Just... knowing she's responsible.

(she killed her sister)

He has to guess here, but... well, sometimes, adoptions don't work out. And with the way they must feel about her -- it means someone else has to take over. He's been here long enough now to know that. The stallion's traveled a lot: did he ever mention that? Protocera is... interesting. But he's been thinking about whether it's time to move on.

The stallion is leaning in towards her. There's something sweet about his breath. His tail is... shifting. Moving across the gap between them.

Is she thinking the same thing? That she might have to move on? Because he would understand if they didn't want her any more. Well... after all that. After she... but it was an accident, of course...

...his tail is stroking against her flank...

...and he is her tutor. So there's already a relationship.

He smiles. Leans in a little more. Kisses her forehead, right at the base of the horn.

(she killed --)
(maybe she could go with him)
(maybe she doesn't have to die)
(-- she's scared)
(she doesn't understand why she's scared)

He tells her that she's beautiful. Has anyone told her that? Anypony? (There's a light laugh there.) If they travel, it might become 'anypony' eventually. Once she's among ponies, she'll be beautiful all the time.

Somepony should always tell her that she's beautiful.

He leans in more --

-- his hooves are touching her flanks
moving toward her buttocks
she doesn't understand, she doesn't know why she's so scared, he's offering to take care of her but this doesn't feel right, he's touching her and she doesn't know what's going on and the door is locked and

she doesn't understand
she killed her sister and everything in her is pain and terror and she wants to die and she's not sure she could ever live and he's touching her and so much of her died in that room at the moment she committed murder, it feels like she's hollow, as if there's nothing left of her between skin and soul and
she needs to know what he WANTS

and every bit of crust and dirt in the horrible room is illuminated by twin blazes of light.

It floods through her, every piece at once, slamming together in an instant as the True Surge of manifest rises, and she sees everything he wants to do, everything he's about to do and it burns her. It's the first picture in what will become the great gallery, every bit of sickness in sharp relief, the image she will never visit and always recognize at once. A toxic centerpiece, and she can't make it stop

she has to make it stop

but she doesn't have control yet. Control starts from the second moment and there was a lie told to her, one where nopony knew there was a lie at all.

The mark does not whisper.
It screams.

He's rearing up in shock from a True Surge happening right in front of him. He doesn't understand what's going on. And as he does so, the light begins to fade.

It puts her in his shadow.

That's what happens on the outside. But he's still flooding through her, every bit of bile and dream of violation and he thinks it's the only way, hurting her is what he wants, he embosses himself upon her in a tidal wave of acid and the filly dies.

The last scream of shredded innocence is still echoing through the ramshackle house. The stallion doesn't understand what's going on. He had control (and the mare knows how much of this is about control), he has to get it back --

-- her heart is that of a griffon. The body becomes the first lie. But it's the body of a unicorn.

A unicorn mare, newborn in terror, always has a weapon.

She pushes her hooves against crusty cushions, lunges. And he tries to ignite his horn again, but he wasn't ready for her to fight and he's trying to deflect her to the side, but he's so weak --

-- her horn is not a sharp one. Given enough force and the nature of what it might hit, it doesn't have to be.

There's another scream. Liquid is running down the gentle grooves in something not quite bone. He pulls away, something clear falling from the puncture because there hasn't been enough time for blood to enter the socket. And she's off the couch, the speed of her movement scatters papers and she sees the pictures he's taken, spots the camera on a shelf and an inward-collapsing bubble of her energies crushes it, another projection destroys everything he had placed on the lock before getting the door open and she gallops and gallops and...

...it's at least forty minutes on the outbound before she realizes that she has to go back.

(She can't be sure. There isn't a real view of Sun.)
(She'll need to become very good at telling time.)

And then she has to find ways of returning without being seen. Without getting hurt, as she made it a fair distance into the wild zone. But he's near the border of the community. If she's careful --

-- she gets there.

The door is still open.

It feels like about half of the papers have been removed. Very little else was touched.

It's easy to see where the stallion went, as he fought against the agony. Trying to keep control long enough to get all of the evidence. You just have to follow the freshest stains...

He's gone.

If she tells someone -- tells anyone -- any griffon would --

-- she killed her sister...

She...

There are papers in the house. Some have enough blank space to work with.

She writes. Everything he tried to do. Cleans her horn, to remove that scent. And then she has to wait for nightfall in the one place she has shelter, in that horrible stinking house as fresh liquids dry up before her.

It takes a while to reach the sheriff's home. There's a lot of griffons moving through the sky, what feels like just about every griffon in the community, and she has to dodge all of the beams from the carried searchlights. But that means the sheriff is out, and... she leaves the words behind.

Sometimes it feels like she can hear her name being called out overhead. Over and over. That's certainly possible. The desperation, however, represents a dead filly's dream. Or... it depends on what they might be desperate for.

After a lot of work, she clears the community. This time, she stays within listening distance of the access road. (There has to be one. The air path is primary, but... some griffons don't have bodies which allow flight.)

She keeps moving all night, until the lights are well behind her. Trotting under Moon, all the way back to Sun...

It's Sun which makes her stop in the middle of strange greenery. She turns, and looks at her mark for the first time.

There's a little bemusement in that initial regard. She knows the icon, of course. It's an interesting way to interpret it. She's not sure anyone will ever catch on. Getting three of them is a bit of a surprise...

...well, six. Both flanks.

She takes out the box. Opens it, looks at the contents --
-- her control is still shaky. It tips.

She doesn't scramble immediately to recover the contents: there's no breeze, and she can see everything. For a long moment, she simply stands among the debris of her life.

Of death.

(She should have died.)
(She doesn't know how to go on without her.)

If this is who she is at the core, then what can she ever --

She's been told that she's pretty. She... doesn't see it. But if that's how others feel...

(They said her mother was pretty.)
(Her mother died.)
(Innocence dies.)
(Beauty falls apart.)

The stallion kept the truest core of himself as a secret.
The stallion may still be out there.

(Her sister is dead.)
(She should have been the one who --)

She has a way to learn secrets.

(She hurts.)
(She will always hurt.)
(The dreams begin that night, and there's a moment when she welcomes them because her sister is alive again, alive and)

She has to become strong. She needs to dominate. Assume control, so that nothing like this can ever happen again.

...she has to die...
...no. Not yet. There are things she has to do.

(Her pain is a weapon to wield against the world.)

She reorients. Packs up the box, puts it away, then turns herself towards a now-visible Sun. That's all you need, really. Once you have one direction, you can identify all of the others. Everything which follows is just a matter of effort.

The last person she will ever love taught her that.

The mare begins her hunt.

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