Shadows Swarmed Below

by Jay Bear v2

It's Not Real

1.

We have every reason to be exhausted. The six of us stayed up way too late last night packing our canoes and then left Mount Aris at the break of dawn. We had to paddle for hours through a lagoon so muggy it made my feathers curl. By the time we reached Arbor Isle, the broiling sun had risen high above us. We trudged through miles of powdery dunes, our canoes and gear slung across our backs, without finding a single tree for shade, until we reached the isle’s seaward shore. Then we made camp through the afternoon, setting up tents and lean-tos, securing our chow, and digging a latrine. After all that work, we ought to collapse into one snoring pile of fur, feathers, and chitin.

But we don’t.

Instead, we are brimming with energy. Ocellus challenges us to hide-and-seek. Yona launches us into a game of truth-or-dare with yak rules. Silverstream gets us going in an old hippogriff sing-along. Smolder and I race each other across the dimming sky—I win. We are six young creatures possessed by the last manic spirits of summer vacation.

Our vigor mellows only a little when the stars come out. Smolder starts a campfire, and soon the aroma of burnt wood calls the rest of us to settle down by its side. We sip cocoa and catch up on what we’ve all been doing over the break. Yona and Smolder stayed in Ponyville for a gemology project with Professor Rarity, while Ocellus got an assignment at the Royal Canterlot Library. I tell them about all the odd jobs I worked around Equestria, since I didn’t want to go back to Griffonstone. It gives me a chance to show off the muscles I built up, too.

Silverstream mentions volunteer work in Klugetown and lets the conversation pass on. She’s been unusually quiet the whole day. At first I chalk it up to weariness, since she planned this entire weeklong trip and spent today making sure we were all cared for, but that doesn’t seem to be the whole story. She’s antsy, and she keeps an eye on everyone as we speak.

Then I notice the copper case cradled in her lap. She drums it quietly.

The conversation starts to die down. A minute passes where we only talk about how nice the fire is. Another passes where nothing at all is said. Yona lets out a yawn.

Silverstream stops her drumming and asks, with a mischievous spark in her eye, “Does anyone want to tell some scary campfire tales?”

That wakes us up.

Yona starts with a creepy thriller about four yaks trapped far from home in the dead of winter, when the sun wouldn’t rise for weeks at a time. However, the night for these yaks seemed to stretch on and on, until they began to question if one of them was somehow responsible.

Smolder tells a legend about a cult who worshipped powerful ancient beings living under the Dragon Lands’ volcanoes. A savvy young drake joined the cult, even though he didn’t believe them, because he planned to use the cultists as an army against his rivals. Her story ends with the drake coming snout-to-snout with the truth of the cult’s beliefs.

Ocellus’s story is about a changeling queen whose hive had been destroyed. She led the survivors of her colony to a cliffside riddled with warrens and ordered them to pass through it. However, the tunnels narrowed and took on bizarre shapes. The queen’s changelings tried to adapt, but many of them pushed themselves too far and would never return to their natural shape. Finally the colony reached the other side. The queen turned around to see what had become of her subjects—and Ocellus showed us, shapeshifting into a writhing mass of worms and eyes.

I tell them about King Gavin’s Scepter of Immortality. A gang of griffons broke into King Gavin’s tomb to rob it, but one of them secretly betrayed the others, one by one, through the course of their adventure. After he’d backstabbed the last of them, he reached the Scepter, only to find he was not alone in the tomb. The Scepter of Immortality had been working all along, but not in the way he had hoped.

Sandbar goes with The Olden Pony story. I’ve heard it before.

Silverstream has the last story of the night. An eerie quiet takes over while we wait for her. Reeds rustle in the cool, gentle wind. Waves lap at the pebbly beach. Our fire’s dwindled to more warmth than light, but the half moon catches the glint of her copper case as she begins.

“You guys are going to love my story,” she says. “There’ll be monsters and heroes, dynasties and forbidden love, and mysteries all over. First, though…you’ve got to know some history about Arbor Isle.”

Smolder groans. Ocellus perks up.

“Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, Mount Aris had tons of mines and famous jewelers. Hippogriffs wanted to sell their jewelry all over the world, but their boats kept sinking right off the coast.”

“Gee, if only there were some way you guys could have flown around,” I say. I flap my wings to give her a hint, but she doesn’t get it.

“Sure, we invented airships eventually. Before then, nobody could figure out what was happening to the boats. The only clue was that some of them would show up wrecked on the shore, but there’d be no sign of their crews. The army started to think that there could be pirates hiding right here on Arbor Isle. Back before the trees were harvested, Arbor Isle had a forest more than dense enough to conceal a secret pirate base.”

I turn away from the fire to double check the modern day Arbor Isle. No signs of trees or a secret pirate base. Actually, the only life besides us here seems to be reedy dune grass and some tiny crabs scuttling around the beach. There aren’t even crickets chirping. That must be why the night is eerily quiet.

“A platoon of marines came to investigate the isle, and right away they realized it was totally silent. They thought it was a promising sign, like the pirates were really there and had hunted all the game. After searching through the whole day, though, they couldn’t find that hidden base. They called it a night and made camp.

“One of the soldiers, named Turba, was a very light sleeper. Even the sound of a pin dropping would wake her unless she wore earplugs. Although the night was quiet, she had to share her tent with the platoon’s worst snorer, so she stuffed her ears before bed.

“And that’s why any of them survived.”

Silverstream leans in. Embers make her eyes glow red.

“Late that night, Turba awoke with her tentmate’s hooves on her back. She leapt up, furious at him until she caught the vacant stare in his eyes. He didn’t seem to be in control of his body. His talons gouged into the side of the tent and pulled down mechanically, ripping the fabric part-way. They caught midway, but he kept pulling. The tent poles bent. He grabbed ahold of the tent fabric again and tugged, collapsing it on both of them.

“Turba dug out of the mess. All around her, more tents were falling over. Marines were stumbling through the wreckage, every one of them as zombie-like as her tentmate. She spotted the platoon’s commander walking into the forest, followed by the marines who had left their tents. Turba thought she might have missed an order to march. She started to take out her earplugs, but stopped herself when she remembered her tentmate’s strange behavior. Maybe the pirates were working with a siren to put the platoon under a spell, she thought, so she pretended to also be under its effect and followed her tentmate.

“The entire walk, she tried to think of where the pirates might be and how best to launch a counterattack. However, there were still no signs of any other creatures on the isle as they arrived at the seaward beach. Turba felt an awful foreboding. Marines stood motionless in ragged rows at the edge of the surf. Waves in the distance rollicked. A strange darkness teemed underneath the water. Although she still couldn’t hear anything, she felt a low rumbling coming up through her legs. Then she saw the first tentacle creep out of the water.”

Silverstream stretches one of her arms upwards.

“Turba jumped onto her tentmate, trying to shake sense into him, but without success. A second, and then a third tentacle emerged. The first tentacle reached the sand, aimed directly at their commander’s foreleg. She watched it wrap tight around him and pull back, dragging the ensnared commander towards the water. He didn’t move a muscle as the waves washed over his talons and then soaked his feathers.

“She panicked. There were a dozen tentacles, each reaching for one of the marines. No one except her seemed aware of what was happening. She feared she’d have to watch her entire platoon drown.

“Then she remembered her earplugs! It was the only difference between her and the other marines, so she clapped her talons around her tentmate’s ears. The tentmate didn’t react for a second, but then he pawed at Turba’s talons. Turba held tight. The tentmate swung his head, cried out in anger, began to leap about, and then all at once snapped out of the spell. He was confused, but he figured out what was happening quickly and covered his own ears. The two of them scrambled to gather leaves and litter to use as earplugs, first for the tentmate, and then for the other marines. When they got back to the beach, more marines had tentacles wrapped around them. However, the tentacles had slowed down at last. It was their chance to save their platoon!

“It only took a few minutes, but they plugged the ears of every one of the marines. The spell broke on each of them, and they all began to fight back with claw and beak against the tentacles. Even the commander, whose head was below water by then, fought back and freed himself once they’d plugged his ears. Defeated, the monster let out one resounding shriek and slipped into the depths.

“What the marines had found was a charybdis, a sea monster that lures land animals into the ocean with an irresistible song. The charybdis wraps its tentacles around its prey and holds them underwater until they drown. Then it can feast at its leisure.”

Smolder pipes up. “How’s that scary? All you need are some earplugs and you’re safe.”

“That’s what the hippogriffs thought too, but they didn’t know that the charybdis they’d found was basically a hatchling. If it’d been fully grown, its songs would have pierced even the strongest gauze, and its tentacles wouldn’t have released their grasp for anything short of a volcano. Earplugs worked at first, but soon enough boats were disappearing again. Once the first airships started flying, the queen of Mount Aris declared a ban on sailing on the open seas.” With a sip of her cocoa and a smack of her beak, Silverstream adds, “A ban that she declared would last for ten thousand years.”

Yona fumbles her cup from the shock. “Why hippogriff queen make ban so long?”

Coolly, Silverstream says, “Because a charybdis can live for millennia.”

An uncomfortable pause follows. Ocellus scowls. Smolder sits upright, blinking. There’s something they know, but it’s buried too deep in their subconscious for them to realize it. Meanwhile, Silverstream continues her pinnacle of ease act.

Suddenly, Sandbar’s fur stands on end. “Uhm, how long ago did you say they discovered the charybdis?”

Silverstream taps a claw to her chin theatrically. “I guess it was about five hundred years ago. Maybe less.”

I can see the number crunching they’re all doing—take a terrible sea monster that lives for thousands of years, minus out that it was young only five hundred years ago, and add the paltry hundred yards between us and the surf. As they each arrive at their gut punch of an answer, they involuntarily puff up and sit straight. I hold back a laugh.

“Last time I checked,” I say, “none of us have been seduced and drowned by any sea monsters. Plus, you don’t really strike me as the kind of hippogriff to get a death wish over the summer. So we don’t have to worry about this charybdis, do we?”

“Oh, that thing?” Silverstream blows a raspberry. “Long gone. We can go swimming later and check out its empty den.”

Calm is just starting to return when Silverstream sets down her mug and says, “Yeah, it got scared off.”

We freeze. Our eyes lock on her as she placidly admires the copper case in her talons.

“What, exactly,” I ask, “can scare off an enormous sea monster that drowns its prey with incredibly strong tentacles?”

Silverstream grins wickedly. “Ghosts!”

---

Listening to Silverstream makes me think about my last night in Griffonstone, although I can’t tell why. Maybe the smell of charred wood just reminds me of my stuff burning.

Griffonstone was all jagged cliffs and dead trees screwed into one gangly mess. The more gold you had, the higher up you lived in it, so of course I scratched out a camp in the dense evergreen forest around the base of town.

My last day there was spent hunting squirrels. I laid a dozen traps around one of the taller pines and perched near its top to make squirrel calls. Squirrel calls were second nature by then—sometimes I’d even make them in my sleep—so I didn’t give it much thought. Instead, I mulled over my latest problem.

Grampa Gruff would escort me to the School of Friendship the next morning, and I knew I couldn’t carry my stuff all the way there. I also knew that I’d need some bits when I got to Equestria. My stuff was a tarp lean-to, a wood-burning stove, a lidded cast iron pot that could be used as an oven, and some other basic necessities, all in good enough condition to sell. Easy fix.

My problem was no one would buy them.

And why would they? Word had gotten out that I’d be leaving Griffonstone soon. Any smart griffon knew they could wait and pick over what I left behind. Those vultures would be pawing through my valuables while I wore out my wings speeding towards Equestria and its pony queen of friendship. Probably laughing about pulling one over on me.

Unless I didn’t leave anything for them.

Sunset broke me out of my daydreams. I hopped out of the tree to collect my meager catch, one squirrel hanging from a strangulation trap, and ate it on my walk back to my camp. With a coolness I hadn’t thought possible, I pulled the lean-to out of the tree stump I hid it in, unrolled the tarp on the ground, and laid the poles and ropes for it on one edge of the tarp. Then I got out the stove and disassembled it. Its body was sturdy, but there were plenty of delicate pieces like pegs and handles that would warp in the center of a hot enough fire. The stove would be useable without them, but not easily. Those pieces I tossed onto the tarp, along with some nasty dried food. Altogether, they looked meager, so I gathered up some twigs and nettles to add to it. Finally, I rolled up the tarp, perched over it, and took flint and steel into my talons.

It was funny. Setting fire to this stuff I’d busted my tail collecting felt awful, but letting other griffons steal it would feel worse. I didn’t have a choice. Yet I couldn’t bring down the flint.

Which was when Gilda swooped in with a book in her talons.

“You’ve got to be excited!” she said as soon as she landed. Gilda only talked in that chirpy way when she had something to say about friendship. “You get to go to the brand new School of Friendship, taught by Equestria’s own Princess of Friendship and her actual friends. Have I told you about Rainbow Dash? She’s the coolest…” Her eyes must have caught the flint and steel in my talons. “What are you doing?”

“Burning my stuff.”

“Why?”

“Can’t take it with me.”

She felt the bundle. “It’s not a bad tarp. Couldn’t somegriff else use it?”

“I tried to sell all that, but no one’s buying.”

“What about giving it to someone in need?”

“I just said I tried to sell it, but no one’s buying—”

Her eyes lit up, and I realized she had another friendship sermon for me.

Gilda really tried to spread the whole friendship thing through Griffonstone, but she had never convinced anygriff besides Gabby and Greta. I’d at least sit through her sermons. It made her happy, and they weren’t the worst thing the world. Third worst, maybe, after small spaces and getting stung by a bugbear.

“A gift is something that you give to a friend,” she said, “even though you don’t expect anything back. When your friend accepts the gift, it makes you feel better because you know your friend is better off. Gift-giving strengthens a relationship and can start new friendships. Here’s an example.” She showed me the book she’d been carrying. “This is my gift to you.”

I had to squint to read the title in the moonlight. “Friendship is Magic: The Journal of the Elements of Harmony. Magic, huh? I doubt I’ll get much use out of a spellbook. You know these aren’t unicorn horns, right?” I tugged on my blue and yellow crest.

“No, it’s not that kind of magic, it’s…” She made a vague gesture. “You’re smart, you’ll figure it out. The Elements of Harmony put this book out last year. It has all the friendship lessons your professors learned before they started the school.”

Griffonstone’s hard-knock-based school system hadn’t prepared me for much, but I knew how to read between the lines. She was saying this Journal was a cheat sheet for all the exams. “Okay, I’m interested. What do you want for it?” I started to unwrap the tarp. “I’ll trade you…these poles and rope for it.”

“No, it’s a gift, remember?” She sounded like she’d had this conversation before with somegriff else.

“Fine, I’ll give you the whole lean-to, but that’s worth more than a book. The book and twenty gold coins.”

“Gallus, I don’t want anything in exchange because you’re my friend… Wait, twenty gold coins for an old tarp? It’s worth ten, at most!” She hesitated and her eyes went wide. “Forget it. Just take the book. No charge.” She pushed it into my talons.

The book rested in my grasp. Absent-mindedly, I ran my claws across the cover. I hadn’t held a lot of books by then, but none of them were like this: heavy yet delicate with pastel colors and gold foil. It felt valuable. Why didn’t she want anything for it?

It was too good to be true. Gilda had never scammed me as far as I knew, even before she’d gotten on her friendship kick, but there had to be some catch this time. I shoved the book back to her. “On second thought, I’ll pass.”

Her beak clacked like she was trying to think of something to say. Before she could finish her clacking, Grampa Gruff swooped in and greeted us in his nicest manner.

“What are you two useless featherbrains yapping about?”

No, really, that’s as nice as he gets.

“Gilda wanted me to buy her book.”

“I’m giving it to you. As a gift.”

Grampa Gruff squawked. “Some gift giver you are. The boy’s gotta eat over there, and all you get him is some pony book?”

“I dunno, it was pretty heavy,” I said. “I could probably knock out somepony and grab their pets.” I waggled my claws, still glistening with squirrel bits, to make sure they got my meaning.

“And what’s all this crap?” He gestured over the tarp. “You told me you were going to sell everything.”

“I tried selling it. No one’s buying,” I huffed.

Grampa Gruff’s beak twisted in a strange, unreadable way. “So you need cash, boy?”

“Yeah. Unless they’ve got money trees in Equestria.”

For a second Grampa Gruff stood still, watching me without meeting my eye. He turned away and took a few paces towards Gilda. “I’ve got some Equestrian bits from when those two ponies showed up in town. Go get them for me, would ya?”

“Why?” she asked.

“The boy needs them.”

Gilda reacted in a way I’d never seen before. Bug-eyed and beak agape, her gaze flicked between me and Grampa. “You mean he can just have them…as in a gift?”

Grampa Gruff shrugged. “Not like I can use that pony money here.”

“All right! I’m on it!” Gilda shot her wings out. “Where’d you put them?”

“You expect me to remember that? Go look in the bakery. If you can’t find them there, I might have hid them in an old pan at my place. Or Godot might be holding onto them.”

“That’s a lot of places they might be,” Gilda said. Her wings wavered a little, but stayed out. “Okay, I’ll find them. I’ll get Gabby to help me too. You and Gallus just wait here.”

She jetted away. Being alone with Grampa Gruff unsettled, and not only because he had no problem pecking the daylights out of me if I messed up around him. His niceness right then put me edge. He was never exactly cruel to me, and he did keep me out of trouble in his own way, but he’d never acted like he’d actually listened to Gilda about friendship. Yet here he was, already figuring out this gift deal…or doing a great imitation of it.

Grampa Gruff kept his eye on Gilda until she flew out of sight, and then looked back at me. He reached an arm under his wing and took out a leather purse.

“Well, Gallus,” he said. I wondered if he’d forgotten my name until Gilda mentioned it. “My oven’s on the fritz, and I’ve seen you bake scones with your little camp stove, so I’ll make you a deal. Four pony bits for every dozen scones you bake me before sunrise.”

My eyes fell to the pouch dangling from his claws. “Wait, didn’t you just send Gilda to find those?”

For a geezer, Grampa Gruff could move quick when he wanted to. One second his beak snarled, the next he nearly ripped off my ear fluff. “Dumbass! I was getting her out of here. She’ll be busy for a few hours at least. Now get baking or I’ll find some other urchin to do it.”

He let go. I put the stove back together and got the fire started, using strips of my tarp and the poles for fuel. So my stuff went up in smoke for his scones. At least I got some bits out of it.

While the first batch baked, I asked him, “Have I ever thanked you for everything you’ve done for me?”

His chest puffed out. “Not that I remember.”

“Good.” I turned back to the fire. “So I don’t have to take it back now.”

That got me another ear yank. At least I earned it that time.

* * *

I could laugh remembering all this. Look at this kid, so dumb he didn’t know what to do with a gift. Such a wimp he wouldn’t push back on some geezer walking all over him. No wonder he had to ditch his everything he knew, fly across the ocean, and sign up for a pony-run School of Friendship!

That’s a lie. I could never laugh about it. I want to yank that kid’s ears and squawk in his face. Leave the stuff and get to school, dummy. Go make friends. Push back on Grampa Gruff. Save some cupcakes from a rampaging yak. And would it kill you to be less defensive?

I guess it doesn’t matter. Look at me now, officially a rising second-year student at the School of Friendship. Flying paintings, nightmare caves, magic-stealing schemes, and even Princess Celestia’s terrible acting couldn’t stop me. I’m basically invincible!

That’s another lie. I’ve got plenty of weaknesses. Acting like they don’t exist won’t make them go away.

All right. First, I guess I have to talk about Sandbar.

Comments

[Samey90]

Interesting look at Gallus' life in Griffonstone, so far.

[Jay Bear v2]

9235161
I got some inspiration from your Carnivored. Hope you enjoy the rest of the story!

[Padgriffin]

OOoh, a Gallus Story! And one that'll regularly update! Sign me up.

[Jay Bear v2]

9237552
Thank you for the favorite! I’m in the US, so my Tuesdays and Thursdays may end up as early Wednesdays and Fridays for some folks, but I’ll stick to the schedule.

[Theta52775]

Well this story is off to a very interesting start!

[LeylaQuartz]

While the first batch baked, I asked him, “Have I ever thanked you for everything you’ve done for me?”
His chest puffed out. “Not that I remember.”
“Good.” I turned back to the fire. “So I don’t have to take it back now.”
That got me another ear yank. At least I earned it that time.

Got me giggling in the midst of feeling bad for him.