Fetch And Carry
Gilda was disappointed to find that the Griffish Isles were almost as sere and grey as Griffonstone herself. There were far fewer trees on the Isles - or at least, on Skye and the other islands she saw in her first season away from the mainland. The grass was somewhat green, but the combination of the endless rains and the bitter cold winds off the Gulf of Griffonstone meant that being out and about in the elements was even more miserable than it had been back home.
The rolling green hills were full of livestock, though. The ranchers of the islands tended to endless teeming herds of swine, and goats, and sheep. The griffons of the Isles were all huge by Griffonstone standards, and a big part of that was the fat diet of these Equestrian compared to that of their cousins among the free griffons.
(It was only much later that someone explained to Gilda why it was so important that the specific breeds of sheep and goats they ranched on the Isles were not the speaking sort. She never quite understood the explanation, but gathered that attempting to eat something that could volubly express its opinions on its presence on the menu tended to be more than a little awkward.)
But by and large, despite the significant improvements in diet, being a semi-voluntary recruit in the Territorials wasn't all that different from being a fledgeling in Griffonstone. You got wing-slapped if you pissed off someone bigger than you, you did what you were told, and if you were lucky, your daily meal didn't cost you more than you could pay.
Gilda was lucky that most of her hurts from her kithood hadn't left their marks, but the corporals' wings were a good deal sharper and heavier due to the sheathed wingblades and armor they wore as a sign of their authority. More than a few of the griffons in the ranks bore scars from the heavy wing of military discipline. But still, the food was a lot better than anything available in Griffonstone, and more often than not, you didn't have to go hunting it down yourself.
Gilda never misbehaved so badly that the corporals felt the need to take the sheaths off of their wingblades. And, having had to clean up the remnants of her former rebel flightmates in the aftermath of the Fleur de Lis's ambush, she was glad enough of that. There had been surprisingly few survivors captured in that action aside from Gilda, but a good many malnourished corpses that had to be recovered from the sea. Didn't want to accustom the sharks to a griffon diet, after all.
Gilda wasn't sure to be pleased or perplexed that Gerta hadn't been among the eviscerated dead.
They didn't trust the Griffonstonian fledgeling with weapons or armor, of course. Gilda spent her first season among the Territorials as a sort of glorified servant, fetching and carrying, doing errands for the officers and the corporals, and cleaning and doing laundry.
So, so much laundry. She didn't understand how ponies and griffons that rarely wore clothing could generate so much dirty laundry, and yet there it all was, cauldron after cauldron of stinking towels, armor-padding gambesons, and cleaning-rags which no longer deserved the name 'towel'. All the work reminded Gilda of how her mother had made her take care of her crippled old grandfather in his last days after that assassin had missed her stroke. She remembered the old bird and his stories of the open-hooved ponies of his youth, and sometimes, she drifted off, reminiscing.
Ensign Gleaming Shield somehow always knew when Gilda was dreaming at her work, and was always there with a swiftly-swung swagger-stick to wake the recruit up. Better the stick than the heavy wings of an incensed corporal, Gilda figured.
The Fifth Territorial was not, as it turned out, assigned to the corvette which they'd used to ambush Gilda's flock. The battalions floated from posting to posting as high command directed, where ever they were needed. Part of this was that there were never enough griffons to fill the gaps in the Equestrian defenses, but most of it was that they didn't want the territorials to get too, well, territorial. A battalion which developed relationships with the locals was a battalion which was ripe for corruption, cooperation with smugglers, or outright rebellion.
In the end, griffons were griffons, ponies were ponies, and the predatory cat-birds simply did not herd. Your average griffon, Isle or Griffonstone, was out for themselves.
Or so the ensign told Gilda, often, emphatically, angrily. Gilda did many things for the battalion, but somehow, more and more of them seemed to rotate around satisfying the impossible to satisfy Gleaming Shield. Her weapons were never sufficiently sharpened, her armor never sufficiently polished, her small officer's cabin never properly organized, no matter how many hours Gilda wasted following the young unicorn's impossible check-lists.
"Why did you get me a skinning knife?" demanded Gilda's purple-coated tormenter.
"You wanted to skin bears?"
"What? Where in my instructions did I say anything about bears?"
"Right there, third item," Gilda helpfully pointed the instruction out on the roll of cheap paper.
"Collect bearings, trimming knife, and replacement tyre for cart?"
"Yeah, that. Bear trimmin' knife, and a spare tire. Figured we was goin' hunting."
"Bearings, you featherbrain. We needed to replace the bearings on the axle for that supply truck."
"Well, that's boring. And it looked more like bear-huntin' equipment on the list. I can't make out in your talon-writing, anyways. Anygriff ever tell you, you can’t write for piss? Ow!"
"Yes, I think that will remind you who is the recruit here, and who is the ensign. Are you going to talk back again?"
"No, missus."
"Don’t call me that."
"OK, governor."
"Gah! Corporal! Take this useless treebilly away, and get some work out of her, I surely cannot!"
Gilda turned around to find one of the omnipresent corporals scowling and tapping his rear paw.
"Hi, there, Corporal Guillaume," chirped Gilda. "Got anything you need polished?"
"Why do you do this to me, Recruit? She’s so easy to make happy."
"Coulda fooled me."
Gilda didn't escape a wing-beating that day.
As she struggled with the uniform-buckles and armor and the beak-stinging mixture they used for polishing in the battalion, Gilda thought about how that old Grandpa Gruff must never have had to deal with a pony like Gleaming Shield, or else the old bird must have been a more clever trading-griff than she'd thought he was. Although she had to admit, he'd been a griffon of substance before the closing of the Isles had wrecked his business. It had torn the owlish old buzzard's heart out, losing the business. He'd never been the same afterwards.
"Gilda my dear, we can't afford to send you abroad this season," he'd apologized. "The bits just aren't there this year, not with the ships not sailing. Maybe next year."
The ships hadn't sailed the next year, either, and the year after that, Gruff was dead, murdered by one of his relatives, or so Gilda and her mother had always believed. It was death, in those days, to admit to being related to Gruff's cousins and siblings, or any of their ancestors. That was about the time that they'd moved into the back alleys, and Gilda's mother had started muttering about the rent, and the Brutal Bill.
Sometimes Gilda thought she should blame the ponies for ending the trade with Griffonia. And sometimes she blamed the mad Equestrian griffons who set off the bombs. And sometimes she blamed the Griffonstonians for being such a squalid bunch of fratricidal vultures.
At least the ponies fed their troops well, even a half-prisoner like Gilda. And when the corporals ordered her to join the exercises and the evolutions, she found herself having more fun than she'd ever admit. They slotted Gilda into the last rank, last file, so when she missed her cues, the whole formation wasn't thrown into confusion. More often than not she just stumbled along at the back where her mis-steps couldn't trip up anygriff else. This was, they told her, how the Territorials taught. Example.
Example was the school of griffkind, so saith the corporals.
The battalion eventually moved out of the barracks beside the home-port of the corvette, cleverly called 'Harbor City'. A short march brought the column to the gates of a small fort on the west side of Skye, and they settled in for what looked at first like a long stay.
But as soon as Gilda started feeling like she had found a roost there, the Fifth picked up stakes again, and flew out to one of the lesser islands, a flyspeck out towards Bugbear territory called 'Seafoam'. Ensign Gleaming Shield fitted Gilda into a harness, and ordered the corporals to show her how to haul her share of the battalion's baggage. Gilda couldn't exactly kick about becoming a cat-bird of burden, because the rest of the battalion were similarly burdened or sent flitting about. The Territorials carried more baggage with them than Gilda had seen among all of her mother's neighbors and enemies put together. The Territorial griffons complained about how spartan and impoverished the princess's service was, but to the ex-Griffonstonian hen's eyes, they were impossibly rich, impossibly blessed with possessions and… stuff.
Even the supposedly austere Gleaming Shield's kit resembled that of a golden-saddled Saddle Arabian pasha in Gilda's wealth-dazzled eyes. And weighed as much as Gibralt's Rock.
While they were packing for Seafoam, Gilda noticed the little purple unicorn lingering over a sepia-tone portrait of two unicorns. The ponies had invented some magical process for taking the living likeness of a person or persons, to the very life. For some reason it was only in shades of brown, but Gilda had heard rumors of improvements coming down the line which would render the pictures - the 'photographs' - in living color.
Gilda almost asked her mistress who the uniformed stallion with the two-toned mane and his tall, lanky filly-friend cosplaying as an alicorn princess were, but the deep sadness with which Gleaming Shield stroked the picture-frame, and the near-murderous rage that replaced that emotion when she noticed the griffon hen looking at her 'photograph', told Gilda well enough to leave well enough alone.
They packed the portrait in a trunk, and it didn't come back out when they unpacked on Seafoam.
While the work detail were setting up the kit and canteen in the fort above the little port of Seafoam, Gilda asked one of the corporals about the ensign and her don't-even-touch-it-with-your-dirty-griffish-talons 'photograph'.
"Hen, you keep your fool beak out of matters that will get it flash-fried right off of your face. That was the hero of Firefly Memorial Square. Everygriff knows that!"
"How would I know, Corporal Gustav?" asked Gilda. "I've never heard of Firefly Memorial Square. What is it?" She knew more than she would admit, but it was always good to let the corporals talk. It made them feel important, and gave them the impression that she was open to instruction and more information.
More information was always good.
"There were four big bombings on the Thirteenth, Gilda my hen. But there were only three big slaughters in Canterlot, because a unicorn threw himself at the fourth, caught the bomber who was planning to slaughter an entire celebratory gathering in that square, nearby the western palace gates. A brave, impossibly strong lieutenant with the Royal Guard, off-duty and attending the events with his family. Grabbed the griffon in the act, placing the bomb. He enveloped the both of them in an impermeable barrier-spell, contained the explosion, kept it from killing dozens. Only two died in Firefly Memorial Square, the hero and the mad bomber.
"They put a statue of Shining Armor three times life size in that square, right where her brother died to save a crowd."
Gilda, mesmerized, blinked in confusion. "Wait, what? Whose brother?"
"Ensign Shield’s brother, you ninny," said the corporal. "Did you think I was telling you this for my own amusement? Her brother was killed by an Isles rebel, damn them all.
"They say that the ensign was standing in the crowd that the bomber planned on blowing up, that she was within earshot when the explosion obliterated her brother and the bomber, for all I know she might have even seen it when Shining Armor was swept from existence as thoroughly as a gobbled-up fledgeling disappearing down the gullet of Nightmare Moon.
"You ask me, if I were Ensign Shield… let's just say that every day she doesn't go on a griffon-murdering rampage of revenge is a good day. Now help me get this pantry door re-hung properly. This fortress is a disgrace to the service."
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Haaaaa... tragic. I suppose soon we’ll find out exactly how much of a war story this really is.
9219885
I prefer Hogan’s myself. Though I admit my interaction with either was limited to only a few episodes.
It's the casual nature of this sentence that really makes it shine.
"Treebilly" is a brilliant construction.
Oh. Oh. Yeah, I'm with the Corporal. Do not taunt Happy Fun Pony, Gilda. Not if you like staying in one piece.
I can see the unfortunate implications that come with shining armor’s death, when he died so did “twilight sparkle” and when she died so did the hope of harmony, and without the hope of harmony the stars will aid in her escape, and the sun will never rise again.
9220383
Eh, maybe. Harmony finds a way, and there's always another.
I'm sure Celestia found a student, somewhere.
9220426
Yeah, we're doomed.
9220426
Indeed. In Equestria, it’s “next
manpony up.”So that I'm clear--the Griffish Isles are under Equestrian occupation, but Griffonstone itself is still independent, just no more a friend of Equestria's than the isles currently.
Just trying to make sure my mental picture of the politics is all accurate, see.
9219318
What you're describing is more what various European countries (and Canada to an extent, I guess) have been toying with lately. I had taken "totalitarian welfare state" to be more equivalent to Stalin-era Soviet Union, when the shortcomings of communism showed itself at its absolute worst.
But then, this fic probably didn't help with that, as the setting of Griffonstone very much reminds me of the last days of imperial Russia right before the Soviets took over, so I had Russia on the brain already.
9220426 Is it weird I'm imagining Celestia driving a windowless white van past Magic Kindergarten, telling all the unicorn fillies to come look in the back of her van, she's got a dragon egg they can hatch?
Well that was surprisingly dark, but also explains a lot
9220383 Not to mention whatever emotional damage Shining's death did to Cadance ....
Well, congrats, you've done the impossible and made me hate Twilight Sparkle. Or Gleaming Shield, whatever, it's still Twilight
You know what, screw it. This needs more chapters. Following.
9333848
War changes you, for better for worse.
9333848
How..? Prologue is a hook to get people reading, and the second chapter gave plenty of reason to be sympathetic to 'Twilight'. Out of nowhere terror attack destroys someone's entire character and sends them down a path of revenge. I feel like this is less "You made me hate Twilight" and more "I can't stand Twilight being anything less than perfect". We've had what, two true interactions between Gilda and Twilight by this point? You really can't infer too much of her character from two interactions. While I admit that the whole "Shining got killed, time to go off the deepend" is kinda lazy, it's honestly understandable from a character standpoint.
Think about it. Twilight watches her "BBBFF" die horrifically because of bigotry and spite, most likely either before or very soon after the events of Nightmare Moon. So one of the only friends of an already neurotic/honestly sociopathic person dies horrifically by a COMPLETELY different race, one which they already don't see with very much respect. It makes sense.
Also, it's hardly impossible for Twilight to be a horrible character. She constantly abused Spike, ignored previous friends for study, tried to appease old friends because she just felt guilty. Twilight can be a pretty horrible character, and those traits can be easily amplified through fictions.
9580906
Agreed. But I usually don't count the Spike stuff against her character as much as I do against the writer's bad decisions. They've openly admitted none of them knew how he should be written. Some used him for slapstick comedic relief others had him be the voice of reason. That's where the whole idiot lever between Spike and Twilight came into the fandom. "Who has the common sense this episode" sort of thing.
It's easy: you make some camps, put all the damn beakies into them, and then gas them! It's a very final solution to the problem!
Alondro = Pony Hitler
And then do the same with the CHERNGELERNGS!! Can't have them spying on us all the time!
Uhm Alondro = Pony Stalin?
And THEN, you just kill everything else and FEED UPON THEIR MISERABLE WAILING SOULS!!
Alondro = Pony Cthulhu...
9220426
I imagine the Discord in your world is going to turn ponies inside out and keep them alive to enjoy their endless suffering.
Also, he won't ever be able to to be stopped, because if he becomes 'darker' and a bit more competent, he's simply too powerful to defeat plausibly.
I like this version of equestria
Well that's interesting.
Poor Shining Armor! Sure he went out a hero, but he didn't get to marry Princess Cadance or have Flurry Heart.
Hahaha hahaha hahaha-tragic.
10043056
Of couse you would when end up with a bunch of nations that somehow thinks its bad to gas the je- griffins. And when we also need to do it to the thestrals and changelings cause they aren’t pure ponies.
9220426
Now I can't help but imagine a scene where Celestia is dragging Sunset through the halls of Canterlot high by her ear, telling her it's time to come home and that her little rebellion is over. All while VP Luna watches and wonders if her sisters finally gone off the deep end.