Guards, Justice, And The Equestrian Way
The barbarian birds rose to the challenge with savage, feline screams. As Giles and his lance stooped in a gathering flock overhead, their opposite numbers struggled to ascend to their altitude.
This was why the Princess's Bit was cruising at a higher altitude than they normally essayed. The birds of the Eagle Guard had warned them about the tribes that lurked in the higher peaks of the Pinions north-east of Roam, and sure enough, here they were. The slopes they'd been sailing over had gotten steeper and steeper as they'd motored further and further from the nominal imperial capital, but even here, the rolling terrain was still mostly vineyards, groves, and pastureland. In fact, the vinyards and groves seemed to have been crowded out in the last few miles by pastures full of grazing quadrupeds, both people and pigs alike.
But those pastures were cut off, just ahead, by slopes too steep to be cultivated, all rocks and twisted, stunted, piney woods, and, apparently…
Griffons. Aside from the details of their dress and their coloration, they might have been highlanders from back home. Just swap out those narrow-brimmed black hats for tammies, and dye their feathers a pale blue, and-
And the attacking flock was among Giles' lance. His birds struck the labouring, heaving griffon-folk with their spears reversed, as Giles had coached them. The blown birds quailed under the Crystal Guards' attack, and they broke, one and all, falling back down the way they'd come.
Pitiful.
Well, not all of them. One of the locals, a yellow-feathered older tom with a raptor's eye and browning crest, curved away from the brief clash, and circled back around, club in his talons.
"Indietro! Indietro, mannaggia a te! Get back, forestieri! You no feed on Cinquepiume! I kill you, me!" the tom yelled, racing straight towards Giles.
Giles jinked, dropping below the bravo's swing, and, retaining his velocity, curled around until he was now on the local's tailfeathers, or near-about.
"Do we look thin enough to you, that we'd be 'unting on this starveling wasteland?" Giles demanded, dodging the backward swipes of first one, then the other rear paws of the local. "Back off! Back off, and let us pass, you bluddy maniacs!"
Giles' blasted, lazy troopers fell into a loose sort of formation around him and his opponent, apparently content to let the lance corporal do the fighting for the lance.
Damn their citified tails.
Giles and the local danced, their sweeping strikes with talon and wing punctuated every now and again with a thick, oaken crack as their improvised clubs rattled off of each other, instead of a limb or a beak or something more breakable. As Giles came around for another exchange of blows, he caught in his peripheral vision the rest of the locals, cruising along lazily a hundred yards or so below his own birds, as if they had conspired together to encircle the fighting toms in a loose globular arena walled in flesh, wings, and idle weaponry.
Finally, Giles caught the cursing local a crack across the wing with his clubbed spear, and the tom spun out, falling down towards his compatriots gliding beneath the combatants.
Giles glared around at his own troopers, and snarled, "Well, were we entertaining enough for you lot?"
"Sure enough, lance corporal darlin'," sniggered Trooper Gilead. "And you dance so loverly, we all are quite in love, are we not, gentlegriffs and ladies?"
"Put a pony-sock in it," Giles snarled, as the locals' panting champion rose again to his lance's elevation, carried by two younger griffons, a hen and a smaller tom. "You back for more, sir? I haven't had the 'onor of yer name, which I think is rather little to ask, don't you think, Trooper Gilead?"
"Uh, er, I-" the trooper stuttered, not expecting to participate in whatever he thought Giles was doing.
"Trooper? Trooper, real?" asked the local, regaining his breath in the grasp of his own griffons. "No pirates, non siete predoni?"
"Pirates! Don't you recognize the Equestrian colours?" Giles asked, gesturing at- oh, they'd gotten pretty far from the ship. Then, recovering from the gaff, he gestured at the device on his sweat-stained tabard.
"No say yes, forestieri tom trooper, no. I is word no, trooper. You Equestrian? You no Equestrian. Why no pony?"
"Not every trooper in the Princess's employ is an 'erbivore, Mr. Bitalian Nobody. Does Mr. Bitalian Nobody have a name, or should I just keep callin' you that?"
And after that, the conversation contained a great deal more broken Equish, and considerably less wrangling.
"-they're so riled up because there was an… incident two days ago, in some place called- Gillie, how did he pronounce that?"
"Pascoladellydotorey, or somefing like that, Lance Corporal."
'Pascolo del Duetori", said the captive-griffon, who was being held by two of the Apple troopers.
"Right, Pascolo somethin’ or other. Two big damn birds, twice the size of a griffon, struck some sort of festival or ritual or somethin'-" the lance corporal continued.
"Called it th' course dey torey, he did!" Gillie said, brightly.
"La corsa dei tori," the captive said, correcting him.
"Right, that, and killed and dragged off a couple locals. Pissed off the whole neighbor'ood, it did. Sounds like it made a bluddy mess ov the Sinkpeemeh-"
"Cinquepiume," said the captive-griffon.
"Look, do you want to tell this story to 'er 'ighness, or can I finish?" the lance corporal snapped. "Where was I? The locals' reputation. Roight, made a mess of the local birds' reputation, it did. Now they're strikin' at anything that flies over'ead. On account of they don't eat if they don't show they're protecting their 'erds."
Lyra looked up at the princess's expressive face, trying to interpret what exactly it was she was looking at.
"How many locals were eaten?" the turul finally asked, sitting on the griffon's nest on top of the Bit's envelope like a queen on a throne.
"Uh, the local says - and 'is Equish wasn't the best, roight? But I think 'e said something that sounded like two, but it might 'ave been 'few', right?"
The turul hen looked steadily at the griffon troopers and their griffon prisoner, and finally turned to look down at Lyra, whose attempts to get more details out of the great bird about her new artifact had been interrupted again and again - first by briefings of the senior staff and the ship's crew, then arguments about courses and distances and schedules, and finally, this - what was it, an interrogation by proxy?
"I think I will need a pony witness to this - are you interested, Magus Heartstrings?"
"Wait, what? What am I witnessing? Do you think that-"
"Magus, you're not this stupid. Why do you think we're out here?"
"To get to Turul country, and take back your throne?"
"To get back my people, Magus. There is no throne. We've never had thrones, little pony. Thrones are for the people of the earth. We were always birds of the skies, and mountains. My ancestors have never sat on thrones."
"What's that got to do with a couple monsters in central Bitalia? Yeah, they might be-"
"Rocs. They're rocs, Magus Heartstrings."
"What if they are? They sound too big to be recent hatchings, right?"
"No, you're quite right. Some failure of my mother's in her dotage, I suspect. You never can tell when some hen might get separated from the flock, or hide that she'd dropped a clutch away from the brooding grounds."
"So, not your fault, right?"
"Magus, these birds are not my fault, they are my people."
Lyra cocked her head, and stared back at the great turul. "It's going to be a hard life, your highness, if you start claiming all the world's injustices for your own."
Damn, but she hated getting serious.
"All the world's injustices can account for themselves, but this is the beginnings of mine. I have something to prove, and those ferals are my… what do you call a tool you use to open a seam, a crack in a wall?"
"Uh, a… crowbar?"
"Just call me the queen of crows, then, Magus. Do you want to come watch me pry open fate's crate of injustices?"
"Do I? Do I?" Lyra asked, getting excited.
"Yes, Magus, that's what I asked you."
"Heck, yeah!"
The great bird turned back to the trooper. "Lance Corporal, which way did the prisoner say the rocs escaped?"
"There's a range east of 'ere, maybe they think the rocs are roostin' out that way. If there are any other attacks, I didn't get it out of 'im, sorry."
"Excellent! Can you get a unicorn-cart or something for the magus? I think we've some hard flying this afternoon, and I don't want to lose her off my back.
"Are you coming, Magus Heartstrings?"
"Yeah! Just let me go get some goggles!"
Gilead got his just deserts, as Giles chose him to shrug into the yoke of an officer's gig, to get the magus off of her usual perch on the royal back of not-really-a-roc-and-never-was. Getting the gig out of storage and Gilead rigged out felt like it had taken far too much time, but by the time they'd gotten it ready, the magus and the royal turul were still untangling the local tom's baffling knot of Equish and the local creole.
Giles managed to get in place just before the princess looked up. If he'd gotten it right, she might not have even noticed he'd left in the first place.
Her eye twitched once, faintly, and Giles suppressed a reciprocal twitch.
"Lance Corporal, Signor Mandriano and I have come to a conclusion. His only concern is my motivation."
"As you say, yer 'ighness," Giles said as stolidly as he could muster, looking to avoid getting entangled in… whatever this was.
"Why, he asked me, am I hunting monsters in his hills?" She turned to the Bitalian bumpkin.
"Distruggo i miei nemici quando diventano miei amici," the princess carefully said in a close approximation of the local's creole.
The Bitalian griffon looked much struck by this bit of unintelligible Bitalian gibber. The princess looked as self-satisfied as a royal the size of Giles' childhood eyrie could look. Everyone else looked as baffled as Giles felt.
Giles frowned, and followed the princess as she waved him away from the others into a huddle.
Or at least, as much of a huddle as a modestly-proportioned griffon and a towering turul princess could manage.
"What did you say to him, your highness?" Giles asked.
"What, you heard me! Don't they teach you birds the classics in the Griffish Isles? No? Ah, well. Old Roamish proverb - 'I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends'," she said grandly.
Giles frown found even newer and deeper furrows upon his wrinkled brow. "Sounds Equestrian."
"You see? Wisdom is universal."
"Eh. Equestrians are over-fond of talk of friendship. They say in the Highlands that an Equestrian will sucker-punch you, beat the shit out of you, pick your saddle-bags, and call it 'friendship'."
"Well, then, you get the general gist of my plan, lance corporal. Come on, then. Let us go make friends, the Equestrian way."
"By beak, talon, and lance?" Giles asked, smiling despite himself.
"My beak and talon, your lance. Two rocs. I can only deal with one at a time. Can you and yours keep the other off my back?"
"Yes, ma'am. Let's go befriend the 'ades out of them."
Lyra narrowed her eyes behind the flying-glasses the trooper had hoofed her before taking off in the wobbly contrivance these jarheads called an 'officer's gig'. Somehow all that open space below her hocks felt so much… emptier without a substantial turul or airship imposing themselves between Lyra and the vast depths of the upper airs.
She would not be sick, she would not be sick, she was a magus of Her Imperial Majesty's Own School…
Lyra distracted herself from the prospect of bursting like a unicorn-shaped water-balloon on the rocky slopes so, so far below by trying to remember the school chants.
It might have helped if she'd ever gotten around to going to the stadium on game-days.
The lance of griffons and the princess had been joined by a curious flock of armed locals, a rough and raffish bunch whose language Lyra didn't know. There had never been any interesting stories that came out of this part of Bitalia, and she had always had something more important to do than learn yet another degraded, decayed, decadent variant on Ancient Roamish. The rubbish they actually spoke in Roam proper was tedious enough as it was, and having to listen to it brought out all the snobbish Canterlotian worst in Lyra.
There! Shame and embarrassing conceit was more than enough to distract her from her impending doom-by-rapid-unplanned-descent!
And now she wasn't distracted again, blast it.
"Gillie, say something."
"Somefing, miss."
"Very funny. What's it like, knowing that you can't die from falling from a great height?"
"Who ever told you that one? Pull the other talon, it's got bells on. Griffons die when they fall, same as anygriff else. 'Onestly, I've more on me mind than that remote possibility, miss. Like the prospect ov bein' eaten by an achual roc. Seein' as we've only 'ad a shammin' one with us all the while."
"Oh, that shouldn't be a thing. Look at the princess! She eats much better than a pair of starving hill-rocs like these two'll be."
"So yer sayin' I ought take 'eart, wot our monster's bigger than theirs?"
"Exactly!"
"Roight. Sound logic, that is. Oh, look, 'is nibs 'as spotted somefing."
Lyra followed the trooper's gaze, and saw the lance corporal diving from his high overwatch position above their impromptu aerial circus.
She followed in turn the arc of the lance corporal's dive, and eventually spotted the crease in the mountain ahead. And two tiny brown streaks breaking out of that wooded crease.
Tiny, only until Lyra matched their size against the little twisted twigs which must have been great gnarled Norneighan spruces…
Somehow, the rocs had sensed them coming. Spotted, from their mountain holes? Something mystical? Lyra couldn't be sure.
Lyra squinted, barely making out anything of their quarry, made miniscule by distance. At this range, they might as well be turuls for all she could see. Or sparrows, for that matter.
Really, really big sparrows.
But the brown specks, rocs, sparrows, or griffons for all Lyra could see, were fleeing. And the princess was following, moving faster than she’d ever seen Lady George move before, her golden-and-bone diadem glittering like a bit of whitened sun in the burning afternoon glare of the very last day of Bitalia's long spring.
And Lyra and Gillie were chasing all three monsters, as if any of the griffons (and Lyra!) could have done anything against any one of them, if they chose to turn and swipe their mere mortal selves from the dubious support of airy nothingness.
Lyra gripped her rickety wooden cradle and hoped for the best.
The lance corporal was ahead of the rest of them, having taken a strong lead from his steep gliding dive, but the princess herself had shot past even him, her great wings devouring the emptiness in between.
As the two growing streaks of feral brown turned over the shoulder of the on-rushing mountain below, Lyra lost track of them.
Not to mention how she was suddenly distracted by the granite sharpness of the suddenly threatening crags that promised a terrible sudden stop to her and Gillie's racing course.
By the time they'd gotten around the grasping Norneighan spruce limbs and the shattered, stabbing granite spires, they were once again in the lovely, abyssal openness of the air, past that close call with the mountain, and Lyra had definitely lost the rocs and the princess, and even the lance corporal.
Everything was dazzle and sunshine and darkness and sea.
So much sea.
The rocs' mountain hideaway had hidden their view of the Haydriatic Sea beyond its heavy, wooded bulk. But now it wasn't.
And there she was, the narrow, constrained, blue-washed waters of the Haydriatic.
And a terminally dazzled Lyra was horribly disoriented.
The mountain below the rays of the westering sun was darkness in her sun-struck eyes, blending into the sea-rocks and the sea itself below, until the rays of said westering sun finally touched the Haydriatic miles to Lyra's east.
And then there was a sudden sun-struck flash of enormous mad-eyed brown feathered death and it was RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER AND-
A spearhead of silvery salvation struck the Brown Death in a glittering red arc, and Gillie spun Lyra, the gig, and himself out of the way of the Brown Death's great beaked doom.
As they recovered from their sudden turbulent brush with Brown Death, Lyra finally saw the form of her savior, as the lance corporal continued poking the enormous roc with his little bladed stick.
She suddenly remembered she was a unicorn, and mustered enough telekinesis to yank on the Brown D- the roc's tail-feathers.
Sue her, Lyra wasn't a battle mage.
The distraction was enough for Lance Corporal Giles to disengage, and for the rest of the lance to join in the harrying of the great monstrous bird.
In the distance, the princess had grappled with the other, larger roc, and the two of them were plunging towards the darkening seas below.
Lady George wasn't struggling in her terrible, uninterrupted plunge towards the ocean depths. The roc, on the other hoof, was - desperately trying to escape the larger turul's wings and talons, held for all the world like a mother-hen, protectively to her breast.
A breast which was bleeding from the pecking of the smaller monster, and wasn't doing a blessed thing to keep her and her captive from dropping into the Haydriatic Sea like a volcano-launched pyroclastic rock.
To shatter, no doubt, just like those did when they hit unforgiving water at terminal velocity.
Lyra watched in horror as they did exactly that.
And the princess of the turuls and her captured roc cut through the dark waters like a knife through gelatin.
Stats
Page generated in 0.028 seconds
Total duration
855 users online
593,432 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
"In fact, the pastureland seemed to have been crowded out in the last few miles by pastures"
...The pastureland was crowded out by itself?
"a pony witness to this, are you interested"
"a pony witness to this; are you interested"?
"Lyra narrowed her eyes behind the flying-glasses the trooper had hoofed her"
Wasn't she going to get her own goggles? (Earlier: ""Yeah! Just let me go get my goggles!"")
"were chasing all three three monsters"
"were chasing all three monsters"?
Thanks for writing!
11119946
Sigh. Thanks.
I mean, did you even really have to ask? It's unknown! It's unfamiliar! It's uncertain! It's dangerous! And it's just a hop skip and jump (just move your little rump) from WEIRD! That's all right up Lyra's ally!
Well yes, but you also ought to consider the additional political implications in all of this, specifically the long-standing tradition of Trottish griffs refusing to accept Equestrian rule/influence in their lands, and the Equestrians, in turn, perceiving the resisters as a threat for...what was it again? Decades? Point is, friendship doesn't come quite so easily after you've spent that long being enemies, leaving longstanding rivalries and mutual ill-will to take precedence in its absence instead.
Ah. I see Lyra is like me, and didn't particularly care for game-days when there were several infinitely better things to do instead.
Well, it's not a totally bad tactic...if she manages to pull out enough feathers in the process, it'll compromise the roc's flying ability, and then it's either down for the count or an easy target.
Also, I'd say this is a cliffhanger ending...except for the fact that the character(s) in question have, in a manner of speaking, already tumbled off said cliff, so...
11119948
Hey, typos and the like happen, and can be very sneaky. :)
But you're welcome, too, and thanks. :)
EEEEEEEE!! Another chapter! Omigosh and just like that this magnificent piece of literature is one step closer to completion! Oh I can't wait to see that happen so I can read rhe whole thing start to finish all over again! You're such an amazing writer, thank you so much for bringing all your fans into your telling of the world!
And then they died. The End!
Thank you for the chapter, it was very fun.
So... first meeting with the locals could have gone better. Griffins seem to be the same everywhere you go. It's almost reassuring to know what to expect when meeting new griffins groups: insults and a bloody attempt at murdering you before asking questions. But bandits, monsters and pirates seem to be problems in the region so that might be a healthy attitude to have.
And we got our first fight against Rocs! It simply underlined how dangerous and monumental a task the Crystal Guards took and how serious the crisis is. A couple of Roc can become a bane in a region, a whole hungry flock spreading across the world would be catastrophic. Congratulations, you created great stakes for your story.
Still, a whole lance is required to be in danger to somewhat keep one distracted and they needed Lady George to kill the other one (damn Lady George is badass!). The fights ahead will not be easy. For example, how many lances will it take to kill a Roc? How many shots? How much magic? Until the regiment come up with tricks and tactics to fight them... they might loose some people in the process, even then they are fighting giant monsters.
At least this skirmish debriefing will be useful to prepare for the future.
Speaking about debriefing to your superior, where was Gleaming and the rest of the officers staff during this whole incident? Gilda his probably still dealing with a missing Ping but Gleaming? It's been a couple of chapters since we saw her. Shouldn't a group assaulting her troops and a sudden expedition to kill two Rocs be something that would get to attention?
I want to say that I really like your Lyra. She is quirky and git flaws aplenty but also recognize some of them. Great character and I love reading about her adventures. If only she has a good foil for her character. She got such a manic energy that bounce everywhere like the Doctor in Doctor Who but she doesn't have the companion that keep her grounded and give back the sass. Gleaming and Gilda are good fit but they are already each others foils. Her new student hasn't gained enough familiarity between them yet to take the role. Maybe later. Same goes for the rest of the crews, they are growing on each others but there is that them/her barrier that seems to be there...
Man I hope Lyra will stay with the Crystal Guards for all their future adventures.
I want to say again that I think you are good at creating names and region for the world of MLP.
I was curious about her capabilities in that regard. Magus she might be, but a dangerous powerhouse she isn't. Well... still dangerous in other ways
.
Always a good comfort to have.
Then comes the monsters escalation.
Lady George was given the information on the location of the wayward Rocs by her new diety right? Will she keep getting those insights to pic off the stragglers along the way? If yes, it might give the Guards a way to practice their tactics and maneuvers but it would be at the cost of a longer and less direct travel which would cost more.
Huh... I just realized that they might want one of the Rocz corpses. Maybe not the one who have fallen into the ocean but if they can have the other one in not such a bad shape they could learn a lot from it.
And by they, I mostly mean Lyra who is the adventurer magus/monster specialist of the group. I bet she would love to conscrip the ship doctor for an autopsy and Lyra would also be able to try to learn more about why a Turul becomes a Roc or maybe how the birds magic affects them.
Perhaps there would be some magical components that could be salvaged as well and the feathers could be used to , 😏 hehehe, fluff the regiment coffers since we know Lady George used her own duvet and loose feathers to fund an expedition to kill her brother/find a way to remove the coronet. That way, even if the overall travel is longer, they could exchange Roc feathers along the way to bather for some ressources if Lyra doesn't find a way to use them for a spell or something. Otherwise, the smallest feathers might be quite fetching on the helmet of Guards, sorts of a badge of honor to have participated in the campaign.
However would Lady George accept that the guards do such a grimm job and desecrate the one corpse of her people in the name of science/tactic/loot?
Perfectly executed fall from grace!
*guardians of gahoole intensifies*
I got a little wobbly just reading that.
Let's hope the princess of the turuls has a lot of osprey in her!
11123289
I am pretty sure that new deal with the sea goddess come with a dlc package benefit for water features.
If she didn't plunge the Roc at terminal velocity, I would have said she brought the bird there for an ultra splashy baptism to their religion. But since she went all Butt Buster on it, I guess it was a move to finish it off and an big sacrificial offer to the sea.
What the Turul leader might need after that is pain medication and ointment by the barrel.
Brilliant work in capturing Lyra's disorientation. That mare just wasn't meant for dogfighting. Now to see how well George comes out of it...
What's that you say? Terminal velocity, you say? Sea water you say? Eh, Auntie's got it covered. Right? Right.
11125161
Well put. I’m even a train guy, so I know damn well how dangerous and deadly boiler is explosions are. I guess I got caught up in the pedantics instead of the semantics.
Though they’d less be carbon outlines on the wall and more like someone threw ground meat at the wall. Boiler explosions aren’t chemical explosions that can vaporize stuff. (I think.) As I understand it, they’re so deadly because of the sudden pressure from the scalding steam being released, and, more importantly, the hundreds if not thousands of pounds of shrapnel from the boiler.11121420
Wait, which book does that happen in? Haven’t read those books in, like, the better part of a decade.
11125489
Actually from the video game. fall from grace was a move where you lock talons with another owl and divebomb into the ground. Ideally tossing your opponent down and recovering before you hit yourself. Iirc it was basically like a gears of War chainsaw duel.
11126410
I'd forgotten they made a video game. Mainly because I never played it, since it was for the movie which, while well animated, was...frustrating. Even as short as those books are, trying to cram the first, like, eight (8!) books into one movie is never going to go too well.
I wonder how much getting rid of the Rocs will help with the relations with the previously hostile locals? Getting safe passages in the territory and information on other possible Rocs seems the most likely but maybe there could be more benefits?
11125487
11125161
Yeah, steam explosions are really bad news. And that's the main issue for a nuclear reactor as well in terms of what will cause the most (short term) damage. Chernobyl? Steam explosion.
However... no boiler or nuclear reactor ever had an issue because it 'went critical'. In the context of a nuclear reaction "critical" simply means "Self sustaining". For a reactor, it just means the reactor is turned on and operating at a steady, constant power level. Super Critical, just means the reaction is increasing, as in someone being powered by the reactor turned on a light bulb and the reactor is shifting a bit up in power to supply the added load.
Prompt Critical is the bad one, pretty much every major nuclear incident caused by internal issues (The Fukushima one following the earthquake/tsunami was external issues breaking the containment buildings) is the result of a reactor going Prompt Critical.
Hanging from cliffs again, I see.
Lyra's gonna lose her lunch.