Absent Brothers
"My name is Turulorszag Hercegnő Gyongyi," said the shaggy looking griffon while her great tame pet monster looked curiously over her shoulder, "but ponies generally call me Lady George for short."
"I'd hate to think what they'd call you for long," laughed Lyra, trying to concentrate on the boring griffon, and not insult her by staring at the beast behind her. It wasn't often that you came across a Greater Roc.
And lived to tell about it.
"There's a list of titles as long as your left foreleg. Not as long as mine, or the list of titles belonging to your own princess, or so I'm told," the forgettable griffon said.
What was that they had strapped to the greater roc's head? Lyra wished she could look up at it and get a better look. Or even better, climb up that ladder over there and see if she could get a clean view of the great bird's wing-feathers. She'd heard that there were a good many 'roc's feathers' that had flooded the collector's market in the last year and a half.
None with any provenance to speak of, of course, which made them worthless for Lyra's studies, blast it all.
"I'm sorry, what, I was too busy staring at your roc. What did you do to get it so tame? I've never even laid eyes on a living Greater Roc! Let alone one that wasn't trying to eat everything on four hooves it could see!"
"Lyra Heartstrings!" yelled that stick in the mud from school wearing Lyra's old friend like a cape. "You know very well why you're here!"
"I do? Really? Have you ever met me, Twilight? When have I ever known what I was doing?"
"Lyra! Concentrate! Princess Celestia shipped you halfway across Equestria to help us with this problem. Can't you remember what you're about for five minutes?"
"To Human Hell with that, Twilight, I can't be bothered to fuss about what I'm supposed to be doing! There's a Greater Roc looking right at me! And I'm not seeing it from within its closing jaws! Not that I'd object to examining the anatomy of a Greater Roc from inside the gastro-intestinal tract - again! - but I suppose the acid and the chewing and the dying might be a bit of a downer."
"What! Why! How?" babbled Twilight Sparkle, the silly filly.
"Three very good questions," grumbled the other griffon from behind Lyra's sort-of-friend from school. This griffon was less boring than the one with the fascinating pet. Big specimen, clearly royal plumage.
That reminded Lyra.
"Oh, right, some sort of crypto-zoologic problem with princessly overtones, right? Is this about the griffish royal behind you? She looks young, I'm gonna presume some sort of heir from one of the lesser principates, or maybe a condado? Hey, there, cutie, what's your name?"
"Sergeant Gilda, you daft cu-"
"Gilda! Let me deal with Lyra. Sorry, Lady George, let me try again with Lyra. Give me a moment, and maybe I'll get that spell to stick on her this time… come on, Lyra. Let me fix you."
"Damnit, Twilight, you know I don't take 'fixes'."
"I know you claim you don't, Lyra, but - could you at least stop calling me by that name? Please? I haven't been Twilight Sparkle in nearly ten years!"
"Ugh. If you insist. It was always so damn morbid of you, 'Gleaming'. Like wearing the poor colt's mane-hair in a locket, or worse, something bigger." Would a winkie fit in a locket? Maybe more of a reliquary, like the old saints of Harmony. Lyra had once seen a mummified hoof that the Order of Order had claimed was Smart Cookie's rear left pronker…
"Lyra!" Gleaming Shield whined in embarrassment.
There was Lyra's old friend. Lyra almost paused in respect for that moment of real emotion, but screw that. "There you are! Come on, now, stop hiding behind that pose. Shiny would never have stood for it, you know!"
"Damn it, Lyra. Even Cadance doesn't call him that anymore."
"Well, you know I never did think she was good enough for him. I was going to marry him when I grew up! But no, he had to go mooning around after that big soggy pink blanket. She would have made him miserable."
"Lyra, you're the biggest fillyfooler I know."
"Eh, we could have made it work. He always had that twink thing going for him. I betcha I could have got him to dress up in a skirt and a saddle, and let me-"
"LYRA HEARTSTRINGS, YOU SHUT YOUR FILTHY MOUTH ABOUT MY BIG BROTHER!"
"Ha! Knew I could get you to take that stick out of your ass, even if it was only to beat me like a pinata with it."
Oh, hey, that wasn't a Greater Roc. If Lyra wasn't mistaken… "Is that a True Turul wearing a coronet?"
"What? How? Why?"
"Three very silly questions, Twilight. Your blasted counter-curse scrambled my brains. It just wore off. I told you I have an idiosyncratic reaction to curses. Your silly fix nearly knocked my sweetmeats out of my skull. Huh. Huh. Look at that."
Lyra spun on her hooves and looked around the room for the now-missing dull-blue griffon. Nope, just the one juvenile royal.
"Hey, you up there! Are you the Hercegnő Gyongyi that just introduced yourself to my dumb flank about ten minutes ago?"
"Why yes, Magus Heartstrings. Thank you for catching up to the conversation at last."
"Ha! That's great. Twilight, the princess said she was smart, but she didn't say that she had a sense of humor! However has she put up with you for this long?"
"The winds only know," snarked the other royal in the room.
"Hey!" yelled Lyra. "Only I'm allowed to make fun of Gleaming Shield! Step off, you blasted predatory hidalgo! And why are you in that preposterous outfit. Wait."
Lyra spun again, staring at her friend. "Twi- Gleaming Shield! What are you doing in that historical reconstruction! Did you invite me to a costume ball again and not tell me I had to get dressed up?"
Twilight Sp- no, Gleaming Shield closed her eyes and visibly if silently counted to ten. "No, Lyra. This is not cosplay. The princesses - well, princess, now - commissioned me in a really, really old guards regiment. This is, I'm pretty sure, the appropriate garb for a Crystal Guardsmare."
"Cool, cool. Wow, look at it glitter," Lyra said as she trotted around her friend, staring at the shiny cloth. "How did the clothier get that gemlike look to it? Oh, geez, I just made the connection - they literally turned you into a 'Gleaming' Shield. Hahahaha! That's amazing!"
"Lyra! Pay attention. And stop yelling at Gilda. She's not a hidalgo, she's from Griffonstone. I guess that royal bastards are as common as rubble in the streets there?" Gleaming Shield looked at the supposed Griffonstonian for confirmation.
"More or less, captain ma'am. Magus Heartstrings, good to meet you-"
"Oh, don't bother with that. I'm not really a doctor yet. Well, they keep telling me to go over to the academy and defend my dissertation, and it'll just be a formality, but those dotty old shelf-rags won't let me submit my real dissertation, so bugger them with a length of chalk. They want one of my boring, lesser compositions. Won't let me submit The Bipedal Ape In Central Marezonian Iconography. As if it wasn't my very best work!"
"Maguses aren't just academics-"
"Yeah, but they mostly are. And really, the thaumic part of the job is foal's play when you literally can't be cursed." Lyra paused, and reconsidered. "Except apparently by you. What's up with that, Shield? Yeah, Shield. That trips off the tongue better than 'Gleaming'. Especially with the way you're just gleaming, standing there. Seriously, don't you have an undress uniform that won't make my eyes water?"
"Our fashionista is working on it," Gleaming Shield said, defensively.
"A fashionista, really? I know you Sparkles are made of bits, but damn, filly, you're really laying it out. Wait, Crystal Guard. I've never heard of that. But I've heard something like that. Where'd I hear of that?"
"It's some lost city-state in the Frozen North. Disappeared-"
"Eleven hundred years ago! The Sombrean Domination! Damn, yeah, I remember that! There was speculation that Cadenza was somehow a harbinger of that old story, you know? That broken crystal heart on her hips."
"That was always an ugly rumor, Lyra. You know her cutie mark was a source of pain to poor Cadance."
"Twi-Shield, everything is a source of pain to that mare. She walks through a world with razor-blades sticking out of all the furniture and the fixtures. I know you like her, but I got tired of her routine a long, long time ago."
"That mare, as you call her, is now the Duchess of Trottingham, and the garrison you're standing in, Magus Heartstrings," said the griffon in the sergeant's stripes.
"Hrm. No ma'am for me?" Lyra asked, slyly.
"No, Magus Heartstrings."
"Gilda! Behave. I think she doesn't approve of you, Lyra. Come on, let's talk about this. You've broken through the curse, that means you'll be useful. You'll be coming with us?"
"Oh, I don't know, depends on where you end up going. Will it be somewhere dangerous and full of strange and unusual characters and critters trying to kill me?"
"Almost certainly, yes," said Gleaming Shield.
"Excellent! Count me in!"
Hurricane Heartstrings blew out of Lady George's stable like she blew into it, whirling and setting everything at cross-purposes from what and where it ought to have been. Gilda looked up at the bemused turul, picking at her coronet, then she looked down at her exhausted unicorn.
"Captain, ma'am, are you sure we need her?" Gilda asked, softly.
"Yeah, yeah, I think it'll be for the best."
"Captain, ma'am, she's the antithesis of military discipline."
"As if you're some paragon, Gilda! You've gotten very stuffy since I gave you that sergeancy."
"I'm not sure 'sergeancy' is a word, captain ma'am. And I've always been a bit stuffy, you just haven't noticed until now. But this mare - she seems to delight in setting your back up."
"And you think she's stealing your thunder?"
"I think she's at least three of the winds in a bag, captain ma'am."
"I… don't think I know what that means. I should probably look into griffish theology at some point, shouldn't I?"
"I wouldn't bother, captain ma'am. It's mostly about familial murder, silly babble about winds and elements and debts. Aside from the business on the subject of debts, none of it is good for much of anything, except a useful vocabulary when it comes to cursing things. A great wealth of curses, griffish theology."
"What were we talking about?"
"Crazed academics shipping out with a military expedition to put a cursed foreign princess on a foreign throne."
"Nest," interjected Lady George. "We don't have a throne, we have a nest. Big, messy thing, the Great Nest."
The big turul sighed, sinking on her haunches into a brooding posture. "I'm not sure if this won't all be for naught. We're so very late in the year. I had no idea how long it would take to put all this together back when I agreed to the delay last winter."
"It's debatable how much of an expedition we might have gotten together with Princess Cadance's direct aid," Gilda said, defensively. It had been Gilda's objections that had put a period on that abortive run towards a slap-dash charge into Bugbear Territory.
"Don't get me wrong, Gilda. You were right at the time, and you're right now. It would have wrecked the Duchess's relationship with her 'aunt', and bought me no favors in Canterlot. And odds are I would have been torn to pieces by angry guards, if we ran into my brother instead of, what, five or six singleton subjects hunting the fjords and the taiga. If we were lucky."
"So instead, we're looking at a dead run eastwards with a single squadron of undertrained guards, and a retrofitted 'carrier' on its first flight," Gilda said, bitterly. She wasn't feeling great about how slowly everything seemed to be moving. Somehow, it had felt faster when she hadn't been responsible for any of it, last time.
But then, she had been the only green trooper involved in all the great movements and hard-charging all-birds-full-ahead actions. Somehow, it was different when the barely-fledged birds were depending on you, rather than vice versa.
"As I understand the problem, we have to make a show this year, though," Gleaming Shield said suddenly. "Even if we don't do anything other than get chased out of Turulian airspace. Turulorszogian? What's the right adjective, L-Prinzesin G-Gyorgyi?"
"Hercegnő Gyongyi, Captain Shield. Or Gyongyike if you're being affectionate. Or, just call me George like every other bird in this foolish archipelago does."
"Gyongyike? It sounds like it means something."
"Little Pearl, in Equish," George admitted, blushing. "You can see why I went with George instead."
"Why? It's beautiful!" Gleaming Shield exclaimed.
Gilda rolled her eyes at the two crab rolls being innocent and silly at each other. "All that put aside, captain ma'am, Lady George ma'am, why is it important to get our tailfeathers singed off?"
"Because," said Lady George, slowly and sadly like a mother to her retarded child, "When my confused, horrible brother gets up off of the Great Nest and sits brooding on the real nests, the eggs that hatch won't hatch healthy turuls, but screeching monsters thirsting for sapient blood. And if I don't make a visible effort to keep that from happening - even if I fail horribly, even if they simply drive me off with a few tail feathers lost in the attempt - well, that's better than just letting big brother Mátyás's illusions that he should have been born Márta carry all of those turul souls off into roc-borne Pokol."
"They need to see the attempt," Gleaming Shield said, grimly.
"Even if I lose badly, yes. But I'd prefer not to die in the attempt, young Gilda. Captain Shield."
Gilda looked up at the great bird.
"We'll do our best, Gyongyike," the griffon promised.
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Oh dear, Lyra's into vore, isn't she?
Heh, I like this iteration of Lyra.
wait she has a younger brother????
i think lyra may have just become the best character in the story . .
9860945
George does, yes, or at least has a brother. That’s why we’re in the mess we’re in to begin with.
Or that particular part of the mess, at least. It’s just as likely we stepped in a few other things on the way here and it all sort of just mushes together after a while.
George's brother wanted to rule and chased her out, but unlike Earth there really is a Divine Right of Kings for Turuls. Or curse, considering that some disaster will inevitably break the royal family's line of succession and the turuls' claim on sapience with it.
Somewhere around when George was introduced we learned the more-or-less queen of the turuls has to warm the eggs or they hatch insane. Males don't count.
Even bearing in mind that this is coming from Lyra, I have several questions.
In any case, Lyra is definitely the best thing about this universe at the moment. No offense to Gilda, but I have a weakness for endearingly eccentric academics. Looking forward to seeing who else is joining this doom cruise.
9861057
no I ment twilight in my post I knew the big bried brother who thinks he si female for some odd way is an issue.
I just reread chapter and though it was twilight talking to Gilda, not Gilda talk to lady George
9861089
well we have yet to see rainbow dash, applejack, or fluttershy so I guess one of those 3 will be pull in that or starlight if she is around, that or agent sweet drops or a zebra shaman shall be found by them mid way and join up......
That's quite the mouthfull. But just to be sure, you are basing the Turul language, or the language of the region on what earth language? And I have a question about the region of the world we are about to visit. What are the other sapient species that live there? Countries in this world do tend to be mostly mono-species but like Equestria, they tend to also have more living around (Donkey, Buffalo, Diamond Dog). So Turul country is east of Griffonstone and the Marches I think you said, so it's easily plausible that there will be Griffon there. The three races of ponies are almost a given, since they seems to be everywhere. I suppose Diamond Dogs can learn to survive anywhere if there is gems to mine. I don't think dragons, beside the really huge ones, would go there, since Rocs eats baby dragons.
But I wonder what else you have cooked up for us.
And there will be monsters. Big ones. Or how else would you feed all those Turul/Rocs? I mean, we can expect a completely different zoology aroud there, so it could be the perfect time to have fun creating original monsters for the story. Of course, there is Bugbear territory near, the Dragon Kingdom is also somewhat a neighboor.., Neighpon would be farther East... If there are forsest, we could maybe expect a sub-species of the Timber wolves...
Man, Lyra will be usefull with her cryptozoology knowledge...Or Scootaloo parents would be another option.
Oh, so Lyra was friend with Twiligh before the time she decided to change her name? She seems to consider them two separate entity. Or maybe it was the brain scrambling. Not sure.
And she is one of those supposed to work on the corronet. Oh boy this will be fun! Just imagine the experiment she can try or the crazy un-orthodox solution she can come up wiht. I will be disapointed if amputation or a well placed canonball is not suggested at least once.
That's really the essence of Lyra Hearthstring in three question.
From... the... inside... again!
She is quite undigestible isn't she? Lady George face must have been quite interesting when earing that too.
"Gilda! Behave. I think she doesn't approve of you, Lyra. Come on, let's talk about this. You've broken through the curse, that means you'll be useful.You'll be coming with us?"
So we now have a crazy cryptozoologist Magus to work on the Coronet problem. Why do I feel that she will be the most cuckoo of the buch?
But I hope Bonbon will be around. Her being a secret agent charged with dealing with monsters, it would make sence that she would be on this mission for her expertise.
But about Lyra being free of the curse or being un-cursable? I didn't really get it, she dont need Twilight to apply the anti-curse spell anymore? Or she is simply unable to be crused normaly?
9861259
The Turul is a mythical royal beast associated with the Magyar people and the kings of Hungary in particular. They have Griffish hidalgos to their west, bugbears to the northwest, and the parrots and Abyssinians to their south.
Possibly some goat, sheep, and minotaur states to the southeast.
The association of rocs and dragonet eating might be due to a feral branch of the tribe gone monster in the far south beyond the dragonlands. No queen, don't you know.
I am both somewhat vindicated by (in my own little head) and loving this story.
The thing I like the most is the sudden change in the interplay between Gleaming Sparkle (!) and Gilda. The poor bird went through the first story learning how to be a proper soldier, finally getting her head around and her talons set on proper military discipline, why the military does what iit does, and evolving into a proper field NCO... mostly at the hooves of a rather strict, by the book Twilight Shield (I'm having problems here).
And now that she's a proper bat-hen, who understands all of that, Twilight (oh, hang it) has been put into a position where those same rules and restrictions are somewhat loosened-- and in many areas, where she's pretty much free to make up new crap as she goes along. And she's galloping with it. (Running ain't enough for our girl.)
So, I'm feeling for poor Gilda, who, just as she's gotten comfortable with Da Rules and Da Regs, is now dealing with a Twilight who is getting more and more Phuleish by the day. (Incidentally, for those who catch the reference, yep. We know that ain't a pun.)
9861259
Frightening visions lash through my mind.
"AAAAAAAAAAAH! KEEP HER AWAY FROM ME!"
"Professor Yearling, whatever is the matt-- oh, crap, it's Heartstrings. We're never going to get her out from under that desk now."
Oh, is that what everybody else sees when conversing with Lady George? Or, thinking on it, does it vary from creature to creature? Eh, either way, kinda neat to see it from a perspective other than Gilda's for a change.
Also, a wild Lyra has appeared. That always makes things interesting.
Case in point.
There's a story behind that which I'm still deciding whether or not I actually want to know.
You know, it just occurred to me--Lyra and Daring Do would probably get along real well with each other. The only possible hiccup I can see is Lyra constantly trying to hit on Daring, and that depends on whether or not Daring swings that way or not...eh, I'll leave that to you shippers to figure out.
9861311
Ok this help me get situated. The Dragon Lands are further south than I thought but I relish the idea that they could meet minautors or Abysian. But with the reference to the Hildago, I thought there might have been donkeys too.
Humm... I wonder what path they could take to reach there. By what you describe, it sound like there could be commercial lines down to the south but that could mean with dealing with Dragon raiders or pirates (parrots or otherwise). The northern route would be both cold and full of bugbear, neither being a pleseant prospect. And going full west, would mean passing through the Griffish Hildagos, a politicaly unstable territory full of hungry and greedy griffons that up until now, feeded the war with fresh bodies. If they are not attacked by bandits blinded with debt so big that it convince them attacking a military ship sound like a great idea, their purse will be bled dry with all the passages rights and food they need to buy passing through.
This will be a fun trip I can just feel it!
9861321
Dr. Caballeron and Ahuizotl fear Lyra more than Daring Do. Daring only foil their evil scheme, Lyra make it go sideway straight into the Doctor Who weird territory.
Is this the urgent mission they're trying to put together the formation for? The timeframe is right for them to try to get Lady George on the throne. Also, yikes, some of Twilight's old friends didn't take her course change very well.
Ooookay. That's a thing.
Wow, Lyra is really working at riling up Twilight. Grudge? Something?
Hmmmmm. Suspicious squinty eyes.
Shipping goggles intensify. No, their relationship did not break off completely, for Lyra to take such a view.
Wait, that was Gilda! She's got competition!
Ah, that's how she meant "maguses are mostly academics," Just the usual for her.
Shipping goggles further intensify.
Sounds like a plan!
Showoff :P
Well, that pretty well establishes what they're up to. In light of it, the likely involvement of Nightmare Moon is an even more interesting omen than I thought.
I like this version of Lyra.
Welp, I just run into this fic and happy to see Good Trooper Gilda got a sequel that feels like the old one. That said, to get George's name, did you run it through some translate page or somesuch? It's a tad bit.... off.
Lyra's head is full of pastries?
Lyra is such a treat in this.
Oh, "Gyongyi"? That's what "George" is derived from? Huh.
Oh dear. One look and she figured that out
Seems there's a reason the Princess sent her, specifically
Ahh, the lie that keeps on giving
Broken crystal heart? I don't think that's a detail that's been mentioned before. Eesh. Pinkie's right; this timeline is so messed up
I knew it
Ha!
OH! Their actual assignment is to help Lady George? And here I assumed it was related to Cadance and the Crystal Empire
D'aw. She's Princess Pearl
That's sticking
Remarks and corrections:
> "My name is Turulorszag Hercegnő Gyongyi," said the shaggy looking griffon while her great tame pet monster looked curiously over her shoulder, "But ponies generally call me Lady George for short."
This quote is a single sentence split with nothing but commas, so there should not be a capital letter at the start of the second part.
> And I'm not seeing it from within it's closing jaws!
"its"/"it's" error. "within [its] closing jaws"
10423395
Issues fixed, thanks.
10423398
Always glad to help
As you might have gathered, I tend to read these things offline, and post my gathered comments afterwards, hence the big comments dump on both stories
10423439
It... hadn't occurred to me? But that might explain why you were commenting about single-quote dialogue. And I'm not sure what was causing that, I'll have to look into it, I hope it wasn't something odd I'd done that caused the download version to switch over like that, it doesn't scan that way in the online version. How were you downloading the offline chapters?
10423594
Yea, not sure what happened with that... maybe some option I accidentally ticked when downloading it. I'm using DJazz's fimfic2epub downloader (well, actually the Chrome plugin version of it, but he's currently working on that because some things don't seem to be working right with the downloading permissions at the moment).
[edit]
Seems it's some quirk in my epub reader. Ugh.
10423626
I've never seen HTML
"getting rendered as anything else other than a double quotation mark. When I look at the generated EPUB in Sigil or Calibre it looks fine, so definitely something with your epub reader.Well, someone more insane than Pinkie, that's an achievement.
10437063 This scrambled Equestria broke those who could 'see'.
Lyra had the sense of human existence. When the causal nexus was shattered by a horrific otherworld monstrosity (the author), she along with others were cracked along with it.
Such is why only EXPERTS should play God!
How am I doing with Earth lately, BTW?
10125428 She WAS a treat for the last Greater Roc she ended up inside.
The part of eccentric nutter who you are never sure is being legit or not will be played in this fic by Pinkies prime understudy, Lyra.
Ohhhhhh this is going to be AMAZING!
And we also have us our quest. So, how many more important recruits are left?
Questions:
Is a lieutenant higher/lower than a corporal? Is a captain higher/lower then a sergeant? I dont understand the rank n file.
Why is there a sixth regiment, and a numbered regiment one through four, but no mention of a fifth???
What the heck is a "crab bucket"and why do the griffins use it as a term? I dont get it. Also what is a "crab back"?!
Why did gilda call turul and gleaming "crab rolls"? Why is everything a "crab" something!?!?
What the heck is a pokol?
Why do you use terminology, phrases, and words that every ten seconds forces the reader to have to stop reading and go research it? Just so we know what is being said!!!?
Good story, but it is sooooooo hard to stay IN the story.
11034917
Sergeants and corporals are not officers. By definition they obey officers' orders. That being said, lower ranking officers pay attention to senior NCOs if they know what's good for them. 'A sergeant in motion outranks an officer that doesn't know what's going on' is a saying that isn't technically true, but is a truism to take seriously.
The fifth and sixth guards regiments were on the inactive list because they were respectively the Nightguard and the Crystal Imperial Guard. The batponies got wrongfooted by the reactivation of the Sixth or Crystal Imperial regiment, with it being implied that Celestia deliberately obscured this fact to get them out of Equestria in the wrong regiment when Nightmare Moon arrives.
The crab bucket or crab mentality is a situation where people tear down their peers who seem to be rising above their station out of envy. The crab association with Trottingham has to do with the city's trade in blueshell crabs which teem in the waters around the Griffish Isles. The crab-back thing is just a joke on the old nickname for the crimson British line regimentals, 'lobsterbacks'. Also, that many Trottish griffons have blue or blue-grey feathers, sort of like how many Scottish and Irish people are redheads.
11034917
Also, sorry about the complexity of some of the language and references. I sometimes let it get away from me.
(Pokol is a bit of Hungarian or Magyar mythology - basically perdition or Hell - that I got from a pre-reader, since Lady George was indulging in her birth language a bit. See above, letting it get away from me.)