Warrior Ponies

by My name is R

Chapter 8 Griffin

Gilda grinned as the early morning sunlight slowly worked out any lingering cold that her flying hadn’t already vanquished. She looked down at the town below. Ponyville wasn’t anything impressive to look at, even if she had to admit that it was nicer than back home. But it wasn’t the scenery she came to Ponyville for, it wasn’t even the freakishly nice ponies. Seriously, even by pony standards the place was positively oozing with sappy love and brotherhood and stuff.

No, what brought her to Ponyville today, and every other visit, was the second fastest flier in the world, Rainbow Dash. She and Dash went way back, and other than a slight bump a few years back they had always been good friends. Even now that Gilda had other friends back home Dash was still her best friend, and they came by every now and then to see each other.

Gilda had tried Dash’s house, but she wasn’t home, so Gilda had decided to get something to eat before searching the town for her. She found a mostly clear spot and dove, planning a showy entrance and hoping to startle the morning crowd.

She landed with a loud burst of air, spreading her wings and letting out a screech. Suddenly a small earth pony started beating her wings with his forehooves and growling. She snapped her wings back to her sides. The colt lunged toward her and she barely kept herself from snapping at him, instead swatting at him with her talons. He sailed into the ground to her left and immediately rolled back to his hooves. Before he could attack again, she lunged toward him and held him down. He responded by rapidly flailing his rear hooves into her stomach and biting at her wrist. She pulled her talon back and he quickly crawled out of the grapple.

Just as he was spinning back around to face her again two unicorns in matching vests showed up. One held the colt back while the other pointed a lit horn at her. “Stand down!”

“Why are you holding me!” the colt shouted. “Get the eagle!”

“You little punk! You jumped me!”

“Eagles can talk here!?”

“Did anypony see how that started?” the unicorn holding the colt called out to the crowd. One of the ponies whispered something in her ear and then backed away. “Look, why don’t both of you come down to the station and we'll get everything sorted out there.” The colt muttered something and the mare holding him shouted, “Verdoof hem!”

The mare that had been pointing her horn at Gilda turned and shot the colt with some sort of magic beam, and he passed out. Then both the unicorns looked back at her. “What about you?” the leader asked.

Gilda growled. “Fine. I'll come get this dealt with.” One of the ponies led the way while the other followed behind Gilda with the colt.

---

Lionpaw woke up in a strange smelling enclosed area. “Yah!” he shouted, leaping to his paws and quickly looking all around him. He was in a large cage inside of a horseden, and the talking eagle from before was in another cage next to his. He backed away from the giant eagle until he hit a wall. To his right he saw the top of the wall was missing. He leapt onto the wall, and then fell down, since he didn’t have his claws right now.

“What are you doing?” asked the eagle. He turned to face it. Its back half looked much like a tawny cat, with talons coming out where the front legs were, instead of a normal eagle’s structure. It grinned. “Never seen a griffon before, pony?”

“Nnnooo.”

“Not surprised. We don’t normally hang with ponies, but I was in town when I tried to buy breakfast.” It glared at him. “Before somepony attacked me.”

“What! You tried to eat me!”

“As if! I don’t eat ponies, and even if I did you’re too tiny.”

“But… eagles go after the young?” Lionpaw said.

“Sha, so what? We’re only half eagle, and lions don’t just go after wimps.”

“Well, I can tell which half you got your personality from,” he groused.

It looked at him oddly and tilted its head. “Heh, you’ve got guts kid. I think I like you. Name’s Gilda, what’s yours?”

“Lionpaw.”

“Huh. That’s an odd pony name. You from around here?”

“No.”

After a moment of silence a loud bang came from the opposite corner of the den. A strange thing expanded from the roof down toward the floor. He took a ready stance as one of the hornponies from earlier came down the thing. “Good, you’re awake. I talked to a few ponies who saw your little fight this morning.” Lionpaw started to worry just how long he had been out. “As far as anypony can tell you,” she pointed at Gilda, “dove into a crowded market street and tried to start a panic. Then you,” she pointed at him, “decided to try to kill her.”

“I thought she was trying to eat somepony!” Lionpaw protested.

“Noted,” the hornpony said, in a tone of obvious exasperation. “You were under the impression that a griffon roaring in the middle of downtown was going to openly murder somepony in broad daylight.” She rubbed her forehead with a paw. “What about you Gilda? Any defense?”

“You guys know who I am? I guess my awesomeness precedes me.”

“Remember last time you came by and Pinkie threw you a party? Remember all the little problems you made? Because we do.”

“Oh.”

“You aren’t in trouble for fighting, since it was him that started it. But you are being charged with two counts of disturbing the peace and one of shoplifting. All in all, we’re asking for a 20 bit fine and a warning. Do you want to fight it?”

“No.”

“Good. Now, you.” She looked at Lionpaw. “What’s your name and where are you staying?”

“Lionpaw, Twilight’s home.”

“How old are you?”

“Ten and a half moons.”

She sighed. “Look kid, I really don’t need your age, so if you don’t want to tell, just don’t.”

“But… I just did…”

“Look, I’m going to send my friend to find your folks and we’ll straighten this out. Odds are good that you’re going to be doing some community service for a while, but nothing long-term. But I don’t want to hear you giving out any more death threats, am I clear?”

“Yes.”

The hornpony let Gilda out of her cage and they both left the way she had come.

---

Perfect Timing stood in front of the steps leading to Twilight’s castle. This was it. She was about to walk into the home of Equestria’s newest princess. Her feelings about the strange librarian had always been complicated, even before she ascended to royalty. On the one hoof, Twilight and her friends did a great job of saving Ponyville, and the rest of Equestria, from several major threats. On the other, they seemed like a magnet for trouble, and even though she hated to admit it, Perfect sometimes felt a bit like they stole the sheriff’s office’s job. Her family had been keeping this town safe for decades, and now the Elements were doing that.

She took a deep breath, walked up to the doors, and knocked. After a moment she pushed them open and walked inside. In the entry hall she saw a large brown earth pony stallion in a strange plaid skirt and an orange pegasus mare in a green and cream dress. “Hello, I’m Ponyville’s deputy, and I’m looking for the caretakers of a young stallion by the name of Lionpaw.”

“That would be us,” answered the mare.

Perfect nodded. “Right. He’s down at the office for assault, and we wanted to talk to you about what to do with him.”

“Who did he assault,” the mare asked, both of them looking concerned.

“A troublemaker we’ve had problems with before, who did startle him, so the charges aren’t as severe as they might be. He did strike first though.”

“I see.”

There was a lengthy silence as Perfect waited for her to continue, before she realized she was done talking. “So… Would you both like to come to the office, or just one of you.”

“We’ll both go,” the stallion cut in.

“Right, if you’ll follow me,” she said, turning and starting back towards the sheriff’s office. It shouldn’t take too long to get everything squared away. Our office is just on the other side of town square.”

After a few moments of walking Perfect thought about for a conversation starter. Sure, telling somepony’s parents that they were in jail wasn’t a great first impression, but these two didn’t seem angry at her, so she would try to keep things friendly. “Hello, my name is Perfect Timing, what are your names?”

“I’m Squirrelflight, and my mate’s name is Brambleclaw.”

“So… are you friends of Twilight?”

“Not really,” Squirrelflight answered.

“How did you end up staying at her castle, if you don’t mind my asking.”

“Someone named Rarity said we could stay there.”

Some…one? Odd. “Let me guess… You’re from another town. You happened to run across Rarity somewhere. And…” Perfect realized she didn’t have a third point. Quickly she tried to think of another point to round out her statement. What do I say?!

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to her, Brambleclaw was barely keeping his worries from being visible. What does she know!?

Perfect looked back and saw them both wearing fairly nice outfits. “And Rarity made you those clothes! Right?”

“Yes, she did,” Squirrelflight said. Perfect looked forward again and all three silently breathed a sigh of relief.

After that Perfect decided to let the silence reign for the last block of their trip to the office. Once they got there she opened the door and gestured for them to enter first. “Welcome to our office. I’m sorry it couldn’t be under better circumstances.” They both walked in and she followed them.

Inky waved her hoof at the opposite side of the table she was sitting at. “Would you like to sit while we talk?”

“Yes,” said Brambleclaw. Then they both sat down at the indicated spot.

“Would you care for some cider?” Perfect asked. “Soft cider only when we’re doing legal stuff.”

“No thank you,” Brambleclaw.

After a slight pause, Squirrelflight said “I would like some.” Perfect nodded and headed for their icebox as Inky began the discussion.

“What is your relationship to Lionpaw?”

“We’re his parents,” said Squirrelflight.

“Has he had a history of violence?”

“No.” Bramble looked at his wife, and Perfect came back in with the cider. She set one mug on each side of the table and took her own to the kitchen counter where she could watch in plain sight but not close enough to be threatening. Inky took a sip before she started talking again, and Squirrelflight lapped hers up with her tongue.

“He got into a fight with a griffon after she tried to intimidate him and everypony else on the street. Normally this wouldn’t be too bad, and I would have just told him to be more careful and let him go, but after we had restrained the griffon he asked me to kill them.”

“I’m certain that there was a miscommunication somewhere,” Sqiurrelflight said nervously.

“He claims he thought she was trying to eat somepony, what does he know about griffins?”

“Um, if you don’t mind me asking… What is a griffon?”

Perfect spoke up. “Imagine somepony with the head, wings, and talons of a big bird, and the back half of a big cat.”

“If you’ve never heard of a griffon, then odds are he hasn’t either,” Inky said.

“Do you mean like a hawk or an eagle, or just like a big bird?” asked Squirrelflight.

“Any bird of prey, as far as I know,” answered Inky.

“Where we come from there are giant birds of prey that eat the young, so it’s understandable that he got confused.”

“Hmm. Well I still want to make sure he doesn’t try something like that again. Would you be too upset if I made him help patch some streets for a week?” Inky asked.

“No.”

“Alright, I’ll send somepony over to collect him tomorrow. He’ll work from late morning to mid afternoon. Perfect, would you bring him up?”

Perfect walked over to the trapdoor and opened it, before walking down into the cellar. They usually just used it for storage, but it had been built to serve as a jail cell. Around the room were piles of things they normally kept in the cells, which they had cleared out this morning. They colt looked suspiciously at her. “Your parents are here to pick you up. You’re free to go, but you will have to do some community service this week.” He nodded while she picked the keys off their hook with her magic. She opened the cell and the colt stared at her. “Go on upstairs.”

He went up and she followed, closing the trap door behind them. He and his parents looked at her and Inky. “Anything else?” Squirrelflight asked.

“Not today,” answered Inky. “Just be ready tomorrow.”

After they were gone Perfect looked at Inky. “They seemed a bit nervous. Was I too pushy?”

“I think their kid’s been arrested for fighting before. The father gave it away when the mother said he had no history of violence. Probably nothing serious yet, but he’s getting old enough he could cause serious harm.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“I’m going to ask our good friend Miss Hooves. I can’t think of anyone better to befriend him or beat him into the dirt, whichever, or both, he needs.”

Comments

[Melody Song]

Aw, poor Lionpaw, he must be so confused...