Innocents Abroad
Their train to Innsbeak arrived at the Trottingham platform nearly ten minutes late. It consisted of a collection of drab wooden passenger cars and a rusty engine, all models that had been taken off of the Equestrian lines well before Twilight was born. Boarding revealed its interior to be in no better shape than the outside. Twilight wondered if the patchy leather seats in what was generously called their “first class” compartment had seen the attention of an upholsterer at any point since they’d been installed. There were no other passengers that she could see, and no visible staff.
The four of them sat in their compartment for a further five minutes after the train’s scheduled departure time. Gilda and Rarity were just concluding -in Gilda’s favor- an argument about whether or not to wander up to the engine compartment and bang on the door, when the entire train wheezed into motion.
The rolling green hills surrounding Trottingham blurred past for only a few minutes, and then their train set off across a much narrower, shorter, and less impressive bridge to the properly griffish half of the Griffish Isles.
The fact that there was a Griffish railroad system at all was only due to the most convoluted of events. In the early 760s, much of northern Griffonia had fallen under the control of the powerful House of Goldstone. Unimaginably wealthy, and possessed of a valid if remote claim to the throne of King Guto; Baroness Geraldine Goldstone III had also come to consider herself something of an amateur architect- and, as was just beginning to become fashionable in those days, a consummate Equestriophile. Observing the tremendous economic boons the nascent Equestrian Rail Service was already beginning to bestow on Griffonia’s western neighbors, and having witnessed the construction of the Great Channel Bridge on one of her many visits to Trottingham, she approached Princess Celestia with an ambitious proposal. If Equestrian engineers and equipment were sent to extend the Trottingham Line through the rest of the Griffish Isles and into a proper Trans-Griffonian Railroad, House Goldstone would cover the entire cost. In return, certain favorable trade agreements would be made between Equestria and the Baroness’s substantial holdings.
Construction went surprisingly well, at first, but as the rail line wound its way further and further south it became more and more clear that pony engineers- and the garrisons of pony soldiers who came along to protect them- were simply not welcome in the Griffish heartland. An offer by the Baroness to supplant the Equestrian Army with her surprisingly numerous, well-trained, and well-equipped Goldstone house troops was politely but firmly refused. By 780, all the track laid south of Buckbeak was neglected. By 781, nearly all of it had been hauled away by scavengers.
In Canterlot, where the program acquired a reputation as a pointless imperial exercise mocked for the next twenty years in assorted broadsheets, it became an embarrassment to Princess Celestia. Across the Channel, after the Baroness ignored the shouts of a horrified foremare and flew down to personally inspect an explosive-rigged hillside, it was the end of Geraldine III. It just so happened, of course, that the whole adventure also saw the reduction of House Goldstone’s fortunes from staggering to merely notable. Its failure, indeed, also avoided leaving Geraldine III at the helm of an ambitious public works project that would put her literally at the steps of the Great Aerie and, perhaps, only a short jump from the crown and sash of the Queen of All Griffons.
Nonetheless, very few of Celestia’s critics seemed able to put the pieces together.
The bridge took less than five minutes to cross, and then their train was rocking and shuddering over grassland again- rougher, browner, and generally of poorer condition than Trottingham’s, at least to Twilight’s untrained eye. An unofficial agreement existed to allow Princess Celestia’s influence over the sun and moon to spread across the Channel over the Griffish Isles, into mainland Griffonia where it met the likewise unconstrained influence of Zebrica’s Anyanwus. This conveniently relieved the griffons of any need to manipulate the heavens over their territory themselves: in both Canterlot and the Great Zebrabwe, it was generally agreed that they lacked the organized civil service necessary for the task. However, the individual Griffish states remained responsible for their own weather and land management- or, as the view from Twilight’s window suggested, the lack thereof.
“Everygriff who actually knows a damn thing about farming uses the bits they earn to hop the border into Equestria,” Gilda explained is if she were reading Twilight’s thoughts. “Like that Garson fucker. Leaves the rest of us high and dry. And hungry.”
Rainbow Dash seemed like she was about to speak for a moment, but then leaned back on her bench and settled for giving Gilda an unreadable look.
Outside, Innsbeak itself had become visible as a low, messy, brownish-gray lump on the horizon, from which protruded the spires of a very few taller buildings.
“I stayed here for about a month before they let me into Equestria,” Gilda continued, “The pony consulate had to verify I was the same griffon who’d gotten their scholarship, or some paper-pusher shit like that. I had the advance sent to me in Griffonstone, though, at least, so I didn’t have to go hungry. Most of the griffons who come through here have to pay their own way, though, and a lot don’t make it.”
The brownish mass on the horizon grew larger with daunting speed, breaking up into defined buildings of wood and stone. After a few more minutes they were surrounded by it, and the train gradually began to slow. By Twilight’s estimate, they had waited longer at the platform, and then for the train to start moving, than they had spent actually in transit.
“Just… well, you know what they say, keep your wits close and your bits closer,” Gilda finished.
Their train finally ground to a halt with a squealing of abused machinery. After a minute of awkward silence, it became clear that no conductor was present to declare it safe to disembark, and so Twilight took the lead in doing so herself. As a tight file, with Gilda at the front and Twilight just behind, the four of them stepped out into something resembling an Impressionist painting of the Grand Central Station in Manehattan- all hazy, grimy, and generally ill-defined. Seemingly every track, of which eight were visible and three appeared to be functional, passed by the same great, open, indoor platform. The ceiling above had once been a complicated, many-gabled geometric affair of steelwork and glass, although now the majority of panels were replaced with sagging plywood or tattered blue canvas tarps, or simply left open to the damp air outside. Likewise, Twilight was fairly certain the floors had once contained some variety of ornamental tile; but now so many tiles were removed -and covered by so much unidentifiable filth- that no recognizable patterning was visible.
There was intelligent life here, in the form of griffons and a few scruffy-looking ponies, but very few of them appeared to be other passengers. Rather, they busied themselves unloading pallets of canned something-or-other from the rusty flatcars on the other two functional lines. The only creature who looked to be heading back out was an oddly cheerful-looking griffon, wrapped neck-to-tail in strips of ragged gray cloth, and wearing a set of saddlebags stuffed full of letters and parcels. She'd pulled her gray crest-feathers back into a sort of loose, three-tipped feathery ponytail that Twilight had never seen on a griffon before.
“Huh. I… wouldn’t’ve guessed Innsbeak had a mail service,” the unicorn said aloud.
“They don’t,” Gilda answered. “That’s a mainlander, one of the Peregrine Mendicants- they’re the only ones who wear those weird raggy-looking uniforms. Don’t ask me what all they do, delivering mail’s the least of it. If I hadn’t gotten my scholarship, though, I was actually looking to sign on with ‘em. They like good fliers, and the pay’s not much but they’ll make sure you don’t starve.”
“… Ah.”
It was at that point that Twilight realized none of their luggage had materialized. She led the way back to what she presumed were the baggage cars. There, a wiry gray hen and an even leaner brown-and-orange-spotted cockerel lounged on crates, doing apparently nothing much.
“Excuse me?” the unicorn called out, “Would either of you happen to speak Ponish?”
The cockerel just stared at her uncomprehendingly, while the hen called back something incomprehensible.
“Ummmmmm… [beneficial planar synapse]?” Twilight dredged her memory for any relevant Griffish vocabulary, no matter how tangential, “[benefical backscatterly thoses them objects-which-are-attuned]?”
This time, the hen laughed out loud, and the cockerel muttered something Twilight was reasonably certain had to do with her central nervous system.
“Stop making an idiot of yourself and just let me handle this,” Gilda muttered, and Twilight stepped aside to let her advance to the front of their impromptu formation. What followed was an exchange of talon gestures and rapid-fire Griffish the scholar had absolutely no hope of following. After a few seconds there was a brief lull, and Gilda turned back to her charges. “They say they’ll give us our bags after they’re paid.”
Silently, Twilight wondered if she was in fact being shaken down, but outwardly she just nodded. Gilda reached into her saddlebags, pulled out two shiny yellow one-bit coins, and dropped them on one of the crates. The porters sprang into action immediately afterward, disappearing into the dark interior of the compartment and reappearing not much later with a cart full of Equestrian-tagged baggage. The hen smartly tipped an imaginary hat and shouted “Ah [beneficial planar synapse] da i chi hefyd!” before dissolving into decidedly corvine laughter once again.
“Alright, now which way outta here?” Rainbow Dash muttered as she shouldered her bags.
Twilight opened her mouth to respond, and then realized she hadn’t the faintest idea how to answer. There were no turnstiles or ticket booths or any of the other expected elements of a pedestrian entrance in view. Instead, grimy glass corridors extended out from the central platform in seemingly random directions, and what little signage existed was faded to the point of illegibility- as if Twilight would’ve had much chance of reading it when it was new.
Supposedly, the station had been one of Geraldine III’s greatest architectural achievements. That fact made Twilight rather reluctant to see her failures- assuming any were still standing.
With no better ideas she simply followed Gilda down one of the hallways, stepping gingerly over puddles of only-Starswirl-knew-what.
Without any particular change in design, the corridor in front of them opened up into a sort of covered cobblestone patio, facing out across one of Innsbeak’s nameless streets. Crumbling brick edifices dominated the other side; whatever coloration they might once have possessed was reduced to a uniform charcoal gray by ages of caked-on smoke. Griffons passed by in either direction, and hawked unidentifiable wares from pull-carts, cursing and squabbling incomprehensibly at one another beneath a faded gray sky. The air smelled of smoke and grit with an undercurrent of raw sewage- Twilight found herself wondering if the city’s drainage system had also been designed by Geraldine III.
Beside her, Rainbow Dash surveyed the warrenlike alleys with a wary eye. “So… how’re we even supposed to find this Goldstone rutter, anyway?” She asked.
“He said he’d be sending somegriff to meet us at the station,” Twilight answered, suddenly feeling very uncertain indeed. She looked around and failed to notice any griffons obviously waiting, but with the thick fog that hadn't burnt off from this morning she wasn’t able to see much more than a dozen meters up or down the street. Younger griffons in rather garish attire lurked around the few functional streetlights, and Twilight cast them a wary glance- Equestria took a dim view of prostitution, or at least the parts of Equestria she was used to navigating did. They didn’t seem to be attracting many customers, but Twilight supposed that might change once the cargo workers got off shift.
She was just about to ask Gilda to advise them on their next move when, seemingly from nowhere, a rail-thin cockerel appeared beside her. He looked more like a cub, really, fifteen or sixteen at the absolute maximum, all gangly limbs and patchy gray-green coat, but he spoke with a rough, adult voice. “Gentlemares. Things? Your -keeah- things?” he said in heavily accented Ponish, in between sharp wheezing coughs, “I here to -keeah- helping though the -keeeaaah- streets?”
Gilda shot Twilight a rather skeptical look.
“I… I’m sorry, I’m not sure if you’re expecting some bits, or if I should call a doctor?” Twilight muttered.
He cocked his head. “Bits for doctor, see?” Then he dissolved into another fit of coughing.
Rainbow Dash shifted uncomfortably from one hoof to the other. “Yeah, I can tell you've been hittin' the medicinals pretty hard…”
“Oh, you poor dear…” Rarity muttered, and began reshuffling the bags in her telekinesis into a more carriable configuration. Then, as she lowered one towards the scrawny griffon, he snatched it in both talons and sprang away, wings unfolding to take flight.
“My purse!” the tailor shouted, and before he could make it off the ground, she’d backhoofed him hard just under the wingjoint.
He crumpled like a pile of dry sticks, and Rarity jerked her purse out of his claws in her telekinesis once again. “Oh, what nerve!” she shouted, seemingly on the verge of panic, “Guards? Guards!” A few of the griffons in the street paused what they were doing, and stared suspiciously.
Gilda strode over and placed a warning talon on the smaller unicorn’s shoulder. “Quiet!” she hissed, “You do not wanna bring the guards over here.”
Rarity paused, seemed to settle herself, and then asked “Whyever not?”
“This isn’t Equestria,” Gilda continued, “there isn’t a Watch here, just a buncha’ local nobles’ house troops. If they can be arsed to bother with you at all, which I doubt seeing as you’re a pony accusing one of their own, they’ll charge you through the nose for it, and probably take that bag as ‘evidence’ too. You’re better off without ‘em.”
Wordlessly, Rarity nodded, and Gilda turned back to the young griffon. He was just about done with the process of hauling himself back onto all-fours, when she grabbed him between the shoulders and half-lifted, half-dragged him a few meters away. That didn’t seem to require any appreciable effort on her part, and looking closer Twilight realized the other griffon was basically nothing but skin and bones. Then Gilda produced another stream of rapid-fire Griffish, although this time Twilight was able to understand a few words here and there. “Ydych chi'n [stupid]? Pam ydych chi'n [fishing in front of] yr [station] reilffordd? Rydych chi'n [scare] y [tourists] hawdd! Yn ôl i ffwrdd ychydig, [let the ponies] wasgaru [all over the city] cyn dwyn i ffwrdd.”
Whatever she’d said seemed to have been effective, as the younger griffon bobbed his head and staggered off into the fog once more.
Looking a little guilty, Rainbow Dash waved a wing at Rarity’s bag and matching wheeled trunk. “This wouldn’t’a happened if somepony knew how to pack light…”
“Well,” Rarity waved in turn at the set of somewhat intimidating, military-green duffle bags hanging from Rainbow Dash’s sides. “You’ve packed light enough, darling, but that doesn’t mean you know how to pack compact.”
“I’m just glad there doesn’t seem to be any customs enforcement out here,” Twilight cut in.
Gilda rolled her eyes. “Why would they stop anypony coming south out of Trottingham? If you wanna see customs, stop by the port authority. They’re shoot you right outta the sky before they bother to check your passport.”
Twilight sighed, and picked a direction at random to advance into the fog- left, as it turned out. Before long, something glittered up ahead- a large, wood-and-gold air chariot of vaguely archaic Griffish design. “Girls? Girls! I think our ride’s this way!”
They hustled towards it as a group, Rainbow Dash continuing to give the crowded street beside them wary looks.
Seen up close, the chariot no longer seemed to be in particularly good shape- sizable scuff marks along the base and side panels revealed its gold construction to be no more than foil covering a wooden chassis, and their placement suggested more than a few hard landings. Surreptitiously, Twilight muttered the cantrip to her favored magesight spell, to confirm that the lifting-and-balancing enchantment underneath it was still functioning. As near as she could determine, it was.
Hitched to the front of the vehicle stood two griffons wearing the yellow tabards and dented steel kettle helms of Goldstone house troops. One was a fidgety little tabby cockerel, the other an enormous tan hen- tall, wide and padded out like a sofa with too much stuffing, as Shadow Spade might say. Both turned at the sound of hooves on the cobblestones behind them, and sized up Twilight and her friends with uncomfortable directness.
“Doctor... Twilight Sparkle?” the hen practically growled.
“Umm, yes, and these are my... associates-”
She didn’t get a chance to finish before the cockerel waved a silent claw towards the back of the carriage. Twilight unlatched the chest-height side door and stepped in first, followed by Gilda, then Rainbow Dash, then Rarity. Whatever else could be said about the vehicle, it was sizable, and the four of them plus bags fit with little difficulty. Twilight sat as comfortably as she could on the hard wooden bench in the back, and waited. The chariot resolutely refused to take off.
Rainbow Dash tapped her hoof, briefly stretched her wings, and said “Um.”
“They’re waiting for us to pay them, too,” explained Gilda.
“Isn’t Goldstone already paying them?” Rainbow asked.
With some difficulty, the hen twisted around in her harness and made a quiet little “Heh” noise.
Twilight squeezed her eyes shut for a second or two. “Fine.” She undid the catch on her saddlebag and floated two five-bit coins over the front of the carriage. Both were snatched out of the air by waiting talons, and not a second later the carriage bumped, shuddered, and slid across the cobblestones before mercifully lifting off.
As the fog-choked streets fell away beneath Twilight, she and her friends were treated to an increasingly broad aerial view of Innsbeak in all its rambling, grimy glory. Bands of griffon cubs wandered the streets between crumbling rowhouses and measly little storefronts, brandishing faded scraps of cloth that presumably communicated some kind of neighborhood or gang affiliation. Off to the east, the train station swung back into view again, sprawled out like a dissected tortoise made from steel and scummy glass. Past it, in the harbor, a few airships shared multi-purpose berths with screw-propelled, mechanical sea vessels and honest-to-Harmony sailing ships, no doubt part of the fishing industry that made up most of Innsbeak’s official income. What water was visible bore more of a resemblance to thick sludge, although that did little to impede activity atop it- from big industrial trawlers, to rowboats, to individual griffons diving down below the slime-topped waves.
They passed over a sprawling, rusty belt of canneries and warehouses, all open smokestacks and canals choked with effluent, presumably churning out the cans they’d seen earlier for shipment back to Equestria. Further still was an actual red light district of illuminated signs identifying what might charitably be referred to as ‘nightclubs’. More itinerant griffons in outrageous costume prowled the streets, despite the early hour; even from the air Twilight thought she could pick up a sort of worn-down desperation in the way they moved from corner to corner. Somehow, the smell seemed to become worse as they gained altitude- Innsbeak’s port was lower than the surrounding countryside, and smoke inevitably got trapped in the normal fog; without a proper weather corps to generate sufficient airflow, it hung in the air as a steel-blue dome.
Twilight promptly decided a shower was in order once they arrived at their destination, and wondered if her bottled raincloud contained enough water to make that possible- using the local supply would in all likelihood defeat the purpose.
In the seat across from Twilight, Rarity wrinkled her muzzle. “Tell me, darling, is everywhere outside of Equestria this... rustic?”
“No, no, absolutely not!” The scholar shook her head. “Siam and Panthera and so on are pretty much like any Equestrian city, and when Shiny was serving down in some of the former Centaur States he said they were at least organized enough to deal with street crime and put together weather details and things!” She paused for a moment, thinking. “Okay, yeah, rustic actually is a pretty good way to describe Ornithia, but the water was clean, the skies were clear, and I enjoyed my trip.”
Gilda shrugged. “Griffonstone’s actually even poorer than this place, but... honest, I guess. We don’t have shit like that,” she waved back towards the red-light district,“ and we don’t knife working-griffs in the alleys for whatever bits they mighta’ found. So, everygriff who can’t even make it down South, ends up here. Some claw their way to the top and manage to afford passage to Equestria or Hippogriffia or wherever. The rest just kinda... stick around and fester.”
“How dreadful,” Rarity muttered, “Isn’t there anything ponies in the Government could do about this place?”
“Like what?” Gilda asked, “Invade, maybe, I guess. Didn’t figure you for a bomb-their-beaks-off type, though.”
The next minute or so passed in uneasy silence. Their chariot pulled into a wide circle around an area of the city surrounded by a high stone wall, featuring most of the taller buildings they had seen on the train ride in, centered around a single monolithic tower. It looked decidedly less filthy than the rest of Innsbeak- rather ancient and dignified, even- and it contained the first significant green space Twilight had seen since entering the city.
“That’s the University down there,” Gilda explained, “But I don’t think I can be too much help if you need to go poking around in it. They’ve got their own guard outfit that actually works for a living, and one of their jobs is to keep street trash like I was off their fancy campus.”
After that, it was back over the slums, leaving Twilight to wonder silently about the somewhat circuitous nature of their flight path. It had begun to drizzle, just enough to be noticeable. Twilight projected a small amniomorphic shield over the front of the carriage, tilted like a windscreen. The vehicle seemed to lack any such enchantment of its own- or even just an ordinary glass windscreen, for that matter.
Slowly, the ground below them rose up out of the omnipresent fog, and the buildings there grew larger and grander. Every so often, however, Twilight spotted piles of rubble and burnt-out shells among them, some quite substantial in area. Even many of the surviving buildings showed no signs of actual, recent habitation.
“Why doesn’t anygriff from the lower city move into any of those empty lots?” Rarity asked, “Any one of them could probably hold a whole tenement.”
“You don’t just ‘move into’ a noblegriff’s estate,” answered Gilda, “Those are all still private property, even if there’s nogriff actually living in one, or around to claim it. You can get away with a lot of things in Innsbeak, but not pissing off the noble families.” She shook her head. “These places do get looted pretty quick if they don’t have round-the-clock guards, though. The ones that are still in one piece just have better security.”
The carriage pitched downward, diving into the glittering heart of the estates. They resolved themselves into a patchwork mosaic of different properties and architectural styles, chaotically intermeshed. Twilight’s imagination quickly filled in a history of long-running survivor families buying out their defunct neighbors and fusing the properties with their own; the Law of the Jungle, as acted out by realtors.
The largest such property sat at the very top of the broad, gentle hill, well above the smog layer, and out of all of its competitors seemed to be the only one to have remained perfectly square. Idly, Twilight wondered if the owner had thought ahead and made purchases with the express goal of maintaining a neat perimeter; or had simply been wealthy or fortunate enough to be able to buy everything at once.
They dove towards it, pulled up at the last moment, and landed with a resounding thud on the forecourt, inside of its tall, wrought-iron fence. The gate in front was a complicated mechanical affair with components sculpted to resemble interlocking talons; some patches of gold plating still clung resolutely to the metal. Constructed of red brick in a vaguely Neoclassical Equestrian style, the manor itself could probably have passed for an older, modest estate in Trottingham or perhaps even Canterlot, if it wasn’t for the security. As soon as their carriage touched down, easily half a dozen more house troops seemed to materialize from the overgrown gardens and the shadowy recesses of the building itself. Without waiting for any sort of confirmation, they busied themselves extracting luggage from the wagon and shipping it off out of sight.
The fidgety cockerel who’d helped bring them this far unhitched himself from his harness, and gestured towards the front door. “This… way?”
He kept pace alongside them as they climbed the short staircase leading up to the front portico, then jogged a few steps ahead to haul open one of a pair of massive oak doors. There was a spacious foyer on the other side, easily twenty meters across and twice that deep, decorated with oak paneling and hideously yellow carpet. Much of the back was shadowy and indistinct- the massive crystal-and-gold chandelier up above was currently not lit. The structure stretched upward a good two stories, but there was no visible way up to the upper balconies. Based on Twilight’s reading, that was a distinctly Griffish architectural feature. Pegasi in the modern era typically confined themselves to ordinary floor plans with, perhaps, a rooftop landing area, but griffons were expected to fly as much as they walked or climbed.
Their guide stepped forward again and lead the way to a passage tucked away against one of the walls, and then into a maze of twisting, dimly-lit corridors, all of them two stories tall.
At one time, Twilight supposed the dark wood paneling and rich yellow carpets would’ve looked rather impressive, in a dour sort of way, but cobwebs and dust had long since overtaken them. The air smelled of mildew and disuse, and was uncomfortably humid. Trottingham had acknowledged its miserable weather, set up fireplaces in every room, and worked to make itself as cozy as possible; Innsbeak, apparently, simply tried to muddle through as best it could. Some distracted part of her brain dredged up a passage from A Hearth’s Warming Carol more or less of its own accord- Climate spells cost money. Dampness was cheap, and Lord Goldstone liked it.
They encountered no other inhabitants, griffon or otherwise, and little decoration other than a periodic series of closed doors.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Rainbow Dash muttered quietly, “Why’s it all so empty?”
“Well, the big halls of any estate like this are usually empty, even during parties and things like that,” replied Twilight, equally quietly, “I never understood the point of all this open space.”
“This is empty even for a big estate, though,” added Rarity, “I’d’ve expected to find somegriff sent around to deal with all the dust by now, at least. And it isn’t as though this Goldstone fellow doesn’t have staff...”
Twilight was certain they’d walked for a solid ten minutes in total and made at least five left turns in a row when she spotted an open door up ahead. Their guide paused in the corridor just past it, and motioned inside with one talon. Then he set off again and vanished around another corner.
Tentatively, Twilight and her friends stepped inside.
They found themselves in a rather comfortable sitting room, better-lit by modern crystal lamps and an entire back wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. Innsbeak’s harbor sprawled below and beyond, hazy and dim. Despite the fire roaring under the ornate wooden mantlepiece there was a noticeable draft, but at least that kept the dampness at bay. Nearly every horizontal surface was covered in a wide variety of what Twilight supposed she could call knick-knacks, ranging from archaic maritime navigational equipment to weird little statuettes of unclear origin; the walls were jammed with indecipherable paintings.
A male griffon sat hunched over on one of the yellow velvet couches scattered throughout the room. Twilight had communicated with Lord Goldstone entirely by letter and never actually seen him before; her imagination had filled in the gaps to create a scruffy, heavyset, bespectacled, owl-headed old tiercel, possibly with a missing eye or talon or some other obvious old war wound.
In fact, virtually every element of her theory had turned out to be false.
The real Goldstone was tall and lanky, not scrawny or half-starved like so many of the other residents of Innsbeak, but naturally quite light just the same. He was mostly leopard-like in patterning, yellow with black spots, although his head and neck were pure white. While Twilight sometimes had difficulty figuring out how griffons aged, she’d be very surprised if he was far past thirty. She supposed his face could technically be considered hawkish -and certainly wasn’t owlish- but it was dominated almost completely by a wide yellow beak and big, round, muddy-brown eyes. He’d slicked back his short crest-feathers with some sort of soft wax -Rarity would probably know the proper name for it- exposing something darker underneath. Twilight wasn’t entirely certain exactly what the material was: another underlayer of feathers, maybe, or possibly some sort of maneplug-analog -crestplugs?- but it looked odd regardless. In fact, everything about Lord Goldstone looked odd: gangly and uncoordinated, a skeleton too big for his skin.
“Ahh, Doctor Twilight Sparkle!” he said in clear, almost completely unaccented Ponish, although his inflection was strange and overly precise- more like a stage actor than anycreature actually holding a conversation. He unfolded himself from his weird curled-up posture and stood, placing one talon over his narrow chest in a theatrical little half-bow. “Gen-tle-mares! I am Gerald Goldstone the Thirteenth, Marquess of the Northern Territories and Lord of this fine city.”
Unsure of what else to do, Twilight mirrored the gesture. “I’m… glad to meet you as well! And... umm... these are my... colleagues: Rainbow Dash and Rarity, from Ponyville, and Gilda of Griffonstone.”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintances!” Goldstone clambered back up onto the couch, all elbows and knees, and sorted himself into a slightly more natural-looking, vaguely feline posture. “Please, sit down! I must apologize for the drizzle on the way here,” he waved a talon out the windows, which revealed the rain had since intensified into a true and proper downpour, “The University handles the city’s weather all by itself with magic... when they can be bothered to, anyway.”
Twilight and her friends picked out nearby couches more or less at random, and followed their host’s example in sitting down. For a moment or two silence reigned, except for the continued rattling of raindrops against the windows. A few strong gusts of wind slammed into the side of the manor at intermittent intervals, and the whole structure rattled alarmingly, but Goldstone didn’t appear to care- or, for that matter, even notice.
Eventually, Twilight opened her mouth to speak, but Rarity made a surreptitious little ‘hush’ gesture with one hoof, and continued instead herself. “So... Lord Goldstone...”
“Oh.” The griffon shook his head, “You’re all more than welcome to call me Gerald.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Rarity continued with perfect equanimity, leaving Rainbow Dash and Gilda to sit in awkward, fidgety silence. “Gerald! What does a quiet scholar like Doctor Sparkle here have to do to earn such distinguished company?”
“Well, Doctor Sparkle has been one of my more... discerning customers in the antiquities trade. You see, my father passed when I was very young, and my dear old mum always considered herself something of an adventurer. I’m afraid that perhaps... five years ago, she set out on an expedition to the Dragonlands, and... well, never came back.”
He waved one talon at the largest picture in the room, an oil painting of a leopard-spotted formel in ornate golden armor. She leaned against a stack of thick books, one elbow resting atop it where -ironically enough- there sat the skull of a juvenile dragon. Twilight thought the whole thing was rather overwrought. The colors were bold to the point of eye-searing, and either the artist had traced her armor and face from two very different sources, or Geraldine XII had been born with a bizarrely small head. There was a big katzbalger broadsword at her side, even though clearly a pike or hammer would’ve been far more effective against a dragon, but her armor tabard was a correspondingly anachronistic 5th-century slashed-and-puffed Landsknecht design.
Rarity briefly dipped her muzzle downward and muttered. “Oh, dear, how tragic…”
Goldstone just shrugged, and rolled his eyes. “Hardly. What was tragic was that she kept from getting herself eaten until after she’d pissed away most of our remaining funds on her nonsense, and filled up so much of the estate with her ‘collection’ of, quite frankly, junk. I’ve been trying to sell off as much of it as I can ever since- before the good doctor wrote to me, I was ready to burn that strange old parchment as worthless.”
“Wow. She sounds like a right berk,” Gilda muttered, seemingly more to herself than to Goldstone.
“Actually,” Twilight began, “I’m interested in doing business with you again, but for a recommendation, not an arti-”
Abruptly, Goldstone cut her off, his buttery-warm tone suddenly curt and businesslike. “You all must be tired after traveling all the way here.” He reached over to the end table nearest his sofa and rang a large silver bell, which Twilight hadn’t been able to identify as distinct from any of the other seemingly random detritus around it. “Gephardt will show you to your rooms.”
Given the condition of the rest of the place, Twilight had been expecting cobwebs and bare stone in the manor’s guest rooms- however, they proved to be surprisingly livable. She confirmed that they indeed possessed indoor plumbing, and that the water was in fact reasonably clean- at least as far as her scans could determine. Since the manor was on a hill, it was possible it pulled water from comfortably above most of the sewer system, or that some portion of Goldstone’s staff brought in clean, high-altitude clouds. In either case, Twilight seized the opportunity for that much-awaited shower.
She’d barely finished -thank Harmony for her practical manecut- when somecreature knocked on her door. She opened it to find Gephardt, the same fidgety cockerel who’d brought them in, shifting awkwardly from one foreleg to the other. “Lord Goldstone… re-quests your pres-ence at din-ner?” he said, in a strange intonation that suggested he didn’t actually understand what he was repeating and had merely memorized the entire sentence.
“Right.” Twilight stepped outside, and found the others already standing in the hall in varying degrees of wariness. She gave them a collective nod, and everycreature nodded back. There didn’t seem to be much else to say.
Gephardt set off down the hall again, in a completely different direction from how they’d come from the sitting rooms, and unsure what else to do Twilight followed. Her expectations of another meandering trip through endless corridors proved annoyingly correct, although in this wing of the manor more doors were still open. Inside, true to Lord Goldstone’s word, Twilight glimpsed mostly random assortments of dubiously-valuable junk- rusted armor and pitted swords, primitive little sculptures, and glass cases full of common insects or unremarkable stones. Briefly summoning her magesight, she confirmed all of it to be utterly mundane.
They came to a gradual stop, and Gephardt shrugged and pointed at one of the second story balconies, before spreading his bony wings and flying up to perch atop it.
Rainbow Dash looked at Twilight, and then at Rarity, muzzle scrunched up in thought. Rarity looked back at Rainbow Dash and after a long moment of chewing on her lower lip said, “Oh, well, alright.”
Rainbow took wing, wrapped her forehooves around the tailor’s barrel, and hauled her bodily upward. She gave a quiet yelp as soon as her hooves left the ground, and kept muttering directions until she was out of earshot.
Gilda stepped towards Twilight, stretching her talons. “So, uhh… how do you wanna do this, boss?”
“I’m fine,” Twilight replied, then vanished into a magenta flicker and reappeared atop the balcony a moment later. Gephardt leaped backwards a few steps and stared, wide-eyed. Rainbow Dash and Gilda both whistled appreciatively.
Rarity just stared, silently, as she readjusted her manestyle, her expression seemingly asking Well, why didn’t you just teleport me, too?
The balcony’s solitary door opened into another spacious chamber with another set of floor-to-ceiling windows against the far wall. A big oak dining table took up most of the room, surrounded by high-backed wooden chairs. It was surprisingly clean of Geraldine XII’s usual detritus, although the walls practically sagged under the weight of shelves and miscellaneous picture frames. Ornate blue porcelain plates and gleaming silverware had been set out for five, along with a single tall decanter full of a cloudy greenish liquid. That, presumably, was the alchemical concoction marketed to aid ponies and other herbivorous diners in the digestion of heavier protein; Twilight herself had never tried it. The rain had returned to a light drizzle by this point, although clouds still circled ominously over the big central tower of the University campus, looming over the manor some distance away. The ubiquitous Goldstone house troops lurked in each corner, but Lord Goldstone himself was nowhere to be found.
Twilight and Rarity both stayed near the door, shifting from one hoof to the other in awkward silence, as Gilda and Rainbow Dash pushed past them. The two fliers each scouted half of the room and met up again at the far end, apparently having discovered nothing of interest. Gilda moved towards one of the servants as though she were about to say something, then seemed to think better of it. “So, do we… go ahead and sit down, or what?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Oh, certainly nothing of the sort!” chastised Rarity.
With nothing better to do, Twilight ambled over to one of the better-taken-care-of paintings- an abstract piece by the goat artist Menaechmus, consisting of a series of progressively tighter groups of curving lines inspired by isothaumic surfaces. Judging by the quality of the paint and canvas, it was in fact an original, which meant… “Isn’t this the piece that went missing from the Centaur Pavilion at the 1050 World’s Exhibition?”
“Indeed it was!” Twilight jumped slightly as Lord Goldstone’s voice suddenly filled the room. She turned around to find him standing in the doorway next to an equally surprised Rarity. “My dear mother may have had her… faults, but she was a formel of some resourcefulness when she wanted to be.”
Rainbow Dash cocked her head. “A… what now?”
“Beg pardon?” Goldstone began padding over to her at the far end of the room. He was followed in short order by the fat hen from the chariot, who was now wearing a polished steel cuirass, with a captain’s stripes worked into her pauldrons in glossy yellow paint. She silently took up a position in one corner, glaring at the ponies from under her helmet with beady little dark eyes.
“What’s a formel?” Rainbow Dash asked again.
There was a long, painful pause. Then Gilda kneaded at the spot above her beak with one talon. “Would anygriff like to explain to the slow fledgling?”
“Hey!” Rainbow took a false swing at Gilda’s skull.
“It means a female noblegriff, Dash,” Rarity prompted, quietly. “We talked about that on the train ride, remember?”
“… oh. Right.”
“And ‘fledgling’ means-” Twilight continued, before Rainbow cut her off rather abruptly.
“I know what ‘fledgling’ means, Twilight. Pegasi fledge. I fledged. I’m not a total moron.”
“Not totally, no,” Goldstone muttered, as he slipped into the seat at the head of the table. At his unspoken invitation Twilight sat down as well, followed by Gilda, Rarity, and then finally Rainbow Dash. A few of the servants disappeared through a side door Twilight hadn’t noticed, and reappeared pushing a trolley loaded with various ornate shiny containers. They eyed their cargo hungrily, and once again Twilight realized just how incredibly thin everygriff they’d seen in Innsbeak was- aside from Goldstone and a select few of his staff, of course.
Quickly and quietly, the servants unloaded an assortment of candied fruit -the sort of thing a moderately-priced Canterlot eatery might serve as an appetizer. This was followed by several small roast birds of unknown origin: Twilight guessed they were pheasants, although she would no longer put it past Goldstone to serve pigeon. Finally, the servants presented what appeared to be a bowl of jellied eels. Twilight was fairly certain she’d seen the same type for sale outside of the Reinsbury’s in Trottingham, for three bits a tin; now they were being served out of a tin in a port city whose sole legitimate industry was fishing. Twilight wasn’t sure what to make of that.
She ladled a few blobs of fruit onto her plate, and took a tentative bite. The fruit had definitely come out of a can, but at least it’d been cooked in proper butter… or margarine, more likely, judging by the taste. Anyway, at least it was warm.
Twilight could not, however, help noticing that Lord Goldstone was already consuming an entire bird carcass with singular gusto.
Rarity, for her part, seemed mostly engaged in cutting her fruit into smaller and smaller portions. She pushed those around in a complicated pattern with her silverware, producing a fantastic show of misdirection that never actually involved anything on her plate being ingested.
Gilda peered at her portion for a moment, then set about devouring it like a wild animal. Rainbow Dash paused, shrugged, and then followed suit.
The fat hen stayed in the corner, and glared at the servants every time they looked too long at the contents of the trays they were carrying. Gilda eventually looked up from her plate to glare at the hen in turn.
“Oh, don’t mind Captain Grunt,” Lord Goldstone chuckled, “She just takes matters of security very seriously.”
“Looks like she takes matters of dinner pretty seriously, too…” Gilda muttered to Rainbow Dash, earning another withering stare from the larger hen.
The presumable main course followed after a few minutes of uneasy silence: more buttered vegetables, some sort of liver dish, sausages of unknown type, and a big steak-and-kidney pie. Twilight briefly considered sampling either of the latter two, but as soon as she lit her horn to lift the potion bottle Rainbow Dash reached out with a wing, grabbed it, and drained the entire contents.
As Twilight was learning was likely typical of Lord Goldstone, it had been the only one of its kind at the table.
She was thus entirely content to watch as Rainbow waved one wing at the nearest servinggriff. “Hey, what gives? I can’t come all the way to Griffonia and not get a chance to try some actual griffon food. Where can you get me a… a what’s it called, a Mortar-house?”
Goldstone paused from slicing into his pie and cocked his head, a very disconcertingly avian gesture. “A what?”
“A Porterhouse, I think,” supplied Rarity.
“Never liked the Porterhouse, myself. Too much not-meat to meat,” added Gilda.
Goldstone just went “Mmmhmm,” and returned to his pie.
After that, another servant circled the table and filled their drinking glasses with some rather pleasant-smelling red wine, a merlot perhaps. Twilight took a few sips to keep up appearances, but that was all.
Instead, she tentatively sampled some of the hay and bourbon carrots, and found both to be more or less identical to the food Equestrian military caterers shipped out to formal functions. They were edible enough, but not quite what she’d been expecting from a formal reception in a noblegriff’s manor. She was pretty sure that could be construed as an insult, but elected not to say so. Given the state of agriculture in Innsbeak, it was entirely possible that Goldstone was serving them tinned rations simply because he had no other vegetable products worth presenting. In fact, the steak-and-kidney pie seemed to be the only properly-made dish at the whole table- or, rather, what was left of it, since the tiercel had already consumed more than half. She wondered if the entire dinner, complete with the serving of every decent dish to a party that could not digest it, was simply an excuse for the noblegriff to treat himself. Then she realized that despite his apparent food intake, Goldstone was indeed quite thin, and wondered if he’d fallen for the alchemical stimulant fad that had produced similar results in several of Twilight’s Academy coworkers.
After a while, she contented herself watching Gilda devour whatever constituted the liver dish. After a while, Gilda watched back- she looked up, beak smeared with some sort of brown sauce, and shrugged theatrically. “Beef? Good. Kidneys? Good. Liver? Good. What’s the problem?”
At Goldstone’s raised eyebrow, the other griffon continued. “The ponies just slaughter animals for, like, fat and leather and shit. They don’t do much with the organs, so in Equestria that’s all pretty cheap. I hear a lot of it gets shipped out here to the Isles.”
The noblegriff nodded. “Indeed it does! I see that most is sent off to the Mainland, of course, at a reasonable markup, but we’ve also done wonders for the local food situation.”
Gilda looked at the scrawny, greedy-eyed servants, and then at their own overfilled table, slowly and theatrically, as if she wanted everyone in the room to know it. “Yeah. I guess you have.”
“You know,” Twilight interrupted, anxious to defuse the tension that had settled over them like a thick woolen cloak, “my brother Shiny -sorry, Shining Armor-took a liking to this kind of thing when he was serving abroad in the Guard- liver and onions, specifically. My parents weren’t very happy with him for it; they always said they could smell his airship before they could ever see it coming in to dock.”
Twilight chuckled to herself. No one else did.
Gilda reached for the other half of the streak-and-kidney pie, then paused and turned to Rainbow Dash. “Want some?”
The pegasus shook her head. “Not a fan of pie, even… well, this sure isn’t pie pie, but I’m not gonna risk it. I’ll try some of the sausages, though.”
“It was actually my father who went absolutely ballistic,” Twilight continued, “being an M.D. and all,” she tried to shape her voice into Night Light’s reedy Pferdish accent. “’Sohn, do you know how many par-a-zites can be vound in animal tizzue?!’ Mom… well, she tolerated it. She said she herself was willing to try any foreign dish once, but there’s a big difference between trying liver, and requesting it.”
This time, at least Rarity bothered to laugh. Twilight was completely unable to discern if she was faking or not, which meant the tailor probably was.
Goldstone just nodded, and took a drink from his wineglass. “Um. Yes. I… see.”
After that, dessert was brought out: bread pudding, so bland it might actually have just been bread.
Twilight thought she heard Gilda muttering something about ‘banoffee’, but wasn't entirely certain what that meant.
“So… Lord Goldstone?” Rarity asked, as Twilight chewed resolutely on her sample.
The noblegriff clapped a talon against his chest again in mock horror. “Gerald! Please.”
“Gerald.” Rarity amended, “We were hoping that a tiercel of your evident resources might be able to… some time in the next few days, arrange a meeting with some of the faculty from the University?”
Goldstone nodded. “That could easily be arranged… who exactly were you thinking of?”
“Gordon,” Twilight supplied. “The head of the theoretical alchemy division.”
Immediately, Goldstone’s muddy-brown eyes narrowed. For just a moment, Twilight thought that the young noblegriff looked genuinely afraid, or at least a bit alarmed. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid that’s beyond even my abilities. Beyond anycreature’s, perhaps.”
“And… why is that?” Twilight asked, genuinely confused.
“Well, because it’s impossible to get near him,” Goldstone waved a talon at the windows behind him, where the strange tower in the center of the University campus loomed ominously in the late evening shadows. “He stays holed up in that tower of his all day, every day, and only conducts his business through a very few trusted junior scholars.”
“I’m sure that once he hears about what we’re trying to do…” Twilight offered.
“My dear Doctor Sparkle.” Goldstone interlaced his talons above his now-empty plate. “I have been trying to find a way to entice Gordon to do business with me for the last five years. He’s had none of it. History isn’t his field, the acolytes say! He only even sees correspondence from a few other theoretical alchemists, and if I recall correctly your reputation is mostly established in other areas.” The griffon’s tone grew more serious. “And he's especially concerned about -ahem- Academy types looking over his shoulder, and trying to spy on his studies. I'm sure you understand, Dr. Sparkle.”
“Well, we could always just try flying up and knocking on his window…” Rainbow Dash spoke up.
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” the tiercel replied, “They’re hard to see from this angle, but those spikes on top of the tower are enchanted to shoot down anything at all that gets too close. Gordon himself fires on anygriff who manages to get through. Or, sometimes, anygriff further away, if he happens to be feeling particularly threatened at the moment. Or frustrated. Or bored. Since I was a cub old enough to watch, I have never once seen him miss.”
Rainbow Dash whistled. “Wow. I bet he’s, like, some evil wizard who drops ponies down elevator shafts, or collects equine skulls, or something.” Then she rolled her eyes. “Actually, never mind. He’s probably just some egghead.”
“Actually… Rainbow Splash, was it?” Goldstone continued, “You jest, but you’re right about the skulls. He supposedly has the largest private collection in Griffonia, possibly in the whole eastern half of the Known World.”
“I doubt that,” Gilda muttered, “Kinda hard to beat Griffonstone, and a thousand years of griffons tryin’ to get one over on each other.”
Goldstone continued as though he hadn’t heard her. “In fact, just about the only time he’s come down from that tower in recent memory was to try to buy my ancestor Geraldine III’s skull. He said it had ‘historical value’, being…” the noblegriff paused, and for the first time since Twilight had met him seemed actually upset about something, “Well, it was the only part of her they were able to bring back home in one piece.” He shook his head, and made a strange little slicing motion with one talon. “I told him absolutely not, of course, at least not for the pathetic few thousand bits he was offering.”
“Huh.” Gilda cocked her head, “I sorta’ wish my skull’d be worth a thousand bits someday. Or, really, I’d actually be fine just as long as it ended up someplace where griffons could remember me by it. I wouldn’t even care if some psycho killer had it, just as long as she was a badass mad wizard or something and not, like, some cheesy idiot who hid under a cake shop or whatever.”
“Oh, Boreas, can you imagine Surprise being a psycho killer?” Rainbow Dash snickered.
“I don’t think she’d get around to killing anycreature, is the thing,” the griffon chuckled, “Just tie ‘em up and tell lame organ jokes until they died of boredom-”
Rarity spoke up rather quickly after that, over the two fliers. “Gerald, darling, how much did you say Gordon asked for Geraldine’s remains?”
“Ten thousand bits. He didn’t seem to understand how much such an important piece of Innsbeak’s legacy would actually be worth.”
“Well, in that case…” Twilight struggled to keep her sudden nervousness from creeping into her voice, “I’d be willing to offer eleven thousand bits for it.”
Gilda stopped quietly snickering with Rainbow Dash, and stared at Twilight.
For the first time that evening, Goldstone laughed. It sounded high, light, and oddly childish. “My dear doctor! The skull is easily worth half-again that amount!”
“Fifteen thousand bits, then,” Twilight countered, before she could suffer second thoughts.
Still staring at Twilight, Gilda silently shook her head.
Rarity leaned over and whispered, “Twilight, do we even… have that much money?”
“Barely…” Twilight replied. In fact, she’d likely have to find some sort of a reputable international banking institution in the city to withdraw most of her personal funds- and ask her friends to make donations she might not ever be able to fully pay back. She didn’t relish the idea of writing ‘Eighth Century griffon warlord’s remains, for the purposes of luring a paranoid independent wizard out of a tower to discuss information classified by Equestrian law’ on her operational budget for the Ponyville Expedition. Ironically, she might’ve been able to make up most of the difference if she hadn’t blown eight thousand bits on the Luna Bay Fragment a year ago, before she’d had access to an operations budget at all.
Gilda's expression could peel paint off a wall, but for the life of her Twilight didn't know what the hen was trying to communicate.
Goldstone, for his part, seemed to consider her offer for a few seconds. Then, slowly and quietly, he asked “Surely, anypony who’d pay fifteen thousand bits for the Baroness’s remains… would be willing to pay twenty-five thousand?”
Twilight met his calculating stare with what she hoped was one of her own. “Not necessarily…”
“Twenty thousand, then?”
“I’m afraid that’s… not possible at the moment.”
“Oh, that is unfortunate. Although, should you reconsider, I promise you the dear Baroness won’t be going anywhere…” Goldstone smiled a particularly predatory smile. “In fact, in the spirit of our past business, I’m willing to make you a very special offer.” He motioned for one of the servants to step closer, and quietly muttered something in Griffish. The servant in question vanished through another door Twilight had mistaken for wood paneling, and reappeared less than thirty seconds later. In one talon, he held a dark wooden cube about the size of an equinoid head, each side broken up into nine colorful lacquer inlays. “Perhaps this part of Mum’s collection might be more to your tastes,” the tiercel explained, “It’s a centaur puzzle-box dating back to the early Fifth Century, supposedly one of the last ones ever constructed by the savant Rubek. I’ve never been able to make much headway on it myself, but I’m sure a…” he paused, and shot Gilda a strange look, “a clever berk like yourself would be more than up to the task.” He plucked the box out of the servant’s upraised claw and slid it onto the table.
Twilight shook her head. “I’m afraid I’m here strictly on business.”
“How about a gentlegriffs’ wager, then?” Goldstone asked. “There’s supposed to be a strip of thaumosensitive paper in the center of that box. If, in two days, you manage to extract it without using any sort of magic, I’d be willing to knock a few thousand bits off the price of that skull in the chapel…”
“And if I can’t?” Twilight let her eyes narrow and her ears fold down, although inwardly she was grinning. Smaller and less ornate versions of the same puzzle cube had been sold in Equestrian shops since before she was born. There were a few papers written on the algorithms to solve them most efficiently.
“Well, it always pays dividends to have an up-and-coming academic who just so happens to have the ears of both the Commander of the Royal Guard, and Her Grace the Exarch Princess Celestia herself, owing me a favor, wouldn't you say?”
Twilight circled the sickly yellow carpet in her guest room, which was feeling decidedly more claustrophobic now that all three of her companions had decided to accompany her into it, with an antique puzzle cube floating telekinetically over her head.
“Twilight… boss… what in Tartarus were you thinking?” Gilda asked, almost as soon as the door was shut.
“I don’t know, and I’d appreciate if you could just tell me,” Twilight said, bitterly. It came out more forcefully than she’d intended, and both Gilda and Rainbow Dash’s eyes narrowed. Twilight set the puzzle-cube aside on an end table, and continued more softly. “I… that’s not sarcasm, I legitimately don’t know what I did wrong tonight.”
Rarity looked at Gilda. Gilda looked at Rarity. “Do you want to-” the tailor began, and then trailed off.
Gilda nodded. “Actually, there’s a Rule of Acquisition about this,” she said, mentioning one of the holier griffonic religious texts, “number four or five, I think. Never let them know how much you need what they have.”
Once again, Rarity seemed about to speak, but Gilda held up a talon. “This is Griffonia, Twilight. I don’t know how you do business, or how most ponies do business, but around here… well, in Griffish, ‘customer’ and ‘competitor’ are the same fuckin’ word. Everygriff’s sure that if there’s a winner, then there’s gotta be a loser. And that fucking shitbagger Goldstone doesn’t want to be the loser. I don’t know how, yet, but that bet he made is shit. Somehow, sometime, he’s gonna cheat you on it.”
“So… now what do we do?” demanded Rainbow Dash, “Go home, with our tails between our legs?”
Twilight closed her eyes, and pulled in a deep breath. “No. We stay here, and we regroup. I’d like to at least try to take Goldstone up on his offer… maybe he didn’t realize how well-known the cubes are, maybe I can cheat him first… Maybe if he realizes we aren’t going to pay up, he’ll come back to the table. I don’t know.” Then she shook her head. “Also, Gilda, if you could maybe refrain from insulting both his guard captain and late mother in one sitting, and generally making a fool of yourself with Rainbow Dash, that’d be great too.”
The pegasus bobbed her head and muttered “Sorry?”
Gilda just chuckled. “I kinda got the impression he didn’t like her too much?”
“Yes, but she’s still a noble. You’re a commoner. You’re still expected to treat her respectfully.”
“Actually… I might be able to talk to Goldstone, darling,” Rarity interrupted, “I think he’d be more willing to deal with somepony he thinks has more to offer.”
“Sounds good.” Twilight opened her eyes again, and only then realized how tired she was, and how good it had felt to keep them closed. “We’ll go over the finer details tomorrow morning.”
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I understand why the griffons are mostly poor and criminal given the shoddy state of Griffonstone in the show but it usually saddens me to see it in stories since I always thought Gilda has a nice design.
Also the strong implication that Celestia set things up to take out a potentially bad ruler is neat, she would be a manipulator like that in the Extended Cut.
10974721
For what it's worth, Gilda doesn't seem all that enthused about the situation, either.
10974760
Gilda's not exactly a good griffon either and definitely seems to have her own issues going on but given how the show originally went I do have hope for her in the EC,
10974769
Yeah, as I said in the author's note, in the original episode I really thought she didn't deserve the treatment she got from most of Ponyville. It'll take a while (like, multiple seasons, actually), but she (and griffonkind in general) are eventually going to get their day in the sun.
10974831
Oh that pleases me greatly to hear that and I hope Trixie gets similar treatment in Boast Busters EC since she did nothing wrong in that episode (except take advantage of Snips and Snails hero worship)
Hey there. Thanks very much for getting the next chapter up. Again, really good job on the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up. Yeah, I can understand why most of the griffons are crooks (makes me amazed how Gabby turned out as well as she did [She'd definitely be a prime candidate for the Elements of either Generosity {stopping to help somebody else even when she was in a hurry to get out of town} or Laughter {managing to maintain a positive attitude even with all the garbage she got put through} if Rarity and Pinkie didn't already do such good jobs with those roles], but that's a couple of years down the road), but I AM glad that things WILL eventually change for the better for them (even if it will take quite a while). Of course, if you think about it, most Griffons have most of the basic abilities of a rookie Alicorn (they can fly like a Pegasus, they have comparable strength to an Earth pony and, while they don't have telekinesis like the unicorns, they DO have claws with opposable digits, so that's two-and-a-half-thirds of the starting abilities of an Alicorn), so a Griffon COULD learn how to do a lot of they had the heart and work ethic to keep trying. But I digress.
Anyway, definitely did a great job on the bits of added backstory, as well as Rarity and Twilight's frustrations concerning their experience with griffons thus far. Also enjoyed Twilight's recall of her earlier (admittedly limited) experience with travelling outside Equestria (at least for the time being; she will get A LOT more travelling experience in the years to come, possibly even into other universes if you count future dealings with Sunset Shimmer).
VERY certainly looking forward to more of this.
10974893
Well, it's not a total mystery how Gabby ended up how she did. She's in this chapter, after all.
10974924
Yeah. Good catch. I admit that I skimmed the chapter and missed that. Still, thanks for pointing that out.
10974760
Her unhappiness with the poverty and poorly fed servants is a point in her favor, at least.
Berk is such a great word. I have to use it more often.
Twilight's offer makes sense if she were utterly desperate to meet this guy, but why is she willing to spend such a huge sum on what currently seems like just a MEETING with a lead? I guess she's remembering her luck with the Luna Bay Fragment? Or she hopes to recoup much of the cost by selling it to Gordon as the pretext for meeting him.
The dinner in general was just such a great scene. Awkward and kind of stilted dialogue between near-strangers and characters who are so uncomfortable.
I can't imagine the cube isn't somehow rigged, unless this guy is severely underestimating Twilight.
10975394
On all counts: Hehehehe...
honestly the minute the puzzle box got mentioned my brain jumped straight to