A Long way for a short story

by Shirlendra

Three Fourths of an Omelette

Author's Note:

I want to put a disclaimer on this in wake of recent global events.

I wrote this story some time ago, as part two of "voice in my head" and part of the build up in a larger series encompassing "RSL-047" and "Forgotten Battlefields".

I have changed no part of this story since it's writing.

“One egg in your omelette or two?” the husky griffon said, cracking an egg against the side of a rough hewn bowl.

“Just the one, thank you.” I replied. I could actually feel the grit in my teeth from the road. My mouth was already parched, I really wanted nothing more than a glass of water. I eyed the mug at my elbow, a deep white murky liquid sat within.

He made no sign of acknowledgement as he poured the first egg into the bowl and swiftly cracked another to join it. “You are a long way from the front.”

“Simpleton…”

“I am, yes.” I watched the griffon retrieve a wooden spoon.

“That’s more splinters than wood…”

He spun the spoon in the bowl, the clacking of it against the sides of the bowl filling the open sided mess tent. Cool sunlight played beyond the tent as the canopy of the trees high above moved slightly in some unseen breeze. “You are reporting on this… conflict?”

“Yes.” I took a chipped earthenware mug in my aura and sipped the warm spiced brew within. Notes of Cinnamon and vanilla played across my tongue as I let it sit for a moment, and washed away the grit before gulping it down. “I wanted to understand both sides.”

“For Equestrian Citizens?” The griffon lit a small camp stove, little more than a burner and a tank.

“For the world.” I took another sip from the earthenware, the warmth was delicious.

He suppressed what might have been a guffaw and set a pan on the burner before pouring the eggs in. They crackled slightly as the pan was put over the flame.

From the edge of my vision I spotted a flash of movement and the sound of a hoof striking wood. I turned to look and saw the Llama, he wore the deep blues and red epaulets of a ranking officer.

The exchange between the Llama and griffon was brief. The llama’s speech, too quick to follow. The griffon spoke only a few words, but I did manage to pick out the word “Equestrian” from the chatter.

“Those griffish lessons really paid off, hunh?”

I noted the glittering hilt of a Hippogriffian honor guard knife at the officers belt. I wondered idly if it was a gift, or a spoil of war.

The llama struck his hoof against the floor again and exited as quickly as he came, a momentary distraction. One I paid for a moment later when the griffon deposited the plate with omelette on the table.

“Eat, we will be moving here momentarily.” He took up the spot opposite mine and dropped a pair of paper satchels on the table. “Salt and Pepper.” he inclined his beak slightly towards them.

I took them up with my aura and quickly spread the pepper over the omelette. “I don’t suppose you have any hot sauce?”

The griffon snickered. “Your attempt at flattery is noted.” But obligated with a tiny pot.

I took it and poured more than a fair share upon the plate. “I simply enjoy spiced foods.”

“You are going to regret this later…”

“Very well. So, how is it that the Hippogriffs allow you to wander beyond their lines without an escort?” The griffon cracked open a small flask and took a pull from it. “For that matter, why is it that I find you here. In this camp.”

“I was looking for you.” With a movement of my aura I cut the end from the omelette and brought it to my lips, the hot sauce burned my nose and my eyes began to water.

The griffon laughed from his belly, “Me? Surely not. I know you have been moving between the Llama camps. ‘Trying to get the real story’ Is that what you’ve said?”

“That’s what I am looking for, yes.” I popped the bite into my mouth and chewed for a moment as the hot sauce burned my tongue. A quick sip of the spiced drink and the heat reduced considerably.

“Perhaps… or perhaps you are an Equestrian Spy.” He leaned forward on his elbows, his eyes narrowing as my face began to sweat.

“The Equestrians are not officially involved in this war.” I began.

“And neither am I.” He tilted his head slightly back and forth, studying me. “And yet, here we are.”

I cut and took another bite of the omelette. The heat brought gentle tears to my eyes and I wiped them away with the back of my hoof. “Here we are.” I nodded slightly.

“Of course, If I honestly believed you were a spy I’d have had you buried in the woods.” His eyes watched my own.

For a moment, as I looked into those cold eyes I wondered If I’d be finishing this omelette.

“Luckily for you…” he reached into his faded field jacket and retrieved a scrap of paper with his claws. The flash of a well worn grip was visible for only a moment against his white undershirt. “I know of your work.” He opened the paper and laid it upon the table.

I looked down at the scrap of paper, and saw the words printed upon it.

“Shit.”

“I see you are a fan of my earlier works.” I cut another piece from the omelette and popped it in my mouth. I raised the cup to my lips as the heat began to overwhelm my tongue and took a sip.

“I particularly enjoyed your descriptions of the sound the changeling shells made as they shattered.” He folded the paper back up and slid it back into his jacket. “So, what made you. Faux Couture world renowned reporter want to visit our little backwater.”

“I wanted to understand the conflict here.” I finished my cup of the warm drink and held out the cup for another serving.

The griffon obliged me with a pour from an open topped pitcher. “It is a local affair, of little importance beyond these meager borders.” The griffon set the pitcher to the table top with a thunk. “The Llama’s had a number of settlements here and the Hippogriffs believe the mineral rights belong to them.”

I reached below the table for my bag, and retrieved a notebook from within. “May I quote you on that?” I took the nub of a pencil from between the pages with my aura.

“I don’t see why not, It’s common knowledge. You may ask any Llama here.” He waved a claw dismissively. “But I suspect you are not here for common knowledge. So what do you really want to know?”

“There are reports… that the Griffons are aiding the Llama’s in this conflict.” I held the pencil nub in my aura, the book lay to the side of my plate.

The griffon sat back slightly, watching me. He was silent for a moment, “Do I look like a military commander to you? I am simply a civilian, I have no knowledge of such things.” He took another sip from his flask. “Besides, if any of these Llama’s spoke a lick of Equestrian they could speak with you directly.”

“I had meant to ask about that.” I tap my pencil gently against the plate, “You speak near perfect Equestrian. I apologize we cannot effectively communicate in your language.”

He chuckled “I’d not want to hear my father tongue spoken by you, nor any other Equestrian for that matter.” he clicked his beak. “However… you are correct, as a youth I attended the Equestrian academy in Griffon Stone.”

“You spent time in the Cultural Exchange Academy?” I made a note in my book, to follow up on it.

“Along with many of my comrades. The Equestrian teachers were kind and they knew their classes. I always regretted the way they were treated during-” He nearly spit out the griffon word. “-They did not deserve that fate.” He took a pull of his flask and a sour look came over his face.

“You are speaking of the student uprising?” I jotted down a few notes and took a sip of my warm spiced drink.

“I am and I will speak no more of it.” He checked his wristwatch. “It is nearly time. Finish your food and we will go.” He stood and paced towards the side of the open air tent and barked out an order.

I cut and took another bite of my omelette as a pair of Llamas trotted towards the tent before washing the heat away with the drink. “I never did ask what this is.” I nodded to the drink.

“The Llamas call it Horchata.” He said over his shoulder as the Llamas stopped before him and slapped their hooves to the ground in unison. He began to speak to them in that dialect too quickly for me to catch. They stamped again and turned and trotted off.

I watched the exchange for a moment and then jotted down a note about it and the drink I was enjoying.

“We will be depositing you at a neutral location.” The griffon said as he stood at the far end of the table. “The truck is being prepared now.” He sat again. “We will not be seeing eachother again, and as a courtesy I will allow you to keep your belongings.”

“I see…” I closed my notebook and returned it to my bag. “And If I have additional questions?”

“You will receive the best answers from the hippogriffs. You should ask them of the area denial attacks they employ against the Llamas.” He retrieved and took a pull of his flask.

“The gas?” I inquired.

“The mines, the gas, the flames. You will find… that your allies are not as clean in this conflict as other Equestrian reporters make them out to be.” He checked his wristwatch again. “Time to go.”

I stand and pick up my cup in my aura, holding it out to the griffon. “To the swift end of this conflict.”

The griffon taps my cup with his flask. “Live well.” And he took a pull from it.

I matched it and drained my cup. “I never did get your name.”

“I never gave it.” He tucked the flask back into his field jacket. “You may credit me as an unnamed citizen.”

“I sha-”

I felt the feathery impact before I saw it. There was a roaring in my ears and a sudden heat as I was crushed against the ground and the wind was knocked from my chest.

I blinked, my snout was pressed into the griffons shirt. He smelled of sweat and dust. From my vantage point beneath the griffon I could see the forest beyond the tent, it was aflame.

“Faux!” He shouted, and lifted himself off me. “Are you undamaged?”

“I… believe so.” I checked myself with my hooves, everything appeared in place.

“Good.” His sidearm was out of it’s holster and clutched in a talon, it glinted dully in the flames. “Let’s go.” With his other claw he pulled me to my hooves.

“What was that?” I asked, stuttering slightly.

“You are in shock.”

“Firebombs. The Hippogriffs have found us.” He cocked the slide with his other claw and flipped the safety off. “We are getting to the truck and moving out.”

“Understood.” I grabbed my bag and slung it over my neck. “Following you.”

The griffon stepped to the edge of the tent and surveyed for a moment. “Stay close.”

I moved behind the griffon and nodded.

As we left the tent I noted that I hadn’t finished the omelette. It remained on the plate, untouched by the fires raging beyond the tent.
Only three fourths eaten.

---

I adjusted my flight helmet and keyed the comm with a hoof, “What’s the name of this village?” I said, the wind outside the open door whipping anything other than headset communications away.

“Tumcanas.” came the static reply from the llama seated before me. He wore the field jacket and muted regalia of a corporal, and had the mustache to match.

I leaned slightly in my harness as the helicopter banked and I saw a flight of identical units race on ahead towards a clearing beyond the trees. “Is this a military installation?”

“Si.” He tapped on his helmet and although the words were lost in the wind it was clear he was giving orders.

I turned my eyes back to the flight line as they cleared the treeline and began to set down into the field. I brought my camera to my eye and snapped off a few quick shots. I could see llamas in their gear jumping from the transports and beginning to form a perimeter.

“Quince Segundos” came the voice of the Corporal to my helmet.

I simply nodded in return and snapped another picture. The “Town” was little more than three buildings and the remains of a barbed wire fence. A radio tower stuck up from the central building in the town.

The Helicopter passed the town and I snapped a quick aerial shot of the Llama’s beginning to move in on the town.

The transports which had deposited their payload of troopers were already beginning to take off. Lifting their bulk from the grasses at the edge of town.

I spotted movement at the treeline behind the transports and snapped a quick shot as a series of winged forms burst from the treeline. The Llamas who were forming the perimeter at that location wilted before the onslaught. The line which had begun to move upon the town faltered for a moment, a few of them began to turn back towards the transports.

This was their second mistake of the day. Clearly the Hippogriffs had been waiting for just this moment, and as the line faltered there came a roar from the town as automatic weapons opened up.

I took picture after picture as the first of the transports was compromised by invaders, it plowed a furrow into the field as it fell and the rotors crumpled and spun away.

The llama’s had located the sources of the fire and were pouring their own into the locations. There was the flash of a shoulder mounted system and a sudden fireball as one of the buildings detonated. Bits of masonry pelted my fur and the fuselage as a cloud of black smoke belched from the crater.

The second transport had apparently effectively fought off their borders and was slowly loping around to target the final when a stream of heavy tracer fire burst from the trees somewhere below us and punched straight through the cockpit.

I glanced at the corporal, his entire face was lit up like a bad sunburn. He was shouting into his headset as I snapped a picture of him.

Turning back to the scene below I saw the second transport lose altitude and slam into the ground, flame licked from every open port.

There was a sudden flash of a warning light from the cockpit of our own helicopter and a sudden sinking feeling in my stomach as we banked away from the town of Tumcanas. Above, I saw only the blue sky. For a moment as I readjusted to shoot through the far door, I saw the final transport pulling it’s nose on an intercept course.

A moment later and we were over the trees heading away from the battle.

I’d later learn that although the Llama’s sustained over sixty percent casualties and the loss of all three transports they took the two remaining buildings of Tumcanas.

---

“Everyone likes a feelgood story.” I tilted my head to watch my pencil as it slowly spun in my magic.

“Do they though? Or do they just like the concept of one.”

“If they don’t know the difference, does it really matter?” I let the pencil fall to the open book and picked up the drink.

“You’re not going to get anything written properly with that.”

“Maybe not… but at least I’ll get something written.” I took a sip and let the cool minty flavor wrap itself around my tongue.

“Perhaps…”

---

The cool wood pressed against my face, I could feel the knicks and dents from years of abuse pressing into my fur from the bartop below.

“You’re drunk.”

“I like it this way…” I felt my hoof raise as if on its own free will. “Bartender!” I called out. A moment later I heard the clink of the bottle on the bar and through watery eyes I beheld that sight which I had come to expect.

I powered up my horn and with a tug I pulled the bottle to me.

“Too fast!”

A sudden panic, I reared back and for a moment the dingy bar stood in stark contrast. The Llama bartender with a poor excuse for a mustache stood, just beyond. Towel halfway into a dirty glass like something out of a three bit novel. In the corners and at the few tables, llama civilians and rebels, their eyes dark and faces gaunt. I even saw myself in the mirror behind the bar, I looked in poor form.

All of this, extinguished a moment later as my head connected with the floor.

---

I shielded my eyes from the sunlight above as it filtered its way through the canopy. Ahead and behind me, the column stretched away into the trees.

Llama’s. Civilians. Mostly. Their few belongings strapped to their backs. Their multi hued ponchos long since having lost their vibrancy. The few guards of the column stood off into the trees, their rifles glinting dully in the light as they watched for signs of ambush.

I noted this all, from time to time I’d bring my camera’s sight into focus. I snapped pictures of the families. Of the guards. Of the courage, and the hardship that they needed to endure to make this trek.

We were three days from the rally point on the shore when we came across the first camp. A hippogriff camp as the guards would inform me. Empty, but likely trapped they’d said. I hadn’t thought much of the last part until some llama decided to raid the mess tent.

I took pictures of the aftermath.

---

Roads and fields.

The Llama’s avoided them at all costs.

A road meant vehicles, and although they had some. They were far too few in number to make any real difference.

The Hippogriffs ruled the skies, seas and everything bigger than two buildings in the entire conflict zone.

They preferred to stay in the deep forests where the hippogriffs wings could not provide them an advantage. Where their aircraft and vehicles could not easily pass. Where the Llama’s had the upper hoof as it were.

There were no civilians left, the only people on either side still left anywhere in the region were soldiers. And the soldiers... had no qualms about killing their own.

I was shown a map, I didn’t ask why. Perhaps the Llama subcommander thought it might make me pity them. Perhaps she thought I’d tell the world of their plight. It… the map that is, indicated the final pockets of resistance against the invading Hippogriffs. It would have been clear to anyone how the finale would play out.

I later wondered for a time what the Llama subcommander would tell her Griffon handler when I was discovered missing later that evening.

---

There were bits of salad stuck in his teeth. I watched in fascination as he flipped the page of the report and took another chunk from the sandwich in his hoof. It was all so mundane, the room, the stallion in the ill fitting suit and balding mane. The fan that spun lazily overhead, the hum of the ductwork somewhere above my head.

I almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

The stallion flipped the final page and closed the dossier with a sense of finality and crossed his hooves over his stomach. “That…is quite a read.”

I nodded stiffly. “Six months of reports.”

“I particularly enjoyed the pictures. You really know how to capture the soul of a people.” he brought his eyes from the report on his desk to my own, “Good work.”

“Just doing my duty.” I said, the words felt hollow, greasy, like an empty soup can left on the counter.

“We will of course, make sure your accounts reflect that. Is there anything you’d like to amend to this report?” His eyes were brown and soft, like his ill fitting suit. Slightly red and watery, an allergic reaction no doubt to the local flora.

“No, Sir.” I shook my head, the crisp air of the little office was already playing havoc on my vocal cords. I wondered idly if my voice was going to crack after this encounter.

“Very well.” He pressed an intercom button and I found an interest in my hooves.

“That bake shop on grove probably still has those little chocolate filled cupcakes.”

“I’d prefer a cup of Horchata… They’d probably make it.”

“Not likely, unequestrian they’d call it. They’d probably call the local guard on the Llama sympathizer.”

“Maybe… But perhaps they could make it. Special request and all.”

A noise brought me out of my head. The stallion gently coughed again, the polite sort of cough that was more for the listeners benefit than any medical necessity.

“Your flight is in fifteen minutes. Will you be needing any assistance with your gear?” He looked over my frame.

I’d lost any fat that had previously clung jealousy to my bones. I probably looked about as good as I felt. “No, I’ll be alright.”

“Suit yourself. Although, you will be needing these.” He slid a manila envelope across the desk to me, unmarked, as it should be.

I picked it up with my magic and dumped it’s contents onto my lap. Passport, Good watch and an extra pair of sunglasses. I pocketed the passport and slipped the watch onto my wrist and stood. “Will I need a connecting flight?”

“No. We’ll be taking you direct to your flat, a transport will pick you up on the far side.” He retrieved a tissue and blew his nose. He seemed distracted by whatever came out of it so I took that as my cue to leave.

I was at the door, the cool knob in hoof and half way out of it when he asked.

“Did you really eat an omelette with a griffon?”

“I did.” I replied, not bothering to turn back.

“The entire thing?”

“No Sir. Just three fourths.”

And with that, I left the office and the conflict zone behind.