13 - The Season of Giving
Griffons across the Continent: Belligerent for yet another Blue Moon Festival
Another year has come and gone. With it, another Blue-Moon Festival is celebrated with Griffons across Griffonia more disjointed and isolated from one another as ever before. The Sunstrikers raid and pillage their brothers with impunity, the Griffonian Empire and Kingdom of Aquileia brutally repress their citizens to maintain order, and the rest are content to ignore the emerging crises in Prywhen and Longsword until the growing violence spreads past their borders, as it inevitably will.
Our Republic – with its remote location and weak socio-economic position – is more justified than most in its isolationist policies. However, it cannot claim the moral high-ground. Tensions continue to mount between the Herzlanders and Cloudburians among us and no diplomatic solution to the bandits in the north has been considered for several years now. Even distant relatives of the former Duke remain separated from their families despite their political irrelevance. Truly, a microcosm of Griffons as a whole.
Even the holidays themselves are not immune to political discord. In their speeches, Rikard Astler of the L-NRP focused solely on internal unity between Herzlanders and Cloudburians, and Schnabel Sunglider of the C-NRP focused solely on external unity through a war with the Griffonian Empire. Only President Kemerskai and Heinrich Kingfeather of the R-NRP in their joint address spoke of the true meaning of the holidays, of family and faith. Yet how can they be believed when they have yet to make the day an official work holiday.
Thankfully, the griffons of our nation have not forgotten their traditions. Most we polled plan to spend their time with family, eating scones and drinking warm eggnog around a fire and ignoring petty politics.
It is the hope of this newspaper and of all pan-griffonians that everygriff try to do some small thing for one another this Blue-Moon Festival. Give some of your extra food or money to a charity near you. Take some time to learn the culture and language of the griffon friends you know. Above all, take this day to pray to Boreas, Eyr, Arcturius and all the minor deities. Reflect on their unity and the lessons of the faith, and use them to motivate within you feelings that can be spread to your local community.
While chaos and war have always been a staple of the griffon way of life, so too are leadership and family. Be a leader and family for your community this holiday season and one day we might look at the griffons around us, not as enemies and strangers, but allies and friends united as one family.
- Article on the front page of the Cloudbury Local Newspaper, Den Uafhængige (4th Week of December 1003 Edition)
November 24th, 1003 – Griffon Resources Co-Op and Orphanage, Cloudbury, Griffonian Republic – Tanya POV
Things had improved over the past few weeks for Tanya’s business cooperative.
With her release from prison, her notoriety had soared to astronomical heights and she used that infamy to leverage good PR for her brand. Her reputation as a negotiator that prevented strikes helped convince the capitalists of her competence while her time working with the L-NRP helped with the socialists. Finally, her lifetime of work was paying off and she would soon reap the rewards she so justly deserved!
That was not enough to make a business successful on its own, but it saved time-consuming and expensive start-up costs. That was vital, as the seed money she had used to open her business was almost completely gone. It meant that – with her employees now working and not utterly failing at their jobs – her cash-flows were now in the black. She needed only to foster a good reputation, gather feedback, and reinvest back into her employees and she would soon be set for life.
The orphans were already cost-effective and motivated, so the next step would be to further hone their skills so that her business would continue to remain competitive. This reinvestment is what motivated herself to spend the past 4 hours pacing in front of her classroom and finishing a lecture.
“…and that is the nature of a government audit. For this reason, it should be clear that your work must be free of political bias and above board. Are there any questions?”
As was normal, there were few questions. Instead, the only sounds being made were Astrid and the other “Directors” at their desks furiously writing into their notebooks. Tanya had been worried, at first, that perhaps she was being too tough on them. These were certainly topics that would have been too much for herself at their age. Yet despite all odds, they seemed to keep up.
‘Obviously I’m no match for the dedicated Japanese teachers and professors that taught me almost everything I know… but maybe it’s my razor-focused approach that makes it work? If I focus only on things necessary to do their jobs – instead of the generalization of a modern universal education – I suppose that the lessons are simple enough that even a novice like myself can teach… Or maybe I have a knack for it?’
With the lesson over, the classroom erupted in a cacophony of action as her orphan-students Board of Directors rearranged their desks in a circle and waited for her to sit down with them. Before she did, they all bowed.
““We give respect to the Boss!””
Tanya grimaced.
‘Do they have to make it sound like I’m an 親分 (oyabun, yakuza leader)… although maybe that’s inevitable since I am their 親分 (oyabun, foster parent). Ha… Although I suppose this is still better than the last few weeks. At least they aren’t wasting hours yelling over one-another trying to prove their “undying loyalty” and their “knowledge of Griffon Resources”.’
She had addressed their unproductive sycophancy in the only way she knew how: falling back on her years of working as a Japanese Salaryman. She made it clear that any praise would be contingent on their performance which would create a hierarchy of respect in the company. She figured that with a strict protocol on how to act – depending on one’s station in comparison to one-another – they would retain a culture of respect while motivating themselves to work harder.
Unfortunately – as with most of her lessons – her students took things further than she would have liked, but there was nothing wrong with that intrinsically. They were overly formal, but that was better than the alternative, so she let them be. She just had to be vigilant and keep things under control. Hopefully they would settle into a more reasonable attitude with time.
Her Japanese sensibilities would not allow her to accept the undeserved and overdone greeting from her employees, and so she bowed her head in return to even the score.
“I am grateful to my Board of Directors.”
They looked ready to give a retort, but Tanya glared at them before they could. Thankfully, it seemed that her work over the past few weeks had paid off and they said nothing. Finally, the start of the meeting did not devolve into an hour of pointless back-and-forth. With them all settled into their respective desks, she started the meeting.
“The Griffon Resources Board Planning Meeting for Week 46 is convened. The minute-taker will be Head of Internal Griffon Resources: Astrid. Hopefully we’ll soon have someone dedicated to the role so we are not wasting the valuable time of our Directors writing things out.”
Astrid typed down the minutes of the meeting on the typewriter in front of her with a big smile on her face.
“Please, take your time Boss. I’m more than happy to record your words for the rest of my life!”
Tanya frowned. It was another strike on a long list of disappointments she was having with her so-called “number 1 fan”. Astrid had been a diligent and capable worker… yet she chose to be Head of Griffon Resources.
‘I tried to explain to her that, despite our work, Head of Griffon Resources was not a valuable position. After all, I didn’t create this company because GR is the most important thing in the world, but merely that it was a key aspect of modern management missing in Republican companies. A niche that could be exploited for short-term profit. Once competitors arrive and the market saturates, it’ll be like any other job. For some reason, that explanation only made Astrid more eager to “prove GR is the best”. Is that the limits of her aspirations? With her capabilities, she should be leading Operations or even demanding the creation of a Chief Operations Officer to match my Chief Executive Officer position. She’s just squandering her potential.’
Tanya sighed. She would not be able to change Astrid’s mind, but at least she could try to reprimand the chick… again.
“Be that as it may, I would like to remind you that the purpose of Griffon Resources is to improve efficiency. If all you want to do is take minutes, you’re free to remove yourself as Head of GR. We all have our likes and dislikes, but the purpose of these meetings is a quick and productive summary of the company agenda for the week. If you are distracted by other things, that will no longer be the case.”
Astrid looked surprised.
“Of- of course! Please forgive me! I’ll be sure to find a suitable replacement by the next meeting, I promise!”
Her meek attitude reminded Tanya of yet another problem: nogriff was challenging her.
“I’m sure you will… That said, I will remind you all that – as a Co-Op – this company is democratic. That means you are not only encouraged but required by the company charter to speak up if there are any problems. Just as voting is your duty as Republican Citizens, criticism and self-improvement are your duties as employees. If any one of you thinks that you can lead this company better than I can, you are free to elect my replacement. We all want this company to succeed, but that can only happen with the best griffons in charge.”
She looked to the other directors and they all appeared to be taking her advice seriously. They were still young and unlikely to be serious competition as her replacement in the short-term, but the last thing she wanted was for them to throw away their ambitions like Astrid. She knew from her time with the L-NRP that most co-ops made it difficult to fire or remove voting members which allowed incompetence and corruption to fester in their ranks.
She would not allow that to happen to her company. She wrote the company charter specifically to avoid that: outlining a three-branch structure with a Board of Directors (Legislative), Griffon Resources Department (Judiciary) and CEO (Executive) emulating a Parliamentary System which allowed the company to hire, fire, promote or demote any member when appropriate evidence is found and procedures followed.
‘By showing how a Co-Op ought to be run, maybe they’ll stop their political nonsense. After all, democratic workplaces like Co-Ops, Partnerships and Credit Unions all functioned perfectly well in a capitalist society despite what the socialists might want to believe. If I can show that their mindset is the issue, I can at least try to deprogram the more moderate socialists back to being normal, productive citizens.’
She grimaced as she remembered the other reason for choosing a cooperative business structure.
‘It’s too easy for top-down businesses to fall into crony capitalism in the Republic. Of course, that’s hardly the fault of capitalism. Without laissez-faire economic policies, a well-regulated stock-exchange, and an honest judiciary, the market in the Republic is not free and ripe for exploitation. Without those fundamental axioms on which modern capitalism is built, it’s impossible for the Chicago School or the Invisible Hand to self-regulate. However, if I can show that there is value in voting-option investment and a Board of Directors checking the power of a corruptible upper management, I might be able to reduce the number of cronies interfering with the market.’
She would do her best to mitigate the harm until the government started doing their job to fix the economy, but it was almost certainly impossible to achieve in practice. It was not like Tanya had any delusions of grandeur, however; it was just a nice goal to work towards. Realistically, she would use her future knowledge to make sensible business decisions while riding the exponential rate of industrial growth. She would be able to retire early on a rich pension even in her conservative estimates, so there was not much point in attempting nation-wide change.
At that reminder of her bright future, she had a smile on her face as she turned to Kurt: a diminutive green griffon and 14-year-old Director of Public Relations.
“Last week, you discussed issues in reaching out to other companies about our standing in the business community. Were you able to speak with company reps in Cloudbury? How does our company look?”
Kurt rocketed out of his seat and nervously shuffled through his papers.
“Y-yes, boss. T-thank you for g-giving me a second chance to prove myself… Um, it seems our PR with the capitalists is, uh, alright? They’re coming to us whenever they have problems, but they’re not eager to work with us full-time. However, our PR with the socialists is great! They heard of your amazing work with the Squark Munitions Plant and everygriff’s hoping we can do that for them too. Unfortunately, uh… I tried convincing them about Griffon Resources – honestly I did! – but they just wouldn’t listen. They want you to make their businesses better without changing anything. Giving them something like those Gauge Blocks, for exmaple. Some of the co-ops have seen the light and taken one of us full-time, but the rest…”
Astrid paused her typing and sneered.
“It’s just like those foolish adults to throw away a path to greatness because they’re blinded by shiny trinkets.”
Tanya sighed and shook her head.
“Remember: the customer is never wrong, especially regarding our image. This is a PR problem-”
Kurt paled.
“I-I-I’m s-so sorry B-Boss! I-”
Tanya tried to calm him down.
“No, no, it’s not your fault either. As with all our issues at the moment, the fault is mine. My reputation is a double-edged sword. To anygriff outside this room, my actions in improving the Squark Munitions Plant or my negotiations with the capitalists were just my own personal skill or luck. They don’t understand that my solutions stem from GR and are teachable. It will be up to us to ensure that our PR continues to improve once we’ve got a proven track-record. I look forward to your future results. Point the biggest complainers my way after the meeting. I’ll see what I can do.”
He bowed to her repeatedly.
“Yes! Of course, Boss! Thank you for helping me! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Tanya groaned. She was about to try explaining again that this was not his fault, but ultimately decided to move on. Just like with Astrid, Tanya was realizing that trying to change the mind of a child was impossible. The best she could do was guide them towards productive ends with her actions.
She turned to Ida, a pink 13-year-old chick. She was the Director of Operations; the position second only to herself. Unlike Astrid, she seemed to have a good head on her shoulders and was productive in ways that mattered. It was Ida’s task to ensure that the company provided a valuable service that companies wanted. If she failed, the company was finished. Tanya gave her counterpart a serious stare proportional to the severity of her job.
“When we left off last week, you mentioned that there were issues with on-boarding our first new batch of employees. I can’t teach every new hire like I had with you Directors. We need effective and scale-able training if we’re ever to remain competitive while we expand.”
Rather than being intimidated, Ida smirked with a haughty expression.
“No more problems to report! With your book printed and given to everygriff, it’s been far easier getting them ready. We should be able to turn any literate orphan like us into employees after just a few weeks instead of a few months like you feared. I’ve even got the 1st draft of the long-term mentorship program started based on our experiences working with the co-ops and Ring Motors over the past few weeks. Between the two, I’m sure we can hire as many griffons as we need!”
‘Of course, there’s no doubt it’ll be harder than all that. It’ll take months to weed-out incompetence… but that’s a lot better than I was expecting.’
Tanya was skeptical that they could already make so much progress in such a short amount of time, but that was the point of these meetings: to hold them accountable. Only after gauging their progress week-after-week against their promises could she filter out the blowhards from the entrepreneurs.
She then talked with the Director of Sales, the Director of Administration, and then the Director of Accounting. At this stage, there was not much those departments were needed for and their jobs were mostly to support the other departments in maintaining and growing the business. With no surprises, she finally landed on Astrid. As the least-important department, Tanya left Griffon Resources to the end of the meeting.
“Astrid… I did not give you any agenda last week, but perhaps you can update us on your status?”
At this point, Tanya had little hope for the chick. Tanya had been giving her less and less work on the expectation she would realize she was being ignored. Tanya had hoped it would re-ignite some of the chick’s former ambition… yet nothing happened. Now, Tanya was just looking for an excuse to demote and replace her with somegriff better. It was not that she felt Astrid could never improve, but without setting some sort of example, her lackadaisical attitude would spread. That was poison for a new company.
Ignorant to her thoughts, Astrid’s face lit up at her question.
“Of course! I must thank you for giving me so much time. Since I’ve already… thoroughly informed all our current employees about your expectations, I’ve focused on developing contacts with the orphanages and the refugee camps on the outskirts of the city. I’m confident that – with our current projections – we can handle the expected 10-times annual expansion of our business with 500 new employees by the end of next month.”
It was only when Astrid finished that Tanya realized she had somehow stood up from her seat and tore small grooves into her desk with her claws. Her eyes widened in panic.
“What?!”
She turned to the other Directors.
“And you agreed with this? Why did none of you bring this up? We only have 32 employees at the moment! Even that has us struggling to maintain profitability!”
Ida – the Director of Operations Tanya had placed so much hope on – actually smiled; like this was anything other than madness!
“But that’s why we’re only hiring orphans like us. We’re used to sleeping in small cots and working only for food and shelter. With my quick training program and my other projects, we can hire as many people as we can and still turn a profit!”
Tanya turned to Kurt, the Director of PR.
“Kurt, you have to see this will never work! We’re having trouble getting companies to sign on our workers!”
Kurt grimaced.
“I know, I know! I’m so, so sorry! I was only able to find 95 businesses that were willing to hire on somegriff, but the 200-or-so I’ve been working with are still hesitant. I’m sure a few quick words from you will change their mind! I’m so glad you’ve volunteered to help! I was at my limit trying to organize something for these new hires to do!”
Tanya felt her understanding of the situation slip.
‘That’s a lot more businesses than I was expecting. I thought we were struggling to find places for our current employees, but they were thinking so far in the future… What’s going on?! We had these meetings every week and this never came up! I thought- I assumed…’
It was only now that she realized she had never asked for hard values. She had assumed that they were working in the limited scope of the projects she had set for them and not going above and beyond. She had been so distracted between her arrest, organizing the company charter, and teaching that she had focused too much on cash-flows and not on the specifics of their work.
Still… something was not right. She turned to Astrid.
“How do you expect this to work? Our profits have hardly changed, yet the amount of money we would need to house and feed 500 new employees is massive.”
Astrid looked to the others and they all nodded.
“We’ve been pooling our salaries together. We should have known you were giving us so much extra money for a reason… but your hint to “use the money on whatever you want” was a bit too vague for us at the time. Sorry it took us so long to realize we love this company and your ideas so much we had to re-invest it. That, and I’ve been working with Red on covering some of the shortfalls with the plan. She said that since she cannot invest in the company directly, it was the least she could do to get involved.”
Tanya felt her heart race.
“Even Red?! I- I don’t understand. Why go behind my back on this? Why would you think I wanted all these new employees?”
Astrid smiled.
“No need to be so humble, this was your plan, right? I know you love to coddle us, but you don’t need to take things so slowly. You were the one that said industry in this country will see an ROI of 1000% or more annually. We can’t possibly compete in that sort of world if we can’t scale up to match and we’ve worked non-stop to see that happen. Red’s also been eager to get involved however she can and together, we’re willing to do anything to see your ambitions come to life!”
Everything finally clicked into place.
‘This is all my fault?! No! I meant that other industries will achieve 1000% growth annually, not us! That’s… that's…’
But as she saw the eager looks on everygriff’s face, she realized she had been cornered.
‘If I turn my back on this plan, what would they think? I’ve been reminding them they could replace me at any time, but that was when I was sure it would be a slow, gradual process! I was expecting to at least be on the Board. If I tell them they just misunderstood – now that they all worked tirelessly and invested their life-savings into the company – they’d riot! Damn it, why did I have to make this company a democracy! They could toss me to the curb and all my investment would be worth nothing!’
Her claws tightened, but she could not lie to herself: this was her fault. She had assumed her employees needed motivation. She had assumed they would come to her for any misunderstandings. She had assumed any hidden agendas would be caught by the sophisticated system she had set up. She had relaxed too much; had put herself into a mindset that things were finally going her way and now that she was part of a proper company, people would act like rational, reasonable beings.
The worst part was they were not wrong. Their plan was aggressive, but it was also possible. They had 100% market share and ruthlessly investing every last Republican Scrip to retain as much of that as possible could see massive growth. 20 years from now, they would either be the most successful business in the Republic, or bankrupt… and after investing all her best ideas into this business, she might not be able to make another one nearly as good as this one.
She gave them an uneasy smile.
“Of course… I can see now that my concern has been… misplaced. Perhaps I have been taking things a bit too slowly. After all, it was my idea to push your ambitions so hard like an idiot. I’ll want to be involved in this project as much as possible, but I’m… glad to see you working so diligently. Keep up the good work…”
The entire Board preened and it took everything in Tanya’s power not to scream.
November 24th, 1003 – Griffon Resources Co-Op and Orphanage, Cloudbury, Griffonian Republic – Astrid POV
Working for the Boss had been the hardest thing Astrid had ever done. From the moment she woke up, to the second she passed out in her bunk-bed 16 hours later, every waking moment was spent working.
Yet it was an improvement over her life on the street. There, she plenty of “free time” but that was just a matter of perspective. That time was spent improving her butterfly knife skills, learning how to pickpocket, finding marks to steal from, or learning which Military Police patrols to avoid. Her life never improved. If there were no good marks entering her turf or Red had no jobs for her, she starved that day. Even on good days, she had to share her haul with her gang or they would starve.
One day she snapped. She went behind Red’s back to rob one of the houses in the richer part of town, but she got caught. She was too young to go to prison, but they made sure that she “would never cause trouble again”. She was beaten within an inch of her life. When she went to Red the next day, black-and-blue and crying, Red just told her “I hope you learned your lesson”.
She had. She had learned that things would never get better.
And then the Boss changed her life. Suddenly, she had clear goals. She could spend the morning getting everygriff working productively, spend the afternoon organizing “orphan transfers” with the orphanages in town, and spend the evening sitting in class learning wonderful new ideas from Tanya herself! In between all of that, her fellow employees would take turns cooking the amazingly simple recipes Tanya taught them: “vegetable soup”, “stuffed dumplings”, “fried potatoes” and more.
Then the lessons grew more complicated and they struggled to learn new things. Some of them thought it was because the Boss was a poor teacher, but she knew better. As they got together in “study groups” after their lessons and pored over what they were taught, Astrid realized that the Boss was just teaching them far more efficiently than before. It was obvious in hindsight. The Boss saw teaching like she saw everything else: from a place far above-and-beyond what anygriff else could see. She had so much knowledge to give, but so little time to give it and so she forced her students to adapt. Everything tied together: little things they learned weeks ago; bits and pieces of socio-economics one of them found in a book; an off-claw remark the Boss had made. The implications startled Astrid.
‘If we can only understand her lessons by working together afterwards… what about her book? What about everything else the Boss has ever said and done? What hidden meanings could I find?!’
Astrid began to decipher the Boss’ seemingly inconsistent behavior: the Boss’ standoffish nature, her claws-off approach to their work, the repeated emphasis on rewarding their accomplishments, and the regular meetings. It all added up to one thing: the Boss wanted them to impress her.
‘But how? That was the one thing missing. Obviously just doing our jobs wouldn’t be enough. There had to be more… what was the Boss’ end goal? What was everything leading towards?’
The answer was obvious: the Boss wanted to save not only them, but every orphan in the Republic. It was what Astrid would do in her place. Otherwise, why would she only hire and train orphans like herself? They would quickly grow in power and lie in wait until the moment was right, then they would seize control of the nation and change it into a place where nogriff like them would ever starve again.
The Boss’ Board Meeting was finished and Astrid typed out the last of the minutes. Not waiting for her to finish, the Boss stood up from her desk.
“I’ve got to go. I have some… important clarifications to make with Red to address some- I- I’ll be back.”
She hardly completed the sentence before the Boss raced out of their Orphanage Co-Op.
Astrid turned to the other Directors.
“With the Board Meeting adjourned, let’s convene our “Post-Meeting Study Session”.”
As with anything involving the Boss, even the weekly Board Meetings required a study session to truly grasp the meaning of what the Boss wanted from them.
Astrid focused a glare at the Director of Public Relations.
“I think after today, nogriff here can deny I wasn’t right all along, right Kurt?”
Kurt sat back in his chair and crossed his forelimbs with a frustrated look on his face. Without the Boss here to make him nervous, he looked as confident as anygriff else.
“I’m not sure. I still think all your talk about there being “hidden meaning” behind what the Boss was doing is a load of nonsense. Even in the meeting today, she seemed upset and angry at us for “going behind her back”.”
Astrid glared.
“And what’s the alternative, huh? That the Boss’ a bad teacher? That she doesn’t have a grand plan in mind? That for all her knowledge and capability, she’s just- just messing around?! She is one of the most popular griffons in the Republic and she’s worked hard for years both as a street rat and in a political party to learn and master Griffon Resources: a concept that stuns even adults like Red. She’s angry because it took us this long. We’ve got undeniable proof now. If this wasn’t her plan, would she be fine with me hiring 500 new orphans?”
Kurt was incensed.
“Fine! I made a mistake, alright?! Obviously she’s no ordinary 12-year-old, but some super-amazing mastermind that could think and understand so far beyond any of us just didn’t make any sense… but whatever. The Boss is the Boss. If she says she’s fine with your plan, I guess you were right.”
Astrid frowned. Despite finally convincing her idiot coworker about the obvious facts, she was not happy.
“It’s still not fast enough. Some orphans are going to die this winter. We won’t be fast enough to save them, but hopefully they’ll be the last. The Boss has shown us a way to save them all!”
Ida tapped at her desk. The Director of Operations had a frown on her face.
“I talked-up my ideas in the meeting, but even a few weeks is a bit too long to train so many… That’s ignoring that most orphans need a lot of on-the-job training. Not only that, but we’ve been picking only the best, most literate ones so far. If we’re going to save them all, we can’t keep going on like this.”
Kurt leaned on his desk.
“That’s an understatement! We’re going too fast! I’m already at my limit with those stupid companies! They just don’t get it. Heck, I don’t get it half the time. We’ll never have enough new clients at this rate.”
Astrid slammed her desk.
“Don’t give me that! The Boss promised to help you out with that and you-”
Kurt slammed his desk in return.
“Well maybe she can’t! Even if she’s some super-genius who plans all these amazing things, adults are stupid! How do you even know she wants to save all of us anyway?! Taking on a few extra orphans doesn’t mean nothing.”
Astrid growled.
“You take that back! Despite how little we deserve it, she bows to us every meeting, she treats us like equals, she spends her valuable time training us despite how much money we’re already making for her. She gave us everything and you think it’s so hard to believe that she wants to do for all orphans like she’s done for us?! She’s known to be a “hero of the Republic”, but it’s clear she’s a hero to us even more.”
She clenched a fist and felt her eyes tearing up.
“You ever go to the refugee camps this time of year, when the frozen wind will kill you in a few hours? I can see it on their faces… there’s no hope. Maybe some of them get enough support from the matrons to get out around our age and join a gang, but the rest… And even with a gang, it isn’t like I’ve never had a sick comrade just… never come back one day. We can stop that. We have to stop that. Even if the Boss might be willing to take it slow – to not trust that we can keep up with her – we have to try.”
They were all silent for a moment. Despite how belligerent Kurt had been, even he had tears welling up in his eyes. He wiped his face.
“I get it, alright? I’m sorry… I didn’t mean it like that, but… can it really work? All these adults pretend to care about helping us all the time, then the next day we’re just trash to them. Now we can just follow a script and force them to do their jobs and suddenly we have money coming out of nowhere. How’s that work?”
Astrid sniffed and cleared her own tears from her eyes. She had a bright smile on her face now.
“That’s the power of Griffon Resources: we can use griffons to make other griffons work better so it is like getting something for nothing. We can transform all the “worthless bottom-feeders” the adults keep telling us we are into “valuable resources”. We can snitch on those incompetent wastes of space to their bosses and fight back against everygriff that keeps trying to put us down. We can prove we are better than them!”
Ida nodded.
“We never have to starve anymore.”
Kurt nodded.
“We’ll do everything we can. We’ll prove to the Boss we’re worth all of her effort.”
With the meeting over, they quickly got back to work.
Astrid quickly typed out the minutes of their impromptu meeting and pulled out the paper from the typewriter. Carefully, she bound them into a binder and gingerly placed them into her locker at the foot of her bed. Inside were a dozen other binders full of scribbled notes of every word the Boss had ever said.
In the center of the locker was a small picture of the Boss that Astrid had sneakily taken when the Boss was not looking. It was one of her rare smiles that seemed to light up the world around it. She was adorable when she was not trying so hard to look mature. It made Astrid want to wrap her up in her wings and protect her from all the horrible things in the world.
Astrid slapped herself and slammed the locker shut.
‘I’ve got a job to do and people to save! O-other things… they, c-can come later!’
She was quick to get back to work, but the blush on her face would stay for a few more minutes.
December 22nd, 1003 – South-River Orphanage, Cloudbury, Griffonian Republic – Gertrude POV
At 58-years-old, Matron Gertrude of the South-River Orphanage was not sure she was cut out for her job anymore.
As the sole caregiver of 24 orphans, her monthly government stipend – her sole source of income – was at its limit. She could not afford to hire extra help, so her bones creaked scrubbing the floors and her joints cracked hanging up the laundry every day on the clotheslines. She would spend any of her dwindling free time trying to stretch her money as far as she could. She visited nearby restaurants, soup kitchens and food banks in the area for any free handouts, but now that winter was upon them, food prices and food scarcity were sky high and there was rarely anything to find.
It was for this reason that she pushed for orphans as young as 12 to leave and get jobs of their own. It started with comments about on how tight things were getting, about how little they had to feed and clothe them, all well within earshot of the little ones. Then – when “they” made a decision to leave – she would make only token resistance to the idea before sending them packing.
It was not that she did not care about them… rather there was no other option. The war in the north “made” orphans at an alarming rate and if she did not find some way to kick out some of the older ones, the younger ones would die on the streets. She had long ago made the choice that she would save as many young lives as she could… but perhaps if she knew the true cost of that decision, she probably would have never even started.
That is not to say she had left those young griffons to fend for themselves. She was not a monster. She put them in touch with the few stable employers willing to take on any cheap labor they could find. Unfortunately, that meant working with Red’s casino and the other gangs in the slums. She knew the casino often had adults “disappear” and that they dealt in drugs and other shady business behind closed doors… yet it was the best chance for an orphan to survive. Even prison was better than the alternative.
‘Why does this happen? So much for the “Republic”. For the weakest and most vulnerable, things have only gotten worse.’
She did not have rose-colored glasses about the Cloudbury Duchy. Griffons as young as 12 would be expected to help their families in the fields and had no chance of ever doing anything else. Chicks as young as 10 would be expected to sew and knit for their families in the wintertime to repair old cloth or make a little extra money. Times were hard and they had been serfs; little better than the draft animals that helped till the fields.
Yet in those times, there was always somegriff that could help when things got bad: a neighbor that would lend out a pound of flour or a bucket of milk if a harvest went poorly; a family could be fully exempt from taxes if they failed to make enough. At the very least, griffons always found a way to feed themselves. Those same griffons now hoarded whatever they got their claws on and isolated themselves from one-another. Half the nation spoke another language. Bandits roamed the countryside. While educated city-dwellers could work well-paying jobs in the new factories, for country-folk like herself, it was a huge step backwards.
*DING DING*
She was in the middle of preparing for dinner when the chime of her doorbell rang out. She moved the pot of lukewarm soup to be half-on the heater of her wood-burning stove to avoid it boiling too quickly. She yelled out “I’ll be there in a second!” while she washed up and had one of her older orphans take care of the kitchen while she answered the door.
She opened the door and looked to see who it was.
“What is it-”
Her heart sank. On the other side of the door was a young black-and-white chick no older than 15. It was the last sort of griffon she wanted to see. No teenager she sent out to work would ever come back to her. They would be too busy surviving and she taught them better than to come for a meal; not when it would mean taking food out of the mouths of younger griffons. No, the only teenagers who would find their way to her were those that lost their only family in an accident at work or in the fighting in the north of the country. With no family to turn to, and no worthwhile skills save for maybe the ability to read-and-write, they would come to her for help.
She looked at the chick with undisguised pity and she found herself gripping the doorhandle with more force than she was used to. She would not be able to keep them here, not for more than a day at most, but she could at least give them a meal, teach them how to take care of themselves and send them towards one of the gangs.
“Hello little one… I’m sure you’ve found yourself in a bit of trouble and-”
The teenager shook her head with a smile.
“You got it all wrong, Matron. I’m here to help you for a change. Mind if I come in?”
Gertrude was hesitant, but there was little to fear. Orphanages were the one business that would never be “hassled” by small-time thugs or the local gangs. She had nothing anygriff would want to steal, yet she was a “source of labor” for the gangs she was affiliated with. It was the sort of combination that earned her complete immunity. Still, she had heard the rumors. Somegriff had been going around to all of the orphanages over the past month but her schedule prevented her from finding out why.
Nevertheless, she would not turn away a chick from her door, no matter their motivations.
“Come in, I’m just finishing getting ready for dinner.”
The chick smiled.
“Of course. Let me know if you need any help.”
The Matron could have used the help, but she did not request it; not when she had no idea what the chick had in store for her or her orphanage.
An hour passed while she cooked the meal and served the soup to the little ones in her care. The adorable baby griffons tumbled over one-another like a flock of chickens going after seeds. Some of the younger ones were messy and she had to wipe them clean with a napkin, but the older ones were more experienced. They sat quietly and ate with their bowls held close to their chests so that not a drop was spilled. During all this, the teenager that had arrived at her door thankfully did not ask for any food and patiently sat in her living room. She read a well-worn book from her saddlebags in quiet indifference.
When the food was finished and Gertrude charged a few of her orphans to tidy up and wash the dishes, she sat across from the teenager and got down to business. She leaned forward and stared at the chick, not letting a hint of her unease show on her face.
“What do you want?”
Closing her book, the chick smiled back at her.
“First, let me introduce myself. I’m Astrid, no last name. I want to say I’m sorry for dropping by unannounced – I know you Matrons are very busy, but I’m in a bit of a rush and couldn’t wait for a better time to visit. As a token of goodwill, let me wish you a happy Blue Moon Festival.”
She had almost forgotten the festival was today. Now things were coming together. Between the last name and her accent, Gertrude was quick to conclude the chick was a former orphan herself, probably part of a good gang if she could act so confident despite her difficult upbringing.
Astrid took out a block of paper and placed in on the table between them. Only when she squinted at the block did she realize what it was: a stack of Republican Scrip. Between the small-denomination-bills in the stack and the regular inflation, the stack was not worth as much as it appeared, but a quick tally in her head confirmed it was a least 20% of what she was given by the government every month. It would not be enough to really change much, but she would not need to cut back on meals and maybe even take on an extra orphan in the spring.
Gertrude’s eyes narrowed.
“How… generous. I suppose because you’re being so generous there are no strings attached? Just felt like giving a bunch of money for charity, huh? Any reason you didn’t donate through the local Eyr church or drop it anonymously in our mailbox?”
Astrid smiled and did not appear at all insulted by her insinuations.
“Of course I want something, but I understand your suspicion. As an ex-orphan, I can promise you this is nothing bad. Rather, think of it as a bunch of us orphans coming together to help out. We’ve come across an amazing new way of doing business that can solve all the problems you’re having.”
She could read between the lines and sighed.
“So you want me to give over some griffons to your new gang? Look, you’ll have to talk to Red first if you-”
Astrid shook her head and gave her a business card and a written note.
“No, no, we’re no gang. We’re a business. You’ll see from that note there that we’ve already talked it over with Red and she’s already bought into the idea. We just expect you to take our money every month and let us teach some extra “life-skills” to the orphans to make their transition to our business nice and smooth.”
That did not sound much worse than what Gertrude was already doing, yet allowing “businessgriffs” – clearly just a cover for their gang – into her orphanage could get her shut down.
“That sounds nice, but-”
Astrid cut her off.
“Please, just look at what our employees look like.”
Astrid gave her a black-and-white photograph. Gertrude paused what she was saying to look at it. It was a group picture of a few dozen young griffons no older than the chick in front of her. In fact, she noticed something familiar about the stern-looking young griffon sitting in the middle-
Gertrude squinted.
“This chick here, she wouldn’t happen to be named Tanya, would she?’
Astrid looked stunned.
“Y-yes, actually… wait, are you saying that this was the orphanage Tanya came from?”
Gertrude breathed a sigh of relief.
“So she’s still alive… you know, she was the youngest griffon I ever allowed leave the orphanage? 10-years-old… Normally I start pushing them to leave around 12 or 13 at the earliest, but I could hardly keep her here. Always had a head full of ideas, that one.”
Astrid gave her a warm smile.
“Then it seems I have two reasons to help you now. She’s my Boss, the griffon who’s given us the chance to help all of our fellow griffons out of this horrible fight for survival.”
She gave Gertrude a pamphlet, she quickly scanned the page to see it detailed a number of strange topics and activities. Astrid gestured to the page.
“That goes over what we plan on doing. I encourage you to go over it and let somegriff at Griffon Resources know if you have any questions. I know it seems too good to be true, but we really do have a plan to make things better; at least… something less shady than the gangs. I’m sure you’re worried about how it might look, but the teachers we’ll be having visit you will be orphans like me. I can’t promise you that we can fix things right away or that you’ll be able to retire anytime soon but… we want to make things right.”
There was a few more minutes of small talk before Astrid bid the Matron farewell and left her alone with her thoughts.
“Matron Gertrude, what’s wrong?”
She looked up to see a few of her orphans staring at her from the doorway to their bedrooms. Only now did she realize her cheeks were wet with tears. It was not that she was particularly sad or happy, rather even the small amount of money Astrid had given her would mean she would not be seeing any of her orphans die this winter.
She wiped her face and got up. It would still be an hour or two before the orphans’ bed time. She looked between them and the money still left on the table.
‘If what Astrid said was true, maybe…’
She smiled at the young griffons.
“How would you like to go visit the Blue-Moon Festival in the market square tonight?”
The little ones looked up with surprise and awe, but the older ones looked concerned.
“You said we wouldn’t be able to go this year. Are you sure?”
She nodded. It was true, normally she would never let them go. The festival was surely great fun, but nogriff would let them enjoy it for free. Between the stalls, games and food, she could feed them for a week for the cost of just one evening at the festival.
“You deserve it for being such good griffons. Come on, I’m sure we’ll all have a great time.”
They cheered and raced to put on their worn-out winter clothing while she helped the really young ones put on their scarves, boots and gloves.
As they raced down the road – but always keeping well within her sight – Gertrude looked up for a moment as the new, mare-less moon rose in the East with a complicated expression. She did not know why she was taking the little ones out to the festival. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision that she would probably regret.
But as she saw the grinning faces of her orphans, she felt something for the first time in years.
“Perhaps next year… things will be different.”
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*inhales dramtically* TRUE CAPITALISM HAS NEVER BEEN TRIED!
Buddy. Pal. Friend. How do you know just what to do to make a story better? I LOVE coming of age romances, and this one is going to be SUCH a disaster. Love it!
Awww, they do care. Things like this do put a smile on my face. Love to see Astrid and the others giving back to the community. The republican dream lives on.
So cool cant wait to see the next chapter
Listening to Tanya say the Chicago school of economics cope while surrounded by her communist board of directors is quite funny.
Speaking of Tanya's mindset, how much is it going to change over the course of the story. Often I think fics have her change too little, but I guess that's because Tanya being Tanya is the point
11786576
Yes, her mindset will definitely change (and already has). For instance, she would have never considered forming a Co-Op before her time with the L-NRP, no matter how much startup money the L-NRP would give her. To her, Co-Ops, Partnerships, Credit Unions and the like are inefficient and wasteful as they are conservative and slow to exploit opportunities (hence why she pushed so hard for her employees to challenge her ideas). However, she has noticed that it is very resilient against Crony-ism which she considers the main issue at the moment for capitalism and is confident she can handle any problems regarding worker incompetence with her "Parliamentary Style" system.
Like you said though, changing her can mean losing a lot of what makes her character entertaining, so I can't be too hasty. This is a long story and I plan to make these sorts of changes happen organically over the course of the fic.
11786631
True, Tanya would Never say red fascists but she said that last chapter
The personality cult is forming.... No
I wonder if this is an important piece of information, or just a casual way to inform us of the current era.
It seems Miss Hirohito is having problems with the ambition and devotion of her generals, lol
11808981
It was a rejection of what they viewed as "internationalist" Marxism and Capitalism both. They weren't socialists, obviously, at least in the modern sense, but they were trying to create what they believed would be a "national community" with a somewhat free, somewhat controlled economy, and "socialism" seemed the best thing to call it. One must understand that they weren't a reactionary movement -- they weren't trying to restore some idealized past -- they were a revolutionary one, trying to create and institute a brand new system of race-oriented governance.
Mind, fascism as a blanket, and National Socialism as a particular variant thereof, has never been able to be strictly defined. It's got no Communist Manifesto or Two Treatises of Government to boil down things for easy consumption, it's really the sort of ideology that you can only describe by waving a hand at a fascist country and saying, "see, it's this thing."
11808946
the only leader I will follow to the death!
So Astrid is going down the route of obsessive love-worship and I can't wait to see how that trainwreck ends. Also it's a classic Tanya move to competely underestimate yet also overestimate her board of directors. she thought they were barely scraping by but when their successes are revealed to her she immediately assumes that they're out to oust her from her position due to their own ambition because that's what she would do. And I thought she had learnt that she didn't think the same way as other people.
How the next chapter coming along, been a little bit since the last update
11837721
It's slow going at the moment. Unfortunately my workplace has gone through a lot of restructuring and I've been very busy. Hopefully I will have some time soon to continue working on this.
11838267
restructuring? like renovation or recognizing furniture?
11838428
I was going to ask why I got dislikes and asking if I missed something, and I reread the comment and yes, yes I did.
I completely miss read that.
my apologies
11765405
The funny part is that Tanya would be mostly correct. Canonically, the situation with middle management nobles got so bad that stalliongrad revolted due to the peasants being poor and starving, and large swathes of the country aren’t much better