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Introduction708 words
01 - Things Taken For Granted6,064 words
02 - Downward Spiral8,269 words
03 - Alone10,265 words
04 - Under New Management6,134 words
05 - Thunderstorm6,753 words
06 - Fates8,201 words
07 - Epilogue - The Fallen Angel of Thunderpeak1,039 words

02 - Downward Spiral

Gabriella was a griffon, and she lived in Griffonstone all her life. Unlike Gallus, Gabriella liked it in Griffonstone, and she was not a jerk. Gabriella was one of the nicest griffons to ever warble in the streets of the griffon capital. Her friends called her Gabby, and as a griffon who spent all her life in Griffonstone, Gabby knew the places and paths of the great griffon city. She needed it for her job: delivering letters. But as an employee of Griffonstone’s Post Office, she often had other responsibilities. Delivering packages, for example.

The office had flying carts for such jobs. Enchanted carts, inlaid with gold, brimming with spell-carrying gemstones. All to ensure that packages arrived at their destination with minimal hassle or damage. Unfortunately, all the magical flying carts were occupied with what Gabby’s co-workers termed ‘premium’ deliveries. By that, they meant the sender had paid for ‘premium’. The usual bribes so they could expect their parcels to arrive on time. That was basically how all civil services worked in Griffonstone lately. And the damnedest of all was that Gabby knew her co-workers, most of them, not to be bad griffons. It was just how things worked. The boss got his extra, and the involved employees got their extra. Nobody complained. Complaining rocked the boat, and that was just how things worked. Nobody judged. They felt like they needed something more in their income with how bad the economy was. Who was she to judge?

To be fair, Gabby was never sure of what a poor economy was, but she had noticed the prices had been raising in the last months. Maybe that was what they meant. Gabby could understand salaries not cutting it for those griffons with families.

Meanwhile, supplies to the hospital were ordinary ‘government stuff’. Delays and misplacement were common until someone figured they were supposed to sweeten the deal under the table. Nothing worked right at Griffonstone unless you paid extra, and the government didn’t. So, who cared? Gabby even wondered sometimes if just adding the bribes to the prices chart would be easier. But again, who cared?

Well, Gabby cared. That was why she grabbed the delivery order to the hospital. She put on a brave face and pulled the heavy cart with all the boxes out of the garage. It didn’t take long for things to go wrong: the road in the most direct route was closed. And it was a doozy.

She simply stood there, looking up at the rubble. Blackened stone and bricks, a thick layer of dust and husks of collapsed walls. A burned, demolished building literally closed the street. It was an apartment building, not unlike the others still standing in the street. What had happened? How could that have happened? Gabby would probably never know.

Being a griffon, that should not be a problem, but Gabby was stuck with one of the non-fancy, not to use crass words, carts. Unlike the good ones, it had a bad suspension and none of the pretty gold inlays. It didn’t have articulated wheels, much less eased the load with magic, and the idea of it flying seemed like a cruel joke. At least it still had the old sign saying it was the property of Griffonstone’s Post Office. As though anyone would ever try to steal the poor, tired old thing.

Eventually, she accepted there was no way through the rubble. Struggling, Gabby turned the cart around and trotted down the street. She passed a couple of abandoned carts with broken down wheels. Litter surrounded them and no noises came out of the cheap apartment buildings. Most of them had deep cracks on their walls, and one had water streaming from its entrance hall.

That street may not have been one of the fanciest, but had always been one of the livelier ones. Always full of cheerful cubs running around and playing outside, griffons walking up and down the street. Others would talk to each other from their windows, hanging clothes out to dry. As the day was coming to its end, a thick smog would raise from the heating systems. At least during winter, when griffons would turn on the heating furnaces. Mothers would yell at their cubs to help them get the drying clothes and sheets before the soot got impregnated on everything.

Not a soul other than Gabby herself walked outside to listen to the murmuring of the running water. Broken windows let torn curtains hanging out, stained and swaying in the petrichor-smelling air. A griffon glared at her from the dark in his apartment on the second floor as though she was doing something wrong just by being there. He slammed the windows shut before she could utter a greeting.

Gabby pouted and fixed her stare on the street forward. She understood. Yes, there was a fight. A scary fight on the streets. There were cannons, explosions and alicorns involved, but it was not like the city could stop. Gabby was working. She was delivering supplies to the hospital, wasn’t she? Someone somewhere needed help with something, especially after such a dangerous and dramatic event as the fighting that took over some neighborhoods.

She trotted down the street, frowning at all the trash, the abandoned clothing and household items. The distinctive felling that authorities would have already fixed any significant damage was that street home to richer griffons sprouted and remained. Although Gabby doubted the authorities would have had time to fix everything yet. News came slowly and unreliably. All she knew was gossip from her co-workers, and it got bad in some places.

It was depressing and uninspiring, but she had a delivery to make. The squeaking from the cart’s wheels helped little, and she had to keep a steady pace or suffer with the inertia. However, Gabby believed a positive attitude could conquer any problem, so she kept her head high, as a professional postgriffon of the Griffonian Post Service.

Turning on the T-junction in front of a wall of gloomy rowhouses, she soon reached the parallel street to go around the collapsed building. What she saw made a small frown show on her brow. Instead of a collapsed building on the way, there were sandbag walls and a raised wood platform with armed griffons in green uniforms. For better or worse, that was the uniform used by the soldiers in the Griffonian Standing Army, and it was probably a good thing. They were there on behalf of the authorities, and they were going to fix things. Eventually. But the sandbag wall closed the street. Her frown deepened, and she continued trotting up the intersecting street. At least, it was slightly cleaner.

She came to the next corner and saw more sandbags. After a moment of glaring like she could order them to move, Gabby simply kept going to the next corner. There, she saw much of the same. With a complaining groan, she kept going to the next and stopped, angrily stomping at the paving stone upon seeing more sandbags. Then movement caught her eye. A cart crossed the street two intersections away, going the same way she was. A happy chirp later, she was trotting on her way to follow. Reaching the intersection, her beak opened in a silent gasp.

Down the street was yet another sandbag wall and more armed griffons at the top of a pair of wooden towers. The cart Gabby had seen, the kind griffons used for transporting nondescript things under a cloth-covered frame, was in the middle of crossing an open gateway. Two armed griffons on the ground watched the cart pass and one of them elbowed the other, watching Gabby approach. They shared some words and approached when she stopped before the improvised gate of barbed wire.

“What’choo got there, missy?” One of them asked, approaching with his musket on his back while the other remained close to the gate.

He was a green with light green under his also green uniform loaded on the doohickeys military service griffons wore with their uniforms. Leather and cloth pouches, a canteen, and a blade under the tip of his gun. He frowned at Gabby while the others kept looking at her from behind the sandbags and the top of the watchtowers.

Again, someone stared at her as though she were doing something wrong. Her feet shifted while she was still under the weight of the heavy wooden pulling bars. Thankfully, the straps had a good padding, probably from lack of use, but her eyes kept shifting between the armed griffons. The city continued past their blockade, and occasionally, Gabby could hear a series of distant bangs.

“They are supplies, sir.” She said, keeping her voice cheery. “They need them at the hospital. At King Grover’s Plaza!”

“Screw them!” A soldier behind the sandbags, a brown and cream young griffon, said and dropped a bucket of cold water on her enthusiasm. “They’re helping the traitors. That place can burn for all I care. Let’s put grab her for sedition and give it all to our docs.”

Her stomach dropped and her beak hung at his words, but before Gabby could react, the griffon that had remained seated by the barbed wire gate spoke. He put the butt of his musket down on the cobblestone and turned back to his friend. “Stow it, private. They’re helping everyone. Like they’re supposed to.”

“But you can’t pass either, ma’am. We’ve isolated this area. Brass is looking for seditious individuals and we cannot allow any civilians through. Curfew starts in a couple of hours, though. I suggest you go home.”

“But the hospital needs these! Precisely because of all the fighting in the city! I’m kinda in a hurry.”

“Don’t make someone else’s problem your own, ma’am.” The musket-carrying griffon next to her admonished in a gloomy tone. “Things are not well, and you don’t need the headache.”

“But it is my problem!” She retorted. “I am with the city’s post office!”

“Fine. If you must…” the soldier by the gate said, shaking his head. “We have the entire neighborhood surrounded. Go around through Silverwing Garden.”

Gabby frowned. “I can’t pull a cart through there. City ordinance says I can’t even fly over it with one of the fancy flying ones.”

“Well, then I suppose you have to go the other way around!” the military griffon said, pointing with his thumb, “because you’re not passing through. And if you insist, I’m getting you under arrest for interfering with a military operation.”

With a last glare, Gabby decided discussing was not worth it and was potentially dangerous. The last thing she needed was ending up in jail, or something worse, because she ‘interfered with military operations’. She had to back up and walk sideways to turn the rigid cart around, but she managed without further irritating the officer.

She walked back the way she had come with a frown pulling down at her beak and knotting her brow. Angry thoughts shoved aside, she mentally reviewed her knowledge of the city. If Stoneway Drive was closed to passersby, then she’d spend hours going around. They built the dumb place along a promenade. One of the few places the rich, grumpy griffons couldn’t get away with prohibiting freight transit, but it was a wide obstacle.

As she walked and made the turn into the intersecting street, the way she had come before, her frustrated frown turned around into a smile of determination. The hospital still needed its delivery, and she would make sure it arrived. She strained a bit before getting the cart to trotting speed, but soon got used to the new pace. The squeaking of the wheels was still annoying, though.

Time seemed to breeze past her along with row houses, apartment buildings, a few griffons minding their own business. Block after block before she finally reached a junction without the sandbags turning it into a dead end. Unfortunately, the next five streets ended in a T-junction going the wrong way or had also been closed by the military. Tired and frustrated, she kept going. And when she noticed, she had entered the ‘bad part of town’.

The Bonepile used to be called Snowpile because of all the traditional games and competitions during winter, but that was before Chancellor Gail enacted his war-austerity measures. Prices soared, and things like the basic income granted by the Equestrian Federation vanished into thin air. How did that work? It baffled Gabby, but she always considered herself lucky to have her job. Snowpile was never a rich neighborhood, but it was decent enough. Gabby would know, often delivering letters and packages there.

Now it was like a ghost town. The newspapers said rich griffons building up and moving to places like Stoneway Drive, raised prices and forced griffons out of their neighborhoods. With the recent developments in the Griffonian economy, the once mid-class neighborhood turned poor and then became simply destitute. Such things were complicated, and Gabby knew she lacked the understanding to make sense of it all. Basically, things became more expensive, jobs closed, and griffons saw themselves forced to live off the basic income. Then the Chancellor ended it. Poor griffons were left with nothing but memories of a nicer life and anger at griffons that actually could find jobs. Griffons like Gabby, pulling a cart full of stuff through their turf.

The transition was not immediate. It started with piles of trash, depredated trash bins and dirty, abandoned houses. Then the walkways turned into a forest of mismatched colorful tarpaulin hovels and improvised cardboard homes. Abandoned businesses and ransacked houses sheltered those with a slightly greater standing in the pecking order of their parallel society. Another thing Gabby wouldn’t ever understand, but that was how it worked.

Originally known as Quiet Row, the newspapers quickly nicknamed it Needle Row. To Gabby’s understanding, homeless griffons started gathering for protection. Politicians kept throwing the issue around like a hot potato and the strained civil services failed to deal with the problem. The issue kept growing until it escaped control. Burned trash and piles of wood, unnamable residues and a stench of rot and disease like a physical wall assaulted the senses. Debris accumulated in bends and the clogged central gutter spread the trash with the recent storms.

A mob of disfigured griffons occupied the place. Not a single healthy one in sight. They hobbled and idled about with nothing to do other than waste their time rotting the mind and the body. Some talked alone, others seemed entertained by things that only they could see. Either lying on the paving stone or on old cardboard, others had old and ragged blankets. Entire families abandoned and left to fend for themselves. Such an ugly sight. Few had the courage to do something about it until other things became news and the city forgot about fifteen hundreds of its citizens.

Did the Chancellor know of that? What about Princess Celestia, the Mare, the figurehead of the Equestrian Confederation, know of that? Had the leadership of the griffons up north heard about it? Did anyone care?

The little Gabby inside her head panicked and screamed at her to turn around and get out of that place as fast as she could. She should even abandon the cart and fly out of that place. Grimacing, Gabby kept walking, albeit slowly. Her eyes darted from one side to the other and her legs quivered. She kept finding things to focus on. A brown-dirty griffon slept on a cardboard for bed, and someone was coughing inside one of the plywood and tarpaulin hovels to her left. To her right, a griffon of unidentifiable colors sat with his back to the stone wall his hovel leaned against. He kept scratching his chest, but at the same time, barely seemed present at all. In the next hovel, a young, disheveled griffon lady with white feathers stained yellow looked at Gabby and closed the curtain her home had for a door.

Screaming distracted her and a pair of griffons so dirty Gabby couldn’t see their original colors fought over something she couldn’t see. On the other side of the street, a small group of friends shared a plastic bottle filled with a white paste they each drew a lungful of air from. Chuckles and cheerful expressions of delight followed. Right next to them, a group of griffon ladies wearing broken feather accessories beat a screaming griffon on the ground.

“Don’t move, missy.” A griffon said. Out of nowhere, he stood in front of her. “We don’t wanna hurt you.”

The sudden stop hurt her knees and the cart dragged her feet in the abrasive stone for an inch or two. Still, she obeyed with wide eyes, staring at the sharp metal stick he held before her. He had a sad look in his eyes, wearing a tattered black beret and showing flimsy forelegs holding his improvised weapon. When she came to, she looked over her shoulder to see three griffons climbing on top of the cart and cutting away the ropes securing the cargo. Rummaging into what she was carrying.

“Hey, Doc. Come’re.” One of them called another griffon to the cart.

“This is for the hospital! They really need it!” She cried but gasped again at the griffon holding an improvised weapon in front of her.

“It’s nothing personal, ma’am.” The approaching griffon told her as he began looking over the things the others had unpacked from the cart and laid on the cobblestone street.

He had a larger frame than the others, navy blue under a torn green trench coat and cyan feathers on his chest and head, mostly clean, but completely neglected otherwise. A strap under his trench coat held a holstered black revolver.

“Quit staring” he told her, and Gabby apologized, instead focusing on the open boxes and undone leather wraps strewn around the paving stone. The griffon began inspecting the cargo and pawing things off to his assistants—flasks, tubes, vials, and some packets—while mumbling to himself. Eventually a smile appeared on his face. “Morphine, penicillin, permanganate… Ah… Iron, arsenic. Atropine, iodine… First aid kit, phlebotomy kits… Trauma kit, thank Celestia. Transfusion kits… They need it more at the hospital. Get those back in.”

Noticing Gabby staring at him again, he shook his head. “Field doctor at Fort King Grover. You can say I chose the wrong side when the separatists bombed the hospital and started this mess. Griffons here took me in, so I help however I can. Now quit judging.”

“I’m not! It’s just… These belong to the hospital!”

“Yeah, yeah.” The griffon hopped to the street. “Hospital belongs to Griffonians. We’re just redistributing before the politicians can steal it all. The town is such a feathering mess right now I don’t even know who’s stealing from whom. We’re not taking everything, anyway. My guys will escort you out to the other side, but never come back here. I can’t guarantee your safety.”

“Yes, sir…” she said, with her wings sagging.

The mention of separatists made her think. Was that what it was all about? The northerner griffons that wanted Griffonia to separate from the Equestrian Confederation? Were they responsible for the bombing at the hospital? For the fighting in the city?

“Why did they bomb the hospital?” one griffon raiding her cart asked from the top of the pile.

The sight of him broke Gabby’s heart, but she said nothing. Younger than she was, probably not even legally an adult yet, and covered under so much grime, it dulled his disarranged navy-blue fur and cyan feathers. Some might find it funny, but it occurred to Gabby those griffons couldn’t even care for their hygiene properly and she suppressed a grimace. It would be insensitive.

“Princess Luna raided a museum at Thunderpeak that was a front for something.” Doc kept a somber tone, still examining the items they retrieved from the cart. “All I know is that she kicked a hornet’s nest. Then came this northerner cunt with the sword that went out of her way to make as much chaos as she could. She’s basically the reason I told my C. O. he could stow his crap because I wasn’t siding with the northerners. All her idea. I hope Celestia turned her into a red smear on the ground.”

While Gabby listened, the griffons raiding her cargo fulfilled Doc’s promise of not taking everything, but their packing work was shoddy, to say the least. They also fulfilled his promise of protecting her on the way out. Gabby noticed no one being overtly aggressive towards her, but she saw jealous eyes and aggressive stares.

Under their guard, she left the Needle Row. It was such a strange contrast, like the undeclared borders between two nations buffered by a no creature’s land both sides avoided. The ugly shacks gave way to assorted detritus and a few griffons scavenging whatever they could find out of the trash. Fifty hooves away, griffons walked around showing preened feathers and pristine clothing or accessories. Employees chatted amongst themselves, closing the stores, and locking them down with padlocks—often more than one—and in a hurry.

The smelly gutter, the dirty walls, and the forest of broken hovels stayed behind with the sick and neglected Griffonstonians. Griffons with the military, wearing pristine uniforms and carrying shiny long guns, stood about in the street. They watched as the shopkeepers concluded their end-of-day routine. Costumers seemed to not care much about what happened around them, neither store owners, employees, or griffons-at-arms. Everyone just did what they must or hurried along, not wishing to be caught outside after curfew hours.

Before Gabby even left the street, it was mostly empty except for herself, her squeaking cart, the dark storefronts, and the dim public illumination of gas lampposts. Soldiers too, glaring at her like Gabby’s very presence bothered them. She pressed her step onward, not wanting to bother them. She decided not to bet on the chances of them acting on their annoyance towards her.

As the pony princesses of the day and of the night changed one for the other, Gabby reached the access to the central square. It was behind a wooden palisade. More concerning were the lines of carts and of griffons waiting to cross the gates. With no viable alternatives, she joined the line of carts, envying the line of walking griffons that moved much faster. The right side went into the plaza and the other came out. Nothing special about the griffons trying to enter or leave. Gabby supposed they worked or had business at the hospital or one of the many public services buildings in the area, despite the late hour. With the mess the city was, they better be working overtime to fix it. Truth be told, the ones which did not belong were the ones with the firearms and the green uniforms.

Once again reminding herself she had no choice, Gabby stood at the end of the line of carts. Every time it moved, she strained her joints and used her talons for leverage against the cobblestone to move the complaining cart. Occasionally, there was some angry shouting, or screaming, but it ended quickly. Part of her thanked the fact her unprivileged size kept her from seeing what was happening. The atmosphere was that of complaining griffons, and everyone knew griffons were not patient creatures.

When it was finally her turn, even her mood had deteriorated to the point she considered her thoughts about efficiency almost justified enough to voice. She stopped at the improvised palisade and gate, not even caring about the long weapons everywhere, and glared at the soldier that mindlessly scribbled on a notepad.

“Name and business in the area?” he asked in a tired monotone, never taking his eyes from his booklet.

“I just been robbed.” She groused. “I had to come via the Needle Row to bring this stuff to the hospital because you closed all the other streets.”

“Haven’t we all, ma’am?” The soldier mumbled before he sighed and looked at her from his notes.

He was a handsome ‘Griffonstone brown and white’ rooster under his green uniform. The green helmet that looked like someone’s plate helped little, but at least the griffon talked to her like he still had a shred of empathy inside. “I’m sorry, ma’am. The local militia is full of loyalists smuggling undesirables out of town instead of doing their job. You should have avoided that place, anyway. Now, name and business, please?”

Next to him was a bored green and gray lady, also wearing the green uniform—no helmet—and waiting for Gabby to answer his question. Was there even any point in complaining about the military closing roads left and right? She supposed he was correct that she could have spent even longer going around the other way around, though. Even if she was in a hurry. The whole thing was so frustrating and tiring.

“Gabriella of Griffonstone.” She responded with a tired frown. “I’m taking supplies to the hospital. City’s postal office.”

“The feathering hospital shouldn’t be helping the loyalists, anyway.” He noted what she said down while the female soldier frowned, and her eyes scanned her own notepad.

“I just want to help…” Gabby sighed. “I’m doing my job.”

“You need to leave the kindergarten, ma’am. There is a civil war about to blow. Keep your head down and opinions to yourself. And be damn glad the brass didn’t tell me to commandeer this stuff. Now get moving, you’re in the way.”

“Ah… She can’t. Madam Gaetana is supposed to see all griffons coming through at least once. This one is not on the list.” The female soldier told him, showing her own notepad with a wing. “And she really looks like a Saddani.”

“Do you even know what a fucking Saddani is?” the soldier turned and snapped at his colleague while pointing a talon. “Do you see the size of this line? It keeps growing. The northerner broad ain’t here, and I’m not going to waste everyone’s time because the northerner weirdos like their lists.”

Northerners. Civil war. Princess Celestia showing up. The bomb at the hospital… Even before all that, with the living cost hikes and all the riots… Gabby never paid attention to any of that. Maybe she should have. But then again, she was just a mail delivery griffon trying to do her job. It didn’t matter who was in the government or out of it. Mail wouldn’t stop and she felt like the whole thing was so far above her it shouldn’t be bothering her.

Despite Gabby’s patiently waiting while the two argued, the griffons behind her started complaining and that silenced both. The male soldier made a gesture for Gabby to move, harshly ordering to get out of the way. She obeyed before his lady friend made a problem out of that.

Those military types were cuckoo in the head! Who would build a wall at the entrance of the central plaza? It was the access to most of the government offices and the largest hospital in the region. And to make it all worse, they closed all the entrances. Debris of a fallen building obstructed one, and the rest they turned into gateways or closed with tall sandbag walls. Why did griffons not simply fly over those? Griffons not hauling a heavy and dumb cart, that is.

But that was not all. Gabby rarely visited that part of town, but she remembered the lively square. It was usually filled with griffons selling things, like the awkward lady that sold delicious scones. Often, there were ponies and other creatures visiting, taking photos of King Grover and of the Chancellor’s Palace. Recently the plaza would often fill with angry rioting griffons in front of it. That day griffons with guns sat at the rooftop of the Chancellor’s Palace, watching as griffons went about their business and floodlights scoured the dark clouds. Then, Gabby knew why griffons weren’t flying over the sandbag walls.

The imposing stone statue had seen better days. Pockmarks scarred the body of the great monarch of the past, and his once majestic crown missed a spike. One of his paws was completely gone, like a finger from the other. His tail had broken and lay abandoned by the statue’s base, which had been mostly scorched black. Missing pieces of his brow and wings marred the king’s stern expression and majestic pose. It still stood, though. Watching over the plaza and giving Gabby a sad frown. What would the great king of the past think if he saw what griffons were doing with his legacy?

The Chancellor’s Palace, with its twin winged façade and once beautiful, crystal-clear windows, had been covered in boards. The pike fence had all its golden-painted bronze tips removed—or stolen—and the thin metal bars had been shored up with sandbags behind them. Those were everywhere, at a second glance. At the top of buildings, their entrances, and nesting weapons in front of the chancellor’s palace. And griffons too. Carrying guns, walking one way and the other, sitting in front of buildings and on the rooftops. All of them wearing the green uniform.

What griffons Gabby found who were not soldiers walked in straight lines, going directly where they needed to, and most of them went to the hospital. Before she knew it, all the frustration had turned cold in her stomach, and she followed in their example. The plaza was no longer a place for sightseeing.

The hospital was the largest building in the plaza, even if its façade seemed smaller than the Chancellor’s Palace and didn’t share its fortification. Instead, boards closed several windows broken windows. The main doors seemed new but had sandbags closed them. Griffonstone’s hospital was a symbol, much as the palace, of the Manehattanite architecture that spread around the world in basically every large city. It appeared the ponies had the right idea both in the city plan and architectural ethos. The design accommodated the important things that made cities and organized them with the lifeline of the cities, such as mana distribution for internal lighting, water and sewage. It was also a symbol of how much the ponies had assisted griffons, but the city still needed working civil services to function properly.

A griffon in a friendly blue ‘security’ uniform directed arrivals to the side of the building. Like a glorified clerk, repeating over and over that griffons should go to the food court. It was in between the buildings, under the central wing. ‘Just go there and you’ll figure it out’, said the tired griffon with the blue cap. So, that is where Gabby went with her unwieldy cart and all the griffons.

Maneuvering the cart took her around the statue under unfriendly stares from the soldiers, but she pretended not to see them. Even her patience had limits and her whole body ached from lugging that thing around. Not to mention the scare in the Needle Row and the annoyance at the gate. Pulling the thing into the alley was frustrating too, especially with all the griffons idling about like they just wanted to occupy the space Gabby needed. She wiggled her way through, though, ignoring a complaint or two. At least nobody got their feet crushed.

The hospital was built in two blocks, each with two wings and three floors, with a connecting wing in between. There was an unloading area in the second block, accessible through a small alley nestled in between the wings and around a garden. The kaleidoscopic flowers of all colors and vibrant green of the foliage were a pleasant addition, though. At least someone was benefitting from all the storms.

Not only did the garden made the alley into a constricted pathway, but griffons filled it. So many grumpy griffons begrudgingly moving out of her way, only because she insisted. Only when she reached the fenced garage door, she realized those griffons were all in a line, a chaotic line into the hospital. The best she could do was repeatedly, and politely apologize, asking that they made way.

Gabby did her best to park the cart out of the way, by the closed gate into the loading area—right in front of it. It was easier said than done with all the havoc and noise. It was a minor miracle she got it where she needed, with a grand total of zero crushed toes. After some struggling with the belt straps, she trotted in between the griffons—ignoring angry complaints that she was skipping the line—to the covered area under the connecting second floor.

The realization hit her like a slap to the face that she was, indeed, skipping the line. The food court had a pair of closed restaurants and almost every square hoof of the gray granite floor was taken by a moaning, groaning, crying, griffon. Each one of them either complaining or holding a limb, a wing, or a hasty, bloody dressing. The ones that were conscious, at least. All spilling from the food court under the central connecting wing into the alleys flanking the garden. As if that wasn’t exposed enough. Among them were griffons wearing little white ‘nurse caps’, going around, and talking to griffons, changing dressings, and moving griffons around, trying to organize that mess.

Every color in the rainbow presented itself on the griffons in there, sitting on the floor, laying down with nauseated stares or unconscious. A few elderly, many of them hurt and tired. A few had sitting pillows, but most just sat there on the floor, or on the concrete walkways flanking the garden. Griffons everywhere, and barely any walking space. Some of them yelled, demanding help, saying they had been waiting for hours, complaining their loved ones were dying. Crying cubs and weirdly apathetic adults staring at nothing. Gabby walked among them, trying to find the exposed floor that wasn’t occupied or covered in blood, vomit, and similarly disgusting things. The cleaning staff was nowhere to be seen.

Maybe Gabby’s rattled nerves and depleted energy were to blame for her uneasiness, too. The worse were the griffons yelling at the staff. Every pointed and aggressive word made her flinch, but it helped Gabby find one of the nurses. A pink griffon lady with a crumbled little white hat, almost zoning out while an angry yellow and white hen yelled at her. She said something that made the angry hen storm off in the middle of that pandemonium and that let Gabby approach her.

“Hello? I’m from the postal office. I have a delivery to make.” She told the nurse.

She was about as young as Gabby, now focused on her job of tying a grimacing griffon’s wing on itself until she finally pulled a leg of the bandage with her beak and looked at Gabby with big red eyes. “What’s that? Delivery?”

“Dispatch told me they are supplies.” Gabby explained. “Ah… I’ve been robbed on my way, though. There are probably some missing things. I hope it still helps, though.”

“Ouchie.” The pink griffoness grimaced, the broken feathers in her crest raised with her little hat. “Are you hurt?”

Gabby shook her head. “I just need to get this stuff delivered and go home. You guys seem to have your paws full, and I had a long day even before I picked this up.”

Pink frowned and looked one way with a groan, and another with a sigh. “Uh… I dunno. Get inside and look for Miss Goldina. She’s my boss and she will know what to do. I’m up to my withers with work here. This was supposed to be an improvised reception and we’re doing triage and small dressing here. It’s a mess!”

Gabby did not really understand what she had told her, and her first instinct was to reach inside her saddlebag, grab the papers and asked pinky there to just sign them, but she had gotten through some rough terrain for that delivery. She was going to do it right and thanked the nurse just as she was going to give a couple of papers to the griffon with the injured wing, just ignoring Gabby by then. It was probably best to leave her alone and figure it out on her own, so Gabby excused herself and left.

The hospital’s main block, the one with the façade towards the plaza, was likely the one where Gabby would find Miss Goldina. If she remembered correctly, that was where the reception used to be and where griffons would get directed to clinics or emergency. It had a nice entry hall, very spacious and with a central information desk. There was also a fancy candelabra of hundreds of crystals.

The painted glass on the door into the building didn’t let her see anything on the other side until she opened them. It was like Needle Row again, but instead of dirt and soot, it was the smell of blood, rot and worse things that gave her pause. It seemed all the problems in the city got piled into the hospital.

The reason the main doors were closed was that the hospital staff had turned the lobby and reception into an impromptu emergency room, including the space the main doors would use. Like the wards had filled, so they started piling injured and distressed griffons into the corridors. When those filled, they moved the reception outside and started filling the actual reception with patients for triage. And then finally moved triage outside too. In inside was a mess that didn’t know if it wanted to be emergency or ward, and outside was another mess that wasn’t triage nor reception. And Gabby was not even a professional, but she understood that such a mess was a ticking time bomb.

More weeping and sobbing. Not just cubs, but adult griffons crying with pain or sorrow. Everywhere Gabby turned to more griffons, blood smears on the floor and walls. Injured, sick, and unconscious griffons strewn on mattresses on the floor, smirched with unidentifiable stains. Some of them had a place to lie down, other had nothing but the cold granite floor. The ones Gabby called ‘less bad’ sat on their corners, waiting, or allowed healthcare griffons to clean wounds, set bones, or just talk to them. Some brought them medicine in little cups or applied injections. A couple of janitors tried to keep up with the bodily fluids and discarded packages left in the wake of trying to keep griffons alive.

One patient lied under the grand staircase, missing half of his hind leg, with a bloody, dripping dressing covering what remained. He slept, though. Almost peacefully. His injuries torn his coat in several places. Some of his fur and feathers were missing in patches where it the nurses had cleared it away and black stitches held his skin together. Just looking at those wounds made Gabby’s skin crawl.

Bottles with tubes that went with needles into griffons… Gabby didn’t know their name, but they hung from improvised fixtures on the furniture, doors, and coat hangers. Some held clear liquids, others held vibrant red. One griffon, wearing a blood-stained white coat over his blue pelt, slept on the stairs to the second floor. Another doctor, with his overalls too dirty with crimson, seemed to perform a surgery in the corner with help from another, while a third literally held a magical lamp above them.

And in the middle of all that, one nurse consoled another. A very young, lime colored, little griffon lady sobbing into her fluffy chest covered in golden feathers. She was a golden statue of a griffoness that someone had enchanted with a life spell. Her fur and her feathers were of the purest gold and her eyes were shiny amethysts, even dulled with weariness. She was petting the younger one and saying soothing words in the middle of that overcrowded and dysfunctional emergency room. The crumbled nurse hat, along with her unkempt feathers, completed the figure of one who could only be ‘Miss Goldina’, and she was probably on her second or third shift.

After she sent the crying nurse to rest, she turned to Gabby with a tired smile. “Hello. You look a little lost.”

“Hi!” Gabby grinned best as she could at the easy to look at lady, though her eyes had lost much of their shine and her smile wouldn’t be as radiant as usual. “I’m from the post office, and I brought some things for you. Someone needs to sign for them. But… Well, I’ve been robbed on my way here. I don’t know how useful it will be.”

In the grand scheme of things, maybe what ‘Doc’ had stolen back at Needle Row would help those griffons more than they would at the hospital. Anyway, Gabby’s job was not to ration things; it was to get them where smart griffons said they needed to go. Miss Goldina said nothing about it and just said she’d sign for the material. That would be the end of Gabby’s participation in all that.

The crying and moaning had become background noise, but the eventual screaming rattled her. Everywhere Gabby’s eyes landed, she saw a griffon in pain, with way too much red outside, or missing parts. Some of them, Gabby, couldn’t even tell what was wrong. Maybe Goldina noticed that too and wanted Gabby out of there before she ended becoming another patient.

Gabby’s wing reached into her saddlebags and, as though it was on cue, the glass door to the improvised triage and reception burst open. If that hadn’t scared Gabby enough, the commotion that followed would have.

Two griffons entered. One was a very young adult, the other middle-aged, and both dragged along a young hen. Her beak hung open and her head kept twitching, same as her paws, opening and closing, while they dragged her across the floor. A crying older griffoness followed. The males, the young and the older female, all shared a similar appearance and shades of off-white feathers and pelts that were tan, leaning towards the color of bricks. Finally, came the pink nurse that had talked to Gabby when she first arrived.

“Priority! Priority!” she cried.

“Somebody, please help her!” the older hen screamed while tears streaked down her plumage.

Chaos descended upon the room, and helplessness grasped and squeezed Gabby’s heart. Even if her first impulse was to help, there simply wasn’t anything she could do other than get out of the way. Miss Goldina left her and the unsigned papers alone to watch from the sidelines while the older hen screamed and sobbed. The young female twitched and jerked like some evil unicorn was trying to pull her apart and the professionals did their best to contain her limbs. Things happened in a flurry that Gabby’s eyes could barely pierce. She couldn’t help putting herself in that young hen’s place, or the older one’s—her mother?—and a grimace crept into her beak while her paws shivered.

“She was waiting in triage and suddenly crashed.” The pink one told the griffon in the white coat after he jumped awake and stumbled down the stairs. She said several other things. The older griffoness mentioned words like ‘pixie dust’, and ‘client’. Gabby, somehow, stopped listening. She refused to let the implied images fill her head.

The doctor shouted things Gabby mostly didn’t understand. Miss Goldina directed griffons into working. Patients and hospital workers watched from afar, too many eyes on that family. Gabby caught herself staring at the commotion of tired and dirty griffons trying to hold the young, pretty hen in the middle of flailing limbs, unnerving guttural bellows, flasks, syringes, and containment belts.

It was only when calm was restored and the young hen was safely contained and sedated that Gabby noticed a griffoness she had not seen before; she had arrived in the middle of the commotion. She moved the mother and her two male companions discreetly away and allowed the others to work in peace. The mother was still crying, like an inconsolable cub, but at least the situation seemed under control.

The new arrival didn’t seem like she belonged there. Large, physically powerful, she was perfect in every sense of the word. Gabby blushed at the sight of her. A mid-aged griffoness, deep blue with cyan feathers and silvery highlights, wearing a flowing cape made of blue satin. Red stained the feathers above her elbow, but her paws were clean. She helped calm the mother, even though Gabby never heard what she said. Her presence seemed to dominate the place and griffons just did what she told them. She pointed and griffons hurried to get things done, and at her orders, someone brought the panicking mother a glass of water.

As suddenly as it had started, things seemed under control again, with the convulsing griffoness now resting calmly on a mattress sheltered under the reception desk. Miss Goldina approached Gabby with an easy chuckle, distracting her from the blue caped griffoness. “I’m sorry about that, dear. Let me see those papers again.”

Thank Celestia, Miss Goldina glanced over the papers and started signing one after the other, even after Gabby again confessed that someone had robbed much of the material, but she didn’t reveal the identity of the thieves. Meanwhile, Gabby could see the large blue female slapping away a nurse from their patient under the desk. The young hen had awakened and mumbled incoherent words. Gabby was not sure of what was going on there, but the blue-caped griffoness seemed to have some harsh words not only to the nurse, but the young griffoness’ mother and the two males. It confused Gabby, but nobody seemed willing to challenge her.

Miss Goldina didn’t seem to care much about what was on the papers and signed them all in a hurry. But while she was finishing, Gabby saw, over Goldina’s shoulders, the large blue griffoness was walking towards them. Prowling like a cat encroaching on their prey, and when she spoke, Goldina gave a startled jerk.

“Hello, and who might you be?” Her voice sounded stern, like she belonged in the military, or Gabby’s old school. In detention, more precisely. Like the last creature a cub wanted to see.

Her pronunciation of the Common Equestrian came out filled with whistles and hisses, but more importantly, when she approached, Gabby noticed she was much older than her initial appraisal made her believe. A fierce stare and a commanding tone like someone’s evil grandma. Miss Goldina silenced immediately, not a peep more, while the other sat by her side. The delicate chain of iron links which held her swaying cape tinkled over her fluffy blue-silvery chest.

She looked and sounded so different. Was she a northerner griffon? Was she helping? She must be someone important.

Gabby stepped back and sat, gasping once she noticed the older griffoness had talked to her. Words failed before she could respond, so intense was her gaze, scrutinizing every inch of her. “I’m Gabriella. From the city’s post office. Ma’am. You can call me Gabby.”

“Nice to meet you, Gabriella.” The older hen smiled. Maybe it was her fierce aquiline visage that seemed more pronounced than in the southerner griffons, but it scared Gabby like she was dangerous. “Are you from Greenland Hold?”

Gabby tripped on the words. They refused to come out like she wanted at the sudden question. “I am… I’m from Griffonstone. Yes. Ah… But… Ah, mom was from there. Yes.”

Behind the older griffoness, Goldina shot Gabby a pleading stare. What she meant, what she was trying to tell her, Gabby did not know. But then, the pink griffoness nurse squawked from one of the adjacent rooms, hiding behind the door’s frame.

“Madam Gaetana! Come quick!” pink yelled.

Turning, the older griffoness glared at the pink nurse at a distance, but when her pink paw beckoned anxiously, the old griffoness sighed and gave Gabby one last stare. “I am not done with you. Wait here.”

As soon as she was out of earshot and Gabby still recovered from her intense glare, Miss Goldina shook Gabby’s shoulders. “Go! Now!”

“But… But she said…”

“No buts, deary! Now! Leave the cart.” The urgency in her purple eyes scared Gabby into obedience. “Hurry!”

She stood and backpedaled. What had just happened? Goldina silently pleaded for her to leave and, as inconspicuously as she could. Gabby’s confused inaction turned to motivating fear. She walked and then trotted out of the door. Weaving her way past all the griffons on the granite floor, then on the grass and cement walkways between the building’s blocks and the garden. A griffon with a ‘security’ cap had taken the responsibility of watching over the cart. Looking at the griffon and the cart, Gabby bumped against another griffon on her way out.

A young soldier, using the green uniform and carrying on his back a musket that was almost too large for him, stared at her. A beautiful combination of brown and white, typical of the city, with golden eyes fixated on her. The old griffoness walked out of the building and looked the other way. Recognition sparked in his eyes and the soldier urged Gabby on, speaking in a hushed tone.

“Behind the Civil Services Department building. They’re dealing with a collapsed wall. You can slip past the checkpoint.”

Gabby wasn’t sure why she was fleeing from that griffoness, but they had convinced her she must.

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