Friends and Enemies

by ObabScribbler

King Claw's Commands

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10. King Claw’s Commands

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Ritzy cowered against Vainglorious’s side, trying to make herself as small as possible next to his long legs. She didn’t even comment when he did that thing he always did when he thought she was being vulgar: a cross between a snort and a shudder that usually had their entire clique sniggering at her behind their hooves.

It wasn’t fair. She had always imagined that when she finally saw the inside of Princess Celestia’s throne room, it would be because her social efforts had been given the acknowledgement they deserved. For years, Ritzy had toiled diligently at her charity work: improving the lives of less fortunate ponies by selecting those of obvious talent or merit and elevating them into high society. Many were the uncouth souls whose lives she had improved with her advice and invitations to just the right party, just the right race or just the right cheese-and-hay tasting shindig. Once or twice she had even implemented personal lessons in fashion and etiquette, especially when it came to tutoring young fillies in how to suppress their appetites and eat only when well-bred slender mares ate. Yet it had never been enough to gain the princess’s interest. The Vaniteux were an old family whose lineage could be traced back seventeen generations, all of whom had lived in Canterlot. That alone should have garnered Ritzy an invite to a royal garden party, but somehow her name had never appeared on the guest list.

Now she was finally inside the throne room and couldn’t enjoy a single moment of it. Life really was too unfair.

“Don’t stand so close to me.” Vainglorious bumped her away from him.

She tripped over her own hooves and shot him a dirty look. The Vaniteux and Rupin families had often been at odds over the last seventeen generations, but one might think him able to offer a lady support in a time of crisis. Some gentlecolt HE was; no matter what airs and graces he put on, Vainglorious would always be the foal who had wet himself at her birthday party when they both attended the most exclusive kindergarten in Canterlot so many years ago. She was about to bring him down a peg or two out of habit, but her witty remark died on her lips as she took note of their surroundings once more: beautiful, regal and unoccupied.

“What do you suppose they’re waiting for?” she asked.

“How the devil should I know?” Vainglorious tossed his mane in irritation and eyed the door they had been so rudely shoved through. He rubbed at his neck where the metal collar had rubbed. Specks of rust still graced the area.

“Why did they separate us away from the others?” Ritzy pressed. If she was stuck here with him, at least she would not be stuck in silence.

“Perhaps they recognised good breeding and want to parley with us in the princesses’ … absence.” He obviously couldn’t bring himself to mention their deaths. For once, Ritzy didn’t hold it against him. She couldn’t either. “We represent the crème-de-la-crème of Canterlot society. It stands to reason they’d want to bargain with us.”

“For what? They already own the city.”

“Owning land doesn’t mean you understand it,” Vainglorious said knowledgeably. “Like our estate over in Trottinghamshire; Great-Grand-Daddy bought and owned it, but hadn’t the foggiest where to go or what to do when he holidayed there. He had to have the locals explain the most basic of things to him. That’s probably the case here: the griffins may occupy Canterlot, but they don’t know how things work around here, so I expect they need ponies like us to … show them the ropes.”

“They didn’t act like we’re envoys of the Equestrian nation,” Ritzy said sourly. What Vainglorious said made sense, much to her chagrin. Still, something bothered her: maybe the metal collars and the way they had been shoved in here like prisoners in some smelly dungeon. “They acted incredibly rough and discourteous.”

“They’re griffins,” Vainglorious cut across her. “Rough and discourteous is what they are, not just what they do.”

Ritzy looked around, absently taking in the magnificent architecture and stained glass windows. The throne sat atop its gleaming white marble staircase, which had probably been chosen so Celestia’s moulted white hairs didn’t show up and make the place look untidy and … un-royal. Did alicorns moult? What about Princess Luna: now she was back did she brush her coat seventy times a day like Ritzy did, so that her dark hairs didn’t show up on the marblework? It was an interesting question, but inappropriate for the moment.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Ritzy whispered. “I don’t like that those griffins who brought us here wouldn’t so much as step inside. Don’t you think it’s odd that they’d imprison us in a room with so many … Vainglorious?” She looked over her shoulder and then whirled around. He was gone. “Vainglorious, desist in this silliness. You are entirely unfunny and unseemly. Show yourself, this instant. Vainglorious? Vainglorious!” She almost stamped her hoof like a filly in a tantrum. Alarm at being abandoned morphed quickly into fear and anger at him wandering off without a word. The chamber was huge, yet somehow she had not heard him trot away. “Vainglorious! Vain– ugh!”

Something landed in her eye, cutting off her shriek. She swiped a hoof in lieu of her handkerchief, which she had already soaked with tears back in the concert hall. When she looked at her hoof her mouth dropped open and her rarely-fed stomach plummeted into her tasteful slippers.

Something dropped onto her head. She felt it slide through her mane to her scalp. It was warm and wet. Trembling and barely able to move, she looked up.

The biggest, most baleful eyes she could ever have imagined looked back at her. Each one was the size of her skull and sat in face wreathed in dark brown feathers that made the beak beneath stand out like polished bronze. Though it was perched on an oversized bust of Princess Luna’s head and chest that jutted from the wall, Ritzy could see every massive feather like they were right in front of her. Yet her gaze was caught, not by the feathers, or the beak, or even the unblinking golden eyes. Instead, though she tried to force herself to look away, her eyes were inexorably drawn to the red rivulets tracing the contours of stone-Luna’s face and wings. The griffin’s claw pinned Vainglorious with his head lolling over the side. Its massive talon made regular griffins’ look like matchsticks compared with scimitars. Vainglorious’s eyes were already glazing over, but one of his hind legs continued to kick reflexively, as if he was trying to run away while his life dripped onto the throne room floor.

Ritzy swallowed a scream. Her whole body remained frozen until, with a gasp, adrenaline flooded her and she galloped for the door. She didn’t care if there were a hundred guards out there: she was NOT staying in here with such a beast.

“To the hunt!” The half-roar, half-screech echoed around the throne room.

A shadow and a whoosh of displaced air heralded the monstrous griffin taking flight. Vainglorious groaned at the pressure leaving his back, but Ritzy barely heard him over her own pulse hammering in her ears.

“Let me out!” She thumped her hooves against the doors and screamed like she had never screamed before. “Let me OUT!”

“Och, at least make some sport o’ this. I thought ye were gonntae run a bit. Even rabbits give more sport than this.”

“LET ME OUT!”

“Noisome wee thing. Ye’re not gonnae be any fun, are ye?”

Ritzy filled her lungs and raised her hooves. She felt like she could smash her way right through like a common carthorse through plywood. “LET MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE–” She shrieked as she was plucked into the air. The cry echoed even more than the griffin’s roar, but ended abruptly

On the far side of the chamber a partner bust of Celestia jutted from the wall. It was the work of a few wingbeats to reach it and both were solid enough to bear considerable weight. The two statues had been constructed to honour Princess Luna’s return from the moon and herald a bright new era of peace and prosperity in Equestria.

In the light shining through the stained glass, it looked as though both statues were crying red tears.

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Stargazer didn’t like to disturb the king while he was hunting. He put it down to habits learned in the highland, where life was much harder than even lowland Gryphona, but the king always retreated to a high place to eat and seemed to revel in making a mess. Maybe it was some sort of mating display: the more your meal travelled while you ate it, and the more you wore on your face, the more attractive you looked. Stargazer was well past the age where courting and mating were concerns and took no interest in learning about them.

Hunting in Gryphona covered miles of terrain, so it was easy to avoid the king there. For the moment, they were limited to Canterlot until the rest of Equestria came under the king’s rule, so Stargazer had thought up with a plan to satiate the king’s need to hunt within their restricted circumstances: use the prisoners.

Hunting ponies had always been taboo for three reasons: unicorn magic and pegasi weather-control; until they were fully grown, most griffins were only slightly bigger than ponies and couldn’t guarantee making a kill if the pony decided to fight back; and Celestia’s wrath. Careful nurturing of their forces to adulthood and not letting them kill each other during their first courtship had engendered a Claw Army full of large, zealous griffins; the unicorns and pegasi of Canterlot were locked safely away; and as for Celestia and Luna …

Stargazer frowned. Those two were still a problem. If it hadn’t been for that little purple unicorn messing everything up …

Yet wasn’t that the crux of his sudden good mood? He thought about the cage he had deposited in his brand new chambers and allowed himself a smile. Dragons were useful in so many ways: eyeballs for clairvoyance spells; scales for armour spells; their tongues were said to be lucky and the fire-sac that sat just above their stomachs was instrumental in some of the most complicated griffin magic, which had fallen out of favour centuries ago because by the time a fire-sac reached optimum power, the dragon was big enough to use it on any magician trying to get it and burn them to a crisp. That he had been handed a dragon hatchling was one of life’s wonderful quirks. If he had been five minutes later he would have missed it. Now he could declaw it, teach it not to retaliate, allow it to reach maturity and then harvest its organs at his leisure! Let King Claw have Equestria; Stargazer already had what he wanted.

Plus, even while it was still alive the dragon was useful. Spies who had gathered information on Celestia’s champions, the Elements of Harmony, often spoke of a purple dragon hatchling that was constantly around their ankles. It was too much of a coincidence that another one had been found hiding in Canterlot Castle now. Even simple clairvoyance required a focus, like a bloodhound required a scent, and a living focus was so much better than a personal object. There would be nowhere the princesses could hide now.

Being allowed to keep the hatchling long enough to use it, however, required staying on the king’s good side so he didn’t decide he wanted to try dragon for his next meal. For that reason Stargazer had hidden the cage and didn’t intend to tell the king about his find until he was good and ready. He knocked before leaving the vestibule between corridor and throne room, and kept his eyes politely down when he entered.

“Stargazer!” The happy cry was a good sign, as was the sound of crunching. King Claw was never happier than when he was fighting, mating, hunting or eating. He may have been a brilliant warmonger, but he was a griffin of simple tastes. “Any news?”

Stargazer knew he meant news of Luna or Celestia’s whereabouts. “Alas, not yet, your majesty, but soon, I hope.”

The king grunted.

“However, the generals are all gathered and await an audience with you, as you ordered.”

“Aye.” The king paused to gulp something. “Soon enough the morn becomes the streen, an’ we have t’grab the chance that’s offered to us before it disappears too.”

Stargazer searched his memory for these words. King Claw had used them before: ‘morn’ was tomorrow and ‘streen’ was yesterday. Stargazer nodded in agreement. “You’re right, majesty. Do you have a plan?”

“Aye.” With a heavy thump, Claw landed in front of him. He was the burliest griffin Stargazer had ever come across in all his long years: he even made the legendary King Slaughter the Crazed look like the runt of his litter in comparison. “Dinna fash yersel’, Stargazer. The plan’s simple: we hit hard an’ fast at the muckle threats before the wee ponies can rally themselves agin’ us.”

“Muckle, majesty?”

“Do ye have rocks in yer skull? Big! Namely, the places where ponies who might actually fare agin’ us reside: Wonderbolts Academy, Cloudsdale an’ Ponyville. We can move on from there to t’other cities an’ such, but I doubt we’ll find much fight left in ‘em after that. Breakin’ morale is as good as breakin’ bones sometimes.”

Stargazer nodded. The Wonderbolts team had been crippled already, but spies sent out prior to the invasion had relayed that they kept the next generation of Wonderbolts at their training facility, so it made sense to dispose of them before they could strike back. While Cloudsdale was a city with many non-combatant citizens, any pony with wings was a hazard. The skies were the griffins’ playground and they would fly easier knowing no ponies were around to buck lightning bolts at them, or call up a blizzard as a weapon against the Claw Army. Ponyville, however, was the least threatening of all. The six mares Celestia had summoned to defend her had all been dispatched here in Canterlot. The rest of Ponyville was nothing special.

“Why Ponyville, majesty?”

Claw rubbed his beak into his chest feathers to wipe off the blood. “Insurance. A scared wee rabbit runs back to its burrow when it sees the muckle eagle’s shadow.”

Stargazer blinked. “You think Celestia and Luna might be there?”

Claw shrugged and strode away. “Unless ye can tell me different, I’m takin’ nae chances. Plus, if Ponyville falls, Equestria’ll notice. Morale an’ bones, Stargazer; morale an’ bones. Now, come wi’s.”

Stargazer studiously avoided looking at the mess on the statues and followed his king from the room.

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Author's Note:

A/N: 'Vainiteux' is French for 'vanity' and 'Rupin' means 'posh' or 'swanky'.

Comments

[temerarii pulsat]

sigh.. when will the ponies start taking back equestrisa oh well good chapter of detailing.

[N00813]

I would caution against making one side totally evil - every race has their own jerks and saints.

Gilda has more depth, but I'm sure she's not the only one who has second thoughts.