Equestria, as viewed from the outlook of a griffon.
Hippogriffs: The unlikely product of two substantially different worlds. Gruff, griffon-raised Gander has spent his entire life struggling to live up to the warrior ideal, praising strength and shunning weakness. Now, unwillingly ordered to Equestria to uncover his lost equine heritage, he might just learn that there might be more to these peace-loving ponies than meets the eye.
Assuming he survives the journey with his sanity in tact.
A short story written for the Outsider Insight EqD contest.
It is said, in ancient legends of origins long forgotten, that when the earth was young she was stricken with a most horrible fate: ennui. In this time before time, nothing yet lived but the earth. She was alone, her skies a void and her lands barren. There was naught to catch her eye or stir her blood to excitement. Her life, her heart, her very soul was empty.
When she could take no more of the emptiness, the earth let out a mighty breath that became the winds. These winds carried with them new life, forged from her own flesh and blood, and spread her creations across the lands. The grasses and trees burst forth from her heart, and all manner of creatures walked upon the face of her. No longer was she alone, this mother earth, for now her children teemed in great numbers.
The earth reveled in her accomplishment, yet still her ennui persisted. Though her lands were now filled with life, it was a life that seemed shallow and without meaning. Her children merely were. They had no passion nor purpose, no drive other than to see each day through. Their hearts and souls remained turgid, and likewise did their great mother's. Time passed once more, and she pondered what more she could do to ease her languor.
For all of the earth's timeless wisdom, it was not she who stumbled upon the answer to her dilemma. It was her children, who also suffered from the drudgery of existence and sought in vain to escape from it, and in doing so discovered the one great truth of existence.
The myths of this moment are many. It is a story told and retold, embellished and passed on, re-imagined with new outlooks for new ages. None can know for certain what happened, only what they believe to be the truth.
For some, the truth is that an age of Harmony ended.
For others, the truth is that the long years of listlessness and stagnation were to finally come to a close. Two of the earth's children found themselves with differing opinions that put them at odds with one another. This was astounding in and of itself, for such a divergence had yet to be seen since the moment of creation. What was to come would be even more unprecedented. For the first time, tempers rose and blood ran hot. The apathy that had plagued life was forgotten in the moment and, as a wildfire begins with but a single spark, conflict was born.
Along with conflict came challenge and conquest. The joy of triumph, the satisfaction of overcoming obstacles, the elation of improvement of the self. Mother earth rejoiced at this discovery. At long last, the emptiness of her soul was no more, filled instead with the thrill of contest. Life would finally have meaning and purpose.
Already, her children were putting to practice what they had learned, refining and making use of conflict to build upon what they were and become ever greater. The first hunters had discovered the ways of the Hunt, the thrill of the chase and the honorable end to a worthy prey. The first warriors founded the ways of Combat, a noble clash of wills to prove the strength of one’s soul. Each held the most profound spark of vigor sought by the great mother, and each strove to bring honor to their most beloved creator.
Of the mother’s children who followed the ways of the Hunt and Combat, two soon rose above all others in their pursuit of mastery in their arts. The mighty eagles soared in the skies upon the mother’s very breath, riding the winds as they sought their prey in solitary hunts. The stalwart lions claimed the lands, led by one chosen for strength in challenges of combat. The earth was pleased at their progress and all that they had achieved, but she realized that this was merely a fraction of their true potential. What the mighty hunters and stalwart warriors could accomplish separately was nothing compared to what heights they could obtain together.
And thus it was that mother earth conceived for herself a new species. Strength given form, forged without limits and honed to perfection, to hold dominion over both land and skies. Her chosen children would never rest nor slow in their pursuits, never find satisfaction in the murky dullness of constancy. Their wings would ever seek greater heights to ascend, and their claws would always thirst for greater challenges to overcome. The great mother had her champion at long last, and would forevermore be free of her ennui.
It is little wonder that griffons are a proud and confident culture, quick to place themselves upon a pedestal above the other civilizations of the earth. This could easily be confused as arrogance, if one makes the dangerous assumption that the griffons lack the ability to stand by their claims. A griffon does not pretend to be the best, gloating with empty words. A griffon hunts for a pinnacle and then spends his every moment to surpass it, only to begin the hunt again for a new goal. A true griffon could settle for nothing less, embroiled in this pursuit since birth. Nothing but reaching the top could make him happy.
Gander was not happy. In the sixteen years since his birth, he could never recall being happy. He had never won a fight or successfully stalked a dangerous beast. He had never beaten others his age in a contest of speed or skill. He had never accomplished anything extraordinary that he could truly take pride in, and therefore he had also failed at being a true griffon.
Which, in a sad sort of way, made sense to Gander, as he was not a griffon. Not quite. His beak was pitch black and not overly large, not unheard of among the griffon kind, but the tip of the bill was dull and flat, entirely unsuitable for tearing at flesh. This also made an unhappy amount of sense, given that Gander could not stomach meat and survived on mostly foraged grains. Much of the plumage of his head and abnormally long neck was the same color black as his beak, save for a thin strip of white beneath his chin. The rest of his feathers were mottled brown and white in alternating stripes, from his wings that lacked the musculature and feather length for true speed down to his front legs that were just as equally lacking in strength. His forelegs and feet were dark and scaly, a trait shared with other griffons, but their well-defined talons were absent, cursed instead with stubby little claws that were good for next to nothing. His hind end was covered in a coat of white and at least had a decent amount of power hidden away in his back legs, but it was a far cry from the lithe and graceful feline form that characterized the griffon species. No, his legs were stocky and stout, ending in solid hooves rather than stealthy paws. The last difference, the final disgrace in his eyes, was the long black hairs that made up his tail.
A pony’s tail. Not a lion’s. Not a griffon’s. A tail meant for swatting away pests, not keeping one’s balance in pitched chases just before dealing a killing blow. Gander was no hunter. He was no griffon. He was a mistake, born of an aberrant union between his griffon father and some brood mare. Most days, he felt that word could sum up his entire life. Mistake.
Today was no different. He peered into his reflection with a scowl, beady black pupils looking back in disgust. With a splash, he broke the stillness of the lake and brought a few clawfuls of water to his face, the last of his preening for the morning. Clean feathers meant easier flying and Gander needed all the help he could get, since his airborne acrobatic skill could be classified somewhere between a sagging balloon and a thrown brick. Grace was not his strong point. For that matter, nothing really was.
Unwilling to look at himself again in the crystal clear pool, he turned away and back to the campsite where he’d spent the previous night. It wasn’t much of a camp, merely some long reeds fashioned into a makeshift bed. He’d been unable to find a stray cloud last evening, and had gone to ground as the sun set. The lack of roving clouds disturbed him. Many things did in this place. It was a feeling he could not quite identify, but could describe only as a pervasive wrongness. It was as if the life had been sucked out of everything. It ruffled his feathers in a chilling way, and Gander did his best to ignore it. He hoped he would not spend long here; this was pony land, after all, and he did not belong.
Not that he belonged in the griffon territories, either.
He shook his head to clear it of stray thoughts and focused himself entirely on flight. It was somewhat of a struggle; Gander beat at the air with his wings like a salmon might thrash as it made its way upstream. The earth only grudgingly loosed its hold and he took to the skies, spiraling around the lakebed as he gained altitude. Around him, the countryside sprung into view. Densely packed trees and sparse shrubbery with the occasional lake dotting the landscape, all illuminated by warm reds and oranges by the sun rising into a cloudless sky. It was a picturesque spring morning, absolutely perfect in every way. Too perfect, Gander’s instincts murmured.
For even as he flew onward, those little details continued to nag at him. The uniformity of the trees, the clarity of the water, and most especially the horrid evenness of the wind kept his flight, one of the few things that he took comfort in, from being pleasant. Gander may not have been a pure griffon, but he’d had griffon instincts beaten into him from youth, and those instincts despised the very air beneath his wings. The wind was the breath of mother earth, he knew. It held her capricious spirit. It was wild and unfathomable, changing from moment to moment. It should have been roiling in the sky like ocean waves in a storm, and only those worth of her favor would dare face them. Only those who knew the wind as they knew themselves could see the patterns in the breezes, and dance from updrafts to thermals like one born of the sky itself.
But this? Ever since he'd left the griffon lands, the wind had been flat and dull, listless and unassuming. It was as peaceful as the water of the lake in which he had washed only moments ago, water that was also entirely lacking of... of... something. Of spark, of life. The winds here, the water and earth too, was simply wrong. If Gander was smarter, perhaps he could understand. Perhaps he would be able to express his feeling of wrongness instead of being locked away in thought when he really should have been paying attention to the skies.
If Gander was smarter, perhaps he wouldn’t have collided head-on into the only other thing sharing the skies with him. On that note, if he were a true griffon, perhaps he could have at least salvaged his dignity with a suitably majestic screech of indignation instead of the startled honk that left his beak as he struggled to right himself in the air, pulling out of a narrow spiraling dive with an ungainly amount of floundering. He could feel the strain in his wing as he fought to regain control of his spin.
“Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh!” A voice from behind called, a voice light like a sparrow’s but tinged with concern, like a child caught in the middle of mischief by her elders. The sky and the ground exchanged places a few times in Gander’s view before he finally steadied himself and wheeled around to get a glimpse of what had interrupted his flight. There, in the middle of an otherwise empty sky, floated a disturbingly rectangular cloud. Next to its unnatural shape was, of course, a pony.
A pegasus, to be precise. A mare, Gander assumed though he couldn’t be sure when it came to ponies, with such a strikingly yellow coat that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen her earlier even with his head in the proverbial clouds. Perhaps he had confused this pony with the sun. Her mane gave weight to that notion, as it was an orange so bright that it put even the yellow of her coat to shame, swept back and unruly like hungry flames. She was altogether too colorful for his senses, and even the way she simply hovered there, as if gravity didn’t exist, seemed to mock him. Her eyes were simply another perceived insult, brilliant blue orbs that looked to him in concern, and any self-respecting griffon knew that concern was merely pity in disguise. If her gaze was an insult, her voice was torture, sickeningly sweet and never even pausing for breath as she stammered apologies. “I am so, so, sooo sorry! Are you okay? I totally didn’t even see you there. I was just flyin’ along and, whoosh, there you were! And I ran into you, or is it flew into you? I mean, I’m not runnin‘, I guess, but still!”
A surprising fact about griffons is that, despite their prominent beaks, they do indeed have teeth. Gander’s were already grinding together. He landed atop the cloud, if one with edges could really be called a cloud, grateful at least that the clouds here in pony lands still retained enough life to keep him aloft even if he couldn‘t say the same for the winds.
“I can not believe this happened to me. I mean, again. How many times am I gonna screw up before I learn to watch what I’m doin‘, huh?” The pegasus had yet to cease her yammering, so, as he waited, Gander stretched his wings in a simple test for damage. Never for a moment did he take his eyes off this wretched little flying banana, who seemed to be apologizing for the third time now. He doubted that any pony could be considered a real threat, especially one as seemingly spineless as this, but a griffon would never let his guard down. Besides, she seemed to be winding down at last, and not a moment too soon. Gander wasn't sure how much more of this he could take.
“And that’s when I realized that I just wasn’t meant for derbies, so here I am tryin’ to get my hoof in the door with this cloudmakin’ gig and these things are really delicate, you know, and now I’ve probably gone and messed everythin’ up again, and my boss is gonna chew me out for runnin’ into somepo- uh... into a... wait, what the hay are you?” The instant she spoke, her eyes widened and hooves flew to clamp over her mouth, cheeks flushing scarlet at her faux pas. "I mean, uh... hi? Er, sorry. For, um, yeah. Everythin’, I guess. Are you okay?"
"Ça va..." Gander began, before correcting himself. In his youth, his father had made certain he was fluent in equestrian, and though he disagreed vehemently on its necessity he wasn't nearly stupid enough to go against the old griffon's will. "I am fine, pony. The wing, it is sore only. A rest for a moment, and all things is good."
The mare landed on the cloud next to him, a wing brushing against her brow in relief. “Well, that’s good then. I mean, it’s one thing to ruin a cloudstarter, but accidentally hurtin’ somepo- uh, someone would be way worse.” She held a hoof out expectantly, adding, “The name’s Seafire, but my friends call me Ducky. What’s yours?”
He eyed her hoof for a moment, before sighing as his childhood lessons in foreign etiquette took hold. “Gander le Gannet,” he replied in a grumble as he shook her hoof. A respectful gesture, he knew, though the griffon in him quietly railed that respect should be earned and not given. He filed that away as yet another slight against this entire country as a whole while the pegasus merely beamed at him with a smile.
“Cool! Gander. I like it. Very far-out soundin’, you know?” Her smile faltered in a moment of confusion, as if trying to recall some obscure fact. “Hey, wait, isn’t that, like, a griffon name or somethin’?”
“Yes, that is true. I am a griffon.” Gander was somewhat surprised that the pony had even heard of his culture before, but apparently she had heard more than simply names as she glanced behind his head with an unspoken question. He quickly cut her off as she began to open her mouth, repeating himself with a slightly darker tone, “I am a griffon.”
Seafire, or Ducky depending on who was asking, waved her hooves in front of her face as if to chase away his darkening mood. “That’s cool! Yeah, totally. I’ve never met a griffon, you know. I mean, before now. Uh... yeah.” She floundered for a moment, trying to pick a less prickly topic for conversation. Fortunately for her, Gander had some experience with this issue and swiftly changed the subject.
“What did you mean, pony, when you said ‘to ruin cloud starting’?” He clawed at the fluffy cushion of water vapor beneath them with one stub of a talon. “This is a cloud. The shape, it is... strange. But it is a cloud. How is such a thing ruined?”
“Oh!” Ducky exclaimed, jumping into the subject enthusiastically. Although, even though he had only just met her, Gander could not imagine her doing anything without enthusiasm. The pony seemed to be made of energy. “You see, Gander, this baby here ain’t no ordinary cloud.”
She patted the cloud beneath her as she spoke, resembling -if anything- a proud mother. Even the slight jostle against the bed of white beneath sent a tremor through it that summoned a rumble like thunder, causing Gander to momentarily lose his balance. He, of course, pretended like his stumble didn’t happen. Griffons were not clumsy, after all. Unfortunately for him, the talkative mare was more sharp-eyed than he'd given her credit for.
“Whoa, watch your step. Anyhow, this is a special cloud that we in the industry call a cloudstarter! With the right positionin’ and a little touch of good ol’ fashioned pegasi magic, a cloudstarter can fill an entire region with light cloud cover!”
She gestured widely, as if stretching from one horizon to the other. Her voice then dropped, eyebrows following, and she spoke with a grave seriousness, stressing certain words as if to hammer them into his skull. “The only problem is that they are very hard to make, and veeery easy to break. A single wrong jostle, and bam! You‘ll have clouds comin’ in crooked for a week. Plus, they’d be all weird and stormy! ...I’d bet this one’s already done for.”
Her expression twisted into a grimace as she surveyed the cloud they stood upon, knowing its cost would more than likely come from her wages, only to perk up almost instantly. “But at least you’re okay! Thank Celestia!”
Gander snorted, giving his head a slight shake as the ends of his beak curled into a slight sneer. Even were he able to accept the utter wrongness of forcing the weather, her final comment was one step too far. “I would rather not, pony.”
“Ooookay. It was just an expression, you know, but whatever, I guess.” Ducky’s formerly cheerful mood darkened like a raincloud covering the sun on a summer day. It appears even ponies who are all smiles have a sore spot. She sat back, forelimbs set across her chest defensively. “You got a problem with the princess?”
“It is...” despite being raised with the equestrian language, the griffon still had difficulty finding the right words. He finally settled on, “...not our way, pony. To be thanking one when there is nothing given. It is... wrong.”
Her eyes rolled back in her head so sharply that for a moment Gander thought he could hear their movement. “Yeah, nothin’ at all. It’s not like she raises the freakin’ sun or anything. Nobody gives a flyin’ feather about that.” Thankfully for Gander’s linguistic skills, the level of sarcasm she was injecting into her voice was more than powerful enough to transcend language barriers.
“Your Celestia pony raises the sun, yes. But the griffon does not ask this of her. We would not be asking this, even for her to stop if we did not ask.” Gander inclined his head, a prideful motion. Self-reliance was a tenant of life, and one that every griffon followed. It was merely another facet of strength, after all. The pegasus seemed to be gawking in utter confusion, so he added, “it is not our way.”
“Wait, so, lemme get this straight...” Ducky blinked, the incredulity seeping into her voice. “You’d rather live in eternal night rather than ask a freakin’ favor? Like, ‘hey there, pony princess, would you mind just raisin’ the sun a bit, if it ain’t too much trouble?’ Like, you don’t wanna say that, so you’d just sit there and freeze your feathers off?”
Gander scoffed inwardly. The ignorance of these ponies. “A griffon never will ‘just sit there.’ Tell me, pony, where does the sun go at night?” He gestured with one brown wing to the distant horizon. “To the west, yes? And there are lands to the west. Beyond the pony lands, and far beyond the lands beyond those.”
“So...” the mare started, trying to put herself in the unimaginably stubborn mindset of a griffon. “If our princesses were to just, I dunno, take a weekend off and forget bringin’ about daylight, you’d all just... fly away?” At Gander’s approving nod, she continued, “You and your family and just every other griffon out there would all, what, up and chase after the sun?”
“You are understanding, pony. Yes,” the griffon gave a slight smile, more of a twist of his beak than anything else but it was as close to the real thing as he would ever come. “If your Celestia pony were not to bring the day, a griffon would hunt the sun and find it. If the night too were to flee, a griffon would hunt the stars.”
“Wow. Uh... just wow.” Ducky was impressed. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was impressed by, either the level of griffonkind’s collective guts or merely the thickness of their skulls. “You folks are really into not needin’ the princesses. That’s, um, that’s all right, I guess.”
“It is our way. We ask nothing of ponies, and need nothing of ponies.” Gander swirled a bit of the cloud beneath him around his claws. “Your cloud-starting, too. Your making of the weathers and the tending of the plants and the beasts. To do things for others, we griffons do not do this. It is... wrong, I think. We do not want this.”
“But why?!” Ducky blurted out, unable to wrap her head around the concept. “If you’re not takin’ care of the world around you, Gander, then who’s gonna?”
Gander snorted heavily through his beak. “You ponies have much nerve, to be thinking the mother earth is needing of your care.” He gestured towards the ground, far below. “Pony or none, griffon or none, the earth is here. Before us, she was here. Long after, still she will be here.”
“Yeah,” the pegasus broke in, “and what if she likes the extra help, huh? Nopony minds a helpin’ hoof now and then. Nopony can do everything all alone. If I were the ol’ lady earth, I wouldn’t mind somepony coverin’ the weather for me every now and again.”
The griffon shook his head. “What you ponies do is not the will of the earth. You ponies shape the weather. You shape the plants and the beasts.” He jabbed towards Ducky with one wing, though it was not an aggressive movement. “You shape the lands, when it is the lands who should be shaping you.”
“You don’t seem to have much of a nice opinion on ponies, Gander,” she muttered. “I’m hearin’ a lot of ‘ponies are wrong about this and that.’ If’n we’re so wrong and you don’t like us so much, then what’re you doin’ here in Equestria, huh?”
“You are wrong, pony,” Gander said, completely missing the contradiction in disagreeing with a pony who just stated that he disagreed with ponies. Perhaps it was a linguistic thing. Or perhaps, Ducky thought with another roll of her eyes, it was more of that griffon thick-headedness. Regardless, Gander continued. “It is not that I do not like ponies. I do not care about ponies.”
“Well, that just answers my question perfectly, don’t it?” As the pony spoke, Gander began to wonder how this pegasus could possibly fly straight if her eyes spun in such a fashion so often.
“I am saying that a griffon hunts only for himself.” At long last, he was rewarded with an extended pause of sweet silence. All good things must come to an end, unfortunately, and the mare finally broke the silence once more after much thought.
“Gander...” she said, looking at him with one eye narrowed in a perplexed expression. “Now, I ain’t sayin’ I agree with it, but I know you gotta do what you gotta do. That said... if you came all this way for a bite to eat, I’d really start to worry about your huntin’ skills.” The griffon smacked himself in the face with a wing, even as Ducky continued talking. “I mean, what, they ain’t got squirrels or whatever where you come from?”
“I do not hunt squirrels, you strange mare, I hunt a pony.” Gander growled. The slight dig on his skills as a griffon, which admittedly held the sting of misaimed truth, was almost more than he could stand. Ducky bounced into the air, hovering in place with quick beats of her wings as she shadowboxed an invisible opponent with her hooves.
“Oh-ho, you’d better not have just said you were gonna eat a pony!” She froze as a new thought formed, her wings stopping mid-beat and dropping her back onto the cloud. “Unless you mean you were huntin’ for a mare to...” The scarlet blush returned to her cheeks, coloring her face like a ripe tomato as she began to stammer. “I’m, uh, whoa, I’m s-sorry, but I don’t think I’m, uh, in a place in my life right now for a relati-”
“I am looking for my mother!” Gander shouted, his wings flapping impulsively in annoyance at this stupid mare. Yes, that was what it was. Annoyance, not embarrassment. A griffon was above such petty things. At least his outburst shut the pegasus up, if only for a few moments. Gander turned away, staring out at the skyline. A griffon wouldn’t leave his back open, either. Well, it wasn’t the first time he wouldn’t live up to being a griffon.
“...So she’s a pony, huh?” Ducky called from behind him. He did not answer or turn towards her. “Oh. All right. Guess that explains the... yeah.” Another minute or two of peace. “Well, um, I can totally relate to family problems. I mean, obviously not as much as... uh. Yeah. Still, it’s good to keep in touch, you know? Family is important, mothers especially.”
“I despise my mother,” Gander nearly hissed the words. True enough, there was hatred clear in his voice. It was almost as foreign a concept to Ducky as the griffon himself.
“Whoa, now! Hey, um, everypony has problems, but you can’t really-”
“You know nothing, pony,” he cut her off harshly, giving the mare a glare for her effort. She withered under his gaze, the griffon in him noted with satisfaction. Gander spat each retort as if the words left a vile taste in his mouth, punctuating each with a stab of his leading wing feathers at the cowering mare’s chest. For a moment, it looked as if she might run away. “Nothing of what she has done to me and to my kin. Our name is shamed! Our traditions, defiled! Our ancestors, dishonored! Our lives... ruined!”
“W-well, that ain’t... I mean, you shouldn’t blame-”
“And I am the result.” His face soured in loathing, beak curled in a half-snarl. The hatred in his voice from before did not come close in comparison. “A... mistake. Les déchets. Outcast. So, yes, pony. I can and I do despise my mother. Do not presume to tell me otherwise.”
An uneasy silence fell. On Gander’s part, he had said all that could be said. Though the rage within him had yet to burn out, the heat of the moment had died down and he was in no danger of another flare of repressed emotions. Ducky, meanwhile, was still well and truly cowed from the outright violence in his every word, as if the griffon was a moment away from spilling blood in a berserk frenzy. For every second that passed, however, a change seemed to be occurring within the young pegasus, her expression rapidly switching between awkward terror to moral outrage and back again as she attempted to gather up her courage.
“...yeah, no. You know what, Gander? No.” Gander’s brow raised in surprise. He honestly hadn’t thought the mare capable of talking back, much less with such conviction. She stood on her hind legs, wings fluttering slightly to keep her balance, and stuck her fore hooves to her hips in the manner of a sternly disapproving parent. Her odd posture managed to bring her up to eye level with the taller griffon and she did her best to set a glower upon her face, though the entire look coming from a brightly colored pony was more laughable than commanding of respect. Looks notwithstanding, her unyielding voice actually brought Ducky some measure of authority. “I don’t rightly know what kinda troubles you got, and I sure as hay don’t know what you’ve been through. Life’s hard? Fine, I respect that...
“But!” At this, she pushed her face towards his own to look him straight in the eye. Gander had to restrain himself from retaliating. Ducky marched on, ignorant of her blatant challenge. “I don’t believe for one sunny second that you can throw it all on the back of any one pony!
“Whatever issues you got, don’t go blamin’ somepony else when you could be workin’ to make life better. Throwin’ blame about is just wastin’ time for nothin’. Plus, it’s downright lazy, which don’t sound all that griffony to me.” Her forelegs were crossed against her chest again as she eased into a position that could gracefully be called indignant, but more truthfully was closer to a sulk. “If it's the griffon way to go blaming ponies for all your problems, then maybe it's the griffon ways that are your problem! And since you’re talkin’ all about ‘griffon ways’ this and ‘griffon ways’ that, let me tell you a little somethin’ about pony ways. Nopony would ever call her child a mistake. Ever! And I am super mad on your mother’s behalf, so don’t you dare let me hear you say that about yourself ever again!”
Ducky followed this impromptu speech with a snort from her nostrils, much like a bull before the charge, still running high on the rush of adrenaline. Contrarily, Gander was frozen in place, his face equally immobile. On the one hand, such disrespect should have only a single answer resulting in ritual combat and very possible dismemberment. On the other, a bright yellow prey animal who had most likely never harmed a fly, accidental collisions notwithstanding, had just told him off. The griffon was lost as to whether he should be tearing this impudent mare limb from limb or laughing until his sides split open. Apparently his internal conflict ran on for too long, as Ducky finally spoke up once more with a petulant tone. “So, what do you have to say for yourself?”
Eventually, as the thoughts of Gander’s mission here in pony lands returned, the urge to boisterously laugh in the mare’s face faded. Fortunately for her, so did the blood thirst, but Gander was still left with a less-than-polite mentality.
“I think,” he said at long last, “this conversation is over, pony.”
A roulette of various emotions passed by on Ducky’s face. Surprise, hurt, sadness. She was entirely without self-control, Gander noted. She would have been an even worse griffon than he was. Finally, the mare settled on mild irritation, with a furrowed brow and a vexed frown. “Well, then... fine.”
“Fine,” Gander agreed noncommittally, looking past her as if she had already left.
“Fine!” She stuck out her tongue as she took off from the cloud, wheeling swiftly away with a grace he could have never hoped to match. Gander did not watch as she left, choosing instead to stretch out his wings and roll them back in their sockets with an audible pop. The soreness of the collision had long since faded, and he had wasted far too much time talking about nothing of importance with that brazenly impertinent ma-
“Um,” a voice called from behind him and he sighed. Her again. At least she had the grace to sound embarrassed. “I... uh, I need the cloud.”
“Fine,” Gander grunted as he launched himself into the air, his wings holding him aloft with their heavy strokes. Even as the distance grew he could hear her last parting shot, as the winds were not strong enough here to swallow her words.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” A particularly clumsy, golden yellow mare muttered to herself, perhaps for the thousandth time that hour. She panted as she flapped her wings even faster for just a little more speed, wishing once more that she’d given in and joined in a few of her family’s traditional flight endurance races. Perhaps if she’d trained some, she would have recognized the logic in not wasting her breath during strenuous flights, but reason had never stopped Seafire from talking before.
“Nice goin’, Ducky. Real nice,” she grumbled, her eyes scanning the forests below and the skies above. “Poor guy’s got a big, probably hurty family reunion coming up, and what do you do? Go and insult him and his whole race.”
It had taken her less than an hour to rethink her harsh words, and another to finish her work with the damaged cloudstarter while becoming mortified at the gall she had displayed. Perhaps it was a rather tame outburst, maybe even justified, but in Ducky's eyes she might as well have set fire to an orphanage for puppies. Immediately after her cloudstarter was in place and active, she’d lit out as fast as her wings could take her in the direction she’d last seen Gander flying, determined to at least offer a proper apology.
The skies here were much more properly taken care of than the little patch of land she had been assigned to. The cloud cover was even and beautifully white. She dove down beneath the cloud line, taking care not to punch any holes in somepony else’s work, all while berating herself in quiet groans. “...And his freakin’ ancestors, probably. Insulted them, too. Ghosts of Granny and Gramps le Gannet will haunt me. Show up and be all, OOoooOOooo, lazy pony, for your insults to our culture we will haunt you for aaaaall time because that’s totally the griffon wa... wah... wuh... w-what the hay is that?!”
In the distance, a small village had come into view. Thatched roof houses aligned in neat squares with red brick chimneys cheerfully spewing trails of wood smoke. Ducky’s sharp pegasus eyes could make out well-maintained gardens and cobblestone paths, brightly painted wood-and-canvas market stalls, and even an adorable little schoolhouse complete with a brass bell and colorful playground.
All-in-all, a picturesque Equestrian forest town. That is, if one did not notice the rampaging mountainous beast that towered above the quaint little buildings below, its head grazing the layers of clouds in the sky. It somewhat resembled a grizzly standing upright, if bears were made of the night’s sky and twinkling stars, with paws larger than houses and a toothy maw a pony could get stuck in like a kernal of corn. That very muzzle was open wide, and the bellow that came out of it blew her vibrant orange mane back and shook the air around the pegasus, a quake that ran through her bones even at her distance.
“What are you doing just floating there, lady?” A dark blue pegasus stallion with a trio of lightning bolts on his flanks called to her as he flew past, one in a small crowd of others. The flock of pegasi were a few dozen strong, of varying colors and cutie marks, and not a cheerful face among them. Below, she could see a herd of other ponies, mostly earth ponies with a few scattered unicorns, all with as many worldly possessions as they could hold and all traveling in the same direction: away from the monster currently destroying their homes. The stallion who'd addressed her paused for only a moment and gave a weary sigh. “If you're here to visit, you'd best move on. Nothing to do when the Ursa’s in town but head the other way.”
He made a slow loop, his own back covered in saddlebags and a pack, all filled to bursting. “We got our fastest heading to fetch the Guard. They’ll chase it off and we’ll rebuild. We always do.”
Ducky nodded numbly as the stallion started off once more. It was sound reasoning. There wasn’t anything a normal pony could do against something like that, and she knew better than most that the Guard and especially the Wonderbolts could handle it. They specialized in defending Equestria against threats like this. A pony like her didn’t have to lift a hoof. Just leave the hard work to somepony else.
“...Oh, crabapples.” At least she could guess where Gander was. With a burst of speed and a constant stream of mentally questioning her own sanity, Ducky raced towards the village, passing over a sign that said ‘Welcome to Hoofington!’ so quickly that it bent in her wake. Relying on somepony else? Now that didn’t sound very griffony to her at all.
Gander was well aware of this fact. He’d learned it growing up; it had been soundly beaten into him. Even in their youth, griffons are constantly pushed to achieve. To fight against each other, to pit themselves against their kin was just how a young griffon was supposed to learn and grow. Even a good griffon was never supposed to have it easy. What would be the point without a challenge or struggle?
Gander was far from a good griffon. Where others had to struggle to win, his was a struggle merely to survive. Before their flight feathers fully grew in, the rambunctious youngsters would pit themselves against each other at climbing mountains in a night. It had taken him a week and almost killed him more than once. As it turns out, pony hooves are less adept than lion’s paws at gripping sheer cliffs.
And that was merely the physical aspect, for griffons are firm believers in traditions and rites. The proper way to conduct one’s self in a cutthroat court, the many different self sacrificial rituals to perform in honor of one’s elders and the earth mother, and even breakfast was a dance with precisely measured steps. When one can somehow fail at making tea, you know that the word easy no longer applies.
No, there was nothing easy about being a griffon, which is why Gander found himself fighting for his life against a beast that could end him with a flick of its claw. Though he'd seen and fought bears before, he'd never encountered a creature like this before. It was possible that he'd heard of one once, most likely in a griffon epic. One of the kind of tales that always ended in blood and the hero dying nobly against insurmountable odds.
The giant let loose another roar that rattled Gander’s skull and left a faint buzz in his ears. That sounded pretty insurmountable to him. Griffin etiquette decreed a suitable response, and he gave his best war shriek in reply. For the next few moments, he desperately wished that it was the temporary hearing loss that made it sound so pathetic.
The beast swung at him with a meaty fist that could have cleared entire swaths of the forest away, enough to build another pony village with room to spare. Only a hurried dive kept the outmatched griffon in one piece, sliding just beneath the dusky fur of its long arms. He furiously beat his wings to gain altitude before swooping at a dull yellow-and-red eye larger than he was. Gander brought his scaly forefeet together and intertwined his claws, swinging with his mightiest haymaker at a bloodshot pupil.
The monster blinked.
So, he was as threatening as a grain of sand. Well, this was going to go spectacularly. Gander wheeled around for another pass, only to be sideswiped by what might as well have been the side of a barn. An instinctive and accidental swipe from the starry arm of a galaxy had just barely clipped the griffon. The beast hadn’t even been aiming for him.
Not that it mattered to Gander, who dropped like a stone with fire burning through his bones, tracing a line across his right wing and down his ribs. He fell just outside of the pony village, the air escaping his lungs as he met the ground. At least the earth had broken his fall, he thought with a wheeze, struggling even to suck in air. His eyes had been clenched shut against the pain, but he pushed it aside and pried them open. Above, the immense bear’s great muzzle was swiveling from side to side, clearly searching for the pesky bug assaulting it. Gander wanted to laugh. It didn’t even notice it had already won.
Hind legs like stone towers rose and fell as it adjusted its footing, still looking about in confusion. One stomped down in a small plowed field not far from where Gander struggled to stand, obliterating a smiling straw pony scarecrow. The impact shook the ground beneath him like waves on the surface of a lake, not wonderfully conducive to his attempts to right himself, and Gander met the earth once more. The leg rose again, moving towards the downed griffon with the slow inevitability of an oncoming tide.
His fate about to come crashing down upon him, Gander closed his eyes in acceptance. So, this was it. He was going to die, an ant beneath the uncaring sole of a moving mountain. It would make a fine song, if only one sung for laughs over a warm tankard. A pity none would know to sing it. He knew a great many griffons who would love to hear of his demise. Well, regardless, there was only one thing left to do. As the honor of the mother earth demanded, he opened his eyes that he might stare death in the face.
Brilliant blue eyes stared back, and he jerked back with a startled honk.
“Hi!” Ducky said, a smile on her face that was quickly replaced by a look of utter terror. Gander noticed that the sun above them had been blocked out completely, and both pony and griffon sat in a shadow.
“Apology hug!” The mare cried and tackled him, wrapping her hooves around his midsection as she pushed her wings harder than she’d ever done before. It was a fairly sad takeoff in terms of distance and speed, and certainly not one of her best, but Ducky figured she could be forgiven given the circumstances. As it was, it was just barely enough. The two shot out from beneath the Ursa’s paw just before it smashed down behind them. She wasn’t in nearly good enough shape to continue flying with the extra load in her arms, but she had just enough control to slow their descent and keep the landing manageably neat.
Well, for herself, anyway. She’d accidentally lost her hold on Gander a few seconds too early, and he’d tumbled a few times after he slipped from her hooves. Still, she gave herself a mental pat on the back.
“Ugh... you!” Gander pushed himself upright, glaring at the pegasus in... well, he wasn’t quite sure what, actually. Anger, he supposed. He opened his beak to speak, but as always the mare had him beat with words.
“I’m sorry!” She said, holding her hooves up in a sign of peace with a sheepish look of her face. She was talking a mile a minute, her eyes expressive and full of sorrow. At least, when they were focused on him and not darting terrified glances at the Ursa towering above. Clearly, there were bigger things on her mind than apologies, and why she was even here when she was so obviously scared out of her mind was a question that completely stumped his griffon mind. “So, ahahaha, um, we clearly got off on the wrong hoof back there and I know I totally went too far and brushed off your problems and stuff and I shouldn’t have said those things when I don't know anything about your situation so I came to apologize!”
She'd managed to jam every word into a single breath, which was impressive in a way. Gander ran his short talons along his wing, inspect for a break. He felt none, but merely touching it was enough to send waves of pain down its length that had him gritting his teeth. “I did not ask you for this, pony. I did not ask for your help.”
“Friends never have to ask! That’s the pony way, bud!” She exclaimed, taking a proud stance like she'd just won a race. Ducky’s eyes went wide for a moment as she realized her mistake.
“Besides,“ she added quietly, kicking at the dirt beneath her hoof and refusing to look at him. If this was her poker face, it could use some work. “That was, um, totally an apology hug. Just very, you know... enthusiastic, I guess? Not a rescue. Nope, definitely not. So you don’t owe me nothin’!”
“I...” Gander hesitated, unsure of what to say. What was the griffon thing to do in this situation? What was the right thing to do? Perhaps the Ursa was upset about being ignored, and let its presence be known with another shuddering impact that went through the ground beneath Gander's mismatched feet, causing him to stumble. Even the pegasus had trouble keeping upright.
"Whoa, watch your step!"
A sudden clarity overtook his mind, and an idea sprung into life. “I think... pony has a job to do, yes? You shape the clouds?”
“Wait, what? I mean, yeah, I do, but what’s that gotta do with anythin’?” Another earthshaking tremor reached them, and she bit back a yelp. “It’s hardly the time, don’tcha think?!”
“No, no, pony! This is the perfect time for clouds!” Gander’s voice gained strength as his idea formed in his mind, his enthusiasm already returning. “I must fight now, for this is the griffon way. You, pony, must go to make clouds. Surely, there is a starter cloud in the skies above, yes?”
“I... uh, well, I guess, but why would I want a... stupid....”
Gander gave one of his signature almost-smiles as he saw the idea take root. “Okay then, we are agreed. I will go fight now. Fare well, pony.”
“H-hey, wait just a sunny seco-!” Ducky began to object, but the griffon was already gone, winging his way up into the skies with sheer stubbornness and force of will. All had their parts to play in the cosmic scheme of things, and Gander knew well what he must do. The monster before him had moved once more towards the town in its rampage; several fine houses and what must have been a bakery by the smell of the smoke had already been turned into little more than debris.
No more. This bear, no matter how tall, owed him a debt. It was time to collect.
He’d climbed a fair height above even the beast’s head, and now he drew in his wings and dove. It was a textbook dive, though there were no textbooks written on the secret combat techniques of his clan. He’d had no need of books. His father had taught him this very dive. There was an art to the motion, to how one held one’s self just so, to the angle of one’s body and the tautness of one’s muscles; all to slip through the skies like a bullet made flesh. Gander wasn’t one to fall victim to hope, but in this one, single moment, he wondered if he would have made his father proud.
He fell towards earth like a shooting star, a poetic thought given his opponent, passing a hair’s width away from the celestial grizzly's massive head. In that moment, he twisted to strike out with his hind legs, hooves kicking out in a terribly ungriffon-like buck. His strike was perfectly on target, impacting the side of its skull with such force that the walking mountain range rocked to one side, its starry eyes crossing and uncrossing. It roared its fury, shaking its lumbering head and turning to snap at the intruder, but Gander was already past, climbing once more with his previously built speed.
An imposing paw followed him in his climb, reaching towards him with a set of grasping claws with sharp edges that gleamed with starlight, catching up swiftly as Gander’s altitude bled his speed away. He couldn’t possibly fly high enough to escape its reach, so the griffon opened his wings fully, bringing his momentum to a sudden halt. He twisted in mid-air, and the beast’s tree-sized claws came so close to slicing into his hide that he felt a few hairs from his tail pull free, but he kicked off the starry pelt of its hand with his hooves for an extra burst of momentum, diving again parallel to the oversized ursine’s arm. Another masterful descent, another kick to that gargantuan head, and another narrow escape as he strained to regain altitude.
Gander gasped for air, his lungs burning. These sudden course corrections, and at high speed no less, were causing his already injured wing muscles to scream in agony. He was beyond exhausted, and fighting through the pain of his bruised ribs was only adding to the drain on his stamina. Adrenaline could only carry one so far. Fortunately, the griffon didn’t have long to wait.
A sense of deja vu suddenly struck him, as did an object in his path. It knocked him into a slow spiral, but he quickly recovered with a fit of aching wing beats. This was no vast animal paw come to claim his life. Had it been the beast at his back that struck, he would already be dead. No, just as he’d been greeted with this morning, an entirely too rectangular cloud floated conspicuously alone in the middle of the sky. He dropped onto the head of the cloud, only to witness the head of the titan staring him down.
Regardless of the cloud's dizzying height, it still remained at perfect eye-level for the towering bear. It had found its pest. And now, it would be rid of it.
The dusk-colored beast gave a roar that blew the cloud Gander was sitting on back several feet, but not far enough to be clear of its vast reach. Its cavernous maw opened wide, revealing a throat like a black hole to fit with the constellations of stars forming the creature’s flesh. It lurched forward, all-encompassing, blocking out the sun and then the skies and at last the earth. The little cloud, no more than a marshmallow to the giant, and the pest upon it were both swallowed up in the jaws of a titan.
For a moment, the griffon could swear he heard his name upon the winds. Then, as the great wall of fangs came snapping closed, he knew nothing but darkness.
“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” Seafire shouted in exasperation as she dove through another layer of clouds, digging through the soft fluff in her desperate search. For once, she was not talking about herself. Oh, she’d seen the griffon’s plan, a bull-headed and fool plan though it was, but for him to just jump right in without a second thought? “When we get through this, I’m gonna tie his tail to an anchor!”
If we get through this, her traitorous thoughts whispered. She stomped on that notion as if it were a star spider. “Shut up, brain! Everypony’s gonna get through this, Ducky. Griffon, too! Just stop talkin’ and search!”
Not far below, despite her height in the skies, a pitched battle was taking place. Gander was swooping and diving and fighting what might as well have been part of the landscape. She'd never seen anybody stone-headed enough to try and stop a landslide by bucking it, but there was a first time for everything. It was so unreal that she tried not to think about it. Thinking about such things would have only led to more questions, anyhow. Like why, for instance. Even considering his griffon heritage, Ducky couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to take on an Ursa on his own. If all griffons were this crazy, one would think they’d have all died out by-
“No! We ain’t goin’ down that route, missy!” Nopony was dying today. No griffon, either. Not if she could help it, and she could. Gander had given her the idea, and now all she had to do was pull through. All she had to do was find the cloudstarter of this network, pull it while ignoring what the weather service was going to charge her for busting an entire cloudy sky and thus completely ruining a forecast, and then... something.
Now that she thought about it, Gander hadn’t been clear on that part. Actually, he hadn’t really said anything at all. All her rushing about was based on nothing more than a guess. For the fortieth time in as many seconds, she silently begged to Celestia that she wasn’t making a terrible mistake. Her instincts were screaming at her to fly as far away as equinely possible, but her heart was adamant on not abandoning a friend. Thus, her mind was playing mediator and reasonably suggesting she grab the griffon by his ears and drag him away until she couldn’t see the Ursa anymore. Not that he would accept such a thing willingly, being a griffon and therefore crazy.
“Aha!” No time for second-guessing, now. She dug out the cloudstarter, listening to it hum with energy as she kicked away the adjacent clouds and gave it a slight push to separate it from the pack. With another gentle kick, she set it on a slow coast towards the battlefield.
And that was that. That was all she could do. She knew she should try and help, but stubborn griffon pride would never accept it. It just wasn’t ‘griffony’ enough to take on an Ursa with even a single pony’s help. Only solo would do. Stupid griffon. All she could do was watch, and so she watched.
Ducky watched as her cloud flew into the fight. She watched as Gander practically collapsed atop it, hardly able to stand. She watched as the Ursa thundered closer.
And then she watched as it ate her friend, swallowing the griffon up in a single bite.
“Gander!” She screamed so loudly that her voice grew hoarse, though she was hardly conscious of the action. It was a basic instinct, more than likely, just like breathing or blinking. Just like the tears that came unbidden, flowing down her cheeks even as she choked back a sob. “You stupid, thick-skulled, brain-dead son of a mule!”
The clouds that she waited upon, those that had recently held the cloudstarter, grew into a dismal grey as they fed off her native pegasus magic, her emotions fueling their somber transformation. “Why wouldn’t you... let me help you?” She dropped to her knees on the cloud, weeping openly. She'd hardly known him, they'd only just met after all, but that mattered little to the mare. Ducky wept for a friendship that could have been. She wept for a future tossed carelessly aside. More than that, she knew the loss of any soul on this earth made it just a little dimmer, just a little more empty. And, just as the ponies cared for the land, creatures, and weather, so too would she mourn on the earth's behalf. The skies in turn answered, the grey of her own cloud seeping to others, infecting them with a cheerless hue. As one, they joined her in her tears, raining their sorrow upon the earth.
An ominous rumble of thunder spread through the skies.
Ducky raised her head, sniffling loudly and rubbing her foreleg against her muzzle. That sound... It hadn’t come from her clouds.
In the time since its victory, the mighty Ursa had turned its attention back to the defenseless town, shattering homes and livelihoods like a snot-nosed brat bullying others by crushing their toys, completely unphased by the sudden onset of dreary rain. It was about to flatten a statue of Celestia when it paused in mid-stride, an odd look growing on its monstrous face. Its eyes screwed shut and its massive snout wrinkled. It took a massive breath of air, as if to roar its triumph once more, and then gave the second-most explosive sneeze Ducky had ever seen in her life.
From its nostrils came a dark snot-missile, rocketing to earth trailing a long line of clouds like the exhaust from an engine. The clouds did not stop after the Ursa sneezed, however, continuing to trail smoke from its nose as if it were some new species of fire-breathing dragon.
The creature seemed quite confused by now, bordering on worried. More clouds soon joined the first, streaming from between its teeth. Another crash of thunder split the skies, and the Ursa’s paws drew up to its tremendous belly, groaning as if it’d eaten too many sweets and was now cursed with a tummy ache. Each time it opened its mouth, waves of storm clouds would float free, tendrils of lightning passing between them. Another rumble of thunder, followed by an equally loud rubble from the Ursa’s upset stomach.
The creature had eaten a cloudstarter. A damaged, active cloudstarter that was currently hard at work performing its job of providing clouds, albeit slightly stormy clouds, for an entire region. In this case, the region just happened to be the contents of the Ursa’s guts. Though it would never go down in the history books, this day marked the passing of the worst case of indigestion the world would ever see.
Ducky couldn’t imagine that was very pleasant. Judging by the whining the great starry bear was emitting, she guessed that she was pretty close to the mark. With the pained expression of one suffering from food poisoning, and about to be violently ill from every orifice, the Ursa fell to all fours and tore into the forest with an ungainly haste to its stride. In mere minutes, it was gone, vanished back into the wilds as if it had never been. Hoofington, or at least what was left of it, was safe. Only a few smoke trails from small fires within the rubble broke the stillness of the village, flames that were fizzling out in her impromptu rainstorm. Well, several trails of smoke and one of storms; the site of the Ursa’s legendary sneeze. Storm clouds that had recently been trapped within the beast, she realized with a start. If they could escape...
With her breath caught in her throat, Ducky flew towards the storm trail, passing over the wreckage of the town proper. In her wake, the forlorn pitter-patter of rain faded and the cloudy skies above broke into rays of sunshine. All that remained in the sky was a brilliant yellow pegasus and a thin line of miniature, still-crackling thunderheads. They formed a line that led her to a small park near the center of town, a place for foals to play under the shade of the trees or for special someponies to stare into each others’ eyes from the benches on the edge of a dazzling little pond. With a squeal of joy, Ducky dove into the pond water with a respectable splash.
“Urgle, bah, ack!” Gander sputtered and coughed, his exhausted deadwood float interrupted by a golden mare who seemed to be doing her best to drown him. He’d thought himself lucky to land in the shallow pool after being so forcibly ejected from the beast’s body. If only he’d known the horror waiting for him, he would have stayed eaten. “Please to be, bleh, giving me a little rest, pony! You can kill me later!”
Ducky didn’t relent in her bone-breaking hug until she, too, was in danger of drowning in withers-deep water. She stepped back with the fiercest scowl she could manage. “Gander, you... you, you, you jerk!”
“Very eloquent,” the griffon muttered as he dragged himself onto dry land before collapsing with a wheeze. He rolled over onto his back, wings splayed at his sides. Above him, the thinning trail of storm clouds was beginning to fade, after having lost the source powering it. The thought of that source lodged into his enemy's intestines cheered him so that even the high-pitched whine of the mare didn't disturb Gander as much as he would have thought.
“What kind of a goof thinks up a plan that gets him eaten, for the love of puppies?!” Ducky climbed out of the water, shaking her long mane free of water. She never styled it anyways, the wind was good enough for that. Still upset, her gaze remained locked on the ground, so Gander watching her from the corner of his eye went unnoticed. She muttered quietly, “I really thought you were... Um, I mean, what kind of stupid plan gets you almost killed? And your legs look really hurt! Seriously, I ain't a doctor, but you should definitely not be puttin' weight on that.”
True enough, his body had seen better days. He was battered, bruised, and beaten. The high-speed kicks and the final less-than-graceful landing had left his bones feeling shattered, if they were not already broken. But for Gander, the pain was less of a shock than a sudden realization that struck him. She really cared. She’d met him hours ago, and she cared more about his life than... well, anyone that he knew of. These ponies, it was simply ridiculous. The word escaped him without conscious thought. “Merci.”
His breath hitched in his throat as he became acutely aware of the depths of his transgression. Where had that even come from? That was a word rarely used by any griffon, good or bad. He set the blame squarely on his near-death experience and tried desperately to purge the thought from his mind. Thankfully for the continued wellbeing of his honor, fortuned smiled upon him in the guise of a translation error.
“Yeah, beg for mercy all you want, I’m never lettin’ you forget this whole mess," Ducky scoffed in reply. "You hear me, mister tough griffon? I mean, really, I didn't think you were serious with that whole, 'griffon must hunt the stars' bit. I know you folks gotta do what you gotta do, but is tryin' your level best to get yourself killed really got to be part of it? Where's that fit in, ya featherbrain?”
"It was a, urgh..." Gander grunted as he tried to move his wings. With simple walking looking more and more out of the question, the air was his only escape. His muscles disagreed with this decision, turning to gelatin or perhaps gelatin that was on fire, and keeping him firmly seated on the ground. He covered up his hiss of pain by focusing entirely on talking. "...It was a, how would you say, a matter of honor. The beast interrupted something very important."
"Ohmygosh, your mother!" The mare gasped, levitating several feet into the air with her eyes going wide in shock. "Did you find her? Is she okay? She got away safe, right?!"
"I... found her, yes," Gander allowed with some hesitation. Though that instinctive caution he'd known all his life urged silence, for the life of him the griffon could think of no reason not to continue. To open up, even a little. He shook it off. "The beast is gone, and now I can return."
Another attempt to take flight left him gritting his teeth together to bite back a howl of pain. He hadn't hurt this badly since his last birthday party. The griffon take on piñatas were a little more aggressive than the equine version. Regardless, he was going nowhere on his own. Ducky looked at him in concern, "Are you okay? Can you fly?"
"If my wings were torn from my back and fed to me in a broth, still I could fly." It was a traditional reply, and he felt rather proud of it, but it simply wasn't enough. The disproving look on Ducky's face broke through the remainder of his resistance. He'd already come this far, he decided with a mental sigh. Why stop here?
"But... perhaps not now. I think, maybe, I feel like a walk." This was it. His face scrunched up as he forced himself to keep talking. It was almost more painful than his injuries. "Do you remember, pony, what I said about griffon ways?"
Even these words, empty and innocent though they were, left a bitter taste in his mouth, but it was enough to get the idea across. A smile appeared on Ducky's face, one that grew rapidly until she realized it was there and made a futile attempt to hide it. For any of her other faults, at least she caught on quickly.
"A griffon never relies on nopony, and never asks for help! I was just goin' for a walk, too! Over... uh... that... way?" She gestured with a wing in a wide circle, stopping when Gander let out as subtle of a cough as he could manage. She seemed to be enjoying this, the heartless wretch. "But it's raining, and I just, uh, dried my hair. I'd hate for it to get wet again. "
"I do not understand, it is not ra-" Ducky was gone in a flash, and seconds later a torrential downpour fell squarely on the griffon's unamused head. With an arrival just as sudden as her departure, the yellow mare was back, all smiles and sunshine. Minus the sunshine. Gander gave her a level stare that was slightly hidden beneath the wet, drooping feathers of his crest. “Was this really necessary, pony?”
“Hey, you still had some Ursa snot on you, give me a break.” She cleared her voice to get back into character. Her lower lip quivered, ears drooping like a lost puppy, and the final relentless attack: teary, sapphire blue eyes that grew so huge and soul-rending that Gander felt his heart seize. “If only somepo- uh, griffon could shelter me from the storm?”
Gander and a hundred generations of proud griffon spirits in the afterlife collectively slapped a clawed hand to their face. Still, he raised his long, tapered wing and the golden mare slipped underneath, supporting him from the side. Together, they took slow steps forward, ever mindful of the limping gait of the griffon. It was almost pleasant, until she spoke once more. “Whoa, you’re a heavy one.”
“It’s muscle,” the griffon hissed.
“Yeah, fat muscle I bet,” she snickered, only to quickly sober up and speak softly. “Anyhow, you remember what I said about pony ways, right Gander? A friend don’t ever need to ask.”
“I remember, pony,” Gander grunted. He almost fell face-first into the mud in surprise as she swatted him on the rump with her tail, a motion accompanied by the sound of a whip crack. He had clearly underestimated the force these things were capable of.
“Friends remember each other’s names,” she tsked at him in reproach. He briefly considered feeding the mare her own tail. It was only when she threatened to unleash the horrifying puppy dog eyes again that he relented.
“...fine. Seafire, then.”
“Oh, hay, no. Friends, Gander! Friends bein’ the important word, there. My friends call me Ducky, and that sure as sugar better include you.” Now it was her turn to grumble under her breath. “Most ponies make friends by sharin’ similar tastes in books, or wearin’ the same color hat or somethin’.”
She snorted, laying the sarcasm on as thick as she could pile it. “Here, I go starin’ down an Ursa to make your acquaintance, and we ain’t even to nicknames yet?”
“Why this other name? What is wrong with Seafire?” Gander asked as they followed the path out of the park. He seemed curious, and the mare bet talking probably kept his mind off the hurting his legs were no doubt feeling, so she was inclined to speak up.
“Well, you ever hear of Firefly?" They passed by a planter along the edge of a window looking out onto the road that still had some daisies in it. Ducky plucked one as they stumbled by, figuring that the owner would probably replant seeing as how the house the planter was attached to only had that one wall still standing. She continued through a mouthful of daisy, "Bigwig general from way back, helped found somethin’ called the Wonderbolts?”
Gander gave her his best incredulous stare, and not only for her lack of manners. “Griffons respect strength of flight. Your Wonderbolts are faster even than our fastest griffons. All know of them and wish one day to defeat them.”
“Yeeeeah, Firefly’s, like, my great, great, great, a couple more greats, great grandma. Or somethin’ like that.” She waved it off as if it were nothing. “Don’t mean much to me, but it’s a family tradition I guess to put a ‘fire’ in the name of any mares. Seafire came from the color of my eyes. I couldn’t tell ya how they named my cousin Spitfire.”
Once more, Gander came close to ending up on the ground. “You are kin to the Wonderbolts leader?”
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” she grumbled. “A whole family of athletes, and me with my fat rump. You know, I got my cutie mark for playing in the rain? Not racin’ or fightin’ beasties or whatever. Nothin' fiery about me.”
True enough, the mark on her flanks was a collection of raindrops in the shape of a long-necked sea creature, perhaps a serpent or a dragon. He hadn’t even noticed it before. Brands of any type were hardly a griffon tradition.
“How I got my nickname's another story, but, yeah, I was never much fond of the name Seafire. Always getting compared to Spits. Got tiresome, you know?” she sighed, only for her trademark pearly whites to return with a vengeance. “But I get all the free t-shirts I want! You lookin’ for an autograph?”
“You are insufferable,” Gander noted with clinical dispassion. Her tail snapped again, simply reminding him of its presence. He groaned, equally from injuries to his body and his dignity, and added, “...Ducky.”
“Well, yeah, but that’s the best kind of sufferable!” She laughed with an infectious glee, her mood as bright as her coat. It didn’t hold long, and her giggle died down as she noticed a darkening to Gander’s already somber aura. She wasn’t exactly expecting the stoic griffon to join in with a chuckle, but she didn’t think he’d get even duller than before. “Hey, you doing okay?”
“We have arrived,” he said simply. Ducky took a long look around, as her attention thus far had been occupied keeping the heavier griffon upright. They had almost left the city behind, far beyond the markets and houses. Ahead of them were vibrant green hills that had the look of a manicured lawn, perhaps even a golf course, but littered with signs of destruction from the Ursa's rampage. She could see a few sections of a gothic wrought iron fence that were still standing, though most of the intricate black metal had been flattened into the ground. Everywhere were piles of stone rubble, some smaller than she was but others that might have been rooms made entirely of polished white stone or marble. Here and there a monument had been left standing, some in simple geometric shapes while others were more artistically carved into ponies or pillars with a sun at the peak.
“Gander,” the mare said, her voice low and solemn, “this is a graveyard.”
The griffon didn’t respond, except to raise his wing from her back and limp forward, each step a noticeable strain. He walked until he stood at the edge of one of the many slight depressions in the ground, a convex crater that vaguely resembled a paw. A footprint. At its center was a crushed slab of granite, a crack through its entirety that formed the pattern of a spider’s web. The name was legible, if only just.
“‘Swan... Song,’” Ducky read from its shattered face, craning her neck to see. As she read, her throat went dry. There was only one explanation. “‘Beloved wife and... mother.' Oh. Um... oh."
She'd thought the griffon's crazy antics to be a plot born of overconfidence. She'd thought him to be seeking personal glory, to be picking a fight or trying to make a name for himself by bagging some stupid trophy to take home. Her ears fell flat as she realized the truth. The Ursa had crushed what might well have been Gander's one lasting connection to his lost mother. He'd nearly gotten himself killed protecting the memory of family he claimed not to even care for.
If that wasn't love, she wasn't sure what was.
There was more to the grave, but she couldn't quite make out the words through the damage. The script was different, thin and whispy with looping curls and exacting linework. The text was as much art as written words, but try as she might she couldn't make sense of them. "'No.. Noose... News....’”
“‘Nous jouions au soleil à la pluie à la mer,’” Gander spoke, words that were brusque but beautiful, lithe but loud. Even without the meaning behind them understood, the rhythm, the harmony of the words were clear as day. He brushed dust reverently from the tomb with an outstretched wing. “‘A n’avoir qu’un regard qu’un ciel et qu’une mer.’”
He sank to his haunches, finishing the epitaph with a sigh. “‘Les nôtres.’”
The pegasus mare joined him at his side, quietly slipping underneath his wing again in support. It was just a slightly different type of support than she had offered before. “What does it mean?”
“‘We played in the sun, in the rain, in the sea,’” Gander translated. If he objected to her presence, he certainly didn’t show it. “‘Having only one look, one sky, and one sea. Ours.’"
He looked up, staring at nothing in particular. The words resonated with him in a way he couldn't quite explain, not even to himself. "It is the end of a poem of our people. A tale of lovers who are faced with a world of monsters, of hatred. So they lock themselves away from the outside, to be free. To be together.”
Ducky was hesitant to speak up, as if she might break something delicate by doing so. “Your folks, they really loved each other, then, huh?”
“It seems that it was so.” Gander's voice sounded distant, as if he was only partly there and the rest of him was far away. Ducky could read it on his face that he was learning this for the first time. It was a melancholic thought.
“Makes sense now that you had to beat the snot out of that Ursa. Literally, hehe. Uh, ahem. Yeah, I’d have done the same, griffon or not." Ducky gave a little self-righteous growl at the thought. "If some fat-rumped teddy bear stepped on my mom, I'd have kicked him right in the nu- ...uh, in the n-northern stars.” She trailed off with an embarrassed pause, scratching idly at the ground for a moment in silence. “When, uh, when did she...?”
“When I was born.” Dusky visibly winced at his answer. She’d figured something along those lines, but just hearing it hurt. She wasn't fooled for a second by the clinical, dispassionate way he'd spoken, as if he were talking about the weather. This was the type of wound that ran deep and left a scar.
“I'm, uh, real sorry to hear that. Hayseeds, that just ain't right. You never even got a chance to know her.”
Gander shook his head slowly. “My father, he returned to the griffon kingdom with me. I was raised among them, as a griffon. Never could I compete with my kin. Never did I have the strength. For all of my years, I have tried to match them and always I have failed.
“Now, it is my... how to you say, de passage à l’âge... a rite for being, ah, grown and finding one’s place. A griffon must go to his elders, and be given a task. He does this thing, he wins the favor of his elders, and he takes his place as one grown.” Gander continued speaking. There was no point to doing so. He was telling this mare, this pony, secrets about himself and his people. Practically his entire life’s story. He didn’t understand why. Nor could he comprehend how it could possibly be helping the way it was. All he was doing was talking, and it felt as if a weight was being freed from his wings. All he could do now was keep talking so long as Ducky, so long as his friend, kept listening.
“I went to my father to find his favor. He gave me this task. He told me it was not his favor I need to seek, but the favor of my pony mother.” Gander scoffed. “I thought it to be the finest insult I had ever received. All of my life has been much mocking and cursing for my... ah, self. My pony weakness. Ponies are soft. Griffons are strong. All griffons knew this.”
The griffon glanced at Ducky as he said this, a question in his eyes. She gave an encouraging nod without speaking to continue. She was listening, not doling out judgment. “To be given a task to find the favor of ponies, and a dead one at that, I thought this was my father telling me at last that never would I be a griffon. For all of my trying, never would I be one of them. I was not strong enough. An insult sixteen years in the making.”
He let out a long breath, a sigh that was equal parts weariness, acceptance, and relief. The mare at his side was quiet, but judging from the crinkle in her brow and the thoughtful stare, it was a moment of contemplation rather than an awkward silence for lack of anything to say.
“Huh. I see it way different than that,” the sunny pegasus finally chimed in, scratching at her unruly orange hair.
"How do you mean?"
"Well, first off, and I dunno this might just be me, but tryin' at somethin' for sixteen years, fallin' and gettin' back up again?" She shrugged. "Seems crazy strong to me. Most folks I bet would just give up. Kinda attitude like that can drain oceans with a bucket, know what I mean?"
The griffon snorted in amusement, but Ducky wasn't near done yet. “Plus, seein' as how he went and married one, your dad must've had a pretty good opinion of us pony types. Might've figured you could use one, too." She added a little too quickly with a stammer, that rosy tint finding its way back to her face, "U-uh, a good opinion, that is. Not a wife. Ehehe, um, s-so anyway! I bet he sent you off this way to get a little learnin'. You know, maybe get a second opinion on that whole 'ponies are wrong' thing you got goin' on.”
“...Perhaps, but-” Gander started, but Ducky waved him to silence.
“Ain’t finished yet. I’m thinkin’ he was also tellin’ you somethin’ else. Cause if he said you don’t got to earn his respect, well... then don’t that mean you already got it? Don't have to work for somethin' you already won, right?”
“I.... That is a... thought. But what of his task?” Gander tapped the broken gravestone with a charcoal-colored claw. “To win the favor of a pony long dead?”
“You’re kiddin’ me, right?” Her eyes rolling at her friend's confusion, Ducky blew a raspberry and threw one forelimb around the griffon’s neck. “Didn’t I already tell you about pony ways?
“Your mom might never have metcha, and maybe you never got to meet her, but I'd bet my wings on one thing;” The normally ditzy mare was as serious as he’d ever seen her. The passion of her conviction flowed into her words. There was not the slightest hint of doubt or deceit. It was as if she were speaking of a universal truth, and her next words only magnified that feeling. “She. Loved. You.
"She’d never, ever, ever think you were a mistake, or weak, or any other insulty stuff some griffony types might.” Ducky added with a dismissive wave. “Her favor or whatever it was you needed to earn, you won it the minute she first learned of you, and you still got it now. She’d have loved you unconditionally, Gander, and I can tell you that straight.
“Cause that,” she brought a hoof to her heart, nodding with finality, “is the pony way.”
With that, she slipped from his side, floating up with slow beats of her wings to the edge of the mound of dirt that made up the crater around him. “I’m gonna leave you two alone for a while now. Figure you probably need a few minutes. Just holler whenever you want to, uh, I dunno, go walkin’ some more. Maybe grab a bite to eat. I’m starvin’!”
She disappeared from his sight, and then Gander was alone. Well, not exactly alone. He ran a claw over the granite marker and its etched words. His mind was in a bit of a daze, a jumble of new thoughts whirling through like a tempest. What the pegasus had said made a dizzying amount of sense, but not in any way he was raised to understand. Why had his father really sent him here? To prove something to himself? To learn something of himself?
He did know one thing. It was the griffon way to honor one’s ancestors, and he was a griffon at heart. Here was an ancestor, regardless of form. He lowered his head to the resting place of the pony that brought him into this world, and spoke with a solemn grace.
“Honored mother, I have come here to the pony lands, and....” he began, only to hesitate. What was he supposed to say? Something to show respect, naturally. How did one respect a pony? Pony ways were strange. Abnormal. A complete change from everything he had ever known.
But not wrong. It had been a single day, and already he had learned that much. What else was there to learn? Of himself, of the equines and their ways, of friendship? An easily recognizable tail was sticking out of a nearby bush, its fiery orange completely giving away the position of the mare attached to it, who was trying very hard not to be caught eavesdropping.
Crazy ponies.
“And... I think,” he began again, patting the gravestone fondly, “I might stay a while longer.”
Perhaps it was not what a good griffon might do, but Gander was not a good griffon. Not quite. Nor was he a pony. Maybe, just maybe, he could be a bit of both. Maybe he could be himself.
That thought suited Gander just fine, and for the first time in his life, he felt... happy.
