(Where Griffons Go) When It Rains
Gallus awoke with something inside him, something filling up a space where there used to be nothing. He didn’t know what it was, but he was eight years old, so he let his imagination have a crack at it.
His first thought was that it was a ‘glow’, a light shining somewhere in his chest that he couldn’t pinpoint no matter how much he searched with his talons. It was a warm sort of glow. A glow that shook him up and made him want to go places.
But no, that wouldn’t do at all. He couldn’t go around telling the other griffons he had a ‘glow’ inside him. He’d be laughed out of Griffonstone. No, it was a spirit, of that he was sure. A spirit that had come to him in his sleep, or maybe he had conjured it all by himself.
Cautiously, he slid out from under his blanket, grabbed hold of the edge of his bed with his talons and set his paws on the dirt floor. The room became full—only enough space for his bed and one griffon beside it. The rain tapped softly on the window to get his attention, but it never stood a chance.
What did the spirit look like? He closed his eyes to see. He pictured an animal where his heart should be—a dog, no, a puppy, a young little thing like himself, glowing a bright white. It lived in a world of darkness and stars. It had oil drops for eyes.
The puppy hopped around, yipped, wagged its tail. It whipped its head this way and that, trying to look in every direction at once. But what was it looking for?
“Hi,” Gallus whispered. The puppy tilted its head. And Gallus didn’t know what to add, so he left it at that.
“Gallus! Sleep any longer in there and I’ll think yer dead!”
Gallus got to his feet.
“Coming, Mr. Gruff!”
He entered the kitchen with a smile on his face, which was a mistake. Mr. Gruff was at the sink washing dishes, jerking the sponge around like he was sharpening a stick, and when he turned, he frowned.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.
“I have a…”
Gallus paused, his beak open. Fear plucked at the spirit inside him, and it whimpered. Could Mr. Gruff see it?
“…good sleep,” Gallus finished.
“You had a good sleep,” Mr. Gruff corrected, turning back to the sink and fishing around for his next victim. “Well, congratulations. You missed breakfast.”
Gallus sat at the table. His plate had a few strips of bacon on one side, and emptiness on the other. The bacon was black, falling apart, and cold at a glance. This would have ruined any other morning, but today, Gallus didn’t mind. He could fix anything with a pinch of salt and some heat.
“Can I warm it up on the stove?” he asked.
“That costs fuel,” Mr. Gruff said. “Which costs money.” He cast an evil eye over his shoulder. “So, no.”
Weird. Very, very weird.
Sometimes, when Mr. Gruff spoke, Gallus thought of him as a kind of archer, firing arrows at him without warning. He normally had such good aim, too, but for some reason, this morning’s first arrow had missed.
“Okay,” Gallus said. It would have to be just salt, then.
Gallus ate his breakfast in silence. Inside him, the dog sniffed, chased its tail, looked around. Maybe it wasn’t looking for something, but for somegriff. Maybe it wanted Gallus to show it to the world. No, Gallus thought. Not right now.
“I wanna go out today,” he said when he was finished eating.
“Good for you,” Mr. Gruff replied. Gallus didn’t know if he meant that in a nice way, or a mean one.
“Is that okay, Mr. Gruff?”
“Oh, sure. Not like you’re getting a job anytime soon. You just take my breakfast and leave, that’s fine.”
Another miss. Mr. Gruff started coughing into the soapy water, splashing it everywhere.
“I’m used to it by now,” he continued, his voice stretched. “This is what you do. You take, take, take, and give nothing back. Not like Gilda and Gabby, no, they were much better than you. Gallus the freeloader.”
The puppy whined. Gallus felt grazed. No matter how bad Mr. Gruff’s aim was today, that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to land a shot.
Gallus shrugged. “Okay. I’m going out!” He grabbed his bag from the coat-rack and slung it over his shoulder.
“Don’t be too long,” Mr. Gruff warned. “Storm comin’ today. I can feel it in my bones.”
Gallus frowned. He looked out the window, at the raindrops, and his frown turned into a grin.
“I can see it with my eyes,” he said, and when he saw Mr. Gruff turning, he bolted out the door, shutting it before he had to face another arrow.
The puppy clapped its paws, delighted.
Gallus glided out onto the road and breathed in Griffonstone’s sweet sawdust air. The spitting rain made the three feathers on his head bounce.
Yes, there was definitely something different about today. Instead of seeing dirt, Gallus saw clouds. Grey and flat ones, sure, and great big sad ones as well, but Gallus still liked them. He felt sad sometimes, too.
But not today. The only trouble he had to face today was deciding what to do with himself.
Griffonstone was dangerous for a griffon in a good mood. Any one of the villagers might see him smiling, screw up their beak, and come over to investigate. The spirit might not like that.
The other cubs were probably out playing, but they always played rough, especially when Gallus was around. And he wasn’t sure if he could handle the chicken noises today.
“Move, kid.”
The voice beside him was feminine, dusty, and coming this way. He stepped backwards to allow Grace to trudge by, her cart of newspapers in tow. It was covered in a bright blue tarp.
“Morning, Mrs. Grace!” Gallus said, louder than he’d planned.
“Gruff alive?” Grace replied. Her glass eye looked downward.
“Yep!”
“Good for him.”
Again, it could have been nice or mean.
Grace reached under the tarp and fished out a roll. She threw it over Gallus’s head towards the front door, but Gallus hopped and snatched it out of the air.
“Thank you, Mrs. Grace!” He grinned, expecting a compliment for his speed, but Grace was already hitching herself back in, already moving on. The only griffon in the world.
Mr. Gruff didn’t read the paper until bedtime. The news didn’t control him, he had said. It had to wait until he was good and ready to read it. This meant Gallus had first dibs. He flicked through it.
There was a front-page headline: Ponies of Canterlot Celebrate Selfish Prosperity for Tenth Year Running.
An obituary: Old Gertrude Griffon passed away alone in her home last week. She left behind strict orders that nogriff attend her funeral.
Somegriff’s opinion piece: Equestria Headed for Dire 1,000 Year Anniversary?
Gallus loved the Griffonstone paper, especially when the articles were about ponies, which was most of the time. Two-thirds of them couldn’t even grab things—how crazy was that? But today he had no interest. Spirits didn’t like the news, everygriff knew that.
He went to the window of his room, wedged his talons into the crack above, opened it like an oven, and tossed the paper on his bed.
He checked in with the spirit. It wasn’t a puppy anymore; it had changed! It was now an eagle, standing sturdy, its chest puffed out, its glow even stronger now, pulsing to a beat. Its feathers fluttered in the breeze.
That gave Gallus an idea. He hopped once, twice, and took flight.
The Griffonstone Library sat at the end of a dark corridor of buildings. There was only enough space to fit one griffon, as long as everygriff else respected his boundaries—and for this reason, Gallus had never set talon, nor paw, inside the crumbling double-hut.
But Gallus didn’t mind the terrible corridor today. He had his spirit, his eagle. They took a big breath together, and they flew straight ahead, all the way to the front door, and through it.
Gallus opened his eyes when he was safely inside. There was a pocket of space between the door and the front desk. Ginny the librarian sat there, reading the newspaper through half-moon glasses. Behind her, there was a pile of books, thrown together in a messy, paper-folding disaster.
Ginny rolled her eyes the moment she saw him.
“The crap do you want, Gallus.”
That wasn’t so much of an arrow as a spritz of water. But it missed just the same.
Gallus leapt onto the desk, flapping his wings to keep steady.
“Ummmmmmmm—Animals!”
Ginny looked ready to swat him. “You want a book on animals?”
“Uh-huh!”
“Well, you can ask from down there,” and she pushed him away. His lion-half took over, and he landed on all fours.
Ginny reclined in her chair and fished out a book from behind her without looking. It only took her five sigh-filled seconds. Gallus wondered where Ginny lived. It had to be near a volcano, for how smoky her voice sounded.
“Insects, Critters, Beasts and Monsters,” she drawled. “By some… science griff, I don’t know. That okay?”
Gallus nodded, reaching up with a talon.
Ginny put the book within his reach, but as he jumped for it, she pulled it back. Her eyes narrowed.
“Do you know what happens if you lose it?”
Gallus swallowed. It took every part of his strength to look her in her dark red eyes. The eagle inside him flickered. Was she looking at it right now?
“What… happens?” he said.
“Ya gotta pay it off. And since I know you don’t have any money, your debt’ll have to be covered by Gruff.”
Gallus shuddered. He brought his talon in for a moment, but stuck it right back out again.
“Okay,” he said.
“Hmph.”
As soon as he had it, he took off. He knew the dark corridor was waiting for him outside, so he spread his wings—as did the eagle—and they soared up and away.
When he was halfway between the village and the clouds, he twirled around with his new treasure. The cover was awesome! A pair of dragons fought each other, both of them breathing fire, both of them with a hold of the other’s neck. Birds flew in the sky behind them, all different colours and sizes. At the bottom, bugs crawled on green leaves.
And it was huge. Definitely the heaviest book he’d ever read, not that he read many books.
Gallus noticed the drops of water on the cover. He gasped and shoved it in his bag.
His day was set, but he didn’t know where he wanted to be. He scanned the village below, and the griffons wandering the streets. Griffonstone always looked a little brighter when it rained. All the yellow raincoats.
A few of the griffons below stared up at him, scowling, and he knew where he wanted to be. Anywhere but here.
He was in luck; there were breaks in the clouds overhead that he could fly through without getting wet. He aimed for the closest pocket of blue sky and shot through it.
The sun! The warmth. Gallus spread his wings and spun in midair, soaking it all in, and letting his bag hang where it may. He was in a field of white clouds now—above, below, and on all sides and angles. He could choose any one of them, and he picked the closest, and the fluffiest, one.
He spread out his book and opened to the first page. Aardvark, he read. What in Equestria was that? He kept flipping, first a page at a time, and then in bigger and bigger chunks. Armadillo, Breezie, Falcon, Lion, Tarantula, Ursa (Major and Minor), Zebra, back cover.
He started opening the book to random pages, and by the time he was done reading the first paragraph, the spirit had transformed into that animal. He scanned the words, looking for descriptions of the sounds the animals made so he could hear them call out to him.
The tortoise, though. The tortoise was something else. A hard-shelled beast that walked around at its own pace, and was not to be confused with the turtle. Gallus promised never to mix them up. He read about the tortoise’s diet, its crazy lifespan, how it went everywhere with its shell. It was genius, Gallus thought. It always knew where home was.
He let the spirit transform. He said hello. And the day simply passed him by.
He woke up light-headed. His thoughts swam; he couldn’t see. In a haze he walked to the edge of the cloud and dropped like a stone. The wind bullied him, ruffling his feathers and pushing him around. When he could think again he unfurled his wings and righted.
His cloud had been pushed up high—really high. Way higher than he’d ever flown. A cloud tower floated past him, his whitest and fluffiest cloud at the top. The tower got greyer as it went down, until it became a storm covering everything, filled with cruel, twisting clouds, and angry, flashing clouds. A mess of black and blue.
Bag.
Gallus spun around. He looked up the cloud tower in front of him. It had to be up there. He tried to fly to it, but his chest got heavy. He winced and came back down.
He closed his eyes. The tortoise was in its shell, trembling.
“It’s okay,” Gallus whispered. “Don’t worry.”
Book.
Gallus whimpered. He’d lost it. The spirit flickered so hard it almost went out.
“It’s fine!” Gallus shouted. He balled up his talons and squeezed his head. It was just a stupid book. He could probably work for Ginny or something to pay it off. He didn’t care. Mr. Gruff wanted him to get a job anyways.
Nogriff was going to get mad at him over a book, and if they did, then that sounded like their problem.
The tortoise’s light grew strong again. It came out of its shell and smiled.
Gallus smiled back.
“Let’s go home.”
He took a few deep breaths and descended, but a bolt of lightning snapped at his tail, and he thought better of it. Up and down were no good; he would have to go around.
From the edge of Griffonstone, he landed in the grass and took off at a sprint. The rain dripped, splashed, pounded, and thundered. The grass turned to dirt, turned to muck. The village changed colour until it was the same as his fur. The light returned only for a few brief flashes. Cameras in the sky.
Gallus was laughing. He was whooping and laughing and cheering as he ran. He only stopped to open his beak and drink in the rain. He was soaked to the bone, but his chest never felt so warm.
The streets were his.
The spirit had transformed again, and not only that; it was no longer in Gallus’s heart, but on the outside! It was an otter, bounding and darting and weaving like a furry snake with legs. Its paws padded loudly in the water.
The two of them took detours. They danced in the puddles, kicked at the wet stones on the road, and whenever the thunder roared at them, they roared right back.
When they got back to Mr. Gruff’s front door, the otter jumped back inside. Gallus stood there for a moment, his fur, his feathers and his wings standing upright. He wished the shivers would never stop.
Lightning flashed. It was like the storm had blinked, letting the sun in for a second, and Gallus saw everything. The wooden front door, the shingles, the pebbles bouncing off the roof, the walls drooling water, and his bedroom’s open window.
The spirit shattered.
“NO!”
Gallus flew at the window, but the storm boomed. He cried out, tripped, and fell on his face. When the rumbling stopped he sprang into the window and slammed it shut with his shoulder. He fell, panting, tasting the dirt in his mouth. He ran back around to the front door and burst inside.
“What’s all this bangin’?” Mr. Gruff said. “Gallus! Where’ve you—?”
They stared at each other. Mr. Gruff, in his robe, his pipe hanging loosely from his beak, his black feathers standing on edge. Gallus, sitting down, drenched from his paws up to the three stray feathers on his head. He saw Mr. Gruff readying his weapon, nocking his arrow and drawing back.
All he said was, “What did you do, Gallus?”
And that was just it.
Gallus flew past the old griffon, into his room, and slammed the door behind him. He curled up against the door, the mucky floor clumping in his fur. The rain rapped the window to get his attention, like griffon cubs banging on the glass walls of a zoo, but Gallus was inside himself.
What did you do?
What didn’t he do? He stole Mr. Gruff’s food, ruined the newspaper, lost his bag, lost Ginny’s book, and for what? Mr. Gruff was right, Gallus just took, and took, and took, and gave nothing back. He stole so much from everygriff around him, and he still found a way to be worthless.
He cried as boys do. He sobbed loud, to hell with anygriff who could hear him. He punched himself in the knees. He scratched at his own head. He cried like a deer chased by hunters, like a monster fighting poison. He cried like a bird falling from the sky.
“STUPID!”
His own voice startled him. It was bright and crooked, like lightning.
It was so cold.
His body was tired. His limbs fell down beside him, and his sobs became weak.
“Stupid…”
He looked at what he’d done. The soggy walls, the dripping mattress, the destroyed shreds of newspaper. He didn’t know how to fix it. Which meant Mr. Gruff would do it. How much longer until the old griffon came to his senses? How much longer until Gallus was on his own again?
There was a knock at the door.
“Done in there?”
“Go away.”
“Well, when you are, it’s dinner.”
Gallus sniffed. “I’m not hungry.”
A pause. A long, throaty sigh. “Ya gotta eat. Nogriff starves in my house.”
“I’m sorry,” Gallus whispered.
A laugh. “For getting wet?”
Gallus shrunk into his ball again. So Mr. Gruff didn’t know. Which meant he had to show him what he’d done.
He turned over and opened the door. He stepped back and let Mr. Gruff squeeze inside. His vision blurred. He thought he’d gotten all the tears out, but no, here were some more.
Mr. Gruff sucked at his beak. “Oh, no,” he said. “Anything but water.”
He walked away. Gallus, his beak hanging open, watched the big griffon walk around a corner. He returned with a pile of towels, which he flung on top of Gallus, knocking him over.
“Oops. Problem solved.”
Gallus grabbed at the towels, pulled himself out of them. With another sniff, he got up and started padding them against the mattress.
“What the—Those are for you!”
“Huh?”
“C’mere, ya dumb whelp.”
Mr. Gruff rushed into the room, snatched the towels out of Gallus’s shaking talons, and then he was on him, rubbing his head, his shoulders, his head some more, then his back and his stomach. He cleaned out his ears, gently, and then brought him back to the light.
Mr. Gruff was squatting in front of him, a focused scowl on his face. He nodded. “That better?”
Gallus still shivered. Better? He looked around. “But… your room. I—”
“We’ll deal with it tomorrow. And it’s your room. Now come. Your meal’s gettin’ cold, and so’s mine.”
Gallus didn’t follow, not right away. The rain banged, the lightning flashed, and the room dripped. But Mr. Gruff wanted to eat, and that was that. So Gallus approached the table and climbed onto the chair. He kept hold of one of the towels to stay warm, leaving every part of him covered but his head.
Dinner was chicken breasts. One of Gallus’s favourites, though it tasted off today. Tasted wrong. Like it had been cooked by somegriff on the other side of the world, somewhere he didn’t belong.
But he still finished it. Take, take, take…
“This morning,” Mr. Gruff said, munching, “when I asked what was wrong with you, I didn’t actually care. Well, congratulations, kid, because now I care. So tell me what’s wrong.”
Gallus felt exposed. When were the arrows coming? Mr. Gruff must have been waiting for the right opening.
But the old griffon just gave him a look. “Don’t make me ask again.”
Gallus shook his head.
“Kid—”
“There was a spirit.”
Mr. Gruff paused mid-chew. He swallowed carefully. “Excuse me?”
Gallus told him. Somegriff had to know, or else the spirit never existed. But he left out anything that could leave him open for attack. The puppy, the eagle, the tortoise, the otter, none of that stayed, but he mentioned the glow, and the warmth. He held his chest as he spoke.
Mr. Gruff stopped him halfway through. “Alright,” he said. “I get it. That’s enough.”
“But I wasn’t done.”
“That wasn’t a spirit, kid,” Mr. Gruff said. He turned his attention back to his meal, finishing off the last few bites.
“…Then what was it?”
Mr. Gruff wiped his beak on his sleeve and took the plates to the sink. He threw them in, let them crash, and flattened his talons against the counter. He sighed again, but it wasn’t shallow, or deep, or rusty. Just a sharp, firm exhale.
“Mr. Gruff?”
He walked back to the table and squatted in front of Gallus. He shook his head.
“Kid, you were happy.”
Mr. Gruff let him have the torn-up leather chair by the fireplace, and he made him a bed of towels and straw. Gallus curled up there like a dog, listening to the rain dripping in through cracks in the roof.
He didn’t want to close his eyes. He knew, the moment he did, that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from checking in on the spirit.
And it wouldn’t be there. Why would it be? Who would stick around with him? Who would actually want to hang out with somegriff so stupid and selfish?
He’d worried so much about Mr. Gruff’s arrows that he’d forgotten the old griffon had to hit a moving target. But Gallus didn’t have that problem. He always had himself right where he wanted him.
He fought his eyelids, but they eventually closed, and there, inside him, was the spirit. The little glow. He hadn’t lost it, not yet. It had changed again, though; it was now a small bird, just the right size to fit in his talon. It shivered. It chirped weakly. It flickered. Gallus curled up next to it and pressed it against his neck. He waited for the shivering to stop.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “It’s all my fault.”
The bird rubbed its beak against his.
“If you want to fly away, that’s okay. I understand.”
The tears came back. He never seemed to run out.
“But even if you go, I’ll see you again. Okay? I’ll come find you.”
He held on to the picture of him and the bird, drifting in a world of darkness and stars, huddling together for warmth. He committed it to memory.
I promise I’ll come find you.
He fell asleep, he dreamed of rain, and when he woke up, he was empty.