> Birds of a Feather
>  by Kishin
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: Embark, Trixie
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Trixie Lulamoon had been labeled many things in her lifetime.

A talentless hack.

An egotistical megalomaniac.

A monster...

But the title that really made her heart bleed, her breathing instinctively freeze, make every mental process halt, was not based on the opinions of others, but on the personal opinion of herself. And a promise she made...to her first true friend.

'The Great and Apologetic Trixie?' 'The most magnificent humble pony', huh? What a load of horseapples.

You'll never be what you promise to be, Trixie. Don't lie to yourself. Don't lie to your....friends.

Let's just say that reactions she experience of her arrivals while traveling across Equestria have been incredibly more penitent than anything she's experienced before, and far from her expectations of optimistic success.

The thing about all living beings, no matter how much they spout about 'forgive and forget', or how 'the past doesn't matter, but your actions do', that they can never truly believe they're own words. Their mental hardware just can't connect "acceptance" with "forgiveness". And it didn't help she had attempted to enslave the Elements of Harmony to do her bidding a couple of days earlier, even if she was possessed by a magic amulet beyond her control.

Trixie couldn't blame them for thinking badly of her. She wouldn't even forgive herself.

So she had a plan, that if she couldn't make things right, she would at least disappear. Live a quiet life in a distant land where "The Great and Powerful Trixie" is nothing more than a stranger, with a ridiculously narcissistic title. Some place that she can escape from the persecution of it all from her past actions. And Trottingham, a virtual industrial city on an island, was nearly perfect. It was secluded, and she had heard rumors that they needed plenty of unicorns to operate machinery, or perform in the entertainment industry....no, not THAT sort of entertainment. The plan was nearly perfect.

And it was also a plan that she had almost regretted spending some of her last bits on. As Trottingham was basically secluded by thousands of miles of the Pollcific Ocean, boat travel would have to be the easiest and cheapest form of transportation available, as the new 'airship' (she believed they were called) imports from Gryphia were quite...on the pricey side.

Here was the main problem she had. She hated boats, and became sea-sick very easily, to the point even sleeping was difficult. The constant rocking back-and-forth drove her insane, and the food was horrid. Pinecones and raw potatoes? 

Blegh!

It didn't matter anyway. All the food Trixie ate would almost always end up as ballast off the ship's bow from the agitated digestive system of a green-faced, sick-to-the-stomach former magician.

Trixie hoped that things got better. They had to. Weren't there such things as second chances in the world?





Three days. The Celestia-forsaken boat ride had finally reached land after a trio of miserable, nausea-plagued days of barely any exposure to sun-rises and moon-exposure. Trixie missed staring at the beauty of the stars. They reminded her that even the most neglected and unobserved objects in the universe could redeem themselves.

After Trixie had rushed onto the docks with a sheer emotional joy of being given the chance to walk on land and the dirt she had grown to depend and love (well...not exactly), she gathered her luggage, and quickly escaped the torture establishment that was the Trottingham Dockyards.

Soon she was overwhelmed by the utter size and industrial development that was the island behemoth of Trottingham. The boundaries of Trottingham's urban sprawl, or lack there of, started at the farthest road and unraveled into the epicenter of the business and leisure districts. The lights, the sounds of thousands of carriages on the roads and boulevards, the skyscrapers, and the billowing smoke from the nearby industry radiated around Trixie, who could only stand and gawk at such a sight. Nothing she had seen before, not even the medieval grandeur could compare to the sight of the 'big city'.

Her grumbling stomach, however, interrupted her near-hypnotized trance. It ridiculed her that she was, in laypony's terms, she was homeless, jobless, and isolated from everypony around her.

Isn't there a hotel around here? An apartment complex maybe? Or maybe even pub, if the price is right, Trixie desperately thought. She proceeded to heave her luggage and her hurt pride away from the alien world of skyscrapers and industry, towards the more modest structures and districts. Where all the normal ponies existed in their pitiful realm.

Trixie found it funny that she used to think like that. As if everypony around her was absolutely below her. As if she would never hit rock bottom, like all the others.

And look at her now.





Eventually, after a wasted evening of comparing prices, Trixie had finally found an moderate sized apartment complex above a bar. A five by five hooflength room could have constituted within the boundaries of her standards for moderate sized, so this was quite luxurious for her.

She looked around the empty space. There was a kitchen/dining room, bathroom, and the living room would have to be adapted as a bedroom also. 

Pragmatic. Functional.

Dirt-poor. Blandly colored. Abused to the point the brick walling was exposed behind the thin layer of plaster and paint on the walls.

Trixie couldn't take the sight any longer. She left her luggage, the last remainders of who she used to be, and who she never wanted to become again, in the room and exited the apartment. She locked the door behind her, magically lifting her incredibly light bit-bag, and trussed down the hall and down the fire escape. She found it silly that she had to clumsily use, and fall off, the ladder on her floor into the dumpster below, but she was horribly lost and couldn't find the stairs that she had used to get up to the apartment.

All signs that pointed to the form of arriving at certain floors, an 'elevator' she believed the sign called them, only directed her to large indents in the wall, covered by metal grating with a panel of buttons and levers next to them.

Infuriated that she couldn't operate the machinery, she adapted cleverly and arrived where she was now: The dumpster.

Feeling depressed and quite parched (landing in a giant metal bin full of otherpony's waste and being pierced by awkward stares by the local hobos was quite exhausting), Trixie trotted into the bar below the apartment complex (she believed it was called the "Dead End") smelling like trash, and asked for a shot of Applejack Daniels.

Trixie laughed dourly that the title of the bar actually fit the type of customers that it got!

Oh Celestia this is going to be a long night.

She steadily plopped onto a bar stool, and rose the received glass, filled with golden ambrosia harvested from fermented apples, with her magic.

Here's to new beginnings.

She downed in a quick swig. She felt a tear course down her face.

It wasn't from the stinging of the distilled alcohol. She was sure of it. She realized that it was only a result of a few stray emotions escaping from her conscience.

It was preparation for the days to come, and sorrow in realization that her new life was probably never going to meet up to her old expectations ever again. But maybe, she thought, things will be different. There was always that gleaming light of hope at the end of the dark tunnel, a flash during the darkest of days, that things will be alright.

Yeah. Right.

"Bartender!" Trixie coughed, as she slapped down two bits on the counter. "Another, please!"

	

	

	
> Prologue: Naked as a Jailbird
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trottingham Magistrate Dungeon

Dark.

And a near-arctic chill. Those are the two things out of four that numbs and degenerates the mind and wasting soul of all that are stayed in the icy maw of the dungeon. One's eyes could see the bare outline of columns, cobblestone floors, and rows upon rows of morbidly rusting iron bars, an effrontery of containment, that constituted as the inside walls of the prison, where three thousand of Trottingham's sediment of crime and filth come to deposit. Some of the grille of the cell doors have rusted so abundantly that solid bars of ice replace a few rows of the iron cell bars that have eroded away from the salty, cold sea wind with decrepit rust.

It was almost as if the dungeon was alive, attempting to keep them all trapped with its own conscious effort.

Oh and the third reason? The unbearable stench. The type of stink that travels in a current and seems to radiate waves of heat generated by its own detestable matter. But such things were simply mundane. Spend time in a sewer for long enough, and the body begins to adapt to the repulsive odor.

However, the fourth reason had not applied today. Silence. Isolation's cruel enforcer, and the catalyst of slowly creeping insanity. The sort created by hearing solely the aches, moans, and howls of both the wind and cellmates, and one's own heartbeat resounding through one's body every conscious second. Even during the occasional periods of dead muteness, when you feel alone, there is always one nuance that curses one's ears and keeps you awake at night so you never have a moment alone to yourself ever again: your own heart. There is no greater irony than the fact that the organ that you can't live without causes, in time, so much misery...

But there wasn't much silence today. The prison had become resonant with the thousands of jeers and mocking cries that usually occur during the only source of entertainment for the prisoners: The Chair.

A solitary Gryphon prisoner, a black cloth bag draped over his head, was dragged out of his dark enclosure and rushed by every cell on the block by a pair of Equestria's finest: Royal Guards. Contrary to their namesake, they acted not only as royal bodyguards, but as common law enforcement, military bodies, and, in this case, prison guards. In front of the Guard pair was a Guard Mare, leading the group through the dark. Viewing through the cloth, the gryphon could see nothing but their basic silhouettes, their features blackened by the artificial night created by the dungeon ceiling and many floors above. A feeling fleeted into his mind of being trapped below so much stone, metal, and wood as his eyes lifted to examine the ceiling and the skyline he instinctively expected: 

Desperation. Hopelessness. 

And the only release? The Chair, which exists behind the Door on every cell block. No prisoner ever knows what might become of them when they eventually pass (and everyone of them will) through the Door. There are only two reasons to release a prisoner from the dungeons as far as you could gather: release into society after payment for their crimes, or execution. And the Trottingham Magistrate Dungeon is infamous for holding the lowest of the low, the dirt beneath the feet and hooves of the criminal Underworld that would simply stain the reputations of other prisons for even allowing them a single day of imprisonment. 

One doesn't enter one of Trottingham's prisons for a light charge. And it's pretty hard for court judges to find a reason to release one of Trottingham's "veterans" when the least offensive charge available for its prisoners to be able to "room" in one of its cells is multiple-count murder.

Hence, the only exception that the majority of Trottingham's dungeon (besides the staff) will be able to be released is when their cold, lifeless corpses are sent to the rapids conveniently near the location of the dungeon. 

And what does the Chair do? It simply begins the journey for prisoners to leave the prison.

Returning to the scene, the Guard Mare leading the prisoner and her two compatriots unlocked the Door and burst through briskly into a hallway, which led to a room containing the Point of No Return: 

The Chair.

The gryphon is brusquely pushed into the bare, simple wood paneling that the Chair supplied, and the Royal Guard pair fastened his claws to the restraining clamps on the arm-rests integrated into the Chair itself. The Guard Mare then grabbed the rough-fabric bag over his head with her chops, and tore it off. The gryphon winced at the sudden introduction of the bright light from the room, and attempted to shield his eyes with his own restrained claws. There he saw his captors, and another mysterious pony tinkling with a machine behind the Chair. A slowly increasing tone of buzzing filled the air and the smell of ozone and active electricity pierced his senses.

The Guard Mare began, "Prisoner Zero-Eight-Four-Nine. Under Royal Decree, you have been sentenced for your crimes. Before we continue, will there be any last requests?"

The gryphon vaguely answered, "Carry on." There was nothing else to say really. He ran through simulations of this event thousands of times in his imagination, step-by-step, contemplating whether his last moments in the prison itself would really be worth the effort of formulating a cooly-replied, yet rebellious comeback. The concept of his rebelliousness led to memories of freedom as a young cub. And memories of how he got where he was today. Simple enough, depression took hold of him in his moments alone in his cell, so he decided not to dwell on it until his response was truly necessary. He closed his eyes, waiting for the practice to be over with.

The unicorn technician preparing the machinery behind the Chair muttered, "Unbelievable that you ended up in a place like this. You are the youngest I have ever done in my bloody career in this stinking heap."

"Life is full of surprises," The gryphon gulped, still closing his eyes. The buzz amplified.

"Isn't it? Well, I'm guessing you won't have to worry about this prison anymore," whispered the technician. The pony places something metallic and ice-cold on top of his noggin. A bowl-like prop.

"Don't worry, lad. I heard it's painless. Not like the old days where every inch of your scalp was bloodied."

The gryphon waited with a sort of nervous patience not seen often in the youth of Trottingham. He began to whisper his rites.

The technician solemnly announced, "The Chair is ready."

"Good, execute the act," the Guard Mare pronounced, with an enthusiastic emphasis on "execute".

The gryphon heard the pull of a lever behind him, and was immediately surrounded by a torrent of buzzing, similar to what he would hear if he had surrounded himself in a maelstrom of an electric storm, and he found his body, along with the Chair he was restrained too, soon shaking to the unnatural vibrations that the machine provided.

The technician saw the gryphon's beak lower down, his neck going limp, as the lights flicker faintly from the sudden vacuum of power that the Chair had pulled from the prison's electric supply.

The technician complained, bucking the machinery near him lightly a few times, "Bloody machine causing a blackout every time we use it. Oh well, does the job just fine."

He magically lifted a electric-powered mane-cutter and sheared the dirty, greasy mass of feathers and hair from the sides and back of the gryphon's head. The technician, who also worked part-time as a barber in the dungeon, popped the bowl off from the the prisoner's chilled skull.

"Thanks for bowing your head for me and keeping still, lad. Makes giving mane-cuts a less of a hassle."

The gryphon mentioned, "Not a problem. But if you don't mind getting some of my beard..."

"I have a Mark for manes only, son. Sorry, but want the lower half of your face to be clean sliced off?"

The gryphon quickly redacted, "No, it's fine. Really!"

"Then let me do my bloody job, lad!"

The next 5 minutes were spent on shortening the top remaining patch of hair on the gryphon's head, with the barber styling the gryphon's mane to be short on the sides and back, but not cropping the top and bangs as closely. He left them to naturally spike out, with the longest strands in the front of his head.

The barber unclasped the gryphon from the Chair and dusted the cut strands of feathers from his coat.

"Now best be off, lad. Before you get into more trouble."

The gryphon nodded solemnly, "Agreed."

The gryphon was guided out of the room, the Guard Mare following by his side with the Guards in tow, past several security checkpoints and into the main atrium of the dungeon's ground-level floor. 

As the gryphon inspected his grime-covered coat and wondered how long it was since he preened himself, the Guard Mare gestured to the two Guards that they weren't needed any longer, and returned to the former prisoner.

"You're Leif, right? Celestia help me if I got the wrong gryphon."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You're getting an early reprieve. Show me some identification," The Guard Mare boomed.

Leif twisted his right forearm to reveal a rather intricate tattoo running down along from his shoulder to his talons of a mass of arrows all originating from a central "cross" of outward arrows representing the Four Winds, the major holy symbol of the Gryphon Empire.

"Alright, the tat's good." 

The Guard Mare removed her helmet, and Leif found himself face-to-face with an old acquaintance.

"Hey there, Leif. It's me. Glimmer Rain." 

Leif carefully disguised his own surprise, and pretended he didn't know her. He hadn't expected....her to be here. She hadn't changed a bit. Same old white, artificial coat, same old Earth mare, and same old personality.

"You don't remember me? Well, I'll have plenty of opportunities to refresh your memory as I'm going to be your parole officer for...well, let's not put a date on that," The mare admitted. "The Princess didn't say for how long exactly, so no need to give you false hope or anything. Any questions?"

Leif gave Glimmer Rain a hard stare, not one of intense, fiery hatred, but devoid of emotion. An empty look. Something she saw in ponies too tired and weathered of the crashing tides of Life.

Leif inquired with a dry, shaky voice, "Can you tell me why I was imprisoned for attempting to help you, concerning my work with the Fenris Organization? I repressed every evil the Fenris supplied. Tied up loose ends, so to speak. What we did in the past wasn't right. It wasn't moral. And it never corresponded to our so-called warrior customs. I hoped to redeem myself if I-"

"Celestia thought that it would be wise to seclude, you, the de-facto leader of the more rebellious branch of the friggin Gryphon Mafia...in prison, just in case he would have any contacts outside of the organization. Sorry about it. Really, I am. You came to us, for Luna's sake. And we treated you like-"

"No need. Caution is the best way to treat things," Leif quietly admitted. "Repentance doesn't come easily."

He found his answer. An awkward silence pounced on the pair's conversation.

"Look, mate, if you need to talk about anything, give me a call. You know what telephones are, right?" Glimmer Rain asked. "You're around my age, aren't you? Things can be pretty hard to handle. You aren't responsible for any of the things the Fenris did in the past. You were bloody terrified when I first met you-"

"Please. Just...give me some time to think," Leif replied. He began to walk out of the atrium, where he viewed from the aesthetically designed clear panes that it was indeed raining heavily outside.

"Do you remember the layout?" 

No answer.

Glimmer quickly turned and shouted, "Look, I said I was sorry! I screwed up, OK? I didn't know this would happen to you! You took my advise to give yourself up, and I indirectly landed you in Equestria's most horrid dungeon!"

"'A bird of prey never forgets its path; lest the Feint of the Current fools him of Thy true directions,'" Leif recited from memory. He was a religious old bird, through and through, even if he didn't fulfill the "old" part of the requirement.

When he had no words to say, he let his Scriptures speak for him. They were all he had...

"I'll be right back", he finally uttered. He owed it to Glimmer to give her a definite answer for every single question. They've known each other since they were foals. It wasn't her fault.

Things just didn't turn out how she wanted them to.





Leif pushed himself out of the doorway of the Magistrate building, streams of captured moisture from the roofing dripping to the ground, and on his coat as he trotted out into the open. Captives of filthy dungeons or prisons normally felt freedom and the sweet scent of fresh air coursing through their nostrils. They proceeded to release themselves out on the range, blowing freely without care along with the wind, like autumn leaves during a peaceful fall evening.

But as for Leif? He was more akin to a diminutive farm animal, whose whole entire life was only experienced through the metallic womb of a cage, and is utterly confused when its enclosure is opened, with a view of the brave new world displayed across the horizon. Their whole life was in a cage. They know nothing beyond it. They struggle to define their own terms of "liberty" or "freedom" as they hesitate to pass the open doorway to larger pastures to graze.

As he stood in the rain, a sole individual at the entrance of the Magistrate building, Leif felt naked. He'd been stripped of his old life, tore apart his new one for the sake of righteousness and morality, was betrayed by his friends, and now what?

Where was the so-called "liberty" that one experienced? He had nothing. He would have to start from scratch.

Leif couldn't help but feel naked (though he was technically naked already) and an uncomfortable absence of all feeling. Just emptiness.

He felt more conviction in considering a cell he'd only known for a month as a home, than the city he himself had grown up in. 

Trottingham. A place where one never has friends, only acquainted strangers.

Leif heard a slow trod of hooves behind him, heavily laden with the chinking of metallic friction from armor.

He sighed, "Glimmer..."

The Earth mare approaching him apprehensively replied, the white powder usually applied to the coat of ceremonial guard in Celestia's royal protectors coarsing down her body into the puddles, revealing her orange coat and stark blue mane, "Yeah, mate?" 

Leif could literally feel the tension that he had caused earlier. He didn't want that. The past was the past. And you can't change what had already been done.

"Let's get flat-arse drunk."

Glimmer Rain's distressed downtrodden expression shifted to its normal merriment. The type of behavior that reminded Leif of their foalhood together. The golden years. When everything used to be simple.

"Now you're talking! Drinks on me, Leif!" Glimmer excitedly giggled. She raced down the pathway in the rain, but slowed as she realized that she was minus one ex-convict Gryphon.

"You coming with, or what?"

Leif, his black, raven-blue pattern of feathers reflecting the faint, cloud-burdened moonlight, had an abrupt thought enter his mind.

Well, here's to a new beginning. That's all you can ask for nowadays.

"Right behind you, Glimmer," Leif cried out, and rushed to take Trottingham by the throat.

	

> A Nice Way to Start Things Off...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Had there been any hesitation in Leif's decision, any fault in logic that he could have found that day, to celebrate his recent appraisal, he would have straight up ignored it. Today was a day neither for caution from the law, or celebration. Just one of those days that liver poisoning would have been a blessing compared to everything that had occurred in the past. To relive past mistakes all over again, to see reminders of your life before Change's chaotic bidding, required a bit...dulling of the mind. And bars were the paramount location for the destruction of brain cells.

Along the misty, and still damp, streets of Trottingham's infamous Laxmisagar Square, Glimmer Rain led Leif to through nostalgic neighborhood, where he purveyed the familiar buildings of his childhood. Of course, he didn't exactly enjoy being here. His memory had a habit of reminding him of all his embarrassments and follies whenever it was primed, and all the joyful moments of his life were washed over, like a mudslide encompassing bodies ready to decompose and return to the dirt. To cover up the mess.

And also the fact that Leif plain hated this area. They say Laxmisagar Square had once become such an attraction for gang wars and illegal dealings that if one had gotten a shovel, removed the boulevard brickroad, and dug straight down for 10 feet, one could have found a multitude of things. Soil rich with the smell of rotting copper. Old bayoneted flintlocks stained with bits of flesh and gore. Skeletons with age cracking through their once  not-too-pristine surface and spiritual center. Things that should never be brought back up again.

But the days of yore and violence were gone. Leif made sure of that.

Leif felt the tension and anger flow away from his breath the farther he got away from the Square. He lived his whole life in this neighborhood, and half of it was wasted in that burial ground. In Laxmisagar Square.

His determination to escape from their current location hadn't gone unnoticed. Glimmer Rain saw it.

"Leif, is something wrong? You looked like you saw a bloody ghost." She smiled.

Leif attempted to return the gesture, but could only bend the crook of his beak.

"Nah. Just this place. Where we off to anyway?" Leif quickly shifted the subject.

"Quaint little place. You'll remember it. 'Dead End'? Ring any bells up in the old belfry?" She knocked a hoof on his head. "Our first beer? Remember when we were barely of age, and when you got yourself a sip, you spat it on my f-"

"Yeah. Just...lead on," Leif attempted to hide his chuckle, but failed. He never had liked alcohol. And whenever the mood to become intoxicated by its alluring grasp came to mind, Leif was just never attracted by it. Too much hassle for such temporary pleasure. But he was still, how you say, a social drinker. 

Leif followed Glimmer down several more blocks until they reached their destination: the 'Dead End'. Where all individuals that had reached its namesake go.

From the outside, no light escaped. Leif found the structure fairly common, and some signs of renovations were evident (so if he was too remember anything about the place before he was imprisoned, he wouldn't recognize it), but couldn't grasp the feeling that he should have known what was exactly in store for him.

Leif entered, and the first thing he noticed was the sheer warmness of the atmosphere. It was almost strange that the place felt...relaxing, as if all bets of the outside world were off and nothing really mattered but you, your glass of ale, and the huge tab you were accumulating.

But what Leif found most curious was how no one, not even the bartender, bothered to cause him trouble for his tattoo. The symbol had become quite a taboo over the last few years, and not even what Leif had done to, in his own term, reform it, had any effect. The symbol of the Four Winds became just another mark that violent idealists twisted the meaning of with their obscenities.

Couple with the fact that the bartender hadn't threatened him at cross-bow point to get the hell out of the bar, or any of the other patrons for that matter, and that Glimmer basically dared anybody in the establishment to make a move, Leif's memory of the small, humble bar were coming back. Yes, there was something to this place. The building was once too close  to Fenris territory for ponies even to walk in safely without being terrorized, but Leif made sure it had free trade. And his word was once law around these parts. Once. And never again.

The barkeep, who was the one thing about Leif's return that he absolutely come to realize with familiarity, said in a burly voice as he looked up at his new customers, "Comes the hour, comes the Gryphon." He looked at both Glimmer Rain and Leif as if he was expecting something...more. He knew the pair quite well. Before Leif's imprisonment, and rather inclusive involvement with a certain Gryphon mafia, they were regulars. He also knew who was responsible for landing Leif in said imprisonment. And about both of their tempers.

"You two kiss and make out, yet?"

Leif responded, "Don't you mean 'make up'?"

The barkeep grumbled, "I know what I said. My bar, my rules. Do I have to remind you again? How long has it been? Two...three years?"

"Glimmer over here gets a turn-off from stallions, and I just got out of the dungeons. We aren't in the mood...Hops."

Oh yes. Leif knew him quite well.

"Fine. What can I get ya two?"

Leif and Glimmer Rain sat down next to eachother on the bar stools next to the counter, and two stools away was a rather self-pitying blue-coat unicorn mare downing whiskey shots like water. 

Leif asked without hesitation, "A wine cooler." 

Glimmer coughed, "A Trottish Carriage Bomb. Full pint."

Hops rose an eyebrow at Leif's request. "And who was the one that even thought of ordering cheap-flank hard lemonade in my bar? We're all stallions here, ya know. Even the mare has more stones than you do in your brambles."

The Gryphon lightly slammed his claws on the bar counter and faced off with the barkeep pony, "And what if I wanted to consume something a bit unusual to your standards?"

There was a freezing of motion in the air. Even the drunks had swallowed the ever-growing silence. Tension expanding like smoke in the room, Glimmer tugged at Leif's shoulder to make him realize that she can't release him from a nearby penitentiary a second time on the same day.

Hops all of a sudden chuckled, "You're still the same, the lot of ya."

He and Leif gripped their respective fore-appendages in a strong vice, and with their other arm, enclosed each other with a welcoming half-hug.

They broke off after a couple of seconds, sound yet again returning to the room, "Welcome home, Leif. I'll get your drinks in a dash. Don't go rough-housing in here again. Bad for the insurance."

Leif smiled, "No promises." as Glimmer facehoofed at the thought that she was in a room of idiotic drunkards, deadbeat failures, and worst of all, stallions.





After a few minutes of catching up on current events (New locations, business that went out off the map, some revisiting friends in town), Leif and Glimmer received their refreshments from Hops. Yeah, Leif was familiar with Hops. They had quite the past.

Back when the gryphon was younger, after a certain incident involving his parents that Leif didn't prefer to mention and during the time when crime became a new concept to him, Hops first met up with the young gryphon on the streets, heavily in need of a figure to look up to and confidence to realize a basic sense of control and morality in his life. Something 'clicked' in Hops' mind that day. Maybe he felt more sympathetic that evening than he ever had, which was highly unlikely at the moment. Hops, by this time in his bartending career, had grown immune to sob stories spewed out by society's unfortunate members. Enough for his heart to have shriveled up and died from misuse if he didn't need it to pump blood. But not that day. Hops was never the one to really...ignore the needs of children, as all they did wrong (if they had done any misdeeds at all) in life to deserve the unfair punishment of abandonment or hunger was being born. He took Leif under his roof, but after realizing that a bar was not the best-suited place to raise a socially-dysfunctional gryphon cub, he place Leif under the care of a couple he was relatively friendly with. Old schoolmates. Glimmer's mother and father. And they treated him like the son they never had. Because no foal should deserve growing up alone.

And Hops was partially gladdened to hear that Leif had accustomed himself well to his new family, and was always there for Glimmer. Not for emotional help, Celestia forbid, but for help controlling her. The mare was fiercely independent and could sexually harass the bark off of a tree. In fact, the only reason Glimmer even got a respectable occupation, or even made it out of her foalhood completely unscathed, was because of Leif. He had a way with words to persuade Glimmer not to appropriate herself with any ridiculous ideas.

Hops laughed to himself of the time a young Glimmer went through a different pathways of life every week.

He could still remember the time that she proudly proclaimed her wish to be a space-mare, or a hoofball player. Or a janitor. She once had this crazy theory that janit- 'sanitorial technicians' are secretly somehow convertly disguised wizards that learn over time the secrets of the universe, or in actuality, how to be intensely super-intelligent. He suspected that one movie- what was it? Good Mare Hunting?- had placed those silly ideas in her head. Leif had a tough time with that one...

And Hop thought Leif turned out pretty well...sort off. He just had some mars, some scratches on the record, that are best left untouched. 

So, years after he was forced to let Leif go towards the path of a better life, Hops still acted like the 'father-figure' to Leif, and would never, ever abandon him like his predecessors had.

Hops, in a friendly gesture, asked, "Leif, ya got a place to stay?"

The gryphon furrowed his brow, "Not for today, no. But how's the apartment side-business going?"

"It's going pretty well, actually. Emigration's the main issue really. Too many folks leaving this dying city for me to be making more of a profit than usual. I could use one more patron, if you're interested."

The gryphon paused to think. He was silent for a while, his thinking only interrupted by the blue unicorn mare next to him crying out for some more Applejack Daniels.

"Alright. I guess a little forward-made reservation wouldn't be too bad." Leif nodded. He slowly opened up his wings a fraction of a hooflength so the bit-bag underneath could slide out into his open palm. Gryphons liked to carry things close to them. It wasn't a cultural thing, though it would be well adapted to counter-act the amount of pickpockets in Gryphia. It was habitual, ingrained in his genes. And Leif was a gryphon of habit.

Hops quickly blurted, shoving the monetary sack away. "Nuh-huh. You don't pay here."

Glimmer Rain bursted out, "What?! You make me pay all the time! Leif was always your favorite!"

In a way, Hops always considered them his children. He knew them well-enough and became involved enough in their lives to be their valid uncle. And Hops always did give Leif the kinder treatment...

"No, I'll pay," Leif refused. His beak told one story, while his face told of an entirely different agenda. Again...another Gryphon reflex. If translated in their facial language, it would read something like: "Thank you for the thought, but it would be best not to piss her off."

Or some variation like that. 

But Hop was going to have none of it.

Hops protested, "It's your first day back."

"And you have a business to run. Plus, I think Glimmer's getting pretty jealous about the paternal favoritism," Leif teased.

"Am not! You sexist twats..."

Hops waited a little, watching to see, like many times in this life, if Leif would ever crack under his pleads. Leif never did. No reason to start now. There was confidence and steady persistence etched in the young bird's personality. 

Just like he raised him.

"Fine," Hops gave in. "But only for the first nigh-"

"Waiter!" the mare next to Leif screamed.

Hops sighed, and returned to the intoxicated unicorn, "Do I look like your bloody butler to ya? What do ya want?"

"I would like ano...anoth...an-" The unicorn slowly pronounced before collapsing on the floor.

Hops sighed again. It happened so many times, it wasn't even funny. As if it ever really was...

"Can you two help me with the mess?" Hops requested. He grabbed under the armpit of the collapsed blue mare.

"At least until we get her to 'er room? She checked in earlier. And its on the way to yours, Leif, so you might was well come anyway."

"Fine." Leif slid off of the bar stool, as well as Glimmer Rain, and trotted over to Hops to get the mare to her hooves again.

They trekked and grunted over the numerous flights of stairs (Hops complained that he'd have to get the elevator repaired soon. The stairs were torture for the bespectacled, old Earth stallion.), and after reaching the Fifth floor, Leif and Hops finally arrived at her destination, with Glimmer Rain lightly skipping in tow with her armor, happily sure that the two could handle the task of hauling the drunken mare themselves.

All of a sudden, the mare popped open her eyes while Hops was looking through the room keys for the right fit. She drunkenly screamed at the top of her lungs, as soon as she understood, or rather misunderstood, the situation.

"HELP!!!I'mbeingmare-napped!AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"No, you bloody aren't!," Leif hissed through a gritted beak, as he was the only one keeping her off the ground. 

Dear Aeolus, this mare is heav-

The unicorn mare delicately vomited on his chest, and promptly returned to her alcohol-fueled slumber.

And Leif just stood there, his mind on sensory overload, frozen from enacting any body movement or thought that would process into mere mortal word or actions meant to be reactions in situations like this. His turmoil was accompanied by the jingling of Hop's keys as he finally sorted out the correct one, and Glimmer's slowly-building laughter. 

Hops unlocked the door to the mare's apartment, and turned around. "Alright, we're finally here. Put her down wher- Bloody Tartarus! What happened to you?!"

Glimmer was now currently on the carpeted floor, careful to avoid the wet puddle of partially digested fermented apple, chuckling through the greatest moment of her life. Well, at least for her.

"Hahahaha! Oh, Celestia! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Come on Leif, tell 'im. Tell him what happened!" Glimmer Rain could barely breath out between coughs and exhales of merriment and joy. 

Leif silently and gently put the mare on the floor somewhere in what constituted as the living room, and returned quickly out of the door way. 

He asked Hops urgently, "Does the room you have for me contain a shower, by any chance?"

	

	

	

	
> Sanitize and Disinfect 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"And...there goes all the warm water," Leif grumbled, as the showerhead slowly spluttered out streams of water that used to be luke-warm at best, but now currently cooling to a sample of water from the Arctic Ice Caps. He ignored the sudden change, and continued to scrub off his feathers and the mental image of...alcohol-induced vomiting. He shook his head, and continued on with the deed of preening himself of the filth of the prison, and also the puke. Sometimes he wished he wasn't a gryphon anymore. Feathers were a complete pain to have, and everything from pine needles to small nests clung to them like velcro to a wool coat. And now, he would have to include partially-digested food chunks and phlegmy bile to that list.

Leif could immediately hear the bathroom door squeak open in response to his complaint, the clouds of condensation whisping out through the opening crack of the door. A mare's head popped in.

Glimmer Rain giggled, "You say something? Oh, and before you mention it later, I kind of used all the ho-"

"I know," Leif attempted to place his voice on a demeaning tone but could only cough. Some of the condensation was inhaled into his lungs. "Thanks for that."

"Well, its your fault! I didn't know you'd spend a bloody hour in here."

Leif huffed, "Well, I needed to scrub my coat off until I see blood pouring into the drain. Dried puke isn't easy to get out of feathers, Glimmer. And you should know from experience."

Glimmer chuckled at Leif's sternness, which only annoyed Leif even more. 

"Ya, well, sleep early today. You gotta job interview tomorrow."

Leif pointedly stared. "What?"

"I gotta keep you out of trouble somehow. My bosses back at the garrison are watching your 'social reforming' process and all that jazz. To see if your a law-abiding citizen and not some psychopathic convict. Whatever that means", Glimmer folded her hooves in air quotes. Of course she wouldn't know. She was one. "And the sooner I get to stop powdering your arse for you, the sooner I get some time off for myself-"

"-In the local night clubs, I presume?" snorted Leif through the suds on his beak.

Glimmer Rain retorted, "Just because all the mares think I'm-"

"-full of it. Yeah, I can see the sexual appeal," Leif muttered. He turned off the water, and groped for the towel parallel to the opaque glass shower doors.

"Whatever. You're good with numbers, right?" Glimmer Rain ignored.

"Why do you ask. Don't tell me I'm going to a university for the interview. I'm not much of an intellectual, so to speak."

"Nuh-ah-ah! It's a surprise," Glimmer teased. She backed out of the misty room, leaving Leif to dry his coat.

He dare not show his true feelings. She got off of his misery, innit? Like a child?






The steady, nausea-inducing pounding resonating through her head woke up Trixie. Her mouth tasted like bland bile and a hint of regurgitation was lingering with every breath. Not to mention the horrible morning breath, whispers of bitter alcohol escaping every breath and word that was polluting the air inside her apartment.

She steadily got up and, while comforting herself on the disdainful state of her mane and coat, wondered if something had happened last night. Did she waltz in her room all by herself? Improbable. She specifically remembered seeing the bar room floor when she attempted to get back.

So...crawling was an option?

Trixie looked at her hooves. They were in a quite pristine state, despite spending her night in a lowly bar with a health standard grade outside that she specifically ignored with every sip of Applejack Daniels. The alcohol would have devastated any of the bacteria on the glass. So, she didn't crawl into the room?

Did somepony help her back up?

More than likely. But that was a choice she would rather not believe had happened. That meant someone had spent time with her alone when she was in her most vulnerable element: Drunk and raving mad. And they were able to open the door to her locked apartment.

She'd ask the bartender here. That was it! Didn't he own the rest of the complexes also? So he was sort of the landlord. He must have had the keys, and didn't seem that much shady when she first met him. So...he probably isn't the creepy, watch-you-sleep-while-you're-intoxicated type of pony. Right?

Trixie stood up steadily, levitated her trademark hat and cape over her body, and slowly managed to reach the door, careful not to make sudden movements to make the muscles on her scalp contract any more and contribute to the migraine-level ache she had in her noggin. Or rock the contents of her stomach. There she was, starting her new life with the most obscene impression she could ever make on other ponies. As a filthy drunk. And she suspected that she might have vomited last night.

Just a tiny bit...

She hoped that nopony was mad at her for that. But for some reason...

...all she felt that a patch of dark raven-blue feathers was significant to what she had done last night.







"Hello?" Trixie anxiously announced at the front desk. There was nopony here, and she was left alone in the dull sunlight procuring enough of light to show the bustling streets outside the main floor's doors.

"Umm...anyone here?" Trixie happened to run her eyes across the concierge service bell on the desk.

Well...they must have it there for a reason.

She tapped on the bell lightly with her hoof.

The ringing ding! summoned not a sound nor soul.

She tapped it again. And again. And she clipped her hoof repeatedly on the bell until sets of rapid dings burst throughout the room that made it sound like there was a solid thrum of ringing. 

Dingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingdingdinddingdingding-

"Ah, stop tha racket, ya mare! You were worse enough to carry back last night than you are now!" An old stallion appeared behind the desk. There was a name tag upon his bar apron: W. Hops.

"What d'ya want?" he grouched.

Trixie cringed at his grouchiness, but considered that she probably was worse last night.

"Err, I wanted to say sorry for whatever inconvenience happened last night. And I want to know how exactly you got me back up in my room?" Trixie apprehensively asked.

Hops coughed, "About time. Me an' another patron got you back there. Don't worry, we didn't do anything. We were helped...assisted...watched...you know what, she didn't even do anything except follow us."

Hops looked up at Trixie, realizing that his speech wasn't very encouraging. "Never mind that. A Guard helped us get you up. If anything, we all should be worried about you. Listen, you want to apologize to the poor bloke? The other patron, I mean."

Trixie furrowed her brow, her past arrogance creeping through her current persona, "Now why would I-"

At that moment, a memory of a sensation of nausea near a pelt of feathers. Blue feather.

"Oh. I see," Trixie gritted her teeth into a nervous smile, attempting to make light of the situation.

"If you're not busy, I'm sure he'd appreciate it. He's in Room 15. Near yours," Hops grunted. "That all?"

"Uh, yeah. Thank you," Trixie blinked as the Earth stallion reared himself back towards the room behind the front desk.

Trixie asked, while she had to chance to, "Do you know where the stairs are?"

"To your right, down the hallway at the end. The elevator had to be taken down for it to be up to building code...again, so sorry 'bout that," Hop's voice boomed from the room.

Trixie turned from the desk hesitantly, making sure that she didn't hear a building grudge in the stallion's voice, and followed Hops' instructions to the letter, trailed up the stairs onto the second floor where she encountered her own numbered door, Room 9.

She counted off until she reached Room 15, almost right across from her's.

Well...hopefully, they accept my apology.

As she stretched a hoof to knock on the door, echoes transpired through her mind of her false, broken promises, of promises of her reform, of her past affirmation to find new friendships. Her hoof shook as she knocked on the door.

Trixie hoped it wouldn't be like last time.





"You look spiffy, mate. Don't worry about it. And if you think the interviewer doesn't think you're right for the position, just accidentally flash your tattoo, and you're in!" joked Glimmer Rain. 

"That would mean for me an obligatory return to the dungeons, not a damn occupation, Glimmer," growled Leif. He sighed, trying to calm his nerves. Was it alright to be nervous before a job interview? His economic livelihood didn't really depend on it. He had plenty of 'reserve funds' still hidden across Trottingham from his Fenris days, if things ever went South for him. He tried to keep their separate locations from Glimmer, though. He didn't want his blood money, no matter how ill-gotten, to vanish away due to a certain Guardsmare on a spending spree. Not in this economy.

But, by Aeolus's name, he felt nervous. Maybe his tie was on too tight. Lief, realizing this, gave a experimental tug on the most important object of business apparel. Why? Because in a society where every creature under Celestia's sun is naked, keeping a business dress code is quite important.

Leif looked at himself in a mirror, stark pale (despite having a coat of navy blue and black feathers) in a dress shirt with the sleeves tucked and a tie. No, no, no. What did I do? I made the tie too loose. Crap, I have to tie my....tie all over again. Let me see, it was criss-cross, then over, then under? Or was it under, then over?

A knock on his apartment door interrupted his thoughts.

Leif hear Glimmer yell, "I'll get it!"

Leif rushed out of the bathroom, and towards the gleeful Glimmer Rain. As he ran up to her, he stopped her with a wing.

"I think I should meet up with any new people first," Leif reasoned. "Before they start associating you with me."

Glimmer pouted, "You say that as if it's a bad thing!"

Leif gave her a meaningful stare.

"OK, fine. You answer it," Glimmer rolled her eyes as Leif walked up to the entrance of his apartment and twisted the door handle.

He opened the door, only to reveal the mare that he had quite an ecnounter from last night.

"Umm...hello," The mare greeted in a shaky tone. "Had a good ni-?"

She interrupted herself before she could say 'night'.

"Uh, never mind that. Hello, I think we've met each o- No, not that! Ummm..."

Trixie nervously bit her lower chops as her mind raced to find a proper welcoming statement that would be quite neighborly, something quite difficult to be after throwing her sick at him.

Leif held up a talon, giving Trixie a moment of relief, "How about names, first? My name is Leif. And yours?"

"TRIXIE!" the mare burst out loud. "Ahem, I mean...Trixie. Sorry about last night. That's not what I usually do, barfing on other-"

She facehoofed herself. 

"I mean, I've never done that before in my-"

Another pause. Her voice was getting an octave higher with every attempt to speak.

"You don't mind that I-"

She stopped again, until a second later she squeaked hopefully, "No hard feelings?"

Leif looked at her carefully. She didn't seem like the type to usually do that type of stuff. Maybe it was that posh, mainland-Equestrian tone of voice, (or maybe it was the wide-brimmed hat and cape) but she seemed nice enough in her behavior. At least she had the guts to apologize.

Leif breathed out, "None at all." He felt a little tension slip off his shoulders (and saw some tension slump off of her's) as he said that, until his mind froze. He had his sleeves folded. She saw his tattoo. He could feel that at any moment, she'd run out from his line of sight, pack her things, move out of the country, and lucky enough to consolidate her present status in life. He wished that you could remove it, but the bloody thing was there for good. A sign of his past. A social curse that would dispel all social interaction. But she didn't. She just stood there, giving his arm an extra look, but passing her eyes on up to his face nevertheless.

Curious.

"Now, if you don't mind me asking, you're not from around here are you?" Leif presumed.

The mare magician said, "No, I'm from the mainland." She looked at her hat and cape, and asked immediately, "What gave it away? Was it my choice of clothing? Or my accent? Or-"

"No, no, no. No need to fuss. We don't get a lot of non-natives visiting Trottingham. Just surprising, that's all," Leif shrugged. "What? Did you think I was going to persecute you for it?"

Trixie chuckled a little too forcefully, "Heh-heh...no."

"Well, glad to see some ponies like you moving here. Gets lonely somtim-"

Leif was knocked away from the doorway, Glimmer using her body as a battering ram to get to the new visitor.

Licking her hoof, Glimmer combed her mane with it in the stereotypical stallion pick-up motion, and said, "Hey there. The name's Glimmer Rain. How about you and me-"

"Oh, sorry. I'm not into mares. Did I confuse you?" Trixie innocently informed. Glimmer's face fell, as well as her charm. 

Rejection does that to you. That, and sexual preference confusion.

Leif picked himself off of the floor, and stated, "Now, before we embarrass ourselves even further in front of our new neighbor, Glimmer, you were supposed to direct me to my new job?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Trixie approached. "Are you two...close?"

There was a strict silence hanging in the air, catalyzed by her comment. It was only a logical question. She saw a male and female living together in the same apartment, giving each other conversations that radiated familiarity, but having enough playfulness for an outsider to think that they were somewhat included in some sort of relationship. Family, romantic, or otherwise.

Leif laughed all of a sudden, "Oh yeah, Glimmer could only wish."

He directed a talon next to him, to which she responded with a "Don't flatter yourself!" 

"To clear things up, Glimmer Rain's my adopted sister.  She stayed for the night because she was too lazy to get to her own flat. Or take a trolley to our parents' home."

"I object to that! Watching you guys get her drunk flank into her room was tiring enough for me! And you owe me for getting you out of pri-"

Leif muffled her mouth with a wingful of feathers. "Well, would you look at the time! It's nearing my interview. You have to show me the directions out of here, don't you Glimmer?"

The pair bustled out of the apartment and down the hallway, or rather Leif pushed Glimmer towards the direction of the exit on the second floor.

"Nice to finally meet you, Trixie. If you need some help, or some friends to talk to, just come visit us for whatever reason, really," Leif advised kindly.

Trixie raised a hoof apprehensively behind their rushing motion, returning to her original shaky, nervous tone, "Actually, do you know where I may find a job as an entertainer? For magic shows, and such. You see, I used to be a magician."

Or more like a money-gician.

Leif hurriedly blurted, "Try Bunson's. It's down the street, and it's always looking for some new talent during its club performances. Ask for directions, and when you get there, request a pony by the name of 'Side Show'. He'll audition you."

Glimmer now being allowed to trot on her own with an free mouth, tripped Leif as he wasn't looking near in what direction he placed his limbs.

"Gotcha back!" Glimmer Rain, much like a foal, shouted. She then proceeded to run away.

Leif explosively groaned. He turned before chasing after Glimmer, "See ya later, Trixie!"

Then Trixie was left alone in the hallway. It was dead quiet, except for the din of the streets leaking into the indoor interior of the apartment complex.

She stared at the spot that Leif used to be at the end of the hallway. She couldn't help but hear that one word, that one title, that Leif and Glimmer considered themselves as: 

"Friends to talk to."

Friends.

	

	

	

	

	
> Affirmative Hire
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

One month later...

For the first time in what seemed like ages, Trixie rose up from the whisps of concentration with sweat, aspiration, and an ozone stench of magical expenditure clinging to her bodily air. She was in a different state of mind, describable as a 'runner's high' for unicorns, with her horn alight and her mind frayed and open to the smoke and guiding magical leylines, invisible to the naked eye, but near magical to even the most learned unicorn no matter how aged or experienced. Only magical beings can see them, and they could only be described as something one would see in the bard's epic of Ponydysseus. Aurora-like flutters in the bare realm of imagination, revealing themselves to in-trance unicorns, their mind and body ready for its principled physical direction. From the beginning of time, only through this invisible grid could magic flow from horns, along the grounding traces of magical 'powerlines' infinite in both quality and quantity. The leylines of the Equestrian world and near-fable capabilities that the universe enables the brilliance of unicorns to shine.

Purely its sensational majesty (as true magic is molded through the mind, but unseen through the eyes) changes even the most humblest of unicorns. But Trixie had a long way to go.

A long, long way to go.

But never mind that. Back to more mundane matters, more relatable to Trixie with every fiber of her being longing for it, for a return to her past.

At last, Trixie awakens as if from dream. She opens her eyes, relishing in the details that she had once been familiar with: A stage with a silent, musing audience. The spotlight glimmering in her every move, and shining in her eyes to the point of near-hinderance. But those were just simple details. They didn't even compare to her true thoughts.

That she missed it. All of it. The tension. The cold, spiky adrenaline that trailed every beat of her heart. The dry taste in her mouth, desperate to quench her addiction to intake in order to expel. To Trixie, the feeling of balancing on a fine edge, between success and failure, was addictive, gambling, but completely worth the emotional euphoria it warmed her bones with. Soon, Trixie dissuaded herself from the mind-numbing trance of magic use, and immediately gained composure of her so-called "stage character": The Great and Powerful Trixie. She needn't show her audience all of her tricks and enigmas; she needed them to come back for more.

Trixie greeted her audience in the oh-so familiar third-person tense, her throat dry but erupting a resonant melody, "The Great and Powerful Trixie thanks you all for your patronage of her show! Did you all enjoy it?"

Without hesitation, an avalanche of cheering, wolf-whistles, and clops on the floorboard assaulted her senses. Her ego, the tiny beast within her collared, but temporarily frazzled by Trixie's nostalgiac example of her past time, purred with satisfaction. Trixie smiled as she left her audience in awe of her abilities with a quick bow, and returned behind the stage.

As the curtains closed, preparing for the next act, Trixie trotted sluggishly to a nearby chair and doffed her hat and cape on one of the hoofrests. She then proceeded to slump down on it, the chair enticing her with a promise of a leisurely nap. Trixie could have cared less that her location of performance was far below her standards. She was back home again.



After an unknown amount of time, she could feel her shoulders shaken by a pair of hooves.

"Miss Trixie, I'm afraid that, as much as I think that you deserve it, this isn't a random pub where you can fall asleep whenever you want," a voice informed.

Trixie lifted up her eyelids to the view of one of the stage assistants. A dull set of brown coat and mane greeted her.

Trixie responded hurriedly, her voice at first blindingly apparent of her annoyance of being woken up but cooled down as she talked, "Sorry. Trixie was just-err. . . I always rest a little after a performance."

But the stage assistant wasn't facing her, as she was expecting. He was magically scratching an ink-tipped plume on his clipboard, preparing for the next act. The assistant trotted away from her, and before Trixie could respond to his rather obtusive actions, he said, "Side Show has your paycheck ready, so you should go see 'im. G'night, ma'am."

Trixie raised a hoof, but the assistant disappeared among the seas of props, bustling performers, and the shady darkness behind the dimly-lighted stage. She sighed. It wouldn't hurt to have some conversation with somepony. Anypony. Wasn't that the reason why she left mainland Equestria? To actually find a being that could hold a conversation with her?

As she thought this over, she blindly wandered in the office of Side Show. Nowadays, her actions were automatic, her mind well-trained for a monetary motivation that has been sufficed for an entire month, two days a week, all followed by a trip to Side Show's office after her shows. For a manager, as she was only familiar with the authority of "me, myself, and I" over the years, he was quite agreeable and lenient... as long as she brought in profits. He was slightly gruff, but compared to what she had survived in the past, Side Show might as well have been a peaceful monk in a convent.

She gently knocked on his open door with a hoof. "Hello? I came for tonight's usual payment?"

Side Show rose his slightly balding head, followed by his sufficiently-sized belly, which bordered his desk edge. He grinned, "Ah, there's my star! You're quite a hit with the crowd tonight!"

Trixie could feel blood rushing to her cheeks, their unfamiliar warmness caressing her facial features.

"Really? Trix- I'm just a regular old unicorn. Nothing special about me."

Side Show bellowed, "Don't say that! You're absolutely too humble of your own abilities! We rarely get any unicorns around Trottingham; glamour never really was our cup o' tea. No stereotypes intended, of course."

"Anyway, here! Decided to give you a bonus for tonight," Side Show whipped out a bit-bag and a small slip of layered paper with his hooves, and slid them over his desk. He rambled on, "I haven't seen that many ponies in a bar since..."

Trixie responded with wide eyes, "What's with the sudden decision to pay in my own weight? And..."

Her hoof inched towards the slip of paper, its cheap, purple laminate reflecting a curved opposite of the lights above her. A ticket to one of her shows.

"... this?"

Side Show chortled, "Pretty lil' mare like yourself has to have a coltfriend by now, don't you? Invite him or her over. Do whatever you want with it. You've been doing good lately, better than all the others. So consider it motivation."

Trixie gave an uneasy smile. Whatever I want with it...

Her shoulders sagged as she thanked Side Show and trotted towards an exit, a path towards a promise of fresh air and a polluted night sky. There were no stars out today. The smog wouldn't allow it. Old tales she remembered from her foalhood say that the stars are souls of ponies that have past and gone beyond the veil of life. They comforted her, knowing that no matter where she was in the world, she was never truly alone.

She dearly wanted to see the stars, but now it seems her last vestige to her solution for isolation, her hope that she'll never be alone, was simply nonexistant. Navigating through the trashed, re-painted walls of the club and into the night air, Trixie looked down at the ticket, her breath visibly carried away by the midnight wind. 

I have somepony to give it to, right? I could just throw it away, simple as that! My old self could have cared less, so why should I now...

... But do I really want to become like myself again? All this wasted effort to relocation for nothing, only to just resort back to a past self like a defeated addict. Why now? Why ever, Trixie?

She huffed, and turned her head looking for a public trash can. She headed over to a bright yellow cylinder, filled with greased paper and cardboard, the rubbish dregs of society. The final resting place for something... she couldn't place her thoughts on it. The ticket was new, infettered. A chance for a better tomorrow. Why did she think that it deserved to be considered nothing less than trash?

Who do I give it to exactly? A random stranger? I barely know anypony in this city except for...

For the last three steps towards the trash disposal, her mind instantly identified three individuals.

A Guard Mare.

A grouchy innkeeper and bartender.

A gryphon.

They all helped her in some way. And it would be a poor way to thank them without showing her gratitude.

Trixie changed her mind about the ticket, which was becoming bedazzled with an incoming spray of abrupt raindrops. There would be a better tomorrow for it, a better day, welcoming it by a new Trixie who wasn't like the "Great and Powerful" variety at all. Isn't that what friends did for eachother? Provide useless, yet meaningful gifts?

She trotted off into the distance, hooves beating against the grimy, thin sidewalk. She didn't fell one bit tired. The rain kept her awake, and the stars were longer a necessity for her.







Leif coughed in the rain, drizzling water seeping into his dress shirt.

Fine day to be laid off, wasn't it? Just his luck that his specific accounting floor was completely let go by the company head.

Well that, and everypony (there wasn't a gryphon nor dragon in sight inside the workplace) was dead-scared of Leif. He didn't exactly blame them... OK, he blamed most of them. Just because a gryphon sits down silently, produces a decent output of completed forms, and has a set of suspicious markings stylized on his right arm, it doesn't mean that he was one of those 'silent serial-killer' types.

Well, considering his last occupation, they weren't far off from the truth...but never mind that. The past was the past, and his manager said that if Leif didn't go to the press with his rather solitary abandonment (Leif had a suspicion that his boss said that his whole entire floor was now unemployed was to make him feel somewhat better about his life), the manager would actually provide a recommendation for Leif's next occupation.

Right...

So, there Leif was, shouldering off the rapid drops of rain, a cardboard box of his office belongings (plus some company donations from the local utility supplies), nearly flooded with precipitation, and waiting patiently at the local bus stop.

Steam-engine buses were quite a revelation to Leif, and a step up from the usual electric trolleys, as the last time he recognized something powered by steam was a very prestigious passenger line. What was it called? The Titaneigh? Leif never kept up with the newest technology developments. It was too dynamic for him, and he could always just adapt to new technology when he got to first see it.

Leif liked to keep a 'go-with-the-flow' philosophy. It takes care of things he doesn't have time to manage. 

Like unemployment. Now that Leif thought about it, he didn't really care. For all he knew, it was going to a pony that financially needed an occupation. Bit-wise, Leif had nothing to worry about. The accounting gig was only for appearances anyway.

Still... Leif always hated when something that you could call your own came to an end. No matter how much you hated it, if it was part of your daily routine, it would feel as if somepony had sliced out a portion of your life, something left in the void to be slowly filled in with some other thing.

Leif shook his thoughts away, spraying water clinging to his mane. He hated getting depressed. Being isolated in a prison for a year didn't help with this psychological condition either.

He could see the distance lantern-lit head lights of the slowly turning bus around the street corner, the rays flashing the block as the bus turned in the direction of Leif. The noise of a growling engine echoed, joining the rushing of the rainfall. But something was slightly off with the pattering behind him.

Don't get Leif wrong. Trottingham's inhabitants were so used to the precipitation that it was just a part of their lifestyle. It was common knowledge for even the youngest of foals and cubs to know the different nuances of so much as an individual water drop against a sidewalk, building, or a nearby mailbox. And whatever object the rain was hitting behind him was none of the three. Whatever or whoever was behind Leif left a dull, echoless ring behind their reveling in the rain, with the sky's tears hitting a surface akin to a matted coat. Something organic.

Leif turned. Nothing was there, except for some bushes along the side walk, the only form of life for blocks. Urban embracing of nature was nonexistent in Trottingham. Most ponies favoring the city life felt that a metropolis should never remind them of their humble beginnings. They looked to a city as a new future, but Leif doubted that individuals could ever hide from their past. It always comes creeping back.

Leif resumed his slump in the rain. Great. Unemployed and schizophrenic. I wonder what tomorrow will bring. Knowing my luck, I'll probably contract a case of wing-rot that hasn't been seen by medical science since the Lunar Ages... 


Leif took a wild glimpse of his folded wings. He hardly used them anymore. Trottingham's courts forbid flying, lest some poor band of pegasi or gryphons get lost during a storm or be swept up by a draft into the exhausts and machinery of the sky-high industrial district. Some deaths aren't worth the hefty legal fines that detail them.

Leif snorted. It's not like he ever used his wings, but they were a part of him. He unconsciously depended on them to always be there. Just in case.

Oh yeah. They'll be definitely gone.

Leif felt a silent tap on his shoulder. He instinctively dropped his belongings, and twisted around, wings ready to provide an evasive draft and his talon exposed, ready to face an individual that should know better than to trot up behind somegryphon. In Trottingham, no less. In any other city, it would have been a friendly gesture. But not in Trottingham, and Trottingham has history.

Behind him was another gryphon clad in a black hoodie. His, or correctly termed 'her' (judging by the thinner, shorter talons), right forelimb had the same wrist sigils as Leif's, and Leif assumed that the gryphon next to him probably had the complete set tattooed.

"Leif", the gryphon cracked a dry grin underneath her hood. "It's been quite a while."

She flipped off the clothing donned on her head, revealing a short beak, pristine white feathers, piercing green eyes, and warm smile.

"Same with you, Grid," Leif relaxed, slowly whistling out his breath. She was somegryphon from his past life that he could trust with anything. That same consideration hasn't changed at all. Leif chuckled in relief, "Don't scare me like that again. I'm a heart-attack type of gryphon."

"Well I wasn't here to make an effort sneaking behind you for haybarrels and giggles. You're a hard gryphon to track. There's something else," Grid said, her smile falling as if it held a conscious weight to it. "You've been gone for a while. Things have changed... a lot, and you won't like what certain gryphons have done after all that you've gone through to sanitize our organization."

Leif looked at her, ignoring the approaching bus. "Koi? He's back?"

Grid hesitated at the name. The forbidden identification, an exiled term to everything her life meant to her work, and the other way around. She was hoping to break it to him after he had some alcohol in his system. She knew how much the news would impact him, to see sacrifices come to nothing. She slowly nodded and looked down at her talons.

"We need you. Things haven't been quite the same."

Leif's view wandered to the bus, just realizing that it had stopped in front of him.

Grid continued, her emerald pupils still downcast, "We did everything you asked us to, but we can't take action like we did in the past! We're suppose to be pacifistic now aren't we? To be altruists? To try to make a new name for Fenris?"

Leif whispered, "I quit this game a long time ago. You should to. Escape while the getting's good, and try for something on the Mainland. There's nothing here." He opened the bus door, droplets of Trottingham's depression sliding down the clear glass panes on the folding entrance. Leif wanted to help her. To set things right. But life doesn't end like all the fairy tales make out to be. Leif learned that the hard way, and he swore he'd never let something happen to Glimmer Rain ever again.

"A family of ponies died this week," Grid deadpanned. "Two adults, and their parents along with 'em. Three casualties when we tried to investigate. Same signs."

Rapid images flashed Leif's mind at the emotional trigger of 'signs'. Brand marks and blood scratched onto bodies and onto walls of housing of a cross reaching towards the directions of the wind. North, South, East, and West. The very same symbol carved into Leif's own right side.

Signs.

Grid sniffed, and tried her best to hide her tears, which camouflaged with the rain on her angular countenance. She looked where she last saw Leif, beside her. He wasn't there. The one chance she had, the one last string of hope. Gone. Forever lost to the wind. To the gutters of Trottingham.

She began to trot away into the shadow, her tail swinging low between her hind limbs. 

"Now, where do you think you're going?"

Grid turned in response to the voice. Leif's head popped out of the doorway of the public transportation vehicle, front talons clinging to the edge to balance his upper body sticking out of the entrance.

"Can't even wait for a gryphon to pay for both of our fare? I didn't give you a 'no', have I?" Leif lifted his brow in mock surprise.

Grid quickly ran up to Leif and gripped his talons with her own, as he pulled her into the bus.

Leif left his supplies on the sidewalk. He didn't need them anymore.

	

	

	



	
	
> Just to Lay Some Ground Rules...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	For the first time in his life, Leif felt uneasy, which said much considering his recent stay in prison, a place which could make problems of the mundane seem like foal's play. No, it wasn't a normal feeling of fickle nervousness, but exacerbated to be much, much more in Leif's mind. It was a type of "uneasy" that can't be shaken off, much like the pressure of failing everypony important to you, which incidentally is the origin of Leif's mental discomfort, cannot be shaken from one's thoughts either.

It was when the pair was nearing the familiar alleyways near Laxmisagar Square did Leif contemplate of what he was going to do, and breathe slowly and apprehensively in fear of Grid's reaction.

At their stop, Leif carefully navigated down from the bus's wet dirt-matted steps, and waited for Grid to follow behind him.

For a few minutes, an awkward silence built between the two Gryphons as their talons pounded the rain-streaked sidewalks. Leif was careful to not directly lead Grid to the apartment complex. Paranoia was a strange, unneeded habit of his, but he could feel something change in the air he was breathing. 

It wasn't the everyday air-pollution from the factories that everypony and their grandmothers had grown to the sight and scent of, no, but Leif could feel his windpipe slowly constrict more and more in anxiety ever since he heard Grid's news.

Trottingham wasn't safe anymore. Leif had dearly tried to save the city a year ago. His city, and everypony inhabiting it. But he had severely underestimated the luring exhilaration of crime; the city's rotting, corrupting essence of its past has spread into its own future.

Leif no longer had the same optimism for Trottingham's survival as he did a year's time before. Betrayal, the bitterness of reality, and the isolation of his sentence grated his nerves, his patience, his outlook and compassion.

He didn't care for Trottingham much now. Its cold streets  and blades laid inroads into his heart, chilling all passionate efforts and thoughts with an imperative, hard-earned yet hard-learned moral: Some objects in life, like peace and love, are just a foal's dream.

Leif decided to break the silence, shattering the near-unapproachable wall that encumbered his present goal of self-survival, and a better life for him and his friends, with or without Trottingham. He stopped silently, and as Grid noticed with surprise, she turned after having taken a few unaware steps ahead of Leif.

Leif hoarsely said, "Grid, do you ever think you're making a difference here?"

Grid's face twisted in incomprehension, "Leif, you decide to turn melodramatically philosophical now?"

A sigh. Another puff in the humid smog. Wait, did she just say I was being melodramatic?

"Just... bear with me here. Prison gives you time to think the same things over and over again."

Grid decided to amuse Leif, and said, "Well, we've gone this far, and no matter how much you would want to end everything with 'honorable retreats' or 'unconditional victories', we're in this deep. And there's no stopping with what's to come. You feel me?"

Leif softly breathed out his nostrils. "So I'm guessing you're all for staying?"

Grid answered, "Of course! My friends are here, my fam—"

She stopped and looked to the ground. "Well... never mind that. All I'm saying is that we have an obligation to stop every bloody thing that's happened in Trottingham. We've partaken in it during our disillusionment. "

"The royalty of the ponies can control all this. They took this place from the Gryphons and Dragons that once existed here. It's not our responsibility anymore."

Grid hissed, "We are responsible, and we have the so-called 'scars' to remind us of it everyday!" She motioned to her right forearm, though her feathers were wet and stuck to eachother, the ink underneath her skin stained the feathers that would forever link her to every tragedy that Trottingham had endured. 

Her tattoo. Same as Leif's. The same as every Gryphon that felt distant of another species ruling their land. And the same as every brainwashed Gryphon that wished for the delicious lust of power. 

Power doesn't corrupt, but the required greed and journey to reach for it absolutely does...

The moon was high in the air, shining its white gloom against both of the Gryphons' coats. The water was going to be a complete bitch to dry off, especially before attempting flight. But that was in the past, when Gryphons were free to fly towards the heavens and whose wings were unrestricted by law and taboo alike. Back when a fellow Gryphon could stretch one's wings without seeming like a violent pariah, attempting to signal an imminent slaughter or sudden suicidal explosion.

Back when freedom, before the now-edifice towering skies and strict regulations of Ponies had come to exist, was as flighty of a mistress as the Holy Wind.

Leif decried, "We're young. We have life and spirit in us still. Let those who have sinned, the patriarchs and matriarchs before us, take over and solve their own problems. They don't concern us anymore."

"You can't run from your problems, Leif."

"I can if they can't chase us. Trottingham is secluded by an entire ocean; The rot won't spread easily, but once something has been soiled, you can't help it. Not when a once beautiful, shining apple has already rotted. Once corruption begins, you can't root it out. The nature of a tree is to produce many fruits, so it can bring prosperity even in the face of destruction. We won't have to worry about it. We can, and have to, leave this place."

It appeared that Leif's sudden, and ill-placed metaphor was completely lost on Grid. This conversation was getting awfully abstract.

Grid coughed, "Wait... what did the tree represent, again?" 

Leif pinched the bridge of his beak. He had to try a different approach to this. 

"Look, when I first got out, I thought I could start over. Turn over a new leaf, so to say. Why? Because I thought everything that Koi, his regime of the Schism, and everything he stood for, was dead. As dead as everything below this Square. Laxmisagar Square."

The thought of maggots inching through decay and bone floated through his mind. What was imagined to be in of whose body they were in disappeared.

"And then I got home, my actual home, with a family that cared about me. There I found... I don't know... hope? Actual hope that some of the damage done here in Trottingham could actually, you know, be repaired."

Leif snorted, "But then again, optimism's very fickle. You turned up and... news of Koi did, too..."

Grid growled, "So you blame me? For everything that happened while you were gone? You basta—"

Leif shook his head, "—No. It couldn't be helped. You did the best that you could, it's what any of us could ever hope for." 

"So that's why," Leif said, placing a talon lightly on Grid's shoulder, "I'm relieving you of command. I've left you with too many responsibilities, too little time, and no foundation to base anything on a year ago. Every loose end was tied rapidly and without care. And before I knew it, the cooperation of our defiant splinter group with the Royal Guard quickly ended, leading to my arrest."

Leif's talons grew firmer. Not too much force, but enough to exert some sort of meaning in the physical pressure. Something akin to camaraderie, he supposed, but he hoped that the message got through.

Leif contemplated that word. Hope. I'm too hard-pressed to make actual results for pessimism to ever cross my mind. Maybe that's what I need right now: A reality check. Because whatever I'm gonna do after gonna be completely balls out, off the top of my head, yet intentional. Very intentional.

"So that's why I'm asking you all this. That's why I asked if saving Trottingham was all worth the trouble. I have no faith in this city", Leif prodded, loftily directing a talon to buildings of Trottingham's captains of industry, the heart of the city. "And neither should you. And that is entirely  why I'm going to ask you right now..."

Leif wanted to make it clear. He knew Grid, therefore he knew she was about to barrage his ears with furious, actually logical arguments once he said what he had to say. 

But he was prepared for it. He had a plan... sort of.

Because plans a few minutes in the making, thought up of while in a bus ride secluded from any recent and reliable sources of information, turn out to work really well.

Right.

Leif continued, "... to leave."

As if a shockwave was sent through Leif's last word, Grid's stony facial expression shattered as her face became downcast and her brows lowered. Her beak opened slightly, as if she was to utter something, but closed immediately, almost as if Grid was ashamed of her potential response.

"Don't you think it's time we stopped operations here?"

Grid whispered fiercely, "I'm never leaving!"

"I'm dead serious about this," Leif glared. "Memory isn't as good as it used to be, but—"

"No one who went through initiation in Fenris ever had anything less of a brain, less of a single doubt, after we joined. So, go ahead. Test it out. 'Wade in dangerous waters and see what you find next'," Grid quoted from a text that she once religiously worshiped. "Leave this alone, Leif. I've made my mind."

Leif said, "It was your idea in the first place, Grid! A year ago, you wanted to leave this place."

Grid started to walk away and returned to him, "And I recall that you were the one who wanted to stay. That was your main flaw, you always were too stubborn to believe that any plan of yours could ever go wrong. And if you want to leave, so be it. Go. Leave us behind, and I doubt your sister or Hops will either." 

Leif gritted his beak at her nerve. "How long do you think this is gonna take this time? A year? Two? Five?! All of it invested to stop that psychopath?" 

"Let me try at least—"

"—I already did, and you already did, too. And what are you playing at, mentioning Glimmer Rain? Do you know how broken you left her when you left to fight your own little war in these streets?"

Silence. Grid hadn't expected that.

She lowly whispered, "Y-you don't know that." Guilt spread across her face, as if it's always been rooted there.

"I still spent enough time with her before my time in a dungeon to see how sad she was."

Leif, getting a glance at her face, quickly added, "Grid, the meaning was there, but sometimes it's better to use words than actions. So that's why I'm asking you to leave. Get as many of our people out as possible. And leave the past behind us."

He thought that he finally ended the argument. They were getting out of Trottingham. Anypony else could go to Tartarus.

He was, of course, wrong. The argument was about to reach the "unreasonable retorts" stage.

Grid said, "No. I'm not." 

"Grid, think reasonably," Leif warned.

"I've already thrown away too much of my time on this. A year or two won't make a difference."

Leif wearily groaned, "Grid, you're gonna kill yourself doing this!"

Grid snorted, "Hypocrite. I'm trying to finish what you started. I know a lost cause when I see one, and this one isn't it... as much as I first doubted it."

"And now, if you excuse me," Grid harrumphed, "I have a couple of arseholes to find... with or without your help."

Her talons plodded through the shallow puddles along the sidewalk, rhythmically piercing Leif's ear canals. Panicky adrenaline began to shock the nerves down Leif's spine. His main opportunity to set things right was literally walking away...

"Grid," Leif choked. His arrogance finally found itself to be subjective. "If I get into this game again... make me a promise."

Grid turned, a hidden smile across her beak, and teased, "Why... of course."

"Let me take over again... and if anything happens to me, you're pulling out, whether you want to or not. Along with the rest of us, and Hops and Glimmer."

Grid didn't say anything, but after several seconds of considering the offer, she slowly skipped her way back to Leif and said, "Well, I guess I can't let anything to happen to you."

Leif mentioned quickly, "And you have to meet up with Glimmer Rain."

"That," Grid sluggishly responded with her gaze down and shoulders sagging, "is not a good idea."

Leif chuckled, "I can still read faces pretty well. You're guilty you ended it, because getting too close to somepony usually ends in heartbreak and tragedy around here." 

No response. Leif continued, "But, you still like her, and get her drunk enough, she'll begin to like you, too."

Grid lifted her head back up, "You think so? I mean, obviously not the intoxication part, bu—"

"Yes," Leif simply left it. Maybe he was exaggerating a little. Glimmer always did like to hold grudges...

Grid's body language suddenly exploded into excitement, and her smile returning. She began a quick jog towards a street, and Leif automatically followed, leaving the Square and the past behind.

Grid happily said, "Then let's get to it! Got an informant about where Koi's leading his operations. Took about a weeks to get a sighting of even one  of the informants themselves..."

Leif lifted an eyebrow, attempting to keep the pace, though with some physical difficulty, "I take it (huff) that these informants (huff) aren't going to consentingly reveal the location?"

"Not when one of them's a lieutenant, Aryet, a bodyguard to Koi himself. He's getting too arrogant, letting his staff loiter around in the districts."

"Wait... one of them? I thought you said informants? You know, in a plural tense?"

Grid had a grim smirk on her beak, "The other two might have ended up somewhere at the bottom of Trottingham Harbor, because they decided to slip that they had participated in the massacre incident I mentioned earlier at the bus stop. But they were clueless, obviously, only hinting that the lieutenant might know. Idiots."

Grid immediately stopped and turned, Leif of course tailing her. After a few more, they headed into the food districts, the aroma and neon lights dazzling their senses, and exited soon into the entertainment district. Artificial black lights blurred Leif's vision as he passed the nearby... establishments. He tried to not look at the dancing mares.

Taking over where she left off, Grid panted slightly, "Aryet's visiting a local exotic-dancing 'exhibit', and if we're lucky, we can sneak him out into an empty room, bathroom, or alley."

Leif asked, "Then?" His lungs couldn't manage to exert enough air to carry out more than one word.

Grid hastily yanked a garrote and taser out from under her wings, the universal "saddle" of Gryphons.

She gave a blood thirsty smile, "Then we make him talk... and make him atone for every soul in Trottingham he tainted."



> Fire burns the body, cleanses the soul
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"Oi, Glimmer! Aren't ya suppose to beh doing something?" grumbled Hops, placing a bit more force on his glasses with a cloth than usual.

Glimmer Rain snorted awake and took her hind hooves off of a nearby barstool, which is bad manners even in a cesspit of a place like a bar. Smacking her chops, she wearily answered, "Er, you're asking the wrong mare to expect to have any sort of responsibility..."

Hops growled, slamming the glass he was wiping onto the pub table, something that an Earth pony even at Hops's age shouldn't be able to do. The sound of said slamming shattered all remaining sleepiness from Glimmer Rain, and therefore she stood up straighter.

"I thought you were going to keep a closer eye on your brother! He's not acting right."

Glimmer Rain yawned, "Oh, c'mon. He was behaving completely normal—"

Hops said, "—You mean the behavior before or after he got mixed into that bunch?"

Glimmer Rain asked, her lids beginning to close once more, "What, wasn't he always moody?"

Glimmer heard Hops sigh explosively. She straightened her posture again, which began to slouch once more, to a reaction to what she knew to be the spark in the short fuse that was Hops's quick temper. 

Sure he received her attention and emotional sobriety, Hops carefully grunted, "Just... keep an eye on 'im, lass. I don't feel as easy as you do of his... activities."

Glimmer Rain rolled her eyes, and shuffled around in her chair until she could find an idle napping position again on the rigid, ascetic wooden platform. Nothing to worry about.

"Hops, get that stick outta your flank. After everything that's happened, I doubt he's going to do anything illegal."





Leif whispered in the darkness, "This is so totally illegal, that I don't even know where to bloody start."

Grid dropped the body of their prisoner without bending, leaving the almost-carcass to wetly smash into the cobblestone boulevard. There was a slight groan, then no more. Only the silent sound of arteriole blood leaking into the cracks were heard.

The pair stopped to —admire is too strong a word— observe the decrepit edifice in front of them, the remains of an old Gryphon synagogue. The early days of Fenris were planned here, and some of the old order still frequent the place even though the holy grounds and the blocks around it have been abandoned.

Or so Aryet, the still twitching body on the sidewalk, had informed after a quite... violent interview of rigor.

Grid harrumphed, "Having second thoughts... again?"

"And you wonder why everything ended up like it did. We should have just left the city to a higher authority to rot," Leif exhaled so the feathers on the tip of his mane directed upwards.

"Well, we were the higher authority around here once," Grid dangerously smiled. She had that glint of her eyes, the same glint that old veterans of even older wars have whenever they re-display their life's experience through tales. "And once we're done here, then I'm leaving you in charge like you wanted."

Grid turned, thumping a dull portion of one of her talons into Leif's chest multiple times, "So, no... turning... back. Intellegis?"

Leif grumbled in agreement, "Ita vero."

"Good, so enough of the high-school Gryphon squawk, and let's start the flames here," Grid amusingly declared.







Leif was confident. Confident that what he was doing was wrong, on so many levels.

He was about to send off a blazing effigy, a message of war, to those still remaining in Fenris that they wouldn't be tolerated any longer in this equine-ruled province (ironically). But this was once a place of peace, this residence of spirits and the mutual search of enlightenment, a holy location that Leif had once valued as a sanctuary. It was getting harder and harder to even think about the image of a dropping a lit match onto the synagogue's cool floors.

Now he was about to take part in making nothing but ash out of it. Grid was once in the same horseshoes as he was, but... she moved, exerted an aura, like she was enjoying pouring gasoline in every nook and cranny, as if it was something wind-blessed.

Everypony—and gryphon—had their demons after all.

A muffled shriek crossed the hall from Aryet. The pain wasn't dulling his existence, and Grid wanted a clean corpse, hence the hog-tying and lack of severed limbs.

As Grid poured the rest of the airship fuel, she groaned, "Why can't he just shut up?"

Leif offered, allowing his own jerry can to flood the flooring with its noxious fumed liquid, "Well you did just slice much of his—"

Another groan.

Grid said, "Let's get this over with, before he wakes up the neighborhood."

Leif smirked, "This area's been abandoned for years. I don't think anygryphon's coming back."

"I wasn't talking about the living, smart-arse."

He coughed, "...Huh?"

Grid hovered close, just for a lingering moment, as if there were beings watching them enthusiastically, "Ghosts. I don't care if you don't believe in them, but I do. Too much blood spilled around here for there not to be any malevolence left.

"So, let's go. Gotta finally put 'em to rest with a nice, controlled cremation," Grid said, quickly leaving the grounds with a trail of fuel streaming behind her. She left Aryet and Leif in the interior of the synagogue in the echoes of her footsteps.

She didn't look back, and Leif definitely heard the snap of a lit match.

So, that's why you came here, Grid...

Leif didn't ask anymore questions of doubt, or even say a word as he followed her out. Aryet's decries of his misery were getting fainter, his guilt distracted by the particular bone of Grid's reasoning. Grid always was saddened by every death, no matter how small, back in the past. That trait made her seem unreliable, erring in judgement, and unable to hide emotion in face of opposition.

But that characteristic made Grid honorable, something plainly missing in Trottingham to its core.

By the time Leif decided Grid's emotion-biased morality was to be allowed for in this new conflict, to even be respected and copied even, the lost souls of innocents roared in approval through the rising flames.

Leif estimated in around 10 minutes, the synagogue will collapse and officials would arrive at the scene.

They would find the grounds empty of its sacrilegious ideals. They would find the charred remains of Koi's lieutenant.

And whether they want it or not, they'll find hope in this city.

More than enough reason to escape the scene of the crime immediately.





"I entrust that you'll go through with this," Leif added.

Grid nervously chuckled, "Heh-heh, why wouldn't I? It'll be one big brawling—"

"— family reunion. You're family here."

"Glimmer Rain won't think that..."

Leif gripped Grid's shoulders and pushed them forward towards the bar entrance, "Yeah, well neither can't knock it 'till you try it. And I just burned down a damn church for this, so go on."

With a push, in went Grid, and so did Leif.

Leif walked through Hops's door and the pub's disgustingly warm atmosphere. It was the same the way Leif left it, except with a great deal more drunks and destitutes. It was nearing midnight after all.

That new mare, Trixie, was there, talking to Glimmer Rain and waving some sort of ticket around. Both were fine, one was enthusiastic and the other bored and somewhat annoyed, but when Leif's eyes inched towards the bartender, he saw just how pissed Hops was.

Hops began his scolding, walking towards the pair and making the liquid in any nearby glass tremble, "Where've you been, lad? Do you know what time it is?"

Leif, bewildered by Hops's rage, mildly retorted, "Well, I just got fired, so I didn't exactly have a reason to take a gander at the city clock tower."

Hops stammered at the news, though only for a nanosecond, and growled with a bare smidgen of gentleness, "You can't just wander around on these streets, job or no job... And why's that traitorous banshee of a gryphon here? She's been nothing but trouble for this family!"

Hops's mention of Grid, who, despite her bravado in her previous act, was trying her best to not meet Hops's gaze, prompted Leif to say, "She wanted to say something to Glimmer Rain. I'm just here for moral support."

Or in case of a patented Glimmer Rain tantrum...

Leif gestured to Glimmer Rain, sleeping in her chair and completely ignoring her assignment to watch over her adopted brother, and stated while ignoring Hops temporarily, "So, Grid, Glimmer's right there. I'll leave it up to you what you want to say to her, since you know her better than me. Take as much time as you want."

Glimmer stood with an unnatural stillness and couldn't say anything for a few moments, but she managed to eventually whine, "I can't do this..."

Leif whispered close to her ear so Hop couldn't hear of his somewhat-close-to-a-son's recent vigilanteeism, "I burned down a church, probably initiated a war that I'll die in, and sacrificed my beliefs in order to avenge every individual creature that was murdered by our actions a couple of years ago... all to see Glimmer Rain happy again. I already tortured her and Hops enough with my existence, and you're either the best or worst gryphon for the job of making her smile again."

Grid sniffed, "Really?"

Leif said, "I'm sure of it... or at least get her to be less lazy."

He turned towards Hops's direction and before Hops and Leif continued their shouting match, Leif mouthed, "Go on."

Grid and Leif trotted opposite ways, with Leif quickening the pace out of Glimmer's and Grid's vicinity.

Hops shouted, "I ain't done with ya, boy! You're not going anywhere unless you start explaining why you smell like diesel and guilt!"

"Oh yes, I am! There's going to be a storm from Tartarus in that room, and nothing you say is going to get me back in there!"
	

> "It's Over!"- My Apologies for this Cancellation, and the rest of the storyline
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------





I'm not going to lie, I hated this story the moment I got out the first few chapters. Like... I REALLY hate it. I despise it. I wasted MONTHS on this friggin story when I could have continued working on the Behemoth sequel, or on my other stories I still haven't published for approval yet.

I trapped myself in a corner with the storyline. I made it WAY too predictable, and I hated writing every minute of it.

The only reason I kept on trying to write this story was because, apparently, some of my readers like this.

Something happened however. It was something both of a Celestia-given miracle and a Tartarus-ish curse.

Every chapter and developing chapter that I typed on Word Document but I didn't copy-pasta on here (don't look at me like that, I had to frequently change locations and laptops, so I couldn't use Google Drive unless I REALLY wanted a hassle), became corrupted and unusable when I went to make my final spell check of them.

But please don't make me keep on writing this. Please understand me. There are numerous tortures I'd rather go through than continue writing and/or re-typing this story, for example, burning for eternity in an underground realm, starving to death, watching Bonanza reruns in Finnish.

I'll even write down the basic outline of the rest of the storyline down below to truly complete this story if you wanted to read this through to its end.

Again, I'm so sorry. I was so tempted to just delete this story and rid myself of this, but you guys got me through for the first half of it.

친구, 당신을 감사합니다.

-Kishin





After Glimmer Rain somewhat trips balls and almost begins to pummel Grid in her fury, they make up.

Trixie was in the process of asking Glimmer Rain and Hops (and everypony else in the pub) to go to her show. She wants to prove to at least one pony or gryphon that she has talent, that she isn't a failure, and that she has reformed morally, so she earnestly wants to somepony see her perform.

When she asks Leif, Leif strangely seems to have forgotten who Trixie was, but with some reminding of Grid and Glimmer Rain, he beings to remember faint memories. (His refusal to kill his brain cells with alcohol and easy capability to discard memories hinted earlier in chapters will be explained later)

She gets Leif to go, through some sort of persuasion that I haven't figured out yet (Magic!), and as Leif arrives at the entrance at the performance's location (after being teased maliciously by Glimmer Rain), he gets jumped by Koi himself and his gang and Leif is pulled into the alley of the building that the performance is being held in.

Koi questions Leif roughly (How rough? A knife was involved) who caused the fire in the Fenris synagogue  (which is basically the equivalent to bombing a mosque in the Helmand or Kandahar Provinces of Afghanistan and telling every person in every village of the provinces that you did it), and Leif reluctantly reveals that it was his plan, though it was Grid's, to burn down the synagogue and that he was alone in the act.

Their encounter reveals that Koi, a red feathered gryphon with gleaming predatory blood-orange eyes and blind in one eye from a stripped line of scar tissue, were once close comrades, partners, and blood brothers until Leif became disillusioned by the vague actions of Fenris that'll be mentioned in the third paragraph after this and attempted to kill Koi and all Fenris members.

Koi hands a single silver flintlock pistol over to Leif, mentioning that he wants to return both Leif's property and return the favor of what Leif did to one of Koi's eyes (hence the injury and blindness of said eye), but Koi leaves Leif battered, shanked, and left to die with infectious wounds, saying that he's a "Better comrade, and gryphon, than [Leif] ever will be", so Koi doesn't stab Leif's eye... he just stabs him nearly to death bodily. Leif keeps the flintlock hidden behind his wings. Trixie, midway in her performance, hear's someone's screaming that there's a gryphon body in the alley. Her mind automatically jumps to the most defining image of Leif: his cross tattoo from his Fenris days. Accidentally, Trixie casts the image of the cross during her performance, and since it's basically a symbol universally hated by gryphons and ponies alike, she gets fired and black-listed from performing throughout Trottingham.

Glimmer Rain, Hops, and Trixie (Though from a mixture of fear of being next and guilt, Grid didn't arrive) are visibly relieved to see Leif still alive in his hospital bed. He manages to temporarily break out of unconsciously to slap the flintlock he hid behind his wings into the hooves of a very, very surprised Glimmer Rain, and tells her to give it to Grid to hide and take an assignment out of Trottingham. Leif then tells Hops to escape of Trottingham also, but when Hops stubbornly refuses, Leif tells Hops where he hid his loot from his Fenris crime sprees and tells him to use the money to move Hops's business towards the safe(well, safer than the poor, crime-infested districts on the outskirts of the city) core of the city. Leif reluctantly is forced to swear that he's leaving with them, and won't remain in the city to fight Koi himself (HINT, HINT, COUGH, COUGH). Lastly he apologizes to Trixie for missing her performance. He tells Glimmer to tell Grid to call in a favor to somepony vaguely nicknamed "the Commodore", and that Trixie would find a respectful, credible third chance for a performing career. Leif proceeds to fall into unconsciousness again.

Trixie, confused by the sudden information/cultural overload of the past day, asks Glimmer Rain what kind of events in Leif's, and Trottingham's, past would result in all this trouble and an even newer career oppurtunity. Glimmer, with a few drinks in her back at the pub, explains how before ponies had colonized and taken over Trottingham after the Solar War (Equestria's rough founding of its boundaries), mainly Earth ponies, gryphons and dragons had lived at peace on Trottingham. With the dragons siding with Equestria during the war, and the defeat of the Gryphon Empire, Trottingham was ceded to Equestria. Thousands of years later, several years before present day, an organization forms on Trottingham based on the Gryphon religion of the Heavenly-guiding Wind (A belief that goes with a period during Gryphon history of sort of a Zen, "go with the tide" movement post-war that made sure that any opposing force against the Gryphons would "wash over them, like waves smoothing a rock") and also of a particularly violent wolf God of Vengeance, Fenris. Thus the Fenris organization formed, its members mainly Gryphons disgruntled that their land was taken from them and used as living space and industrial construction by ponies and also hopeful in revenge of their fallen comrades and dignity of their Empire. Violence and guerilla warfare wrecked the streets of Trottingham, and after Leif's original parents died in the conflict and is adopted and raised by Glimmer Rain's parents and Hops, he becomes more bitter by the day of the death of his parents. He eventually joins Fenris, and Glimmer Rain, horrified of Leif's eventual transformation into a murderer, enlists in the Royal Guard, hoping to one day find and take Leif back home. At this point, Glimmer Rain mentions how in Fenris, new recruits were passed through a violent initiation ceremony where they were drugged and beaten to the point that they forgot who they were in order to erase any sense of doubt and make them loyal servants who would serve the cause of Fenris until they died. Glimmer Rain, during a street battle where she catches a glimpse of a initiated Leif, is captured by Fenris forces. She is almost raped and tortured violently by Leif himself (He is ordered to by Koi), until Leif sees her tear-stained face (I repeat, nothing bad happened to Glimmer). Leif's brain-washing malfunctions and shoots a glancing shot with his silver flintlock at Koi's head before he's forced to harm Glimmer in any way, shape, or form (Koi lives, but he is blind in the eye a ball bearing scarred). 

He escapes with Glimmer Rain, makes sure she's safe, and forms a rogue faction of Fenris with individuals that also become disillusioned at the lives they once carelessly ended. This rogue faction worked together with the Royal Guard of Trottingham for 3 years and won the war with Fenris (During this 3 year period, Grid met Glimmer Rain), but Leif was forced to step down as leader of the faction and was arrested for his crimes during his time with Fenris. Leif wanted to resist, as he thought his actions and sacrifices during the 3 year period would make up for his past crimes, but Glimmer Rain persuaded him to "End the fighting. Trottingham's seen enough blood patter down on its roofs and drains" and give himself up in hopes that he can get out early, get an easier sentence, and be imprisoned in humane living conditions for cooperating with officals (which doesn't happen. Leif is imprisoned in the worst dungeon in all of Equestria known for its vast collection of the worst criminals still alive).

Glimmer Rain tells that the reason Leif doesn't drink alcohol or manages to forget who Trixie even was back at the pub is because the Fenris initiation damaged Leif's short term memory. He can still remember things if he attempts it with enough effort, and some memories can easily be reminded with a few conversations with that pony, but some details are lost to him, a permanent reminder of what Fenris did or any other organization of force is willing to do to others.

Leif, though his story is somewhat more morbid than Trixie's, is relatable to Trixie because he'll forever live with the guilt (like Trixie has) of the damage done to others, and that he'll live the rest of his life attempting to atone for his crimes.

Grid nervously walks over, and after receiving the flintlock and request to call in a favor, she mentions of what Leif and Grid did to cause Koi's anger. Days later, Leif arrogantly ignores medical advice and returns back home. He arranges airships trips for Hops, Glimmer Rain, Trixie, and even Grid (The rogue faction of Fenris is no longer willing to participate in defeating Koi because the Royal Guard had betrayed them at the end of the 3 year alliance, so when Leif learns that he won't be getting back-up, he tells Grid to leave with Glimmer Rain, and use his contacts to get jobs for Trixie and herself), and travels by tram with Trixie to travel to "The Commodore". The Commodore is revealed to be owner of the the famous Cirque de la Lune (The Equestrian equivalent to our Cirque du Soleil), and through an old favor from Leif (he protected the circus once during a performance from Fenris), and he gives Trixie the position of one of the main acts.

Though Leif admits that it was his fault and his past mistakes that caused Trixie to get black-listed by every hiring agent in Trottingham, Trixie thanks him, and kisses him on the cheek during her zeal. Leif is the only one in her life to have given her a new chance in life, and a shot at a job that every performer would kill for.

Comes the day that everypony and gryphon in the gang has to leave on the airship fields, when Koi arrives with his gang. Before Koi is sighted in the field, Trixie, the last passenger aboard, makes Leif promise to write, because she wants to make sure Leif is never alone in his pursuits of atonement, much to Leif's hidden anxiety at Trixie's irony (Leif now wishes to end the conflict between Koi and himself, even if it comes to the deaths of both of them). Leif distracts Koi long enough for the airship to lift off (which is forces to leave without him in order for the airship to make a quick getaway), and in his anger, Koi proceeds to try finishing the job he started by taking back the silver flintlock (which was discarded during the fight, as Leif reveals he promised Glimmer Rain when he rescued her that he would never use a flintlock ever again) and uses his own flintlock to shoot Leif in his wings, so he'll never escape from Koi's sights ever again. Koi proceeds to trot over to a wounded Leif with a knife, but Leif grabs the silver flintlock from Koi's belt and aims it Koi's head. Koi amusingly asks what happened to Leif's promise to never use a firearm, believing Leif too weak (both physically and mentally) to pull the trigger, but Leif remarks that, nowadays, he's finding it difficult to keep promises. The reason why he didn't shoot at Koi at first site on the airfield was because Glimmer Rain, Grid, Hops, and Trixie would have seen him kill, which would place a contradiction of the moral image they have of his last moments in the minds of his friends.

Then this plays as rain starts to fall on the airfield:


Leif smirks perhaps his last smirk, mouths out silently "Bang", and fires away the flintlock at Koi's head.

The strangely clear rain, which is rare with the level of pollution in the clouds and air in Trottingham, pours over the heads of the Fenris mob and Leif. It symbolizes that, as multiple gunshots are heard above the shower of both the usual, and unusual occurence of rain, that Trottingham is purified of its evils, and that not even the blood that spilt on the field that day, whether it be from Fenris, Koi, or Leif, can ever fester the new Trottingham ever again.

And yeah... I managed to leave that cliffhanger there. Did Leif die, since I vaguely mentioned that there were MANY gunshots AFTER Koi died? What happened to Glimmer Rain, Hops, and Grid? Will Trixie ever hear from Leif again?

Well read the ending, and find out :)

	
	
> Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A year later...

Trixie's breath puffed into clouds around her, joining the bracing winter air mixed with the vapor of the nearby locomotive. Trottingham wasn't known for its insurmountable crime any longer, but instead for its bustling ports, its revitalized city life that fully embraced a hybrid pony/gryphon culture, and now apparently for its newly installed tram and train lines that stretched across the country. Trixie even heard rumors of an ambitious project of a few entrepreneur unicorns in Canterlot that planned to fund the construction of a rail line across the vast Ambleantic Ocean, connecting Trottingham with mainland Equestria.

To Trixie, the city didn't feel the same way as it did before. Perhaps, when Trixie first arrived, she was too focused on retrieving a future lost to her that she ignored the nitty-gritty details of the city. Perhaps, back then, she didn't care. A year ago, her broken heart matched in tone and repetition to Trottingham's, and as if she had never left, the city's palpitations now matched with the hope-embraced heart of Trixie's, as well as the introductions of a million others', all hoping to find a better life in the revived city-state of Equestria. 

It transformed along with Trixie, and with that knowledge, Trixie felt a kinship with the city, the same friendship grudgingly found in sessions of group therapy, a togetherness that can only be obtained by surviving the same ordeals.

Confident that Trottingham's metamorphosis had indicated a positive change in Trixie's own life, the repentant magician magically willed her bags forward from the frost-layered ground, in search of a familiar face...

The sole object that, however, Trixie hoped never to see change was her friends. Isolation was never something she intended to suffer of again.





Trixie couldn't see him. The gray skies shedding fallen snow had darkened, and the train station's lights illuminated paths along the rail road and inside the station itself. Other than a few families welcoming new arrivals, she walked alone.

It reminded her of her first sordid journey to Trottingham at a local seaport. The mist choked her and weighed down her luggage, and the city lights in the far distance striking her eyes through the salty fog teased her of how alone she was. Somewhere in the city were families, friends, lovers. Ponies that had the capacity to listen to your day, to smother you with their attention and affection. 

She found friends of course.

But what did it matter if you simply "found" some? Why should the past ever involve itself in the present, the future? Something Trixie had strived to experience was a constancy. She didn't want change, but a nice healthy conservation of... well, everything.  

She achieved that with constant mail and letters to the friends she made in Trottingham, especially one. At first, they've grown close through the letters, even though they were separate by vast distances. As tension developed, things were said in those letters, further developments of what happened in Trottingham a year ago. And then time past, and those communications slowed in frequency. Trixie missed them dearly. Impersonal words on blank paper didn't do their faces and innocent little quirks justice. And as soon as time past, it seemed that she really did lose them by way of distance.

Making friends are easy. Keeping them is the challenge.

Trixie snorted to herself, waiting in the night atmosphere. The train station was empty now, leaving her alone to her thoughts, breathing, and the bustling fray of the nearby city. Snow began to litter the cold concrete and drainage grilles, the only exception to the pure, heavenly blanket being the hoofsteps left behind her trailing trot.

Soon, with the Moon coursing through the sky, doubts clouded Trixie's patience. He's not here. What'd I expect? Trottingham's changed, and so have I. Why did I think that something, someone, couldn't have been affected by such a wave of flux. Ponies and Gryphons change, and most don't reflect what they've left behind and witness their past and mistakes.

So why can't I?

She wondered and waited for Celestia knew how long. The snow was beginning to accumulate on her coat and luggage, which were neglected during her personal contemplations. She ran through all the things that she was going to squirm and chatter endlessly to Leif, of her adventures and mishaps, of her successes and failures, of her perseverance and defeat, of her love and guilt. On the train ride, the tension and dreaded excitement of withholding all her pent-up excitement placed an unimaginable weight on her chest, something she mentally frenzied to displace, to explode, to destroy the dams of secrecy and all-well-known tendency of sentient beings to tell all, to share experiences. Such impulses would embitter her no more, she thought. She decided a year was enough. Things had to be said.

But she no longer felt the necessity of "telling", just a hole where a chuck-head of stray emotions and memories from a year of exploration and work had drilled into, presently leaking and replaying in her head.

Once she finished reminding and replaying her massive tale, a compilation of an annual's worth, in her consciousness to relieve herself of the burden, she sighed again in the cold. She picked up her luggage, and began the journey to ending her pilgrimage to Trottingham: The entrance of the train station's ticket booth back to her hometown.

However, as soon as she got up and placed a hoof on the frosty, ice-encrusted platform of the train station, the friction between the hoof and the ground gave way, her imbalance now allowing both her face and concentration on holding her luggage up hit the cement.

Trixie coughed out a mouthful of snow, and first checked her frost-bitten snout for a loss of teeth. Exasperated, she carefully stood back up, not giving a care of her mundane misfirtune. As the Saddle Arabian saying went, 'there wasn't a need to beat a horse if it's already defeated and dead'.

She started to heft her luggage bags one by one, as waiting hours in the middle of a raging winter exposed leaves one quite tired, until she realized one of her bags were missing.

Why'd I trust those letters into fooling me? I hoped that somehow everything would be the same, and every word said in those letters were true...

Somepony tapped Trixie on her shoulder. The touch literally melted the snow off her 'cold shoulder' when she noticed that it didn't feel like a clumsily-applied hoof of a Pony, but instead a slender, meticulous talon of a Gryphon. The light, careful touch hadn't implied any form of adversity or personal anger, but applied purposeful compassion.

Millions of thoughts bombarded Trixie in a few miliseconds. 

Someone familiar. A friend, perhaps? It's a Gryphon.

An image was projected in Trixie's mind. Kind, sharp gold auburn eyes.

Her heart stopped, and Trixie knew that it wasn't going to jumpstart again unless she turned around.

She heard a voice. It was composed of a rather familiar accent. "Sorry, I'm late. Wings don't respond like they used to in the cold, Glimmer Rain's present duties require her to stay at Canterlot with Grid and Hops was too busy to come, and traffic was brutal... can ya blame a gryphon?"

There was a pause, but the voice continued, "Celestia, I'm glad to see you. You didn't change a bit."

Trixie turned, and found her mouth instantly curling up.

Leif, now in front of her, returned the smile, "So, Miss Lulamoon, how're you liking our new, improved Trottingham?"

Trixie leapt, leaving her baggage to topple to the ground, and nearly tackled Leif to the icy flooring.

Trixie whispered, "I love it so far."

When she uttered that sentiment, she didn't see in her thoughts Trottingham, but instead a clumsy, young yet forgetful Gryphon that helped her like no pony ever did: Leif.

Somepony that was her friend... and quite possibly more. Her thoughts absently went back to that kiss...

She dropped to the ground (on her hooves this time) and lost herself in the conversation she had reserved for Leif and Leif alone, as Leif himself assisted in relieving both her mental and physical burden as he carried some of her luggage.

The whole way back to Hops's new pub, Leif held her close under a stitch-scarred wing, allowing his warmth to comfort Trixie from the bitterness of the winter, and held her hoof lovingly with his talons. Those letters that went back and forth between cities, between different worlds and social structures, did more then support them during trying times.

The day, and Trixie's story for the time being, couldn't have ended better...




End.