There weren’t supposed to be gryphons here.

That was the only thing she could think of when she stumbled into the carnage that was all that remained of the camp. They were hundreds of miles from the front, and not even soldiers. They were just a survey team, plotting additional routes for the new trains and supply lines. But that, it seemed, hadn’t spared them.

Her hooves carried her hesitantly into camp, her eyes shying away from the various splashes of red. Instead, she saw only faces. Golden Glimmer, muzzle frozen into the silly grin he wore just before he unleashed a particularly bad pun. Mercy White, calm and serene as ever, eyes closed as if she were just napping. She nearly tripped over poor Sharp Eye’s corpse, his precious bow shattered by the same swipe that had cut him nearly in two, and stopped, swaying, blinking away the tears clouding her vision. Her stomach heaved, and she took several steps away to take care of business, then sat down somewhere clean for a good cry.

She stopped herself soon enough. She wasn’t a soldier, but she was a member of the Equestrian Guard, by Celestia, and she had to get ahold of herself. If gryphons had somehow penetrated this far then someone needed to be told, and she was the only one to do it. She forced herself to look at the ruined campsite again.

The fight hadn’t been entirely one-sided. She had no idea why the gryphons would leave their dead behind, but there were four of their corpses to match the five pony ones. Two had Sharp Eye’s arrows buried in them, one was twisted in such a way that suggested Scarlet Shimmer had decided to use her formidable telekinesis for offense. And one…

She frowned, stepping closer out of morbid curiosity. His wing and side had been ripped to bloody tatters by gryphon claws, not by anything pony. Despite herself, her muzzle twisted in puzzlement. “What could have happened?”

The gryphon’s eyes snapped open.

She squealed and backpedaled, but even injured as he was, he was faster than she could have believed. He had her pinned to the ground, talons at her throat, without her being aware of the transition. “Who are you?” He growled, his Equestrian heavily accented but understandable. “Where did you come from?”

“I...I’m Compass Rose.” She swallowed, painfully aware of the razor sharp talons pressing against her hide. “And this is our camp! Mine. Was.” She corrected herself twice, not bothering to hide the bitterness in her voice. “Until you monsters came.”

He lifted his head, looking around as if for the first time. His eyes moved in short jerks, focusing with a predator’s acuity on the scattered, destroyed remnants, the tents and corpses. Rose become aware of an unpleasant sticky wetness dripping into her coat and shivered in disgust.

“You’re bleeding on me.” It simply slipped out, so far past the edge of panic that she could only focus on a problem she actually knew how to solve.

The gryphon snapped his head down to look at her again then back along himself where fresh red blood was flowing steadily from the deep gouges in his hide. “So I am,” he said with preposterous calmness. He released her, stepping back and surveying the camp ruins. She rubbed her throat with a hoof as she watched him limp his way over to Mercy White’s body and start picking through her saddlebags.

“Stop it!” Rose dashed after him, surprising him enough that he had to fend her off with a grunt, holding her at arm’s length. “Leave her alone! Haven’t you done enough?”

“She’s not going to be using these supplies,” he said reasonably. “Are you going to let me stitch myself or will I have to tie you up?”

“You wouldn’t!” Rose wished that her telekinesis was good for more than a few light objects, or her spells more use than pathfinding. There wasn’t much she could do other than annoy him.

He lifted his eyebrows at her and she turned away with a scowl that turned into a shudder. She rubbed her neck again, still feeling those talons against her hide, then reached down to try and wipe the blood off her coat. She only succeeded in getting her hoof bloody, and she scrubbed it frantically against the grass. Rose wasn’t at all sure why he hadn’t killed her already. The deaths of the rest of her small herd proved that it certainly wasn’t for the sake of mercy.

She wasn’t going to give him the chance to change his mind. She heard a grunt, and glanced back to see him awkwardly plying a needle on his own flesh. The sight made her shudder again and she picked herself up, making her way over to the crumpled remains of her tent. The compass and sextant were still intact, thankfully, and most of her maps. She stowed them in her saddlebags, already half-full from the provisions she’d been gathering, and paused to whisper a prayer to Celestia for the dead. There was no time for a proper burial.

She’d gotten three paces out of the circle of tents before the gryphon’s voice stopped her.

“Where do you think you are going?”

Rose looked back at him. He’d managed to pack the worst of the gashes, though given he hadn’t properly washed out the wounds she doubted it would amount to much. “Home,” she said defiantly. “Not like I have my team anymore, is it?”

He shook his head slowly. “I am afraid not,” he said. “Not while I am grounded, anyway. You’d have the Home Guard on me in no time.”

“So what are you going to do? Kill me?” It came out with more quaver than she’d intended.

“I’d rather not.”

“Why not? You killed everyone else!” She gestured angrily at the ruined campsite.

His eyes flashed with enough anger that she took a step back, but the anger wasn’t entirely directed at her. “I did not. There should not have been any killing. You are not soldiers. It is not right.”

“Maybe we weren’t soldiers, but we still got four of you!” She shot back, jabbing her hoof at the gryphon corpses.

“Tch.” He clacked his beak. “Three, and they were careless. So was I.” He rubbed his face with his talons, looking very tired all of a sudden. “If I had been paying more attention, none of this would have happened. I am sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” Her jaw worked in inarticulate rage. Finally she stomped her hoof. “Tell that to Golden Glimmer. He has two foals at home! Or tell Scarlet Shimmer, or Sky Shadow or Sharp Eye or Mercy White! Tell them you’re sorry! Oh wait, you can’t. They’re dead.”

“It is the nature of war,” he said, unmoved. “I can regret what’s been done, but I can’t undo it. Can you?”

She spluttered and then turned and stomped away, muttering to herself. He must be insane, trying to turn all this on her.

He didn’t let her get far. Again she didn’t even notice him moving, even from all the way across the camp, but for a second time she found herself stopped with his talons pressed against her neck. “Rose,” he said. “I cannot let you go. You know that. I do not want to hurt you.”

“So what do you want me to do?” She tried to pull away from the razors at her throat and found herself pressing against his bloody side, which wasn’t much improvement. “Just surrender?”

“It would be nice,” he said. “But then, you are not a soldier, are you?” He released her and turned her around, looking down at her. “I take charge of you as my prisoner of war,” he said. “Your person and possessions are sacrosanct, within reason, and your life is protected by my honor.”

“You gryphons are insane!” She gawked at him. “You can’t just...declare that!”

“I could hobble you and drag you around on a lead,” he said. “I’d rather not, and you’d be undoing it every ten minutes with your horn, but that’s the next step.”

“I won’t do it.” She stamped her hooves. “I’m not cooperating with a...a butcher.” It was an epithet that they’d only learned from the gryphons a few years ago, and while she didn’t know how much it mattered to him it was the worst thing she could think of to call him.

“Rose,” he said, his voice heavy with a pain that chilled her bones. “I would rather let you go. But I cannot fly, so I cannot risk it. If I must kill you, then I shall, but I would take no satisfaction in it.”

“You could surrender,” she said, trying to sidestep the chilling certainty his words had instilled in her.

“Hmph.” He studied his talons. They were stained with blood - his blood, not the blood of any pony. “It would be tempting, but I was not felled by any of you. By one of my own, the moment we approached your camp. That treason must be reported.” He closed his eyes briefly, his beak clacking in some purely gryphonic expression. “She must be told.”

His eyes opened again. “Will you behave?”

She was too certain that he was deadly serious about his willingness to kill to give a glib reply. “For now,” she said grudgingly.

He clacked his beak again. “Of course. It is the first duty of any prisoner to escape.” He took a step back. “Gather your supplies. We’re headed for the coast as soon as I finish this.”

“No.”

“No?” He raised his eyebrows at her.

“We’re going to take care of them properly first.” She waved at the bodies scattered throughout the campsite. “It’s not like there’s any rush.” Not with how far away the coast was, even on a direct path. She wondered if he had any idea what the trek would be like on hoof, given how used to flying he was.

He looked from her to the corpses and back again, then sighed. “Very well,” he said, and went to retrieve the medical supplies he’d spilled.

Rose dithered for a moment. She hadn’t thought of any other supplies than the ones she’d already retrieved. But eventually she began a slow circuit, the sticky, half-dried blood in her coat tugging uncomfortably as she visited each of her friends in turn. She muttered apologies, promises...it seemed unreal to her, and the gryphon’s challenge kept sticking in her head. There was nothing she could have done if she’d been there when it happened, but she still felt she should have been.

She collected small things. Scarlet Shimmer’s hideous crochet, a half-finished scarf in her colors. Sharp Eye’s flint arrowhead that he wore about his neck. A keepsake, a remembrance from each of them to pass on to their families and loved ones. Golden Glimmer’s journal, which she’d promised to never read, Mercy White’s charm bracelet, Sky Shadow’s sketchbook. By the time she finished, she felt very alone.

The gryphon was still trying to patch himself up. He couldn’t properly reach most of the wounds, and the stitching was ragged and uneven. He’d packed himself properly with gauze and even as she watched he poured antiseptic liberally over the area he was working on. The numb feeling in her gut turned into a gnawing unease until finally she gingerly stepped over to him. “Let me do it.”

He blinked at her and clacked his beak. “Should you be helping me? I might bleed out, or catch infection and die and then you’d be free to leave.”

“Is that likely?”

“No.” His fierce golden eyes studied her. “But there is always hope.”

Rose had no idea how to take that. Indeed, she wondered if he hadn’t cracked his head a bit too hard at some point. He held up the needle and thread and she took it, horn glowing as she bent to the task.

It was just like any other needlework, she told herself, though she hadn’t touched her sewing since the war had started. Mercy White had ensured they all knew at least a little first aid, but this was the first time she’d been up close to an actual wound of any significance. It was strangely clinical, and far less nausea-inducing than she’d been afraid of. She replaced his rough stitching with her own fine and precise work, half-wondering why she was bothering. But only half. Regardless of what he was, she wasn’t the sort of pony to let someone sit and suffer.

The gouges were deep at the base of his wing, far too deep to be stitched. That was packed with gauze, but probably needed something more. They trailed off into something shallower down his flank, a tattered crisscross of frantic clawing that seemed like an almost hopeless task to try and fix. But in the end, it didn’t take long at all. Halfway through she became aware of him watching her, but she merely bit her lip and focused on patching up the snowy white hide.

When she finished he wrapped the entire mess in white linen, a few turns around his barrel. “Thank you,” he said gravely.

She nodded silently, not entirely comfortable with her complicity in the matter. He heaved himself to his feet and she backed away, whatever ephemeral understanding that had let her approach him without a distinct knife edge of fear evaporating.

“Where do you want to dig the graves?” He asked, and the knife edge cut.

She put her hoof to her throat, where she could still feel the razor edges of his talons, and took a deep breath. “Over there.” She pointed at the far edge of the clearing and went to find a shovel.

The gryphon used Sharp Eye’s. While fine for a pony, it was not meant for someone with talons instead of hooves. But he plied it awkwardly and uncomplainingly, keeping pace with her without any apparent effort. And in fact did a neater job. She wondered how many graves he’d dug as a soldier.

When they went to wrap the bodies in the remains of the tents, the gryphon’s stomach gurgled audibly. She glanced over and found him looking wistfully at Sky Shadow’s body.

“Don’t you dare!”

“They are just meat now,” he said. “They cannot possibly mind.”

“But you can’t...I can’t...just…” It was impossible to encapsulate the wrongness inherent in letting someone eat her friend. Something of it in her expression must have conveyed it though, because he heaved a sigh.

“Very well. But I expect no complaints from you when I hunt.”

“Of course not,” she said faintly, still reeling. She just hoped he didn’t intend to hunt ponies. Not that there’d be many out here, the portion of her brain still capable of logic pointed out. Other than her.

It was only when she’d lowered the last body that she realized there were only five. The gryphons had simply been left where they lay. “What about your…”

“I will take care of them,” he said, his voice holding more snap than she had expected. “You take care of yours.”

Stung, she turned her back on him and approached the graves. They seemed pitifully small for what they represented. Years of life and five good friends. She already missed Golden Glimmer’s easy laugh, and Mercy White’s voice lifted in soft song or at least a hum as she went about her work.

“My dear friends,” she said, and stopped. What words could possibly make things any better? “I miss you already.” She stopped again. “I’m sorry.” She tried one more time. “This never should have happened. It should have been me instead of you, off gathering fruit instead of safe at camp. You should have been able to go home, back to your families, and -” Her throat closed tight over whatever other words she had to say and she dropped her head, standing silent, pained vigil as she prayed.

After a time she heard the crackle of flames from behind her, and swiveled her head to watch the gryphon feeding a small fire. One feather and a tuft of fur from each gryphon, she saw, along with one each of his own. He said something she couldn’t understand, rippling and lilting in his native tongue as he looked at the sky.

“Who were they?” Rose waited to ask the question until she was sure the ceremony was over, the fire doused and the smoke dispersed into the air.

“Friends, probably. Enemies, maybe.” She couldn’t tell what was in his voice. “I suppose I’ll find out when we reach base camp.”

“I mean their names. Or - Celestia, I don’t even know your name.”

“Ah.” A faint spark of humor glimmered in his eyes. “Now you ask.” But it didn’t last as he glanced at the sky again, his expression returning to the unreadable. “I shall not burden you with their names. My dead are not your responsibility to bear, but I appreciate you asking. And I am Gérard.” He paused, about to add something, then shook his head. “Tch. Just Gérard will do.”

“Now, come. We have some time before it gets dark.”

Author's Notes:

I don't usually submit stories before they're finished.
I hope it won't be necessary, but edits may be done to chapters! If they're important, I'll try to keep you informed.