Today, as we prepared to depart during the early hours just after dawn, a young griffoness named Griselda, who had stars in her eyes asked, “You are good guys, yes? You have come to save Fancy, yes?”

Are we the good guys?

Two rough and tumble combat engineers who are basically the same pony; one is from another world, another dimension. Both are hardened survivors, both know war. It is their bread and butter. They are shell-shocked stoics capable of doing unspeakable, unmentionable acts at a moment’s notice. I’ve watched them encase the living in shaped-stone sarcophagi and then leave them to their well deserved fate. I can still hear the screaming, just so you know.

The Jill-of-All-Trades is a murderous, stab-happy psychopath and probably an alcoholic. She watched her homeland burn and lived to see many of her kind stolen away into slavery. A terrible mix of torture, cruelty, and training as a windwarped assassin has turned her into a sadomasochistic minx. She’s downright sociopathic at times, but of all of us, she is not the worst.

A dapper minotaur might be the best of us, but I fear he will not remain sane for very long…

Alas, the Bard has had part of his soul stolen, leaving him broken and useless. All he can do is watch as this train wreck happens, and make journal entries like this one. One day, somebody might read this, and there will be questions such as, ‘Who thought this was a bright idea?’ Sorry, I have no answers to give you, but perhaps you would enjoy a nice chicken pot pie?

Our gunslinger is a happy-go-lucky hippogriff. An earth pony hippogriff, which is a mythical creature of legend. She seems harmless at first glance, but I have seen evidence of otherwise. Her aim can only be described as supernatural, her physical strength has to be seen to be believed, and she is a hippogriff. All of the magic of a pony with the raw ability of a griffon. It just isn’t fair how gifted she is.

And the worst of us? The psychopathic, pyromaniac aristocrat. Are things not on fire? Don’t worry, at any given moment, they will be! He coughs, he wheezes, and he has hemophilia. Never in all of my travels have I ever seen a creature so deeply connected to fire. He’s foul tempered, entirely too intelligent, and certifiably insane. When hatters speak of madness, they mutter about him in hushed, terrified whispers. To see him is to have one’s skin shiver.

Are we the good guys?

No. No, we are most certainly not the good guys.

Why are we even here?

I tell you, I don’t know.

I suppose I came because I love my homeland. Motte and Bailey came because they follow orders. Bombay Sable is only here because I’m here, and for whatever reason, she loves me. Munro shouldn’t be here and I fear the trip will cost him his soul. Blackbird came out of some misguided notion to do good, but at some point she is going to drop the nice act and become the death-dealer she was born to be.

As for Dim? I strongly suspect that Dim was bored. For better or for worse, he is here.

All of Fancy might burn for it.

Seeing the countryside of Fancy from the back of a wagon wasn’t the worst thing in the world and Dim was almost enjoying himself. He had wine—which he drank right from the bottle—and was having himself a pleasant, relaxing smoke whilst he took a break from his labours. Scattered across a crate in front of him were the components of his work, his labours, an enormous crystalline cube of pink-orange salt.

Assembling the crystalline matrices had been the easy part, but aligning everything until it was just so was a bit trickier. Compressing the matter into a denser form was a devilish task indeed and he had somehow taken a five pound cube of salt and compressed it into a cube that was about one and a half inches or so on each side. With a bit more effort, he was certain that he could compress it further, making it an even inch.

In theory—channelling magic through the salt cube would purify it. In practice—he wasn’t sure. It would need to be tested somehow. Initial tests produced a remarkably clean beam that his magic sense told him was comparable to the magic found down deeper within the earth, though not as pure as the magic found below the salt and chalk that he had found in the Grittish countryside.

But he was confident that this was a success. The fabled Elements of Harmony acted as a magical filter of sorts, as well as an amplifier. Dim knew of the existence of something called the Alicorn Amulet, and it was an amplifier. Did it also change the nature of the magic filtered through it? It might, but he had no way of knowing.

Staring at his pink-orange salt cube, Dim had ideas and he puffed away on his joint while letting his imagination run wild. A purified iron rod with a compressed salt crystal on the end might make for an interesting way to channel magic, a means to amplify and cleanse. Or rather than a rod, a sceptre perhaps, something a bit more fitting for his princely nature—but what manner of prince had an iron sceptre?

A smart one that knew magic, that’s who.

“When at first you began to play with invisible, unseen things in the air around you I thought you mad—”

Dim chuckled at the Bard’s words and took a sip of wine.

“—but then again, that is a terrible reason to believe you mad when there are far more compelling bits of evidence that could be recalled. What are you up to, I wonder?”

Still chuckling, Dim was about to respond when Blackbird swooped low over the wagon and he heard her say in a breathless, far-too-excited voice, “We have company!”

Hippogriffs. Big ones. A pair of them stood in the grass by the side of the road, one male, one female. Both were armed, but kept their weapons stowed for now. Dim was surprised to see them and a bit disturbed with how the two of them studied Blackbird. He didn’t like how they looked at her, sizing her up, and something about this just felt… off.

The male was enormous, a size that had to be seen to be believed, with a beak that showed scrapes and scratches, signs of recent battle. As for the female, she too was larger than Blackbird, but far less stocky. Where Blackbird was solid and heavily muscled, this female was airy and wiry. A partially healed gash could be seen on one shoulder and she had a brace of pistols that she wore in plain sight. Most curious of all, the female had a horn, leaving Dim to wonder how much magic a hippogriff might have.

“A pegasus we met told us of you,” the male said in an accent that sounded faintly like that of an islander. “My name is Garrulous and my companion is Giselle. We are emissaries of a kingdom that doesn’t exist yet, for a species still in its infancy. We have come to Fancy looking for more of our kind—because of the unusual living arrangements here with the ponies and the griffons, there are a pleasant number of hippogriffs to be found.”

Garrulous? At least his name suited him. Wary, Dim continued his study.

“Pleased to meetcha,” Blackbird said in the gregarious sort of way that she was known for.

“We hope that you will come with us,” Garrulous said, getting right to the point without wasting any time. “If hippogriffs band together, we might become our own species someday. We are building a nation and our cause is just. We don’t have to exist as freaks or weirdos or as oddities on display. No longer do we have to hide our strength or cower—we are greater than the sum of our parts, stronger than our parentage. As hippogriffs, we are vastly superiour beings and this is our chance to show the world that. Leave these weaklings and come with us.”

Dim watched as Blackbird went rigid and he heard the tendons in her wings creak.

“These are my friends,” she said, her voice no longer warm and friendly, but cold and lacking feeling. “These are my friends,” she repeated, “and they need me. Whatever it is that you’re doing, I don’t think I’m interested. You kinda lost me when you started with the superiourity talk and you called my friends weaklings.”

“If you stay with them, you will never live up to your fullest potential.” Garrulous’ eyes now had a hardness to them that worried Dim, and maybe a bit of anger as well. “Not only that, but you rob us of our potential as well. We are struggling to be established as a species and not exist as an oddity or an object of shame and ridicule.”

Bombay’s paw now rested on the grip of her pistol; Motte and Bailey meanwhile, had somehow slipped out of their harnesses. Munro now leaned his elbows on the edge of the wagon bed and somehow, Dim knew without looking that his minotaur valet had undone the leather catch that secured his sidearm in its holster. Yes, this was feeling more and more like a fight waiting to happen, as Garrulous’ silent companion didn’t look happy at all right now.

This felt a lot like trouble.

“The world treats our kind with contempt… surely you have felt this… seen this. They fear our strength—our raw ability. Envious of us, they hold us back with shackles of shame, of contempt. They smear our parentage and decry us as unnatural, disharmonious hybrids. We are never treated as equals, but rather we bear the brunt of mistrust, doubt, and suspicion.” While he spoke, Garrulous’ claws tapped and scratched in the dirt at the side of the road.

“Perhaps if you didn’t go around with a raging superiourity complex, you’d find a bit more acceptance,” Blackbird said in what could only be described as a chilly deadpan. “Dim has that problem too… he’s a rampaging asshole, but he’s getting better. See, I’m kinda busy trying to set him straight, which is why I can’t go off and join your little hippogriffs only clubhouse.”

“You are a young, capable female,” Garrulous said to Blackbird while his silent companion kept a wary eye on Blackbird’s companions. “Even lacking a beak, you are beautiful… perfect… you have an obligation to do what is right for your species—”

The sudden appearance of Bombay’s pistol in her paws caused Garrulous’ words to die off and with one paw-finger on her trigger she said, “This sounds an awful lot like a rape prep talk. Doesn’t this sound an awful lot like a rape prep talk, Bard, my beloved one?”

“Indeed it does,” the Bard replied in a voice of bored indifference.

Dim found himself admiring the Bard’s ability to stay cool under pressure.

“It isn’t rape if you talk a girl out of reasons to resist and make refusal an illogical outcome,” Bombay continued while she kept her pistol pointed at Garrulous. “In this manner, you take over a young girl’s mind, cloud her judgment, and begin the means to keep her compliant. I’m not a fan… I’d go into reasons why, but the murderous rage it would cause would only lead to me killing you. Probably in the worst way possible. So how about you fuck off and go about your merry business?”

Giselle, the silent hippogriff, gave her companion a hard stare for a few seconds and then tossed her head back in a gesture of departure. Dim waited, ready to cast a spell, ready to react, and noticed for the first time that Motte and Bailey were now armed; Motte held a quad-barreled shotgun while Bailey had some kind of dainty-looking bolt-action carbine. The air was electric with tension and Dim was rather hoping that something would happen, if only to relieve the boredom.

“Very well,” Garrulous said after a few stretched out seconds. “We shall go about our business. I am saddened that you couldn’t see reason. Perhaps you will grow sick of this life on the ground. If you do, seek the skies, you will find us there, in the place where we rightfully belong. You are young still, perhaps a bit more time in this hostile world that hates us will convince you of the righteousness of our cause.”

With that, Garrulous spread his wings and was airborne with a single powerful flap. Giselle joined him and with great rapidity, both retreated, flying westward. Dim watched them go, disappointed, and he resigned himself to a day of boredom. He saw that Blackbird too, had her eyes on them, and an unreadable expression upon her rather unique face.

Should he say something?

What was appropriate for this situation?

Was she angry?

Hurting?

Should he comfort her?

Much to his dismay, he had lingered far too long on questions. Bombay was now at Blackbird’s side, saying something that Dim could not hear. Trouble was now two specks in the distance and Bailey kept her carbine pointed in their general direction. Hearing a sniffle, he realised that Blackbird was starting to cry and something in the depths of his consciousness felt awful that he hadn’t lept to comfort her when he had the chance.

With a muffled whump, Blackbird sat down on the side of the road and began to bawl her eyes out. Dim felt a terrific tugging within his guts, somewhere around his lungs perhaps, a sensation that grew worse when Bombay hunkered down beside Blackbird and wrapped her arms around the sobbing hippogriff. It was with a certain degree of awfulness that Dim realised that he had failed in some great way—he had hesitated—but try as he might, he could not even begin to put the pieces together. He couldn’t even ascertain why Blackbird was weeping. It had something to do with what had just happened, that much was obvious, but the hows and the whys were a mystery to him.

There was a soft nudge against his ribs and when Dim turned, he saw the Bard beside him. “Go to her,” the Bard said to Dim while making a gesture with his hoof. “She needs you. This is your chance to make yourself better. Go on, do it. This is a rare opportunity.”

“What do I say?” Dim asked in a half-panicked whisper.

“Nothing needs to be said,” the Bard replied, also whispering. “This is just something that needs to be done. So go and do it. Stop being afraid. Go on. She needs you. She’s a confused girl in need of her rescuer.”

At this, Dim nodded; corking his wine, he screwed his courage to the sticking place…

Author's Notes:

For whatever it is worth, this was planned out long before the movie, so leave your expectations about hippogriffs at the door.