“I take it, based upon your reactions, that you’ve ran into those other hippogriffs.”

Dim said nothing in return, but studied the strange hippogriff, who was a rather blue looking fellow. He looked fussy and was entirely too clean. A monocle hung from the collar of his jacket and it had a curious hint of magic to it. A brace of pistols was in full view, but the guns appeared too new looking, too pristine to have seen much action.

“Yeah we have, stranger,” Bombay said, her paw resting upon the grip of her gun.

“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Asterveld and I am a scholar of hippogriff studies from Canterlot University. Princess Celestia commissioned a study so that we might better understand hippogriffs. Not much is known about them and there are those who aim to change that. I’ve come here, to Fancy, because there are an extraordinary number of hippogriffs compared to other regions of the world, no doubt due to the unique relationship between the earth ponies and the griffons.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Bombay asked.

“Well, crossbreeds are rare. They just don’t happen very often. But it seems that when they do happen, they most frequently happen with earth ponies, who have a biological drive to breed with pretty much everything. They do happen with other tribes, just not very often. Statistics and all that.”

Dim glanced at Blackbird and saw her give him a faint nod of tentative acceptance. “Very well, scholar. You may live. What is it that you want from us? Other than Blackbird’s attention, obviously. We have much travelling to do and a lot of ground to cover.”

“Oh, I understand. Dangerous country at night, and all that. I promise I won’t take long. Young Miss, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions. Rather personal ones I’m afraid, but I’ll try to be as polite and discreet as possible.”

“Questions are fine, but don’t take it personal if Dim reduces you to cinders for hurting my feelings. We’re trying to train him to be sociable, but it’s hard and poor Dim is the excitable type that burns first and asks questions later.”

The fussy hippogriff froze for a moment, his feathers clearly ruffled, and when he moved again it was to loosen the collar of his dark woollen jacket. “The things I do for science,” he muttered to himself, his beak unmoving. “Very well then, young Miss. Might I ask you about your parentage?”

Dim took a step back with the hopes that Blackbird might relax a little and though he kept his guard up, he did his best to appear passive. Blackbird was visibly nervous, though she was doing her best to hide it. Munro had flanked the strange hippogriff, and now leaned against a tree behind him.

“My father was an earth pony and my mother was a hippogriff, if that’s what you want to know.”

“Fascinating. That I did not expect. About your mother being a hippogriff, I mean. That makes you a rare specimen, Miss. Most first generation crossbreeds have some minor fertility issues. The second generation is always the hardest to establish. I’ve spoken to a fair number of hippogriffs in this region and anecdotal evidence seems to correspond with already collected data. I suppose it helps with your father being an earth pony. Tell me, do you know anything about your mother’s parentage?”

Dim saw Blackbird squirm and for a moment, her muscles rippled when they tensed. One hind hoof stomped into the dirt and he heard her say, “Almost nothing. She wasn’t keen on talking about it. I learned early on not to ask too many questions. My mother… she had a temper like morning embers in the stove. All it takes is one little blow and you have a roaring fire in no time.”

It was fascinating, watching Blackbird lie and Dim took note of all her tells.

“And your parents… they stayed together?”

“Yes.” Blackbird nodded and something almost like good cheer returned to her face. “They loved one another a great deal. At least they did. My father died and my mother, she took off. I’m trying to find her. Look, I’m sorry… but I don’t want to talk no more. I hope you have something you can work with. Please, I’m sorry, I’m just not in the mood.”

“I understand, Miss. Thank you for your time.” The fussy hippogriff glanced around, nervous, noticing the hard stares coming at him from all directions. “Thank you for your time, young Miss. I’ll be going now. Goodbye!” Kicking against the ground, the hippogriff took off in a hurry, his wings working a frantic beat while he made his way skyward.

Worried about Blackbird, Dim watched their visitor as he departed.

A weak fire burned in the ramshackle hearth, kept alive by a few bits of coal that Dim was certain was saved for when the farmhouse had guests. It did nothing to heat the room, but offered enough pale, flickering light for the shadows to dance to. No glass was in the windows, just wooden slat shutters that did little to keep the cold out. The sole griffon occupant was a grizzled elderly sort, and Dim guessed that he must be a veteran of some kind. Old? Yes. Deadly? No doubt.

Hard times had befallen this farm with the two oldest colts having gone off to join the bandits. As for the bandits themselves, the old griffon said they took very little, more of a token offering, but the fact that they took anything at all from such a poor homestead left Dim infuriated. It wouldn’t take much for this place to fail; the poor soil grew very little and the two colts—the main source of strong labour—were gone. All that was left was one stallion, two wives, six rather small and somewhat malnourished-looking fillies, a yearling colt, and the grizzled griffon veteran.

At least the whitewash appeared fresh, and Dim hoped that it hadn’t been watered down.

“Dim” —Blackbird whispered his name so as to not disturb anyone— “it’s dark out. Real dark. Looks like a new moon. We could go scouting that bandit fort. You know, have a look around. See what we’re up against. I can fly and carry you. Pretty sure we won’t be seen.”

In silence, Dim gave Blackbird’s suggestion careful consideration. The past few days since leaving the inn had been downright boring—uneventful—and if the truth were to be told, he was aching for some kind of excitement. Maybe not pseudo-alicorn or wolf-creature levels of excitement, but skulking around a bandit camp and spying on them certainly seemed like a good time waiting to happen.

“Did you just ask me on a date?” he asked.

Blackbird’s face turned a darker shade of black somehow, and when she spoke, her voice was husky. “No. No, I most certainly did not. We’re not going off to canoodle, we’re going of to do a little scouting. It’s dangerous out there… on the ground, anyhow.”

“So, this isn’t a date… but I do get to ride you—”

“Dim, you pervert. Shut up.”

He felt a growing fondness for Blackbird that drove away the chill in the air. “Can you even see when it is this dark?”

“Not really, but you can, I’m sure of that. I, uh, was kind of planning on trusting you to be my eyes in the dark. I think it would be stupid to fly around with a light on.”

“Indeed.” Something warm and fuzzy could be felt deep inside, and Dim revelled in the fact that Blackbird trusted him enough to be her eyes. That was a pretty significant level of trust. She also trusted him enough to sleep beside him, bathe with one another, and face danger together. It was quite unlike anything that he had ever experienced in his short paranoid life.

“If we’re going to do this, we should leave now.”

Overhead, the skies were almost purple and a canopy of stars stretched from horizon to horizon like a spilled dragon’s hoard of jewels. Even without the moon, the night was rather bright. Swooping through the air was exhilarating beyond all measure and Dim clung to Blackbird’s back, both terrified and enthralled by this experience.

Below, farms were held in the death-grip of autumn and the faint lights of farmhouses could be seen. There were trees here, many of them, trees that were twisted and gnarled like nothing that Dim had ever seen nor witnessed. A thin river snaked its way through the forest and in the distance, a great light could be seen—their destination.

The bandit fort sat atop a wooded hill and what appeared to be a wooden palisade surrounded a crude keep. Fires burned within the safety of the walls and could also be seen in the rickety wooden observation towers. This place would burn—all of it—and all of its occupants as well. For a moment, Dim entertained the idea of burning everything down tonight; starting right now, but caution gave him pause. There might be something worth learning.

Something like the bobbing light of what appeared to be a lantern. It was a faint light and Dim surmised that it was flying in the same general direction of Gasconeigh. It was… a pegasus? What was a pegasus doing flying at night? The bold night flier rose from the bandit fort, gaining altitude while heading in a westward direction. Right away, Dim became suspicious and he gave Blackbird a nudge.

“We should go and say hello to our new friend,” Dim said to Blackbird.

“Yeah, I got that gut-instinct feeling too, Dim. I see him.”

“Blackbird, you may feel a peculiar sensation in just a moment. Do not panic or be alarmed.” Without further ado, Dim began to murmur the words of a rather complex spell and he gave himself over to the sweet, sweet release of magic, which flowed through the pleasure centers of his brain.

In the span of an eyeblink, Blackbird and Dim vanished from view.

Only to reappear right over the head of the pegasus, who let out a startled yelp. Dim saw saddlebags which appeared to be loaded down, and these bounced against the pegasus pony’s sides when he poured on the speed to escape. But there would be no escape, not tonight. Reaching out with his will, Dim snuffed the light of the lantern and heard a panicked whimper from the fleeing pegasus.

Blackbird was faster by far, but Dim saw no need for struggle. With a thought, he subsumed the will of the pegasus, which had no defense, no willpower of his own, no mental resistance whatsoever. Wings ceased flapping and the pegasus, now stiffened and unmoving, began to plummet towards the earth. Swooping down, Blackbird snatched the subdued pegasus right out of the air and with her talons, she held him by his saddlebag straps.

“There was a barn,” Dim said to his companion.

“Wasn’t much of a barn,” she replied.

“It shall have to do for our purposes.”

“So we’re foalnapping somepony? Is that what we’re doing?”

“Yes.”

“Not sure how I feel about that, but okay. He did come from the fort, so he’s probably a bandit. I guess that makes it okay to abduct him? I don’t know the rules about this stuff.”

“There are no rules. If he didn’t want to be abducted in the dark of the night, he should not have been seen exiting a location thick with soon to be ash piles.”

“Are we going to torture him?”

“No, Blackbird… we’re going to extract vital information using the creative application of coercive techniques.”

“Oh, good, because I don’t know how I feel about torture.”

Dim sighed, but said nothing else as Blackbird flapped back towards the farmhouse.

Together, Gratin and Bombay were sorting through the courier’s papers, the evidence of wrongdoing. The freezing barn smelled of goat shit and old mildewy hay. As for the captured courier, he was tied, standing, to a support beam, and was still completely out of it. Bombay’s whiskers quivered with every word she read, and her remaining eye took on a feral gleam of quiet rage.

“I am forced to wonder sometimes, about Blackbird’s seeming luck,” Motte said, more to himself than anypony else.

“It certainly sways life in her favour,” Bailey added while she turned to face Gratin. “So, what do we got here?”

“Evidence of treason,” the big griffon replied, his eyes darting to and fro while reading from the paper he was holding. “These are lists saying which families cooperated and offered up a son or two for the cause.”

“Nothing is coded? No ciphers? No magical glim-glam?” Bailey cast her incredulous stare upon the griffon.

“From what I am seeing, the writer of these was barely literate. That’s cryptic cipher enough. It’s like they got a foal to write these and most of it is written in burned charcoal. It’s smudged and smeared. Everything is a mess.”

“So we’ve got idiots organising the revolution, fantastic.” Motte hurled a hefty snort and turned to study the tied up courier. “Revolutionaries that can’t fucking remember to bring a pencil or a pen. Smart. So smart.”

“Do we have a name?” Bailey asked, looking at both Gratin and Bombay.

“Duc Truffe, of course,” Bombay replied. “His name is all over these papers like a bad rash on a whore’s cunt. There are writs of guarantee, promises that those who gave generously will be part of the gentry when it is established.” She held up a crinkled sheet of paper covered in loopy scrawl. “You can see which families signed on to pledge support in exchange for what I am certain are sure to be empty promises.”

“So, what happens now?” Blackbird glanced around at her companions, her eyes glittering with curious anger while the corners of her mouth twitched and jerked with barely suppressed emotion.

“I think it’s obvious.” Motte leveled his steely gaze upon the hippogriff and his next words were spoken in a cold, detached deadpan. “We go to the bandit fort and we kill them. Gratin is going to fly back to Gasconeigh and deliver these papers to Lord Chanson. While we’re mopping up the bandit mess, we’re going to need an airship or two for support so we can pay a visit to the mine. Duc Truffe can’t pull off his coup d'état if he has no soldiers, and I aim to deprive him of that. Every family that donated to the cause is about to lose a few sons.”

“So… a bloodbath.”

“Blackbird… you need to understand. We’re sparing lives by taking lives. By killing this army of upstarts, we’re sparing the lives of those who live in the city. Not just from murder and the bloodshed of the revolution, but also from being crushed beneath what is sure to be an oppressive regime. So keep that in mind when you blow some dumb hick’s head off. They signed up for this fight with the hopes of becoming part of an elite gentry… the same bullshit promise offered to all revolutionaries in some form or another.”

“Yeah… I know… it doesn’t make it easier for me, though.” Blackbird heaved a sigh, shook her head, and stared in the direction of the tied up courier.

“We’re going to send him back to Lord Chanson with Gratin,” Dim said in response, breaking his silence. “But first I’m going to fix his no doubt troubled mind. I bet he carries a lot of guilt and I’m going to make it so that he speaks about everything that troubles him. When I’m done, he won’t have a single shred of will of his own. He’ll tell Lord Chanson everything he knows without struggle or resistence.”

Upon hearing this, Blackbird shuddered hard enough to make her teeth clatter.

“It’s for his own good, Blackbird,” Motte said to the troubled hippogriff. “Dim’s doing him a kindness. He’ll be tortured otherwise. Have what he knows pulled out with pliers, pincers, and branding irons.”

“He’ll still be gelded though.” Gratin’s eyes narrowed. “It’s the first thing they do to new prisoners here. I don’t think we can save him from that.”

“The less I know about this part of the plan, the better. I’ll do what’s necessary. I’ll fight when it comes time. But I can’t watch this.” Blackbird shook her head while making a grimace of disgust. “Come on, Munro. You don’t need to be seeing this either. You’re getting out of this country with some semblance of your soul intact if it’s the last thing I do.”

Motte’s ears pricked. “Semblance?”

To which Dim responded, “She went to school. Don’t be so surprised.”

“Come on, Munro. We’re getting out of here so all of this can be sorted out. Let’s go.” Turning about, her tail swishing, Blackbird made ready to leave and the reluctant young minotaur followed, but only after lingering for a time.

Author's Notes:

Heads would explode around you.