I do not believe, will not believe and cannot believe that greed has poisoned the souls of pony-kind, nor that we have barricaded ourselves into a place of hatred. I believe there is still a way through this without more blood being spilled and families being broken. I believe that there is still opportunity for life to continue, as it did before these days of crisis, when we were good to one another and the lands were shared equally. We have seen and survived darkness once, and we can all do so again, but we must first find the light we have lost to it.

Entry 012 - Jailbird Blues (Part One)

Grey.

The walls of the prison cell were all a very monotonous, dull grey. This was the color scheme I’d initially expected of the entire Stable in the beginning. After the heavy download of sights in Stable Town-Thirty, I was ready for something colorless and bland. This wasn’t the way I’d intended to get it though.

I’d been rushed through the medical procedure of getting the bullet out of my shoulder. The Security Medic moved me into a clean room in the museum, closed from the public and decked out with gurneys and medical equipment to treat the injured and salvageable ponies. They hurriedly placed me out on a bed and shortly afterwards my old friend, Dr Moon Ache, was shuffling up to aid my suffering.

I received no affable greeting, nor whiskey this time around. I’d lost my dress in the preparation for my operation, and I never saw my messy red number again. They strapped down my wings with some fabric bands they tied around me to stop me flapping out in distress. In the whirlwind repair of my blood-drenched shoulder, Dr. Ache disinfected the hole and gave me a numbing spell for the pain, only for the officer watching me to ask him to hurry it along. As a result, I screamed out far louder than I should have for such a small piece of metal being removed from my person. It had missed the bone, thank the egg, but it was still in deep enough to require a rummage.

During the stitches and bandaging stage, I made a quip that “this was nothing” and “you should see what happened to the other guy”. No pony found it funny, except me, and since I’m not a pony I guess you can still say no pony found it funny, period. After that, I was hoisted back onto my feet and forced to limp through a back entrance into the perimeter of Stable T-Thirty, outside of the big metal wall of the town.

I didn’t see the journey to the prison block. My mind was too busy running over the visions of ponies melted into green paste, and Brittle Sticks fused to the floor, drowning in his own slurified innards. I was attempting to figure out the end game plan of Sticks and his cohorts. It couldn’t have been a deliberate suicide mission, the three raiders were stupid but not to that extent. Even Brittle had shown some common sense in the short time that I’d known him. Had revenge been his only motive?

Once we arrived at the prison block, I was signed in. They forced me to hear a list of my crimes for which I was being arrested; several counts of murder, theft and destruction of property. I was asked if I understood the charges and when I agreed that I had, they moved me to another desk where they took prints of my talons. This was just in case another griffon showed up in the Stable later on, It was as dumb then as it sounds now but they made the rules. They took a picture of me for their records and finally changed the setting on my PipBuck to a ‘low power’ mode. It still displayed time and date, but outside of being a heavy watch, it was excruciatingly useless.

After their tasks were satisfied, I was shackled up around the legs and escorted to my cell. The chains, yet again, were made for ponies and not griffons. From this point I had to walk around like I was on twinkle toes-and-talons. Of the whole affair, that was the worst bit, even worse than having a nugget of metal dug out of my shoulder, because I had to take my walk of shame, naked once more, past them.

The Snips were held up in every cell that I passed in the corridor, and the prison seemed to stretch into eternity. Some pressed their faces up against the bars and watched me walk by with hangdog expressions, others saw me and immediately began yelling and pointing accusing hooves in my direction.

“It’s her!”

“She’s the raider, not us!”

“We came from Stable Fifty-Four, not her or her friend Deadwood, she stole our identity!”

“She’s a filthy liar!”

“Silence, inmates, or you’ll all be getting a blast of our stun batons!” Commanded the guard as he pushed me along my humbling path. He gave his stick a warning rap on the cages of the Snips who didn’t listen the first time and only zapped one who spat in my direction. The mare squealed like a horny hog, thrashed about for a couple of seconds, then fell away and lay on her side, panting with wide eyes. That poor museum guard could really have used one of those, I wondered again why he was only entrusted with a barely effective rod.

“She’ll be fine,” he called to his fellow officer manning the hall, and kept me moving to my cell. There, I was told that I would have to wait until my interview in a few hours as the door was slammed shut and locked. I said nothing as I pitter-pattered over to my choice of three bunks and took a seat. At least I had this colorless space to myself for now.

“If I hear a peep out of any of you,” yelled my guard as he returned along the flat aisle, “you’ll get stunned. If you want to know how it feels, ask Cell Eight.”

“A-A l-lot!” Stuttered Cell Eight, I assumed, to a few shocked gasps. To my ears, his hooves clomped all the way, the gate clanged behind him, and he faded away into the void.

“Alone at last,” I sighed sarcastically to myself. Actually, this was the first time I had been alone since the night I’d staggered home drunk, until I’d found Elmwood with that damn skull on his head. Even then, that had only been a few solitary minutes at most, and this promised to be way longer.

Thoughts are like a river when you’re left on your own to follow them. I began my journey chuckling about how stinking hammered I’d been that night. Not that anypony would have been able to tell until I started moving. If I can prop myself up and not have to use the lower half of my body, I can maintain eye contact, have a pleasant conversation about how best to rob a bank, and nopony would guess I’m being fueled by Applejack’s favorite brew. I guess that was my father’s inheritance to me. The drawback was that walking and even flying became as tricky as trying to run through the middle of a tornado in a sewage factory. Not fun at all.

The stream of memories took a swerve into the demons of my past. They were the reasons I picked up a bottle of liquor at all. Believe it or not, my gin-soaked old Pa never ever let me touch his stash. He practically forbid it.

“Y’ ain’t gonna end up like yeh ood man, ‘Ella,” my Pa told me. Even when he had to be serious with me, the full name rarely came from his beak unless it was absolutely necessary, “you’re gonna be a smart bonny lass.” As is clear, I’m not a smart bonny lass. I had ended up in jail in the most damn friendly place in Equestria. I felt like a bigger idiot than the guys I’d sent to Celestia only hours ago.

More demons peeped out from the bushes of the creek in my mind. Old conversations. Older arguments. Woes, troubles, mistakes, and royal buck-ups. Unhealthy sprites biting at my confidence and courage every time I let them slip into my analytical view. They were a danger to my life, one hesitation could spell doom in any situation in the Wastes, but they were also my darlings. They fuelled me to take more risks without fearing the consequences, because the consequences had already happened to me.

There’s an old saying about these things, “if I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.”

The angelic demon I had to live with for the rest of my life was called Periwinkle. Most called her Peri. I called her Snowbird.

In this lifeless wall, I was starting to imagine a mural of the snow white griffon I’d once believed would be my lifetime friend. I could recall where every one of her grey and rose speckled feathers lay, could see the soft, short tuft of a fringe above her hazelnut eyes. With her image gazing out of the painted stone with a sweet, modest smile, I could hear her young, wooing voice once more comforting me.

“If you are going to fight, then fight with every single bit of your being that you have. Even your beak. Especially your beak...”

I remembered a different time. An early memory. One of the first and best that I could ever recall...

“If you call me a wee birdie one more time I’ll put your beak so far into the snow you’ll have to drink through a straw, ye scunner!” I had warned the griffon girl, who back then was just another strange kid who’d approached me. It was one of my first winters as a chick, and I was out on my own trying to learn one of the most important skills for a griffon.

“Whoa! Sorry, I wasn’t trying to cause you offense. You’re just a little cutie and I thought~”

“I’M NOT CUTE!”

“Alright! Alright, fine… goodness gracious, it looks like we got off on the wrong claw, didn’t we? I’m Periwinkle. Do you want to be friends?” The white creature almost blended into the snow covering as she took a seat and smiled at me. I’d never seen a hen smile at me like that. I didn’t know how to handle it.

“Why don’t you just buzz off, Snowbird, I don’t need friends,” I grumped, before returning to my private mission. I stretched out my wings with determination in my face and made the mistake every young winger makes when learning to fly. I beat my fluffy appendages until the energy drained from them and then collapsed, breathless and worn-out. I was too tired to even growl properly at the griffon when she giggled at me.

“That was impressive. Ten out of ten for effort, but minus ten on the lift off,” despite my angry squawks, she moved over to me and used her height advantage to lift me back onto my feet. “If you didn’t want me to help, you should have put on a more monumental display. Come.” As she turned and walked away from me, I wondered just what tactic or mind-trick she was trying to use on me to make me follow her. Deciding to prove that it was not going to work on me that way, I turned in the opposite direction with a derisive tweet.

I’d barely taken five steps when a blizzard spiral torpedoed past me. It spun impossibly fast until white sails thrust out of its sides and made one elegant motion. The ghost galleon lifted herself with ease out of her tailspin and rose up into the air, higher and higher until she was a miniature figure in my eyes, making occasional barrel rolls in the sky. When her body hit a crack of light draining out from the cloud cover, she stopped on a cap and flung both wings out, as though suddenly calcified by the sneaking sunbeam.

Her position unchanged, she tilted, twisted and fell, falling like a leaf in a windstorm tethered to a breezeblock. I yelled out in horror and began charging towards the destination she would land, certain I would see a messy corpse of the strange girl when I arrived there. Yet, when it seemed like all hope for her was lost, she suddenly regained the use of her appendages and twisted, beak pointed down for a split second. She flapped, angling her body to curve into the fall and use gravity as her guide, curling out of her free fall to narrowly miss the ground by the width of a gnat’s arse.

She rushed past me once more, her airstreams whisking me onto my back in to the fluffy cold ground, where I watched her twirl magnificently above me one last time before performing the softest landing I’d ever seen a griffon manage. She let her limbs bounce to catch the rest of her prim weight, and then gazed calmly at me.

“Very well,” she finally said with pretend curtness as she lamely examined a wing, “if you are not interested in friendship or tutorship, I shall take my leave.”

“Wait,” I cried, caught on her hook, line and sinker, stunned so hard that I didn’t think of getting to my feet, “where did you learn how to do that? Could you teach me how to do that? I wannae know how to do that! Why didnae you say you could do that in the first place?” She had a titter at my verbal garbage and rolled her eyes, wandering back over to help me up.

“Firstly, I’ll need a name.”

“Crowella! You know, like the black bird, but with a wee ‘Ella’ at the end,” I exclaimed, a little proud of my longer name back then.

“Crowella, hm?” she tapped her chin with a blunt talon then grinned, “can’t tempt you to let me call you ‘My Little Ella,’ no?”

“No way, Snowbird! Eww, sounds like a dolly or something!” I blurted out, amidst her laughter.

“Alright, fine. How about Ellie?” I pouted and considered it with a claw at the snow, finally deciding I’d allow it if it got the lessons moving faster. She gave a big, kind grin and nodded.

My sail along flashback creek was broken by hoofsteps returning to my cage. I could hear murmurs from the other inmates, but no comebacks this time around. Chains were clanking, and the guard was talking in a low voice, too quiet to make out. A different voice, somepony attempting to sound more enforcing than their voice could allow, spoke up.

“Cell ten, on the right, inmate. Remember, don’t attempt any evasive magic once I take the negating ring off of your horn or the gun turrets in the ceiling will drop. You don’t want that.”

When the face of Gypsy came into view, I stumbled off of my bed in a vain attempt to welcome her to my new abode, instead landing ridiculously on my side. My injured shoulder barked at me for my recklessness. I’d forgotten that my legs had been fettered up as well. I blinked at them as the guard unlocked the door and allowed her in, then asked that she help me to my feet. Smart, I figured, they didn’t want to come in and help me up only to risk one or both of us attempting an escape.

“Hope you two can play nicely together. Jail’s been getting awfully cozy lately since you lot joined us,” that voice sounded familiar, and not necessarily unkind. I had a look at the face inside the visor.

“Cute butt!” I exclaimed. The mare was caught off-guard by the comment and whinnied.

“That’s Officer Bones, inmate. Step back,” she closed the door in front of us and locked it. I leaned on the bars with my one good elbow and slipped into pussy-cat mode.

“No sweat, Boney. Listen, if you can find any way to let me and-,” I nodded to Gypsy, “my friend out of this cage, I can promise you the best night of your life. Better than any stallion could offer you. Isn’t that right, Ms. Breeze?” I’d have liked to have said that this was a break out attempt, but at this point she could chuck me back in here afterwards so long as I got my rocks off. I looked back, and Gypsy followed my plan like a good partner in crime. She shimmied over with all the grace a girl can muster in metal bangles joined by a short leash, and rested on the bars beside me.

“Officer, my sweet feathery friend is oh-so-right. We girls have a far better knowledge of these things. We can put the right things,” she peppered a metal bar with kisses, “in the right places.” Officer Bones stammered in shock and what I presumed at the time was deliberation, cantering nervously in place. Eventually, she snapped her head forward to whisper strongly to both of us.

“You cannot be saying those kinds of things here! Do you know what would happen if somepony heard you?”

“They’d get jealous?” I chirped.

“They’d join in?” cooed Gypsy.

“They’d put you in a lot more trouble than you’re in now! A lot more!” She stepped away quickly, her voice raised, adding, “inmates, be silent! If you cannot be silent, you will receive one correctional hit from my stun baton. Do not test the security officers of Stable T-Thirty!”

With her reputation intact, she turned to leave, but then remembered something and quickly back tracked across to me. Something levitated out of her pocket and I crowed with delight as my bandana was carefully returned to me. In return, she collected a silver ring with a gem and markings from Gypsy’s head and replaced it in the same pocket, before clipping it shut.

“I didn’t give that to you. Try not to lose it again and please, both of you, don’t upset Procrustean and don’t say any more of that… stuff,” I didn’t have time to thank her, she was already marching down the corridor again like she’d suddenly had an tumultuous bowel movement.

“That was the little cutie in security that you mentioned?” murmured Gypsy, watching her until she couldn’t see her anymore, “my butt’s cuter.” I’d be lying if I said I disagreed, or that I took a peek to confirm the comparison. The mare sighed and turned back around to hop into the bunk and sit beside me, whilst I did everything not to look at her now. Damn it, above everything else, I really needed a buck.

“How are you holding up, Crow?” Gypsy whispered when the nether-teaser was gone. I gave a deep sigh and tried to push some of the bandages aside to show her. She hissed at the sight.

“They didn’t heal you properly?”

“Didn’t want to waste valuable commodities and effort on a creature that was now a criminal, I guess,” I explained, “especially when their own guys have a few less chances to win an arse kicking contest.”

“Yeah, I can respect that,” murmured my bunkmate after a breath, “still, they could have done a better job on that for you.” I nodded glumly and then attempted to put my bandana on, as though the entire minute we had been talking had been wiped from my mind. Sharp stabs of pain ran through my leg and I cursed my own inability to think before I did anything. Gypsy Breeze hopped off of the bed and moved around to face me, sitting on the cold floor with her tail curling around her hooves like a feline.

“Here,” she said, “let me.” She wrapped my bandana in a telekinesis field and levitated it, placing it onto my forehead before tying it carefully. I might have been missing my armor and my shoulder might have had a chunk missing, but I felt whole again.

"I guess I'm more religious than I used to be now, eh?" I said, pointing to the bandages on my upper arm. Gypsy Breeze didn't look up.

“Holy,” I told her, making the classic mistake of explaining the joke I was telling, “you know, like Holy Celestia? Hole in my shoulder?”

“Oh, I got it,” Gypsy Breeze gave me a deadpan look, “it was just a shit joke.” Then, contradicting herself, she laughed. We both did.

Over the next few hours, Gypsy Breeze and I used the opportunity given to us to catch up properly. I filled her in on Poxy’s secret chat with me, the extent of Procrustean’s grudge against me, and Mole.

Poxy’s warning particularly caused the mare to cringe and in return for my update, she finally told me about the conversations I’d missed in our camp after I’d escaped the amorous antics of Elm and Gypsy a few nights ago.

“We slept for about an hour after you left,” she told me over dinner. A different guard had brought us both two trays of food, which consisted of pastries, some beans and rice and a plain sponge cake for dessert. Whilst it wasn’t as exciting as the food in the Stable, was still enough to fill a healthy space in my appetite. I’d learnt on my first day that there was no meat in the whole city though and I knew that was going to get interesting for however long I was going to have to be here.

“Woody woke me up, I don’t think he’d slept, and said he needed to go speak to Poxy again. I didn’t want to get up, I was still aching from all the-“

“Please,”’I begged, “don’t remind me.”

“Bucking,” she drew the word out nice and long in a tantalizing lilt across those sweet lips for me, before tittering. She still held a power over me that I would never understand.

“Bitch,” I still mumbled as my cheeks burned.

“Eeyup,” she laughed, taking another mouth, “I wanted to keep sleeping, but he said he needed to go talk to Poxy without you this time and Poxy wouldn’t accept an audience alone. So, off we trotted to Poxy’s shack. She was the kind of pissed you expect for a mare who kept getting rudely awakened without the promise of a good lay behind it.” The last words bristled with forbearance.

“She asked me that night,” I admitted sheepishly in the middle of Breezy’s story, scooping my spoon through some rice, “I turned her down.”

“Yeah, you do that a lot, and not just with Poxy. There aren’t that many ponies or other creatures left in the Wastelands, you cannot afford to be choosy.” This telling off had been a long time coming and I’d expected it. From the very first meeting, Gypsy had decided I needed a mate and she was going to be the one to set me up with a special someone, whoever they might be. She’d been partially responsible for Poxy’s feelings for me and she’d done her best to tease others into my interests too. If she didn’t already have her Cutiemark (a ring of three birds, one blue, one red and one yellow) I’d have assumed she was trying to get it for matchmaking. It was like her brand new life mission.

“What about that mare you were with earlier?” she continued to muse, with half of her pastry rotating on her fork, held by a glow of magic. “Is she a goer?”

“She’s a spaz,” I muttered, not sure I really meant the words.

“She’s a mare. A filly who likes you and isn’t immediately ugly,” the argument was returned to my side of the court, but I was trying to win.

“She’s not my type. She likes cakes, and songs, and stupid games. If I spend any longer with her I’ll go crazy.” Feeling as though I could no longer eat with this conversation brewing, I pushed my tray away. Gypsy studied it, then her own empty tray, before swapping them around and going on to finish my dinner as well. If you’ve finished with something in this world, it instantly belonged to the next creature to find it, even if you wanted it back later. That’s how it worked, and that’s what we respected.

“So she’s too little like you, Poxy’s too much like you. What is the middle ground, Crow?”

“Oh, that’s easy, hen. It’s you,” I thought longingly, “You’re my middle ground, I’ve been crushing on you ever since I lay eyes on you and you don’t even look at me that way. I could be so good to you, even better than Elmwood, I’d look after you and make your wildest dreams come true. But you don’t see me like that.”

“I don’t know,” I lied, rather than allowing the truth in my head to spill out, “I guess I’ll know that shit when I see it.”

“Don’t take too long figuring it out,” she said in a motherly tone. You know your love life is doomed when your crush, already in a relationship with your best friend, then starts to treat you like you’re their egg-damned kid. I said earlier that I’d learnt to live with my jealousy and that hadn’t changed, but having my beak smooshed into the shitty situation like the nose of a potty-training pup was a little too much to bear.

“You went to see Poxy,” I reminded her before she forgot that she’d been telling me the story, persuading her to leave my steel-encrusted heart with its walls intact. Gypsy mouthed “oh, right” and continued from where she’d left off.

Narrated by my friend, I could easily imagine how the second meeting with Poxy had played out for Elmwood.

“He’s back?” She’d groaned, letting them in, “at least he’s no longer wearing that skull.”

“Clover!” Elmwood patted at his head then glowered at Gypsy, “you made me forget her! She’s going to feel left out now and I’ll have to dry those tears, it’s going to be a nightmare~”

“Deadwood!” Poxy snapped, “it’s late. If you’ve come here just to piss me off then I’ll gladly fetch my rifle and blast your own skull to bits, just so that you don’t need to worry about putting anything on it.” Elmwood considered a retort, but that would have been counter-intuitive to his plans. He relaxed quickly over his missing cap and spoke directly to Poxy.

“This plan? It’s crap.” He had been as blunt as that and it took Poxy aback. Not just because he was rebuffing his own scheme, but because he was speaking with her affably now. That was unheard of, but Elm wasn’t done.

“The Snips aren’t going to go into the Stable alone, they’re going to need some guiding,” he informed her. Poxy went to speak, but he tapped his own lips with his hoof to silence her.

“The Snips are still important to the plan, but not in the way you both think. I fed you both a can of horseshit because I needed Crow to believe it,” he shrugged, as though that made his decision okay.

“I wasn’t okay with him shutting you out of the real plan,” Gypsy Breeze assured me, “and I told him that, but when he explained his reasons I understood why it was important to fool the Snips, and these Stable-folk.”

“You expect me to follow a plan that fucks over your own alleged best friend?” Poxy had challenged. Elmwood thought about it for less than two seconds before he’d nodded.

“I do, because when this plan works, all of us can live in one of the biggest Stables ever built,” Elm knew that he’d gotten the Raider leader’s attention, even as she scoffed and argued that living in a pokey Stable was a ridiculous notion. He practically skipped across the room to the mare and sauntered arrogantly around her.

“The Stable knows we’re coming. I’ve had several talks with them and they’re very excited to meet us. They’re even willing to grant us salvation.” Before Elmwood had made his way around her, Poxy faced him in confusion. The surprise was heightened by a fresh revelation as both she and Gypsy Breeze saw him holding up a leg proudly.

“Where did you get that? Where were you hiding that?” his marefriend had asked in consternation as the pair of them stared a battered, old PipBuck above the hoof that had not been there seconds before. The questions, of course, went unanswered.

“Stable-Tec built a lot of nifty little do-dahs into these devices. All I needed to do was figure out which one got the Stable’s door open. The guards behind the door were all soiling their Stable-suits, because some stallion had just trotted up out of dead space and opened their big, impenetrable door without knocking. So they had all their guns pointed at little old me, and I realised, “opps, there’s still ponies in here,” but I bluffed that I’m a PipBuck technician from Stable-Tec just here to fix a broken toaster for the Overstallion or Overmare.”

Gypsy and Poxy had both squinted at him for the remark, and the raider leader had asked him whether that had actually worked.

“Ladies, it’s me,” he replied, and they didn’t question it further. If Elmwood had one thing, it was the charisma and ability to make any bluff believable.

“Of course, they didn’t let me just plod around the Stable on my own,” he added, “I got tossed in a jail cell and told to wait there. A few hours later, the Overstallion came along to speak to me directly. BUT!” Elm had a habit of crying out “but,” when he believed he was being a genius. He did it a lot. “They didn’t know your old friend Elmwood. They had given me the time alone to make a fresh, cunning plan for myself and for all of us. I introduce myself as Elementary Wood, technician extraordinaire from Stable Fifty-Four, coming to their aid based on a strange transmission I’d been having on my PipBuck, and tell ol’ Overlook to check if he didn’t believe me.”

“How did that not screw you over? They’d have seen your PipBuck and known you were lying,” concluded Poxy hastily, although Elm was already shaking his head.

“Nope! I’d already got the information stored in the PipBuck long before that meeting, in case of a rainy day,” he told them with that incorrigible sunny attitude, blackened eyes looking between them. He let Gypsy move over and inspect the item as he talked, the mare curious about the device. Finally, she tried again.

“Where’d you get this?” She asked. This time his answer was quick, cold and sent a chill up her back.

“I killed a Stabledweller for it.”

“There was something cold about the way he said it,” Gypsy thought aloud, “not the coldness of a killer, more like he was lying and hating it, you know?”

Once satisfied she had no more questions, he smiled again and continued to fill in the other gaps in his story.

“After they were convinced about me, I fed them a fresh story about our friends, the Congregation of Grand Magician Snips. I spun their own story against them to turn them into a group of Raiders, who were moving between Stables, attacking, pillaging and raping those innocent ponies inside in the name of the forefather they kept in a pisspot.

“I wept as I told the Overstallion and his council how the Snips had killed our families and friends, and enslaved the survivors of our Stable. I explained how I had heard that they were planning to break into this Stable with the PipBucks they’d stolen and I wanted to help Stable T-Thirty protect their home, but also pleaded to them that I needed to rescue my fellow Stable ponies as well. I’d barely escaped with scars and my life from the Snips just to bring them this warning.

“Fearing a battle with these crazy, blood-thirsty preachers I’d reinvented, he accepted my terms and plans and let me leave to come fetch your guys. He wanted to send a few guards out with me but I promised this was their safest option, as well as ours.” Elm finished, looking triumphant and awaiting praise for his fantastic antics.

“The Stable-mole rats are expecting Raiders,” Poxy had cut into Elm’s plan with a sharp knife to get to the gooiest problems at the heart of it, “when my boys and girls show up, even if they shed the bone armor, and bullet belts, and guns, and knives, they are still raiders through and through. I can think of at least five who have the word, “Raider,” tattooed on their person, Deadwood. Get around that one?”

The stallion had rolled his eyes and huffed at the question, stomping a hoof impatiently. He spoke slowly and demeaningly to her, giving her the answer as though she already ought to know it.

“Leave everything behind. Cover up any markings as best as possible. Tell the Stablers that the Snips scarred and tattooed any ponies you cannot cover up. You’re going to need to convince these ponies that you’re all a bunch of humble dwellers who have been through hell, and you’ll need someone clever to speak on your behalf. Unfortunately, I cannot be there, so Gypsy Breeze will have to suffice.”

The pair both broke into arguments with the cavalier cock at that point, Poxy proclaiming that she was the leader and more than capable of representing her gang for herself thank you very much, whilst Gypsy was more annoyed about Elm suggesting she was less capable than him. Elm shut them up with a forehoof pressed on each of their lips.

“Gypsy does the talking, because she can talk her way out of a Hellhound’s jaws. Sorry, Poxy, you just don’t have the gift of the gab like my girl.”

Poxy continued to protest, but from that point on it was back to Elm only answering questions or thoughts when Gypsy rose them. The horse with a swinging effigy of himself dead on his flanks reinstated the rule that Poxy could only talk to him through a representative as he unclipped the PipBuck from his own limb and placed it on his marefriend’s leg. He dispensed the directions to the Stable, and then gave her his last piece of advice when he had stepped away from her.

“When you get to the Stable, plug this port into the terminal by the door. The passway code is automated,” he pointed out the detachable socket for the PipBuck to Gypsy, “to get there with plenty of time to alert the Stablers to the Snips, you need to go now and take a good group with you. By good, I mean least likely to buck up the plan. Don’t take everyone, Crow needs to wake up thinking me and her are the welcome party,”

The lovers sealed the parting with a kiss, Elm urged them to go now, and promised with a wink that he would make sure I didn’t wake up too soon…

“He drugged me.”

My attempt to sound annoyed was substituted for tired acceptance of the fact. Nonetheless, Gypsy Breeze did her best to alleviate the particle of frustration remaining.

“And I wasn’t happy about that, I told him just what a shitty friend he’d been. To give the dude some credit, he accepted he’d made a heinous dick move in the name of the greater good.”

“Sure, because the definition of the greater good is crushing some dumb but harmless ponies under a building, obliterating another into dust and having the survivors stuffed into cages. Sorry,” I added, seeing my friend’s hurt expression, “I’m grateful you had my back, even if you didn’t talk Elm out of the idea altogether.”

“You think he’d have listened to me, Feathers?” It was hard not to love her when she used such a wide array of affectionate nicknames for me. I shrugged then nodded.

“Yes.”

She went quiet for a bit after that, and not just because the guard came to collect our empty trays. Not long after they’d been around, there was the call that lights would be going out for the night. I attempted to climb into my bunk to find a way of curling up in it that didn’t feel like laying in broken glass thanks to my shoulder. Half an hour of tossing and turning yielded results, but I almost immediately ruined the relief as Gypsy finally shifted to climb into her own bunk.

Impulses come easily to me, which is why I gamble high, drink hard and love easy. I rolled enough to watch the taut legs, athletic rump and more haul onto the bed above. Even with the sting lancing through my upper body, the sight had been worth it. My lechery didn’t go unnoticed.

“Goodnight, pervert,” sang the hidden beauty.

“Pfft, w-whatever, bitch,” I grunted in vain, cheeks cosy beneath my feather covers. I rolled back over to find that comfortable position once more. It took effort, but once I regained it, sleep came mercifully quickly.

“You have got to have an extra edge, babe. If you just use your claws for fighting, your foes will take away your claws...“

Snowbird was older than me by five years, and somehow that didn’t seem to matter to either of us. In those first five years at least, she’d lived in Trottingham long enough to gain a cute accent. She never told me much about the reasons she and her Ma moved to my neck of the woods, except that it was “less rape-y”. Although I never asked, I figure it was also why Peri had never had nor mentioned a father.

The words she gave me had always stuck with me. They’d been my own creed and spurred me to victory in many battles, yet the amount of nights they’d kept me awake and tearful had been in equal measure. She’d spoken them to me after one of my most vulnerable days, when the old, naive me was clipped away from me like a fledgling feather. The ashen pools of my mind swirled in my sleep and found the reflection of the moment in my teenage years that changed me for good.

“Your pa’s a dirty ood drunk!” teased a pale colt called Peely Wally from school. You never forget the names of your bullies. I was trying to ignore it, but this had been going on for months now. My tether was about to snap.

“A dirty ood drunk, and I bet if he got any drunker he’d suck off a-AGGGH!”

Gashes from the shocked colt’s cheek trickled under and over the hoof covering them, his eyes wide and surprised at me. My talons were red and I didn’t care. With livid adrenaline pulsing in my veins, I screamed into his face and pushed him to the floor.

“You dunnae know shit ‘boot me, and shit aboot my Pa, so drop it, or I swear, I will kill you!” I declared, my eyes already burning. He nodded with a fearful squeak and his friends shifted away from us as I gave a last, furious and deafening screech, then took off to fly somewhere, anywhere for a good cry. The need for emotions was not because I was upset, in fact I was overjoyed that I’d finally stood up to the ugly louse and defended my honor. The tears and the bawling on a cloud high over my little village came because I’d never fought like that before, and the shock was a lot for a little griffon in a big, dark world.

Word spread and the next day I had a new, mean reputation in the village which garnered me a fist full of respect from my peers. Of course, as all idiots do before a fall, I lavished in it. I had one colt buy me lunch, I had a filly give me a wing massage and I took regular potshots at Paley-Wally as he did his utmost to avoid me.

“Hey, Paley! Wannae say somethin’ else aboot me Pa now? My other claw needs the exercise!” A word to the wise, never insult a foal with an older sibling and especially do not do so when that older sibling is listening in.

“Hey, It’s Crow, right?”

Five ponies trotted across to me, led by a coal coloured horse with a grey mane. Dreich Day was Paley’s older, and scarier, big brother. He was the one heralding me over like the hangman at a final judgement.

“Oh, shit, listen, Dreich, I dinnae mean…”

“Psh, settle, hen, haud yer wheesht. Paley’s a wee turd, he opens his gob and shite falls out. I like ye. Do you wanna come hang out with us?” There’s a correct answer to this question. At the time, I did not know this, or maybe I was too afraid to use it, or maybe I was too high on my new found local fame to realise it.

“Hang with you? AYE! That sounds grand!”

“Tidy! Oh, but there’s one wee initiation you have to do in order to roll with us, lassie,” I should have seen, heard and tasted the warning bells, but I was not a smart griffon.

I followed the group across the village, sealing my fate further with boastful remarks about how I’d taken down bigger and dumber kids than Paley and that no pony, griffon, even dragon could best me in a fight. I had a whole lot of humble pie waiting for me, and it came in the form of a toolshed.

“What’s this?” I asked foolishly, then added, “what is it you want me to do?” The sneering looks of the gang began to fill me with dread, and the feeling of cold feet told me to buck it, but the internal warnings were far too late. Before I could fly, one had me latched in a headlock, another had my wings pressed back and the other two opened the door to the shed, everyone dragging terrified teenage me into it.

“Here’s what you’re going to do, y’wee griffon bitch. No-one beats up my wee brother, and you scarred him fer life. You’re lucky scars are very definin’ on a stallion. But, jus’ to make sure you dunnae scar no pony else, we’re gonnae cut your pointy bits off, okay? Don’t move, we dunnae wanna miss, do we?” Dreich was nothing if not thorough.

Gagged and flattened by the older ponies, I had to watch as my legs were stretched out and pinned down, and my talons were sawn off, one at a time. Each one was wretchedly slow, rough, painful, and bloody. A little known fact on griffon anatomy is that those talons have a vein running right through them and when you cut that, there is blood. A lot of blood.

Dreich and co. didn’t care, they watched my declawing with fascination, laughter and jibes. All I could see through my cries and whimpers were sneers, jeers and leers. I even got an eyeful of one colt trying to take my humiliation a step further, his foul stallionhood nearly wapping me in the face...

“ROCKO! Fuck sake, stallion, nay of us wants tay see that. Why ye alwees got tay get yer dick oot! Put the fucker away!” saved from one horror, but not another, I witnessed my last talon hacked off by the rusty saw whilst the sweating horse over me gathered his attached tool.

Finished and prepared to leave me in the state I was in, Dreich made sure he had one final word for me.

“Fuck with me family or anypony I know again, bitch griff, and the saw will start cutting higher next time. Aye?”

“A-Aye,” I sobbed, huddling into myself and shutting my eyes. I waited for something more, certain there was going to be another attack on my weak pitiful form, and I screamed out when the door slammed shut and I was left alone in a dark shack full of molding, pointy objects.

How long I stayed in there, I don’t know. A hour at least. Eventually I hobbled to the door, leaving smears along the black and unswept floor, and pushed at it. Locked, of course, but the door wasn’t in the best shape. The bottom of the way out was falling to bits and I had the tools to make it big enough for my then slim frame to fit through.

The escape took around another hour, simply because of how harrowing the experience was with bleeding feet. I threw up twice, passed out at least once to the best of my swimming recollection, and cried more than all the rain in Trotland. At last, a chunk of wood pulled off with the crowbar I was using, and I had enough space to squeeze through with a few lost feathers and a graze down one arm.

I didn’t go home. I didn’t think I could face my mother nor worry my Pa. I dragged my wasteful existence all the way through the village to the farthest home, belonging to my childhood friend, Periwinkle.

Luck had it, she was the first to answer her door as well. If it had been her Ma, she might have patched me up but then spoken to my folks and I wasn’t ready for that. Sweeping me into her arms like an orphan off of a doorstep, Snowbird carried me inside to her bed and patched me up. I might have woken the whole of Equestria with my howls when she disinfected the mutilated talons, if she had not stuffed a chunky novel into my beak to bite down on.

After my feet were bandaged, she cradled me, stroked me and gave me that one strong piece of advice.

“You have got to have an extra edge, babe. If you just use your claws for fighting, your foes will take away your claws. If you just use your legs, they will take away your legs. If you are going to fight, (and Crow, I know you are going to fight) then fight with every single bit of your being that you have. Even your beak. Especially your beak. Your voice is the hardest thing that they can take away.”

Cradling my talons under my arms, I had silently contemplated her advice with my eyes practically begging her to make everything better again. My talons would grow back, although two never felt right afterwards, and I would learn from the experience.

Author's Notes:

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Song for this chapter; Objects In The Rearview Mirror - Meatloaf

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Duskhoof