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Good Trooper Gilda

by Mitch H

Chapter 24: Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow

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"I will never be warm again, captain ma'am," whined the bat-hen.

"Don't exaggerate, Gilda. All the books insist that Griffonstone's climate is far colder than Trottingham's."

"But we have the feline sense to stay indoors when the world turns to white and Boreas hunts the frozen world over. And Grover's long dead. A smart cat knows to curl up by the fire and ignore the black months. She doesn't go stalking other idiots in the snows among the dead things."

"You were supposed to deliver the doctors to Bridlederry. How did that turn into 'stalking other idiots in the snow'?"

"Fort Guilliame, actually, captain ma'am. Emphasis on 'fort'. The war's still on out there. Every snowdrift's got a clan-griffon hiding in it with blood in their eyes. Those as who aren't snowblind."

"Again, it was just a delivery job. You were glorified moving vans."

"The war had other ideas. There was a bombing on Route Trottish. And then an ambush. And then everyone converged, and decided to throw a party in the snow. The damn doctors piled out in the middle of the road and set their damned surgical cots and started stitching and cutting right in the open.

"Captain ma'am, we had to set up tents over working surgical teams. With the north wind trying to freeze everyone on the spot."

"I'm sure they had their reasons," Gleaming Shield said, raising a brow at the half-melted snow dripping from Gilda's barding.

"They're all mad as Twopenny Lane hatters, is what their reasons are. Admittedly, we weren't getting any closer to Fort Guilliame with a three-battalion battle-front and half of Clan McGregor dying in the open on the road in between. Do they put something in the water here in the Isles? There had to have been thousands of imbeciles running around in a snowstorm trying to kill each other!"

"Haven't you ever had city-wide snowball fights in Griffonstone? We had some real corkers back when I was a foal in Canterlot City. One of the highlights of winter."

"Griffonstone snowballs traditionally are at least twenty-five percent rock by volume. It doesn't lend itself to large-scale playing about."

"You know, I don't remember seeing foals playing like that after… well. We were all far too busy at the Academy. And there was the war to think of."

"Not as much fun to play at war when there's the real thing, is it? Captain ma'am, life's war in Griffonstone. Playing at it in the street just invites actual bloodshed."

"So, five thousand creatures out in a snowstorm, and not a snowball to be seen?"

"Not a one, captain ma'am. On the plus side, the gonnes wouldn't have worked in a blizzard. The doctors mostly had to work with puncture and blunt-trauma casualties that first day. And frostbite."

"And after that?"

"Early morning on the second day, the Hayward Dragoons and the other reinforcements arrived. And the Dragoons set the wind on fire."

"Really drove the clan-griffons off the field, did they?"

"No, captain ma'am. Their flamethrowers blew back in the gale-force winds, and the streams aerosoled. I wasn't close enough to see what exactly happened, but the- the snow must have caught fire. Their charge disappeared into clouds of steam, and then fire… rain." The wind had carried the burning motes for a while, and had looked like what Gilda imagined a phoenix in flight must look, or volcanic ash falling from the skies, two things she'd never seen in person, but only read of.

She now had seen the wind on fire. And the things inside of it burning, falling.

The Dragoons had taken heavy casualties from their own weapons. Gilda had found a half-crazed Lieutenant Zippo Raid in the tangle of his own half-wrecked chariot, his pegasus insensate in the traces. The madpony, half his mane burnt off, had laughed hysterically as he'd watched the droplets of boiling water and flaming gel fall gently all around them, the heat from the burning stopping the driving winds over the fields beneath the failed charge, stilled by the updrafts.

"So this is why you're three days late, then?"

Gilda jerked, returned to the present.

"As was the rest of the battalion! Where were you, captain?"

"No ma'am for me when I'm absent without my bat-hen's approval, is it?"

"Of course not, captain ma'am."

"As you can see, I'm still detached, on princess-herding duty. Which is becoming increasingly unwieldy. And why I sent for you."

"Oh, I'm not complaining, captain ma'am. Let the rest of the old birds freeze their feathers off out there. Maybe they'll get the 93/1st finally into Fort Guilliame by the thaw. Those that don't end up in a ward with frostbite."

Gilda's captain consulted something wrapped around her right foreleg, and then smiled in satisfaction. "You missed the first meeting of Lady George and Princess Cadenza."

"Oh, hey, you upgraded your cheatsheet, captain ma'am!"

"It definitely helps. Cadance's heart broke when she heard about the turuls. She always did love those old breezie tales. The two of them have been chattering non-stop since 'Bob' came around and forced the matter. I would have completely forgotten about it, again, with you not here. I think we've had about enough of you galavanting about on your own, Corporal, while we're on that subject. Are you my bat-hen, or are you some sort of… knight-errant, or land-privateer?"

Gleaming Shield had been the pony who'd ordered Gilda to be very, very busy somewhere which wasn't princess-infested. And then had mostly ordered the bat-hen to be elsewhere as often as possible. But if the captain was willing to let that particular unpleasantness blow away in the wind, Gilda was willing to let it go, and not worry about whoever caught it in the face downwind.

"You caught me going out to collect an accurate map of the East," the unicorn said, brandishing said rolled-up map in her horn-glow. "They're in Lady George's stable. The princess sent most of her attendants away, and shoved the guards outside to guard the hallways and the doors. They're getting on like a house on fire."

"Mmm… fire. That sounds nice." Gilda grimaced at the captain's look of alarm. "No, captain ma'am, that they're getting along. George seems restless sometimes. And the Princess is a princess, isn't she? She'll remember conversations from one day to the next, without George having to pretend to be a Trottish weirdo with an improbable name."

"What is the deal with that? I've never met a griffon with a name like 'Bob'."

"I knew a bird who went by Billy back in Griffonstone."

"Well, that's something."

"It was short for Guilliame."

"And that isn't. How many birds named Guilliame are there, anyways?"

"He was a hero of myth and legend. Also, boringly, history. The first Duke of Trottingham!"

"The original rulers of Trottingham were ponies. You can tell by the name."

Gilda had been reading her history, she knew this. "Aha! But they weren't dukes! First barons, then earls. Then the second siege of Trottingham, and Guillliame forced them to surrender before they had to figure out if ponies were capable of cannibalism, because they'd eaten everything else."

"That sounds vaguely familiar. Didn't I see it in a play somewhere?"

Their walking conversation was interrupted by a sudden bright flash that obscured Gilda's view of the corridor, and the guards at the end of that corridor, before a barred door. As she and Gleaming Shield blinked away their blindness, Gilda saw the source of their torment - that damned yellow unicorn and her photographic camera.

"Damn it, Lemon Hearts!" cursed Gilda's captain. "Do you have to do that every time I enter the Princess's presence?"

"Every time a new visitor shows up, Twilight!"

"Stop calling me that! Gah. Gilda, where was I?"

"We were talking about Guilliame and that old play, The Breaking Of The Nag?"

"Ha! No, not the piece I was thinking of, although I think I've heard of that version. Griffish, right? I remember, now. Stooping To Conquer. Dowry Sting and…"

"Her griffon bridegroom from the Isles clans, Guilliame, yes. I've never heard of Stooping To Conquer. Was it any good?" Gilda and Gleaming Shield passed between the guards posted by the inner door into George's stables, leaving the obnoxious photographer outside in the hall. They found the two princesses inside, with one of the White Sisters sitting in a half-circle beside Lady George's vast sitting-bed, chatting amiably and eating a late dinner.

Lady George had a huge salted slab of tuna, of course.

"The version I saw," continued Gleaming Shield, "was re-cast as a rather pointed propaganda piece, so no, it was not particularly good. Princess! Do you remember that awful play they put on for the first anniversary of the bombings?"

"Oh, stars, not until you reminded me. Awful bit of theater, wasn't it, Livery?" The pink winged unicorn was still as striking as always, but somehow she felt less… overwhelming in the presence of that great bird of prey looming over her. George looked down at her with as much of a smile as the turul's beak could show, nipping thoughtfully at her salted tuna. Gilda could even look at Princess Cadenza without quailing, now that the princess's attention was directed elsewhere.

And it was hard to be over-awed by a pony picking at a salad, even one that smelled as good as this one did. What were they eating?

"I barely recall," said the white earth pony, digging around in her salad for what Gilda couldn't see. "We see so many bad productions, don't we? And noblesse oblige requires we attend every season, year in, year out, no matter how bad the actors, the book, or the direction. We're hardly Manehattan, are we? Such a shame. Aunt Celly loves theater so much, but theater doesn't love her back." Lady Livery shoved a spoonful of the salad into her mouth, wilted lettuce, white flaky stuff, sauce and all. "Ah, delicious. I don't know how we ever survived without 'Shelly Greens'."

The white noblepony turned to the great bird above her, and continued her chatter in between bites of her crab salad.

"Now, Lady George, please, tell us more about the Great Roost. Do you have theater?"

"We don't have nearly the population for big performances," rumbled the huge bird. "Not like you have here in the teeming cities of the west. We can only maintain so many birds in a given territory! The Great Roost is all we can gather together, and then only in the fat of the year. Turuls are solitary creatures in times like now. In the winter, the game hibernate, or hide, or husband their resources against the starving times. Ironically, they'll be in the Bugbear Territory this month, a lot of them, hunting the winter game while the bugbears are hibernating. The turul are never so far west as in January, but they're impossibly scattered, every bird alone on the hunt. The Great Roost will be empty tonight, not even my idiot brother and his supporters. The gathering will not begin until the green is back on the land, and the spring game-animals are back in the fields and the woods."

"So, April?" asked Princess Cadenza.

"In the mountains, more like May. And yes, we did occasionally get a troupe of diamond dogs who put on performances for gems and precious metals. Pretty little speeches, scenes from this and that. I eventually came to recognize what they were performing, from the books my mother gave me. When she bothered to acknowledge my existence."

"Why, did the Queen of the Turuls not pay attention to her heir?" asked Livery.

"I was not her heir until a few years ago. My elder sister was the cosseted successor to be. Until she tried to add to our inheritance by carving out a swathe of new hunting-lands from the altiplano, and the hidalgos killed her and a few of her followers."

"What, she was able to gather followers through that coronet-curse?" asked Gleaming Shield, frowning in concentration as she maintained her shield against said curse.

"My elder sister was an impressive bird, with charisma to burn. So yes, even through this blasted coronet. It wasn't enough to keep the ballista-bolt from her heart, or so I have heard, third-claw via my late mother. A cautionary tale, delivered with the coronet itself."

"We have sent a request for magi," said Livery, "from the Academy of Magic, and specialists from… well, from the agency in charge of investigating foreign creatures and deep magic. But since we have to send our appeals through Aunt Celly, it will be a slow process."

"I can't make my case before the Turulmoot with this damn cursed artifact on my head! But the deadlines are rushing on me. I can feel it in my hollow bones, this will be a breeding year. If I'm not brooding on the nest of nests by July, the whole of the continent will be inundated with a generation of rocs, or worse, an entire generation killed in the nest by their mothers."

"We will do everything in our power," promised Princess Cadenza, impulsively. "I cannot leave an entire race of mothers in mourning! It cannot be tolerated!"

Gilda waved unsteadily, suddenly overcome with a grey wave of hopelessness and pain. Images of past and not-nearly-past-enough horrors flickered in her peripheral vision. Burning griffons and chariots, falling, the boiling rain… The princess's pretty speech faded from Gilda's hearing as the roaring of the burning wind filled her ears.

"Cadance. You're projecting again. Calm yourself"

"What? Oh. Sorry. Corporal Gilda, Princess George, please, calm yourselves. My apologies?"

Gilda blinked, slowly, and the cool, calm stables came back to her. "N-no problem, princess ma'am. Has anyone ever told you, you pack a wallop?"

"It has been noted, by my family among others," Cadance looked ruefully at her elder sister, who was calmly drinking from a flask of tea, her dinner finished and neatly packed to the side. "I forget myself sometimes. Have you collected yourself, Princess George?"

"Y-yes. The coronet protected me, a little. That's quite the trick you have in your sleeve, Princess Cadance."

"Please, call me Cadance."

"Then you must call me George."

"I want to send you and my ponies on an expedition, today! My pegasus guard could easily take us into the Bugbear Territory. You might not be able to talk to your birds, but I can! And we all have wings! It'll be an adventure, and I hope, one without any bloodshed or grief. It's perfect!"

Gilda, still burdened with that wash of remorse and sadness the princess's surge had left lapping around her paws, thought about the bloodshed in the districts, of Clan MacGregor impaling themselves bravely on pony spear-heads, of the Dragoons immolating themselves, of hospital-tents full of screaming wounded and yelling doctors. She thought of the war that this well-intentioned but undisciplined princess had midwifed into existence.

And then she thought of the noble, resolved face of that old unionist guildmaster, promising to walk into the lion's den, walk into Lieutenant Colonel Pie's death-trap, for the sake of his workers, and his absent duchess.

"No," Gilda said.

The ponies bent their heads over Gleaming Shield’s detailed map, and continued their chatter of quests and adventure and problems which neither pressed nor were imminent. Ignoring the war in front of their muzzles. Chasing legends and magic.

"No," Gilda repeated, and Gleaming Shield turned, her attention diverted from the princesses and their plans.

"What are you-" Gilda's captain started to ask.

"No!" Gilda interrupted her. Lady Livery's attention was attracted as Gilda's wings rose in threat-display.

"NO!" Gilda shouted, angrily, in her parade-voice.

The princesses turned, astonished.

"Gilda!" Gleaming Shield yelped, scandalized. "You can't yell at-"

"No more tomorrows!" Gilda yelled. "No more pretty plans! Not today! Not with hundreds bleeding and dying in the freezing cold outside of Bridederry! Not with that lunatic Pie plotting the murder of good griffons for whatever mad plan she has made for us! No more!"

Gilda gathered herself, on the brink of tears.

"Princess, please. These are your birds, your ponies - not some foreign flock you've never laid eyes upon. I can't appeal to Lady George, because that dispersed flock of turul are her flock, but they are not yours. And yours aren't worrying about the eggs of next summer, they're dying today! Tonight. In the snows outside of these walls.

"Leave tomorrow to bury tomorrow's dead! Give your full attention to today's while they still live!"

A burst of sardonic clapping erupted behind Gilda, and she turned, furious, to look at the interloper.

That damned yellow unicorn was standing there, clapping her forehooves together.

"Bra-va, Corporal. I don't think I've seen anyone tell off one of the princesses in a cockatrice's age," said Lemon Hearts, smirking.

Author's Notes:

Thanks for editing and pre-reading help to Shrink Laureate, Oliver, and the general Company.

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Good Trooper Gilda

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