I looked up from my lunch when I heard a chair on the other side of the table pull out, the legs groaning loudly as they ground against the floor. A very ticked off orange dragon stood next to it, gripping her lunch tray so tightly that her claws were surely going to leave dents in it. Smolder took her seat with sass, not so much sitting down as throwing herself into it.

“How’d it go?” I asked.

She grumbled in response, but didn’t say anything. The scowl written across her face did most of the talking.

“Did you have any idea on number 47? I think it came from the chapter on—”

“Gallus, stop,” she snapped. “Five minutes. Give me five minutes before you make me think about anything.”

I closed my beak and, since there wasn’t anyone at the table who wanted to talk, turned my attention to the doorway at the far end of the lunchroom. Smolder and I finished Professor Twilight’s exam fast, and that spoke for how we both did. The others would probably take a little bit longer.

I drummed my talons on the table, the rhythm of it calming my stomach a bit. With the exam finished, I was nervous now for a different reason. I had a question for my friends, one that could change everything for me.

The school year and all of its craziness was now officially dead and buried, and everyone would head home for the summer over the next couple of days. The thought of returning to Griffonstone for three whole months was enough to turn my stomach, so I wanted an out. Odds were good that I’d get a unanimous “no” and go home anyway, but I still had to try. I needed them all here to ask it, though, so I had a few minutes to prepare myself.

Our usual table was near the front of the room, right next to the food line. Other students were slowly ambling in, but the room was mostly empty. My food didn't interest me much, so I spent my time awkwardly darting my eyes around the room, searching for something of interest to occupy my mind. A few more minutes dragged by, and the first one to join us was Ocellus, who climbed into her seat directly across from me with a quick buzz of her translucent wings after getting her food.

Now, I knew this was a school of friendship, and I just took an entire exam over friendship, but I couldn’t help feeling the slightest bit annoyed by that happy little smile on her muzzle. Nobody had any right to be that happy after having their brain run through a cheese grater. Not even the nerds.

I must have been giving her more stink-eye than I’d intended, because her smile quickly dried up as her pupil-less eyes settled on me. “What is it, Gallus?”

“Sorry.” I shook my head to try and reset my face. “Just... zoned out for a second,” I lied. Telling her what I’d really been thinking wasn’t the best idea.

The smile came back again, though less pronounced. “Oh, yeah, I understand. That test was a doozy, even for me.”

Sure it was, Bookbug. Sure it was.

“My brain hurts,” I said idly, scooping up a bite of my mashed potatoes. Living in Equestria was great by comparison to Griffonstone in just about every aspect except for the food. Living in a society composed of herbivores made meat a difficult thing to come by, if not outright taboo. The food here wasn’t terrible, but as I chewed over the bland mush, I longed for a steak, or at least something meat-based.

The table shifted under the arm I was leaning my head against, shaking the thought from my mind. Yona took the seat to Ocellus’ right, and Sandbar followed, sitting next to Yona and immediately to my left.

“School! Is! Out!” Yona shouted, banging a hoof on the table. The accompanying lurch made me more or less punch myself in the cheek, and that was when I decided to stop leaning on my elbow. Smolder noticed me pull my arm back and snickered to herself.

“How do you guys feel?” asked Sandbar.

“I don’t even want to think about it until I get my report card in the mail,” said Smolder.

Ocellus turned to Smolder. “Did you—”

“If you want to live, don’t finish that sentence,” Smolder snapped, pointing a claw directly at Ocellus’ muzzle.

Ocellus shrank back in her chair. “Sorry.”

“Hey guys!” There was the last straggler. I felt a small gust of wind as Silverstream claimed the final spot at the table on my right, hovering just above the ground. She vaulted over the back of her chair and sat down without ever touching the floor. “Now that was an exam! Professor Twilight said it was going to be hard, but wow!”

“I don’t get how you four can be so upbeat,” said Smolder. “Every time I take a test, my head hurts for like the rest of the day.”

“Did you study?” asked Silverstream. That must have been the same question Ocellus was going to ask, because it made Smolder snort derisively.

“Yes! I did!” Smolder threw her hands up, ready to start ranting, but then she went wide-eyed for a second, took a deep breath, and deflated. “Sorry. I don’t think I did well on that one. I spent most of my study time on the history of friendship, but the test focused more on friendship theory.” She sighed. “I’m frustrated; sorry if I’m snapping at you.”

“I bet you did better than you think,” said Ocellus. “Even if you didn’t cover theory that much in your studying, the fact that you’re sitting at this table is evidence that you’re not as bad at that as you think you are.”

“Maybe,” said Smolder, the faintest hint of a smile forming at the corners of her mouth. “I guess all I can do now is wait. My fate’s in Twilight’s hooves now.”

The conversation hit a lull while everyone focused on their lunch. I let it sit for a minute, but when chatter didn’t pick back up, I decided it was time. I chose to use a soft approach and start with a slight misdirect, working around to the actual question.

I didn’t want to seem desperate or anything.

“So, how much longer are you guys staying?” I scanned around the table, watching faces for their responses.

“Like, another hour,” said Smolder. “I barely have anything to pack, so I’m flying back pretty much right after this. I’ve got a lava pit with my name on it back home.”

“Yona leaves tomorrow morning,” she said. “Prince Rutherford is coming to pick Yona up.”

“Same here,” said Silverstream. “Well, Prince Rutherford isn’t coming to pick me up, but my dad is!” Her grin widened. “I haven’t seen my family in so long.”

“I’ll be around until tomorrow afternoon,” said Ocellus.

“I’m leaving tomorrow too,” said Sandbar, earning looks from everyone at the table.

“Uh, you live here,” said Silverstream.

“That was the joke.”

I rolled my eyes, and I assume a few others did too. I couldn’t see them while my vision traced a circle around the room.

“What about you, Gallus?” asked Ocellus.

“Oh yeah, I’ve got… plans,” I said, a pit of dread opening up in my gut. I’d known my friends for the better part of a year, and yet for some reason, I still felt the need to cover up exactly how little of a life I had back home in Griffonstone. That topic was about to come up again, and even though it was necessary, I hated it.

The lie was as paperthin as I’d intended. Everyone, with the exception of Smolder, had picked up on the implication and was looking at me with eyes full of sympathy. The attention wasn’t particularly pleasant, and I squirmed in my chair before letting out a sigh of defeat. “Fine. I don’t know when I’m leaving. I don’t even know what I’m doing this summer. It’s not like there’s much waiting for me back home.”

I heard two of the girls say a muddled combination of “oh” and “aww”, but I didn’t pay attention to exactly who it was. I took another bite of my potato mush while I waited for the spotlight to move off of me.

It didn’t, exactly as I’d hoped. When I finished chewing, I glanced around to see expectant looks across the board. Even Smolder looked a little concerned. “Guys, it’s not a big deal.”

“But it is!” said Silverstream. I hadn’t looked directly at her, but I was forced to when she draped an arm over my shoulders. “We can’t just leave you alone for three months.”

“I’m used to it,” I said, the words tasting faintly acidic on the way out of my beak. Really, this was no different from the tricks I used when haggling at the markets in Griffonstone. Downplaying things, acting like I wasn’t desperate, leading the others in. After the incident over Hearth’s Warming when I’d opened up and told everyone about my home life, I’d seen a subtle shift in how my friends treated me. They pitied me and my situation, and I could use that.

Maybe friendship school hadn’t taught me that much after all. Here I was, manipulating my friends into saving me from a miserable summer. Disgust washed through my mind, but I kept it to myself. I could live with a little guilt if it meant not going home. “I’ve spent most of my life alone. I can handle another three months.”

That was the final act I needed to make the pity party a success. Silverstream swung herself around in front of me and looked me straight in the eyes, her beak just an inch from mine. “I’m not taking no for an answer,” she said. Then she turned to face the others. “Come on guys, we can figure something out if we put our heads together!”

“I can already tell you I’m not gonna be any help. I know you griffons are tougher than you look, but I don’t think you could handle the Dragon Lands for more than a couple of days,” said Smolder. I couldn’t argue with that, and neither could Silverstream.

“Same here,” said Ocellus. “The Badlands are fine for Changelings, but we don’t really depend on regular food all that much.” She gestured to her tray, which held only a few morsels. “You’d have a tough time staying fed out there,” she said, offering a shrug and eyes that screamed “sorry”.

“I know my parents would let you crash at my place for a while, but I don’t know if they’d be good for three months,” said Sandbar. “I can ask though.”

“Yaks will take Gallus!” Yona shouted. “Yaks best at hospitality! Griffon can stay with Yona and learn smash like real yak.”

I gulped. A whole summer living with yaks, most of them much bigger than Yona. And they loved to smash things; I could easily wind up in that category.

“No offense, Yona, but I’d like to survive the summer,” I said. Yona looked a little disappointed, so I added a white lie onto it. “I don’t like the cold that much anyway. I appreciate it, though.” She nodded, which made me feel a little better about it.

“So that leaves me. Hmm...” said Silverstream. “I don’t think I have any room with my dad. And my mom lives underwater, so you don’t want to do that. Trust me.”

The mood at the table fell, everyone except Silverstream settling down to eat their lunch. She hovered next to me, eyes fixed on the ceiling with a claw hooked under her beak, deep in thought.

“Well, this is promising,” I said. It sounded better in my head, but my half-hearted attempt at a quip fell flat, doing nothing to break the silence. After another minute or so, Silverstream went back to her seat and started eating, though her mind was elsewhere, pondering something as she chewed. It seemed that the conversation was over, so I shoveled the rest of my potatoes into my beak and swallowed them as quickly as I could, letting my mind wander toward thoughts of home.

It just soured my mood.

I was about ready to excuse myself and head back to the dorms when Silverstream spoke up. “Sandbar?”

“What’s up?”

“Are you sure Gallus can stay with you for a few days?”

“Yeah, totally.”

“Sweet!” Silverstream turned to me next. “Ok, Gallus. I think I figured it out.”

“What is it?” My heart jumped. Had my plan worked after all?

“I’ll tell you later.” She hopped up from her seat and collected her tray. “I’ve got some planning to do. I’ll see you guys back at the dorms!” And with that, she immediately raced off with a big grin on her face.

I looked around at the rest of the group incredulously. “I’m scared.”

That leavened the mood a bit, earning a few chuckles. “I’ll see you guys up there,” I said, hopping up from the table. I dropped my tray off at the dishwasher’s window and left the lunchroom.

After Smolder left that afternoon, we found ourselves with a little free time to hang out around Ponyville, so we decided our last act as a semi-together group for this school year would be bowling. It was fun, but we all sucked. The afternoon passed in what felt like the blink of an eye, and then we spent most of the evening packing up our belongings to be out of the dorms before the deadline the next morning.

Well, the rest of them did. I spent a lot of time bouncing between rooms, talking to everyone to keep myself distracted. Silverstream didn’t make any mention of her plans while we hung out, so I was anxious. Once I ran out of conversations to have, I retired to my room and started reading one of the books Ocellus gave me for Hearth’s Warming.

It was more bittersweet the next morning when Yona and Silverstream left. Whereas Smolder had taken off without much fanfare, Silverstream spent the better part of half an hour going around and saying her—sometimes tearful—goodbyes to everyone she seemed to have ever met at the school, including all of the teachers. I was the last one she came to, and instead of the tears and sadness I was expecting, she looked to me with a big grin.

“Bye, Gallus!” she said, wrapping me in a hug that was tighter than I’d normally expect from someone as light as her.

“Have a safe trip back,” I said, patting her once on the back and then stepping back to cut the hug short.

She didn’t let go immediately, but she took the hint quickly enough and let go. “So, question: do you mind working this summer?”

“What?”

She rolled her eyes. “Remember yesterday, we were trying to figure out what to do for your summer?”

“Oh, right. Yeah, work’s fine.”

“Great!” she said, clapping her hands together. “I’m going to send a letter to Sandbar’s house for you sometime next week. I’ll let you know what I find out!”

She turned to leave, but I stopped her. “Wait, you’re getting me a job?”

“I’m gonna try to, yeah.”

“What kind of job?”

She giggled and waved her claw dismissively. “Oh, Gallus, you don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

I deadpanned at her. “Uh, Silver. That’s kind of important. I need to know what kind of job it is.”

She deflated, but nodded. “I guess that’s fair. I don’t know all of the specifics, but I’m going to ask my dad if he can find a temporary spot in the Hippogriff Navy for you.”

“The… the Navy?” I stammered. “Like the ‘sailing around, fighting pirates’ Navy?”

“Yep!” she said. “If my dad says no, I can just ask my aunt. She’s the queen, so she’ll be able to make something happen.”

I took a second to mull it over. I’d never been near a boat bigger than a canoe before, and I didn’t know the first thing about sailing. I didn’t know how dangerous the job was, what kind of hippogriffs I’d be around, or really anything. It’d be a major step outside of my comfort zone.

She picked up on my hesitation. “Well, does that sound okay?”

I looked her in the eyes, and then I nodded. “Boats are pretty cool, I guess.”

“Great!” She pounced on me with another hug, but this time pulled away quickly enough that I didn’t have to break it myself. “I’ll try to get it all figured out as quick as I can.”

“Sounds good,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “So, I guess I’ll see you next week?”

“Next week.” She turned to leave. “I hope,” she added. “See ya!”

Silverstream left me alone, and I spent the next hour or so cleaning my room and packing. It was just me, Sandbar, and Ocellus for the rest of the afternoon, and when she left that evening, I gathered my stuff and headed to Sandbar’s house.

The next few days at Sandbar’s house were uneventful. His family was pretty nice, but I could see just a little bit of unease on his little sister’s face when she was around me. I caught her staring wide-eyed at my beak and talons a few times over the weekend that I was there.

I seemed to get that fairly often from ponies, especially young ones. I didn’t think of myself as intimidating, but I guess thousands of years of civilization still couldn’t quite put the old predator/prey dynamic all the way to bed. Nothing ever came of it, though, so I didn’t spend much time worrying about it.

We all took a trip on Saturday to a place called “Hare’s Foot Falls” out somewhere in the middle of Whitetail Woods and spent the day hiking around and sightseeing. It was a peaceful day, and I managed to break away from the group on occasion to allot myself some alone time. Free from the distractions of the group, my thoughts shifted to my summer plans.

I was nervous about Silverstream’s letter and what it might say. She sounded confident in her ability to find a job for me, but I was skeptical. Even for as well-connected as she was, she was just a teenager like me. I had my doubts about how much sway she actually held, so I had to prepare myself for the very real possibility that I’d be heading home to Griffonstone next week.

That scared me a lot more now than it had just a few days ago. Going home shouldn’t have been a big deal; it was familiar, a place I knew like the back of my hand. I’d have been fine whatever the outcome, but now, I had hope. I knew they all pitied me because I was an orphan, and I’d milked their sympathy for my own personal gain. Well, maybe it wasn’t all personal gain. Now Silverstream would get to spend the summer with me around! Who wouldn’t love that?

I grimaced. Narcissism wasn’t a luxury I often afforded myself, but here I was, trying to use it to justify manipulating my friends. I wasn’t graduating from that damned school anytime soon, not doing stuff like this.

Regardless of whether or not it was ethical for me to play my friends fairly harmlessly to my advantage, now I had a real shot of staying out of that hole, and I was excited for it. But it wasn’t a certainty. Silverstream’s letter could very well just tell me that the plan was off, that she couldn’t make it work. Better luck next time, try again.

I wasn’t prepared to have my hopes dashed.

The weekend came and went, as did Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. It was Thursday morning, and I was sitting in the den, eating a bowl of sugary, marshmallowy cereal. It probably had as much nutritional value to me as sawdust, though I couldn’t deny that it still tasted good. Dumping that amount of sugar into just about anything would probably make it delicious.

Today had to be the day. I’d expected her letter by Tuesday, but my hopes were still intact. I told myself that if she didn’t get a letter here by the weekend, then I could assume that meant “no” by default. I was starting to sense my welcome running a little thin, anyway. I figured Sandbar’s family would be sick of me by Saturday, and so that would be when I threw in the towel and went home.

The front door opened, and in walked Sandbar’s dad. He was wearing a robe and carrying a cup of coffee in one hoof, the day’s mail tucked under his arm. He disappeared into the kitchen, and I trained my ears on the doorway, listening for any signs of good news. After a few minutes, I heard his slippers shuffling on the linoleum floor, and then he entered the den holding a letter.

I immediately jumped up, as did my heart rate.

“And one for Gallus,” he said with a smile, passing the letter to me.

I took the letter and immediately sliced it open with a talon. I felt a knot of dread in my stomach, but I didn’t particularly care. Anticipation outweighed any anxiety I felt, and I unfolded the letter. It was a bit shorter than I’d expected.

My grin grew steadily as I read, and by the end of it, I was positively beaming. My little scheme had paid off royally, and now I had a plan for my summer. I couldn’t help it when I jumped in the air and shouted, “YES!” at the top of my lungs.

When I landed back on the floor, I was greeted with the sight of Sandbar’s dad clutching a lamp that had fallen toward him and he was shooting me a glare. I guessed one of my wings bumped it when I jumped.

“I know we didn’t go over this in the house rules, but can you not do that again?” he asked.

I deflated and folded my wings in, but the smile didn’t leave my beak. “Sorry, got a little carried away.”

He chuckled. Apparently Sandbar’s mellow attitude ran in the family. “I take it that’s good news?” he said, leaning the lamp upright.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m going to Mount Aris!”

My grin only grew wider as I dashed down the hall to the guest bedroom so I could gather my things. I had a train to catch.

The moment the carriage door opened, I was assaulted by humidity. The air felt thick, like I could reach out and cut it with my talons. The air conditioning in the coach was no match for the soup that was rushing in to replace it. I hesitated to step out, letting a few of the other passengers take the initiative first. A couple of hippogriffs and several ponies walked outside like nothing was wrong, like the air wasn’t trying to suffocate them.

Maybe that’s just the nerves talking. I took a deep breath of that hot, heavy air and held it. There wasn’t anything stopping me. The air was humid, but I could still breathe. Yonder lay opportunity, a land that could hold anything and anyone.

I guess that was what scared me. Regardless of my fear, the train wouldn’t stay here forever, and I only had a one-way ticket. I let the breath go and stepped out of the train car, forward into oblivion.

The air was warm, but the sun was warmer. I could feel the heat through my feathers almost instantly, and I knew I’d be drenched with sweat in no time. I slung my bag over my shoulder and walked down the platform, slipping past several groups of passengers standing around talking amongst themselves.

The whole time, however, my eyes were drawn upward, towards the mountain itself. To call it a spectacle would be an understatement—it was tall and steep, though that alone wasn’t what set it apart; two great walls of stone wrapped around the sides of the peak, resembling a pair of huge outstretched wings, extending from a tall spire at the summit. They seemed to float in place separately from the mountain, cradling the city on the hill and protecting it from some huge, invisible attacker.

I could see two clusters of buildings, one around the base of Mount Aris, and the other at the summit. A smattering of others filled the space between the two main groups, built in random places along the winding path that climbed the steep slope. It zigzagged back and forth a dozen times on its way up to the top. Judging by how small the buildings looked from here, each wing was probably at least a mile long from the spire to the tips near the base.

I had to stop for a moment to marvel. I’d seen pictures of it before, but none of them did justice to the scale of the place.

“Gallus!”

Before I had more time to gawk, my vision suddenly filled with purple and my chest was crushed in a wickedly tight hug.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so happy to see you!”

Silverstream caught me off guard, to say the least. I returned her hug briefly, but cut it short with a step backward. “Good to see you, too,” I said.

“How was the trip?” she asked, smiling wide.

“It was alright,” I said, smoothing out the feathers that she’d ruffled on my back. “About like any other train trip I’ve ever taken, but I haven’t ever slept on a train, so that was new.”

“That’s my favorite part! I sleep like a baby every time I come back from Ponyville.”

I yawned. “Honestly, I’ve had better. Didn’t care for all the rocking, and it was… noisy.”

Silverstream giggled and beckoned towards me with an outstretched claw. “I bet you’ll sleep well tonight once you’re settled. Speaking of which, we need to get moving. Follow me!”

We left the platform and went down some stairs that led to a stone walkway which paralleled the beach. More hippogriffs were out there in the sand, and I could see a few seaponies hanging out in the shallows near them. Families, maybe? Silverstream had mentioned that a lot of hippogriffs went back and forth between land and sea.

“So, how did you know exactly when I’d be here?” I asked.

“Pssh, it isn’t rocket science, Gallus,” she said. “We get two trains every day at the same times and I figured you’d be on one of them, so I just came down here to watch for you. Good thing you were on the first one, otherwise that would have been a waste of thirty minutes.”

“Fair enough,” I said, and we continued our walk. The path was level down by the sea, but it quickly turned upwards, and so we climbed.

We passed a building on my right, and I again found myself staring. It looked strange, the walls composed of some kind of faintly translucent material that looked like glass but clearly wasn’t, this particular one the color of solidified orange juice. Large panels of this mystery material were set into a wooden frame. It and most of the other buildings I could see were round, the ovular wall panels bound together at the top by more triangular ones of the same material, coming together in a point like a circus tent.

“Gotta say, these buildings are… interesting,” I commented.

“Yep! Aren’t they great?”

“I was thinking more like weird.”

Silverstream’s ears flattened a bit. “You don’t like them?”

“No, they’re fine!” I said, covering my tracks. That hadn’t been worded well. “I just haven’t ever seen buildings made of… whatever that stuff is.” I pointed to the building, which at that moment, a tall hippogriff was walking out of with a small bag. She gave me a funny look, to which I replied with an awkward smile and wave.

“Oh, yeah. I guess our buildings do look a little different. We used to make them like ponies do with more wood and stuff, but we had to build differently when we went underwater. Now that we’re back on the surface, we decided we liked how open the buildings underwater felt, so that’s how we build them now!”

I decided not to mention my distaste for the fact that I’d be visible most times of the day, or at least my silhouette would be. “Are they sturdy?”

“Mhm! They’re totally safe if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said, dismissing my concern with a wave of her claw.

I shrugged and we kept walking for a few feet before Silverstream darted ahead and spread her wings, taking to the air. “Come on!” she shouted over her shoulder.

I followed suit. I hadn’t gotten the chance to stretch my wings in the last forty-eight hours, and I could feel the stiffness in them as I flapped hard to keep up with her. She was light and fast, apparently just a little more so than me; she gained a considerable lead on me before she noticed me lagging and waited up.

“Sluggish?” she asked as I closed the gap.

“Just smelling the roses,” I said with a chuckle.

She giggled and started off again, this time keeping her speed in check. Our flight up was leisurely, allowing me time to take in more of the scenery. Mount Aris was an island, or at least it had been until the rail line was built. The causeway across the shallow bay that separated Aris from the mainland was obviously built by creatures, just as were the massive stone wings that surrounded it on all sides but one.

Below us, the path up the side of the mountain zigzagged lazily to and fro. I could make out the faint multicolored dots of what I assumed were ponies making their way along it. It figured that the majority of the traffic on that path was tourists; it made little sense for a hippogriff to trudge up the mountain when flying was infinitely easier.

As we gained altitude, the humidity steadily decreased alongside the temperature. Where it’d been hot and muggy at the beach, it was much more pleasant and dry as we approached the altitude of the summit.

Now I get why they chose to live up here, I mused. The city at the top of the mountain came into view bit by bit as we rose. A great stone arch chiseled into the visage of two hippogriffs facing each other marked the official beginning of the city. It sat a little past halfway up the grade, and from there on, it was a forest of activity and color. Much like Griffonstone, most of the buildings in the city appeared to be built atop large trees, the weird carousel-shaped glass huts occupying branches in random sequences, nothing like the regularity and structure of Ponyville’s buildings.

It reminded me of home. I still needed to decide if that was a good thing.

We lowered our angle of ascent, closing in on a landing atop the mountain, and I shook that thought from my head. Of course it wasn’t like Griffonstone. Hippogriffs were probably the only species more enthusiastic to be alive than ponies. The streets below me were full of color and life, hippogriffs out and about in droves; I could already hear the dull roar of activity, even from the air. It was as polar opposite a place to home as I could hope for.

I smiled to myself and looked ahead to Silverstream. “So, what’s the game plan?”

She slowed down and fell in beside me. “Seaspray is really in a hurry to get this going, so we’re gonna drop by your new place for a minute and then go right to him.”

“No sightseeing?”

She shook her head. “Nope! I have to get you there S-T-P!”

I cocked an eyebrow. “S-T-P?”

“Sooner than possible!”

I frowned, slightly disappointed. I’d never so much as seen anywhere as stunning as Mount Aris before, so I’d been hoping for some time to explore the city. It made sense, though. I wasn’t exactly here on vacation.

We came in for a landing in the middle of what looked to be a market square. Our arrival was a mere drop in the bucket, hardly noticed amongst the general bustle of the crowd as they went in and out of the shops that lined the outside of the open space. Now that I was on the ground, I could get a better feel for the way hippogriffs liked to build. Some houses were free-standing, like the ones on the beach at the base of the mountain, but the majority of the homes were built in the trunks of the small forest of thick trees that grew up here. They still made use of the glass carousels toward the tops of the trees, building rooms atop forks in the branches.

“My new place?” I asked. “You mean I get my own… hut? Carousel? Whatever they’re called?”

“House,” she corrected. “And kinda, sorta. You won’t be alone, but you’ll have your own room and share the place with another griff.”

“So, like an apartment?”

“Yep!”

“Huh. I kinda figured I’d be staying with you or something,” I said.

She laughed. “I wish, but we don’t have a spare room up here. I wouldn’t make you just sleep on the couch for the whole summer.”

“That’s still better than if I’d gone home,” I muttered. Silverstream looked back at me with a grimace. I’d picked at the sympathy again without intending to. I’d already done enough of that to get myself here in the first place, so I elected to ignore it. “Shall we?” I gestured toward the path to start us moving again.

I’d lost my sense of direction, but it felt like we took a road northeast out of the market square. The forest of tree houses formed a sort of canopy above the path, providing some shade which I was thankful for.

We walked for a couple of minutes on this street, took a right at the first intersection we found, and then stopped at the fourth house down that road. It was fairly small compared to the others on the row, but it was still a very large tree. I’d seen the remains of Ponyville’s old library hanging from the ceiling of Twilight Sparkle’s castle; this looked to have a similar diameter, large enough to fit an entire not-so-small room inside of it. On either side of the tree about ten feet above the ground, two branches—either about as thick as my wingspan—split off from the trunk, and perched atop those branches were more of the translucent circus-tent-room-things.

Silverstream had been wearing a key alongside her usual pearl fragment necklace, and she leaned up close to the lock to use it, not bothering to take the necklace off. The door opened into a dark room, thin streaks of blue light slicing across from windows on the far side of the tree. Silverstream flicked the lights on with a sweep of her tail and turned to me.

“Here we are!” she announced, singing the last word.

I stepped into the den and took a look around. The decorating was sparse, just a simple picture of some kind of purple flower hanging on the back wall. The den was dual-purpose, a small living room with a row of countertops and a stove on the right wall that formed a tiny kitchenette. On either side of the room was a hallway, which I assumed led up to the bedrooms.

“Cozy,” I commented, the faintest hint of sarcasm in my tone.

“Very cozy,” she agreed, apparently missing it. “Your room is gonna be up the ramp over here.” She gestured to the hall on the left side of the room.

I walked over to it and immediately noticed that it was more of a tube than a ramp. The hall was round except for the floor, and I could easily tell that it was hollowed out from one of those big branches I’d seen outside.

I climbed the ramp. The tube was just tall enough to keep me from freaking out about how enclosed it felt, but still not open enough to make me feel comfortable. At least it was short, only rising a few feet from the level of the den before it opened out into the bedroom, which felt very opposite to the common areas of the apartment. The big panels of translucent stuff—I decided I was just going to call them windows now—made the room feel much more open, despite not being all that much bigger than the den. The ceiling was much higher, even affording me enough room to spread my wings and hover a few feet off the ground. The room was round, with a bed on the far side from the doorway. Next to it was a nightstand, and that was it. No decorations, just a crystal light fixture hanging from the center of the ceiling, and no...

“Uh, Silverstream? Where’s the bathroom?”

“Why? You need to go?”

I blanched at her. “No. But I didn’t see one anywhere. Don’t tell me I have to go outside.”

“Oh!” Silverstream giggled and pointed back toward the hallway. “It’s downstairs. There’s a hatch next to the stove that goes down into it.”

Again, I blanched. “A hatch?”

Silverstream nodded at me, expecting me to fully understand, but when I kept staring at her for a few seconds, she took the hint. “Let me show you.” She led me back down the tube hallway and into the den, pointing to what was—sure enough—a handle sticking up out of the floor. I inspected it, lifting up on the door and swinging it up against the back wall.

“No latch,” I observed. “Privacy isn’t a huge concern to hippogriffs, is it?”

“Well, you don’t want to get locked in down there, do you?”

My mouth went dry as I thought of being trapped in a small, dark hole in the ground. I took a quick breath and tried to push the idea out of my head, instead sticking my head down into the hole. Sure enough, it was just as advertised: A small, windowless basement about six feet by six feet, a toilet, shower, and sink all packed in tight with just enough space to maneuver.

I closed the hatch, and then immediately had another thought cross my mind. “So, what if something falls on the hatch and traps me down there?”

“There’s a hatchet in the medicine cabinet,” said Silverstream. Her face was just deadpan enough to tell me that she wasn’t kidding. “And the door is designed to break off pretty easily.”

Once more my stomach twisted itself into a knot as I thought of trying to hack my way out of a small subterranean bathroom with nothing but desperation and a tiny ax. “Can I just ask, why? Why not make the bathroom a normal room?”

Silverstream shrugged. “I dunno. I didn’t design the house, Gallus.”

I blew a breath up into my crest. “Right.”

The room was silent for a moment as I took it all in. This place was definitely going to play with my fear of tight spaces, especially that bathroom. Everything looked pretty barren, and I would always be visible from all sides when I was in my room.

My thoughts must have been plainly written across my face because Silverstream’s eyes saddened. “Do you not like it?”

“I... no, it’s fine,” I said, scratching the back of my head. I turned in a circle, looking around the den one more time. I really didn’t like how low the ceiling felt.

“I can try to find you a better one if you—”

“No,” I said quickly. “It’s going to take a little getting used to, but I’ll be fine here. No worries.”

“Well, I don’t want you to hate the place you’re living in,” she said.

“I don’t hate it,” I clarified. “I just…I don’t really know how to process all this. It’s a lot to take in.” I paused for a moment and looked over the room again. As I did, one of the lessons from school played through my head.

I folded my wings in and lowered my gaze. “Thank you, Silverstream.”

“Aww, you’re welcome! Like I said, it wasn’t a big deal. I’d do this for any of you guys,” she said with a smile. “Go drop your bag off in your room and let’s go. Can’t keep the General waiting!”

I smiled and scurried up the tube, dropping my saddlebags just inside of the door to my room.

My room.

I smiled wider.

My room that I’d basically conned her into giving me.

My smile drooped.

Out on the front steps, Silverstream locked the door behind herself and started walking down the road the way we had come in. The whole fifteen minutes I’d been here had been a whirlwind of information, but I still had questions that needed answering. “So,” I began, “What’s this roommate of mine like?”

“His name is Typhoon Swirl,” she said. “I’ve never met him, but my dad was the one that found the apartment for you. He’s another sailor in the Navy, but that’s all I know.”

I nodded and then felt the urge to laugh. “So, let me get this straight. I came thousands of miles to take a job that I didn’t even ask for, and I’m moving in with a strange hippogriff I’ve never met, in a city I’ve never been to.”

Silverstream laughed too. “Yep!”

“I love it.”

The Hippogriff Navy’s headquarters was located near the sea-level portion of the city, though it was very different from the other buildings. In fact, it wasn’t much of a building at all. Instead of a free-standing structure, the headquarters was carved into the side of the mountain itself, directly underneath the right side wing. The stone wings opened to the west, so that meant it was on the south face of the mountain, I told myself. I could see multiple levels of windows above the main entrance, so the labyrinth inside must have been fairly extensive. It made me wonder if the whole mountain had tunnels running through it.

Silverstream dropped me off in the main lobby, which looked a lot like any waiting room I’d ever seen: plain white walls and a row of chairs with some more-than-likely outdated magazines on a table. I checked in with the receptionist, and less than a minute later, she took me back further into the base.

For being underground, I had to admit that the base was more spacious than I expected. The corridors had obviously been designed with flyers in mind; it was common among griffons to not be fond of tight spaces, and I assumed that also rang true with hippogriffs and pegasi. Being able to fly meant that I was a lot more conscious of how much room I had above me than land-bound creatures, or at least that was what Sandbar made of it when we’d wandered into a discussion on the differences between griffons and ponies a few months ago.

General Seaspray’s office was on the third floor. On the way up the stairs and down the stone halls, I passed a number of hippogriffs who looked… surprisingly casual. I’d expected uniforms, and I’d also expected them to be more formal than what these griffs were wearing. It was a simple yellow vest with a two-layer green neckline. Some of them also wore a green bandana on their heads, but others didn’t. I decided to chalk it up to utility. It didn’t make much sense to wear something fancy and official-looking when it’d probably be ruined by the sea anyway.

His office was at the end of a long hallway that led back toward the front of the base. The door was open, and the receptionist announced our presence by knocking on the doorframe. “General Seaspray, Gallus the Griffon here to see you, sir.” She patted me on the shoulder with a smile, and then left me alone.

I stepped into the office, and that was right when my nerves decided to kick into gear. I’d done well to not sweat the upcoming interview all day, but now that I was here, the butterflies in my stomach decided it was the perfect time to swarm. Before me sat a hippogriff who commanded an entire navy, and I had to impress him enough to let me stay here and serve under him for the next few months.

No pressure.

He looked up from the paperwork on his desk and smiled. “Mister Gallus,” he said, his voice carrying an accent very unlike that of the other hippogriffs I’d heard. It was the sort of posh voice I’d expect out of nobility, though I could tell from the scars on his cheek that he was not a member of that group. “So glad you could make it on such short notice.” He stood and reached across the desk, offering a clawshake. I stepped forward, perhaps a little quicker than I should have, and shook it.

I didn’t know much about the formalities required when speaking to a general, but I’d seen enough movies to know that I needed to end every sentence with a ‘sir’. “Glad to be here, sir,” I said.

“Quite a grip you’ve got there,” he said, lacking the smile I thought should have come with a statement of that nature. He let go of my claws and returned to his chair. “Have a seat. This shouldn’t take terribly long.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. I took my seat carefully, trying to keep my posture from looking too relaxed. The General’s gaze was calculating and piercing; I could feel him analyzing every move I made and didn’t make, which left me a nervous wreck. His face remained painfully neutral and flat, which gave me no clues on how I was doing.

General Seaspray reached down into one of his desk drawers and produced a thin folder, dropping it on the table between us with a brazen slap. He opened it up and pulled out the first few pages, pausing to put his glasses on before he read. “Right, then. Gallus the Griffon, resident of Griffonstone. You want to be a part of my Navy.”

“Yes, sir. I do.”

General Seaspray hummed. “Fascinating,” he said.

Of all the responses I could have expected from him, that one wasn’t high on the list. “Sir?”

He didn’t acknowledge my confusion. “I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a griffon apply to join my ranks. If I may ask, what led you here? To this job, of all things?”

“If I’m being totally honest, it wasn’t my idea,” I said. Seaspray cocked an eyebrow. “Sir,” I added.

“You’re not a part of my Navy just yet. You can leave off the ‘sir’,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said. “It wasn’t entirely my idea. My friend Silverstream…”

“Silverstream brought you here?” he asked, turning his attention to the paper that I assumed held some sort of application form. “That explains a lot of things. I thought I recognized you from somewhere. You go to Equestria’s Friendship School with her, don’t you?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

Seaspray nodded, but the lack of a smile on his face wasn’t encouraging. “Now I know why they sent you to me instead of the recruiter downstairs. I knew this had royal claw marks all over it the moment it landed on my desk.” He didn’t seem to be speaking to me in particular, but his eyes stayed locked on me.

I wanted to hide.

I breathed a sigh of relief in my head when he took his stare off of me and returned his attention to the papers on the desk. He removed the others from the folder and read through them, leaving a heavily pregnant silence in the room for several agonizing minutes. With every tick of the clock that I was now acutely aware of on the wall behind me, I felt my hopes wither.

It wasn’t going to work out. Maybe I could spend a few days here with Silverstream, but unless her family was going to pay the rent on my apartment, I’d have to go back to Griffonstone.

Or maybe I could rough it out here? Find some odd jobs, maybe go out in the wilderness and spend my summer foraging? I’d done worse before.

“Alright, Gallus, here’s what we have,” said Seaspray, pulling me from my thoughts. “This is very peculiar. According to this, the royal family has ordered me to provide you with a temporary job for the summer. Not much else here, other than some background information and a temporary work permit authorized by your guardian, one Grandpa Gruff. Swell name.”

I held my breath.

Seaspray removed his glasses and placed them carefully on the desk. “I can’t say I’ve ever had this happen before in my twenty years as a general, so you’re going to have to bear with me.” He paused briefly and leafed through the papers again. “I suppose we can start with you telling me a little about yourself in your own words.”

“Alright,” I said, letting my breath out. Apparently, his wings were tied into giving me a job, and I felt my nerves calm. Now it was just an interview, and one with a guaranteed position at the end of it. I decided to go with the abridged version. “I’m not super interesting, really. I grew up in Griffonstone, it was alright, and then last year I got sent to school in Equestria. I made some friends, and life is pretty good now.”

Seaspray frowned and shook his head. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to give interviews, so I must be a little rusty. Let me be more specific. I have all the details I need of your history right here, but I need to know how you see yourself. What kind of griffon are you? Why do you think you’ll be a good sailor?”

“Ah, okay.” I mulled it over in my head for a moment. “I guess I’m just… chill. I’m good with just about anything, I’m a pretty quick learner, I can handle myself in a fight, and I like green. Being a sailor is probably not much different than any other job, once I get trained for it. I know how to work hard, and I work well with others. Anything else, I can learn along the way. ”

Seaspray wrote something quickly on the bottom of my file. “Good enough,” he said, flipping the folder closed. “Let’s move on. I assume you’ve taken a fitness assessment?”

I shook my head, and Seaspray scowled. “I swear, I’ve never seen a more disorganized…” he muttered, cutting his sentence short. “That is the first thing you’ll do when you leave here.” He took out a notepad and hastily scrawled something across it, tore the page off, and slid it across the desk to me. “Take that to the medical department. The secretary who led you in will tell you where to go.”

“So, is that it?” I asked.

“Almost. I still haven’t quite figured out what to do with you.” He stood and went to a file cabinet on the wall to my left, pulling out the top drawer and another file, this one stuffed to the brim, unlike mine. He skimmed through several pages, leaving me with a little more time to think.

I didn’t like this. Seaspray was obviously very unprepared, and even more obviously wasn’t happy about it. I felt unwelcome sitting in that chair, like an intruder that someone had dumped in his lap. Looking at it from this perspective, I could see exactly why. A General of the Hippogriff Navy was being forced to play along with Silverstream’s harebrained scheme, which she had somehow gotten the Queen to go along with. Of course it was going to ruffle some feathers.

Finally, he looked up to me. “Here we are. We have an opening in the shipyard right now. You’ll be part of the crew that helps outfit our ships for their patrols. Loading supplies, all that manner of thing. It doesn’t require much in the way of training, and it won’t land you in any real danger. The last thing I need right now is an international incident if you get hurt out there.”

“So I won’t get to go out on the boats?” I asked.

Seaspray deadpanned. “You can turn it down if you’d like.”

I got the message loud and clear. “I’ll take it.”

“Good,” he grumbled. “Go down to medical and get yourself evaluated. If you pass, you start at seven o’clock tomorrow morning, sharp.”

“Thank you,” I said, rising to leave.

“The sir is mandatory now.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, saluting him in what I assumed was the proper form.

Apparently, it wasn’t. He snapped a rigid, straight-backed salute to me. “You have much to learn, recruit.” He said my new title with a thinly veiled sneer. “Dismissed.”

I power walked out of the room as fast as I could.

My physical evaluation went smoothly. I tried to keep myself in adequate shape on my own, so they deemed me fit for service, though the hippogriff who did the evaluation recommended that I start a regimen of exercises to bring myself up to the Navy’s standards. She gave me some information on what to incorporate into my workouts and sent me on my way.

It was mid-afternoon when I stepped out of headquarters, a new job under my belt and a sense of dread in my gut. I knew when I wasn’t wanted, and Seaspray had made it abundantly clear that he was unhappy about my presence. If the whole summer was going to be like that, I wasn’t quite sure that it was worth it.

Heck, I bet this arrangement isn’t binding. I could probably walk up to him and say I want out any time, and he’d instantly take me up on the offer. It would have made a lot of things easier for a lot of griffs if I hit the eject button, but that train of thought derailed when I thought of Silverstream. She stuck her neck out and jumped through a lot of hoops to get me here. If I screwed it up, it’d probably look worse for her than it would for me.

And so my mind was made up. I was sticking with it, for better or worse. I walked along the beach with a bit of pride draped over that hollow feeling of dread. I was now a navy griffon. Regardless of my rank, something felt official about that: something honorable.

A hippogriff soared over my head out to the water, and when he was about five feet above the surface, a swirling flash of light consumed his arms and legs, replacing them with a fish tail and fins. He let out a whoop and plummeted the remaining distance until it culminated in a thunderous splash.

I laughed. Being able to breathe underwater looked fun. I hoped Silverstream would take me down there soon.

Realization dawned on me. “Crap,” I muttered. Silverstream hadn’t told me where to find her when I got done. I didn’t know where she lived, and I didn’t know where to find someone who did. I didn’t have any money on me, and I was on my own with an empty stomach. I clicked my beak and kicked a pebble, launching it into the water a few feet away. “Now what do I do?”

I spent the next several hours looking for an answer to that question. I started off trying and failing miserably to skip rocks at the beach, but quickly grew bored and decided to try exploring the town a bit.

I only succeeded in getting myself lost several times. I started in the lower city, but most of that was devoted to retail space, so I flew up to the top of the mountain. It certainly looked a lot smaller from far away. Up close, the city at the top of the mountain sprawled out in a complex, seemingly chaotic tangle of buildings and roads, and I got lost in it almost as soon as I landed. I wandered on unfamiliar streets for the better part of half an hour before I aborted the mission, taking to the air to reset. I flew out from the mountain a bit, trying to retrace the path Silverstream had taken me on that morning. It took me several tries before I found the right market square to land in, but once I had that tiny bit of familiar space, I made my way to the apartment in short order.

Scatterbrained as she was, at least Silverstream had remembered to give me a key to the place. Since I’d been operating near sensory overload all day long, I thanked my lucky stars that she had remembered; I doubt I would have thought to ask. I pushed the key into the lock and turned it.

Lo and behold, the door was already unlocked. I need to go stare at the ceiling for a while, I thought as I stepped into the den. The lights were on, and there in the kitchen, holding a bowl of cereal and staring at me with wide eyes was a hippogriff with golden-yellow feathers and a pale red mane and tail.

He continued chewing and waved his free claw at me. “Sup,” he said, beak still partly full.

“Hey,” I said, closing the door behind myself.

The hippogriff swallowed. “You the new tenant?”

“Yep, that’s me.”

“Sweet,” he said, taking another bite. “I heard I was getting a new roommate but I didn’t figure you’d be here this fast.”

“I didn’t either,”’ I said, which earned a smile from my new roommate. He set his bowl down on the counter and crossed the room towards me. “You’re Typhoon Swirl, right?”

“Yep, call me Ty,” he said, offering me a clawshake.

“Gallus.”

“Right on,” Ty said. “Can’t say I expected a griffon when they told me about a new tenant. You new in town?”

“Yep, brand new,” I said. “Just got off the train this morning.”

“Gotcha.” Ty motioned for me to come with, and I followed him to the kitchen. “You hungry?”

“I haven’t had anything today. I’m stuffed,” I said.

Ty smiled at my snark, gave me a nod, and pointed to the cereal box he had sitting on the cabinet. “Then you, my friend, are in for a treat. Cinnamon Blasted Oat Munch, the breakfast of the gods. For dinner.” He produced a bowl for me and filled it, the flakes and clusters of cereal ringing against the porcelain bowl. I took the bowl and went to take a bite, but he stopped me. “Bro, you’re not going to eat it dry, are you?”

“I’m not much of a dairy guy,” I said. I had to admit, milk tasted great, but I wasn’t a fan of the after effects it had on my stomach. Lactose intolerance was pretty much universal among griffons.

“Fair enough,” said Ty, leaving me to eat. This still counted as pony food, or at least it fit with the universally vegetarian diet of Equestria, so I wasn’t super enthusiastic to try it. When I took a bite, I was only slightly impressed. The cinnamon was good, but it didn’t mask the blandness of the cereal it was on.

“Well?” said Ty.

“It’s good,” I lied. As unenthused as I was, it was still food, and my stomach screamed for more. I took to shoveling it in as fast as I could, just to get my hunger sated.

“Few can resist the charms of cinnamon sugar,” said Ty. “So, what brings a griffon like you out to Mount Aris? I can’t say I’ve ever seen but one or two, and they were just tourists.”

“Yeah, griffons don’t get out much.” From what I remembered of the few history lessons I’d had in school, the Griffon Empire had only opened its borders to outsiders in the last decade or so, and there hadn’t been a lot of traffic across them since then. “I’m here to take a job for the summer.”

“Mm, whatcha doing?”

“I joined the Navy,” I said.

For some reason, Ty pumped a fist in the air, his mouthful of cinnamon oats the only thing keeping him from shouting. He held up a finger while he finished chewing, and as soon as he swallowed, he said, “Dude, welcome to the family! Have you gotten a job assignment yet?”

“I’m working in the shipyard. Resupply or something like that.”

“Respectable,” said Ty. “I’ll probably be seeing you there tomorrow. My ship is about ready to come in for service.”

“You’re a sailor?”

“Yep, first mate on the Eidothea.”

I hummed. “That’s cool. What are the odds we’d be rooming together, both of us being in the Navy?”

“Pretty good, honestly,” Ty said. “A lot of the sailors live in apartments up here. Seems like every other week, someone puts up a request for roommates on our bulletin board.”

“How many other sailors are there?” I asked.

“About two thousand of us stationed here at any given time. We’ve got several bases spread out around the South Sea, though. This one here is the main one.”

I nodded and finished the last of my cereal. My stomach still felt half-empty, but at least the cinnamon crunch stuff took the edge off.

“Wait a second. Did you say you were here just for the summer?” Ty asked.

“Uh-huh, through the middle of August.” I could sense where his next question was heading, so I continued, “It’s a weird arrangement, or so I’m told. General Seaspray wasn’t too happy about it.”

“I didn’t realize we did temporary positions. That’s weird.”

I chuckled. “I don’t think they did until today.”

Ty laughed and took my bowl over to the sink to wash it. “Alright, so I guess let’s get the ground rules out of the way. I don’t ask for much, but there’s a couple of things I can’t let you get away with. First off, washcloths do not stay in the shower when you’re done with them, and dishes in the sink are a no-no. Otherwise, the place is yours, you can go as crazy as you want without getting yourself or me evicted.”

“Sounds fair to me,” I said.

“Anything you want to add for me?”

I didn’t really have a response to his question. I could count on one claw the number of times I’d lived with anyone else, so I wasn’t sure what sort of rules I’d want. I hadn’t ever thought of it. “I’ll let you know if anything bugs me,” I said. “Changing the subject, I don’t want to be a mooch, but do you have anything else to eat around here? I haven’t had the chance to get groceries and I’m broke.”

“I may or may not, depending on various circumstances,” he said, sauntering over toward the fridge. “What do you have in mind?”

“Anything with meat in it?”

“I got you,” Ty said, pulling the fridge open. He pulled a plastic container out and offered it to me. “I made some salmon last night. You’re welcome to the leftovers.”

I took the container and looked down at what was the first cut of meat I’d seen in weeks. It was just food, but for some reason, this was the thing that made me want to break down crying. An entire day of hunger and confusion culminated in this moment. “Thank you,” I said, my voice quavering a bit. “I’ve had a really crazy day; would you be upset if I took this up to my room and locked myself in there for a while?”

Ty shook his head. “Nah, do what you gotta do. I was about to head up to my room too when you came in, anyway.”

I smiled. “Thanks.”

“No problem!” he said. I took the container and climbed up the hallway, slipping into my room like a hamster scurrying up its tube. Because of the small, round-ish entrance, the door looked like a hatch. I swung it closed and looked around the room. I could tell it was evening from the amount of ambient light, but the translucent panels didn’t give any details on the specific time. I took my fish and sat down on my new bed, which creaked softly as it assumed my weight.

I lay back on the bare mattress, stared up at the translucent blue ceiling above me, and smiled. It had been one heck of a day, only the first of what would surely be many to come, but I was here, and that was alright by me.

“Thanks!” I called after the receptionist as he walked away from me. “Jerk,” I muttered under my breath.

When I showed up at headquarters that morning, the front desk receptionist—a different one from the day before—had me sign a few forms and then led me out to the docks. They were around the backside of the mountain, and as soon as we came into view of them, he immediately hung me out to dry. I hadn’t been told where to go or what to do, and I guessed it was up to me to figure it out.

I flipped my wings out and took to the air, coasting down from the overlook I was standing on to the docks below. They were smaller than I expected; a series of five piers, three wooden up front and two concrete behind them, ran parallel out into the water a short distance, long enough to stack four ships end-to-end along each one. The concrete ones were most interesting, as they also extended back into the face of the cliff in what looked like a large tunnel.

I touched down at the base of the first pier and scanned around for anyone who could tell me what I needed to do. The receptionist hadn’t even given me the time of day, let alone instructions on what to do. A few hippogriffs were milling around the docks, some carrying tools and wearing sailor’s uniforms that I recognized from my time in the headquarters building. I took a few steps out into the building and turned in place, unsure of what to do with myself. A yellow griff with an oversized wrench was walking in my general direction, so I flagged her down.

“Excuse me,” I called, waving at her. “It’s my first day and nogriff told me where I’m supposed to go.” I punctuated my sentence with a shrug.

She gave me a knowing smile and pointed me toward the tunnel at the far end. “New recruits usually go to the lieutenant. His office is back there in the hole, big white door in the center. You can’t miss it.”

After the receptionist’s icy attitude, she was a welcome breath of fresh air. I thanked her and took off in the direction she’d pointed me.

“Good luck!” she called after me.

When I got to the hole, I got my answer as to what was inside it. The two bays that ran into it had floodgates in them, holding the sea back and forming a dry dock, where a ship was under construction in each bay. The hole didn’t go very far into the cliffside, only a little further than the length of one ship. Sure enough, there was a white door on the far wall, and I made my way towards it. A placard next to it read “Lieutenant Cedar Breeze, Chief Engineer.”

Was I getting put to work building ships?

It came as a small surprise when I knocked on the white door and it turned out to be made of metal, ringing loudly under my talons. I heard a muffled “Come in!” so I pulled the handle and let myself in.

The space behind the door was cramped, a little nook chiseled out of the stone just large enough to put an office in. The door opened to a small entryway on the furthest left side of the room, the office itself extending off to the right. Crystal magic-powered lights hung overhead, bathing the space in a bright blue-white glow.

“New recruit reporting for duty, sir,” I said as I stepped in, snapping a two-finger salute against my forehead the same way Seaspray had done when I’d left his office yesterday.

“At ease,” said Cedar Breeze, his tone dismissively casual. His bristly mane was dark and clipped short, and his plumage light blue. He was seated in front of a large wooden desk that shouldn’t have been able to fit into such a narrow space. Atop that desk were stacks of papers, tools, and blueprints strewn haphazardly about. Shelves on the far wall were piled high with junk, allowing just enough space for his chair.

He was in the middle of working on a blueprint, hunched over it in absolute concentration, measuring and drawing with a white pencil. He kept working for a few seconds, ignoring me while he focused. “So, you’re the griffon they sent me?” he asked, not looking in my direction. His voice was gravelly, like he spent a lot of his time yelling.

“Yes, sir.”

Cedar Breeze hummed, pushing his chair back and bumping into the shelf behind him as he stood up. When he first laid eyes on me, he raised his eyebrows. “Huh, they weren't plucking my feathers. You really are a griffon.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I just blinked.

“You ever worked on a dock before?”

I shook my head. “No, sir.”

Cedar Breeze chuckled. “Thought not. You griffons never were much for sailing,” he said, pushing past me. “Come with me, I’ll show you your post.”

We left the office and walked out into the cavernous space under the mountain. “This is the dry dock, where we build our ships.” Down in the pit below us, the wooden skeleton of a ship was in the process of being assembled by a small crew of workers. The bay further to the left had a much larger ship in it, apparently almost ready to launch. I looked toward the massive steel floodgates that kept the sea out of the dry docks, and I decided that when they launched that new ship, I wanted to be there to see the gates open. The water rushing in was probably pretty cool to watch.

“You won’t be worrying about any of this stuff here, though,” said Cedar Breeze, pulling me from my thoughts as he led me out of the hole.

Ok, so I wasn’t building boats. A bit of a bummer, but there were plenty of other things to do around here. We continued out along the first concrete pier, seemingly heading for the end of it. A very conveniently placed rock out in the harbor provided a bit of shade thanks to the low angle of the sun, but it wouldn’t last for long—I could already feel it getting hotter, but I ignored that; if I wanted to be here, I’d just have to get used to it.

“We usually reserve the spots right in front of the dry dock for boats that are being outfitted or that are busted up pretty good. I call it the long-term clinic.” Cedar Breeze gestured to the closest one. I hadn’t cared to look at it when I first arrived, but the boat before me—Kraken's Beak, as the lettering said—was just as he put it: busted up pretty good. I could see the jagged stump in the center where the main mast had once been, and the whole thing was covered in seaweed and other little bits of debris that could have only come from the bottom of the sea.

“What sank this one, sir?” I asked.

“She got caught out in a squall and blew into some rocks. Spent about a month at the bottom before we found her and raised her back up.” Cedar Breeze pointed me toward the front of the ship, where a dock worker suspended by ropes was hammering on fresh-looking planks, probably a patch for one of the holes that sunk the ship.

“I bet it helps to have seaponies who can do the searching underwater,” I speculated.

“Aye, it does.”

We continued on our way. All things considered, the docks were smaller than I’d expected them to be. Two more ships were lined up ahead of us on the left, and an identical row sat on the right, all in better shape than the Kraken’s Beak. In the bay on the right, a crew was navigating a smaller ship down the center space, headed out of the docks.

We stopped at the next ship on the left. This one, the Summation, appeared fit for service and well-maintained, though it was considerably smaller than the Kraken's Beak—about two-thirds the size of the former. I knew there were terms for the different sizes of a ship, but now that I was here, I realized I had no idea what they were.

“This here is where you’ll be working.” Cedar Breeze strolled up a wooden ramp to the ship’s deck. I followed suit. “Resupply and light maintenance: getting these gals ready to go back out to sea.” A few other hippogriffs in the standard navy uniform were milling about the deck, each with some sort of implement in claw. One had a mop, another was carrying a crate toward the door to the bridge—that was one term I did know.

“It’s real simple. The supplies are all assembled by another crew, your team just cleans up the ship and loads up the supplies. You’re gonna be working below deck, so you won’t be out in the sun all day. I know you griffons don’t do so well in the heat, so I think this is gonna be perfect for you.” He gestured for me to follow again, and we went towards the door at the bridge.

How do you know so much about griffons? I thought I was the only one here. He hadn’t said anything bad, but saying I couldn’t handle heat well was probably born out of a stereotype more than understanding.

I decided not to bring it up, though, and instead focused more on the job. Working in the cargo hold wasn’t what I’d expected, but hey, it didn’t sound too bad. Probably a lot of heavy lifting, long hours, and repetitiveness, but I’d probably have some other crew members to talk with while I was here.

The door at the rear of the ship opened into the ship’s kitchen, a fairly small room with some appliances and tables for the crew. Cedar led us down a staircase to the left, taking us deeper below decks. At the bottom of the stairs was the cargo hold, a large, open space that ran the length of the ship. I assumed this space would be mostly filled by the time the boat was ready to head back out to sea, but I could see from one end to the other with no obstructions. On either side of the ship were rows of cannons, though not too many with this boat—maybe five to a side. Enough to mount a defense, but this ship didn’t look like it was meant for attacking.

The cannons were cool. I was hoping I’d get directed toward those, but instead, we turned for the rear of the ship. In the far corner sat a large metal box with an open top, and as we approached it, I could see and smell exactly what it was.

A dumpster.

“This here is your main responsibility,” Cedar announced. “Every ship that comes in will have at least one of these, usually on the port side. Your job is to grab a cart and empty it out. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours per bin. You can lift your carts in and out with a rope at the cargo hatch. You’ll get assigned a certain number of bins every day. If you finish early, you find somewhere to help out. Everything else, you’ll learn as you go. Any questions?”

“So... I’m a janitor?”

“It doesn’t sound so nice when you put it like that,” Cedar said, scratching at the back of his head. Then he shrugged, “But yeah, pretty much. There’s a door right next to my office; that’s the equipment room. Go get yourself a uniform and a cart from there. If you have any more questions, you know where to find me.”

He left me standing there in the cargo hold, staring at the mound of trash in that dumpster. I blinked a few times while the sinking feeling in my gut grew stronger.

I had joined the Navy—signed up to be a part of something cool, something worthwhile. And where did I get sent as soon as I got here?

It just freaking figured. Sure, recruit the griffon and stick him with the lowest job you can find. I stood there, staring at that damned metal box for a minute longer, growing angrier and angrier by the second. Could I raise a stink over it? Maybe. I could go off about how I was being forced into the worst job in the harbor because I was a griffon, play the species card, and possibly get moved up to something a little nicer at best.

But that would come at the cost of my reputation. I didn’t know anyone here yet besides Silverstream and maybe Ty. Without friends to back me up, I wouldn’t have any support if I decided to try complaining my way out of this.

No, if I wanted to be here, this was what I had to do. My anger tasted bitter as I swallowed it. Regardless of how much this utterly sucked, I had a job, and I was going to do it with a smile on my face. I marched myself out of the cargo hold toward the equipment room with my head held high, supported by what little pride in myself I could scrape together, given the circumstances.

I wasn’t going to let this get me down. I was gonna be the best damn janitor the navy had ever seen.

It was Saturday afternoon. I knew better than to bother Queen Novo on Saturday—The Royal Reprieve, as she liked to call it. It was a day she reserved for herself, barring emergencies. In fact, there was an obscure statute written down somewhere in the books that essentially translated to “Don’t bother the Queen on her day off.” I’d found out about it not long after I was promoted to a position where I regularly interfaced with her.

Protocol be damned. She’d already trodden all over it; I was returning the favor.

I swam with purpose as I entered the large underwater chamber that housed Seaquestria, my speed far exceeding the urgency required. Technically, the whole ordeal with the griffon wasn’t an emergency—more of a minor ruffle of the feathers, really—but I had a right to be angry about it.

The entire city hung from the roof of that enormous cavern like a great, pink crystal chandelier. The sprawling clusters of regular houses of common seaponies were suspended closer to the ceiling than the royal palace, which was the largest and lowest-hanging room among them all. I knew she wouldn’t be in the palace proper, instead probably off at the private royal spa adjacent to it.

She’d be cross with me for interrupting her private time, but that was just gravy. I bypassed the grand entrance at the base of the palace and headed for the small annex that was perched along its top. Through the translucent walls, I could see a single silhouette in the pink wall. There she was, totally unsuspecting of the heap of inconvenience I was poised to unload on her.

I smiled to myself as I reached the spa’s entrance. Regardless of how this went, at least the petty side of me would win by default. I ran a flipper across my dorsal fin—it felt odd to say that again; I hadn’t been underwater in a long time—and swam into the room.

The spa was small, but considering it was only ever used by a small claw—fin-full of the most important seaponies down here, it didn’t need to be much larger. Reclined in a tub, head wrapped in seaweed and cucumber slices over her eyes, Queen Novo sat poised like a statue. She seemed expressionless; for all I knew, she could have been asleep. No spa workers were present, so that was one less thing to worry about.

Anyone else entering the Queen’s quarters would have been burdened with a mountain of formalities, but Novo was a practical mare under the motherly exterior. Our relationship was and always had been business-first, and early on, we’d both agreed to forego the ceremony of ‘talking with the Queen’ in the interest of saving time.

“Ahem,” I cleared my throat loudly, announcing my presence. Queen Novo causally lifted up one of the cucumber slices with disdain, but quickly exchanged the look for a warmer, more diplomatic one.

“Seaspray!” she exclaimed, leaning forward and removing the other slice of fruit from her face, waving a fin to the spa chair next to her tub. “Come in, sugar, come in!”

“Queen Novo,” I began as I swam over toward the spa chair, which looked slightly odd to me. I’d been living on land as a hippogriff long enough now that the ergonomics of underwater life had begun looking foreign. The seat was shaped like a curved trough, built to conform to seapony anatomy. I settled into it, and it fit my tail and fins like a glove, even featuring a cutout in the back to keep from crushing my dorsal fin.

“Well?” Queen Novo looked to me expectantly with her deep violet eyes. “How is it?”

“It’s delightful,” I said quickly, putting forth none of the enthusiasm that word required. “Anyway, I—”

“Isn’t it?” She didn't notice my deadpan tone. There was a plate of some sort of kelp dish sitting on the edge of her tub, and her attention was on that instead of me. “Just had it installed last week. I think I’m gonna have them move my throne room in here so I can hold court in that baby.”

I grumbled at her interruption, and knowing her, she’d small-talk me until I forgot why I was here in the first place. I decided to cut to the chase. “Queen Novo, I’m very cross with you.”

She wheeled back toward me, her smile replaced with flat lips pressed together. “The budget was finalized three months ago. If you have complaints, you’d best bring them up when I’m not on my personal time.”

I shook my head, fighting the urge to slap my fin over my face. “You know exactly why I’m here.”

I expected a knowing smile, an admission, maybe even something coy that would play with me and give me the runaround, but instead, Queen Novo blanched at me and shrugged. “I actually don’t.”

My head was about to explode. “The griffon,” I snarled.

Novo’s eyes widened, a smile crossing her muzzle again. “Oh!” She threw her head back and laughed. “That. I forgot all about him. How’s he doing? Silverstream was over the moon talking about him.”

My eye twitched. I’d come here puffed up, ready to lay into her for stepping all over my authority, and she had the audacity to not even remember what she’d done. Every fiber of my soul wanted to fly off the handle and scream, but I knew better. Regardless of our less-formal arrangement, I was still speaking with the Queen herself. I needed to rein in my emotions and keep myself respectful.

It was a good thing I was a General. Had I held nearly any other position, I likely wouldn’t have had enough self-control drilled into me to keep myself in check. I took a deep breath and swallowed the knot of rage building in my throat, but my eye twitched again—something told me that was going to be a recurring theme during this conversation.

“I don’t think you appreciate the magnitude of what you’ve done.”

“Apparently I don’t.” Novo angled her head. “What’s wrong with him?”

“What isn’t wrong with him?” I growled. “He’s—”

A realization crossed her face. “Ohhh, I get it.” She shook her head slowly, eyeing me with disdain. “General Seaspray, I didn’t realize you felt that way.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Discriminating against that boy just because he’s a griffon. I thought we were past th—”

Something snapped. My vision went red, and I leapt out of my seat. “DAMN IT ALL, WILL YOU LET ME SPEAK?! THIS ISN’T ABOUT HIS SPECIES!”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Queen Novo was taken aback; I could see the first hints of anger crossing her features already. I didn’t care. I was in deep now; may as well make it worthwhile. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done by forcibly inserting this griffon into our ranks? Any inkling of the implications?”

“I did you a favor?”

“If you call sidestepping proper procedure in the name of nepotism ‘a favor’, then we’re obviously from different ends of the planet.”

“I think it’s well within the bounds of my power to do that. I’m the Queen here, remember?”

I took a breath and let it out slowly. I’d used up all of the runway I had with that outburst, so there was no more room to be angry. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.” Her expression soured and she opened her mouth, no doubt to flex her authority on me. I needed to stay on top of the conversation to keep it from grinding to a halt.

I held a fin up, stopping her. “Before you yell at me about insubordination and send me away, hear me out. I fear that hiring the griffon may have set a bad precedent for our Navy. We have rules for a reason, and they are made to be followed. We have a carefully structured process for bringing in recruits. We scrutinize them to make sure that they’re fit to serve before we even send them to training, and they aren’t given positions until they have completed their training.

“I have a group of recruiters whose entire jobs revolve around that. They take care of that work so those higher up—” I gestured between the two of us “—can worry about bigger, more important problems. The South Sea Rulers’ Summit is coming up next month, and you should be worrying about that more than some griffon who needs a job. I’ve got reports of renewed pirate activity near Greenfin Island to worry about. Neither of us has time for this kind of thing.”

“Is that all?” she asked.

“Not quite. There’s also the question of his citizenship. I saw in the paperwork that he is being hired as a quote-unquote ‘mercenary’, but who’s to say that if something happens to him that the Griffon Empire won’t take issue? That’s a foreign relations mess we don’t need.”

I paused to let my brain catch up to my mouth, and then made my final approach. “There’s an old saying: ‘Leave the crumbs for the mouse.’ This whole issue is something we shouldn’t even be bothering ourselves with. There is too much important business to attend to for us to get caught up in a recruitment issue. I hope this sort of thing doesn’t come up again in the future, but I want you to consider that your actions have consequences. Consult me before you go meddling in the Navy’s business.”

“Are you finished?”

“Yes,” I said, floating back down toward the chair. Gauging from her response, I’d done nothing productive by shouting, but at least I felt better.

“I see your point. There’s a lot of considerations that go into something like this, and I apologize for not telling you about my plans first. But…” Novo paused to flash a smug, self-assured smile. “I got two words for you, Sea-Bee: Rock. Hoof.”

There it was.

“I remember you decided—on your own—to allow an Equestrian into the navy with no questions asked. I think you actually gave him a ranking position on the ship with no training, no worries about his citizenship status.” She paused, letting it percolate for a moment before she went in for the kill. “And what happened?”

“Th-that is precisely the thing I’m trying to avoid,” I stammered, knowing that I’d been had.

It was a flimsy defense. “The boat sank about ten minutes after you brought him on,” she said, twisting the knife like she hadn’t even heard me. “Don’t give me that ‘concerned about the state of affairs’ crap. You and I both know that something as small and insignificant as bringing one recruit in for three months will mean nothing in the long run. You came down here and barged in on my private time because you got your claws stepped on, and it’s got you steamed.”

I wanted to squirm in my seat but kept my posture rigid. Emotionless.

“Now,” she continued. “I could stoop down and be just as petty as you. Maybe, I dunno, throw out a formal reprimand, trim back some of the excess funds I’ve personally awarded to the Navy this year.”

A lump formed in my throat, but swallowing it would show a crack in the poker face.

Novo shrugged. “But I’ll be the bigger fish here. When Silverstream came and begged me to give that griffon a job, I almost told her no. She’s my niece, I want her to be happy, but there was a lot she didn’t think about. However, I realized the potential benefit hiring the griffon could give us.”

“Benefit? How could something this ‘small and insignificant’, as you put it, possibly benefit us?”

The queen smirked. “PR.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

“As I’m sure you know, the Griffon Empire has been opening trade agreements for the first time in decades. Adding a griffon to our ranks could be an opportunity to open a dialogue between our nations. We are providing valuable employment and education to a young, orphaned griffon who hasn’t ever been given a fair shake. What about that doesn’t sound like the press is gonna eat it up?”

That was a point I had to concede, but I didn’t want to afford her the satisfaction. My face stayed flat.

“Honestly, I would have expected a tactician like you to see that angle,” said Novo. “It’s going to be a little tough in the short term, but it’s going to benefit us in the long run. The griffons have a lot of coal and gold that I want for Mount Aris and Seaquestria, and this could give us a fin up on the competition. Hearts and minds, Seaspray.”

I grumbled and nodded. “And what of the rules? Are you going to step all over my work every time it’s convenient for you?”

With a chuckle, Novo waved me off with a fin, picking her cucumber slices up from the edge of the tub. “If it means that much to you, I’ll talk to you before I mess with the Navy. Alright?”

“I hope so,” I groused, leaving my seat. I heard her laughing to herself as I swam out of the spa. I’d had enough of being underwater already, and I headed straight to the surface. My pride was bruised, but hopefully, it had been worthwhile if it meant she’d stay out of Navy business.

At any rate, I needed a drink.

The oil lamp sitting on my desk was the only source of light in the room, and for that matter, it barely put out enough light to be useful for anything past decoration. I sighed to myself, some part of me wishing I’d sprung for one of those enchanted crystal ones that ran on magic. They cost a lot more, but they lasted pretty much forever—until they were broken somehow. That last part was what scared me about them. On a boat, nothing was ever certain, and the last thing I needed was an arcane detonation in the wheelhouse because we hit rough seas and my lamp fell over.

It would definitely make writing my midnight logs easier with more light, but the old, battered oil lamp was reliable. It’d come with the ship when I first became captain of the Deliverance nearly twenty years ago, and it had served me well. In fact, it was the only thing older than me on board.

Just as I’d written thousands of voyage logs over my years, I put the finishing touches on the official record of another quiet day on the South Sea. Nothing out of the ordinary; we’d traveled nearly three hundred miles that day thanks to fair winds and gentle waters. We were about fifty miles off Greenfin Island now, and tomorrow, we’d hopefully reach Mount Aris before sunset. It would be nice to finish our voyage on a Friday, giving us the weekend off before we set out again. The crew would surely appreciate that.

Personally, I was just ready to see dry land again. We’d been on the water for two weeks, carrying a load of grain from Zebrica, my homeland. Nothing exciting or out of the ordinary, not even an interesting load to think about. It was just another trip, passing the same old landmarks I’d seen a thousand times with nothing of note to break the monotony.

I leaned back in my chair and sighed, dropping my quill in its inkwell. I supposed I should have been thankful for things being so quiet. It had been barely two years since I’d been freed from running shipments for the Storm King’s army, my forced conscription into his service having lasted for over a decade. It was horrible, working under constant fear like that, but I missed the excitement that came with it. It seemed like every voyage was a different adventure back then, some unknown thing always occurring as a result of the madness this part of the world was then under.

I didn’t miss those days, to be sure, but a little intrigue would have been welcome. I still wasn’t used to the quiet.

I rose from the chair, my old bones protesting as I came up to full height. It was bedtime now that all of my duties had been accomplished. I picked up my lamp and left the bridge, stepping out into the nighttime air. Early summer nights had long been my favorite for how comfortable and calm they were. All around the ship, the sea was an endless field of sparkling diamonds in the night, moonlight shimmering off of the nearly still waters.

A quick stroll around the main deck was in order before I turned in. I needed the fresh air and exercise, anyway.

“You asleep up there, Cris?” I called toward the crow’s nest. The lookout, Crisanti, was a relatively new addition to the crew, having signed on while we were in port in Ornithia, the parrot nation to the west of the hippogriffs, over the winter.

“Not until you are, Zalo,” he said, peering down toward me over the rim of his post.

I chuckled. This had become a bit of a tradition over the last few months, the two of us exchanging a round or two of banter before I turned in for the evening. I usually tried to keep things professional among the crew, but I’d taken a bit of a shine to the kid since he joined. He reminded me of my son, cocky and confident as he was.

“Any icebergs tonight?” I asked.

“None so far,” said Cris.

“Good. Make sure you stay alert. They can sneak up on you when the water is this glassy.”

“If I see one, I’ll be sure to come wake you up personally.”

“And that’ll be the last thing you do before I throw you overboard.”

“Parrots can fly, you know.”

“Not with wet feathers.”

“...Touché.”

We shared a short laugh, and I started forward on my walk, headed for the bow. I noted a few ropes out of place, left loose on the deck. I’d have a word with the likely culprit tomorrow, but for now, they’d be fine as they lay. I started making my way back toward the bridge, and I got about halfway across the deck before Cris spoke up again.

“Captain,” he beckoned, words clipped with urgency.

“Iceberg?”

“Ship.”

I quirked an eyebrow up at him. “That’s… normal? We’re not the only ones sailing out here.”

“No, it’s close.” Cris pointed toward the starboard bow, and I followed his mark out to a single dot of light that was, sure enough, maybe a half-mile out.

“Was that there a minute ago?”

“No. It just popped up.”

“Toss me a glass,” I ordered. He dropped one down, and I caught it carefully in my hooves. I pulled the telescope out to full length and took a look.

As described, there was a lamp out there. I couldn’t make out much detail even with the spyglass, but I could instantly tell there was something missing. At this distance, even at night, a ship’s sails should have been obvious in the moonlight, standing out against the darkness of the water.

This ship’s sails were black.

I felt a knot tighten in my gut, and I closed the spyglass. “Mungu tusaidie,” I muttered to myself in my native tongue. “Get below deck, wake the crew. They’re heading right for us.”

“On it.” Cris leaped down from the crow’s nest and glided for the hatch, disappearing inside well before I managed to get back up to the bridge.

I climbed the ladder as swiftly as my old, mildly stiff legs would take me. I burst into the wheelhouse, where the first mate, a hippogriff named Emerald Green, was at the wheel.

“Em, take us hard to port,” I said, closing the door behind myself. I doused my lamp and placed it carefully next to the door.

She complied with my command before she asked, “What’s up? Icebergs?”

“Ship off the starboard bow. Pirates.”

Em nodded and continued the turn while I went about putting out the lamps in the room. I’d dealt with pirates before, and I knew it was pointless to try this. Killing our lights would do little to improve our odds of escape at this point, but it made me feel a little better.

I stepped back out onto the deck and took another look through the spyglass. Sure enough, the ship was getting closer. I could see more lights on it by now, the ship’s profile a small black dot in the middle of a bright reflection on the water’s surface.

The hatch to the lower decks swung open, and one by one, the crew filed out, Cris leading the way. A couple of zebras like me, another parrot, and two Abyssinian cats. Each ran to take their place at one of the ropes. If the sails caught the wind just right, we could increase our speed. Escape was nearly impossible, but we could at least delay them.

I knew we were going to have a meeting shortly, but it couldn’t hurt to try. The sails turned, grasping at what little breeze there was that night. It was enough that the Deliverance lurched faintly as it caught more air and picked up some speed.

That lantern grew brighter and larger, though it was an agonizingly slow chase given the lack of winds. It took nearly ten more minutes before the pirates were directly off the starboard side, beginning their turn to approach alongside of us.

“Steady as she goes,” I announced, though the assurances probably rang as hollow in my crew’s ears as they did in my throat. At least we’d made it slightly harder for the pirates to board us, but our efforts were meaningless in the long run.

“Incoming!” shouted Cris. Against the backdrop of the stars, I could see three dark figures soaring toward us. They landed on the roof of the bridge with heavy thunks: one, two, three. Three parrots, two of fairly large builds compared to Cris, stood atop the wheelhouse near the mizzenmast, overlooking everyone on the main deck.

“Evening,” said the smaller one in the center, the leader most likely. His voice was calm, almost bordering on friendly, but I could sense the venom lurking under the surface.

“State your business!” I shouted up at them, holding my lantern higher.

“Not wasting any time, are we?” said the parrot leader. “I am Captain Sternclaw of the ship Green Haze. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” I said, keeping my tone as nonchalant as I could.

“It will soon enough. I take it you’re the captain?”

I nodded slowly.

“I’m taking over this ship and all of the cargo she holds. You can surrender peacefully, and you have my assurances that you won’t be harmed.”

“And if we don’t?”

“You don’t want me to answer that question.” Sternclaw hopped down from the bridge onto the deck, followed by his henchbirds. He stood a head taller than me, though he was scrawny. I couldn’t make out what color he was in the darkness, but the orange of his eyes stood out: piercing and fearless, like he was poised to strike at any moment.

“So! How about it then?” he asked, his tone sounding off—far too chipper for how mean his face looked up close.

I took a glance over my shoulder at my crew, who all stood behind me, ready to back me up. I knew a couple of them had swords, though I didn’t have a weapon on hand.

“There’s more of us than you,” said Cris, stepping forward, toward the pirate captain.

“Maybe so, but do you want to take the chance of how many parrots I might have waiting on that ship?”

“Maybe we’ll just take that cha—”

A terrible blast ended Crisanti's sentence early.

The henchbird on the left pulled a flintlock pistol out from his coat, and with no hesitation or warning, shot Cris in the chest. My lookout crumpled to the deck with a gasp, and before I had the chance to react, I heard a click next to my right ear. I stiffened. Sternclaw had a pistol of his own pointed right at my head.

“You went and made me answer that question, Captain. I told you it wouldn’t be good!” He laughed a manic, wheezing laugh that sent chills up my spine. “Now then, I’ll ask again. Do you surrender, or do we have to do this the extra hard way?”

I stole a glance at Cris, who lay on the deck, gasping for breath, and my heart sank. “Yes, we surrender.”

“Good,” Sternclaw said with a disturbingly appreciative smile, but he kept his pistol trained on me. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

I drew a shaky breath. “Someone check on Cris. Now,” I ordered and Emerald carefully made her way over to the fallen parrot, keeping her movements slow and careful, making sure not to get herself shot as well.

“A little more business to attend to, then,” Sternclaw continued. “What’s this ship carrying?”

“Zebrican grain, nothing else.”

“Zebrica grows some good oats,” he commented, then looked to the parrot on the right. “Go check below decks, see what they got.”

The henchbird that hadn’t shot my lookout nodded and disappeared down the hatch.

“How’s he doing?” I asked, not daring to move.

“He’s bleeding bad,” said Emerald. I heard a faint whimper from Cris.

“Such is what happens when one gets shot,” said Sternclaw.

His casual manner about gravely wounding someone made me seethe with rage. I shot him a glare. “You are a real piece of shit, you know that?”

That got a laugh from the two pirates on deck. “You’d be surprised how few creatures actually have the gall to say that to me. I admire your courage.”

“Just calling it like I see it,” I spat.

“Indeed.”

“What becomes of us when you’re done?” asked Emerald.

Sternclaw shrugged. “I’d love to bring you all aboard my ship, but I’m afraid there’s just not enough space. Once we get things settled here, you can take those lifeboats and sail wherever your hearts desire.”

“And the kid you just shot?”

“I wish him the best of luck.”

If it hadn’t been for the pistol pointed at my head, I’d have jumped on him and torn him apart by now. He was lanky and thin, clearly not strong enough to take on a zebra one on one, even an older one like me. I heard rummaging from below decks, and the third pirate emerged a moment later.

“Looks like just grain. I grabbed a little from the crew’s quarters, but this thing’s pretty dry.” He held up a necklace that I knew belonged to Emerald, along with a few other items.

“Such a shame, all that for a little jewelry,” said Sternclaw. He picked up my oil lamp from the deck and regarded it for a moment. “You’d better start preparing that lifeboat now.” With a grunt, he hurled the lamp over the side of the ship.

A knot formed in my gut as my lamp sailed out of sight for the last time, but I was more confused than anything. It made no sense to throw a lamp overboard, but before I could question it, I got my answer: It was a signal. Within three seconds, I heard a terrible whistling sound from the starboard side, followed by splintering wood. Water sprayed up from the side of the ship, splattering us all with icy droplets. The report from the cannon on board the Green Haze split the stillness of the night wide open, and then two more cannonballs struck within a second of each other.

“It was a pleasure making your acquaintance. Until next time,” said Sternclaw, spreading his wings and lowering his pistol. He and his henchbirds took off, slipping into the darkness as quickly as they’d come.

By the time they vanished, the Deliverance was already listing to the side, and I barked, “Abandon ship!” The crew scrambled to life, rushing toward the lifeboats as quickly as they could. I went the opposite direction, rushing to Cris’s side.

“He’s not going to make it,” said Emerald, her talons soaked in blood.

“Don’t tell me the odds. We have to get him to the lifeboat. Cris, you still with me?”

The parrot groaned weakly, the noise coming out as more of a gurgle.

“Turn around,” I told Emerald, picking Cris up with ginger hooves. His feathers were soaked from the gaping wound in his chest, but I managed to sling him over Emerald’s back without disturbing it too severely.

“Walk slowly,” I ordered, and we made our way toward the lifeboats. They were already prepared by the rest of the crew by the time we reached them. Emerald climbed up and over the side of the ship as carefully as she could, but every little jostle to Cris tore at my nerves. He was in bad shape, but there was a first aid kit on the lifeboat: possibly just enough to save his life. When Cris was safely laid into the bottom of the lifeboat, I hopped in and began lowering us down to the water while Emerald tended to his wound.

The lifeboats got clear of the sinking Deliverance as quickly as they could, and the stricken vessel slipped below the surface a few minutes later. The pirates responsible had long since vanished into the night.

Okay, so I wasn’t the best janitor the navy had ever seen.

I groaned as I tried to sit up, my head spinning like a top. It took a few seconds for my faculties to come back to me; when they did, the first thing I realized was that my beak had punched through one of the plastic trash bags. My face sat in the middle of the goopy remains of whatever the sailors on this boat had eaten in the last couple of weeks. I recoiled in disgust, pushing the bag off of myself and springing up with vigor I didn’t know I had, sputtering and wiping at my face to get rid of the smell.

It didn’t work. At least I hadn’t managed to taste anything, but that garbage was ripe. Nothing short of a shower would fully purge the stench from my feathers.

I gagged and shuddered. Regardless of how I smelled, there was a much more serious problem at hand. Before me sat the metal cart I was using to haul the trash out of the ship—overturned, its contents strewn out all across the floor in a pile of white plastic bags and random bits of garbage that managed to escape during the tumble. It was a miracle nogriff had heard it all come crashing down.

Lesson one for the day: hauling a loaded cart of trash up a flight of stairs is a bad idea.

That’s what I got for trying to take a shortcut. Cedar Breeze told me to tie my cart to a rope and lift it out through the cargo hatch. I didn’t want to bother with the ropes, and now I was here.

It only took me a minute or two to turn the cart upright and load everything back into it. With it squared away, I wheeled the cart over to the hatch, which was a square hole in the ceiling of the cargo hold, right in the center of the upper deck. Several ropes hung down through it, and I tied them onto the cart with square knots—the only kind of knot I fully remembered how to tie.

Satisfied with my work, I then realized I wasn’t sure what to do next. I spread my wings and leaped up through the hatch to the main deck. My eyes weren’t ready for the bright sunlight, and I blinked hard while they adjusted.

I traced the path of the ropes; they ran through pulleys suspended from the mast, and then down to eyelets along the edge of the deck. I was hoping there’d be a crank to lift it up and out, but it was just the rope and pulleys on this ship. I was going to have to get this one with some good old-fashioned elbow grease. Great.

It would have been better to have some help for this, but a quick check around reaffirmed that I was on my own. I bowed down, stretching my arms out, and then rocked forward to transfer the stretch to my hind legs. With a shake of my head and a steeling of my will, I was ready for the big lift.

I smiled; even though I was the trash griffon, this job was going to give me one heck of a daily workout. I’d be looking good by the end of the summer. Gotta focus on the positives, I reassured myself.

I grabbed the two ropes and pulled them taut, testing just how much weight there was on the other end. Even with the pulleys adding leverage, there was no give. I’d stacked the cart pretty high, so it was going to be tough, but I’d gotten it up a few of the stairs before I lost control and fell the first time. I knew it was doable, so I braced myself against the ropes, took a breath, and heaved.

Nothing. This thing was apparently heavier than I thought it would be—the type of thing that requires a team lift. I looked around again for another griff, but the deck was empty, and after checking the docks, I found them deserted as well.

I groaned. There was no time to waste on flagging someone down. I wanted to get this done as quickly as possible so I just might get to do something cooler than moving trash by the end of the day. I returned to the ropes and dug myself in, locking my claws against the grain of the wooden deck for better traction, and then lifted. I strained against the ropes, pulling with everything I had.

Sweat poured down my brow. I managed a step forward, and then another.

My arms burned; my claws strained against the weight to keep traction.

Another step. Breaths came in deep, measured gulps through gritted teeth.

Another step; I was nearly halfway there.

And then it all came to an abrupt end.

My hind legs faltered, and I was shoved flat to the deck by the force of the rope as it snapped backward, my cart plummeting into the cargo hold below. I winced at the crash behind me, and at my own incompetence, staying where I was until the metaphorical dust settled. Surely someone had heard and was coming to investigate, and would find me and my embarrassment plain for all to see.

But as the seconds ticked by, I heard nothing more than the standard ambiance: the distant lapping of water against ship hulls and the crashing of waves on the rocks of the shoreline. By the mercy of all the gods above, nobody else was around to watch me make a fool of myself. So, after catching my breath, I slunk over to the cargo hatch and surveyed the damage.

Amid a pile of garbage bags, some of which had broken open, the cart sat turned over—a noticeable dent in its underside where it had hit a stack of cannonballs, which were now scattered around the floor.

Correction: I wasn’t the best janitor the navy had ever seen. I was the actual worst.

I hopped down into the hole and got a closer look. Aside from the major dent, there were numerous other dings and dents in the thing that were not my doing. These carts obviously lived rough lives. With any luck, my addition to the cart’s catalog of damage would go unnoticed. At least the wheels hadn’t broken off; I didn’t want to explain to Lieutenant Cedar Breeze that I’d smashed the one piece of naval property they’d entrusted to me within an hour of starting my job.

Yona would be so proud of me, I mused mirthlessly.

I cleaned up the spill for the second time that morning and restacked the cannonballs, which were a lot heavier than I expected them to be, but it made sense when I thought about it. They were solid iron balls the size of my fist—of course they were heavy.

I grumbled at myself and my stupidity the whole time, lamenting my innate need to cut corners. After a sufficient amount of grousing, I finally decided to turn off all of my lazy instincts. I’d have to do this in about twice as many trips as I wanted to. I loaded half of the bags that I’d started with, leaving the rest in a neat pile by the cannonballs, and went back topside.

This time, I was much more successful. The cart came to the surface with only a moderate struggle at the ropes, and I was over the first hurdle. I brought it safely onto the main deck, and then promptly spent the next few minutes trying to untie all of the square knots I’d used to get the thing up here.

I was totally drenched with sweat by the time I wheeled the cart down the ramp and onto the dock. From there, it was an easy trip down to the much larger dumpsters near the path that led toward headquarters; they were in a pit, set low enough that I could just dump the cart over to empty it. The bags hit the bottom of the dumpster with a cacophonous chorus of calamity, and then it was time to head back and start the cycle over again.

I finished my work aboard the Summation a little before noon without any further incidents, and with that last load done, I dropped my cart off and checked back in with the lieutenant to get dismissed for lunch.

“You only finished the first one?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Yes, sir.”

He sighed. “Not bad for your first go, I guess, but you’re going to need to pick up the pace. You feel like you’ve got the hang of it yet?”

I shrugged despite myself. “It’s pretty simple work.”

“Then you’ll have two more done before quitting time?’

“Shouldn’t be a problem, sir.”

Cedar Breeze nodded. “Good. Dismissed.” I saluted him and began making my way out of the office, but froze in place when I realized I had no idea where to go for food. Backpedaling, I turned and opened my mouth to ask, but he was quicker on the draw. “Chow hall is around the corner to the left; you can’t miss it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And stop calling me ‘sir’ every time you say anything to me. It’s a waste of your time and mine.”

“Yes, sir.” I said it before I realized what I was doing.

“Stop it!” he barked, though the slight smile on his face made me feel better. “Get out of here before you say it again.”

I breathed a sigh of relief as I walked out of the office, but that relief was gone once I was back into the direct sunlight.

I walked around the corner, and as advertised, there was the dining hall. It was a squat stone building without windows on the front. It was smaller than I expected it to be, but that made sense when I thought about it. Only a relatively small group of personnel were stationed at the docks regularly, myself included. This wasn’t where the entire navy ate their meals.

And the best part was that they served meat—actual meat.

Well, fish, but it was at least something not grain or vegetable-based.

The cafeteria wasn’t crowded, so I found a seat by myself in the corner. Aside from a few glances, nogriff paid me any mind. I was filthy from the morning’s work, but I managed to enjoy my food and break in peace.

The rest of the afternoon went smoothly. The work wasn’t so bad when I could keep it at an arm’s length, and I did enjoy the repetition of it on some level. I also got everything done faster. In the time it had taken me to clean one dumpster in the morning, I finished two in the afternoon and started on a third. The usual daily quota was five, so I was still moving at a snail’s pace, but I would probably make my quota the next day.

Aside from the smell, it could have been worse.

Thursday morning, I awoke to a pit of dread in my gut when my alarm tore me from my dreams. It was a shame; I’d been enjoying the dream. The details of it were already hazy, but it involved flying. I think I might have been leaving Griffonstone behind for good, or maybe I was getting kicked out? Something to that effect.

I sat up and turned the alarm off, snuffing out the obnoxious bells with my fist, then glancing around at the darkness of my room with bleary eyes. It was still before sunrise, probably early enough that I’d beat Ty to the shower today. I threw the covers off and hopped out of bed before groggily trudging down my hallway and toward the bathroom. When I got to the hatch in the kitchen, I found everything dry and undisturbed. I was indeed the first one to the bathroom that morning. Score one for Gallus.

I left the hatch open while I showered. When it came down to it, I preferred a visible exit to the privacy of a closed hatch. Once I was cleaned up, I made myself some hash browns in the toaster. It wasn’t the ideal way to make them, but the frozen potato patties I bought at the store held together well enough that I could be lazy.

While I chewed over my breakfast, I found myself staring at the wall across the den, my mind wandering away from the tasteless food I was shoveling down my face.

Was this all worth it?

When I came here, I expected things would be different for me this summer. Instead of three months of near-isolation and struggling in Griffonstone, working for Grandpa Gruff when he was willing to pay me and finding enough odd jobs to feed myself when he wasn’t, I came here for a stable, dignified job. I was going to spend time with Silverstream, make new friends, and do fun, interesting things in my spare time.

So far, I’d been shoveling trash until I was too exhausted to think, and then I came home and lounged around my room for a few hours until I passed out. I hadn’t talked to anyone for more than idle chit-chat since I started my job last Sunday. Heck, I hadn’t even seen Silverstream since she dropped me off at headquarters on Saturday.

I came here to escape Griffonstone, but it had followed me.

I finished my breakfast, put on my uniform that was in desperate need of a wash, and made my way out the door and toward the docks. In my first five days here, I hadn’t explored any of the city past the path that led from the market square to my apartment. I took to the air when I reached the market, taking a slow, gentle path down toward sea level. I’d left with plenty of time to spare, so I could take my time getting to work.

I relished the chill of the early morning air as it streamed through my feathers. Just as I’d expected when I first arrived here, working down at sea level was like wading through hot soup for eight hours a day. Up here, I was away from the heat and humidity, and I had made a habit of leaving early in the mornings so I could take my time and enjoy the cold for a bit before I had to resign myself to the pressure cooker for the day.

I took about ten minutes to fly out and away from the mountain, but then it was time to turn back and start my descent toward the docks. As I approached the city, I couldn’t help marveling at the scale of it. Mount Aris was the largest of a jagged range of mountains that hugged the coast, lots of small points sticking up like the claws of an army of dragons reaching skyward from the earth. It made me feel small, looking down on it.

High above it all, I could almost forget how much I was growing to hate it.

I got to the docks a few minutes before my scheduled time and began my fifth day of fun and excitement with a great, big frown on my face. By now, I’d gotten the hang of how to do my job. I hadn’t made any major blunders since that first morning, and now I was comfortable enough with the work that I could zone out while I did it and forget how slowly the time was passing. One load of garbage blended into the next; one ship became two, and then three.

I was almost ready to break for lunch when I was torn from my rhythm. I had just dumped my cart and was on my way back to get one final load in before chowtime. Over the rattling of the empty cart as it crossed the wooden decking of the pier, I heard a series of wingbeats closing in rapidly from behind me.

Instinct took over for a split second, and I whirled around with talons bared, hackles raised, ready for whatever attack was coming in. However, when my eyes came into focus, my vision was filled with pink and blue.

Of course it was her.

“Easy there, tiger,” said Silverstream, setting down in front of me with a final flap of her wings. She’d stopped herself short of the tackle-hug she was probably going for when I’d whipped around ready to fight, and instead settled on the deck in front of me.

“You really shouldn’t sneak up on griffons like that,” I scolded, smoothing out the feathers on the back of my neck that had puffed out, then made a point about examining my talons. “It’s dangerous.”

She giggled. “If it makes you fluff up like that, it might be worth the risk.”

My cheeks heated up. “Whatever,” I said, rolling my eyes, which was met with more laughter. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you when you get scratched.”

“I’ll take my chances.” She craned her neck as she checked me up and down. “Look at you in that uniform, all snazzy and official! That green really suits you.” Silverstream stretched her arms out, this time offering the hug instead of tackling me. I accepted it, though I tried to keep it loose and fast, on account of the fact that I smelled like… well, hot garbage.

Of course, she noticed. “Whew! If I’d known you’d be that funky, I would’ve brought a saxophone.”

“It’s hot out here, cut me some slack.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t think sweat smells like old fish.”

“I… it’s a griffon thing,” I lied. Or, I thought, I could just tell her the real reason I stink.

Yeah, no. I’d rather keep what little respect she had for me intact.

She was winding up for another question, so I had to act fast. “So, what’s up?” I asked, pushing the conversation along.

“Just checking in on Hippogriffia’s newest sailor. How was your first week?”

Outside of wanting to correct her that I was a recruit, not a sailor, I wanted to spill my guts right then and there. I wanted to tell her all about how I felt, about how much I hated it here. But then again, that would have put her on the spot. She’d probably take it upon herself to try and secure a promotion for me, which would kill just about any semblance of a reputation I had around here. I bit my tongue and said flatly, “It’s been alright, I guess. Working on ships is pretty cool.”

“Aren’t they?” she agreed, looking around. She pointed toward the one to my right. “Like this right here. Barquentines are my favorite!”

“Hold up. Barken-what?”

“Barquentine. The ship?”

“I have never heard that word in my entire life.”

Silverstream laughed. “Gallus, come on. You sound like you’ve never been around boats before.”

“Literally never.”

“Wait, doesn’t Griffonstone have a port?”

“It’s hundreds of miles from the coast.” I cocked an eyebrow. “Didn’t you ever take geography?”

“I didn’t pay much attention in that class.” She scratched the back of her head, the faintest blush coloring her cheeks. “But anyway, barquentines!”

“Sure,” I said. “What’s a barquentine?”

Silverstream jumped off the dock and took wing, rising toward the ship’s center mast. “It’s all in the sails. They’re square on the mainmast here—” she moved down from the center mast toward the rear of the ship “—but the other sails are triangle shaped.”

“That is the nerdiest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” I called up to her. She blew a raspberry back. “How do you even know that?”

“When your dad’s in the navy, you kinda pick things like that up after a while.” She tucked her wings in and dove down to the dock, landing next to me with a heavy thunk. “You’re probably gonna need to learn how to spot the differences between the ships since you work for the navy now.”

“Meh, I’ll figure it out.” I shrugged. “So, why do you like barquentines the best?”

Silverstream answered with a vacant shrug of her own. “I dunno. I just like the name.” She turned away from me and faced the direction she came, and I followed her gaze down to see a smaller, cream-coated hippogriff walking toward us, a large camera hanging around his neck.

“There you are, Terramar! What, did you get lost on the way down here?”

Terramar stuttered a few times before he retorted, “Well, maybe if you didn’t fly like a million miles an hour, I wouldn’t get lost!” He was a little awkward, I surmised.

Silverstream laughed a single, dry laugh. “That’s just slowpoke talk for ‘I got lost.’”

“I spent three months’ allowance on this camera and I’m not getting it broken because you wanted to fly fast!” His reasoning was solid, but his delivery came out whiny and desperate.

Not the best way to win arguments there, slick, I thought.

Silverstream turned to me. “Terramar, this is Gallus, my friend from school. Gallus, this is my little brother.”

Terramar nodded at me. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Every time she comes home, she’s constantly going on and on about all the stuff that happens at school. Your name comes up a lot.”

I turned to Silverstream with a smirk, and she blushed faintly. “What? I like to talk about you guys,” she defended.

Back to Terramar. “What kind of stuff does she say?”

“SO ANYWAY,” Silverstream cut in, blushing harder. “I wanted to do this earlier this week, but I totally forgot and missed your first day. I guess your fifth day is close enough, so whatever, right? Anyway, picture this: a scrapbook all about our summer together! Doesn’t that sound great?”

My smirk faded. “Wait a second, you forgot about me for a week?” was what I wanted to say. Such a fantastic summer ‘together’ we’d had so far, but instead of killing the mood immediately the first time I’d seen her in a week, I held back and flatly stated, “That sounds like a lot of pictures.”

“Yup!” she happily exclaimed with a nod. ”We gotta get started on that. Come on!”

For his part, Terramar looked about as on board with Silverstream’s manic plans as I was. He awkwardly shuffled forward, standing off to the side as Silverstream led me by the wrist over to the edge of the dock.

“So for this first picture, let’s just get us sitting on the dock together.” Silverstream plopped herself down on the wooden deck and patted the spot next to her for me. I hesitantly sat down. “Ok, let’s take a nice one first. Should we do one looking at the camera, or maybe off in the distance? So many choices… Terramar!” She slowed herself down, closing her eyes contentedly and leaning in close to my side. “You’re the photographer. Make us look good!”

“Okay…” said Terramar. He took wing and eyeballed a few angles before he settled on hovering just off the edge of the dock. “Alright, both of you scoot up to the edge, and then... act like you’re watching a sunset.”

I breathed in and puffed my chest out a bit, assuming what I hoped would turn out as a regal pose. Silverstream wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I looked past the camera, off toward an imaginary sunset that was really just the side of the boat that happened to be in front of us.

The shutter snapped. “That was good. Now one more.” I felt Silverstream adjust her arm behind my back, and then the camera clicked again. “Okay, that should be enough.”

I relaxed, and Terramar came over to us. It was one of those new fancy cameras that printed out the pictures right when they were taken. He already had the first one in his hand, and the second was on its way out of the camera. He held it up for us to see. The first one turned out well enough, though I thought my smile looked a little off.

The second photo slipped free of the camera’s slot, and Silverstream took it, giggling under her breath. The photo wasn’t quite done developing, but I could already see what had happened.

Bunny ears.

“Hey!” I shot a glare at her, but the instant I reacted, then came the laughter from both of them.

“Gotcha!” Silverstream cackled.

For some reason, I couldn’t think of anything snarky enough to say back. Left with no better ideas, I lightly shoved her on the shoulder. She shoved me back, and we laughed.

“For that,” she said through a giggle, “I’m putting that picture on the cover of the book.”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever, dork.”

“Okay, so next up, I want some action shots,” said Silverstream, flying up and perching on the edge of the barken… ship thing. “Show us the nitty-gritty. Act like you’re working hard, show off what you do to keep the navy afloat!”

A bead of sweat ran down my forehead, one not caused by the humidity. “Sure,” I said, walking back over to my cart.

The trash cart. I could see it now: I, Gallus, the garbage bird, immortalized forever on film as a lowly janitor.

It was a miracle that she’d showed up at lunchtime like she did. No other crew were nearby, so I had options about how I wanted to present myself. I walked straight past the cart, instead looking for something more respectable that I could pose with. I joined Silverstream on the deck and found what I was looking for: a rope. It was attached to the sails, and I struck a pose, miming like I was pulling on it with all of my might.

“Oh, good one!” Silverstream beckoned Terramar over, and he snapped a few shots of me.

“And…” I searched the deck for another object of interest and found it in the form of a stack of supply crates. I picked one up—no small feat, considering it felt like the small box was full of lead—and carried it toward the cargo hatch, smiling the whole time as Terramar took more photos.

“That’s great!” Silverstream called. “What next?”

“And that’s pretty much it,” I said. “I don’t do anything super exciting. Just… loading crates and stuff for the most part.”

“You’re too modest,” she mock scolded. “This is super cool and I’m glad you’re happy doing it.”

“It pays the bills, I guess.”

Silence developed, only the faint lapping of the waves under the wooden pier filling the space. I hoped it would send the two of them away. It was a relief to hang out with Silverstream and actually talk with someone else, but I also didn’t want her to see the true extent of my duties. If she left now, I could keep things just muddy enough to not embarrass myself.

They, however, kept lingering, and so I decided to give things a nudge. “Well, I better get back to work if we’re done with pictures. I’ll see you later?”

“Just try and stop me,” she said with a giggle. “Come on, Terramar! I’ve got a scrapbook to start.” They left me alone with my work, and I watched them fly away until they were fully out of sight.

I wanted to go with them, but the dumpsters wouldn’t clean themselves. I grabbed my cart, but as I started pushing it forward, a thought stopped me dead in my tracks.

She forgot about me for a week?

Queen Novo was right. Of course she was right.

I closed the file on my desk and returned it to its place in my cabinet. That was the last of the paperwork involved with the griffon’s temporary placement, and now that it was out of my feathers, I was only slightly less annoyed—as much as I could be, considering my hand had just been forced into signing off on allowing an untrained griffon into the ranks.

It was only a small comfort that I’d be leaving him untrained and working a job that I’d come up with just for the occasion. Trash duty was always something rotated in among the usual dock crews, never a dedicated position. A small part of me felt sorry for the griffon. He didn’t deserve to be stuck with something so foul, but it wasn’t like there was much else for him to do. Training him properly would be a waste since he was only here for a season. Without going through basic training, he wouldn’t be of much use.

It had been a quiet week, just as Novo predicted. No chaos, no breakdown of order due to his inclusion on the dock crew. In fact, I’d been able to go back to business as usual and completely forget about the incident when paperwork regarding it wasn’t on my desk.

That was what annoyed me the most. It wasn’t giving the griffon a job, or even that my claws were tied into this arrangement. It was the fact that she was right.

I sighed and took a sip of coffee from my mug that read “I Ship It” in block letters. My daughter had given it to me during the first Three Days of Freedom festival last year, but from the concealed smirks on her face while I opened it, I could only assume that it was one of those in-jokes she had with her friends. Truth be told, I was afraid to ask what it meant, so I settled for assuming it was about my job and left it at that. Without regard to the mug, the caffeine was a warm welcome this late in the day. I was merely an hour away from returning home for the evening, but I was starting to drag as the hours wore on.

At least it was over with. In a few days, I could forget that the Navy employed a griffon entirely.

Except I couldn’t. Novo still expected me to use him as a publicity stunt for her foreign affairs ploy. I could kick the duty of organizing that to somegriff beneath me, but I’d still get to hear plenty about it and probably make a few public appearances to promote the idea.

I scowled as I took another drink. This was a navy, not a political circus act.

At least for now, it was another problem for another day. It had been a long week, and I was ready for my day off.

There was a knock at the door, and my aide poked her head through the door. “Sir, message for you from Greenfin Island. Urgent stamped.” She passed the letter across my desk to me.

I furrowed my brow. “This late in the day? Must be. Thank you, Spearmint.” With a casual flick of a claw, I sliced the envelope open.

I rubbed my eyes and groaned. Just when I’d been thinking about the weekend, here was something to mess it up.

I cleared my desk and resorted to the first tool I always consulted when I had to make decisions: the map. I kept a large, well-detailed map rolled up and propped in the corner of my office. It saw use at least once a week, and this particular one was close to its expiration after being rolled and unrolled enough times that the edges were tattered.

I spread the map out before me and took a moment to look at the big picture. Mount Aris was near the top left corner, at the tip of a peninsula that jutted out from the mainland in the very appropriate shape of a beak. Hippogriffs didn’t control a large amount of land, mainly confined to the peninsula. The border with Ornithia sliced a round-ish arc across the top of it, the difference in color between the two nations further emphasizing the beak shape.

Seaquestria wasn’t far from Mount Aris, marked about two miles offshore to the south. Past that, there was open ocean, all the way to the southern edge of the map where the Great Ice Sheet began. The further south the map ran, the more bodgy the cartography became. The Southern Ocean was infamous for its storms, and they tended to get worse and more frequent the more distant from civilization you went. Before the Storm King, some efforts to properly chart the area down there had been made, but that ground to a halt when hippogriffs disappeared beneath the waves.

Someday, I mused. Militarily, I wanted to know the territory down there in order to better understand my surroundings and be better prepared. Personally, it was morbid curiosity. A great mystery lay in those endless fields of ice a thousand miles away, but I wasn’t going to get any expeditions together if I had to spend all my time bothering with the pirates who decided to disturb the peace in my waters.

That led me back to the actual reason I had opened the map. Pirates. That had been the reason far too commonly in the last few months. Apparently, in the absence of an iron-fisted despot to keep things in check, the criminal underworld found a lot of room to flourish. Pirate incidents had steadily risen in the past year, despite my efforts, but this was different.

Until now, they hadn’t sunk anyone.

I turned my attention to the long, thin, curved slice of land four hundred miles to the southeast, from whence the letter had come. Greenfin Island was the second-largest installation the Navy had in the south sea, though even with that title, it had roughly half the size and a quarter of the staff that the base at Mount Aris held. Across such a vast stretch of ocean, patrols were spread thin. It would have been easy for the pirates to work around them if they became wise to our movements and learned the patterns.

That was the first item of business: patrols. Given that our ships were obviously missing something in their routes, the pirates must have figured them out and worked around the patrols. It was time to shuffle routes and schedules around, but if Captain Waves was worth her salt, she’d have done that already. I began to mentally draft a response anyway, with added emphasis on the importance of vigilance.

Next was the vessels. Greenfin’s regular fleet was twenty-two strong; enough to cover their area of responsibility, but now they would need more help to keep a lid on things. The question was how much?

My first thought was to send eight ships and bring the total operating from Greenfin to a nicely rounded thirty, but my thoughts halted when I realized that sparing eight ships would drop my numbers by nearly twenty percent. A bit much, given that this was the first report of anything major. I hedged my number back a bit, settling for five.

I pored over the list of active vessels to select the five that would go. It mostly came down to random choice, but I was able to pull several from patrol routes that had considerable overlap with others and those that were currently in port. My final shortlist was Governance, Derelict, Thunderclap, Eidothea, and Summation.

I nodded to myself and commenced writing my reply to Captain Waves. Before I could go home for the day, I needed to make sure everything was in order to send those ships off. The crews were to be notified. I would have to adjust my schedule to account for the reduction in my fleet.

I’d be home late tonight, but there was still a chance that I’d get my weekend after all.

For all the garbage I had to deal with, getting paid at the end of the week was nice. When I went to the lieutenant for dismissal at the end of the day, he was waiting for me with a slip of paper a slap on the back.

“Congratulations, you survived!” he shouted with a hearty laugh.

The claws on my shoulder caught me off guard, probably because of how tired I was. The only thing my brain came up with was a cautious “Thanks?”

Cedar Breeze laughed again. “That’s your stub. Take that to the disbursement office at HQ to get your pay.” He passed me the slip. “Gotta say, you did pretty well for your first week. Think you’ll be good for the rest of the summer?”

It terrified me when put in those terms, but I nodded.

He smiled. “Dismissed. Get some rest. See you Sunday. ”

“Thank you, sir,” I said and walked out of his office. Since my first day, the vaguely stereotypical comments had died down from the lieutenant, but I was still a little on edge about them, half expecting one every time I talked with him.

Maybe I should have cut him some slack. Aside from the remarks on day one, he’d been a pretty alright boss so far.

I took wing and headed for headquarters. After waiting in line for a few minutes, I left with a small sack of coins that I spent most of the flight up to the highlands inspecting. Granted, it was only half of what I could expect next time since I’d only been there for a week, but it was nice to hear the coins jingling as I flew back up to my apartment.

That, however, was one of the only nice things running through my head. I was scowling when I walked into my empty, undecorated room and flopped down on the bare mattress, tossing my money on the floor beside the bed.

“Oh, I forgot.” I drummed my fists into the mattress as the line played through my head for the umpteenth time that day. I had spent the entire afternoon angry after Silverstream and her twerpy brother left me alone to finish my shift, but now the anger had softened into frustrated sadness.

She forgot I was here?

I didn’t want it to be true. Silverstream, the one true friend I knew I could count on in this place. The entire reason I was here and not in Griffonstone. She’d forgotten about me that quickly?

Did she even care at all?

Mist clouded my eyes, but I blinked it away. I may have been fairly new to the idea of having friends, but I could tell when I wasn’t wanted. Of course it made sense. She didn’t actually want me here. She just pitied me and my situation! Since I’d played on those sympathies, she felt bad enough to pull some strings with her royal ties. Now that I'd been here a few days, her duty was done. I could just fade into the background for three months until it was time to go back to school.

It stung. It was like getting bitten in the chest by a manticore. I thought I could trust Silverstream, but she’d showed me that it wasn’t true. She wasn’t really my friend.

That train of thought was alarming enough to wake up the rational part of my brain, and I shook my head to clear the haze. “That’s ridiculous,” I said out loud, trying to reinforce the idea in my head. “Silverstream is my friend. She cares about me. She just got busy and so did I.”

I felt a little better after saying it to myself. Silverstream could be a little airheaded, but she wasn’t malicious.

In spite of that, tears streaked down my cheeks, overwhelming my will to hold them in. I searched desperately around the room, but it was as empty as I felt. There was nothing here to distract myself with. If I stayed here, I’d be alone with my thoughts for the rest of the evening. That prospect was enough to catapult me off the bed. I didn’t bother grabbing any of my things on my way out of the room.

One of the perks of having an inclined hallway lead to my room was that I could use it as a slide down. I coasted into the living room and intended to keep my momentum going on the way to the front door, but I stopped in my tracks when I saw who was standing in front of the fridge.

“Hey, dude!” said Ty, holding a tray full of various fruits. I hadn’t seen him since Saturday, and on my second time seeing him, he was covered in what looked like some sort of ancient tribal war paint, a mess of colorful swirls and dots all across his body from head to hind hoof. “You gotta try these cherries.”

“What happened to you?” I asked incredulously.

“I was out on patrol all week. Let me tell you, sea serpents are sassy when you get in the way of their water polo.”

I wasn’t sure what to do with that tidbit, but I shook my head. “No, I mean what’s with the ritual paint?”

“Oh, this?” He examined himself, checking over the designs from front to back. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“What is it for?”

“Party,” he answered. I cocked an eyebrow, so he clarified. “There’s a rave happening over at Meistra’s tonight. It’s been a while since I hit one of those, so I’m going all out.”

Again, that meant little to me. “A rave? What’s that?”

Ty’s eyes widened in surprise. “You don’t get out much, do you?”

I shook my head. “Griffonstone isn’t really known for its nightlife. Never heard of a rave before.”

“Hey, Diamond, get in here!” Ty shouted, craning his head toward his hallway. I heard his room’s door open, and a moment later, a teal blue female hippogriff stepped into the living room, also decked out in similar paint swirls to Ty, though hers were noticeably sloppier than his.

Ty gestured between us. “Diamond, this is my roommate, Gallus. Gallus, Diamond Glitz.”

“Charmed,” she said, her voice carrying a smooth, refined lilt to it.

I returned the greeting with a simple “Hey.”

“This dude hasn’t ever been to a rave,” Ty said, pointing a claw at me.

“Really?”

I shrugged. “I hadn’t even heard about them until now.”

“You’re coming with us,” said Ty. “You have to experience this.”

I took a glance back and forth between the two hippogriffs, eyeing the abstract designs painted all over their feathers, and I felt hesitant. “If it means I have to get painted up like that, I don’t think I want to.”

“Come on, dude, you’ll be missing out!”

“I still don’t even know what a rave is,” I reminded him.

“Ok,” said Ty. “So, do you like dancing?”

“It’s alright.”

“Do you like sick electronic beats?”

I shrugged.

Ty snorted, but before he said anything, Diamond cut in. “Maybe you could come anyway and see if you like it. We won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do—” she glanced in Ty’s direction, scolding him “—but it might be good for you to get out and try something new.”

I considered the offer. Past getting myself out of this apartment, I had no idea what I was going to do that evening. I didn’t know anything about the city; no ideas on where to go or what to do. On my own, I probably would have wandered around aimlessly for the evening. Trouble could lurk anywhere. I could handle myself if I got into trouble, but getting attacked in a random alley didn’t sound like a pleasant way to spend a Thursday night.

On the other hand, if I went with Ty and Diamond to the rave, I’d have a guided tour for the evening. I’d get to hang out with someone I was at least a little familiar with, and who knew? Maybe I’d actually enjoy myself at the party. I was nothing if not adaptable.

“I’m pretty much broke,” I said. “How much does this thing cost?”

Ty snapped his claws together, pointing a finger gun at me. “Tell you what, since this is your first one, I’ll get your cover charge.”

“Thanks, Ty.”

“So that means you’re coming?”

“I guess,” I said with a shrug. “But I don’t want to get painted.”

I got painted.

Well, I was able to talk them down to a simple design on my face, so I guessed it was a victory. Diamond added some swirls of the bright pink and yellow stuff emanating outward from my eyes and a few dots around my beak. I convinced them that a simple glow stick hanging from my neck would suffice for the rest of me.

When I looked in the mirror, it wasn’t all bad. Granted, this was still far outside the realm of what I was used to, but it was actually kind of nice in a way. Diamond was very skilled with the brush, her patterns very even and symmetrical. The sloppier lines on her body led me to the conclusion that Ty must have painted her up and she did his.

Were they an item? I couldn’t be too sure. They didn’t act like they were a couple, but that brush had gotten close to some pretty intimate places on both of them.

I was pulled from that thought when we rounded a corner and came into view of the venue. Meistra’s was fairly unassuming on the outside. The building was housed inside one of those typical circus tent-shaped buildings, though it stood out that the usual window panels were blacked out—or at least they looked black in the darkness of the evening. A line stretched out the door and around the block, moderated by two bouncers who stood an imposing height over the hippogriffs in the line, which only made it more intimidating to me since I was a foot shorter than the average hippogriff.

The line moved quickly. In about twenty minutes, Ty paid the cover charges and we entered the club. As soon as I walked in, I was punched in the face by both the sound and the smell of the place. The pulsating, rapid fire electronic music was accompanied by a frantic, energetic laser light show that dominated the dance floor, where a dense crowd of partygoers had amassed and were bouncing around totally at random, out of sync with the beat more often than not.

And that said nothing for the smell. Smoke hung heavy in the air. From the pungent, acrid smell, a lot of it wasn’t coming from a fog machine.

I was already having second thoughts.

Before I could dwell on them, however, Ty and Diamond led me toward the dance floor. As we approached it, the reason they painted themselves up became clear: it was fluorescent paint. The swirls painted up and down their bodies began to glow, and by the time we entered the crowd, they were at full brightness, the designs decorating their feathers taking focus and seemingly making their bodies disappear in the chaos.

It was stunning, to say the least. A small part of me wished I’d gotten the full treatment, but I remembered the designs they’d put on my face. It was enough. We slipped further and further into the crowd, apparently right at the end of a song. Things were calm enough that we managed to get right in the center by the time the music faded out.

There was no break. As soon as the first song finished, another one slammed through the rows of giant speakers that surrounded the dance floor. Behind me, I heard Ty shout, “Hold on, bro!” at the top of his lungs, but it was a distant echo, muffled under the wall of sound. I could feel the bass rippling through my forehead as the song swelled, wasting no time building up. Hippogriffs began dancing with abandon—well, not so much dancing as they were writhing against each other, finding what little groove they could in the tightly packed mass of feathers and sweat.

The song went through several phases, evolving past the first drop and occasionally slowing itself, allowing everyone a moment to catch their breath. I bobbed along with the music, letting the energy of the room wash over me. It wasn’t my taste, but I couldn’t help but enjoy being there in that moment. I made sure I faced Ty and Diamond, keeping track of where they were. I didn’t want to get lost in this crowd.

But then I felt the music build. I’d listened to the bare minimum number of techno songs in my life to know that the final drop was coming, and I braced myself. The bass swelled slowly, the synthesizers pushing higher and higher until it reached a peak. A pause as a distorted voice said something akin to “Let it loose,” though I couldn’t tell exactly what it was.

And then: chaos. The song blasted into its final chorus like it was packed with nitroglycerin, and the crowd went wild. I was shoved around by dancers as they absolutely lost their minds. Like a poor, unsuspecting fish swimming past a flounder, I was sucked into the depths of it before I had a chance to react.

As I was violently thrashed around by a horde of glowing hippogriffs considerably larger than myself, oddly enough, the only thing I noticed was how hot it felt. In the middle of a mass of bodies all pressed together, the air was humid and thick. One song in, and I was already drenched with sweat, most of which didn’t belong to me. I got slapped, kicked, and punched more times than I could count, and by the time the song was over, I had no idea where I was. I’d long since lost Ty and Diamond in the chaos. I needed to find a way out before the next song left me pummeled to death.

Since I was relatively small, I could slip my way through tight spaces fairly easily. I found my way to the edge and left the dance floor, winded and drenched just as the next song took over the room.

For as violent of an experience as that was, I had to admit, it had been a rush. Not the type of rush I usually looked for, though, especially considering that my smaller size relative to the hippogriffs made it downright dangerous.

In the entrance to the rave, there was a much more relaxed and less-compacted group standing around. I had to assume they were like me, not quite ready for the intensity of the rave itself, or at least needed a break.

Back home in Griffonstone, I’d never had a hard time finding alcohol. I knew Equestria was fairly strict with their drinking age laws, but at home, nogriff really cared enough to enforce them. Beer was a big part of our culture, and I’d started drinking it when I was twelve. It tasted nasty at first, but like anything, I got used to it after a while. An occasion like this demanded some form of imbibement—that was a word Ocellus taught me. It was fun to say. So I started scanning around for a bar.

I couldn’t see one anywhere. I wasn’t sure what the drinking age was here, but I was apparently old enough to be let into a party like this, so I figured I’d be old enough to drink here too. With no luck finding it on my own, I approached the first griff I saw who wasn’t talking to someone else.

“Do you know where the bar is?” I asked a lime green chick who was standing off on the far wall.

She looked at me like I had two heads. “Bar?”

“Yeah, a place to get drinks.”

“I don’t know how it is where you come from, but we don’t have ‘bars’ here,” she sneered.

It was clear that she wasn’t interested in talking to me, so I turned to take my leave. “Alright, geez, sorry I asked.”

Realization crossed her face. “Wait,” she said. “You’re new in town, aren’t you? I haven’t seen you around here before. What brings a griffon like you to Mount Aris?”

I paused, thinking of just walking away, but I decided it would be best to mingle, even if she hadn’t come across well the first time. “Work,” I answered, keeping it vague.

She nodded. “Well, you should’ve probably heard this before you showed up at a party, but alcohol is illegal here.”

Suddenly, it made a lot more sense. I hadn’t seen anyone holding a drink the whole time I was here. “Oh.”

She smiled coyly at me and motioned for me to follow her. We went down a hallway that led around and then behind the dance floor, separated from the writhing dancers by a simple black curtain. Down that row, a few rooms were in various stages of use, and she led me into the last one. A few other griffs stood gathered around a wooden barrel in the corner.

“Password!” demanded the griff sitting by the barrel.

“It’s me, you idiot,” said the girl as she led me in. “I’ve got another taker.”

“A griffon?” He mumbled something to himself, and I decided not to worry too much about what it was. “Price is ten bits a taste,” he said, producing a plastic cup and a ladle. “No refunds.”

“Now you sound like the griffon,” I snarked. Bootleg alcohol was something I’d never seen before, given the free availability of the stuff back home. Heck, it could have been classified as a bare necessity for life in Griffonstone; otherwise living there would have probably been totally unbearable. “How much does ten bits get me, exactly?”

“A full cup. As small as you are, that should be plenty,” said the hippogriff by the barrel. “You want it or not?”

This guy didn’t sound like he was interested in haggling, so I left it at that and produced my coin sack. He filled the cup full of dark liquid from the barrel and offered it to me only after I’d counted out the money. Ten bits was a small price to pay for what I could only assume was some pretty strong stuff.

I took the drink and thanked the bootleggers before I turned to leave, but one of the griffs standing by the door stepped into my path.

“Drinks don’t leave the room,” he said, his face flat.

Right. I didn’t have a lot of experience with harder alcohols, but I knew the best way to do them was bottoms up, hold your breath and do the shot as quickly as possible. That wasn’t entirely possible given the size of the drink, but I tipped my head back and drank about a quarter of it in one gulp.

Pain. The stuff was swill, tasting more like paint thinner than anything fit for griffon consumption. It fought its way down my throat kicking and screaming, igniting my esophagus as it went, and then as a final act, it pooled into a lake of fire once it hit my stomach.

I coughed and sputtered when I came up for air, and that got a round of laughs from around the room. My eyes were watering, but I had to admit, after a few seconds, the burn was pretty nice. That said nothing of the taste, though. It still tasted like I drank a tall glass of kerosene.

I decided that one drink was enough, and passed the cup to the girl that led me in. “If anyone wants the rest of that, you’re welcome to it. I’d rather not die tonight.”

That got a few more laughs and earned me a slap on the back as I left, returning to the party proper. One drink like that wasn’t going to be nearly enough, but I started to notice the faint effects of it pretty quickly. I got onto the dance floor again, this time sticking closer to the edges where I could dance in relative safety.

I spent an hour or so between dances and occasional chats with random griffs at the entrance to the party, but by the time the faint buzz of the bootleg liquor wore off, I was about ready to head home. The party was still going strong, but I wasn’t. It was only nine o’clock, but I’d had my fill. As I started looking toward the exit, a claw slapped itself over my shoulder, and I whirled around to come face to face with Ty.

“Hey, dude,” he said, his words unfocused. I came out damp with sweat after just one song; he was absolutely sopping wet. None of his body paint was left intact, the remnants of it just a few luminous smears across his feathers. His eyes weren’t quite locked on anything, off in some other world. “How’s it going?”

“Hey, yourself,” I said. “You alright?”

“Yeah, never better.” Ty swayed a bit in place. Next to him stood a girl, definitely not Diamond Glitz. She was equally drenched, and she had a wing draped over his back, a dopey little smile on her face. “I’d like you to meet Topaz. She’s a singer.”

“I’m not really that good,” she said, almost equally as out of it as he was.

“What happened to Diamond?” I asked.

“Oh, she’s around.”

“Right.”

Silence took over for a moment, and I decided it was time for me to go. “I’m gonna take off. Are you sure you’re good to get home?”

“Yeah, bro, no sweat. I’ll see you back there.” His appearance stood in stark contrast to his words, but I decided it wasn’t my place to question it. Ty was the one with experience at these sorts of parties, not me. If he said he was good, I’d take him at his word.

I nodded and made my way to the front door, where new griffs were still joining the line, though it had gotten much shorter now. The party would probably run into the wee hours of the morning, and the regular weekend hadn’t even started yet. I didn’t want to know what parties on Friday nights looked like. Not yet anyway.

The early schedule I was on had me geared to go to bed. I got back to the apartment at ten thirty, and after a quick shower to wash the night’s activities off of myself, I dropped into my bed and started drifting off almost instantly.

I went the whole night without thinking about Silverstream. Mission accomplished.

“Good morning!”

The hippogriff I waved to looked up from her gardening with a start. When her eyes focused on me and she realized where the unexpected greeting had come from, she smiled and waved back. “Good morning, Silverstream!”

I had no idea who she was, but I didn’t have time to find out; I had somewhere to be and kept to a brisk pace.

The walk from Dad’s house to Gallus’s new apartment wasn’t terribly long. I was up early, before the streets grew crowded with the daily hustle and bustle. The soil was cool under my claws, and the city was quiet enough that I could hear the distant humming of the Harmonizing Heights carried on the breeze as it gently rustled the leaves of the trees overhead.

It was gorgeous. I hadn’t gone to the HH in forever, not since I was home for Spring Break. I loved going there with a sketchbook in hand. The low hums the mountaintop produced always helped get my muse going. Maybe if I found time later I could—ooh!

Idea: I could take Gallus there later! I didn’t know how much exploring he’d done on his own in the last week, but even if he had been there already, nogriff was immune to its charms.

I smiled as my plans filled themselves in for the day. I left the house that morning without any solid idea of what I was going to do, just a goal.

When I saw him at the docks yesterday, he tried acting like everything was fine, but I knew what was really going on. From how tired his eyes looked, I could easily see that he wasn’t enjoying himself, but the hard work didn’t bother him. No, this was a friendship issue.

Or, more accurately, a lack-of-friendship issue. He came a long way over the last year, but hadn’t made a complete turnaround. Ever aloof, Gallus was still a closed-off and introverted griffon, slower to warm up to new creatures than the rest of the gang. That wouldn’t change easily.

He was sad that he hadn’t made any friends among the crew griffs. I knew that the crews usually worked in groups, so if he was out there by himself, they probably hadn’t accepted him as one of their own just yet.

Of course, he would never tell me that outright. He was too proud.

The guilt didn’t leave me be for the rest of the day. If he wasn’t happy, it was my fault since I was the one that put him up to this. I couldn’t exactly go to Queen Novo to fix it either, not even counting that I’d basically cashed in all of my favors with her to get him here in the first place. I didn’t want to say it, but if Gallus was having trouble making new friends, then he would have to sort it out himself. I could still do something about it, but it was going to be something more my usual speed.

I could cheer up Grouchy the Griffon. It was the least I could do.

I rounded the last turn onto his street with urgency in my step; I wanted to get a start on things S-T-P. At the doorstep, I let myself into the apartment with the key hung around my neck. The den was dark, curtains drawn over the windows. Clearly, the boys living here had a sunlight allergy.

“Typical bachelor pad,” I muttered with a smile.

Up the ramp, Gallus had his door shut tight and, on a wiggle of the knob, locked too. Not that it mattered, though—my key worked for both doors.

I frowned as I stepped into the room. Gallus was still asleep, curled up on the bare mattress without so much as a blanket. One wing stuck straight up in the air, rising and falling in slow, even rhythm with his breaths. I crept over to the bedside, taking care to move silently. He kicked a hind leg out as I approached, but he didn’t wake. Another kick, and a quiet murmur of something I couldn’t understand. His legs twitched again, just a little.

He was dreaming, and it was one of the most adorable things I’d ever seen. A small, content smile crossed his beak, and he went still once again. I had half a heart to just leave him be. Unlike downstairs, Gallus had the shade panels in his room completely turned off, letting in all of the light from the outside. If he was still asleep, he must have been extra tired, probably from working hard all week. I stepped back from the bed and looked around the rest of the room.

It hadn’t changed at all since last weekend. Aside from the wadded-up uniform sitting on the floor next to the bed, it was still completely bare. Another glance around the room made me decide against letting him sleep. Plans had changed. I could take him sightseeing, but before any of that, we were going shopping.

I clapped my hands together like I had a pair of cymbals. “Wake up, sleepyhead!”

“GAH!” His eyes snapped open and he scurried to the head of the bed, putting distance between himself and me by pressing his back into the headboard. He took a second to focus in on the situation; when he did, he incredulously asked, “How did you get in here?”

I held up my necklace. “I have a key, doofus.”

“I locked the door for a reason,” he shot back with a frown. “I don’t want to get jump-scared while I’m asleep. Also, privacy?”

My smile waned when I considered that. I was invading his privacy by barging in here unannounced. No matter how good my intentions were, I probably shouldn’t have come in without knocking.

“Sorry,” I said with a blush. “I’ll knock next time.”

“Please do.” He deflated a bit, relinquishing his grip on the mattress under his rump. “So, what’s up?”

“You tell me,” I joked, waving a claw at the rest of the room. “This place looks exactly the same as it did last week.”

“I was busy.” Gallus rolled onto the floor with a soft thump. “New job, remember? I haven’t had time to worry about decorating.”

I pointed to the exposed mattress with an unamused crease of the brow. “You didn’t even get sheets for your bed.”

“…I was really busy.”

“Well you’re not busy today, so we’re going shopping! There’s a yard sale around the corner and we’re going to go pick out some stuff for this place, so get up!” I bounded off toward the door with the expectation that Gallus would follow along with me, but when I paused in the den, he wasn’t there. He took his time, ambling down the ramp with a yawn about thirty seconds after me.

That was a problem. I’d been to enough yard sales in the year I’d lived on the surface to know that they played by the same rules as reef sales in Seaquestria: if you wanted the good stuff, you had to get there early. “Come on, Gallus, we’ve gotta go!”

Gallus lazily pointed his hand toward the kitchen. “Can I not shower and eat first?”

“A shower will take too long! All the good stuff is gonna be gone if we don’t get there quick. Nogriff cares what you smell like at a yard sale.”

“Yeah, but this griff does.” Gallus moved to walk past me, but I stepped into his path.

“Just smooth your feathers out and grab something to eat on the way. This is time-sensitive.”

“Silverstream, chill out. It’s just a yard sale. I’ll be quick.” He stepped around me, popping the bathroom hatch open and disappearing into the space below. With him gone, I went to the couch and flopped onto it with a frustrated sigh.

Staring at the ceiling was one of my favorite forms of catharsis. Something about lying flat on my back and staring up at nothing was exactly what I needed to get the thinker going.

I heard a door hinge squeak off to my left, and I turned my head to see the hippogriff I could only assume was Gallus’s roommate stumble into the kitchen with bleary eyes, his pale red mane sticking up in angry cowlicks where it wasn’t matted down to his scalp.

“Good morning, random girl on my couch,” he said, waving at me.

“Hey,” I said back.

A long silence took over while Gallus’ roommate poured himself a bowl of cereal. I didn’t mind, considering how occupied my mind was. I knew where a couple of yard sales were going to be. If the one closest to us was picked over, then those might still be a possibility even though the pickings would be slim. I mentally mapped out the most efficient routes while I stared at the ceiling.

“I didn’t see you at the party last night,” the roommate continued, interrupting my train of thought.

“Party?” I asked.

“Oh, ok, so you didn’t crash here last night,” he mumbled through a beak full of cereal. He held up the box. “Hungry?”

“No thanks.” I was about to go back to my brainstorming, but a different idea popped into my head. I had a pretty good idea of what Gallus was bothered about yesterday, but I wasn’t totally sure. If I wanted answers, I had just met someone here who lived with him.

“What was your name, again?” I asked.

“Ty,” he answered. “You?”

“Silverstream. ”

“Huh, so you’re a random, mildly famous girl on my couch. Neat.”

“I’ve got a question for you, Ty.” I hopped down from the couch and walked to the kitchen, taking a seat at the breakfast table across from him. I glanced at the bathroom hatch, making sure to keep my voice low in case Gallus could overhear. “Has Gallus seemed upset to you in the last week?”

He shrugged. “I’ve barely seen him since he moved in. I was gone most of the week on patrol, and he was doing his thing here.”

“What about this party you mentioned last night?”

“What about it?”

“Gallus was there, right?”

“Yeah, I took him over to the rave at Meistra’s last night.”

“Wait,” I said, squinting, “you took Gallus to a rave?”

Ty nodded. “He tagged along with us.”

“And I missed it?!” I slapped the table, jostling his bowl of cereal.

He winced, rubbing a claw on his temple. “Can you take it down, like, three notches?”

I paused, blinking, then pulled back a little way and tapped my talons together. “Sorry,” I said, grinning sheepishly, then cleared my throat and tried another approach. “I mean, uh… what was it like? What did he do there?”

Another shrug. “I dunno. We took him to the dance floor and we got separated in, like, five minutes. It was crazy out there.”

I deflated a bit, my smile waning. “Did he dance?”

“Not that I saw. Why?”

“Because if he goofed it up and I missed it, I'd be really upset.” I chuckled, but decided against including the part about how I’d been trying to get Gallus to open up a bit more. Dancing was one of the things I’d tried to get him to do while we were at school, but with no such luck.

Ty and Gallus were barely acquainted; I didn’t want to embarrass him. Not yet, anyway.

“Fair,” Ty mumbled through a mouthful of cereal. “Tell you what. You seem pretty chill. If you’re around next time I’m making plans, you can come with us.”

“I’d like that.”

The hatch opened, and out of it climbed a still-damp griffon, working over his face with the towel as he walked across the room.

“Pick ’em up and set ’em down, Gallus. We got places to be!” I called after him as he disappeared up the hall to his room.

“Blah blah blah,” came the muffled reply.

True to his word, it only took Gallus a couple of minutes to come back down, feathers straightened and crest fluffed back to its usual place. “We going or what?”

“Yep! Clock’s ticking, gotta fly.” I hopped up and made for the door, dragging Gallus along behind me.

“You kids have fun,” Ty called after us.

“Just a teensy bit more, aaaaaand… heave!”

“Gah!” Gallus shouted, shoving a recliner up to the top of the hallway. I braced myself to the doorframe and tugged with all my might against the weight of the chair, and finally, it tipped over the threshold and we slid back a few inches.

“Woohoo!” I shouted, falling onto my back, winded. Gallus appeared at my side a few seconds later, his breathing as labored as mine was. I held up a fist and he bumped it.

“Let’s not… buy… anything that… that heavy again.”

“Deal.” The armchair had been a bit of an impulse decision at the second sale we went to. It wasn’t that either of us found it particularly interesting, but…

Gallus huffed a breathless chuckle. “I bet that old hen is crying over this thing right now.”

“Totally.”

We were browsing the furniture available at the sale and were about to leave when Gallus nudged me. Another hippogriff was standing behind us, hoof tapping on the ground, eyeballing the chair like a hungry wolf.

In the ensuing bidding war, more than a few expletives were exchanged between Gallus and the other bidder. It became a point of pride more than anything, but in the end, we walked away from that yard sale victorious, a ridiculously heavy and moderately worn recliner in tow for about double the price it should have gone for.

“Any ideas where you want to put it?” I asked.

“Front and center, right next to the door,” he answered. “We spent way too much money on this. It’s a trophy now.”

We shared another laugh and picked ourselves up off the floor to slide the recliner over to its new spot, which wasn’t far at all, considering that it was already about where he wanted it. While Gallus adjusted the chair to his liking, I went downstairs and retrieved the other two things we’d picked up: a poster and a book. Gallus found those on his own, and the poster was still rolled up, so I didn’t know what it was, but the book was highly appropriate: Nautical Terminology for Idiots.

I passed the poster to him. “Where do you want me to put the book?”

“Nightstand,” he said, pulling the rubber band off the poster and unrolling it. He spread it out flat on the floor, and I got a good look at it as I walked back over toward him.

“I never took you for a minimalist, Gallus.” The poster was exceedingly simple: a yellow circle in the center of a red backdrop with a white triangle on the lower side, coming up to meet the circle.

As the words left my beak, I took another glance around the room and took the words back. With our additions, it was only slightly less empty. There was still a long way to go before we could call it complete, but it made me think back to his dorm room at school. I rarely went in there, but the few times I had, it had been about as spartan as this. Gallus lived with just a bit more than what he could carry on his back, so it made sense that he would have gone for a simple decoration like that.

“What’s the poster of?” I asked.

“It’s an old tour poster for some band I’ve never heard of. I just like the way it looks,” he explained, picking it up and scanning the walls for a place to hang it. “And I just realized I don’t have anything to hang it with. Great.”

“Maybe your roommate has some tape?”

“I’ll ask him later.” He carefully laid the poster across his mattress, which was still bare, and I came closer to examine it.

“Oh, I get it. It’s like a sunrise over a mountain.” I traced a claw over the poster. “It somehow evokes a feeling of calm with just two shapes. That’s amazing! Maybe I’ll have to pick up a record and see what their music is like.” I squinted to read the tiny logo in the corner of the page. “Brahe sounds like an interesting band name.”

“You’ll have to let me know if they’re any good.” He idly scanned the room and blew a tired sigh. “So, now what?”

“I figured I’d leave that up to you. I had the morning, you get the afternoon.”

Gallus frowned. “That’s fine and dandy, Silverstream, but I don’t really know anything about this place. I kind of need you to lead me places right now.”

“Well, what sounds fun? I could take you on a tour of the city or something, or we could go somewhere?”

“Let’s go somewhere,” he answered a little too quickly. “I’ve been cooped up in this city all week.”

I smiled to keep the appearance up, but internally I frowned. He really didn’t like it here.

It just… I don’t know. It hurt a little more than it should have.

“Sure! Anything you want to do in particular?”

“Not really,” he offered unhelpfully.

I racked my brain for a few seconds, trying to think of things to do outside of Mount Aris. The only thing that came to mind was, “I know where there’s a wild stackberry bush. They’re in season right now. Maybe we could go pick some?”

“Works for me.”

“Oh! We can bake something when we get back.”

“You know how to bake?”

I laughed. “Nope. Terramar does, though. He’ll help us. Let’s go!”

After we found some bowls to carry our harvest in, we took off for the wilderness. I led the way, Gallus lagging far enough behind that we spent most of the flight in silence. I hated it, but it gave me time to think. Chief among my thoughts was that berry picking was a poor substitute for what he needed. He didn’t like his job; how would this make that any better?

Ugh. I hated it when I didn’t have any good ideas. Winging it usually worked out for me, but this was pretty sad compared to my usual skill with this sort of thing. I was the happy one—the one who could cheer up anygriff even on their worst day. But here I was, leading him off to pick berries instead of addressing the actual problem. Sure, hanging out was nice and all, but it wasn’t enough. I needed to do more to help.

But what to do exactly?

I had no idea.

The bush was a couple of miles from Mount Aris—still within sight of home, but far enough away that it felt like we were far out in the woods. It grew in a shallow ravine, hidden by ridges that obscured Mount Aris when we were on the ground.

“So, stackberries?” Gallus asked from behind me, finally ending the silence as we approached our destination.

“Stackberries,” I confirmed.

“What are they?”

I blanched. “Really? You’ve never had stackberries before?”

He flew up alongside me, shaking his head. “I was vaguely aware that they existed until about ten minutes ago. Do they taste good?”

“They’re kind of bad as far as berries go. Not very sweet, kinda tangy, but they’re really good when you add sugar and bake them in desserts.” I pointed to a ridge just ahead of us. “ The bush is right up ahead, in that valley.”

“And none of the other hippogriffs come out here to pick berries? Won’t it be worked over already?”

“Way ahead of you. Stackberries grow all over the place out here. We’ve already passed like three other bushes, but those are the ones everygriff goes to. This one is far enough away that there should be plenty.”

He nodded, and we flew quietly for a few seconds more before he spoke up again. “Hey, Silverstream?”

I thought I sensed the faintest hint of vulnerability in his voice. I looked over and was instead met with a smug grin.

“Last one there is a rotten fish!” He opened his wings wide and flapped hard, shooting out ahead and blasting me in the face with the gust.

“Oh, you’re on!” I put on speed and began catching up to him, but we had maybe another twenty seconds of flight left before we were there. He had too much of a lead for me to make it up in that time.

“Haha, slowpoke!” he shouted over his shoulder. In the midst of taunting me, he wasn’t watching where he was going, and at that exact moment, a small black blur came in from the right.

“Look out!” I shouted.

He whipped around just in time to duck away from the incoming crow. He dodged downward and clipped the top branch of a tree, knocking him off balance just enough that when he put on the brakes, he tumbled butt-over-head and dropped out of sight below the canopy.

I backpedaled hard, slowing myself so that I could hover over where he’d fallen through. From below came loud rustling and snapping as he crashed through the underbrush with the grace and subtlety of a train wreck. “Ow ow ow ow ow!”

“Gallus? Are you alright?”

“Why didn’t you tell me this thing had thorns?”

I breathed a sigh of relief; he hadn’t broken anything. “Did you fall into the bush?” Now that serious injury was off the table, I couldn’t resist the urge to giggle.

“Everything is pain!”

It was still a little funny, but the agonized shriek of his voice made me feel more sympathy for him than anything. I’d been pricked by the bush’s thorns many times, but never all over my body at once. It was bad enough to just nick my arm on the bush when I reached in to grab a berry. This was on a totally different level.

“Just fly up, there’s less to go through that way!”

More rustling and a shrill squawk of pain split the air, and Gallus emerged from the bramble like a whale breaching the surface of the ocean, with the caveat that he was covered in torn-off pieces of stackberry stalks. He dove past me toward a spot clear of underbrush.

“Help,” he pleaded, trying to pick the thorny stems free of his feathers and fur. I swooped down to him and went to work on a piece that was embedded above his tail.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“Ow! Easy!”

I let go of the stalk, waiting for him to calm down. He caught his breath for a moment and nodded to me before he ripped one off his shoulder and winced. I followed suit with mine, pulling it out in one swift yank.

We spent the next few minutes in tense silence as we pulled the rest of the thorny branches free from Gallus’s fur and feathers. He’d fallen directly into the center of a thicket. If it hadn’t been for his feathers, he would have been covered in little bloody scratches. Not that he didn’t have more than his fair share of that, especially in the finer feathers on his face, but most of the thorns didn’t quite make it through to the skin.

I was working one of the last short scraps of vine free from between his wings when he spoke up. “Thanks,” he muttered, eyes downcast, his ears flattened.

“No problem,” I said, yanking the spiky stalk free from his feathers.

He winced, which morphed into a wry chuckle. “Now I kinda wish you’d taken me on that tour of the city.”

It wasn’t the sort of laugh I felt like I could join in on, but I decided to keep it light. “There are bushes with thorns in Hippogriffia. My dad has a bunch of rose bushes around our house, so you wouldn’t be completely safe there either.”

“I’ll be sure to watch my back, then.” He sighed and wiped at his face, a tiny bit of blood coming away on his claws. “Gods alive, that stings.”

“I’ve gotten my fair share of cuts from these bushes, too. They can be mean if you’re not careful.”

He shot me a look.

“Sorry, not helping.”

He lingered on me, then blinked and lowered his gaze. “It’s fine. Just… stupid mistakes, right?”

“Oh sure, I can’t tell you how many times I crashed when I first got to be a hippogriff. Flying is hard! One little goof and wham—you’re going headfirst into a tree before you can figure out which way is up!” I chuckled at the memory, the mind-bending pain of hitting that spruce with my face distant enough in the past that I didn’t cringe at the thought of it anymore. “I still crash every now and again because I forget how you can’t float in the air like you can underwater and—”

Gallus’s breath hitched, his shoulders shaking. I came out of my own little world just in time to see tears streak down his cheeks.

“Gallus! What’s wrong?” I scooted over to him and took his hand.

“This was all a mistake,” he whispered, wiping at his eyes. The effort was worthless, though, as more tears fell down his face.

In that moment, I did the only thing I knew to do: hug. I scooted up next to him, wrapped a wing over his shoulders, and pulled him close. “Hey, it’s okay. Just let it out.”

In true Gallus fashion, he didn’t let it out. “This is so stupid,” he muttered, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his wrist. “I’ll be okay, I just need a minute. Go get started with the berries or whatever.”

“Will you really be okay?”

A pause, followed by a reluctant “no” and more tears and sniffling. I kept my wing on him while he got a grip on his emotions. It didn’t take him long to recover, probably thanks to the ‘hardened nature of the griffon psyche’ that he always liked to proudly boast about.

Gallus didn’t let things get to him. He was stronger than that.

But I knew better.

Except for now, it seemed—despite all that talk about wanting to get him to open up… I genuinely didn’t know how to feel about this; I’d never seen him cry before.

When the shuddering and shaking finally subsided and he was left with a bleary-eyed, pensive stare at the ground in front of us, I decided to try prodding him a little.

“Feeling better?”

He nodded.

“Want to talk about it?”

He shook his head.

“Gallus, you know you’ll feel better if you talk about it.”

He sighed. “And you won’t let me get away without it either, will you?”

It was my turn to shake my head, and I reinforced it by tightening my wing’s grip on his shoulders. “You said this was all a mistake. That wasn’t just about the crash, was it?”

“No,” he confirmed. He took a deep breath and steeled himself. “I feel like… coming here in the first place was a mistake.”

I decided not to let him know just how much that revelation stung. “Why do you think that?”

He took a long time to answer. “I don’t even know where to start. I don’t think I’ve had a single good experience since I came here. My job sucks, I haven’t made any friends, and—” he pointed his gaze at me “—the one friend I do have left me alone for my first week.”

“Left you alone? What did—oh, I did that, didn’t I?”

He nodded. “I get it if you were busy the whole time, but I haven’t had anyone for the last week. Pretty much total isolation except for my racist ass of a boss and drunken party animal roommate who I’ve only seen twice. This is probably going to sound really selfish, but I came here to not spend my summer alone and struggling, and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.”

“You haven’t met anyone else at your job? I thought dock crews usually worked together.”

Gallus sighed. “I scoop trash, Silverstream. They gave me the literal lowest job they could find, and then they threw me into the cargo hold by myself to do it. I’m lucky if I see anygriff at all while I’m down there. It’s hot, it’s gross, and it’s lonely.”

“But you said—”

“I lied.” He averted his eyes. “I was embarrassed to tell the truth, so I cooked up some crap on the spot about how I work with the regular crews. I’m sorry.”

So I was only half right. He hadn’t made friends, but he was also stuck with a job far worse than what I’d expected him to get.

And it was my fault. A renewed wave of guilt crashed through my gut. “I… I can talk to Queen Novo and see if we can—”

“No,” he said flatly. “If you try to change things, you’ll only make it worse for both of us.”

“But—”

“You don’t get it, do you?” He turned to me again. I could see the frustration written plainly across his face. “This isn’t something you can just fix. If you go to Queen Novo, you’ll get shot down. If—for some reason—she does decide to push me up, I’m going to pay for it by officially becoming the pariah of whatever crew I work with. My reputation will be destroyed.”

He looked back to the spot on the ground in front of us and continued. “I’m not mad at you. You were doing what you thought was best for me, but I guess it just wasn’t meant to work out.”

Realization dawned. “Wait, does that mean you’re quitting and going home?”

A pause. He took a breath and let it out slowly, leaving me in suspense. “I’m considering it.”

My ears drooped, and I deflated. I pulled my wing off of his shoulders and stared at the ground beside him. The quiet was stifling, but I had no idea what to say to break it. Suddenly, all I could concentrate on was how guilty I felt for even having him here next to me in the first place. I was desperate to try and say something that wouldn’t steer the conversation in a worse direction than it had already taken. The first thing that came to mind was “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” he said.

“It is my fault. I could have come over to see you this week. I could have done something else to make things better.”

“Silverstream, stop. There’s no way you could have known.”

“Well, what can I do to make you stay?” I shot him a pleading look. “I know things have been terrible, but I don’t want you to go home already! There’s so much more of summer left, and we haven’t done anything together.” I took a breath. “I don’t want this to end.”

“I still haven’t made any final decisions.” He shrugged. “I dunno, it’s been a bad first week and I’m just frustrated.”

“Can you at least think about it for a while? I promise things will get better.”

“I will.” Gallus stood up. “Still up for picking berries?”

I smiled. “Let’s get some fruit.”

Stackberry cobbler was amazing.

After Silverstream and I finished picking berries from the bush and thorns from my butt, we spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen at her house. True to form, Terramar came to our rescue and saved our baking efforts from total failure, though not without more of that whiny little brother stuff I’d seen the day before.

I was going to have to sit him down and give him a lesson about standing up for himself. Silverstream had a tendency to walk all over him in the nicest way possible.

It was evening when we got back to my apartment, a half-eaten stackberry cobbler in hand and a pair of stomachaches to go with it. Silverstream was right about the berries. They weren’t great on their own, but after baking? Totally different story. Adding sugar transformed them from unpleasantly tart to deliciously tangy. When the question of who deserved to keep the leftover dessert came up, Silverstream decided that I’d literally bled more for it and therefore deserved the rest. I didn’t argue.

The lights were on in the den when I opened the door. Ty was sitting at the breakfast table in the exact same spot as that morning, though instead of cereal, he was eating a full meal this time. I detected salmon on the air, but something else he’d cooked smelled stronger. I wasn’t quite sure what it was.

“Sup,” he greeted, casually waving a claw toward us. “What’s in the dish?”

“Stackberry cobbler,” Silverstream answered with pride. “We made it ourselves.”

“Dibs!” His smirk went away when he saw the glare I shot him. “That was a joke.”

“It’d better be,” I muttered, taking the dessert into the kitchen. I found an empty spot in the fridge for it and safely stashed my treat for later, but as I closed the door, one of the lessons from school came to mind. “Generosity is caring,” Professor Rarity had said, or something like that. The actual quote used more eloquent vocabulary that I didn’t remember. Not to mention that he fed me the first day I was here and paid my cover charge last night.

I sighed. “If you want to try a piece, you’re welcome to it.” If Grandpa Gruff had seen this, he would have laughed in my face and taken the whole thing. The thought made my stomach tighten, but then again, I wasn’t in Griffonstone anymore.

“I’ll take you up on that later,” said Ty. He was still in the early stages of eating his meal, so that probably meant when he was done with the main course. Looking over his shoulder, I identified the source of the stronger smell as some kind of rice. It actually looked pretty good.

“I really should get going,” Silverstream said. She waved for me to come to her for a good-bye hug. When I stepped up, she leaned in close and whispered, “Are you sure you’re alright? After, you know, earlier?”

I smiled and nodded. “It was fun. We should do something again tomorrow. Maybe that city tour?”

“Yeah! You haven’t seen the Harmonizing Heights yet, have you?”

I shook my head.

“Then it’s settled. I’ve got some stuff to do tomorrow morning, but I’ll come over in the afternoon.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said with a smile. She reached out for the hug, but I kept it short again.

“See ya!” she chirped, taking wing and zipping out the door.

I was in the process of turning to say good night to Ty before going up to my room for the night, but he got a word in first.

“Nicely done, my friend,” he said, flashing me a wink.

“What?”

His smirk grew into a devilish grin. “You got yourself a keeper.”

“What?”

“Your friend. What was her name again?”

“Silverstream?”

Suddenly it made sense. I knew where this was going.

I did not like it.

“Yeah dude, Silverstream. I think you found yourself a good one there.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, easy there. I don’t know where you got that idea from, but Silverstream and I are not dating.”

Ty laughed. “Really? I couldn’t tell.”

“Dude, come on. Are you serious?”

Suddenly his expression sobered. “As a heart attack. You guys would make a really cute couple.”

Faced with the sudden resurgence of my fight or flight response, I decided to fight it. “You sure you’re not still drunk from last night?”

That was met with more laughter. “I think anygriff could tell you that blindfolded. Call it what you want, but you guys obviously have something going on. I know it when I see it.”

Scratch that. It was time for flight. “Whatever, dude.” I turned and left the kitchen without another word, letting the sound of Ty’s amusement fade behind me as I climbed up the tube to my room.

“He’s so full of it,” I muttered. The lights came on, and then I remembered the first thing we’d done that morning. The new chair and poster hanging over it stuck out like a sore thumb in the otherwise empty room. I went to the chair and took my first official seat in it. Aside from the faint smell of use it carried, the thing was comfortable—perfect for thinking. It was convenient that we’d bought it today because I had a lot on my mind.

I rubbed my eyes and winced. My face was still raw from crashing headfirst into the stackberry bush, as were a number of other places on my body where the thorns had found their way through to the skin.

“Stupid.” I had no idea why I’d decided to race Silverstream in the first place. I got distracted while flying fast and lost control because of a stupid crow. That wasn’t like me. I never crashed.

I was still embarrassed that I broke down crying in front of her. However, I knew exactly why that happened. Going to a rave with Ty had only served as a distraction, but hanging out with Silverstream all day had brought the thoughts of abandonment back to the surface. I did a good job of hiding it all morning, but I guess the crash was enough of a shock to make me lose control and spill my guts.

But then I took it a step further. My contemplative stare turned to a scowl, the memory of what I’d said ringing in my ears.

“I’m considering it.”

That was a lie—another outright lie that I made up on the spot. In the heat of that moment, I was angry. I wanted her to feel the same fear that I felt—that her friend was drifting away from her the same way I’d been afraid all week.

It was vengeful, and I regretted it the second it left my beak. I never considered leaving. Regardless of how much this sucked here, at least it wasn’t Griffonstone.

If I felt dirty about the methods I used to play Silverstream to my advantage to get here, this was downright filthy. This time I wasn’t lying to improve my situation or cover my tail. It was malicious, for no reason other than to make her feel worse. I’d had the lessons drilled into my head a hundred times throughout the school year: lying to friends is bad.

And yet I was lying to her more than anyone else.

I wanted to punch myself in the head. What if she found out about all of the lies? How would she react? What if Silverstream stopped talking to me because of it? I was digging myself a deeper and deeper hole.

And Ty said we were cute together. Sure, she’d be the cute one, but me? No way. Liars didn’t get to be cute.

Wait, did I just call Silverstream cute?

I didn’t sleep much that night. One of the apparent side effects of getting scratched by stackberry thorns is that the cuts puff up slightly and start itching like the dickens. I spent most of the night tossing and turning, trying to ignore the constant tickling all over my body and not scratch myself until I bled. Maybe I was allergic?

The irritation of the stackberries notwithstanding, it was only part of the reason I couldn’t sleep. Between the constant annoyance and scratching, Ty’s stupid voice dominated my thoughts.

“You two would make a cute couple.”

He was wrong. I had to respect the audacity it took for him to say something like that to me when we were still barely acquaintances, but it was pure nonsense. Silverstream and I were friends, and as far as I was concerned, that was the beginning and end of it. I couldn’t look at her like that. It was… I don't know, weird?

Then why was I so worked up over it? I rubbed my eyes and blinked hard as the dawn’s earliest glow began trickling into the room through the walls. I groaned and lifted a wing over my face.

It wasn’t like Silverstream and I were that close. Among our friends, we were the furthest apart. We were friends, sure, but I wouldn’t exactly call us best friends—that honor belonged to Smolder. Dragons and griffons are cut from similarly cold, uncaring cloth. We always got along the best out of everyone because we understood each other.

For a second my mind lingered on how dating Smolder would turn out, but it ended with a derisive laugh. Nothing against her, but something told me that I’d wind up dead before long in that scenario. So far as I knew, she wasn’t even interested in boys, let alone one from another species. That was okay with me.

So why Silverstream, aside from simple proximity? We hardly ever hung out one-on-one before I came to Mount Aris. In a group, everything was peachy, but being alone with her could quickly turn into sensory overload. Her enthusiasm was fun, but when exposed to the full brunt of her talking a million words per minute and never sitting still longer than it took her to say those million words, I could only endure so much of it at a time. She wore me out more often than not.

No, Silverstream was not the kind of girl I was interested in. Not even counting what everyone back home would think if I wound up with a hippogriff, we just weren’t compatible like that.

I blew a defeated breath into my crest and rolled out of bed. It was an early start for a weekend, but I needed to get up and occupy myself. I felt better after a shower and breakfast, but my brain was stuck in a loop. Every time I went idle, even for a moment, it was back to thinking about Ty.

And Silverstream.

I didn’t know what I was going to do until Silverstream showed up in the afternoon. My room was still pretty much devoid of anything interesting, and I somehow didn’t have the willpower to actually go outside and make my own entertainment. I was stuck here, alone with my thoughts.

“Ugh,” I muttered under my breath as I flopped onto the couch and buried my face into my hands. Ty and his stupid comment. I had no idea what I was going to do to get away from it. If he was here, I probably would have launched into a rant about how wrong he was, just to shut him up. I had the evidence and facts on my side.

Come to think of it, it was weird that he was nowhere to be found. Usually there was at least some evidence of his comings and goings, but this morning there was nothing. Not a peep from his room, not even a muffled snore. The kitchen was in proper order, nothing out of place. It was just me. I was still a little groggy from getting nearly no sleep, so I rubbed my eyes and stretched myself out further on the couch.

Next thing I knew, I awoke with a start to the sound of a knock at the door. I sat up with a groan and rubbed my eyes. It was amazing how quickly I’d fallen asleep only an hour after giving up on my insomnia. I really hated my body sometimes.

I had no idea how long I was out, but it was a safe guess that I’d slept into the afternoon and Silverstream was here. A little pang shot through my guts as I gripped the door handle, and I steeled myself against it. She was just my friend. There was nothing to be afraid of.

I would be lying if I said I would have ever expected who greeted me when I opened the door. Instead of Silverstream, a sandy-coated hippogriff a full head taller than me was standing on the doorstep. “Hello! Valiant Wing of Hippogriffia Daily, pleasure to make your acquaintance. You must be Gallus, right?” She offered me a claw, and through my stunned silence I had the presence of mind to shake it.

“Yeah, that’s me,” I croaked after an awkwardly long pause.

“Excellent, do you mind if I come in? I’m doing a story about the Navy and I’d love to ask you a few questions.” She had a way of talking so fast that it made my head spin, but with enough authority to lead me along without question. Was it just me, or did every female hippogriff talk a mile a minute?

I nodded and stepped aside, allowing her into the den.

“I like your place,” she commented, eyeing the room with a probing gaze. She was taking mental notes, searching for details in the surroundings. Her gaze lingered on the kitchen and the hatch leading to the bathroom for a few seconds. “Very cozy.”

“Uh, thanks I guess,” I said, scratching the back of my head.

“May I?” She took a seat on the couch, and given that it was the only chair in the room, I stood awkwardly at one end of it.

Valiant Wing took out a notepad from her satchel and produced a shiny metal ballpoint pen with an ornately engraved surface, a lattice pattern etched into the metal. This hippogriff did a lot of writing, and she wanted the whole world to know how good she was.

That observation did little to answer the obvious question. “Why are you here?” I asked, blurting out the first thought in my head.

She frowned slightly. “Like I said, I’m here to interview you.”

“Why me?”

She leaned toward me, flashing me a smirk. She knew something that I didn’t. “Because you are big news, Gallus. I report on big news.” Her voice was sultry, like a warm summer evening on the beach. Something about it was comforting, but at the same time unnerving. If she was anything like the journalists in Equestria that were always writing takedown pieces about the friendship school, I needed to watch my step.

“That doesn’t clarify anything.”

The smirk dried up, as did her tone. “I don’t assume you’ve looked very deeply into naval history, have you?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say that your inclusion in our military is a first. In its history, Her Majesty Queen Novo’s Royal Navy has never included a griffon among its ranks.” She made a point of enunciating every word in the navy’s full name.

My brow raised. I knew that Headmare Twilight had tried to send that gigantic Rock Hoof pony to work in the Hippogriff Navy just a few months ago. It didn’t work out, but not because he was a pony, to my knowledge. The navy wasn’t an organization that discriminated based on species. I couldn’t have been the first, right?

Then again, I hadn’t exactly seen any other griffons here besides me. Maybe I was the only griffon in this whole city?

That thought made me feel a little lonely.

“It sounds like you already know everything about it. A lot more than I do.”

She laughed, a quick little snort. “That’s the official story that anyone can discover for themselves, but talking to the first griffon to ever join Her Majesty Queen Novo’s Royal Navy will give my story the texture it needs!” She clicked her pen. “So, let’s start off with some basic questions. Have a seat, tell me a little about yourself, Gallus. How did you wind up in Hippogriffia?”

That was a loaded question. I steered around it with a shrug as I went to the far end of the couch. “I honestly don’t know. One minute I was in class, the next minute I’m here. Life is kinda crazy these days.”

Valiant’s pen worked furiously against the page, her hand deftly practiced at writing down as much as possible as fast as possible. Even more impressive was the fact that she could keep eye contact with me while writing. “You and me both. So you’ve gotten yourself a job with the Navy?”

“For the summer, yeah.”

“Just for the summer?”

I nodded.

Valiant gave me a puzzled frown. “I didn’t know the Navy did temporary positions.”

“Apparently they created one specially for me,” I said under an eyeroll.

“Wow! You must have impressed them.”

“Sure, enough to make me a janitor for three months.”

“So you’re working in sanitation?”

My smile carried a sharp edge of irony. “I’m the best trash griffon they’ve got on the payroll.”

Valiant Wing marked something out hastily on her sheet. I must have surprised her with that revelation. “How do you like working for the Navy?”

I shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess. I’ve had worse jobs.”

“Worse jobs? Care to elaborate?”

Reminiscing on my life before I became a student wasn’t something I felt like doing so early in the day. “Not really.”

She frowned and went back to her notebook, leafing through the pages. “You said you don’t know how you wound up in Hippogriffia. Surely there’s more to the story than that. Was there a specific event that led you here? Someone you know?”

She’d noticed the deflection. I sighed inwardly, “Yeah, my friend Silverstream was the one that brought me here.”

“That’s right, she’s the one who goes to that school in Equestria. You’re a student there too?”

I nodded.

“And she was the one who helped set everything up?”

“Yes, and I’m very thankful for that. Without her help, I’d be back home in Griffonstone.”

The reporter tapped her pen against the tip of her beak. “If memory serves, Silverstream is related to the royal family. Did that have something to do with the hiring process?”

I could read the writing on the wall. Whether she was pushing for a corruption or nepotism angle, that question would lead nowhere good if I answered truthfully. “She suggested I get a job with the Navy, I interviewed for the position, and I got the job. That’s all I know.”

This time seeing her mostly hidden grimace of frustration brought a little nugget of satisfaction. Shutting down the question designed to raise the scandal alarm felt good. Like I was protecting Silverstream somehow.

Shut up, brain.

“Moving on,” said Valiant Wing. “You come from Griffonstone?”

I nodded.

“And you’d rather not be there?”

I shook my head. “It’s a dump.”

“I’ll try to remember that,” she commented, scribbling furiously on her notepad. “So, how do you like living on Mount Aris? Any early impressions of the place?”

Another loaded question, but this time I decided to be truthful. “It’s pretty nice, but I haven’t had a great first week. I don’t know how well I like it, to be honest.”

Valiant frowned and marked something else out. “I’m sorry to hear that. Anything you did like so far?”

I could tell I wasn’t giving her the answer she wanted, and I reveled in that for a moment. “I’m far away from home and in a new place. There’s a lot of things to do and see, opportunities everywhere. And it’s pretty. I love the architecture here.”

Valiant scribbled down a few more things and folded her notepad closed. “That’s all I’ve got for you.” She rose from her seat. “Thank you for taking the time to speak with me.”

“My pleasure,” I said, shaking her hand.

She departed quickly, showing herself out. The door closed with a click, and I was alone again.

“That was weird.” I sat there in the quiet of the den for a moment. She couldn’t have been here more than ten minutes, but it felt like the conversation had taken over an hour. I sprawled out on the couch and let out a sigh. Maybe I hadn’t been asleep for long before the reporter showed up, but I was still tired. It only took a few minutes for me to fall asleep again.

Once upon a time when I was younger, I took an art class. The class was a breeze to me, but not for everyone. Terramar took the class with me, and he struggled with it. He had to rush every single project in that class and barely passed at the end. The teacher was never very happy with his work, and he didn’t stick with it afterwards.

Terramar once told me that a blank canvas was intimidating. He never knew how to start, so he always put it off until he was forced to at the last second. For me, a blank canvas was a land of infinite possibilities! I could do anything in that little square of stretched fabric. It was my domain, a place where I made the rules.

Starting was always the most difficult part of any piece—that much I could agree on—but unlike him, I didn’t dwell on that.

Good thing for me that abstract impressionist paintings didn’t need a well-placed start point. I could leave everything up to chance. Dollops of every color of oil paint I owned were laid out on my palette, the canvas stood stalwart on the easel. I took the brush in my beak, closed my eyes, and lowered it to the palette, giving it a swirl around the outer edge to make a pass through all of the colors.

With feeling, I repeated in my head, stepping up to the canvas with eyes still closed. I brushed a wing against it to ensure I wasn’t just going to swipe at the air with my paintbrush, and once I was in position, I arched my neck and dragged the brush across it in a haphazardly curved line from left to right.

There! Now the hard part was done. I opened my eyes and took the brush in my free hand before examining my work, a stripe of varying color and intensity, a mishmash of whatever happened by chance when I closed my eyes.

But what did it mean? How did I feel about it? That was the hallmark of abstract impressionism. The seemingly random patterns of colors all meant something. Anyone could splash paint onto the canvas, but it took an artist’s touch to bend the colors to shape, to represent raw emotion in a physical medium.

I stared deeply at that streak of mixed color, analyzing it. What story did it tell? What was I feeling when I first laid it down? My brain usually had a knack for sorting out what the colors said, but this time I was drawing blanks. I had no idea what it meant.

Why is art so hard?

I was about to drop the palette on the ground and give up when it hit me. Confusion. There it was. This time, the randomness of the painting truly was random. The colors had no clear meaning, but that was now the point. True mastery of an art form came when you could break the rules on purpose and get away with it.

So, confusion. Why was I confused? The world was a confusing place a lot of times, sure, but I wasn’t particularly worried about anything right now. Things had calmed down a lot in the last year. Now that I was home for the summer, I could relax and not worry about things that I didn’t want to worry about.

I frowned. It’s Gallus, isn’t it?

I raised my brush back to the canvas, picking up a glob of blue paint and tracing it parallel to the original stripe of confusion. That boy had me worried. And sad. Saddied? No, that didn’t work. Sadness and worry were two separate things. They needed separate stripes.

I chose yellow to represent my worry, only realizing the similarity to Gallus’s colors after I started laying down the yellow stripe. I love multidimensional symbolism!

So I was worried about what could have made someone as stoic as Gallus break down crying, and sad that he was considering leaving Mount Aris because of it. Yesterday gave me a glimpse at a side of Gallus he rarely showed anyone. The last time he’d been that emotional, he was divulging the tragic details of his home life or lack thereof in Griffonstone, and even then, he hadn’t cried.

If he could go all of his life without anyone to call family and not even cry about it, then something must have been really bad in the last week, probably much worse than he’d let on. That was just like him; suffer in silence and never show the cards in his hand.

I filled in the space between the blue and yellow lines with pink. Tender and raw, the fleshy, fragile part of a person. Guarded by his exterior colors. Apparently Gallus was a little softer inside than I had thought.

But how soft was he? Was he fragile enough under his shell that his life before moving away from Griffonstone could have broken parts of him? Was he damaged?

I shook my head, clearing those thoughts away. Gallus was fine. He had his scars, but that was what made him Gallus. I focused back on the painting and blinked in horror at what I had done while lost in thought. Red. Everywhere. A huge swath of crimson bisected the canvas from top to bottom, staining the yellow stripe to orange and the blue to purple where they crossed.

“This isn’t helping,” I said, sighing. The clarity I usually felt from art wasn’t coming to me. I was working with an incomplete picture. The more I thought about it, the more curious about Gallus I became.

I knew about his home life, at least a few details. No family, no friends, but the rest of it was a mystery. I also knew his job here in Hippogriffia wasn’t great. Outside of that? I just knew what everyone else knew. He was a snarky, tenacious griffon who kept everyone at arm’s length, even his best friends. What was he hiding in that mind of his?

I cleaned my brush and pushed the easel up against the wall. I hadn’t set out to do it at first, but this painting had morphed into a visualization of Gallus, and it wasn’t even close to half complete. I couldn’t finish it in good conscience if I didn’t know more about him.

So that meant I needed to do some digging. Gallus was an enigma. I could crack the code.

I went to my bed and slid myself underneath it, reaching for the big basket of junk I had stashed there. Among various seashells and assorted nicknacks I’d accumulated from yard sales and still had yet to find a use for, there was a stack of notebooks from my first year at friendship school. I thumbed through the stack, frowning when I didn’t find what I was looking for.

“It must be at Mom’s house,” I said with a groan. That meant an hour-long trip to Seaquestria just to pick up my old psychology notes.

But it would be a worthwhile trip. I had a hunch about what was wrong with Gallus, but I needed more information. Lucky for me, I had a full course in psychology under my belt, all the tools I needed to get to the bottom of his mind’s mysteries. I just needed to use them. I grinned as my plans filled themselves in. Today, at the Harmonizing Heights, I would get my answers.

It was before noon, so I wasn’t running late, but I needed to take the time Mom would want to talk to me into account. Considering how long it had been since my last visit, it could be a while. If I wanted to get to Gallus’s place on time, I needed to hustle!

“Hey there, Gal Pal!” Silverstream stepped into the den with the usual grin on her beak, oblivious to me as I tried to process the name she’d just called me.

“Gal Pal? Really?”

She blinked. “What? It’s a fun name! Short for Gallus Pallus.”

I shook my head. “I’m afraid that’s a no-go, uh…” I tried to think of something to match it with, ”Sillystream.”

It was the best I could come up with on the spot, and it sucked.

“Ok, that one was lame,” she laughed. “And I’ve heard it before.”

“I wonder why.”

She stuck her tongue out at me. “Sorry I’m late. I had to make a run to Seaquestria today, and that took way longer than I thought it would. My mom loves to talk my ear off when I’m down there.”

“It’s alright. I had a weird morning. Some reporter showed up and asked me a bunch of questions about my job. Kinda wore me out. I was napping most of the day.” I felt a lot better after the nap. Clearer. No longer were my thoughts centered around Ty’s comment or the implications thereof. Nor would they be now that Silverstream was here.

There was a slight pause as her smile twisted itself into a frown. “What did you say?”

Right. She knew that whole story now. “Eh, just the basics. You’ll get to read it when it comes out.”

She smiled, but I could still see some of the wariness in her eyes.

“So!” I said, clapping my hands together to change the subject, “Whatcha wanna do today?”

“You know. What we had planned!”

I blanched, searching my memory. “Oh, yeah! Right. That.”

“You forgot, didn’t you?”

“...Yeah.”

She giggled. “Then it’ll be a surprise!”

“Cool. I’m ready when you are,” I said.

“Great!” Silverstream bounded outside, slapping the top of the doorframe with her talons as she walked out. I followed along and locked the apartment behind us. The dirt path was damp and the air smelled faintly of rain, but it was sunny. I must have slept through the rain shower.

Silverstream was already almost to the end of the block by the time I started up the street, so I had to run to catch up. “Any chance you could take me underwater sometime?” I asked, her earlier comment about going home to Seaquestria still on my mind.

“Sure! We could do that today instead if you want to. There wouldn’t be enough time to get to Seaquestria and back, but I know a coral reef nearby that’s really pretty.”

“Eh, we already have plans for today. Next time?”

“It’s a date!”

I tensed. Shut up, brain. You know what she means.

Instead of making the usual left turn toward the market that I always used as a takeoff and landing point, we turned right at the first intersection. The path led us uphill, past several more rows of residential trees like the one I was in, though these looked more upscale, some of them perched on pillars of stone that elevated them above the road. Further ahead, the tree canopy opened up and spat us out onto a crowded, wide cobblestone road.

“Huh, so this is where the action is.”

Silverstream nodded. “Yep! Main Street.”

“Figured it would have a more exciting name.”

“It’s a placeholder. We’re voting on an official name sometime this year.”

“Wait, why wasn’t it named in the first place?

Silverstream’s ears drooped subtly, just enough that I noticed. “It’s a long story,” she said, her words clipped, but she perked up in a blink. “This way!” She pointed us right, and we walked down the thoroughfare amid the hustle and bustle of an entire city of hippogriffs. The little market I landed in every day near my apartment was small by comparison. Main Street was lined with stores, stalls, and tents like a fair. Streamers hung overhead from the light posts. Immediately in front of us, a merchant was searing salmon over a fire, the warm scent of smoke and fish making my mouth water. I almost asked Silverstream to stop so I could buy some.

Over the sounds of the general commotion, I picked up on a strange low hum emanating from somewhere ahead of us. I cocked an ear, trying to figure out its source, but it was difficult to pinpoint. Silverstream noticed it too, and she grabbed my hand. “Ooh, it’s starting! We gotta hurry!”

I saved my question about what ‘it’ was, my brain too busy focusing on her claws intertwining with mine as she led me at a gallop down the road.

Stop thinking about it.

The humming in the air grew louder as we approached the arch, which rose to a point in a shape that reminded me of an onion. It was set into a high stone wall covered with moss, and several more engraved arch shapes in the wall surrounded the central one like feathers of a peacock’s tail. Through the opening, I could see no more buildings. Just a lush green field with a waterfall off to the left.

A park? Was there some kind of concert going on here? My gaze was drawn upward as we entered the park, marveling at the height and grandeur of the gateway arch.

“These are the Harmonizing Heights!” Silverstream announced, earning a few looks from the other hippogriffs and a couple of ponies coming and going from the park.

It was impressive. The true summit of the mountain—not counting the artificial height from the stone wings that wrapped around it—was kept separate from the city. Waterfalls around the sides flowed from bluffs built up around the edge, converging into a rushing, effervescent stream that ran down the center of the park. Birds sang in the grass, and all around, the hums emanated from seemingly everywhere.

I didn’t have words for it at first. It was a beautiful place, to be sure, but the strange tones vibrating the air in a pattern nearly consistent with music were captivating. I searched the walls, trying in vain to find the source of the sounds, but there was none. It came from nowhere and everywhere.

“Alright, tour guide. Tell me about this place. Where’s that sound coming from?” I asked.

Silverstream beamed at the opportunity to dive into details. “I actually worked as a tour guide before I went to friendship school, so I’m glad you asked!” With a quick flap of her wings, she settled on top of a boulder about twice as tall as I was, puffed out her chest, and launched into a speech. “The summit of Mount Aris is a beautiful plateau that not only is home to the capital of Hippogriffia, but where music comes from thin air! The sound you’re hearing is the crown jewel of our mountain, the Harmonizing Heights. Some like to think that it was magic that produces the songs, and they’re right! Kind of. It’s not magic in the traditional sense, but the magic of engineering!”

“You rehearsed this?”

“Oh, I’ve given this speech like a hundred times. Know it like the back of my hand!” She puffed her chest back out, re-entering her tour guide mode. “The sounds you hear aren’t natural to the mountain, but they’re actually an accidental result of the huge construction project at the beginning of King Nimbus’s reign, when the Wings were built to help us defend the mountain from invading navies. After they were constructed, sometimes a resonant hum would occur when the wind blew from just the right direction. After a few years, the king decided to make some modifications to the walls that would make the wind resonate at musical intervals, and so the Harmonizing Heights was born!”

I gave her a vaguely sarcastic round of applause. “Bravo! Encore!”

Silverstream picked up on it and took a bow. “It was the performance of my career.” She hopped down from the boulder and urged me onward, deeper into the park.

We continued into the meadow until we found a nice spot under a tree, right next to the confluence of the streams. She plopped down in the grass and patted a spot next to her.

“So, this is the plan?”

“Yup! After yesterday, I figured we should take it easy and not do anything too active. We can just hang out here for a bit until the sun sets. That’s okay with you, right?”

Great Grover’s ghost, did she overhear him last night? My heart rate increased, and my mouth suddenly felt dry. Was this really going where I thought it was going?

Of course it wasn’t. Not in the slightest. Silverstream and I hung out plenty one-on-one. What made this any different? A stupid comment from a roommate I barely knew? I sneered at myself internally. I had no idea why it was getting to me so badly, but I needed to stop it, pronto, or—

“Gallus?”

I snapped back to reality. “Yeah, that’s cool,” I muttered, sidling over to her and claiming my place by her side.

Phrasing. I pushed the thoughts from my brain. They didn’t matter.

“I found something earlier that got me thinking,” said Silverstream.

“That’s dangerous,” I quipped.

Silverstream pulled a notepad out that had been tucked under her mane, ignoring my snark. “Have you ever taken a personality test?”

I blinked. “Nope.”

“Look at that, two firsts for you today!” She dropped the note pad in front of me and offered a pencil. “Just fill that out and I’ll handle the rest.”

I cautiously opened the booklet and shot her an unamused look. “You’re really making me take a test while we’re not in school?”

“It’s a fun test!” she countered. “It helps you get to know yourself better.”

“I know myself pretty well. It’s not like I can ever get away from myself.”

Her expression flattened a bit. “Just take the test. I’m doing it too.” She turned to her packet and left me to fill out mine. It seemed like half of the questions in the test were just slightly reworded versions of ‘Do you like going to parties?’ or ‘Do you work well in groups?’. It was farcical to me, but I decided to humor her and fill it out honestly.

I was about halfway through the test when I noticed another sound join in with the droning hymn of the mountain. This time, though, I could easily pinpoint the source. As Silverstream filled out her test, she started humming along with the tune. A couple of times when the pitch shifted, she lagged behind the change by a second or two. Each time, she adjusted her wings and creased her brow.

I realized I was staring and forced myself to look down at the page. A strange warmth in my chest bubbled up.

I thought it was cute, and I hated it.

I finished the rest of the test at breakneck speed and pushed it toward her. “Welp, I’m gonna go explore on my own while you finish yours up. Come find me when you’re done!” I sped off before she could reply, making a beeline to a bluff on the edge of the park.

“I hate you, Ty. I hate you a lot,” I cursed under my breath. I landed a bit harder on the bluff than I intended to, earning a look from a couple that were also perched up there. The water looked inviting and cool, so I dunked my head into it. The cold stung, frigid catharsis shocking my brain out of its warm, fuzzy thoughts.

Distract yourself. I searched around for anything to occupy my mind, and my eyes settled on the stream itself. The ledge we were on couldn’t have been more than ten feet wide, so the fact that a natural spring could rise in such a small outcropping was ludicrous. I waded into the shallow stream and approached the stone wall, feeling around the streambed for a source.

Aha! Found it. I felt a current push upward on my hand, which I found to be coming from a small metal grate.

So everything about the Harmonizing Heights was unnatural. I took another look at the valley, and it suddenly felt cheaper, less spectacular. This wasn’t a natural wonder. It was a cold, desolate mountaintop transformed into a lush paradise by hippogriff claws. A sculpture.

I walked over to the edge, standing at the top of the small waterfall and peering down at the short cascade into a shallow pool below. It may have been artificial, but it was still pretty nice. I dove over the edge, spreading my wings to arrest my fall and carry me gently to the ground next to the pool.

An old griffon legend stated that if a waterfall had a cave behind it, the treasure of a lifetime could be found within. Not that there were many waterfalls near Griffonstone—it was on a high, arid steppe. Rain was rare outside of a month or two in the summer.

Grandpa Gruff certainly believed it, though. One time, he dragged me along on a trade run to Sheerwater, the new capital of the Griffon Empire. We got sidetracked on a road we hadn’t ever taken before, one which incidentally took us right past a tall waterfall on a stream. Grandpa Gruff eagerly abandoned the cart to go search for his life’s treasure, only to return agitated a few moments later. There was no cave. He was in a foul mood the rest of the day.

He was never pleasant, but that trip had been hellish. Nowhere close to being worth the paltry twenty bits he paid me for two days of putting up with him.

I shrugged off the memory. Maybe my luck was better than his.

I peered back through the veil of rushing water, and I could barely make out a dark, cavernous space hidden behind it. I took a breath, closed my eyes, and leaped forward. The brief splash of water hit like a heavy punch downward as I rushed through. I didn’t shatter my beak against a rock wall, so that was a good sign. I skidded to a halt on a jagged, rocky floor and opened my eyes.

It wasn’t a grand cavern, but the little waterfall had a cave large enough to at least accommodate a griff or two. I searched around the shadowy space in earnest, scanning around for my treasure of a lifetime.

There was none, of course. Who would stash valuables behind a waterfall in the middle of a city? Other than a few names scratched into the rock, there was nothing in here but me. I scoffed, laughing at the small part of me that hoped the legend would hold true. I wasn’t getting rich quick today.

Behind me, a splash through the waterfall and claws skidding to a halt drew my attention. I whirled around, hackles raised, only to find my vision filled with pink, purple, and blue.

“Couldn’t wait to explore the double-H on your own, huh?” Silverstream said, giving herself a quick shakedown to dry her coat and feathers.

My treasure of a lifetime. How convenient. “Double-H?

“Harmonizing Heights.”

“Right. Yeah, it’s pretty cool.”

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist its charms,” she said, flashing me a knowing smirk. If only she really knew. “It’s almost sunset. I’ve got a great spot where we can watch it. Come on!”

With another splash, Silverstream disappeared through the waterfall. I took a deep breath and prepared myself to plunge through the chilly water again.

Was I going to be like this for the rest of the summer? Unable to look at Silverstream without feeling all tingly and embarrassed? Yesterday, despite the unpleasantness that happened, everything had been fine. We were just friends hanging out, having a good time. That much hadn’t changed, but now I couldn’t turn off the rosy tint in my brain.

I sailed through the waterfall and landed on the riverbank, shaking the remaining dampness from my wings. Silverstream was already in the air, hovering overhead waiting for me. I took wing and she led the way upwards. Higher and higher we climbed, heading for the highest point we could reach: the tip of the spire. I hadn’t gotten a close-up look at it yet, but now that we were nearer, I realized what it was.

“Was that the old palace?” I asked, shouting over the wind. She followed where I was pointing and nodded. She continued on in silence, leading us higher. I expected us to go straight to the top, but instead we aimed for a flat spot right at the point where the stone wings converged into the spire. The ledge was barely three feet wide, so sticking the landing was a bit tricky. One of my hind legs hung over the edge until I found my footing and fully perched myself there.

“We aren’t going all the way to the top?” I asked.

“We’re not allowed up there. There’s guards on the top platform.”

“But we’re allowed here?”

Silverstream shook her head. “Technically, no.” She paused and shot me a sideways glance. “But has anyone ever told me not to be up here?”

I nodded and settled myself, lying on my side half curled up. Silverstream chose to recline back and rest her head against the stone wall, her hind hooves hanging over the edge.

Below, the entire city stretched out like a staircase leading down to the world. The sun rested on the horizon, a fierce orange ball sinking into the ocean that colored the entire sky around it. The last rays of its warmth were fading, and as high as we were, I was starting to notice the chill in the air. I puffed a slow breath out of my mouth and noticed the faint wisp of steam.

Something warm and soft pressed against my side, but instead of appreciating it, I shuddered. Silverstream had shifted, leaning up against me on her shoulder.

She’s just cold. She’s just cold. She’s just cold. She’s just cold.

She sighed. “I love coming up here in the evenings. You can’t beat the view.”

“It’s nice,” I croaked.

“Uh, you okay?”

I cleared my throat with gusto. “I’m good, just a little thirsty.”

She shrugged and we went back to uncomfortable silence, at least for me. After a few minutes, she broke it with: “Do you have a secret spot like this back home in Griffonstone?”

“Yeah. It’s nowhere near as good as this, though. Sometimes I’ll fly out into the plains around Griffonstone and try my luck at hunting. Usually, it doesn't work out very well, but one time I found a little pond with some shade trees in a valley a few miles away from the city. It turned into my reading spot when I needed to get away from things.”

“That sounds nice,” she hummed. “Sometimes I take a small canvas and some paint up here. If I can’t think of anything else to paint, I’ll just do a landscape of the city.” She paused and took a breath. “Everything’s kind of like a painting from up here. When you get high above the city, it looks so much more peaceful. Like all of the problems and bad stuff just fade away.”

“It’s nice,” I said again, my brain short-circuiting. It was the only thing I could think of besides the fact that she was still leaning against me and being all sappy.

This wasn’t a date. This was something friends totally did all the time. Right? Right?

I snuck a sideways glance at her. A small, content smile crossing her beak, eyes transfixed on the sunset. She took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh.

There was no way this wasn't the real deal. I could deny it all I wanted, but I couldn't ignore what was staring me in the face.

Should... should I make a move? My wings were pinned against the stone, but I could move my arm. I started shifting my arm to slide it behind her back and onto her shoulder. Slowly, carefully, like a thief rappelling into a jewelry store. My heart was about to beat through my rib cage. Was this really happening? Was I really doing it?

Reason hit me like a freight train. Abort, stupid! Abort!

My brain hit the escape button just as the sun slipped below the horizon. “Oh crap, you know what? Ty asked me to help him… move the fridge. Tonight! Right now.” Hastily, I stood up and left Silverstream leaning against empty air. She caught herself with a talon before she tipped over.

Silverstream looked at me incredulously. “Uh…”

“This was fun. Really fun! We should do it again sometime okay bye!” I flapped hard to take off, but on the downstroke, my wing clipped stone and I fell off the ledge with a yelp. For a second I tumbled in a freefall, but I was able to twist myself around in midair and open my wings fully, arresting my fall. With my flight stabilized, I spread my wings wide and sped off toward home.

I didn’t slow down until I made it back to the apartment.

Ty was standing in the kitchen, sifting through several containers of food on the counter when I got back to the apartment. Both the fridge and freezer doors hung wide open.

“Hey, dude. I wish you’d showed up a few minutes ago. Would have asked you to help me move this thing,” he said, slamming the fridge door shut with a crisp slap.

I had half a mind to punch him right in the beak. He was the source of all of my problems today. That stupid, dopey grin on his face mocked me. I wanted to smack it off him. I took a step forward and bumped into a very full and heavy duffel bag sitting in the middle of the floor, pulling me from my rage-fueled thoughts.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“I just got orders today. There’s some—you alright?” He cocked a brow at me. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just got back from flying. I’m a little tired,” I said, quickly covering my tracks.

Ty clicked his beak. “Huh. Anyway, some stuff is going down and the Eidothea is getting deployed to Greenfin Island. I have to go with it—sad, I know.”

Good. Now he’d be out of my feathers for a while and I could straighten out the whole Silverstream debacle without him hanging over my head. “Well I guess I’ll see ya,” I said, walking toward my ramp on the left side of the room.

“Hang on a sec,” Ty said. I rolled my eyes and stopped in place.

“Yeah?”

“Come here and take a look,” said Ty. “If you want any of this food, it’s yours.”

I came in here bristled and ready to fight him, and he was gonna give me food. Again. “If it’s still good, I’ll take all of it,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Don’t you want to see what’s here?”

I shook my head. “I’m not picky.”

Ty nodded and started loading containers back into the refrigerator. “Might as well let someone eat it, right?” When all of the food was put away, he stretched his wings out and yawned, walking toward the front door. “It’s gonna be a long night prepping the ship. Maybe I’ll get to sleep sometime tomorrow.”

I sighed. Was it right for me to be so pissed at him? He probably didn’t have any idea of the socially awkward beast he’d awoken in me yesterday. “What are you getting deployed for?”

Ty shook his head. “Not supposed to say. All I can tell you is that it’s indefinite. Could be a week, could be months before I’m back.”

Suddenly I felt a little less happy about him leaving. “So this might be the last time I see you?”

He nodded. “Yup, might be.” He slung the duffel bag over his shoulder, but paused before he walked out the door. “I just thought of something. Could you do me a huge favor?”

Considering that the last two things Ty had done for me were drag me to a rave and make me suddenly develop a crush on one of my best friends, I was a little wary. Maybe the third time was the charm? I decided to humor him. “Sure, what’s up?”

“How good are you at taking care of pets?”

I shrugged. “Never had one.”

Ty deflated a bit. “Would you be interested in learning how?”

“I guess.”

“Sweet! Follow me.” Ty led me up the ramp toward his room. As we approached the doorway, I started to pick up a strange smell—earthy, a bit stale, with faint hints of pungent smoke lingering on the air because... of course he did that. I stepped through the threshold and expected complete disarray, given everything I knew about Ty so far. Laid back and spacey, he didn’t seem like the type to run a tight ship.

And yet he did. The floor was clean and free of junk. Several shelves took up space along the outer walls, and his bed made neatly—not a wrinkle on it. Aside from a little bit of clutter from the sheer amount of things he had stashed in the room, it was tidy. The smell, I deduced, was the result of the pet he’d asked me to take care of. The windows were the weirdest thing about the room. All of them were blacked out, completely impervious to the dim twilight glow outside.

An aquarium without any water in it stood on a short cabinet next to his bed, its interior bathed in the red glow of a heat lamp affixed to its top. The floor of the tank was covered in wood shavings, sand, and rocks. Perched atop one of the larger rocks directly under the lamp was a small tan lizard with spines running the length of its back.

“This is Sassafrass,” Ty began, ushering me toward the tank. “She’s a desert spineback lizard I found in the Badlands last year. I think she had a run-in with a predator because she was missing a hind leg and still bleeding when I found her, so I took her in.”

Sassafrass seemed to notice the two giant faces appearing on the other side of the glass and cocked her head to the side, blinking at us with beady eyes.

“How does she feel about living in a glass box if she was wild before? I asked.

“It took her a while to get used to it, but she wouldn’t be alive now if I didn’t save her. She didn’t warm up to me very fast, but she came around. She loves getting scratches now,” said Ty. He flipped the lid off the aquarium and reached in, gently plucking Sassafrass off her rock. She didn’t seem to mind, accepting the ride from what must have looked like the hand of a god to a creature her size. He brought her out of the enclosure and held her up to me on his outstretched palm, gently scratching the little spiky lizard behind her head.

Again, she blinked at me and cocked her head, her little black eyes staring blankly.

“Go on, she doesn’t bite,” Ty encouraged. “Hold out your hand and let her come to you.”

I didn’t have much experience with reptiles. Well, non-sentient ones at least, but conventional wisdom told me that they weren’t very interested in becoming friends with me. Hesitantly, I offered my hand.

She blinked at me again and turned herself to face away from me, clumsily rotating her body around and showing me the stump where her hind leg had been.

“Aw, she’s just shy.” Ty lowered her back into the tank. “You’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other.”

“Are you sure I should be the one to take care of her if she doesn’t like me?” I asked.

“Diamond’s really the only one I would trust to come over and take care of her,” said Ty. “But Di doesn’t like lizards all that much. If you’d rather not, I can ask her to do it, but you’re going to be living here. It’d be a lot more convenient.”

I nodded. “Fair enough. Anything specific I need to know?”

“She needs to eat twice a day, so you can do that before you leave for work and when you get back. Feeding is a little tricky, I’ll show you how to do it.” He opened the door to the cabinet under the tank, pulling out a plastic bin that held several glass jars.

“What are those?”

“Ant farms,” Ty said, “Desert spinebacks eat almost nothing but ants. I used to have to go out and collect them myself, but I found a way to get queen ants a few months ago. Now I have her whole food supply right here.”

He spent a few minutes going over how to collect ants on a small moistened sponge and drop it into the lizard’s cage with a pair of chopsticks. As soon as the unlucky ants were lowered into the cage, Sassafrass went to work, picking the sacrifices off one by one with her long tongue. Upkeeping the ant colonies was another task to worry about, but aside from occasional replenishment of water and sugar, they didn’t require much work.

“If you run into any problems, you can hit Diamond up for help. She knows how to handle everything.” He wrote an address on a slip of paper and handed it to me. “Other than that, I think you’re all set. What time is it? Ten till ten? Yikes, I’m running behind.” Ty offered a handshake, which evolved into a quick hug and slap on the back that I didn’t bargain for. “If I don’t come back before you’re out of here, thanks for helping me out. I’ll see ya.”

“Good luck out there,” I said. He nodded and ducked out of the room. A small pang of finality hit me when I heard the front door click shut, and then I was alone.

He was pretty much the only friend I had here besides Silverstream, and now he was leaving. With a sigh, I turned off the lights in Ty’s room and headed up to mine.

“Swirl!” barked the gravelly voice I’d been so fortunate not to hear all night. The peace and quiet was nice while it lasted.

I set down the crate I was carrying and poked my head over Eidothea’s port side railing, and sure enough, there she was. Clipboard in hand, annoyingly small glasses perched high on the bridge of her beak in front of reddish-brown eyes. I’d recently learned that color was called ‘puce’. Puce perfectly described how unpleasant they were to look at. Her pale grayish-green coat was the color of sea foam washed up on the beach. A short crop of dark green hair hung out of the bandana tied around her head. Her writing hand held both a pencil and a lit cigarette between her claws.

“Yeah, Moraine?” I asked.

“Has inspection been completed?” She didn’t even take her eyes off her notes as she talked at me.

“Not yet. Oyster said he wanted to check the keel one more time after we bumped that sandbar last week. Once they’re done there, we’re all set.”

“Oh right, that,” she muttered, taking a drag from her dart. The implication was clear. She blamed me for steering the ship through a shallow delta and lightly scraping the bottom. At night. While she was on the navigation desk. “Any chance they’ll find damage that delays us?”

I answered with an eye roll, but she didn’t notice it. “No, the hull is fine.”

“You’d better hope so.” Moraine turned curtly and continued on her way down the dock. She stopped at a stack of crates I had left near the gangway to deal with later and shook her head, scribbling something down on her clipboard, and I felt a little pinch of annoyance in the back of my skull. It was standard procedure to double-check each other’s work, but to have her scrutinizing everything I’d spent all night working on with her well-rested eyes irked me.

I didn’t like Moraine. She liked me less.

I shook my head and turned back toward the crate I had been carrying—another thing she liked to bug me about. As the first mate, it wasn’t technically my job to lug cargo around, but there were only so many administrative duties to do before I wound up standing around and watching everyone else work. I liked pitching in and helping out when I could, and that was “unbecoming” in Moraine’s eyes, so I’d been told.

It was enough to make me grind my teeth. I just had to put up with her until I could transfer to a new ship—whenever that happened. I lifted the crate and carried it the rest of the way to the cargo hatch, hopped down through the hole, and dropped it off for the cargo hold crew.

Maybe it wasn't so bad. Moraine was the only griff on the ship that I didn't like. I could deal, but it sucked that I had to deal with her more often than anyone else aside from Captain Virga.

I went back topside, ran through my mental checklist again, and breathed a sigh of relief. Aside from a few more crates that the crew was in the process of handling, we were ready. My brain was buzzing with the numbness of sleep deprivation, and soon I’d get to go below to my quarters and set up my hammock. I was about to go over to the last crates and assist the crew, but a smudge of bluish green in my peripheral vision caught my attention, coming in for a landing on the ship’s handrail. This hippogriff’s colors were similar to Moraine’s, but her teal coat and light green mane feathers were more vibrant. More welcoming.

“Di!” I shouted, running across the deck to meet her.

“Hey, you,” she greeted with a warm smile as she hopped down from the railing and reached out for a hug. Her mane was a little messy. When she pulled me close, she still smelled of that light staleness when you first wake up in the morning, a faint hint of sweat and linen on her fur. “Sorry I’m so late. I was scared I missed you.”

“Well hey, you made it,” I said, breaking the hug. “We’re running late anyway, so it worked out.”

“Good thing,” Diamond said. A sharp whistle called out from somewhere near the bow, signalling that Moraine had finished her check and was giving us the all-clear to get underway. That meant we had a couple of minutes before I'd be needed somewhere.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” she said, dropping a shoulder bag stuffed with something box-shaped on the ground. She undid the flaps and revealed to me a sight I thought I’d seen the last of for months.

“Cinnamon-Blasted Oat Munch?” I pulled the boxes out of her pouches and clutched them close to my chest. “Oh, you shouldn’t have!”

“You better hide that,” Diamond warned me. “Lots of hungry eyes on this ship.”

“From my cold, dead claws,” I growled through a grin. Di laughed. It made my smile feel fuller.

“Oh and one more thing.” She dug back into her bag again and pulled out a little square of metal I instantly recognized.

“My multi tool?” I took the tool from her and folded it open, revealing the pliers. A little bit of rust hid on the inside of the well-traveled tool. “Where did you find it?”

“Between my dresser and the wall,” Diamond said. “How long ago did you lose that thing?”

“At least a year,” I said, pulling its much newer and shinier replacement out of my uniform's front pocket. The new tool I’d bought had a couple of extra blades hidden in the handles and a better can opener than the old one, but the pliers were looser and the handles were too fat. I swapped the tools out, tucking old reliable into the pocket. “What would I do without you?”

Di snorted, “Not leave your stuff all over my room when you stay.”

“But it gives me an excuse to come back and find it.”

“Not like you needed an excuse.” Di rolled her eyes with a playful smirk.

I shrugged. “I like coming over, what can I say? You’re fun.”

With a quick laugh, Di changed the subject. “So, Greenfin Island, huh? They had to send you back there?”

“Yup,” I confirmed with a shrug.

“You won’t be gone for six months this time, will you?”

I answered with another shrug. “I dunno. They didn’t say how long we’d be deployed.”

Diamond sighed. “Of course they didn’t.”

I didn’t have much I could say to make her feel better, but I still tried. “I have a feeling that we’ll be back in a few weeks. Shouldn’t be too long. The orders seemed pretty straightforward.”

“Anything else you can say about it?”

I shook my head. “Gotta keep it hush-hush for now. There’ll be press releases out sometime soon though.”

“Well, it won’t be dangerous will it?”

I hated lying to her, but I shook my head. Pirate raids weren’t exactly the safest thing to be deployed over. “We’ll be fine,” I said. “Nothing we haven’t done before!”

Diamond smiled, but I could see the weariness in it. She was still worried. “I guess I better let you get back to it. Be careful out there, will you?”

I chuckled and gave her another hug. “I’ve got the best crew sailing to back me up. We’ll be fine.” I relished in her touch for a moment, enjoying her warmth. It was too short, though. When she pulled back, she left me wanting more.

It was a pattern with her.

When we separated, she turned away from me and spread her wings to leave. Watching her go made me sad, but then a thought occurred to me. We were heading out to sea, and the orders sounded like we were in for something more dangerous than usual. I wasn’t scared, but the outside chance of something happening to me spurred me to do something that the rational part of me knew was a bad idea.

“Hey, Diamond?” I said.

She folded her wings and walked back to me. “Yeah?”

Why am I doing this? “Have you, uh… you know.” I scratched the back of my head, the sentences not quite sewing themselves together properly.

“What’s up?” she asked. I searched her face, desperately hoping for a good sign to proceed. She seemed attentive, though I could see from her brow stitching that she probably knew where I was going.

Fortune favors the bold. Screw it. “Have you ever thought about getting serious?”

It wasn’t good. She got coy again. “I’m serious. You’re the goofy one.”

I blew a breath out through my nose. “Come on, you know what I mean. We’ve been doing this for what, going on two years now? I like you, I know you like me. Why aren’t we making it official?”

A faint blush colored her cheeks, and she averted her eyes. “You’re right. I guess... I don’t know why we haven’t. I mean, I’ve thought about it a little.”

“And?”

“Maybe?”

“Maybe?” I parroted.

“It’s just… we have a good thing now, don’t you think? It’s simple. I like it.”

“Why not make it better?” I asked.

Diamond sighed. “I don’t know. I like not being tied down. We can both just do our thing right now, sometimes we do it together, sometimes we don't.” She looked me in the eyes. “I just don’t know if I’m ready for more yet, Ty.”

I closed my eyes and let out a slow breath. It was better than an outright no, but it still didn’t feel great. “I won’t press you about it anymore. Just, think about it while I’m gone? Maybe?” I asked.

Diamond smiled. “I will. I promise.”

“Thanks.” I smiled back and pulled her in for one more quick hug. “I’ll write you when we get there.”

“You better!” Diamond shooed me off and took wing, lifting off the deck to return to the top of Mount Aris.

I started walking the direction I’d been before she showed up, but frowned when I got to the gangway. Several of the crew griffs were giving me stupid grins and snickering. Apparently we’d attracted some attention with our little conversation. “What are you buzzards staring at, get back to work!” One of them whistled at me and a chorus of “oooh!” rose up like we were in the school reef all over again. I was about to go over there and make them regret it, but a sudden gust of wind caught me in the side.

“Think fast!” Diamond shouted as she swooped in and planted a quick smooch on my cheek. Before I could react, she was already off, flitting away with a smirk on her face.

She always left me wanting more.

Greenfin Island wasn’t as pretty as I remembered it.

I was the last one to shuffle down the gangplank once we were moored at the docks. My sleep schedule was all messed up thanks to the all-night prep work before we left, so I got to spend most of the trip by myself, staying busy with chores around the ship while most of the crew slept. Taking inventory of powder magazines and food stores, cleaning cannons, lots of the fun stuff I got to do as an enlisted sailor, but with tons more paperwork to go with it. At least I didn’t have to swab the deck anymore.

The docks at Greenfin Base were longer than the ones at Mount Aris, but that was simply because there was more space available to work with here. Sheer cliffs and jagged rocks back home limited the scope of our base, but here there was a gentle, wide harbor with plenty of room to moor the ship and not have to worry about packing in to conserve space.

The docks all ran toward the back of the harbor, where the small port town of Aeolia welcomed weary sailors to the loving embrace of taverns, real beds, and non-galley cooking. As far as port towns went, it was fairly upscale. Having a navy base on site helped to keep it from turning into a haven for crime like so many others.

At night, long silences on the bridge practically forced me to think about things. Diamond was on my brain more often than she wasn’t, and for the first time in my life, I was starting to think that was a bad thing. When she crossed my mind lately, there was a new pang there that I hadn’t felt before. It made my chest actually hurt.

Our relationship was… what was it? I wanted to call it complicated, but the more I contemplated it, the simpler it sounded. We weren’t dating; we had both agreed that was the case. At the end of the day, we were friends, but sometimes after the day ended, we were a little bit more than that. Kind of.

It was simple and it worked—for me especially. Given that my job often took me away from home for extended periods of time, not having to worry about holding down a steady relationship granted me emotional flexibility that I enjoyed, and the freedom to explore other relationships. We had a great arrangement, but my stupid heart and my brain weren’t on the same page.

I wanted to go exclusive. The idea that we could have that occasional intimacy all the time made me feel all light and fluttery in my chest, but I knew Di would never go for it. She made it clear from the start that she didn’t want to commit to anything. She had her life, I had mine, and she wanted it to stay that way. Our worlds could be adjacent, maybe overlap a bit, but they would stay separate.

Regardless of how she answered my question, I could live with it. But that wouldn’t make it hurt less if she said no.

I took a deep breath of the salty air and let it out through my nose. Now that I was deployed, I was busy with other things that I could occupy my mind with. Like the crowd of crew griffs shuffling back and forth on the shoreline. The naval installation here was small, much less impressive than the labyrinth carved into the base of Mount Aris. A few square, free-standing stone buildings were clustered just off the beach. The Navy didn’t invest a lot in the style of the buildings at the base here. Behind those? That was where the party started.

I was technically off duty, so I kept going past the crew gathered on the beach and the navy buildings, making a beeline for Aeolia’s main square. It was twilight, and I knew that if I wanted to avoid eating at Eidothea’s galley, I needed to get to the markets before they shut down for the night.

As soon as I was in the town itself, the population around me got a lot more varied. A healthy number of zebras and parrots joined the mix in the narrow cobblestone street, the two main groups that lived here in addition to hippogriffs. The buildings lining the street were painted bright colors, housing an equally vibrant population within their walls. Greenfin Island had long been a rest stop along several trade routes through the South Sea. As most things had since being liberated from the Storm King, it had flourished in the last couple of years. Zebricans and Ornithians were the most common visitors, so they made up the largest numbers of permanent residents here aside from hippogriffs.

Everything took on flavors of the various species living here—which, for me, meant that the street food was amazing. It was here that I discovered the magic of Ornithian habanero peppers. And fish tacos. I was cutting it close, but I found my favorite street kitchen just before closing time.

The bright green parrot running the stand perked up when I arrived. “Weren’t you here last week?” he asked me.

“That I was,” I said. “I just couldn’t live without another Caliente taco.” The smell of roasting peppers was enchanting.

“Then you got here just in time,” said the parrot. “How many do you want?” I held up two claws, and he nodded, going to work on the grill, roasting peppers over fire along with the other ingredients in his signature Caliente tacos. Beans, rice, habanero pepper, and grilled salmon topped with a dollop of guacamole.

I paid and left with anticipation building. With these tacos, half of the fun was the flavor, and the other half was the heat. Diamond thought I was crazy when I told her that I was addicted to food that caused me pain, but she was the one missing out on the spice of life.

I took a stroll around the rest of the market square as I ate, admiring the scenery through bleary eyes since the peppers had lit my sinuses on fire. I was almost finished with my food when I heard my name yelled out from behind me.

“Hey, Ty!” said a voice I knew all too well. I turned around and was greeted by a tan griff with a big patch of fur missing from his chest. Powder Keg was the gunner of the Eidothea. “Have you been crying?”

I finished off the last of my taco and threw the wrapper away. “Habanero,” I said through the mouthful of invisible flames.

“We haven’t been here an hour and you already snuck off for tacos, sounds about right.” He laughed, and I joined him. “I still don’t know how you eat that stuff.”

“I’ve got refined taste. You wouldn’t understand,” I said with a shrug, wiping at my nose. “What’s up?”

“I’m heading over to The Mussel for some drinks,” said Powder Keg. “You want to come with? First round’s on me.”

I mulled it over for a moment. Given that this wasn’t entirely a hippogriff town, the ban on alcohol didn’t apply here. Technically, the navy didn’t allow us to drink when we were in town, but The Mussel was practically known as the navy’s watering hole anyway. Even the senior officers could be found there from time to time.

“I can’t turn down free booze,” I said. Powder Keg laughed, and we made our way down the street toward the bar.

The Mussel was large and roomy with a nightclub-style flavor. It wasn’t especially busy until our group arrived, considering that it was a Monday night. A few parrots, zebras, and hippogriffs were scattered around the room, each mostly keeping to themselves. Thumping, uptempo music played over the loudspeakers, but the dance floor in the center of the room was empty under the flashing, colored lights. While we crossed the room, my eyes lingered on a bright orange parrot sitting at a table with several others around her of assorted color. She was pretty, the kind of girl with an effervescence that drew attention to itself. Her eyes met mine for a brief second, and then we both looked away. I kept walking behind Powder Keg, and we settled in at the bar. True to his word, the gunner put bits down for the first round.

“So, what do you think of this whole mission?” Powder asked me as he pounded down a shot.

I followed his example with my own shot. ”Depends,” I said.

“I’m sure they gave you a more detailed briefing than we got,” said Powder. “They don’t just tell us to keep something hush-hush if there isn’t more to the story.”

I shook my head. “No, I’ve seen your orders. You have the exact same copy I got. Unless Captain Virga isn’t telling us something, we’re all just as clueless as each other. Speaking of which, have you seen the captain?” I asked. Powder Keg nodded. “Maybe it’s just the schedule they have me on, but I didn’t run into her the entire way here.”

“She’s been a little scarce,” said Powder Keg. “Mostly stayed in her quarters the whole time.”

I frowned. “That’s odd.” Maybe Powder Keg was onto something after all. Captain Virga rarely stayed in her quarters when we were at sea. If she was cooped up in there, something was important—more important than what the orders they’d given the rest of us said . “I guess we’ll find out what it is tomorrow at the briefing.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Powder Keg downed another shot.

We traded a few more rounds of small talk between shots, the details growing fuzzier the deeper into the shots we got. With each round, I found myself more and more pleasantly distracted by not thinking about Diamond.

I didn’t want to get out of bed. Rays of morning light shone through the window and landed on my face, so I had a dilemma: either lie here and be mildly annoyed by the faint glow through my eyelids, or get up and close the curtains so I could go back to sleep.

Wait. I wasn’t supposed to be in a bed. I was on Greenfin Island. I should have been on my hammock below deck on the Eidothea. We had a briefing this morning! My eyes shot open, and immediately my attention snapped to the bright orange parrot still asleep in the bed next to me.

She was pretty, even asleep and snoring with her tongue lolled out of her beak. Nicely done, drunk Ty. Unfortunately, I had no time for cute parrots. I needed to go. The alarm clock on the nightstand read oh-seven-thirty—half an hour before morning briefing. I could still make it on time. I started shifting myself toward the edge of the bed, but pressure on my chest stopped me. Her wing was draped across my torso. She muttered something in her sleep and pulled herself toward me, wrapping me up tight.

It felt nice, but I didn’t have time to feel nice right now. Her grip wasn’t very good, thankfully, so I tried again. I shimmied a bit to the right, freedom within my grasp, but then she stirred again. This time she picked herself up and flopped on top of my chest, pinning me to the bed.

Fantastic.

“Uh, hey? Good morning,” I said.

I got a snore in response. She was still asleep.

I poked her in the side. “Hey,” I said gently.

She groaned and hid her face from me, so I did it again. Her eyes opened slowly and searched around the room for a moment before they settled on me, our faces a mere inch apart.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Morning,” she muttered.

“Sleep well?”

“Mmmm, not enough,” she said, a goofy little grin crossing her beak.

So it was one of those nights. I racked my brain, trying to remember the details. I was at The Mussel last night. It was too typical for Powder Keg to get me to go on a bender the first night on deployment. I knew that it was difficult to stop me once I started. We did shots, and at some point I wound up on the dance floor. From there, the details got fuzzy, but I recognized her face as the one I’d made eyes at when we first got there. I must have asked her to dance when I was sloshed.

Crap. What was her name again?

Another glance at the clock confirmed that I was losing time. I needed to get this bird off me and get out the door, preferably before she pieced it together that I didn’t know who she was. That was always awkward. It was nice that parrots were so lightweight. Even though she had my arms pinned at an awkward angle, I was able to gently lift her off of myself without much trouble.

“I really need to go,” I said, trying to set her off to the side so I could scramble out of the bed.

She resisted, pushing back against me. “Can’t you stay a few more minutes?”

“I overslept already. I’d love to stay, but duty calls...” I nodded my head to the side a couple of times.

She blew a defeated sigh out her nose and rolled off, allowing me my exit. I hopped up and gave my wings a quick stretch, arching my back to wake my core muscles up. I’d be taking to the air to get there, so the last thing I needed was a wing cramp at altitude.

The bedroom I was in was small and cozy, the walls painted a rich shade of teal—kind of like Diamond, my brain added. I paused in my tracks for a second and looked at Orange Parrot Girl, a small twinge of guilt slicing through my gut. If I wanted to go exclusive with Di so bad, what the hell was I doing here?

I shook my head. There was nothing actually wrong with this, right?. Diamond and I could sleep wherever we wanted. We were both technically single, after all, but something about this still felt wrong. All the more reason to get out of here asap.

The bed took up most of the room's floor space, the narrow paths around it barely wide enough for me to walk down. A small bathroom adjoined to it on the wall opposite from the exit. I could afford a minute to splash a little water across my face and freshen up, so I went there first.

A pale yellow wreck of a hippogriff looked back at me from the mirror, my mane in sad disarray. My wings needed a preening, stray feathers sticking out at odd angles. The cool water was a bit of a shock, but it washed some of the grogginess out of my eyes. I ran my talons through my mane, smoothing out some of the bed head. It wasn’t perfect, but I might be able to get away with it. Better than nothing. I raised a wing and started working on the loose feathers, and then was surprised when someone took the other wing.

“Allow me,” said Parrot Girl, plucking some feathers free with her bright red beak. I blinked at her. Sex was one thing, but preening? That was usually not part of the deal with one-night stands. What did I say to her last night?

A big red flag raised in my mind. This girl was clingy and forward. If I wasn’t careful, I’d be in a situation I couldn’t just back out of.

And I didn’t even remember her name. Still, her preening my other wing would save me a minute or two, so I didn’t decline the offer. I finished plucking my left wing at about the time she finished on my right. “Thank you,” I said, giving her a smile. One last check in the mirror confirmed that I wasn’t a slob anymore, so it was time to—

Hold it. I clutched at my neck. My pearl fragment was gone.

“Hey have you seen my shard?”

“Shard?” she asked.

“My necklace,” I clarified.

“Oh, you mean the kind that all of the hippogriffs wear?”

“Yeah. I can’t leave without it.” Not without getting murdered by the captain when I got to the base, at least.

“I might have,” she flashed me a coy smile and reached behind her back, producing my pearl shard in her wingtips.

“Oh good, I thought I lost it,” I said, reaching out, but she had other ideas, pulling the shard out of reach before I could grab it. So it was going to be a game. I didn’t have time to play it. “Alright, what do you want?”

The coy smile got coyer. “Come a little closer.”

I complied. “Are you gonna make me beg?”

“Just a little,” she breathed as she touched a wingtip to my chin and pulled me downward. She was petite, even for a parrot, barely tall enough for her crest feathers to touch my chin when we stood at full height, so we had to meet in the middle. I leaned to the side and locked my beak with hers. She kissed me deeply, and I returned the favor with a passable amount of enthusiasm. In the middle of the kiss, eyes still closed, I reached up and snagged my shard from her wingtip.

She came up for air after a few seconds. “Promise me you’ll come back soon, Hurricane.”

I had to fight the urge to blanch. I didn’t know her name, and she knew the wrong one for me. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing on my part for forgetting hers.

Regardless, I needed to get out of here. Now.

“Sure thing,” I said, dropping the shard over my neck. “We had fun, didn’t we? I’ll see you soon,” I lied. Or at least I hoped it was a lie. I snatched my uniform up off the floor next to the bed and threw it over my head as I left, not slowing down or looking back.

Another crisis averted, and I wouldn’t be late for the briefing after all. I took off once I was out of her house. The air was still cool from the night, but the first warmth of the sun wiggled its way through my fur. As I flew over the town, I ran through my mental checklist, which was quite short for today. I didn’t have anything to do at the briefing but fill a chair and listen, and we’d figure out the rest of the day’s plans after that. My best guess was that we’d load up and get underway to somewhere before the end of the day.

I flew high over the town, admiring the little city as it awoke for the day. The market square griffs were starting to open their stalls for the day, opening their windows and setting out their goods. Fresh fish, greens, apples, oranges—

Clementine! That was her name. Of course! She was small and bright orange, just like the fruit. It should have been obvious. How did I forget it? I was usually great with names, and here I’d just made one of the worst exits of my career.

I glanced back over my shoulder at her house as it shrunk away into the distance. It was probably for the best if we never crossed paths again. Drunken one-night stands where neither of us bothered to learn each other’s names were probably not a good place to start a relationship.

But then again, this wasn’t like the usual hookup where I just left in the morning and that was that. She seemed really into me. Like, scary amounts of interested. I wasn’t super familiar with how parrots approached the dating scene, but preening wasn’t something hippogriffs did unless we really really liked someone.

Did I lead her on last night? The details of the evening were lost to the rum. I couldn't be sure, but there was something wrong. Either she was just super clingy, or I gave her the wrong ideas about where we stood. The guilt hit stronger than before, enough to give me pause. Should I have gone back and made sure everything was cool between us?

I shook my head. I didn’t have the time, not today. I weighed the facts in my head and came to the conclusion that it was probably just her. I’d had enough hookups to know my way around them. Even drunk, I probably hadn’t promised her anything permanent. I resumed my flight toward the navy base, but I didn’t feel totally sound in my reasoning. The guilt remained, but it would just have to stay that way.

I touched down at headquarters in the nick of time. The largest of the cluster of slate-gray buildings with tiny windows held a small amphitheater with a stage in front. The room was packed and alive with chatter when I walked in. All of the crews from the five newly arrived ships were here. I found my crew grouped in the middle of the right edge and took my seat at the front, finding an open chair next to Powder Keg and Moraine. Ugh.

He shot me a sideways glance and smirked. “Have a good night?”

“You could say that,” I said, earning a chuckle from him.

The briefing started a few moments later. The call to stand at attention came, and at once every griff in the room rose in more or less perfect unison. The lights dimmed save for the stage lamps, and the left stage door opened. In stepped a tall, slender hippogriff, her coat bright red and her mane stark white, seasoned by the years.

“At ease,” said Commander Scarlet Waves, taking her position at the podium. Once the quiet commotion of us taking our seats had died down, she began her address. “Good morning, I hope you all have had a good night’s rest, because we are going to hit the ground running today.

“I’m sure you were a bit confused by the orders you received. We usually don’t withhold mission objectives from the crews, but this time things are a bit different. The details of this mission are secret, and what I tell you now will not be given to you in writing, so listen up!” Projectors lit the wall above the commander’s head, displaying a map of the South Sea. “On the evening of Wednesday, May 29th, a merchant vessel named Deliverance was about fifty miles northeast of Greenfin Island, sailing west with a load of grain from Zebrica—destination: Mount Aris. They were due for a midday arrival on Thursday, but never showed.”

Powder Keg nudged me, whispering something about how this was totally irrelevant. ‘Give us our orders and let us go,’ yada yada. I couldn’t quite make it out. Moraine, who was sitting on the other side of him, shushed him.

“A little after noon on Thursday,” Commander Waves continued, “Deliverance’s crew showed up here on Greenfin Island, picked up from lifeboats by a local fishing boat. One of them had a gunshot wound to the chest.” A few murmurs went through the room. “The crew all told the same story. The Deliverance had been sunk.” She paused for dramatic effect, letting the few murmurs in the room quiet down. “Deliberately. By pirates.”

That was the big surprise. From the way she began, I was expecting this to be a search and rescue mission, but now I could guess where the rest of this briefing was going.

This was a search and destroy mission.

The slide on the screen changed, showing two pictures. The first was a grainy, black and white picture of a large galleon with dark sails and a figurehead of a crudely carved eagle. Next to it was an equally grainy, colored portrait of a red parrot, decked out in gold bullion and obscuring part of his face behind a broadsword.

“After an extended hiatus, it appears one of our oldest friends is back in business. Those of you who have been here for a while will remember him, those of you who are newer, listen up. This is Captain Sternclaw, the reason you are all here right now. He’s had a long history of ransoming cargo ships and miraculously escaping justice, but it appears he’s dreaming a little bigger these days. Instead of commandeering ships and kidnapping crews, he’s sinking them. In addition to Deliverance, we have unconfirmed reports of two more merchant vessels that may have been attacked since the first. A threat like this cannot be left alone, so we’re putting a stop to it once and for all.”

Commander Waves took wing and hovered above the podium. “When a dog goes rabid, it’s time to put him down. Our mission is to find Captain Sternclaw and bring him to justice. Whether that means a short drop on a rope or a long drop to the ocean floor, it doesn’t matter. We will be amplifying our efforts to police our waters. In addition to regular patrols, our best ships will be sent on a specific detail to track and capture the pirate.”

I leaned forward in my seat. The best ships were being sent to hunt Sternclaw down, and Eidothea was one of the best ships sailing. Did that mean us? Were we getting sent on the special mission?

“Escort duty,” Powder Keg snorted, stuffing a bite of fish into his beak. “They pull us from our patrol route, make us come all this way, and stick us on escort duty. What a joke.”

I could understand him being upset. Of the five ships that got pulled from Mount Aris, only Derelict and Summation got put on the hunt mission. The remaining three were assigned to a less glamorous job: protecting merchant vessels by sailing along with them on their routes. I had hoped for the cool job as much as the next griff, but now that two days had passed, I was over any misgivings I had about the assignment.

The gunner, on the other hand, still hadn’t shut up about it. I just nodded my head along to his complaint and ate my pasta. I didn’t have the energy to tell him to can it, but somegriff else at the next table over sure did.

“If I have to hear you complain one more time, I’m hogtying you and throwing you overboard,” said Moraine, cupping her head in her hands.

“I could stand to go for a swim,” Powder Keg said with a smirk.

“Good luck getting back on board with wet wings,” Moraine muttered, turning away from us.

After that, Powder Keg was silent. I didn’t like Moraine, but she wasn’t all bad all the time.

The rest of the meal passed in dull silence, and while most everyone else was retiring below decks for the evening, I went topside and took a quick walk to inspect the deck as I started my night shift. Everything was in order, so I climbed the ladder to the bridge.

“Captain Virga,” I said, closing the door behind myself. “Didn’t expect to see you here, ma’am.”

“Finished with your rounds?” asked the captain. She was sitting at the navigator’s desk, eyes transfixed by a glowing crystal sitting on the tabletop.

“Yes, ma’am, everything’s in order. Something wrong with the cube?”

“Yeah,” said the Captain. “It turned red about an hour ago and locked itself up tighter than a Saddle Arabian whorehouse. I’ve been fiddling with it but I can’t get it to do anything.”

I crossed the bridge and joined her in gazing dumbfounded at the bright red crystal. These were a fairly new addition to navy ships, allowing instant communication with headquarters through a magic channel. At least that was the theory. Apparently the enchanters who made them weren’t the best at their jobs. The cubes were notoriously unreliable, often to the point that we operated without instant communications, like the old days.

“You think you can figure it out while you’re on watch?” asked the captain.

“Sure,” I said with a shrug. I’d become fairly proficient at fixing the cube when it went down. “Do you have the instruction book?”

A heavy book as thick as my arm slapped down on the table. “Go crazy,” said Captain Virga, rising from her seat. “I hope you can figure it out. I can’t hardly see what I’m doing with that thing.”

I nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The captain nodded back at me and made for the door. “Have a good watch, Lieutenant.”

The first order of business for an overnight watch was caffeine. My sleep schedule had finally stabilized after my escapade in Aeolia, but I would still need plenty of tea to make it through the night. I offered to make some for Hyperia, the helmsgriff on duty, but she declined. I started up the small stove in the corner of the bridge and set a kettle of water on for tea.

While the water heated, I went back to the communications cube and picked it up. The block of crystal hummed faintly with enchantments, the slight buzz of the energy from it radiating through my talons. I consulted the manual and found the section on troubleshooting, which told me to hold my claws at two very specific points on its surface.

A question popped up. Reset? I did that, and the light faded from the cube, turning it into a simple chunk of dead, transparent rock. That lasted a few seconds, and then it came back to life. The enchanted hum returned, lighting it up.

The typical prompt for a passcode came up. I entered it. The side of the crystal facing me changed, covering itself in letters laid out like a typewriter. The top face glowed red, showing me a short backlog of transmissions from headquarters. I loved it when the cube problems were simple.

I wrote a quick message to headquarters confirming that we were up and running and sent it off, the device displaying a little symbol of an envelope whizzing off the edge of the crystal when I did. I then checked the backlog, first looking at the weather forecast. A cold front advancing from the south would probably overtake us around dawn, which meant to me that we could expect a stronger tailwind and rougher seas. I needed to keep an eye on the sky for that front so I’d know when to change the orientation of the sails. Routine stuff.

The second message was a little more concerning. Another of the escorters, Itroscia, had been silent for twelve hours, long enough to raise alarms at headquarters. Alerts about ships going unresponsive were routine just because the cubes sucked, but the last known location caught my attention. I checked the coordinates against our own route, and sure enough, it was straight ahead of us, near an area of jagged, dangerous rocks called The Blades.

Had they run up on the rocks? It happened to Kraken’s Beak a few months ago, so that was certainly a possibility, but I hadn’t heard of any storms in that area in the last day. I trusted that our crews would be able to steer clear of The Blades in calm weather, so that didn’t sound likely.

Was it the pirates? I felt a little pit of trepidation open in my gut when I thought of that, but I dismissed it. Last I heard, the hunting crews were working on a tip that took them far away from us entirely. They were following a trail of evidence, so that meant we were probably in the clear up here—I hoped.

I shook my head. It was probably just their cube acting up. Nothing to worry about.

It took me less than ten minutes to get the communication cube up and running, just long enough for the water to boil. I steeped a bag of black tea in a metal cup and checked our course on the compass while I did so. Our heading was zero-three-two; north-northeast, exactly where we needed to be. A visual check confirmed that we were still running alongside our mate, the silhouette of the merchant ship dotted with a couple of dim red formation lights visible out the starboard windows, a few hundred yards away.

Escort duty wasn’t very different from our usual regimen of sailing around and not doing much else, only this time our route was much straighter and we had a merchant vessel always within sight of us. Mother of Pearl was the ship we were tasked with guarding for the last couple of days, and we were nearing the end of our run with them. In a day or so, we’d reach the limit of our jurisdiction and release them to their voyage up the Celestial Sea to their eventual destination at the port of Manehattan in Equestria.

I headed aloft to the poop deck, where our signal light was mounted. I aimed the light toward Mother of Pearl 's silhouette and flashed a quick status check message to them, flipping the shutters open and closed. Hopefully whoever was on watch on the merchant vessel was awake.

‘Status check,’ I flashed.

I waited a few seconds. No response.

‘Status check,’ I repeated.

A few more seconds and a little light began blinking on the merchant ship, a quick sequence short and long flashes. ‘Normal,’ it said in signal code.

I looked down the ship. Aside from the lookout, I was the only one up here. Our lookout was pretty new, a hippogriff named Blue Note, despite the fact that his coat was purple. Bluesy was cool, so I knew I could get away with being slightly unprofessional.

‘Good business, little bro, just checking,’ I signaled.

It was a small departure from procedure—very inconsequential, but it felt nice. I was about to head back down to the bridge when I saw the light on the Mother of Pearl blinking again. ‘Big thanks, big dog,’ said the light.

I smiled. These were my people.

The rest of the night went by like any other, but this time I had a friend in whoever was on watch on the merchant ship. We spent a little bit of time relaying messages to each other, slipping little jokes in or sending our usual status checks in jargon.

Around daybreak, the jokes ceased. The last message I got from them was: ‘Watch change. Peace.’ And then it was back to business as usual, the status check responses turning back into ‘Normal.’ Just like normal.

I was getting tired around then, and it wouldn’t be long before I could go below decks and sleep. I didn’t feel as tired as I usually did around this time of the morning. Maybe having something to occupy the mind was all I needed to make it through.

Moraine was the first relief crew member to show up. She caught me right in the middle of a yawn when she opened the door. “Morning,” I greeted her through the end of the yawn.

“Good morning,” she returned curtly. “Anything break?”

“Just the cube. I fixed it though.”

Moraine rolled her eyes. “If it goes down again today, I’m giving it a float test.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” I said, rising from the navigation desk with a stretch. My eyes burned, and I was ready to go knock out for a while.

“Hold it, Swirl.” Moraine stopped me just short of the door. I turned around to see her peering out the starboard window. “I think I saw something while I was walking in. Bring me the glass.”

You could have just as easily gotten it yourself, I grumbled silently. She snatched the glass out of my claws and leveled it, leaning forward.

“Take a look. Two o’clock, on the horizon.” Moraine passed me the spyglass, and I followed her directions, scanning for anything besides empty water.

Smoke. A faint plume of it way out in the distance, barely visible. How Moraine had spotted it without a telescope, I had no idea, but there it was. Immediately, my heart skipped a beat. The missing ship.

“We need to investigate that,” I said. “Headquarters reported a missing ship in this area earlier.”

“And you didn’t tell me that immediately, why?”

“We get several of those a week. It’s always the cubes. I didn’t think it was important.”

Moraine groaned and wiped at her forehead. “Whatever. Signal the merchants. Tell them to drop behind us and follow close.” she said, crossing to the wheel.

I nodded and left the bridge, hopping up one level to the poop deck and the lantern. Mother of Pearl copied the message on the first send, and I nodded to myself. A gust of wind blew across the deck, drawing my attention toward the sky. A long, gray arc of clouds was approaching behind us from the south. The cold front.

Timing was never the weather’s strong suit. Still, rain or shine, we had a job to do. A few sailors had come to the deck to do morning chores, and I yelled to them. “Battle stations!” Since Moraine was taking charge in the wheelhouse, I headed below decks to alert the captain and rouse the rest of the crew.

I spent the next hour on standby at the signal beacon, keeping Mother of Pearl up to speed on what we were doing. My suspicions from last night confirmed themselves as we slowly closed the distance toward the mysterious plume. The horizon morphed from a flat line to a serrated saw—The Blades. Anticipating the approaching wind shift, we took the sails in as we approached the rocks. The last thing we needed was to get blown into the rocks and flay the hull.

We were on motorized drive going forward. The steam engine on board didn’t get but occasional use, so we had to start it from cold. The ship slowed to a halt for a few minutes while the small boiler built a head of steam. Slowly but surely, the water below the stern began to churn and froth. A plume of coal smoke began puffing out of a tall, skinny smokestack near the stern, and the Eidothea eased forward.

We were close to the outer reaches of The Blades when Moraine stuck her head up from the bridge. “Tell the merchants we’re stopping and then come down to the bridge.”

Once both ships were brought to a halt, I headed down one deck and found a bustling scene on the bridge. Captain Virga had taken over as the helmsgriff, and Moraine was on the navigator’s desk, busying herself with drawing out routes on a map.

“First Mate, I need you to get a flight team together,” said the captain. “We can’t lead the merchants through the rocks, and we can’t leave them alone either. Send scouts to see what the fire is, and then we’ll reassess. Dismissed.”

I saluted the captain and left the bridge, immediately starting on my task as I descended the ladder to the main deck. “Alright, listen up!” I shouted, earning the attention of the dozen or so crew standing outside. “I need five volunteers to go fly out and see what the smoke is. Show of hands, who wants to go?”

It was nearly unanimous, all but a couple of the griffs raising a hand to the sky. I felt a little swell of pride while I chose five at random from the crowd. “You, you, you, you, and you. Take weapons just in case. Talk to the gunner about getting swords. I want you in the air in three minutes!”

The air team saluted and hustled down to the gun deck to meet with Powder Keg. I returned to the bridge, this time armed with a question of my own.

“Flight team will be out in three minutes, Captain,” I announced as I entered, shutting the door behind me. “Should we start building an action plan now?”

Captain Virga nodded and stepped out from behind the wheel, taking her bicorne off and revealing a short crop of crimson hair that stood at attention in the absence of a hat. She was the tallest of the three of us, having a slight height advantage over me. She placed her hat on the navigator’s desk carefully, distracting Moraine from her chart work. “The way I see it, we have three possible outcomes. The first and most likely is that the smoke is just some grass or a bonfire somewhere, and we can go on as we were.

“If there is a ship in distress on the other side of the rocks, we have a very big problem holding off the stern. We’re much less flexible if we’re dragging a big, clunky cargo ship with us wherever we go. Are there any passages they could fit through nearby, Moraine?”

The second mate shook her head. “None within thirty miles.”

“Keep working on that. Check it again,” said Captain Virga. “But in that case, we will have to make a choice based on urgency. We can either mark their location with the cube and leave it for someone else, or we can go up thirty miles to find a way through The Blades.”

Outside the windows, the flight team sprinted across the deck and hurtled over the side, soaring into the air in formation. Based on how close the smoke plume looked now, it would only take them a few minutes to return with intel. It couldn’t have been more than a mile or two away, a jet-black column of smoke rising into the air. It almost looked like a volcanic eruption I saw when we were sailing past the Dragon Lands a few months back, though the color was darker. Whatever was happening over there didn’t look like a natural fire.

“What if it’s urgent?” I asked. “Like, life and death if we don’t get there asap?”

The bridge went silent as Captain Virga and Moraine mulled over my question. After a few moments, Moraine spoke up. “Our orders are to stay with the merchants.”

“But look at that smoke plume!” I argued, pointing out the starboard window. “That’s way more smoke than any bonfire I’ve ever seen. If I were to guess, someone’s in big trouble over there. Are we just going to leave them hanging?”

“And risk leaving them to get attacked?” Moraine countered. “If anything happens to Mother of Pearl while we leave it alone, we can expect dishonorable discharges all around. Maybe even a court-martial. I say we stick to our orders. The merchants stay with us no matter what.”

I felt my hackles raise. "Even if it gets someone else killed."

Moraine scoffed. "Our orders are clear."

“Our mission is to protect creatures from all threats. Does that not extend to whoever is burning out there in the middle of The Blades?”

“And what?” Moraine asked. “You advocate leaving the ship right behind us to the wolves to go chasing after a lost cause?”

A vein popped in my forehead. “Coward,” I snarled.

Before Moraine could jump out of her seat to escalate, the captain intervened, stepping between us. “Both of you will stand down, now. The last damn thing I need right now is my lieutenants fighting over nothing!” Captain Virga marched to the stern end of the bridge, taking her place at the helm. “The decision is mine to make and mine alone. Typhoon, go take a lap and make sure the crew is prepared for any eventuality. Go.”

I left the bridge and only remembered to breathe once I had gotten to the bottom of the ladder. If I wasn’t sure before, I was now. As soon as we returned to port, I was putting in for a transfer even if it dropped me back to being a regular sailor. As much as I loved this ship and my crew, I couldn’t take any more of Moraine. The sooner I got away from that insufferable hag, the better.

A hippogriff screech caught my attention off the starboard side, and I watched with anticipation as the scout flight returned to Eidothea. They landed midship, just in front of me.

“What’d you find?” I asked.

The leader of the flight, Hydro, removed his goggles. “It’s a shipwreck, sir. Looks like one of ours. There’s a big oil slick on fire and a bunch of hippogriffs in the water.”

I blinked. “Wait, hippogriffs?”

Hydro nodded. “That's what we saw.”

“Good work,” I said, giving Hydro a fist bump. “You can go back to your usual posts for now.”

That was… huh. Hippogriffs didn’t just go overboard. Our shards gave us the ability to transform into seaponies, so why were the sunken ship’s crew not using them?

It was a question better speculated with more heads. I rushed back to the bridge, deciding to put the quarrel with Moraine on hold for now. “Captain!” I announced. “Flight just got back. It’s Itroscia. She’s sunk and her crew is in the water.”

“Sounds like they’re in for a long swim,” said Captain Virga. She didn’t seem worried, for the obvious reason. “Moraine, message headquarters and mark the location for—”

“They’re not seaponies,” I interrupted. “Hippogriffs are in the water.”

“What?” The captain rushed out from behind the wheel. “They didn’t transform?”

“The flight leader said they were all hippogriffs,” I confirmed.

Captain Virga took a second to mull it over and started pacing the length of the bridge. “What kind of defense measures does Mother of Pearl have on board, again?” she asked.

“Eight cannons, not a lot. Maybe enough to fend off a small attack,” said Moraine.

“Dammit,” the captain spat. “Give me a moment.” She went silent and continued pacing, her face tight with concentration. She stole occasional glances out the window at the smoke plume.

Moraine and I sat and stood in our respective places in awkward limbo, waiting on an answer from the captain. Seconds ticked by, and I grew more and more antsy with every passing moment. My mind flicked to the crew on the other side of the rocks, treading water in bodies not built for swimming. Right now, seconds were precious. A couple of minutes passed before I couldn’t take any more and blurted out, “We need an answer, Captain.”

She stopped in place and wheeled on me. “Well, I have one. We’re going with your play, Typhoon. Signal the merchants, tell them to ready their cannons and hunker down until we return. Navigator, find me the shortest route through The Blades.”

Moraine didn’t have an objection, to my surprise. She went to work on the charts without a word, and I did likewise, heading up to the lantern to send a message to Mother of Pearl.

‘Emergency. Ship sunk. Crew in jeopardy. Attempting rescue. Ready defenses. Hunker down until return.’ I signaled.

‘Good copy, good luck,’ came the reply, delayed by a few seconds.

The steam engines chuffed back to life, and Eidothea slowly eased forward. I was slightly nervous now for more than one reason. The cold front was approaching closer, jagged clouds on the leading edge spanning the whole horizon like the jaws of a monster the size of the world, ready to clamp down on us. Navigating a dangerously narrow channel with strong winds approaching was a fast recipe for getting blown into the rocks and sunk. Or ambushed.

I pushed the thought out of my mind. The hunting ships were nowhere near, so the likelihood of us getting attacked was remote. It was probably just a navigational mishap like with Kraken’s Beak. Everything was fine.

But that didn’t explain why the crew didn’t transform.

I hopped down from the signal light and took note of the chatter among the sailors. The information was spreading, so I needed to get a head start. “Everygriff, listen up! We’re going into search and rescue mode as soon as we’re through the rocks. All griffs not helping us navigate, go below decks and ready the medical supplies! Get side netting ready and bring every life jacket we have to the main deck. Let’s go!”

While the rest of the crew scrambled to follow orders, I followed them below deck. I desperately hoped that this wouldn’t be necessary, but everything about what we were heading into seemed wrong. If we were going in, we needed to be ready on all fronts.

The gun deck was a cramped, musty space that smelled strongly of sulfur, the ceiling barely tall enough to stand at full height. Given the largely peaceful nature of the seas in the couple of years since Eidothea was launched, the gun deck was ironically the quietest of the three lower decks, often doubling as lounge space. I silently hoped that wouldn’t change today.

“Powder Keg!” I called.

“Yeah?” he answered from near the bow. He popped his head up from behind a cannon and stood, making his way toward midship where I stood, craning his neck down a bit to clear the support beams in the ceiling. “I don’t get visits from you all that much. What’s all this I’m hearing about a shipwreck?”

“Itroscia is sunk in The Blades. We’re attempting search and rescue.”

“The Blades?” he asked. He reached through one of the gun ports and propped open its cover, revealing a view of a large rock wall passing the edge of the ship. We were in the strait now. “Well shit. I have a buddy on that ship,” said Powder Keg. “Is the crew alright?”

“We hope so. Just in case things go south, we need the cannons ready.”

Powder Keg grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.” He let out a screech to get the attention of the rest of the gun deck crew, who were lounging about the space. “Get up, you lazy sacks! It’s showtime. Load the cannons and roll ’em out!”

“I don’t think we’ll need them,” I said. “Better safe than sorry, I guess.”

Powder Keg cackled. “Now where’s the fun in that?”

I chose not to respond to that. “Just be ready for firing orders if they come.”

“Can do!” I left the gun deck as Powder Keg launched into a series of joy-filled commands to his subordinates. I wished I could be happy for him to get a chance to use his cannons for something other than practice.

I returned to the main deck as we completed a hairpin turn, avoiding a rock shaped like a gigantic ace of spades. I could see ahead of us the rocks gave way again to open water, though the horizon held more of the dangerous outcroppings. A wide strait in the middle of The Blades, right where the smoke plume was coming from. A perfect place for an inexperienced captain to get cocky and make a mistake. We passed the spade rock close on the port side, and finally, the source of the smoke came into view.

The ocean was on fire. A great pool of black stained the surface of the water, bright orange flames licking at the expansive smudge and giving rise to the dense, dark plume of smoke. Oil. I could see no other signs of wreckage from the distance. I flew up to the lookout’s nest for a better vantage point.

“Let me see your spyglass,” I said to him as I landed. Bluesy was watching the fire intently with his telescope, so much so that he yelped in surprise and nearly dropped it.

He eyed me for a second, plumage fluffed out and a faint redness in his cheeks. “Sure,” he said, offering it to me. I took it and focused on the water around the flames. Sure enough, there was wreckage. A widely scattered field of debris littered the water, and I could see little smudges of color around it. Some were clinging to the pieces of debris, others treading water and struggling to hold their heads above the surface.

Why were they not transforming? What happened to their shards? I rubbed mine between my claws. Was something here disrupting their magic?

Rescue teams formed from the crew members on deck. The same group of five that flew the scouting mission took to the sky to spot survivors from the air, and another eight transformed into seaponies with bright pink flashes as they jumped overboard. They would be able to start the rescue process while Eidothea lumbered the remaining half-mile at the speed of molasses.

I hopped down to the main deck. The shards were still working for us. My nerves grew a little more restless. “Steady as she goes, griffs,” I said to the crew as I walked laps around the main deck.

Finally, at that moment, the cold front overtook us. The wind shifted as the arcus cloud passed overhead, darkening the sky. A few droplets of rain mixed in with the spray it kicked up. The temperature dropped sharply, and the ship groaned as it fought the wind’s force.

We all collectively ignored it, anxiously eyeing the wreck ahead. There were still no signs of Itroscia on the surface, only random bits of splintered wood and other debris floating among the stricken crew.

“Here comes one!” Bluesy shouted, pointing down toward the front of the ship. I rushed to the bow and sure enough, an unaccompanied purple hippogriff was swimming toward us. The dive team must have missed them when going for the main group closer to the wreckage. One of the crew still onboard took initiative and dove over the railing, transforming into a seapony a split second before hitting the water.

Commotion erupted from the port side a few moments later. Sailors hoisted the first survivor and her rescuer over the edge of the ship, where she collapsed in a gasping heap on the deck.

I rushed to her side and began assessing her for wounds. She had a number of cuts and scrapes, her coat matted with blood and oil. One of her hind legs was cocked at an unnatural angle, broken above the pastern, but she was okay. Nothing immediately life-threatening.

“What’s your name?” I asked. Somegriff passed me a canteen and I offered it to her. She was dazed, her eyes taking an unnaturally long time to focus in. Once she found the water, she snatched it from my claws and drank greedily. I let her have a couple of pulls, but then took it back from her. “Easy, you’ll make yourself sick.”

The hippogriff sputtered and coughed. “Berry,” she gasped, collapsing back onto the deck. “Berry Breeze.”

“What was the name of your ship?”

“Itroscia,” Berry Breeze croaked, confirming our assumption. She was showing signs of shock, her rapid, gasping breaths shaking her entire body. Her eyes once again lost focus, staring off somewhere into the sky above us.

“Someone get some towels,” I ordered, and a crew member disappeared from the huddle around Berry. “Stay with me, you’re alright. We’re gonna take you back to land.”

No response. Her breath hitched in her throat, and tears streamed out of her eyes.

“Hey hey hey, everygriff back up, give her some air.” I shooed the crowd back. “We’ve got a lot more survivors coming, I want you all ready to help them aboard.” Slowly, they dispersed.

“I’m here!” announced a voice from above the commotion. I breathed a sigh of relief as a pale pink hippogriff on the shorter side parted her way through the crowd—Lieutenant Cardia, Eidothea’s medical officer. Our rescued griff was in good hands. “I’m here. You’re safe. Take deep breaths and count to one hundred,” said Cardia to Berry.

I took a step back to let the good doctor work. “Alright, back to your posts!” I shouted. “We’re about to have a lot more coming aboard!” The sailors did as they were ordered, and the journey toward the wreckage continued. I pulled out my spyglass to keep searching for survivors, but just as I did, I felt another particularly cold rush of wind from behind and looked toward the stern.

A fog bank was bearing down on us, and it was then that my nervousness began transitioning into fear. As the mist rushed over The Blades and overtook us, I silently cursed the weather. It was now going to be harder to rescue the sailors and even harder to make our way out of here safely. The mist rolled overhead and obscured the field of survivors, the fire on the sea surface lighting the fog with a sickly orange glow.

A field of survivors. Hippogriffs in the water. It still made no sense that they weren’t transformed. I looked over my shoulder at Berry Breeze, noting that her shard was missing. That would explain why she was still a hippogriff, but the rest of Itroscia’s crew? I could buy that she lost hers during the sinking, but surely there would be at least one of them somewhere that they could have passed around to save themselves. A wave of unease reverberated through my gut. Something was up, and I needed to get to the bottom of it. I crossed the deck and returned to the survivor. Cardia had made quick work of her injuries, the larger cuts already bandaged while she finished the process of stabilizing Berry Breeze’s hind leg.

“How’s she doing?” I asked.

“She’s had a rough go of it. Looks like she’s going through some mild shock. Broken leg, lacerations, a couple of burns,” said Cardia. She bit off the bandage and finished wrapping the broken limb as tightly as she could manage. “I’m going to need help carrying her down below.”

I shook my head. “You stay up here. There’s a lot more coming aboard. I’ll get her moved.” Cardia nodded, steely resignation in her eyes, and continued with her work.

I turned my attention to Berry Breeze. Her breaths were shallow and rapid, but she had stabilized a bit, and she no longer had the thousand-yard stare. She needed to recover, but the need for answers carried equal weight. “Hey Berry, do you feel like you can talk to me?” I asked.

She hesitated, but locked her eyes on me and nodded.

“Good. What happened to your shard?”

Berry gasped and clutched at her chest, feeling around for the necklace that wasn’t there. “They took it!” she shouted, her hysterics coming back. “They took them all!” Her breathing quickened sharply as she squirmed around.

“Ty! This isn’t the time for an interrogation,” Cardia protested.

“Whoa hey, easy. It’s okay,” I assured her, ignoring Cardia. I feared the response to my next question more than I feared her. “Who are they?”

Berry Breeze’s eyes came back into focus, and she locked with mine. “They’re going to take yours too.”

I swallowed, my mouth suddenly full of sand. “What? Who is coming to take my shard?”

Berry Breeze thrashed, her broken leg kicking Cardia in the beak as she tried to scramble herself upright. “It isn’t safe here!” Berry shouted. I grabbed her and pinned her down to the deck, struggling against her strength. She kept struggling, tears streaming down her face freely. “What are you doing? Let me go!” she screamed. “They’re going to kill us all!”

“I need help here!” I called over two other sailors, and they helped me restrain the frantic hippogriff. “Let’s get her below deck. She’s not herself.”

A rushing sound split the air open. I looked up just in time to see a cannonball smash into the mainmast, ripping through the crow’s nest. I only had time to dive out of the way myself before the splintered remains of the tip of the mast fell to the deck right where I was standing.

“Silverstream! Dinner will be ready in ten!” Sky Beak’s voice was muffled through the door. If I’d had music playing, I don’t think I would have heard him.

“Ok, Dad!” I yelled, assuming he’d hear me. Tonight was lobster night. I missed the days when Mom and Dad used to combine their cooking powers. Mom made the kelp fritters, Dad’s specialty was the lobster. My stomach rumbled at the thought of my favorite meal from days gone bye. Since Dad and I moved to Mount Aris, we rarely ate all together as a family.

Tonight, we only had half of the equation. Terramar was with Mom tonight, so it was just me and Dad for dinner. Lobster without kelp fritters. I was hungry, but I had something more important on my mind: math.

“Add three, carry the two…” I muttered under my breath, tapping a talon against my beak. The personality test results required a lot of calculation to get to the meat of the matter. Somewhere in the mix of numbers and letters spread out on the page before me resided the truth about Gallus.

Math always got a bad rap in schools, but I loved it. I enjoyed seeing patterns and figuring out how things worked with just some symbols on a piece of paper.

Sweat pooled on my brow as I worked, my brain running at full capacity. I was nearing the answer. Just a few more computations before I would have a picture of Gallus in rock-solid, quantifiable data. I took a glance over at the instructions one more time to ensure that I was adding and subtracting the right numbers and checked my work. The mess of values and variables condensed down into just three.

It was done. Centering came first, and he scored low: 24, firmly in the introvert category. That made sense, considering his closed off and shuttered nature. I smiled. The test was accurate after all!

For the next trait, Flexibility, he scored 53, just barely falling into the Adaptable category. Again, it made sense. He was pretty adaptable, but he also liked his routines when he could establish them.

The last metric featured a high score of 70, tipping him to the Rational side of the Rational/Emotional scale. Again, it made sense. Gallus was a thinky sort of guy. I’d only ever seen him get emotional in the middle of big moments, like when he confessed to us about his lack of family during the winter holidays.

Or on Saturday.

I scooted back from my work and rubbed my eyes, blinking hard. I had so totally focused on my work that the room was dark now, all of the day’s light gone from the windows. It must have been a couple of hours since I first sat down and looked at what I was doing. My stomach rumbled, but that didn’t matter. Now that I had my data, I had work to do.

So Gallus was I-R-A: Introverted-Rational-Adaptable. I could work with that. My attention turned from the papers scattered across the floor to the imposing figure of the easel, standing in the shadows. It knew I was coming for it next.

The colors on my palette were still wet from the painting session over the weekend, though what remained was mixed together and dried in a few spots where it had been spread more thinly. I elected to clean it and start anew, using a knife to scrape the old paints into the trash. A fresh perspective needed fresh paint.

With my palette refilled and fresh colors ready to go, I wheeled the easel out from the corner and put it in the center of the floor. I took a deep breath and took in the canvas, the lines from my previous attempt waiting to be joined by new friends, ready to be completed.

Introverted. Rational. Adaptable. What colors represented that? Hmmm…

Seconds ticked by with my brush hovering over the palette. My eyes darted from color to color, searching for a complement to the yellow, blue, and pink stripes already on the canvas.

Green? I considered it for a moment and shook my head. It was directly between blue and yellow on the color wheel—not complementary to either. It didn’t even correspond to the subject matter. I didn’t envy him, nor was he envious of me. It was just a random choice, but I had already started the painting with randomness! It didn’t need more of that.

I consulted the literature that came with the personality test, flipping through the pages until I found the information on Gallus’s personality type.

I-R-A personality types are resilient, independent thinkers who love an intellectual challenge, the pamphlet read. They are very focused on what’s real, and tend to be closed off—both in their resistance to trying new things and the concealment of their truest feelings.

I started losing focus as I read deeper into the writeup, even though it didn’t continue that much longer. The literature was more concerned with happy little icons doing average, everyday things than it was with providing the insight I needed. It made sense, given that the personality test had only cost me ten bits at the drugstore.

“I already know all of this!” I shouted, dropping the booklet on the floor.

I looked down at my brush and back up at the canvas. Did I really need any more? I knew Gallus. I knew him pretty well, all things considered! I could easily assign colors to those traits I knew about him. I could finish the painting right now. I could make it look good. An abstract painting could take liberties—maybe the finished result wouldn’t be what I envisioned, but that was okay. Nogriff would ever know.

Introversion would be a muted color. Pastel green? These core personality traits would fill some areas on the canvas, background colors that I probably should have laid down before I painted the first stripes a few days ago. Rational screamed a deep red, maybe with a little bit of orange mixed in? I could blend the two a bit, maybe do a three-way gradient once I’d picked a color for adaptability?

I swirled some colors together until I felt satisfied with the shade of green, but paused when I brought it up to the canvas. Something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t place a claw on it. Was it the colors? Sure, green blended into red wasn’t the most pleasing combo, but something else bothered me. Several minutes ticked by as my brush danced over the palette, never settling on a color or a mixture to begin. I slowly grew more frustrated at my indecisiveness until I took a step back and looked at the whole easel.

Am I going to sacrifice my artistic integrity just so I can finish the painting faster?

Even with the personality test, I knew nothing more about Gallus than I did last week. Yes, he closed himself off and concealed some of his true self from me, just like the test result said. It was accurate, but only as a broad generalization.

I didn’t want my painting to be a generalization.

I stared at the canvas for several more minutes, searching for a way around the problem, but none came to mind. My enthusiasm slowly withered until I finally breathed a defeated sigh out of my nose and set the palette aside. Pushing the easel back into its corner, I resigned it to be finished later, and turned it to face the wall. The last thing I wanted was for it to stare at me while I slept.

My palette was fully loaded with colors, but I had no idea what to use them for. My muse was stuck on Gallus’s painting, and it wouldn’t budge until I finished it. Unless I cracked the case in the next couple of days, the paints would dry up and go bad, never used to create anything.

That thought made me sad, but provided me with a little bit of motivation to keep working on the problem. I needed a new tactic, something that would yield me some real results, like what I’d gotten when he fell into the stackberries.

Do I need to push him into another thornbush to get him to be real with me?

I snorted, laughing off the ridiculousness of the thought.

Unless...

I blinked and shook my head. No. I would not inflict pain on Gallus to get him to talk to me. There had to be a better way, even if it was hard. I just needed to hang out with him more, and then the information would come. If I could hang out with him, that was. I hadn’t seen him at all since Saturday when he’d left in a rush because he needed to help his roommate move a fridge.

I understood the urgency. Refrigerators are heavy, but he could have at least mentioned it to me at some point before just running off. I didn’t even get to say goodbye to him! The way he acted, it almost seemed like he was nervous about something.

It was a good thing I knew he didn’t get nervous easily except in tight spaces, otherwise I’d think I was the one making him nervous. Boys sure could be weird sometimes.

“Dinner is ready!” Dad called from the other room.

Not a moment too soon. I flipped the lights off and went downstairs to get food, but thoughts of griffons didn’t leave my mind immediately.

“I wonder what Gallus is up to…”

“GRIFFON!”

I froze in my tracks, the feathers on the back of my neck bristling as I spun around to find the source of the shout. Cedar Breeze stood at the door to his office, and he motioned with a claw for me to come. I let out the breath I’d been holding and walked back into the shade under the dry dock overhang. The sudden lack of oppressive heat from the sun made me shudder. Or maybe it was the nerves?

I closed the door to the cramped office behind me and faced a cold glare from the lieutenant. “Sir?” I asked.

“What do you have to say for yourself, recruit?”

“I don’t know?”

“Apparently you have a lot to say. Word on the street is that you’re a bit of a chatterbox,” Cedar Breeze said, his tone uncharacteristically serious.

“Is this about my job?” I asked. “Because I hardly say a word to anygriff all day long.”

“Not to the crews, no, but I hear you like talking on your personal time. Chatting with strange hippogriffs who show up on your doorstep unannounced?”

I filled in the gaps. “The reporter?”

Cedar Breeze nodded.

“How did you—”

He shook off the question before I could finish it. “I have my sources,” he said. “Who was it? Was it Valiant Wing?”

“Yes.”

Cedar Breeze groaned. “Of course it was her. You know she’s the biggest muckraker at the Daily, right?”

“No, I—”

“Of course you didn’t. You haven’t lived here for two weeks yet.” Cedar Breeze sat down at his desk and wiped a wing across his forehead. “Let me tell you something. I was a journalist before I joined the navy, so I know how they operate. Those griffs will tear you down if you give them anything they can use against you. What did you tell her?”

I shrugged. “I don’t remember half of it. We mostly talked about how I’m the only griffon to ever work here.”

“I guess it shouldn’t concern me too much since I’m not in PR, but there’s something we usually tell our recruits on day one: never talk to the press. I figured you’d have less faith in strangers since you’re a griffon.”

I was taken aback, but only slightly. Nearly every time the lieutenant talked to me, he made at least one jab at how greedy or hostile griffons were. Every. Time. Because he was my superior, I knew I wasn’t in a position to counter it, so I stayed silent even though it irked me that I couldn’t call him on it.

There was a pause where he probably expected me to say something, but I kept my beak shut. After a moment, Cedar Breeze continued. “Okay, so you talked to the press unsupervised. That’s not good, but I doubt you gave away anything that would cause any real damage. I mean, you’re just on trash detail!” A raspy, very one-sided laugh echoed in my ears. The lieutenant cleared his throat. “Alright. I bet you’re going to hear about this from somewhere higher up the ladder soon. Be ready, because you’re probably gonna get one heck of a chewing out for it.”

“I’ll be ready for that,” I said, my eye twitching.

“Good. Dismissed,” said Cedar Breeze, waving me off and turning his attention back to whatever was on the jumbled mess of his desk. I didn’t care what it was, so I left on the downswing of a very unenthusiastic salute.

The trash had been particularly nasty that day, rotten leftovers from what I assumed was a fish chili night a week ago—dumped haphazardly into a leaky trash bag. I couldn’t force myself not to shower when I got back to my apartment. I spent extra time working the soap and water in between all of my feathers, deep-cleaning the sweat and rancid garbage fumes. I must have been in there the better part of an hour. Not that it mattered. I lived alone now.

The water got rid of the day’s funk, but it didn’t get rid of the tension I’d built up. I was annoyed and a little bit fearful of whatever reprimands were surely coming down the line for me. If they were so concerned about security, why didn’t they give me a briefing on what I could and couldn’t do on my own time? I was completely untrained, and they were getting mad at me for that?

I grumbled to myself as I paced around the den. I needed a distraction, and it didn’t feel right poking around in Ty’s room, so that left me with very few activities to occupy myself. I had a book I bought at one of the yard sales, so I sat down in my recliner and cracked open Nautical Terminology for Idiots.

I only got through the first page of the introduction before my eyes drooped. Exhaustion from the heat and exertion caught up with me all at once. I closed the book and rested my head against the chair.

The next thing I knew, I woke up in a pitch-dark room with my head hanging over the armrest. My right wing was pinned awkwardly under my ribcage, the wing joint complaining loudly about the situation. I propped myself up and folded the wing in, the dull ache subsiding a bit once the pressure eased.

I must have fallen asleep for several hours. I had to feel my way over to the light switch, the magilights in the room firing up with the dull hum of their enchantments. I stifled a yawn as I took a look around the room. Falling asleep had helped dull the unpleasantness of the day, but now I was wide awake at ten o’clock.

I would go stir-crazy if I stayed here for the rest of the night. Maybe a couple of laps around the mountain would clear my head and let me go back to sleep. I shut the lights off in my room and headed down the ramp but stopped at the front door.

Should I? Going out at night was something I reserved for emergencies back home in Griffonstone. After dark, the city transformed from callous to dangerous. Any griffon encountered on the darkened streets could be a threat—a mugger or maybe kidnapper if they were bigger than you.

But this place was different. Hippogriffs were hardly the self-serving opportunists that griffons were. A loner on the street at night here was more likely to get walked home than mugged. Hippogriffs were really not all that different than ponies, maybe only slightly less nice. Really, they were just tall ponies with beaks and claws.

I chuckled to myself as I imagined how ridiculous Princess Celestia would look if she grew a beak. Or maybe it wouldn’t be very ridiculous at all? She’d basically be a hippogriff without any plumage.

Still, better safe than sorry. I didn’t bother taking anything with me except for my keys. If I was going to get mugged, they’d get away with just me at best—I had plenty of sharp edges on me to discourage that.

I locked up the apartment and started walking at a brisk pace. The night air on the mountaintop was growing chilly, the nearly-full moon casting the street in dim streaks of moonlight. Since I’d lived here, I had always turned left when leaving the apartment. Tonight, I decided to turn right. Though it wasn’t exactly prime sightseeing time, it still counted as exploration.

Mount Aris was deceptively spacious, a place that looked considerably smaller from the outside. Walking around in the city proper, the tree canopy obscuring just how limited the space on the mountaintop actually was, I didn’t feel surrounded on three sides by gigantic stone wings fifty feet thick.

I walked in a straight line for a couple of minutes. I couldn’t tell for sure what direction I was heading, but the general slope to the right told me I was walking toward the south. Ahead of me, the murky darkness of the tree canopy solidified, and I knew I’d found the south wing. That meant I had three options: left, right, or up.

I needed to get my muscles working, so I went vertical, spreading my wings and taking off straight up. Some branches brushed me as I broke out of the canopy, but nothing close to what I’d crashed through when I went into the stackberry bush. I still itched a little bit from that.

When I broke through the trees, I noticed the stars... or the lack thereof. One of the things I’d missed about home was the night sky. Equestria had a bit of a light pollution problem, and the stars were never as brilliant there as they were back home in Griffonstone. Mount Aris had the same kind of sky as Ponyville, a bit hazy from all of the lights on the mountain.

I was something of an amateur astronomer back home, or at least as much as I could be, considering that I couldn’t afford a telescope. I still couldn’t, even with a navy salary. I always liked looking at the stars in my free time. I liked finding patterns and watching how different constellations drifted across the sky throughout the year, and as cheesy as it was, they made me hopeful. The vast universe held plenty of possibilities, each little point in the sky representing another place that existed far away from Griffonstone. I knew I wouldn’t be stuck in that backwater slum forever.

And look at me now. Crappy job, no prospects, terrified of my own friend.

I shook the thought from my head and kept flying, gaining some altitude. The mountain at night looked a bit like the big Hearth’s Warming tree I’d helped set up and then sabotaged over winter break, covered with glass house ornaments and illuminated by randomly scattered outdoor lights. I was directly over the Harmonizing Heights, close to the spire now, the ledge I’d fled from on Saturday looming faintly against the backdrop of the sky.

More memories bubbled to the surface. Silverstream being the first volunteer to stay with me after I confessed and got sentenced to remain in Ponyville over the break. Silverstream being a little clingy toward me for a few days after the Tree of Harmony put us through that fear gauntlet. Silverstream putting in so much more effort than she needed to so I could come here for the summer.

I didn’t understand why I did it, but I came in for a landing on the ledge, knowing full well what I was doing to myself by coming here. My eyes were well-adjusted to the dark now, and I could see all of the details of the stone, even a couple of claw marks on it. A blue feather was tucked tightly into a crack. I dug it out with a talon and held it up to my face.

Yep, it was mine. I sighed as I twirled the feather in my claws. It had probably come loose when I scrambled to dive over the edge and run from her. That had been four days ago. I hadn’t talked to Silverstream since.

In fact, I’d been avoiding her. Yesterday she came over and, thankfully, didn’t let herself in this time. I hid in the bathroom, sitting in the pit with the lights off and praying she wouldn’t come in to try and find me. Apparently she got the message last time when she’d barged in and woke me up. After knocking for a couple of minutes, she left me alone.

I felt a little bit guilty, but I couldn’t blame myself for it like I could with all the other little slights I’d been throwing her way. If I had talked to her then, I would have broken down and blabbed about everything. The lies. The crush. All of it.

I needed more time to be able to face her. I needed to be able to put all of this nonsense behind me and get back to normal, and I felt that I was nearing the verge of a breakthrough. A few more days, and I would have all of those feelings repressed to the point that I could ignore them and let them die in the depths of my subconscious.

Not a moment too soon, as far as I cared. Without Ty in the house, I lived a solitary existence once again. I missed her. I wanted to hang out like we did last week. But I still needed time, and that was when I realized where I was. This was one of her favorite spots, and even though it was late, my chances of running into her were significantly higher up here than elsewhere on the mountain.

Not to mention that I hadn’t fed Sassafrass. I needed to head back, so I spread my wings and started coasting back down toward the city.

I landed on Main Street and opted to finish up with a little more walking. There were a few hippogriffs out on the street, though all of the open markets were shuttered for the evening. I kind of liked it, the usually bustling market all still and peaceful under the night sky.

I turned down the side street I had taken with Silverstream when we walked here before the incident on Saturday. The street was dark, the tree canopy covering the road and filtering most of the moonlight out like when I’d left. A few street lamps dotted the road, but the majority of them were unlit.

I kept my eyes out for the turn onto my street, but as I kept walking, it didn’t seem to be coming up where I thought it would. I kept walking for a while, but the intersection didn’t appear. I was heading downhill, toward the front of the city.

“Took the wrong turn,” I grumbled, doing an about-face and starting back the way I’d come. Not that it was a big deal. More exercise to tire me out, I couldn’t complain.

After a few more minutes of walking, Main Street neared once again. One more try—after that, I’d just fly up and come in on my usual return-from-work route. I noticed a tiny bit of grogginess creeping its way back into my eyes, so maybe by the time I got back—

Movement. My eyes darted to a tree house on the right. A shadow had just slipped around the back side of it. My hackles raised, but I gave myself a shakedown to quiet them. This wasn’t Griffonstone. I wasn’t about to get attacked.

I kept on my way, but on the other side of the tree, the shadow reappeared, darting to the next one, the hippogriff’s hind hooves audible against the dirt. Hippogriffs weren’t as stealthy as griffons, though this one was making a reasonable effort to try.

Then another shadow darted past, right on the heels of the last one. Instinctively, I crouched down, lowering my profile. Surely they knew I was here, as I’d just been walking out in the open. I slipped to the side of the path, hunkering down in the shadows, my ears perking forward to listen closely to any sounds I could make out. I couldn’t hear or see anything. The two shadowy figures seemed to have stopped behind a tree.

What are they up to? I wondered. A few more seconds passed with no more movement, and I slowly crept forward, putting more weight on my rear paws and walking on my knuckles to silence the clicks of my talons. I slunk along on the side of the road, hugging the edge of the streetlight’s glow. The shadowy figures were heading toward Main Street. There was no sign of them in the next gap between trees, and so I kept moving up.

There. They were on the move again. I crossed the road and decided to tail them a little closer, slipping between the buildings on the same back alley path they were using. It was risky business if any more hippogriffs were following them since they could come up behind me and catch me, but I had faith in my stealth. Though my feathers were bright blue, they blended well in the dark.

Wait. Why am I doing this? What those two mysterious hippogriffs were doing out here at night shouldn’t have been any of my concern. All I needed to worry about right now was the lizard waiting for her dinner back at home.

But what I needed to do didn’t quite align with what I wanted to do. Slinking around under the cover of night? That was interesting. I didn’t need to know what they were doing, but I was morbidly curious. I kept on their tail, careful to leave just enough distance that they wouldn’t notice me.

They paused at Main Street, hiding behind a closed market stand, watching and whispering to each other. They held for several minutes, peeking their heads out periodically. A few hippogriffs passed on the road here and there, and it became clear to me that they were waiting until the coast was clear to cross the wide thoroughfare unnoticed. I hunkered down next to a bush about fifty feet behind them.

Suddenly, they jumped up and broke out into a dead sprint, darting across the wide open street, both laden with some sort of packs over their backs. The leader was orange, a bit shorter and faster than the griff behind her, a pale gray male based on his stockier build.

They were probably sneaking around because of the contents of their packs. I fixated on those. Had they robbed someone? I slunk across the gantlet of street lights after them, hoping I would make it without being seen.

A few twists and turns down the back alleys north of Main Street, and I got my answer. They disappeared around a corner, and when I poked my head out, I was practically staring right up at them, just a couple of feet away. I froze, but they didn’t seem to notice me. The leader stood on the doorstep of the corner building, which she knocked on three times. I still hadn’t been noticed, so I slunk backwards and hid myself behind a trash can sitting by the road.

The door opened quickly, and the two mysterious griffs disappeared into the building, the door slamming shut behind them.

“So that’s it?” I muttered with a frown. Pretty anticlimactic for all the sneaking around. I waited a minute, and when no more signs of activity showed, I stood up to make tracks for home.

The door swung open, and out stepped the orange hippogriff. I sunk back into my hiding place, watching carefully and holding my breath as she scanned the horizon. A few seconds later, her gray partner in crime also came out. Neither of them had their packs, but the gray one held a bag of something in his claws. I couldn’t make out what it was in the dark, but I could hear it.

Coins. A lot of them.

Wordlessly, the two shared a fist bump and started on their way, walking right past my hiding spot without noticing me. They slipped around a corner, and once I was satisfied they were clear, I stood up and walked out to the main road.

That was a lot of money. Based on the size of the coin sack, at least five hundred bits—about what I made in a month. I found the right road home this time and spent the rest of the walk thinking about what they were going to do with all of that money. I wondered what I could do with all of that money.

Sassafrass was attempting to climb the glass walls of her tank when I got into Ty’s room, like her lizardy way of protesting me being late with her food. As Ty had instructed, I let a small crowd of ants crawl up onto the damp sponge before I transferred it into the tank, where Sassafrass started picking them off hungrily with her dart-like tongue.

As I watched her eat, I looked around the room at the various shelves stuffed with knickknacks. Ty had quite a collection of junk in here, most notably a guitar and a ukulele propped up on the wall. It was left basically as he lived in here, and it was interesting to see all of the things he had stowed, like I was viewing a small snapshot of his personality in physical form.

“I wonder what Ty’s been up to…”

I rolled onto my stomach and pushed myself up from the deck. I was vaguely aware of the dull ache where I’d landed on my shoulder when I dove, but it didn’t matter.

The lookout’s nest was gone. Debris littered the deck, small fragments of the shattered nest surrounding two large halves of it that had crashed into the deck, buckling it in a couple of places.

It fell right on top of Berry Breeze and Cardia.

Eidothea’s lookout nest was relatively large, a full platform atop the mainmast instead of the barrel-sized ones that cheaper ships used, and now it was sitting in shambles on the deck. I rushed over to the debris, and I found that my worst fears were realized.

A pair of wine-red hind legs were sticking out from under one half of the platform, one of them wrapped in a splint.

My training had prepared me for crisis scenarios. I knew that keeping a calm and level head would create a more effective response to the problem. In that moment, knowing that a hippogriff was under the debris, that immediately went out the window. I panicked and grabbed at the rubble, feebly attempting to lift it off of Berry Breeze. It didn’t budge.

“Help me!” I shouted. One by one, crew members gathered around and took up positions. We heaved on three, lifting the heavy mass of mangled wood off of the hippogriff below. We moved it to the side and dropped it. It didn’t matter anymore.

Cardia, who must have jumped out of the way as I did, was already by Berry Breeze’s side when we finished moving the debris, but as soon as I laid eyes on the victim… I knew. There was too much blood. Cardia looked up at me and shook her head, a forlorn look of resignation on her face.

I felt sick. Angry. Guilty. Emotions I didn’t know about boiled to the surface, ready to erupt, but before they could come out, I was pulled back to reality by a very candid reminder of what did this in the first place. Another cannonball whizzed through the air, but this time way off the mark, sailing well clear of the stern and hitting the water on the far side of the ship.

Right. We’re still under fire.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and pulled myself together. I was the first mate, so I had a job to do. If I cracked now, we were as good as dead. “Battle stations!” I screamed, twirling my wrist in a circle above my head, signalling to the crew to get a move on. “I need eyes on! Did anyone see what side that came from?”

“Starboard bow!” shouted a sailor. I crossed over from the port side and peered out into the fog, leaning forward and squinting hard to try and make out anything in the mist, but there was nothing there but a gray wall.

Another cannon report in the distance was almost immediately followed by the sinister hiss of the cannonball as it passed overhead, missing so high that I never heard a splash on the other side.

“They’re firing blind,” I said, thinking out loud. “The one that hit the crow’s nest was just beginner’s luck.”

I still couldn’t see the source of the cannonfire thanks to the fog, but on the next shot, I saw the faintest flash in the mist before the next ball sailed by us, this time a little closer but still a fairly wide miss. We didn’t have much time before they got lucky again. I folded up my sightglass and rushed across the deck with wings spread, bypassing the ladder entirely.

Captain Virga watched me burst through the wheelhouse door, and I could see the tension in her eyes. “Typhoon, would you mind telling me what the hell is happening out there?” she asked.

“The crow’s nest took a direct hit and we lost part of the mainmast. I’m not sure if Bluesy was at his post when it struck, but we confirmed a casualty from the debris falling on a rescued sailor.” The words tasted acrid coming out. I wanted to scream, but I had to hold it together.

“Any idea where it came from?”

“Somewhere off the starboard bow. No idea on the range, but they’re totally obscured by the mist.”

Moraine turned around in her seat. “How the hell did they hit us on the first shot if they can’t see us?”

“Lucky shot,” I said. “Their aim isn’t great, but they must have been watching us and attacked right after the fog rolled in. They’re firing blind, but I think they’re trying to dial it in.”

The captain nodded and began turning the wheel to the right, feathering the throttle to the steam engines. “I’m turning toward them to present a smaller target. Moraine, get on the cube and notify command that we are taking fire from unknown hostile elements and intend to neutralize the threat.”

“Aye, Captain,” said Moraine, picking up the communication crystal.

“How many of the crew are assisting with the rescue?” the captain asked of me.

“A couple dozen are out there now. Should we call them back?”

The captain pondered it for a moment, but shook her head. “No, they need to keep rounding up the survivors. Any idea on the size of what we’re up against?”

I shook my head. “Can’t see them.”

“We need to send spotters out there then,” said Captain Virga.

“I’ll do it, ma’am,” I blurted. The job would have been better left to gunnery spotters, but I wanted to do something, not sit here with cannonballs flying around me.

I expected the captain to turn me down, but instead she nodded and levelled an intense stare at me. “Alright,” she said. “Find that ship, and do it before they start scoring hits again.”

I snapped off a salute and quickly did an about-face before I could let my nerves show. I exited the bridge and jumped down to the deck. “Hydro!” I shouted, finding the big blue leader of the previous reconnaissance flight. He was assisting with tossing the lookout’s nest debris over the side to clear the deck.

“Sir!” He stepped out from the gathering of sailors on deck.

“You’re on me. We’re sniffing them out.” He was wearing his equipment from the first flight he made, but I still needed some for myself. I headed below to the gun deck and outfitted myself with flight goggles and a sword from the armory room at the back of the gun deck, fitting the belt snugly around my midsection.

“Ready?” I asked.

Hydro put his goggles on and nodded. My pair were tinted for flying in sunny weather, but they would work. I secured them over my eyes and we took off at a dead sprint, leaping over the railing and taking wing. We set off in the direction the cannonfire had come from: straight south, according to my compass. I thanked my old drill instructor for her insistence that I keep a compass on me because the ship faded into the mist immediately after we lifted off, leaving us with no landmarks except for the glowing blaze of Itroscia’s wreckage.

The flight lasted under a minute before we found out just how close we actually were. A muzzle flash cut through the mist just below us, and the telltale whizzing of the cannonball as it hurtled past. The source lurked just ahead, a dark silhouette slowly bleeding through the murky fog. Finally, I could see what we were up against.

“Seriously?” It was an enemy ship, alright. But it was small. Considerably smaller than Eidothea. A two-masted schooner—a little vessel obviously intended for civilian use but commandeered as a quick run-and-gun swashbuckler—useful for terrorizing unarmed fishing boats but horribly underpowered to deal with a fully-outfitted navy corvette like Eidothea. They must have only had one long gun on board, which they were aiming in our general direction. I held up a flattened hand, bringing Hydro and myself into a hover. “You seeing what I’m seeing?”

“Yep. That’s what took out our lookout nest?” he asked.

“Must be.”

“Weird that they’re shooting at us. Usually they just run away,” said Hydro. “Think they might have sunk Itroscia?”

I studied the faint silhouette below us as another cannon report cracked through the air from below. “I’d be shocked if they did it alone.”

Hydro nodded, keeping his eyes trained downward. “So, what do we do?”

“That’s up to the captain.”

We flew back to Eidothea at full speed, crashing headlong through the mist with abandon to get the information back as fast as possible. Once the ship appeared from the gray, I could see that the rescue operation was moving along. Our crew was using their shards to daisy-chain the survivors and let them transform into seaponies. A steady stream of them swam toward the ship, and they were gathering on the port side where the crew on board was changing them back so they could climb the netting we’d lowered over the side. I dismissed Hydro back to his post on deck as we landed. He went over to assist with bringing hippogriffs aboard, and I went straight to the bridge.

“It’s a schooner,” I said, closing the door behind me. “Looks like one long gun. About six hundred meters out.

“Just the one?” asked Captain Virga.

I nodded. “That’s the only source of cannon fire.”

Captain Virga seemed to sense the implication in my answer, frowning and scratching her beak. “They didn’t sink Itroscia.”

“That’s what I was thinking. It looks like they’re either making a diversion or leading us into a trap.”

Moraine scoffed, still working with the cube at the desk. “And we’re not already in the middle of one now?”

She made sense. We were alone out here, and our position would leave us with little in the way of tactical advantage.

“Whatever it is, we can’t continue the rescues if we have cannons trained on us,” I said. “They’ve already killed our lookout and one of the survivors. Can we spare some crew to fly over and take care of it? I can lead the mission.”

“Splitting our crew between that and the survivors would be dangerous,” said Captain Virga. “Divide and conquer, we’d be playing right into their hand.” The captain stared pensively out the window for a moment, and then she took a grip on the wheel. “Put the rescues on hold for now.”

I saluted and went outside, descending the ladder with haste in my step. I was about to make a lot of griffs unhappy. As much as I hated doing it, I had orders.

“Make way!” I bellowed, parting my way through the small crowd around the netting. The survivors were easy to distinguish from the regular crew by their soaked feathers. Their uniforms were in varying states of repair, many of them missing their bandanas. I peered over the side, watching a couple of sailors clamoring their way up the netting. Down below, a dark blue hippogriff who I remembered as Brutus clung to the edge of the netting just above the water line, using his shard one at a time to transform the seaponies back to hippogriffs. He had things surprisingly organized. “Hey Brutus!” I shouted.

“Ty?” he asked.

“Bring it in, sailor,” I said, waving my claws in a ‘come here’ gesture. He looked up at me quizzically, but nodded and started climbing up after the last hippogriff he’d de-fishified. This was met with a lot of shouts from the gathering of seaponies still waiting in the water. “We can’t take you all on right now,” I addressed them. “We have to go take out whoever is shooting at us before we can get the rest of you aboard. Stay here, we’ll be back for you as soon as we can.”

I turned away from the railing before their protests could meet my ears as anything more than a dull roar of voices.

I felt the ship gently accelerate. It was slower than if we had our sails out and a tailwind, but the steam engines did a passable job of getting us underway. As a corvette, Eidothea was sleek and built for speed as far as sailing ships went. The group of seaponies in the water drifted away slowly, and I could feel their anguished stares on my back even though I wasn’t watching them.

The crew continued tending to the several dozen new arrivals from Itroscia. Cardia directed the process of moving them down to the lower decks, the more severely injured griffs being carried down below by my crew. As I watched them shuffle down the ladders, a selfish thought crossed my mind. We were about to be extremely crowded with lots more mouths to feed for the rest of our voyage. Did we have enough supplies to get us to port, especially now that our mainmast was damaged?

I didn’t dwell on it. Those thoughts could wait until we didn’t have hostile ships firing on us, as another cannonball whizzing past us reminded me. The shots were still missing wildly because they couldn’t see us directly, but they were close enough to be problematic. Another random chance hit like the one that took out the crow’s nest could wreak havoc with even more griffs on board.

Our gunners would need to be briefed, so I joined the procession going down. The gun deck was a tense place, all of the gunners sitting ready by their cannons, peering out of the gun ports and watching tensely. Powder Keg was near the bow, his…

His arm was stuck down the bore of a cannon.

“What are you doing?” I asked incredulously.

“Powder’s wet,” he said. “Gotta get the shot out so we can replace it. I keep hearing cannonballs and a lot of racket upstairs. You got good news for me?”

I decided not to tell him about Bluesy. “We’re going after the pirates shooting at us. Is your crew ready for a full broadside?”

Powder Keg nodded. “Minus this one, we’re ready to go. Twenty-three cannons waiting for the signal.”

“You have it. You’re cleared to fire at will.”

He chuckled manically. I normally would have been off-put by his enthusiasm to shoot someone, but I was angry. The bastards on that schooner killed two griffs and Poseidon knew how many more on Itroscia.

I wanted to see them torn to shreds and sunk.

A few minutes passed in tense silence as we slowly made our way toward the pirates. The source of the cannon fire slowly drew closer, and I spent those minutes running back and forth ensuring that everything was squared away and ready to go. Any crew on deck was armed with swords, and when the silhouette of the offending ship finally appeared in the mist, we were as ready for combat as we could ever be.

As soon as we came into view, the cannon shots got a lot more accurate, one of them glancing off the hull on the port side and splashing into the water just off the stern. The stationary pirate ship ran out their sails in an attempt to dodge us, but we were too quick for them. We had been approaching them dead on, and then the ship started a right turn, lining up the port side for a pass on the pirates.

The seconds that ticked by as we approached carried the tension of a cable stretched between two planets. The main deck was silent, everygriff staring intently at the target. I half expected them to mount a last-ditch attack and send any flight-capable pirates at us, but they didn’t. The ships slowly aligned parallel to each other, and when we were abreast of them, Powder Keg got his wish.

The row of port-side cannons erupted, a zipper of lead running from bow to stern as the gunners got their first ever taste of action. One after the next. Boom. Boom. Boom. The percussion of each one was tangible in my face. I watched the pirate crew duck down as the hail of fire descended on them. Cannonballs ripped into the smaller vessel, punching gaping wounds into the hull. Wood splintered, followed by smoke. If I hadn’t been already deafened by our own cannons, I could have sworn I heard a faint scream from the distance. Or maybe it was just my ears ringing.

Cheers erupted from the crew on deck once the volley ended. We watched the enemy craft begin to list and smoke, fire breaking out in its stern. It was a triumph for Eidothea’s crew. The first engagement we’d ever participated in, unplanned and unprepared, and we came out on top. Someone hugged me spontaneously, and I halfheartedly accepted it.

It felt surreal. The vengeful part of me was sated. We’d torn them a new porthole below the waterline, just like I wanted!

But we’d probably just snuffed out dozens of souls. It wasn’t that I was horrified. They more than deserved it. I had no qualms about doing what we had to do, but I felt… different. Though I hadn’t lit the fuse, I had participated in the sinking of that boat. I had given the order to fire that resulted in the killing of other living beings.

What disturbed me was that I didn’t feel any remorse.

But the operation was far from over. I would have plenty of time to dwell on things later. We had work to do. With the immediate threat dispatched, we could turn around and go back for the rest of Itroscia’s crew, hopefully before any other pirates got too big for their britches and came at us.

Eidothea started its turn back toward the northwest, and I kept my eyes on the receding form of the pirate ship as it slipped lower into the water. I could see the tiny forms of several pirates scurrying around on the deck of the stricken ship, a few of them jumping overboard.

Okay, scratch that, I felt just a little bit of remorse—emphasis on little. They were still murderers and thieves.

Now that the immediate threat had been taken care of, I could think a little more about the big picture, in particular what Hydro and I had discussed.

“Think they might have sunk Itroscia?”

“I’d be shocked if they did.”

I learned long ago that gut feeling was never to be ignored. Though we had taken out the threat for now, my instincts told me that we only had part of the picture. Something else was lurking out there. The griffs we’d rescued from the Itroscia wreck could hopefully provide some useful information on what we needed to do. I mounted the ladder to go down to the crew deck, but stopped just before my head dipped below the surface.

Another cannonball whizzed past the bow.

The unease in my gut hardened into a dense mixture of anxiety and frustration. It couldn’t be as simple as just taking out one rogue ship, saving the crew, and going home as heroes. No, we just had to deal with an entire damn fleet.

I climbed back up the ladder, readying myself for another speech to calm the crew down, but then another cannonball came. And another. One from the port, one from the starboard, and two from the stern. Instead of assurances, I yelled the order to battle stations and dropped down the ladder. I took out my spyglass and extended it, searching for the source of the fire. The fog was thinning slowly as the cold front receded further away from us, giving me a bit more range. This time, the sources of the shots weren't totally obscured. A couple of sloops were flanking us on either side, taking potshots but clearly missing on purpose. That we could deal with. But the third one on our tail? I climbed to the poop deck and stopped next to our signal beacon, peering into the mist in search of the ship approaching from the rear.

My jaw dropped.

Out of the fog, the faint outline of a ship nearly twice the size of ours revealed itself. They had their blackened sails run out, and somehow they were still approaching us fast despite going against the wind. It was a galleon, a massive ship made for both fighting and hauling big things, evident by the way its stern rose to a sharp point on the end, giving it the appearance of a cat stalking their prey—us.

I felt our ship’s turn tighten. The captain was taking evasive maneuvers, probably to try and outrun the looming threat. Surely she needed something of me, so I dropped down to the bridge. “What’s the game plan, Captain?” I asked on my way through the door.

“Shoot the gap and get the heck out of here,” she responded levelly. Only her white-knuckle grip on the wheel betrayed how nervous she was. “I doubt that galleon can make it through the gap we did. All we have to do is get there. Moraine, you got a bearing for me?”

“0-7-5,” Moraine called out. “I think.”

“Do you think or do you know?” barked Captain Virga.

“It’s between 0-7-4 and 0-7-6. I can’t tell exactly without any landmarks to go on. We’ll have to adjust once we can see it.”

The captain cursed under her breath.

“And the rest of the survivors?” I asked.

More cannonfire erupted from the galleon’s deck guns, the shots screaming past both bow and stern.

“They’re swimming,” she said with a sigh. “This is officially too hot for us to handle. We’re bailing and hoping they can’t catch us.”

Eidothea had a good chance of outrunning the galleon if we could maneuver around them and avoid a broadside. But it would be close. We were angled perpendicular to their approach, and with just our steam-powered propellers, we were a lot slower than usual.

“Can we use the sails on the mainmast?” asked Captain Virga.

“Negative,” I said. “The top of it is sheared off. Just the fore and mizzen.”

“Raise every sail we have left. We need all the speed we can get.”

I saluted and went to work once again, using my fingers to pinch whistle and get the crew’s attention as I left the bridge. “All griffs on deck! Run the sails out, now!”

We went to work immediately, taking our places and the ropes and opening our sails wide. The cold wind caught on them immediately, attempting to pull them free of our control. The masts groaned as the wind grabbed the sails, the speed boost they provided immediately noticeable.

The galleon drew closer, beginning to angle themselves toward us. They were still fighting the wind, but they must have had one heck of a propulsion system to be able to keep up with us. We just had to keep trying.

They must have sensed our play, because all three of the pirate ships were converging toward us. One of the sloops followed behind the stern, but they had no chance of catching up. The other was closing in from the port side, and the galleon loomed on the starboard. They and the much larger galleon were attempting to catch us in a pincer movement. Our only hope now was our speed. If only they hadn’t gotten that lucky shot on the mainmast, we probably would have made it with time to spare.

All we could do now was watch and wait with bated breath. The minutes ticked by as the slow race played out. Now that they were closer, I could make out that the galleon’s hull was painted in a pale olive green, similar to the color of algae. An imposing figurehead in the shape of an eagle adorned the bow, and I could see a crowd of sailors on the deck, waiting and watching just as we were.

Green Haze. The intel was wrong. The hunting ships had followed a false lead, and now we were here to take them on all alone.

The pirates drew nearer minute by minute. The fog was clearing steadily, and now we could see the rocks ahead that would be our saving grace, but we were going to make it by a whisker. Running into that gap at full sail was a risky move, and we could easily sink ourselves if the pirates didn’t beat us to the punch.

Green Haze loomed a mere hundred meters away now. I could make out the faces of the pirates on deck. A ragtag group, mostly parrots with a few abyssinians and equids mixed in. They were eyeing us hungrily, waiting in the wings like we were their meal just moments from being delivered. Most of my attention was on them, the biggest threat, so it came as a shock when I heard shouting come from the port side of the deck.

“Get clear! Incoming!”

I whirled around to see one of the pirate sloops mere meters off the port bow, closing fast. They were coming in shallow, the wind pushing them quickly toward the ship.

The sound it made when the sloop hit our bow was horrendous. Creaking, groaning, splintering wood. The confused shouts of the crew on deck. The whole cacophony of the crash was horrible, as was the lurch as our ship lost a very considerable amount of forward speed.

So they were stopping us by force. Well played, pirates.

For the first time during the whole engagement, Captain Virga emerged from the bridge, a grim scowl on her face. She drew her sword, crossing to the port side of the deck, headed for the point of impact. “Swords ready, griffs! Don’t let them board us!”

“I wouldn't worry about that too much, Captain,” said a new voice from behind me, loud enough to pierce through the commotion. The crowd of griffs on deck turned as one to face its source: a bright red parrot wearing a worn gray coat and a tricorne cap with an eagle embroidered on it. He hovered in place just off the starboard side, a belt carrying a broadsword and two flintlock pistols hung loosely around his waist. “We wouldn’t want to go somewhere we aren’t welcome.”

Captain Virga rushed through the crowded crew and took up a place on the railing at the front of the pack, raising her sword toward the pirate, though he was well out of her reach. “Sternclaw,” she spat.

“Ah, so there’s no need for introductions! I’m always happy to save time.” Sternclaw barked a laugh, a chilling sort of joviality so inappropriate that it carried a sinister edge. He was flanked by a small wing of goons, other parrots all hovering in place behind him, swords held in their claws as their wings were occupied with keeping them aloft. “Good morning, Captain and crew of—” he craned his neck to peer toward the bow “—Eidothea! I love the names you navy griffs put on these ships—very elegant.”

“You do realize that what you’re doing is a provocation of war, don’t you?” said Captain Virga. “You sank Itroscia and marooned the entire crew to die.”

“Accusations! Goodness.” He feigned shock, even floating backwards a few inches for effect. “Not a lot of pleasantries in you griffs today. Is it the weather? I personally hate it when it gets foggy and cold, but there’s no need for nastiness.”

“Do you deny those accusations?”

Sternclaw shrugged. “Well, no, but when you put it like that you make me sound like some kind of maniac.”

“You fire on my ship unprovoked and ram her with a sloop, and you’re concerned with semantics?” Captain Virga’s grip tightened on her sword. “You really are mad.”

The parrot’s smile fell. “Now we’re throwing insults. Tsk tsk, Captain, you could use a lesson in politeness.”

Captain Virga’s brow furrowed. His nonchalance was getting to her. “You know it’s unwise to present yourself before an enemy force? Maybe I should come up there and teach you a lesson in war strategy.”

“I wouldn’t advise that.”

“And why not? I’ve got a hundred griffs and you have seven parrots with you.”

Sternclaw chuckled, and then his face darkened. The sickly cheerful demeanor evaporated, replaced with a stone-cold glare full of murder. “Because if you even so much as make a move at me, my crew will ensure that there are no survivors.”

I think everyone on the deck involuntarily glanced at Green Haze’s cannons. Captain Virga, for her part, appeared unfazed by the threat. She did adapt a less threatening posture though, lowering her sword and resting it on the railing. “What is it you want, exactly?”

And then he snapped right back to chipper. The sudden change creeped me out. “Oh, nothing much. Just all of those magic necklace things you’re wearing.”

Captain Virga looked over to me and tipped her head slightly, motioning for me to come over. “What in the name of Poseidon could you possibly do with our shards?” she asked as I parted a few griffs out of the way.

“I have my reasons,” said Sternclaw. As soon as I stepped up to the captain’s side, I heard a click. Captain Sternclaw had a pistol aimed right at my head. Nothing sent shivers down the spine quite like being a twitch of a claw away from death. “I don’t like all these side-eyes and nods you’re giving him, Captain. I don’t think you’re planning a dinner date for later. You wouldn’t happen to be plotting something, would you?”

Captain Virga shook her head. “No, nothing of the sort. It seems you have the better of us, so we concede. We fully intend to cooperate so we can achieve the best possible outcome for all of us. We’d like to go home at the end of the day. I’m merely sending my first mate down to check the bow for leaks after you rammed it. Is that allowable?”

Starnclaw considered it for a moment, and then uncocked his pistol, waving it to the side. Captain Virga turned to face me, and I was really glad I was paying attention to her face, because she mouthed the words ‘Full steam.’ Immediately I understood. Raise the boiler’s pressure as high as it could go, and then give it full throttle.

We were busting out of here, or we were going to die trying.

I carefully backed away from the railing, watching the pirates to make sure I wouldn’t end up with a bullet in the head anyway. When I got to the ladder to the lower decks, I bolted down it, only remembering that I hadn’t been breathing for a solid minute when I reached the bottom. I sucked down wind as I raced through the gun deck, the crew deck and down to the orlop deck—the cargo hold. The orlop deck was cramped and dark, only a single narrow passage between supply crates and ropes as thick as my hind legs. I thought I felt a rat brush my leg, but now was not the time to think about rodent problems.

Faint light ahead guided me to the stern. The fire in the boiler was the only light source down here below the waterline. I pushed ahead as fast as I could through the cramped space, ignoring the latest in a series of adrenaline rushes I’d had in the last hour.

The boiler was a large metal box tucked away in the very back of the ship. The low overhead in the orlop deck rose about a meter to accommodate its size. The actual mechanism was concealed behind a large wall of metal plate, several valves sticking out of its surface and a firebox door the only features on its surface other than rivets.

“Ty?” asked the crew member who had been tasked with keeping the boiler fed. He was fairly new, so I wasn’t totally solid on his name yet. I decided his name would be Boiler until I learned otherwise.

“Grab your shovel,” I said, taking the spare one from an overhead rack. “We’ve got to get this fire going as hot as it can.”

“Yes, sir,” said Boiler. He sounded frightened, a bit of shakiness in his voice. “What’s going on out there? I heard a lot of cannons going off. Did something hit the bow?”

I shook my head. “It’s a mess,” I said, taking a shovelful from the coal pile and throwing it into the firebox. “Be glad you’re down here. Might be the safest place on the whole ship.”

We continued shoveling coal into the firebox until we had reasonably reached the limit of what fuel we could dump into it. The fire in the box roared, the heat threatening to singe the hair on my legs every time the doors opened. “Keep the fire going as hot as possible and don’t let off any excess pressure until it’s at the limit. Be very careful with that pressure valve. If you take your eyes off it for a second, you could blow us all up.”

Boiler gulped. “What’s all this for, sir?”

I paused, searching for the right words. “To save our asses.”

Boiler nodded reluctantly and saluted me. I gave him a quick slap on the shoulder and bolted back to the ladders. I could count on one hand the number of times we’d actually fired up the boiler since I had come aboard Eidothea, and now it might be the one thing that saved us.

Once I got back topside, it was immediately clear that Captain Virga was stalling. Sternclaw was wearing a smug grin, chattering away about something or other. “...simple really. Parrots lack magical ability, so if I want to do anything fun, I have to get creative. That’s why I need your necklaces.”

“Surely there’s a better way to get magical artifacts than this,” said Captain Virga, almost chiding him like a schoolteacher would a rowdy fledgeling. “I hear the black market is full of those. You probably know more about that than I do.”

I slipped over to her side. “The hull looks solid, ma’am. A little damage, but it should hold until we make it to port.”

“Thank you, Ty. Would you go alert the second mate on the bridge?” She flashed me a weary look. She was nervous.

So was I. I saluted her and made my way to the ladder cautiously, keeping an eye on the pirates. He was more occupied with her than with me. “And pay for some shoddily enchanted glass? Do you know how much I actually make ransoming cargo ships? I couldn’t afford what those buzzards out in the Badlands are charging.”

I stopped paying attention and climbed the ladder, again only remembering to breathe once I was safely inside the bridge. “Moraine,” I said.

“Please tell me there’s a plan to deal with these goons?” she said.

“Yeah, there is.” I crossed the bridge to the wheel and took up position at the helm. The parrot goon squad could see everything I was doing through the windows, so we had a very limited window of surprise to work with. I gripped the wheel and the throttle levers next to it, my hands shaking faintly and rattling my claws against the handles. “Run.”

I threw both throttle levers forward as far as they would go, and the ship lurched forward sharply. I could feel the pressure in the boiler beneath my feet releasing, faint vibrations rolling through the decking. I jerked the wheel to starboard, angling us toward the gap in the rocks. Captain Virga was ready. As soon as we were under power, I heard her muffled scream from outside: “Full sail, let’s go! Everyone else, get those—”

A gunshot rang out, followed by the commotion of an entire crew of hippogriffs springing to life. A chorus of battle cries and wingbeats followed the gunshot. The sails were opened once again, and they added to our acceleration, though the sloop still clinging to our bow slowed us down. The parrots I could see through the window all flapped hard upwards at once, giving themselves altitude. They rose out of sight, revealing instead the side of Green Haze just a stone’s throw away. Two decks of cannons run out.

Aimed right at us.

“Hit the deck!” I screamed. Puffs of smoke and fire spouted from the cannons on the galleon, and I had a bare second to react before the windows exploded inward. I closed my eyes and turned my head, the glass raining across my right side. The thunder of the cannons mixed with the horrible cacophony of shattering glass and splintering wood. Something heavy and hot hit me in the shoulder. It felt like my whole chest had ignited, the flames burning down into the flesh. I fell down hard as the wheelhouse shredded around me.

That horrible second lasted for an hour. I lay on the floor, arms protecting my head, ears ringing from the sound. I heard more cannons, this time our own going off in retaliation, but they were something short of a full broadside. I only counted five shots from our guns. I opened my eyes and looked up.

None of the windows on the starboard side were intact, and a couple of the wheel’s handles were torn off. Moraine was also on the floor, covering her head with her claws. She turned her head toward me and—

A huge shard of glass was sticking out of Moraine’s right eye.

“Oh gods,” I muttered, crawling across the floor to her. My own face lit up with pain as I looked at hers. “Moraine, you with me?”

“I can’t see anything!” she gasped, shuddering. “My face hurts so bad. Ty, is something in my eye?”

Shivering, I nodded. “You could say that.”

Moraine’s breathing sped up as she panicked. I chanced a glance out the starboard windows. The cannons had disappeared from Green Haze’s gun ports. They were reloading, and in less than a minute, they’d be ready to fire again. We didn’t have time to panic.

“Moraine, can you stand?”

“Yes,” she gasped.

“Okay. Can you open your left eye?” Reluctantly, she did. Tears spilled down her face as she propped her good eye open with her claws. “Good. There’s a big piece of glass in your right eye. Be careful with it. I need you to steer.” I helped her to her feet and guided her back to the wheel. When she was situated, I crossed the bridge and opened the door. “I’ve got to go check on the—”

I opened the wheelhouse door and immediately retched when I saw the scene on deck. The cannons had been loaded with grapeshot. Anti-personnel fire. The entire volley was intended to kill the crew, not destroy the ship.

Dozens of griffs lay dead or dying on the deck below. Those who were fortunate enough to escape the worst of it were dazed, milling around aimlessly in a sea of death and destruction. Our sails hung limply against the mast, having not been secured before the volley.

I searched the deck for the captain, and when I found her…

I stared. Her pale blue form lay motionless in the spot she had been standing when I saw her last. I couldn’t pull my eyes away. I had just spoken with her moments before. I had just enacted her plan to get us out of here.

And now she was dead.

Every second I stared at her body, I felt more and more dissonance. It grew outward, a strange numbness that started in my chest and worked its way down my limbs. I was frozen in place in the wheelhouse doorway, unable to move. Unable to avert my eyes from the horrible sight of my commander lying dead among dozens of her crew.

Something yanked hard on my tail, pulling me back a step.

“Ty! Go!” Moraine shouted, pulling me back to reality. I whirled around and faced the horror head on, steeling myself against it.

Captain Virga was gone. That meant I was our new captain.

“Raise the sails!” I screamed, jumping upward to the poop deck and the mizzenmast. My shoulder screamed in burning agony, but I ignored it. I rushed to the ropes and was joined in short order by several wide-eyed griffs in various states of shock. We took up our positions on the ropes like mindless drones and heaved, pulling the sails open and tying them off. The effect was appreciable in the strong wind, the ship creaking and groaning under the extra thrust.

We still had the sloop clinging to our bow, and that was our next problem. Pirates on the deck of that ship were coming out, drawing their swords. One by one, they spread their wings and started flying toward us. I drew my sword, ready for the impending fight.

But it never came. The parrots flew upward, crossing over top of us just above the height of the mast. The sloop’s crew was abandoning ship and returning to Green Haze.

A new set of hoof and claw steps joined us on the poop deck. It was Hydro, the plumage on his neck stained red from a gash just below his jawline. He was lucky it didn’t go deep enough to get the jugular. “Are you guys okay?” he asked.

I didn’t answer him. “Find survivors and render first aid. Hydro, go down and see how many first aid kits Cardia has left.”

“Yes, sir,” he acknowledged. “Why aren’t they boarding us?”

I followed the fleeing parrots back to the pirate galleon. The guns had been rolled out again. I pointed a claw at them. “That’s why. Get down!”

The screaming of a thousand murderous demons manifested itself once again. Another volley erupted from Green Haze, but this time they fired actual cannonballs. The heavy fire tore through Eidothea, wood splintering and cracking the length of the ship. Once again we all dropped to the deck in hopes of surviving. I watched a ball crash through the foremast, shearing it off just above the deck. The broadside was over in seconds, but this time the damage was more structural. The foremast fell over the side of the ship and splashed into the water below, taking another of our sails with it.

Two hundred meters to the gap. We were so close, but we wouldn’t survive another volley. On shaking legs, I stood and hobbled over to the side of the ship that had taken the worst of it and peered over the railing. Holes dotted the side of the ship, large ones. Smoke rose from some of them. Was something on fire down there? Then a scarier thought occurred to me.

Were we taking on water?

Immediately I rushed down to the bridge. “Moraine, keep us on course for the gap!” I didn’t bother waiting for her response. She knew what she was doing. I could trust her to get us there.

Down the ladder I rushed. The gun deck was in shambles, and I didn’t even want to think about what those cannonballs might have done to the crew deck, crowded as it was with survivors from Itroscia.

Down in the orlop deck, my fears were realized. Water pooled on the floor. I could hear the sound of it rushing in under pressure on both sides of me. For these sorts of emergencies, we kept wood wedges and hammers below the waterline. I felt my way to one of the breach kits and took as many wedges as I could grab in one wing and a hammer in the other.

The darkness of the orlop deck was less than ideal, but a clue lay ahead. Light shone in through a hole in the ceiling, and I traced the trajectory to find where a jet of water was shooting into the ship. The ball had split the hull outward but not punched through, and I accidentally kicked it as I walked up, stubbing my claws. I didn’t care. I immediately went to work, driving the wooden wedges into the hole with frantic fervor despite searing pain in my shoulder. The seawater was like a firehose punching me in the face. I couldn’t breathe. And still, I hammered away. It was this, or we were sunk.

It took six wedges to fill the gash left by the cannonball, though a slow trickle of water remained. It would have to be that way for now. The water had risen to fetlock deep now. I rushed to the next hole I found near the bow and filled it. I nearly choked on seawater, but I got the second hole patched. With that one sealed, I turned around and saw the faint outlines of a couple of other griffs had followed along and were hammering away to seal breaches down by the stern.

There were enough griffs working on the breaches that I felt reasonably confident they’d be able to control it, so I left them to it. Captain Virga was dead. I was the acting captain now. I needed to lead us out of here. “Good work, griffs! Keep it up!” I shouted as I headed for the topside.

Once I was on the surface again, I felt a bit of relief. Green Haze trailed behind us, no longer in position to pepper us with cannonballs. We were entering the gap now, a gap they were too large to fit through. I heard groaning and crunching, watching as the pirate sloop clinging to us rose out of the water and stopped in place, ripping free of the bow. Eidothea bucked to the side as The Blades sheared the parasitic vessel off of us, impaling it on the rocks.

We made it. Normally I supposed I would have cheered at such a success. I had survived a too-close brush with death. We had escaped from Captain Sternclaw.

But not all of us had. I was surrounded by the bodies of griffs I’d known for years. My friends. My second family. I watched Green Haze disappear behind the rocks, and I didn’t know what to feel. I couldn’t say that I felt nothing, but stepping over the bodies of my crew only made me nauseous.

Back in the bridge, Moraine stood at the helm, watching nervously out the windows. She still had a huge piece of bloody glass sticking out of her face. “This was a lot easier when I had more crew to guide us through. And two eyes,” she added dryly. At least her injury hadn’t dampened her spirit.

I didn’t respond. Moreso, I couldn’t. I flopped myself down at the navigator’s desk and looked at the cube. It had split into chunks, a deformed lead ball lying on the desk next to it. So much for telling command what had happened.

I sat there for a few minutes, watching the rocks pass outside the window, my mind numb. Not a single thought went through my head during those minutes. I think my brain had taken all the abuse it could for one day. I hadn’t slept all night either. As the adrenaline slowly drained from my bloodstream, I became more and more aware of the pain in my shoulder. What had happened with that anyway?

“Ty,” said Moraine, pulling me back from my zone-out.

“Yeah?”

“You’re bleeding.”

“So are you.”

“Look at your arm.”

I glanced down, and sure enough, my entire left arm was red. A charred hole in the shoulder of my vest led to a deep wound, blood oozing from it and dripping from the tips of my claws. Had I left a trail on the floor? “Huh, would you look at that.”

“Go down and get yourself checked,” said Moraine. “That looks serious.”

“You first.”

She glared at me with her good eye.

“Okay, fine. But you’re going as soon as I get back.” I said, hoisting myself out of the chair and limping for the door. My vision swam a little as I stood. I was about to step out when Moraine stopped me.

“We’re losing power,” she said.

I twisted my face up in thought. “Oh yeah, the orlop deck is flooded. Probably quenched the fire in the boiler.”

Moraine’s eye widened. “And we’re down to one sail?”

I nodded.

The rocks receded away from the window a little. We were through the narrows. I glanced to the port side, toward the spot where we’d left Mother of Pearl before we traipsed into The Blades.

It wasn't there.

I was too tired to care. “Looks like we’re running out the oars,” I sighed, climbing down the ladder and doing my best to keep my sight above deck level. Everything hurt, but only like a distant echo of pain. I knew it was there, but I couldn’t tell where it started or stopped. On wobbly legs, I lowered myself down the two remaining ladders to the crew deck.

The entire deck overflowed with hippogriffs in varying states of distress. It was bad enough that some of the Itroscia crew, still drenched and covered in oil, were helping tend to the wounded among Eidothea’s crew. Some griffs were bloodied. Some were missing limbs. A couple were dead, cannonball holes directly above some of the bunk spaces.

I stood off to the side, my head swimming. It was like watching the scene through a glass orb, everything distorted and further away than it should have been. A distant echo of voices and commotion that I couldn’t understand reverberated through the space.

Suddenly the floor rushed up to meet me, darkness encroaching on the edges of my vision. One last thought went through my head before everything went dark.

I wonder what Diamond’s been up to...