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.

Next Chapter: Chapter 5: Two Birds in the Bush Estimated time remaining: 6 Hours, 34 Minutes