I joined the rest of the army in the castle’s massive courtyard and hopped to my place in line, with the xanthous team at my side. The way the parade would pan out, we’d have the shock troops… fuck it, we’re stormtroopers now. The stormtroopers would lead the way and the line fighters would be amassed behind us, with many linesmen playing march music. As per my request, the xanthous team would be leading the way and I would be positioned on the front left.

Why, you may ask? Well, because I bribed a lot of the major publications to make sure my smiling face was on the front page, and instructed them to take their photos from my side of the street. They’d even be publishing the event in color- so soon, my face will be known across all of Fertilia. And those that did know who I was would wonder why a wanted criminal was serving in the military.

I even had it set up so that a few would publish a fake “interview,” which they’ll claim they took after the parade. Of course, mine will be featured first- followed by a list of other real interviews which would legitimize it.

The question itself was “Why did you sign up?”

My response was “Why didn’t you? And this goes for everyone! Is it not every griffon's duty to ensure their children have a good future? We’ve dealt with this problem using timidity and sheepishness for far too long!” Or something to that degree. The ol’ “Think of the children!” fallacy. Works every friggin’ time. But yeah, I also went into how when I was a kid I had to steal just to survive and how I think that’s stupid, yadda yadda, you pretty much know my life's story up until this point.

No wonder people still believe in communism. You can spit whatever bullshit you want as long as you slander the opposition and frame your own bullshit just the right way.

… Aw fuck, am I accidentally inventing fascism? Shit, at this rate I’ll have to commission a minimalist poster of my face with the word yes repeated in the background and hang it outside my house.

Anyways, back to the present.

“Ayyy, we all ready for the history books?” I asked my team, and we greeted each other with quick hugs.

“Damn right! Yee-yee!” Rosco yelled, and I rolled my eyes with a smirk.

“Well boys, get in line!” I yelled, and we did just that. After three months of grueling, difficult training, we were finally ready… to spend the next week marching to Goldcairn. Yeah, I wasn’t looking forward to that.

“AT ATTENTION!” I heard Ulysses shout out, and the group fell to silence as we all saluted. He was standing on top of the castle wall with a megaphone, and I noticed something… strange. He had a look in his eyes that I honestly couldn’t place. It was different, but I wasn’t sure why.

He jumped down from the wall and glided down, his imposing figure landing in front of us and demanding our attention. “YOU ALL KNOW THE DRILL! MARCH!”

Short and simple. I like it. We traveled along the northeastern arterial road out of the city and I honestly got a sense of deja vu from it; after all, this is the road that Mamma and I took when we first left for Equestria, all those years ago.

The scene was quite awe-inspiring. As I passed the first row of journalists with cameras, I threw up a wing salute and gave them a smug grin. “I’m doing my part!” I yelled. Dunno why I did- it just seemed fitting. The cheering crowd agreed, and soon a large chunk of the men were saluting and repeating “I’m doing my part!”

It’d be about three miles until we were out of the city walls, but damn near every foot and street corner was packed with griffons from all over the place! Women and children were cheering us on, the men saluted us, the band was blasting patriotic music, cameras were flashing and balloons were released. A bunch of women were throwing bouquets of flowers around.

The flowers were a nice gesture, but…

“Hey! How ‘bout some smokes for the boys goin’ to the front!?” I yelled out loud. Adrian elbowed my side and Ulysses looked like he was about to grab my tail and drag my ass right to court martial… but surprisingly, the crowd laughed and started tossing packs of smokes! I had to restrain myself from stopping and grabbing every pack I came across… one, because it’d be undignified and two, I only had so much pocket space. So I had to make do with catching them out of the air and stuffing them beneath my cloak.

On the side of the road there were groups of little kids trying to march in a line like we were- it was adorable! Once in a while I’d see one of them trip on their own feet and I had to hold back my laughter. When we passed a park, I saw a high school teacher preaching to his students how they oughta enlist and serve their country, calling them out by name and asking why they haven’t enlisted yet. He was followed with a rallying cry of one “I’ll enlist!” after another.

“The motherland cannot persist without your sacrifice!” He yelled, and they all cheered.

As we got closer to the city gates, the crowd began to thin out slightly, but that was fine- I was starting to get a headache anyway. When we finally reached the gates, we started breaking up into our squads to retrieve our traveling kit.

One of the benefits of being a quadruped is that you can carry much, much more weight, and for longer periods of time as well. Especially when you consider that I’m over 350 pounds of pure feline muscle makes that pretty evident. Even better- the average griffon male weighs over 450 pounds, and I know for a fact that Ulysses weighs almost 500 pounds, considering his distended belly caused by his habitual drinking. Fucker was still strong, though.

For reference- that’s 158, 204, and 226 kilograms, respectively. My ass is heavy.

Basically, the way we had it set up is that first of all, the rations would be divided evenly among us. Since each ration barrel contained enough rations for three meals a day for three days, for example one of us would be carrying the hardtack, one of us would carry the salt meat, one of us would carry the grain, sugar, and coffee, one of us would carry flour and spices, one of us would carry the barrel, cookware, and the tents, and one of us would be in charge of the pemmican bars.

If you didn’t know what pemmican is, it’s basically a meat granola bar consisting of ground up dried jerky and berries held together with fat. Not the tastiest meal, but like hardtack, it’s survival food. It wasn’t meant to meet all nutritional groups, it was meant to keep your gut full while you spent the day away marching your happy ass to the next encampment.

We were supplied with vitamin supplements, though. Meanwhile, river water and chlorine tablets would provide drinking water on the go.

Oh, I almost forgot! The cigarette ration! The most important part of any balanced meal is the cigarette before and after eating, which serves the purpose of numbing your taste buds from the mundane rations, and the cigarette after is just for good luck. For obvious reasons, I have been banned from carrying the cigarette rations… but that was fine. I amassed a decent stash during the parade.

Once we were ready to go, all that was left to do was wait for everyone else to catch up, so we just sat in our positions talking until the linemen started filtering towards the gate. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something. A pink figure wearing a suit and tie was approaching us from the distance, and I couldn’t help but grin.

“I gotta break away for a minute. Don’t leave without me.” I didn’t even await a response as I greeted my wife with a hug and a peck on the cheek.

“I just had to see you one last time, you know that?” She said, and I giggled.

“Oh, come on. You know I’ll be coming back.” I said, and she glanced off to the side before reaching into her suit coat pocket. It was a small velvet baggie, like the ones bottles of Crown Royal came in.

She wordlessly urged me to open it, and a grin threatened to break my beak when I did. It was a picture of us, taken on the night of our wedding. I was wearing my dress and Dee was wearing her suit and we were in front of the lake. It was laminated in plastic, too- so it wouldn’t disintegrate in my pocket. She was even wearing that little tiara she always cherished. Speaking of that tiara-

“Dee, I can’t take this!” That tiara meant the world to her. It was a gift she got from her grandfather before he passed, and even to this day she would wear it on occasion. The thing was old, though- the frame was partially dented in on the left side, one of the sapphires was missing, and the part usually covered by her hair was a dull, tarnished gray where the oils from her head wore away the finish.

She giggled at me. “No, you knucklehead. Close your eyes and lower your head.”

“Kinky.” I heard the sound of a marker popping open.

“Shush.” She started drawing something on my helmet.

“There better not be a dick and balls drawn on my helmet.” I said sternly. The drawing stopped for a moment and I heard a snort… but it then continued. Fuck.

“All done!” she said, and I took my helmet off. On the front in white marker was a drawing which quite closely resembled the tiara. It was a bit sloppy in some spots, but you could tell what it was. I smiled and pulled her in for a hug. She shuddered and I grabbed her tight, wrapping my wings around her.

“I don’t want you to go…” She cried softly into my shoulder,

“I don’t have a choice, baby. Come hell or high water, I’ll be back. I promise.” she pulled back and I tucked the tiara on her head, adjusting it so it was perfect. “And when I do come back, this tiara will be replaced with a crown.” She smiled and nuzzled my cheek.

“And besides. I’ll have lots of stories to tell… And I know what stories you like.” I said with a dark grin, and she smiled with a faint blush.

“Then I await with bated breath.” We shared one more long kiss before we went our separate ways. “Make those beasts pay!” She yelled as she left. I watched wistfully as she returned home, and not just because she had a fine set of flanks. When she disappeared on the horizon I felt awash with a sort of melancholy and sighed.

I tucked the photo away into my helmet for safekeeping, but before I did that, I noticed something. Writing on the back- it said Bella Mia with a drawing of a heart. I smiled and put the helmet back on before rejoining the squad.

“Goin’ back for one last quickie, eh?” I heard Jos ask, for which I gave her a friendly punch on the shoulder.

I was in charge of the grain, sugar, and spices for this three day stretch. The plan was in about three days' time, we will reach a village with a storehouse where we’ll replenish our rations before moving on.

“What’s with that silly lookin’ crown on your helmet?” Jos asked with a chuckle, and Sinan added,

“They’re gonna be calling you The Queen in Yellow when they see you.” He said, idly adjusting his armor.

I… wasn’t sure what to think of that nickname. “I dunno… I was hoping for something badass, like Lady of the Dark or… actually… The Xanthous Queen!” I half-yelled, striking a heroic pose in a joking manner.

With a chuckle, Adrian said- “You know what they’ll really call us? Enemies.”

“Or demons.” Rosco said with a snort.

“Faceless maniacs with thundersticks and swords, reeking like sulfur and emerging from a burning green cloud that smells like pineapple and pepper.” Fin said flatly. I just shrugged.

“I’m still partial to The Xanthous Queen. It’s got a ring to it, you know?” I asked.

“Well, you can tell it to the media when we get back.” Adrian said assuredly.

Since we still had some time left, we decided to dig into the pemmican for a quick snack. I found that the best way to eat it is to take a medium sized bite and let it rehydrate a little bit in your mouth before swallowing little by little. Thankfully, having a beak made this pretty easy. It wasn’t good, by any means, but it at least had more flavor than hardtack.

War is hell, especially if you’re a total foodie like I am. That’s probably why I complain about the rations a lot, but then again, I’m not the only one. If I die during this war, it won’t be from an enemy sword or bolt- it’ll be for want of some good pasta!

And that goes for many of the native Fertilians in this army. Good food is practically a religion around here, and even in times of dire need the poor still can access cheap meals, if they know what they’re doing. Even when Mamma and I were at our poorest, we were still eating better than your average American college student.

I think that’s part of why I love this Kingdom so much. The farmland is so fertile from rivers which run off the C shaped mountainous regions all around Fellrock that fresh food was never hard to come by. Well, except for when everything first went to shit, there was some scarcity before the agrarian sect slowly overgrew the old industrial sects. Old factories along rivers were converted into massive barns and warehouses for farmers.

Another interesting thing I noticed early on was that when things first started going to shit and the price of canned, pre-cooked foods went up, many people struggled because they were intimidated by proper cooking. For this reason, third party charity groups printed cookbooks to hand out to the masses; which is another thing I can use as ammo against the king.

Tangent aside, we were all ready soon after that. Thankfully for the majority of travel, rank and file wasn’t as important unless we were walking through a town or village. As long as we stuck with our group, it was fine.

And so, with Ulysses leading the way, we were on the move. After a little while of walking, I decided to strike up a conversation.

“How are those memories still holding up?” I asked them.

“Still crystal as day. Uncannily so.” Adrian said, and Rosco elaborated-

“It’s… strange. Normally when I remember somethin’, there’s a sort of a fog around it. This’s like… lookin’ through a window, almost.” I nodded.

“I know what you mean. When I picture the place in my Mind’s Eye-” My actual mind’s eye, not my friend, “It’s like I can almost imagine myself having lived there.”

“So I’ve been wanting to ask…” Sinan said, “How do I put this; what the fuck is that thing?”

“Fuck all if I know. I contracted it while exploring an antediluvian temple full of griffon undead with brains full of eyeballs. It’s fucked.” I shuddered, “Fuckin’ thing bit my tongue off and took its place.” I saw that many of them were cringing in disgust and sympathy at the thought.

Not Sinan, though. “It looks like something out of one of those Neighponese pulp magazines.” Adrian began to blush and sputter, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“What? You’ve never read a pontai mag before?” I asked Adrian and he looked away, blushing. His head crest, normally white, made his blush fairly easy to spot. On and for the record, his fur was a golden brown. He’s very aquiline in appearance.

Where was I? Oh, right. “I mean, come on, man!” I stuck my tongue out, and lightly rubbed his cheek with the tip before slurping it back in. “Don’t tell me you can’t see the sheer sex potential of that thing!” His eyes widened and he looked at me sternly. Still blushing, though.

“Don’t tell me you’ve used that for… sexual purposes.” I just gave him a smug grin and wiggled my eyebrows. “Oh my fuck…” He muttered, using his wings to cover his blushing face.

“That thing was rooting around in our brains…” Jos spoke up, “But you’re more concerned about the fact that it was rooting through her wife’s snatch?” I was about to say more than her snatch, but I decided to not throw fuel on the fire.

“It’s not that, it’s… it’s just so uncouth to talk about in public.” Oh, right. I forgot that he did come from the prim and proper court life. He was probably raised from birth with the etiquette of Northumbrian court life- the worst kind of nobility.

“Now don’t you fret!” Rosco said for me, “We’ll train that stuffiness outta you yet!”

We were gonna have to. Adrian and I would be sharing a tent and on top of that, we really wouldn’t have any time for bathing- so by day three, we’ll probably all smell like dick cheese.

We marched for hours today, and this was only a half day! The area we were setting up camp in was a wide field with relatively low grass that wasn’t too terribly dry. It was also near a river and a forest, so we could easily fetch water to purify with chlorine tabs.

Adrian and Sinan worked on setting up our tents while the rest of us went to gather firewood in the nearby forest. While we were out, we also kept an eye out for wild potatoes or mushrooms which grew relatively abundantly here. They weren’t big or the most flavorful, but they’d help to add variety and nutrition. Fin and Jos managed to score us some green onion, too.

As for the food, the way we had it figured out is we'd work in shifts for dinner. One day someone different would cook, since we were all pretty decent at it. I was in charge of dinner for day one, so I started by instructing the guys to break up some hardtack while I boiled some salt beef over a spit.

Well, salt “beef.” The quality and origin of the meat was… dubious… but it should taste fine. Of course, I’m not just boiling the meat. It’d taste like licking the side of an animal. No, the point of that is to get the salt out. Once the pot had reached the salinity of the dead sea, I set the meat to the side and diluted the water in the pot, setting the river-washed potatoes to boil.

Then, as was standard, I heated up the pork fat in a large fry pan and got to work. I then sliced up the meat into relatively small strips before adding the soaked hardtack to the pan. I then added diced mushrooms and regular onion, which had been a part of our ration kit. I stirred it around on low heat for a while, waiting for the ingredients to start to brown before adding the beef.

As an afterthought, I added more pork fat to make sure everything was mixing well. The beef sizzled wonderfully, a light sear developing as I continued stirring the whole thing with a tin spoon. I threw in a little salt and a bunch of pepper for flavoring, then dusted the whole thing with flour. I cooked it until the flower was incorporated and browned, then added a little more flour and a cup or so of water. The water sizzled and soon reduced itself into a nice, creamy sauce.

“Hold out your plates or your hands. Either way, dinner’s ready.” I said, and my crew eagerly held out their standard issue tin plates. I used the spoon to heap a good portion on each one as well as a couple boiled potatoes each. As a finishing touch, I chopped up green onion and sprinkled it on top.

“I call it Hell-fired Stroganoff. Not bad for something I came up with on the fly.” I said, taking the first bite. It was actually quite good, given the circumstances.

“The sauce could’ve used a good sherry, though.” Adrian spoke up- being the resident Northumbrian, he was quite familiar with a good stroganoff.

“I’ll keep that in mind when dinner’s your turn.” I said with a chuckle as I continued my meal. It was good- the sauce added a nice mouthfeel, the beef was chewy and not too salty, and the hardtack absorbed the flavors of everything else.

Dinner was going quite well…

“OUCH!” I yelled out, something harder than normal was hiding in that last spoonful. It felt like I just bit down on a nail, so I spit the offending piece of “bread” out. “Alright, which of you fucks didn’t water your bread down enough?” I asked, rubbing the side of my beak. I felt around with my tongue and felt a definite chip in there- but thankfully, that’s all it was. It would regrow and smooth itself out like a scuff, eventually.

Still hurt like hell, though.

Soon, we all got ready to turn in for the night; armor was set outside our tents, clothes were piled in the corners of our already tiny tents, the rations were put away and the fire was left to slowly die out. We all finished the last of our business, smoking a few more cigarettes before bed.

I was bunking with Adrian, so I made sure to say No homo before climbing into my separate sleeping bag. He just looked at me in confusion before shrugging my nonsense off.

Since the sleeping bag was kind of thin, I decided to pad it out using my clothes. It didn’t help much, but I was tired enough that it helped a little. That, and there was also the fact that they were already starting to smell.

God help us all.

---

The morning routine was a little more tightly-scheduled than at night, since we needed to be ready to move by a certain time. The way we had it set up is that two of us would get up every day in the early twilight to get things ready. The two of them would do their daily business first, since their alarm was powered by drinking a bunch of water the night before. After that, they’d get whatever they needed for breakfast ready and get a fire restarted.

The rest of us would get woken up whenever they started cooking breakfast, so we could get ourselves ready for the day in a similar manner.

Sinan was cooking this morning, and fashioned together some sort of pancake, making use of the flour and pemmican, among other things. Admittedly they were a little dry and the pemmican added a certain hearty savoriness that wouldn’t have melded well with syrup, but still; we all ate happily. Especially when he started cooking the shredded potatoes in pork fat- now that was the fuckin highlight of this meal. Of course, we didn’t have a cheesegrater so Sinan recruited Rosco and Jos to help him slice the potatoes nice and thin- so it was a relatively small portion each for all that hard work.

It was almost time to go, and we all started the process of repacking everything and helped each other with our armor. The sound of ratchets from the armor spread across the Stormtroopers side of the camp and it sounded like an army of cicadas for a second there.

Seriously, when you study history, they only tell you about the battles themselves. The numbers, the strategies, etc. But what people sometimes fail to realize is how much more there is to it. You gotta get your boys to the front line, you had to keep them fed. The march was long and arduous, so we did whatever we could to keep ourselves entertained.

We sang folk songs, played I spy, talked about what we were gonna do when we got home and what we were up to before this whole thing. And we complained- my fuck did we whinge about how much this sucked; and I honestly think that was part of the magic of this whole thing.

You had a group that consisted of a set of orphan twins who bounty hunted, you had an incredibly uncommon crossbreed, you had a local redneck sheriff and a family man, you had a well educated, prim and proper nobleman, and you had the fucking mob boss who funded this whole operation; all who trained together. We ate together, used the latrine together, we laughed and talked about the good times from before everything went to shit.

Sinan would speak about how happy he was to finally go on sort of a hero's journey, which is quite the common trope among zebra culture and literature. He talked about how much pride his father had in him for essentially volunteering his life for the sake and safety of others, and how that is the bravest, most noble thing one can do.

Adrian was here for similar reasoning, although his parents were less supportive. They wanted him to continue studying law and settle down amongst the court life of Northumbria. He talked about how even though he respected the lifestyle, it bored him to death and the idea of spending the rest of his life living that way was incomprehensible. He wanted to really go out there, to see the world and experience it all. Though this rough and uncouth style of living didn’t mesh with his ideals well, he took to it rather quickly.

Rosco, meanwhile, talked about his goal of helping this nation out of poverty, “one clan at a time.” He also spoke about his beloved wife and son a lot, especially his son. I didn’t do anything to stop it- the whole motherhood kick my wife’s been on lately had apparently rubbed off on me a little bit, and hearing all the stories about raising his son just sounded so… so wonderful to me. But I digress.

The twins just liked killin’, which I could respect. They also were doing it as a means to try and avenge their mother. Again, I respect it.

But anyways, at around midday we started hearing the phrase “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em,” which meant it was time for our midday break. We had a half hour to do whatever, so we used this time wisely. We refilled our canteens and drank our fill, did our business wherever we could find some privacy, and munched on pemmican as a quick lunch. And of course, we took the time to chuff back as many darts as possible. I could hold a cigarette in my beak while walking no problem, but some didn’t like when the smoke wafted back into their eyes.

Many just immediately dropped to their ass to catch their breath upon hearing the break call, not that I could blame them.

But soon, we were once again on the march. The cycle continued until night fell, and we did it all again the next day. This cycle continued for another three days until we stopped at a village to replenish our rations.

The trip had gone smoothly so far… then we hit a snag on day five. It was my turn to make breakfast that morning, so the previous night I drank a fuckton of water to prepare. Naturally, I had to piss like a racehorse come morning.

I quickly nudged Adrian. “Wake up, chucklefuck. We got work to do.” His snoring stopped abruptly as he rolled out of his sleeping bag with a sense of urgency, much like I did.

“You going first or am I?” He asked as we walked to the latrine dugout. I just looked at him and cocked an eyebrow.

“There’s more than one shitter, you know.” I deadpanned.

“Next to each other, with no proper dividers.” I looked at him incredulously.

“You fuckin kiddin’ me with this? We’ve been sleeping in the same tent for the past half a week, and you’re worried about decency?” I took my spot in the latrine, “Get your ass over here and go with me, we got work to do.”

He looked like he was about to argue, but conceded with a sigh. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I’m sorry.” He said, taking a spot a couple feet away from me.

Whew. Goddamn. You ever rock a piss so good that you shiver when it’s all out? It was one of those and I had a good feeling for today. We washed our hands in the nearby river and got to work starting a fire.

It was super early twilight- while the moon had gone and the sky was a lighter shade of blue, the horizon was still dark as night. I decided to start with the coffee, since I would be soaking the hardtack in it for breakfast. I broke it apart into crumbles in that velvet baggie that Dee gave me, poured myself a mug full of hot coffee and let the hardtack soak it up.

While I waited for my coffee to cool, I decided to preemptively pour everyone else's coffee and have them soak more hardtack. I also instructed those lazy bums to get their asses moving.

The morning chill felt wonderful in my feathers. I lit up a cigarette before taking a few puffs and bringing my mug up for a sip of coffee. Today was a good day.

…

My eyes widened. Something was off with this coffee. I looked down and the culprit was immediately apparent. Little weevils floated around the top of my mug, apparently having drowned when I started soaking the hardtack.

Immediately, I set the mug down and inspected the sack of hardtack. It was hard to tell because of the twilight, but upon close inspection, there was definitely weevils infesting our bread.

“We got a problem.” I said to the rest of my squad as they returned from the latrine. Adrian was off fetching more wood at the time. “Weevils.” Was all I said, and we all sprung into action. Thank god, by some miracle only the bread was infested, everything else was fine.

At first we were going around to see if anyone could spare an extra biscuit or two, but apparently the problem was more widespread than we thought. We would ultimately be delayed that day since we had to un-weevil our rations.

The method to doing so was simple; you take your fry pan and place it upside down on some hot coals. Then you’d take your infested biscuits and simply set it on top. The rising heat will kill any eggs and force the bugs to fuck off, where’d they’d fall onto the hot coals.

Despite this setback, Ulysses assured us that the infested bread would still be safe to eat after this, and that we could still drink the coffee, we just had to skim the dead weevils out of the top.

Our meals were eaten with relative disdain for the next couple days, for we all had the knowledge that our main staple bread was likely now full of dead insect eggs. Adrian had it the worst out of all of us- apparently, he thought the idea of eating bread that had dead bugs in it to be… icky. But we eventually convinced him to suck it up.

Mainly, we were looking forward to the night of day seven. At that point, we were less than a day away from our goal and would be celebrating with a special ration given to us. We weren’t sure what it was, but we were promised it would be good. There’d also be alcohol- and that promise was leading some of us to our goal like a carrot on a stick. Not that I’d be partaking, of course.

The next morning we’d also have a special breakfast and then we’d split off from the main group to get in place for the invasion to start. We’d also be given our gas canisters sometime before then.

So, aside from the fact that we all reeked and the weevil thing… morale was high. We were ready to fight. None of us were ready to die. We were soldiers- even if we didn’t fully realize what that meant at the time.

FROM THE OOOLD WORLD'S DEMISE, SEE AN EEEEMPIRE RISE!

I might have been listening to too much Sabaton, again.

As always, thanks so much for reading! Likes and comments are appreciated greatly :3