Fish Eye didn't have enough time to miss her camera. She was too busy to really feel that itch in her hands that came when she felt most alone, most confused.
Back home, Fish Eye had never had a chance to enjoy dorm life like all of those lucky ponies whose families had shipped them off to board at Farrow in the glamorous capital. Her mother had never been the most warm of mares, and when her and Hawk's father had disappeared with their entire kingdom, Stiff Beak had disappeared behind that impenetrable amiable reserve which was her barding and her armor. Sometimes it felt like the youngest mare in the family was a dried pea in a gourd, rattling around their rented suites and making noise by herself.
When she'd gotten the camera, it had let her escape her mother's rented suites, and go out into the city and see it through the camera lens. At a remove.
The barracks were sort of like a boarding school dorm, in that there was zero privacy, little amenities, and shared bathrooms. And, like a good boarding school, they spent as little time in them as possible, having been herded by the corporals, put to running or flying or drilling or reading out loud from the stacks of manuals for the recruits that couldn't read for themselves.
All in all, being foalnapped into the military wasn't all that different from going to a prestigious pony preparatory academy. The biggest difference was…
Fish Eye wasn't alone in a herd of ponies. There wasn't really a herd of ponies at all. Regular ponies weren't even a plurality of the regiment she'd been stolen away by; a full quarter of the recruits and the older troopers were griffons, and nearly half of the rest were...
Well, they were ponies, but not any Fish Eye had ever seen.
Batponies! Batponies everywhere, making screechy noises, glowering from dark corners, squinting at the bright spring sunshine, sneaking their sunglasses whenever they thought the corporals weren't watching.
Fish Eye was so busy seeing new things for the first time, that she didn't need the lens to see them clearly. It was all right there in front of her!
Although about half of the corporals were batponies themselves, and they knew all the tricks their troopers got up to. More than once, Fish Eye had broken out into laughter at the profane rants issued against her fellow batpony rankers, and been ordered to get down and give a corporal 'twenty'. That had turned into thirty, the first time, because she'd had no idea what punishment exercise she was being given.
Wing pushups were kind of fun. It was cheating, of course - hippogriff wings have all the flexibility of pegasus wings, and all the strength of griffon wings. And even weedy underweight little Fish Eye had enough power and precision in her big wings to make a batpony non-com's cat eyes pop.
So yeah, the camera was staying safe in squadron storage for now. Safe from the mud and the rough-housing and the battering anonymity of life in the barracks.
Because every evening, there were two or three or a half-dozen new faces in the barracks. In the afternoons, the new lieutenant and that big griffon sergeant - Fish Eye's 'evil griffon' foalnapper - put the prospects through the obstacle course, and ran them ragged. The batponies always passed with flying shadows, of course, because they were mostly old troopers from the pegasus regiments, or so one of them explained Fish Eye's second night with the regiment. But the locals, and the regular troops trying to transfer into a flash new guards squadron?
They washed out left and right. The numbers were coming out a little uneven, because the captain and her sergeant had brought in a bunch of cronies from their old griffish territorial battalion, and various special-recruited, well, specialists. To do this and that.
But in the actual troops? Mostly griffons and batponies, and a scattering of Trottish earth ponies.
And almost all of them strangers to each other. Fish Eye wasn't the only stranger in the herd, here. Here, she was a stranger in a crowd of strangers, of little groups precipitating out of multiple fragmentary herds mixing for the first time.
Fish Eye had heard two of the corporals grousing about the lack of pegasi, when she was supposed to be on punishment detail, sanding down the planks of the corridor outside Troop Apple's barracks room. "Grind that down until I can lick a stripe forty feet long down this hall, wetmanes!" her corporal had yelled. But now the corporal had a new friend, and Fish Eye wasn't sure if they knew how sharp her hearing was…
"-I don't care what they say, no griffon is as good in the traces as a well-trained pegasus. Nor as good a climber."
"We've got plenty of bats…"
"Well, yeah, but you big-thumbed leather-firmament types hain't exactly power fliers, either."
"I don't see any wings on you, Mews Gate."
"Well, yeah, the battery lieutenant needs somepony to lay the falcons, and keep them in powder and shot. I can't believe they thought a lieutenant could both build and train up a battery by herself. Poor Lieutenant Lulamoon, they hated her back home. Broke my heart… and if I could fly her falcons for her, I'd do that too. Have you seen that trick the captain-"
After that night, the corporal was gone, and had been replaced by a Trottish bird with a thick accent Fish Eye could barely understand, and a new approach towards things.
Fish Eye never heard the rest of that tantalizing story about whatever 'trick' their unicorn captain could do, that somehow had something to do with flying, but she found out enough when she asked around about the situation with the 'battery'.
Cannon! They were going to be fielding a flying battery! That was so cool!
Fish Eye decided on the spot that she wanted to be a part of that troop. Or company? She was a little shaky on military titles and names and designations. She'd gotten in trouble more than once for calling a corporal 'sir' or the new lieutenant an 'ensign'.
But no, she was certain she wanted to be part of the flying battery. Because it felt like a team forming! They'd never let her play on any of the sports teams back at Farrow. Something about being the only big-bird flier, and it not being fair… she'd volunteered to be the manager's assistant - and in her senior year, the manager - of a bunch of pony sports teams. But being the 'pony' who cleaned the filthy tack and carried the water for the polo team and the pony lacrosse team and the pony rugby team - ponies liked to claim things by slapping the adjectival 'pony' on the front of totally species-neutral things - wasn't the same thing as actually swinging a mallet or a club or running with a leather ball under your wing.
And taking photographs as the team manager or the manager's assistant was a sort of way of being part of the team, but it was at a remove, distancing.
Her camera was in storage. She wasn't seeing things, she was going to do things.
So, Fish Eye was going to set out to be a part of that team. And set her mind to becoming the 'pony' that could be a battery horse.
Being in the army was kind of like being a team manager. Times eleven. If you think the tack for playing polo was excessive, just wait until you had to clean real working barding. And rugby uniforms didn't have a patch on the amazing filth that gambesons accumulated, no, attracted, like magnets to iron filings, were gambesons to mud.
She was so happy her camera wasn't part of the kit she had to keep clean of this ever-present mud!
But in between the cleaning, was the training! And that was a hell of a lot of fun. Splashing around in the mud herself! And running with all the rest! Just that would make Fish Eye happy.
So she was.
But she also felt like she should be a bit ambitious. A mare's reach should exceed her grasp, or what's a heaven for? And artillery-horse sounded like it was right up that alley!
She had a lot of work to get there. For one thing, she knew nothing about hauling gun carriages, let alone flying falcon gigs, like the stripped-down marvels the new battery lieutenant was rebuilding in an improvised workshop somewhere deep in the bowels of the garrison.
It wasn't good that she didn't particularly relish chariot training. Admittedly, it wasn't anything she'd ever done before she'd been impressed into the guards. They hadn't played Trottish-rules cloudball back in Canterlot. Apparently it was a thing here in Trottingham - fancy that, the Trottish fancying something called 'Trottish'! - and because she'd never done it before, Fish Eye was pretty clumsy at first.
Let's just say she wouldn't be winning any cups for the school display cabinet. Er, the regimental display cabinet? Do military outfits have sports trophies? She'd have to ask sometime.
When everything wasn't so rush-rush-rush hup-hup-hup.
Still fun! Just not so much with the spare breath for asking really quite vital questions.
No matter what the corporals said when she gasped said questions out.
And so, as Fish Eye ran with her training section from the chariot training field to the obstacle course, so consumed was she with the simple glow of communal exercise and puzzling over her inchoate desires for something cool to do with her young life, that she barely noticed the skinny Trottish griffon recruit running in step behind her, staring at the back of her head as the corporals sang cadence, something about loving wide-flanked alicorns…
Giles stared at the pinkish freak's tail, counted the steps between the airfield and the obstacle course, and closed file. Eighty-four hundred paces from airfield to course. Equestrian quick step of 140 clops per minute. The corporal's calling the cadence a bit fast, but these mixed units are murder on the march. They're sorting us into tribal units, they have to if we're not to keep stepping on each other's paws.
Bats and griffons and ponies could all get along like kits in a hammock sleepin' the sleep of the just, but they simply couldn't march in tandem. Their bodies weren't built to walk in lock step with each other.
It was easier in the air, but only by a bit, and winds help you if you tried to tie a griffon and a pegasus to the same cart.
Giles had concluded, by the third day of training, that they'd be setting up griffish and pony troops by the middle of May. He hadn't expected the influx of weird featherin' bat-winged ponies, though. That threw his expectations into a cockaded hat.
Or being made file closer as soon as corporals started precipitating out of the recruit-mass like maggots in week-old meat.
How many troops were they planning on putting into this oversized squadron, anyways? The Sixth Guards by the first of May was already bigger than his entire home town's militia had been. Not that Aerie Tarvie had been all that big of a place. They'd called the militia a 'battalion', but it hadn't been more than a double-strength troop by the measurin' sticks the corporals used for organizing this new home Giles' doom had given him.
As far as Giles knew, he was the last survivor of the Aerie Tarvie militia. He'd never heard of any other survivors, and had been too afraid to even display interest in whatever had happened to the captives in the big POW camps outside the city.
Aerie Tarvie had been on the right of the line, and had crossed right in front of the ponies' falcon batteries. There hadn't been time to run.
The sun had barely moved in the sky by the time the platoon arrived at the obstacle course. Wish they'd let us fly. These quick-march jogs are for the ponies.
As the griffish recruits scrabbled through the same old obstacle course in the same old way, Giles kept twitching, and losing his grip on this rope or his balance on that log or tripping over the other rubber tyre in the mud.
Every time that damned freak spoke and he wasn't looking at her, Giles heard his little sister squeaking. It was unearthly - feather-rustling, flank-pricklingly weird. The pony-griffon-monkey-thing didn't look a thing like Giles' long-dead sister, and her plummy, toffy-nosed Canterlotian pony accent didn't bear any resemblance to long-lost Ginny's lisping MacGregor tones.
But winds if it didn't sound like Ginny gone off with the ponies a changeling, and come back talking like the ruddy enemy. Like stories of the evil elves under their dark mounds, who'd take up kitlings and fledgelings and unwary hens from the hills or the darker moors, and haul them Under Hill to be - well, the stories varied about what happened to the elf-lost.
Ginny hadn't been elf-lost, Giles had found her body himself, grey-eyed and still and terrible. Nogriff who's ever found a corpse would ever mistake it for a living griffon. When life goes out of a body, everything that was them goes with it.
No, Ginny drowned, and no changeling myth could fix that.
But damn if the hippogriff freak didn't sound exactly like her.
The corporal let them rest for fifteen minutes after the second time 'round the obstacle course. As Giles billowed and heaved with the rest of the muddy, run-ragged training cadre, he stared at the back of the head of the freak until she turned around with that cheery, open-hearted grin on her freakish beak.
Maybe she looked a little like Ginny around the eyes.
The corporal squawked, and the cadre got up off their paws and dusted themselves off. Giles and the other file closers formed up their fellows into files, and flowed into the column.
2500 paces from the obstacle course to the shower stations outside the walls.
"Gilroy! Giles! Grant! And… Fish Eye! Front and center!" bawled Corporal Gwaine.
Fish Eye looked up from her cot, where she was cleaning the last of her file's filthy training gear, astonished to be called out along with three of the file-closers. Including her own. They followed the platoon corporal out of the barracks-room like four ducklings toddling after their momma duck.
The mess hall was full of ponies and griffons and, for some reason, a goat. At the head of the tables was that big, beefy pegasus lieutenant and Fish Eye's evil sergeant, taller than ever and looking hassled.
The evil sergeant yelled 'a ten-hup', and the room full of troopers formed into ad-hoc lines, braced to attention.
The new lieutenant, Lieutenant Bell strode forward, and crossed in front of the rough formation.
"Aw kay, you all! Listen up! The captain laid down the law, and we talked it over. You all have been trainin' in yer clumps of files for a while now, but it's time to shake out into real units. You all are, mostly, our better file closers. Most of you can write, and you all better have your letters enough to read a written order! Even if it's some idiot lieutenant's muddled fat-lipped scrawl in the heat of Celestia knows what balls-up mess.
"We've got more of you than we strictly need, on account of some of ya will wash out. It happens, we all know it, won't be a total shame, you just go back into th' ranks.
"Most of you all will be running twelve-pony sections in your respective platoons. We're gonna be callin' them 'lances' on account of it sounds damn stupid and confusin' to have squads inside-a squadron! You'll be answerin' to your platoon corporal, and through her, yer ensign.
"We ain't got ensigns yet, still talkin' that over with the captain and the sergeant here.
"Those-a you all who ain't got a lance when we're done givin' out assignments are gonna be runners for the corporals, and workin' for the ensigns when we got some.
"Apparently th' captain has some regular army notions about the dignity of officers. One of you is gonna be with me, and won't that be a kick in the head? I ain't never had a servant before. We never held with such things in the Marezonians. But this ain't the provincials, we're the Guard now!
"So hey, give a cheer, troopers! You all just became lance corporals. Provisional-like. Assumin' you don't piss off anypony more important than you all!"
Corporal Gwaine claimed his flock of new-hatched lance corporals, and led them back to the corridor outside of their platoon barracks-room. He was talking them through their new responsibilities, when Fish Eye heard herself ask:
"But Corporal, what about us flying falcons for the new battery?"
"Eye! The first thing yer gonna learn, is to nawt innerrupt th' corporals, or th' ensigns when we gets 'em! And we ain't gonna be the battery troop, that's nawt 'appenin'. They's sayin' that they need those as ain't raw recruits for that duty. Also, they's recruitin' special-like fer the battery. Is that to yer approval, Princess Eye?"
"Well, gol-lee!" Fish Eye cursed.
And blinked in surprise as the other lance corporals laughed at her.
If you're enjoying this story and can't wait for more, why not try reading one of these?
- MLP: FiM
- Dark
- Drama
- Tragedy
She was the greatest warrior of her generation. But her greatest challenge wasn't anything she could fight with hoof or spear.- Equestria Girls
- Dark
- Mystery
Twilight and her orphaned niece are starting a new life in a new town, as far from Flurry Heart's monster of a grandfather as they can get. But as far as you might run, you can't run away from you. Especially when magic's involved.- Equestria Girls
- Slice of Life
Granny Smith always said that Applejack's stubborness would be the death of her. But sometimes family means bein' stubborn when it's needed.- MLP: FiM
- MLP: Movie
- Adventure
A gryphon commander prepares to launch an attack on Mount Aris9873394
Spec. Ops. The line?
So, does this mean that Giles is going to become an adoptive big brother toward Fish Eye, or is it going to lead to something more romantic?
Lots of shuffling going around to fill all the post that need filling. And some gruelling boot camp to weed out those unfit for service but since it look like it's attracting batpony and griffins that were already soldiers, all the spots are getting taken before good candidates from other races can apply.
The problems of being in a rush I guess.
We just got some Fish Eye do we have news of her crazy sister?
I like the diversity. The lack of unicorn and pegasus is a bit worrying but that mean they will have to break the mold of a traditional Regiment to overcome being unbalanced.
But the goat? I wonder what position he will get. Crazy son-of-a-gun the lot of them. Does he have a name?
What happened to the corporal!?
Goddamn... Every time we run into Giles I always feel a lil worse for him. That war was kind to no one, but now he's being reminded of dead kin? Ouch.
And Fish Eye! She's friggin adorable. That one irrepressible spirit of childish wonder and exploration! So. When's she going to turn into Trixie 2.0? We can't have nice things after all. :P
AND. Day 4 of pinging 9857662! I know you've seen these, Mitch! I don't know what to your game is, or what vile schemes are coming to fruition, but you won't get away with this! Mark my words!
9877865
Nothing extreme, they're just shuffling around their resources. Mews Gate got reassigned to a mixed platoon, Gwaine got the platoon with mostly griffons.
9877866
Patience, patience. I do draft these things a bit in advance. Hrm. There is that pair, and they are hapless schnooks... Trottish locals tho.
We'll see. Might not be for a while. Willy and Joe ain't exactly the Queen's Royal Hussars material. They ain't even Third Army. IIRC Patton banned Maudlin from his area of operations.
9877892
AHA! The culprit confesses! Your fiendish formulations are foiled! The villainous voice of authorial assault has been.... Revealed!
And yes, that he did. Entirely worth it though. I've been joking since the start, and was beginning to suspect this was going to turn into a BitTM. Thanks for the answer, though!
EYYEEEEEEEE!
Oh, just wait until you find out how Gilda got "signed up" herself. In fact, I'll bet you that was precisely what Gilda was thinking of when she dragged Fish Eye into this.
Yeah, I know, Gwaine, she totally throws off all your chances for some lovely alliterations, doesn't she?
Fish Eye really is great, though. Like I said before, she's like a posh-accented Silverstream--just happy to be alive and experiencing new things. Seems to be a trend with the hippogriffs, honestly, I wonder if its genetic...
9877813
You know, in thinking it over, I think I'm game for either of those options.
Lovin' Fish Eye!
I didn’t follow that. She was wanting to join the flying battery (i.e. artillery, though it probably does fly) but now no? What’s Trixie gonna do?
9878478
Fish Eye was building castles in the sky. She just got told flat out that they weren't offering leases, and she wasn't going to be able to move in.
9878509
Oh. Ok!
Thanks
Er, is this a crystal empire reference or is there some other disappearing kingdom I've forgotten? I'm guessing the latter, given Fish Eye's age.
I find it amusing that Fish Eye seems to be settling in rather well, as if command sergeants reproduced by kidnapping and she were the third generation from Twilight.
Knowing that the unit is made up mostly of batpony and griffon veterans reminds me strongly of the Black Company. I still give even odds that this is all a batpony plot to restore Nightmare Moon/Princess Luna (whichever way the batponies prefer, I suppose!).
I'm no fighter pilot, but I know rate of climb is important for the sort of close-range dogfighting they presumably intend to do. I mean, unless Princess Luna slaps the sun out of the sky so they can fight at night because seriously, all these prophetic batponies... However, it seems like Fish Eye is lowkey super athletic, so maybe this is an in for her.
Ouch. For her to think that breaks my heart. Poor kid. She'll learn. Maybe she'll still think artillery is cool, flying or otherwise.
I kinda love the naked cultural imperialism of your Equestria. It makes so much sense in context, that it substantially improves immersion for me; it's easy to pretend I'm reading about a real foreign place that exists somewhere.
And of course, yikes, it's perfectly clear why Fish Eye is so happy to be kidnapped into military service. She wants to belong to a group more than anything else, and she's been excluded her whole life.
Ah, so just because she's been handed most of what she wanted all those years doesn't mean she'll stop looking for more. I like Fish Eye.
Of course they have cadences about that. Presumably in circulation with the Royal Guard as well...
Giles, I'm afraid to say that you are blaming Fish Eye in your thoughts. You think you don't blame her, but you hold it against her a little.
I don't get it?
9878509
Oh, I see. That makes sense.
I like Fish Eye and I worry for her, although I'm glad to see she's doing well so far. I always worry about the strange prophecies of bat ponies. I'm sort of meh on Giles so far, as he's quite passive, and I have a bit of reflexive dislike for violent rebel types, even naive traumatized former rebels spared by the grace of Pinkie Pie (such as it is, what there is of it). Don't take that to mean I'm sour on him, just I'm waiting for him to do something more interesting. There are lots of interesting things in the works.
9879319
The hippogriff kingdom of Mount Aris, which disappeared from contact at some... indeterminate period prior to the modern day according to the MLP movie. Given the apparent age of Silverstream, and her distinct PTSD about the invasion and retreat into Sequestria in that eighth season episode w/ the Young Six, it's clear that Aris fell not too many years before the beginning of the pilot episode.
9879506
Ah, I see. I don't keep up with canon at all anymore. Thanks for clarifying.
Later reflection on this chapter: Gilda continues to look her part as a sergeant major-equivalent alarmingly well, for all that she was kidnapped into the army less than two years ago. "Authority derives from acting like you know what you're doing and it is natural that you do it" is a fun trope. Your work gives a good account of itself even compared to that of Bujold, and this series certainly never fails to remind me of the Vorkosigan series.
9880052
Being compared to LMB's work is incredibly flattering, thanks. I love Bujold's work. I've read most of her stuff at least a half-dozen times.
So, just checking, but Giles and Fish Eye are just Gallus and Silverstream but with different names, right? Wonder if we'll see Smolder, Ocellus and Yona. I reckon Sandbar is already around.
9882016
No! They're totally organic and original characters
cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/400459793237803018.png?v=1
Looks at my supplied physical descriptions
Well, fuck.
I swear that wasn't intentional.
The griffons of the Griffish Isles as a people are, by and large, kind of blue birds. Blue jays, bluebirds, the more slate and blue-rinsed falcons, robins. And yeah, that's influenced by Gallus's character design. But Gallus was a Griffonstone orphan; Gilda has more in common with him as a character than the hill-clan Highlander expy Giles.
And I'd hope that Fish Eye - raised in Canterlot by a distant mother and Celestia's elitist public-school academies - isn't really Silverstream with a different family. But she is kind of pastel pinkish. Which is totally in line with the color schemes of existing hippogriffs we're aware of!
But yeah, blue griffon and pink hippogriff in a disparate group of six strangers coming slowly together.
cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/365304954048610304.png
Quoting Grogar are we, Fish Eyes? Or is it Tirek?
gone off with the ponies a changeling,
Presumably nothing to do with canon changelings. But given how often myths turn out to be real in Equestria, I wouldn't be surprised if there actually were elves under those hills. (Given G4's determination to avoid any human-looking equestrians - see the design for the Sphinx and the changes made to G1 Tirek - one wonders what they would look like. Big bugs? Plant people? )
Her mouth is faster than her brain, not that it's very difficult.
Congratulations fisheye you ranked up
Dorm life? She's experiencing recruitment as dorm life?
Gods, she's a precious little snowflake
"Hold on, all I got is a fifty. Do you have change?"
Betcha it'll be a hundred next time. They catch on to that sort of thing quite fast
Gilda is bestest Evil Griffon
Flying shadows, ha.
Now I'm wondering how well Fish Eye manages in those. She's like a nimble little ninja, isn't she?
"Sir, won't you just get sawdust in your mouth if you do that?"
The corporal sighed. "I'm not actually going to lick it, Fish Eye."
Fish Eye's head drooped a bit. "Aw. I kinda wanted to see that."
The corporal glared at her. "Get back to work, Fish Eye."
Call everyone "Your Exalted Highness". They'll all feel flattered
...or say you're a brown-nosing snot and to give them twenty more
I knew it. All the rest are getting completely molested every day until they can't stand, and here's this nimble little ninja-bird-horse having fun with that
Ah yes. In the face of war, "do we have competitive sporting events with trophies passed between the regiments?" is oh so vital
Does that need to be divided by four to get the actual number ot steps?
Oof. A chat between this fellow and Trixie is bound to be... eventful
I guess she was not at the cannons then, at least
It's probably the naive innocense. May it last longer than it generally does in this cruel and twisted world!
This is starting to sound suspiciously like "Gilda's unicorn"
Is she truly going to be Fish Eye's evil sergeant?
Gasp! Such language!
Remarks and corrections:
> A mare's reach should exceed her grasp,Or what's a heaven for?
Missing space after that comma. And, not sure if the capital letter is intentional?
10464872
Fixed. And she's quoting somepony. Presumably Hob Brownling, earth pony poet.
Okay, first off, some one needs to teach Fish Eye some proper terminology, she was not 'foalnapped into the military' the term is 'press-ganged'.
Other then that, wow she really does have no idea what is going on.... I would love how happy and excited and eager she is about everything, if I wasn't terrified of when all the sweet, naive innocence is going to crash head first into the reality of this world.
Also, a very good point made about why segregated groupings may actually be a good idea, at least for some things. Treating everyone equally is wonderful, and Gleaming is setting an example the rest of the military should be following, but unlike IRL, here there are actual, major, physiological differences between beings that does impact what they are able to do and how they can do it. So, the ideal would be finding the balance between accounting for those differences, but not treating any creature differently outside of that.