Chapter 9
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“What is this ‘Grand Galloping Gala’?” Luna frowned, as if the words had suddenly sprang into life and were now flowing around the piece of parchment.
Her words – more specifically, her voice – kicked me out of my own dark thoughts, and I hummed for a few seconds as I tried to remember what exactly she had said. “It’s some big party.”
“Party? Such as, a group of individuals?”
I sighed, smiling. “No, it’s an event. A celebration or something. I don’t really know, it’s a pony thing.”
Her ears flapped backwards, and she cast her eyes down. “Oh.”
She sounded… disappointed, oddly enough. I turned my head around to glance at her, only to find her gaze locking with my own. Resignation was etched on her face, and her ears hung limply down the side of her head. She attempted a smile, but the both of us knew that it was half-hearted at best.
“What’s wrong?” I ventured.
She didn’t respond with words. Instead, she floated the parchment down to my eye-level.
It read:
‘Dearest Luna,
Please consider going to the upcoming GGG (Grand Galloping Gala). It will happen in about 3 months’ time. It will help you get acquainted with most of the important ponies in this day and age. You won’t have to do much. I’ll do the greetings out in the main lobby, so you can make small talk with my –’
The word ‘my’ was heavily slathered over with ink, but I could still discern it.
‘– our ponies at your own pace and leisure.
I want to speak to you about yourself, as well as the griffon doctor. We’ll talk whilst we eat dinner. In private.
Your sister,
Cel.’
Somehow, I could sense that she wasn’t going to be saying nice things about me in her private talk. Or perhaps it was The Talk.
Despite the sense of disappointment rising in my gut, I couldn’t help but sigh, and my beak curled in a half-smile. I’d gotten Luna this far, and now, she was truly on the road to recovery. How long had it been? Five, six months? I mentally shrugged. She was getting healthier, and it was time for the doctor to pack up and head for sicker, needier pastures and patients.
She caught the parchment in her magic, and floated the scroll above her back as we continued to walk towards… towards wherever she wanted to go.
I should have known this day would come. Getting attached to a patient; what a fool I was. I thought I’d prepared for the side-effects of such a long treatment plan, but apparently, my preparations weren’t enough. Even now, I could feel cold fingers of dread coalescing in my stomach as I imagined myself packing up. The research papers would go in the briefcase, the folders and textbooks in luggage; perhaps I would leave a short, small note for Luna as a parting gift…
I kicked myself. Get a grip, Sigurd. Nothing was happening. We were both just caught up in circumstance, and now that the problem was over, we could go our separate ways. Cut off the bonds, burn the bridges.
So why did the prospect of doing so feel so difficult? Did the time we spent together mean nothing? Perhaps we could remain in contact. Our bond wouldn’t be as strong as before, with all likelihood, but it was still better than the scorched-earth policy.
Luna turned around, hearing me stumble slightly, and rushed to my side. Evidently, whilst I’d been shooting some of my more romantic and idealistic thoughts to bits, I’d actually kicked myself in the real world. I could feel the sting in my left hindleg’s shin.
The blue alicorn held out a hoof, awkwardly, like a newly drafted recruit reaching for one of the rifles in his first weapons training session. She didn’t know what she was doing, but she was so determined to help; it was endearing, in a way. She still cared for me.
I smiled up at her, painfully aware of how similar my expression was to hers. I’d long since figured out how to hide your true emotions from your patients – a good deal of sarcasm, an easy grin and a friendly attitude could mask the manifestations of many emotions.
I placed a claw on top of her hoof, and pushed it back down softly. Her eyes still shone with concern and worry, though.
“I’m alright.”
We continued to walk. This time, the route of our meandering path somehow came to me; we were heading for the smaller, private dining rooms the Princesses used when they had small diplomatic meetings, or when they wanted to eat in a cozier setting. I imagined that we must have spent a lot of time there. Luna had managed to conquer her agoraphobia over the months; now, she could eat in the main dining hall without making slow, sliding steps from the buffet table, or gripping the table itself as if she was preparing for any sudden absence of gravity.
I didn’t blame her. Phobias usually weren’t unfounded; rather, they tended to be a by-product of some trauma in the past. Some griffon soldiers with PTSD came home afraid of sudden, loud sounds like the clang of a dropped plate, whilst others couldn’t stand open space or sky. They had never really completely left the battlefield.
I would know.
We arrived at the entrance, a wooden door that was comparatively simple in its construction and design. A border of roses and thorns ran around the edges, wooden stems twirling over and around one another in an intricate pattern. Probably imported hardwood, judging from the dark shade.
The guards stationed on either side of the door crossed their spears in front of the door. Luna looked at them, face contorted in puzzlement. They grimaced, but held their ground.
Luna shrugged. “Perhaps that was the wrong room.”
I glanced upwards at the inset engraving on the door. The numbers matched perfectly, and the door was definitely saying ‘Clover Hall’. The stone doorway was engraved with the same name, displayed proudly at the top, and I was sure that I hadn’t misread that letter.
“Princess,” one of the guards coughed out, voice still a little raspy from disuse. “Your sister requests your presence in the room. Only your presence.”
Now, I was positive that Celestia wasn’t going to flatter me. Still, I’d (mostly) my job and my duty, and it was time to leave. That didn’t make the prospect any more heart-rending, however.
“Go on,” I muttered, patting the back of her foreleg. The guards’ eyes swiveled around to lock onto me, their gazes as cold as ice.
“We shall speak to thee,” she said, giving me a short, simple nod. I reciprocated the gesture. She smiled, before turning back to the door, and finding the spears that had barred her path now standing straight up, re-locked into the armor.
I could see the brand logo etched across the steel that held the spring-mechanism. The guards had been given Mustang models. Finicky, but high-quality pieces of tech. Smooth release and very powerful, if they were maintained properly.
We wouldn’t have bothered with all of that. Even as they glowered at me, I could recall my first training session with melee weapons. It was one of those classes that everyone didn’t take seriously. A skirmish at knife-fight range was to be a last resort; we weren’t as powerful in musculature structure as anything like an Earth pony, or as fast as anything like a pegasus. Surprisingly, as the unholy marriage of two apex predators with two very different bodies and hunting styles, we couldn’t do well at being either. Our speed was hindered by our heavy cat’s half, and our strength by our relatively fragile bird’s half. This must have been the Known World’s cosmic joke of the Maker-damned millennium.
Perhaps that was why we had become what we were. One day, we had been born into the world as predators, without a way to predate efficiently and effectively. Forced into co-operation and civilization, the advent of agriculture saved us from the life-death struggles of our distant ancestors. But even then, it was out of necessity. We never really had a choice if we wanted to continue to survive, to thrive in a world that had fucked us over.
Even now, with all of our achievements in engineering and the physical sciences, there was still that sense of resentment that was as inherent in our culture as weaponry. The two were interlinked, actually. It was far easier to carve out your own way through a world that conspired to torment you with a good gun by your side.
Of course, that brought problems as well.
Right now, my biggest problem was the one blue alicorn who came storming out.
-&-
Luna entered the dark room. The patterns etched into the walls, the painting on the ceiling, the chairs and table in the middle she could all see, but her mind was not focused on them.
She remembered the darkness well. It had been her companion, her friend and her enemy. Her mind, once her greatest ally, was now her most dangerous liability. Oh, how things had changed.
Sigurd. Who knew that a griffon, of all people, had been the one to push past the illusions and the trickery
and the deceit? Blunt to a fault, brutal and uncompromisingly stubborn, it seemed that yesterday’s apple didn’t fall too far from the thousand-year-old tree.
The good doctor wasn’t like the ones she’d met a thousand years ago, possessed by bloodlust and hatred. The single-minded determination so prevalent in their race had been used to perfect a field of healing, used to help rather than harm. Perhaps that was why she found him so interesting. Luna had never heard of ‘psychology’; what he was doing simply seemed like being a good listener, and a good friend.
She could feel her gaze softening as her mind’s eye conjured up an image of him, unafraid of her presence and ready to dispense short snippets of wisdom. Around him, she felt… right. He was a kindred spirit, one who’d somehow gone through just as much as she had, and his behavior didn’t seem like pity, but rather, empathy. Perhaps she’d ask about his past, after the dinner.
Her sister didn’t seem so happy. She sat at the room’s only dining table, a relatively modest wooden construct that was about the size of the bed in Sigurd’s room. He was a good griffon. He deserved more. But what was that he said? Ah. ‘Few people get what they deserve.’
Celestia stood up from her chair, which was essentially a very large cushion. They used to eat sitting on stone, Luna remembered.
The Moon Princess blinked twice, and her eyes refocused on the white form of her closing sister – her once enemy, once friend – and she started backwards, almost through the door. The image of her sister, mane alight with flame and coat awash with flickers of orange-yellow light, blazed through her mind.
Celestia stopped, the hurt evident in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Luna simply grunted. Sigurd would tap her foreleg, and when he’d first done that, she’d flinched; that she distinctly remembered. It was such an odd thing for a griffon to do! Was blood not their currency and death their only god?
Things had changed, Luna reminded herself. Things changed, and she hadn’t. She shut her eyes, and the image of the good doctor, wearing an understanding smile, flashed in her mind’s eye. She sighed.
“Shall we eat?” her sister asked, as if she was speaking a crowd of thousands.
Luna nodded slowly. This didn’t seem good. Sigurd had always brought up important things quickly – better to get it out than have it fester, he said – or maybe that was simply the griffon way. Some things just didn’t change, and she took comfort in that. This wasn’t all in her head, after all.
She made her way to the dining table. A lit candlestick stood in the middle, despite the sunlight pouring onto the white tablecloth from the large windows inset in the far wall. Three dishes were placed out in front of her, each with a sort of semi-fluid, semi-solid that was known as ‘pudding’.
She glanced at the cutlery to the side of the plates. A whole set of silver knives, forks and spoons were set in some sort of hidden pattern, arranged in concentric rectangles. She shrugged. A spoon was enough for Sigurd, and it would be enough for her. There was simply no point in making the primal act of eating flashier than it needed.
The skin of the pudding split without any resistance, as if it was a ball of congealed water. Luna put her snout closer to the food, sniffing at it. As far as she could tell, the pudding was lacking in magic in any form, even when it had been cooked. Any stray field that would have made her hair stand on end was absent; the cook must have been a master of his art.
“Luna,” her sister’s voice rang out, and she looked up to see Celestia smile softly. Whether that was from exasperation or happiness, she couldn’t tell.
“What?”
“We need to talk. About the Gala, and the doctor.”
Luna felt a cold trickle of dread spread out from her spine. “What of Sigurd?”
“Well, let’s talk about the Gala first,” Celestia replied, although Luna got the impression that it wasn’t really a request, but a direction in which to point their conversation. Sigurd had never done so. He would simply have asked, and gotten an answer, rather than playing games of words.
“What of Sigurd,” Luna repeated, appetite gone. The pudding seemed as shaky as her. Her breathing slowed, and she closed her eyes, fearing the worst.
Her sister sighed, replacing the cup of tea that she’d been drinking from on top of its saucer with a soft clink. It sounded more like the impact from a judge’s gavel to Luna.
“It’s enough,” Celestia said, fixing her with a straight, direct gaze. A spark of satisfaction flared up in Luna’s mind, squashed down with the worry that now came crashing down from broken barriers. So, this was it, then.
Luna sighed, pushing the plate roughly away from her. The cutlery set around it protested in their metallic clanks.
The Sun Princess continued. “I worry about you, Luna.”
Luna said nothing.
“He’s a doctor,” Celestia said, after a short pause. “I know how you feel about him, but he’ll have to go and see some other patient sooner or later. He can’t be by your side forever.”
Luna remained silent, but she averted her gaze to the window, and the scene outside. Contrary to the dark thoughts plaguing her mind, the day outside was as sunny as her sister’s disposition. Suddenly, the subdued, dark atmosphere chilled her to the bone. What she wouldn’t give to fly outside, lose her troubles, with the one she trusted…
“Luna? The sooner you get this, the less you’ll be hurt.”
It wasn’t fair. Finally, she was happy – why did that have to be taken away? For once, there was someone who talked to her without the specter of her history hanging over her head. For once, there was someone who treated her like she wasn’t some remorseless mass-murderer, but a pony worth talking to. Perhaps that was her real punishment. The fates could be cruel indeed, but perhaps she deserved this loss.
‘We carve our way’, he had said. Perhaps the consequences of her actions would be determined by the ones around her, but the choice she made was still hers, even if they amounted to nothing. And then, she could always say that she tried. He was worth that. He deserved more than that. More than some fallen princess whose hooves were slick with the blood of her people.
“I’m sorry, Luna. But this is for your own good. You’ll thank me later.”
“No,” she murmured, voice cracking. “This is for his benefit. I never was good enough.”
“Sister, don’t say that!” The Sun Princess stood up from her cushion, moving around the table. Luna mirrored her sister’s movements, going around the other side. The wooden table between them suddenly seemed like the largest, most impassable mountain range in the world.
“Don’t pity me!” Luna mumbled, half-sobbing. “If you are going to send him away, why talk to me about it? Your nation, your people, your rules! Do what you do, and don’t you dare act as if I have a say about any of this!”
‘We carve our way’, he’d said. If there was anything worth fighting for, it was him. It was time for her to carve her way out of the mess she’d created.
Celestia’s falling hoof almost didn’t register in her mind, nor did her sister’s crestfallen expression.
Forcing down her sobs, and gulping down great mouthfuls of air to slow her breathing, Luna flung open the doors and stormed out.