Princess of Beasts - Chapter Twenty Four (Patreon)

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Chapter Twenty Four

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Nira pressed her forehead to the window, staring outside. Some of the clouds that often hid the ship had melted, allowing her a clear view to the blue sky above, and the darker land far below. Though they often used the frequent clouds to hide their presence, they could not always be relied upon. Nira had scouts with powerful spyglasses and other far-lenses scanning the skies, the earth, and the horizon at all times, in all directions. It was unlikely they would be spotted without at least also spotting their adversaries. Closer to the mountains, the clouds lingered, but short of an emergency, Nira did not like to fly too close to the peaks, despite Kasis’ detailed charts of heights and altitudes. 

The princess peered down at the morass of brown and gray stone below. They drifted above the rocky foothills of craggy mountains. Swaths of emerald pine and blue-green fir brought patchwork colors to the otherwise dull tones. In the far distance, the land was greener, where meadows and fields and scattered farmland lay. There were villages further away still, but through the thick window’s distorting effect, they were little more than dark smudges upon the horizon. Layers of white clouds drifted nearby, half-obscuring the mountains, and threatening to hide both the view and the ship if the winds shifted. 

Alakor slipped off the lounger, padded up alongside the princess, and settled onto his haunches. Even in that position, Alakor still loomed over her compared to the other gryphons aboard. She turned her head to look at him as he gazed out the window. According to the medic’s reports, they were an awful lot of scars hidden away under all that white fur and all those feathers. Nira wondered how many of them came from battles, and how many more came from beatings. Did all the snow gryphons go through the same hell? If so, why had only he slipped his leash? 

“Why did you leave?” She tilted her head back, staring up at his face. “If your kind are all as badly treated as you, why aren’t they fleeing en masse?” 

Alakor grunted, clacking his beak. “They’re brainwashed, the lot of them. Taught from birth they’re nothing but beasts, born only to serve the Union, and the Union’s Three Gods.”

“I understand that, but…” Nira reached towards his wing, and when he did not stop her, gently stroked a few of his feathers. Some of them were longer than her damn arm. “What makes you different? Surely, you went through the kind of brainwashing they all did.” 

“Of course.” Alakor watched her fingers slide across his wing. “And for most of my life, I believed it, like the others.” 

“So what changed for you, that didn’t change for any one else?” Nira found the spot where she’d yanked a flight feather free, earlier, and a pang of regret squeezed her head. She stroked its silken neighbors. “Something must have happened.” 

“Yes, you yanked my feather out.” Alakor lightly batted her with his wing, then gave a low, bitter chirrup. “My life started like the rest of my kind. When we are young, we have no real access to the outside world. We aren’t raised by parents, just by handlers. We know only what we’re taught. And what we’re taught is…” He shrugged his wings, saying. “That we’re lesser. A gift, to them, given by their gods, bred to serve and protect our masters. Told that is why their Gods gave us life. We learn to flight and fight with one another, taught that your Empire was a plague upon the earth, toiling in service to the evil gods and their beastly creations. Like dragons. All that nonsense.” He waved his paw as if wiping the whole concept away. “But we’re given no alternative. Taught the histories they want us to believe, trained to fight and recite their scriptures, and always, to obey without question. We learn early on that to disobey is to be punished. Most of us don’t even see the world outside of the facilities we’re reared in until we’ve proven ourselves to follow their orders unquestioningly. By the time we see other lands, meet other peoples, the Union’s lies and cruel beliefs have already been set in stone inside our heads. There’s precious little room left for the truth, no matter how obvious it may be. And still…” 

He set his foreleg back down, sighing. “Some of us see it, anyway. So they…” Alakor swallowed, squeezing his eyes shut. “Make examples, now and then. Of the disobedient ones. Those they fear will flee their masters, or defect to a neighboring nation, or worse, try to spread the truth amongst their kin? If they’re lucky, they’re strung up in front of the rest and beaten until it hurts just to think about whispering to their companions that they deserved better. To make sure everyone else knows that obeying without question is the safest, smartest thing to do. You learn to keep your thoughts to yourself, for your own safety.”

Nira ran her fingers through his feathers. “I can imagine. So others probably think about fleeing, or defecting, but…they never speak of it, never act on it.” 

“Correct.” Alakor nodded once. “Besides, unless you work for a unit like I did, positioned on the edges of the Union’s reach, where would you flee too?” His ears drooped as pained ghosts drifted just behind his icy blue eyes. “I…had a friend, in my first unit. His name was Remiir. We were close, at least, as close as we were allowed to be. It was the first time we had ever seen the outside world, so to speak. Temporarily stationed in a former Empire fortress, where they’d housed some of the Empire’s gryphons. Though the Union had already refurbished it after the battle, there was still…evidence that the Empire treated their gryphons…differently. Kindly. Bedframes. A bath tub. Their own mess hall. The Union moved us out soon, but idea that there were better lives for us somewhere out there, it was already planted. After that, Remiir and talked about fleeing, once in a while. To me, it was…just a fantasy, I suppose.”

“I’m guessing your friend thought otherwise.”

Alakor stared out the window, his gaze distant. “He did.” Nira could almost see the memory of his friend soaring, just behind his eyes. “One morning I woke to find Remiir was gone, and our handlers were furious. We were all questioned, beaten if they didn’t like our answers. At night, I…” Alakor swallowed hard. “I prayed. To their Three Gods. I did not know any others, at the time. Begged them to help my friend make it to safety, pleaded with them to protect him, to prove to me the mercies claimed of them by our masters. Every night I prayed for that.” 

A snarl crept into his voice, his black-tipped crown feathers rising. “Until a week later, another unit caught him. Other snow gryphons, even. Remiir put up a hell of a fight, maimed a few I think. But in the end, they dragged him back. Our captain rounded us all up, and marched all out into a field, near the barracks. Then they…” The gryphon took a slow, shuddering breath. “They tied Remiir up, to a great tree, up on his hind legs. And our base commander pulled his pistol, and shot Remiir in the throat.” He lifted a trembling paw, dragging fingers across his neck. “Right here. Just to make sure every other snow gryphon in the unit had to watch him die, wheezing, choking on his own blood. Told us that was the only fate those who betrayed their Gods deserved.”

“Fuck,” Nira said, her voice a shaky whisper. “That’s horrible.” She gently stroked the gryphon’s neck, smoothing down some of his softer pinfeathers. “Was that what finally made up your mind about escaping?”

“No, no.” The gryphon’s claws unsheathed, digging into the wooden floor. His voice hardened. “That was when I stopped fantasizing about escape, and started plotting revenge. For Remiir, for myself, for all our wasted lives. I did not know if I could ever get it, but I knew, when the time came, I would try.” 

“How long ago was that?” 

“Nearly a decade.” Alakor glanced away, blinking back tears. “Feels like a century, though.” 

“That long?” Nira continued gently petting the gryphon’s neck. “The girls thought you were young, by gryphon standards. Though I suppose you birds live longer than we do.” 

“We do, and I am.” His beak hung open, just a bit, and his ears twisted into smug angles. “Older than those old hens, anyway.” 

Nira laughed a little bit, patting him. Her smile soon faded. “I’m sorry for your loss, Alakor. Truly.” 

The gryphon offered her a somber smile, dipping his head. “Thank you. But that was, I suppose…the moment things changed for me. When I knew I would not be content to bow, and obey, and live the lie they forced upon me for all my life. I could not live as their beast until they day I died. But I also knew I could never breathe a word of those thoughts to anyone. Not even the other gryphons, not knowing some of my own kin had dragged him back. So from then on, I kept my thoughts to myself, I did as I was told, followed my orders, and did a damn fine job of it.”

“I can’t imagine living that way. Suffering under someone’s yoke like that is bad enough, but suffering in silence?” Nira shook her head. “I don’t think I could have done it. I’d have gotten myself killed ages ago trying to take a few of them out all by myself.” 

“Oh, I never said I suffered in silence.” Alakor gave a low, warbling noise. “I might have swallowed down my desire for revenge, but I could never swallow my pride.” 

“So I’ve noticed.” 

The gryphon smiled, his ears perked. “I did as I was told, I followed my orders, and I undertook and completed my missions with exemplary success. But I spoke my mind, as well. If a commander was a fucking idiot, I told him as much. If I was hungry, I’d barge in where I wasn’t allowed and take some human’s food. Hell, I pissed on some field commander’s tent, when he refused to let us dig out latrine areas, instead of using some communal pit next to our sleeping area. Said animals could live like animals.” Alakor flexed his wings. “So I did. Waited till my bladder was about to burst, and flew tight circles over his tent. Pissing on it.”

Nira erupted into bawdy laughter. “Oh, shit!” 

Alakor chirped. “I’d have done that too, if I had to go at the time.” He rubbed the back of one forepaw with the other. “Took a hell of a beating for it, but it was worth it. And the next day we were all allowed to dig our own private latrines outside the camp.”

“That worked out well, in a way.” Nira leaned her shoulder against the window, folding her arms. “Sounds like you were really pressing you luck, though.”

“I was. I had too. I think with every day that passed, after Remiir’s death, I hated the Golden Union just a little bit more. I needed…some outlet, for it. So I let it out, in tiny little bits and pieces, in angry outbursts or crude pranks, or whatever sort of disobedience I could get away with. I didn’t care that it meant they’d beat me.” The gryphon shrugged his wings. “They were going to do that, anyway. If I knew it was coming, if I brought it on myself, instead of letting them make up some excuse, then it was almost like a little victory. Like it was on my terms, not theirs.” 

He flattened his ears back, his eyes narrowing. “I was always careful, though. Being punished for acting out was a very different thing than a punishment for trying to flee, or for striking a Union soldier, or officer. I thought about revenge, all the time, but I never once tried to flee, and I never gave into my urge to strike back. And I always undertook any order I was given, any mission I was sent on, no matter how foolish, callous, or dangerous. And I have a very high success rate. So I cultivated the image they needed to see. A deeply loyal servant of the Golden Union, who just so happened to have an attitude problem.” 

“So they never even suspected you were plotting to defect?” 

“If they did,” Alakor said, swishing his tail across the floor. “They never acted on those suspicions. It’s quite possible that some officers had their doubts about me, but my successful performance was enough to ensure those concerns were overridden. Granted, at first, even I didn’t know I wanted to defect. I had…no idea what form my revenge may take, only that…that it had to be bigger than just killing some commander. As much as I wanted to tear his every limb from his body, a suicide attack on our officers wasn’t…it wasn’t enough. I just…I didn’t know what…” Alakor trailed off. Though the gryphon stared out the window, Nira knew it was not the view he was observing. When he spoke again, Alakor’s voice was so whisper-soft Nira wasn’t sure if he even realized he was speaking out loud. “And then the dreams started.” 

Was that one of his secrets? Nira hesitated to even ask him about it, knowing full well he might withdraw again, and hide away whatever carefully guarded thoughts his words were brushing up against. She decided to try, just the same, but kept her voice as gentle as could be. “Dreams?”

“Of the gods.” Alakor’s voice remained a whisper, but sharper now, a fervent, piercing hiss. “Real gods, the Stars That Sing, and the Smoke That Seeks, of warm sand and child-deities dancing upon it, and impossibly golden feathers. And her voice, the voice of She Who…” He trailed off into silence, then sucked in a breath, as if only now realizing just what he was saying. The gryphon shook himself, waved a paw, and forced some of his usual bravado back into his voice. It was only partly effect. “A-anyway, I started having strange dreams, and realized that there were greater things awaiting me, if only I could survive long enough. So…as I said, I let my hatred and out in little bursts, and molded myself into the warrior-slave they wanted.” 

Nira took a slow, deep breath. The way the gryphon spoke of his odd dreams, the way he tried to brush them aside as soon as he realized he’d delved into them, that almost had to be one of his secrets. Nira had no idea why he felt he had to keep such things hidden, but something about it left her unsettled. The imagery, the ideas, they were certainly a little disconcerting, but more so was the fact that Alakor seemed afraid to talk to her about them. They certainly did not sound like any of the religious imagery or names the Golden Union espoused. Perhaps it was just an ingrained instinct to avoid talking about anything that might be perceived as blasphemous. Or perhaps there was something more to it. Whatever the case, Nira knew prying wasn’t going to get her anywhere, so she decided to move on, for now. 

“So what happened?” She held her hand up towards his head, and when he did not pull away, she gently smoothed back his ears. The fine white and black fur covering them was warm and velvet-soft. “You just bided your time until you got put on duty trying to track us, and took the chance when you saw it?” 

Alakor leaned his head into her touch, and for a moment, Nira saw something new in his eyes, and slightly-open beaked smile: gratitude. She hadn’t pressed him about the dreams, and for that, he was thankful. “It wasn’t quite that easy, or that quick. But remember when I said I was cultivating an image? As it turns out, that image was exactly what the intelligence unit who uses us as spies was looking for.” He circled a forepaw in the air. “They’re a little more…lenient, as far as what they let us get away with. Outside the Union, the snow gryphons were not yet well know, aside from other gryphons. It was easier for us to serve as spies, without our coloration immediately marking us as Union. But…” He set his paw back down, chuckling. “If we were all simpering and submissive, lacking in pride, we’d immediately be all the more suspicious.” 

“So your sharp tongue and your damn ego actually helped you blend in?” Nira couldn’t help but laugh at that, shaking her head. 

“To an extent. Though as our reputation proceeded us, that was less and less the case. Our priorities and missions shifted a bit, and we were more…spies in plain site. Sent to say, accompany an officer as bodyguard during a negotiation, but actually there to steal information. Or, sent in as assassins, or to infiltrate a dangerous area and capture a target of interest alive, that sort of thing. It worked out well for me, my little rebellions were slightly better tolerated, and I was able to complete all my new missions with equal success. I took a few more bullets in the process, but none of them killed me.” He ruffled himself up, chirruping. “The fact that we even got orders from an Executor, and that we completed them successfully, was considered a very high honor. To this day, I remain equal parts proud of my success and sickened by the fact they were on behalf of the Union.” 

“An understandable confusion, I should think.” 

The gryphon murmured, grinding his beak in thought. “Perhaps so. It also allowed me the benefit of getting access to all sorts of Golden Union data, much of it highly secretive. Sometimes I was transporting it, other times I just wriggled my way into an archive, or stole a few tomes to read at night. Hell, there were instances where highly classified documents were left out in front of me while I was given my orders, or guarding someone in charge of such things.” 

Nira quirked her brows. “Really? Were your masters that inept, or did they think your loyalty that absolute?”

Alakor merely shrugged his wings. “It was not usually my direct masters, but those they sent me to work with, transport, or protect. You’d be surprised how many Union officers simply believe that ‘animals’ can’t read.” 

Nira laughed, running a hand down her face. “That would do it, yeah. I’m sure you never encouraged that line of thinking at opportune times, either.” 

“Gryphon!” Alakor added an angry gruffness to his voice. “Who are those documents addressed too?” He shifted his voice lower, to something slightly meeker, but also fed up. “I’m sorry, Master, but I’m afraid I still haven’t been taught to read that language.” He clicked his beak. “He says, whilst speedily reading the confidential details of Union troop movements.” 

Nira snorted. “I see why they made you a spy, if you could pull that off. So, in the end, were you already surveilling us when you decided that this was your big chance?” 

“Essentially, yes.” Alakor straightened up. “There were lots of rumors going around, that hostilities with you might be reviving, that the higher ups were discussing going after you again. We had a rough idea of where your ship was…well, very rough, anyway. So they started sending out gryphons to locate it, theorizing that with the size of the Cataclysm, we could spot you before you could spot us. Which, it seems was true. They sent a few others before me, each gone for a month or so. Honing in on you. And when it was my turn? I knew that was it. That was the moment, the chance I’d waited for, hoped for, dreamt of…I was being sent to track your ship! A place where gryphons were treated like people. Where sooner or later, you were going to have to fight the Union. Where I could finally know revenge, and…and maybe even freedom.” 

Alakor turned his attention to the window, staring out at the vast blue sky, and the distance, red-gold beacon that was the sun. “I woke that morning, filled with a strangely sorrowful sense of calmness. As desperate as I was to escape the Union, and return to them with claws, and bullets, and cannon fire? Leaving the only home I’d ever known, for the uncertainty of defection, remained an intimidating prospect. The other snow gryphons gathered to wish me safe flight, and successful mission, as was my custom. Those who were fond of me even hugged me and…it occurred to me then, that…that if I ever saw them again, it would be as their enemy. That…that hurt, more than I expected. And I…I am not too ashamed to say I cried for them, a little bit, when I was far into the sky.” 

Nira nodded, reaching out to gently caress the gryphon’s foreleg. “That would be…very hard, I know.” 

Alakor twisted his head around, his blue eyes boring into her, unblinking. “And yet I would fight them without hesitation, if I must. I need you to know that, Nira. I need you to understand that for as long as you will have me, I will fight for you, and for this ship, and for what it stands for.” 

“I believe you, Alakor.” Nira squeezed his shoulder, best she could. “Let’s…just hope it doesn’t come to that.” She let her hand drop down, turning back to the window. “I think perhaps we’ve discussed all that enough.” She hadn’t accomplished everything she wanted to with the gryphon, and there were some issues they remained at an impasse on. But if nothing else, she understood him a little better now, and that was a good start. Nira just hoped he could understand her a little better, too. “I’d like to think we made progress, understanding one another, if only a little.”  

A wistful smile parted Alakor’s beak, and he gave a little nod. The gryphon stared at the sky again, silent for long moments. Then, just as Nira was about to bid him farewell and leave him to his memories, he spoke. “You know, they say the sun used to be brighter.” 

“Hmm?” Nira shaded her eyes, peering out the window. She’d heard superstitions like that in the past, now and then, but that was all they were. Superstitions. “Seems awfully bright to me.” 

Alakor shrugged his wings, something cold, and unsettling creeping into his voice. “It used to be brighter. It’s light used to provide more warmth. Winters were shorter, summers longer.” 

Nira turned to watch the gryphon. He wasn’t looking at her, just staring into the sky, still aside from his slow, even breathing. “Who says that?” 

“Old dragon clans, I think. At least, I think they said it first. They live longer than other thinking species, so…I suppose they’d notice it, first. Pass it off as the ramblings of elders, wishing they could relieve their glory days. But then the young grew up, had children of their own, and then grandchildren…and then they too realize, that the sun used to be brighter.” The gryphon swallowed. “It was.” 

“Alakor…” Nira shivered. The way he spoke it made it sound as if it was proven fact. “What are you talking about?” 

“They proved it.” Alakor’s voice was adrift now, awash in an ocean of uncertainty. “The Union proved it, a few decades ago. Hell, the Empire probably did to, but-”

“Proved what?” 

The gryphon’s voice sharpened in an instant, an icy talon raking through to Nira’s very soul. “That the sun is dying, Nira. Or…or fading, at the least.” 

The same cold claws dragged themselves down Nira’s spine. That was impossible. Suns didn’t fade, they didn’t die…did they? “The Empire proved no such thing. I sure as shit never heard anything about that, other than rumor and superstition!” 

“Why would they ever tell you?” Alakor swiveled his ears towards the princess, but otherwise remained still. “If you were even born at the time, they’d have no reason to tell you, and every reason to shield you from it. Your Empire was crumbling beneath the might of the Golden Union’s ever-growing army, and it was only a matter of time before your capital was under siege. You had enough to worry about. They wouldn’t have told you, and whatever data they had, is long lost now.” 

Nira glared at the gryphon. Whatever he was babbling about, it sounded like madness. Maybe there was more to those dreams he spoke of than he’d let on. “Why are you telling me this?” 

Ever so slowly, Alakor turned his head to meet her gaze. His piercing blue eyes shone wet, earnest, and chillingly afraid. “You wanted a secret. So I’m offering you one.” He lifted his paw, pointing a single unsheathed claw towards the red-gold sun, and its crystalline halo behind the window’s distortion. “The sun is fading. Thirty years ago, or so, team of scientists, engineers and astronomers measured the sun’s light in a variety of ways. Ten years later, they did so again, using more modern instruments, and they found that it had diminished. So…” Alakor seemed to stare right through her, as if he was looking not into her eyes, but into some secret Union laboratory. “They dug out historical measurements, and astronomical data, from the Union’s old archives. Those too, showed the sun to have been brighter, more gold and less red. They even re-created historical means, to see if the old instruments and measurements were simply not sensitive enough, but all they found was further proof of decay. Winters in the Old Union are measurably colder, and longer, and summers, measurably cooler, and shorter. So they presented the only finding they could all accept. That for whatever reasons may be, the Sun was slowly fading.” 

“That’s…terrifying.” Nira put a hand to the empty pit where her stomach once was. “You’re serious about this?”

Alakor nodded once. “The fading is not so swift as to be noticeable, day to day, or year to year. But over decades, centuries, it becomes impossible to miss. Now, for us? For you, and I? I suppose it doesn’t really mean anything. We won’t live long enough to worry about the sun growing too dim. But generations from now? A few hundred years, a thousand?” Alakor shrugged his wings. “Who knows? Maybe the world will only be dark, and cold. Or maybe it will only fade so far.” 

“Maybe,” Nira said, folding her arms. She wasn’t entirely sure she believed it. Just because a bunch of Union scientists thought the sun was fading didn’t make it true. After all, there was a time people thought the Great Emptiness was literally bottomless and empty. There was a time when the Sunken Seas were not sunken, at all. Hell, there was even a time when the idea of a flying ship was laughed off as a madman’s impossible dream. “So what happened to these scientists, and their data? Why haven’t people heard about this?” 

“The Union’s church had everything confiscated. Their instruments, their test data, their results, even the historical studies.” Alakor finally turned back to the window, grinding his beak. “They sent an Executor who them forced to recant, to ‘admit’ to errors in their calculations and measurements, and so on. Those who refused were locked away for High Blasphemy.” Alakor snarled under his breath. “Because their findings starkly contrasted with the Union’s beliefs and teachings, that the Three Gods the Union worshiped would never allow the sun to fade. So they buried it all, made sure their people would never learn of it, lest they start to question the powers that be, and the teachings that bind them.” 

“That…does sound like something they’d do.” 

“It was.” Alakor allowed himself a little smile, his ears slightly perked. “I only learned of it because one of the Intelligence archives I was sent too for a while maintained copies of Executor reports. I was sent there along with several to collect those copies on behalf of the Executor. I just…” Alakor waved a paw. “Happened to accidentally read them myself.” He dropped his paw back down. “So there you have it. One of my secrets.” The gryphon shot her a look, eyes narrowed. “Of which I have many. Some more personal, or uncomfortable than others. But you wanted one, for the purposes of trust, and…it seemed as good a time to speak that one aloud as any. Whether you choose to believe it or not, is up to you.” 

Nira ran a hand through her hair. “I feel like I might be better off forgetting it, for my own sanity. Not that I ever could. Let’s just…hope that as harsh it sounds, for once the Union was right, and their data was wrong.” Even if she doubted that was true. “But…thank you for telling me, just the same.” She reached out and rubbed the gryphon’s ear again. “I’ve probably taken up enough of your time. I’ve got preparations to make and people to discuss them with.”

“Indeed.” The gryphon worked his beak in silence, as if chewing on his thoughts. “I think I shall remain here, and…just watch the sky, a while.”

“Of course.” Nira stroked the back of his neck. “Thank you again for telling me. About the sun, about your past…” She chewed her lip a moment, wondering if she should mention the dream. She decided to do so, but without dwelling on it. “About your dreams, and especially about Remiir.” She stroked him once more, then pulled back.

“You are welcome.” Alakor lifted a foreleg, and curled his massive paw around NIra’s hand, gentle as could be. “I hope…I hope this helps you trust me, even if only a little.” 

Nira smiled, and squeezed his fingers. “It does.”