Snapshot of a Childhood

 

Once upon a time, in the northern reaches of Featheren Valley, there lived a young hippogryph named Galaxy. She was a princess in hiding, adopted by the golden eagle-gryphon Sir Ida and her children under the iron hoof of the Avalon Empire. From her late father, Sir Lancelot the unicorn, came magical power. From her blood mother, the late Queen Grimhilt, came flight, red plumage, and anger. And in her youth, before the anger set in, she tried her hardest to be happy enough for everyone.

One summer morning, over breakfast, Brynjar, Galaxy’s oldest brother at twelve, announced he would be spending the day running errands for Russell the blacksmith. By then Brynjar was big for his age, grown all his golden-brown feathers, and could fly perfectly well, so to Galaxy it seemed obvious for him to have such a hard, important job.

“I don’t know,” said Ida, setting down her fish. “Russell’s boys are a rough bunch. What kinds of errands are we talking about here?”

“Just deliveries, Mom.” Brynjar tossed his stripped-clean fish bones into the nearby fire. “Russell and his ‘boys’ will all be working in their shop, I’ll hardly ever see them. They’re paying five silver coins a delivery! We need money!”

“Silver’s pretty!” said Galaxy through a beakful of fish. “Can I go with him, Momma? Please? I’ll be good, I promise!”

“Hey yeah,” said Siegfried, Galaxy’s other brother and twin to Sascha. They, the middle children between Brynjar and Galaxy, took after their late Swan-gryphon father. They never knew when to stop. “Let’s all go make deliveries! Hard manual labor sounds so fun. Next stop, the mines!”

“What!?” Brynjar looked on the verge of panic. “No, don’t make me take the pipsqueak, she can’t even fly yet! I’ll have to walk everywhere!”

“Nu-huh,” said Galaxy, hardly able to contain herself as she hopped in place, tiny wings flapping. “I’m really fast, I could run after you! Please, Mom,” she said, turning to look at Ida again. “I really wanna help. I’ll be good, I promise!”

The moment stretched on into forever as Ida sat there with her talons propping up her head, thinking. Then she sighed and looked about. “I have a lot of work to do around here today, and I really can’t afford to watch over any of you kids. Brynjar, take Galaxy with you. And that’s my final word on the matter,” she added as Brynjar started to protest. “Now go on, all of you. It’s a beautiful day outside and you shouldn’t be cooped up in here. Just avoid the unicorns and stay safe.”

Galaxy could hardly believe her luck. Not paying any mind to Brynjar’s ugly look, she gave her mother the tightest hug she could muster, before running to grab her backpack and waiting for Brynjar outside. He stomped out after her soon after, a scowl on his beak and a much larger pack on his back. Together they started off for the blacksmith.

Ida had been right. Summer reigned supreme. The blue sky was dotted with clouds and gryphons, the grass green and comfy underfoot, the sun warm upon their backs. Galaxy hummed as she trotted along beside her brother, looking around at everything as they went. She saw a beautiful bunch of red flowers. A sweetly babbling brook leading into the main river half a mile off. A tall oak dappling the ground with shadow. And up ahead, the marketplace.

Galaxy slowed, losing her smile. Brynjar looked back at her. “Come on, hurry up. What’s the matter with you?”

Galaxy gulped and hurried to stick close to her brother’s side as they entered among the stalls. “I don’t like coming here. The people are mean. They look at me funny, and not in a nice way.” Even as she said this, a Hawk-gryphon running a pottery stall paused in discussion with her customer, both turning to stare at Galaxy as she passed them by. Galaxy lowered her head, trying to make herself look as small as possible as she walked.

A snort from Brynjar. “Grow up, stop being dumb. What did you expect, that I’d be making deliveries to places with no people?”

Soon, but not soon enough, the stalls grew sparse, full buildings taking their place. Up ahead she saw one in particular, a single-story building with plumes of black and grey smoke rising from behind. The smithy.

Before they got much closer, Brynjar stopped walking, holding a leg out to stop her too. He glared down at her, glared the same as the gryphons in the marketplace. “Go bug off for a while, runt, and let me actually work here.”

Galaxy’s heart fell, understanding what was happening. “B-but, Mother said for me to go with—”

Brynjar stomped forward, forcing Galaxy to backpedal away. “Listen, I need to make a lot of money here, and I can’t do that with you slowing me down! More money will make Mom happy, and don’t you want Mom happy?”

Galaxy nodded, though she had the sinking suspicion their mother wouldn’t be happy about this. “But Mother said—”

Brynjar stomped forward again, once again forcing Galaxy back. “You should listen to your older brother too. And your older brother says, go chase a bee or something!”

Finished, he turned and took wing, flying the rest of the way to the blacksmith. Galaxy watched him land and go around to the back of the building where all the smoke was coming from, thinking for a moment to follow him despite his yelling. Only for a moment. With a whimper, she sat down, removing her backpack and hugging it to herself as she used the tip of a wing to wipe away her tears. She could be a big girl about this. She’d never seen Mother cry, so she wouldn’t cry either. Brynjar’s cruelty was his problem.

“Hey, get out of the way!”

Galaxy yelped, jumping up and away as a gryphon-drawn carriage rolled past. It was unlike any carriage she had seen before, not to say she had seen many. It was as big as her house, black wood she could nearly see her reflection in, inlaid with silver in flowing, swirling patterns. The tall windows were black, hiding the occupants from sight.

Having nothing better to do, Galaxy slung her backpack back on and followed the strange carriage, out of the market area, through bundles of houses and cleared fields. At first, she thought it was heading to the mines at the foot of the mountain, until the carriage made a right turn, away from the businesses and houses toward the fair field, where every year there were parties and celebrations. Perhaps, she thought, this was the start of another fair.

By the time Galaxy made it to the fair field, she’d lost sight of the carriage beyond a large gathering of gryphons, most around her mother’s age or older. A couple dozen of them at least, with more trickling over in ones and twos. They were all facing toward something Galaxy couldn’t see past them.

“The carriage?” Hoping she was on the right path, Galaxy ran over to the gryphon gathering, hunching belly to the grass and weaving her way between the legs of the adults until she nearly ran beak-first into a tall wood stage. It was the same stage normally used for fair raffles and pageants, but the palomino unicorn Galaxy saw standing atop the platform didn’t look fun. He looked like he needed a sandwich and a hug. Though, she wouldn’t dare try giving either of the two hulking, armored unicorn soldiers flanking him a hug.

“Greetings, all,” said the unicorn, horn glowing green as his slick voice boomed over the crowd. “My name is Urien. I am the new regional governor for this area, as appointed by Empress Nova of Avalon.”

Mutterings ran through the crowd, some angry, some amused. Galaxy wasn’t sure what there was to be either angry or amused about.

Urien continued over the mutterings, a sort of dazed look in his eyes. “I know many of you may not be happy with yet another unicorn looking after your affairs. I am aware of your long tradition of brave, proud warriors. It is an exciting time for all. Just think of me as a kindly uncle who only wants the best for you and, and . . . come to me if you need any help. Just follow all the rules and I believe we will be able to get along just famously. Good day.”

There was a smattering of applause as the governor and his guards left the stage from the back, though mostly there was muttered talk at the pointlessness of such a brief public announcement. The gryphons around her dispersed back to the village and Galaxy followed them without aim, certain nobody was leaving the fair field happy. She wasn’t. She was . . . sad, but it was like sadness on fire. Her throat hurt with the struggle not to start screaming to let the fire out, and she found herself wanting to find a tree to scratch and punch at.

Avalon. Empress Nova. The unicorns. They had killed Galaxy’s real mother, she knew. Had taken her home and country from her, forced her to live with Ida and call her mother. It made Galaxy angry. She wanted to . . .

The distant echo of thunder drew Galaxy from her thoughts. She stopped her blind walking at the entrance to the fair field and looked around. Storm clouds were moving in and every gryphon she saw was heading inside. She knew she was expected to do the same, yet . . . it’d mean returning home alone. And as mean as he’d been to her, she didn’t want to ruin Brynjar’s workday by letting their mom know he left her alone.

Galaxy sniffled. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“Out of the way!”

For the second time, Galaxy found herself jumping out of the way of the fancy carriage. This time though, as she picked herself up from the ground and dusted herself off, she noticed the carriage slowing to a stop a yard ahead of her. The horrifying thought she might have angered whoever was inside the vehicle and they were coming to reprimand her occurred to Galaxy, prompting her to take a few steps back when the right-side door popped open. Yet her fear became mixed with bemusement as nothing but a unicorn colt, palomino like the adult unicorn on the stage earlier, hopped out of the carriage and trotted over to her. He couldn’t have been more than a couple of years older than her. The look on his face was more curiosity than anger.

“What in Heraldale are you?”

Galaxy remained silent, shifting her weight among her legs as she warily eyed the stranger. The unicorn. Unicorns like him had killed her real mother and ravaged the lands, Brynjar had told her so.

The unicorn colt began circling her, looking her over like she was an interesting flower. “You look like someone decided to play mix and match between a unicorn and a cardinal-gryphon. Weird. You must be a freak.”

The word, freak, struck too close to some of Galaxy’s darker, dead-of-night thoughts and fears, the thoughts and fears she shared with nobody else and hardly even with herself. The word, freak, killed her fear. “Hey! That, that’s a bad word! You shouldn’t say that word!”

The colt nickered and stopped in front of her. “I’m Owain, your new governor’s son. That means I can say whatever I want to you filthy peasants and you can’t stop me.”

Before Galaxy could respond to this he went on. “Can you fly with those wings?”

Galaxy flinched from the question and flared her wings out to look at them. She was a year late in learning how to fly. It wasn’t something she liked thinking about.

“Hah! A gryphon-thing that can’t even fly!” Owain’s voice dripped with satisfaction. It was causing a desire Galaxy had never felt before and struggled to deny. “And can you even do proper unicorn magic with that horn on your head?”

Galaxy reached up and ran a talon over the fluted horn sprouting from her forehead. Unlike her wings, this had always seemed overly large to her. It was at least an inch longer than the colt’s horn. “Um, well I . . . I can levitate stuff with magic.”

Here Owain outright laughed, loud and hard until he had tears coming from his eyes and Galaxy’s unfamiliar desire became near-intolerable to deny. “Oh, oh my gosh! Hahaha, heh, truly? Just magical telekinesis? That’s, haha, that’s adorable! I’ve known fillies and colts who could do that at half your age!”

Galaxy’s vision tinted red. The edges of her beak hurt she pressed them together so hard. The talons of her right hand curled together into a fist. “That’s not nice. Shut up. Stop saying that stuff.”

Owain trotted forward until his snout was inches from her beak. His eyes gleamed with mischief. “So you’re not just a freak, you’re a useless freak.”

Galaxy’s fist flew, slamming into Owain’s left cheek and sending him hurtling to the ground. “YOUR FACE IS A USELESS FREAK!”

And so began Galaxy’s battle against cruelty and injustice throughout Heraldale. A war which would last until her death.