“Polly! What’s going on?”

“Unter, I’m assigning you to the prison block.”

“Oh? Do we have someone in there besides Armel?”

Polly picked at her teeth with her one clawed hand; the other rested against the makeshift table as she leaned. She purred a bit, feeling comfort from the action.

She was a sphinx, a cat-like human, with extra-large eyes, furry ears in place of normal human ones, and a tail that, honestly, got in the way of everything. Unlike some other sphinxes she had met, she had only one clawed hand. The other one was completely human.

“Yes. A unicorn. With a baby.” Unter’s eyes went wide.

“A baby? In the prison? Not the nursery?”

“It’s not hers. Day is looking after it according to Ryuu, but you’re just there for observation. Just in case Armel isn’t around.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The sphinx watched as her best defender tromped away heavily.

Unter was extremely large for a golem and tended to absorb a lot of damage, having almost no skin spots. He was a great tank, and she was a bit irked that Ryuu had requested him instead of a few of the other lesser golems who could be just as good. Was the unicorn that much of a threat or did he really think that Unter was unnecessary to her, especially with the big move coming up?

It was easy for Ryuu to ask for Unter because Unter rarely went out. He was too heavy and big to avoid being spotted by a unicorn tribe. Even though he could probably take out at least ten unicorns, it was better to avoid them than spark a confrontation. Some unicorns had a fetish for splitting open golems like eggs, and Unter was a perfect challenge.

She wished she had a cigarette, but those were few and far between.

Her office room was small and crowded with rusted file cabinets. Inside were arrays of maps, reports, drawings, and sometimes an occasional bottle of booze she kept hidden from sight. Two bright lamps on the table illuminated the room, casting shadows in all directions.

In front of her, on the table, was a map her scouts had created of the new area. Polly’s scouts had found a great place that was far enough out of Hornslash tribe territory to avoid their raids and close enough to feasibly move everyone over there. And there were leftover generators in the tunnels with an underground water reserve. It was almost perfect.

It was just difficult to get to and very far. Moving the children would be difficult, and it would be difficult to avoid the eyes of the fairy mafia.

Polly had suggested moving there since the raids from unicorns were getting closer and closer to their hidden settlement. They needed somewhere else to go to avoid the main settlement being raided. Already, Mark, one of their three crash settlements had been raided, only two months since it was established.

Some settlements were openly displayed and were able to drive back unicorns with hired mercenaries. But those were run by the fairy mafia, a group of thugs, interested in sex, drugs, and power. Instead, their small community, starting with Ryuu, Challa, Oren, and Sydney all decided to go underground.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Polly joined up after Ryuu convinced her a number of years back to leave a brothel in Farentown, a fairy run dump of a town. She still had the tattoo on the back of her neck, marking her as theirs.

Glancing at the map they had created, she pondered weak spots and discovery points of the new area. Since she was in charge of the scouts and security, she was tasked with figuring out where to put everything for the best advantage.

The last thing they needed was a unicorn raid on a new settlement that destroyed their only source of food: their hydroponic farms. Patel had only just figured out how to enhance the output, but it came with an energy cost. Moving that secretly would be a hassle.

“So, I guess we won’t be trading with Mark anymore,” a voice spoke, drawing Polly out of her thoughts.

“They were…unprepared,” Polly replied, turning her head to the gryphon at the door. The gryphon frowned at her.

“You don’t think…it was on purpose?” he asked, closing the door quietly behind him. Polly nonchalantly flexed out the claws on her paw and retracted them again.

“We always knew it was a risk, Somda. You saw the site,” she replied, flicking her tail. Somda shrugged.

“Yeah, but we could have given them more.”

“It was only a crash site. They should have come back.”

Somda eyed her seriously, beak clacking a bit as he gritted his teeth. Unlike some gryphons, he had all his teeth in his mouth.

“You didn’t see the aftermath, Polly. You should have seen it. It was bad.” Her cat ears perked up.

“What happened?” she asked, a slight growl in her voice. She cleared her throat.

Somda turned away from her, placing a black and orange clawed hand on one of the filing cabinets.

“After Sasha came back with the news, I went in with the first group, you know,” he said, “No one was left. Sasha only made it out because she was going to the site to check on them and had enough sense to high-tail it out of there when she heard the sound of fighting.”

He cleared his throat a bit.

“When I got there, everyone had been killed. We tallied the bodies. It…it honestly looked like none of them had fought back.”

“What?”

He faced her, “The bodies were mutilated, in true unicorn fashion. Blood wiped around the bodies, horro on faces, and I know that unicorns tend to take the weapons of their victims if they are more useful to them, but, Polly, I saw no weapons.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, there were no sticks, blades, nails in planks, no slings, no nothing. Just bodies and destroyed personal items. Among those items, though, there was nothing that looked like a weapon. I don’t think they were able to defend themselves.”

“Could the unicorns have taken all of the weapons, though?”

“Would they take all of them? They tend to favor one thing, there’s usually those kinds of things strewn, splintered and broken after a bad raid, but there was nothing, Polly. Nothing,” he replied emphatically.

They stared at each other.

Polly’s tail whipped a bit and stilled.

“So,” she said carefully, “What are you implying?”

The gryphon put his hands in his pocket, looking at her grimly.

“Nothing, Polly. Nothing.” Polly turned from him, placing her paw on the new settlement map.

“Is it better to stay here or move on?” she asked.

“I suppose that isn’t up to me,” he replied.

“We haven’t moved in a couple of years, our main community,” she said, “This will be the first time we’ve moved since we left Kathleen Drive.”

They were silent for a bit.

“Would you come with me, Polly?” Somda asked, “If I decided to leave?” She hesitated.

“There are children here, Somda. I can’t let them get hurt.”

“Alright,” he sighed, “Any more missions for me right now?”

Polly shook her head.

“Alright then. I’ll be off to rest,” he said, waving at her with a clawed hand. Polly watched as he closed the door, leaving her alone. Her ears went back.

“Shit.”