//------------------------------//
// Category 5 - 157 mph or higher 
// Story: The Witch of The Wind 
// by MagnetBolt 
//------------------------------//

“We will require a different venue for the first challenge,” Typhon declared. He motioned to a window and ghostly hands surrounded it, twisting it in another direction. The angle of the light changed, and the vista looked out over a cloudbank. Typhon’s ghostly, detached extra hands swept through en masse and started reshaping it into something else, twisting and molding it.
“You’re making a stadium?” I asked after a few moments, starting to recognize the general shape. The hands pulled at the clouds, weaving them into rings and setting them into a rough course.
“Indeed!” Typhon said, pleased. “If there is one thing mortals do well, it is their contests of strength. Unlike we immortals, they can struggle at the very limits of their power and push themselves to new and greater heights.”
I thought about that ‘we immortals’ line. He was absolutely right. I’d only met three or four immortal beings like Typhon, and any of them could have wrecked the world. Nightmare Moon nearly did, Discord had been in the process of doing it, and Celestia had to hold herself back so far that ponies forgot entirely that she was a burning star in the shape of a pony.
“That’s pretty much the same reason everyone likes sports,” I agreed. “The athletes can really be inspiring. It’s exciting when a dark horse comes out of nowhere and breaks a record!”
“Of all the events, I enjoy races the most,” Typhon said. “The first challenge I gave to King Grover was to set him to race the wind. To show me that he was worthy of shepherding the sky, he had to fly alongside it.”
I nodded. That made some sense. Typhon stepped through the window, his edges blurring and twisting like he was a movie being projected onto fabric that was being blown by the wind. When he walked onto the clouds, his hooves never touched them. He moved like he was still walking, but the ends of his legs blurred into invisibility.
I walked to the edge of the window with Gilda and looked up at the landscape hanging over us.
“I sure hope gravity doesn’t decide to flip again,” Gilda said.
“If it does, you’d better catch me,” I said.
“Don’t be so negative,” Gilda joked. “We’re so high up that you’d have plenty of time to save yourself before you hit the ground.”
Gilda braced herself and jumped out. The altered gravity held, and she dropped down to the floor of the cloud stadium. I saw her breathe a sigh of relief and she looked back at me and nodded.
I cast a quick cloudwalking spell and hopped down after her. The cloud felt different than some of the other packed clouds I’d been on when I’d visited Rainbow Dash or the odd pegasus city.
“Huh,” I said, poking it with a hoof. “It’s a lot softer than I’m used to. More bouncy.”
“Wild clouds are like that,” Gilda said. “It took me a while to get used to Cloudsdale because all the streets were practically as tough as rocks. You know. Relatively speaking.”
“This would make a good bed if my spell wouldn’t wear off halfway through the night and dump me on the ground,” I said. I enjoyed the springy feeling under my hooves and looked around. “So, uh, King Typhon? How is the race going to work? I’m sure you can see the wind just fine, but it’s more or less invisible to me and Gilda. How do we tell if she’s winning or not?”
“Her opponent will be very visible,” the giant rumbled. He gestured at the sky. “It is arriving in response to my summons.”
The breeze around us picked up, whipping my mane back as the thing arrived. It was difficult to parse even when I was looking right at it. Imagine a thousand flapping wings, all attached to each other in a kind of spiral fractal, looking something like an entire flock of birds crashed in one spot.
It also moved like absolutely nothing should be able to. It didn’t turn in the air, it just moved in whatever direction it wanted, going instantly at full speed and taking angles that no living being should have been able to manage at that velocity. It flew the way Rainbow Dash imagined she did.
“What the feather is that?” Gilda asked.
A distant memory clicked into place. “I think it’s a Chichimec, a kind of greater sylph,” I said. “They’re supposed to live in the most open, highest parts of the sky, as far from anything else as possible. No one knows for sure what they eat or drink, because it’s basically impossible to study them.”
“How am I supposed to beat it in a race?” Gilda asked. “You saw that thing flying!”
“We’ll figure something out,” I said. “Let’s make sure we know the rules first.”
“The rules are simple,” Typhon said. He reached out and gave the Chichimec a loving pat, like greeting a favored pet. “No doubt you have noticed the rings I have created.” He motioned to the cloud rings he’d formed. “All you must do is pass through each of the rings before your opponent.”
Gilda looked around. “Great, so I just have to fly better than something with perfect maneuverability in every direction, instant acceleration, and that flies faster than anything else I’ve ever seen.”
“It wouldn’t be a proper challenge otherwise,” Typhon said mildly.
“Let me just give my, uh, champion a quick pep talk,” I said. “I’m sure you want to encourage yours, too.”
Typhon nodded, and I pulled Gilda aside to speak to her.
“This is impossible,” was the first thing she said. Normally I’d agree, but I couldn’t just tell her it was hopeless and she was outmatched in every way or she’d lose hope.
“It’ll be fine,” I whispered. “Look, you’re one of the best griffons to ever fly. I know that for a fact, because you can keep up with Dash, and she’s always telling me she’s the best pony. She might exaggerate a little, but she’s faster than a Wonderbolt and twice as arrogant, and you’re right up there with her. You can do this!”
“Are you kidding? Did you see how that thing was moving? It’s unreal!”
“It does move more like it’s flying with magic than actually using wings,” I agreed. “Half of them are pointed in the wrong direction no matter which way it goes. It might look impressive, but I think that’s just because you’re used to things that fly like birds, and no bird would fly like that.”
“That doesn’t help me win,” Gilda pointed out.
“No,” I admitted. “I do think technique is going to matter a lot, but there’s nothing wrong with getting a little help.”
I glanced at Typhon to see if he seemed distracted, and he was at least looking away. I quickly cast a few spells, weaving them over Gilda.
“What was that?” she asked, looking down at herself. There was nothing visible because I wasn’t that careless.
“I just cast a few little quick spells on you,” I said. “Nothing big. Just some weight reduction, extra strength, that kind of thing. Sort of a mix of everything that might help you in the air.”
“That sort of seems like cheating,” Gilda muttered.
“It’s not cheating,” I said. “When did he say I couldn’t cast spells on you? I don’t remember hearing that. And I’m not going to ask him if it’s against the rules, either. If he wants to tell a unicorn not to start throwing magic around he has to say it in advance.”
“If we get in trouble--”
“We’re not going to get in trouble,” I assured her. “He’ll never even know! Let’s get you lined up for the big event.”
I gave her a soft punch to the shoulder and led her back over to Typhon.
“The finish line is two leagues in that direction,” Typhon said, once we’d arrived. He pointed. “The rings show the way. Do not miss any.”
“Got it,” Gilda said.
“The race will begin when the thunder strikes!” Typhon declared. “Ready yourself!”
Gilda crouched, ready to pounce. The air thickened with anticipation, the Chichimec buzzing and spasming as it hovered in place. A bolt of lightning struck down behind us, and they were off, flying ahead of us.
I could tell something was up right away, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake. Winds buffeted Gilda as she neared the first ring. The weight reduction made her faster, but it was also making her more vulnerable to being shoved. I almost accused Typhon of cheating until I saw the sylph struggling against the same gusts, thrown around even more than Gilda was.
“To race the wind is to race against the wind unless it is your friend,” Typhon said, picking up on my expression. “I chose the Chichimec as an opponent to your champion because it preys on the breeze, and so it can never befriend the winds.”
“You say that like those gusts are alive.”
Typhon frowned. “Of course they are. The wind is the very breath of life.”
Gilda bullied her way through the storm, so at least the strength enhancement I’d put on her was doing something. She slipped through the first ring just behind the Chichimec, and they stayed neck and neck right through the second.
“Your champion is quite skilled,” Typhon noted. “You chose well.”
“I was lucky I asked her to come along with me,” I said. “She’s a good griffon. All of them are. That’s why I’m here. They don’t deserve to suffer.”
Typhon tilted his horned head. “Shall we move to the finish line? I can carry you so we arrive before they do.”
“Nah, I got this,” I said. Two leagues wasn’t all that far to teleport through a clear sky with nothing that I had to worry about hitting. I popped there in an instant, and found one last ring that just had to mark the end of the course, bigger than the others and charged with electricity like a thunderhead, making it glow with a static aura.
Typhon appeared next to me a few seconds later.
“You beat me here,” he noted.
“Nothing’s faster than instantaneous,” I said, unable to hold back a little bit of a smirk. I swear I wasn’t trying to be smug, but it felt good to surprise someone like Typhon. He folded his arms but didn’t say anything back to me. I might have embarrassed him a little by getting there before him even after he’d offered to give me a ride.
There wasn’t really time to think about that, because Gilda and the Chichimec were approaching fast, both of them carried on unseen winds that almost seemed determined to keep them from getting through the rings. The ball of wings beat Gilda to one cloud ring, and a gust shoved it to the side before it could go through, forcing it to circle around and letting Gilda get ahead.
“Come on, Gilda!” I cheered. I could see how hard she was pushing herself to fight those hard gusts coming at her from every angle. It was like white-water rafting in the air, and she was going right through the worst parts. I wasn’t a pegasus, so I probably couldn’t appreciate it the way one of them would have, but even I could tell she was really pulling it off.
The Chichimec was right next to her, and I could see why it was having trouble. Where Gilda was bullying through the sky, it was constantly adjusting itself, being blown to the side and moving back into place instead of pushing through. With how much it had to zig-zag, it was really going two or three times as far as it had to.
It was still a lot faster than her, though, and every time they hit a clear patch, it pulled ahead without even trying. It was going to come down to a photo finish, and I hadn’t even packed a camera!
The final ring loomed, and I leaned forward, watching intently. The two approached the glowing ring of clouds and just at the last moment, Gilda strained, reaching forward with both talons and-- they both shot through the ring, Gilda and the wind spirit rushing through almost at once. Gilda lost control in the last moment, spiraling out of control before she managed to catch herself.
The aura of static electricity surrounded her in a sparking, glowing aura.
“What does…” Gilda asked. “Did I win? Does this mean I won?!”
“Indeed,” Typhon said, but he didn’t seem all that happy about it. I couldn’t blame him for being disappointed. He’d pretty much set Gilda up to fail. The Chichimec was probably the fastest-flying creature in the sky, and he’d also made it a test of maneuverability and agility with the rings, giving the creature another advantage.
I’d come into this half-expecting that he was going to give us sort of perfunctory challenges just to say he’d done it, something more about tradition and formality than anything else. I’d been wrong about that. He wanted to challenge us, and he wanted us to lose.
I watched him soothe the ruffled feathers of the wind spirit he’d set against us. The ball of wings didn’t really have a face, but it was clearly upset. I think Typhon was, too.
“I’ve never flown like that before!” Gilda said, landing next to me. The aura around her discharged into the cloud and faded. She wiped the sweat from her face, drips still working their way down her sides. “That was unreal.”
“You did great,” I said. “I told you that you were the bird for the job! All that training you put in paid off.”
“Yeah,” Gilda said, but she didn’t entirely sound like she agreed. She frowned and leaned closer to whisper. “Thanks for the help. I don’t… like what you did, but I would have lost without it.”
“You probably would have won either way,” I said. “The wind shear looked like it was blowing you all over the place. I didn’t expect that or I wouldn’t have bothered with weight reduction.”
“I managed better than that thing,” Gilda said with a shrug.
“We’ll just be more careful with the details next time,” I decided. “However King Grover did it, you can do it the same way. You’re smarter and you’ve got me to help.”
Gilda perked up a little at that and nodded. “Yeah. I’d rather do the next challenge the right way. It’s about the honor of Griffonstone.”
“Right,” I agreed. I gave her a pat on the back. I was still intending on cheating to make sure we’d win, but she didn’t have to know that.
“Your champion did well,” Typhon declared. He gave the Chichimec another careful pat and waved to it as it flitted off, buzzing past us with obvious annoyance. “Despite everything else in the race, she does have talent.”
“Everything else in the race?” I raised an eyebrow.
Typhon didn’t elaborate. “We shall move on to the second challenge.”
“Uh, I’m still pretty wiped out from that first one,” Gilda said, raising a talon. “Can we get a few minutes to rest?”
“Have no worry, mortal,” Typhon said. “The next challenge is no race. It can be undertaken at your own pace. In fact, it would be best for you to spend some time planning how to defeat the challenge. You will have as much time as you wish to rest.”
“That works,” I said. “We can get the details and figure it out while she recovers. Uh, as long as you don’t mind me offering advice?”
“It is no concern,” Typhon said. “Come. The next challenge awaits!”
He fluttered off in the wind, his body collapsing and flying through the open window that hung in the sky like a doorway with no frame, the dozens of eyes following after in a stream. I shrugged and helped Gilda stand up, and we went through after him, ending up in his throne room again.
“This challenge took Grover days to complete,” Typhon said. “His solution showed his wisdom and guile.” He walked right across the room and adjusted a window, warm orange light showing through. The three of us passed through onto a tiny wisp of cloud, compared to the stadium-sized mass we’d been on before. It was somehow thin and oddly gritty.
“Those are the Badlands, right?” Gilda asked, looking at the landscape hanging inverted above us. I looked up and nodded.
“Yeah. Look at those canyons!” I frowned and narrowed my eyes at a black blotch on the landscape that I knew wasn’t on any map, a heap of black that caught the light and seemed almost wet. I’d swear the edges shifted when I looked at them closely. I was gonna have to check that out at some point.
“Your second challenge!” Typhon declared. I was going to have to worry about whatever it was that looked halfway between a castle and something organic when I got back to Equestria.
Typhon produced a bag, small in his hands and a little bigger than a saddlebag, a simple kind of light cloth bag with a cinched-up top to allow it to close by tugging on the long rope trailing from the seam. He gave it to Gilda.
“This is the very same bag Grover used to complete this challenge. All I ask of you is to capture a wind within it. You may take as much time as you wish.”
“Capture a wind?” Gilda asked.
Typhon nodded. “I wish you luck. I must attend to my duties. The portal will remain open as long as you are here.” He went back through into his throne room, leaving us alone in the middle of nowhere with no idea what to do.
“Uh…” Gilda hesitated. “I don’t have any idea how to do this.”
“Is there anything special about the bag?” I asked. “Maybe he gave us that specific bag for a reason. It could be special or have a clue or something.”
Gilda opened it up, looking inside. She frowned. “No. It’s just some kind of cotton or silk or whatever.”
I touched it with a hoof. “Linen,” I corrected. Gilda gave me a look and I shrugged. “I’ve spent more than five minutes around Rarity. It’s a real education on all the finer points of dress design.”
“Anyway, it’s not airtight, obviously,” Gilda said. “Even if the fabric was, there are two big problems. This won’t ever cinch tight enough to keep air in, and there’s also this little tiny problem.”
She inverted the bag. The seam on the bottom was ripped almost entirely apart.
“There’s a feathering hole in the bottom! You can’t carry anything in this useless piece of trash!”
I cast a detection spell just to be sure. “It’s not magic, either. It’s just a broken bag.” I scowled at it, then shot a look back at the open window. I couldn’t see Typhon but I could imagine him laughing at us trying to do the impossible.
“I don’t get how we’re supposed to do this. Did Grover really catch the wind with this?” Gilda flipped the bag around. “Maybe I’m just not seeing something…”
“No, it’s probably impossible,” Sunset said. “Think about it. He didn’t even stay to watch, he told us we can take as much time as we want, the bag is ripped… Typhon probably expects us to give up. I bet he’s still upset that we beat his race!”
“I don’t know, he seemed like he was trying to play fair,” Gilda said.
“Sure, he seemed like that,” I scoffed. “Princess Celestia used to do stuff like this all the time. She’d tell me to do something that was absolutely impossible to do, and she wouldn’t tell me it couldn’t be done until I’d frustrated myself to tears trying to make it work.”
“That doesn’t seem like her,” Gilda said. “I never met her, but ponies all seem to love Princess Celestia.”
“Yeah well, there was always some dumb trick. She liked to say she was trying to make me think outside the box, but what she was really doing was showing off how much smarter she was because she gave me a riddle where she already knew the answer.”
“Oh! I get it!” Gilda said. “So there’s some kind of trick we’re supposed to figure out, and by having the exact same bag, it’s a clue!”
I scoffed. “Yeah. The clue is that we’re supposed to struggle and lose. No, we’re not going to waste time. You know what Princess Celestia really taught me with all those riddles and lessons?”
“To ask for help when you need it?” Gilda guessed. “He didn’t say we couldn’t ask how Grover did it.”
“No, she taught me that when you’re backed up into a corner, you can solve just about any problem if you’re willing to force your way through,” I said. “Here, give me the bag.”
Gilda reluctantly gave it to me. “I kind of wanted to do this the right way…”
“This is the right way,” I assured her. The first thing to do was to make the bag airtight. There was no point in repairing the hole in the bottom, so I left it there and used something like a shield bubble to create a purely magical container inside the bag.
“What are you doing?” Gilda asked.
“It’s simple,” I explained. “The wind is really just a pressure difference, right? It flows from high pressure to low pressure. So all we have to do is compress a bunch of air and hold it in place like I’m filling an air tank."
I drew in more and more air, compressing it all into a ball. The pressure differential started to make it shimmer like the heat on a sidewalk.
“Carefully…” I mumbled, placing it in the bag and closing it. The sides of the bag bulged, the shield straining to contain a few cubic meters of air.
“Is that safe?” Gilda asked.
“I mean, uh…” I hesitated then gave it to her. “Sure! Just don’t look inside. Or jostle it. Or squeeze it. Be careful.”
She frowned, deeply unhappy. I gave her a smile and motioned for her to lead the way back into the castle. Gilda gingerly held the bag out at talon’s length and flew through the window.
“You’ve already returned?” Typhon asked, surprised. He was sitting on a throne that he must have pulled out of nowhere. “I did not expect you for some time.”
“Haha, yeah…” Gilda said, nervously.
“So, have you arrived at the same answer as Grover?” Typhon stood up. “For some time he believed his task could not be accomplished, and he came to a conclusion that both amused and pleased me!”
“Er…” Gilda looked at me.
I stepped forward. “I don’t know if we have the same answer that he came up with. I think you’ll find we did exactly what you asked.”
Typhon motioned, and a hand phased out of the air and took the bag from Gilda.
“Be careful with that,” Gilda warned.
Typhon tilted his head and brought it closer, taking it in his two normal, attached hands. He felt the outside, clearly surprised that there was anything to feel. “This is really a surprise,” he said, before using one huge finger to pry open the cinched top.
“Wait--!” Gilda warned.
It was way too late. By the time she said anything he’d already ruptured the magical seal I’d put on it. The compressed air shot out, blasting him right in the face with a hurricane-strength gust of hard wind. His many floating eyes were scattered like leaves, blowing to the far corners of the room.
He sat in shock, frozen in place. I did my best to hold back a snicker and smirk, even though with his eyes rolling around the floor he’d never spot it. It took over a minute for his detached hands to find all the eyes and bring them back, setting them into their orbits again, and by the time he was finished every single one was glaring at us. At me.
“Was that enough wind?” I asked, trying to sound innocent and curious instead of like I’d just pulled one off and given a huge windbag a huge windbag.
“You…” Typhon growled. His expression darkened. I don’t mean that figuratively. It actually changed color, going down a few shades until it was the same tone as an active thunderstorm. “You mock me? In my own home?!”
“We’re completing your challenges,” I countered. “If you wanted this done in a more specific way, you should have said something in advance. I know some of my friends would have been a lot worse about it. I don’t know if Pinkie or Dash would have been more likely to fart in the bag and call it their personal wind.”
“Probably not Dash,” Gilda sighed. “She’d put herself in the bag and say she was the wind.”
“You are nothing like Grover,” Typhon said. “He had honor! Ability! Wisdom! All things that you lack! All you have is the typical pony cleverness, weaseling around problems.”
“Well then tell me what you wanted!” I snapped. “What did Grover do?”
Typhon stood up, dismissing his throne. It vanished like a sandcastle in the tide, blowing away in the breeze through the open windows. “First, Grover did not feel a need to cheat his way through the first challenge.”
Gilda winced at the word cheat. I couldn’t tell if that made Typhon angrier or mollified him a little. It didn’t make him less angry at me, that was for sure.
“Grover realized the point of the race. It was racing the wind. Not just the Chichimec. He used the wind, asked it for aid, and it gave lift to his wings and pushed him to victory while trapping the spirit I set against him! He befriended the wind, because he understood that was always the object of the race.”
“Gilda won by being fast. I think that deserves at least some recognition,” I countered.
“It does,” Typhon agreed. “That is why I held back my wrath, even though you upset my pet so badly with your pony magic. You couldn’t allow it to be a test of raw strength, nor could you try to see through the surface. Instead, you just put your hoof where it didn’t belong!”
I huffed. “What about catching the wind? It’s not possible! Unless you’re going to tell me that Grover asked nicely and some breeze just hopped in the bag?”
“If he had asked nicely enough, one might have done just that,” Typhon said. “No, he found another solution. I gave you his bag to see if you would come to the same answer. He thought outside the box--”
Just hearing that made me clench my teeth. That was the same phrase Princess Celestia said every time she put a riddle in front of me with no logical answer. I’m clever. I’m smart. I’m wise. I also hate it when someone tells me to think outside the box and pulls an answer from were the sun doesn’t shine. It turns it from a test into a game of trying to guess what the other person is thinking.
“Grover used the bag as a kite, flying it with the wind,” Typhon said.  “It amused me, and it was a clever solution to catching the wind.”
“That doesn’t even make sense!” I snapped, so angry that I was just entirely done with decorum. “A kite?! How is that catching the wind at all? And how were we supposed to figure that out at random?!”
“If you had made an honest effort or at least tried something before making a mockery of my trials, I would have perhaps given you a hint,” Typhon said mildly. Smugly. I was starting to really dislike the big guy.
“Well, you know what? While you’re standing there judging us for trying to beat your trials, there are griffons suffering! They’ve been suffering for generations because your servant went and tried to take back the gift you gave them and completely destroyed the weather around Griffonstone! Instead of helping fix the mess you made, you’d rather use any excuse you can to avoid doing anything and taking responsibility!”
“All I ask is that your champion prove their worth of the power I can grant--”
I cut him off, stomping closer so I could glare at him better. It wasn’t easy to try and match the weight of his gaze. He had a few dozen more eyeballs than I did and he was also a giant.
“No one should have to prove they deserve to be helped when they’re suffering!” I yelled. “I don’t care who or what they are! You’re saying they don’t deserve to live because you don’t think they’re wise enough? Because a few generations ago one of them might have made a mistake? How dare you?!”
“You have no idea what you speak of,” Typhon said. “You don’t understand what they did, the gift they squandered!”
“So what? You gave them the Idol and that should have been enough forever? People make mistakes! Maybe they’re like foals to you, but when a foal makes a mistake you explain what they did wrong and you help them avoid making it again! You don’t abandon them because they’re not perfect! You don’t just toss them aside for somepony else who bows and scrapes at your hooves and worships you!”
“Uh…” Gilda hesitated. “Are we all still talking about the same thing?”
“You have come into my house, made a mockery of my fair challenges, and there can be only one resolution,” Typhon said. “I will prepare an arena for us, and we will duel. If you wish to prove that you’re right, prove it on the field of battle.”
He started to move over to one of the windows. I might have lost control of my anger slightly and maybe I wasn’t thinking entirely clearly at this point. I snap-cast a spell, and a wall of fire blazed in front of him, cutting him off before he got there.
“I think this place is just fine!” I yelled. “You want to fight me? Then fight me!”
Typhon reached towards the fire and I saw him visibly recoil from the heat. He rubbed his fingers together like he’d actually been burned and turned to look at me.
“This place is not appropriate for a battle between us,” he said. “This is my throne room. If you have an arena in mind, name it and I will transport us there so you can be assured there are no tricks or guile--”
He was talking and that meant he was scared. I don’t know what kind of horseapples he was trying to pull with having me name an arena, but I’m sure he had something up his sleeve. I wouldn’t put it past him to throw us through a window into the middle of nowhere and make us walk back home without even trying to fight.
Besides, I had him right where I wanted him. He might have been some kind of immortal wind god or whatever, but he also had a hundred unblinking eyes, every single one looking right at me.
“SOLAR FLARE!” I yelled. I cast a light spell that collapsed almost as soon as I’d put it together, overcharged and shattering into an incredibly bright flash of light, more blinding than a lightning bolt and going right into a hundred unblinking gazes.
Typhon cried out in pain and reeled back, stumbling blindly away from him. He really hated that. No one expected a flashbulb right into the eye socket.
Ghostly hands appeared out of the wind and tried to feel around and grab for me. I blasted them with fire bolts as they neared, and they exploded, popping like balloons when I applied any force.
“Sunset, this is a bad idea!” Gilda yelled.
“Just keep at a safe distance,” I warned her. “This is between me and him!”
“That’s great and all, but did you forget we came here to ask him for a favor?! Trying to kill him is not gonna help, and if I’m saying that…” Gilda paused. “Wow, we’ve really gone off the rails on this.”
“Do not underestimate me!” Typhon shouted. His vision must have been clearing already. I should have followed up with an attack, but Gilda had distracted me for those few critical seconds.
Typhon raised his arms and lightning cascaded towards me, a torrent of bolts like a whole thunderhead discharging at once. I tossed a shield in the way, then a second behind it, letting the first barrier shatter to eat some of the energy of the attack and give me time to make a better shield. I deflected one entirely and the second barely cut through, only enough to tickle.
“Is that all you’ve got?!” I asked, unwisely.
Typhon roared, and the power of his lightning tripled. I put together another shield, pouring energy into it. The force against it pushed me back, the spell’s energy creating a force like magnets repelling each other, my hooves slipping and sending me sliding a few steps even while I tried to hold the deadly attack.
“Is that all you have, Scion of the Sun?” Typhon asked, tilting his head up to look down at me even more than he already was. “You mock me, then hide behind shields? You use tricks because you know how badly you’re outmatched?”
“You have no idea what I can do!” I snapped.
“I don’t need to know every cowardly ruse you can bring to bear! It’s no wonder you’re here on behalf of such lowly mortals. You can’t even live up to your own potential. Pathetic!”
I saw red. If he’d been trying to upset me, he’d just found the fastest and easiest way to do it. Typhon wanted to see what I could do when I wasn’t holding anything back and didn’t care if I was risking burning out my magic or exhausting myself? His servants were going to have to figure out how to put him back together after I was done with them.
I cast a spell to steady myself and started channeling magic. One of the first things I’d been taught about magic is that there were limits to what you could safely do. Trying to use too much magic at once was like pouring too much water into a cup. It would spill out and you’d have a mess everywhere.
I turned on the tap and let it rip. A ball of energy formed at the tip of my horn and I just streamed magic into it, focusing it tighter and tighter. The air started to vibrate around me. Sparks cascaded randomly, tiny discontinuities in the containment releasing magic explosively before they sealed themselves.
“I’ll show you what potential looks like!” I screamed. This was the same kind of spell that I’d tried using on Nightmare Moon, and it had been enough to spook Luna. I wanted to put the fear of Sunset into him, too.
He must have sensed something because he stopped shooting lightning. I unleashed my spell, and a pencil-thin line of ultra-dense magic tore across the room at him. He didn’t even try and block it. Typhon threw himself aside with obvious panic, and I cut sideways with the beam, trying to track him and following him up and around to the side of the room. Stone evaporated before the beam even touched it, the air explosively combusting and leaving a trail of fire and explosions a moment after I’d swept the beam across the throne room and up into the ceiling.
The whole castle shook when the beam went up into the roof. My attack sputtered out, and I panted, trying to catch my breath. The temperature in the room was like an oven.
“How was that?!” I demanded. “You want me to keep living up to my potential?!”
“Sunset, I think you broke something important!” Gilda yelled. The castle shook again. Typhon picked himself up off the ground and looked around in alarm.
“Oh horseapples,” I swore, powering down my spells and looking around. The floor lurched like we were on a ship instead of standing in a castle that was very firmly attached to the rock. At least, it was supposed to be firmly attached to the rock.
“You damaged the foundations of my realm!” Typhon yelled. He dropped what he was doing with lighting and even stopped looking ready to fight and gazed around in panic. Cracks shot through the stone, dust falling from the ceiling and getting worse with every rumble and shake. The direction of gravity seemed to change again, sliding sideways for a moment before snapping back.
“It’s not my fault!” I shouted defensively. “You’re the one who wanted to fight me!”
The door to the throne room burst open, and three cyclopses ran in, yelling about something. I couldn’t understand what they were actually saying, but with the way they were extremely panicked and pointing up and around, I had a pretty good guess that they’d noticed that the castle was starting to fall apart and they were very worried about what was going to happen to them in regards to being in a gravity-reversed distorted space that was on the verge of collapse.
“What do we do?” Gilda asked.
“Well, um…” I looked around. One of the cracks going through the walls reached the frame of a window-portal and shattered it, the space within collapsing, the sky outside replaced by a swirl of chaotic rainbow light before vanishing and leaving a very mundane view of the sky outside in its place.
“How did you break a whole fortress?” Gilda asked.
“It depends on what I hit,” I admitted. “He was using lightning, which is pretty safe with something grounded like rock. My spell, uh…” I wasn’t entirely sure how to put it. “It’s less safe. He got me really angry and I wasn’t thinking, okay? At least I didn’t hit a lake and cause a steam explosion or anything.”
The floor shook hard enough to make everyone in the room except Typhon stumble. A spiderweb of cracks worked their way through it, the stone wanting desperately to move. A chunk the size of my whole body managed it, dislodging and falling down into the void below us. I looked down into the open air and felt terrible dread. What would happen if one of us fell down there? Would we just keep going forever?
“This is why immortals cannot fight each other,” Typhon said. “This is why the wisest among us seclude ourselves away from the world! Even the Sun and Moon nearly destroyed everything, and that was merely a spat between jealous siblings!”
“Hey, Luna is a great pony!” I yelled. “She wouldn’t have killed everypony! Probably! And she was just upset!”
“Someone who was merely upset and whose merest whim was enough to overthrow the natural order,” Typhon corrected. “Look around you! I did not wish to fight here because this nexus is the place where all the winds of the world are centered! It is the eye of the storm, and now it is breaking apart!”
“Well, I’m sorry if I broke your stuff!” I snapped. I was still sort of angry, but I was starting to feel really bad about it. He hadn’t seemed like a bad person overall, and I really had been in the wrong, but he’d gotten me angry and I didn’t think clearly when I was emotional. I ended up doing things like throwing myself off a moving train or fleeing the country.
“The whole world is at risk!” Typhon lamented. He reached out, hands appearing and wrapping around the worst damage, literally trying to hold the entire castle together. “If the nexus is lost, the wild winds of the world will run rampant!”
“Sunset, he’s saying if we don’t do something, the whole world is gonna end up like Griffonstone!” Gilda yelled.
I paled at that, because I knew she was right. Those chaotic winds hitting from every angle, every one of them filled with a kind of wild hate like wounded, rabid predators. That could be the whole world. There would be countless deaths, the collapse of civilization, and I’d definitely get scolded for it.
“We can fix this!” I declared, because I wanted it to be true and the first step in making something true was to believe in it. Magical nexus of the winds or not, it was made of stone, and I knew a few things about that. I saw a crack start to widen, and I started spraying repair spells at it, starting with weak ones just to stop the damage for a moment and let the others take effect. It was a technique I’d developed myself, and it was the magical equivalent of building a scaffolding to hold things in place before starting work.
The crack reversed, the stone fusing. A faint scar was visible because of minor conflicts in the multiple overlapping spells causing the grain of the granite-like material to warp. It didn’t matter. That was just appearance, and it could be fixed later. Probably. He could paint over it if it really bothered him.
It was proof that I could fix things, and that was enough. I started with the more delicate-looking parts of the room, the window frames holding the portals in place. I started fixing them, trying to judge which were the closest to total failure.
“Hurry!” Typhon yelled, as another one snapped and shattered into un-space before vanishing. “I cannot hold this forever! I am the spirit of wind, not stone!”
“I’m working on it!” I said, changing tactics and casting the first level repair spell across a wider area. It slowed me down with the actual repairs, but it kept the damage from spreading further. The remaining windows seemed stable after a solid minute of casting high-level spells at them and banishing detail work to a nebulous later.
One of the cyclopses babbled something at me in its language.
“Equestrian!” I snapped, starting to get a headache. I tried to calm myself just a fraction. It wasn’t yelling, it was trying to tell me something. I forced myself to sound less angry. “Sorry. I don’t speak whatever language you’re using!”
“He will lead you to the foundations you damaged,” Typhon translated, grunting with effort. “You must hurry! Our argument can wait!”
I nodded in agreement and followed the cyclops, running out of the room at its heels and up stairs, taking a different route than we’d used to get here. A whole section of one staircase was missing, the rock melted and still magma-hot around the edges where my spell had cut through it. I teleported past it, following the line of damage.
Eventually we reached the highest (or lowest depending on your perspective) part of the castle. It was right where the gravity discontinuity lay, marked by a layer of mist and dust slowly orbiting around that slice of zero gravity between the two directions of gravity. My spell had blasted into a pillar of solid stone and torn it apart right at that layer of mist, and something about the warped and distorted space was acting like a lever and prying at the castle and the remaining supports, the stone beginning to fail from shearing stress. Rock was great at holding a heavy load pressing it down, but not great with the kind of twisting sideways force it was getting.
“Okay, uh…” I hesitated. This was beyond a mere repair spell. There was a whole section of the stone missing. I looked up past the gravity discontinuity. We were down in the foundations, so everything up there was just the mountain.
For one whole second, I thought about just hopping up there and walking away from the whole mess. It was so tempting, to just leave it behind.
Instead, I grabbed a loose boulder and yanked it with telekinesis, forcing it into the gap where the support beam had broken. I tossed heat spells into it, and the stone started glowing and running, going as soft as taffy. I pulled and stretched it, using the magma like caulk and filling in the gap.
There were right ways to use repair spells, and there were wrong ways. I used the spell the wrong way and forced the magma and the cold stone of the foundations to fuse together like they’d always been one seamless mass, relying on the structure of my casting to cool it down quickly and weld the rock, repair spells fixing cracks before they could really form. The sound was like ice cracking apart in boiling water, all sharp pops and snaps. Steam rose out of the rock itself.
The rumbling stopped.
I wiped my brow and turned back to the cyclops that had led me here. “Well that wasn’t so bad,” I said. “What’s next?”





That had proven to be the worst damage the castle had sustained, though on the way back to the throne room I tossed more spells at any damage I spotted. It wasn’t great work, and felt more like pushing things under the rug and hoping nopony would notice. Eventually I had to admit I was sort of wasting time because I didn’t want to go back and have to talk to Typhon about what I’d done.
It wasn’t until I was actually back in the throne room that I realized I’d really wanted to avoid Gilda. She was sitting near the hole in the floor where that chunk of rock had fallen into the sky and just looked despondent.
“We’re never going to be able to save Griffonstone like this,” she mumbled, and I winced. She was right.
“I messed up,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“The danger is passed, for now,” Typhon sighed. He summoned his throne and sat down, looking as exhausted as I was. “The world is far easier to break than to hold together, and once broken it sometimes cannot be repaired without leaving a mark.”
He motioned to the hole in the floor.
“Until now, I have spoken well of Grover,” Typhon said. “That is because when he and I parted company, I believed he was a good griffon, worthy of doing the right thing with the boon I granted him. While you were away, I spoke with your friend, Gilda. She told me some of the history of Griffonstone.”
“I thought you knew all about it,” I said.
Typhon shook his head. “I knew the Idol was being abused, but not the details. Do you know anything of the nature of the Idol of Boreas?”
“It had some kind of power to control the weather,” I said. “There really wasn’t much written about it. Most of its abilities were kept secret by the Kings of Griffonstone.”
“Yes, and that is the problem. Things were kept too secret. The Idol of Boreas contained the names of half of the winds of the world, their true and secret names. You understand?”
I nodded slowly. “Knowing anyone or anything’s true name is part of sympathetic magic. You can do a lot with it. Binding, controlling…”
“Yes. The Idol was given to him so he could share its power with the griffons. Each of them was to receive a part of its power, a name of the wind that would be their own. They were to steward them and guide them, but instead Grover kept all of the power for himself, and it made him formidable.”
“I had no idea,” I said.
“No one did,” Typhon lamented. “I told him how to use it, and instead of doing what I asked, his greed and lust for power consumed him. He hoarded the power like a dragon does gold, and I did nothing because I thought to distance myself from the world of mortals.”
“He stole from every griffon that came after him,” Gilda said. “He told griffons they should be proud just to have such a powerful ruler. And we were! But we could have had something for ourselves…”
“We want to make things right,” I said. “The whole reason we came here was to find a way to stop the damage the lost Idol is causing. If you forged the first one, you could make another, and we could use it to negate whatever the Idol of Boreas is doing and--”
“No,” Typhon said, very firmly.
“What? Why not?” I asked. “There are people suffering!”
“Yes, the lost Idol has brought much suffering into the world,” Typhon agreed. “It would have been better to give Grover some other boon. I gave it expecting him to use it wisely, and he did not. I do not have such expectations of you, and here you ask for more power when you have so much already?”
“It’s not about power,” I said.
“Nor is my refusal entirely about mistrust. The lost Idol is disrupting the very balance of the world. When I gave the griffons the true names of the winds, they left my control. Fully half the winds of the world were tied to the gift I gave.”
“So to make another one…” I groaned.
“I would have to give the rest of the winds of the world to you, and that is something I cannot do. Even if the first idol was destroyed, I cannot take back a gift once given. Those nameless winds run wild like wolves, savage and growing all the worse with time.”
“There’s nothing we can do about that, though!” I protested. “Your servant tried to steal the idol back and it was lost in the Abysmal Abyss, which is apparently bottomless and even if it wasn’t, the wind makes it impossible to traverse!”
“Consider this the true third trial I set before you, then,” Typhon said. “If you wish to make amends for the damage you’ve done here, and to save the people you claim to care about, do the impossible and retrieve the Idol.”
“I don’t think you understand how impossible I’m talking about,” I said. “You’re probably not bothered by wind at all. Tornado? No big deal. Hurricane? Just part of the job description. We’re talking about trying to go down some huge distance in a narrow gap with winds doing their best to kill us.”
“Griffons have been trying ever since the Idol was lost,” Gilda said. “If they couldn’t figure it out in generations, we’re not gonna just do it on our own, especially if it’s only getting worse with time.”
“It would not be a trial if it was an easy task.” Typhon leaned forward on his throne. “You showed that you have strength, now show that you can use strength for the right reasons.”
“If we could do it on our own we wouldn’t have needed to come here for help!” I rubbed between my eyes, my headache starting to grow. Some of it was magical exhaustion, some of it was regular exhaustion from climbing a bucking mountain, and the biggest part of it was frustration at myself and everything else around me.
“I can tell you are unhappy with this,” Typhon said, showing he was master of both the winds and understatement. “You must imagine how I feel. To you, it is a land being ravaged by savage winds. To me, someone I trusted as a friend betrayed me, hoarded the power I gave him, and abused the beloved breezes that I gave him to care for.”
I frowned and nodded. “I get it, I guess. None of it is really your fault. Someone else made the mess and I’m asking you for the same thing he did.”
“Yes, and far more rudely,” Typhon sighed. “I would be well within my rights to send you on your way with nothing, if not try again to strike you down for your insolence, but I fear that even making an attempt such as that would lead to the destruction of nations.”
I shrugged and nodded. I could be humble. Besides, he probably meant that if he did me any serious harm, Celestia and Luna would come down on him like a ton of bricks. Cadance might even chip in, but she wasn’t much of a fighter. If Twilight got involved he’d be better off not even trying to fight back. As much as I was jealous of the girl she had one heck of a record for taking out beings of cosmic power.
“I will give you a boon.” He held up a finger to forestall my question .”A small boon. I do not do this for your sake but for the sake of the winds trapped by being bound to the Idol. I do it with the understanding that when you do retrieve the Idol, you will use it wisely, as it was meant to be used. Do you understand?”
I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to say anything that wouldn’t get me killed. My mind rushed as I tried to imagine what he might give us. Hopefully not a broken linen bag with a big bomb of compressed air in it. It’d be kind of ironic but he didn’t seem spiteful in that way.
Typhon breathed in deeply, and the world seemed to breathe with him. A breeze blew through the room through the damaged windows, traveling from some faraway place to reach us and carrying the hot air of sunbaked sand with it. Typhon’s hands weaved through the air, swirling and kneading the air and the wind itself. A second breeze blew from another window, this one scented like ice and winter, and more hands appeared to guide it. I could almost see the wind in the places the hands weren’t, like a picture made up entirely of gaps.
I could feel the magic in what he was doing. It wasn’t like the kind of spellcasting we unicorns usually do. This was real primal magic. The way I cast spells, when I wasn’t so angry I was just throwing power at the universe and forcing it to choose to either bend or break, was sort of like writing instructions for the magic to follow. Runes told the magic what to do, and in combination they made up words and phrases. Some unicorns chanted or used other mnemonics to help them remember the runes they needed to use.
What Typhon was doing wasn’t like writing, it was more like a blacksmith working a forge. He folded the wind over itself, worked it and shaped it. If I closed my eyes and just felt without looking, I could almost understand what he was doing. Not enough to do what he was doing -- it was like watching an artist at work. I might be able to see the techniques they were using, but matching them was beyond my ability.
He shaped the winds into rings, blowing endlessly in circles, chasing their own tails, then slowly shrank them, making them smaller and smaller, the wind speeding up as it collapsed. It reached some critical point and then… I don’t know how to describe it. That’s the thing with primal magic. It would be like trying to describe what happened when Discord snapped his talons. Something just happened, and I wasn’t equipped to understand it.
Typhon was holding two beads, each of them the size of a small marble and glowing faintly from within with the orange, red, and teal of the evening sky. It sort of matched my usual look. Did he do that on purpose?
“I give each of you stewardship of one of my winds,” Typhon said. He held the marbles out to us, pressing them into our chests firmly. I felt it for a second, rubbery and hard and tough, before it suddenly popped, like it been forced through some tiny opening. When I looked down, there was nothing. The marble had somehow vanished.
“That felt weird,” Gilda shivered. “Was it supposed to be that cold?”
“The antarctic winds often are,” Typhon said. “They are lonely and cold, from a land where they are the only movement in all the world.”
I rubbed my chest. “I didn’t feel cold.” Or much of anything at all.
“I granted you a wind from the sand-blasted and deadly desert. I believe it recognized you.”
“I mean I have spent some time in the desert,” I admitted. “It’s a long story.”
“It is a wind that has seen destruction, death, and the ending of things. It seems fitting for you,” Typhon said.
I wasn’t sure how to take that, so I decided I was going to assume it was a compliment. “So how do we… use them?” I asked. I really couldn’t feel anything at all different. He might as well have done nothing at all.
“Learning will be part of your trial,” Typhon said. “But you will not find the answer if you think of it as something to be used and abused, and not as an ally.”
I frowned and nodded. I didn’t like not being given the whole answer, but I’d take a clue and some hope over absolutely nothing any day of the week. It was another teaching method Princess Celestia used, and one that was a little less intolerable than logic puzzles and mind games. She’d give enough direction to point me the right way, then stand back and let me figure it out.
Sometimes I think she had lessons like that just so she could take a few days off and just check in with me, but I was older and wiser now and I understood that she was trying to teach me how to learn on my own. Anypony could memorize a lecture if they really put their mind to it, but it took real effort to know how to use the resources at your disposal to find an answer instead of being given one.
“Thank you,” Gilda said. “We’ll, uh. We’ll try to get the Idol back.” She didn’t sound so sure that we’d be able to do it, and I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t looking forward to trying my hoof at something I’d called so impossible and difficult that I’d rather go into the middle of nowhere and climb the highest peak in the world.
“Remember, it isn’t something meant for a single person to wield, especially not a mere mortal,” Typhon cautioned. “It was dangerous even when it was merely unused and contained. Now it is savage and deadly. Trying to tame it would be like taming a hydra. Even if you calmed one head, another would bite.”
“I knew somepony who could sweet-talk a hydra,” I said. “It didn’t make it less wild, but she calmed it down and kept it from hurting anypony.”
“Take a lesson from her, then,” Typhon said. “Treat the winds like the life of the world that they are. Now, I have given you a boon, I have seen my castle nearly destroyed, and I am not used to having visitors again. I am tired.”
“Right, yeah,” I said. “Thanks for having us.”
“Do not return,” Typhon said firmly. “Please.”
“Hey, as long as you said please,” I joked. “I’m sure you can find us if you change your mind and want a visit.”
He gave me a look with a hundred eyes that said he was definitely not going to change his mind. Two of the cyclops that had run in screaming about the castle falling apart were still in the room, and he motioned to them. The smaller, but still pretty large, giants escorted us out. They were careful not to actually point their spears at us, but they carried their weapons in a way that reminded us that they definitely had spears and they were choosing not to use them out of politeness.
“That didn’t go as well as I wanted,” I sighed, as we started up the stairs back towards the mountain. It was just my luck that we’d find the only mountain that was uphill both ways.
“Mmph,” Gilda mumbled. She gave me a side-eyed look.
I rolled my eyes. “What?”





Gilda and I didn’t talk much on the way back. It was a lot easier going down than going up, for a lot of reasons. The wind wasn’t trying to freeze us or tear us apart, so we could make our way down in a series of short flights and teleportation hops instead of having to walk the whole way. Since we were each making our own way to the bottom, it was hard to tell if she was upset at me or if it was a natural distance.
Even when we met up again, we just talked about the way back and discussed the direction we needed to go instead of what happened or what we were actually going to do when we were in Griffonstone.
That isn’t to say I didn’t think endlessly about it. A sense of dread washed over me every time I thought about it. How was I going to get the Idol back? No one had ever even come close, and the last person who tried seemed to have died in the attempt. It didn’t seem like the kind of problem I could just brute force with magic, and almost the whole way back I spent my time alone thinking in circles, coming up with ideas, discarding them, picking them back up, trying to make them somehow work, tossing them aside again, and on and on.
Eventually we made it to the nearest train station, ten days after we’d left Griffonstone and with basically nothing to show for it. We quietly bought tickets, got on board, and sat in the private cabin we’d rented.
And then we had hours with nowhere to go and nothing to do except finally talk to each other.
“At least it didn’t take long to get back here,” I offered when we’d settled in. “I thought Typhon might throw a storm at us just to push us out of the mountains. I guess he wasn’t as angry as I thought.”
“Yeah I can’t imagine why you’d think he might be angry,” Gilda grumbled, staring out the window at the desolate station. The only other people to get on the train were a few yaks and a few ponies whose cutie marks suggested they were geology students working on their rocktorates. “It’s almost like someone tried really hard to get him peeved.”
I sighed. “Yeah. I might have lost my temper a little. I really should have been more careful with that one spell. I’ve never actually tried cutting through a major geological structure with it and I didn’t know it would do that much damage.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Gilda said. She turned back to me. She was scowling, but she always scowled. There wasn’t a lot of heat to it. It was more like emotional exhaustion. “I thought you were supposed to be a genius or something. This whole thing was your idea!”
“Being a genius doesn’t mean I don’t make mistakes! Even Princess Celestia messes up sometimes. A lot, actually. Most ponies just don’t get to see it.” I sighed. I needed to change the subject before this turned into a shouting mess. “Were you able to figure out anything with the windy thing?”
Gilda shrugged. “A little, but it’s not enough to help.”
“A little is more than I’ve got. Can I see?”
“Wow, asking for help already?” Gilda smirked. “I thought a genius would have gotten it down pat already!”
I raised my hooves in defeat. “Are you able to use it in here? There’s not a ton of room.”
“Yeah, it’s cool. It’ll be easier since the air is kinda still,” Gilda said. She opened the window a crack. “I thought it was gonna be like pegasus magic, you know? There’s some basic stuff I could always do like standing on clouds, but that’s normal. I couldn’t shoot lightning out of my flank or turn rain into snow. That’s what a pegasus does, so I wasted a ton of time trying to figure out how to zap you, then I tried making clouds, but none of that happened.”
“So what did work?” I asked.
“When Typhon was yelling at us about all the things we did wrong, he said during the race I was supposed to use the wind. And he always talks about the wind like it’s alive. So I, you know. I tried asking nicely.”
“You tried… asking nicely?”
“Don’t look so feathering surprised, I’m one of the nicest griffons in Griffonstone!”
“Having spent time in Griffonstone, I believe you when you say that,” I admitted.
That seemed to mollify her a little. She closed her eyes and whispered something under her breath, and a breeze picked up, a draft coming through the open window and starting to spin in circles around us.
“Are you doing that?” I asked.
“No, Foehleen is doing it.” Gilda blushed. “Uh, I mean…”
“Foehleen?” I paused. “Is that… you named it?”
“I didn’t name it, exactly, it always had a name!” Gilda’s blush had no signs of fading and was starting to creep along her neck. “Y-you heard what Typhon said! Every wind has a name and the Idol was full of their names and that’s why it had power!”
“Right, right,” I agreed. “True names, like in sympathetic magic. I just didn’t think of actually naming them like pets.”
“Look, it works, okay?” Gilda pointed out. She whispered something else, and I couldn’t quite catch the words but I did get the feeling behind it. It was somewhere between asking a friend for help and giving orders to a pet. The wind picked up, kicking up a tiny zephyr, then the draft reversed and the wind vanished right back out of the window.
“Huh,” I said, tapping my chin. “There was magic there. I could feel it around the edges.”
“I don’t know how to make it do anything useful,” Gilda sighed. “Even if it’s just the wind, it should help me fly, right? But I don’t know how to get it to give me a good headwind for lift or tailwind for speed.”
“If it was pony magic I’d assume you’d need to just practice a lot. This might be more like training a pet.” I paused. “Is this a bad time to mention I’m not good with animals?”
“It could be worse. When I lived in Cloudsdale somepony got me a goldfish and I ate it because I thought it was a snack. I, uh, didn’t make a lot of friends.”
“Yeah well, don’t tell Fluttershy but fish make awful pets anyway. They’re more like a decoration that you have to feed and clean.” I sighed. “I don’t even know where to start with trying to figure out a name. Did you just come up with it, or…?”
“Nah, it just kinda came to me,” Gilda said. “I think it’s more like they already have names, but you have to figure them out.”
“Mm. That reminds me of a theory in cutie mark science. It’s called Pilot Mark Theory and the idea is that cutie marks are as predetermined as your coat and mane color. There’s only one cutie mark you can possibly get, so trying to force a particular mark will never work, but it’s impossible to know what that destined mark is until it actually manifests.”
“Please don’t compare this to getting one of your stupid pony tramp stamps,” Gilda groaned. “I got enough of that trying to tell Dash that griffons don’t get cutie marks. She was convinced I could get one if I tried hard enough.”
“Is that where Gabby got the idea?”
“Who knows? She’s just obsessed with Equestria. She keeps asking me to go on a trip with her and show her around, but she’d just end up disappointed if we actually went.”
“You know, it might not be a bad idea to visit,” I said. “Dash would probably let you crash on her couch if you asked.”
“Yeah sure, and all I’d have to do is crawl back to her and beg for forgiveness,” Gilda sighed. “I never told her this, but I wasn’t having a great time when I went to see her in Ponyville. Some stuff happened and… I didn’t know where else to go. It was just like old times for a while, and then it all crashed down. She wouldn’t stand up for me, her friends are all crazy…” Gilda shrugged.
“Well, I can’t disagree with the part about her friends all being crazy. I can’t see her not standing up for a friend.”
“It’s what happened,” Gilda said firmly. “I lost my temper because of a bunch of junk, and she kicked me out of town.”
“Sort of like how Typhon kicked me out.”
Gilda frowned. “No, it’s completely different, because all I did was screw up my own stupid life, but you have birds counting on you in Griffonstone and this hurts them, too!”
I groaned and sat back. “I know. You’re right. I should probably throw in the towel and tell Twilight to come up here and fix everything. Heck, she could even bring Dash.”
“That would even be worse,” GIlda muttered. “I don’t want her to see me like this.”
“How do you think I feel?” I asked. “It would be like the third or fourth time she’d be bailing me out because I was in over my head. I think I’d rather jump down into the Abyssal Abyss myself and hope for the best. Then if she has to save my bacon, at least I’ll actually be in trouble and not just a loser and a failure.”
“Oh yeah, you’re the failure. All you’ve got going for you is living in a palace and hanging out with royalty every day.”
“When you say it like that it sounds great, but in practice? It’s spending all day around ponies who didn’t make the same mistakes I did. When I walk next to Celestia, the grace and beauty and awe doesn’t rub off on me. It’s like being a stain on a dress. If it’s a really nice dress, that just makes the stain worse.”
“Ugh. Talking to you is exhausting,” Gilda groaned. “You’ve got all these idiots eating out of your hooves and you’re complaining because things aren’t perfect. Nothing is ever perfect! You think you’ve got it bad because you’re not absolutely the most amazing pony, but any time you want you can just pack up and go home with your hot Saddle Arabian marefriend and your student and cry on Princess Celestia’s shoulder!”
“She’s not my marefriend, it’s really complicated and political. But that’s not the point.”
“No, the point is you’re always being, feather, what’s the term? Self-deprecating. You put yourself down and then want everyone around you to tell you you’re awesome. Constantly. That’s why it’s so annoying.”
I sighed. “Sorry.”
“Whatever.”
“I’m not going to give up on Griffonstone,” I said. “I don’t know how to fix it, but I’m going to try.”
“Good, because otherwise I’d have to do it on my own. I need you there, but not as a dumb pony friendship thing. I need you there so I can point you at problems and make them explode.”
“Gilda if you figure out a way to turn this into a problem that I can explode, I will absolutely become your new best friend. It’s the one thing I am a hundred percent confident about.”
“If it wasn’t so close to Griffonstone you could just take some wild shots down into the Abyss until the winds stopped, but after the mess in the castle I’m pretty sure you’d end up exploding the entire city.”
“Hmm…” I hadn’t considered the idea of carpet-bombing. It was probably more trouble than it was worth. The Idol was almost certainly too tough for me to just break, and I’d end up burying it.
“Hey! That was a joke! Please don’t actually blow up Griffonstone.”
I rolled my eyes and huffed, trying to look like she’d ruined my plans for lunch.