New Endings, Old Starts

by David Silver


78 - Commercial Break

They were standing in a griffon village. They hadn't flown there. They didn't step through a mysterious door. No curtain to push through or a sharp snap to announce the magic. Gallus sank to his haunches, confusion only growing by the moment. "What did you do?!"

Comforting gestured in a sweeping wave at the village. "I brought us here. This is the right one....?" It wasn't as if she knew for sure. "I was just kinda aiming for your home, wherever that was."

Gallus spotted a particular griffon and raised a hand to wave, only to get an annoyed grunt. "Yep... this is home." A traditional griffon greeting, second only to angry shouting. "I didn't see you do anything though. Seriously, what?"

"I used a scene transition," she explained as if that actually explained a thing at all. "A blip was coming up."

"Blip? I didn't hear nothin." He put a hand beside his head, as if to help in that hearing.

"It's not a sound exactly..." So her senses had changed a little. At least she was in the present and not the future or past or some confusing blend of it all. "But it was coming, and I took you here in it. The universe isn't watching when it happens." She waved up at the sky. "Don't be mad please. Just a quick permission slip."

God didn't reply that day.

"Who are you talking to?" he asked with a raised brow. "You've gone a little crazy... Not as over the top as your sister, but a little out there for sure." Still, he advanced at a steady walk. "My old house is this way. Thanks... for the lift. Can you even call it a lift?"

"I am honestly not sure. But it was a ride." She skipped alongside him, hooves tapping with a clop with each jump. "I'm glad it worked, and we're both okay."

Gallus paused. "You weren't sure about that?"

"That was the first time..." She tapped her fingers together. "First time I tried moving on a transition like that."

Gallus took a slow breath. "Right... Right!" He gestured at Comforting with both hands. "Right! I did ask you to do that... Wow..." He patted himself down to be extra sure he was all in one piece, and without extra parts. "How are you even handling this?"

"Handling what?" Comforting was looking around at the griffon town. "It's different, but still a town. Griffons aren't... aliens, just a different culture. I'd love to meet them."

Gallus smirked at that. "Most of them don't want to meet you. Still, I more meant... being what you are now. Before you were a unicorn, which was already quite a lot, but now you're... this." He waved one hand at her as he walked. "Which makes unicorn look boring in comparison. Worse, you're really getting into it. You're starting to just... do things. Isn't it a little scary?"

"Yes," admitted Comforting openly. "I was scared I'd mess up. Maybe you'd get hurt..." She rubbed at her chin. "Arguably worse, you could have gotten lost. If I dropped you somewhere random, I'd be so upset!" Harmony would also chew her out, but she didn't bring that up. "I'm really glad that didn't happen." She pointed at his hand. "But we held each other and it was alright."

Gallus flexed his hand, imagining what would have happened if that brief and forever grip had slipped. "Wow... Uh... Thanks. Actually... kinda glad to hear it makes you a little nervous too. It makes you more... grounded?" He shrugged as they stopped in front of one of many houses. "This is it. I'll be right back, hopefully with good news."

Comforting waved for him to go, starting a merry little whistling as she waited for the news, good or bad.

"What are you?" asked a female. A griffon hen was peering at Comforting like the odd creature she was.

Comforting looked up at the muted browns and blacks of the new griffon, but the patterns... "Pretty."

The hen blinked at this first word. "Thanks? So what are you and should I be... concerned?"

Comforting shook her head quickly. "I'm not a monster or anything, promise." She offered a hippogriff hand, perhaps hoping another avian hand would be less threatening. "I'm Comforting. Nice to meet you."

The griffon did not take that hand. "Yeah, hi." She glanced at the building they were in front of. "You know somegriffon in there?"

Comforting bobbed her head quickly. "Gallus." She raised a pointing finger at it, aborting the attempt to shake with the new griffon. "Goes to Twilight's friendship school?"

The hen rolled her eyes at that. "Wow... Yeah, I heard of that... Sounds like a huge waste of time. He could be learning something practical, if he wanted to go learn something. But no, he's off learning how to have tea and cakes with ponies, like that's gonna help."

Comforting went quiet. A thousand retorts rose and fizzled. "Actually..." The hen peered at her. "He's working on a project. It's secret though, so I can't say more than that."

She snorted at that, clicking her beak. "That ain't much to go on. Does it make bits?" She rubbed two fingers together as if a coin was between them to caress.

"It already has," proudly declared Comforting. "Just needs some fine tuning to make more."

She leaned closer. "Now you're talking something like my language. So, really, what are you? I'm tired of asking."

Comforting's attempts to avoid that question, foiled... "I'm Comforting, a chaos spirit. Before you..." The hen was already backing up. "I'm a nice chaos spirit, promise!"

"Yeah... chaos, and spirit. Two words I don't really wanna chat with..." She flared out her wings. "Have a good one or whatever." She took off, flapping away from what she decided she didn't want to deal with.

Comforting sighed, turning back to the building. Gallus' house? At least the house that held his caretaker. She really wanted to know how it was going.

And she slapped herself on the forehead. "Being dumb." She pulled out a tablet and swiped it active. She soon had a picture of the inside, revealing Gallus.


Gallus was standing next to a table where an old griffon was seated, looking grumpy, the griffon default. "So I just need a signature and--"

"You always come in asking for something," grunted out Grampa Gruff. "Shouldn't you be at that fancy school, wasting your time? What are you doing here?"

Gallus slid the paper onto the table. "I'll be headed right back there, just a little signature, and I can get out of your way."

Gruff folded his hands together. "You just quit, didn't you? Figures." He snatched the paper away to scowl at it. "Just a paper for me to say I'm alright with it or something..." But it didn't say that. "A trip? A city? What kinda 'education' are they trying to pull?!"

Gallus hiked a thumb at himself. "The other students are being lazy jerks." He casually tossed them under the bus. Not like they cared much about Gruff's opinion, right? "I'm going to learn stuff. Me and my business partner got our eyes on the bottom line, and we need to go to a place that has a lot of bits in it."

Gruff hiked a brow with a tired huh of a noise. "You don't say..." He set the paper down. "Probably going to waste the chance... What do I have to pay?!"

"Not a single bit," assured Gallus with a cocky smile. "Twilight just enjoys being proper, so she wants your alright."

"What do I care?!" thundered Gruff. "That pony princess, I swear... If I sign this, will you go away?"

"Right away." Gallus reached one foot out towards the door in promise. "Soon as..."

"I know how to sign things," the elder grumbled, snatching a quill from a counter aside him. "Tell that princess of yers that I don't care unless it costs me somethin'!" He angrily scrawled something that could be confused for a signature if one were drunk at the time. "Here. Don't know how you got here, but do it back!"

"I'm on the case." Gallus snatched the paper back and tucked it away. "Later." He emerged from the house just as Comforting was tucking something away. "What was that?"

Saying it was nothing was the first urge, but... "I was watching. He's a bit... salty."

"Salty?" Gallus shoved Comforting suddenly. "Jerk or not, don't spy like that. It's rude."

Comforting scowled, the sudden contact bothering her, especially in the form of a shove, but she managed to calm herself in a moment of tension. "Sorry... I was worried about you."

"Appreciate that." Gallus turned well away from the house, starting back the way they came. "So... you going to hop into another 'scene transition'?"

"Nah." She walked alongside him. "Doing something the same way twice feels... wrong somehow. Like part of me wants to try things in different ways, to see and do it in all the ways..." She clapped her mismatched hands. "It's fun... so long as nocreature gets hurt."

Gallus inclined his head. "Huh. Well... how about I suggest a way then?"

Comforting's eyes shined. "I love the tone in your voice. What's your idea?"

Gallus made a motion as if opening a book. "Like a book for little chicks. Have an announcer do it."

Comforting blinked softly. "Wow... I would not have thought of that." She floated several inches into the air. "Sounds fun though. Wanna try?"

"It was my idea," he dryly noted. "I'd look stupid if I said no now."

"Take it away, storyteller." She beckoned, waving grandly at the sky.

But she didn't have that power.

"I can hear you," she noted. "And the narration of my talking, which is odd."

Oh, well, maybe she did have some power.

"Can you take us home?"

No, but she could, and she did. It was a feat of chaotic magic too splendorous to even describe, but it ended up with Comforting on a pile of bananas and fudge, at the feet of a confused-looking Gallus.

"What?" Gallus blinked down at the messy form of Comforting. "What...?" But instead of losing it, he burst into laughter, deep and true. "You are something else." He looked around, seeing they weren't in the griffon village anymore. They were back in Ponyville.

"Ooo." Pinkie landed next to Comforting. "Are ya gonna finish that?"

Comforting sat up in the sticky mess, giggling at what she had apparently made? It was all her magic, as tricky as it was. "If you want some, pl--" She didn't get to finish, being licked from top to bottom in a huge Pinkie slurp that cleaned away the bannanas and fudge in one fell swoop. "Are you sure you're not a chaos spirit too?"

Pinkie pulled out her ID and turned it towards Comforting. "Nope, says so right here."

Pinkamena Diane Pie
"Pinkie"
Earth Pony

"See, earth pony, not chaos spirit. You'd think they'd know." She nodded sagely. "You're the chaos spirit, silly. How's that working out? You look like you're having a fun time!"

Gallus swatted at Comforting's clean back. "She just saved my whole day. I'm going to go get this to Headmare Twilight." He pulled out his permission slip to hold in the air triumphantly. "See you in the city!"

Comforting waved as he fled and turned back to Pinkie. "You could be an earth pony and a chaos spirit."

Pinkie twisted an ear aside. "That'd be funny."

"You like funny, don't you," gently nudged Comforting with a smile.

"I do like funny." Pinkie stroked her chin softly. "But I think I'd remember that, and my parents would remember that. Nope, couldn't have been born like this or they'd know for sure. I didn't start this until about when the Rainboom happened." She clapped her cheeks with her hooves. "Do you think that book ended it?! Ooo, I like that..."