//------------------------------// // CH 69 Friends of a Feather // Story: Twilight's Nightmare // by Nightsclaw //------------------------------// Flight is often thought of as a wonderful thing, especially by those that the ground zealously holds down. Right now, Gilda might almost have called it a curse. All it offered was a better view of the desolation that spread from Equestria, like infection from a tainted wound.  A part of her was well as truly pissed. Another of the ponies’ problems endangering the whole world. But no matter how much she wanted to blame them, she just could not bring herself to do that. She was too honest with herself for that.  She owed them for her life, and she knew it. That one fact only just added fuel to her anger.  It grated that it was not even her own kin that had come to the rescue. It was no griffon champion that defeated the head hunter.  She glanced over her wing at those that followed in her wake. That any followed her lightened her flight, but those that stayed, those selfish fools, planted a seed of loathing about what her kin had fallen to. They were a weak breeze or released flatulence in the case of the worst of them, compared to the mighty tempest the heroes of old were said to be.  Up ahead, silhouetted by the rising sun, was Twilight, the book-obsessed dweeb that somehow turned into an incarnation of the firestorm. The Alicorn rested with her forehooves dangling over the prow's railing as if her troop transport was a pleasure yacht. Only one thing broke the illusion of a leisure cruise. Beside her, some loose feathers held in the glow of magic spread paint onto the twisted visage of the Headhunter to the backdrop of flames.  "You know, there's plenty of room on top of the airbag?" Dash asked from her wing.  "I'm not some..." Dash smirked with that cocky edge only those that were both arrogant and almost as good as they think they are could ever pull off. "Not some pathetic weak pony?" "And? It's not like any of you lot fall into that group." "But seriously, Gilda. Rest your wings so you're fresh for the fight." Dash said, and the worst bit was, she was right. Gilda and the others with her could fly for days straight if needed.  "Fine." There was bitterness in her voice even as her body reminded her of its weariness.  Twilight slipped out of view as they ascended to the cloud structure stuck to the top of the airship. It looked just like anything you could find in Cloudsdale, apart from the glowing magenta markings that covered it.  "They’re Twi's work. Anything that comes our way, one of her shields will stop it." Gilda just nodded. The one thing that made cloud forts a chick's dream was that, well, clouds were not known for their ability to stop arrows. This was going to change aerial war forever.  Just ignoring the ramifications, Dash looked back. "I made the furniture, so you know it will be comfortable." The inside was partitioned into dozens of spaces. The couple of griffons that followed looked around dubiously.  Dash flicked her wings. "The rooms down there are all free." She turned the other way and took the first room on the left.  Moments later, Gilda poked her head in. Dash crashed into the oversized cloud couch just like she did back in flight camp. The sight summoned a surge of nostalgia for that simpler time.  The mare struggled, writhing this way and that, as she fought to free herself from the clinging grasp of her uniform.  Gilda rolled her eyes and headed over. "Stop being a feather brain, and let me help." "Thanks." Stripping her had a different edge now neither of them were unblooded fledglings. Her athletic physique was impressive for a griffon, let alone a pony.  Gilda's eyes trailed along Dash's back and followed the lines of the ruffled feathers. This close, the difference could not be passed off as dye or the like. Some of the feathers even had a slightly different profile.  "Dash... What happened to your wings?" By the time the story was over, it was full night outside. Gilda's beak hung open. She knew it was, but she could do nothing about it. If only half of Dash’s boasts were true, the battle of Ponyville was an epic worthy of any griffon hero of old. The story of how she earned her blade had elements right out of a horror story.  "So she really had a sword all the way through her and just ignored it?" Gilda asked. A slight tremble rattled Dash’s feathers. "She didn't just ignore it... It was like she was eager to have somepony to play with." "That dweeb of a librarian is into that…" Gilda just shook her head. It was still almost unbelievable, despite the fact she experienced some of it.  "Yeah, tell me about it." "Does it scare you?" "Twi? Nah. I'm used to her being crazy powerful. She lifted an ursa minor like it was nothing even before she got her wings." Dash paused but clearly had more to say. “I’m scared for her, not by her." "Who could do anything to her?" Dash shook her head. "I'm worried what she might do... That's one of the reasons I became her knight. She needs somepony to pull her back if her anger or her magic makes her... Well," Gilda nodded. There was a lot to take in and tonight was not the time to do it. "Hey, Dash, want help preening?" Dash’s expression was unreadable; her ears moved into several positions that might have meant something to a pony, but to Gilda, it was mostly lost. "Sure." The morning came too soon. Dash had been right. A soft cloud bed had been a great idea. The prismatic mane that blocked the view of the world was a clue to something that may not have been.  Gilda shifted her head to look over the blue-coated body she held. Dash was the only pony that could fall asleep even with a griffon in the room.   If anygriff or anypony wandered in, she would never live it down.  Whether they jumped to conclusions or not. Dash had needed some creature, any creature, to hold her. To just be there and accept her without any of the bluster and ego she normally wore like armour.  "This is not how I thought I would be reminiscing about our flight camp sleepovers," Gilda said. Dash yawned wide and cat-like. "I don't think I drank enough cider for this." "Well, your not exactly a prize catch either." "Yeah?" "Yeah." Rainbow cracked first. Her expression slipped to a playful smirk. "We should grab a bite to eat. Today is going to be busy." Dash said as she rose from the bed.    "Hold up." Dash looked back over her wing. "Yeah?" "You have a few out-of-place feathers." Dash stared critically at her wing. It only took seconds for her to spot the offending feathers. Gilda reached for it, and in a display of trust, Dash offered her wing freely.  A few seconds and it was done.  "Thanks, Gilda." "You're stuck with hooves instead of superior talons. " Gilda said waggling her clawed digits.  "We are not getting into that one again." Gilda shrugged her wings. "You just know I'm right." Dash’s eyes narrowed, but not because of Gilda's words. No, her eyes were fixed on one of Gilda's wings. "How are your wings still fine?" "Thicker feathers." A voice called through the cloud walls. "Foods up. If you want any, get your sorry tails out of bed, lover birds"  "Hey," Dash snapped. "We didn't even do anything." Gilda shook her head. "You think that matters?" "If I'm going to be mocked for something, I at least want it to be for something I actually did."   The walk to breakfast was full of knowing smiles and a few disapproving glares. Gilda let it run off her like water off a duck's back. But considering the life-and-death situations she found herself in recently, maybe she should have let the preening turn from a friendly favour to something more.  At least none of the hunters that followed her would mock her for playing with her 'food'.  A dark cloud loomed in her thought. Just the thought of those useless wastes of meat that happened to be griffon shaped made her talons clench.  Something struck her and she acted. She whirled and lashed out and something blue darted past the opened talon strike. Red anger flared up at the miss just as her mind started to put together what had just happened. Relief and panic punched her in the gut at the same time. If it had been anypony else… Dash's expression held no fear or anger, only concern. "Hey, Gilda. You alright?" Was she alright? That was the question. She took a deep breath. Flexed each talon easing out the tension that wanted to rip and tear into something that bled.  "Alight first thing, food, and then we’re talking," Dash ordered in a tone that would allow no other fate. Gilda tore another strip off the large roasted fish. Now she was not so hungry she took her time to savour the taste. "Twilight caught this?" She asked through a mouth full of perfectly cooked and spiced flesh.  Rainbow nodded, devouring her own smaller portion of fish. Only hers came wrapped in with thick leathery leaves. Swallowing, she answered. "Well, she just teleported it out of the water." Gilda glanced down at her plate. The remains of her meal suddenly seemed more like a warning. If she could do that to a fish.  Dash downed what was left of her mug of cider. Then let out a content sigh. "So, what's been eating you?" Gilda smiled, "You have got to be the only pony that would ask it like that." Dash smirked and wiped her muzzle with her foreleg.  "Yeah. That's ‘cause I'm awesome." The smirk faded as she aimed her hoof at Gilda as if it was a weapon. "Now spill, or do I need to beat it out of you?" "Nah, we don't have time for that, and it would be bad for you to lose, now you're a knight and all." Dash snorted like a pony but flared her wings in challenge any griffon would recognise.  Gilda held her talons closed in a griffon gesture of peaceful intent. "It's just bites we needed saving. We should have been strong enough. We should have been prepared for this..." "Yeah... I get it" "I doubt it." "We had to fly over Equestria to get here," Dash solemnly shook her head. "Like two died in Ponyville. Even without Twilight there. Just with us normal Ponyville ponies." Pain and anger looked out of Dash's eyes. “But the rest… entire villages are just gone… Even in Ponyville, I was too slow.”  Dash's eyes traced over the blade still strapped to her leg, and a red shimmer danced over its red metal in response. “Stormfront… I thought I saved her.” Emotion almost strangled the rest of the words in Dash’s throat, but she managed to force them out past her scrunched-up muzzle in a dead, defeated voice. “She turned into a blighted right there as I held her.” Gilda reached out and rested a talon on Dash’s leg. With a squeeze, Gilda hoped was comforting and not painful, she spoke. "At least you ponies did not steal from the militia stores to save a few bits." "Yeah, somegriff needs their flank kicked." "We had more griffons than arrows." "That's bad." "Yeah." The conversation faded. They both sat there in silence, but the resolve to never be too slow again still sat behind Dash’s eyes.  Gilda turned the arrow in her talons and sighted along it. If there was a flaw, her eyes could not see it. Metal blended to wood and then to feather. Not a single hint of join or glue. It was as if the head and the fletching simply grew from the shaft.  In a flash of magenta, a second tree popped into existence off the port side of the airship. A moment later, a net of magenta light ripped through the tree, first one way, then another.  Chunks of wood began to fall, succumbing to gravity. Each piece of the diced-up tree erupted in a brief magenta star.  When the afterimages faded, thousands of arrows, identical to the one Gilda now held, floated in the air where the raw wood had been. The arrows swarmed like a school of fish rushing to settle in neat bundles as a third tree popped into existence.  Gilda shook her head and focused on the archery target a quarter of a mile away. Her powerful forelimbs pulled the string back. A moment later and an arrow punched halfway through the central ring. Soon a dozen more followed it.  With arrows like these, I'll only have myself to blame if I miss. The rest of the week was one methodical extermination after the other. Even with Twilight perched on the airship in reserve, that Candice pony, the Captain of Twilight's guard, organised things well enough.  The unicorn, that looked like she wanted to be Celestia, zealously carved holes in hordes with waves of fire. Griffon hunters crippled choice targets, killing their mobility with well-placed arrows. The mercenaries Twilight brought held the line tenaciously with the old exiled griffon keeping them from getting themselves killed.  The way the Purple Pony Princess watched everything, it was easy to see what she was doing. It was no political manoeuvre. No, it was simply she wanted to let others gain experience so that they were more likely to survive what must surely be to come.  By the eighth day fighting the blighted had become a dull chore.  The fifteenth day had every griffon that would accept help relocated into one fort perched high in the mountain peaks or joining the campaign against the Blighted.  Each and every settlement saved added another few griffons to the flock that followed Twilight's airship. It now towed a large cloud with three-story buildings on it, each full of survivors that still had the will to fight.  Of those that joined, each had their own reasons for staying. Some just wanted a chance at pay back. Others needed to prove they had what it took. A few would do anything to show they were stronger than grass-eating ponies. The most dangerous ones needed an outlet for the hot-blooded rage that consumed them.  Gilda rotated the arrow between her talons, her bow held ready as her hunter’s eyes scanned the darkness. The calm beauty of the starlit night was marred by thick columns of smoke illuminated from the pyres that spawned them. The corpses of the endless hoards of blighted animals burnt. They smelled so delicious, so tempting, that Gilda's stomach grumbled.  "All that wasted meat." The old griffon bedside her said.  Gilda almost snapped at the fool. Instead she pointed the arrow at them. "One bite, and your done for." He nodded. "I know. Just, I don't think there is going to be any prey for years. And not enough to feed us for more than a decade." The cooked flesh scent suddenly seemed mocking. One last insult the Blighted threw in their faces.   "The ponies are going to hold our lives in their hooves." "Most won't like that. " "Like it or not, where else are we going to get food from?" The sound of a griffon knocking on a wooden door was so very different from the sharper sound of a pony’s hoof. It was odd to Gilda that this little detail held so much of her attention as she waited. Maybe not odd, but it was far less worrying than other possibilities. Why does she want to see me… What had she done wrong? What did this mean? For good or ill she did not have much more time to fret over the answer. The door opened and revealed that tall, dark mare that was often around the princess. “Twilight will see you now.” The mare bowed and stepped past Gilda, the door left open in her wake.  Gilda’s wings twitched and ached for the open sky as she entered Twilight’s room. Compared to the enchanted cloud buildings, the Captain's Quarters felt cramped and constricting. Not that that seemed to bother Princess Twilight, despite the fact she had a set of perfectly functional wings. A faint magenta glow changed the light level in the room just before the door quietly closed behind her. The following click meant there would be no easy way to leave. Gilda stood proud and did everything she could to hide the nervous tension that sang in her muscles. Twilight’s eyes rose from a thick book with some sort of sun-based mark on it. Her magic carefully closed it a moment before it vanished with a pop. "Gilda," Twilight said in her normal voice, and yet, there was something different about it. Something that demanded full attention and it was not just the memory of the raw destructive force of nature she could be.  "Yes, Princess?" "I have seen how brave you are, and I can see your potential." Twilight's gaze swept over Gilda.  She felt it, almost like a feather-soft touch, as it took everything in. Every muscle, every scar, every fiber of her being dissected before somehow Twilight looked still deeper.  Twilight's eyes, calm, collected and even welcoming, hid something. A core of hardened steel, a resolve to make her will a reality no matter what it took. To see a gaze like that was rare. It see it in the eyes of a non-predator was unheard of. "I have an offer for you, but I will explain my reasons for this before I make it."  Gilda just nodded. What else could she do? Twilight had saved her tail for sky's sake.  "The first point is, I wish to show the world how cooperation between species is to all our advantages, and I fully support it. The second is your young age. That means you have more years ahead if you than other choices I could make. The third reason is my Knight’s relationship with you." Gilda only had time to open her beak before the Princess continued.  "In a life and death situation, she trusts you. That alone is almost enough to justify my offer. Add to that how in synch you two are in the air together compels me to." "So, what is the offer?" Gilda asked, already having half an idea.  Twilight smiled with a twinkle in her eye before she spoke with the gravity of ritual words.  "Will you offer me your strength? Will you help me protect those I shelter?  Will you fly on my Knight’s wing?” The silent air between them had a static quality. Her fate hung there, waiting for her answer to pick the direction her life would take.   If any griffon had said anything like that, there would be no doubt what was on offer. Answering such a question with a question almost made her look away with embarrassment, but she had to know. "Are you asking me to be one of your Knights?" "Yes, Gilda the griffon. I, Princess Twilight Sparkle of both Magic and Friendship, do hereby offer you a place by Rainbow Dash's side as one of my Knights.”  "But, I'm not even Equestrian." It was a lame response, but it was the only thing that came to Gilda's mind to say.  "I can change that with a word or a single flick of a quill. I am a princess of Equestria. My word is law and I tell you that if you wish to accept this, I will allow nothing in this world to stop you."  Calm purple eyes looked out from Twilight's face. Each and every word she said was true. A supreme confidence suffused every nuance of the Alicorn’s expressions.  Gilda's own had mocked her, had forced her to get stronger to avoid the beatings simply because she had a pony friend. They had stolen supplies and arms from the militia out of greed. Most of them battled over the least of scraps. There were a few decent griffons, and not many of them would help others without direct personal gain. Then there was Dash. They would get to go back to being wingmates. It could be the start of something amazing.  After double and triple checking her motivations. Gilda made her choice.