When I came to my senses enough to open my eyes, the glistening sun’s position told me I was flying northeast. My cave was northwest, but I couldn’t even make myself turn.
The farther from Ponyville I got, the more I realized how weak and rushed my whole plan had been. I should’ve known Dash had a life—heck, she had tried to warn me in her letter that “a weather pony’s job was never done.”
I cringed, trying not to think about how badly I had screwed up. I was supposed to tell Dash everything, not end our friendship. Then again, I shouldn’t have been so selfish and only worried about what I wanted. Really, I should’ve been a better friend.
I flapped harder to get away from everything, but the reality gripped my chest like a lead weight. It’s over. Every little memory from camp, every time we had each other’s back, and it all boiled down to what I had secretly feared all along: we had turned into different individuals than we were at camp.
Dash didn’t need me anymore.
Flying got too hard, so I lay down on a nearby cloud and took a deep breath. It came out jagged and broken as I curled up into a little sobbing ball. I tried to force myself back up: Was I really pathetic enough to just lie there impotently? Instead of giving me strength, that loathing only made me cry harder as I realized, yes, I was.
It took me a while to get everything under control, so when I wiped my eyes dry, the sun was hanging low in the late afternoon sky. Out of everything, I felt hungry more than anything; I hadn’t eaten anything since puking my lunch up. I thought about hunting for dinner, but I realized it didn’t matter anymore.
At that point, I had three choices: die, live in misery, or head back to Ponyville.
The three options all made me wince. I knew what three years of banishment was like; did I want to live another sixty or seventy years like that? Some griffins even pushed a hundred years old... I shook my head. I didn’t want to live like that.
I sat up, trying to think of a fourth option. I couldn’t. I definitely didn’t want to chose to do anything permanent without thinking it through all the way, but that was really how I had lived for the past few years. I didn’t want to live like that, but I couldn’t...
A fluttering sound broke my concentration, and my feathers bristled. I wasn’t alone. My mind sharpened as I scanned the skies for the intruder, but no one was around. The sky above me was empty. Maybe it was a moth or some—
The cloud I was sitting on dissolved in a small gust of wind.
My stomach lurched, but before I could spread my wings to catch myself, I landed face-first on another cloud.
I looked up. Rainbow Dash was glaring down at me with absolute hatred—almost like she knew what I had just been considering. That sounded stupid, but then again, I had flown pretty far away from Ponyville in a random direction.
My curiosity froze into ice when I heard cold fury: “What the hay is your problem?” She continued before I could explain, “I knew you tried getting rid of Pinkie Pie. That was... whatever. But Twilight, or Rarity? Or Fluttershy? What could they possibly have done to you!? I knew it was a mistake inviting you here!” She lowered her voice to just above a whisper and finished, “It’s no wonder you don’t have any friends if this is how you act.”
I lay there, stunned. Then, her words sunk in. I took a few deep breaths; then, my talons pierced my right palm as I made a fist too hard. I looked up at the pegasus above me. She didn’t have any right to bring up how I didn’t have friends. She was the reason I had been completely alone for three years. And she didn’t know anything about what I’d been through.
Because of her.
My beak clamped tight in a snarl. I wanted to hurt her. To teach her what pain felt like. Even as the thought crossed my mind, a glimpse of fear cracked her demeanor.
It was all I needed.
I shoved off with my wings and pounced, but I landed on empty cloud. She was hovering above me now. I hated her confused, fearful expression. We locked eyes for a split second before I leaped up at her. She took off and I flew after her.
Our race earlier had been a friendly little contest. Now, I was still faster, but any warmth of friendship was gone. It had been replaced by cold, wrathful steel.
We flew. Fear gave her desperate speed, but spite let me catch up to her easily. She jolted down, and my talons raked at thin air. With a grunt, I lashed out with my hind leg. It connected, and I heard a small gasp of pain.
It wasn’t enough. I followed through on my kick and flipped into a dive. She swerved up, and the edges of my vision tinted red. I felt anger taking over, turning me into something like a force of nature. If she thought there was an escape, she was sorely mistaken.
Just like earlier, I could tail her easily enough. She tried a few quick maneuvers to throw me out of her slipstream, to slow me down. I didn’t fall for any of her cheap tricks.
Then, she banked vertically, and I followed. It was a stupid mistake on her part; we’d both stall out, and she couldn’t get past me on the way down. She must’ve realized it, too, because she took a quick, jumbled mess of turning. I lost her for a moment; then she was flying southwest. To her home. I took off after her.
As I gained on her, I felt a fine misting and, over the sound of the wind rushing in my ears, I heard a sob of despair. Good. But it still wasn’t enough. Her worthless escape attempts only hardened me, and with one final flap of my wings, I got close enough and grabbed her hind leg. She kicked at my hand, but I grabbed that leg too, and with that, she was mine.
It was harder to fly with her squirming and struggling, but I managed to get us over a nearby cloud. After all, one of us had been forced to learn strength.
When we were at the cloud, I spun around and hurled her onto her back. The cloud held, and I landed on top of her, pinning her hind legs with mine and grabbing her neck with my left claw. She punched at it, but her blows only left her open to a retaliatory strike.
I clenched my right fist again and punched her in the jaw, jerking her head to the side. She stopped struggling, but turned back to face me. I could see the tears in her eyes, and her throat vibrated as she sobbed, “Why?”
“Do you even know what I’ve been through because of you?” I shrieked, not bothering to translate. I tightened my grip, and Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened, desperately confused. I stared into them. Everything I had endured over the past few years stemmed from my friendship with her, and she had the nerve to mock me for it? First with stupid pranks, then throwing it in my face?
She was the cause of my problems. She was the solution. I looked down at the pegasus beneath me, no longer as a friend, no longer as an individual, no longer as anything but the culmination of my Verbannungsprüfung.
Slowly, I raised my still-clenched fist, preparing a strike. Her eyes were red from crying, but I could see the terror in them—only natural, given the circumstances. I could also see her nostrils flaring as she struggled to take quick, shallow breaths. As the adrenaline from the chase left me, I noticed her pulse beating against my fingers. It was rapid, fearful.
She knew what was coming next.
I squeezed her neck harder and opened my hand, feeling the talons slide out of my palm. Beneath me, the pegasus struggled weakly, but there was nothing she could do. I wanted to relish that power. But I was too exhausted to enjoy it. I just wanted to be done.
“G... Gilda?” she rasped through my grip. “Please... don’t...” she begged, and she began to cry—silently. She couldn’t breathe enough for sobs.
The back of my mind screamed at me to stop. Why would it? Then, something clicked, and I blinked a few times like I was waking up.
I realized where we were. Who I was. What I was doing.
I loosened my grip on Dash’s throat, and I felt the air rush down her windpipe as she took a breath. She was alive. But there I had been, ready to strike...
What had I done?
Dash looked up at me, still afraid. I couldn’t blame her. I stepped off her and saw that her neck was bleeding. From my talons. My friend. I took a few backward steps, horrified. Was I that broken, where I could even think about doing that?
It was what Father wanted me to do. I would rather die than do it.
Dash sat up and stared at me like she didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t blame her. She had always been a friend to me—even this afternoon. When she came out to confront me, had been angry, but she had been my angry friend. Friends fought. Monsters killed.
“I don’t deserve you,” I whispered to her, not sure what language it was in. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Not after what I had done. I kept backing away from her.
“Gilda... what...” she panted.
I met her in her own language. “Dash... I’m so sorry.” And I was. But there was no forgiveness for what I had almost done. For what I had turned into.
I took one last step backwards, over the edge of the cloud. For one last time, I dove.
For the first few moments, I was still too dazed to think. Then I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and I found freedom in that dive. The air rushed around me like waves of water. I greeted the wind like an old friend. It was powerful and cleansing; as I fell through it, I felt the turmoils of my life lifting away. I found peace.
Without the pain, all that stayed were the good memories: My only older sister teaching me how to fly. Stories from the artifacts-vendor. Dash and I winning first place in the relay race at Junior Speedsters’: the only event I won.
The past gave way to regrets I had about the future. I wished I could’ve done more with my life. Things had just turned out so wrong, so lonely. But I’d never be a mother, so I’d never get the chance to make up for everything my father had done to me.
Memories and regrets subsided as quickly as they came, leaving me alone with peace. Soon, it would all be over: the pain, the suffering... everything.
I took a peek at the ground: it was close and getting closer by the second. I closed my eyes again; I didn’t want my last thoughts to be of impact. Instead, I thought of Dash. We had a lot of good times together, even if the time itself had been short. With everything else in my life, I was glad—no, honored—to have had her as a friend. I smiled when I thought of all the mischief we got into during that one, perfect summer.
But I knew what I had done. I had become what Father wanted me to be. And there was no forgiveness for that.
I felt a bristling, and the air around me shifted. This is it. I tensed, despite my peace. It’d all be over soon.
With one last breath, I felt the freedom of impact.
Then, I felt myself jerk horizontally, crushingly fast. I took a surprised breath, which confused me, and I opened my eyes. Dash’s head was above me; her face was streaked with tears and blood, and it was surrounded by a halo that glowed every color of the rainbow.
As I tried to get a grip on what was happening, an immense explosion washed over me, drowning out all thoughts for a few seconds. It shook Dash, but she kept her grip on me—she was holding me. I glanced downward, and the ground was rushing past, less than five feet away. That was the last piece of the puzzle, and I finally understood: Dash had saved me.
Dash slowed down and banked up before dumping me on a low-lying cloud. She landed nearby, and we locked eyes for a moment as she stood over me.
Then she slapped me across the face hard enough that I saw spots. I opened my mouth to protest, but she slapped me again, the other way. “Shut up!” After a breath, she tried to continue, “Don’t... ever...” but she choked up too much to continue.
She sat down, hard, and melted down into tears. As I watched her, I realized how big of a mistake I had made. Well, mistakes; Dash apparently didn’t abandon her friendships as easily as I did.
“What did... what... who are you?” she stammered out between sobs.
A spark of hope lit in my chest. After everything had gone wrong, after everything I had done, finally, here was the chance to tell Dash what I had wanted to. I started by answering her question, “I’m Gilda.” Dash looked angry at that answer, but she stopped crying, so I went on, “I’m a griffin, from the Sharfkral, but my mom’s a Sterkergeist.”
“That’s not what I—”
I held up a hand and Dash stopped talking. “Those are the two oldest griffin tribes; they formed after an old king had a pair of twins for sons. They couldn’t settle their succession claims, so the tribe split down the middle. That was way long ago, like four thousand years.”
Dash’s ears turned back, irritated. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’m getting there,” I said. “That... that was the high point in griffin society. Ever since then, things got worse and worse. Tribes split, rejoined, moved... until about five hundred years ago, when we just straight-up started to die off. Most of our petty differences were set aside, but our ‘culture’ started to be more about ‘survival’ instead of ‘tradition.’”
I shrugged. “It didn’t help, though. We’re still dying. The only reason we’ve even survived for so long is because some families take it upon themselves to have as many male children as possible.” I locked eyes with Dash. Her ears were back up, and she seemed to be listening. “Males, anyway. Females...” I gestured to myself. “We’re expendable.” A lump formed in my throat; I decided not to tell her about the desert north of my tribe where all the unwanted female cubs got abandoned.
Dash cut in, “That’s not fair!”
I fought down a laugh. “That’s life, Dash.” She made a sound and I spoke louder, “My life, anyway. Back home... well, in my tribe...” I glanced off to the side, trying to remember. “There are twelve males. Compared to over forty females. Compared to a few centuries ago, when we numbered in the thousands.”
Dash nodded slowly, and I sighed before trying to figure out where to head. She knew the population situation, so I raised the ante a little and explained what Celestia had done to the Schnelfluge.
After that, Dash stood up and flared her wings. “Celestia wouldn’t—”
“Didn’t you tell me this morning how she trapped her sister in the moon for a thousand years?” I cut back. I knew the original part of that story, from my tribe’s legends, but Dash’s resolution to “Nightmare Moon” had been new to me.
Still, she protested, “That was different, Celestia was—”
“Acting to defend her citizens?” I almost felt like a traitor, defending her, but I wasn’t so thickheaded that I thought the blame existed solely on her in that situation.
I could tell Dash was trying to wrap her head around the whole thing. Finally, she shrugged. “I guess that explains why you were glaring at Twilight.”
“Hey, I wasn’t glaring—”
“You were looking at her like...” Dash narrowed her eyes and turned her head to the side, opening her mouth with the edges curled down.
I shook my head, trying not to chuckle, but I conceded the point. “Anyway, that’s pretty much how things are back home: bleak and dead, sprinkled with prejudice. I wasn’t sent to Junior Speedsters’ for fun, at any rate.”
Dash’s goofy, horrified expression drooped; so did her ears. “You weren’t?”
I shook my head again. “I mean, if it were an honor, Father probably would’ve sent any of his other kids.”
“You never told me you had siblings!” she bubbled, and I thought I saw the hint of a smile on her face.
I hated to kill it. “Remember those families that took it on themselves to have as many sons as possible?” Dash nodded, slowly. “Before I left for camp, I had eleven sisters, four brothers, and an egg. So seventeen of us, the same age as my oldest sibling. That means one of us was hatched, every summer. Like clockwork.”
There was a long pause, and Dash ran the gamut between shocked, angry, and back to horrified. “So you missed your party at Junior Speedsters’? Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve—”
“It’s okay, Dash,” I interrupted her minor freak-out before it got worse. “You came along with me when I ditched camp for the day. I got to spend the day with my best friend, it was already a good birthday.”
She finally smiled again. My heart swelled, but I knew we were a long ways from finished. The sun was painting the sky red, so I wanted to get done with my story before nightfall. “Anyway... Junior Speedsters’s was punishment, because I was so bad at flying—”
“No you’re not!” Dash interrupted.
“Yeah, I am. I don’t know what’s going on with me today, but you should see me most of the time; I suck.” Her word still felt weird to me, but it fit.
Dash made another sound of protest, so I compromised, “If not now, then definitely three springs ago. This whole thing started one day when Father ordered me to get food for our whole family. That was a bust. When I came back empty-handed five hours later, he went out, came back fifteen minutes later with a deer for my brothers, and then he left again. About a week later, he came back and told me I was going to a children’s flight camp as punishment.”
Dash nodded sadly. “And that’s why you were so... moody at first?”
“Yeah. I mean...” I lifted my hands defensively. “I had never seen a whole pegasus before camp. All I had to go on were Father’s words. It felt like punishment.”
“I bet the others didn’t help,” she muttered, looking away.
I didn’t want Dash to feel bad. “You did.” She turned back with a grin. “Because of you, I actually kind of enjoyed camp, a little. Of course, that only pissed off Father...”
“What... what did he do?”
I took a deep breath and traced the scars on my chest. Here it was. The moment of truth. “He kicked me out of my tribe until I kill you.”
Dash tensed back, and from the terror in her eyes, I thought she was going to flee right there. She didn’t. Instead, she shouted, “What?!”
I poured every ounce of sincerity I had into my response, “But I... I don’t want to.”
She looked back at me in disbelief and rubbed her neck. “You just tried to kill me!”
“I wasn’t thinking straight!” I half-shouted. Dash shook her head. I continued, “I... I’d rather kill myself.”
That snapped Dash out of her stubbornness. Before she could say anything, I explained, “After I left home... I haven’t had anything. Anyone.” I widened my eyes to punctuate the sentiment. “I mean, going back to my tribe—or any griffins—carries a death sentence. And you see how well I fit in with ponies. Three years,” I whispered, holding up that many talons. “And it’s just been your letters.”
Dash didn’t say anything back at first. I saw her thinking, and the silence grew heavier as time passed. Finally, she asked, “Why’d you come here today?”
I thought about her question. Again, I realized how flimsy a plan it had been in the first place. It was no wonder it fell apart so easily. “I wanted to tell you. Heck, I wanted to tell you in my first letter, but I was afraid.” I bowed my head under the weight of the truth. “Afraid that it’d end our friendship, one of the last good things I had going for me.” My voice shook, despite my best efforts keep it together. “But it's not your fault. None of this is. I’m sorry that everything g-got so screwed up today. All I wanted t-to do was to g-get some time alone to t-tell to you all of this, b-but the time was n-never right...then P-Pinkie Pie... then you had t-to work...”
The day’s frustrations became too much, and I couldn’t continue. I just started crying. It burned, showing weakness in front of Dash like that, especially over something so inane and stupid as “not getting my way.” But nothing about that day had worked out for me.
Until now. Dash walked over and hugged me, whispering, “We’re still friends, G.”
I hugged her back, and I cried into her shoulder. It didn’t last very long, though; I was too spent from the past hour. When I got everything back under control, there was an awkward silence. I filled it with, “So, how did you find me, anyway?”
Dash stepped away, cringing. “You... kind of tackled a deliverypony.” She waved a hoof and shook her head. “But she’s fine; you’re not the biggest thing she’s ever flown into. Anyway, she told me which direction you were headed, and then...” She made a little circle with her hoof before sitting down. “But I’m sorry for all the pranks... and for what I said earlier. You know, about it being a mistake to invite you here. I never knew...” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “I never knew how bad things were for you, though.”
Her expression hardened slightly. “But you were pretty mean to everypony. I know you were frustrated, but I’ve gotta think about all my friends, not just my best one.” She hesitated slightly before finishing, “You need to apologize.”
I knew it had been coming, but her demand still hit me right in the gut. Laying myself bare like that to Dash was one thing; she put up a tough front, but beneath that, she was compassionate. She was my only friend, but that didn’t diminish the quality of her character when I called her my best friend.
However, I couldn’t do that with just anyone. It was petty pride, I knew, and I hated the words as they came out of my mouth: “I know, but Dash, I can’t. I just... I can’t.”
At my response, her lip started to quaver. “I... I thought you’d say s-something like that. And I-I’m sorry, but it’s not f-fair to my o-other friends if you d-don’t make th-things right. I h-hate myself for this,” she said, looking away from me. “But if you don’t apologize to them... then you c-can’t come to visit ag-ag...”
As Dash sobbed out the last syllable of “again,” I stepped over and hugged her. Now it was her turn to cry into my shoulder; I was too ashamed to join in.
Instead, I stared off into the twilight sky behind her, wishing that Dash hadn’t come to her decision, even though I knew it was fair. Heck, it wasn’t even between Dash and me; it’d be really awkward if I showed up in Ponyville without apologizing to everyone. But I couldn’t, and I knew it.
I also knew how much Dash’s decision was tearing her up, so I tightened my hug, closed my eyes, and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
We stayed like that for a while; when I finally opened my eyes again, everything was illuminated by the silver glow of the moon. The night was quiet and beautiful; I was glad to share it with a friend.
Finally, she broke out of the embrace. “I need to head home, G.”
“Well...” I hesitated. I wanted her to stay, but I knew she had to go. “Have a good trip.”
She nodded back. “You too, G.”
“Goodbye, Dash.”
She didn’t reply at first. When she finally opened her mouth to say goodbye, she made a small, choking sound. She gave up on talking, and waved her front hoof at me. I returned the wave. Then, she turned and took off toward Ponyville.
Along with her usual rainbow, I could also see a trail of tears behind her, glimmering in the moonlight.
I thought back to the first time we ever said goodbye. Three years ago, it had felt like something was ending—or at least, there was a lot of uncertainty. Now, “goodbye” felt heavier, more permanent. I wouldn’t be able to see her until I apologized, but even then, the idea of humbling myself in front of her friends made me feel sick. I would eventually do it, though. Dash was too good of a friend to throw away over something so stupid.
In that sense, “goodbye” was more like a beginning. On top of that, I no longer had to wonder about what Dash’s reaction to my Verbannungsprüfung. She had heard, and she was still my friend.
That thought filled me with a warm, golden glow. I looked up at the stars and moon above me, and I felt a small hope that maybe, one day, everything would be okay for me.
With a small grin, I also took comfort that, in the end, I wasn’t able to fulfill Father’s task. I hated what I had almost done to her, but I was glad I knew where the line was for me. I was glad I wasn’t that monster.
I took off flying northwest, back home. The trip would take all night, and I’d be exhausted at the end of it, but that didn’t bother me. The only thing I felt was a placid sense of serenity.
It lasted for the entire journey home.