Misperceptions v2
By: Winter Quill
Adapted from the original "Misperceptions" by Arbiter Balemead
6: Always There
Rainbow Dash was not a foal, and when it came flying and speed she knew as much as the best of the Wonderbolts, so when Twilight Sparkle popped into existence in front of her she was sure it was because the situation was well in hand. What she didn’t expect was for the unicorn to burst into tears and gallop off towards town leaving both Rainbow and Fluttershy gasping in her wake.
“What just happened?” the cyan pony asked, fluttering her wings out and rocking her ears backwards.
“I don’t know,” Flutteryshy replied, worry filling her soft voice.
The two pegasi stood in silence for a few moments, trying to decide what to do. It was clear they had to go after her to see what was wrong but what about Gilda? What had she done to Twilight to make her run off like that? Craning her head up she looked at the cloud above them, seeing the feline tail hanging over the edge.
She bit her lip, torn between her two friends. Something was wrong with Twilight, but Gilda was still hiding in the cloud. She wasn’t yelling after the unicorn, or cursing her out, or any of the things she would normally do when she was angry. There was something going on between them, there had to be.
“We should go after her,” Flutteryshy said, motioning back towards town.
“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash replied, not looking away from the cloud. Someone had to deal with Gilda, and ‘Shy was not the pony to do it. She shook her head and fanned her wings again. “You check on Twilight, I’m going to find out what she did,” she said, narrowing her eyes as she looked up at the long tail.
“Okay… but don’t do anything that will cause more trouble,” the yellow pony said, then starting towards Ponyville as quickly as she could go.
Rainbow took in a long breath and leapt into the air, lifting herself up with long strokes of her wings. She didn’t know what to think but if Gilda had gone off on Twilight she was going to get a piece of the pegasus’s mind. She was preparing herself for a good yell at her old friend when she reached the cloud, but of all the things she had expected the griffon sitting hunched over on the cloud, her feathers soaked with tears, was not one of them.
“Gilda? What happened?” she asked, alighting on the cloud, her worry for Twilight turning to her old friend.
Gilda didn’t reply she just whipped her eyes across the back of her leg and turned away from the pony.
She moved a bit closer to the griffon. “Twi was really upset, and I don’t know why she was crying but I bet you do. So come on, tell me?” she asked in her most comforting voice, leaning closer and attempting to wrap a wing around the avian shoulders, but before she could get close Gilda shoved her away. It wasn’t a move of anger, but more of desperation.
“Gilda, you didn’t mean to hurt her, did you?”
Letting out a sigh she pulled her wings close and shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I... I screwed up, okay. I did something stupid and I thought she was going along with it, but she wasn’t and she ran away. Would you just leave me alone, please?”
‘Please?’ Gilda was asking please without being sarcastic? Was it possible that she really had changed? She took a closer look at the griffon, trying to see her with fresh eyes. Everything about her was different, her posture of her back, the sadness in her eyes and face, the way her wings kept fluttering down before pulling back to her side. Somehow she was both the same woman she knew, and someone different as well.
Though however she changed, she was still Rainbow Dash’s friend, and she wasn’t going to push her away, not now. “I don’t leave my friends alone, not when they need me.”
Gilda looked at the equine, her head cocking to the side as a hint of a smile pulled over her beak—but only for a moment. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Lifting up a wing, Rainbow leaned in closer to her, dropping it over her back. “What happened?”
The griffon took in a long breath, her feathers ruffling out around her neck. “Twilight and I... she’s been helping me, and she’s been so good to me. We... she kissed me, and I kissed her, and things were feeling nicer then they have in a while, then she pulled away.”
“Twilight kissed you?”
“O-on the cheek,” she said, a hint of a blush starting to show through her feathers.
Rainbow gave her a sly grin, this was a side of her friend she had never seen before. “Did you like it?”
“Excuse me?! That’s a bit personal, don’t you think?” she asked, her old self returning in a flash, only to start melting away as the pony’s sly grin grew wider. Her blush grew even brighter as she fluttered out her wings, her shoulder dropping in defeat. “I did, it was nice. She was warm and felt nice and I didn’t want it to end.”
The pegasus smiled and pressed a bit closer to Gilda. “But it ended, why did it end?”
“I don’t know. She pushed away from me, said it was too sudden and winked away,” her reply was filled with sadness and doubt, her head dropping ever lower.
“Then how did you screw up?”
Gilda lifted her head slightly, her golden eyes bloodshot. “I shouldn’t have hugged her. I guess it threw her off and stuff... I don’t know but I screwed it up. Whatever we had, or could have had, I screwed it up.”
“You did not screw up,” the cyan pony said, flicking out her tail and rocking her ears back into her mane.
“Of course I did… I always screw things up,” she replied, dropping her eyes to look at the cloud.
Rainbow Dash shook her head and pressed herself a bit closer to her old friend. “You did not screw up, you hugged her, and you said it felt nice. She must have thought so to, otherwise she wouldn’t have kissed you.”
The griffon shook her head quickly from side to side. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“Fine,” she replied, holding up her hooves. This was a very different Gilda then she used to know, the Gilda she knew would take whatever she wanted, not worry and fret about it… not to mention worrying about her own actions.
“So, what are you gonna do about it?” the pony asked.
“What do you mean?”
Rainbow made a show of rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “Oh come on! You two were hugging and she kissed you, now you’re all broken up over her running off. You ARE going to do something, right? You can’t just let it end like this, you have to try something.”
A look of confusion crossed over her beak. “I guess... but what can I do?”
“You tell me, G.”
The look of confusion on her face grew as she thought about the question. Rainbow knew there were only a few options if Gilda wanted to try and win her over. The question was which one would she take? Something big and showy, like standing outside the library with music blasting? Or maybe just a special dinner?
“Maybe I should talk to her?”
Rainbow shrugged her wings. “Why are you asking me? I’ve only ever dated one mare!”
“For years, apparently. Were you two together back in the Junior Speedsters? Because I never noticed.”
The pegasus smiled at the memory, but decided that this wasn’t the time or place to go into it. “We weren’t really together then, but we sort of grew into it over time. By the time I asked her out we had been together for months. That’s not important right now, what is important is what YOU are going to do.”
Her feathers ruffled out in frustration. “I... I suppose I should go talk with her.”
“Since when were you so indecisive?” Rainbow asked, laughing softly.
A strange look passed over the griffon face, which was replaced by a small smile. “I will go talk with her,” she said, sitting up a bit.
“Good idea!” she said with a wink, then gave her old friend a hug.
Gilda smiled and returned the hug. “Thank you Rainbow Dash, you didn’t have to do this, not after what I did to you.”
It was the cyan pony’s turn to blush, she had forgotten all about what had happened at the party and the fact that Gilda had been attempting to apologize not an hour before. It just wasn’t important, not when compared with helping her friend. Her friend who had changed in some way and it seemed for the better.
“You’re my friend, and what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t help you? And I accept your apology.”
“Really?” Gilda asked, her tail snapping through the cloud under her.
Rainbow smiled. “Really. Now get going, you have a unicorn to talk to!”
With a quick nodded the griffon hugged her friend one more time then left off the cloud, diving down through the air, picking up speed and heading back to Ponyville. Rainbow Dash watched her go, smiling to herself and hoping that things worked out between the unicorn and the griffon.
* * *
Gilda flew like a goshawk, hugging low to the earth as she put in as much power to her wings as she possible could. The ground passed only a dozen feet under her, including a few rather surprised ponies. She only gained some altitude as she came to the edge of Ponyville, enough to rise up over the buildings, skimming so low over them that her claws brushed over the well tended roofs.
She swooped down towards the library, pulling up so abruptly that she felt them s¬tall, the lift vanishing from under her. She dropped the last dozen feet to the ground, landing awkward on her hind leg and wrenched it to the side.
With a grunt, she tried to shake it off, walking to the front door of the library and knocking her fist on it. The sound seemed to echo forever inside the tree, filling the air for a few moments before finally settling away.
The door slowly opened and Spike looked out through the door, a frown crossing over his face. “It’s you,” he said with disgust.
“Can you let me in, I need to talk with Twilight,” she asked. A moment later she heard the sound of a door slamming upstairs.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said, starting to close the door.
She reached out, grabbing the door before it closed and pushing it back open. “Please?” she begged, looking intently at the young dragon.
Spike looked back at him, his eyes narrowing slightly. “I’m not sure,” he said, looking back over his shoulder.
“It’s okay, you can let her in,” a familiar voice said from behind the dragon, the light notes of her voice almost vanishing in the air.
He looked back at Gilda for a moment, then back over his shoulder before he shook his head and slowly opened the door, allowing her inside. She stepped over the threshold, her wings and tail fluttering with nerves. Standing in the center of the room, her own wings shaking, was Fluttershy. The yellow pony watched Gilda as she stepped inside, a frown on her face.
Spike slammed the door closed and stalked back to the kitchen, grumbling under his breath only pausing to give the griffon an dirty look before vanishing through the doorway.
With a long gulp, she turned her attention back to Fluttershy. “How is Twilight?”
“She’s crying in her room, what happened?” she asked.
A blush crossed over her face, hidden under her feathers. “I don’t know, we kissed then she ran away. I didn’t mean to hurt her, and I don’t want her to cry, not over me.”
“Oh,” the pegasus replied, dropping her head down slightly so her pink hair dropped over her eyes. “Why did you kiss her?”
“She kissed me,” she replied in a soft voice.
Fluttershy started a bit, her wings fanning out in surprise. “She kissed...you?”
Her blush grew even stronger at that and she dropped her head down low enough that her chin was touching the feathers on her chest. “Yeah, she kissed me.”
“I see... then I don’t know why she’s crying.”
Gilda sighed and shook her head. “Because of me, this is my fault. I need to talk to her, I need to make this right,” she said, finding it hard to describe what she was feeling at the moment, or even how she had felt pressed up so close to Twilight. It just made her head spin... and yet...
“You should go up and talk to her,” the pony said, motioning her head to the stairs.
She nodded and started walking up the narrow stairs, the wood warn smooth by years of hooves going up and down them. She got half way up before stopping and turning to look back at Fluttershy. “I want to apologize to you for what happened before.”
“Go talk to Twilight, you can apologize later,” she said, taking a step back and fluttering her wings.
The griffon nodded and climbed the rest of the stairs to the second floor, then walked down the short hallway to the bedroom door. Reaching out she took the door handle in her talon and gently turned it only to discover that it was locked. She gave it another harder twist, trying to see if she could force it open, but it wouldn’t move.
“Twilight, please let me in?” she asked through the door, but there was no answered.
Gilda sighed and bent down, looking through the keyhole. It was an older style lock, the sort that you could easily see through, though it was a very limited view. She could see Twilight’s flank as she was curled up on the bed. “Please?” she asked again, but the unicorn didn’t move.
She sighed, taking a closer look at the lock. It wasn’t that complicated, no more so then the sort they had back on the family estate. Flicking out her smallest talon she slipped it into the lock, feeling around for the tumbles. They were bulky and large against the point of her talon and were very easy to move. While pulling down on the handle with one forepaw, she started to work on the tumblers, one by one.
After less than a minute worth of work on the lock it suddenly snapped into place, the handle dropped and the door swung open. “I didn’t think it would be that easy,” she muttered to herself, pulling her talon back and stepping into the room. Twilight was curled up on her bed, her head tucked up against her flank, her mane falling down over her face. She looked at Gilda through the strands, a look of shock on her face.
“How did you do that?” she asked, her voice rough from crying.
Gilda flicked out her talons and polished them against the feathers on her chest. “I picked it, you ponies make easy locks,” she bragged as she walked into the room, looking around as she did so. The floor was covered in a number of books and scrolls, each one having been thrown haphazardly to the side. A few had landed badly, resulting in pages being folded over and bent spines.
She walked over to one of the bent books, picking it up and gently readjusting the pages. “Twilight, we need to talk,” she said, turning the book over. She came up short when she saw the title. ‘To Love a Woman: A Guide for Fillies’. Gently she set the book down, picking up another one. ‘Interspecies Romance’.
Carefully she set the books to the side and walked over to where Twilight was. She could see the matted fur on her face, still wet with tears. Her purple eyes were bright red and her face was filled with worry. Gilda knew she had to say something, to talk to her, to reassure her... but all she wanted to do was hold her and tell her it was going to be alright.
All she could see when she looked at Twilight was a scared chick... and that made her feel even worse. She thought back to what seemed like moments before, when Twilight had kissed her, when they had held each other close. It was... it was nice. She enjoyed the feeling of being so close to the unicorn... and she didn’t understand why.
She carefully walked over to the bed, climbing gently onto it but staying just out of Twilight’s reach. “So... we barely know each other, right?”
“Right,” Twilight answered, turning her red eyes to look at the griffon.
“And we’re getting along well,” she added.
“Yeah, really well.”
She nodded, leaning a bit closer to her friend as her train of thought brought her to the details she didn’t quite know how to handle. “You’ve been nicer to me then I’ve deserved,” she said, trying to change the subject.
Twilight sighed and shook her head, her mane dancing over her face as the various colors fluttered around her head. “I shouldn’t have run off like that. Not while you were so open to me. Not after I...” she trailed off, her cheeks turning a pinkish purple as she blushed. “Not after I kissed you.”
Their eyes locked together for a few moments before they both turned away from each other as an awkward silence falling over the pair of them. She really didn’t know what to say next, or what she could say. Here she was, with a pony she hardly knew, worried about how she felt and maybe even a little bit scared. She didn’t quite understand how she had gotten into this situation. She had come to Twilight in search of friendship advice and the next thing she knew she was nuzzling at the purple unicorn.
Even worse, she didn’t even understand why she had done it… no, that wasn’t true. She felt an attraction to the pony, and she didn’t even understand why. Maybe it was because she had been nice to her, maybe it was that she actually seemed to care about her on some level, or maybe it was how her mane would catch the light when she turned around. To make matters all the worse, she wasn’t sure if the attraction was genuine or one of her flings, and that was something she had never worried about before.
Never in her life had she been torn up because the object of her affections had run off. Never had she been worried that a relationship was falling apart even before it started, and the very idea that somehow she had pushed Twilight away made her feel awful. This was a new feeling. Maybe this was more than just a fling?
“We’re so different from each other,” Twilight muttered under her breath, almost too soft for the griffon to hear.
“Because I’m a flyer like Rainbow?”
“And I’m an egghead,” she replied, her ears dropping down into her mane.
Gilda shook her head, holding back a weak laugh, she wasn’t sure now was the time to tell her friend that she had minored in history in university. Instead she just moved a bit closer, allowing them to sit together in silence. She tried to find the right words to say to tell Twilight that she enjoyed the kiss, enjoyed the closeness… but she just didn’t know what those words would be. If she said something wrong, something to kill this before it really started, she knew thought of what could have been would haunt her.
And even that was a new idea for her.
A short time later Twilight took in a long breath and slowly let it out. She turned to towards Gilda, her eyes focused intently at the ground between them. “I don’t want this to just stop here…” she said, her voice quavering slightly.
“I don’t either,” Gilda replied.
With a touch of magic, Twilight pushed her mane back out of her face and looked up into the griffon’s eyes. “This is going to come off cheesy to you, but I feel something here,” she said, gesturing between them with a forehoof. “I don’t want to let it go, or just stop because I’m scared. I… I kinda wanna give it a try, if you want to.”
“I want to,” Gilda replied softly, reaching out and placing her forefoot on the unicorn’s hoof. They fell silent against, just touching each other as they both looked away. She quickly started to scan around the room, trying to avoid those deep lavender eyes while the pony looked down at the floor, her ears twisting back and forth.
Finally she couldn’t bare it anymore, and looked back at her friend, at the same moment Twilight looked up at her. Their eyes locked onto each other, holding their gaze for a few more moments before Gilda leaned forward and pressed her neck up to Twilight’s, her wings fanning out to wrap around both of them, holding her friend close.
The pony seemed to melt into the embrace, putting her weight up against the griffon, holding her close and nuzzling gently at her neck feathers. Without another word between them they started to nuzzle each other’s neck, a soft rumbling coming from deep in the half-feline’s body as they did so.
They stayed together for what seemed like ages before Spike walked into the room, the young dragon letting out a yelp in surprise. They two women jerked away from each other, both their faces burning with embarrassment as they looked at the interloper.
“Spike! Uhm… this is—“ Twilight started.
“Don’t bother,” he replied, making a show of rolling his eyes and rubbing the side of his head, a bulky scrolled held in his other hand. “After walking in on Rainbow and ‘Shy, I’ve stopped caring,” he said, then left the room.
The two of them sat there for a few moments before Twilight slide down to the floor. “I should go talk to him,” she said.
“Okay,” Gilda replied.
The unicorn hurried out of the room, only to look back in a moment later. “Would you like to stay for dinner?”
“I would like that.”
“I’ll make you something nice,” Twilight replied, then trotted back out of the room, her tail swaying happily from side to side.