Last One Out
• • • •
The skies over Canterlot split with a crack of pink, flickering to light a frenzied retreat of moori and pegasi as they fled for the safety of the castle. The billowing stormfront above had only grown stronger and stranger as the night had gone on, blotting out the lunar surface as it spread across the city with spectacular speed. Nobody in their right mind would fly skies like these. It was as if nature herself had gone mad.
Black clouds roiled with streaks of light, each bolt lingering in the sky for a beat before melting toward the ground with an odd, ephemeral weight. Rain drifted and coiled about the air in waves, buzzing with a faint and familiar hum — the unmistakable sound of magic. As if a million unicorns with a million auras were guiding each and every droplet to the ground.
It was an impossible storm, pulsing with bolts that frizzled like fire crackers and drooped like molasses. It didn't look or sound real, or right. It felt broken, or unfinished, or overdone, or something. There wasn’t a really a word for what was wrong with it.
Another bolt. Closer, this time.
Gilda could feel the cobblestones rattling beneath her paws as the city filled with light. She stayed her forward glare, never wavering, never blinking. She felt the vibration and the sound pass through her body and down her bones, to the quivering trenches of rainwater that coursed along the gaps in the street. The light bounded off the water in a way that lit up the entire roadway, for just a second, before fading right back into the night. That light took with it any lingering hope Gilda held that there might still be somewhere left to flee. She could see it clearly now. She had run herself down a dead-end alley, and the only way out was the way she’d come in.
She was an idiot for letting herself get trapped like this. If she’d walked her route to work even once, she’d probably have a better idea of what roads went where. But no. No, she flew every morning, because she was late every morning, because she was lazy and sedentary and had let this ridiculous city dull her into comfort. Back home, she used to intentionally get herself lost in the vast Knotwood Forest that bordered her hometown, just to see if she could find her way out. Here, she couldn’t even navigate her way to a coffee shop. It was embarrassing, more than anything.
Gilda scowled at the hulking silhouette that stood at the entrance of the alleyway; a mountain of wet fur and metal and muscle. Gilda was clean out of options. She’d used them up and she’d done it wrong and here she was, staring down the largest gods-damned mare she had ever seen, in a dead-end alley under the kind of storm nightmares were made of. She'd had dreams like this, on more than one occasion. Weird, absurd nightmares where the city would turn against her, and chase her down down like some foreign invader. It was stupid, but it was there in her head and she couldn’t seem to think it away. She had to focus. She had to close it all out.
For hours, the armor-clad sentries of the Royal Guard had hounded Gilda through crowds and buildings and winding, labyrinthine roadways, stabbing at her with spears and shooting at her with weird, multicolored magic bolts. The fliers and the unicorns had broken off for the castle as the storm really started to get nasty, but the earth ponies were harder to shake. They didn’t seem to mind the rain or the cold, they just cared about doing their duty. Gilda had no idea how much of it was dogged devotion to the crown and how much of it was freakish demon-monster mind control, but she liked to believe it was the latter. Made this all a bit simpler, somehow. Like it was a hunt, and all that really mattered was who was the predator and who was the prey. She needed simple, right now.
Gilda was bigger than the average earth pony, and a bit bulkier, and had hunted pretty much every other day of her life, so she’d done alright when things had gotten ugly. She had a spear through her wing, a swollen-over left eye, a clawful of shattered talons and two gods-awful gashes across her chest, but all told, her limbs worked and she could kind of see, and that was all you needed. You just needed to hang in there long enough to take your chance, when it came. And it always came.
The alley was flooded with pink as another bolt shattered overhead. The sound hit alongside the light and it took everything Gilda had not break her gaze and recoil from the unthinkable wrath that exploded across the sky, but that was how you won. You stayed in control and you didn’t do a gods-damned thing but wait, and watch, until you saw it.
And Gilda saw it.
There was one fraction of a second when the hulking guardsmare jolted at the blast of sound. One instant when her eye darted to the sky as light filled the city and the heavens. Gilda didn’t think, she just closed the gap and thrust her claw against the pony’s neck, pinning her against the wall. She pressed a fractured talon against the thrashing neck of her prey, feeling it sink through the wet fur and against the soft pulse of throat. A cragged, predatory grin crept across her beak as the white mare's armored hooves scraped against the wet cobblestone, desperate and frantic. She was trying to flee.
Gilda pressed a little deeper, forcing the neck to the side as the mare tried to pull away. Gilda turned her head and looked deep into her quivering eye. There was a raw, raptorial part of the young griffin that stirred to life when she held this kind of unassailable dominance over another. This ownership over them, over their life. The simplicity of it was this ugly mixture of hate and relief that was profoundly thrilling.
She eased the pressure of her hold, just a bit. She didn’t think to do it, she just did it. Gilda had long learned never to resist those odd little decisions one made without making them, those things you knew you should do well before you could imagine why. Before you indulged in a thought, and realized, oh, right.
Of course.
Her body and her talon quivered with rage at the hesitation, eager to finish what she’d started, just like any other hunt. She’d done this countless times in the wilderness, with deer and elk and rabbits and whatever she needed to kill to live. Gilda knew she should finish this mare. It was what she needed to do to survive. She felt this weird distance from her own thoughts as she watched her brain crank out every possible reason to press into that throat and end it, right then and there. She had her pick of the litter.
She’ll kill you if you don’t.
She’ll tell them where you are.
You are not this weak.
She’s given you her life.
Take what you’ve earned.
Gilda sneered, turning the mare’s head to look into the other eye, the one bright with pink. Fear. That’s all that was in there. Just fear, and that freakish, alien light. She saw her eye in the bathroom mirror, back when it all made a completely different, completely certain, completely false kind of sense.
Gilda drew back her free claw and closed it into a fist, feeling the grind of her shattered talon and the cool rain pattering against the keratin scales of her hand. With a swift, heavy motion, she brought the back of her fist across the mare’s jaw, as hard as she could manage, and watched her drop to the ground like a heap of metal. Bracing her arm against the stone wall, she delivered a swift kick to the mare’s stomach, then another. She didn’t move as much as she should’ve, if she was conscious. Gilda’s eye tracked her body, seeing her chest rise and fall with breath.
Gilda was a fool, of course. Mercy always came back to bite you. You got one good shot in every fight, and she was giving it up. She was a fool.
She grasped the mare by the neck and dragged her down the alleyway, to the street, under a vendor tent. Out of the frigid rain. She narrowed her gaze as the mare groaned, cracking open her eye. She wouldn't stay down for long. Gilda needed to be gone.
She turned to bolt down the street, and bumped into something warm and tall and soft. A rather dimwitted stallion stood at the front of a wide wall of partygoing ponies, gathering close to watch the fight like it was a damn game. Gilda shoved him aside, and flashed a challenging glare to the audience before her. They were so weirdly entertained by the ugly display they had just watched, like it was a play or something. Like none of it was real to them. Gilda leapt forward, landing on all fours as she drove the crowd back. "Screw off!"
The crowd shrieked with excitement as they clopped their hooves in applause, laughing to each other as they raised their drinks. Gods, that was creepy. She pressed into the crowd, shoving ponies out of her way in a straight, unwavering line, through to the next street. She knew this part of the city a little better than the rest. She stopped here after work every day.
Talons and claws clacked against wet stone as Gilda plowed her way through the thinning sea of ponies. The rain was driving them into the houses, leaving nothing on the open streets but the only griffon in the entire city. She was running out of time.
Gilda quickened her pace, across the four-way intersection at the heart of the residential district. There was another flash of pink, and she saw them, at the far end of the main street. Two sentries, turning to face her. She dove into an adjoining street, her muscles burning as she sprinted around the far corner. She had no idea if they saw her. It was possible they hadn’t. Maybe they hadn’t.
Of course they had.
Joe’s Diner sat at the end of a long, winding road lined with apartments. It was a bit out of the way from the district center, but not too far. Gilda wasted no time as she hurtled down the sloped road and against the door. Her claw grasped the door handle and she pulled, jostling the door violently and shaking the pulled shades opposite the little window. The CLOSED sign rocked in place. Locked, of course. She gritted her teeth, glancing behind her, and to her sides. She heard hooves in gallop, barrelling down the side street. She stepped back, braced her paws against the stone, and launched her shoulder at the door, with everything she had.
The door opened.
Gilda’s eyes went wide as she fell forward, beak-first, onto the cold diner floor. The door slammed shut behind her, the sound of the blinds batting against the windowpane clacking with a rhythm. Gilda scrambled to her feet, her wet paws slipping on the tile as she turned a desperate, feral look to the entryway. Joe stood with his back against the door, holding it shut as he craned his neck and gazed through a slit in the blinds. Heavy hoofsteps thundered past the doorway and down the street. Out of earshot. Gilda deflated onto the floor, gasping and coughing, struggling for breath.
• • • •
Sunny gasped as her eyes followed the trail of red and rainwater from the doorway to the panting griffon that slumped across the diner floor. She moved briskly to Gilda’s side from her perch in the booth, just beside the door, and held a hoof to the gaping hole in the young griffon’s wing. Gilda jolted at the touch, turning her wide eyes onto the mare with an animal glare before grasping Sunny’s neck with her claw.
“Hkk—!”
Gilda moved Sunny’s head left, then right, gazing into each eye with intensity before releasing her hold and shoving her away, onto her back, onto the diner floor. The battered griffon brought her gaze to meet Joe’s. Joe dropped onto all fours and pushed himself between them with an ugly look, watching Sunny climb to her hooves before turning back to Gilda.
“You need to calm down.” Joe’s voice was tinged with anger, his glare challenging. Gilda was a friend, but he didn’t much trust her to control herself when she was like this. Control was not Gilda’s strong suit. His expression softened into a mixture of concern and horror as his eyes tracked across her wing and the reddened plumage of her chest. “Sweet Celestia, y-you’re bleeding!”
Gilda’s feathers stood on end. “You think I don’t know that?! I’ve had your sister’s buddies trying to gut me in the streets while you two were cozying it up in here, with your frigging...” Her eyes darted to the two steaming plates on the booth tabletop. Her claws quivered with anger. “...omelettes? Omelettes?!” She stood up, thundering over Sunny and up to the table before grasping the limp cucumber omelette between her shattered talons and shaking it in their direction. “You’re eating a gods-damned omelette while I’m out there fighting for my life?!” She tossed the expertly-folded eggy delight against Joe’s flank, sending it splattering in all directions. Her eyes shut with rage as she fell onto all fours with a roar, “Go talk to your bucking princess!”
Joe took a step forward, staying between her and Sunny. He took a deep breath, then let it out, turning his head slightly to the side to glance at Sunny. “We tried. She’s… Luna’s under some kind of spell. Everypony is.” He turned back to the seething griffon. “Celestia is gone.”
Gilda spat out something between a chortle and hiss, “The kalla do you mean, ‘gone?!’”
“She’s just—” He shook his head, “I have no idea. She’s just gone.”
Gilda’s claws balled into tight, trembling fists. “How can she be gone?! Have you seen that thing out there?! It’s a gods-damned nightmare!”
“I know. Gilda, I know.” Joe moved toward the back room, pushing open the small swinging door on the side of the counter and poking his head under the register. When he emerged, he held a dangling First Aid box between his teeth.
“You’ve gotta calm down.”
• • • •
Gilda’s breathing was heavy and ragged as she turned her unswollen eye to the hole in her left wing, then spun her head around to peck at the torn, dangling feathers that had been pushed in through the gash. She loosed a string of filthy and exotic curses as she missed again and again, blind through her swollen left eye and increasingly enraged as her beak bit only air.
“Ffraghh!!” She gritted her teeth and pulled in a sharp breath through her nostrils as she flexed her wing to move it closer. Her body flinched and curled under the sharp pain, her paws scraping at the diner floor like an animal caught in a trap. “I’m gonna murder those frigging prancy-ass meatheaded buckwitted hooflicking—!” Her breath caught as she felt something firm and heavy press into her wing, just below the gash.
“Gilda.”
She startled to attention, dropping her paws and claws to the floor and sitting perfectly still. She didn't mean to do that, or think to do that, she just did. She sat there, dumbfounded, blank, on the diner floor, as if waiting for someone to pick up her thoughts and pour them back into her head.
That voice. That tone.
It just cut right through you.
Gilda craned her head sharply to the side, as if expecting a stranger. She couldn’t see much through the swelling, but she saw the curl of a pink tail sticking out of a small white flank. She saw that dumb little sun stamped onto Sunny’s ass, peeking out from behind a big fluffy cloud. Right, of course. It was just Sunny.
Gilda.
She closed her eyes, trying to place the sobering familiarity of it. She knew it was stupidly recent, like last week or last Friday or, gods, even yesterday. Yesterday, and the day before that, and about twice a workday, every workday, for the past year. It was obvious. It was so bucking obvious she hadn’t bothered considering it. Princess Celestia.
Whenever ol' Sunbutt wanted to shut her up, she’d say Gilda’s name in exactly the same way. It made you feel like your mom was a god, and that god had just pulled open the heavens to find you stashing a Playcolt under your mattress. It was a tone heavy with implication; an aggressively honest thing that made you feel like an idiot for forcing it into the open. Like you'd only been tolerated, up until that moment. Like you were a balking fledgling being coddled, and had been too stupid to even notice.
“It’s okay.” She felt Sunny’s hoof run along the length of her gash, to the base of a stabbing point of pain. “You’re okay now.” Her voice had lost its bite, tempering that piercing honesty with a gentle warmth. The sound was like white noise, washing over you like sunlight. It was a very simple sort of good.
"Just breathe."
Gilda felt Sunny press in on the jutting feather, then tug to the left. There was a weight as the small mare stepped closer, on top of the wing, moving her mouth over the end and biting down. Gilda clenched her teeth, bracing for the pain, but felt only a… a pluck. Not even a prick; a pluck. It slid out with just the smallest bit of pressure.
She felt it again, on the next feather over. A similar but slightly different motion. The itch and the jabbing pain eased, feather by feather, as the mare cleared the gash of everything torn and tattered.
Quite reluctantly, and quite slowly, Gilda relaxed, lowering her head to the cool diner floor. Sunny’s hooves massaged the base of Gilda’s wing as her mouth lined the gash with alcohol, dulling the bite of the sting with distraction. It was an odd sensation, enjoying one pleasure enough to forget another pain. By the time the burn had grasped her attention, it was well on its way out.
There was a light coolness, then a warmth as Sunny gently wove the bandage between two primaries, over the gash and around the front. The next loop went around the next two primaries, so as not to irritate the wing. She heard a soft hum as Sunny sang to herself; a pleasant and foreign sort of melody she had never heard before. Gilda closed her eyes, quite contented, hearing only the hum and the swift of fabric.
And... a chuckle.
Gilda’s eyes shot open, her head perking upward as she quickly scanned the diner. Joe was staring at her with a wide, bemused smirk, like he was watching a fat fledgeling try to flap her wings. Gilda’s feathers ruffled with irritation.
“What? What is it?”
He held a hoof over his mouth hiding his smile. “N-nothing! It’s nothing.”
Gilda narrowed her gaze, and moved to get up. She felt Sunny’s hoof against the back of her neck. “Joe, don’t tense her up.”
Gilda narrowed her eyes. “Something funny about all this?”
Joe gave Sunny a grin, then glanced back at Gilda. “...You were purring.”
Gilda’s beak fell open, her eyes darting fearfully between Joe and the floor. She gave an awkward scoff, burning with embarrassment, "I— wh—" She quickly and clumsily bolted to her feet, sending Sunny tumbling onto the floor. "I was not! I don't purr, dude!"
Joe tried and failed to hold in a laugh. "An adorable little kitten purr!"
"I don't purr!"
"Alright, alright!" He shook his head with a whimsy, "—it was cute, is all!"
Gilda’s teeth ground in seething anger as she swiftly pulled her bandaged wing into her side with a wince. She grasped the First Aid box with her left claw, yanking it roughly from the floor. "Oh I got your ‘cute’ right here, hornhead." Gilda thrust her right claw before the grinning baker, her middle talon extended with bitter vehemence. Joe’s smile fell quickly into an oddly piteous gape. It was not the look Gilda was expecting.
It took a single, dread-filled moment for Gilda to notice that her talon wasn’t there any more. Her beak hung with flabbergasted horror as she turned her claw around to stare at the shattered stub where keratin became broken nail. Her middle talon was gone. Snapped far enough into the base that it would never really grow back.
“Oh, gods.”
Gilda blinked, hard, trying to process the sight. She would never give another blessed soul the middle finger, ever again. It was like she’d just lost a wing.
Joe swallowed, forcing a shaky smile back onto his face. “Hey… it’s not so bad! We’ll get Pixie to throw a healing spell on you.” He gestured with his hoof. “Good as new!”
Gilda turned a deep, violent shade of red as she slowly and intensely squeezed her fist shut, trembling with blind rage. “Healing spells don’t work on griffons, you stupid jackass!”
“Oh, I uh… I didn’t—”
Gilda looked sick. She put up her claw in a gesture that said, in so many words, ‘shut up,’ and turned sharply to storm toward the booth beside the doorway.
There was a small white mare in the way.
Gilda pushed her claw against Sunny’s side, trying to shove her out of the way, but the determined pony held firm. Sunny’s legs wobbled with strain at the effort, her cheeks puffing as she held a defiant look on the furious griffon. Gilda scowled.
"You wanna get the piss outta my way, cream puff?!"
Sunny’s eyes clenched shut as she desperately stood her ground, now pressing against both of Gilda’s powerful arms. "Y-you need help, Gilda!"
Gilda was in no mood. She stood back on her hind paws, pulling in a deep breath as she reeled her head for a harrowing lion roar. Sunny's ears fell against her head as she braced herself against the diner floor. The storm beat Gilda to the punch.
The room filled with pink as a bolt of lightning blasted overhead, loosing a deafening crack of thunder that rattled the windows. Sunny’s eyes were pulled to the blinds as the streak of pink ephemera fell against the side of Joe’s Diner, crackling as it clung to the glass. It frazzled for a moment before fading into nothing, leaving no sign of heat or damage. As if it had never been there at all. Gilda slowly deflated, unable to take her eyes from the surreal sight.
Sunny swallowed, turning her gaze toward the awestruck Joe. “Joe… I can’t help her when she’s like this.”
Joe blinked, taking his eyes from the pattering windowpane to level a slightly puzzled look at Sunny.
“She’s worked up enough as it is. You’re… not helping, right now.”
Joe’s eyebrows jumped. “Oh. Oh! Right.” He gathered the clump of omelette from the floor with his hoof, sliding both plates from the table and onto his head in an impressive feat of balance. “Yeah, right, sorry. Lemme whip us up something else to eat.” He cantered off toward the kitchen, gracefully rolling his flank against the small swinging door of the counter and disappearing into the back room.
• • • •
Sunny pressed her hoof against Gilda’s collar, easing the young griffon against the side of the booth. Gilda’s eyes widened as she turned away from the window, her claw instinctively grasping Sunny by the shoulder to keep her at arm’s length. Sunny jolted at the touch, pulling away swiftly and returning an alarmed look. Gilda slowly withdrew her claw as she tracked Sunny’s recoiling body with surprise. “Yeesh. Touchy.”
Sunny collected herself as best she could, closing her eyes as she waited for her heart to stop beating out of her chest. Several long moments passed before she opened them again. “I… I'm sorry." She felt a calm gradually settle across her body. "I’m still not used to that.” She lowered herself onto her flank and placed the First Aid box to her side, staring with concern at the stitching needle that lay at the bottom of the case.
“...What, touching people? You some kinda germophobe?”
Sunny was silent as she gently pressed her hoof against Gilda’s reddened chest feathers, pushing them to the side as she leaned in to inspect the twin gashes. “No no, it's... I’m just a bit out of practice, I suppose.” She frowned as she pulled away, glancing back to the needle in the box.
Gilda shook her head a bit, rather baffled by the response.
“These wounds..." Sunny spoke quietly, as much to herself as to her patient. She was silent as she turned her gaze from the box to meet Gilda’s. "They were truly trying to kill you, weren't they?"
Gilda glanced away. "Yeah. Yeah they were." She lifted her cragged talon to the blinds and parted a gap, staring through to the empty streets beyond. "I saw it, right there in their eyes." She released her hold with as small shake of the head, moved her claw to absently rub her upper arm. "Like it was personal."
Sunny’s heart sank. She looked up at the griffon with a guilty look. “The spear cut deep, Gilda, but you're lucky. I’m only going to need to stitch the wounds shut.” Her ears fell with her voice. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any anesthetic.”
Gilda put her head back with a long, crooked scowl, trying to process the very concept.
“It will be quite painful.”
Gilda’s feathers stood on end as her head came back down with a fierce glare. “Ya think?!”
“I’m sorry.”
Gilda rubbed her forehead with her claw for a weighted moment. She pulled in a long, deep breath through her nostrils, then slowly let it out. “Just shut up and do it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Gilda whined in a mocking, high-pitched tone, waving her claw about the air. “I don’t give a flying buck how you feel about my crappy situation!” She grasped the box from Sunny’s side and shoved it into her hooves. “Just get it over with!”
Sunny could see Gilda’s claws shivering as she pulled her arm to her side. Anger and fear wracked her body, her chest heaving with blind frustration and sinking dread at what was to come. She was afraid. She was quite spectacularly afraid.
Sunny felt tears well in her eyes as she looked into the First Aid box. Her own guards had done this. They had hunted and skewered an innocent griffon in the streets because their princess had wished it so. Sunny well knew that the Guard would do anything for their princess. Even this.
“Oh gods, you gonna cry now?”
Sunny looked back into Gilda’s eyes, to the ragged feathers and swollen skin that battered her face. She was practically a child. A terrified young griffon fleeing from trained soldiers twice her age. All she had ever wanted was to be left alone. She didn’t deserve this.
Gilda’s expression softened as she stared into Sunny’s eyes. A long, silent moment passed before Gilda turned her head away, looking back out the window, her swollen eye facing outward. Her breathing slowed, the anger and tension easing from her body.
Quite slowly, she turned back, her eye drifting downward to gaze at Sunny’s chest. Her claw rose from her side, reaching toward her fur. Sunny lowered her eyes, watching as Gilda’s shattered talon wrapped around the two small necklaces that hung from her neck, and lifted them to eye level. Sunny pulled in a sharp and sudden gasp as she focused on the dim glow of orange and blue, truly astonished.
Swiftly and delicately, Sunny brought her hooves under the gemstones, watching with awestruck silence as Gilda dropped them into Sunny’s hold. With a blink, she looked back into Gilda’s eyes, a wide, beaming smile fast growing across her muzzle. “I-I can scarcely believe it!” She held in a giddy laugh with the back of her hoof, unable to contain her glee as she hastily wiped her tears away. “Goodness… it's magic! We have magic, Gilda!”
Gilda gave a puzzled look. "Yeah, so? That's all you unicorns do all day. Sit on your butts and magic things."
“Everypony has been quite unable to use magic, since... last night.” She glanced out the window as another bolt of lightning lit up the clouds, farther away. “I had a little squirreled away in these pendants, but I... I was quite positive I'd used them up in our escape.” She glanced back at Gilda, motioning toward her chest. “But now I can use a healing spell! No stitching at all!”
Gilda rolled her eyes. “Griffons aren't ponies. It won't work right. I just said that.”
“Oh, it will! Don’t worry! It’s… well, admittedly, very, very tricky... but I’ve done it many times before! I’m quite good at it.” She gently shut the First Aid box, moving her hoof against her chest and pressing both gemstones to her fur.
"Shyah... think I'll take my chances with the needle."
Sunny gaped in shock.
Gilda held up her claws in mock defense. "Hey, I’m sure you think you can work an unprecedented miracle of magic, cream puff, but there is no way I’m going to let some starry-eyed desk-jockey accidentally detonate my eyeballs.” She turned the First Aid box to face Sunny, jostling the needle at the bottom. “I’m not an idiot.”
No response. Gilda chanced a look, briefly locking eyes with Sunny as she held an adorable, pleading frown on the young griffon. Gilda stared back for a moment before glancing away, a faint blush creeping across her face. “D-don't give me that! There’s like, what, a dozen recorded instances of someone actually healing a griffon? All of them by Princess Sunbutt herself?” She scoffed, flicking her hair feathers dismissively. “You don’t look like a goddess to me, doll.”
Sunny placed a gentle hoof on Gilda’s claw. “I would never suggest it if I wasn’t positive. Please, you have to trust me.” Her voice was soft and serious, carrying nothing but simple certainty. She felt her eyes well with tears as she looked downward, to the young griffon’s reddened feathers. “I would never hurt you.”
Gilda’s beak opened to spit back something vile and condescending, but nothing came out. A moment passed in silence, neither breaking their stare. Quite suddenly, Gilda reached out to grasp Sunny by the chin, pulling her close. She turned her head to the side as she stared, intensely, into Sunny’s sleep-starved, tear-stained eye. Gilda’s face contorted in frustration, before roughly releasing her hold. She placed her arms by her side.
“Crimony.” She shook her head, looking to the ground. “Alright, fine. Fine.”
Sunny beamed with excitement. Gilda pulled back a bit, giving a subtle ‘take it down a notch’ gesture with her claw. “You stop the second something goes wrong, you got that? The second.” She pointed a stubby finger at Sunny, giving her a serious look. “Do not kill me.”
“O-of course! I would never! Truly, you have nothing to fear, my little p—”
Gilda gave Sunny a flat stare.
Sunny turned a bit red. “—poahah! Ahem..." She gave an embarrassed chuckle. “...Sorry. J-just relax.”
Gilda took in a deep breath, closing her eyes as she laid her back against the side of the booth. She was still quite tense, as was her way, but it would have to do.
Sunny held the tiny gemstones close as she focused on the familiar flow of elements swirling excitedly within. Her horn shimmered with an almost invisibly-thin golden aura, orange and blue light weaving its way up the chain of each necklace to coil around her hooves. She felt it pass through her veins and through her body, filling her core with a warm and familiar power. For one, fleeting moment, she felt whole again.
With a smile, Sunny quietly hummed an ancient song she and Luna had dreamt up as foals. It might very well have been the song, almost three thousand years old, from before they had even imagined what music could be. A song from a time when music was just the sound of life being lived; a wonderful story the world delighted to hear.
That was all music was, when you got down to it. A story without words to get in the way.
Magic tickled Sunny’s throat and warmed her muzzle as it followed her voice, upward and outward, past her mouth and through her mind and around the coil of her horn. It spun with a lazy and impatient desire, dimly clamoring for a path to follow and a purpose to fill. Sunny lowered her head, feeling the elements pass across the air and into her waiting patient. This was always the easy part.
Now things got messy.
Sunny could feel the elements fray and bristle as they came against the strange, stubborn nothing within Gilda’s body. It took such concentrated effort to navigate the dizzying turmoil of the griffon, their essence spotted with immaterial voids that magic refused to enter. It was an impossible tangle of well-ordered chaos, functioning with an inexplicable harmony that seemed in almost every way like discord. That they could live and fly among the clouds, just as healthy as pegasi, was as baffling as it was beautiful.
It had taken Sunny many, many years to understand that these empty patches within the griffin body weren’t an absence of magic, but rather, the presence of a different sort. A something so purely opposite, it couldn’t be touched, or sensed, or seen. Magic could barely stand to be around it, so Sunny had learned to guide a spell down the winding pathways that encircled each blind spot. It was spectacularly difficult, but in the wake of... past troubles with their people, Sunny had swiftly grown expert at the technique.
She felt her hooves tremble as she focused every thought she had on visualizing a safe and easy path for her magic. The tricky stretch was at the intersection of feline and avian, the points where both halves of the griffon met. Those were always off-limits, magically speaking, lined with impenetrable swathes of immateria. She started low. In through the side, circle across the spine, up through the wing, down through the bone, ride along the rib, sweep between the lungs, and…
“There...” Sunny heard herself speak, quiet as a mouse, as the precious stream of spell set to work. She heard Gilda’s breath pull in, quite sharply, as a faint golden aura grew from within to spread across her chest. At last, the tension began to ease out of her body.
“Holy... crap...” Gilda shuddered, leaning her head against the seat of the booth. A wide, satisfied grin crept at the edges of her beak as her twin gashes closed and sealed. “That feels frigging incredible.”
Sunny couldn’t help but smile as she drew the last bit of magic from her pendant, letting her first spell finish up before readying in the next one. She moved close to the purring griffon, pushing her head gently against her feathery neck. “This next one might feel a bit... strange, but the feeling will pass.” She closed her eyes as the spell began to coil around her horn. “I’ll… need to be close, so I don’t lose any magic as it passes between us.” She cleared her throat. “I-if that’s okay.”
Gilda gave a low chuckle, her eyes closed as she basked in the warm sensation of the spell. “Cream puff, you can get as close as you want.” Much to Sunny’s surprise, Gilda wrapped her arm around Sunny and pulled her against her chest. Sunny let out of slow breath, staying her attention on her spell and doing her best to ignore the unexpected contact. She concentrated on the warmth of her powerful body, on the memory of Joe’s hold just an hour before, letting the calming thought settle her heart. She closed her eyes, setting her spell in motion.
The spell flowed swiftly, curving across Gilda’s beak and around her eye, shrinking the swelling and soothing her skin. Cuts sealed and bruises faded as Sunny trembled in place, straining to keep hold of the spell for just a few moments more. Already the magic had grown frustrated, whittling down to a trickle as it coursed through Gilda’s veins. Sunny felt beads of sweat dot her fur as she guided magic down Gilda’s neck and to her heart, swirling about for a momentous moment before sending it coursing down her arm. The spell halved, and halved again as it continued its journey to the outermost tip of her claw.
She felt Gilda’s claw against her side, the stubby talon stretching and regenerating as the last of the spell poured against the fracture. Gilda’s purring had only grown more contented at the sensation, her claw easing off Sunny’s fur as the sharp nail took form. Sunny felt the last of the spell sputter, then scatter. She let the aura fade, falling against Gilda’s feathers as she gasped for breath. It was done.
Sunny laid still for a little while, letting her body recover. Gilda’s breathing was steady, her chest rising and falling as twin lines of fresh, soft white feathers brushed against Sunny’s cheek. Gently and deliberately, Sunny stepped away, inspecting the griffon’s plumage and face with no small measure of relief. She felt a talon lift a length of her mane, and brought her gaze swiftly upward, watching with surprise as Gilda cautiously inspected a cerulean strand of her mane.
...Cerulean?
“You’re her, aren’t you?”
Sunny gave a shaky half-smile. “I-I w-well—”
Gilda held the strand up to Sunny’s eyes, her stare sinking into a glare as the color faded back to pink. “Zu almighty, you’re Princess Celestia, aren’t you?!”
“Gilda, there’s a reason—”
Gilda flicked away the strand of hair, gesturing her claw sharply to the window, to the long, lollipop obelisks that reached into the sky from the distant Canterlot palace. “What in the name of Siris are you doing screwing around at Donut Joe’s bucking breakfast diner?!” She stepped to her paws and claws, looming over Sunny with furious intent. “You should be out there raining down fire and rainbows on that demon out there! That thing owns your city!”
Sunny glanced toward the front counter, hearing the distant sizzle of the grill. She turned a stern glare upon the griffon. “Of course I should be. If there was anything I could do, I would be doing it.” She stared down at the swirls of her mane as the extra colors faded away. “I’m… stuck like this, Gilda.”
Gilda gave a flat look. “You’re stuck.”
“Since the party. Since magic... fled the city, when the moon arrived. I have no power without it." She stared at her hooves with solemn resignation. “I tried everything I could, tonight.” She looked away. “I almost got everypony killed.”
Gilda rubbed her temples with her claw, staring at the floor. She was silent for a time, just thinking. She moved her claw away from her head, staring intently at her talons. “Look… I don’t mean… I’m not...” She turned red, fumbling for words. “...the Guard wants me dead. I would’ve bled out, without you here.” She looked Sunny in the eyes. “I’m not saying I’m not grateful.”
Sunny was silent, rather unbelieving her eyes.
Gilda looked away. “Thank you.”
Sunny smiled. “...You’re very welcome.”
• • • •
Gilda looked to the kitchen as two hefty plates clattered onto the front countertop. Joe gave a little salute from the far end of the room, to which Gilda returned a proud middle finger, waving it about the air like a kid with a pinwheel. Joe laughed, shaking his head as he turned to busy himself by the coffee maker.
Gilda placed her claw by her side, clacking against the diner floor. “So...” She turned to watch as Sunny gathered up Joe’s medical supplies and placed them back into the First Aid box. “...when are you gonna tell him?”
Sunny was silent as she closed shut the box, gazing forward with a saddened look. "It's... complicated, Gilda. He has history with the princess. He doesn't with Sunny."
"...What does that matter?"
Sunny blushed, staring at the floor. "I... we..." She stammered a bit, searching for the words.
Gilda’s eyes widened. "Whoa whoa... you and Joe?!"
She smiled, unable to look Gilda in the eye as she absently drew circles on the floor with her hoof. "We kissed, just as the storm began..." Her voice dropped, her blush deepening. "I know, I should tell him. It's just..." She sighed. "...i-it would change everything."
Gilda gave an aloof shrug. "You're only gonna make it worse, the longer you drag this out."
Sunny’s ears fell. "I know."
Gilda chuckled to herself, shaking her head. “Gods… he is going to have a heart attack.” She turned a smile on Sunny, one that evaporated as she took in the mare’s unsettled expression. “Aw, come on. It’s Joe! He’s not gonna care.”
Sunny rubbed the back of her head with her hoof, looking to the floor.
Gilda rolled her eyes, grasping the First Aid box from Sunny’s hooves as she started for the front. “The sooner the better, is all I’m sayin’.”
Sunny sighed, following the young griffon to the front counter. Gilda took her usual seat, making a strained grabbing motion toward the coffee mugs as Joe picked one off the rack with the top of his hoof.
Sunny sat one seat closer to Gilda than usual.
• • • •
Joe poured three half-cups of coffee, sliding one over toward Gilda and dashing his own with a splash of cream. He frowned as he stared into the small tin of maple syrup he kept under the counter. Empty.
With no small measure of lofty finesse, Joe poured Sunny’s coffee into the tin, swirling it around for a bit before pouring it back into the mug. He placed it beside her plate with a small frown. “That’s all she wrote, Sunbeam.”
Sunny smiled, taking a small sip. “That’s quite alright. I’m growing to like it with a little bite.”
Gilda’s plate clacked against the countertop as she tore into her meal with feral abandon. Joe nodded with broad satisfaction at the sight, leaning in to take a bite out of his warm omelette. He hadn’t realized how spectacularly famished he’d been. It was true what they said about hunger being the best spice; the light, fresh crunch of cucumber and tomato brought a wide, delighted grin across his face. By Celestia, he’d needed that.
Joe’s eye caught Sunny’s hesitation as she moved her head at different angles around her plate, plainly unsure how and where to take a bite. Joe grinned, placing his coffee on the counter. Sunny turned a little red at his glance.
“...You’ve never eaten without your magic, have you?”
“Oh, I um...” Sunny opened her mouth, motioning toward the side of the omelette before slowing to a stop, closing her mouth with a pouty frown. She placed a hoof on her cheek with an embarrassed smile. “...goodness. I've seen it done so many times, I never imagined it would feel so strange in practice.”
Joe gave an exaggerated little ‘what are we going to do with you?’ look as he pushed his plate aside. “It’s all in the lips, Sunbeam. You gotta kinda rest your chin along the inside of the plate, and put your upper lip a little ahead of the lower.”
Sunny’s muzzle scrunched at the thought.
“It’s not exactly, you know...” He gestured his hoof in the air, searching for the word, “...fancy, granted. Took me a while to get used to it myself.”
Sunny gave an unsure look as she moved her head closer to the plate.
“It’s kinda nice, actually! You don’t taste that little tingle of magic this way.”
She attempted a small, somewhat messy nibble along the corner of the omelette, turning red as she wiped her mouth with a napkin.
Joe moved a bit closer, putting his head down on the opposite side of her plate. “Right up close, like this.”
Sunny reluctantly followed his lead.
“A bit more, so you’re in striking distance.” Joe made a dorky mock-chomp, his head lifting off the table a bit. He failed to hold back a wide grin.
Sunny moved inward, hovering over the plate, then turned her gaze up at Joe. Joe looked back, expectantly, waiting for her to try a bite. She placed her hoof gently on the counter, and brought a swift and soft kiss to Joe’s lips. His eyes widened in surprise for a moment before he relaxed, and leaned inward. Sunny drew him back, quite slowly, before breaking the kiss with a warm smile. Joe caught himself before he fell onto Sunny’s plate, giving a laugh as he leaned back behind the counter. He stared into her unsightly, bloodshot, sleep-starved, beautiful eyes, feeling a giddy excitement he hadn’t enjoyed for quite some time.
Joe glanced in Gilda’s direction, seeing her sticking out her tongue in mild disgust, bits of food stuck around her beak. “Geeeaah.” She turned to face forward, taking a long sip of her coffee. “You two are disgustingly cute.”
There was a flicker of pink as another bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, closer to the castle than before. Joe glanced over his shoulder, watching in silence as it slowly melted toward the ground.
“By the stars, that is creepy.” He glanced between Sunny and Gilda. “Anypony want to hazard a guess as to what in Tartaurus is going on out there?”
Gilda swallowed another bite, pointing a talon at Joe. “My money’s on ‘actual demon.’ There's a couple in the First Texts that got banished to the pits of Irkalla like two thousand years ago. Maybe some pissed-off demigod wormed their way free." She glanced over at Sunny. "Didn’t that three-headed guard dog just wander off a year or so back?"
Sunny finished chewing her bite, and shook her head. "Every being in Tartaurus resides there by choice, as a sort of penance. I don't imagine it was any of them."
Gilda balked. "Yeah? What about the demon who killed Anzu? Pretty sure Siris the God-Slayer didn’t go gentle into that good night."
Sunny took a strategic sip of her coffee. "I… I am quite sure it wasn't Siris who did this."
"How in kalla could you know?"
"I... well..." She look guiltily at Joe, meeting his eyes. "I met her. She wasn't quite the monster the legends made her out to be."
Gilda’s threw her claws into the air, like it was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. "She killed our god!"
Sunny gave Gilda a sympathetic look. "The Age of Discord was a very... complicated time. Things did not happen quite the way they are remembered."
Joe held up a hoof, giving Sunny a baffled look. "Whoa whoa, the Age of Discord was, what, two thousand years ago?"
Sunny gave a sheepish nod.
“You’re two thousand years old?!”
Sunny looked into her coffee. She spoke quietly. "I'm older than I look."
Joe ran a hoof through his mane, trying to wrap his head around the very idea. His eyes darted from her eyes to her hooves to her ears, and a half-dozen other tells. By all appearances, she was telling the truth. "And... you still can't tell me how."
Sunny was silent, staring into her coffee with palpable guilt.
Joe held a hoof against his horn for a moment before giving a soft shake of the head. “Look… it’s fine. I’m just a little, you know...”
“...surprised?”
Joe gave her a slightly annoyed look that said ‘that is the understatement of the bucking millennia.’ He cleared his throat, leaning back a bit. "So, it’s not a demon, but it can control minds, and move the moon, and…” He looked down at his plate as he recalled the memory from earlier that night. “...turn dust into statues and lollipops.” He glanced between Sunny and Gilda, at a loss.
Gilda pointed to the shaker of sugar on the other side of the counter. “You mean sugar, right? It uses sugar.”
Joe nodded. “Well… we saw it turn charcoal dust into sugar, back there in the castle. I couldn’t tell you how, but it happened. A lot of what it could do doesn't even seem possible.” He prodded at his omelette with a distant look. “At one point it wrapped me in its tendrils and pulled me into its mind.” He gave a baffled shrug. “I was in its head, Gilda.”
Sunny gasped, holding a hoof in front of her mouth.
“Pinkie is still in there, just… trying to keep it all together. I-I talked with her.”
Sunny dropped her hoof to her chest, a relieved smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Pinkie’s okay?”
Joe nodded, glancing over at Gilda. There was a clack and Gilda put her cup of coffee down, staring back out the window. “Yeah. I saw her too. That thing was one chomp away from devouring me whole, and Pinkie reigned it in with a...” Gilda rubbed her cheek with an odd look. "...a uh..." She turned to look Joe in the eyes. “...well, she reigned it in. Pinkie’s scared as hell in there, Joe.”
Joe ran a hoof through his mane. “I… honestly, any other mare would’ve gone insane by now.” He couldn’t help but scoff as he thought back to the birthday gift. “Pinkie’s throwing it a birthday party.”
Sunny placed her hoof on Joe’s. “She’s throwing what a party?”
Joe swallowed. “It looked like a kid. A little moori kid, with the power to do whatever he could imagine.” He looked into Sunny’s eyes. “The only reason I got that door open was because Pinkie tricked it into undoing the lock.”
Sunny’s ears fell, likely recalling the harrowing ordeal. “Moori have always been the children of the moon. They share a close connection to the lunar that is quite unlike any other race.”
“Well, it called Discord its ‘moon buddy,’ whatever the buck that means.” Joe gestured toward the window, to the filtering moonlight that poured through the gaps of cloud. “And I mean, obviously, it brought the moon here for some reason.”
Gilda swirled her coffee. “Come to think of it, this does reek of Discord, doesn’t it? Neverending party? Candy furniture? Brainwashing ponies?” She gave a broad, ‘wanna fill in the blanks here, doll?’ gesture to Sunny.
Sunny stared into her coffee. “That was my first thought, but I don’t believe it was him. He fled the dining hall in a hurry, and that… growth, we saw, just didn’t fit his style.” She took a small sip, mulling over the thought. “I believe it’s rather more complicated than that.” She glanced at Joe. “Do you remember the name Luna spoke, when she was chastising it in the bedroom?”
Joe slowly chewed another bite of his omelette. “ ‘Only?’ I thought she said?”
“ ‘Oni.’ It’s from an old dragon’s tale about a mad god.”
Gilda scraped some food off the inside of her beak with a talon. “It’s got dragon teeth, I can tell you that much.” She pulled away her talon and rubbed the back of her beak with her tongue. “And eyes, and ears, and that creepy-ass lizard tongue.” She shuddered. “Didn’t even know the dragons had gods.”
Sunny sighed. “Nobody really knows much about them, unfortunately. Even the most docile of their kind are far from forthcoming.” She looked between Gilda and Joe. “The story spoke of another world, where war and strife had caused their magic to ‘awaken,’ and turn against them.” She shook her head. “It had always seemed far too absurd to be anything more than a fairy tale.”
Gilda rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay. ‘Evil magic?’ Come on.” She crossed her arms. “I liked my explanation better.”
Joe stared at Sunny with dread. “That’s… uh… something like that could never actually happen, right?”
Sunny’s ears drooped. “When the moon fell, and that being appeared, I saw a… a vision, from a very long time ago. Dragons fleeing a world that was reaching out for them, as if to pull them back.” She looked to her hooves. “It didn’t seem real at the time, but… I suppose it’s possible.”
Joe held a hoof against his horn, moving it around the back of his head as he processed the thought. “Isn’t magic just... one entity? Like, I dunno, gravity? Or heat?”
“I thought so as well.” Sunny looked into Joe’s eyes, then into Gilda’s. “I have felt the subtle will of magic, in every spell I have ever woven. There is a life to it, certainly, but it is a long way from anything approaching self-awareness.” She fiddled with the handle of her coffee mug. “The thought alone is… deeply unsettling.”
Joe swallowed. “How in Equestria can we possibly fight something like that?”
Sunny looked down to the two tiny pendants that hung from her neck. “These pendants collect and focus certain forms of magic. They aren’t nearly as strong as the Elements of Harmony, but with Pinkie as she is, and the Elements where they are… it’s all we have to work with.” She moved her hoof under the two gems, lifting the empty crystals into the air. “They haven’t seen use since the Age of Discord, before the Elements were first discovered. Sadly, they are almost entirely empty now.”
Joe gave a dejected nod, glancing at Gilda. “She gave Princess Pinkie a fairly decent blast from those pendants, back in the castle. The light caused her tendrils to evaporate into sugar.”
Gilda grinned. “Now we’re talking!” She gestured toward Sunny with her mug. “We’ll just charge those pretty little bastards back up to full strength, lure that monster out with a kiddy pool of cotton candy, and kill it!” She slammed her fist on the countertop, rattling all three plates. Her eyes darted between Joe and Sunny’s startled expressions. “...Pinkie would survive that, right?”
Sunny’s eyes stared forward for a moment before looking back into Gilda’s eyes. “I truly couldn’t say. If our magic disperses its magic, then… maybe?”
“Maybe.” Gilda sighed, rubbing her temples.
Joe gestured toward the dangling necklaces. “What would it take to get those pendants back to full strength?”
Sunny frowned. “They collect life, being lived.” She placed both gemstones on the counter, between the three of them. “Joy, companionship, fear, anger, comfort, thrill...” She sighed. “...love, loss.” She looked into Joe’s eyes. “It would take years to experience that much genuine emotion.”
Gilda smirked. “Pshh, I can probably scare plenty of fear and anger out of those lame-brained party ponies out there.” She grasped the blue pendant with her talon, and pushed the orange one between Joe and Sunny. “In the meanwhile, you two could lock yourselves in a room and get to ‘filling the love gem,’ if you catch my drift.”
Sunny’s jaw fell open. “Uggh! Gilda!”
Joe blurted out a laugh. “Hey, I kinda like that plan!”
Sunny’s beet-red cheeks puffed in frustration. “T-that wouldn’t even work! You would never be able to produce true love, or true anger, or any of that, if your driving desire was ‘gaming’ the pendant.”
Gilda shrugged. “Well, that’s what we gotta do. Any bright ideas, Sunbutt?”
Sunny’s mouth drew into a long, flat line as she gazed out the pattering diner window. “It would have to be real. We would need to just... live in the moment, embracing every hint of drama we could find.”
The diner fell silent as each strained to imagine some way to cram as much life into as short a time as possible. All that could be heard was the pattering of rain on the diner windows, the distant rumble of thunder, and the steady, pulsing beat of music from the unending bloc party that dominated the nearby apartment building. Even a storm like this had not been enough to stop the vast celebration that consumed the city.
Joe blinked, turning his eyes on Gilda. Gilda smiled, looking over at Sunny. Sunny placed her hooves on the countertop, rising to a stand as she surveyed her friends like warriors before a siege. Her face was solemn and serious, her posture radiating a strength and dignity one could scarcely imagine a mare as small as she was capable.
Sunny’s voice was firm and resolute, spoken with an unwavering certainty that filled the heart with courage, and purpose.
“We are going to party our asses off.”