//------------------------------// // Part 15 - Flashpoint // Story: Griffon the Heave-ho // by CrowMagnon //------------------------------// Griffon the Heave-ho by CrowMagnon There were certainly more thundersteel-clad griffons milling about in the Snowheart clan's camp than Cadance had expected when she had gone down there looking for Gertrude. After Gunther had aired his concerns over his grandmother's impending decision, she had joined him in visiting the refugee camp in the hopes of finding her and addressing Gunther's fears. Instead of Gertrude, however, they found a considerable number of Emperor Grigori's soldiers milling about the camp. So far as she could tell, there was no overt conflict between the Imperials and the Snowhearts, but she didn't need to have a special talent tied to emotions in order to sense the tension just beneath the surface. "Where do you think she is?" Cadance asked. "It doesn't sound like anygriffon's seen her since you split up." Gunther let out a grunt as he looked around, trying hard to keep the worry from his face in front of his people. "She must have gone off on her own to think. Hopefully, she's considering other options, but I'm afraid she'll just use this time to convince herself to accept the Emperor's conditions." "I'm sorry, I'm still not entirely sure why you think that would be so bad for your clan, though," Cadance mused. Realizing how that might sound to Gunther, she quickly added, "Of course, I'm going to do everything I can to help you and her find another way. It would be horrible for her, but at least if she did go through with it, it would be to help your clan, wouldn't it?" Gunther stopped for a moment, then pulled Cadance off to the side, away from other griffons. He then rubbed his beak and let out a sigh. "Right. Let me try to explain. My grandmother... she just isn't like other griffons. And I don't mean because of her powers or her role as the Warden of Winter. In her heart, and the way she thinks, she's... well... in many ways, she's more like one of you," he said, pointing at Cadance. The princess blinked and raised an eyebrow. "Like a pony? Is that a bad thing?" Gunther shook his head and replied, "Usually not, but it's a difference of viewpoint. You have seen our clan's loyalty. How we were willing to be frozen in time in order to be reunited with our ruler. We gave up everything that we knew and entrusted our future to her because we believed that when her madness passed, she would once again be worthy of following. Can you imagine how betrayed they will feel if, after all of that, she abandons us into this false death she's been offered? It would crush their spirits and shatter their very sense of identity. If grandmother doesn't have the will to fight for herself, then to every griffon who placed their faith in her, everything we've done will have been for a lie." Cadance considered this and hung her head slightly. "When you put it that way, I suppose I can understand your point of view. But then why would she even consider it, if it would hurt you so much?" Gunther looked around to ensure that there were no griffons in earshot before he told her, "Because the Emperor couched it in the context of being for the best for the clan. My grandmother has a particular sickness, Cadance. For the sake of her people, she hides it from all but her closest family and friends, but the truth is... the fact that she was brought up as a pariah still influences her decisions today. Deep down, she believes that she does not deserve the blessings she has been given, so she would not hesitate to destroy herself if she thought for an instant that it would benefit those she loves." ----- Rainbow Dash didn't even bother asking herself how everything had gone so wrong. It was a question that she had known the answer to for a long time. She had stubbornly fought to keep the proverbial eight-hundred pound manticore from coming into the room, ignoring that it was already there. That it had always been there, ever since that day all those years ago, when she and Gilda had originally parted ways. And thanks to that willful ignorance, Dash had created a situation for herself where that eight-hundred pound manticore was joined by an equally oversized chimera. A chimera named Lt. Twilight Sparkle. And that tortured metaphor was distracting her with a mental image of Twilight with a second head sticking out of her back, and a third on her tail. Wow, that was weird. No, no, she had to focus. Thankfully, the surprise arrival of Gilda's 'Uncle Greg' had defused the tension a bit, as Twilight and some of the others were over by him. While the rest were getting won over by the older, more diplomatic griffon's charm, Twilight seemed to be hanging back and glancing suspiciously between the two griffons. Rainbow Dash really wasn't sure what to make of it, but she wasn't about to turn him away when his presence seemed to be helping smooth things over with most of her friends. Meanwhile, Iron Will was chatting it up with Gilda, which actually seemed to be going pretty well. "So they finally let me out of the cast two days ago," Will said, referring to the broken leg he'd gotten on Waking Night. "Still gonna take a while to get back to a hundred percent, but I can't wait to get back on tour." Gilda snorted and took a swig of the drink she held in her talons. "Pony doctors aren't worth the paper their phony-baloney diplomas are printed on," she scoffed, turning her head to glance toward Rainbow Dash, who quickly looked away and started nodding to make it look like she was focused on whatever it was Fluttershy was talking about. "--but that's up to her. What's up to you is whether or not you have the courage to be honest about how you feel about her." Rainbow Dash stopped in mid-nod and blinked, taken by surprise when she looked at Fluttershy and found the perky pegasus looking at her with unusual intensity. "Uh... what?" Fluttershy blinked back and replied, "What I was telling Pokey. About asking out a special somepony for Hearts & Hooves Day? Wow, I didn't think I was that boring." She gave Dash a teasing pout as the blue pegasus realized just how long she'd been zoned out. Bringing a hoof to her forehead, Dash replied in rhyme, "Sorry, Flutters... I didn't mean to ignore what you have to say. It's just been one heck of a day." Fluttershy's pout morphed into a gentle smile as she leaned in to embrace Dash with her wings and give her an affectionate nuzzle. "Awww, that's okay. I know how badly you've been trying to help us to all get along. Come give your aunty Fluttershy a hug." Rainbow Dash had to let out a laugh at that. "You know you're only a year older than me, right? But thanks again for coming by tonight." She reached up to give her friend a pat on the shoulder. "So, when your wife's making out with her friends, do they let you join in, or do you just watch?" Gilda snarked to will, pointing a talon at the pegasi. She snickered to herself when this made the minotaur do a spit-take and spray punch into the air. "What? You mean you didn't pick up on her being a total closet-case?" "Hey!" Literally quick as a flash, Twilight teleported over to the other side of the room to challenge Gilda with a fierce glare. "Fluttershy may be a little flirty, but she and Will are completely devoted to each other!" "Yeah!" Fluttershy flapped over to Will to wrap her forelegs around his neck and shoulder, nuzzling him affectionately. "I love my big, silly bull more than anything in Equestria. Of course he joins in," she said before giving her husband a possessive hug. "Don't think that was the point Twi was trying to make, Flutters," Will replied as he brought his drink up to sip what was left. Fluttershy just giggled and cutely stuck her tongue out in response. There was a bit of laughter around the room, but Rainbow Dash just groaned inwardly, sensing that this was just an opening salvo. She was about to say something to Gilda about it when Grigori beat her to the punch, approaching from the other side of the room with a calm chuckle. "And this is why my niece isn't a diplomat." Gilda's smirk shifted into a faint grimace. "I'm not even your niece, 'Greg.'" Grigori shrugged and waved it off as he explained to the others, "Fifth cousins thrice removed, technically... or was it third cousins five times removed? I can never remember." Turning his attention to Fluttershy and Will, he added, "And I think you two are a lovely couple. It's entirely too rare for creatures to find kindred spirits among other species. That's why it's so gratifying to see it when it happens. Heh, I still remember back when Gilda first introduced me to Rainbow Dash." Gilda's talons tightened around her cup. "Shut up, Uncle Greg... nopony wants to hear it." Pinkamena replied, "Actually... I do." Everypony but Rainbow Dash and Twilight nodded in agreement. Tilting his head back in thought, Grigori stroked his feathery beard and mused, "Gilda's parents are in the weather industry, and were in Cloudsdale for several months as part of a cultural exchange program. I've always been very good friends with her father, so I went to visit when I had an opening in my schedule. The instant I step through the door, I almost get tackled off of the cloud by this little bundle of energy and a tiny body so fast and colorful, I think I'm seeing fireworks in the middle of the day." He let out a hearty laugh at the memory, and Rainbow Dash felt a smile return to her face as well. Gilda was less than amused, however, as she hissed, "Shut up! What do you think you're doing?" For a moment, a dangerous glint of light shone off of Grigori's spectacles when he turned his head toward his 'niece'. But that was just a trick of the light as he let out a jovial laugh. "Well, as family, it's my prerogative to tell embarrassing stories. Especially if they help your new friends here get to know you better!" He wrapped one wing around Gilda, the other around Rainbow Dash as he told the others, "Gilda was always a bit shy, you know. Tended to keep to herself as a cub, but when I came to visit that day, she told me, happier than I'd ever seen her, 'This is my pegasister, Rainbow Dash. Don't let the look fool you, she's really a griffon in a pony suit.'" "Awwwww," was the reply of most of the mares in the room. Even those who had been most angered by Gilda earlier that day now looked at the griffoness with softer expressions, starting to see her in a different light. The only exception was Twilight, who continued to look at Gilda with a flat stare, as if waiting for something. A stance which proved justified when Gilda clenched her talons around the wooden cup she was holding hard enough to crack it. The griffoness closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. When she let out her breath, it was with a quiet, bitter laugh as she said, "Heh, yeah. Good times, right? We were a couple of real trouble-makers, back in the day. Hey Dash, remember the time we snuck into the camp cafeteria, and I had to get my stomach pumped?" Rainbow Dash did indeed remember that incident, but wasn't sure where exactly Gilda was going with it. Then she saw her old friend smirk in Applejack's direction, and felt a cold chill in the pit of her gut when she put it together. "G, knock this off! You don't need to--" "The camp had just gotten a shipment of fresh apples, and I was munching on 'em like crazy. I told Dash I could eat a hundred of 'em, and this brain-donor dweeb of a colt starts going on about how that's impossible. So Dash here, she gets all in his face and goes, 'If my girl G. here says she can eat a hundred apples, then she can eat a hundred apples!'" Silence descended on the room. Grigori raised his eyebrow in confusion as Gilda focused on Applejack with a vicious glint in her eye. "And they were soooo good. Even when I felt like I was gonna explode, I kept on eating because they were just so juicy and delicious. Just like the ones I ate earlier. You Apple ponies made such a tasty pie, I almost couldn't smash it on the ground, but the look on your faces were so worth it. Seriously, I can't believe you bought that bit about hating apples. I mean, hello, it was obviously an apple pie." Rainbow Dash was screaming internally, but her body felt completely paralyzed. Like she was watching a horror movie and shouting at the survivors not to run down into the basement. As Applejack stared back at Gilda, the businessmare's expression slowly darkened with rage. "My baby sister... You made her cry... for FUN?" "No... no, girls, you don't understand..." Dash tried to say. Her throat was so dry, though, it was no more than a whisper. She tried to lift her hooves and interject herself, but after all of the effort she had put into keeping things from exploding so far, she just couldn't summon up the strength. Off to the side, the pegasus heard Twilight say in a tone so icily calm that the temperature inside the cottage dropped ten degrees, "Your Eminence, one of your soldiers has been harassing Equestrian citizens. In accordance with the treaties between our nations, I request the right of singular redress." Dash's vision grew dim as her heart and mind were overloaded, struggling to find a way to stop the explosion that had been building up. But it was much too late for that. Every excuse she had made, and every attempt to defuse it had simply been the efforts of one little pony standing in the path of a fireball that had been hurtling toward her and growing in its fury ever since she had gotten her cutie mark. With a heavy sigh, Grigori replied, "I suppose I have no other choice. Your request is granted..." And just like that, every hope Rainbow Dash had of resolving things without a fight vanished in a flash of light.