The bare ice covering the stream beheld the expressionless reflection of a bald eagle. The creature’s head was constantly twitching, her focus not on the reflection but beneath it. Suddenly, she reared back a fisted talon and sent it flying into and through the face of the griffon that gazed back. Gilda pulled her talon out of the freezing water, and her prize – a small trout – along with it.
Due to her Equestrian upbringing, finding protein-rich meats to supplement her diet had always proven rather challenging. Any kind of hunting was frowned upon by ponies, so she always had to find someplace far removed from society to do her deed. The griffon had lost count of how many times she had stolen away from Cloudsdale to hunt.
With the fish squirming in talon, Gilda brought it up to her hooked beak and bit down on its head, quickly ending the struggle. As she ate the raw fish, the griffon grimly admired her handiwork – little spots along the river where the ice was broken up to catch the previous days’ meals. It was the only resource she had this far into the Unicorn Range foothills, the winter forest having nothing else substantial to offer.
It also gave her a chance to punch her reflection in the face, which was disturbingly cathartic.
If Gilda paid closer attention, she would see that she had been steadily losing weight ever since entering the forest. Most of that weight had come from bulking up slightly over the past few months, due to her heavy heart and constant snacking on leftover bar treats. She lived right above her workplace, so flying – the former great love of her life – had suddenly become pointless in her eyes. She had to fly when she needed to go out and hunt, but if there was no need… well, why even bother anymore?
Gilda knew, that without the proper equipment, she couldn’t do this forever. The cold and hungry nights spent sheltered in evergreen trees were putting a damper on her experience, plus the fact that it had been a little over a week and she was scheduled to return to her so-called home. What was she there, a dishwasher? The lowest job that nopony wanted?
I don’t think it's any better than this, though.
The buildup of pressure – and subsequent popping – of her ears, along with her other avian senses, told Gilda that another storm front was rolling in. Courtesy of the Ponyville weather team, of course.
Quickly swallowing the last chunks of filet, Gilda tossed the bones off into the woods. The need to leave was apparent, but those traitorous wings still refused to fly. She still wanted, needed something out of this trip. Something that wasn’t nothing.
And that something wasn’t here.
With time wearing thin and unworking wings, the griffon had no choice. She pointed herself south, away from the distant mountains, and pushed back into the forest. Instead of backtracking her meandering path, Gilda made a beeline towards Ponyville. It was a town of dorks and an irritating pink pronking plague, but she didn’t exactly have a lot of options. There had to be something there. Salvation? Possibly friendship? Or just more rejection? Whatever it was, she needed to find it.
The further she pushed, the easier the journey became. As long as she was moving and focused, her depression was kept well at bay. Stopping now would just bring on uncertainty, so the griffon plowed on. It would take about a day on the ground at the pace Gilda set, to reach the town.
It was a task that her body could ill handle, though. While those months moping around the bar in Cloudsdale may have caused her flying muscles to atrophy some, it had strengthened her legs. Still, a griffon was never meant to remain grounded for long periods of time and she had spent the last week in the rough, cold wilderness. After only a few hours at a modest lope, the burn in her leg muscles became too much, and she practically fell into a sitting position. She could only sit down fully for about a second before yelping loudly and snapping to attention. Sitting more carefully and holding her butt off of the cold ground solved this issue.
Just as predicted, Gilda’s mood quickly soured when she fell idle. She was in a glade, surrounded by trees, with the trademark moist fog of a pegasi snowstorm hovering above the ground. Looking up into the slightly obscured heavens revealed a swirling dark mass of cloud, already dropping its load of snow on the region.
But instead of reminding Gilda of the negative, it did nothing. Since all her usual guards were down from her week in solitude, she did something that usually fell under her purview of “lame”.
She held out a talon, palm side up, and allowed a single snowflake to come to rest on the tough yellow skin there. Unlike its counterpart a week earlier, this one didn’t melt right away. After a week in the snow, Gilda’s talon was almost as cold as the world around her. Sharp griffon eyesight could see all the tiny, complex details of the little atmospheric wonder. As she gazed over the small white crystal, an old pegasi legend came to mind.
When a pegasus creates their first downfall, it was said that part of their soul was donated to the ground. From there, the water it was bound too would seep into the soil, making it so that wildlife and crops could flourish. Eventually, the water would make it into rivers and other bodies of water, ready for the final stage of evaporation. The soul fragments then return to the skies, and for the pegasus to be complete once more, they take to the skies, nurturing them and eventually creating another downfall, starting the cycle anew.
If Dash created the snowfall… then, could it be…?
Gilda didn’t believe much in fairy tales, nor old legends, but her tormented mind was latching onto anything at this point; even the irrational. And if the legend was true, then the griffon was surrounded by her best friend. It was only fragments of her though, and she still felt like a ghost, a faded memory.
But, if Gilda got up, and continued with her harsh slog through the wilds, she could possibly have the full package.
Gilda leaned in and blew, her cold breath sending the snowflake spiraling back up through the sky with its brethren. With energy slightly restored, she stood back up and continued to Ponyville.
Gilda was absolutely cursing the snow as it whipped and howled past her head. The weather had taken a huge turn for the worse over the last hour, with the masses of snow and powerful winds coalescing into a whiteout blizzard. The few hours of sunlight she’d hoped to have to allow her to make the outskirts of Ponyville were practically nullified by the heavy cloud cover. Flying, let alone taking off, would be next to lethal, so she had to dig in her claws and hold on. Whatever petty struggles she had with trying to get her wings open earlier were completely nullified. All that mattered now was doing everything possible to prevent the gale from getting under her wings and causing all sorts of trouble
Gilda held dearly to the tree trunk ahead of her, listening to the gusts, waiting to make a move. When the wind lulled acceptably, she picked the closest visible tree and broke from her shelter. The griffon did not care that she was crouch walking like a scolded foal to her destination. With conditions like this, all bets are off. Hearing the wind picking up pushed Gilda to move even quicker for the shelter. Practically lunging the last few feet, she finally hooked her talons around the tree as the winds blasted by once more.
Jumping from tree trunk to tree trunk, and using whatever meager cover they offered, made for painfully slow progress in the rapidly fading light. She squinted out into the blizzard on the lookout for another tree to jump to, but there was nothing visible on her southerly path. Her luck had finally run out.
What was I thinking staying out here? Why didn’t I fly when I had the chance!?
Petulant thoughts aside, Gilda needed some kind of shelter to survive. The powerful gusts easily parted fur and feather, reaching down to the hide to cause involuntary shivering. It was just so cold. She wanted to give up, just curl into a ball and… succumb.
NO! I can’t think like that, I just need…
Gilda’s eyes, and possibly her imagination, picked up movement ahead. It looked like the outline of… a pony!? The ‘pony’ appeared to turn around and head back into the white abyss, with the griffon forgetting about her cover and giving chase.
“HEY! GET BACK HERE, DWEEB!” Gilda screeched at the top of her voice, only for the wind to spit that plea back in her face.
She could feel the start of some kind of upward slope underpaw while pursuing the pony. The wind noise was reaching a fever pitch, as well. Without watching her footing, she pressed on, biting back a scream when the ground nearly ended. The griffon had reached the precipice of a massive snowdrift, with a sheer drop over the edge. But with the blinding weather, it may as well be the end of the earth.
So Gilda stood there, staring into the vast, white nothing, fighting down her primal, claustrophobic nature.
She hated her life. Hated the blizzard, hated…
“RAINBOW DASH!”
There was no response.
“THIS AINT RIGHT!”
Silence.
“THIS CAN'T BE HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT ME!”
She tried to choke it back but couldn’t, and it forced her to her hind paws. Throwing her head back, her forelegs and wings spread for balance, Gilda opened her beak in an ear-splitting roar. Wind and ice tore over her fur and feathers as the storm swallowed her fury. With as deep a breath as she could muster, Gilda poured all her pent up emotions – her anger, her hate, her self-loathing, her regret, and her frustration – into one last thundering cry.
There was barely even an echo through the forest as the cold, swirling winds swept aside the griffon’s rage practically without notice.
Defeated, she slumped down, barely managing to catch herself with a forepaw as she struggled to turn away from the howling bite of the winter winds. Maybe finally giving up wouldn’t be all that bad...
Then it began. It started with a low rumble, much like a train on the tracks. But it was quickly approaching, growing louder until it sounded like somegriffon had pissed off the gods. Gilda’s head snapped up and she squinted into the white void towards – what she believed – was the south.
No, it’s impossible! They only happen in the summer!
When the sound became absolutely deafening, a pressure wave in the storm passed directly overhead, forcing the griffon to cower. Timidly peering upward into the enraged black of the storm, she could just make out the wispy, rotating mass of a corkscrew-like weather phenomenon passing overhead with tremendous velocity. As the sound retreated north, and she shook her head to make sure what was witnessed wasn't some deathly hallucination, things started happening. First, the wind suddenly died down. Then, as the snow thinned out, Gilda was treated to a spectacular sight. The sky had been split in two, with the distance between the two massive cloudbanks becoming greater the further south she looked.
Nestled in between was a beautiful obsidian sky, with a thousand twinkles. It was a scene that could only be created with magic, and the griffon only knew of one pony with the fortitude to fly directly into a blizzard.
With calm air and a semblance of safety, all the adrenaline leached out of Gilda’s system leaving behind a feeling of emptiness. She hung her head and tried to focus on keeping her forelegs locked and upright, noting she could no longer feel her talons buried in the snow. She wanted, desperately, to get up and start moving but found all she could do was sit and shiver uncontrollably. Gilda squeezed her eyes shut, a feeble caw escaping her beak as she tried to push herself to action again. Even with the blizzard gone, the air was still frigid and it was doubtful she would last another night.
The crunch of snow from a landing pegasus would change that. Gilda didn’t look up, didn’t even flinch – she already knew who it was. She steeled herself for the inevitable spiel about “The nerve of coming back after everything she had done” or something lame like that.
She wasn’t expecting the wing around her body, though.
It was followed by a pair of hooves around her neck and another large, soft wing around her front, shielding her from the cold for the first time in days. She slumped against the furry chest of her best friend. They sat like that in the cold and the silence for several minutes, bodies pressed together for warmth, neither one speaking for fear of ruining the moment. Eventually, one of them had to break the ice.
“How long have you been out here?”
Gilda struggled to respond to the soft-spoken question. “A-about a w-week. S-since Hearth's Warming.”
Rainbow Dash mulled this over, biting the inside of her cheek in the process. She continued to rub her hooves over Gilda’s back and wings in an effort to stimulate heat and blood flow with the friction. “Think you can fly?”
The griffon unconsciously nodded, temporarily forgetting about her previous afflictions.
“Good, ‘cuz you’re coming back to my place.”
That brought Gilda’s head up, her eyes and beak wide in astonishment.
“And that’s final!”