Gilda was flying, and it was probably the ugliest flying she had ever done since she was a cub. It was certainly the ugliest she had ever flown around Rainbow Dash. Days on the ground, alone in the frozen wilderness, had not been kind to her flight muscles, to say nothing of the lack of preening given to her wings. The griffon’s flight was labored and fatigued, punctuated by frequent dips in altitude as she struggled through the air. All this was not lost on her companion, and Dash had stopped flying parallel early on, taking up station behind or around so she could keep a watchful eye out.
The mare was better equipped for the frigid weather than the griffon, too, sporting a Ponyville Weather Department labeled vest and iced-over flight goggles that dangled from their strap around her neck. Her uniform was just short one item. A cyan scarf was wrapped snugly around Gilda’s neck, the only article of comfort Rainbow had with her that could fit the griffon’s larger frame.
The scarf was little more than a token, the area that it covered inadequate to really keep Gilda warm. Still, it was the gesture of the scarf, what it represented, that drove her on. That, and the memory of the feeling of Dash’s wing and hooves at her back. She would probably get an earful once they landed in Ponyville, but that it hadn’t happened already gave her the slightest bit of hope.
The forest that was Gilda’s home for the past week was steadily falling behind them. The tree cover grew thinner and finally stopped altogether at the blanketed fields of Sweet Apple Acres. As they passed into the urban airspace, Gilda saw the town from a different perspective.
The rogue blizzard had left a hefty blanket of snow on everything. The colorful architecture and streets were rendered white, though they glowed amber under the soft light of the streetlamps. The scent of smoke from a hundred fireplaces hit her nostrils, reminding her that the town was full of life – and full of ponies. She could see them below, already shoveling out their paths and plowing the streets.
Gilda shot her flying partner a look, wondering where they were headed as she couldn’t see the pegasus’ cloudominium nearby. Had Dash moved it since she was last here?
Instead, the pony pointed her hoof at the ground, directing her to a particular building and starting in on a slow landing spiral. Relieved she just had to concentrate on holding her wings steady instead of flapping them, Gilda followed suit. Their target was a large treehouse. She remembered the absurd structure from her ill-fated visit that summer, and remembered laughing when she found out it was the public library.
It was also a local haunt for Dash and her new friends, and that brought to Gilda a sour mood. Anything could be on the other side of that door, she thought darkly. Still, she wouldn’t be given much choice in the matter. Her wings had decided they were about ready to pack it in again and it took all her strength to keep in control of them as she came in to land beside the cyan pegasus.
The landing was as ugly as the rest of her flight in. All four of her legs buckled as soon as she hit the ground and she was sent skidding beak-first through the snow the last few yards.
“Woah, G, are you-“
“Fine! I’m fine,” she spat as she struggled to stand again. Her legs quivered as she got each one under her one at a time. The cold had completely numbed her paws. The only warmth in her whole body was coming from the muscles in her breast and wings and it was a sickly pain that radiated through the rest of her. She turned to Dash and said, “Let’s just get inside.”
The pegasus hesitated, her head cocked back and an almost concerned expression on her face. Gilda could just make out those rose-colored eyes looking her over, apprising how accurate her statement was. Eventually, Dash relented. “Yeah, sure.”
As Rainbow turned to the door, Gilda’s imagination again conjured possibilities of what was on the other side. Were Dash’s friends there, hanging out together, only to now be treated to the sight of a freezing and irresponsible griffon as she was paraded before them? Would they laugh and mock her, forcing her back out into the dark winter night when she invariably lost her cool at their taunting and scolding?
Gilda was spared any more unpleasant thoughts as Dash opened the door to reveal only darkness beyond. She staggered by the waiting pegasus, her beak open from panting as she struggled to make it to the saving warmth. That she hadn’t bothered to shake off the coating of snow from her rough landing wasn’t something that registered with her in the least. Part of her was glad that the library was devoid of ponies, but that part was quickly smothered by the rest of her that was just glad to finally be standing someplace warm.
The door to the outside world slammed shut. “Twilight and Spike are with her folks in Canterlot,” Rainbow Dash explained. She pulled off her goggles and set them on a nearby table. “She asked me to watch the library while they were gone this week.”
Given Gilda’s current state, with the shivers that were starting to overcome her body, Rainbow guessed such things didn’t concern the griffon. She pointed a hoof at a dim red glow on the other side of the library. “Fire’s over there. I’ll get some lights on.”
Gilda gave a shaky nod as she pulled off her scarf and then lurched unsteadily across the room. Her stance was wide in an effort to keep her balance, and she was heedless of the impacted snow that fell from her fur and feathers that she hadn’t bothered to shake off. The fire within the stone hearth had long since dampered down to a bed of glowing embers, but to a griffon who had spent a week with small campfires made from what little deadwood she could scavenge by paw, it was a glorious reprieve.
She collapsed on the largest of the pony-size pillows that were arranged before the fireplace and pulled the quilt that was atop it tight around her upper body. The quilt’s surface was still quite warm from facing the fire and Gilda closed her eyes, a moan escaping her beak, as that warmth began to seep into her. The warmth was so divine, such a relief after days where her only covering was falling snow, that Gilda almost didn’t notice when two more quilts were draped over her.
“Just try and warm up, G. I’ll be back in a minute.”
The griffon would have responded if her shivering hadn’t worked its way up to full, body-quaking tremors. She just nodded and held her chattering beak shut while reaching down and trying to wrap the other blankets around her lower body and frozen feet.
Eventually satisfied she was as bundled up as she could get, Gilda closed her stinging, burning eyes and tried to burrow deeper into the thick pillow beneath her. As she worked to get control over her shaking limbs again, a sarcastic part of her mind noted that this was certainly not how she expected to end her Hearth’s Warming. Another part countered that it was still a better end than it could have been otherwise. The first part just said to wait until Dash got back to say that.
Groaning, Gilda tugged her blankets tighter. That Dash’s first reaction after clearing away the rogue storm and finding a half-frozen griffon wasn’t to shout and accuse but to land and give her a hug was certainly the most surprising thing that had happened so far this trip. Of course, Gilda knew that it was a ‘survival’ type of hug, but it was warm and it was Dash, and she leaned helplessly into it nonetheless. She clung to its memory just as tightly as the blankets while at the same time dreading when the pegasus’ inevitable chewing-out would begin.
Probably the only good feeling that'll come out of this trip.
The blizzard was long over though, and now she was safely under a pile of warm blankets, next to a glowing fireplace. Dash had got some lights on, the room lit with a cozy dimness. Her shivers were finally dying down, the only real reminder of the horror of the blizzard being the prickling sting of feeling returning to her talons and toes. She almost felt normal again. Though normal in her case meant a nearly ever-present feeling of melancholy that she coped with most of the time by getting too wasted to care. That wasn’t an option here, and now that Gilda was physically safe, Dash would begin questioning her mental state, no doubt about that. And that would entail explaining just why Gilda acted the way she did all those months ago. It was deeply personal stuff that she didn’t want to deal with right then.
The clatter of pots and pans, followed by running water filling a metal object, sounded in another part of the library and slowly died away. A few seconds later, Dash emerged from the kitchenette with a kettle clutched in her teeth and two mugs clasped in her wings. Under lighter circumstances, the griffon would have made a crack about Dash wanting to play princess and have teatime, but now was not the time for such things.
Instead, she just turned her head to watch the pegasus come down the stairs and cross the floor, drinking in her features. From her earliest days living as an orphan, Gilda had been afraid of the older and angrier griffons in Lower Cloudsdale. As a result, she much preferred to spend time with ponies, who were just as alien to Gilda as she was to them. The way Dash clopped her direction, perched on those chitinous hooves, the waviness of her mane, and her muzzle with those white teeth and lips, was so different, yet so enrapturing at the same time.
Gilda truly wanted to understand the equines she shared the skies with, but the few times in the griffon’s life when she had actively engaged other ponies were met with the same reaction every time. Forced smiles, some kind of lame-duck response about the ‘thing’ at the ‘place’. Parents would protectively shield their foals from her gaze. Occasionally, some bold mare or stallion would jeer or shout some racist remark – especially if they had a good dose of liquid courage beforehand.
“Uh, what’s with the look, G? You know it always freaks me out when you look at me like that.”
Her reverie broken, Gilda turned back towards the fireplace and squirmed under her blankets, muttering a listless, rote apology. That was another reason why Gilda had to keep the guilty pleasure of her ponywatching from afar, either from the clouds or more recently from the small window of her room above the bar. She would try to understand their lives and thoughts and try to place herself amongst them, to little avail.
But after years of trying to fit in – and being left to her own devices – Gilda had developed a sharp apathy towards ponies. Ponies, she had discovered, don’t like anything out of the ordinary. And anything that confounded or didn’t meet their expectations only confused or scared them. They didn’t want love from a griffon. They expected loud. They expected obnoxious. They expected angry. And the griffon at the end of her rope wanted to deliver. And deliver she did – until the sun never came up – when she had the sudden urge to see the only pony who understood.
After falling out with Rainbow Dash, the depressed (and bored) griffon began watching again, particularly smaller details like facial expressions. But the faces she had constantly seen on the drunken ponies that came to and from the bar were sobering reminders of her life. They didn’t just come for a good time.
They also came to forget.
As much as Gilda wished she could do that right now, it was impossible. Instead, she let her gaze wander over the contents of the library, sneaking a glance where possible over the blue pegasus. She watched as Dash awkwardly placed the full kettle on a hook above the fire, spilling some water in the process. The pony took one look at the dying fire, chuffed, and leaned over to the pile of split wood nearby, grabbing fresh logs with her muzzle and tossing them on the fire. Hot sparks erupted each time the logs landed and Gilda idly wondered how fireproof the library was.
Dash then grabbed an iron poker and began stoking new flames. “Yanno,” she spoke around the metal tool in her mouth, “for somepony who was jus’ freezing 'er flank off-” she disgustedly spat out the tool, her tongue having hit a spot that was covered in ash. “Ack! Ack! I thought I cleaned that thing!”
“Somepony?” the blanketed mass murmured softly.
Rainbow turned and flushed in embarrassment. “Erm, e-eh eh. Sorry.”
An awkward silence befell the moment, punctuated only by Rainbow’s renewed efforts to stoke the fire. Gilda lay as still as ever, a silent sentinel to the building blaze, her stoic revere only broken by the occasional shiver. The flames licked ever higher, aided in part by Dash’s wings fanning fresh air in and the freshly stirred coals. Satisfied with her handiwork, the pegasus set the poker back where she found it and looked over her griffon companion.
“How’re you doing over there?” Dash asked. Exposure to a blizzard was no joke, even for a hardy creature like a griffon. Gilda was very fortunate that the weatherpony had spotted her after clearing the skies. “Almost thawed out?”
Those piercing golden eyes sild up briefly to meet her’s and then back down as their owner lowered her head. “Getting there. My talons, toes, and wings are all pins and needles right now, but they’re all there.”
Rainbow opened her muzzle and then shut it again, her ears tilted off to the sides. She still wanted to know just what the griffon was doing out in the elements like that, but felt broaching the subject to the reproachful hybrid was an even a bigger challenge than usual. Instead, she turned to the shelf nearest her and pulled a book off at random, returning it to an equally random place on another shelf. She continued this for several minutes before the uncomfortable silence was broken.
“What’re you doing, Dash?” The question was softly asked and contained a mixture of trepidation, frustration, and curiosity.
“Heh, just a little prank on Twi,” the pegasus responded, a small cheeky grin pulling at her lips. “She got this whole place totally organized before she left and this is going to make her nuts when she finally notices.”
The acknowledgment she got was almost as soft as the question, though Dash did catch the small titter of a laugh at the end. With a heavy sigh, she slid in the last book and finally confronted the elephant in the room. Or griffon, as the case may be.
“What exactly were you doing out there, Gilda?”
The aforementioned griffon stirred, raising her head off the pillow slightly. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
It wasn’t the sarcasm that shocked Rainbow. She had always known Gilda to be the cynical sort, it was just how she dealt with things. Rather, it was the temperature of her voice. It wasn’t the cool persona Dash and her had created at junior speedsters. Nor was it the scary fire she had displayed on her last visit. This was icy, callous, and about as cold as the blizzard she was found in.
After regaining composure, the pegasus pressed the issue.
“I’m just trying to wrap my head around why you spent your whole holiday vacation in an empty forest when you could have easily flown to my place. Or Cloudsdale, seeing as Ponyville is is just too lame for you.”
“Easily?!”
Gilda shot up into a sitting position, the blanket around her top falling open in the process. She wanted to argue that notion, scream about it maybe. But like many things, her heart just wasn’t in it. So she fixed a chilling stare, poking an accusing talon out from under the blankets.
“You have no idea, just how difficult the past few months have been for me – without friends.”
“What!?” Rainbow exclaimed. “Surely you must have found other ponies, you must have tried making new friends.”
The griffon sighed softly and slowly. Her anger had flared and was gone. “Yes. But after spending so much time trying and failing to get in with ponies, I’m kinda all tried out.”
“And when I tried introducing you to caring ponies you had a- a- what!? What exactly happened back then!?”
“I…” Even though the griffon had been expecting this conversation, she was woefully unprepared with a response. “I was frustrated, Dash. Well and truly frustrated with... everything. With my job, with Cloudsdale, with this whole uncaring world. After nearly pissing myself when the sun never came up that one day, and learning that the bucking Nightmare was in Ponyville of all places... I figured that seeing my longtime buddy would do me some good. That it might get me out of my rut.
“I became truly frustrated when I learned about your new friends, and how easily you made them.”
Rainbow corrected her after a moment. “You mean you were jealous.”
Gilda sighed and hung her head, trying to retreat further into her blankets. “Yeah… that. I was… jealous of all those new friends you made. I mean, then there was that pink pony that wouldn’t take no for an answer when all I wanted to do was hang with The Dash, just like old times.”
“It’s Pinkie Pie, Gilda.”
“Whatever,” she softly growled back in a bitter tone.
“Gilda!” Rainbow released an exasperated breath. “I know it’s... difficult for a griffon in Equestria to get by, but you didn’t have to attack them over it!”
Gilda jolted sharply as an unknown pony rapped on the front door.
“Sorry Gilda, but this will only take a second.” Rainbow excused herself and winged her way to the door. Not wanting... whoever that was to know she was there, Gilda hunkered down into the pillow and pulled the top blanket around her again, draping part of it forward over her head. With the blanket loosely covering her face, she was able to turn her head towards the door and peek out without anypony knowing who was under the covers. She hoped.
Rainbow Dash landed at the entrance and opened the door for the visitor. Visitors? Gilda noted the multiple sets of hooves hitting the wood floor. She glanced around the obscuring quilt and saw a dark-coated stallion and two lilac coated mares. They all had the same weather patrol vests and goggles as Rainbow, easily denoting they were her co-workers.
They chatted amicably for a few minutes, with Rainbow zooming around the library, going into gruesome detail about how she split the storm in two, with the new pegasi nodding along to the tale. Gilda had gathered that the stallion with the teal mohawk was Thunderlane – Dash’s newest employee – and the other two were sisters, apparently; Flitter and Cloudchaser. She stopped actively listening and turned back to the fire when Thunderlane started complaining about the graveyard shift and his persistent cough – uninteresting topics to the griffon.
I have enough problems of my own to deal with, I don’t need somepony else’s.
Rainbow Dash didn’t seem too thrilled with this either, telling him to suck it up if he wanted to be a permanent member of the weather team. The dressing down did bring a small grin to Gilda’s beak; Dash always did know how to tell other ponies to mare up. The grin fell into a frown as she wondered when it was finally going to be her turn to receive one of Dash’s lectures and why it hadn't happened already.
Thunderlane assured his boss that his job came before his ills, and Cloudchaser told Rainbow to ease up on the newbie. I guess not everything is hunky-dory in Dashville, Gilda thought smugly as she idly eavesdropped on the exchange with mild amusement.
The distraction provided by the amusement allowed a smattering of guilt to creep back in unexpectedly. Gilda knew that Dash had probably saved her life when the pegasus and her merry cloud patrol cleared the storm. And Dash certainly didn’t have to take in the griffon from the cold. Gilda felt a strange need to thank her friend – pay back her generosity – even if she wasn’t good at that sort of thing. Pride always got in the way.
After their exchange, the ponies bid farewell and departed into the night. Dash muttered something unintelligible before returning to the fireplace. With the coast clear, Gilda rose once more into a sitting position and let the top blanket fall back to her shoulders like a cloak. She was finally feeling warm enough that the whole thing wasn’t needed. By now the kettle on the fire had reached its boiling point, and the pegasus went for its handle but was stopped by a talon reaching for it instead.
“Dude, just… let me pour this, okay. I-I’m feeling generous… I think.”
Rainbow couldn’t hold back her braying laugh. “You?! Generous?! Gimme a break, you’ve never done generous.”
Gilda grabbed the boiling kettle and poured out two cups of dark tea, then placed the kettle back before responding.
“Um, you totally saved me from freezing to death in that blizzard.”
“I thought you’d never notice.” Rainbow sarcastically eyed her old friend, expecting her to say more.
“Yeah, well, it just took me a little time to figure it out.”
“And?”
“And, um…” Gilda’s eyes bored holes into the floor. “Thank you.”
“What was that? I couldn’t quite hear you.”
“Ugh, I’m so not repeating myself,” she replied, dipping her beak towards the steaming cup of tea held in her talons.
“Are you alright, G?” Rainbow asked in concern, yet with a mischievous glint in her eye. “Because I thought I just saw you throw your pride in the fire.”
Gilda’s facial feathers turned a light shade of pink. “Ha! Real funny, Dash.”
The pegasus grabbed up her own mug and blew across its steaming contents. “Now.” Rainbow took a slow sip of her drink. “Where were we?”
When no answer was forthcoming, Gilda spared a glance away from her tea. Dash was looking at her; not intently, but certainly pressingly. She looked back at her tea and tried to sink into her blankets again. “You’re still on about last time, huh?”
“It’s bothered me since it happened, so yeah.”
Gilda took a sip of the tea. It had cooled enough to be hot but not scalding and having a mouthful of it allowed her to not answer, at least for a little while. “You and me both. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought over the last few days.”