//------------------------------//
// Reset 
// Story: Parental Problems 
// by Speven Dillberg 
//------------------------------//

	“Nice of you to remember my name,” Gilda said, sounding completely indifferent..
“What are you doing here?” Rainbow asked carefully. “I thought you - ”
“Went back to Aquileon?” the griffon said, cutting the pegasus off. “I did, for a while.” She scowled. “You have any idea what it was like, going back?” The ponies weren’t given a chance to respond. “My parents wanted nothing to do with me. My boss decided to fire me. I had to move in with-” Her tirade was cut off when a solid column of water suddenly fell on her for apparently no reason. This left her soaked to the bone, giving her the uniquely strange appearance of both a wet cat and a wet bird at the same time.
“Sorry!” They looked up to see a familiar griffon hen waving down at them. “I didn’t mean to do that!” Maria yelled out.
There seemed to be steam rising off Gilda’s body and she was breathing heavily. “I think we should leave,” Post Haste whispered at Rainbow.
“Oh no!” Gilda yelled, rounding on them. “You’re not going until I’ve said what I want!”
“And why should we listen to you?” Rainbow Dash shot back angrily. “You treated my friends like dirt, made a mule of yourself in front of the whole town and you made Fluttershy cry! You expect me to apologise!?” The pegasus turned tail with a huff. “C’mon, Postie, let’s go.” 
“Wait!” Gilda cried out, lunging and grabbing Rainbow’s tail.
“Let her go!” Postie yelled suddenly. He hadn’t known it but he had, until that point, been fighting against his pony instincts. Despite how advanced they were, culturally and technologically, there was some small primal part of a pony’s brain that told the rest of the body to get ready to run from or fight a griffon. After all, a griffon was one part eagle and one part lion, two of the deadliest predators mixed into one being. Fleeing was a natural response. Fighting was only to happen when there was no other option.
Seeing the mare he loved threatened like that, though, it pushed those thoughts of self-preservation away. Replacing them was a burning anger and desire to protect her, even if that meant putting his own life at risk.
“Or what?” the griffon asked menacingly.
What he did next, it was something no-one watching would have ever expected. Even the ones that saw it couldn’t believe what had happened. The pressure on Rainbow’s tail disappeared as the claw holding it was slapped away. Both griffon and mare stared at the stallion is disbelief, their expressions mirroring the one he wore as he gawked at his hoof.
I just did that, he thought. Oh sweet Luna I just did that! What is wrong with me!? He continued to stare at his hoof as though it had sprouted fingers. 
“Did... did you just...?” Rainbow asked, not entirely sure what emotions she was feeling. Surprise was definitely there, as was pure confusion. But just what was that strange tingly feeling? It was familiar, she knew that much...
“You hit me,” Gilda said in disbelief. “You actually hit me.” The griffon chuckled. “You gotta be the first pony to actually do that.”
The air was suddenly filled with a very peculiar sound. It was so... strange that both Postie and Rainbow were unsure what to make of it. “Gilda?” Rainbow asked, staring at the griffon. “Are you laughing?”
“So what if I am?” she asked.
“But... you never laugh,” Rainbow replied, wondering what had happened to her (former) friend.
“Hey, things change,” Gilda said with a shrug.
“Yeah, but this is you we’re talking about!” Rainbow’s confusion was quickly replaced with deep suspicion. “Who are you and what have you done with Gilda?” she asked, eyes narrowed and body tensed as she prepared to pounce.
Gilda rolled her eyes. “Still the same Dash,” she muttered. “Can’t seem to think I might have changed, can ya?”
“Gilda,” the pegasus replied, keeping her tone deadly serious, “this is you we’re talking about. Griffons don’t change their feathers. Uh, metaphorically speaking,” she added hastily before Gilda could remind her about moulting.
“‘Metaphorically’?” the griffon asked, head tilted slightly. “Since when did you use such big words that weren’t to do with flying?”
“I’ve changed a bit,” Rainbow replied.
“She reads in her spare time,” Postie chipped in, receiving a venomous glare in response.
“Rainbow Dash? Reading?” Gilda asked, gaping at the mare. “That’s it, then. The world’s gonna end, I know it,” she muttered as she turned away. “Anyway, there was a reason I wanted to talk to you,” she said, turning back to the frustrated mare.
“Which was?” Rainbow said with all the grace of a filly being denied ice cream.
“I wanted to apologise.”
The silence was so thick it could have been cut with a spoon. “What.” 
Posite, not having been around Gilda at all before this event, was completely unaware of just how momentous this was. “Is this a big deal?” he asked, confused by his fillyfiend’s reaction.
“You have no idea. You never apologise!” Rainbow yelled at Gilda.
“Like I said, I’ve changed,” the griffon shrugged. “My uncle’s been really good to me.”
“You have an uncle?” Rainbow asked, still incredibly confused. “I never knew that.”
“It’s not like I told you everything,” Gilda replied with an eye roll. “You never told me you were dating someone, after all.”
“This is kinda recent,” Rainbow answered. “And don’t change the subject! What do you mean you’re apologising!?”
“Exactly what I said. I know I acted like a jerk, and that pushed away the only friend I ever had.” Gilda hung her head. “It hurt, Dash, it hurt more than anything ever had. And I deserved it. Took me a while to realise that, though,” she added. “My parents kicked me out and I lost my job before it sunk in.”
Rainbow didn’t know what to think. Gilda seemed to be completely sincere, something that was going against everything she knew about her. The Gilda she knew was, to put it as bluntly as possible, a complete bitch. She had no respect for authority, was determined to get her way and was utterly convinced that she was never in the wrong. For her to admit that she was... “I don’t know what to say,” she muttered, looking at the ground in front of the griffon’s talons. 
“She means it, Rainbow,” Posite said quietly. “I can tell.”
“How would you know? You’ve only just met her,” she hissed back. 
“Trust me,” he whispered back.
“You two do know I can hear you, right?” Gilda shot at them, wearing an amused smirk. “And Dash, I don’t really care if you think I mean it or not. I just wanted to get that off my chest.”
“Gilda...” Rainbow was still uncharacteristically at a loss for words. “You know we can’t go back to how we were, right?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure I want to. We were jerks. Some of the things we did...”
“Yeah...” Rainbow did not look happy about bringing up the more questionable parts of her past.
“Can we, maybe, I dunno, start over?” Gilda asked hopefully.
“I... I’d like that.” 
Gilda went and grabbed the mare in a big hug, causing her to flinch. Eventually, she returned the hug. After a moment, Gilda spoke up.
“So who’s the stallion with the brass balls?”
Postie spluttered in shock.





Author’s Notes:
Sorry for the wait, folks! I got a little too distracted with my new New Vegas crossover.
And oh goodness, Gilda is not being an alpha bitch! Personally, I think that interpretation is a bit too... simple. An easy way out, as it were. Give her some depth, people! Same applies to Trixie.