Chapter 15 Feathered friend part 2
“Hey, I think we're almost there.”
“Really Rainbow Dash?!” Twilight gasped in excitement waiting from a response on the tips of her hooves.
“Hey, girls!” Called Pinkie Pie from around the turn just up ahead, jumping into view seconds after, “We made it, Griffonstone is right around the corner, literally!”
Twilight squeaks in anticipation and takes off running over to Pinkie, but is cut off by a worried blue mare who fly's in front of her. “Now Twilight, I just want to remind you we really did exaggerate Griffonstone before.... and it may have been more than... a little...” Dash puts on a big smile as if trying to apologize ahead of time.
“Oh come on Rainbow Dash, it's Griffonstone, one of the most amazing kingdoms in the world, even if you did exaggerate it can't be that bad.” The purple mare steps around her flying friend and runs off past Pinkie Pie shouting her words as she goes, “I'm sure it's just like in the book, a peaceful, amazing, wealthy..........DUMP?!”
The others stop in their tracks after hearing Twilight, “Umm, Rainbow... exactly what part did you exaggerate?”
“Other then finding the idle and what happen with Gilda........ all of it.”
Surely enough Griffionstone was a dump, strands of hay litter the side streets and walkways, houses falling apart at the seams. Water in the gutters ran down the side of the mountain with a thick gray color to it. Twilight could only think of what her mentor would say if Cantorlot ever became so seemingly unclean. The only positive aspect the Princess could come up with is that the town seemed oddly warmer than the snow covered path up the mountain. “Just a little huh?” She asked sarcastically glaring at her pink and blue friends, who shrug in response smiling nervously “Well, it's really not that bad.”
“Wait... it's not,” Dash agreed in a confused tone, “this place looked much worse last time we were here.”
“Hey, you're right Dashie,” Pinkie confirmed as she noticed the lack of trash as well as how the large piles of hay were now just small clumps here and there.
Just as observant and confused Apple Jack stepped up to Dash, “While I'm sure we all have questions, I would first like to ask.... where is everypony?” She asked pointing out that there was not a soul in sight. As the group walked through the streets of the messy town it became more and more evident that no pony had been there for a while. Homes and stores seemed to be abandon for several days, cleared of all furniture and full of dust. The further in town they went, the clearer the streets seemed to get.
Just as everypony began to get nerves in what seemed to be a ghost town, Pinkie shouted, “Wait!” Everypony jumped at the sudden burst from the pink pony, even Flutter Shy found herself shaking in Discords arms. Pinkie began to sniff around like a bloodhound, her nose to the ground seeming to wonder around aimlessly going in and out of houses, up walls, under Apple Jack and somehow jumping out of Rarity's hair. For a few seconds the curious mare disappointed only to pop out of a covered sewer entrance, “THAT WAY!” The strange mare announced and continued to sniff her way down the street.
For a few minutes, everypony followed Pinkie Pie until Rarity finally questioned what was going on. “Pinkie Pie, as much as we all enjoy your little bits of randomness, what prey tell are you doing?”
Just as she finished Pinkies head popped up from the ground, “Griffon Scones! It's Gilda!” She pointed excitedly at the pastry cart Gilda used to sell her scones, the small oven in the back spouting smoke. Pinkie zipped over to the cart and around the other side hugging the griffon tightly until Dash sped over as well followed by the others.
“Ummmm... who are you?” Pinkie looked up and asked the same question realizing that the griffon she was hugging was much too thin and timid to even be compared to their cool laid back friend. “Wait a minute, this is Gilda's pastry cart, what are you doing with it?” The blue mare asks getting in the strange griffons face.
“I.. I...” The griffon stutters for a moment, “I just run the cart when she's away, I work for her...”
The griffon backs away from the cart and Dash until Twilight steps between the two. “Hold on, you work for Gilda?” She asked raising an eyebrow. The shy Griffon shakes his head yes slowly shrugging his shoulders as if trying to retreat but unable to move. “So umm... where is Gilda, and all the griffons for that matter?”
“Yeah we haven't seen anypony since we got here, you're the first.” Flutter Shy said softly Discord nodding his head behind her.
“Oh their all at the construction sight, just a few blocks down, I was on my way there now.” The griffon walks to the front of the pastry cart fastening a harness to his waist. “I can take you there if you'd like.”
For a few minutes more everypony follows the new griffon through the streets enjoying some of the scones, all the while Twilight was raving about every detail of the foreign treat. Finally, they came to a small clearing where some houses had been torn down, just before any questions could be asked some griffons are seen flying overhead with large planks of wood, another close behind caring buckets that sounded like they were full of metal. As they looked around they began to notice that the houses were not just torn down but deconstructed. Another block away, the griffons were putting those supplies to good use building new houses in a small spot that had been cleared of all other structures. The sound of hammers filled the air as several of them worked together building the frames for houses, in the middle of all of it, directing the construction, was Gilda.
“Gilda!” Pinkie cried out once again speeding over and gripping Gilda in a backbreaking embrace, knocking her to the ground. “Gilda! We came to visit! And we came out the mountain and i made snow ponies everywhere! Then we got to the front archway, but there was no pony in town! And then we found some pony else with your scone cart! And it looked like some of the houses were torn down! And then we had you're new strawberry griffon scones and they were really good, can I have the recipe?” Pinkie, now quiet sat on Gilda's stomac smiling.
“Ummm... sure,” the griffon said awkwardly. Lifting her head and looking behind the crazy pink mare, Gilda see's the rest of the little group heading over accompanied by her sales griffon. “What are you all doing here?” she asked in a sarcastic but joyful manner as she lifted the pink pony off her before standing up herself.
“Like Pinkie said, we all came to visit,” Dash repeated as she put an arm around her old friend.
“Not many of us got to know you that last time you were in Ponyvill, well other then at Pinkies party.” Apple Jack said making the griffon cringe at the memory. “So we all wanted to come along and see how y'all have been doing these days.”
Gilda looked around at her pony friends and how they were all happy to be there smiling warmly, especially twilight. “Well I must say this is quite the quaint little... town... you have here.” Discord quipped floating upside down just to the side of Gilda's head. “Seems like a lot of new buildings going up.”
“Yeah,” Gilda uttered watching the strange creature floating next to her. For a moment she just looked up and down at him, “OK I give, what the flying feather are you?”
“Oh that's discord, he's a friend of ours,” Flutter Shy said, “He and I had plans I overlooked when we decided to come, so he came along with us instead.”
In another flash Discord was standing next to his yellow friend shaking claws with Gilda, “ Discord, Spirit of Chaos, nice to meet you Gilda, I have heard so much about you, like how you made my good friend Flutter Shy here cry after she bumped into you while she was, what was it again... oh yes, leading some ducks across the street.” Discord smiled as he glared down at the poor griffon who now felt a chill go down her spine as the strange mix mash of animals looked like he was getting bigger, his sly smile promising to be an unwelcome visitor in a nightmare to come.
“Hey now, you behave yourself,” Flutter Shy demanded grabbing Discords attention, “That was a long time ago and Gilda is different now, so you watch yourself, mister.” Gilda's jaw dropped at the sight of a pony she once made cry, demand good behavior of all things from a creature that looks like he was pulled out of a some mad ponies experiment gone monstrously wrong.
“Oh.............. alright...” Discord shrank back to his normal size scowling as if having his new toy was taken away, all the while Flutter Shy smiled, happy she was authoritative. Gilda looked over at Dash, silently asking for an explanation but was insted met with a look of exostion paired with the slow shaking of her head as if to say "don't ask".
“So do tell darling, what on earth is going on here?” Rarity asked drectecting everyponies attention to the new homes being built.
“Well...” Gilda cleared her throat and puffed out her chest ready to boast, “after I started spreading friendship around Griffonstone I noticed a lot of us were more open to helping each other, a few months back some griffon needed some bits to fix up his house, so I lent him some and realized just how much I had saved up. After asking around, I realized I wasn't the only one that had more bits than one griffon could use.” Everypony looked between each other confused as to how this could be a surprise.
“So you decided to pull all the money together and fix up the town?” Spike asked
“You got it,” Gilda confirmed, “we started with just using supplies from the local stores to reinforce weak structures, but a lot of these houses are old enough to have been built when the town was founded. Not a lot of wood around these part so we started pulling our bits together and having supplies shipped here from city's further out like Holloy and Rivendell, surprisingly enough they were more than happy to help”
“And that's when they sent me to overlook the reconstruction of the town.” The deep and oddly smooth voice came from another griffon who popped out of nowhere much like Pinkie.
“And you are...?” Asked the country mare.
“Silver Quill at your serves, I've been sent here to ensure that all shipments arrive on time and nothing gets overlooked.” Twilight takes a closer look at the new griffon and finds he has a horse's flank instead of a lion's body. Just as she tries to question this strange fact she finds a claw on her lips, “I know that look dear princess, and the answer is no, I am not a griffon, I am a hippogryph. I'm part pony!” He said with a strange and somewhat creepy twinkle in his eye.
Twilight takes a step back from the strange bird-like creature as he smiles with his mouth gaped open. Standing with her friends everypony looks to Gilda for an explanation. “Hey don't look at me, I don't know anything about... whatever he is. Truth be told we still don't even know if he's a real contractor, or even knows how to use any tools.”
“What, how dare you, I have never been so offended, if I didn't know any better I'd say you want to leave.”
Gilda scowls, “I do, we all do, when your not doing your job your just one big pain in my tail.”
“Alright, you talked me out of it, I'll stay, but only because you all need me.” Gilda face-claws in frustration as Silver Quill completely ignores what she had just said. “And for your information, I am a licensed contractor, I'm even planning on building my own castle, as soon as I find a location,” He stated with his head high.
At this point Gilda noticed the light green stallion scratching the back of his ear, standing behind everypony. “Who's the new guy?”
“Oh, I'd be delighted to introduce him,” Discord hummed as he flashed over to the pony in question. “This is Jax... what was your last name again?...” Discord asked with a mischievous smile.
The stallion rolled his eyes and strolled over to Gilda, “Nice to meet you, Gilda, it's great what you're doing with the town. I haven't seen something like this in a while.”
“Yes, I'm sure you've seen a lot in your travels. You see Gilda, Jax is from... oh my the name seems to have slipped my mind, where was it again.” The draconequus asked bobbing his eyebrows at Jax.
“I get you're trying to pry but do you really need to do it like that? I've met monkey's that are more subtle.”
Gilda scratched her head in confusion, “we met Jax a few months ago," The blue mare said, "he's a bit privet but he's a good friend when it comes down to it.”
“Well he can't be any stranger than the rest of you ponies,” Gilda said jokingly, earning a friendly elbow to the side from Rainbow Dash.
“Ummm Gilda?” Silver asked rejoining the conversation, “should anyone be using anything flammable or I don't know, explosive?”
“No, why?”
“Because one of the houses is catching fire.” Silver points to one of the structures being built, just as he said smoke was coming from the back end.
“Oh, feathers not again!” Gilda ran off to join a flock of griffons with hoses spraying down the small fire that crept up the back wall, Dash followed close behind as well as the other ponies. The fire was small scorching the base and half way up the wall causing very little damage.
As the crowd disperses and gets back to work Twilight takes a closer look, finding the stem of a used match, and the smell of lighter fluid. “Gilda!” she called out stopping her, “look at this, I don't think this was an accepted!” She started lifting the match-stem.
Everyponies head turns to Twilight in slight shock, but without even seeing the match, Gilda lowers her head in disappointment, “I know it wasn't, every griffon here knows it wasn't.” Now every ponies eye's turn to Gilda, even more, confused and worried.
“What are you talking about, who would want to set fire to what will be someponies new home?” Apple Jack asked waving her hoof at the slightly damaged house to be.
Gilda turns to everypony looking sadder than Dash had seen her in a long time. “I told you some of the Griffons wanted to help, well some don't. When more and more griffons started pulling their money together some griffons started to get more greedy. They started to think that the more we spend on fixing the town the less money there will be to go around, or to be frank, less money for them.”
“But that doesn't make sense,” Twilight said, “If you fix up the town then more griffons can come a visit, it will improve the local economy.”
“I know we tried to tell them that, even pointed out how we can turn the old castle into a tourist attraction, but they didn't care, thought there would be too many griffons flying around to make a difference.”
“So what? they're just setting fire to your all your hard work?” Apple Jack asked as if offended by the thought.
“Fire, broken tools, graffiti, everything they can do to try and stop our work. We've been trying to rebuild for months, a lot of old houses were repaired but it takes three days to build a new one and we can't even get the framework to last the night.” Gilda looks around at the other griffons getting back to work, each of them looking tired and discouraged. “To be honest, these last few days have felt like we're fighting a pointless battle. I'm starting to think we should just leave, go to one of the other city's, not like there's any shortage of them.”
“Wow, deja vu,” Jax said as he turned to walked over to a nearby table that looked to have the blueprints for the houses.
“What do you mean?” Asked Apple Jack.
“These are the houses your building around town?” The stallion asked Gilda who nodded in response, “And these take you three days to make?” he asked as if Gilda had made a mistake.
“Well yeah,” Silver Quill said flying over, “these houses are hard to make, and it's not like we have many carpenters and electrocutions. We're building in four places in town at once, the goal is to work on four structures a day and finish each in three.”
“Well, there's your problem, instead of trying to do so much just do what you can, get everyone in one place and focus on one house at a time.”
“What?”
“They don't touch the finished houses, right? So finish the house in one day.” The hippogryphs jaw dropped in response to the absurd suggestion.
“You're joking, right? You did hear that it takes three days to finish one house, and that's with seven griffons working on it at a time.” Gilda quoted.
“Yeah, so how fast would you get it done with fourteen?” Gilda went to respond but paused at the thought. “A few years back I was travailing around China and came across a small village that was just starting out. They lived in small huts made of twigs and straw, but tried every day to build real houses.” Gilda rolled her eyes expecting another friendship speech. “I stayed there a few days to try and help, but every night some of the local dragons would come a destroy what we built, demanding that the ponies moved on and leave China.” The mention of building a house and dragons caught the grumpy griffons attention, as well as others around her. “I went to one of the nearby towns to see if anypony or dragon would help, lucky for use they did, those who came to help told use to focus on building one house at a time with as many ponies that can work on it at once, and any others to work on another house with the same idea, if there were too few ponies to work on one house, then they would help by keeping track of supplies.”
“So what happen?” Silver asked
“The village ponies would normal try and work on about seven houses at a time over the course of five days. With the new plan, we finished three houses in just one.” The griffons looked back and forth at each other in silent disbelief.
“OK, let's say that works and we get houses done, what's to stop them from burning it down anyway?” Gilda questioned.
“These griffons don't want you spending money right?” Jax said raising his voice as if wanting every griffon around to hear. “It would COST at lot most to replace a newly built house then starting one over! Losing a new building, means losing, even more, money!” Jax looked at the crowd of griffons and saw one sneak away. He smiled knowing the message was heard.
“OK maybe that would work, but it would still take too long to fix up the whole town if we just do a few buildings at a time.”
“I spent less than a year in China, but by they time I left, that village with only a few huts of twigs and straw became a small town with new ponies and even some dragons moving in every day.” Gilda was speechless not knowing what to say, as was Silver Quill. “It was a slow process, but is it really much slower then how things are going right now?” Again the crowd exchanged looks with each other looking for an answer. “And don't forget, you have your pony friends here now, I bet with every griffon and pony here, we can get at least one of these houses done by the end of the day.”
“oh come on, we have like five hours left in the day, you actually think we can finish a house in that time.” The griffon asked still unconvinced.
“No, I think we can do it in three,” Jax replied smiling at Gilda.
He held out a hoof to Guild who for a moment just stood there mulling over everything in her head, in the end, she reluctantly shocks the stallion's hoof, excepting the challenge as well as the help from the ponies. With that, every pony and griffon got to work all on one house, with Silver Quill, Gilda and Apple Jack directing the construction. Walls went up faster than could have ever been expected, Many found themselves triple checking their work, having a hard time believing they were actually done. Just as promised, in three hours time, Gild found herself asking Silver Quill what was next only to be told they were done. She took a long moment and just stared at the fruit of their labor, she went inside and wandered around the rooms and jumped on the stairs testing them. After months of trying, working tirelessly, a single house was finally finished. From the top on the stairs, Gilda saw other griffons stroll in curiously with, what she suspected, was the same look of disbelief she had. It wasn't much, a small step in a full-length race, but for today, it was more than any griffon could have asked for.
“See, what did I tell you?” Jax asked from halfway up the stairs.
“Yeah yeah you were right, what do you want a metal?” The Griffon said both upset and overjoyed for listening to this stallion she just met.
After admiring their work and checking everything one last time, a family who's home was ready to collapse on top of them at any moment was chosen to move in that same night. After two more hours of helping with the quick move and house warming, the group decided to stay with Gilda for the night having no inn nearby. With the sun setting the griffon felt enthusiastic about tomorrow knowing they would get another house done for sure, maybe even two.
“So Gilda,” Twilight spoke up knocking the griffon from her thought of tomorrow and quickly bringing her attention to the princess. “I know it's late and all but I didn't get a chance to tell you that we actually brought some books for the town library.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, it was Rainbow's idea, I've got a lot of books just waiting at the station, there's a spell set up to pop them right up here whenever you're ready. So I was just wondering if, I don't know, we could see the library before we call it a day?” Twilight smiled from ear to ear like a filly asking for a new toy even going as far as to put her hooves together as if asking permission.
Gilda looked over to her best friend with a look of exhaustion, “What exactly did you tell her about the library?” Rainbow Dash shrugged her shoulders embarrassed wearing a nervous smile. The griffon fought the urge to face claw again and instead thought of a fun prank to play on the book-loving princess. “Sure Twilight, we can see the library first, but you have to wear a blindfold so you don't see anything until your right at the door.” The overly excited mare shook her head in agreement seeing nothing wrong with the condition, meanwhile, Rarity and Apple Jack stared down Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash sensing something was amiss.
Guild lead everypony to the library and Discord had to hold back his laughter as he thought of Twilight's reaction to coming. The other mares covered their ears and nodded giving Gilda the OK to remove Twilight's blindfold. Everypony anticipated blood-curdling scream of shock and horror that would otherwise define them for the rest of the night. But instead, Twilight stood there, her joyful expression unchanged as she looked at the broken down and nearly flatten building surrounded by books that were covered in dirt littering the outside and what would have been the inside of the building. upon further investigation, via a confused Rainbow Dash waving a hoof in front of Twilight's face, the princess was found to be still as stone in some form of shock with not even a twitch to let them know she was still conscious.
“Ummm guys.... I think we broke her,” Rainbow said
Spike crept up and tapped her on the side causing the stunned mare to fall to her side fainting. Gilda, Pinkie Pie, and Discord all broke out into laughter with Rainbow Dash trying to hold back her part of it. Discord was kind enough to carry Twilight to Gilda's were everypony soon joined her in sleep for the night.