Ponyville's Tiny Librarian

by CommanderX5

Ch5 - Griffon Brushoff - Part 3

“Hey, Twilight,” Spike called as his attention was focused on a few levitating plates advancing towards the table. The moment the plates landed in their rightful positions, Twilight turned around and looked at him.

“What is it, Spike?”

“Whose party is it?” he asked while pointing at the various decorations: From balloons and food to a pony-shaped poster without a tail.

“For Dash’s friend, of course,” Twilight said with a smile and shake of her hoof. “For some reason, Pinkie Pie complained that Gilda is mean to other ponies, but I know that she’s not that bad, she just needs to warm up to others, so I volunteered to assist in her welcome party.”

Spike nodded before offering to help, while Steel Blade and Overwatch stood at the entrance into the Sugarcube Corner and observed the party preparations, their attention was focused on Twilight, knowing full well that something would go wrong for her.

It didn’t take long for Gilda make her entrance and end up in several arguments with Pinkie Pie as the party started. Twilight did her best to extinguish the flames of anger between the party mare and griffon, only to notice some device on Pinkie’s hoof. Without hesitation, she jumped onto Gilda's shoulder and ran towards her talons while charging magic for a spell. But, she was too late as her griffon friend had been electrified, and to Twilight’s displeasure, she felt a bit of electricity going through her. With her smoky mane and tail straightened upwards and exposed teeth on her shocked face, the little unicorn fall to the side, crashing against the floor.

After recovering from the shock, Twilight looked around, afraid that Pinkie may set up more pranks while being unaware that Gilda wouldn’t take them lightly. She was not disappointed as something suspicious caught her attention.

Not wasting time to fix her mane, she jumped onto the plate filled with many snacks that Pinkie was holding and offered to taste one before Gilda had the chance. Twilight’s eyes watered with every bite as her mouth turned into a forge, and despite her high resistance to heat, whatever she ate forced her to levitate a glass of punch above herself. The moment she tried to drink from it, she noticed small hole in the surface so she drank from the hole instead.

Twilight wiped her wet face with her foreleg and glanced at the griffon, who was examining a gift. Now more than sure that Gilda was being targeted, she levitated it over before the griffon could open it.

“Hey!” Gilda said in annoyance as she followed Twilight who levitated the present above her head, but before she could retake it, the little unicorn opened it with her magic as fake snakes shoot out of it.

Twilight turned towards her griffon friend and looked her in the eyes with a serious stare. “You need to be careful, Pinkie Pie is trying to prank you.”

Gilda tightened her talons as she gave the party pony a hostile glare. ”Pinkie.”

“Stay on your guard. Something tells me it's just the beginning,” Twilight warned while Gilda nodded and walked towards the party pony who was pushing a candle-filled cake.

Overwatch chuckled. “That’s three of four.”

Steel Blade raised an eyebrow at her. “What do you mean?”

She gestured at Twilight, who was busy wiping her wet face with a large tissue and fixing her mane. “Out of the four pranks meant for Gilda, Twilight has managed to prevent three of them.”

“Yeah, by taking them to the face,” Steel Blade scoffed. “Shouldn’t we do something, though?”

“Absolutely. I’m starving for some sweets right now,” she remarked with a wide grin. Steel Blade frowned at her, and she added, “Those pranks are mostly harmless. Don’t worry so much.”

“Harmless? I’m pretty sure there was electricity involved in there!”

Overwatch shrugged. “She’s been shocked by much bigger things when she was doing her weird combat training thing back at the palace. This can’t be much worse.”

“You mean the times she’s managed to shock herself when she was trying to zap a training dummy?”

She snickered. “Ahh, good times.”

Steel Blade rolled his eyes. “Still, what if one of these pranks surpasses ‘mere annoyance’ and actually hurts her? I know we should interfere only when necessary, but I don’t want her to end up in the hospital because we weren’t fast enough.”

Overwatch took in a sharp breath, releasing it slowly. She should have been faster. She should’ve been able to stop more than two of Applejack’s kicks.

Turning from Steel Blade to Twilight, Overwatch growled out a simple, “Point taken,” before falling into silence.

The party went on as Gilda prevented some of the pranks from embarrassing her, while Twilight as her guardian angel assisted in any way possible, sometimes ending up as the victim of the prank instead. During a game in ‘pin tail on a pony’ she was about to succeed, but the lack of trust in Pinkie Pie’s words made her slip on a fragment of cake and slide towards the wall.

Twilight heroically jumped in the way, ready to use her levitation spell to slow her down, only for her griffon friend to bump into her. While Gilda ended up with a fake mustache, Twilight would have ended up pinned to a wooden wall between feathers and a hard place if not for Overwatch to levitate her out of the way before the unfortunate crash.

Steel Blade gave his partner a proud smile while offering her a plate of cake held on his wing.

Annoyed by being under a constant assault of pranks, Gilda let her frustration burst out. Steel Blade and Overwatch were quick to escort the angered guest out before the situation would escalate, and before anypony noticed it, the little volunteer was gone as well.

Rainbow Dash, the nerve of her. She and her lame friend can go and buck off, Gilda thought as she flew restlessly while feeling both humiliated and betrayed. “I prefer to hang out with my uncool friends over you, Gilda,” she murmured to herself, feeling growing irritation. “I will embarrass you in front of everyone, I hope you won’t mind Gilda. I have pony friends now so go away or I will kick you out, Gilda.”

“I hope you won’t mind that I act like a jerk and am mean to your friends, Rainbow Dash, it’s not like you will care or anything,” somepony spoke, much to the griffon’s confusion.

Gilda stopped and started hovering mid air as she looked around, alarmed. “Who's there?” she said while exposing her sharp talons. “How about you say it to my face!” she challenged, and to her surprise, she could feel something climbing up on her head before noticing two purple forelegs land on her beak while Twilight stared her in the eyes firmly.

“I hope you won’t mind that I will act like a jerk, that I will be mean to your friends,” Twilight spoke firmly. “Ha, in your face!” she shouted as Gilda raised her eyebrow.

“Your guts won’t save you from what I’m about to do with you,” Gilda said threateningly, looking at Twilight with anger in her now narrowed eyes. The eyes of a hungry predator.

“I’m only telling the truth. When Rainbow Dash asked me to befriend you, she mentioned that beyond her, you don’t like any pony,” Twilight stated as Gilda looked at her as if she had stated the obvious. “She was worried that you may not get along with her friends. Now I see why.”

“Oh yeah! If she knew, why she even bothered to get me into that lame party. I bet all those pranks were just to provoke me so she can kick me out of her life!”

Twilight shook her head, doing her best to maintain her balance despite the wind. “Well… I must admit. Dash most likely lied that those pranks were meant to be for everypony, though she didn’t want to admit her mistake…” Gilda nodded, almost throwing the little mare off. Twilight regained her balance and took her hind legs from Gilda’s head as her rear hooves were now anchored on sides of Gilda’s beak. “But even if she did choose a very poor time to prank you, she never intended to kick you out from her life, trust me.”

Gilda frowned. “Pfft… like I care.”

Twilight growled in response. “You have a serious attitude problem. You know that?”

“Oh yea? And...and...you're a puny freak,” Gilda responded as she started to fly forward. Twilight could feel the wind pressing against her back as she tightened her hold on Gilda’s beak, adding her forelegs for support.

“I had an attitude problem too when I first came to Ponyville. I was so focused on proving to everypony that I can do big things despite my small size. Not to mention my desire to do everything by myself, no matter how risky or hard it was.” Twilight looked at the griffon with a sad smile while her ears would drop if not for the wind that already pressed them against her face. “By trying to prove how good I was, I saw everypony as unable to do anything. I insulted them by thinking that what I can do they cannot, despite being far bigger than me.”

“And what's wrong with showing some lamers how cool and independent you are?” Gilda asked curiously as the distance from Sugar Cube Corner increased.

Twilight sighed. “In the end, I was almost eaten by a manticore if it was not for them. They saved my life. Only when I stopped trying to prove myself, I understood what my new friends were capable off.”

Gilda blinked a few times in confusion before she narrowed her eyes. “Those lame-o’s, capable of doing anything? Don’t make me laugh. You and Rainbow Dash are the only ponies who can face a manticore.”

“But they did. It’s something that you can see only by looking past their appearances or your pride,” Twilight started firmly as her resolve increased. “You’re so focused on making yourself look cool and so self-centered that you don’t notice the good inside other ponies, not even giving them a chance.”

“I gave them a chance! I came to that stupid party of that stupid pink pony, and you saw how it ended. You even tried to warn me about those pranks and got some on yourself. Aren’t you even a little angry?” Gilda asked with a sharp and strong voice.

Twilight smiled and shook her head. “Not at all, and besides, what happened to me at that party is nothing compared to what I had to experience during the past weeks I spent here. You cannot even take a few pranks while I endured tons of craziness,” she said with her head raised proudly as Gilda stopped in mid air and landed on a cloud, her inner magic letting her copy the cloud walking ability of a pegasus.

Gilda shook her head until Twilight slid from her beak onto her talons. “Oh yeah, and what would a small fry like you possibly have had to deal with?”

“You have no idea.”

“Try me.”

Twilight started to tell Gilda the series of events she experienced when she met her new friends: How Applejack mistook her for a prank tool, how Rainbow Dash body-slammed her into mud, how Rarity mistook her for a rat and tried to throw her away like piece of garbage, how Fluttershy was annoyingly overprotective, and finally, how Pinkie’s party almost made her deaf.

Twilight intentionally left out the whole Nightmare Moon’s incident and told about the mess she got herself into the moment her friends found about tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala, which resulted in a tag against the entire town. How much trouble Applejack caused her because of overworking herself, sending her to the hospital in the end by bucking her into a tree.

“Are you serious?” Gilda asked as she gave her tiny friend a disbelieving stare with wide eyes. The moment Twilight nodded, she added, “You had to endure all this crap and you’re still calling those ponies your friends?”

“Well... It was not easy, but in the end their friendship is worth fighting for. If it wasn’t for my friends, I would’ve been eaten by a manticore in the Everfree Forest, and the good times we had overweigh the bad ones.” Twilight smirked proudly and added, “Besides, I’m trying to become a strong pony, and a strong pony can forgive others for hurting her, a strong pony will gladly face challenges to become even stronger.” She pointed her hoof at Gilda accusingly. ”Actually, now that I think about it, I didn’t cry over a few annoying pranks like you did.”

The griffon opened her beak in attempt to respond, but couldn’t find any words. Twilight quickly used her hesitation and spoke, “Is the big strong griffon unable to take a few pranks without making herself a crybaby? I could take ten times the pranks with a smile, and I’m much smaller than you.”

Gilda’s face turned red for a moment and was about to burst into rage, but then she just let out a deep sigh instead and looked at Twilight in admiration. “You’ve got a point. I must look like a loser if I cannot take a few pranks like a griffon, and compared to the crap you had to face, wow, I have no right to be complaining at all.”

“That's the spirit!” Twilight smiled as she pointed down at Ponyville, which was away on the horizon. “Let’s go back. You shouldn’t give up on Rainbow Dash because of a few pranks. Also, if you’ll give my friends a chance, you might get to like them.”

Gilda place Twilight onto her back. “Hang on tight, I’m going to get you back to that party,” the griffon said as she dived towards Ponyville. Twilight followed the advice as she held Gilda’s neck as tight as she could, fighting against the wind that tried to push her away. “I think I will give Dash some time to calm down before I talk to her and apologise, a week or two should do,” she remarked.

Twilight shook her head to get her mane away from her eyes before asking, “What about her other friends?”

“I think I will stay out of their way for now, but I may give them a chance one day. Though there’s one of Dash’s friends who I want to hang out with.”

“Really, is it Pinkie Pie, or Applejack maybe?” Twilight asked cluelessly.

“You, stupid! You’re the coolest of all of Dash’s friends!”

“I am?”

“Yes, you are. How can you be so cluele…” Gilda was cut off by Twilight’s strong laughter.

“Got you.”

Gilda chuckled. “Not bad. Where do you live by the way?” she asked while reaching Ponyville, flying in the sky right above it.

Twilight looked around before a big tree caught her attention. “Can you see that giant tree over there?”

Gilda looked around to find the object that Twilight pointed at before smirking. “So... A tiny mare like you lives in one of the biggest trees in Equestria. Somepony’s got a size complex.”

Twilight blushed. “Well… There’s a big library and small laboratory inside, so I can read and do my research. Also, I need to accommodate Spike, Steel Blade and Overwatch, so it’s not like I live in that big tree all by myself,” she explained before adding proudly, “also, I like big things, and climbing up my home is a good morning exercise.”

Gilda chuckled. “So where to deliver you, to the party or to your tree?”

“Party. After all, Rainbow Dash got a few pranks on us, we cannot leave without returning the favour?” Twilight said devilishly while wiping her fore-hooves against one another.

“Pranks, and what do you know about pranking?” Gilda asked curiously as she flew above Sugar Cube Corner while Twilight levitated herself in front of her beak and was now looking her in the eyes.

“Oh, not much. I’m just a tiny unicorn who can sneak everywhere unnoticed, who knows hundreds of spells, and has enough magic to cast them, while one of my friends is a mischievous phoenix. What can I possibly know about pranking others?” Twilight asked sarcastically with her forelegs crossed.

Gilda smirked as she raised her tightened talons while Twilight did the same with her hoof. With a swift move, Gilda’s talons bumped into Twilight’s forehoof before they said, united. “Let's do this!”