Ch 12: On the Road Again
Good Griff!
Part 2 – The Road to Nowhere
Chapter 12 – On the Road Again
(In Which McCarthy, Kerouac, and Nelson Would Be Proud)
“On the road agaaain!”
“Shut up.”
“Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway!
“Oh my god shut up.”
“We're the best of friends!
“Shutupshutupshutup.”
“Insisting that the world-”
“SUNNY! IDIOT! DAZE!”
The classic “use the full name” trick used by mothers everywhere works. Sunny stops singing and looks at me questioningly. “What?”
“Shut up.”
“Both of you, shut up!” Flam grumbles sleepily. “Some of us more civilized folks are attempting to get our beauty sleep, so would you kindly mind shutting your yaps.”
Really it’s just him and Lazy Bones snoozing in the back of the RV, and Bones wouldn’t wake up for an atomic bomb, but message received.
Sunny and I apologize at the same time. “Oops, sorry.” “Sorry.”
I’m in the passenger seat up front with Flim, who’s driving. Sunny is chilling out just behind me, being his usual annoying self. We set out from the airport about two hours ago, heading for Sunny’s cousin’s farm in southern Illinois. Bones plotted us a trip there that’s going to take us about three days, driving seven hours for each leg in the middle of night. Flim and Flam think the route’s kind of weird, but Bones insisted. She said this was the way we had to go to avoid toll booths.
Our first leg takes us from where we were in South Burlington, Vermont west, on lesser freeways to outside some small town in western New York. Then tomorrow night, we’re going from there to outside Dayton, OH. And the last leg will bring us to the Sunny’s family’s farm in southern Illinois. I’m told it’s not the way people would usually go, and the stops are in weird places, but what the hell do I know? Other than those three years in high school, I’ve lived in the city my whole life.
We continue driving in silence except for the sound of the engine and Bones’ occasional mumbling. We just got out from around Albany, and now out in the country in the middle of the night, there’s no one else on the road. It’s perfect. Just the quiet, the dark, and the solitude. We’re going to stay nice and secret this time.
We get a whole fifteen minutes of quiet this time before he starts up again.
“There's a voice that keeps on calling me,
Down the road, that's where I'll always be.
Every stop I make, I make a new friend,
Can't stay for long, just turn around and I'm gone again!”
I pinch the bridge of my… beak and sigh. Goddamnit, Sunny.
“Confound it, will you cease that racket!” Flam shouts.
“Sorry!” Sunny apologizes again. “I’ll be quiet.”
“Good!” Flam grumps and rolls over. He sighs, sounding both pleased and tired.
He gets his wish for about five seconds before the show tunes start back up again and all hell breaks loose. “Needles and pins, needles and pins, sew me a sail to catch me the wind!” Bones sings dreamily.
“Arrgh!” Flam groans.
“Sew me a sail, strong as the gale! Carpenter, bring out your hammers and nails!” Bones keeps going.
“Hey, Bones, pro’lly not the best time for that,” I advise her, but she keeps singing over me. I see her face and her eyes are closed. Oh. She’s doing the thing again.
“Hammer and nails, hammer and nails! Build me a boat to go chasing the whales.” she continues.
“That’s it!” Flam cries. “Pull over!”
“Chasing the whales, sailing the blue. Find me a captain and sign me a crew.”
“What? Why?” Flim asks, dumbfounded.
“Captain and crew, captain and crew, take me, oh take me to anywhere new!”
“So that I don’t careen out of control and crash when I murder the lot of you!” Flam shouts.
“Bang! Bang! Maxwell’s silver hammer! Bang! Bang!” Bones sings, then jerks and opens her eyes, as if she was so loud she woke herself up. She notices everyone looking in her direction. “Oh. Hey everypony.” she greets, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Oh my god, she didn’t just say that, did she? She must sense everyone all riled up because she asks, “‘s goin’ on? ‘d’I miss something?” Her weird accent is more noticeable right after she’s woken up and not completely with it yet. It’s almost British or, like, fancy rich American, but not quite.
Flam, left eye twitching and nostrils flaring, moves over to the door. Bones nods at him and sniffs. “Do you have a hammer I c’n borrow?” Flam’s only response is a growl and a death glare.
By this time, Flim has pulled the RV into a conveniently timed rest stop and as soon as we’ve come to a stop, Flam storms out, slamming the door so hard it flies back open.
Shit.
“Um, should he be going out in the open like that?” Sunny wonders.
“Ehh, it’s nighttime now. No one’s nocturnal enough to notice.” Flim reassures him.
“What about them?” Sun asks, pointing a hoof out the still open door. Across the parking lot are some gas pumps where an SUV is parked. It’s filled with college age kids, with one more standing by the pump, all gawking with open mouths as Flam charges across the lot toward the convenience store.
SHIT!
I start out the door to go after him, but Flim closes it in my face with his magic. “Wait!” he cries, wiggling out of his seat belt. “I’m coming as well!”
“Time is kind of a factor here!” I snap.
“Fran is MY brother.” He argues as he rushes over to me. There’s a burst of green light from his horn that washes over us and he reopens the door. I hear a gasp from either Sunny or Bones, but I don’t bother to figure out who because I’m already out the door.
“What was that?” I ask as we rush across the lot.
“Just an amateurish apparition,” he tells me, distracted.
“A what?”
“A primitive prestidigitation.” Does this fucker ever speak English? We’re passing by the kids in the SUV, who are still watching in confusion. Seeing the two of us is just making it worse, but we have to get Flam back. So much for staying secret. Again.
“Hey dude!” the one by the pump calls at us. He doesn’t seem to notice anything wrong with us. “‘D’joo see that horse run by?”
Flim doesn’t even look at them as he shouts, “IGNORE ME!”
The ones in the car echo the first. “Was that thing yours?” “Man, that was weird.” “What was it?” Look at the size of that guy’s dog.” “Dog? Are you nuts? That’s a puma! That guy’s got a frickin’ puma!” “What are you talking about? It’s a big dog!”
“Did they just call me a dog?” I ask Flim.
“Holy shit!” I hear behind us. “That goat just talked!”
The automatic doors at the front of the store slide open for us we step in. There’s Flam, front hooves up on the counter, yelling at the cashier, who’s backed up against the wall as far as he can go. “By Greyskull, this is an outrage, I say! AN OUTRAGE! What manner of entrepreneur are you!? I say, I am a paying customer! I demand you sell me alcohol!”
The terrified cashier just whimpers. He sees us walk and shoots Flim a pleading look. Then he gets a good look at me. His eyes go wide, his face goes pale and he faints. Sigh. You know, I’m starting to get kinda offended here.
Flam turns to see what the matter is and when he sees us, he scowls. “A lion and a lion tamer? Is that the best you could muster, brother? Go away. I’m busy,” He snorts and scrambles over the counter to get at the good booze.
“Lion tamer?” I wonder aloud. “What the hell did you do?” I ask Flim as we approach the counter.
He rounds on me and stamps a hoof in frustration. His nostrils flare threateningly. “I have informed you! An inelegant illusion, you imbecile! A half-assed hallucination, you harebrain!”
“English, motherfucker! Do you speak it!?” I yell, spraying spittle in his face. I don’t need to take this shit. It’s bad enough he can’t just tell me, but he’s gotta insult me too? I can feel my back claws shoot out reflexively and scratch the linoleum while I grind my molars.
“Oh my, yes,” Flam coos after finally claiming a bottle of Jack Daniels and taking a long pull. He sighs. “Well, what a pair you are. The both of you simmer down, would you kindly?” He takes another swig. “Gilda, my brother has been most forthcoming, I’m sure, but you must recall we can’t help our particular pleonastic peculiarities any more than you can your feathers.”
At my blank look, he clarifies. “The big words, my dear. And Flim is afflicted by alliteration as well. You’ll have to forgive us our verbosity.”
Flim nods in agreement. Flam takes another drink and nuzzles the bottle. “Flim, you must recall not everyone is as blessed with brains and beauty as ourselves. Some folks are-”
“Slow?” Flim offers.
“Simple.”
“Stupid?”
“HEY!” I roar. It comes out half word and half actual lion roar.
“Very nice roar. Quite authentic. Fits the look,” Flam praises, tapping a hoof on the floor in applause. “You can drop it though, brother.”
Flim closes his eyes and another wave of green washes over the two of us, but nothing seems to happen.
“Alright, I am this close to turning around, stealing your ride, and driving off without you assholes if one of you doesn’t explain what the fuck just happened in the past five minutes!” I threaten.
“My brother, bothered and bereft of beauty rest, bellowed until blue, then bailed from the bus to bargain for beverage. I built a basic baffle on us both so we could bring him back,” Flim explains annoyed.
I… actually think I got most of that. Just one thing though… “Baffle?”
Flam, cradling and smiling goofily at his bottle, doesn’t even look up. “He cast an illusion on you, my girl. Quick thinking, brother, but I don’t reckon a lion is going to keep a low profile.”
“We do what we must, brother,” responds Flim.
I looked like a lion? That’s kinda badass. “But wait. One of those guys out there said I was a goat, and one said a dog. What’s up with that?” I wonder.
Flam shoots his brother a questioning eyebrow and they seem to share some kind of look of understanding. “Ah! I see! It was an incomplete illusion. The first step in casting an illusion is to remove the actual image, then the second step is to replace it with what you want the mark to see. But you stopped at step one, you clever dog, you! The mark’s eyes see that something is there, but their beautiful, stupid brain doesn’t actually register anything, and subconsciously fills in something. I couldn’t have thought of better myself, Flim!”
“High praise, Flam,” Flim smiles. “But it was an act of necessity. You know I haven’t quite yet drummed up dependable deceptions.”
“Ah, but necessity is the mother of invention! I should know! It’s only too bad you can’t market such a technique.”
I let out a shrill whistle using my beak and tongue to get their attention. They both turn to me in alarm. “Shut! The fuck up! Oh my god, you guys, you’re killing me. So you,” I point at Flam, “threw a hissy fit and ran out into the open to get booze? And you,” I point at Flim, “put some kinda disguise on us?”
“Yes,” they answer to together.
I throw up my hands in exasperation. “Then just fucking say that! Jesus! I swear to god, trying to understand you two is like living with, um, I don’t know, a robot Shakespeare.” I’m still not good with metaphors. “How do you even know these steps of magic illusion theory or whatever anyway?”
They both shrug. “Half-remembered in a dream,” Flim says.
“Illusions and showmanship were his speciality back in the old world.” Flam adds.
“And contraptionology was his,” Flim continues.
“We saw a memory of right before-”
“Discord. Got it,” I cut them off. “God, you two are an annoying pain in my ass.”
“Oh? And what happened to all of that love you’ve lavished upon us lately?” Flim asks with an accusing tilt of his head.
“That was before you idiots suddenly ran out in public!” I remind them.
Flim turns his accusation to Flam. “Right. That was really rather rash, brother.”
“Relax, brother!” Flam barks back between swigs of his whiskey. “You used your jedi mind trick. No one saw who you really were.”
“Yeah, but they saw YOU!” I squawk. “And even if they didn’t see US us, or however that worked, they still saw something weird. What part of ‘low profile’ do you not fucking get!?”
“I needed to clear my head,” is his only answer.
“By getting hammered? Great plan, genius.”
“You wouldn’t understand. Leave it be,” he hisses.
“Is it…?” Flim asks with concern.
I spread my arms wide and throw my head back. “Ohhhhh! Right! Because the big, dumb griffon is too stupid to get what smart ponies talk about!
“It’s not-” Flim starts.
But I cut him off, using a growly imitation of his voice. “‘Nooo! That big idiot Gilda who’s only good for her retard strength can’t understand our big words! We’re the genius brothers! We’re soooo smart!” I start to pace back and forth in front of the counter. The brothers follow me with their eyes, looking unamused. “Who cares that Gilda is the one organizing this whole goatfuck and keeping us from getting in trouble? Let’s just throw all of that back in her face by going out of our way to be seen and then insulting her on top of it. All for some booze so we can get-”
“Whiskey dick!” Flam blurts.
What. My train of thought doesn’t really derail as much as launch itself off a bridge into a ravine and explode. “...I… uh… huh?”
Flam sets his bottle down and I can see the blush on the inside of his ears. “Please understand, Gilda,” he pleads, “it isn’t personal. You can’t comprehend what it’s like. You’re the only one in our group who’s never been male. You’ve never had one of…” He hesitates, then gestures vaguely to his crotch. “These.”
“A penis,” Flim fills in.
“Brother!” Flam gasps in humiliation.
“A phalus.”
“Brotherrrrr.”
“Family jewels.”
“BROTHER!”
“I know what a dick is!” I bark to stop the madness. I’m just about at my limit with these two and it shows when I instinctively let out a lion-like growl.
They don’t seem threatened. “Know it?” Flam asks.
“Ha!” Flim laughs.
“Unless you’ve had one, you don’t know dick!”
“Ugh. What does this have to do with anything?” I ask in disgust.
“Everything!” they shout in unison. Flam continues, “This… thing… It has a mind of its own. No matter what I do, I can’t control it.” He takes another swig.
Flim nods. “And Fran’s only had one for a scant couple of weeks,” He explains solemnly. So solemnly, he even controls his weird speech. “I’ve been male my whole life. Heck, I’ve thought with my dick most of my life, and even I’M having trouble controlling the damn thing.”
“Even Fred!” Flam cries.
“Even me!” Flim echoes.
Uck. Do I really need to hear this? I’m completely skeeved out.
“It’s rut, we think,” Flim explains.
I don’t know what that is. “Rut?”
“Rut!” Flim repeats.
They must see my confusion because Flam sets his booze down. “Do you remember when your pet dog went into heat?”
“I never had a dog,” I shrug.
“Cat?”
“I am a cat.”
The brothers slap a hoof to their faces in unison and share a look of frustration. Flim picks up the explanation, “For the love of Louise. It’s part of many mammal’s reproductive cycle. In females, it’s called heat, and in males it’s called rut.”
I tilt my head. “So… it’s like your guy period?”
I must have nailed it, because they’re struck silent.
Flam recovers first. “You… NO! It’s just characterized by increased sexual activity.”
“Horses and ponies even go into, uh, rut?”
“We don’t know!” they both answer.
Flim continues, “Probably. What else could it be? It’s… it just doesn’t stop. Nothing I do provides any relief.” He sounds so desperate. “All I can think about is women. Or rather, mares. And wanting to… do things to them. All the time. And there’s no relief. I… I can’t stop thinking about Miss Lazy.”
...He what?
Flim pipes up. “I’ve had a lifetime of learning to live with my libido, and even I’m utterly overwhelmed. Flam hasn’t. You must understand, she’s the only mare of our species we’ve happened across.”
Flam is still going. “I… keep fantasizing about her. Her mane. Her flank. I picture us engaging in-”
I narrow my eyes and growl dangerously.
“We know, we know!” Flam protests. “We wouldn’t! But…”
Flim finishes for him, “Can you fathom how frustrating it is for us to be forced fugitives with faculties focused only on fornication, and the only females aren’t feasible because they’re only fond of each other and we’re fingerless and unfit to even find relief in fondling ourselves?”
“Aww, fuck, ewww!” I shudder.
“How’s about that for dramatic irony?” Flam says ruefully.
“It’s a bona fide Greek tragedy!” Flim agrees.
“Sophocles couldn’t have written better.”
Ugh. I feel filthy. And exposed. And I want to get back to the RV. And I want to forget I heard any of this. But I can’t leave without these two walking gross-outs, so now I gotta get them moving. Time for the ol-
Flam interrupts my thoughts. Actually, he’s been talking the whole time. “-particularly insistent tonight. I tried to take my mind off it by cooking, but that got ruined. Then I attempted to sleep through it, but no one will let me sleep. No relief. I was desperate and I’ve heard tell that getting drunk hinders the ability to-”
“OKAY!” I cut him off with a clap of my talons. As I was saying, it’s time for the old Gilda charm. “Look, I’m sorry for you guys. I really am.” I put a talon on Flam’s… shoulder – is that the right word? – in what I hope is a comforting gesture. “It sucks that you’re in such a shitty situation. And I’m sorry that we’re the only two chicks and we’re both a couple of raging lesbians.” I’m not sorry at all. “But we’re all in a shitty situation. And that sucks. But we’re in it together. All we got is each other. We have to stick together. That means no running off.”
Flim nods approvingly and Flam at least has the decency to looks ashamed. He looks down at the floor. “I know. I wasn’t thinking. It’s just, my mind has always been my most powerful asset and now it’s being overtaken by my-”
“Ach!” I quickly cut him off before he can start talking about his junk again.. “Yeah, I know. Look, man, we’ll figure something out for you. Fuck, we’ll put a pillow in the microwave and tape a picture of Rainbow Dash to it if we have to. But we can’t help you if you don’t let us know and then just run off half-cocked.” I regret the phrase as soon as I said it
Flim holds up a hoof. “‘Half’ isn’t the problem. It’s more like-”
“Ba bup bup bup!” I sputter to keep him from finishing that sentence. “Point is the deck’s stacked against us. The entire goddamn world is out to get us, and we can’t let it. We gotta do everything we can to keep each other safe, like staying hidden. So please – and you know I’m serious here when I say please – in the future, don’t… uhhh...”
My eyes drift up to a spot behind in the counter near the ceiling. “FUCK, is that camera!?”
“Of course,” Flim says matter-of-factly.
“What convenience store doesn’t have cameras?” Flam asks like I’m stupid.
“You just now noticed it?” Flim follows up.
“YES!” I shriek. “It’s seen and heard EVERYTHING! What are we gonna do about it?” On top of that, the cashier is starting to move and mumble like he’s waking up.
Flam smirks like the cocky ass he is. “Don’t fret your pretty head. I had a plan for this.” His horn glows and the camera, plus another near the back of the store I didn’t know was there glow too. There’s a muted “Pff” noise and both camera fall to pieces.
After I’m done being surprised, I quirk an eyebrow at Flam. “Lemme guess. ‘half-remembered in a dream’.” He half nods. “Okay, yeah, nice one. Now let’s get the fuck out of here!” I urge.
We trot back to the RV and luckily the college kids are gone and the parking lot is deserted. When we get back, Sunny is super relieved. It looks like the kid’s been climbing the walls in worry. Bones is back asleep. Of course. And she’s… clutching a hammer? Oookay.
Flim quickly gets back into the driver's seat and gets us moving again.
I sit down in the back. Flam, still towing his bottle in his magic, plunks down next to me. He turns to me. “You know, I might just be getting drunk.” He must be because he’s slipping more and more into normal people talk. “But you’re not the asshole everyone thinks you are. You’re a pretty good friend and pretty good at this motivational thing.”
I chuckle. “I know, it’s weird right?”
“Mm,” he agrees as he takes another swig.
“So how about sharing with your ‘good friend’,” I ask, pointing at the bottle.
“Don’t push your luck.”
»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»~»
It’s been a couple hours since we got back on the road again when I get a sign.
It’s the middle of the night and the RV is quiet. Bones is sleeping. Of course. Flam is too, finally. Sunny’s doing… I don’t care... Sunny things. Flim is concentrating on driving, and I’m slouched over, riding shotgun. Car seats are weird and uncomfortable to sit on when you have four legs. We’re passing by a small town out in the middle of nowhere. Small enough that it doesn’t even have an exit and remote enough that there’s no lights along the highway.
But still, there’s enough moon to see it. It stands tall, right by the edge of the highway, on the edge of town, as these things often are. It’s probably not even the first one we’ve passed. But it’s the first one I take notice of and process, and within a couple of seconds, the idea forms. An idea that destroys the peace we finally reached when I sit up and squawk, “Hey! Dude, dude, pull over!”
The RV jerks with Flim’s surprise, and this, combined with my shouting, wakes up the rest and others. Flim looks to me with worry, but pulls over to the side of the road, and the other three make their way up behind us, muttering with worry as well.
“Wha’s the matter now?” Flam slurs, still sleepy, but obviously annoyed about being disturbed again.
“Okay. Guys. I have a great idea,” I grin. I’m real proud of this one. I’m a good friend.
Flam scowls and shakes his head like he’s holding in a “Seriously? I woke up for this?”
Flim snorts. “Really,” he deadpans. “Must be rather remarkable to require roughly running us off the road.”
I keep right on grinning. “Hey, you two should be thanking me.”
“And why, perchance, is that?” Flam grumbles.
“You know that problem you told me about earlier?” I ask sweetly.
Flim’s face drops. Flam quickly shoots a nervous glance at Bones, then frantically makes “cut it out” gestures at me, slashing his hoof across his neck. Bones doesn’t notice, seems to decide she doesn’t care about any of this, and shuffles back to bed.
“Oo! What are we talking about?” Sunny asks eagerly. “You guys know I’m great at solving problems!”
“NOTHING!” the brothers shout at the same time.
“Come ooooonnnnn. You can tell me!”
My grin widens almost evilly. “You know we’re not going to get rid of him.”
“Ut-shay. Up-ay. About-ay. At-thay,” Flim says with a fake grin for Sunny’s benefit.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Flam hisses through clenched teeth.
I toss my head to the side. “Oh, you know. It’s just, we were driving along and… Well, you guys have cash you can’t really get out to spend, right?”
“Yes?” they answer.
“And you can knock out cameras and alarms, right?”
“Yeeeesss…” they answer.
“And you’re desperate to get some relief and be able to jac-”
“YES!” they answer quickly.
“Well.” I gesture out the window with a sideways jab of my head. They finally look and see it. A sign: “ADULT MART”. It stands high above the shop it advertises, set just down a short incline from the highway.
The brothers both blush so heavily I can sort of see it through the fur on their faces. Sunny just giggles uncontrollably.
“Hey, you need some help and you can get it in there,” I offer. “You can’t go shopping during the day, but you can sneak on now, get what you need, and pay.”
They quietly consult each other real quick and then nod. “No one needs to know about this,” Flam commands seriously.
“Just quick in and out,” Flam quietly adds.
“HA! That’s what she said!” Sunny blurts out. Then he laughs and I laugh and the brothers bury their faces in their hooves.
But then they actually get moving. They dig up some cash from their bags, sneak out of the RV, and stealthily make their way toward the store. They check the perimeter and then go around the other side where we can’t see them anymore.
“So…” Sunny hums.
“Yeah.”
He smirks. “The Flim Flam brothers are going to shop for sex toys.”
I bark out a laugh. “Our lives are so fucked up.” We both share a long laugh.
The brothers come back about fifteen minutes later, plastic bags clenched in their teeth, their movement halfway between sneaking and trotting like a proud dog with a new bone. Ha! Bone.
When they’re back in the RV, they hide the bags in the back somewhere and with the most serious face I’ve ever seen on anyone ever, Flam commands, “Speak of this to no one.”
My shit-eating grin returns. “Sure. On one condition.”
“And that is?”
“How about sharing with your good friend?”
/_‾_‾_‾TO BE
CONTINUED‾_‾_‾_〉
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Oh my god. It updated.
This is too awesome. When I saw this in my inbox I was so excited!
Thank you so much for the update. :3
5980542
Wow, I'm happy you're so excited. I only wish I could have given you a better update.
It's good to see more of this story again.
5980856 Really? The A/N? Oh, was it the spoilers?
A new chapter? Senpai finally noticed us!
40.media.tumblr.com/556e361ad3dce277ec6ac467508b72cf/tumblr_n9dv3g3aqx1sptelvo1_500.jpg
Now to wait another year for the next one
5981340 A year? Don't be silly. It'll be two.
I'm senpai? Wow, it's weird being the senapi-ee rather than the senpai-er. Where is that image from? I can totally see that being a humanized Gilda (not Gayle) being forced to dress up in that crazy outfit for some anime shenanigans. Just a little purple in the bangs maybe slightly beefier and it'd be perfect.
5981544 I have no idea what it's from. I just typed 'notice me senpai' into google images, and picked something at random, but now that you mention it, it does kinda look like a skinny humanized Gilda.
Nice. Tsundere Gilda is my waifu. At BC last year, I got an artist to do a a 5 dollar doodle of tsundere Gilda, and I've been meaning to scan in and throw some color on it for funsies.
5980655 Any update to this story is good enough for me! (Within reason, of course :P )
5982115
You don't know how tempted I was to just now add a new chapter that only said "Good enough for FtDLulz."
5982175 I would have laughed till I died if you had done that! :3
So good to see you back, good sir! I'll need to get to work on my 5s stories again as well!
Lovely little venture that all was and worth the wait.
The Flimflams and their acceptance of accelerated altercation of alliterative adjectives!
5994637 Oh god, it's spreading!
At three am my alliteration skills are limited to Daring Do and the Dastardly Dong
...good chapter
I really enjoyed your story and I hope you get to explore more of Gilda, the Flim Flam Brothers, Sunny Daze, and Lazy Bones'. Perhaps with Silver Shill meeting Flim and Flam, or Gilda having memories of her Junior Speeders flight camp with Rainbow Dash.
6014825 Thanks for reading, and I'm glad you're enjoying the story. Unfortunately, I don't have any plans for Silver Shill to play any part. He was pretty much a very minor one-off character, who had basically no character other than "he worked for Flim and Flam and regrets it". I didn't care much for him or even his design. But having said that, the next interlude is about Flim and Flam before they were cursed, so I guess Shill could get a mention. As for Gilda's memories of meeting Dash, there's the inherent problem of her not having access to her memories. But I have a pretty good long story in kind, including a sequel, so there's plenty of chance for there to be SOME memory creep. And now that, thanks to the new episode, we actually HAVE some of Gilda's memories, that'd be a shoo-in to be in there. Except that it kind of contradicts my now non-canon Gilda backstory. In mine, she was older when she went to camp, and it was out of defiance, rather than the timid little kid we saw. I don't know, we'll have to see.
6015052 Great to hear.
Wow, season 5 has a lot of fan fiction writers enjoying finding out more of these new characters. Even in season 3 with introducing Babs Seed as a cousin to Apple Bloom for an episode about bullying and then bringing her back for a family reunion is very nice. There is even a mention of Babs getting her Cutie Mark in Gloom and Bloom.
I really liked Flim and Flam in the Super Speedy Squeezy Cider 6000 episode. Their songs tune is from the Music Man's You Got Trouble. It's about these con men who attempt to sell their idea of having the town have a band instead of a proposed billiards/Pool hall. Even the Miracle Curative Tonic song from Leap of Faith (where Silver Shill is introduced as a lackey of Flim and Flam who eventually discovers he is being lied to and gives Applejack the bit he obtained from a customer. He even claims he made the tonic for flim and flam who then had him planted in the crowd in disguise to pretend to be cured. He later sells his disguises at the Rainbow Falls Trader's Exchange (maybe that's where Flim and Flam encounter Discord at).
6015084 Yeah, I've seen The Music Man. It's alright I guess, but I'm not really a fan of showtunes or musicals in general. And Shill is in Trade Ya? I don't recall seeing him in that episode.
I just checked. He's not.
6015110 Silver shill only appeared as a key bearer for applejack in A leap of faith. at the end of Twilight's Kingdom, he appears again, along with the various disguises and props used to make himself look like a different pony (the overalls, glasses, hat, and crutches for his part in flim and flam's demonstration on their tonic). The place where he was at was the trader's exchange at rainbow falls.
Ah, okay.
6125909 I know. It's MAAAAGIC.
6230586
No, everything I wrote for Gilda, I wrote two years ago, about a month after I started the story. I fully admit that when I started, I had no plan and didn't know what I was doing. But about when I started Chapter 4 is when I fully got my shit together and planned out my characters and their backstories. So yeah, I called a Gilda redemption. I mean, I never said, "Just you watch. Gilda will come back on the show for real and they'll redeem her." I just wrote what I would have liked to see happen. It wasn't even really close to what happened on the show other than it involved Dash traveling to Gilda's home in season 5 and them making up. Everything else, all the other details are completely different. If I was going to go back and edit the ENTIRE story, I'd make it the actual show canon, not something with only the faintest of similarities. And holy hell, I'm not gonna go back and change something so big. To change my entire backstory would be insane and completely change my entire story. My backstory informs everything about my characters and their motivations and their personalities. Gilda is this wonderful contradiction of a girl, with both a superiority and inferiority complex, simultaneously arrogant in her confidence in herself and deeply insecure in her own skin. That, for old Gilda, stems from her family back in Grifinland, particularly her mother, and for new Gilda (Gayle), also from her mother. They both were outsiders, with interests and outlooks different from their mother's. They both had responsibilites and expectations foisted upon them that they had no interest in following through on. Then, due to their harsh nature, only ever managed to make one friend, who they had a romantic interest in, which they were then torn away from, leaving them broken and unable to full connect with others. And it takes them being completely torn down and built back up, and being put in a position of leadership where they're responsible for others well being for them to finally find their purpose and become confortable with themselves. Everything Gilda does and how she acts is informed by this. So to completely change her backstory would completely change this character. That just isn't conceivable.
6015052 I really liked the episode The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie are summoned to Griffonstone by the map in Twilight's castle and Gilda meets the ponies. The introduce Greta, a female griffon Gilda offers her Griffon scones to, and Gilda's grandpa Gruff, who helps explain some Griffon history, including the Idol of Boreas, which was believed to be lost until Gilda finds it in the Abysmal Abyss. The true treasure missing was friendship.
Gilda in the new episode was making her famous griffon scones and offered Pinkie Pie one for some bits. Grandpa Gruff offers to tell the tale of the Idol of Boreas for some bits, and the Griffon shopkeeper requests Rainbow Dash pay for her items she wants for her adventure (rope, a grappling hook, and a guide to the abyss).
Keep up the good work and hope to see more of Gilda and her adventures with the Flim Flam Brothers, Lazy Bones, and Sunny.
6334051 I... what? Huh? Why did you summarize that episode in response to my comment? I know how the episode went. I saw it. You don't need to recap it for me, especially when it's completely out of left field here.
6666545
Heh heh. That was actually a reference to the famous Nixon Oval Office recordings.
So should i come back on the 16th of may for an update?
6855537 lol, probably. I think about the story all the time and I'm constantly chastising myself for not working on it, but that doesn't get me actually off my ass and working on it. I have slightly updated the latest chapter, but I planned to upload it whenever I wrote the next interlude. It wasn't much. I wanted to change and extend the conversation in the store, but the difference ended up being negligible. Also, an extra scene on the end.
7020364
Heh, that's our Gilda!
stream1.gifsoup.com/view4/3616029/that-s-spike-o.gif