• Published 26th Feb 2014
  • 1,396 Views, 10 Comments

Gimme Sympathy - Closer-To-The-Sun



Gilda wants to apologize for how she has acted in the past.

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Gimme Sympathy

“I don’t know about this, Dash….”

“Come on, you’re the one that wanted to do this to begin with.”

“I know….I’m just having second thoughts about it is all….”

“Are you getting scared on me? What are you, a chicken or a griffin?”

With a sigh, she replied, “Well, a griffin obviously, but that’s not what I mean-“

Rainbow Dash interrupted loudly, “Then start acting like one, Gilda! I’ve never seen you like this before.”

Gilda looked downward as the continued to move along the sun-drenched dirt path, “I’ve never really done anything like this before.”

“And now you’re getting scared about it last minute?” Rainbow asked, looking at her friend.

The griffin simply nodded, the feathers on her head flopping around.

“You don’t have anything to worry about, Gilda,” Rainbow said as she looked back at path before them, “I think it’s great you want to apologize to everypony. And I’m sure everypony else will think it’s great, too.”

“But the damage I did was….pretty big. What I said to Pinkie Pie….and to Fluttershy…..I just really messed up,” Gilda sighed heavily.

“Yeah, so? It doesn’t mean you shouldn't try to repair the damage you’ve done. We all do dumb things from time to time,” the blue pegasus comforted the griffin, “And it’s always good to have friends to help you out with that.”

As she continued to trot along the path, Gilda commented, “I just hope they give me a second chance.”

Dash smiled and gave a reassuring pat on Gilda’s back, “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

--------------------------

Further up the road, under the shade of a large tree, two ponies sat and chatted away. One was a pink mare with a frazzled pink mane and tail that both seemed to have a mind of their own, and the other was a yellow pegasus with a long, orderly pink mane that seemed to have the upmost care put into it daily. Between them was a wicker basket that held a multiple of snacks and sweets. The dialogue between the two was light and occupied them both.

“Then it turned out, Gummy was stuck in my mane the whole time! It was crazy! I asked him how long he had been trapped in my mane and he told me he had been trapped in there for at least three days! Can you believe that, Fluttershy?” the excited pink pony explained.

“Three days? Oh my, how did you figure that out?” Fluttershy asked.

“Well, duh! He told me! Gummy is such a chatterbox once you get him started! Like one time we were talking about cupcakes and muffins, trying to figure out which one was better, and he literally didn’t stop talking about why cupcakes were superior!” Pinkie continued.

Fluttershy tilted her head slightly to the side, “I didn’t know you spoke alligator, Pinkie Pie.”

“I don’t!” she replied with a happy expression across her face.

Unsure how to respond to her friend, Fluttershy simply gave a pleasant smile.

“Anyway, since my little Gummy had been stuck in there for three days straight, I figured it was time to comb my mane, but wouldn’t you know it, the comb got stuck in there! If I shake my head hard enough I can feel it moving in there!” Pinkie started to violently shake her head to demonstrate the fact.

A shouted call interrupted the conversation between the two, “Hey!”

Both Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy turned to the source to see a familiar blue pegasus with a multi-colored mane trotting closer to them.

“Oh, it’s Rainbow Dash! Hiya Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie Pie waved her hoof up in the air enthusiastically.

“Hello, Rainbow. How are you doing?” Fluttershy meekly asked.

The blue pony nodded, “Good, doing good. But I’m not here for me.”

“Huh? What ‘chu talkin’ ‘bout, Rainbow Dash?” Pinkie Pie squinted her face.

“Instead, I’m here to support a friend and what she has to say,” Rainbow stepped to the side, revealing that Gilda was standing behind her. The griffin was looking down at the ground on the other side of her talons, unable to make eye contact with the ponies in front of her.

Both of the mares gasped, seeing an individual they had not seen in a long time.

“G-Gilda? Oh dear….” Fluttershy nervously spoke, noticeably shaking.

Pinkie Pie was still gasping. She continued until she literally had no more room in her lungs. After exhaling, she finally directed her attention back to the griffin, “What are you doing here, Gilda? I assure you that I have no more tricks or anything planned for you, I promise!” her voice was panicky.

Still looking at the ground, Gilda spoke up, “I’m not here to be mean or anything. I’m here to say….sorry.”

Both Pinkie and Fluttershy paused as they heard the statement. It was visibly apparent that both were puzzled.

“Come again?” the yellow pegasus spoke up, still shaking slightly.

Lifting her head up slightly, Gilda saw Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy looking straight at her. Swallowing, she continued, “I want to say sorry for what I said to the two of you, I’m sorry for hurting you….”

“You’re….sorry?” Pinkie Pie asked.

Gilda nodded, “Yes. It took me some time to really realize it, but….I now know I was a complete jerk to you two. I had no right or reason to act the way I did. Since then, I’ve been trying to better myself, honest,” Seeing that both of them were silent, the griffin hung her head and closed her eyes, “I’m not expecting you two of forgive me or give me any sympathy for what I did. I just want you both to realize what I did was a mistake and I missed out on becoming friends with two great ponies.”

As she was about to turn around and trot away, Gilda was stopped by a warm feeling. She opened her eyes to see that Fluttershy had stood up and given her a hug. Despite squirming a bit, Gilda didn’t move or try to escape.

Finally, Fluttershy spoke from, “It’s okay, Gilda, I forgive you.”

Flustered, Gilda asked, “But….why? I was nothing but a jerk to you and those little ducklings.”

“I know,” Fluttershy stated, closing her eyes as she continued the hug, “but I understand that it’s not easy to do something like this, asking for forgiveness. We all make mistakes, but we can always try to fix them. And it makes me really happy that you want to.”

Joining in with a hug as well, Pinkie Pie wrapped her limbs around both Gilda and Fluttershy “And I like the new you! You’re so much more nicer than before and I’m sure that means you’re much more funner than before!”

Still standing to the side, Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but chuckle as she watched Pinkie Pie hug on to Gilda.

“Even after doing all I could to get rid of you?” the griffin looked over to the pink pony as she continued to hug.

“Of course! I just wanted to be your newest friend! And now that you want to be, it makes me so super-duper happy!” Pinkie Pie mused and giggled.

“Th-Thank you….thank you for forgiving me….” Gilda finally hugged the two ponies back.

Taking a step forward to the group hug, Rainbow Dash joined in with a comment, “That’s what friends are for.”

As the four stopped their hug, Gilda raised a talon to her eye to wipe away a would-be tear. As she was lowering it, however, it was stopped by Pinkie Pie’s hoof, which pulled her along as she started to gallop off.

Excitedly, the pink pony exclaimed, “Come on, Gilda! There’s still all of Ponyville that needs to see the new you!”

END

Comments ( 10 )

Ahhh.... you smell that? It's the sweet smell of a Gilda redemption fic, oh how I love it.... may I put this in my group?

4005286 Many Thanks :pinkiehappy:

I'm actually gonna do a Gilda story later on,

I'd also love to see this made into a full-blown story, it definitely kept me interested.

4005370 Well, this is just a little one-shot for a contest. However, I will hopefully have another fic similar to this up by the end of the week for the same contest.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Admittedly, I can believe the ponies outright forgiving Gilda if she appears contrite. That's what ponies do. But as a reader, all I have to go on as far as the veracity of her apology is an assertion that she's been "working to better herself". I have to take her word for it, and I'm not coming from an angle where I'm ready to do that yet.

That's why the story doesn't work for me, but I did want to credit you for that little conversation between Pinkie and Fluttershy. It doesn't really add anything to the story, but the bit about Pinkie speaking alligator was actually pretty funny. Keep writing!

My comments are always my personal experience with the subject of the story, and they're always kind of long, so, I apologise to anyone who's reading this comment for an opinion on the story, the story was good


Even if what Gilda did in the episode (due to its themes it's one of the ones I haven't watched more than once, along with the Bab Seeds episode) was just, to her, "harmful pranking", it can still be considered bullying. I'm not very proud of this, and I aint't writing this to be forgiven, but I did have some experience on both of those sides.

You know how it normally starts around middle-school, beggining of high school (5th grade or 7th grade?), to me it started out pretty early, ealier than the cmc, in fact.

I had been receiving psychological treatment since I was about 4 (this one was a different type of psychological treatment, it was long before I tried to harm myself, or anything,) and all I did was draw, and talk about my day, because, really, what else is a 6 year old going to do?

The first school I went to was a regular public school,but one that had great conditions, it had a library, with vhs tapes and the internet (we weren't allowed to surf the internet without help, although as a first grader I didn't really could, I mean, writing and all), and books, tons and tons of books.. The local pedo-psychiatrist came once a week and I was dismissed for about 30 minutes. Well, apparently I had been sorted out as a "gifted" student (unfortunately not in mutant powers), and they were testing for the autism spectrum (at the time, still asperger's).

Anywho word got out around that I was getting special treatment.....(as per law I had the option to leave for some time a day, if I was feeling angsty, and I was offered activities like chess, that were only avaliable to third and fourth graders, on the first year). I guess now I can see how douchey of me that I was being given special treatment. Even if I didn't choose to use it all that often.

This big kid, a fourth grader that was aged 13 (he had flunked 3 times already), twice as big as me, and with a very potent voice, picked me up by my pants (my jeans, which I didn't fit all that well so ahem, my....non mentionables started to get pressioned) and put me in a trash can. Like, literally, picked me up, and threw me there. Thankfully I was pretty small (I was about one meters and 12 centimeters at the time), so I fit there. It was full of peels, old milk and juice boxes (that we took for snacking during recess, from school) that still had some drops left to squirt on me, amd I was covered in ants.

I never did reveal this to anyone, no matter how many times my councelour asked me if I was "Alright"...

I think it certanly didn't help me with my anger problems later down in life.

I changed schools in the third grade, and I started hanging out with the girls, for two reasons, one they were generally more gossipy and less violent (I'm not being sexist, that was how it was in my school at the time), two, if something happened to me, or I didn't show up, one of them would go and tell a teacher or anyone about it.

That worked out pretty weel, until I got to fifth grade, there were those old broken down shacks, that were once used for pratical classes, but, seeing as the government had stopped those (due to safety issues), they had been slowly decaying. They were wooden, and looked like those big ship containers. Some guys started to pull of already piercing out pieces of wood, getting the fiber hand in a bag (don't ask me how they didn't get itchy, I don't freaking know) and then one of them distracted you with small talk, while the other run to your back and dropped the contents of the bag inside of your t-shirt.

Fiber glass is a really irritable substance, and it caused me several allergies, I had to be rushed out to the Pe zone, and I took 3 showers, but I still could feel the damn fibers, little thorns, digging into my skin.

And this is like Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking, but my favorite t-shirt (which had been given me by a friend before she moved out of the area, and which I didn't find until I was in facebook at least about 5 years later, that pissed me off)

The next year I started verbally insulting those who insulted or beat up other kids, like a dark knight, or somehting, I rarely got into trouble, but I did sure receive pushes and insults back...one time I even got hit in the head by the stone pavment, one of them jumped on my head.

Seventh and eight years I was actually so beaten up, I weekly had to go home with my nose bleeding, my eyes swollen, my body full of dark spots. It was serious. A sort of elite task force was formed to protect me (I'm not joking), they were actually the kids of the secundary (like 11th-12th) grade, social care and studies class, who were supposed to keep an eye out for me.

They did their best but the high school classes were divided, up to ninth grade on one side, tenth to 12th on the other, and when they arrived near me, I was already beaten up.

After I was thrown down a third story flack of stairs (Not in the space between them, that was a hole, as the stairs had sort of a snail like format), falling down step after step after, until I got to the curve (snail starway), and hit the wall, I decided to fight back.

It was not the best decision and I regret it, I was thanfully unhurt, if a little sore, and so I packed heat....with golf balls. Yeah, silly isn't it?

Now, do not try this at home, kids, but golf balls were heavy and small enough to use. Once they started approaching I'd get the balls out of my pocket and hit them with them.

I started getting on more trouble than them, which was unfair, but, I was technically using a weapon. Yeah. I had 56 incidents registered, and 48 times where I was kicked out.

And then next year that stuff happened.....suicide and all.

And then, now I'm one of the worst students of the school, since I. instead of hitting someone, or throwing their soda can to their shirts (full, but he was teasing me), I just storm off. We're back to the first grade times where if I'm feeling bad, I can leave, although now they have to mark me a fault, since, well....that regulation was removed, with the new government, which had a clear focus on "education".

I don't ask anyone to forgive me, I'm a bad man-boy-person, whatever. And I admire the way they so easily forgive, it's a kid show, of course they're going to do it (if we're staying faithful to the characters), but still.

I greatly enjoyed it, and I'm sorry, for two days now I've been telling you the shittiest times of my life, sorry.

As for my advice to kids suffering from bullying.

Have you seen the episode with babs? Yeah, pretty much that, I know situations wildly vary but it's always a good idea to tell someone you trust. And never swoop down to their level, or any sort of reason and probability of everything going down smoothly with you getting taken care off, goes down the drain. They don't care who hit first, if you hit back, you're equally as bad.

(It's unfair, but hey)

Thank you for writing this
i

Anybody else think that this story'd make a good episode?

This is actually pretty nice story and kind of wish that would have happen in season 5 episode The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone when Gilda did go back to Ponyville to apologize to Fluttershy I mean she did apologize to Rainbow dash and Pinkie Pie but still this was a pretty good story keep up the good work

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