xjuggerscrapsx

by xjuggernaughtx

A Story About Gilda

Ideas

Gilda is just leaving Ponyville after getting kicked out of Pinkie’s party. She’s flying through the clouds, fuming. Complaining loudly, she’s lashing out at the clouds.

Flying over the Everfree Forest, the weather turns nasty. Gilda is forced to shelter in a nearby treehouse. She’s surprised to find it occupied by an earth pony with a withered leg. He tries to hint that she ought to leave, but it’s storming pretty badly by that point. Gilda is soaking wet and weather-blown, so he eventually give in.

Gilda doesn’t really appreciate the nuts and grains he has around to eat, and her callousness about it grates on him. They retreat to opposite sides of the house and glare at each other. Finally, Gilda asks him what he’s doing on here anyway.

After some verbal sparring, the stallion tells her that he and his wife had always lived just inside the Everfree Forest. Everypony had told them that it was too dangerous, but they loved the freedom and wildness of it. But one day, a huge beast came through. It flattened their house and knocked him unconscious. When he came to, his wife was gone, and his leg had been mauled. He’s been scouring the Everfree Forest ever since.

Gilda asks him why he doesn’t just go get help, and he replies that nopony was there to help him before. They’d been against his family coming to their town. They’d fought against him marrying his wife. They’d refused to help them build their home. Nopony wanted to help him, and he didn’t want them around anyway.

They settle down to sleep, but Gilda is having a hard time. The stallion tosses and turns in his sleep, his leg never seeming to find a comfortable spot. In addition, Gilda’s treatment at the hands of the Ponyville residents is still bothering her, and this stallion’s story just reinforced that below all this friendship garbage, they are just as ugly as any other culture.

Morning comes and the stallion is pleased to find that the storm has passed. Gilda is kind of dragging her feet about leaving. She plays it off as being tired, but eventually drops ever more obvious hints that they should hunt the monster down. The stallion doesn’t want her help, but there’s not much he can do about her hanging around. (Possibly she can leave and then come back, maybe even a few times)

He finally relents when Gilda brings up how lame it is that he isn’t doing everything he can to find his wife. He’s got help right here, but he’s trying to send it away. Grudgingly, he agrees, and he digs out a battered map. He’s sectioned it off, and there are large X marks in several of the boxes. He explains that those are areas he’s fully explored.

Gilda offers to take the map and fly over the Everfree Forest, hoping to find some kind of clue. As she goes up to scout, she has a discussion with herself as to why she’s doing this in the first place. She tries to convince herself that she’s just bored.

Finding nothing, she hunts for a bit, then flies back to the cave. This grosses out the stallion, which she is halfway enjoying and halfway ashamed of. They get into a conversation about poniness and griffon-ness. It eventually comes out that Gilda is hanging out with ponies a lot now because they’ve all but banished her from the griffon lands. Her time with ponies has changed her in ways that her society doesn’t support, but she’s not pony enough for the ponies. She was hoping to rekindle her friendship with Rainbow Dash, since the pegasus was a real wild child, but she’s apparently changed and gotten new, better friends.

The stallion is somewhat taken aback by all of this. He wasn’t expecting sudden emotional vulnerability, and Gilda takes it badly. They argue, but finally come to an understanding. Exhausted, they sleep.

They get up and start to search again, but as more of a team this time. Gilda flies back and forth, scouting from the air, then returning frequently to guide the stallion away from obvious dead ends. They search all day, but find nothing.

Back in the cave, Gilda wants to know how long this has been going on and how he can stand it. The stallion doesn’t know exactly, but it’s been several months at least. Gilda tells him to give it up because his wife is dead, but is set back on her heels when he flies into a rage at the idea. He unloads on her about being a quitter, and for running away from tough situations instead of fighting. She fires back that she knows ten times more about hardship and fighting than he ever will. Her whole life has been a constant struggle since griffons are a meritocracy. You have to constantly prove yourself. The old and the weak are discarded, and a griffon that doesn’t toe the line is sent out on suicide missions until she eats it or leaves.

It’s the stallion’s turn to be nonplussed. He’d thought the ponies in his town were rough, but it’s nothing compared with being a griffon. Still, he’s not about to give in when his wife could still be out there. If she doesn’t want to help him, that fine, but he’s going out tomorrow. Gilda shrugs it off and goes to sleep.

The next day, they continue their search, working even more closely this time, but Gilda finds a trail of broken trees in the forest. Following it, they come to a gigantic tree, and beneath its twining roots, a cave.

Author's Note:

I was going to write this, but then the Gilda episode came out and kind of made it moot.