Rainbow Dash's Unstoppable Ego

by MagicS

Snow Griffons V

She had found one of the hidden patios of the castle. It was below the “ground” floor where the dining room was, carved into a corner of the castle where two walls met and overlooking the mountain range to the east. Nothing was out here but a single small table and a chair. Would’ve made a decent place to chillax if it wasn’t so cold.

Now that she was really looking for the first time too she saw that the sky was much clearer today. There were less clouds below these mountain peaks blocking off her view of the rest of the mountain range and the mountains that weren’t as tall as these ones the griffons built their homes on. Even the fog at the very bottom along the ground had cleared up some. Only Rainbow Dash was now too high to really make out anything of note down there.

“I wonder how tall this mountain is?” Rainbow asked herself as she looked down the near vertical side of the mountain. “Not as tall as Mt. Everhoof, definitely, but it might be taller than Canterlot Mountain.”

The reason why this little patio wasn’t covered or buried in snow was because there was an overhang directly above it to keep this spot bare. If she maybe brought a blanket out here it would be alright… especially with a Daring Do book or something. But there wasn’t anything like that here either. Although now that she thought about it, Glenn had said that Galia didn’t approve of stories like that but were the other Houses the same? Maybe some of their leaders had libraries with grand adventure novels filling the shelves? She could check that out later too.

Rainbow Dash stopped looking out and admiring the scenery for now, she had other stuff to do, and went back inside the castle. What she had learned was there was indeed a lot of extra little basement levels and rooms dug into the mountain, there were apparently a ton of passages and places mostly just servants went. If she ever got bored enough she could explore them all. But at this time she had actually found all the stuff she really wanted to find in this castle. The kitchens, the library, the bathhouse, she had even had a real conversation with some of those kids and got to know them for real. More or less. There were just those two other griffon guys she hadn’t run into again and gotten the names of. Maybe they weren’t even in the castle right now anymore.

She didn’t give it too much more thought as she flew up through the castle (briefly stopping at the kitchens again to get a glass of water) all the way to the front door. She wanted to check out the small courtyard and some of the towers and walls. Pushing on the heavy wooden door she buzzed out onto the stone pathway and took a look up at the sky. She could see the sun directly this time, with only a few clouds blocking the way, and the wind wasn’t so bad either.

It was probably the closest to “nice” this part of the world got.

With a flap of her wings she flew up on top of the wall over the front door and surveyed the castle. The outer walls and all the little crenelations had been cleared of snow, as had the steps leading up from the edge of the cliff. She did however spy some servants currently knocking icicles off the undersides of some of the towers. Must be for safety. You sure as hay wouldn’t want to be walking underneath one of those when it fell.

“Am I done with this castle?” Rainbow Dash pondered. It was kind of cool to look at but there wasn’t really much left to see.

She turned around and looked north to the multiple mountains and the buildings on them. She could see the other castles out there. “Guess I’ll go check the rest out.”

“If that’s what you’re planning on doing would you care to join us?” A voice asked from above.

Rainbow Dash looked up to see two griffons descending to her from the sky. “Oh, so that’s where you two have been.”

The last two teenage griffons whose names she did not yet know landed on the roof with her. One the jerk from yesterday and the other one she hadn’t spoken to yet at all. Rainbow Dash looked between the both of them and raised a questioning eyebrow, both were grinning at her in return. Finally the one who had spoken coughed into his talon and strode up to her.

“Yes, now allow us to introduce ourselves to you, since yesterday was quite the chilly reception we gave you,” he said.

“One way of putting it,” Rainbow Dash snorted.

The griffon shrugged. “Regardless, introductions are in order. My name is Glaive and my younger brother here is Gordon.”

“Charmed,” Gordon gave her a small nod.

“Likewise,” Rainbow nodded back to him, though she didn’t smile or anything. Her eyes then turned back to Glaive. “And you asked me if I wanted to join you for something?”

“That is correct!” Glaive pointed up a single talon. “You see my brother and I were going to fly over to House Lightfeather and meet with the younger brothers of the heir to the House. We were wondering if you would care to join us?”

Rainbow Dash flatly stared at him for a moment. “That’s not all, is there?”

Glaive grinned. “Nope! I’m not sure if you’re aware of this yet but we, we as in every young group of heirs and griffons among the Houses, make a game of insulting and belittling each other and each other’s Houses. Some of us will meet up and lob the most creative and even made up insults that we can back at each other, whoever runs out of insults or can’t think of anything fast enough, or if your insult is just bad, loses!”

“Glenn did mention something like that...” Rainbow said.

“Ah, so you already met our other brother as well? Normally he would come along too but he said he was busy,” Glaive said.

“This is essentially our favorite way of killing time and having fun up here, I think you’ll be able to enjoy yourself somewhat,” Gordon said.

“I guess. I didn’t have any other real plans aside from finding you two and learning your names anyways,” Rainbow Dash told them. “And that part’s done so whatever.”

“Fantastic! Let’s go then!” Glaive said and patted her roughly on the back before shooting off the roof and into the air. Gordon gave her a wry smile and followed along.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and zoomed up after the both of them, Glaive waving at her before he started heading in the direction of another castle to the northwest. She was no stranger to trading barbs and insults, the only difference being that it was usually just friendly playing between her and Applejack, so this didn’t sound like the worst thing in the world to do. And she’d at least be able to partially mark off another thing she wanted to do in going to see what some of the other Houses and castles were like. She was wondering too if Glaive and Gordon were planning to show her off as kind of a new special guest they had at their House and brag about her to the others. Alykon, and Aurora before her, had both wanted to do something similar to that. Rainbow didn’t mind being shown off and fawned over so she wouldn’t care. In fact she’d probably be annoyed if a big deal wasn’t made out of her.

“So you said it was House Lightfeather?” Rainbow Dash asked as she flew up beside Glaive and Gordon.

“That’s right, their castle is the closest to ours, we’re always messing around with each other,” Glaive answered.

“I wonder if they’ll be surprised to see you with us?” Gordon wondered, putting voice to some of Rainbow Dash’s own thoughts.

She shrugged. “I dunno. Galia said she was writing to all of the other Houses about me. Maybe they’ve already heard.”

“It’s possible, I don’t think they’ll care much either way, same as us.” Glaive said.

“You guys seriously don’t care at all that I’ve come from really far south and gone through a ton of stuff to get here? And how I’ve been to Griffonstone and know a bunch of griffons from it?” She asked.

“It doesn’t really interest me,” Glaive shrugged.

“Really seems like it should. I mean, isn’t one of you supposed to be the head of your House eventually? Shouldn’t you know about this stuff like Galia does? My friend back home is a Princess and she’s always put a ton of effort and work into studying and learning everything she could… although to be fair she did that before she became a Princess too,” Rainbow said.

“It has to end up being either me, Gordon, or Glenn so who cares?” Glaive replied. “I don’t really care too much about having the position anyways and it’s not very important. We’ll just keep living the same sorts of lives griffons have up here for centuries.”

Gordon coughed to get Rainbow Dash’s attention. “He is more or less correct. While it’s somewhat embarrassing it’s not like not having a leader puts us in any danger. No one fights up here, there’s no sort of warfare, no seizing of property, we party and eat nice food and marry fitting griffons from other Houses. That’s it.”

“I think I’d go crazy if I lived here then. It sounds really… well, boring, sorry.” Rainbow Dash said.

“I for one enjoy having to do nothing while getting to dine on exquisite food and insulting my obnoxious neighbors,” Glaive grinned.

“And I can think of worse ways to live,” Gordon added.

“Whatever,” Rainbow shrugged. “Not like I really know what it’s like to live here. Don’t know what things would be like for me if I was expected to, like, become a Princess too one day or something.” She shuddered at the thought. “That’d just be weird.”

After that the three of them flew at a leisurely pace towards the next castle, with Rainbow Dash looking around at any other mountains and buildings they passed up here among the clouds. Occasionally she spotted other griffons out flying and some in the buildings and homes that weren’t one of the castles of the five main Houses. When they got closer to the Lightfeather’s castle, Rainbow could see some specks out flying around it. Once they had gotten a little closer the specks also seemed to notice them and flew out to meet them halfway.

“And there’s our welcoming party,” Glaive said.

Rainbow Dash watched as three griffons from House Lightfeather came to meet them in the air. All of them were guys as far as she could tell and they came to a halt right before Rainbow, Glaive, and Gordon with smiles on their faces.

“I say, is this two of the louts from House Stormwing come out along with their no name guest?” The one in the middle asked.

Before Rainbow Dash could respond to that, Gordon put a talon in front of her and Glaive spoke up instead.

“And is this the three nincompoops of House Lightfeather, so disregarded by their elder brother that they have nothing better to do but come out here and debase themselves?”

The Lightfeather on the right chortled and raised a disapproving eyebrow at Glaive and them. “What a poor showing from the poorest and most crass of all Houses. How unsightly, how pathetic that one brother couldn’t even bother to come out here. If we’re so low then what does that say about the family that can’t even muster three actual family members together to meet us? As much of an embarrassment as Gambien was surely it would be better if he was around?”

“My what a wordy response, did my brother’s words cut so deep?” Gordon smirked. “Well that’s to be expected by those with such an inferiority complex, knowing you don’t even have a chance to become leader of your house because of how much smarter and better your brother is at everything.”

“And is that Gordon speaking?” The last of the Lightfeather’s on the left said. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening, just like everyone else when you open your mouth. Even your own family.”

The eyes of the griffons now turned to Rainbow Dash.

“Oh!” She pointed to herself. “It’s my turn?”

“Yes,” Glaive nodded.

“Uh, okay… one second,” Rainbow Dash bit her lip and looked at the three from House Lightfeather. What was something she could say about them? “Sooo, you guys spend your time insulting each other for sport, but that’s the best you’ve got? I’ve heard better insults from a parrot. Is that the best House Lightfeather can do? Oh, wait, I know it’s not cause you’re not the best from House Lightfeather, are you?”

Gordon and Glaive both chuckled and clapped for her while even the three griffons from Lightfeather shot her appraising grins.

“My, my, the flying rainbow speaks with strong words. Not half as strong as those garish colors that make up her mane and tail, but strong nonetheless,” the center one said again to her before flicking his eyes over to Glaive and Gordon. “Perhaps she should just replace the both of you when it comes to volleying insults? Sounds like she’d do a better job than you two guttersnipes.”

“You feather-brained, squirrel-chasing, snow-eating, dullards, you wouldn’t know what a good insult is if it came up and bit your pompous, fat, bottoms,” Glaive taunted. It seems cleverness was being thrown out for basic name calling.

“The more you open your mouth the more I’m amazed at how many words your pea-brained, sun-addled, clipped-wing, up-side down sleeping, mountain-sick, dirt-loving, tree bark-sniffing self can put together!” The next Lightfeather responded.

Gordon snorted and shook his head. “House Lightfeather itself must be weeping to have the three of you as part of its family. I estimate that if we give it just one year you’ll be a bigger embarrassment to your House than Gambien is to ours.”

“Says one of the heirs mocked by every griffon in the city,” the last Lightfeather started again. “A group of losers, bug-eating, cliff-clinging, lead-winged, rain-scared, fried-chicken, losers!”

Now it was Rainbow Dash’s turn again. She smiled before she let loose. “Boy I’m not impressed with these insults. I hope the other House’s have people who know how to throw around insults for real, you Lightfeather guys are just a bunch of lame-tongued, beak-tied, wobbly-winged, talonless, talentless, joke-brained, hole-in-the-ground, mole-envying lame-os!”

It went on and on for quite a bit after that. Rainbow Dash had numerous turns to volley insults of her own and she picked up quite a few choice good ones from the others. This may not have been an adventure per se but she was certainly enjoying herself, she had to admit. Maybe she’d accompany them again when they went to trade insults with the next House. For the rest of the day there was still some other stuff she wanted to do and explore.

Comments

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

Great chapter!

[StarzGecko]

“Whatever,” Rainbow shrugged. “Not like I really know what it’s like to live here. Don’t know what things would be like for me if I was expected to, like, become a Princess too one day or something.” She shuddered at the thought. “That’d just be weird .”

Maybe she should become a Princess on her journey for a bit