Straight Outta Griffonstone
Twilight was, initially, just surprised to discover that Innsbeak even had a jail. It was located midway up the big hill in the center of town, right on the dividing line between what passed for the ‘respectable’ neighborhood and the slums- that made her very glad indeed Rainbow Dash was accompanying her.
It was a low, long building constructed entirely of gray stone blocks, windowless and presenting only a single arched door to the dim, winding street outside. Twilight suspected it might once have been the dungeon of some sort of larger fortification, although no trace of such a structure now remained.
“They hauled Gilda up here, and that’s as far as I could follow her before she told me to just fly back and get you,” said Rainbow Dash.
“… Right.” Twilight stepped through the open doorway to find herself in a bare stone room she wouldn’t dignify by calling a lobby. A rusty iron gate in the far wall, currently hanging open, led deeper inside. Trotting closer, she saw there was another, identical gate just beyond. In between the two a barred window was set into the wall. Behind it sat a bored-looking griffon hen in yellow barding, chewing on something dark and leathery while staring off into space. “Dammit, Rainbow, your wingblades,” Twilight muttered, “We probably shouldn’t be trying to bring those into a prison. Even an Innsbeak prison. Can you stash them?”
Rainbow shook her head. “Twilight, they’re meter-long jointed steel death, and I left my bags back at the manor. Where would I hide them?”
“Good point.” Twilight nervously shuffled her hooves, and glanced at the griffon running the… checkpoint? She didn’t seem to care one bit about the conversation going on in front of her, very probably because she didn’t speak Ponish. “Uh… okay, so new plan, you’re my bodyguard. They probably let those kind of ponies keep weapons…”
“I thought I already was your bodyguard?”
“Well, Gilda was, but now Gilda’s in jail, so…”
“Sweet. Does that mean I get paid?”
“Don’t you start with that too…” Twilight swallowed hard, and stepped up to the gate. The guard looked up as she approached, then went right back to chewing whatever it was she was chewing. Twilight considered asking her about Gilda’s whereabouts, and then remembered that neither she nor Rainbow Dash had the faintest idea how to pose the question in Griffish. Instead, she just trotted on into the dim corridor beyond, unopposed.
The cellblocks began immediately on the other side of the checkpoint- or, rather, the cellmaze began, as if there was any overall organization to the place Twilight was completely unable to discern it. The only illumination was provided by barred skylights in the stone ceiling high above. The cells themselves were exactly what she’d expected- dim, bare stone, and filthy; inhabited by a variety of vague shadowy forms, usually three or four to a cell. Some looked to be sleeping off whatever had gotten them in here, or crashing hard, or already plotting their next adventure; but some seemed alert and reasonably respectable- which, by Innsbeak standards, mostly meant appearing to have bathed sometime in the last week and slept in an actual bed. Twilight wondered if those were the unlucky souls who’d called in the Guard after their robber had called them first, and had been unable to provide the necessary bribes to make their case. In any event, none of them spoke.
“So, what’d Gilda even do?” she asked Rainbow Dash, as they wandered deeper into the complex. It was a lot bigger than it looked from the street.
“I dunno,” the pegasus answered, “we split up once we got back into the main market to find something to eat, and then I heard some kinda’ scuffle, and when I got back over to her everygriff was already swinging.”
“Grand.” They came to a four-way intersection with cells down each hallway, and Twilight pulled up short. There was no signage to speak of, and she doubted she’d’ve been able to make any sense of it if there was- assuming it was even accurate. Briefly she considered splitting off from Rainbow Dash, and then immediately decided otherwise. Finally, after a few seconds, she heard something moving down the right-side hallway, accompanied by the distinctive jingling of keys.
That something proved to be another guard in yellow padded armor, seemingly wandering about as aimlessly as they were. “Umm… excuse me, s-sir?” Twilight stammered.
The guard looked up from staring at his own talons, and his expression immediately shifted from boredom to intense enthusiasm. “Oh! Ponies? Yes! I knows a little pony,” he said, in an odd accent that made him seem to be simultaneously shouting and mumbling. “Pony comed in here… three month away? He getted the drunk, taked boat for a swim that wasn’t his. We play with the cards, talk, I learns pony, see?” Then he shrugged, setting the keyring hooked to the bandoleer across his chest jingling again. “No pony here now, though. You look for griffon? For some griffon?” He made an odd little gesture, sliding one talon back and forth against the other. “Owes you bits, huh? Everygriff knows how says ‘bits’…”
“Uh… not really?” Twilight said, still trying to parse the guard’s convoluted Ponish, “She’s… just a friend. A friend who seems to frequently demonstrate some rather poor judgment, but still a friend.”
“Aaaaa, I sees…” The guard smiled widely and nodded, “Somegriff owes pony judge bits!”
“Yeah, you know what, let’s just go with that,” Rainbow Dash cut in, “It doesn’t really matter. The point is, her name’s Gilda. She’s big, tan… kinda… purplish crest, likes to run her mouth…”
“Hey, Dash? ‘Zat you?” The hen in question’s voice echoed from some ways off down the left-side hallway. Twilight looked at the guard, who shifted awkwardly on his feet, and then set off again, both Rainbow and the cockerel following along quietly behind.
Somewhere in another part of the complex, Twilight heard what sounded like a fight break out- lots of yowling and meaty impacts and shouted Griffish. The guard barely seemed to notice.
“Hey, over here,” Gilda called out again, sounding surprisingly relaxed. Twilight pulled to a halt and looked around. The hen had an entire cell to herself on the right side of the hallway; despite the continuing racket she was sprawled casually on one of the wooden bunks sticking out from the back wall. As soon as Twilight looked at her she waved, hopped off her board, and padded over to the bars. In the marginally better lighting, it was obvious that her right eye was bruised black underneath her feathers, and a line of dried blood trickled down from the edge of her beak, but otherwise she looked in good enough shape.
“Heya, Dash, figured you’d come around sooner or later,” she laughed. “I’m gonna start owin’ you favors if this keeps up!”
For some reason, the pegasus seemingly developed an intense interest in studying her own front hooves.
Finding her companion suddenly uncommunicative, Twilight turned back to the guard. “Alright, let’s get this over with- what’s her bail?”
“Bail?” the guard looked back down the corridor, first in one direction and then the other. “Oh! Yes. Bail. Five hundred bits. To me. Now.”
Twilight scowled, but pulled the requisite coinage from her saddlebag and telekinetically dropped it into the guard’s outstretched talon. He pawed through his overstuffed keyring, jammed one key in the lock, and slid open Gilda’s cell door. The hen stepped out and extended her wings in an exaggerated stretch. “Awww, good, fresh air! Or… fresher, I guess…”
“You’d better have a damn good explanation for what you’re even doing in here…” Twilight warned as they set off back towards the entrance, leaving the guard behind.
“Oh, it’s not, like, anything serious,” Gilda shrugged, “Just decked one of those stupid street guards.”
Twilight folded her ears down against her skull, and summoned the most disapproving expression she could muster. She’d had a lot of practice. “You punched a guard.”
“Okay, well, I guess I kicked him a couple times, too,” the hen briefly lifted up and shook her right talon, “Stubborn fucker just would not stay down.”
“No, I mean, why did you punch a guard?”
“He kept trying to pull me offa’ that stupid shopkeeper.”
Twilight was about to reply, when they walked back into view of the exit and she saw that the outer gate was now shut. She trotted up to the griffon at the checkpoint, who had either swallowed or discarded whatever she’d been chewing on, and now seemed to be at least marginally aware of what was taking place around her.
“Whoa there! Hey!” she called out as Twilight approached, and the unicorn was surprised to find that her Ponish was not only intelligible, but significantly better than her cockerel friend’s. “You can not just take somegriff out of here when you feel like, there is a… a… a… a what is it called, a process!”
“Hold up. We already paid her bail,” Rainbow Dash cut in.
“What is bail? Bail to who?” the guard asked, then shrugged. “No matter. You got her out of the cell, but not processed, she does not leave.”
“And… what will that take?” Twilight asked, trying as best she could to hide the frustration gnawing at the base of her brainstem.
“There is… uhhh… there is the processing fee… proof of identity with fee, cleaning, food, retrieval fee, storing the personal effects fee…” The guard extended a talon as she listed off each item.
“Food and personal effects?” Twilight interrupted, “She’s been here an hour, and didn’t even bring a set of saddlebags!”
The guard just shrugged. “Oh, yes, and, she do not go until you give me proof she has a place to stay.”
“And what, exactly, will that take?” Twilight practically hissed.
“Statement, in writing. Ponish is fine, but has to be… umm…" The griffon made a pounding motion with her talon, "with notary, yes. Like me. I can notary. For a small fee, of course.”
Rainbow stepped forward and rolled her eyes, although fortunately she kept her bladed wings tucked safely at her sides. “Look, just give us the total.”
“Seven hundred and fifty bits. Walking away, that is free, but the doors stay locked until you pay up, yes?”
Twilight, briefly, considered simply teleporting all three of them to the other side of the bars, as the jail building didn’t appear to have any of the magical defenses that were mandated by law in Equestria. However, she felt less and less like expending any additional mana on Gilda’s behalf. Instead, she just puffed out a breath of fetid, chilly jailhouse air, counted out exactly seven hundred and fifty bits -using the last of the hundred-bit pieces she had on hoof in the process- and slipped them through the window bars. The guard seemed dead-set on closely inspecting each and every coin, but finally she got up from her chair and yanked on a rusty lever protruding from the wall. The outer gate swung open again.
“Hey,” Rainbow Dash gave an unconvincing forced laugh, “At least we’re still under budget… sorta…”
“Ha. Ha. Ha.” Twilight wasted no time in trotting back through the vestibule area and out into the street. It had started to rain again, a thin little drizzle that hung in the air like fog. Projecting a shield above her head didn’t do much to stop it, so she let the spell dissipate. “Gilda, I know I’m going to regret hearing the answer to this, but… what were you doing on top of a shopkeeper?”
The hen shrugged. “Well, he kept chasin’ after me making a whole big ruckus to try and get his apple back, so I figured I’d give him a couple licks.”
Twilight squeezed her eyes shut again, feeling the pain behind them redouble. “You… stole an apple.”
“Well, yeah,” Gilda told her, as though explaining basic etiquette to a particularly slow child, “Fucker was charging eight bits a pop for ‘em, I ain’t gonna pay that much.”
“I’m sorry, let me just make doubly sure I’ve got the full story here,” Twilight said just as levelly. “You assaulted a city guard, who was trying to break up another fight between you and some shopkeeper, who in turn was trying to catch you after you stole an apple. One, single apple. That’s why Rainbow and I are down here.”
“Pretty much,” Gilda shrugged again, although this time it seemed awkward and forced. She kept looking from Twilight to Rainbow Dash and back again, clearly nervous. “Must… uhh, must be outta practice, I guess.”
“Yeah…” Twilight kept walking for a little while, then looked back at Gilda. “Must’ve been a pretty damn good apple, then.”
“Actually… ummm… well, boss, you see, I needed both talons to deal with the guard, so I… put it down, and I think somegriff grabbed it, or kicked it away or something, and I… lost track of it pretty quickly.”
“I… see.”
The entire rest of the trip back up the hill, and all the way back to their guest quarters, Twilight remained utterly silent. Rainbow Dash didn’t feel like saying anything either, although she didn’t also spend the entire trip glaring daggers at Gilda. They all cantered at a decent clip, looking up every so often at the steel-gray sky already darkening with storm clouds over the harbor.
By unspoken consensus, all three of them filed back into Twilight’s room. The end table was now clean and no longer covered in fabric, but Rarity was nowhere to be found.
Rainbow felt like a teenager again, hauled into Flight Instructor Barns’ office to explain her latest misadventure, but Twilight didn’t seem interested in lecturing- at least not yet. Instead, the unicorn made another circle of the room with her horn alight, muttering what Rainbow assumed were another round of anti-surveillance spells.
“I learned this muffling spell my sophomore year in undergrad,” she explained, with preternatural calmness. “Right around the time I started to get seriously interested in the Starswirl-Clover Thesis. I chose this one in particular because it’s relatively basic wind magic; and also because I wanted to be able to study in peace, but the most comfortable bench in the undergraduate library was right by the door. What sealed the deal was that the muffling effect works both ways, and, as you well know,” she paused whatever intricate magical thing she was currently doing with her horn, and chuckled, “I can sometimes get a little loud when I’m excited, especially while I’m researching something particularly interesting… and… there.”
Instantly the glow around Twilight's horn faded, as she wheeled about with alarming speed. “Gilda, Why! In! Tartarus! Did I ever hire you!” she screamed, her thin frame shuddering with each syllable.
The griffon raised up a talon palm-out, shaking it from side to side. “Look, boss, I’m really sorry I got myself caught…”
“You’re sorry you got caught.” Twilight paced in front of them, tail swishing back and forth as she walked. “You are sorry! That you got caught!” She turned to Rainbow Dash, who was currently standing paralyzed in mute shock, and waved a hoof theatrically back towards Gilda. “She’s sorry she got caught, stealing a eight-bit apple from some grocery stand by the harbor, and not just paying for it with the salary we are providing her to advise us on how not to make trouble in Innsbeak!” The scholar closed her eyes, shook her head, and readjusted her now somewhat-disheveled mane in her telekinesis. “Why, out of all the things you could possibly steal, Gilda, did you decide this was the one? An apple, Gilda. A solitary apple! Which you then lost while you were picking a fight with the guards, because I guess you couldn’t even finish off this hackneyed escapade properly!”
Rainbow had never really heard Twilight Sparkle yell before; at least not right up-close and personal, as opposed to across a collapsing plaza in the Everfree or under similar extenuating circumstances. She found herself surprised by the sheer volume the scrawny little unicorn was able to project, and felt compelled to take a few steps back away. Then she took a look at Gilda, still standing her ground, and stifled the urge to move any further. “Look, Twilight,” she muttered, then continued with more certainty, “Don’t’cha think maybe this isn’t, like, too big of a deal? I mean, it’s not like we weren’t able to get Gilda out, or that she’d, I don’t know, gotten anygriff killed, or seriously hurt, and it’s not like the guards here keep arrest records like the Watch in… Trottingham… would…” She trailed off as the realization of what she’d just said worked its way through her brain.
Twilight turned back to the pegasus, her ears pivoting forward. “Rainbow, what’s this about the Watch in Trottingham?”
“Uhh…” She looked away and pawed nervously at the carpet, well aware it wouldn’t do any good.
“Rainbow…”
Very briefly, the weathermare considered just lying to Twilight. Then she decided that, if nothing else, Twilight didn’t deserve to be lied to. “Look, we, uhh… when we were getting supplies at Garson’s… well, Gilda… kinda’ also tried to grab some… some supplies. Just some jerky. But without… paying for it.”
Twilight’s ears flattened back against her skull. “And you were going to tell me this… when?”
Rainbow Dash looked over at Gilda, who had sat down on one of the dining room chairs and was currently avoiding eye contact with either pony. Then she looked back at Twilight. “I didn’t think it mattered, because nothing happened, really. I paid for the supplies she took as soon as the grocer started yelling, and… well, I wanted you and Rarity and Gilda to get along and be able to work together and shit. It was… I guess I thought it was just Gilda being stupid and making a scene for a scene’s sake.”
“Not relevant,” Twilight muttered.
“Look, Twilight, I’m really sorry, I know I should’ve told you.”
“Yeah,” the unicorn didn’t even sound angry anymore, just tired. Rainbow was surprised by how uncomfortable realizing that made her. “Well, the cornerstone of our whole asinine plan was to have Gilda pickpocket Lord Goldstone- Tartarus, she wanted to pickpocket Lord Goldstone twice,” Twilight snapped. “And now you’re telling me she can’t steal a rutting apple if she’s given a rutting do-over.”
Dash opened her mouth to reply, but the unicorn kept on going. “You know what? No. We don’t actually need that stupid skull, and we’re certainly in no position to get it. I didn’t go into this expecting I’d need to hire a professional thief, and it turns out I rutting well did not! So I’ll just take my chances meeting up with Gordon at the party.”
Gilda spoke up for the first time since the ponies had started arguing. “Look. Boss. It’s not like that. Okay, yeah, I screwed up. But, you know, me and Dash were just screwin’ around, just like old times,” she waved a talon at the pegasus, “Right, RD? C’mon, back me up here. You know I’m not gonna get caught again, we musta’ done a hundred food runs back at camp and gotten away just fine!”
Rainbow Dash pulled in a deep breath, and resumed staring at her hooves because she didn’t really want to look at Gilda or Twilight right now. “Gilda… I… I think Twilight’s got a point. Snack runs back at camp are one thing, but… this is serious. It’s not just fooling around when you can get yourself arrested, Gilda. Why are you even doing this shit?”
"Why am I doing this shit?” Quite unexpectedly, Gilda threw her head back and laughed, loud and long. Only when she was good and finished did she look at the pegasus and shake her head. “Why am I doing this shit? Dash, I'd bet you've never missed a meal in your life."
Rainbow stared at her friend, genuinely confused. "What?"
"Did you ever really look at the griffons here?” Gilda asked, “They're all skeletons. Skin, bones, feathers. And this is the Isles. I grew up in Griffonstone. It's even worse back- back there." Her voice hitched for the very first time since they’d met back up with each other in Trottingham.
“I don't see what this has-” Twilight attempted to interject.
“It has everything to do with it,” Gilda snapped, rounding on the scholar, any trace of humor gone from her voice. “Before I got my ticket to Equestria, stealing an apple here, some jerky there, that was how I survived. Dash, you remember what I looked like when I first showed up at camp?”
“Well, yeah, but you filled out fast!” Rainbow countered, but didn’t feel like her heart was behind it.
“Because we stole so much food!”
Twilight just rolled her eyes, “And that’s why you think stealing apples is helping things now?”
The griffon shrugged again, and crossed her arms in front of her. “That's beside the point.”
“No, Gilda, that's entirely the point.” Twilight started circling again, silently for a few seconds before she continued, “Actually, if that’s all you want to say in your defense, then fine. You've made your case, and I don’t agree. As of right now, you are officially fired. I want you out of my room, and out of my business. You can stay here on Goldstone's dime for as long as he'll let you, but after the party tomorrow, my friends and I are going home.”
Gilda slipped out of her chair and tensed as if to pounce, but then she relaxed and stood up straight. “You know what? Fine. Fuck you, Doctor Twilight Sparkle. I'm gonna steal that skull without you, your lumpy rubber square teleportation shit, or your paycheck.” She turned to Rainbow Dash, who was still intensely studying the faded carpet, “C'mon Dash, let's leave these dipshits behind.”
Suddenly, even the carpet had lost its appeal. Rainbow Dash felt something in her chest constricting, but she forced it down and looked her friend in the eye. “Gil, I’m sorry. But… I can’t.”
Silence settled on the room, save for the soft patter of rain on the manor's roof and the distant thunder over the sea. Right now, Rainbow Dash wanted to be anywhere else.
“Fine. But if you ever get tired of playing errand-filly for the mad mage, just come find me.” She wrenched open the guest room door, causing the silencing spell to dissipate with an audible pop. Then she sauntered past a bewildered-looking Rarity, standing in the hallway with a neatly-folded square of black cloth floating in her telekinetic field. “’zat mine? Now it is,” the griffon snapped, and grabbed it out of the air, “Later, dweebs.”
The tailor just blinked, bewildered, and watched as Gilda loped around a corner out of sight. “What was all that about?”
Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to answer, but found herself unable to.
“So, the basic version is that Gilda’s not working with us anymore because her arrest wasn’t an isolated incident and was entirely due to her own incompetence, and I think she’s so much of liability, I’m calling the whole plan off,” Twilight explained, all in a single breath.
“I… wouldn’t’ve put it like… that,” Dash finally managed to add, “But… basically.”
Rarity looked down the hallway to where Gilda had just been visible. “Will she… be alright? On her own, I mean.”
Feeling some of her strength starting to return, Rainbow nodded. “Yeah, probably. She’s the one who lived here before, and she’s got money with her -bits, I mean. That’ll probably be enough to get her a train ticket or an inn… or a drink, or whatever she wants right now.”
“Well, I was coming over to say I finished her dress, so I suppose that takes care of that?” Rarity sniffed.
Twilight started pacing in circles again, in the middle of the hall. “Dammit, do you think she was serious about stealing the skull for herself?”
Rarity tapped her hoof on the faded yellow carpet. “Well, if she is, she doesn’t have the fake amulet, so I don’t think there’s a lot she can do…”
The unicorn nodded. “Okay, next question- is she heading over to the study right now to tip off Goldstone just to spite us.”
Feeling vaguely insulted, Rainbow Dash shook her head. “Nah, she hates that rutter as much as we do, maybe even more.”
“Besides, whatever would she say?” added Rarity, “That we were thinking about robbing Goldstone, but now we’ve decided not to do anything and play along?”
Twilight sucked in a few deep breaths, and her pacing finally slowed. “Yeah, Okay. I guess you’re right. There’s… nothing to worry about.”
Rarity nodded. Rainbow Dash swallowed hard, tried to stop her still-bladed wings from rattling as they shook at her sides, and followed suit.
“Uhhh… Dash?” Twilight finally came to a halt, looked at the pegasus, and cocked her head. “Are you… are you sure you’re alright?”
“I think I’ll be fine.” She looked the skinnier unicorn in the eye. “But… thanks. I don’t get it, I don’t remember Gilda ever being this reckless… or, well, I guess I do, but now that there’s so much on the line I figured… I dunno. Twilight, do you think we can, you know, try to track her down once all this Gordon bullshit’s done?”
“Yeah. We can do that.” The scholar stepped closer. “And… Rainbow? Thanks for backing me up in there.”
“Yeah. Sure. Any… any time, Twi. That’s what friends are for, right?”
Stats
Page generated in 0.016 seconds
Total duration
723 users online
854,397 hits today, 1,872,792 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Damn, poor Gilda. She's just one big bundle of issues.
I mean, I get her argument, but Twilight's right that it's really not good enough to justify how stupid she's being. I would suspect some ulterior motive but I can't really see an angle that makes sense.
Did they check she didn't walk off with their fake amulet?
Very little I can say that other reviewers haven't already said better, but still. I appreciate the work that went into the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up. Definitely understood Twilight's frustration when she found out exactly WHY Gilda got arrested as well as Gilda getting so ticked at being VERY overcharged. But the argument about Rainbow's weapons before they did find out was rather good too as was Twilight's using of that "silence spell" she learned in order to keep any of the griffons from hearing her berating Gilda. And, both Rainbow and Gilda had good points concerning their argument concerning the seriousness of the current situation and the stuff they got up to when they were younger.
Indeed, certainly looking forward to more of this.
10981411
Given the summary of the story I'm wondering if perhaps Gilda is working for whatever passes as the griffons intelligence agency though I have no clear idea what their end goal would be except perhaps trying to nail Goldstone or revealing something to cause discontent in Equestria.
10981496
Oh, you think the griffons are able to put together an intelligence agency. How cute.
10981613
It's possible! Even if it's just some thugs coercing information out of other griffons.
10981613
My apologies, you'll have to forgive the Admiral's hippocentric biases. While greed isn't exactly our wheelhouse, it is this scout's opinion that griffons' inherent duplicity and personal pride allows them to be easily manipulated, affording us ample disposable assets.
10981768
Actually, yeah, that does sound like the sort of thing that Goldstone would put together...
It's a shame Dash didn't tell Twilight after the first incident. Eight words could have averted this whole fiasco:
"Your bail is coming out of your pay."
... Well, maybe. That still hinges on Gilda's risk assessment. Which isn't what you'd call the best.
Wow, Twilight letting loose on Gilda shows some good development there. Firing Gilda though at this point, not a great move. Then again, management is new for Twilight.