Heart of Gold, Feathers of Steel

by Nicknack

Chapter Four

Nearly an hour passed as we went back and forth with our stories, but after a while, Dash started to get fidgety. My stomach lurched; I knew what was coming next:

“So, you ready to fly or what?”

I leered back with, “As the day I was born!”

Dash must not have heard any of my nerves, because her only response was, “Cool! Sit tight, I’ve gotta check something first!”

She flew up to her house’s roof, leaving me alone to rack my brain for an excuse—any excuse—to get out of flying. If she actually watched me, she’d know I was lying about keeping up with my training.

And this is why you don’t lie, my brain reminded me. It always comes crashing down in the end.

Quiet, you, I snarled back. Then I blinked, trying to figure out what that implied.

A shrill squeaking interrupted my thoughts. It sounded like a duck quacking, but it was too high-pitched. The squeaking stopped; then, a voice that was too high-pitched and loud called up to where I was sitting. “Rise and shine, Rainbow Dash! It's a brand new day, and we’ve got a lot of pranking to—”

I stuck my head out over the edge of Dash’s cloud to see who was talking. I expected a pony, but I didn’t expect them to be wearing a pair of bright green glasses, fake mustache, and an arrow sticking through her head. In her mouth, she was holding some sort of whistle, which was probably the source of the quacking from earlier.

The more I looked at the pink earth pony below, the more names from Junior Speedsters’ came back to me. Even with the language barrier, most of them had sounded stupid to me. But now, I was looking at the textbook definition of a “dweeb.”

I tasted bile when I realized her appearance was clashing with my predator’s instincts—ponies were herbivores, and griffins weren’t. And here was one that stood out from her environment like a sore thumb, completely helpless and unsuspecting... I shoved those thoughts back down; carnivore or not, I wouldn’t let my instincts call the shots.

Either way, her timing was awful. I had just started catching up with Dash. Now, some outsider was going to interrupt with noisemakers, props, and “pranking?” No. No way. I wasn’t going to let some pink pest get between me and—

“Morning, Pink!” Dash’s cheery rang out, and I glanced up at her, confused. She was friends with... “Pink?” My annoyance grew when I remembered the difference between pony and griffin names. Griffin names had meanings that weren’t the words themselves; for example, my older brother’s name meant “good with a spear,” but he wasn’t called “Blade Thrust” or something stupid like that.

Dash flew down to speak to Pink, and I joined her; I didn’t want to make an awkward situation for Dash. I was still mid-flight when Dash started introductions. “Gilda, this is my gal-pal, Pinkie Pie!”

I landed, turned to the side while I fought to keep my face straight. I knew Dash had made new friends—or “gal-pals,” I supposed she called it now—since Junior Speedsters’. But Pinkie Pie? Swallowing my jealousy, I chimed in, “Hey, what’s up?” I tried to sound more impressive than I felt.

“Pinkie, this is my griffin friend, Gilda.” Dash gestured to me while she finished the introduction.

That stung, but I didn’t have time to dwell on what it meant to be Dash’s “griffin” friend before Pinkie Pie asked, “What’s a griffin?” From her, it sounded especially stupid.

Dash started to explain, “She’s half eagle, half lion—”

Listening to Dash describe me like I was some sort of mythical beast felt weird, so I pounced over and put my arm around Dash to show that we were friends. “And all awesome!” I followed it with a mock roar. Dash raised her hoof, and I punched it lightly, just like she taught me.

“Gilda’s my best friend from Junior Speedsters’ Flight Camp!” she finished, like she was reading my mind about the “hoof bump.” That was better, I decided.

My ego rapidly deflated when Dash asked, “Do you still remember the chant?”

In many ways, I was an outside observer at Junior Speedsters’, so it had been easy to see through their fake crap. Dash, on the other hand, had loved that camp’s artificial culture. I learned early on not to press the issue too hard, so now, I tried to brush the question off. “Yeah,” I said, biting back some of it. I hated that cheer. “They only made us recite it every morning. I’ll never get that lame thing out of my head.”

“So...?” Dash looked at me expectantly.

One time, I had misjudged a wounded lizard. He had been slow and weak, and after I caught him, I brought him to my face to gloat. He decided it wasn’t a good day to die, so he had spat venom right in my eye.

I would rather relive that agony a hundred times than to be right there, in front of the most annoying pony I had ever met, reciting the most annoying chant I had ever learned. I was about to say that, but Dash’s smile won me over. I couldn’t say “No” to something so happy.

With a sigh, I resigned. “Only for you, Dash.”

At that, she shot into the air. Before I was even halfway her height, she started the cheer:

“Junior Speedsters are our lives!
Sky-bound soars and daring dives!
Junior Speedsters: it’s our quest
To some day be the very best!”

There was a dance that accompanied it, but damned if I could remember it. Dash still knew the entire thing by heart, but she was too far off in her own little world to notice that I was faking it. When the cheer finally ended, we landed, and I mimicked Dash’s posture by standing on my hind legs while waving my arms.

Pinkie Pie giggled. I glared daggers at her while I smoothed down my head’s feathers and counted the reasons why I didn’t want her around. Pinkie didn’t seem to notice; instead, she exclaimed, “That was awesome!” She would like that cheer. “And, you’ve given me a great idea for a prank! Gilda, you game?”

“Huh.” I didn’t try to hide my scoff. Sensing an escape from Pinkie, I continued, “Well, I groove on a good prank as much as the next griffin...” If anyone in my tribe ever tried to “prank” someone, they probably end up as a bloody mess. “But Dash...” I turned to her. “You promised me we’d get a flying session in this morning.”

Before she could point out that she hadn’t promised “this morning,” I took off. I knew Dash would follow; if the option were between flying and anything else, she’d always choose the sky. I didn’t like manipulating Dash like that, but I could not stand Pinkie Pie. Today was supposed to be fun, damn it, not annoying and pink.

Below me, Dash was talking to Pinkie Pie. I couldn’t hear them, but by her movements, I could tell that Dash had a lot more patience for the pink nuisance than I did.

That raised a scary question: What if I was the interloper? Dash lived here, after all, so she probably hung out with Pinkie Pie a lot. What if Dash liked her new friend more? The thought made my wings heavier, and I actually dropped a few feet.

Dash jumped up, flapping her wings to hover. She pointed a hoof at me and said one last thing before coming up to where I was. We flew off together, but I took a quick backward glance: Pinkie Pie was sitting, alone, with a dejected expression on her face.

Grounding her stupid cheeriness did wonders for my mood. Now, the only problem was if Dash had a problem with what I did. Innocently, I turned and asked, “So, what do you want to do first?”

Without hesitation, Dash blurted, “Watch this!” and flew off. She did it with enough gusto that I felt relieved—she didn’t care about Pinkie’s feelings either. So, with the Pinkie thing settled, I hovered in place and got ready for the show. Even back in Junior Speedsters’, Dash’s stunts had been cool to watch. I was definitely interested to see what she’d cooked up in three years.

Dash didn’t disappoint. She flew over to some large clouds and flew around one with so much force that it started spinning. I didn’t even know that was possible. After the first cloud, Dash flew to a second, then a third, and kept going until five clouds were spinning under her command. Then she flew back to me and pointed at the still-rotating clouds. “Neat, huh?”

“That’s awesome!” I didn’t even have to fake being impressed. “What do you call it?”

Her eyes widened as she shrugged. “I haven’t really thought of a name for it yet.”

“Still, dude, awesome!”

She chuckled. “Thanks... So, what’ve you learned that’s new?”

All my fears from earlier came back; I felt completely unprepared. Dash wouldn’t let me off so easily, but I still tried: “Well, I, uh... told you I’ve been focusing on speed, not agility...”

Dash rolled her eyes. “Come on, G, you must have done something new since camp.”

If you only knew, I thought, but I discarded it and racked my brain for something—anything—that I could use. Finally, I settled on something easy. “Uh... remember how I used to suck at flying upside-down?”

She let out a cough of laughter. “D’you think they ever fixed that hole you put in the side of the mess hall?”

I returned the laugh; I had forgotten about flying head-first through the oddly-solid camp building. Or maybe that was brain trauma. “Yeah, that was not one of my cooler moments.” I sighed mentally—time to do or die. “But watch this!”

I flew away from Dash and broke into a slow, horizontal circle. Easy enough. Once I was comfortable, I tried to roll upside-down and keep in the same path. I overdid it, so I ended up doing three-quarters of a roll; thinking quick, I kept rolling and tried to stick to the original path. The whole thing felt shaky as hell, and I had no control over it, so when I started to fall, I broke it off and went back over to Dash.

She was waiting with a compliment. “Yeah! You’ve got so much more control now!”

“Thanks, dude,” I said, despite the swimming, spinning world around me.

“Mind if I give it a try?” Dash asked. I grinned; she had always annoyed the other campers by trying their stunts out and, usually, doing them better. I had been the only one who saw that she wasn’t trying to one-up anyone; she just loved flying.

Like always, I answered, “Go for it!” I was glad to let her do the flying, but I also wanted to see her take on the trick I had just pulled out of my butt.

Dash started off in a horizontal circle, just like I had. Unlike me, she flew in a faster, tighter loop. When she started rolling, she did it much faster, too.

I thought she would’ve gotten her fill after a few seconds, but Dash was never one to hold back on flying. She rotated her path, so now she was doing my trick in three dimensions—a sphere, not a circle. She spun as she flew, so her weird, multicolored trail formed an orb that was woven together out of rainbow braids.

It was beautiful.

Eventually, Dash broke out of the stunt and flew back to me. I tried to say how amazing what I had just seen was, “That was... how...”

“Heh, thanks,” she said quickly. I guessed the message got through. “But I’m dizzy now.” Her eyes were having trouble focusing on any one point in front of her. I tried not to laugh at how silly she looked; Dash didn’t deserve it after that spectacle.

Dash took a break on a nearby cloud, so I improvised for what I guessed was my turn. I took off horizontally, both to gather speed and to decide what I wanted to do. On a whim, I turned up sharply and kept pushing as hard as I could go. Eventually, gravity won out, and I stalled in place for a moment...

Then, I fell.

I flapped my wings and picked up speed, pretending that I was hunting something on the ground. Time itself seemed to slow down, and I lost myself in the freedom of that dive. I let out a screech, not caring who was nearby to hear it.

Ten feet before I hit the ground, I flared my wings and swerved up. As I felt the crushing weight of an incredibly fast turn, inspiration struck. I darted for the cloud Dash was resting on and crashed through it from below.

The cloud exploded and Dash let out a high-pitched yelp. Without thinking, I grabbed her around the chest and held her close as we flew to another cloud.

I set her down and Dash yelled, “That was so cool!” Her wings flared out to punctuate her sentiment. The gesture that was common to our two races, a similarity that made me grin.

When I realized what she had said, I flushed a little. “Aw... dude, they taught us dives the first week of camp.”

“Yeah, but I never thought of stalling into one, or to keep going and come back up after one!” She was so hyper and smiling that I couldn’t help it; I smiled back. She asked her usual, “Can I—”

“Go—” Dash took off flying before I could finish.

When she finished stalling and diving a couple of times, Dash transitioned into a completely new trick involving many tight flips. Then I tried to spell my name in the sky, which lost most of the effect because I didn’t have a smoke trail or anything to trace my path.

Dash and I kept at it for least an hour; by the end, I was hot and sweating, but I was having too much fun to care. Even more, after pulling off a few stunts, I wanted to race. Not as a distraction, but for fun. When Dash finished her stunt, I raised an eyebrow and challenged, “All right, dude. Tricks are cute and all, but I think we both know what the real test of flying is.”

“Oh, yeah?” She raised an eyebrow back at me.

“Yeah.” I pointed to a lone cloud that was tiny, over on the other side of Ponyville. “Race you to that cloud.”

“Okay, G...” she agreed. “But we need to slow it down over the city. There are pegasi working, and I don’t want to hurt anypony.”

“Okay, then...” I hid my surprise at her concern for safety. “Whoever’s in second place when we get there has to follow the leader.”

“Deal!” She grinned.

“All right,” I said, hunkering down so I could take off fast. “On ‘Go.’ Ready?”

Dash mimicked my posture and nodded. “Yep!”

“One... Two... Three... Go!"

True to her name, she dashed off like a rocket and left me behind. She was better at accelerating, I had to give her that. But over a long, horizontal run, I could max out at a higher speed. I kept going until I was right behind her, but then we were almost at the village, so I didn’t want to risk passing her. I saved my strength by flying in the slipstream behind her, where there was less air resistance.

When we entered Ponyville’s airspace, Dash slowed down and I followed suit. She knew better than to make it easy for me, so she pulled into a sudden vertical loop. I kept my cool, and managed to stay right behind her for the entire stunt.

After the loop, Dash took us to out of Ponyville’s airspace, and we both sped back up. This time, I went all out, flapping harder and harder.

A few moments before we got to the cloud, I passed her. I landed, victorious, and Dash responded by tackling me. She burst out laughing at her purposely-botched landing, and I joined her before exclaiming, “Wow, that was sweet! Just like old times.”

“Yeah, only faster!” Dash replied, raising her hoof. I punched it like before. After a brief pause, she asked, “So, what now?”

I was about to reply when my heart jumped straight up into my throat; Pinkie Pie’s head was sticking out of the cloud we were standing on!

“Hey there!” she greeted us in her annoying, bubbly voice.

“Huh?” Dash and I said in unison as her head disappeared below the cloud.

Pinkie’s head came back a second time, “It’s later,” she said, before her head vanished. It reappeared a third time, and she finished, “And I caught up!”

Her head reappeared a few times without saying anything, but Dash sat down with an earnest smile on her face. “Pinkie Pie,” she said when the pink head reappeared. She paused until Pinkie’s head reappeared and finished, “You are so random!”

C’mon, Dash, I complained. What are you doing encouraging this loser? Again, I decided to take things into my own hands. “Hey Dash, think you got enough gas left to beat me to that cloud?” I pointed to a cloud that was higher up and away from Pinkie Pie.

“A race?” she asked, apparently forgetting what we had just finished. “You are so on!”

I was happy to oblige her and to get away from Pinkie Pie, so I started us off: “One... Two... Three... Go!"

We took off, and a pink voice complained, “Hey!” but I ignored it. Our second race was a lot shorter, so Dash had an edge on me. I gave it my all, and we broke through the cloud at about the same time. In fact, I thought I might’ve been—

“I won!” Dash declared.

“As if,” I defended, pointing to myself. “I won, dude!”

“No way!” She argued, throwing her hooves in front of her in protest.

“Yes way,” I said, crossing my arms.

“Come on, I was way ahead of you!” she persisted.

“Uh, I don’t think so,” I said, closing my eyes and shaking my head.

“Oh, please, dream on.”

“Remember back in camp? I—”

“There is no way you beat me.”

“Whatever,” I said, holding up a hand for her to “talk to.” Despite the conflict, I was enjoying myself; I didn’t really care about the race, and we had gotten away from—

“Wow guys, that was really cool!” a voice called out from behind me.

Pinkie Pie? I opened my eyes and turned around. There she floated, supported by a huge cluster of what I recognized as party balloons.

It couldn’t make sense of it all. First, it was an uncanny sight. Second, I had no idea where she had gotten all of those balloons from. Third, it had only been ten seconds since Dash and I had left her back at that cloud, and we had flown at top speed! How the f—

Pinkie Pie interrupted my thoughts. “But I think Rainbow Dash beat you by a teeny-weeny, itty-bitty hair! Or a teeny-weeny, itty-bitty feather!”

It didn’t matter how she got there, but suddenly, fire lit inside me: here was an earth pony, trespassing in the sky?

Certainly, other griffins would agree with me. Father, for all of his faults, was consistent. He hated everything that was “weak” in his eyes. His hatred of earth ponies was merely a passing amusement, but pegasi were a blasphemous mockery of us Sky Lords.

One of the few times I had seen him in a joyful mood was the day he came back to our family’s cave carrying a pair of lime-green pegasus wings. I remembered the sinking feeling in my gut as I watched him nail them to the wall, humming a little tune. I had barely been eight then, so it had almost been a decade ago; as far as I knew, they were still there.

Whatever hatred Father had for pegasi, I was sure he’d feel the same way about Pinkie Pie, once he got to know her. Knowing him, he’d probably disregard all political ramifications and rip her head off her shoulders. That thought filled me with a warm sense of justice, but then I realized what I was fantasizing about.

I felt sick. Just because she was annoying didn’t mean she deserved to die; I knew that.

Right?

I felt helpless at the brutal irony; three years’ solitude, and now I wanted to scream, I had to keep my cool—for Dash’s sake. I calmed myself down as fast as I could, hoping I wasn’t showing any outward signs of anger. As I looked over at her, I breathed a relieved sigh when I saw her turn to face me; she couldn’t have seen anything.

“Hah, see?” Dash said. I had no idea what she was referring to. “Good thing Pinkie Pie’s here to keep you honest, G!”

Right. The race. The... floating pony. Dash’s accusation didn’t even faze me anymore; I just wanted to get away from everything.

Or at least, I needed to get away from Pinkie Pie. She didn’t get the first two hints, so I’d try a slightly more direct method. “Okay, Dash,” I taunted, hoping she’d take the bait for a third race. “Last one to that cloud up there is a gnarly dragon egg. Go!” At the word, Dash flew off to the cloud as fast as she could.

I stayed behind. In the back of my mind, it worried me to be alone with Pinkie, but I could control myself. I pointed a talon at her and threw out the first harsh words that came to mind: “I think the high altitude is making you dizzy!” I punctuated my scorn by popping a third of her balloons. Pinkie made a protesting sound, but I didn’t care.

Instead, I sped over to the cloud I had tricked Dash into “racing” to. When I landed, she frowned at me like she knew what I had done, so I got ready to defend myself. It wasn’t my fault that we were being stalked, in air, by someone who should’ve been grounded in the first pl—

“Oh wow, you guys almost got away from me that time!” I turned around and thought I had finally lost it. Pinkie Pie was not only airborne again, but now, she was in some sort of... mechanism. It had a spinning blade on top that I guessed kept her aloft; she had to pedal the device with all four of her legs.

Of course, that was just the functional part of the machine—the part that I could give some begrudging respect. However, Pinkie had also decorated it in the most annoying way possible: it looked like it was made of candy.

I tried to fathom just how deeply I hated that machine, but I also started to despair. All I wanted—no, all I needed was to spend some time alone with Dash. I had stuff to tell her that was personal, which would already be hard to do; I definitely didn’t want to do it in front of a stranger, let alone Pinkie Pie.

She had to go. But first, I needed to distract Dash again. It bugged me to have to keep manipulating her like that, but I didn’t have a choice. So I turned to my friend and taunted, “So, Dash... got any new moves in your tricktionary, or are you one hundred percent old-school?”

Dash looked back at me, and her anger told me I had gone too far. Then she forgot it, her eyes lit up, and she bragged, “New moves?” She chuckled. “Sit back, G; this is gonna take a while.”

I smiled. Perfect.

She took off, and I didn’t waste any time. I rounded on the flying abomination behind me. “Hey Pinkie,” I beckoned, “C’mere.”

Hearing wasn’t one of her problems. Pinkie flew closer and asked, “Yeah?”

I grabbed the frame of her flying machine and pulled it closer. When her face was dangerously close to my beak, I snapped at her. “Don’t you know how to take ‘get lost’ for an answer? Dash doesn’t need to hang with a dweeb like you now that I’m around. You’re dorkin’ up the skies, Stinkie Pie.” Sometimes, my way with words impressed myself. “So make like a bee, and buzz off!”

Using my wings to steady myself, I grabbed the spinning blade at the top of the flying machine and held it still. Pinkie Pie kept pedaling, which made the rest of the machine spin around. After letting her twirl for a moment, I flipped the entire device down. Her machine darted around aimlessly at first, then it finally started to lose altitude.

I didn’t have any time to gloat, though; Dash came back almost immediately and bragged, “Try matching that!” I had no idea what she had done, but Dash didn’t care; she was busy looking around. “Hey, where’s Pinkie Pie and her crazy contraption?”

Quickly, I threw a cover story together: “Eh, she left. Something about being busy as a bee.”

As soon as the words left me, I felt sick to my stomach. All of this lying and manipulation of my best friend was wrong. But it wasn’t my fault that Pinkie had been following us around all morning. Clearly, she was just desperate for attention and clinging to Dash like a parasite. Hell, I was doing Dash a favor by getting rid of her.

It wouldn’t be the first time, either...

About a week after Stormglider dyed my head pink, I had woken up in the middle of the night and noticed she wasn’t in her bed. I had seized the opportunity to find her. The night had been dark, but that was a benefit of being part-feline: I could see loads better in the dark than ponies could.

In less than five minutes, I found Stormglider and her lackeys. The four were asleep on a cloud; from the number of empty bottles in a nearby floating basket, I knew they were fast asleep. I wanted to startle them awake and then show them I didn’t need a sneak attack to kick their asses, so I kicked their cloud, dissolving it, just like we had practiced during camp activities.

For three of them, my kick woke them up right away, and they caught themselves before they fell too far. But Stormglider hadn’t woken up in time. She hit the ground hard, and I flew back to my cabin before her lackeys came to their dulled senses enough to look up.

Dash never found out that I was the one who did it, and I had no intention of telling her. My actions that night hadn’t been completely selfish—or planned—but Dash would never agree with what I had done.

Especially because, due to her injuries, Stormglider would never fly again.

Still, she had been asking for some form of retribution when she had attacked me in my sleep. If anything, I should’ve done something sooner; if I had hit back harder faster, she might’ve backed off before her wing got broken.

In the end, the most regret I felt was for how hard Dash got grilled by the counselors. We had both been suspects, but Dash had loved that camp and had followed all of the stupid rules to a “T.” Getting accused of such a serious mishap had made her dissolve into a blubbering mass of tears that had been hard to watch. She hadn’t deserved that, but I couldn’t apologize without telling her my true role in it.

As for apologies, I vowed that I would apologize to Dash for manipulating her today; she at least deserved that. For now, I just needed to relax and have fun. Especially after Pinkie’s intrusions, I wasn’t in the right mood to start spilling my guts about my banishment. I would do it later, in the early afternoon; that way, if things went wrong, I could at least have had a few good hours with Dash before the long flight home.

And if things go really bad, you can make it to Sharfkral-Grat by morning... I almost threw up at that dark, sudden urge. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to scream, but I shakily reminded myself that I wasn’t going to do that. Ever.

I hoped.

Some of my horror must’ve shown on my face. Dash, who had been sitting silently next to me for almost a whole minute, now asked, “Gilda... are you okay?”

She sounded suspicious, but when saw her eyes, she was worried, not accusatory. At first I didn’t say anything and thought about her question: Was I okay? Exile had left me extremely lonely, and that had changed me. Not for the first time, I wondered just how much it had.

I hadn’t started as the easiest griffin to get along with all the time, which must’ve been especially hard for Dash, whose culture cherished things like laughter and friendship.

You shouldn’t have to put up with me, I admitted sadly.

The idea crossed my mind to just leave. So far that day, I had been stuck in a vicious cycle of needing to spend time alone with Dash, but not being able to because of interruptions. I didn’t want to spend time with any new ponies until I sorted everything out with Dash.

Hell, after that, I would give Pinkie Pie more of a chance. But first, she just needed to leave us alone for a while!

While I pondered that, I glanced back at Dash. She was looking at me with growing anticipation, and I felt guilty for thinking about leaving... over, what, pride? Dash was my friend, and even though that sort of compassion was a lot more common in her society than mine, it was still precious to me.

At least I’m doing better with a pegasus than others in my tribe would. I thought about the cultural barrier we had broken, and I smiled warmly at Dash. She smiled back, timidly, but that was only because she was worried about me. She cared.

In that moment, I wouldn’t have traded Dash’s friendship for anything—including the ability to rejoin my tribe. I put my hand on her shoulder, and her smile brightened. “I’ll be fine, Dash,” I said softly. “It’s just... Pinkie Pie seriously annoys me.”

“Well,” Dash started, stretching out the word and cocking her head to the side apologetically. “That’s just Pinkie Pie. She’s annoying most of the time, but it’s only because she’s too busy being friendly to stop and realize it.”

When she put it like that, I could almost forgive Pinkie. Almost. At the very least, I resolved that I would try harder to enjoy my time in Ponyville, and that started by enjoying the ponies that were nearby, not worrying about the ones who weren’t.

On that note, I decided it wouldn’t take much for me to enjoy losing to Dash in her favorite game. “So anyway,” I asked, “while she’s busy with whatever, you up for a game of Pony?”

“As ever!” Dash cheered, wings out, and the rest of her worries melted away.

The rules of Pony were simple enough; two players took turns trying to copy each others’ tricks. If you messed up, you got a letter from the word “pony,” and if you spelled the whole word, you lost.

Out of courtesy, Dash let me go first, but it didn’t matter; going into the game, my record against her was zero and twelve. Still, I managed to at least give Dash a “P,” so her thirteenth victory wasn’t a complete sweep. But it was all good fun, and I found myself enjoying flying—something I never did alone.

After Pony, the two of us headed towards Ponyville proper. As we landed, I laughed and commented on the game, “That was sweet!”

“Ugh,” Dash grimaced, as if she had suddenly remembered something. “I gotta take care of a few weather jobs around here. Shouldn't take long. Just, uh, hang out in town and I'll come find you.”

Damn, I cursed; I hated how difficult this entire visit was turning out. Still, Dash had a job to do, and I had to respect that—and messing with the weather was a task worthy of the gods. I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice as I replied, “That’s cool, I guess.” It had been a long time since breakfast, so I added, “I’m gonna go chow down.”

Dash didn’t remind me of her condition for my visit, which I was grateful to her for; instead, she just took off with, “Later!” I smiled to watch her go, but then a familiar sinking feeling grew in the pit of my stomach.

I was alone again.

Comments

[Comma-Kazie]

And here was one that stood out from her environment like a sore thumb, completely helpless and unsuspecting... I shoved those thoughts back down; carnivore or not, I wouldn’t let my instincts call the shots.

And Nature vs. Nurture rears its ugly head once again.

The bit with the names is actually something I wondered about myself. Some names seem to fit their owners a little too well, especially before they get their cutie marks.

That raised a scary question: What if I was the interloper?

Gilda's still only visiting--she is intruding a little bit, but since it's for a short amount of time a little monopolization of RD's attention would be a given. I certainly wouldn't take offence if a friend of mine wanted to spend extra time with someone they haven't seen in years.

And now Pinkie's intruding on their together-time again. Not sure if intrusive, or just thick... 'Buzz off' and she still doesn't get it. Okay, yeah, she's thick about it.

Holy shit, Gilda, overreact much to a bad prank? No wonder RD was freaked in the last chapter, even if she was never told directly she's smart enough to put the pieces together herself.

[Feo Takahari]

I have no idea if Gilda's supposed to be sympathetic here, and I kind of like that.

[Madeline L-Equine]

1705590
I think that Gilda is a very sympathetic character, but she's flawed. It's these flaws that make her more complete as a character, whereas she was fairly flat in the original show. It's fairly hard to sympathize with a character who is more or less perfect.

[PresentPerfect]

I've come into this story looking for it to do for Gilda what another story once did for Trixie: make me like her.

So I'm intrigued that you haven't gone the "she's just completely misunderstood" route. You've added in internal conflict and given her motivations for the reasons why she acted the way she did, but she's hardly a sweet girl. I think that's a good decision.

[Forevermore]

I'm greatly enjoying your characterization of Gilda, she's a very sympathetic character, but at the same time she's not inherently likable. She's arrogant, rude, and more than a bit of a bully, but at the same time she genuinely cares for her friends (the one she has), protective, and honorable. It makes the character feel alot more real, and I can honestly say I'm impressed by how you've managed to pull that off.

[Crimson_Moonlight]

Nice job, following the dialogue to a T, and honestly, I like that. completely canon, and in fact, this would probably have made for a better episode x.x go figure.