Guilt
Twilight Sparkle was about to open the door to her library house, but stopped when she heard something. She listened closely for a moment.
"Twil-"
"Sh!" She interrupted Spike mid-word. The little dragon slouched down on her back, utterly confused by her actions. Then the sound came again and he understood what was up.
It was an odd shuffling sound, but it was the kind of sound they only heard when Big Macintosh was in the library, because it was the sound of something large and heavy moving around.
Twilight cautiously opened the door and peeked inside. What she saw she had trouble understanding.
"Gilda?"
The griffin froze, mid-stride, and looked at her. For a moment she seemed to be at a loss of words, but she eventually recovered and opened her mouth to speak.
"I-uh...*ahem* I need your help...with... friendship... stuff." She cringed, as though asking for help from the purple librarian caused physical pain.
She was met with two blank stares from the unicorn and the dragon on her back.
"Spike?"
"Uh- yeah?"
"Would you please go make us some tea?"
"Thank you, Spike. Now would you please go over to Rarity's? And don't tell her about this, alright?"
"Sure thing, Twilight." The little dragon answered before waddling off. As the door shut behind him Twilight turned back to Gilda, who was gingerly sipping the tea. As soon as the drink entered her mouth she spat it back out, disgusted with its flavor.
"So what did you need my help with?" Twilight asked as Gilda began to spoon some sugar into her tea.
"I- erm..." Her eyes fell from Twilight's as her voice caught in her throat. "Well, I've just been trying to find a way to win Dash back." She said taking a sip of tea. She grimaced at it and put the cup down with disgust, apparently under the influence it couldn't be saved from it's horrible flavor.
"Dash? You realize that it's been almost a year, right?"
"I know... But at least she won't hate me as much as she did a month after that party, right?" She said with a weak smile. Twilight replied to it with a look that simply said that that detail wouldn't matter much.
"Yes, the apparent hate will be gone, but I don't think she'll appreciate how long it took you to apologize. You did plan to apologize, didn't you?"
"Duh! What else would I do?"
"I don't know, that's why I was asking. Sheesh! Okay, so think about it this way: Say I slapped you and waited a week to say I was sorry when I was actually sorry the whole time. You'd be pretty unlikely to even think I was sorry, right?"
"Uh... sure." Gilda answered, a little upset at the idea that Rainbow might not even accept her apology. If she didn't accept the apology, then what could Gilda do to salvage her best friendship?
"Okay, so if she doesn't except your apology then what will you do?"
"I- I don- I don't know." Gilda answered, completely frustrated. She slumped against the table, trying to hold on to her cool composure.
"Okay, I didn't mean to upset you." Twilight said gently. She was still unsure whether she should be rough-an'-tumble with Gilda or not. She'd seemed like such a tough griffin back when her and Rainbow had had their falling out, but now? She seemed a little emotional. "Uhm...wh-why did you wait so long to come back?"
"Are you kidding? If I had come back right away, she'd have killed me. But then I just couldn't work up the guts to come back. Then I began to think she didn't deserve something as bad as me. So for a while I just gave up on all hope of it..."
"What drove you to want to come back?"
"I felt bad, and I needed to apologize..." Gilda answered. She buried her face in her arms and mumbled out. "I guess I couldn't live with myself if I didn't know whether there was still a chance or not."
"What made you come to me first? Why didn't just go straight to Rainbow?" Gilda looked up as she asked this.
"Er.... I- well she's obviously different. I just thought the best idea would be to ask one of her friends about it."
"Okay... She'd probably still like you, but just not with the whole, roaring at Fluttershy when you bump into her, or screaming at Pinkie Pie over a few pranks." Gilda's eyes drifted back to the table as she said this.
"I- I shouldn't have done those things... I was-" She looked away, her eyes screwed shut in an effort to stop the sting. "*ahem* I was just trying to impress Dash. I didn't know that she wasn't like that anymore..."
"Like what? Mean? Jerky? Sno-"
"I get it." Gilda muttered. Twilight looked at her for a moment. The poor girl was looking more and more upset by the moment.
"Were you were really trying to impress Rainbow when you lost your cool and started raging at that party?"
"Er- well... no. Listen, I'm not like that any more, okay?"
"Sorry if I have troubles believing that."
"I don't blame you." Gilda mumbled quietly. Twilight looked at her in a whole new light at that. If Gilda was acting the way she was under all this criticism and sarcasm, then why shouldn't Twilight believe she was different? Back at that party, if Twilight had acted this way towards her, she would've lashed out. But here was Gilda, trying her hardest to not break under pressure, and hoping to receive help mending a broken friendship. It seemed odd to Twilight how desperate Gilda seemed.
"Gilda..."
"Yeah?"
"Is Rainbow... special to you?"
"Excuse me?" Gilda asked, straightening in her seat. "You aren't seriously asking me if I-... You've got to be kidding, right?"
"I- *ahem* I was just being sure. I didn't mean to-... Okay, forget it." Gilda kept staring at her, offense and shock evident on her face. "So... let me think.... I guess you should find her and apologize. If this "new you" is legitimate, then I'm sure there will be some kind of positive response."
"B-but... I came here to learn to be a better friend."
"What?" Twilight quirked a brow.
"You study friendship and stuff. I mean, you write freaking letters to the princess about it. I figured you could teach me something..."
"Well... I guess I could.... but- you're sure you want ME of all ponies to teach you?"
"Yeah... I don't see why not." Twilight eyed her for a moment, and eventually decided that she could quit any time if this didn't work out.
"Okay, let's start with the basics..." She glanced out the window at the setting sun. "... tomorrow."
Gilda's eyes lit up as she answered in the affirmative. She went around the table and grabbed Twilight in a big bear-er- Griffin hug. Twilight felt her cheeks heat up as she was lifted from her seat in the intimate gesture. Two thoughts flashed forward in her mind.
Gilda hugs?
Why do I almost enjoy this?
"-ank you, thank you! I promise I'll try my hardest to get this right." Gilda was saying, dragging Twilight back to reality.
"*cough* No problem. I'm sure you'll do fine." She twitched her back legs slightly, and Gilda seemed to suddenly realize what she was doing. She set her down, none too gently, on her hooves.
"Heh... Sorry..." She said rubbing the back of her head and smiling sheepishly.
"That's okay...uhm... you should get going... I'm going to need to go get Spike before it get's dark."
"Y-yeah, sure." Gilda replied as she moved towards the door. She hesitated and glanced back at Twilight, who was magically cleaning up the tea cups.
"Be here around eight, okay?" Twilight requested.
"Yeah. Count on it." Gilda replied before opening the door and flying away.
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>*ahem*
>*cough*
Yeah, that's enough of that.
And you have a tendency to explain the characters' thought processes and motivation rather than showing it, and that just makes my skin crawl.
It's a shame, really - this is a pairing I'd never seen, and was rather intrigued by.
Finally, a good gilda story.
Lordy, this is really fast-paced. Like, there's no buildup to anything and no real backstory, from what I've seen here.
Also, work on your phrasing. Things like
rather than "under the impression that" (not to mention the "it's" over "its") and
rather than "accept" is just bad...
And you definitely need to work on your dialogue punctuation. Going from dialogue to a tag, as in
requires a comma, rather than a full stop. And if the first word of the dialogue tag isn't a name (like, if it were "she"), it shouldn't be capitalized.
Nice, it may be a touch hard to tell that
Are thoughts, may help to italicize thoughts in the future (many internet authors do this).
Very nicely done!
I also no cannot get the thought that Gilda is fluffy-soft out of my head no
Good idea for a ship but i have a few concerns...
The start is abit abrupt. It's like you've compleatly skipped the intoduction. (A prologue would be helpful).
It seems abit rushed. The first chapter is important if you want people to stick to the story. (Gilda is MUCH too sappy and twilight is much too accepting of the situation).
Your characters seem to change attatudes and opinions far too quickly. (Again you rush through the key scenes much too quickly).
... Perhaps you should build up to the meet up.
Actually, I would scrap this scene and have Twilight find Gilda near death on her doorstep.
Or something.... Definitely something that'll force Gilda to stay with Twilight .
Could work on your show and tell project... hopefully it will get better.
Slightly creepy that Gilda knew that Twilight wrote letters to the princess about Friendship when this is the first time they saw each other in a year.
The grammatical errors and lack of any backstory just makes me cringe ... I'm hoping this gets better. dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_TwilightWut.png
Quite the crack pairing here.
t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSjh5EEVjheUGhGHihFRMrB_g1MkC4Y2_0jDRNDSBc74c9HGhQjEA
1710243>>1714295>>1713586
Please reread these comments, as they are precisely what I feel.
Also, have a quick tip for getting your word count up: Never use onomatopoeia. Ever. why say '*Bang*' when you can say 'A thunderous noise was heard by someone who is relevant to the story.' or something similar?
1710243
What this guy said. One of the most important rules of writing is "Show, don't tell."
So, for example, try turning a line like
"Twilight cautiously opened the door and peeked inside. What she saw she had trouble understanding."
into something along the lines of...
"Twilight cautiously opened the door and peeked inside. Immediately, a look of confusion fell across her face."
1715120
srsly? Gravely wounded or something on her doorstep? That's way too corny.
---------------------------
I disagree with Titanium Gavel and those of the same opinion.
I dislike stories that take too freakin' long to build up. "Just get to the plot already!" It's not like we don't know the setting of this story. We are way too familiar with the tree library, who Twilight is, who Spike is, and who Gilda is. This isn't a standalone story, its a fanfic. Every reader knows what's what.
Also, I don't think the changes in the characters' attitudes are rushed. Some stories start and end within 1 chapter anyway. There is no reason this story shouldn't carry on with the same pacing.
"I don't blame you." Gilda mumbled quietly. Twilight looked at her in a whole new light at that. If Gilda was acting the way she was under all this criticism and sarcasm, then why shouldn't Twilight believe she was different? Back at that party, if Twilight had acted this way towards her, she would've lashed out. But here was Gilda, trying her hardest to not break under pressure, and hoping to receive help mending a broken friendship. It seemed odd to Twilight how desperate Gilda seemed. the reasoning here is solid and short enough. Please don't change it.
I suspect these ppl want you to break the constant dialogue with meaningless sips of tea or any other paraphernalia that detracts from the main focus. IF there was anything you could add though, it might be a tiny mention of their composure, the specifics like gestures, the brows. But its not like you aren't writing a fine story alrdy, congrats!
Oh boy... Okay, finally got around to reading this. I've gotten, I'd say about a page in, and my head's already spinning. It's not bad by any means, and truth be told I've really enjoyed it so far. There's just a lot of little stuff.
First off, I simultaneously agree and disagree that the starting is too abrupt. You don't need a ten paragraph build-up, but Gilda doesn't seem like the type to just come out and ask for help. She seems more like she'd beat around the bush a bit. Maybe have her explain why she came to Twilight, as opposed to one of the others.
You've also got a bit of a "talking heads" thing going. The back-and-forth is easy enough to understand since there's only two speakers, but not everyone has a vivid enough imagination to understand the speakers' feelings based on their speech alone. You did well enough adding actions to break it up, but try to throw in a few more.
Now for syntax errors:
Should be accept.
This whole line only needs the last period. Replace the first one with a comma.
No need for the asterisks here. Capitalize 'Ahem' and put a dash after it. Or better yet, take it out of the speech altogether and add something along the lines of "Gilda cleared her throat nervously" to end of the sentence before.
Technically correct, but it's clunky and I can't see Twilight saying that. Try just making it 'trouble'.
Rad up on "show vs. tell", then rewrite this line, and the entire paragraph containing it.
Unnecessary. If you must include it, add spaced after each dash.
The first of these two lines is atrocious. Both of them actually sound like they were run through a translator.
Secondly, since they are both direct thoughts, they should both be in italics. You might also want to consider condensing them into one paragraph.
Again, this could be better if you remove it from the speech and add it to the line before.
Like I said, it's good. There's just a lot of little things preventing it from being great.