Mail Call
Gilda’s day began the same way it had ever since she had landed her position at the post office two weeks ago. Get up at the damnably ungodly hour of three in the morning, grab some coffee she had put on the night before, steal a quick bite of whatever leftovers Damien had in the fridge, and head to the office. She almost never flew to work, partially due to the fact that night flying was not something any griffon enjoyed, but mostly because not even a trick flier like herself could just wake up and jump into the air without a good warm-up first. Besides, a good jog early in the morning did a griffon good and helped keep her in shape.
From there things were always predictable unpredictable. Derpy would always manage to do something unusual. It was never the same thing twice, and if you were expecting one thing it was almost invariably another. On Gilda’s first day at work Derpy had accidentally overshot her landing and ended up not only knocking her head on the door frame but plowing into the bags of new mail, scattering them about the office. The next day she slipped as she entered the room and knocked over a stack of boxes, by some miracle they managed to fall completely unbroken but somehow completely sorted by destination. Today it looked like Derpy hadn’t managed to do anything too damaging to the building which meant the inside could either be a disaster or a picture of perfection.
Gilda’s stomach rumbled quietly as she opened the door and smiled at the one thing that Derpy always did; Bring in fresh muffins. That mare’s skill at creating the things rivaled, or even topped, that of Pinkie Pie and the Cakes. Her eyes quickly swept the room with the air of a practiced predator until they landed on Derpy.
Her offset eyes brightened and she gave the same big, slightly goofy, grin she always did when Gilda came in to work. “Morning!” she chirped happily as she pulled a crisp fresh muffin out of her saddlebags and tossed it through the air to Gilda.
Gilda had to lunge forward slightly in order to catch the descending pastry but nodded gratefully to her co-worker all the same. Compared to some of her more… inspired… throws this one was downright tame. “How much we got today?” she asked as she took a big bite out of the muffin, closing her eyes as she savored the taste.
“Lots!” Derpy exclaimed as she gestured wildly at three bulging bags of mail, her grin still going strong.
Gilda blinked resignedly as she surveyed the bags in front of her. Not a massive load but still pretty big. With a grim frown she moved over to heft one of the large bags over her shoulder. Upon reaching her sorting table she quickly undid the knot holding the bag closed and began the daily task of sorting every single damn letter the office received.
With a practiced air she began to sift through the letters and launch them expertly into the waiting mailbags. Her desk was soon a flurry of motion as the combination of her sharp eyes and nimble claws made quick work of the letters before her. Her flurry of motion quickly ground to a halt when a very familiar address caught her eye. Her eyes widened as she noticed the addressee and the return address.
“Something wrong?” Derpy asked, as she kept one eye on the letters in front of her and turned the other to Gilda.
“No! Nothing at all!” Gilda squawked as she threw the letter into the appropriate bag. Getting back up to speed took a moment and even when she hit her rhythm it was still slightly slower than it had been before. Her usual steady pace occasionally faltering as she cast furtive glances at a particular mailbag.
<=[XXXXX]=>
It took the two of them until five to finish sorting out all the letters, even with Gilda’s quickly growing skill at the task and Derpy’s almost supernatural ability once she really got going. In front of them sat four large mailbags, each one filled with the day’s mail.
With what she hoped was a nonchalant movement Gilda reached out towards the bag containing the letter that had caught her eye before.
“You gonna do north?” Derpy asked curiously. Being the mainly commercial section of town it was almost always the hardest hit and longest route they had to complete.
“Uh, yeah. I figure I’d take north and west today and you could do east and south. You’d have to spend less time at work and get to spend more time with your kids ‘n stuff,” Gilda lied quickly.
There was a nervous silence as Derpy slowly processed Gilda’s statement with what amounted to a thoughtful expression. Her eyes lit up and she beamed at her co-worker suddenly. “Thanks Gilda!” she exclaimed. “I really wanted to help Dinky with homework today!”
Gilda bit back a pang of guilt as she nodded at the exuberant mare. Everyone knew just how much Derpy loved her kids and even the most cynical of the townsfolk would put a hoof forward now and then to help her spend more time with them. Gilda’s excuse had been something of a cheap shot but, as she reminded herself with a shake of her head, one that both had a good outcome and ensured that she would be able to get at that letter as fast as possible.
Unfortunately that time was still some ways off since she now had two large bags of mail to further organize in front of her. She stifled a sigh as she dumped out the first bag and began to order the letters by street. It was times like this that she envied her co-workers strange ability to pull out exactly what letters were needed from her bag without fail.
“Want help?” Derpy asked, as though summoned by Gilda’s thoughts.
“Nah, you should get out there and get started,” Gilda assured her with a wave of her talon.
Despite Gilda’s assurances Derpy sat herself down next to the griffon and joined in the sorting. “Got letter?” she eventually asked, both eyes looking resolutely away from Gilda.
Gilda blinked in surprise. It was a wonder how that mare could fail to notice where a door was one second and pick up on such subtle social cues the next. “Yeah, came from back home. Probably from my mom,” she said slowly. A part of her marveled at the fact that she was willing to share this with Derpy but the pegasus was solid where it counted and had proven herself time and again in the griffon’s eyes.
“That bad?”
“I don’t know. I left home ages ago. Didn’t like bein’ smothered by her ya know?” Gilda shook her head ruefully. “She was always telling me how I should live my life, what I should do. I’m kinda scared of what a letter from her means.” A harsh chuckle escaped her beak. “Though she’d probably be almost happy with me right now. Got a steady job, a place to stay, not getting arrested for disturbing the peace…”
Derpy simply sat and listened as Gilda rambled on about her mother and life in general. One thing being a mother herself had taught her was that there were times when you should just sit back and listen.
“…and I know there’s no way she’d approve of living alone with a male griffon,” Gilda snickered wryly. “She’s always been a bit on the traditional side. But she's usually to busy with her duties to leave home so I doubt she'll be able to come down here and lecture me on living with Damien.” She reached absently for the pile of letters to her side and looked over in surprise when she saw they had sorted out the entire pile already. With a soft groan she got up and stretched her wings. With practiced moves she placed each stack back into the mailbags in their proper order and then flung the bags themselves over her shoulders. “Hey uhh, Derpy? Thanks,” she said sheepishly before heading out the door.
Derpy merely smiled and loaded up her own mailbags, knocking over two chairs and a table in the process.
<=[XXXXX]=>
“Is this really necessary?” Damien grumbled as he set aside the book he was reading for the third time that hour.
“Yes!” Twilight cried out in exasperation. “This helps give me context for everything you’re always saying about your world!”
“Which one this time?” he grumbled.
She flipped through several pages of notes before looking back up at him. “I don’t think I’ve seen what you used to look like. Can you do that?”
Damien sighed and began to mutter under his breath. Each syllable brought a sigil of burning darkness into existence. Before long there was a crude outline of these sigils floating in the air between Damien and Twilight. When his chant ended the sigils blurred together and began to gain color and shape. Soon there was a life-sized illusion of Damien as he had been before his transformation standing in the library with them.
“You don’t look too different from some of the other races you mentioned,” Twilight murmured as she began inspecting the illusion. “The only difference between you and the elves looks like your ears.”
“Never compare me to those pretentious wastes of space,” Damien grumbled vehemently. “Now may I get back to my book?”
“Yes, of course,” Twilight replied absentmindedly.
Damien rolled his eyes as he watched Twilight examine the illusion of his past self before picking his book back up and flipping back to where he had left off. However before he could read even a single word the library door was thrown open and a desperate voice broke the relative silence of the library.
“DAMIEN!” Gilda shouted as she burst into the library, her eyes darting back and forth until they found him. “I need you!”
Damien blinked and smiled. “That’s flattering Gilda but I have no plans for such a thing at this-”
He was cut off as Gilda’s talons clamped around his beak like a vice-grip. “No. No sarcasm. No glib remarks. No making light of everything. You are going to listen.”
Damien blinked in surprise before a smiling beneath Gilda’s talons. He gave an affirmative nod before extracting his beak from her clutches. “So what do you need me for my dear?”
“I… Today I… I’ll need…” She continued to try and fail to explain the situation that had driven her to seek his assistance several more times before sighing in defeat and handing him a letter.
He raised a single eyebrow at her uncharacteristic silence before reaching out to take the proffered letter. Casting a questioning glance at Gilda he unfolded the letter she had handed him and began to read.
Gilda,
I’m glad you finally got around to writing me a letter like you promised when you left home and I’m glad to hear things are finally looking up for you. It's been so quiet without you around to argue with your father and I almost miss the racket you two would always cause. Luckily I’ve managed to get a week off from my duties so I’ll be coming down to Ponyville to see you! It’s been far too long since we spent any time together and we really need to catch up. I should be arriving in Ponyville on the thirteenth.
Your Mother,
Tyra
Damien reread the letter again and looked back at Gilda. “What exactly have you told your mother in your letters?” he asked, his voice was calm but held icy undertones that seemed to chill the room.
“Only that I found a place to stay and that I got a job!" she replied quickly, backing up a step at the ice in his tone. "It’s just that…” Gilda let the sentence trail off as she looked down at the floor.
Damien sighed in exasperation and motioned for her to continue. When nothing more was forthcoming he reached over and shook her roughly by the shoulder. “It’s just what?”
“My mother is… a traditionalist, really big on honor and tradition. Like really really big.” She shuffled her feet nervously. “And those traditions are very clear on certain things. Like the… proper situation for two griffons of… differing genders living together.”
“So your mother is coming here and will expect…?” Damien let the question hang in the air between them expectantly despite obviously knowing where she was going with this. More fun to make her say it after all.
“Well, she’ll want us to be… engaged,” she said tersely. “Or at least dating seriously,” she added quickly with a blush.
“So I’ll need to pretend to be your lover for…” He glanced down at the letter in his talon. “A week.”
Gilda nodded hesitantly.
“And you can’t think of any other way out of this?”
“There’s no way I can convince her I managed to buy that house on my own so I can’t ask you to leave for a week and unless you’re able to become a female for a week… You can’t do that right?” she asked, hopeful gleam in her eyes hoping for him to deny her assumption.
“Can? Yes. Will? No.”
“Why not?! It couldn’t possibly be that bad right?”
“Transformation spells rewrite the body in a general fashion. When I became a griffon I became me as a griffon. However small changes don't translate over. If you have a cut before you transform you won't have it afterwards. This also goes for alterations you've made to your body, tattoos, piercings, and the like. One of my greatest sources of strength, magical, physical, and otherwise is that I have inscribed hundreds of thousands of sigils onto my very bones. Sigils that would not transfer over to my new body or be there when I eventually returned to my male form. Inscribing those runes back onto my bones would involve me ripping the flesh from my bones and carving the runes back into them with an enchanted knife. I am not dealing with that unless I absolutely have to,” he said firmly.
“Why can’t you just explain the situation to your mom and try to get her to understand?” Twilight interjected after staring at Damien in a mixture of shock, horror, and vague interest at the description of his methods for a few moments.
Gilda looked at her as though she had lost her mind. “She’s a traditionalist! And the captain of the guard for one of the most famous Manes in the griffon city-states! She didn’t get her position by questioning tradition and I doubt she’s going to start doing it now!”
“But keeping secrets like this can’t be healthy! You’re asking Damien and yourself to play roles you have no experience in!” Twilight burst out.
“Gilda maybe, but I have plenty of experience playing the lover and the fiancé,” Damien snorted. At the looks of disbelief the others gave him his gave an indignant squawk. “What? You don’t believe that someone who had dedicated much of their life to deception and manipulating the actions of others can’t pull off a simple role as Gilda’s boyfriend?” He placed a talon to his forehead dramatically. “I’m surrounded by under appreciative louts,” he muttered.
“Whatever. Will you help me?” Gilda asked with a roll of her eyes.
“Of course! This sounds like it might be the most entertaining thing you’ve done since you made up with Dash! There’s no way I’m missing out on this!” he cried out, insulted that she had thought he would turn down such free entertainment.
“So you’ll do it for free?”
“Gates no! I’ll be doubling your rent this month because of this.”
Gilda sighed and nodded. “Fine. Not like it really costs me anything to pay you. What do you even use that blood for anyway?”
“Wards, enchantments, the occasional curse,” Damien replied as he ticked off the items on his talons. “Virgin’s blood is pretty much a catch-all reagent that strengthens any spell.”
Gilda blushed at his nonchalant remark. “I-I’m not a virgin!”
“Yes you aaaaaarrrrrreeeeeeee~!” he sang. “I can smell it in your blood.” He laughed loudly as he took in both Gilda and Twilight’s blushes. “Don’t worry; I’m sure you girls will find someone eventually. Worst come to worst you both know where I live!” he said with a wink and another cascade of laughter. “Are there any stipulations as to how I should act as your fiancé or am I to decide everything for myself?”
Still fighting to keep her luminescent blush under control Gilda glared angrily at Damien. “You will not use magic where she will figure it out and you will not do or say anything that will make her think that we aren’t a couple.”
“Alighty then! Now that that’s over with I believe I have a book to finish reading.”
As he reached for his book Gilda shot across the intervening distance and snatched the book away. “Not yet freak! I need you to say it. Promise me you won’t screw this up.”
Damien’s eyes glittered mischievously. “You have been learning haven’t you?” he said admiringly. With mock solemnity he rose up on his back legs, closed his eyes, and placed a talon over his heart. “I swear I shall not use magic in the vicinity of your mother in any way that can be traced back to me and I shall not speak to her in any way that will cause her to question whatever notions she has about our living arrangements.” He opened his eyes with a grin. “That good enough?”
Gilda sat in silence as she worked through what he had said several times over. “Good enough,” she affirmed cautiously. “But I’ll be watching you.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way my dear. Shall we go over the details of our fake history right now or at some other time?”
“What?”
Damien sighed tiredly. “And here I had such high hopes for your progress into the arts of deception. Simply saying we’re together isn’t enough. We’ll need to figure out how much physical contact we should have and our reason for it. Lay out the background of our courtship and how we came to be where we are now. A true plan lies not in its assumptions but its details! Now, where did we meet?”
“The Everfree forest,” Gilda responded quickly. Seeing Damien egging her on to elaborate she slowly stuttered, “you were looking for Ponyville because you wanted to move there and I ran into you by chance.” Her voice grew firm as she continued, “after I got you to Ponyville you offered to buy me dinner to repay me for helping you.”
“Excellent!” he said as he clapped. “Enough truth to be easy to remember and simple enough deceptions so as to go unnoticed in the grand scheme of things! We’ll need to fabricate a little more history, make things seem plausible. None of that fall in love at first sight crap. That only happens when overly meddlesome gods start getting ideas above their stations. Then we’ll need to let all your friends know about what’s going on so they won’t blow your cover-”
“What?!” Gilda squawked. “No we don’t!”
“Of course we do! You don’t think that we can go the entire week without having your mother meet your friends do you? They need to be in on our little ruse! Sure some of them, *cough* Dash *cough*, will take advantage of this to embarrass, blackmail, or otherwise humiliate you but it’s the price you pay for your plan to work out!” he said as he spread his forelimbs and wings grandly.
Gilda had been reduced to incoherent mumbling at the thought of all her still new and tentative friends being brought into this elaborate deception. She was so distracted that she nearly missed Damien’s continuing advice.
“-and of course if you want to be really convincing you’ll probably need to be somewhat intimate with me. Now I don’t have much experience kissing with a beak so we may have to practice a bit to make sure it’s convincing-”
“WHAT?!” Gilda screeched as his words made their way into her brain. “No! No way! NEVER! I am not going that far to deceive my mom!” She panted as her brief but turbulent tirade came to an end to see Damien smiling hugely, his sides shaking with barely suppressed laughter. “This is all just a game to you isn’t it?” she lamented tiredly.
He smiled at her, an oddly comforting look in his eyes. “Heh, and here I thought you had stopped paying attention. I won’t force you into anything you aren’t willing to do in order to pull this off.” A predatory gleam flashed in his eyes. “And as for your question? Yes. All of life is a game to me, a game I play to win.”
She shuddered at his tone but had to admit, she could think of no one else that would give her a better chance of actually pulling this entire debacle off than him.
“So we have…” Damien glanced down at the letter quickly. “Three days to get our story straight and let everyone of import know what’s going on.” He grinned. “This is gonna be fun.”
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What a troll “Yes you aaaaaarrrrrreeeeeeee~!” he sang. “I can smell it in your blood.”
He's just such a boss XD
Damien is AMAZING. This story just blows my mind every time I read a chapter. YOU MUST WRITE MOAR.
amazing!
"It was times like this that she envied her co-workers strange ability to pull out exactly what letters were needed form her bag without fail." -
"Hey uhh, Depry? Thanks" -
"You don’t look too different form some of the other races you mentioned" -
"Gilda let sentence trail off as she looked down at the floor." -
"When I became a griffon i became me as a griffon." - HMMM
"This alos goes for alterations you've made to your body" - poni.0au.de/images/characters/discord.png
"One of my greatest sources of strength, magical, pysical, and otherwise" -
"This sounds like it might be the most entertaining thing you’ve done since you made up with Dash!" - I read that as "made out with Dash"
"Three days to get our story straight and let everyone of import know what’s going on." - Everyone of import?
389746
Damn but I messed up a lot in this one.
In other news:
Import: noun: consequence or importance: matters of great import.
389954 I didn't know that importance can be shortened like that
390005
It isn't really used all that commonly. Not sure where I first heard it used that way but I like it. Can make things sound grandiose yet informal.
390150 To me, it just seems like you forgot to type the rest of "importance"
Amazing, keep goin and stay golden^^
Win. AND I CALLED IT! Gilda and her family... I wonder if she has a big brother...
397647
I wouldn't say you called it. More like gave me the idea in the first place.
Thanks for that by the way.
Damien is a fantastic character. He's so much fun!
398498
*grins* Glad to be of service! Even better, you're taking this in a direction other than what I was thinking, so I can use my ideas later.
Anyway, looking forward to the next chapter.
Mostly moments like these make my thoughts go "oh no this is not gonna work out well"
But here i am "OH this is gonna be fun."
Damian-> Pro
nuff said.
Random quote of the comment (not written by me)
“Er... um, I’m not sure if I should- OH HEY LOOK! A SCENE TRANSITION!”
“Wait wha-”
Meanwhile at Sugarcube Corner, a pink pony giggled to herself as she sensed the ripples in the fourth wall.
Man, Damian is a badass, he pulled out his bones and wrote on it in order to give him the ability to cast spells.
He's also such a troll.
offtopic:
Derpy is awesome.
Hm... I kind of thought that Damian would have held onto a grudge over Twilight from the last chapter... or at least enacted on his form of revenge/punishment on her.
Perhaps this gets answered in a later chapter and I merely just need to continue on. But yeah, I just wanted to leave my thought on this here before I continue on.
Heh