Brighter than Gold
Gilda’s no good at making friends.
Who cares? No one, especially not Gilda. Not even when she sees Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie standing together on the main street like they don’t have a care in the world, like all they’re doing is taking a fun trip together to a nice place where that’s normal behaviour as opposed to totally weird.
Acting like this is Ponyville, not Griffonstone.
Why should she be good at making friends anyway? What a waste of time. Friends aren’t worth the hassle. Gilda’s not hurt by the fact that Rainbow Dash turned out to be a total dweeb—she’s better than that. She’s the gold standard in not caring. Still, what had having a friend ever gained her? Nothing good in the end, that’s for sure.
She likes her own company. No one to cater to, no one to tell her what to do, no one to guilt her into spending time with some pony she doesn’t know or make her feel bad for not being enough.
No-one in lousy Griffonstone is worth making friends with anyway. All the good griffons have skipped out for the Griffish Isles. That’s where she’s headed too, as soon as she can sell enough scones to make enough bits for the ferry trip.
And better scones are worth more bits. Obviously she knows Grampa Gruff’s recipe is lacking something—duh! But she won’t let anygriffon get away with not paying up for a scone. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That’s what she tells them.
Still, Pinkie Pie’s addition of baking powder definitely makes the scones taste better, and that’ll help Gilda to save enough bits, although Gilda obviously won’t ever tell her so. She’d never live it down.
Not like it’ll matter for long. Can’t buy baking powder in Griffonstone.
She’s thinking about how much to charge when Pinkie Pie starts running her mouth yet again, this time about friends. Ugh, it’s always about friends with these ponies, and she’s never made even one friend. Rainbow Dash made friends with her at Flight Camp; Gilda didn’t have anything to do with it. She just let Dash take pity on her because it was the best thing that ever happened to her.
But she couldn’t do it herself. Wouldn’t know how to start. What’s the point anyway?
She’d only go and ruin it all over again.
Bits are the solid bet. You can hold them in your claws and keep them for yourself, and they don’t mouth off or play pranks or leave you even though you deserve it.
She’ll charge two bits, she decides. Two bits for a decent scone in a two-bit town? That’s poetic, it rhymes—or it matches, at least. Whatever. The scones are more than worth two bits. They’re the best scones this side of the Guta River. She’d bet on it.
Even if she charged more it’s not like she’d be getting rich on it. She’ll have to ‘share the wealth’ soon enough by buying train tickets and ferry rides. Anyway, any griffon that gets to eat one of these scones will be pretty pleased. They say the way to a griffon’s heart is through their wallet, but through the stomach isn’t a bad move either.
Pinkie Pie seems to think so too when she pushes Gilda in Greta’s direction. She certainly doesn’t think gold is the best thing for griffons. Far as Gilda can tell, she thinks hugs solve everything.
Gilda reminds herself that hugs are lame as Greta frowns and shakes her head. She reminds herself that friends aren’t worth the hassle as she offers Greta the scone. Bits are the solid bet.
Greta takes a bite.
Bits are what matter to griffons. Gilda’s doing this for the bits.
“It tastes… good,” Greta says, like she can’t quite believe it.
Even though she tasted them when they first came out of the oven, Gilda can’t quite believe it either.
“It does?” Gilda backtracks immediately, hating how eager she sounds. “Uh, I mean, obviously. Scones are my specialty, y’know.”
Greta almost scowls, but she might just be steeling herself. She swallows. A moment passes.
When she looks at Gilda again, her expression relaxes somehow. “How much?” she asks, raking her talons through her feathers and coming away with a couple of bits.
The gold pieces gleam in her outstretched claw. Gilda won’t pretend her claws don’t itch with the desire to snatch them away, but they itch with another urge too: the urge to make contact. Not that she’d ever hug Greta, or even put her arm around her like she used to with Rainbow Dash, but… they could shake claws, or something.
You’re more important to me than some dumb chunk of gold, she’d said.
The bits in Greta’s claws do look dumb, even though they’ll help Gilda get out of Griffonstone. They look small, too, surrounded entirely by the warmer golds and bronzes of Greta’s talons.
All that energy has to go somewhere and she uses it to scuff the dust for a second before waving Greta’s offer away. “Nah, don’t worry about it,” she says. “It’s on the house.”
As if triggered by her words, part of the house beside them crumbles. Of course even the houses in Griffonstone are trying to undermine her.
“I mean, er, it’s free. This one.” Gilda clears her throat. Her claws still itch, and Greta’s looking at her like she’s crazy again. “Like, just do me a favour and tell everygriffon else you think they’re good,” she blurts.
Greta doesn’t smile, but her frown doesn’t get any deeper either. Good save. Then the frown smooths out, softens. It’s still not a smile, but Gilda realises it’s a softer expression than she’s ever seen before. “Yeah. I will.”
“Th-thanks.” Maybe no-griffon’s ever said anything nice to Greta until today either. Maybe she’s the first.
She goes back to Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash and tells them how it went. She’s still no good at making friends, that hasn’t changed, she and Greta aren’t friends, yet those ridiculous cutie marks start chirruping and the two ponies get all excited and say they’ve solved Griffonstone’s problem, that it was a friendship problem.
Pinkie’s tone suggests Gilda took part in fixing it. She didn’t. The ponies made friends with her, not the other way round, and Greta just liked the scone. Still, she feels like it’s a little less impossible to make friends when they say they’ll come back to visit, and when she thinks about Greta’s expression.
Pinkie might be right. She’s been right about a lot of things: baking powder, the Idol of Boreas, hugs. Pinkie’s advice is starting to feel a lot like a more solid bet than bits; every time Gilda’s gone against it, life’s gone wrong, and when she follows, she gets a hug out of it.
Of course, you have to actually stick around for it to matter that someone’s said they’ll be coming back to visit you. But there’s something in the warmth in Pinkie Pie’s silly hooves around her neck—something about the memory of the gentle crook at the edge of Greta’s mouth—that makes her think it might not be totally awful to stay in Griffonstone. It might even be worthwhile.