The Scones
It was a day like no other in the city of Griffonstone, as ordinary as it would be for a city set on a giant tree found at the top of a mountain populated by griffons who merely tolerated each other at the best of times. At least Greta, one of its griffon denizens whose feathers were scarlet apart from her emerald green head, she merely tolerated most griffons as most of the time they might yell or bump into her carelessly as she went by her routine.
Fortunately for her, she did have one or two good friends she that would make her time out and about worthwhile, and on that day as she flew over the wooden and straw built houses, she was about to encounter one of them. An interesting array of aromas drew her attention downwards towards a griffon with a head of white feathers, who in turn was quick to spot her and wave her down with one of her arms, the other handling a large tray. Greta took no time to swoop on down to see what her friend was up to.
“Gilda! What’s up?” she asked.
“Hey Greta! Got a new batch of Griffon Scones done” answered Gilda, presenting the large tray to reveal an assortment of small fresh scones of varying colours, confirming to Greta the source of the aromas. “Bought new ingredients a few days earlier so I’m trying to get a load of new flavours to sell. Wanna test ‘em?”
Greta knew Gilda often worked hard on her baking, mostly so she could make money to move out of Griffonstone someday, so she was often more than happy to help give some encouragement. She was already optimistic of the taste based on the smells they dispersed, so was more than willing to try a few.
“Sure!”
The pair started grabbing one of the pieces each at random, the scones still warm to the touch as they held them in their talons and tasted them. Greta appeared to be the lucky one when she tasted her scone, sensing a slight mixture of sweetness and a little spice from what turned out to be ginger.
Gilda, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. Her face immediately scrunched up the moment the scone landed in her mouth, realising she put too much lemon and not enough sugar, making it extra sour. They laughed it off when Greta suggested she could offer that kind of scone to really bad customers as a “bonus”.
That was when a distance voice emitting behind the two caught their attention.
“Hey Gilda! Hey Greta! Make way for a landing!” the voice called cheerfully, the two let out a slight groan as they recognised the voice immediately, knowing that their relaxing moment together was about to get a bit more energised.
“Well, here comes Gabby.”
“Yeah, what a surprise, she probably caught the smell and as she was making her way from Ponyville.”
The two have known Gabby since they were fledgelings, largely thanks to her upbeat personality and constant drive to be friendly and helpful making her difficult to avoid. For most griffons, who were bitter and pessimistic of their livelihoods, Gabby’s sweetness and hopeful view of the world that would rival any common pony felt sickening, leading them to avoid or shut her out wherever they could.
Gilda was particularly guilty of this, as she used to think any creature with Gabby’s personality was lame. It was not until that harsh mindset caused her to lose an old friend of hers from Ponyville, and having to rekindle that friendship by willing herself to make friends with others, that she changed for the better. That change allowed her to become friends with Greta, and it only felt right to make amends and include Gabby as well. They were fortunate that Gabby was eager to forgive and become really good friends, even it meant they had to accept a lot of hugs and endearment whenever she would appear.
Fortunately for Gabby, her friendliness and an eagerness to help others granted her an advantage in her line of work as a mail courier for Griffonstone, often responsible for sending messages westward towards the neighbouring country of Equestria, and Ponyville especially. In fact, her visits to Ponyville had been getting longer and more frequent ever since she started getting in touch with a purple dragon that resided in that town named Spike.
The pair last spoke with Gabby a few months ago, so they were anticipating Gabby to talk at length about her time spent with Spike, suspecting the two have been getting closer and closer the longer she had been travelling outward. When mostly grey feathered griffon swooped over them and made her slow descent, Gilda prepared to make her opening sentence.
“Hey Gabby, how’s it-WOAH!”
Unfortunately for both Gilda and Greta, their expectations were thrown out and Gilda’s greeting was cut short as Gabby turned around and revealed she didn’t arrive by herself.
“Going great thanks!” Gabby answered cheerfully. “Just thought it’s been months since I’ve been to Griffonstone and thought I’d catch up!” It took Gabby a while to notice that Gilda and Greta had been frozen, their wide eyes locked onto Gabby’s chest, but almost immediate for her to understand why. Attached to her chest by a harness was a tiny dragon, as emerald green as Greta’s head feathers except for his spines, nose, and eyes which were bright orange.
“Oh, and I also have someone special to introduce~ This little bundle of joy is Ash!” she exclaimed, pushing her chest outwards to present the tiny dragon to show him off. She then proceeded to look down to quietly converse with the tiny being she was carrying. “Ashie, do you wanna say hello to Auntie Gilda and Auntie Greta?”
Little Ash was too young to communicate with words, and his coordination was limited, as such whatever he said was unintelligible but he could barely manage to reach out and move one of his arms in an attempt to wave at the frozen griffons in front of him. Oblivious to both of her friends’ reactions, Gabby’s attention drew to the baking tray that remained firmly gripped in Gilda’s talons.
“Oooh tiny fresh Griffon Scones!” she remarked. “Mind if I try one?”
In response, Gilda finally manages to break her trance to move the baking tray in Gilda’s direction, to which Gabby took as a yes and happily picked up one of the pieces. She became almost transcendent the moment she took a bite out of the piece of scone, admiring the flavour of it.
“Mmmmm~ Is this cinnamon? It tastes amazing!”
As she was enjoying the scone, Ash was looking upward and reaching his hands out towards the piece, wanting to try whatever Gabby was enjoying. The griffon was quick to notice.
“You wanna try a little griffon scone?” she asked, witnessing Ash’s increasing effort to grab the remainder of the scone as an agreement. She decided to break off a small piece and move it Ash’s face. “Say aah~”
Ash responded quickly, opening his jaw to reveal protruding fangs on both the top and bottom edges of his mouth and reach forward to grab the scone with one bite. He immediately showed the same opinion as Gabby in finding the scone delicious, as he smiled and flailed around as he chewed the chunk of cinnamon scone residing in his mouth.
Meanwhile, Gilda and Greta were still processing the image in front of them, Gabby was not just carrying around a baby, but a baby dragon. Knowing how fond and caring she was acting around, combined with the now cutesy title Auntie the pair had now received from her, they speculated that she’s caring for the baby dragon, like she’s his mother. Combined with their speculation that Gabby and Spike have been getting close, there was a nagging question in their heads.
“So… do you think this Ash is Gabby’s…?” Gilda whispered as she leant slowly towards Greta’s direction, Greta slowly nodded in response.
“Looks like it…”
“With her and Spike and all,” Gilda followed up, “do you think they adopted Ash or did they…?” she proceed to poke her index fingers together.
The question caused Greta to pause, internally she was trying to avoid creating a mental image of what Gilda was suggesting, trying to remain determined that the former idea was the more obvious assumption to make. Admittingly, she had never met or known dragons and Gilda didn’t likely know any more than she did, a fact that was preventing them both from ruling the latter idea out completely.
“I think you should ask her,” Greta suggested whisperingly. Gilda immediately started blushing at the idea.
“What?! No!” she agitated, swinging her head in Greta’s direction. “You’re thinking about it, you should ask her!”
“You’re thinking about it too!” Greta replied, whispering through her teeth, her eyes locked onto Gilda’s. “And you know Gabby better than I do.”
“Yeah well, you are probably better at asking it. I mean she has a kid with her, do you really want me to ask if Gabby and Spike made one by doing it?”
“Doing what?”
The pair turned back around to find Gabby looking at them with her head tilted in curiosity and began to freak out internally, unsure of how much Gabby had heard. They felt compelled to get the question out of their minds, but the baby dragon clearly in view they didn’t want to make it uncomfortable or embarrassing.
“NOTHING!” Gilda exclaimed, trying to play it cool. “Uh… we were just remarking that we didn’t know you were… expecting?” The pair tried to smile convincingly enough not to draw suspicion, hoping the phrasing was enough of a hint, despite how painful it felt to do so. Fortunately, Gabby appeared oblivious to what the pair were thinking.
“Yeah, sorry I didn’t tell you both earlier,” she apologised “I wasn’t expecting to come over today either, but we managed to find free time for a visit.”
Neither Greta nor Gilda were sure of how to continue, they wanted to avoid the conversation but that was made difficult with Gabby’s full attention, and they wanted to avoid the topic but Gilda especially cannot help herself.
“What I mean is… we didn’t realise you were ‘with child’” she followed, providing exaggerated finger air quotes to make it obvious.
“Of course I’m with a child, he’s right here!” Gabby responded as she gestured to the absent-minded baby dragon still attached to her chest, once again failing to grab any hint that Gilda was throwing at her.
All it achieved was making Gilda more uncomfortable. Meanwhile, Greta was visibly getting frustrated as she had a firm grip at the top of her beak between her eyes, internally pleading for either Gilda to be direct, or for Gabby to get the idea to save embarrassment.
“Uh… yeah… but… I meant 'carrying him to term'.” Gilda persevered.
“Oh, he’s easy to hold, not so much while flying but that’s why Pegasus ponies made these harnesses!”
“No, just… did you and Spike plan to have a 'bun in the oven'?”
“Not that I recall” Gabby pondered, “we haven’t baked any bread together in a while…”
“PREGNANT!” Greta snapped, “She’s saying we didn’t know you were pregnant!” she exclaimed as she gestured towards a now surprised Gilda. “We weren’t sure if you and your dragon boyfriend had been busy making a baby while you were away!”
From that moment, everything felt completely devoid of sound despite the only ones in the vicinity being the three griffons and the dragon baby. Upon hearing Greta snap, Ash instinctively went to covering his ears, hunching up, and firming keeping his eyes closed, fearing something bad had happened. Gilda and Greta were now embarrassed and guilty, preparing to apologise as Gabby was taken aback and now left frozen at the question left in front of her.
“Oooooooooooh….” she blinked and finally caught on. “Well, the truth is that it wasn’t like that.” She began to caress Ash’s head to calm him down.
“I probably should have said at some point that a few months ago, Spike brought home a dragon egg after visiting the Dragon Lands” she started to explain. “No one claimed it and Spike thought he would hatch the egg himself and we will raise the dragon instead, and I was super excited because I wanted to be a mommy. Spike had to put a lot of time and fire breathing to heat the egg for it to hatch, but the hard work paid off because this little treasure hatched out of his egg.”
Ash gradually began to relax, letting go of his ears and returning to his calm state of hanging around in the harness, smiling as he enjoyed the head rub from Gabby.
“Spike and I have been raising him since, so I may not be his actual mom, but I sure do care and love him to bits like one!” she proceeded to hug the little Ash and nuzzle the top of his head, causing him to giggle in response.
And so, Gilda and Greta finally got their answer, although at that moment the sight of seeing both Gabby and Ash happy enough felt more important enough to feel relieved and happy for the two of them.
“Either way, congrats on being a mom, regardless of how it came about.” Gilda proclaimed as she and Greta grab another pair of scones for them to try. At that moment, Gabby placed her talons around Ash’s head and gently pressed on his ears, so he was unable to hear anything.
“Yeah, it would have been impossible for us two to make our own baby, although that hasn't stopped us both from getting frisky at night,” she said, followed by a wink.
Suddenly, that mental image that Gilda and Greta had been avoiding the whole time rushed into their heads, and their faces turned red. Taken by complete surprise, the scones they were eating ended up falling down the wrong pipe, causing them to cough and gag as a result.