In a place where possibility is endless, a couple explores what might have been.
Discord knows this one place where he's wanted to take Fluttershy to ever since they became a couple. A place where he can show her why it's so much fun to mess around with reality, and she has just the thing to try out.
Quick thanks to Corejo for last-minute corrections and minor edits. And while they didn't specifically help me with this, I would like to thank Petrichord for the coffee that got me through writing (and that one consultation about changing the POV), and also Admiral Biscuit for that advice he gave me at the bar a couple of months ago to not overcomplicate things, especially when talking about lesbian horses. Thanks guys.
Much like simmering soup, The Lake of Outstanding Outcomes and Possible Solutions (commonly known as the Lake of Oops) gently bubbled and constantly mixed the different hues and threads of possibility in an everlasting emulsifying concoction that sloshed gently onto the coast of stars right under the roots of Yggdrasil, the almighty World Tree, spanning space, time and logic… where Discord had set up his and Fluttershy's beach towels, lunch basket, and drinks.
"Oh my," Fluttershy said, drawing the Draconeccus' attention to her. "This is beautiful, Discord!"
"Nothing but the best for you, my dear," he replied, grinning at her. "I did say that I was going to show you something absolutely stunning for our anniversary, and well, here we are!" He made a grand gesture with his lion paw, encompassing the lake, roots, tree, stars, chained (and muzzled) wolf and all beyond.
Fluttershy giggled, a sound that not only made Discord blush with delight, but also managed to calm the growling wolf enough for it to settle down, tail wagging. The pegasus, noticing this, smiled at the wolf. "Who's a good boy? You are! Oh, yes you are! You're my good boy, Fenrir!"
Fenrir thumping his tail against the closest roots echoed around them, rustling the leaves of the trees high above. Discord sat down besides Fluttershy in comfortable silence as they gazed upon the shifting stars, boreal auroras and the ever shifting realities reflected occasionally on them. Fluttershy rested her head on his shoulder. "Tell me about this place?"
With her cuddling up to him, and the sheer magnitude of what they were witnessing, how could Discord ignore that request? "This, my dear Fluttershy, is a place very similar to my own being. In fact, you could say it is the center of me!"
When she tilted her head, he almost melted, leaning in to give her a peck, making her giggle again, before continuing. "I know I am chaos incarnate, however, what is chaos but change? What is change but growth? What is growth but opportunity? All can start with something as simple as a wind blowing the wrong way, or walking however briefly into the wrong alley."
Fluttershy looked back to the lake. "Can such a small thing really change that much?"
"But of course!" Discord flew once around the root they sat on, floating up on her other side, and taking her hoof. "Haven't you ever heard of the Fluttershy Effect?"
She blinked.
"Okay, fine," Discord sighed, rolling his eyes dramatically. "Twilight named it something different. The same principle applies."
Fluttershy nodded, still smiling and glanced at the lake. "Can you show me?"
"Dearest Fluttershy," Discord sighed, the mirth leaving his face. "Changing something, however small in the fundamental essence of reality, can have dire, dire consequences." He grinned, lifting her chin up with one of his claws. "I thought you'd never ask!"
He took her hoof and helped her down the long root to the edge of the lake, where the root just about touched the water and went deeper into it, losing itself in its eternal depths. "What would you like to do first?"
Fluttershy hummed, gazing in. "Oh! I always wondered… what would it have been like if I had been more assertive early on?"
Schrödinger's cafe was relatively new in Ponyville, and somewhat of a tourist trap, according to Applejack, who didn't like the new look it brought to the honest and hardworking rustic image that previous restaurant had. She liked things straight, traditional, and goshdarnit, simple. Which meant that it was the one place she'd never set hoof in the company of the others.
Rarity thought it was drab, with its labyrinthian design or something, Pinkie got a funny feeling out of it, and Twilight simply bought her coffee to go, which was why Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy could sit down on the balcony to enjoy a warm drink without interruptions in the middle of winter. It was a pegasus thing. Everypony else preferred to stay inside.
Fluttershy tapped her hooves against each other. "I think you should go find her and talk to her."
Rainbow Dash gave her a look. It was the type of look that told a story. The type of story that had meandered past logic and incredulity. It was the type of look that spoke of an absolute shattering of belief. The type of look that said: No way in Tartarus did you just utter what you just did.
"Fluttershy," Rainbow's voice was exasperated. "Don't you remember what she did? She threatened you, could've hurt Pinkie—"
"Yes," Fluttershy said. "But she's your friend."
"Was my friend," Rainbow Dash scoffed. "No real friend of mine treats my other friends like that!"
"Rainbow Dash." Fluttershy leaned forward, taking her friend's head in her hooves and holding her steady. "I think Gilda is going through more than she let on. She's not all bad, or you wouldn't have been friends with her before, right?"
"Uh…"
"Right?"
"Well, yeah, I-I guess?" Rainbow Dash rubbed her foreleg awkwardly. "I guess we had some good times…"
Fluttershy nodded. "Right. So why don't you find out why she really did all of that?"
That gave Rainbow Dash pause. Ponies were setting up all the decorations for Hearths Warming, and her role of bringing in snow so far had been fulfilled.
Hearth's Warming was all about burying the hatchet as it were. Still, she couldn't get over how nasty and dismissive Gilda had been of her friends. Friends with whom she had saved the world with and risked everything for. Was it really that simple to let it go? She scoffed.
"You really think she had other reasons than being a jerk?"
Fluttershy nodded, the same weird intensity as before shining behind her eyes. Ever since Gilda had threatened her, she had been very reluctantly encouraging Rainbow Dash to try and save that old friendship, and now, for whatever reason, it seemed that Shy's inner dragon had awoken over a cup of cocoa.
Rainbow Dash carefully leaned in and sniffed the mug.
"Pinkie Pie did not spike the drinks."
Dash chuckled, leaning back. "Heh-heh. Yeah. It's still weird, you know? To hear you being so insistent about Gilda? Where did that even come from?"
Fluttershy shifted in her seat, looking down and away. "I um. I mean… I see how you sometimes look at your old trophies and pictures when I'm visiting. I remember that Gilda was there for most of that."
Rainbow Dash groaned and leaned back. She took her mug in her hooves and and loudly sipped on it, frowning and thinking, until she put it down with a grimace. "Fine. I'll leave in the morning. But I don't think it's going to really make much of a difference."
Fluttershy reached over the table to hold her hoof in her own. "Thank you for trying."
All things considered, the flight really didn't take that long. Griffonstone was just about three hours east past Baltimare, which was just a two hour flight from Ponyville as the pegasus flies.
Which is exactly what Rainbow Dash did, and she could already see the coast in the distance.
Sure, she could've taken the train, but on the other hoof, why waste money prolonging the inevitable? She knew the whole trip was a waste of time anyway, but she had promised Fluttershy she'd try to mend relationships with Gilda. Or at least figure out what was really going on.
Plus, once she was out of Equestrian airspace, she had plenty of opportunity to fly the untamed skies beyond, really testing her strength and skill. She had performed a Rainboom, gilded while her four hooves rested on top of flying seagulls, landed on a barge offering exotic foods. The trip alone was totally worth it just for the freedom to do things like that.
Oh, the others would be game for the most part, but outside the issue of dragging them over to the middle of the ocean, there was also… the judgment. Fluttershy would be upset with her for riding on the seagulls. AJ would have some trouble with the locals not being good ol' Earth Ponies for a bit. The suspicion wouldn't last long, but it would be long enough to sour the meal. Twilight would be gushing over everything new and requiring constant supervision, Pinkie would take over the kitchen, and Rarity would loudly judge everything even when they could all see she was really enjoying it.
No. Trips with her friends had their own charms, but this is what she needed to clear her head. She needed to relax and to focus, and she wouldn't have been able to do either with them trying to help in their own way.
Fluttershy had been right though. Gilda was still part of her past, and she wouldn't be happy with how things turned out until she had a chance to properly (and privately) confront the griffon. But now that she was getting closer, the question became how to find her.
Gilda had grown up in Griffonstone, this Rainbow Dash knew from their chats at the flight camp. Her friend had made it abundantly clear that Griffonstone was not a place she'd want Dash to visit. Oh, they were thick as thieves, and Rainbow Dash had talked Gilda into visiting Cloudsdale more than once, but the opposite had never been in the cards. By all accounts Griffonstone's territory around it's castle was about the same size as Canterlot, although the same accounts also said the place was a dump, barely liveable, and a veritable hive of scum and villainy.
In other words, it sounded awesome. But also complicated. And Rainbow Dash hated complicated things unless it was a complicated stunt. Then it wasn't just complicated, but also awesome.
She slowed down, frowning as she sat on a cloud to think around that one. Didn't that mean that searching for Gilda in Griffonstone was also right down her alley? In any case, she still had at least an hour flight from the coast to the mainland Griffon territory and—
Her thoughts were interrupted by a rough scream of frustration, followed by a loud crash and the crunch of several large rocks. Quickly scanning the area, she saw the side of a cliff where dust was rising into the air. Her sharp eyes could see here and there pieces of furniture and personal effects among the rocks as the air blew the dust cloud away.
She immediately set flight there, worried that somecreature might be hurt. "Hello?! Is everypony okay?!"
Her only answer was another angry growl coming from above, where she could just make out a small cave. The rocks around her did have some furniture on them, which she could now make out as pieces of chairs and a table broken in half.
Had this been some sort of balcony?
The sound of breaking glass brought her back to reality and she quickly flew up to the opening, peering in. "Hell—whoa!"
She barely managed to avoid being hit by a spinning picture frame that would have smacked her right in the forehead if she hadn't moved out of the way. "What the hay?"
"D-dash?"
Rainbow Dash blinked, her anger forgotten as she glided into the cave, where a distraught Gilda was staring at her with horror and confusion.
Gilda rubbed her beak and red puffy eyes with the flat of her claw before staring at Rainbow Dash with blatant incredulity, while the pegasus herself stared right back, wide-eyed. The stalemate continued until, with a faint scratch of metal on stone prefacing the inevitable, another picture frame finally came loose and crashed onto the floor.
The sudden sound and breaking glass snapped them both out of their stupor, the pair immediately looking at everything else but each other. This was a rule. This was the number one rule they had silently set between themselves years ago during flight camp.
They were not weak. They did not cry. They did not feel pity for each other.
If such an impossibility were to happen, then they would look the other way while whatever it was that made it look like the other was anything less than cool, passed and then they would both resume being awesome.
The problem was that no matter where Rainbow Dash looked, there were signs that Gilda was anything but okay. Trophies were broken, lying in a pile with the broken pieces of the shelves they had been on. Claw marks starting just above where the highest one would have been indicating just what had happened.
Cutlery and kitchenware were strewn around, with a fork sticking straight out from one of the walls. No matter where she looked, there were signs that her fri—Gilda was not okay. That's even ignoring the sniffles.
Rainbow Dash clenched her teeth and closed her eyes tight. Gilda never sniffled.
She turned around, glancing at the hunched-over figure of the griffon, desperately and obviously trying to put herself together, and thought furiously. What would her friends do? It took her a moment to think about it and she groaned internally. This could go really bad.
But she steeled herself and carefully approached Gilda, taking a deep breath before she carefully wrapped her hooves and wings around her.
She felt the griffon tense immediately, and Gilda's voice was little more than a hoarse whisper when she spoke up. "What are you doing?"
"I don't know, alright?" Rainbow Dash answered, leaning her chin on Gilda's shoulder. "It just… felt like the right thing to do."
"I-this is some dweeb p-powerplay you're pulling, Dash."
"I'll stop if you want." Rainbow Dash sighed, ready to let go, but was surprised when she felt Gilda's claw gently take hold of her hoof, pressing it against her feathery chest.
"No. Just… stay like this for a little while. You already made it awkward, let's just milk it for all that it's worth."
"Uh. Sure." Dash blinked. "Now that I've made it awkward."
They stayed embraced for enough time that when Rainbow Dash finally stepped back, she could feel pinpricks on her forelegs as the blood flow returned. She grimaced and stretched, moving her legs and hooves slowly and intentionally, trying to get the feeling to go over quickly. She watched as Gilda moved quietly across the place, picking up random objects and piling them on a small mound of salvageable things, and a much bigger 'scrap' pile.
"So, what brings you?" Gilda asked, not looking at her as she continued rummaging around.
"I uh, wanted to check on you," Dash said, carefully walking around things until she was standing in front of Gilda, with the two piles in between. She felt something crunch under her hoof, and looked down to a broken picture of the two of them, back when they were kids. She picked it up, carefully removing the pieces of glass before putting the picture itself on the 'salvage' pile. "I guess, it's a good thing I did."
Gilda stared at her for a moment, then looked down with a rather pained face at her broken stuff. "I wasn't going to do anything stupid."
"Maybe," Rainbow Dash granted, "but look at all of this, you can't tell me you're fine."
Gilda sighed, her shoulders visibly sagging before she jerked her head towards the entrance.
Rainbow Dash followed her and sat next to her at the edge of the cliff. The exact point where she had come in.
"This was my place," Gilda said after a moment. "After Flight Camp I got a couple of jobs, you know, the usual tough girl stuff." She motioned with her claw at some random pieces of armor. "Bodyguarding this Earth Pony, or joining the foreign legion for the minimum three years. I was all over the place, but the good thing was that I didn't have to spend my money. Finally, I ended up here, and I bought this place… I uh…" she coughed looking away.
"It's pretty cool," Rainbow Dash said. "It's too bad I couldn't see while it was in one piece. I can't figure out how you had the balcony made."
"Reinforced cloudwork," Gilda said, "I think you would have liked it. But I, uh… pulled the plug earlier today."
"I heard."
"Right." Gilda looked over her shoulder at her pad behind her.
"Is… this one of the reasons you went to Ponyville to look me up?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Yeah," Gilda sighed. "Yeah, yeah. It is."
"Why didn't you invite me over instead of hanging in Ponyville?" Rainbow Dash asked, "we could have avoided all of that trouble!"
"I—"
"And you wouldn't have had to threaten Fluttershy, or—"
"They were stealing you from me!" Gilda snapped, then, wide-eyed clapped her beak shut with a loud smack.
"They weren't." Rainbow Dash sighed. "I'm here, right? Come on, tell me why you took things so personally."
Gilda closed her eyes. "I've been… in really rough places, Dash. I know up here—" she tapped her head "—that you can have any friends you like, and they probably don't have it against me." Her eyes took a pained look. "But down here…" she tapped her chest. "When I saw how happy you were there I just…" she trailed off mumbling something.
"I'm sorry, what?" Rainbow Dash asked. "I couldn't hear the last part."
Gilda looked conflicted, but she took a deep breath and let it out slowly before getting a serious expression and turning to look at Rainbow Dash straight in the eye. "I-I said that—I knew that you… had no reason to… come be with me."
Rainbow Dash blinked. "You mean visit? With a bachelor's pad like this? Hell yeah I'd visit."
"That's not what I mean."
They stared at each other, with each second making Gilda's crest feathers slightly puff out more and more. While Rainbow Dash stared right back with a slightly lost expression.
And then it hit her.
"Oh." She cleared her throat. "So, that time when we were younger and you kissed me because you wanted to practice for when the real thing happened with somegriffon you liked…"
Gilda looked away guilty, clearing her throat loudly. "Ah—yeah. T-that was the real, um, deal." She gulped. "Sorry."
"It's okay," Rainbow Dash said with a small chuckle. "I liked it." She immediately backed away when Gilda's head snapped back to look at her. "Whoa! Hold on! Just because I like kissing girls, doesn't mean…" She coughed. "Okay, it does mean that in my case, but that still doesn't mean we're happening."
Gilda looked up at her crest, and down at her feathers, all giving very vivid signals of where she was emotionally and mentally at that exact moment. "Um." She quickly used her claws to pat them down, then sat up straight and started preening, pretending indifference. "Oh?"
At that Rainbow Dash burst out laughing, and after a moment of guilty giggling in a most un-griffon-like manner, so did Gilda. They laughed for a while, just sitting together, right where they were until the mirth died and became a comfortable silence.
In the distance, over the sea, the sun slowly made its way down, the sunset slowly calming them as they stared at it all.
"Yeah, but I really, really like you." Gilda looked up at the clouds. "It's stupid, but my big plan was to fly in, show my innate superiority to all your dweeb friends, and um… kiss you. And uh, bring you here." She touched the tips of her claws together. "To stay. With me. I've liked you since I was a cub and you were the coltish filly of the lot."
"Hey!"
"You've made me feel happy and appreciated," Gilda continued. "Coming to the camp was a big thing for someone like me, from Griffonstone… and you made it worth it. Even coming back here to work my ass off so I could go back the next two years. You were always my goal." She looked down at the balcony. "I never thought you'd say no."
Rainbow Dash closed her eyes, hearing Gilda's words and her sincerity. Could it work? Did she want it? Was it worth it?
"I didn't say no, exactly," Rainbow Dash spoke up.
Gilda stared at her. "Um. Yeah. You did. You pretty much told me to find some cool friends somewhere else."
"Well, yes." Rainbow Dash shook her head. "I was not in a good place an—"
"Hey, no need." Gilda interrupted her, urgency in her voice. "I did it to myself. Don't apologize for standing up for your dw—um, friends." She sighed and played with a stray piece of wood that hadn't gone down with the rest of the balcony. "I want to blame my upbringing, culture and… you know, excuses… but I should have known better. I'm sorry."
"It's not to me that you should be apologizing."
A pained expression crossed Gilda's face, but then she frowned and gave Dash a look. "Wait, you're telling me to apologize to Flutterspry and Pinkie Die?"
"Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, yes," Rainbow Dash corrected, standing up. "We'll fix your place up first though. I know how to reinforce clouds, and I think I saw a colony of Diamond Dogs nearby, I'm sure I can trade some of my gems for their help fixing the balcony."
"Wait, you want me to go back with you to Ponyville?"
'Ah, what the hell.' Rainbow Dash grinned and gave Gilda a peck on the side of the beak. "Only if you want to see if we can work out. If not, I'd like to have you back, but either way, apologizing to them, and getting to know them is the first step." She waited for a moment, then turned to look at Gilda, who was standing there with her beak hanging open.
Without a word, Rainbow Dash reached over and pushed the beak shut.
That snapped the griffon back into reality. "Seriously?!"
"Seriously," Rainbow Dash said, grinning. "Now, where's the guest room? You said that you wanted me over, right?"
With a pomf! Gilda's wings were wide open. "I—I only have… the king size bed."
Rainbow Dash instinctively had hers pomfed-up as well. She immediately channeled her inner Rarity. "Bold."
"Um. Yeah."
"Come on," Rainbow Dash interrupted her, placing a hoof on her shoulder. "I saw the sofa. Let's clean it up, and I'll crash there. We can get started on everything tomorrow."
Gilda's eyes slowly became less panicky and her shoulders sagged in relief. "Yeah."
The ethereal winds gently swayed the giant leaves of Yggdrasil, high above the two adventuring lovers sitting at the very edge of the water.
"Well!" Discord chuckled, flying around Fluttershy to peer down at the lake's images. "That was adorable. And also unexpected."
"I always thought there was something else going on there," Fluttershy said. "Gilda was always too aggressively defensive that one time for no reason, but Pinkie told me how quickly she came around when she and Rainbow Dash visited Griffonstone much later." She looked up at Discord with a knowing glance. "I happen to know that there's usually something behind anycreature acting that way."
Discord giggled and raised her chin with his claw enough to kiss her and gaze into her eyes. "Oh, I know. Only too well, my dearest Fluttershy, you were the one that saw right through me."
Fluttershy caressed his face with her hoof, closing her eyes and leaning in to press her forehead against his. "And it was just the beginning of something wonderful."
Discord floated back, looking down at the lake once more. "I do remember that Gilda ended up in Griffonstone. What was she doing living in that dump?" he asked, peeking at the scene of a smirking Rainbow Dash playfully bumping her rump against the side of Gilda's as they both cleaned the room up and lit some lights. "If I was her, and had a place like that, why would I ever move to that horrible place?"
"I heard a little about that," Fluttershy replied, her smile and eyes warming up as the griffon and pegasus in the images started playing around as they picked up things and threw out the trash. "I don't know all the details, but apparently she had tried to sell her place shortly after coming back from Ponyville and hadn't been able to make her money back."
The two of them stared at what remained of the balcony.
"I can't imagine why," Discord drawled.
Fluttershy giggled. "Well, I didn't know she had trashed the place so thoroughly, but now that Rainbow Dash is helping her rebuild, I don't think it will be a problem."
Discord grinned. "You know this changes things in this alternate timeline," he said. "I don't think she'll get together with Applejack now."
Fluttershy gave him a sly look, then reached down to agitate the waters a little. Each ripple moved time forward. A ripple here showed Rainbow Dash molding clouds while a Diamond Dog Foredog shouted instructions while Gilda and more Diamond Dogs pushed and held the rock parts of the balcony together.
Another ripple showed Discord. Another showed Chrysalis. Another showed Sombra. And eventually…
Discord's eyes went wide. "Oh my. So Gilda, Rainbow Dash an—"
Fluttershy shrugged and smiled. "Applejack always protested a little too much, but I always knew she'd be into a relationship that was… somewhat more exotic."
