> The Best and The Worst
>  by Shrink Laureate
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The Best and The Worst
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

So.

You want to hear about flight camp, huh?

Shit, I'm gonna need another drink for that. And you're buying. You want a sob story, you pay for it.

Griffon flings are simple, right? You know that. You want something, you go for it. If the other griffon wants it too, you're good. If they don't want it, they'll scratch your face.

Yeah, just like that. That's a nice one.

Either way, you get answers quickly. No dancing around wondering what the other griffon feels. And if a griffon hates you, then you know about it. They're in your face, squawking and screaming. Nice and simple.

Yeah, ponies are the opposite of that. When ponies hate you, they ignore you. Pretend you're not there. Hope you go away. They don't bother to say why. Trouble is, if they don't know what to make of you, they do the same thing. It's probably a herd thing or something. So if you walkin' through a pony town and no fucker's talking to you, you don't know if it's coz you just kicked the sweetest mare in town, or cause they ain't seen feathers that color before. It’s all the same.

And since ponies mostly just live with other ponies – again, a herd thing – any creature that ain't a pony is gonna get the silent treatment. It's why everyone else thinks they're so racist. That and they kinda are.

Bitchin’. Keep em coming.

So there I am, straight off the ferry, only griffon in a class full of ponies, and they're all blanking me, right? Keeping to their little herds. Flocks. Whatever.

And kids can be real assholes, so it doesn't take long before blanking turns into name-calling. Just the bravest little despots at first, tryna prove something, but the others follow suit. Gotta keep with the in crowd. It's a challenge for them, like, have you stood up to the scary griffon today?

I was just a little thing. Still had my baby fluff. Real scary.

And worst of all, I actually prefer the name-calling, coz at least it means somebody's talking to me.

Yeah, fuck you too.

Anyway, this one filly takes a shine to me. “Stick with me,” she says. Best offer going, so that’s what I do. Turns out she’s the most fun pony there. Races, tricks, pranks, the works. Makes the whole thing tolerable.

The rainbow one. Yeah, you met her when she came here. Took her cliff diving. Left her to die, if I remember correctly. You thought I’d forgotten about that?

You know, talking like this really is thirsty work.

How kind.

She's got a friend who's shy like a rabbit, always whimpering and huddling up. Exactly like a rabbit. Makes me want to rip her throat out, every time we meet. Which makes me nervous. Never did get on with her. Parents aren’t much better. When I meet her little brother, though, he has all the confidence. Zephyr Breeze. Walks up to me with a big smirk and says, “Hey, babe, wanna see something neat?”

Yeah, exactly that cheesy, no shame at all. Even as a chick I could see that he was a little scumbag. But with everypony else there ignoring me, goading me or hiding from me, I kinda like that. He's like a griffon, you know? Reminds me of home, where I knew what’s what. And that works for me.

Of course, no other pony can stand him. Rainbow despises him, probably coz they’re too similar or something. By this time I’m just glad of somepony else to hang with. And sure enough, he shows me a spot underneath the city where you can watch the river below, and it’s kind of nice. Some good hunting grounds around that river, and the cloud is hidden in the shade of a bigger one so you can spot prey and pounce.

He tries to kiss me two minutes later, of course, and I scratch his dumb pony nose.

You ever seen ponies kiss? They stick their muzzles forward in this weird sucker shape. Pretty disgusting, especially if you’ve got no idea what it is. If he’d tried to preen me, I’d get the message, but instead he sticks this mushy thing at me and expects me to know what to do with it. So yeah, I scratch it. He starts squealing, because ponies can’t handle a little blood.

If I came home with a scratch like that, my mom'd laugh and tell me to fight harder.

Anyway, he runs home to his mother like a little bitch. And the next time I see her, I can tell she wants a piece of me or something. Only she's a fluffy little pegasus, I'm nearly as tall as her already, and I've had my fill of ponies getting in my face, so I just stand there. And she spends, like, five minutes, trying to work up the courage and just not saying anything at all. Eventually I say, “whatever, dweeb,” and leave her to it.

Say, tell me, did you ever find that idol? I know you went looking for it after the ponies left.

Yeah, I thought you’d say that.







Gilda?

Oh my, yes. Of course I remember her. You always remember your first, especially when she's… well, you know. Exotic.

The moment I saw that chick, I knew she was different. She moved like nopony in Cloudsdale moved, like she owned the skies and everypony else owed her rent for it.

She was friends with Rainbows, who you know of course. Even back then Rainbows had a terrible crush on me – the poor filly just couldn't admit it to herself. She’s just gotten more smitten since then.

Anyway, Rainbows brought her round to see Flutter Butter one day, and that’s where I saw her. Of course, I knew straight away that I was the only stallion who could measure up to a stunning chick like that. She seemed exceptionally bored with polite pegasus family life, and I can’t blame her. So I walked straight up to that hen, turned on the old charm, and naturally she was into it.

What?

Yes, Flutter Butter. My sister. Keep up.

I showed her somewhere secluded, you know, with a pretty view and everything. I chose wisely, because she was entranced. Am I a romantic genius, or what?

Of course, even a stunner like that can get shy when the moment comes. She shied away from my advances, most likely out of fear or nerves. But I knew she wouldn’t hold out for long.

My nose? What about my nose?

The next time I saw her was at the spring Cloud Warmer. That’s a party at the start of spring, around the time ground ponies are doing their Winter Warm-up or whatever. Now, most of the junior flyers were content to stick with the same ponies they always hung with, being all party poopers, and nopony was dancing at all. But Gilda, she strode out onto the cloudfloor and drew all eyes to her. One colt was reckless enough to diss her, and she locked him in place with a stare that made him choke on his drink.

She ditched the party soon afterwards, and I knew anywhere she went had to be more exciting, so I did the same. It took some searching, but I found her waiting for me in the same place I showed her before. If that doesn’t say ‘I want you’, I don’t know what does.

I think she must have snuck some food out of the party, because she was eating something. Luckily, I’d snuck something myself - a bottle of scotch from my father’s drinks cabinet. She clearly wasn’t used to drinking, but she took a swig like a trooper.







Oh sweet winds, yes, the fucking Cloud Warmer. That has to be the worst party I’ve ever been to, even worse than one of Pinkie Pie’s.

Pinkie Pie? You met her, right? Same day Rainbow Dash was here.

Yeah, the loud one.

So the flight camp puts on this party for all the little pegasi in springtime. Ponies do love marking when the seasons change. Part of their whole superior, ‘owning the climate’ thing, as if every one of them raised the sun themselves.

It’s pretty lame, as you’d expect for a party organised by a school. No alcohol, no decent music. And of course the food there is all pony food. All slow cooked vegetables and wilted cabbage. Seriously, I know they’re vegetarians, but Equestria has to have the most boring food in the world. Plus it’s all hoof food - you know, little dainty bits that are supposed to somehow add up to a meal.

Nopony’s dancing, even though there’s a cloudfloor prepared for it. They’re just huddling in their little herds, muttering and staring.

I’m at the food table, poking at something wilted and mushy, when one of the little bastards shouts, “Hey, griffon! Why don’t you catch your own?” I stare the dumb colt down until he backs off, but it doesn’t do anything to make the party more fun, so I fuck off before too long.

Dash is furious. She’s all into the ‘school spirit’ thing, so any event they organised has to be her thing. She doesn’t get why it’s not my thing. We have a spat, then I fly off in search of some real food.

Turns out the place Zeph showed me is actually a useful spotting point. It only takes me a minute to catch a vole, which is a damned sight better than anything they’re serving at the party. I’m half way through eating it, when Zeph himself turns up, smug as can be. I quickly hide what’s left of the vole, and try to brush the blood off my beak before he can get freaked out by it.

Oh, fuck you. No, I don’t care about ‘social niceties’. I care about ponies not seeing me as a bloodthirsty predator. I had to live with the little shits for another three years. Duh.

Anyway, he doesn’t seem to notice the blood. Too wrapped up in himself I guess. He offers me a drink of something, and I’ve still got blood in my gullet, so I gladly take a drink to wash it down. Only afterwards do I realise it was booze, and pretty strong booze. I’m expecting refreshing, instead I get burning.

I don’t know what sort of booze, I was just a fledgeling. Didn’t have my refined palate.

I don’t remember what he says, but he grabs my claw in one hoof, lifts it to his muzzle, and plants a soft wet pony kiss on it. How he doesn’t taste the blood, I have no idea. Actually, I have one idea - the bottle’s half empty already, so he probably has some Fresian courage in his gullet spurring him on.

I need to distract him, so I lean forwards and look him in the eyes. Meanwhile I’m trying to shuffle the vole under me and push it off the cloud with a hind paw. He takes that as an invitation and leans in for another kiss. I’m about to swipe him again, but I think twice.

Everypony back at flight camp either shouts insults or they’re afraid of me. Fluttershy is the most scared of them all - she actually hid under the floor one time. Rainbow is… she’s fun, but she’s hard work. She never stops, y’know? And it’s all one note. The teachers are all stiff, ‘cause they’re afraid of saying something politically inconvenient. Other pegasi in Cloudsdale just fly away rather than have to deal with an outsider. Compared to any of them, I realise I don’t mind this. Whatever this is.

So I let him do the pony kiss thing, muzzle right on my beak, and… it’s okay? Doesn’t do a lot for me, but it’s not as unpleasant as it could have been. After he stops, I lean in and preen his ear. Gently, you know, ‘cause he’s not a griffon. He yelps, cause he’s not expecting it, but he settles down and starts to enjoy it.

Remember what I said about squishy pony muzzles? Turns out there's something they are particularly good at. And Zephyr spends the rest of the night showing me just how good he can be. If you’ve only ever fucked griffons, I recommend giving a pony a try some day.

And I’ll have to tell you about that encounter with a minotaur… another time.

We’re there all night, making all sorts of noise. At one point some little foals fly past. I think they’re very confused.







Oh, a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell. You’ll have to imagine the details. I’ll just say, she knew how to raise a racket. That hen is a squawker.

Unfortunately, my path to stardom took me away from her after that, for far too long. I could barely sleep for dreaming of Gilda, could barely work for thoughts of Gilda, and I knew that wherever she was, she felt the same. When I was finally free to return, my first thought was to rush to her side.

I spied her bathing beneath a cloudfall, with the sun caught in her wet feathers. The sight filled my soul with magic. At the same time fear gripped me: surely I couldn’t be the only stallion to see how beautiful she was! What if, in the days I’d been away, some wastrel had swayed her heart?

Sure enough, as I approached I saw a group of suitors calling out to her. Gilda, shy thing that she was, simply turned her head away. I landed at her side, ready to defend her, laid a wing across her back and proclaimed her to be mine. The goons backed off then, leaving us alone.

By chance, the day I returned to Cloudsdale, my sister and our parents were elsewhere. I knew our home would be a safe place for her to recover from the ordeal.

The encounter had lit a passion within Gilda, for no sooner were we within the door than she pulled me to the first bedroom - I forget which - and pushed me down.







I don’t see him for a couple of weeks after that, he’s off on a training course of some sort. Except I find out later he didn’t even finish it, he ran away. He doesn’t tell me that though, I have to find out from his mother.

I’m cooling off after a race, when a bunch of dumb colts from our class walk over and start calling me names. Asking for a talon to the face, the lot of them, and I’m about to deliver it when suddenly Zephyr swoops down, struts up to my side and drapes a wing over me like I’m a chair or something. I quickly go to bite the wing, and he jerks it away. I ask where he’s been, and he says he’s been “chasing his dreams”.

His parents were away for a bit, looking for a place on the ground for Fluttershy to live.

Wait, did I tell you about Fluttershy? Okay, back up a bit.

Rainbow loved to race. And Fluttershy, her long-suffering sidekick, had to be there. Only Fluttershy’s crap at flying. Bit of a let-down for a pegasus. So this one time, Rainbow goes at it so hard, she knocks Fluttershy off her cloud and she falls. It’s a long way down, the flying school’s pretty high up, and she forgets how to fly. She somehow manages not to go splat, finds herself surrounded by critters, and has some sort of revelation.

No, she didn’t eat them. Not even a little bit.

Meanwhile Rainbow hasn’t even noticed. She’s carrying on with the race, and she goes so fast it does this big magical rainbow thing that lights up the whole fucking sky.

Yeah, it’s real. I saw it myself. Ground freaking zero. Of course, she wouldn’t shut up about it for years after.

Shut up. My word’s worth a lot more than yours.

Anyway, a couple years later Fluttershy decides she wants to live on the ground. Which is probably a good idea, given her crap flying. And her parents are big softies, so they agree to help her look for a house. Except they’re pegasi, so they have no idea what house prices are like for ponies who live in actual houses. Cloud houses are pretty easy to make, for a pegasus. They only cost bits if you want to hire somepony to make it look nice.

They keep suggesting she just make a cloud house near the ground, but no, little Fluttershy has her heart set on sleeping with the wild animals. Eventually they find an abandoned cottage with half a roof, that’s going for a steal of a price.

Why’s it abandoned? Because it’s right next to the freaking Everfree Forest! The last pony who lived there probably got eaten by something. Yes, ponies live right next to the Everfree. The whole town is insane if you ask me.

But that means they’re all away the day Zeph gets back. And filthy colt that he is, he’s all over that. He doesn't just bring me back to his place, oh no, he drags me into his sister's room.

As you might imagine, Fluttershy's nest is all kinds of sissy. Yellow and pink everywhere. She has pictures of little animal things all over it - and no, she didn't plan to eat any of them.

Once we're there, though, he hesitates. Starts leaning in then stops. It's like he didn't think any further than getting me there. So I take the lead, push him down on the bed, and get on top of him. I'm ready to try the kissing thing, see if it can actually work with a beak. And it… sort of does? Enough to keep us at it all afternoon.

Just as we’re getting into it, fucking Rainbow barges in. “Hey, Flutters, you in here?” she asks. Then she sees us and practically turns to stone. I managed to hide the naughty bits with my wing, but still, interspecies hankie-pankie was more than the filly was ready for.

Zeph's easily distracted, it seems. “Whoa, hey there, Rainbows! Come here to brighten up my day?” he says. Tries to invite her for a threesome. I give him a punch to the gut for that.

She asks where everypony is, and we explain they're off house hunting. She finally gets the hint and turns to leave.

And the second she turns her rainbow rump to us, the bastard gets hard! I have to swallow a squawk. I bite down on his ear for that, but it just makes him move faster. I have to hold my voice until Rainbows leaves the house, and Zeph is not making that easy. It's insanely good, and so annoying at the same time.

I realise I’ve got no reason to feel upset. We haven’t signed a marriage contract or anything. I don't own him. I'm just enjoying him. Enjoying the fact that somepony on that big marshmallow actually likes me.

Actually, did you know pony marriages don't even have a contract? Just some pretty clothes, some fancy words, then a party. And if you're wondering how their divorces work, the answer is 'badly'.







We stole every moment we could to be with one another. Day or night, school or outside, we’d sneak away to a secluded corner.

Once, on a field trip to my father’s weather factory, we broke away from the group and managed to get inside one of the machines. A big damp pipe may not sound romantic, and it was certainly cramped and cold, but making out mere feet from the rest of the foals, hearing them echo through the metal tube, was exhilarating.

Another time, we were lying about on a high cloud in the sun. Gilda was stretched out really long, catching the sun, and I was nuzzling around where her feathers meet her fur. She was purring as I got to the bits she liked.

Then out of the blue, “What do you prefer?” she asked. “Feathers or fur?”

I replied, “Why choose when I can have both?” Because, y’know. Gryphon. Like yourself.

She didn’t seem particularly happy with that though. I never did find out why. She just stood up, shook herself off, stretched out all six limbs, then said, “See you later, dweeb,” and flew off.

You know, If there’s one thing I regret, all these years later, it’s that she never let me practice my mane-styling skills on her. Feathers are such a unique medium, I’m sure I could have done some amazing things with them.

That thought was part of what gave me the inspiration to pursue a path of creativity. And as luck would have it, an opportunity soon came along.







So they've got us doing these flight practices–

This is a couple of months later. Keep up.

They've got us doing loops and spirals and dumb shit like that. Rainbow's all over it, even though she could do them in her sleep. Fluttershy's the opposite, she’s trying to bury herself in the cloud in the hope nopony sees her. We've all got numbers taped to our butts, and they're calling us in order. But I spy–

No I don't know what number I was. Why would I remember that?

But I spy Zeph a couple of clouds over, with the rest of his class doing the same thing. Only he's got a wing draped over some mare. Blue and purple. Number sixteen. I can't hear them, but I can see them talking, and I can see the look on Zeph’s face. Her number gets called, and she trots off to go fly loops like a good little pony, and I lose track of her.

What? Yes, she was number sixteen.

Fine. I was number twenty-four. Happy?

Of course I'm sure.

So I lose track of the bitch, with all the foals flying everywhere, and it’s only after the class is over that I see her again. She’s headed off to the north side, and I follow. I figure I’ll just establish my territory and it’ll be fine.

Remember, ponies are wusses. Here in Griffonstone we know how to settle an argument with action, but with ponies you're better off sticking to a threat. Herd animals, you know. And if it works, and you don't have to follow through, there's no evidence for the teachers or anypony else to see.

So I tackle the bitch when she’s alone. She shrieks like a mandrake, but I stick a claw over her muzzle. And I hold my talons right up to the bitch's face, preparing my best snarl.

And I realise it's the wrong fucking mare! I got the colors mixed up and grabbed somepony else!

Don't look at me like that! Some of those ponies look practically identical, with their stupid colors. How am I to tell the difference between a pink strip and a purple strip?

But that's not the worst bit. Judging by where his eyes have been lately, I can see she's totally Zeph's type. Cute little face, long mane, athletic body. I can practically see him preening her with his mind. As far as I know he's never even seen this mare, but I'm still jealous of her, just because I know he'd like her if he did see her.

That's when I realise it's not the bitch I have a problem with. Either bitch. It's not even Zeph, asshole that he is. The problem is, I'm banking on something that's never gonna happen. Zephyr's never gonna be a well-behaved little lap-pony. He’s always gonna have one eye on the horizon. He’s always gonna chase new prey.

Hanging off a stallion like that is gonna drive me crazy if I let it. That’s when I realised that the only thing I can do, if I want to stay at all sane, is to leave.







Sadly, greatness sometimes brings the wrong sort of attention. 

One day, some mare I'd never seen before flew up to me out of nowhere. She shouted, “Your griffon's crazy!” at me, then stormed off. I had no idea what she was talking about. The poor thing must simply have been jealous.

She was a cute one, though.

If that had been the end of the matter, I would have forgotten about it. But this was a day of great import – the day I was to part from my beloved.

For you see, I had seen the future. A future few ponies could hope but glimpse, yet the entire vision of it had struck me at once. A future both terrible and grand. And what did this future entail, you ask?

Origami fashion.

For centuries ponies have been wearing soft, floppy, shapeless garments. Never had the true beauty of folded flatness been brought to fruition in the form of sharp, angular clothing.

What? Oh, I’m still working on that. Watch this space, my dear, and you’re sure to see something incredible.

The tragedy, though, is the sure knowledge that this grand vision would separate me from the sweetest griffon in the skies. Before I could give birth to this new world, I needed to research the ingredients. There’s an origami school in Applewood, and that’s where I needed to go to study the form. I would need to leave Cloudsdale, and my darling Gilda.

We met atop the darkest cloud in the city, a fitting setting for our tragedy. Lightning crackled beneath our hooves, while barely-constrained thunder rumbled deep within. Gilda was lit from behind by the setting sun.

I shared with her my vision for the future, the only creature – pony or griffon – who I could trust with such a secret. She wept and begged me to stay, but I could not. The price of being favoured by destiny is that I am not merely my own pony – I am a slave to its whims.

We embraced and said our goodbyes as the last light of the day faded away, and went our separate ways forever.







Griffon break-ups are simple as well. We just kick sand in the other gryphon’s face on the way out and don’t look back. Ponies, as you might expect, make things complicated.

To start with, it takes me hours to find him. Practically until night time. Finally I spot him sitting on a random cloud with his head in the sky.

I start by trying to tell it to him straight, thinking he's going to be shocked and want to know an explanation – which I'll think up when I get that far.

Instead he interrupts to tell me about some nonsense scheme. I try again, and no matter what I say he doesn’t listen to me. Eventually I start shouting, and he still keeps talking!

Nah, I don’t remember what the scheme was. It didn’t seem important.

I have a thought that he's doing it deliberately. That every time I try to say, "we're breaking up," he talks right over it so's I can't say it. If he can't hear it, then it isn't real, y’know? It's stupid, sure, but totally believable for Zeph.

I give up, and decide to try again when he’s in a mood to listen. For good measure I kick a pawful of cloud in his face as I leave. He may not know what it means, but I do.

So I head to his house tomorrow, and what do I hear? He’s gone. Run away to winds-know-where in pursuit of that dumb idea. Even his parents don’t know where he’s gone. And with Fluttershy out the nest as well, they’re kinda lost and dazed.

He's done this before, though. Gone followed some random dumb idea that I could have told him would never work. And every time, he came back soon after.

So I fly past his house the next day, then a few days after that, and so on, always expecting to see him back, but he’s never around. Eventually even Rainbow gets a clue that something’s up. Luckily she’s easy to distract.

And that’s it. I finish pony school a few months later, fly home and never see him again. For all I know, he thinks we’re still an item or something. No idea where he is now, but if I ever see him again, I’ll have to make sure I can break up properly.

And that’s why I take a little bag of sand wherever I go.