Chapter 1
Griffonstone was a dump.
In hindsight, she probably should have expected it, Carrot Top mused as she trotted down the main street, keeping a wary eye out for falling thatch.
She hadn’t thought twice about that excitable young mailgriffon enthusing about the sturdiness of Ponyville construction at the time because, well, she was babbling enthusiastically about everything, but it definitely wasn’t the sort of thing most ponies noticed.
She slowed politely to let two griffons cross the street in front of her. Neither seemed to notice – or maybe they were ignoring her deliberately? They certainly seemed to be ignoring each other. “Ah, hello? Could you direct me to –”
Her harness jolted, and she stumbled forward as something struck the cart from behind. She turned. “Hey, do you mi –”
“Watch where you’re going, pony.” The tan-feathered griffon who’d bumped her cart interrupted derisively. Carrot Top blinked, but he launched himself into the air before she could respond. The sudden breeze blew her bangs back, but the tarp on her cart held.
(She’d really gotten her bits’ worth, Rainbow-proofing it.)
Ahead, the street was now empty; apparently those griffons had cared as little about the shouting as they had about each other.
Carrot Top sighed, and settled the harness back into a more comfortable position. If she kept heading towards the center of the town, she was bound to find the marketplace eventually, right?
About an hour, two more unsuccessful attempts to ask directions, and several rounds of second thoughts later, Carrot Top finally arrived at … well. Probably the town square?
There was a statue (though not in the center and it looked like it was missing half its beak) and Princess Twilight would probably throw a royal fit if she saw the open-air library (though at least the books were … mostly neatly stacked), and even another cart set up nearby, fire banked in its portable oven and some scones lining the display. With everything else she’d seen? This was probably the closest to a marketplace she’d get.
She started cheerfully whistling as she unpacked.
*CRASH*
A small pot exploded against the ground a short distance away, and a voice shouted from somewhere above, “Can’t you see the sign? NO SINGING!”
… Okay, now Carrot Top really was surprised there hadn’t been more rumors about this place. Pinkie must have hated it here.
Or taken it as a challenge. Actually, yeah, probably that.
Still, even sans whistling, she had her portable display rebuilt and filled out in no time. Surely now the day would turn to her favor. Rude or not, who didn’t like delicious carrot muffins? Or carrot cake? Or carrot flan? Or –
A smaller griffon landed on the other side of the square, looked back and forth several times, then scooped three scones from the other cart with a sweep of a claw and crouched.
“Hey! Aren’t you going to pay for that?” Carrot Top was halfway across the square before she’d properly made up her mind to move, glaring all the way. Rudeness was one thing, but stealing?
“What’s it to you?” the griffon asked, hackles raising. She tossed a scone upwards, catching it with a quick snap of her beak. Her … very sharp-looking beak. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all. “Ain’t your stuff I’m taking.”
“And I suppose you don’t care that you could be ruining somepony’s livelihood! You griffons don’t seem to care about much of anything at all!”
“Uh, duh?” Another scone disappeared down her gullet. “You’re in Griffonstone, pony. You want someone who “cares”? Go back to Equestria.” The griffon contemplated the last scone in her hand, shrugged, tossed it into her mouth, and turned back to the cart, claw already reaching.
Carrot Top grabbed her arm with both forehooves and yanked. “Stop. Stealing!”
The griffon whirled with the motion, other foreclaw rising threateningly. Carrot Top hastily let go and scrambled away. “Mind. Your own. Bus –”
A shadow fell overhead, followed by a flurry of straw and dust as another griffon landed in the space she’d just vacated.
“Gemma. Are you picking a fight with a pony? In front of my stall?”
“She started it!”
“... And I suppose she also ate five of my scones.”
Gemma muttered something in a tone that sounded almost exactly like her youngest sister when her mom caught her with her hoof in the carrot-oat cookie jar. Carrot Top peered around her … savior’s? flank, fascinated.
“So, you going to pay me this time?”
Gemma threw five bits on the counter, glared first at the other griffon, then at Carrot Top, and stalked away. On the far side of the town square, she bumped into another passing griffon, shoved him, he shoved her back, and they both stalked off in opposite directions.
Were all griffons like that?
Carrot Top hazarded a look at the other griffon – the only one she’d met who hadn’t shouted or thrown anything at her – and found her looking back. Purple tipped the feathered fringe that half-hid eyes the gold of her scones’ crust. Eyes that seemed … kind?
“Um, thanks for the help.” Carrot Top glanced towards the display. “I only saw her take three scones, though,” she admitted. “Sorry I couldn’t stop her.”
The griffon laughed. “The other two were probably Gemma too. She’d have told me to piss off if she’d really only taken three.” She stuck out a foreclaw. “Name’s Gilda, by the way.”
She gingerly returned the gesture. The prick of claws around her hoof was … different. “Golden Harvest,” she said. “But my friends call me Carrot Top.” She gestured towards her own stall.
Gilda settled back on her haunches, glancing from the cart back to Carrot Top. “So you’re competition,” she said. “Why interfere, then?”
Carrot Top tilted her head. “It’s what you do at the market. Most ponies don't have enough family or staff to watch their place constantly, and nopony has eyes on the back of her head.” Carrot Top considered this assertion, and all the other weirdness that had occurred in Ponyville since Princess Twilight came to live there, and amended, “Probably.” She shrugged. “And sure, the Apples are my competition, but apple cider goes great with carrot cake.”
This close, the scones really did smell delicious. She fished out a couple of bits. “Actually, can I get a couple of those? I want to see how well griffon scones go with carrot cake.”
Gilda shook her head. “It’s not what you do in this market,” she said, sounding ... sad? “Not that it’s much of a market at all.”
She reached out to take the bits, then paused, eyeing Carrot Top’s cart again, and gently nudged her hoof away. “Tell you what. Trade you two of my scones for a piece of carrot cake and a … whatever that wobbly orange thing is?”
“Carrot flan!” Carrot Top said cheerfully. “And deal!” She nudged Gilda. “And hey, it’s more of a market now that I’m here, isn’t it?”
Gilda laughed. “I suppose it is, at that.”
Maybe this hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.
As far as Carrot Top could tell, Griffonstone didn’t have a proper inn. But she’d found a vacant house and shoved enough straw into a corner to make a tolerable bed, and she’d only been woken up twice overnight by griffons demanding that she pay to sleep there.
That probably counted as success?
And now the sun was shining, her goods were on display, and her first customer of the day had just landed.
“How can I help you?” Carrot Top said cheerfully. “I have carrot cake, carrot muffins, carrot flan – that’s on a buy one get one free sale, it’ll go bad after today – free samples are over in this corner – love your scarf by the way –”
“Free samples?” The green-feathered griffon asked, turning from Gilda’s stall towards her own. “What’s the catch?” She blinked, and touched her scarf. “And uh. Thanks?”
“No catch, unless you count the samples being so good that you’ll want to buy the product.” Carrot Top smiled winningly. She gestured towards Gilda’s stall. “Or one bit each, if you were here for the scones.”
“Where’s Gilda?” the griffon asked suspiciously. “That’s her stall.”
“And you can leave the bits on the counter for her,” Carrot Top said. “I’m just keeping an eye on it until she gets back.”
“When’s that?”
“I don’t know, sorry. Are you her friend? I could take a message.”
Technically she hadn’t seen Gilda yet today, and hadn’t actually been asked to mind the stall, but after what happened yesterday? Seemed like she could use a helping hand.
The griffon’s feathers briefly fluffed up. “It’s nothing.” She hastily stalked away.
Carrot Top blinked. Weird.
At least she’d taken a free sample.
“Mornin’, Golden Harvest.” Gilda said as she landed, precariously balancing a pile of baking supplies.
“Carrot Top,” she corrected automatically. “Good morning! Starting up a new batch?” No response; instead Gilda was just tilting her head and staring like she was a puzzle to figure out. “What. I told you it’s my nickname, didn’t I?”
“You said your friends call you that.”
Carrot Top blinked. “Well, yeah. But we’re friends, aren’t we?”
“You don’t even know me. I don’t know you. How in –” Gilda stopped. Stared at Carrot Top for a long moment. “Can I ask a question?” she said abruptly. Glared. “And you better not call me lame.”
“Stick a cupcake in my eye,” Carrot Top said solemnly. The glare intensified a notch. Right. Griffons. “Sorry! It’s a Pinkie thing. Means ‘I promise’.”
Gilda muttered something under her breath that sounded like that figures and sat back. “How do you … know when you’re friends with someone?” Her foreclaws clenched, gathering chunks of straw. “Dash, I get being friends with her. We did everything together, we were tight. But Pinkie Pie, and now you – you just say you’re my friend like it’s obvious. And Greta –” she looked away, wings tightening against her back. “Maybe it’s a weird pony thing.”
“Geez, ask me the easy ones, why don’t you.” Carrot Top tossed her head, trying to think. “Greta – she wouldn’t happen to have a scarf? Green-tipped feathers?”
“Uh, yeah, why?”
“Oh, she came by earlier. I asked if she wanted to leave a message, but she just left instead.”
Huh. Gilda looked disappointed by that.
Carrot Top grabbed a muffin. “If you want to know the real answer? I’d ask Princess Twilight,” she said. “She’s the Princess of Friendship, after all. Rumor is, she’s planning on setting up an entire school on the subject. But if you just want one random pony’s thoughts –”
“I don’t see the Princess here,” Gilda said dryly. “And Dash would call me lame for the rest of my life.”
“You might be surprised,” Carrot Top said. “She’s pretty loyal to her friends. Bore the Element of it and everything.”
She finished off the muffin. “Okay, so. According to this random pony, friendship is –” she paused. “... Whatever you want it to be, I think?”
That … probably wasn’t helpful. This was harder than it looked.
“Okay, friendship is like … like carrots.” She grabbed another muffin off the cart, holding it up. “This carrot muffin is like my friendship with Derpy. We hang out and bake together sometimes because we both like muffins, but that’s about it?” She grabbed a saucer of flan with her other hoof. “And this carrot flan, it’s like my friendship with Lyra. We can talk for hours, and we’ve shared a lot of secrets with each other, and sometimes we go roof-jumping together. Which she’s gotten weirdly better at since she and Bon Bon started dating, but anyway. The point is, even though they both look really different, they’re both made of carrots, and they’re both delicious.”
“I can’t believe that almost made sense,” Gilda muttered. “But that doesn’t explain how you make friends.” She pointed at one of her scones. “A carrot isn’t just going to manifest in there.”
“No, but you can change the recipe!” Carrot Top said cheerfully. “Seriously, do you want ideas? I have some.” A glare. “Right. Sorry. Later maybe.”
She rubbed her chin. “I think making friends is kinda like baking, though. Sometimes you find a recipe that’s full of carrots and you can bake it perfectly on the first try. Sometimes you have to kinda experiment, to figure out whether carrot chunks or carrot puree work better, y’know?”
“And sometimes there are recipes that carrots just don’t fit in at all,” Gilda said dryly.
“Mayyybe. I think usually you just haven’t figured out the right recipe yet, though. Or you’re too busy baking other things. Or the other pony is a jerk who moves to the Crystal Empire and slowly sends you fewer and fewer carrots and then breaks up with you by letter like a coward.” Carrot Top’s voice hitched.
“... Uh.” Gilda said, looking deeply uncomfortable. “Do you. Want to talk about it?” A pause. “... He was sending you carrots?”
Carrot Top sniffled and giggled at the same time. When had she started crying? She probably looked like a huge mess. “Sorry, the analogy got away with me. Though the Crystal Empire does have some really interesting varieties; they just don’t grow this far south.”
She sniffed again, and wiped her eyes. “Sorry. Bad breakup. I really thought I was over it by now.”
“Is that why you came here, of all places?”
Carrot Top waterily laughed. “If you’d asked me yesterday, I’d’ve said no. It’s been a while since I’ve gone adventuring, and some time back a mailgriffon said some nice things about my muffins. But … yeah, probably. I’m glad I came, though. It’s a nice place.”
“It’s really not.”
In the distance, something crashed, and several voices started yelling.
“... Okay, maybe not. But there are some pretty cool creatures here anyway.” Carrot Top tossed her head. “Anyway. I guess friendship – any relationship, really – is like baking something together. Sometimes you knock over the flour and everyone has fun making a mess. Sometimes you need to apologize afterwards. And sometimes …” she looked down. “I guess sometimes, you just have to admit that you need to find another kitchen to work in.”
“Well, you’re welcome in my kitchen anytime,” Gilda said. Paused. “Ugh. That was sappy wasn’t it. Gross.”
Carrot Top grinned. “See? I told you we were friends.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Gilda waved a claw dismissively. “... Wanna go roof-jumping?”
“I would love to.”
Near the exit to Griffonstone, Carrot Top unhitched her cart and pounced, hugging Gilda tightly enough to make Pinkie proud.
Gilda muttered “Ugh, ponies,” but returned the hug anyway.
“I can’t wait to tell Lyra I went roof-jumping with a griffon.” She cast Gilda a glance. “And I was serious. Try those carrot scone recipes I suggested. Let me know how they go. I want notes.”
Gilda rolled her eyes. “I promise I will send you carrots, Carrot Top,” she said in a long-suffering voice. “... The metaphorical kind.”
“Good. … You might want to try inviting Greta roof-jumping sometime, too.” Gilda glanced at her skeptically. “What? I’m pretty sure she visits your stall because she wants to see you, not the scones.”
“Hey, my scones are great!”
“Look, I’m just saying –”
Yeah, her new friend would do fine. And … Carrot Top thought she would, too.