> Heart of Gold, Feathers of Steel
>  by Nicknack
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter One
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

My eyes locked on to a bushy tail that darted through the treetops. I flapped my heavy wings as I tried to pick out where the squirrel was going. After a few seconds, I knew it was going to jump off its current branch once it crossed over a second, lower tree.

In midair, the squirrel wouldn’t have any control over its movements. In those few seconds, I would strike from above.

Or at least, I’d try. Hunting was natural for griffins, and it brought more satisfaction than just the meal. Heck, I could sustain myself on nuts and berries if I needed to. But we were predators, Lords of the Sky. What sort of disgrace is so weak as to be unable to perform a simple hunt?

Wincing, I shook his words out of my head. Keep it together, Gilda, I told myself. With a deep breath, I found the squirrel again. It was almost ready to jump, and I was ready to kill it. I had been out hunting for two hours already, and I had already lost three meals. A fourth would just be pathetic.

At the end of its branch, the squirrel looked around: left, right, down. Every direction except where the danger was—up. I let myself smirk a little, and a rush of adrenaline followed.

Time slowed down. The squirrel jumped. I dove.

Falling was fast, but when I flapped my wings and reached suicidal speeds, when I stretched out my killer claws, it was more than just “falling.” There wasn’t a word for it; it was just powerful and natural and primal. Like lightning on its way to the earth.

With an outstretched hand, I snatched the squirming, screaming squirrel out from mid-jump. Then I flew over to a sturdy-looking tree branch and tested it with a foot. The bark was rough, but it held, so I perched on it. Finally, after two hours of failure, it was time for lunch.

Maybe it was malice, maybe it was leftover adrenaline; whatever it was, now I had a live meal, I was too stoked to eat. I brought the squirrel up to my face and grinned into its beady little eyes. He—I checked with a glance and a flick of my wrist—was helpless. For years, he’d gone around eating, sleeping, and whatever stupid squirrels did in their spare time. That just led up to today and his true role in life: food.

Slowly, I stretched a talon towards to the squirrel. I could see the terror in his eyes—only natural, given the circumstances. His nose twitched, and I could feel his fuzzy little torso pulsing in rapid, terrified breaths. When I pressed the talon against his neck, I could feel his heart beating about a bazillion times per minute. He knew what was coming next.

I scraped the back of a talon up and down his neck a few times. Then, with a quick jerk, I slit his throat. It was easy.


*        *        *


My hunter’s glee left after lunch, leaving me hollow. I looked down at my hands and arms; they were doused with blood. For some reason, it made me feel guilty; then I remembered I had tortured the squirrel before killing it. That wasn’t right. An honorable hunter would’ve killed her prey quickly; a skilled hunter could’ve performed the kill mid-dive. I was neither of those.

I shrugged and dropped the remaining squirrel bits, watching as they tumbled and bounced down to the forest floor. That just tightened the knot in my stomach. I rubbed my temples with my hands, muttering and trying to think about anything else.

Only after I smelled copper did I realize that I had just smeared blood all over my face. Despite myself and my situation, I glared off into space. “Three years, and you’re already going native.” My voice was dry, but I started to crack up at the joke.

I wanted to embrace that laughter like it was healthy and real, but I knew better. There wasn’t anyone else around for miles. That thought sobered me up quickly. Instead of dwelling on it, I decided to wash the blood and guts off my feathers. Just because I was an outcast didn’t mean I was a wild animal.

Bathing happened at a pond near my cave. Hunting had taken me about twenty minutes away from home, and I slowed myself down even more by sticking beneath the forest canopy. The Jägerwald—my ex-tribe’s name for the huge forest that I still technically lived in—was home to lots of fanged or venomous things, and I preferred stealth over dodging.

As I flew deeper into the forest, the air got thick, humid, and dark. That was at odds with things outside the Jägerwald, where it was well past noon on a cool, breezy day in either late April or early May. I wasn’t sure anymore. Either way, as my eyes adapted to the darkness, I figured the water would be cold, which helped in cleaning blood off.

At my pond, I scanned the banks and tree branches. I was alone, so I could bathe in peace for a few minutes, at least. I glanced at myself for a moment; it had almost been a week since my last good bath. With a shrug, I jumped into the water.

The engulfing cold shocked my breath away at first. After an unconscious hiss, I paddled out to the middle of the pond. With my feathers soaking wet, I’d pretty much be screwed if something came after me, but I’d have a slightly better chance if I saw them coming first. At least there weren’t any piranhas in my pond.

When I was as safe as I could manage, I started by washing the obvious: my bloody hands. Once they were clean, I could use the rough, yellow scales to scrub with. Sure, I had to be careful with my talons, but almost eighteen years of living with them had been good practice for “not disemboweling myself.”

I worked my way over various parts of me until I got to my chest. There, I felt a raw unevenness under the feathers: three deep, parallel scars. I traced them with my own talons, noting how wide I had to spread my fingers for them to line up.

With a sigh, I remembered how it all began: a juvenile pegasus pony's flight camp. I had been sent there as punishment for being a weak flier. It ended up being the best summer of my life. That wasn’t saying much, though; most of Junior Speedsters’ had been pretty crappy.

For starters, I had been the only griffin there, but that wasn’t really a surprise. Also not surprising was how I had been feared at first. Things changed when the other campers realized I wasn’t going to kill any of them in their sleep; then, they just set out to make my life miserable.

All of them except one: Rainbow Dash, a sky blue filly with a mane to match her name. She didn’t care who I was, just how I flew. We had been rivals—she was more agile; I had speed on my side. More importantly, we became fast friends. Between the pair of us, we had taken the top two places in every event in the end-of-camp games.

A splash shook me out of my memories; I snapped my head towards the source just in time to see a fish fall back into the water. Stupid fish, I seethed, but I breathed a sigh of relief. At least it hadn’t been something dangerous, like a dive-bombing wyvern.

On that note, I finished up in the pond and swam back to the bank. With quick, twitching shudders, I got most of the water out of my fur and feathers. I was too damp to fly, so as I dried, I looked down into the water’s surface to check my reflection. If I had taken the effort to bathe, I wanted to do it right, damn it.

A pair of amber-yellow eyes stared up at me from the water. They were part of the face of a slightly damp griffin with mostly white feathers on her head. The feathers that weren’t white were purple—not lavender, like someone tried to accuse one time. At any rate, there wasn’t any red on my feathers, so I nodded with approval.

As I sat there nodding, I felt a overwhelmed by a foreign sensation. My reflection cringed when I realized what it was: camaraderie. With myself. I shook my head at how pathetic that was, but it had been several weeks since I had even seen anyone intelligent. I couldn’t even remember what I had spoken about the last time I had a conversation with anyone.

I sat there and made some more faces at the water. Life hadn’t always been so lonely; in fact, my family was huge, so I had grown up with the opposite “problem.” Exile fixed that situation pretty drastically, though.

It all started at the end of Junior Speedsters’ Flight Camp.

Dash and I had been walking to the exit; she was gushing about a new stunt she did, and I had been wondering how, exactly, I was supposed to get home. It had been three months, and I had forgotten the exact bearing I had arrived from, which probably meant I was in for an interesting journey.

Without warning, Dash broke down into loud, shameless tears. It snapped me back into the moment, and I tried to calm her down. Shaking her shoulder, I whispered, “Hey, hey... c’mon, Dash. You’re making a... thing.”

She looked back at me through her sobs. “It’s... it’s not fair, G.”

“What isn’t?”

Her voice cracked up her response. “Now everypony treats me like I’m some sort of freak, just 'cause I hung out with you all summer.” I opened my mouth to retort, but she went on, “And I kn-know it’s not your fault. These last few m-months have been some of the b-best ever for me. It’s just, w-whenever we w-were apart, no one would even l-look at me. The only thing that g-got me through it was thinking of w-what we would do, next time we saw each other. And n-now we’re never g-going to s-s-see each other ag-ag...”

Dash completely melted down during the last syllable of “again.”

“Hey, now...” I patted her shoulder. “It’s not like we’re dying. We can still keep in touch!”

Her eyes lit up. “Y-you promise?”

“Yeah, Dash, I promise.” I was a little fuzzy on how, but I vowed I’d at least try.

After she heard my promise, Dash threw herself on my neck in a hug that made it hard to breathe. In that moment, I realized how long it would before we saw each other again—if ever. I hugged her back, clamping my eyes shut, trying to hold back tears.

That was the wrong thing to do. But if I had known that Father had been nearby, I would have known to deck her in the face, throw out a few choice slurs, and leave her there. Dash would have hated me, and I would’ve, too.

It would have been better for everyone involved.

The bushes near my pond rustled, and I turned, talons-out... in time to see the cotton tail of a rabbit as she scampered away. Mind the vicious bunnies, I mocked, rolling my eyes. Still, I was dry enough to fly, so I took off for my home. It wasn’t much more than a hole in a mountain, but at nearly a mile above ground and with only one entrance, it was safer to get lost in thoughts up there.

Five minutes’ vertical flight later, I landed on the outcropping outside my cave and glanced around to make sure it was still my cave. The walls and floor were smooth stone, so it was easy to see everything except the very back, where the light couldn’t reach. My cave was an almost-perfect combination of sturdy and cozy; it had taken almost a month to find it. After living there for three years, I felt it had been time well-spent.

Time...

I mulled the word over in my head. It was weird, having all the time in the world to do anything. Growing up, Father had set all the rules and schedules. Some days, I needed to get out of that hellhole cave and dying ridge. Now that I was away, I wanted nothing more than to go back home.

But the Sharfkral—my tribe—had their rules. The Verbannungsprüfung was both terrible and absolute. To my ancestors’ credit, the whole thing used to be about finding peace with nature and all that jazz, but just like everything else in my tribe’s culture, time had warped it into something brutal and empty.

The rules were simple, on parchment: until I finished a “Prüfung,” I was “Die Verbotene.” The Prüfung could be anything: go find some mystical pool, or speak with the gods, or kill a dragon... Stuff like that. The fun part was how, until it was finished, I couldn’t make contact with any member of my race—under penalty of death.

Of course, since it had been my heartless torturer of a father who had assigned me both the “banishment” and the “quest” portions of the Verbannungsprüfung, it was a choice between dying and something worse. So I was stuck in a cave; travel plans kind of dried up when I had to worry about accidentally running into someone I knew.

I sighed and walked over to my blanket. It wasn’t plush anymore, but it was more comfortable than the bare stone. I lay down on it and closed my eyes as visions and sounds swam through my head: memories of my youth, reminders of my current situation, and fantasies about the future.

Like they always did, my thoughts turned back to Dash. She was the reason for my banishment; even worse, she was the Prüfung...

“And I’d rather die than do it,” I reminded myself.

Even with my eyes closed, I cringed. Every day, it felt more like I was only reminding myself out of habit. But she was innocent in the whole situation. Killing a squirrel for food was one thing, but honor killing someone intelligent? A funny one with hopes and dreams and a contagious smile?

It was ruthless, and evil. It was exactly how Father wanted me to turn out.

I opened my eyes and took a deep breath. A Verbannungsprüfung for one of his “lessons” was a little extreme, or at least, it was more... intricate than he usually was. Plus, he had tried to kill me first, which didn’t really fit into a “plan,” if he had one. Then again, nothing from my childhood really added up.

I wasn’t even completely sure on the terms of my banishment. Yeah, I was supposed to be shunned by every tribe, but I didn’t know if they still honored those laws. I tried hunting that down at an Equestrian library one time, but I didn’t get very far. Given how seclusive we were, that didn’t surprise me.

So it’d be risky to try and learn more about the limits of the Verbannungsprüfung, but I also didn’t know what would happen if I killed Dash in her home country’s borders. That one, I could look up, but every time I thought about it, I felt sick to my stomach.

On an international level, I reasoned, the consequences of killing Dash probably wouldn’t be too bad. Father might’ve been cruel, but he wasn’t stupid enough to risk a “war” with Equestria. After all, there were hundreds of thousands of ponies that lived under that nation’s banner. Substantially more than the fifty-six Sharfkral griffins.

With a sigh, I looked down at my blanket and gently traced the stitching with a finger. There had been fifty-six three years ago, but that number had probably shrank by two or three since I left. But who?

It was a bleak truth, but it was absolute: griffins were a dying race. My tribe had been the largest of three, but it didn’t matter. All three tribes were shrinking at a slow, steady rate. In a few centuries or so, our numbers would probably fall into the single digits.

Looking back, it was easy to see that most of the adults in my tribe had given up on anything more than “subsisting.” Sure, there were a few exceptions to that rule. Some of us devoted ourselves to the gods, begging them for salvation; others gave themselves to more earthly pleasures to pass the time.

Others, still, tried to live by older traditions. If we were dying, we could at least do so with honor, damn it. Back in my tribe, I had wanted to live like that. Ironically, so had my father. That was probably where he found the energy to torture me, and to levy a Verbannungsprüfung.

Or maybe he just hated me that much. One way or another, I’d never know.

I tried to blink the burning out of my eyes. I hated him. Even now, three years later, everything he had done to me just left me broken and alone. All of his stupid “lessons” amounted to nothing: I never had to fight anything, or identify poisonous herbs, or make remedies. They had just been excuses to hurt me. Growing up, I had averaged three broken bones a year, “to teach me how to set them.” After I left, I hadn’t broken anything in three years.

My hands curled into fists, and tears fell out of my eyes. I tried to console myself with the words of the Artifacts-Vendor, an elderly griffin who I used to hang around and hear stories from. “You mustn’t blame yourself for any of this,” she had told me the first time I had shown up in her cave wearing a makeshift splint.

I wanted to believe her words. But there must’ve been something wrong with me, if he paid all that extra attention to me. It was my fault I had gotten into my current situation; my fault that I was so weak and helpless that I even needed to go to some foreign kids’ flight school to relearn the basics.

It was my fault that I was completely alone.

I stopped crying and wiped my eyes. Lying down was getting uncomfortable, so I got up and walked over to the entrance of my cave and sat on the outcropping. The treetops below provided me with something interesting to watch; from that height, they were pretty much safe.

Safe, I mused, watching a flock of birds take flight. There was security in being isolated like I was. There were risks, too. If I had a flying accident, or if I got seriously sick, no one would come to my rescue. My best prospect in those cases would be to die outright, but only because it beat the alternative: dying slowly, in agony, as my hopes of salvation eventually dwindled down to nothing. And then blackness.

I cringed at the thought. It wasn’t that I was a stranger to the concept of death; given my race’s situation, I thought about it a lot. I didn’t want to die. Yet there I was, dying alone, and there wasn’t really a way to change that.

Unless I changed it myself.

With a harsh scoff, I reminded myself that the only reason I hadn’t killed myself was because I was afraid to. In a screwed up way, that was optimistic: life sucked, but dying might suck more.

Then again, wasn’t that hopeless. When I wasn’t hunting, I spent a lot of my waking hours—roughly ten a day—with hopes and fantasies of finding another griffin like me. Sure, it was virtually impossible that we’d find one another, especially if she had been cast out of one of the other tribes, or if she had gone in a different direction from me, and of course, she would be a female, and probably a pompous bitch, too...

I shook the idle fantasies out of my head. They didn’t do anything but waste time. If I wanted real companionship, or at least the next-closest thing, I knew where I could go. Up north, there was a pony city where I did all of my correspondence with Dash. Over the past years, Dash’s few-and-far-between letters had dwindled, but they were still probably the only real things that I could look forward to.

I wonder if she’s written back yet. I tried to remember when I had written her; it had been in early March, so it had been nearly two months. With how things worked with Dash, there was at least a chance she had written back by now.

I didn’t make it a habit of visiting the city up north, but I had just taken a bath. By the sun’s position, I’d have enough time to get there and back before nightfall. I’d just have to leave soon or put it off until tomorrow. Or the next day, or next week...

With a frustrated sigh, I turned around to walk back into my cave. Yeah, checking my mail might be pointless, but so was moping around, daydreaming. And besides, maybe something interesting would come from a little trip.

That hope made my mind up more than anything. I walked over to my little traveler’s chest; I still had it from Junior Speedsters’. I couldn’t remember how I held onto it during the escape from Sharfkral-Grat, my tribe’s nesting grounds. The chest held some of the small keepsakes that fourteen-year-old me thought were of dire importance.

One of them was a small leather pouch that the Artifacts-Vendor had given me for my thirteenth birthday. The pouch had once belonged to another griffin who, sort of like me, had been cast out of his tribe by a monster. That had been about two centuries ago, but the pouch was still sturdy. I used to collect rocks in it, but after my exile, I had grown out of that. Now that I had all the time in the world, geology seemed like a waste, somehow.

Instead, I used the pouch as a wallet for the money I needed when I left the forest and entered Equestrian borders. From what the Artifacts-Vendor had told me, that was exactly what Louis—the original owner of the pouch—had used it for, before he settled down in Sharfkral-Grat.

After closing the chest, I walked back out of my cave and stood on the stone outcropping again, this time getting ready to take flight. Like always, I felt kinship with Louis: he had once set out on a journey, and here I was, about to set out on a journey. Checking the mail. Such an epic quest of the gods, I mocked.

Still, the weather was good for flying, and it felt good to have something to do. Before I could change my mind, I took off from outcropping and flew north.

> Chapter Two
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Every time I flew, the rush of wind felt natural as it rustled my feathers. However, I had to balance that satisfaction against my usual terror. The short distances around my cave were easy enough, but long-range flight was always a strain. If I stopped flapping my wings just right, there’d be nothing to stop me from plummeting to the ground or a mountaintop or a tree. Of course, the more I thought about it, the worse I flew.

If I could ever get past that, flying could be pretty cool at times. From my altitude, I could see for miles. Below me, the Jägerwald grew on both sides of the mountain range I lived in—and used to live in. Even though it was somewhat of a prison to me, I loved that forest. Three years of hunting gave me a close connection to everything around my cave. I knew the trees, and below them, the bushes, herbs, ponds, and streams. There were dangerous and strange things in the Jägerwald, but at the same time, it was lush, verdant, and alive.

I envied it.

The mountain range that I followed went north for hundreds of miles, all the way to Sharfkral-Grat. I wasn’t going that far, but it was always a weird thing to note: I had been banished to, basically, the same mountain range above the same forest I had grown up in. But it felt like home.

As I flew north over the giant lake that signified the end of the eastern expanse of the Jägerwald, I felt a familiar flood of relief. It was only a few more minutes’ flight over some plains until my trip was over. I started to slowly descend for landing; already, I could make out the massive stone walls and billowing smokestacks of Farrington.

Farrington was a happy-go-lucky pony city full of happy-go-lucky ponies going about their happy-go-lucky pony business. I didn’t call it Isenbeute anymore, but I didn’t have any place there...

After Junior Speedsters’, Father and I had flown back home—a silent flight of over fifteen hours. Despite my growing unease, I had known better to complain or falter in my flight.

At the end of the trip, I had been exhausted, but instead of heading to our cave, Father took me to the rim of the dead volcano that marked our border with Equestria. There, he banished me, and when I heard the terms, I spat in his good eye. He responded by almost killing me in a near-blind rage.

The whole thing was kind of a blur to me, but I remembered that someone had come to my rescue and pulled Father off me. I didn’t have time to see who it was; I just took off flying in what happened to be south, toward Farrington.

I wasn’t exactly in prime condition at that point; the deep gashes in my chest were bleeding pretty badly, and I had been flying for over fifteen hours before I made my desperate escape. By the time I was netted down in Farrington, I was almost dead.

About a month later, I woke up; after the shock of that passed, I also learned that someone was paying for my hospital bills. As soon as I could walk out, I left the hospital, even though it still took a few trembling months before I could fly again.

I got by with selling feathers for quills, but other than a few letters to Dash, I holed up in an inn for most of the time. It got cramped, but it was either being alone or venturing out into the streets of Farrington. Every time I did the latter, I got looks that ranged from curiosity to fear to flat-out hatred. Once I could fly, I left that city behind; if the choice was between being a freak to society or being alone, then it was easy: no one gawked at me in my cave.

Currently, I was close enough to Farrington that I could make out some of its finer details. The buildings were made of stone, and most businesses in the city had wooden signs hanging over the doors with pictures to indicate what went on inside. They were covered in little glass-plated holes that ponies liked to build into their structures: windows.

Three roads led into the city: one in the north, one in the east, and one in the south. I landed in the middle of the southern road and walked the last hundred or so yards to the city. As I neared the south gate, I glanced up at the massive words:


WELCOME TO FARRINGTON


On the bottom of the wooden sign, there were several small etchings; one was of a wing that had an “X” drawn through it—a reminder that it was against the rules to fly in the city walls. Like I need the reminder.

As I got closer to the gate, I made eye contact with the guard who was stationed in a little booth—or at least, “little” compared to the massive, smooth wall that it was built into. The guard smiled and greeted me in his usual manner, “It is Tuesday, the ninth of May, around a quarter after four.”

“Thanks,” I replied in his language, trying to sound like I still cared. I probably failed, but at least I avoided adding “dork.”

My tone was lost on him, and he flashed me a grin before turning to stare off to the south again. He had started greeting me like that after I first left the city. The first few times I had come up for supplies and mail, I had asked that guard—he was almost always on duty when I visited—what day it was. Back then, it had been less a matter of curiosity and more worrying about winter.

After my first three visits, that guard started automatically telling me what day it was. I didn’t know if he was mocking me or not, but I really didn’t care. It was somewhat useful, and if he were insulting me, at least he could do it with a smile.

I walked past him and headed to the huge stone archway, smiling darkly to myself. He probably only knew me as “that one griffin.” I never told him my name or age... heck, he probably didn’t know what gender I was. Griffins could tell one another apart pretty easily, but my experiences with ponies told me they were either politely ignorant—like Dash—or stupidly insulting about it.

In Dash’s case, she got thrown off by my voice until we were both put in a girl’s group. After she awkwardly apologized, I asked her why she hadn’t just checked to make sure.

With a shrug, Dash had responded, “I don’t go around checking out everypony’s lady bits.”

“Just their butts,” I had countered with a tone of amusement. Dash had chuckled slyly. We had our first conversation after she checked me for a “cutie mark,” didn’t find one, and then started on a questionable tale of how she broke the sound barrier to get hers.

When I reached the gate, the road turned from packed-down dirt to cobbled stones. Immediately, I curled my fingers back as far as they would go. It hurt my palms to walk like that, but the roads were made for ponies, not griffins. My first time walking on them, I hadn’t paid any attention to the deep cracks between stones. I was rewarded with the wet, searing agony of having a talon ripped off.

A few ponies stared at me while I walked; I kept my head high out of sheer spite. Eventually, I got to a building that boasted a sign with a picture of a letter surrounded by the outline of a wing: the post office.

As I walked through the door, a little bell rang to announce my presence to the four beige walls... and the aquamarine unicorn behind the counter. She definitely knew me as “that griffin.” Heck, she had been preemptively glaring at the door like she had been expecting me. I raised my eyebrow at that idea; magic was lame if you didn’t have it.

Anyway, we had seen each other over a dozen times over the past few years, and every time, she acted like I had killed her dog or something. This time, she only continued to glare at me for a few seconds after I was standing directly in front of her before finally asking, “Can I, er, help you?”

From anyone else, it might’ve passed for politeness, but I knew better. I kept my visible aggravation down to a squint as I replied, “I’m here for my mail. Like always.” You bitch, I added silently.

There was a tense pause where I thought she was going to ask me what my name was again. She had already asked me at least seven times, and I knew for a fact she didn’t have that many griffins to keep straight. Luckily, she thought better of it and simply replied, “Let me check.” Then, she disappeared behind a swinging door.

Three very long minutes later, I heard muffled voices, and she reappeared. Her expression was markedly neutral, and a small, glowing letter levitated near her head. Even from a distance, I could make out my name, written in Dash’s scribbles. Instantly, my mood lightened.

The mail clerk walked up to the counter, but the letter kept moving toward me until it was right in front of my face. I glared a little at the magic that kept it aloft, but I decided to ignore it to focus on the more important thing: Dash had written back! The letter had a postmark from April, which meant I had kept her waiting for over a month now. I was too happy for guilt, though, so I sliced it open and read:



Hey G!

It’s cool you got through winter okay. Winter Wrap-Up was a few weeks ago here, so Spring is back, and so is training! I’ve got to get everything in order if I’m going to join THE WONDERBOLTS this year.

Anyway, I hope you have a good spring too!

~Dash.



I sighed, read it again, and sighed again. After all the buildup, an hour’s flight, and dealing with the mail clerk from Hell, hearing stuff about Dash that I could’ve guessed anyway... I shook my head. It was good she wrote, I guessed. And I didn’t have to force myself to grin about how she was still “living the dream.”

When I looked up, a furnace lit in my stomach. For a split second before she looked away, the mail clerk was grinning at me and my disappointment! Part of me wanted to leave right there, but contempt locked my legs in place. I needed to send a reply to Dash before I left; I couldn’t let some bitchy mail clerk get the better of me.

So, clenching Dash’s letter in my fist, I walked up to the counter. “I'd like a sheet of paper.”

It should've been a fairly simple request, but instead, I got a blank, almost fearful stare from the clerk. She took a quick breath and asked, “If you’re sending a letter, why not get some stationery?”

I shook my head. “I want it there quick.” Not only did I not trust her advice, but going to the stationery store would’ve easily been another half-hour. Heck, Dash probably didn’t even like fancy paper. I went on, “So whatever you’ve got here. How much?”

“A hundred twenty bits,” she responded to the wall behind me. Her eye twitched, and I thought I saw her sigh without breathing. “I mean, for postage. If you’re mailing it with us, you can have the paper free of charge, sir.”

She levitated a sheet of paper onto the counter and I picked it up, staring at her while I tried to decide if she were trying to antagonize me or not. I walked over to the shelf-like desk that took up the entire wall of the post office. While I did, I racked my brain, trying to remember if she had ever called me by a gender-specific term before. I couldn’t, so I tried to focus on my top priority: replying to Dash.

First thing first, though; when I got to the desk, I threw Dash’s letter away. It wasn’t because I was mad at her or anything; I just never needed her letters after I read them. And with the original copy out of the way, it was easier to focus on the reply.

The post office provided inkwells and pens for “normal” customers to address their mail or whatever. I wrote my whole letters there, but it wasn’t like I was using a ton of ink. I never wrote more than a half a page anymore.

Back when I was stuck in Farrington and selling wing feathers to afford everything, I used to write more. During the first month, I had sent a letter to Dash almost every week, and she had responded at the same rate. That didn’t last. Dash started to lose interest in letters because of everything else going on in her life: friends in Cloudsdale, Flight School, and some certification exam.

It didn’t help that our conversations became short, repetitive, and bland; without telling her what had happened and the specifics of my situation, there wasn’t anything going on in my life I could talk about.

Dash must’ve picked up on how boring my life really was, because her letters started getting shorter and shorter, too. When I had recovered enough to leave the city, I had to make a decision before I was completely plucked: stay in Farrington for the winter, or find a new home in the Jägerwald. If Dash and I sent more letters, I would’ve stayed, but we didn’t, which was part of why I went south to find a home.

That, and annoying prejudices. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the mail mare glaring at me. I scoffed at her sheer persistence, which was so sad I could almost respect it. Almost. Instead, I snapped at her. “What?”

She sneered. “If you want it there fast, why not just fly it there yourself?”

I blinked at the suggestion, despite its source. Given Dash's role in my present situation, I had thought about visiting her before to let her know. It boiled down to a bad idea, though; she seemed happy in her letters. I didn't really know how she'd take the news of how I had to kill her.

Plus, I reasoned, how exactly do I bring that up? “Hey dude, just a heads-up, I've been completely banished from my tribe and race until I kill you, but don't worry. I totally won't. You can trust me, remember that short time we spent together three years ago?” If I wanted to terrify her, I could just break into her house at night and glare at her until she woke up.

Still, she had a right to know.

At the same time, it was dangerous. Despite our friendship, whatever my intentions were when visiting, there'd be a chance. It’d be a small, insignificant chance, but if she took the news hard or something went seriously wrong, there’d be temptation. And I would rather die first.

But again, she had a right to know.

Staring at the blank parchment, I wrestled with my thoughts: Tell Dash. Don’t. The mail clerk is watching everything you do. This place probably closes soon. I rolled my eyes and shook my head. What could it hurt to ask to visit, besides everything? I had to send her something, at any rate.

So with one final, incredulous sigh, I threw caution into the wind and wrote:



Hey Dash,

It’s cool to hear you’re doing well.

It’s been forever since we’ve seen each other, dude! Things are pretty boring up here, think I can come hang out with you for a while?

~G.



Even if the letter had huge implications, I smiled as I signed it with my initial. Within a day of meeting each other, I started calling Dash by just her second name; in response, she turned me into just “G.” I liked it.

While the ink dried, I thought about the rest of my letter. The words were innocent enough, but they were also a test. I didn’t really know where Dash and I stood as friends—we had a good summer together, but we had drifted way apart since then. Her answer would let me know how things were between us.

I didn’t want to think about what would happen if she said no. But if she said yes... it would be a good visit. Then I’d have to tell her about my banishment, and I didn’t know where things would go after that. How would Dash feel about accidentally ruining my life? Sad? Guilty? Afraid?

I just needed the chance to let her know that I didn’t blame her. That sealed it for me: I wanted to tell her I didn’t hold her responsible for how Father had ruined my life.

After I got that off my chest, we could go from there. Maybe Ponyville was more tolerant than Junior Speedsters’ or Farrington. It’d be easier living somewhere I knew one pony who knew about my banishment situation...

I shook the idea out of my head. It was idle planning, and I already did that too much.

When the ink was dry, I rolled my letter into a scroll, wrote Dash’s address on the outside, sealed it, and took it over to the clerk. By her pointedly neutral expression, I knew she hadn’t stopped glaring at me the whole time I wrote my letter. That, and how she called me a “sir,” made me simmer inside as I handed her my scroll and paid its postage.

With everything done, I walked over to the exit, getting more and more irritated with every step I took. Finally, I couldn’t help it: I was not male. I put up with too much crap over that, growing up, to let it slide.

Figuring that she was still glaring at me, I deliberately took a wide step with my hind leg and in one motion, spread out and bent down, flicking my tail straight up. It was usually a pose meant for something entirely different, but it worked for my purposes.

I turned to look at the mail clerk, and by her shocked look of disgust, she had definitely seen enough of me to have caught her mistake and realize that I was not a “sir.”

She caught my eye, but I couldn’t think of anything witty in her language. Instead, I finished off the show by winking at her, sticking my tongue out, and bringing my right hand over to my beak. I curled my back and rightmost fingers to make a circle, leaving the other fingers sticking up. She glanced at my hand, but only regarded it with a look of annoyed confusion. The traditional gesture of griffin disrespect was lost on her, but it made me feel better. And that was the most important part.

So with that settled, I gave a little shake before putting my tail down and standing up. A disgusted scoff answered from behind the counter, which made me chuckle. I walked out into the street, victorious, and thought about what to do next.

With my letter sent to Dash, the only thing I could really do was wait for a reply.

> Chapter Three
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning, a weird sense of motivation woke me up early. After a lucky fish breakfast, my cave felt boring, so I headed back out and took a bath. Two days in a row was probably some sort of record for me, but I needed to do something with my time.

When I got back to my cave, I still felt jittery, so I preened myself. Growing up, I always hated the process; there were always better things to do with my free time. In exile, there was no reason to care. But for some reason, that restless morning, the slow, delicate grooming calmed me down a little—and it kind of felt good, too.

Every time I found a loose or dead feather, I plucked it out and put it into one of two piles. Good-sized wing feathers could be sold for quills, and it was useful to have some Equestrian money. I didn’t spend much time on my chest; the feathers were worthless, and because of my scars, they never lay flat anyway.

An hour later, I was neat, clean... and completely bored. I tried not to think about Dash’s response too much; given our current speed of writing letters, it’d probably be mid-summer before she got back to me. Then again, I had never really asked her a direct question like that. That made me think that Dash would write back quickly, even if it was to say no.

Around noon, I decided to go up to Farrington again. There was no way Dash had written back yet, but I had a small fortune’s worth of feathers to deal with. It was almost lunchtime, too, so I could eat in the city... then, I could swing by the post office and see if an early-evening delivery had come for me.


*        *        *


In Farrington’s Market District—I missed the southern guard, but I knew it was Wednesday the... something-early-th. I went to my usual writing supplies shop and filled my coin sack with more bits than I knew what to do with. I left the store without buying anything, but I did smile as I passed a cheap stationery kit.

After a not-real-filling flower sandwich for lunch, I wove aimlessly through the streets of the Market District and looked at the store windows in a game of “What would I do with that?” Most of the knickknacks were stupid or pony-oriented, which made me wonder what Dash would do with them. Slowly, my game turned into an actual question of what gift I would bring if I visited her. It was dangerous to get my hopes up, but after nearly three years of sitting alone in my cave, I couldn’t help myself.

Around four-thirty, I quit fake-shopping and went to the post office, where the stallion clerk was working. He was old and faded gray, but over the years, I had come to prefer him. He didn’t work as often as his oh-so-charming coworker, but he was polite—even if his vacant grin made me wonder if he was all there.

I was lucky enough to get him instead of the mare, but reality finally caught up with my high spirits. It had only been a day, so of course, Dash hadn’t responded yet. “But try back tomorrow,” the old clerk urged me.


*        *        *


Thursday was pretty much a repeat of Wednesday, so by Friday morning, I was thinking that Dash wasn’t going to get back to me for a while. I still wanted to head up there one more time, but after that, I was going to start spacing out my trips to Farrington; if Dash wasn’t writing back to me, I couldn’t keep wasting the energy to go up there every day.

The dark, cloudy sky seemed like it was reflecting my worries, which gave me even more of a reason to put off my trip until Saturday. Then again, it didn’t look like a big storm for lightning bolts, so I shrugged it off—a motion that I rolled down to my wings. With a few flaps, I was on my way to the city.

The whole flight, my mind swam with possibilities: Dash’s letter wasn’t there. It was there. She said yes. She said no. She’d understand everything about my banishment.

She wouldn’t.

I lost track of time while I was flying, so it came as a jolt when the lake rushed past below. The home stretch, I noted, and for once, the weight in my stomach didn’t come from how fast I was flying.

I glanced up at the sky when I landed outside the city; the weather looked a lot worse up north. Time-guard seemed a bit weird, too; instead of his usual, happy chiming, he seemed off in the distance when he told me it was close to noon. My walk to the post office seemed slower than usual, even though I was making a conscious effort to move as fast as my palms let me.

Inside, the post office was empty. I chuckled at the vacant space behind the counter; all of my worries got me worked up over nothing. The novelty ended quickly as I realized I didn’t know where to go from there. Almost on cue, a female voice called out from the back, “Just a moment, please!”

With that, I walked over to the counter and sat down in front of it. Because of my posture, I wasn’t much shorter when I sat, and I had thought about how this encounter was going to play out ever since my dramatic exit on Tuesday. I wanted to enjoy it.

The aquamarine clerk didn’t disappoint.

When she walked through the door, she stopped mid-step. A whole range of emotions played across her face: anger, loathing, disgust. In the end, a smile stretched out her cheeks. It looked like her teeth were clenching back a few choice words.

Her conflict was delicious, so I didn’t need any help smiling. “Hi there,” I said in a too-happy tone. “Has anyone wrote back yet?”

She didn’t say anything; instead, she just vanished behind the swinging door. A few minutes later, she came back out, looking absolutely horrified and levitating a letter next to her head. This time, she put it down on the counter, which created a long pause where both of us took turns staring at it, then back at each other.

Eventually, I declared, “I’ve got better things to do with my life,” and stood up, picking up Dash’s letter. I pinched it between two fingers and waved as I turned around, “Later, mail bitch.”

After I walked out the door, I jolted as it slammed behind me. I turned to face it, and I blinked, questioning my wisdom of escalating things with a unicorn. Even Father granted them a small mote of respect; they were the one race of ponies that stood a chance against an adult griffin in one-on-one combat.

With a shrug, I looked down at Dash’s letter. Two days was pretty quick for her—which could be a yes, or it could be a no. And it was thicker than usual...

Shaking my head, I sliced through the top of Dash’s envelope to find out what she said:



Hey G!

You’re right! It has been too long! These letters are good for keeping in touch, but writing them is so boring!! I hope you’re not mad or anything, but that’s sort of why I’m so bad at writing you back all the time.

Of course you can come and visit! You can stay for as long as you want, too! I made my house myself, so it’s got tons of room for all my awesomeness!

Just one condition, though: if you don’t want pony food... can you get it from the Everfree Forest near here? One of my friends here in Ponyville loves all the animals around town so much, it’d be horrible for her to have to go through losing one (or more) just so you can get lunch.

You probably like writing letters as much as I do, so just come on down! You’ll be able to tell which house is mine (it’s the one with RAINBOWS!) as soon as you enter Ponyville airspace. If I’m not home, I’ll be back soon... a weather pegasus’s job is never done, after all.

I hope to see you soon!

~Dash



I reread her letter almost three times, getting more and more excited each time. Blinking back tears, I swallowed the desire to cry out in joy at the news; it wouldn’t do any good to freak out everyone in the street with me.

There was a trash can right by the post office, so I threw the letter away before heading north to the Market District. Now I knew for certain that I was going to visit Dash, I had to pick up her gift: a set of Wonderbolts trading cards. It wasn’t a huge gift, but she loved that team.

The clouds from the morning were still looming up above, which made me think about the practical part of visiting Dash. Knowing that she lived in Ponyville and knowing where she lived were two completely different things. I bought a map and spent a good half hour in the store trying to figure out travel times; in the end, I figured that it’d take between eight and twelve hours, depending on the weather. Looking at the shop’s clock, I did the math: if I left right at that moment, it would be well after midnight when I showed up at Dash’s house.

Then again, one of my goals in visiting was to not terrify her.

I left Farrington and decided that the best way to do things would be to head back to my cave and a compromise: I would fly back to my cave and see how the weather turned. Once I could safely head out, I’d make for Ponyville, which was southeast of my cave. I could figure out landmarks and bearing along the way, and I could make sure I showed up at a respectable hour.

With a grin, I fantasized catching up with Dash. Our visit was going to be perfect.


*        *        *


Sunday morning lived up to its name, and the morning sun blasted me awake at dawn.

In my cave, I usually only got a dim preview of the sunrise, and that woke me up. However, after a late start on Saturday and spending most of the day flying against headwinds, I hadn’t been able to find a suitable cave to sleep in at night—there was a big one, but it reeked of dragon musk, so I assumed it was “occupied.” I didn’t want to get into a territorial dispute with something that could crush me like a beetle.

I didn’t want to sleep on a cloud, even though it was apparently a power I had; that had been a strange discovery at Junior Speedsters’. I didn’t trust clouds, and I didn’t trust the weird, overly-thick clouds near Ponyville, so I had ended up sleeping on a narrow cliff near the top of the mountain. The only thing that spot lacked was any sort of cover from the sun, but after I learned that my wing didn’t help anything, I decided I had to get up for the day anyway.

There was a stream nearby, so I could take care of some things before I continued on my way to Dash’s; first, I made sure to leave her package on the ground away from water. After that, my first order of business came by shortly: the fish didn’t even know what hit him until it was too late. Or her, I thought as I tore its spine out. Who knows? Fish are weird.

After breakfast, I took a bath to wash the fish remnants and bug goo off me. As fast as I flew, bugs didn’t bounce off me as much as they exploded on contact. I had about a half-hour’s flight left between me and Ponyville, so I wouldn’t be entirely fresh on arrival, but barring an errant locust swarm, I’d be somewhat decent.

With my morning preparations out of the way, I grabbed Dash’s package and took off towards Ponyville. Since I was at a lower altitude than I had woken up at, I got to see the sun rise a second time in my peripheral vision. It was an interesting bit of nature and angles, but so close to the Equestrian capital, it mostly made me feel like I was being watched.

Ten minutes later, the outline of a small village appeared on the horizon. As I got closer, I was certain that it was Ponyville. In the air above the town, I saw a house made of clouds with what could only be described as “RAINBOWS,” as Dash had put it. I smiled and put on an extra burst of speed; as I approached, I noticed that the rainbows weren’t cutting through her house as much as they were flowing through it, like an elaborate waterfall system.

There was no way it wasn’t Dash’s house—it was loud and proud, just like her. When I knew it was hers, the house filled me with a sense of dread; I knew what I had come to do, and I had no idea how this visit was going to go. But no matter how high the stakes were, the only thing to do was to keep flying; I had come too far to just chicken out at the last minute.

Dash’s front door flew open, and all I could register was a streak of rainbow-and-blue headed straight for me. I braced for impact, but it didn’t matter; when Dash hit me, the force of her combination tackle and hug flipped me over in midair. Thinking quickly, I rolled my wings as far as they would go and flapped backwards. To my surprise, I kept the two of us aloft long enough to return Dash’s embrace with one arm—the other was still holding her gift.

“Oh my gosh, G!” Dash’s voice was bursting with excitement. “It’s been forever! How was your flight?”

My heart sang as I saw the enormous smile on her face. In three years, I had nearly forgotten, but Dash could never keep her feelings off her face. The sheer joy in her smile was contagious, and I felt myself chuckling.

“Buggy,” I replied through the laughter.

“Yeah, you’ll get that on long trips,” Dash said with a sincere nod, not skipping a beat. “Even somepony as awesome as me can’t dodge all those little guys.” She broke out of the hug and hovered in place. I flipped back over, and Dash waved at her house. “Come on! I’ll let you wash up in my pool!”

She flew off, and I followed her over to a pool of the same rainbow liquid that flowed through her house. Up close, I could see the colors in it shimmer and flow, but there wasn’t any breeze to stir it. I eyed the liquid suspiciously, but since Dash hadn’t grown a second head or anything, I figured it was safe to be near.

“It might tingle a little, but it’s the best for cleaning up after a hard day’s flight! Just watch your eyes..”

“Thanks dude,” I replied with a nod. I thought about where to safely put Dash’s trading cards, and the obvious answer struck me. “Oh, before I forget, here!” I tossed her the package.

Dash gasped, “For me?” before catching them, and her smile got even larger. On any other pony, it would’ve been impossible. “G, you didn’t need to bring a present!”

“It’s cool.” I shrugged. “Open it up!”

She tore into the brown wrapping paper with her teeth, then opened the box inside. “No. Way. These are the coolest!” she exclaimed.

I smiled; Dash liked the cards. To prove my point, she started to rant and rave about the different members of the team, quoting their ages, speeds, and signature moves. Like always, I tried to understand everything, but when she delved into various race circuits, I couldn’t keep track of it all.

While Dash did her fanfilly thing, I turned my attention to the rainbow pool, still nodding my fake comprehension. I stuck a finger in the multicolored liquid. It was warm, like a hot spring.

“Sorry, G,” Dash abruptly stopped her rant, and I snapped my eyes back to her. “I forgot you’re not as big on the Wonderbolts as I am.”

“No one is.” I shook my head and grinned.

She chuckled before waving at her pool. “Go ahead, get the bugs and gunk out of your feathers.”

With her permission, I closed my eyes, took a breath, and dunked my head in. I scrubbed with my hands, and by the time I ran out of air, I was reasonably clean. Remembering Dash’s warning, I wiped my hands off on the nearby cloud before wiping what I could away from my eyes.

When I looked at Dash, my eyes didn’t burn, but she was losing the fight to suppress a laugh. It made me a little nervous. “What’s funny?”

“Oh, nothing.” Laughter chipped through her voice as she added, “Rainbow G.”

“What?”

“Hold on, hold on, let me put these away.” She waved her cards at me while turning around.

I sat by the pool, completely lost at what she was going on about. Rainbow G? That was a new one. Before I could think about it too much, Dash came back outside, holding a little mirror. She brought it up to my face and asked, “See?”

“Wha... bu...” Words were failing. My head was now a rainbow of colors, looking almost exactly like Dash’s mane. After a few more sputters, I found my tongue. “Uh, dude?” I asked calmly. “What did you do to my head?”

For an answer, Dash collapsed on the cloud in a gale of laughter. I felt a twitch of annoyance at being ignored, but it dashed away when I saw how hard she was laughing. Finally, I couldn’t help myself—I started in as well. It was a pretty weird situation. After a few chuckles, I asked, “So, uh... this isn’t permanent, is it?”

Immediately, Dash’s laughter faded, and a mix between embarrassment and terror played in her eyes. I shared her fear for a moment, but then I remembered what someone had done to me at Junior Speedsters’, and how that prank hadn’t been about laughing with a friend...

About six weeks into the summer, I woke up pink. To be more specific, someone had dyed my head feathers pink while I was asleep. They had also gone the extra mile, and dyed the word “DYKE” on my flank, right where a cutie mark would’ve gone.

Immediately, I knew who had done it: Stormglider, a snooty, hateful little filly, had been offended by my blunt attitude when we first met. Dash and I had usually been good about trading insults with her and her lackeys, but I remembered the sinking feeling when I realized that Stormglider had gone too far.

The cutie mark didn’t last very long, even though the first-aid kit’s razor left behind a ragged bald patch. That was definitely better than my head feathers; it was spring when I had completely molted back to white, and I could swear that the patches around my eyes were still pinker than they used to be.

Three years after the first prank, Dash was standing in front of me, stammering an apology. “S-sorry... ohmygosh, I didn’t mean for that to—”

“I’m sure you didn’t, Dash,” I interrupted her with a pair of fingers on her nose before she could start one of her meltdowns. “This is different than then. But, uh, do you have any normal water?”

Dash calmed down, and I took my hand back. Then, her expression lit up and she shouted, “Don’t worry, G. I’ve got it!” as she took off flying. From below, I watched as she grabbed a dark gray cloud and moved it over me. Then it clicked: Dash is in charge of the weather. She isn’t going to...

The resulting deluge was less like “rain” and more like “a monsoon.” Still, ten seconds later when Dash held up her little mirror, my feathers weren’t rainbow-colored anymore.

Now, they were transparent, and the ragged scars on my chest were clearly visible. As I looked back up, I hoped Dash wouldn’t—

“Where’d you get those?” Her voice was grim, and she had a concerned eyebrow raised.

I thought hard about that answer. Here was the one pony I could tell everything, the one pony I had specifically come here to tell everything, and she had just given me an opening a mile wide.

It was the perfect time to tell her. But I couldn’t. Not yet, anyway. It was still too early to start unloading all of my problems on her—especially right after bringing up Stormglider’s crap. There’ll be time for everything later, I told myself; to Dash, I explained, “I got in a fight a while back.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, either.

She cocked her head and squinted at my chest. For a moment, I was certain she had seen through my lie. After what felt like an eternity, she grinned. “Well, I’d hate to see the other guy... or, uh, girl,” she added awkwardly.

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so silence washed back over us. Again, Dash broke it: “Here, I’ll dry you off! With my patented Rain-Blow Dry, you’ll be dry in ten seconds—”

I ruffled up my feathers and shook as violently as I could. My tried and true method of getting dry also worked quickly, but it took a toll on my surroundings.

“—flat,” Dash finished her sentence. She wasn’t nearly as drenched as I had been, but her mane was notably plastered to her head and neck.

“Gotcha,” I said, pointing and winking.

We both burst out laughing, and for the first time in ages, I knew that everything was going to be okay. Our morning had gotten off to a rough start, but we were past that, and we were going to pick our friendship up right where it left off.

When we finished horsing around, Dash flew into the air again and swerved into a tight circle. She picked up her speed, and because of her rainbowy mane and tail, she left a multicolored blur behind her. I felt a light misting of water—Dash’s water—but it wasn’t anything like the downpour from earlier.

When Dash broke out of the ring and landed in front of me, her mane was plastered back. As she smoothed it down and to the side—her usual style—I nodded in approval. “Not bad, not bad.” She beamed, so I razzed her a little, “We definitely need to go out flying later so you can show me all of your new tricks.”

“And you can show me yours!” Dash added gleefully.

It was like getting punched in the face; mentally, I slapped myself. Of course she was going to want you to fly with her! I tried to sound confident as I replied, “Er... yeah!”

Barring a few weirdos, griffins didn’t fly for “fun,” unless “fights to the death” counted. Personally, I was too self-conscious about flying—probably due to having my flying skills constantly berated in my younger days. Junior Speedsters’ was the first time I had ever tried stunt flying, and I had been miserable at it, despite Dash’s support.

Still, I tried to think of how to get out of flying today. My first idea was my old standby from camp: if I could beat Dash in a race, she’d focus more on her flying, leaving me to watch. I had always been slightly faster than her in a flat-out race with no turning; the only reason she “beat” me in the singles racing event at Junior Speedsters’ was because I had been disqualified.

I still resented that, too. I hadn’t cheated, I had just punched a colt in the throat. He could still fly, the wuss.

Dash interrupted my memories with a hug, clamping her neck into mine as she exclaimed, “Oh, G! It’s so great to see you again! Don’t get me wrong, I like everypony here and everything, but it’s great to hang out with someone who knows how to fly!”

I returned the hug, smiling weakly off into the distance. If she wasn’t yanking my chain, then it didn’t say much for the flight capabilities of... everypony... in Ponyville. I rolled my eyes at her stupid slang word.

We broke out of the hug, and Dash asked, “So, what have you been up to for, uh, the last few years?” I couldn’t tell if she was feeling guilt or concern, but again, there was the opening to tell her.

Again, I closed it with a half-truth. “Not too much, really.” That was a little too true, so I kept going, “In terms of flying, I’ve been going for speed, over agility.”

“Have you met any boys?” I heard the joking in her voice, but I knew her well enough. It was a defense mechanism to ask a serious, personal question without embarrassing anyone.

I couldn’t remember if I had told her about how unlikely that would be for a female griffin; instead, I shrugged the question off. “Nope; still flyin’ solo. What about you?”

She shook her head, and silence fell over us. Before it turned awkward, I mentioned the first thing that came to mind: “But yeah, that reminds me of when I sent you that letter the other day...”

I told her about how I had flashed the Farrington mail clerk, and when I finished, Dash chuckled. “You’re so wrong, G.” I gave a pleased smile; that was what she always said about my darker humor. I was glad that part of me had stayed the same over the past few years, and even better, I was glad things between Dash and me were still the same.

We swapped stories and laughter for the rest of the morning, but it only felt like a few minutes. I spent the whole time glowing inside, and I wished we could spend the rest of the day like that: remembering and laughing in each other’s company.

It was the best morning I had in years.

> Chapter Four
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nearly an hour passed as we went back and forth with our stories, but after a while, Dash started to get fidgety. My stomach lurched; I knew what was coming next:

“So, you ready to fly or what?”

I leered back with, “As the day I was born!”

Dash must not have heard any of my nerves, because her only response was, “Cool! Sit tight, I’ve gotta check something first!”

She flew up to her house’s roof, leaving me alone to rack my brain for an excuse—any excuse—to get out of flying. If she actually watched me, she’d know I was lying about keeping up with my training.

And this is why you don’t lie, my brain reminded me. It always comes crashing down in the end.

Quiet, you, I snarled back. Then I blinked, trying to figure out what that implied.

A shrill squeaking interrupted my thoughts. It sounded like a duck quacking, but it was too high-pitched. The squeaking stopped; then, a voice that was too high-pitched and loud called up to where I was sitting. “Rise and shine, Rainbow Dash! It's a brand new day, and we’ve got a lot of pranking to—”

I stuck my head out over the edge of Dash’s cloud to see who was talking. I expected a pony, but I didn’t expect them to be wearing a pair of bright green glasses, fake mustache, and an arrow sticking through her head. In her mouth, she was holding some sort of whistle, which was probably the source of the quacking from earlier.

The more I looked at the pink earth pony below, the more names from Junior Speedsters’ came back to me. Even with the language barrier, most of them had sounded stupid to me. But now, I was looking at the textbook definition of a “dweeb.”

I tasted bile when I realized her appearance was clashing with my predator’s instincts—ponies were herbivores, and griffins weren’t. And here was one that stood out from her environment like a sore thumb, completely helpless and unsuspecting... I shoved those thoughts back down; carnivore or not, I wouldn’t let my instincts call the shots.

Either way, her timing was awful. I had just started catching up with Dash. Now, some outsider was going to interrupt with noisemakers, props, and “pranking?” No. No way. I wasn’t going to let some pink pest get between me and—

“Morning, Pink!” Dash’s cheery rang out, and I glanced up at her, confused. She was friends with... “Pink?” My annoyance grew when I remembered the difference between pony and griffin names. Griffin names had meanings that weren’t the words themselves; for example, my older brother’s name meant “good with a spear,” but he wasn’t called “Blade Thrust” or something stupid like that.

Dash flew down to speak to Pink, and I joined her; I didn’t want to make an awkward situation for Dash. I was still mid-flight when Dash started introductions. “Gilda, this is my gal-pal, Pinkie Pie!”

I landed, turned to the side while I fought to keep my face straight. I knew Dash had made new friends—or “gal-pals,” I supposed she called it now—since Junior Speedsters’. But Pinkie Pie? Swallowing my jealousy, I chimed in, “Hey, what’s up?” I tried to sound more impressive than I felt.

“Pinkie, this is my griffin friend, Gilda.” Dash gestured to me while she finished the introduction.

That stung, but I didn’t have time to dwell on what it meant to be Dash’s “griffin” friend before Pinkie Pie asked, “What’s a griffin?” From her, it sounded especially stupid.

Dash started to explain, “She’s half eagle, half lion—”

Listening to Dash describe me like I was some sort of mythical beast felt weird, so I pounced over and put my arm around Dash to show that we were friends. “And all awesome!” I followed it with a mock roar. Dash raised her hoof, and I punched it lightly, just like she taught me.

“Gilda’s my best friend from Junior Speedsters’ Flight Camp!” she finished, like she was reading my mind about the “hoof bump.” That was better, I decided.

My ego rapidly deflated when Dash asked, “Do you still remember the chant?”

In many ways, I was an outside observer at Junior Speedsters’, so it had been easy to see through their fake crap. Dash, on the other hand, had loved that camp’s artificial culture. I learned early on not to press the issue too hard, so now, I tried to brush the question off. “Yeah,” I said, biting back some of it. I hated that cheer. “They only made us recite it every morning. I’ll never get that lame thing out of my head.”

“So...?” Dash looked at me expectantly.

One time, I had misjudged a wounded lizard. He had been slow and weak, and after I caught him, I brought him to my face to gloat. He decided it wasn’t a good day to die, so he had spat venom right in my eye.

I would rather relive that agony a hundred times than to be right there, in front of the most annoying pony I had ever met, reciting the most annoying chant I had ever learned. I was about to say that, but Dash’s smile won me over. I couldn’t say “No” to something so happy.

With a sigh, I resigned. “Only for you, Dash.”

At that, she shot into the air. Before I was even halfway her height, she started the cheer:


“Junior Speedsters are our lives!
Sky-bound soars and daring dives!
Junior Speedsters: it’s our quest
To some day be the very best!”


There was a dance that accompanied it, but damned if I could remember it. Dash still knew the entire thing by heart, but she was too far off in her own little world to notice that I was faking it. When the cheer finally ended, we landed, and I mimicked Dash’s posture by standing on my hind legs while waving my arms.

Pinkie Pie giggled. I glared daggers at her while I smoothed down my head’s feathers and counted the reasons why I didn’t want her around. Pinkie didn’t seem to notice; instead, she exclaimed, “That was awesome!” She would like that cheer. “And, you’ve given me a great idea for a prank! Gilda, you game?”

“Huh.” I didn’t try to hide my scoff. Sensing an escape from Pinkie, I continued, “Well, I groove on a good prank as much as the next griffin...” If anyone in my tribe ever tried to “prank” someone, they probably end up as a bloody mess. “But Dash...” I turned to her. “You promised me we’d get a flying session in this morning.”

Before she could point out that she hadn’t promised “this morning,” I took off. I knew Dash would follow; if the option were between flying and anything else, she’d always choose the sky. I didn’t like manipulating Dash like that, but I could not stand Pinkie Pie. Today was supposed to be fun, damn it, not annoying and pink.

Below me, Dash was talking to Pinkie Pie. I couldn’t hear them, but by her movements, I could tell that Dash had a lot more patience for the pink nuisance than I did.

That raised a scary question: What if I was the interloper? Dash lived here, after all, so she probably hung out with Pinkie Pie a lot. What if Dash liked her new friend more? The thought made my wings heavier, and I actually dropped a few feet.

Dash jumped up, flapping her wings to hover. She pointed a hoof at me and said one last thing before coming up to where I was. We flew off together, but I took a quick backward glance: Pinkie Pie was sitting, alone, with a dejected expression on her face.

Grounding her stupid cheeriness did wonders for my mood. Now, the only problem was if Dash had a problem with what I did. Innocently, I turned and asked, “So, what do you want to do first?”

Without hesitation, Dash blurted, “Watch this!” and flew off. She did it with enough gusto that I felt relieved—she didn’t care about Pinkie’s feelings either. So, with the Pinkie thing settled, I hovered in place and got ready for the show. Even back in Junior Speedsters’, Dash’s stunts had been cool to watch. I was definitely interested to see what she’d cooked up in three years.

Dash didn’t disappoint. She flew over to some large clouds and flew around one with so much force that it started spinning. I didn’t even know that was possible. After the first cloud, Dash flew to a second, then a third, and kept going until five clouds were spinning under her command. Then she flew back to me and pointed at the still-rotating clouds. “Neat, huh?”

“That’s awesome!” I didn’t even have to fake being impressed. “What do you call it?”

Her eyes widened as she shrugged. “I haven’t really thought of a name for it yet.”

“Still, dude, awesome!”

She chuckled. “Thanks... So, what’ve you learned that’s new?”

All my fears from earlier came back; I felt completely unprepared. Dash wouldn’t let me off so easily, but I still tried: “Well, I, uh... told you I’ve been focusing on speed, not agility...”

Dash rolled her eyes. “Come on, G, you must have done something new since camp.”

If you only knew, I thought, but I discarded it and racked my brain for something—anything—that I could use. Finally, I settled on something easy. “Uh... remember how I used to suck at flying upside-down?”

She let out a cough of laughter. “D’you think they ever fixed that hole you put in the side of the mess hall?”

I returned the laugh; I had forgotten about flying head-first through the oddly-solid camp building. Or maybe that was brain trauma. “Yeah, that was not one of my cooler moments.” I sighed mentally—time to do or die. “But watch this!”

I flew away from Dash and broke into a slow, horizontal circle. Easy enough. Once I was comfortable, I tried to roll upside-down and keep in the same path. I overdid it, so I ended up doing three-quarters of a roll; thinking quick, I kept rolling and tried to stick to the original path. The whole thing felt shaky as hell, and I had no control over it, so when I started to fall, I broke it off and went back over to Dash.

She was waiting with a compliment. “Yeah! You’ve got so much more control now!”

“Thanks, dude,” I said, despite the swimming, spinning world around me.

“Mind if I give it a try?” Dash asked. I grinned; she had always annoyed the other campers by trying their stunts out and, usually, doing them better. I had been the only one who saw that she wasn’t trying to one-up anyone; she just loved flying.

Like always, I answered, “Go for it!” I was glad to let her do the flying, but I also wanted to see her take on the trick I had just pulled out of my butt.

Dash started off in a horizontal circle, just like I had. Unlike me, she flew in a faster, tighter loop. When she started rolling, she did it much faster, too.

I thought she would’ve gotten her fill after a few seconds, but Dash was never one to hold back on flying. She rotated her path, so now she was doing my trick in three dimensions—a sphere, not a circle. She spun as she flew, so her weird, multicolored trail formed an orb that was woven together out of rainbow braids.

It was beautiful.

Eventually, Dash broke out of the stunt and flew back to me. I tried to say how amazing what I had just seen was, “That was... how...”

“Heh, thanks,” she said quickly. I guessed the message got through. “But I’m dizzy now.” Her eyes were having trouble focusing on any one point in front of her. I tried not to laugh at how silly she looked; Dash didn’t deserve it after that spectacle.

Dash took a break on a nearby cloud, so I improvised for what I guessed was my turn. I took off horizontally, both to gather speed and to decide what I wanted to do. On a whim, I turned up sharply and kept pushing as hard as I could go. Eventually, gravity won out, and I stalled in place for a moment...

Then, I fell.

I flapped my wings and picked up speed, pretending that I was hunting something on the ground. Time itself seemed to slow down, and I lost myself in the freedom of that dive. I let out a screech, not caring who was nearby to hear it.

Ten feet before I hit the ground, I flared my wings and swerved up. As I felt the crushing weight of an incredibly fast turn, inspiration struck. I darted for the cloud Dash was resting on and crashed through it from below.

The cloud exploded and Dash let out a high-pitched yelp. Without thinking, I grabbed her around the chest and held her close as we flew to another cloud.

I set her down and Dash yelled, “That was so cool!” Her wings flared out to punctuate her sentiment. The gesture that was common to our two races, a similarity that made me grin.

When I realized what she had said, I flushed a little. “Aw... dude, they taught us dives the first week of camp.”

“Yeah, but I never thought of stalling into one, or to keep going and come back up after one!” She was so hyper and smiling that I couldn’t help it; I smiled back. She asked her usual, “Can I—”

“Go—” Dash took off flying before I could finish.

When she finished stalling and diving a couple of times, Dash transitioned into a completely new trick involving many tight flips. Then I tried to spell my name in the sky, which lost most of the effect because I didn’t have a smoke trail or anything to trace my path.

Dash and I kept at it for least an hour; by the end, I was hot and sweating, but I was having too much fun to care. Even more, after pulling off a few stunts, I wanted to race. Not as a distraction, but for fun. When Dash finished her stunt, I raised an eyebrow and challenged, “All right, dude. Tricks are cute and all, but I think we both know what the real test of flying is.”

“Oh, yeah?” She raised an eyebrow back at me.

“Yeah.” I pointed to a lone cloud that was tiny, over on the other side of Ponyville. “Race you to that cloud.”

“Okay, G...” she agreed. “But we need to slow it down over the city. There are pegasi working, and I don’t want to hurt anypony.”

“Okay, then...” I hid my surprise at her concern for safety. “Whoever’s in second place when we get there has to follow the leader.”

“Deal!” She grinned.

“All right,” I said, hunkering down so I could take off fast. “On ‘Go.’ Ready?”

Dash mimicked my posture and nodded. “Yep!”

“One... Two... Three... Go!"

True to her name, she dashed off like a rocket and left me behind. She was better at accelerating, I had to give her that. But over a long, horizontal run, I could max out at a higher speed. I kept going until I was right behind her, but then we were almost at the village, so I didn’t want to risk passing her. I saved my strength by flying in the slipstream behind her, where there was less air resistance.

When we entered Ponyville’s airspace, Dash slowed down and I followed suit. She knew better than to make it easy for me, so she pulled into a sudden vertical loop. I kept my cool, and managed to stay right behind her for the entire stunt.

After the loop, Dash took us to out of Ponyville’s airspace, and we both sped back up. This time, I went all out, flapping harder and harder.

A few moments before we got to the cloud, I passed her. I landed, victorious, and Dash responded by tackling me. She burst out laughing at her purposely-botched landing, and I joined her before exclaiming, “Wow, that was sweet! Just like old times.”

“Yeah, only faster!” Dash replied, raising her hoof. I punched it like before. After a brief pause, she asked, “So, what now?”

I was about to reply when my heart jumped straight up into my throat; Pinkie Pie’s head was sticking out of the cloud we were standing on!

“Hey there!” she greeted us in her annoying, bubbly voice.

“Huh?” Dash and I said in unison as her head disappeared below the cloud.

Pinkie’s head came back a second time, “It’s later,” she said, before her head vanished. It reappeared a third time, and she finished, “And I caught up!”

Her head reappeared a few times without saying anything, but Dash sat down with an earnest smile on her face. “Pinkie Pie,” she said when the pink head reappeared. She paused until Pinkie’s head reappeared and finished, “You are so random!”

C’mon, Dash, I complained. What are you doing encouraging this loser? Again, I decided to take things into my own hands. “Hey Dash, think you got enough gas left to beat me to that cloud?” I pointed to a cloud that was higher up and away from Pinkie Pie.

“A race?” she asked, apparently forgetting what we had just finished. “You are so on!”

I was happy to oblige her and to get away from Pinkie Pie, so I started us off: “One... Two... Three... Go!"

We took off, and a pink voice complained, “Hey!” but I ignored it. Our second race was a lot shorter, so Dash had an edge on me. I gave it my all, and we broke through the cloud at about the same time. In fact, I thought I might’ve been—

“I won!” Dash declared.

“As if,” I defended, pointing to myself. “I won, dude!”

“No way!” She argued, throwing her hooves in front of her in protest.

“Yes way,” I said, crossing my arms.

“Come on, I was way ahead of you!” she persisted.

“Uh, I don’t think so,” I said, closing my eyes and shaking my head.

“Oh, please, dream on.”

“Remember back in camp? I—”

“There is no way you beat me.”

“Whatever,” I said, holding up a hand for her to “talk to.” Despite the conflict, I was enjoying myself; I didn’t really care about the race, and we had gotten away from—

“Wow guys, that was really cool!” a voice called out from behind me.

Pinkie Pie? I opened my eyes and turned around. There she floated, supported by a huge cluster of what I recognized as party balloons.

It couldn’t make sense of it all. First, it was an uncanny sight. Second, I had no idea where she had gotten all of those balloons from. Third, it had only been ten seconds since Dash and I had left her back at that cloud, and we had flown at top speed! How the f—

Pinkie Pie interrupted my thoughts. “But I think Rainbow Dash beat you by a teeny-weeny, itty-bitty hair! Or a teeny-weeny, itty-bitty feather!”

It didn’t matter how she got there, but suddenly, fire lit inside me: here was an earth pony, trespassing in the sky?

Certainly, other griffins would agree with me. Father, for all of his faults, was consistent. He hated everything that was “weak” in his eyes. His hatred of earth ponies was merely a passing amusement, but pegasi were a blasphemous mockery of us Sky Lords.

One of the few times I had seen him in a joyful mood was the day he came back to our family’s cave carrying a pair of lime-green pegasus wings. I remembered the sinking feeling in my gut as I watched him nail them to the wall, humming a little tune. I had barely been eight then, so it had almost been a decade ago; as far as I knew, they were still there.

Whatever hatred Father had for pegasi, I was sure he’d feel the same way about Pinkie Pie, once he got to know her. Knowing him, he’d probably disregard all political ramifications and rip her head off her shoulders. That thought filled me with a warm sense of justice, but then I realized what I was fantasizing about.

I felt sick. Just because she was annoying didn’t mean she deserved to die; I knew that.

Right?

I felt helpless at the brutal irony; three years’ solitude, and now I wanted to scream, I had to keep my cool—for Dash’s sake. I calmed myself down as fast as I could, hoping I wasn’t showing any outward signs of anger. As I looked over at her, I breathed a relieved sigh when I saw her turn to face me; she couldn’t have seen anything.

“Hah, see?” Dash said. I had no idea what she was referring to. “Good thing Pinkie Pie’s here to keep you honest, G!”

Right. The race. The... floating pony. Dash’s accusation didn’t even faze me anymore; I just wanted to get away from everything.

Or at least, I needed to get away from Pinkie Pie. She didn’t get the first two hints, so I’d try a slightly more direct method. “Okay, Dash,” I taunted, hoping she’d take the bait for a third race. “Last one to that cloud up there is a gnarly dragon egg. Go!” At the word, Dash flew off to the cloud as fast as she could.

I stayed behind. In the back of my mind, it worried me to be alone with Pinkie, but I could control myself. I pointed a talon at her and threw out the first harsh words that came to mind: “I think the high altitude is making you dizzy!” I punctuated my scorn by popping a third of her balloons. Pinkie made a protesting sound, but I didn’t care.

Instead, I sped over to the cloud I had tricked Dash into “racing” to. When I landed, she frowned at me like she knew what I had done, so I got ready to defend myself. It wasn’t my fault that we were being stalked, in air, by someone who should’ve been grounded in the first pl—

“Oh wow, you guys almost got away from me that time!” I turned around and thought I had finally lost it. Pinkie Pie was not only airborne again, but now, she was in some sort of... mechanism. It had a spinning blade on top that I guessed kept her aloft; she had to pedal the device with all four of her legs.

Of course, that was just the functional part of the machine—the part that I could give some begrudging respect. However, Pinkie had also decorated it in the most annoying way possible: it looked like it was made of candy.

I tried to fathom just how deeply I hated that machine, but I also started to despair. All I wanted—no, all I needed was to spend some time alone with Dash. I had stuff to tell her that was personal, which would already be hard to do; I definitely didn’t want to do it in front of a stranger, let alone Pinkie Pie.

She had to go. But first, I needed to distract Dash again. It bugged me to have to keep manipulating her like that, but I didn’t have a choice. So I turned to my friend and taunted, “So, Dash... got any new moves in your tricktionary, or are you one hundred percent old-school?”

Dash looked back at me, and her anger told me I had gone too far. Then she forgot it, her eyes lit up, and she bragged, “New moves?” She chuckled. “Sit back, G; this is gonna take a while.”

I smiled. Perfect.

She took off, and I didn’t waste any time. I rounded on the flying abomination behind me. “Hey Pinkie,” I beckoned, “C’mere.”

Hearing wasn’t one of her problems. Pinkie flew closer and asked, “Yeah?”

I grabbed the frame of her flying machine and pulled it closer. When her face was dangerously close to my beak, I snapped at her. “Don’t you know how to take ‘get lost’ for an answer? Dash doesn’t need to hang with a dweeb like you now that I’m around. You’re dorkin’ up the skies, Stinkie Pie.” Sometimes, my way with words impressed myself. “So make like a bee, and buzz off!”

Using my wings to steady myself, I grabbed the spinning blade at the top of the flying machine and held it still. Pinkie Pie kept pedaling, which made the rest of the machine spin around. After letting her twirl for a moment, I flipped the entire device down. Her machine darted around aimlessly at first, then it finally started to lose altitude.

I didn’t have any time to gloat, though; Dash came back almost immediately and bragged, “Try matching that!” I had no idea what she had done, but Dash didn’t care; she was busy looking around. “Hey, where’s Pinkie Pie and her crazy contraption?”

Quickly, I threw a cover story together: “Eh, she left. Something about being busy as a bee.”

As soon as the words left me, I felt sick to my stomach. All of this lying and manipulation of my best friend was wrong. But it wasn’t my fault that Pinkie had been following us around all morning. Clearly, she was just desperate for attention and clinging to Dash like a parasite. Hell, I was doing Dash a favor by getting rid of her.

It wouldn’t be the first time, either...

About a week after Stormglider dyed my head pink, I had woken up in the middle of the night and noticed she wasn’t in her bed. I had seized the opportunity to find her. The night had been dark, but that was a benefit of being part-feline: I could see loads better in the dark than ponies could.

In less than five minutes, I found Stormglider and her lackeys. The four were asleep on a cloud; from the number of empty bottles in a nearby floating basket, I knew they were fast asleep. I wanted to startle them awake and then show them I didn’t need a sneak attack to kick their asses, so I kicked their cloud, dissolving it, just like we had practiced during camp activities.

For three of them, my kick woke them up right away, and they caught themselves before they fell too far. But Stormglider hadn’t woken up in time. She hit the ground hard, and I flew back to my cabin before her lackeys came to their dulled senses enough to look up.

Dash never found out that I was the one who did it, and I had no intention of telling her. My actions that night hadn’t been completely selfish—or planned—but Dash would never agree with what I had done.

Especially because, due to her injuries, Stormglider would never fly again.

Still, she had been asking for some form of retribution when she had attacked me in my sleep. If anything, I should’ve done something sooner; if I had hit back harder faster, she might’ve backed off before her wing got broken.

In the end, the most regret I felt was for how hard Dash got grilled by the counselors. We had both been suspects, but Dash had loved that camp and had followed all of the stupid rules to a “T.” Getting accused of such a serious mishap had made her dissolve into a blubbering mass of tears that had been hard to watch. She hadn’t deserved that, but I couldn’t apologize without telling her my true role in it.

As for apologies, I vowed that I would apologize to Dash for manipulating her today; she at least deserved that. For now, I just needed to relax and have fun. Especially after Pinkie’s intrusions, I wasn’t in the right mood to start spilling my guts about my banishment. I would do it later, in the early afternoon; that way, if things went wrong, I could at least have had a few good hours with Dash before the long flight home.

And if things go really bad, you can make it to Sharfkral-Grat by morning... I almost threw up at that dark, sudden urge. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to scream, but I shakily reminded myself that I wasn’t going to do that. Ever.

I hoped.

Some of my horror must’ve shown on my face. Dash, who had been sitting silently next to me for almost a whole minute, now asked, “Gilda... are you okay?”

She sounded suspicious, but when saw her eyes, she was worried, not accusatory. At first I didn’t say anything and thought about her question: Was I okay? Exile had left me extremely lonely, and that had changed me. Not for the first time, I wondered just how much it had.

I hadn’t started as the easiest griffin to get along with all the time, which must’ve been especially hard for Dash, whose culture cherished things like laughter and friendship.

You shouldn’t have to put up with me, I admitted sadly.

The idea crossed my mind to just leave. So far that day, I had been stuck in a vicious cycle of needing to spend time alone with Dash, but not being able to because of interruptions. I didn’t want to spend time with any new ponies until I sorted everything out with Dash.

Hell, after that, I would give Pinkie Pie more of a chance. But first, she just needed to leave us alone for a while!

While I pondered that, I glanced back at Dash. She was looking at me with growing anticipation, and I felt guilty for thinking about leaving... over, what, pride? Dash was my friend, and even though that sort of compassion was a lot more common in her society than mine, it was still precious to me.

At least I’m doing better with a pegasus than others in my tribe would. I thought about the cultural barrier we had broken, and I smiled warmly at Dash. She smiled back, timidly, but that was only because she was worried about me. She cared.

In that moment, I wouldn’t have traded Dash’s friendship for anything—including the ability to rejoin my tribe. I put my hand on her shoulder, and her smile brightened. “I’ll be fine, Dash,” I said softly. “It’s just... Pinkie Pie seriously annoys me.”

“Well,” Dash started, stretching out the word and cocking her head to the side apologetically. “That’s just Pinkie Pie. She’s annoying most of the time, but it’s only because she’s too busy being friendly to stop and realize it.”

When she put it like that, I could almost forgive Pinkie. Almost. At the very least, I resolved that I would try harder to enjoy my time in Ponyville, and that started by enjoying the ponies that were nearby, not worrying about the ones who weren’t.

On that note, I decided it wouldn’t take much for me to enjoy losing to Dash in her favorite game. “So anyway,” I asked, “while she’s busy with whatever, you up for a game of Pony?”

“As ever!” Dash cheered, wings out, and the rest of her worries melted away.

The rules of Pony were simple enough; two players took turns trying to copy each others’ tricks. If you messed up, you got a letter from the word “pony,” and if you spelled the whole word, you lost.

Out of courtesy, Dash let me go first, but it didn’t matter; going into the game, my record against her was zero and twelve. Still, I managed to at least give Dash a “P,” so her thirteenth victory wasn’t a complete sweep. But it was all good fun, and I found myself enjoying flying—something I never did alone.

After Pony, the two of us headed towards Ponyville proper. As we landed, I laughed and commented on the game, “That was sweet!”

“Ugh,” Dash grimaced, as if she had suddenly remembered something. “I gotta take care of a few weather jobs around here. Shouldn't take long. Just, uh, hang out in town and I'll come find you.”

Damn, I cursed; I hated how difficult this entire visit was turning out. Still, Dash had a job to do, and I had to respect that—and messing with the weather was a task worthy of the gods. I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice as I replied, “That’s cool, I guess.” It had been a long time since breakfast, so I added, “I’m gonna go chow down.”

Dash didn’t remind me of her condition for my visit, which I was grateful to her for; instead, she just took off with, “Later!” I smiled to watch her go, but then a familiar sinking feeling grew in the pit of my stomach.

I was alone again.


> Chapter Five
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dash left me down in the dumps. Lunch wouldn’t fix that, but I was hungry, so I started to look around for something to eat. Immediately, I found a produce cart, which would be as good a meal as any—heading out of town to hunt would’ve taken too long.

I also saw an elderly earth pony, and instantly, I knew what else I could do to improve my mood. Maybe it was Dash’s pranking from earlier that morning, maybe it was because I knew the old pony would be an easy target, but I was overcome by how funny it’d be if I scared her. And I did need a mood boost after how crappy my morning had been.

With one eye on the older mare, I slunk over to the the produce cart, hunkered down, and poked my tail up where she could see it. Ponies were always freaked out by my tail when they saw how much dexterity it had, and that old mare was no different. I heard a shrill, fearful scream: “A rattler! A rattler! Run for the hills! Everybody, forsake yourselves!”

I stuck my head up over the produce to see the fruits of my prank. By her frantic leg movements, I could tell the green mare was “running,” but I could walk faster on Farrington’s roads. Backwards. I smiled at her efforts. Dash was right: pranks were funny.

The produce salespony glared at me, clearly not as amused as I was. I glared right back at her and poked a tomato with my tail. “This stuff ain’t fresh, dude.”

We continued our glare-off until I turned to leave. Then, she accused, “What’ve you got against Granny Smith?”

I rounded back on her, and she flinched. “Nothing...” I glanced at the barrel of red apples. “But those aren’t Granny Smiths, dude. I know that.” She scowled, but before she could say anything, I remembered lunch and asked, “How much are they, even?”

“Two bits each, and leave,” the vendor spat back.

Smiling at her bitterness, I responded, “You ever think of working at a post office?”

Her scowl twisted, and some of the fun was lost because she had no idea what I was talking about. I reached to my chest feathers and grabbed my... nothing. Damn! I yelled in my head. In my hurry to finally leave on Saturday morning, I had left my coin sack behind. Good one! I chided myself.

As much as I hated to lose a glaring contest a bitchy vendor, I turned to leave.

Then, in one spiteful motion, I snaked my tail into the basket, grabbed an apple, and whipped it into my mouth. Sure, it was hardcore stealing, I didn’t care. First off, she needed to learn to watch her mouth around customers; secondly, it was food, and I was hungry. It wasn’t like I was taking something I didn’t need.

A moment later, I swallowed my sweet victory and realized that I was walking with my eyes closed. When I opened them, a light-yellow pegasus with pink hair was walking right for me—backwards. I seethed, What kind of moron walks in a busy street without even watching where she’s going? She was guiding a family of ducks through the street, but that was just stupid; why even bring them into a city where they could get stepped on or—

The careless pegasus slammed right into my chest scars. They were as healed as they were ever going to be, but they were still kind of tender. I tried to hide a grunt by shouting, “Hey!”

“Please excuse me,” the pegasus replied meekly.

It made me shout even louder, “I’m walking here!”

“Oh, um, I'm sorry. I-I-I was just trying to...” she stammered, backing away from me.

I stepped forward, mocking, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Her stupid family of ducks scattered; the animal-loving wimp was lucky I left birds alone as a rule. “Why don’t you just watch where you’re going, doofus?”

“B-b-b-but I... I...” she stammered.

Something snapped. It was her own fault she was getting confronted, and now, she was cowering at me? If she wanted something to be afraid of...

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and roared.

Adult griffins’ roars could intimidate all but the deadliest of foes, so late-adolescent me was easily good enough to startle a wimpy yellow pegasus. Sure enough, when I opened my eyes, she was shaking in place with fear.

I hated everything about her. She was too light-colored. Her voice was too soft. On top of everything, she was blubbering like a baby after she rammed into me.

Her eyes started welling up with tears. She took a few quick breaths, which were as soft and weak as her voice. Her mouth stretched downward, widening her eyes; finally, the dam burst and she turned to run away, sobbing.

As she took off flying, I only felt disgust. Where’d she even get a pair of wings? She’s a disgrace to all pegasi with an attitude like th—

Suddenly, I remembered where I had heard those words before: three years ago. My breath caught in my chest. Moments later, when she stumbled mid-flight, I couldn’t help but think it was from injuries I had given her for being “unworthy.”

Suddenly, I wanted to run away, too.

All the nearby ponies were staring at me with shock, anger, or fear. Whatever shame I felt evaporated as I wondered, What the hell is wrong with you ponies? All I ever want is to mind my own damn business. All I ever get is the freak-show treatment!

I scoffed and threw their prejudice right back at them. “Please, all these lame ponies are driving me buggy. I gotta bail!” And I did just that; flying off, hating them all.

They didn’t know half of what I had done wrong.


*        *        *


A few minutes later, I was laying on a low-floating cloud and panicking. If Dash had seen me doing that—I shook the thought out of my head. She was my only friend; if that changed... I shook my head again. I didn’t want to think about that, either.

I tried emptying my mind to get a fresh start on thinking. No matter how hard I tried, the same image popped up: a yellow pegasus breaking down crying from of what I did to her. The more I tried to stop it, the more vivid and clear it became. That vicious cycle continued until finally, the scene replayed in my mind one more time.

Except this time, we were on a ledge sticking out from an extinct volcano.

The yellow pegasus turned on me and defended herself, “So what if I made a friend? You’re the one who sent me to that stupid camp in the first place!”

“I did not send you to wallow with the Beute to become one!” It was humiliating to see that, without my supervision, she sought to be like the lesser beings, both in undisciplined actions... and color. “If you had but a tenth of the talent of Gerard, you would not need help to be able to fly in a manner that is not a complete embarrassment to our race!”

“Yeah? Well, Dash could fly circles around pretty-boy Ger—”

I balled my hand into a fist and brought it across her eye before she could finish disgracing my son with her insolent tongue. “You burden my mind with your incompetence, and now you taint my ears by giving a name to your precious friend who, despite being physically inferior to you, still managed to humiliate you in every possible way!” Despite everything I had taught her—years of lessons wasted—she had still allowed herself to be bested in every round of competition by one of the Beute.

“B-but she... I...” I seethed as I watched the yellow pegasus begin to cry. How disappointing. I thought that she had perhaps been expressing anger to defend herself, but now I saw her cowardice for what it was.

“Such weakness!” I bellowed. “From where did you even manage to get a pair of wings? You disgrace your entire race with cowardice! Griffins are supposed to have dignity, which you clearly lack, because here you are, blubbering in front of me like a cub! Count yourself lucky that my father is no longer alive to see what weakness this line has come to; unlike me, he lacked the mercy to abstain from culling it!”

I jerked awake. I opened my mouth to scream, but I heaved, and everything I had eaten that morning came back up. Absently, I hoped no one was directly beneath my cloud. When I finished, the bitter, apple-y zest in my mouth almost got me started again, but I forced it back down so I could ask:

What. The hell. Was that?

By the fact that I had woken up, I knew I must’ve fallen asleep. Despite it being high noon. With the sun overhead. When I needed near-pitch darkness to sleep.

More disturbing than how I fell asleep, though, was what I had dreamed. I tried to get a grip on my thoughts, but it was like swimming against a current. Memories flowed over me, but I bowed my head defiantly and gasped deep breaths, trying to force them away.

I didn’t want to think about that day—not today. I didn’t want to think about how much I hated the coward from that dream for being too weak to stand up for her only friend. I didn’t want to think about how that conversation had ended with her as a broken, bloody mess. I didn’t want to think about how she deserved it.

Most of all, I didn’t want to think about how I could relate to every single line of Father’s reasoning as he had stood there, berating me.

Tears stung my eyes as I dry-heaved, trying to force a sob down. It was a losing battle, trying to keep myself together; hell, this entire trip had been a mistake. Every wound from my past kept getting torn back open. I dissolved into tears, even as I hated myself for it. As much as I tried to force myself to stop, as much as I reminded myself that Dash would be looking for me by now... I didn’t care.

Memories rushed by in vivid detail: Being left out of games because I was “bad luck.” Having to sleep outside for a week after Gregor lied about me waking him up. That damn lurch, every time Father swooped down to drag me off to a “lesson.”

All those images flashed before my eyes, and I just lay there, crying. Pathetically.


*        *        *


When I finally got it together and blinked my eyes clear, it felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I stood up and, through bright little pinpricks of light, I scanned the ground for water. I was thirsty, and I probably needed a quick refresher. I spotted a lake and flew over to it.

When I was over the water, I shut my eyes and dove. In pitch-black darkness, I had no weight. Pressure on my skin told me the water was getting closer, but I didn’t open my eyes. I just took a deep breath, anticipating the plunge.

Liquid silence enveloped me. Only when I was underwater did I re-open my eyes. Hundreds of little minnows were darting away in a panic, but the rocks and weeds flowed gently with the currents. It was silent. It was peaceful.

I wanted to stay there forever.

My lungs protested, which snapped me to my senses; I kicked off the bottom of the lake and swam back up to the surface. After a deep breath, I paddled back to shore and climbed out. Despite being soaked and the dull ache in my neck, I felt better.

Instead of shaking off the water, I flipped over and lay on my back. The sun felt warm on my stomach. I closed my eyes and tried to take in the sounds around me. Unlike the Jägerwald, the plains around Ponyville were quiet and soothing. I took a deep breath, smelling the lake even as I heard it lapping on the shore. I could see why ponies lived near here; it was quiet and p—

“There you are!” I opened my eyes; Dash was hovering above me.

I smiled up at her. “Hey, dude. What took you?” My words felt thick.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” She threw her hooves out in front of her. “I thought I said to stay in town!”

Crap. That had been... twenty minutes? two hours ago? “I, uh... crap, I forgot about that.” That was true, but I buried it in a too-easy lie: “I got bored, so I had to stretch my wings. Sorry.”

She shrugged. “Well, whatever.” Her tone lightened as she smiled and continued, “I wanted to come tell you about your party!”

The peace I had found dried up, leaving my gut an empty shell. I remembered the “parties” at Junior Speesdters’—loud, stupid things. I rolled over and stood up, trying to ignore the sand caked onto my butt. “The what now?”

“Pinkie Pie is throwing you a party in order to introduce you to everypony!”

You should leave. Now! I shouted at myself. I was too stupid to listen. “P...Pinkie Pie?”

“Yeah.” Dash nodded. “I know she’s annoying sometimes, but she throws the best parties! Lighten up, G—it’ll be fun! Anyway, it’s going to be at Sugarcube Corner in a half hour, so, uh... I guess... keep doing what you were doing?”

“Aren’t you gonna hang out?” I tried to keep the pleading out of my voice.

“Nah... I gotta help get it ready! We’ll hang out at the party, though. Promise!” I nodded, and Dash pointed sheepishly at me. “Just, uh... you’ve got sand on your... everything.”

I heard the embarrassed tone, so I rolled my eyes. “I’ll clean up.”

With one last nod and a wave, Dash flew back off, leaving me alone with my doubts. I lay back down and looked up at the sky. My escape route. There was nothing I could gain from staying. Except for why you came here in the first place, I reminded myself. I’d have to go to that party—that, or explain everything in a letter. If I took that route, she’d be guaranteed to never speak to me again.

After the party, then, I’d find some alone time with Dash. And I’d tell her everything; no more lies, no more screwing around. I’d start with the scars, then move on to Father’s decree, then explain why I wasn’t going to follow through on it.

I closed my eyes and tried to find peace. For all I knew, it’d be a long time before I found it again.


*        *        *


Sugarcube Corner wasn’t hard to find; it looked like a giant candy house.

Inside, things were much saner, even considering the party—my party decorations. At least the tables didn’t look like giant doughnuts.

“Gilda!” someone pink and loud yelled before landing in front of me. “I'm so honored to throw you one of my signature Pinkie Pie parties!” She leaned in too close to my face, but I was more bugged by what she said. A Pinkie Pie party? What is that, some sort of dweeby name-brand now? I didn’t say it, though; Dash might be watching.

As soon as I thought of Dash, I wondered where she was. I hadn’t seen her since her hasty warning of “There’s a party.” Looking around the room, I couldn’t find her; worse, I didn’t know anyone else there.

Except for Pinkie Pie, of course. I came back to her stupid rant at, “—you feel welcome here, amongst all of us pony folk!” I didn’t trust any sort of welcome she was giving, but I knew what her now-extended hoof meant. Even as I glared at her, I wanted to believe it was a symbol of a fresh start. Maybe there was something under her bubbly surface; maybe Dash was friends with that.

At the same time, Father taught me better than to expect the best from others.

Still, I went along with the hoofshake; the worst that could happen was that it was some sort of—

Pain.

I stood there, stunned into immobility as sharp pain seared up my arm, into my chest. Even worse, I couldn’t move my arm to escape; Pinkie Pie had stuck me there like that!

As quickly as it hit me, the pain ended. I collapsed. For all the types of pain Father had ever taught me, nothing prepared me for that sizzling paralysis. After the shock wore off, I had to admit it wasn’t the worst pain I had ever felt, and I was still alive. That counted for a little.

Above me, Pinkie Pie was laughing over what she had done.

Arschloch!

Anger and adrenaline screamed through me as I stood back up. She thought that was funny? I’d show her “funny.” My front arms looked thin, but they were a lot stronger than they looked. And despite his cruel tactics, Father had taught me how to harness that power. It would be easy to tear Pinkie’s front leg out of its socket.

It would be a good lesson, too: she wouldn’t die, nor would it be entirely permanent—she could still walk with three legs. Maybe next time, she’d think twice about tricking strangers with offers of “friendship” that were really just “pain.”

A familiar laugh stopped me before I could deal out justice. Dash walked over to us and my anger rushed away. At least, it fell second to a sense of betrayal: She was laughing?

“Oh Pinkie Pie, the old hoofshake buzzer. You are a scream!” Dash congratulated her.

Suddenly, it dawned on me: hoofshake buzzer. Ponies’ hooves were made of a thick, bony stuff; it was a lot thicker than my hands’ skin. Whatever I had been hit with had probably been made for ponies, not griffins, so it probably needed more strength to get through.

Still, it was still a cruel twist on a friendly gesture. But Dash thought it was funny, so I had to pretend it was funny, too. “Yeah.” I couldn’t fake a laugh, so I just continued flatly, “Good one, Pinkie Pie.”

“Come on, G. I’ll introduce you to some of my other friends!” Dash called.

“Right behind you, Dash!” I called out. Anyone was better than Pinkie Pie. With that in mind, I turned to her; gone were my earlier thoughts of friendship—and tolerance. Now, there was only loathing. If she thought her plan to use the party to torture me was even the least bit subtle, she had another thing coming. I warned her, “I know what you’re up to!”

“Great!” she said with a smile. She played dumb very well.

Just to be sure, I repeated, “I know what you’re planning.”

She laughed and said, “Well I hope so,” rolling her eyes. “This wasn’t supposed to be a surprise party!”

Maybe she really thought I was talking about the party. Just to be sure, I ramped up the intimidation: “I mean, I’ve got my eye on you.”

She got very close to my face and replied, “And I’ve got my eye on you!”

Despite everything biology told me about who’d win in a fight, her threat reminded me that I was in her territory now. Slowly, I walked away and over to Dash, wondering what, exactly, Pinkie Pie’s threat had meant.

When I caught up to her on the other side of the room, Dash gestured to an orange earth pony. “Okay! First up, Gilda, this is my friend Applejack. She’s pretty cool. Not only does she grow all the apples we eat in Ponyville, but she’s a pretty good athlete, too!”

“Gosh, Rainbow...” Applejack’s accent stretched out the “Rain” part. “I told you: don’t go spinnin’ yarns about the goin’-ons of Sweet Apple Acres!” Then, she turned to me with a welcoming smile. When she offered me her hoof, I took it, and there was nothing fake about that hoofshake.

“But aside from Dash’s tall tales, how d’ya do, Gilda?” I couldn’t get in an answer before she went on, “We don’t get a lot of griffins out in these parts no more, but my great-great-grandpappy used to have all sorts of dealin’s with them ones out east. That ring a bell?”

I beamed; the Grossfeder tribe lived far out on the eastern coast. Their solution to our race’s looming extinction was to compromise our culture by merging with Equestria’s. I didn’t find it too hard to believe that they would buy apples from Ponyville. Still, it wasn’t hard to be honest with Applejack for some reason: “Not really, no.”

That made me think back to when I was ten, and my Uncle Wallace had gotten into a huge fight with Father. Once it escalated to bare talons, my uncle flew off, and Father yelled something after him about insufferable cowardice and to never return.

I missed Uncle Wally.

With a quick sigh, I continued, “I have an uncle who lives there. But we didn’t see him a lot.”

“Haha, a black sheep; I know what that’s like.” Applejack nodded, and my attention snapped back to her. “Some of my relatives on my mama’s side went south to grow oranges a few generations back, of all the darndest...”

A very well-maintained white unicorn walked over and interrupted, “Excuse me, dear Applejack, but not all of us have been introduced to the guest of honor!” Her speech and mannerisms were a pony version of the Grossfeder, which made me do a mental double-take.

“I am Rarity.” She took a step forward and extended a drooping hoof. I tapped it with my fist, which caused an awkward pause before she chuckled and went on, “Might I be the first to compliment you on your plumage! Your feathers are simply marvelous; it’s a shame they appear so rough and unkempt.”

I blinked. Every griffin’s feathers had unique patterns in them, so I would’ve liked the compliment if it weren’t for being called unkempt. “Uhh...” I tried to remember the Grossfeder word... “Ef...xaristo?”

She stared back at me with blank, confused eyes. Dash came to my rescue by pulling me across the room. “Anyway...” She led me to a purple unicorn with an indigo mane. “This is Twilight Sparkle,” Dash introduced. “She’s the ‘me’ of magic!”

Twilight Sparkle raised an eyebrow at Dash; I wondered if she realized how big of a compliment that was. “Thanks, Rainbow,” she said flatly, “but I’m nothing special.” Turning to me, she offered a hoof, and I shook it. Her face brightened. “If you really want an expert in magic, you should see what Princess Celestia can do!”

I dropped her hoof and my beak fell open. “I... uh... no!”

Princess Celestia was a controversial figure among the three living griffin tribes. The Grossfeder paid taxes to her, the Sterkergeist worshipped her, and the Sharfkral remembered the slaughter of the Schnelfluge.

Roughly three hundred years into our race’s population decline, the Schnelfluge tribe found themselves in a bind: they had hunted their canyon bare. For a quick fix, they got a brilliant idea to start raiding a nearby pony city. It started with livestock; then, it escalated to the ponies themselves.

That did not last long. After a fair warning—or some warning, or no warning, depending on whose story was accurate—Celestia visited the Schnelfluge. Early that morning, the tribe had counted for roughly a third of the total griffin population.

By noon, the only Schnelfluge that remained were Celestia’s chosen messengers to the other three tribes.

Anyway, I really hoped that Dash’s friend didn’t know what she just said; I preferred ignorance to being mocked over extermination.

I realized that I was still gawking at Twilight. Her ears drooped. I found my tongue and tried to fix my shocked outburst: “I mean, uh, no... thanks?”

The damage was already done.

Dash didn’t know exactly what was wrong, but once again, she shuttled me across the room. My mind was two centuries in the past, so I didn’t hear much of what she was talking about before I heard, “my oldest friend, Fluttershy!”

My mind snapped into the present as my stomach lurched. In front of me was the yellow pegasus pony from earlier. I panicked—hell, I recognized her, from some of Dash’s stories. Of all the ponies to scare...

Fluttershy took one look at me and cowered back, whimpering. That bugged me. Yeah this afternoon had been a mistake. But if she were still scared, that wasn’t my fault.

“Aww... Fluttershy...” Dash wiped her nose bridge with a frustrated hoof.

I seized the opportunity: “Dash, it’s fine... I’m used to it.” After I said it, Fluttershy glared at me for a split-second. I met her gaze, and she cringed her eyes back shut.

Dash put her hoof down and turned to me. “No, G, it’s not that, it’s just...”

I never found out what “it” just was. At that exact moment, Pinkie Pie decided to continue her regime as hostess. “Everyone, I’d like you to meet Gilda, a long-time dear friend of Rainbow Dash!”

As everyone turned to stare at me, Pinkie added a new level of awkward to the situation by jumping over and hugging me. It happened fast. I didn’t know her that well. I did not like what parts of her I did know. Why was she doing this?

“Let's honor her and welcome her to Ponyville!” She finally let go, and I glared at her in defense of my personal space.

The room cried out, “Yay, Gilda!” I turned back to their stares. Remember Dash, I told myself as I forced a smile. Dash came over and put her hoof around me; that made it better.

“Please, help yourself!” Pinkie Pie gesturing towards the food. I remembered her hoofshake buzzer from earlier, but even I thought that was paranoid. She couldn’t have tampered with all of the food.

I hoped.

One of the bowls looked like some of the candy Dash had offered at Junior Speedsters’. They tasted good, but after my first time trying them, I had definitely regretted eating ten of them at once. Still, one wouldn’t hurt. “Vanilla lemon drops? Don’t mind if I do.”

As soon as I crushed it in my mouth, I regretted taking up Pinkie Pie on an offer of “hospitality.” Instead of lemon-and-vanilla flavored jelly, the candy I ate had been filled with some sort of burning liquid! The fire spread to the back of my throat, and all I could do was yell, “Hot!”

I glanced around desperately and met Dash’s eyes. “G! The punch!” She pointed across the room to a bowl. I ran over, grabbed a glass, and tipped it into my mouth.

Instead of cool relief, I felt something splashing on my chest. “Huh?”

“Well, what do you know?” Pinkie Pie gloated. “Pepper in the vanilla lemon drops, and the punch served in a dribble glass!”

Dash interrupted any rage I had with, “Ha! Priceless. Priceless!” It felt like something in my gut cracked. The words stung worse than the fire in my mouth; unlike the hoofshake buzzer, I couldn’t think of how acid candy wasn’t supposed to be painful.

Yet there Dash stood, laughing at me.

The fire in my mouth rekindled, pushing away my thoughts of betrayal. I saw someone’s unattended glass, but it looked used, so I took it drained it one gulp. The sugary drink didn’t cure my mouth completely; it was just stinging when I sneered, “Yeah. Hilarious,” at Dash.

She shot me what looked like an apologetic glance. Before I could decide whether I forgave her or not, Dash pointed to the pile of colored boxes she was standing next to. “Hey, G, look! Presents!”

My anger melted away: Dash got me something? I walked over, curious as to what it’d be—it probably wouldn’t be useful, but it’d still be fun to see what Dash thought I liked. I grabbed one carefully pulled the ribbon off with my beak.

It exploded, sending snakes in every direction.

Snakes.

Every feather and hair on my body stood up, and the rest of me wondered why Dash had thought that snakes would be a good gift. I was about to fly off the ground to escape, but I noticed that the “snakes” were just cloth tubes.

My fear sharpened when I realized the gift wasn’t from Dash. Again, Pinkie Pie had twisted something kind into something cruel.

Applejack chimed in happily: “Spittin' snakes. Hah, somepony pulled that prank on me last month!”

“Ha, ha.” I rolled my eyes. “I bet I know who that was.”

“You do?” Pinkie Pie said, grinning at me. It took every ounce of willpower I owned to keep from pouncing on her and punching the smile off her face. Repeatedly.

With the snakes over, everyone seemed to forget the pile of presents. I did, too; one trick present was enough for me.

Someone came up to Dash and started a conversation, so I retreated to the corner of the room. It was safer there; Dash wouldn’t want me to get violent over pranks. Then again, Dash found all of those violent pranks to be funny. The hoofshake buzzer, I could see. But the spicy vanilla lemon drops, the fake present? Did Dash’s standards for pranking drop over the years? What else had changed about her?

I looked over at her; she was taller, I could tell. I wasn’t really an expert on pony biology, but she looked a lot more like an adult than she did at camp. Her personality was mostly the same—brash, with just a hint of thoughtlessness and overconfidence.

But the more I thought about it, something about her seemed different. I looked over at her, trying to place it. She was chatting with Applejack now, and I could tell by her expressions and body language that she was really enjoying it.

Then it hit me: now, we were in a situation where it wasn’t “us versus them.” Dash had found new friends—something I knew, intellectually, but now I finally understood.

And what did you expect? I told myself. Did you really think she wouldn’t replace you the first chance she got?

I should’ve felt sad about that, but I didn’t. I felt bitter. Dash hadn’t been kicked out of her home. Her father hadn’t sabotaged her childhood by beating her mercilessly at every opportunity. Now, here she fit into her happy little community with all her happy little pony friends. Happily.

Did she even know how good she had it?

I brooded in my corner for at least ten minutes. I thought about trying to participate in the party festivities, but really, Dash was lost in conversation with Applejack, and no one else seemed to care that I was alone.

Some welcome party, I mused.

Eventually, Fluttershy coached a flock of birds to sing a musical score. It was definitely interesting to see trained birds like that; without my guilt and everything else that went wrong, I might have enjoyed the show.

After the song, a pink voice called out, “Cake time, everypony!” Pinkie Pie came through two swinging doors, pushing a cart with a fairly large cake. It lifted my spirits, slightly. I was hungry enough to at least try the cake, and my gut reaction was that Pinkie wouldn’t poison everyone there just to prank me.

Then again, that’s what I had thought about the candy. I wrestled with my doubts as I walked to the cake. When I got to it, a small, purple, reptilian thing spoke up, “Can I blow out the candles?”

“Why don't we let Gilda blow out the candles, Spike? She is the guest of honor after all,” Twilight Sparkle reprimanded it, like a parent would a child. Then it hit me: purple unicorn, purple... lizard thing. What sort of kinks are you into into, Twilight Sparkle? I wondered.

I put it out of my head and decided I wanted something to go right at that party. “Exactly,” I agreed, elbowing Twilight Sparkle’s kid out of the way. It reminded me of family dinners.

Still, this was my cake. I took a deep breath and blew out the candles. Success! I smiled, but then the candles re-lit themselves! I tried again, and the same thing happened. And again. All the ponies in the room started laughing at me, but I blocked it out and kept trying to extinguish the candles.

Finally, when I got lightheaded, I admitted defeat and stopped to catch my breath. From below, Spike exclaimed, “Relighting birthday candles! I love that prank. What a classic.”

Before I could get frustrated, Pinkie Pie chimed in, “Now, I wonder who could have done that!”

She had been alone with the cake before bringing it into the main room. “Yeah, I wonder,” I shot back, not even trying to keep the suspicion out of my voice.

A wet, squishing sound caught my attention; I looked at my cake in time to see Spike’s tail disappearing into it. Moments later, he popped out and asked, “Who cares? This cake is amazing!”

“Spike,” Twilight said flatly.

“What? It was great, try some!” Spike retorted.

Control your child! I mentally spat at its mother, but by then, it was too late. There had been nothing wrong with the cake itself; now, the entire thing was ruined. I tried to keep my anger down, but I was quickly losing the battle.

Dash must’ve noticed. “Hey, G... You’re not upset over some silly candles, are you?”

All things considered, I realized I wasn’t mad about the candles. Relatively speaking. I choked back my anger and replied, “No way, Dash. Like I said, I'm down with a good prank.” It’s these painful, cruel ones that hurt, dude, I added silently. We were going to have words when this whole “party” fiasco was finished.

“Come on, then. Let’s have some cake!” Dash said, running off to go get some plates.

Apparently, she thought the cake could be saved. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Pinkie Pie take a huge bite out of it.

Without thinking, I grabbed her by the throat and pulled her behind the cake, making sure to tuck my tail in so we’d be hidden. I wanted to squeeze tighter, but I got a grip on myself. I couldn’t do anything with Dash there, at any rate. Instead, I settled on seething, “Hey. I’m watching you. Like a hawk.” It made me feel better.

The cake in her throat slid against my fingers as she swallowed. With her mouth clear, she responded in a too-cheery voice, “Why? Can’t you watch me like a griffin?”

Touché, bitch.

“Hey, y’all!” a friendly voice called out. Hurriedly, I let go of Pinkie Pie and came out from behind the cake. Applejack continued, “It’s pin the tail on the pony! Let’s play!”

Rarity let out a delighted gasp, “Oh, my favorite game! Can I go first? Can I have the purple tail?”

Everything at that party had gone wrong so far; I wanted to try the game before it did, too. I butted in with, “Well, I am the guest of honor.” I grabbed a fuzzy, purple tail from the ground in front of Rarity. “I’ll have the purple tail.” I didn’t even know the rules of the game, but I also didn’t care.

“Yeah, Gilda should definitely go first,” Pinkie Pie agreed with me. My desire to play the game greatly fell, but I couldn’t say anything before she continued, “Let's get you blindfolded!”

Something got forcibly tied around my head, blinding me. “Hey, what...” I grunted as the thing tightened, shoving my eyelids into my eyes. “What are you doing?!”

Being blind was torture to a griffin, but worse, someone grabbed me and spun me around. Pinkie Pie explained, “We're spinning you around and around and then you pin the tail on the pony!”

When the spinning stopped, Pinkie Pie commanded, “Now just walk straight ahead and pin the tail!”

I wasn’t falling for it. Not this time. “Now just walk straight ahead and pin the tail,” I mocked. I was blind, not dumb. “Yeah, right. This is another prank, isn’t it?” I turned around and stated, “I’m going this way.”

Pinkie Pie called out urgently from behind me, “Wait! The poster is...”

I slipped on something wet and sticky. Dizzy and blind as I was, my attempts to keep my balance just made me fall faster. I lurched forward, yelling, and two wooden flaps brushed past on either side of me. Finally, I crashed headlong into something. Colorful bursts flashed before my eyes before everything went black; I was still blindfolded.

One swipe of my talons later, the blindfold fell off. I looked at my cake-covered hands, then up to the trail of cake frosting that led through two swinging doors into... Somehow, I had slid all the way into the kitchen.

I blinked a few times, trying to decide if my head usually swam like that, or if I was still dizzy from being spun around. I stumbled back out into the parlor; something important was there.

As I walked, I noticed that some of my eye feathers had gotten rustled. Vaguely, I remembered a squirrel, and that I’d have to clean my hands before I fixed my face feathers.

“Uh, Gilda?” a pink voice asked delicately. “You pinned the tail on the wrong end.”

Her words confused me, but when I focused on the purple thing that was obscuring my vision, the color was wrong. It was the purple tail from earlier. Everything snapped back into focus, and once again, every pony in the room was laughing at me.

Including Dash.

Something broke inside, and that entire day ran together in a blur. All I wanted was to spend time with Dash. All she could give me was laughter? Because she had replaced me? I screeched the dissenting thoughts out of my head.

I realized I was hovering above everyone. They were all staring at me. I hate being stared at! I ranted, “This is your idea of a good time? I've never met a lamer bunch of dweebs in all my life! And Pinkie Pie...” I felt my eye twitch. “You... you are Queen Lame-o with your weak little party pranks!”

Finally, finally, a tiny bit of fear crossed her face. It was too small a win to satisfy me.

“Did you really think you could make me lose my cool?” I landed and walked to Dash. Even after everything, I still wanted to give her the chance to apologize to me, for some reason. I addressed everyone else in the room with, “Well, Dash and I have ten times as much cool as the rest of you put together!”

I put my arm around her, but she pulled away. I glanced at her; she was frowning at me. That just pissed me off even more. “Come on Dash, we're bailing on this pathetic scene!” I said, walking over to the door.

When I looked back, Dash was still standing in the same spot. Why was she still standing there? “Come on, Rainbow Dash, I said, ‘We’re leaving!’”

Dash didn’t say anything; she just stood there, eyes closed, deep in thought. I realized why she was hesitating, and a crack formed in my rage before heavy dread rushed in to take its place.

When Dash opened her eyes, she looked disappointed—and mad. “You know, Gilda?” Hearing her call me by my full name made the bottom fall out of my stomach. “I was the one who set up all those ‘weak pranks’ at this party.”

“What?!” I had just been sure that it had been...

I looked over at Pinkie Pie, and sure enough, she let out a quiet, “Ooh.”

Dash stepped in front of her and glared at me. “So I guess I’m Queen Lame-o?”

Everything caught up with me, and then it kept going too fast for me to keep up. I wanted everything to go back to how it had been. How it used to be. “Come on, Dash,” I pleaded. Please. “You’re joshin’ me.” That’s all this is: another stupid prank.

“They weren’t all meant for you!” Dash apologized, despite her anger. “It was just dumb luck that you set them all off!”

“I should have known! That dribble cup had Rainbow Dash written all over it!” Pinkie Pie added, inanely. In the back of my mind, I noted that, even when Dash and I were fighting, Pinkie still couldn’t stop getting between us.

My whole world was crumbling around me, but I still denied it. “No way. It was Pinkie Pie! She set up this party to trip me up, to make a fool of me.”

“Me?” Pinkie Pie denied. “I threw this party to improve your attitude! I thought a good party might turn that frown upside down!”

“And you sure didn’t need any help making a fool of yourself!” Dash cut in, flaring her wings and leaning forward. I shrank back. “You know, this is not how I thought my old friend would treat my new friends! If being cool is all you care about, maybe you should go find some new cool friend someplace else!”

I bore the brunt of her assault as best I could, but shame hit me like a brick. I had been out of line on everything. Worse was how Dash told me to “find some new cool friend.” As in, she knew that she was my only friend, and was holding that over me.

The only thing that hurt more was how I needed to find a “new” friend. It wasn’t a sharp pain; it was just a hollow, dull, throbbing ache.

Right there, in her anger, was the horrible truth. I knew it. I had taken the one good thing in my life, the one thing I had left, my best friendship, my only friendship, and I had ruined it. Not Father, not the pegasi at camp, not the other ponies.

Me.

I wanted to melt down and beg forgiveness. Then I remembered it was her fault in the first place! I had to fight to keep my voice from shaking as I told her, “Yeah? Well you... you... you are such an, a flip-flop! Cool one minute and lame the next.” I turned to the door. “When you decide not to be lame anymore, gimme a call.”

I slammed the door behind me and took off in a random direction. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t see anymore because of how hard I was crying. It didn’t matter.

Something massive bounced off me, followed by a squeaky voice that complained, “Not the mail...” I didn’t care, though. Nothing mattered. Today had been a complete disaster. I had come looking for understanding, for solace, for peace; instead, I had turned my only friend against me. I had nothing left.

I couldn’t think straight. I didn’t even know where I was flying. I just flew as hard as I could, sobbing, trying to escape the truth, even as it came crashing down around me.


> Chapter Six
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I came to my senses enough to open my eyes, the glistening sun’s position told me I was flying northeast. My cave was northwest, but I couldn’t even make myself turn.

The farther from Ponyville I got, the more I realized how weak and rushed my whole plan had been. I should’ve known Dash had a life—heck, she had tried to warn me in her letter that “a weather pony’s job was never done.”

I cringed, trying not to think about how badly I had screwed up. I was supposed to tell Dash everything, not end our friendship. Then again, I shouldn’t have been so selfish and only worried about what I wanted. Really, I should’ve been a better friend.

I flapped harder to get away from everything, but the reality gripped my chest like a lead weight. It’s over. Every little memory from camp, every time we had each other’s back, and it all boiled down to what I had secretly feared all along: we had turned into different individuals than we were at camp.

Dash didn’t need me anymore.

Flying got too hard, so I lay down on a nearby cloud and took a deep breath. It came out jagged and broken as I curled up into a little sobbing ball. I tried to force myself back up: Was I really pathetic enough to just lie there impotently? Instead of giving me strength, that loathing only made me cry harder as I realized, yes, I was.

It took me a while to get everything under control, so when I wiped my eyes dry, the sun was hanging low in the late afternoon sky. Out of everything, I felt hungry more than anything; I hadn’t eaten anything since puking my lunch up. I thought about hunting for dinner, but I realized it didn’t matter anymore.

At that point, I had three choices: die, live in misery, or head back to Ponyville.

The three options all made me wince. I knew what three years of banishment was like; did I want to live another sixty or seventy years like that? Some griffins even pushed a hundred years old... I shook my head. I didn’t want to live like that.

I sat up, trying to think of a fourth option. I couldn’t. I definitely didn’t want to chose to do anything permanent without thinking it through all the way, but that was really how I had lived for the past few years. I didn’t want to live like that, but I couldn’t...

A fluttering sound broke my concentration, and my feathers bristled. I wasn’t alone. My mind sharpened as I scanned the skies for the intruder, but no one was around. The sky above me was empty. Maybe it was a moth or some—

The cloud I was sitting on dissolved in a small gust of wind.

My stomach lurched, but before I could spread my wings to catch myself, I landed face-first on another cloud.

I looked up. Rainbow Dash was glaring down at me with absolute hatred—almost like she knew what I had just been considering. That sounded stupid, but then again, I had flown pretty far away from Ponyville in a random direction.

My curiosity froze into ice when I heard cold fury: “What the hay is your problem?” She continued before I could explain, “I knew you tried getting rid of Pinkie Pie. That was... whatever. But Twilight, or Rarity? Or Fluttershy? What could they possibly have done to you!? I knew it was a mistake inviting you here!” She lowered her voice to just above a whisper and finished, “It’s no wonder you don’t have any friends if this is how you act.”

I lay there, stunned. Then, her words sunk in. I took a few deep breaths; then, my talons pierced my right palm as I made a fist too hard. I looked up at the pegasus above me. She didn’t have any right to bring up how I didn’t have friends. She was the reason I had been completely alone for three years. And she didn’t know anything about what I’d been through.

Because of her.

My beak clamped tight in a snarl. I wanted to hurt her. To teach her what pain felt like. Even as the thought crossed my mind, a glimpse of fear cracked her demeanor.

It was all I needed.

I shoved off with my wings and pounced, but I landed on empty cloud. She was hovering above me now. I hated her confused, fearful expression. We locked eyes for a split second before I leaped up at her. She took off and I flew after her.

Our race earlier had been a friendly little contest. Now, I was still faster, but any warmth of friendship was gone. It had been replaced by cold, wrathful steel.

We flew. Fear gave her desperate speed, but spite let me catch up to her easily. She jolted down, and my talons raked at thin air. With a grunt, I lashed out with my hind leg. It connected, and I heard a small gasp of pain.

It wasn’t enough. I followed through on my kick and flipped into a dive. She swerved up, and the edges of my vision tinted red. I felt anger taking over, turning me into something like a force of nature. If she thought there was an escape, she was sorely mistaken.

Just like earlier, I could tail her easily enough. She tried a few quick maneuvers to throw me out of her slipstream, to slow me down. I didn’t fall for any of her cheap tricks.

Then, she banked vertically, and I followed. It was a stupid mistake on her part; we’d both stall out, and she couldn’t get past me on the way down. She must’ve realized it, too, because she took a quick, jumbled mess of turning. I lost her for a moment; then she was flying southwest. To her home. I took off after her.

As I gained on her, I felt a fine misting and, over the sound of the wind rushing in my ears, I heard a sob of despair. Good. But it still wasn’t enough. Her worthless escape attempts only hardened me, and with one final flap of my wings, I got close enough and grabbed her hind leg. She kicked at my hand, but I grabbed that leg too, and with that, she was mine.

It was harder to fly with her squirming and struggling, but I managed to get us over a nearby cloud. After all, one of us had been forced to learn strength.

When we were at the cloud, I spun around and hurled her onto her back. The cloud held, and I landed on top of her, pinning her hind legs with mine and grabbing her neck with my left claw. She punched at it, but her blows only left her open to a retaliatory strike.

I clenched my right fist again and punched her in the jaw, jerking her head to the side. She stopped struggling, but turned back to face me. I could see the tears in her eyes, and her throat vibrated as she sobbed, “Why?”

“Do you even know what I’ve been through because of you?” I shrieked, not bothering to translate. I tightened my grip, and Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened, desperately confused. I stared into them. Everything I had endured over the past few years stemmed from my friendship with her, and she had the nerve to mock me for it? First with stupid pranks, then throwing it in my face?

She was the cause of my problems. She was the solution. I looked down at the pegasus beneath me, no longer as a friend, no longer as an individual, no longer as anything but the culmination of my Verbannungsprüfung.

Slowly, I raised my still-clenched fist, preparing a strike. Her eyes were red from crying, but I could see the terror in them—only natural, given the circumstances. I could also see her nostrils flaring as she struggled to take quick, shallow breaths. As the adrenaline from the chase left me, I noticed her pulse beating against my fingers. It was rapid, fearful.

She knew what was coming next.

I squeezed her neck harder and opened my hand, feeling the talons slide out of my palm. Beneath me, the pegasus struggled weakly, but there was nothing she could do. I wanted to relish that power. But I was too exhausted to enjoy it. I just wanted to be done.

“G... Gilda?” she rasped through my grip. “Please... don’t...” she begged, and she began to cry—silently. She couldn’t breathe enough for sobs.

The back of my mind screamed at me to stop. Why would it? Then, something clicked, and I blinked a few times like I was waking up.

I realized where we were. Who I was. What I was doing.

I loosened my grip on Dash’s throat, and I felt the air rush down her windpipe as she took a breath. She was alive. But there I had been, ready to strike...

What had I done?

Dash looked up at me, still afraid. I couldn’t blame her. I stepped off her and saw that her neck was bleeding. From my talons. My friend. I took a few backward steps, horrified. Was I that broken, where I could even think about doing that?

It was what Father wanted me to do. I would rather die than do it.

Dash sat up and stared at me like she didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t blame her. She had always been a friend to me—even this afternoon. When she came out to confront me, had been angry, but she had been my angry friend. Friends fought. Monsters killed.

“I don’t deserve you,” I whispered to her, not sure what language it was in. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Not after what I had done. I kept backing away from her.

“Gilda... what...” she panted.

I met her in her own language. “Dash... I’m so sorry.” And I was. But there was no forgiveness for what I had almost done. For what I had turned into.

I took one last step backwards, over the edge of the cloud. For one last time, I dove.

For the first few moments, I was still too dazed to think. Then I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and I found freedom in that dive. The air rushed around me like waves of water. I greeted the wind like an old friend. It was powerful and cleansing; as I fell through it, I felt the turmoils of my life lifting away. I found peace.

Without the pain, all that stayed were the good memories: My only older sister teaching me how to fly. Stories from the artifacts-vendor. Dash and I winning first place in the relay race at Junior Speedsters’: the only event I won.

The past gave way to regrets I had about the future. I wished I could’ve done more with my life. Things had just turned out so wrong, so lonely. But I’d never be a mother, so I’d never get the chance to make up for everything my father had done to me.

Memories and regrets subsided as quickly as they came, leaving me alone with peace. Soon, it would all be over: the pain, the suffering... everything.

I took a peek at the ground: it was close and getting closer by the second. I closed my eyes again; I didn’t want my last thoughts to be of impact. Instead, I thought of Dash. We had a lot of good times together, even if the time itself had been short. With everything else in my life, I was glad—no, honored—to have had her as a friend. I smiled when I thought of all the mischief we got into during that one, perfect summer.

But I knew what I had done. I had become what Father wanted me to be. And there was no forgiveness for that.

I felt a bristling, and the air around me shifted. This is it. I tensed, despite my peace. It’d all be over soon.

With one last breath, I felt the freedom of impact.

Then, I felt myself jerk horizontally, crushingly fast. I took a surprised breath, which confused me, and I opened my eyes. Dash’s head was above me; her face was streaked with tears and blood, and it was surrounded by a halo that glowed every color of the rainbow.

As I tried to get a grip on what was happening, an immense explosion washed over me, drowning out all thoughts for a few seconds. It shook Dash, but she kept her grip on me—she was holding me. I glanced downward, and the ground was rushing past, less than five feet away. That was the last piece of the puzzle, and I finally understood: Dash had saved me.

Dash slowed down and banked up before dumping me on a low-lying cloud. She landed nearby, and we locked eyes for a moment as she stood over me.

Then she slapped me across the face hard enough that I saw spots. I opened my mouth to protest, but she slapped me again, the other way. “Shut up!” After a breath, she tried to continue, “Don’t... ever...” but she choked up too much to continue.

She sat down, hard, and melted down into tears. As I watched her, I realized how big of a mistake I had made. Well, mistakes; Dash apparently didn’t abandon her friendships as easily as I did.

“What did... what... who are you?” she stammered out between sobs.

A spark of hope lit in my chest. After everything had gone wrong, after everything I had done, finally, here was the chance to tell Dash what I had wanted to. I started by answering her question, “I’m Gilda.” Dash looked angry at that answer, but she stopped crying, so I went on, “I’m a griffin, from the Sharfkral, but my mom’s a Sterkergeist.”

“That’s not what I—”

I held up a hand and Dash stopped talking. “Those are the two oldest griffin tribes; they formed after an old king had a pair of twins for sons. They couldn’t settle their succession claims, so the tribe split down the middle. That was way long ago, like four thousand years.”

Dash’s ears turned back, irritated. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m getting there,” I said. “That... that was the high point in griffin society. Ever since then, things got worse and worse. Tribes split, rejoined, moved... until about five hundred years ago, when we just straight-up started to die off. Most of our petty differences were set aside, but our ‘culture’ started to be more about ‘survival’ instead of ‘tradition.’”

I shrugged. “It didn’t help, though. We’re still dying. The only reason we’ve even survived for so long is because some families take it upon themselves to have as many male children as possible.” I locked eyes with Dash. Her ears were back up, and she seemed to be listening. “Males, anyway. Females...” I gestured to myself. “We’re expendable.” A lump formed in my throat; I decided not to tell her about the desert north of my tribe where all the unwanted female cubs got abandoned.

Dash cut in, “That’s not fair!”

I fought down a laugh. “That’s life, Dash.” She made a sound and I spoke louder, “My life, anyway. Back home... well, in my tribe...” I glanced off to the side, trying to remember. “There are twelve males. Compared to over forty females. Compared to a few centuries ago, when we numbered in the thousands.”

Dash nodded slowly, and I sighed before trying to figure out where to head. She knew the population situation, so I raised the ante a little and explained what Celestia had done to the Schnelfluge.

After that, Dash stood up and flared her wings. “Celestia wouldn’t—”

“Didn’t you tell me this morning how she trapped her sister in the moon for a thousand years?” I cut back. I knew the original part of that story, from my tribe’s legends, but Dash’s resolution to “Nightmare Moon” had been new to me.

Still, she protested, “That was different, Celestia was—”

“Acting to defend her citizens?” I almost felt like a traitor, defending her, but I wasn’t so thickheaded that I thought the blame existed solely on her in that situation.

I could tell Dash was trying to wrap her head around the whole thing. Finally, she shrugged. “I guess that explains why you were glaring at Twilight.”

“Hey, I wasn’t glaring—”

“You were looking at her like...” Dash narrowed her eyes and turned her head to the side, opening her mouth with the edges curled down.

I shook my head, trying not to chuckle, but I conceded the point. “Anyway, that’s pretty much how things are back home: bleak and dead, sprinkled with prejudice. I wasn’t sent to Junior Speedsters’ for fun, at any rate.”

Dash’s goofy, horrified expression drooped; so did her ears. “You weren’t?”

I shook my head again. “I mean, if it were an honor, Father probably would’ve sent any of his other kids.”

“You never told me you had siblings!” she bubbled, and I thought I saw the hint of a smile on her face.

I hated to kill it. “Remember those families that took it on themselves to have as many sons as possible?” Dash nodded, slowly. “Before I left for camp, I had eleven sisters, four brothers, and an egg. So seventeen of us, the same age as my oldest sibling. That means one of us was hatched, every summer. Like clockwork.”

There was a long pause, and Dash ran the gamut between shocked, angry, and back to horrified. “So you missed your party at Junior Speedsters’? Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve—”

“It’s okay, Dash,” I interrupted her minor freak-out before it got worse. “You came along with me when I ditched camp for the day. I got to spend the day with my best friend, it was already a good birthday.”

She finally smiled again. My heart swelled, but I knew we were a long ways from finished. The sun was painting the sky red, so I wanted to get done with my story before nightfall. “Anyway... Junior Speedsters’s was punishment, because I was so bad at flying—”

“No you’re not!” Dash interrupted.

“Yeah, I am. I don’t know what’s going on with me today, but you should see me most of the time; I suck.” Her word still felt weird to me, but it fit.

Dash made another sound of protest, so I compromised, “If not now, then definitely three springs ago. This whole thing started one day when Father ordered me to get food for our whole family. That was a bust. When I came back empty-handed five hours later, he went out, came back fifteen minutes later with a deer for my brothers, and then he left again. About a week later, he came back and told me I was going to a children’s flight camp as punishment.”

Dash nodded sadly. “And that’s why you were so... moody at first?”

“Yeah. I mean...” I lifted my hands defensively. “I had never seen a whole pegasus before camp. All I had to go on were Father’s words. It felt like punishment.”

“I bet the others didn’t help,” she muttered, looking away.

I didn’t want Dash to feel bad. “You did.” She turned back with a grin. “Because of you, I actually kind of enjoyed camp, a little. Of course, that only pissed off Father...”

“What... what did he do?”

I took a deep breath and traced the scars on my chest. Here it was. The moment of truth. “He kicked me out of my tribe until I kill you.”

Dash tensed back, and from the terror in her eyes, I thought she was going to flee right there. She didn’t. Instead, she shouted, “What?!”

I poured every ounce of sincerity I had into my response, “But I... I don’t want to.”

She looked back at me in disbelief and rubbed her neck. “You just tried to kill me!”

“I wasn’t thinking straight!” I half-shouted. Dash shook her head. I continued, “I... I’d rather kill myself.”

That snapped Dash out of her stubbornness. Before she could say anything, I explained, “After I left home... I haven’t had anything. Anyone.” I widened my eyes to punctuate the sentiment. “I mean, going back to my tribe—or any griffins—carries a death sentence. And you see how well I fit in with ponies. Three years,” I whispered, holding up that many talons. “And it’s just been your letters.”

Dash didn’t say anything back at first. I saw her thinking, and the silence grew heavier as time passed. Finally, she asked, “Why’d you come here today?”

I thought about her question. Again, I realized how flimsy a plan it had been in the first place. It was no wonder it fell apart so easily. “I wanted to tell you. Heck, I wanted to tell you in my first letter, but I was afraid.” I bowed my head under the weight of the truth. “Afraid that it’d end our friendship, one of the last good things I had going for me.” My voice shook, despite my best efforts keep it together. “But it's not your fault. None of this is. I’m sorry that everything g-got so screwed up today. All I wanted t-to do was to g-get some time alone to t-tell to you all of this, b-but the time was n-never right...then P-Pinkie Pie... then you had t-to work...”

The day’s frustrations became too much, and I couldn’t continue. I just started crying. It burned, showing weakness in front of Dash like that, especially over something so inane and stupid as “not getting my way.” But nothing about that day had worked out for me.

Until now. Dash walked over and hugged me, whispering, “We’re still friends, G.”

I hugged her back, and I cried into her shoulder. It didn’t last very long, though; I was too spent from the past hour. When I got everything back under control, there was an awkward silence. I filled it with, “So, how did you find me, anyway?”

Dash stepped away, cringing. “You... kind of tackled a deliverypony.” She waved a hoof and shook her head. “But she’s fine; you’re not the biggest thing she’s ever flown into. Anyway, she told me which direction you were headed, and then...” She made a little circle with her hoof before sitting down. “But I’m sorry for all the pranks... and for what I said earlier. You know, about it being a mistake to invite you here. I never knew...” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “I never knew how bad things were for you, though.”

Her expression hardened slightly. “But you were pretty mean to everypony. I know you were frustrated, but I’ve gotta think about all my friends, not just my best one.” She hesitated slightly before finishing, “You need to apologize.”

I knew it had been coming, but her demand still hit me right in the gut. Laying myself bare like that to Dash was one thing; she put up a tough front, but beneath that, she was compassionate. She was my only friend, but that didn’t diminish the quality of her character when I called her my best friend.

However, I couldn’t do that with just anyone. It was petty pride, I knew, and I hated the words as they came out of my mouth: “I know, but Dash, I can’t. I just... I can’t.”

At my response, her lip started to quaver. “I... I thought you’d say s-something like that. And I-I’m sorry, but it’s not f-fair to my o-other friends if you d-don’t make th-things right. I h-hate myself for this,” she said, looking away from me. “But if you don’t apologize to them... then you c-can’t come to visit ag-ag...”

As Dash sobbed out the last syllable of “again,” I stepped over and hugged her. Now it was her turn to cry into my shoulder; I was too ashamed to join in.

Instead, I stared off into the twilight sky behind her, wishing that Dash hadn’t come to her decision, even though I knew it was fair. Heck, it wasn’t even between Dash and me; it’d be really awkward if I showed up in Ponyville without apologizing to everyone. But I couldn’t, and I knew it.

I also knew how much Dash’s decision was tearing her up, so I tightened my hug, closed my eyes, and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

We stayed like that for a while; when I finally opened my eyes again, everything was illuminated by the silver glow of the moon. The night was quiet and beautiful; I was glad to share it with a friend.

Finally, she broke out of the embrace. “I need to head home, G.”

“Well...” I hesitated. I wanted her to stay, but I knew she had to go. “Have a good trip.”

She nodded back. “You too, G.”

“Goodbye, Dash.”

She didn’t reply at first. When she finally opened her mouth to say goodbye, she made a small, choking sound. She gave up on talking, and waved her front hoof at me. I returned the wave. Then, she turned and took off toward Ponyville.

Along with her usual rainbow, I could also see a trail of tears behind her, glimmering in the moonlight.

I thought back to the first time we ever said goodbye. Three years ago, it had felt like something was ending—or at least, there was a lot of uncertainty. Now, “goodbye” felt heavier, more permanent. I wouldn’t be able to see her until I apologized, but even then, the idea of humbling myself in front of her friends made me feel sick. I would eventually do it, though. Dash was too good of a friend to throw away over something so stupid.

In that sense, “goodbye” was more like a beginning. On top of that, I no longer had to wonder about what Dash’s reaction to my Verbannungsprüfung. She had heard, and she was still my friend.

That thought filled me with a warm, golden glow. I looked up at the stars and moon above me, and I felt a small hope that maybe, one day, everything would be okay for me.

With a small grin, I also took comfort that, in the end, I wasn’t able to fulfill Father’s task. I hated what I had almost done to her, but I was glad I knew where the line was for me. I was glad I wasn’t that monster.

I took off flying northwest, back home. The trip would take all night, and I’d be exhausted at the end of it, but that didn’t bother me. The only thing I felt was a placid sense of serenity.

It lasted for the entire journey home.


> Chapter Seven
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke up in the dark, feeling like I had lost a fight. Both sides of my face throbbed, my wings were stiff, and when I stood up, I was met with searing pain in my right hand. That one made me remember everything from yesterday: the visit, the... fight, and then the trip home. I had gotten back around noon; now it was in the middle of the night, and I still felt tired.

On top of everything, my mouth felt like sand. I didn’t want to go out into the Jägerwald so late at night, but then my bladder spoke up and reminded me that I had been asleep for over twelve hours.

The trip to and from my pond was quick and sore, but I was too groggy to feel the pain as anything but an echo in a cloudy fog. When I got back to my cave, I fell asleep quickly.

The next time I woke up, it was daylight. I headed down to my pond again; that time, I felt a wave of nausea from hunger. Then, the thought of killing something made me lose my appetite. It was something of a benefit, given the situation; without anything else to do, I went back up to my cave and back to sleep.

That cycle repeated itself for a while; wake up, drink, go back to sleep. Sometimes it was daylight, sometimes it was nighttime.

I was never hungry, though. Every time I thought of food, I remembered Dash underneath me, straining against my grip, crying in despair. I reminded myself about our friendship, about how it was a “new beginning,” but it didn’t feel like that now I was back in my cave, alone. In fact, it really just felt like I had been kicked out of a second society until I fulfilled an arbitrary request...

Every time I thought about it, I just felt more and more helpless. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to go back and apologize to everyone, either. I felt trapped, and that just made me hunker down and do as little as possible.

Days passed—the sun kept setting and rising—and my head got less sore and my wings loosened up. I was physically healing from my trip to Ponyville.

Then, one time, I woke up to a sickening odor.

It was a scary sort of smell; griffins couldn’t really smell all that well, and I hadn’t noticed anything before I went to sleep. I found the source when I moved my hand and felt a burning, itching pain. I looked at it; the spots where my talons had pierced it during my too-rushed a fist were now swollen and red. When I flexed my hand, the scabs on the back split open, and clear liquid flowed out.

I stared at my infected hand for a few moments, trying not to freak out and come up with a plan. My mind went back to Father’s lessons, but his only bits of healing had been about preventing infection. Plus, those herbs were hard to find, only grew in a completely different part of the Jägerwald than where I was, and I didn’t want to risk attracting a predator’s attention if I smelled sick.

I thought about burning the infection out, but I didn’t really have access to fire or metal for cauterization; I also didn’t know if that would work for an infection.

The idea of metal made me think of Farrington. I also thought about my coin sack, which held a small fortune of Equestrian bits. I could afford medicine, even if I had no idea whether or not their stuff would work with me.

Outside my cave, it was dangerously late in the day; a trip to the city would mean I’d be racing against nightfall to get home, and I hated trying to find my cave at night. Still, Farrington was my best choice; someone there would be able to help me. They got me through what Father did to me, anyway.

There wasn’t anything else to wait around for, so I put my coin sack on, headed to the mouth of my cave, and took off to the north.


*        *        *


When I landed outside the city, the usual booth guy stared at me with a slightly confused look, but he didn’t say anything. I stared back for a moment, then asked, “What?”

“Your back.”

I craned my neck around to check my shoulders and spine; I was a little disheveled, but it was my hand that needed attention. I turned back to the wall guard. “What about it?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

Then why bring it up? I bit back the retort and started walking into the city on three limbs. And what day is it, anyway?

“Are you hurt?”

I looked back at the guard; his usual stoic expression was back, but I figured he’d at least be able to point me in the right direction. I waved my right hand. “Kind of.”

He nodded, then did something I didn’t expect: he turned around and disappeared into the back of his booth. I stood there, not sure what I was waiting for; after what felt like a long time, a door on the inside of the gateway opened up, and the guard beckoned me over to him.

I hobbled along and asked, “Wait, they let you leave your box?”

He grinned. “I was almost due for a break when you showed up.”

When I got over to him, I realized, for the first time in years, that he was a good half foot taller than me. I had to look up at him when I responded, “Well, don’t waste it on me.”

All he did was shrug. “Part of being a guard is helping individuals.” He bent down and looked closer at my hand. “Where is this wound from?”

I reeled, trying to decide how much to tell a complete stranger. “I... messed up, and made a fist too hard.”

“During your fight?”

“How...” The guard pointed at my chest and I looked down; a brown splotch of dried blood was on the feathers. Dash’s blood. I swore mentally; that was going to leave a stain. Then again, maybe I deserved it. “Yeah, during my fight.”

He nodded, then we walked through the arch. When he saw I was having a hard time keeping up, he slowed down. “I’m sorry about our roads.”

A quick glance out into the street showed me that several ponies were already staring at me. I shrugged. “Whatever. You didn’t pave them.”

Silence fell, then a few steps later, he asked, “But if I may ask, what was your fight over?”

Inside, I chuckled. We were only a minute into the first conversation we’d ever had, and he was already asking about deep, private things? “Personal stuff,” I muttered, hoping he’d get the hint.

“The best ones usually are.” I puzzled over that one, trying to figure out if it were either deep or common sense. Then, we stopped walking. “Fortunately enough for you, this isn’t the first stab wound I’ve ever seen.”

I turned and raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

He looked down his chin at me with a soft smirk. “The day that no member of the Farrington Guard is at risk of personal injury will be a fine one indeed.”

“I guess, but that’s what the armor’s for, right?”

He nodded. “That’s part of it. Anyway, your claw doesn’t look too far gone; I can patch you up in my office if you want to avoid going all the way to the hospital.”

With a shrug, I asked, “Where’s your office?”

He gestured to the building on our right. I had passed it probably a dozen times in the past year, but this was the first time I had looked at it closely; what surprised me was that, barring some misleading nooks and crannies, it spanned all the way from the wall to the first street that intersected the main one we were on.

Still, it beat a trip all the way north to the hospital. “You’re the stab wound expert,” I resigned with a shrug. “Lead the way.”

We walked up a small stone staircase and through a pair of heavy-looking doors—the guard held one open for me—and into a small, empty room. It wasn’t exactly sparse, but the main decoration in the room was a currently-vacant desk, followed by an empty fireplace. Two doors were on the left and right walls, near the back wall, and the guard led toward the left one.

The next room was slightly more vibrant; there were six desks, and three had a silver-armored guard sitting behind them—for a moment. As soon as my escort walked through the door, they all stood up and saluted him; when he returned the gesture, they sat back back down.

I followed my guard to a door on the opposite side of the room; once we were in the next room, he closed the door behind us. He walked further into the cramped office, but I stayed near the doorway and looked around. The sheer amount of books, stacks of papers, and maps of the city gave it a cozy, worked-in feeling. I saw a clock next to a calendar and commented, “So, this is your office...” I saw a little plaque on his desk. “Captain Iron Bulwark of the Farrington Guard?”

He chuckled. “Just Captain Bulwark will do.”

I nodded, and Just Captain Bulwark started to clear off his desktop. When he finished, he opened a little cabinet behind his desk and grabbed a white, metal box with his mouth. Then, he dropped it on the desk, opened it, and pulled out a small, white ball with a nozzle on top. “May I shee your hand?” he asked through his teeth.

Suddenly, my doubt got the better of me and I blurted out, “Why?”

He blinked. “Sho that... sho that I may treat it.”

I shook my head. “Not that. I mean, why help me? All I ever get in this city is crap and weird looks. So, what makes you different?”

His confusion left behind a slightly sad expression in his eyes, and he set the medical thing down on his desk. “I apologize for any difficulties you’ve faced in my city. But right now, I’m trying to help you. Is that so hard for you to take at face value?”

Without thinking, I shot back, “Yeah.”

He pointed to the white orb. “What do you think this is?” I shrugged and flared my eyes. He continued, “Do you honestly think that we keep poison hidden away for special occasions? This is a special blend of herbs that have been time-tested—”

“Okay, so it’s the real deal. And it’ll help with this...” I shook my hand. “But why?” I repeated. “Why are you helping me? You don’t even know me.”

Captain Bulwark put his elbows on his desk and tapped his hooves together under his chin. “I know more about you than you’d think, Gilda.”

The bottom of my stomach dropped a few feet, and I fought to stand my ground. He knew my name? We’d never talked, except for our short exchanges at the gate. “H... how? How do you know...”

He went on like he hadn’t heard me. “At least, I’m aware of some of your actions in this city, and I’ve picked up on certain things over the years—and today.” With a shrug, he went on, “I don’t know what tragedies befell you in your homeland, but you wear them like armor, convincing yourself that you’re better than those around you, who can’t possibly have suffered as much as you.” He scoffed. “You accuse my city of being unwelcoming and prejudiced, but when was the last time you made an effort to be friendly to anyone here?”

I stood there, speechless for a moment; I was still reeling over how he knew my name. Then his words sank in. They weren’t all crap, either, which was a little creepy—and sad. But mostly creepy. “Yeah, well, what do you know? You live in a box.”

“I live in a home...” he corrected. “A home I remember being called out from the night a griffin crash-landed in the Market Square.” He put one hoof down at the elbow of the other, which he turned upside-down. “But as for your sense of superiority, one only has to look at how you treat those you have authority over. Have you checked your mail recently?”

“Gaahh...” I hissed quietly. “Stupid mail clerk.”

He heard. “I believe she prefers ‘Maxie.’”

I glared flatly, “What, is she your girlfriend or something?”

“Sister.”

“Ah.” I shut my beak and tried to think of what exactly was happening: I was in the office of some stranger, who had apparently been keeping tabs on me for years, and he was now... Insulting me? Giving me advice? “So... what? You’re not going to fix this...” I waved my hand. “Because I don’t say ‘hi’ to everyone?”

He mouthed up the little medical orb from his kit and waved me over. I walked to his desk and put my hand on it, and he sprayed some weird blue foam on the wound. It was cool and tingled, but it didn’t burn like any of Father’s remedies. “Other shide,” he muttered, and I flipped my hand over, making a loose fist. When he had applied the blue stuff, he spat the container in the garbage, got a roll of bandages out of the box, and wrapped up my hand with a surprising amount of speed and dexterity, given his hooves. Then he pulled a little bottle out of the kit and slid it over to me. “Drink this.”

Like hell! I almost shouted. Treating the wound itself was one thing, but why would something need to be drank? I pulled my hand back and asked, “What is it?”

My question received a sad smile. “You are nothing if not consistent. So, to answer that, let me ask you...” He gestured at the armor he was wearing. “What do you think this is?”

“Armor.”

He paused for a moment and stared flatly. “I meant, what metal?”

That was an easy one, too. My tribe hadn’t really been one for shiny things, especially gems and metals that were too soft to be useful for anything. “Gold,” I answered with a little nod. Pointing my back finger at the door behind me, I added, “And those guys were wearing silver. Kind of a weak choice for armor, but I guess you use the better, cheaper stuff for the guys out in the street.”

Again, he nodded. “Farrington’s bounty is in the huge deposits of iron ore that lie below our mountain. So yes, steel is ‘better and cheaper.’ But...” He rapped his chest. “This is just gilded; gold on top of steel.” He pointed his hoof at me. “I believe you are the exact opposite. Beneath your hard exterior, I think there’s something more to you, something you protect. But if you gild the inside of armor, it’s worth less, because it then needs more care and maintenance for something that never gets to see the light of day.”

I could see his point, but I didn’t know what he was getting at. “So, what, put myself out there for the world to see and spit on? No thanks.”

He shook his head. “What I meant was, you have strength. However, you hone that strength as a sword. A sword is only as good for defense as you are at attacking. Better would be to use that strength to build a stronger Gilda. Then, you could let the world see who you are—the good parts of who you are—and when the world comes with arrows and swords, as is its wont, you’ll be able to withstand.”

The hell is a ‘wont?’ It didn’t matter. “So, you’re saying I should go learn some lessons on how to be something better than a disgrace? Sorry, been there, done that—”

“Don’t put words in my mouth...” he warned, with a little anger underlining the words.

I raised my bandaged hand. “Fine, that’s not what you said. But still, the answer’s ‘No thanks.’”

“So you’re content with your life?”

His words cut right to the bone. I didn’t know if he knew how little I had in my life, or if he knew how I was probably going to go back to my cave and sleep for another week or month or so. Given how much he already knew, it wouldn’t surprise me. I blew a sigh out the side of my mouth and shook my head. “What else is there?”

“Join my Guard.” He said it as if it were that simple.

After my gut aversion wore off, I considered it for a moment. A job in Farrington would be something to do with my time, true, but there were probably a million and one things I could do in Farrington that didn’t involve walking around wearing a dorky metal suit.

Then again, the guy in front of me didn’t seem like he was completely full of it, either. So I asked, “Why?”

He looked straight back at me. “I remember an individual who was in a similar situation to you, believe it or not. A hard life, no safety, no security... for them, the Guard offered stability, and a sense of duty. I don’t think that you would hurt from having either of those in your life.”

“Okay, so why...” I turned my head to the side with a little shake. I didn’t want to keep asking.

“Why help you?” he asked warmly. “I will admit that I have my own reasons.” I looked back, intrigued, and he smiled. “But I’ll only tell you that they’re mostly in your best interest, not mine.” He pushed the little bottle of medicine—or poison, for all I knew—over to the edge of the desk. “So that will be your first step, then. Can you trust that some individuals in this world don’t specifically wish to hurt you?”

I looked at the small, glass bottle. It was filled with a red liquid, but there wasn’t a label on it. I looked up at the stallion who was helping me; he was still grinning, but it was warm and waiting. He’d let me make my decision, I knew, so I weighed the options.

If he were telling the truth, maybe I’d like being a guard. Maybe ponies would get used to me, and I’d get used to them. Maybe I’d get to know some of the other guards, maybe we’d be friends, and maybe, there’d be something in it for me. Maybe.

If he were lying... I chuckled. I’d be in for hardship and pain, rejection, and being an outcast. In short, exactly where I was now.

“So why’d I be a good guard?” I asked. Sure, he was captain, but he probably had to answer to someone if I were a screw up.

“The strength I think I see in you,” he answered. “If I’m wrong, there’s a training period that you’ll fail, and I’ll only suffer mild embarrassment and the self-righteousness and prejudices of a few others.”

“Yeah, but what if I screw up and like kill somebody?” I blurted out.

His smile evaporated, he tapped his hooves together again, and he glared. I could’ve sworn the room got a few degrees colder. “You would not escape this city. And you would face justice.” He paused. “I understand you have a history of violence. But is that something I need to be aware of?”

“N-no,” I answered. Stupid beak, stop shaking.

His expression got considerably more neutral, to my relief. “Understand that there are consequences for your actions,” he warned. “And understand that being a guard is hard work, with little thanks unless you see the merit in being part of something larger than you are. There are rules, regulations, and laws that you will be expected to uphold.”

I nodded. “I’ll try not to let you down.”

He raised a bemused eyebrow. “Does that mean you’re accepting the position?”

All of a sudden, hunger caught up with me in a stabbing, grasping pain. According to the clock, it was almost seven-thirty, but looking at his calendar reminded me that I didn’t know what day it was. Standing there, not having eaten for days, made me realize I didn’t want to “live” like that, letting massive amounts of time just passed me by.

I turned back to Captain Bulwark, grabbed his bottle, and drained it in one swallow. It fizzed going down, and it left me full of pleasant warmth. “Yeah. It does.”

He smiled at me. “Well then, Gilda. The hour is growing late.” He stepped out from behind his desk and over to his office’s door. “Your first shift will be this coming Monday, at eight o’ clock.” I gave him a flat stare and he chuckled. “Today is Wednesday. As of now, if you reconsider, I don’t have anything to hold you to. But if you mean to see this through... again, Monday, at eight o’ clock. Meet me at the south gate. Don’t be late, and...” He brushed his armored chest with a hoof. “Clean yourself up. There’s a shop, three blocks west, that should sell what you need.”

With a nod, I turned to face him. “Monday at eight. I’ll be here.”

He extended a hoof. “Welcome to the Guard, Cadet Gilda.”

I looked at it, then back at him. Then I shook his hoof. It was firm, sincere, and in it, I felt the essence of a new beginning. I still wasn’t sure that it wasn’t a huge mistake, or that everything wasn’t going to come crashing down around me, but at the same time, I wanted to believe in it. In him. “Thank you, Captain Bulwark.”

He only smiled and opened his door to lead me out of the Guard’s headquarters. After that, I went to go make some preparations for the coming week.


*        *        *


South of Farrington, I landed next to the huge lake. To my left, the sun low on the horizon, setting the entire sky ablaze with flames of pink and red. The evening air was cool, and a breeze formed little waves on the lake’s surface.

Across the lake, the Jägerwald stood thick with trees and ominous darkness. Even though I was over a mile away from it, I half-expected something to come leaping out of it at me.

Instead of worrying about potential attackers, I closed my eyes and thought what I was there, sitting by the lake, for.

I had hurt Dash.

Sure, I had barely managed to stop myself before I went too far, but what about next time? Would I be able to stop myself then? Plus—I thought back to Stormglider—Dash was lucky; her injuries would eventually heal.

Opening my eyes, I leaned forward and peered at my reflection. I thought I looked the same, but when I met my eyes, there was something in there that scared me.

A history of violence...

Captain Bulwark’s offhanded comment made me think back to the few times that Father had mentioned his father. Given how Father said he was comparatively merciful and how I didn’t have any aunts on that side of my family, it wasn’t too hard to imagine what my grandfather had been like.

Then again, I never met the guy. He hadn’t lived in Sharfkral-Grat while I was growing up, and Father wasn’t exactly an open book in terms of information that he wasn’t pounding into me. However, if my grandfather had raised my father to be what he was, that meant Father could’ve just as easily raised me into something like that.

I looked away from my reflection and shook my head. There was more to it than that, and I knew it.

Still, I couldn’t help but imagine, thirty-some odd years ago, my father weighing himself against his father. He had chosen his path; now, what was I going to do? I had a job, I guessed, but I also had to make sure I didn’t end up maiming someone in the process—especially my friends.

With that in mind, I set down my shopping bag and pulled a small bottle of “Tea Brown” dye. I glared at it, hating its necessity. But it’d keep me from ever making the same mistake again.

As I read the instructions, I imagined what I would look like with a huge mark on my chest. “Ugly” was the first word that came to mind. The dye would cover up Dash’s bloodstains, but it would also cover up my little purple spots feathers. Growing up, I had always felt a little special to have them; I got them from my mother, who was from the Sterkergeist, so not a lot of others had them.

A lump swelled at the back of my throat, and I swallowed hard. I liked my spots. They reminded me of my sisters. But I needed a reminder of what I had done to Dash, of what I needed to stop doing. It was the only way I could make sure that I broke my family’s “history of violence.”

Dying myself was easy enough: apply, leave on for fifteen minutes, then rinse. There were some warnings like, “Do not drink,” but I ignored them and popped open the bottle; I was violent, not stupid.

The smell of chemicals burned my eyes. I didn’t have a brush or any sort of applicator, so with a shrug, I poured some of it onto my non-bandaged hand and started smearing it on my feathers. After I got Dash’s blood covered up, I shrugged; the dye itself was a symbol, so there was no reason I couldn’t make it look presentable.

With a few more smears, I now had a stripe, running from shoulder to shoulder, dipping down and making a “V” shape. The edges were a bit sloppy and it wasn’t quite symmetrical, but it would remind me, every day, of what I was capable of. What I had almost done.

What I could never do.

That knowledge was strangely comforting. Yeah, I had hurt Dash, but at the same time, even in the middle of a primal, rage-filled nervous breakdown, our friendship meant enough to me that I could stop myself.

While I waited for the dye to set, I washed off my hand as well as I could. That ended up staining my other hand’s bandage a deep brown color. Luckily, I had thought ahead in the store; I had some more bandages, some wound-cleaning stuff, and an alarm clock so I’d be ready and in Farrington on Monday, at eight o’ clock.

My thoughts drifted to the upcoming week, and what it would bring. I didn’t know anything about being a guard, let alone being a member of pony society. I didn’t know any of their laws or rules; heck, all things considered, I had a very slim understanding of their whole culture.

The more I thought about it, the less I knew about what to expect from the whole thing. The only thing I could be certain of was that I’d have to figure it out as I went along.

I hoped that there’d be something in it for me.

When I felt like fifteen minutes had passed, I jumped into the lake and rinsed off the remaining dye. Back on dry land, I checked my new stripe out. Right away, I saw the benefit of how, when I was soaking wet, my scars were still hidden. It also didn’t look half-bad; it was even, and now that I thought about it, it reminded me of how Gretchen’s spots also formed a stripe.

However, it was hard to get too excited about my new marking, given the reason why it was there in the first place.

By the time I was dry enough to head home, the sun was almost all the way set. It was still early in the night, though; if I hurried, I’d have time for dinner before I settled in for the night.

With a small grin, I stretched out my wings and took off for home and a restful weekend. My first shift was on Monday.