The giant minotaur snorted through his nose ring. In the confines of the office, it sounded like a car backfiring.
Muscles in his arms shifted like sacks of apples being rearranged. He lowered the paper to allow his jaundiced eyes a better view of the other creature. What appeared to be a small eagle blinked at him uncertainly. A lion's tail swished behind it.
"Hey," said the feminine voice, as though it didn't care much. "What's up?"
The minotaur dropped the paper onto the desk and looked her square in the eye.
"Let's get to the point," he said, somehow managing to make a sigh sound like a lot of effort for lungs like organ bellows. He leaned back in the upholstered chair, which squeaked under his weight. "Iron Will might be new to this workshop business, but I don't normally cater for mix and match types. Now, I've got nothing against 'em. Heck, I'm one myself. So if this don't work, it ain't Iron Will's fault, kid. But I call a spade a spade, and right now you're a new kind of garden tool I ain't got a hold of yet."
The "client" scratched her hooked beak with a talon.
"Stop that!" he shouted. The talon quickly ducked down. "Don't let your body say things you don't want other ponies to hear! When ponies check your stuff, show them that you're buff!" His fist impacted the desk. Hairline cracks scattered around it.
"Yeah," said the griffon coolly. "That's kinda the problem, dude."
Iron Will rubbed a hand down his snout. "There will be no problems! A pony got a problem with you? Then you gotta tell 'em what to do!"
He swung his arms in a vast gesture. There was a clutter of wood on floor tiles. She waited until he righted the desk before speaking.
"What's the big deal? I don't need confidence training. I'm already as cool as a bighoof, and ten times further out of the mainstream." Beaks shouldn't be able to smirk, but this one did.
The smirk quickly faded away under the heat of his glare. Iron Will coughed and picked up a piece of paper from his desk.
"Let's just run through this again, shall we?" he said. A pair of reading glasses were placed delicately over his broad nose, like a dragonfly perching on a crocodile's snout. "You happened to have some rage problems in your old kindergarten at Griffington. Nothing out of the ordinary: furniture scratched, chairs smashed up, smaller chickcubs terrified into hiding in the bathroom. This is griffon stuff, huh?"
"Yeah, yeah." The youngster leaned back in her own chair, but while her folded arms looked casual, her eyes were narrow and her beak tensed. A bead of sweat dribbled down her cheek.
"But you didn't grow out of that stage. If anything, you got worse. And you never did it out in the open where the bigger griffons could see you. You got too unruly for your first flight school, and too unruly for every other flight school your parents shoved you off to. You didn't improve, your rages got worse, and by the time you found a flight school all the griffon ones had been exhausted and you were sent off to a winged pony one instead."
"Pegasus, dude," muttered the griffon to herself.
"What did you say?"
She suppressed the urge to gulp. He was leaning too close, almost eye-to-eye with her. "They're called pegasi."
"Speak up when you talk to me!" The brief hurricane from his mouth blew her feathers into disarray. Iron Will coughed and adjusted his spectacles. "Now, Iron Will was told you'd changed. Now you don't talk to the other winged po -- pegasi, you don't talk back to the teachers, and you don't have any issues with doing as you're told. You're a good little in-training team player and you keep your head down." He placed his palms flat on the desk and leaned across. "Now look, this has got to stop!"
"Ex-cuse me?" said the small griffon.
"You don't even talk back to the teachers. Now, Iron Will knows you don't just flip your lid like it's going out of style tomorrow. But thanks to your mommy and daddy, you've got all sorts of inner rage issues, bottled up resentments, repressed social dissatisfaction, and an inferiority-superiority complex. It ain't long before you end up doing what you're told just because you're told to do it, just because you were 'following orders'. Before you know it, you'll be tied up with strings and pulled around like somepony's personal marionette. Then they'll paint 'welcome' onto your flank and dump you outside their own homes to wipe their hooves on when they feel like doing it. You, my friend, are turning into a doormat!"
The griffon squirmed and tried to smile weakly. Iron Will sat back down and smoothed down his tie, which had gone askew during his rant.
"Kid, you're just in luck," he said. "Today, I've got a new practical-based seminar on hand. You can be the first to try it out."
"No can do, big boy," said the griffon. "I'm not into practica --"
"GET IN THERE RIGHT NOW!"
The chair snapped back as the young griffon shot to her talons and paws and saluted, wide-eyed. Iron Will marched over to a side door and nearly pulled the handle clean off.
"Did I give an order to stay stock still, Gilda?"
"Uh..."
"HUT, HUT, HUT, HUT, HUT!"
Gilda shot past. He glared after her and slammed the door behind him. The slam echoed around the vast gymnasium they found themselves in. The very room seemed to be defined by that one big slam; empty, cold, and with an air of finality that made the griffon's neck feathers stand on end.
"Now stand upright. That's it."
"Oh please, what are we doing now?"
"Did I give you permission to ask questions?"
"No, but --"
"Did I give you permission to answer questions?"
"No, but --"
"Did I give you permission to speak at all?"
"You've gotta be joshing me," she whispered to herself.
"THEN WHY ARE YOU SPEAKING?" Iron Will's side of the conversation pressed on like a freight train under its own momentum. "Close mouth, open ears! Now, shut your eyes."
Gilda sighed. "This is so lame."
A blindfold snapped around her face. Before Gilda could protest, Iron Will tied the knot and stood back with a clop of hooves. Gilda reached up to claw at the blue fabric.
"What the -- Hey, take it off!"
"Do what I say, or there'll be hell to pay! Now, relax. We're going to establish a trust-building exercise."
Gilda stopped scrabbling at the knot. "Huh?"
"Between client and service provider. If my workshop doesn't have trust, your confidence will go bust!"
A small growl escaped from her. She was starting to quiver. "This is so much featherwad."
"Now, I'll stand behind you," said the minotaur. "All you have to do is fall backwards, and let me catch you before you hit the ground. Got it?"
"Forget that. I'm not going to --"
"Did I give you permission to speak?"
Gilda grumbled and spread out her forelegs and wings. Her tufted lion's tail stiffened. Her legs tensed. Her teeth -- because griffons always have teeth regardless of the beaks they'd evolved -- were gritted and bared. Behind the blindfold, Gilda frowned at the sheer stupidity of it all. After a long pause, she sighed, stretched her backbone, and let herself fall.
There was a painful thump. Iron Will hadn't even bothered to get behind her.
He leaned against the wall with his arms folded, and waited until she got up and tore the blindfold off.
"What the hay was that?" she shouted.
"Did I give you permission to speak?" he said. The monstrous body pushed off the wall and towered over her like a sentient avalanche. "Now, I just failed to catch you. What have you got to say about that?"
Nothing, apparently. She just regarded him stonily. Gilda stared at him for a long while.
Then the stony exterior gave up and made room for a smug smirk. "You mean this was just a stunt? How dumb do you think I am? I'm too cool to fall for that pathetic attempt to annoy me." She pushed her eagle face into his snout and jingled his nose ring casually. "Nice try, beefsteak, but I've got your number."
A casual arm pushed her away. "This is your problem, little griffon! You've got the right stuff, but you're not doing enough! Show me your rage! ROAR!"
"Uh... no?"
Iron Will looked like he was about to have a fit. "I've just given you beef, and that's the worst you got? When somepony makes things tough, don't get sulky; get ROUGH! Now try again."
"No!"
Above the griffon's head, at the top of a mountain of musculature, Iron Will rolled his eyes. "Kid, I just made you fall. You gotta ask me 'where I got the gall' --"
"Where did you get the gall to do this to me?"
"Good. Now louder! Louder! I want to hear you roar! You gotta show the other pony who's boss, and for that you need RAGE. I wanna see that anger! Roar!" He swelled, and a blast of wind streamed from his mouth over her face. She shut her eyes until it died away.
Gilda gritted her teeth and breathed in.
Iron Will rolled his eyes. The result had barely made him blink.
"I didn't say screech. I said roar!"
"Rar!" She blushed with a cocktail of embarrassment and outrage. How dare he? How DARE he make me look like a fool?
"Roar!"
"RAR!" It echoed, but died away too quickly for her satisfaction.
"ROOOOOOAAAARRR! Aren't you tired of being pushed around? Do you want the other ponies to get their own way? Do you want to be pushed aside forever!? Then roar!"
Gilda clutched her head as the words burrowed in. Her teeth scraped against each other like millstones. Boiling blood bubbled beneath her ruffled feathers. A vein throbbed in her temple as if about to burst.
The very air turned red. A monstrous predatory feeling rushed through her chest and before she knew it she'd risen up and the lion's roar broke out of her ribcage. Every air molecule in the room quivered with fright. Dust fell from the ceiling in a dead faint. Iron Will stared at her in astonishment.
Gilda flapped her wings and rose above his head. "You tricked me, and you tried to make me look like a dumb dweeb on purpose, didn't you? I've had it with these stupid schools and their 'think about the other pony' horse apples! I've had it with my so-called friends telling me all the time to pony up! I'm sick of listening to my parents complain about sulky this and moping around that, and most of all, Iron Pigswill" -- she nearly headbutted him as she swooped towards his face -- "I hate having to listen to your overloud, obnoxious, bull-headed claptrap!"
To her astonishment, he was grinning up at her. After a while of this, she landed with a click of talons.
"This is more like it!" said Iron Will, gesturing towards her.
"What are you smirking at? Did you hear what I just said?"
"There were foals in the antipodes who heard what you said, Gilda!" He picked her up by a talon and held her aloft. "Do you not feel great? Didn't you feel assertive? Self-assured? On top of the world and bucking away all rivals?"
Gilda blinked at him as though he had just declared her a chicken. "What?"
"Describe how you feel. In your own words."
"Well, I guess I feel, uh... I feel..."
She swore his eyes had turned to gold bits for a brief instant. She was gaping. It was kinda weird. Almost like flying. No. Almost like racing.
"I feel kinda awesome." She smiled even more widely.
"You see? Other ponies send, but Iron Will delivers!" He walked over and pushed the exit door open, beckoning her to go. "Remember my seminar," he added, giving her a flyer as she walked past, "and one last thing. Here's a thought for the day: when somepony tries to block, show them THAT YOU ROCK! It's my latest line. Don't forget it. 'Til next week, kid!"
He shut the door behind her. Gilda stepped further into the sunlight, gazing with admiration at the flyer. As she walked along, she muttered his words under her breath over and over.
A pair of hooves landed next to her. She caught a flash of a rainbow mane.
"Hey, Gilda," said a filly's voice. "How'd it go?"
"Hey there, squirt. You know," Gilda said, smiling more sincerely than she had done all day, "maybe he's not such a dweeb after all."
"I told you, didn't I? Rainbow Dash is never wrong. Hey, wanna race me to that cloud? I'll bet you a week's worth of pocket money."
The flyer was tucked into her feathery mane. Gilda's eyes narrowed. "You are so on."
As they rose to the sky, Iron Will watched them from the window of his office. Wrestling, he thought, had been easier but much less fun. Sooner or later a guy had to retire, though, and he didn't plan on wasting life after the arena. A smile played around his bovine muzzle. He chuckled, and picked something off the desk.
"First seminar was a success," he said, and ticked off an item on his personal planner. "Next seminar: Apologies Not Accepted. I can't wait to try that one..."
