A single leaf flapped in front of Fluttershy's nose as she inhaled, but she made no move to brush it out of the way. Her breathing, gentle and gradual, was drowned out by the rain falling on the loose cage of foliage around her. Eyes narrowed, posture rigid, her years of “Shh Game” training were on display in this critical moment. She’d lost track of how long it had been since she had found this hiding place, but it couldn’t be much longer before... There!
The individual she had been waiting for was hard to miss, being a full head taller than most ponies. She also had a distinctive strut, owing to her mismatched set of limbs: prehensile talons in front and padded paws in back. Even from this distance, Fluttershy could feel the rage rolling off the griffoness’ body. It was in the way her forelimbs trembled as they gripped the muddy ground, the way her neck was tensed and her head was lowered. Fluttershy didn’t know many griffons, but some signs were universal to all creatures. Gilda was so obviously, dangerously angry that it made Fluttershy wonder if it wouldn’t be best to just go home and give her some space.
But that was just it. Of all the ponies at the party, Fluttershy alone had recognized the look on Gilda’s face when Rainbow Dash told her to leave. This anger was of a different kind than the boisterous, aggressive display she’d seen before. There was something important there, something deeply and devastatingly real. Fluttershy knew at that moment that she had to do something, even if it was just to apologize for her friends. Remembering that moment gave Fluttershy a little bit of much-needed courage.
That courage lasted all of two seconds. Fluttershy might have been a well-practiced master of stealth, but Gilda was a born and bred hunter. Fluttershy yelped as a pair of golden eyes and a hooked beak plunged through her cover. “Are you following me?” Gilda snapped. Fluttershy yelped and tumbled out of the bush as a blob of yellow pegasus.
“Um, I don’t--I mean, I just wanted to--yes?” Fluttershy said the last word as a squeak, sitting on her rump and shrinking back even further.
Gilda stared, her gaze scanning slowly from mane to cutie mark. For a moment Fluttershy wondered if Gilda was actually considering eating her.
“Following me, huh? Why?” Gilda demanded.
There was a beat of rainfall, then another, before Fluttershy spoke. She stared at the ground, trying with limited success to keep the tremble from her voice. “I wanted to help. I needed to help.”
“Help what? Help make sure I was really gone? Well, good job. I’m screwing off and never coming back! You happy?”
“No!” Fluttershy cut in quickly, straightening up and staring back with wide, pleading eyes. “I wanted to... I just wanted to apologize for Dashie, she really--”
“You don’t get to call her that!” Gilda snapped back. She scowled for a few seconds before looking away with a disgusted "hmph."
When she spoke again, her tone was bitter instead of angry. “Well, that’s not up to me anymore, is it? I knew this whole visit was a bad idea.”
Fluttershy only let the rain fill the silence for a brief moment. “I know it hurts... really... I know.” She dared to approach by a few steps, and she saw that the sincerity of her words had not been wasted when Gilda glanced over at her, then looked away again. “But Dashie--I mean Rainbow--I know she’ll forgive you if--”
“I don’t need your help,” Gilda snarled. Fluttershy noticed that Gilda neither advanced nor shied away despite the edge to her voice. “Why do you care? Dashie likes you. Go back and laugh with Dashie and that stupid pink bitch about how glad you are that I’m gone.”
“But I’m not glad,” Fluttershy pleaded. She dared to take a few more steps forward, and Gilda didn’t object. “I know you feel like you’ve lost Rainbow, but maybe-”
“You,” Gilda seethed, rounding on Fluttershy, “don’t know anything about any of this!”
Fluttershy didn't even cringe this time. “I went to school with Rainbow too, remember? I saw how close you--”
“Don’t you say it!”
Fluttershy would not be silenced. Her eyes narrowed as she told the truth that she knew Gilda needed to hear. “... She told me she loved you.”
“How dare you!”
This time the pause lasted longer than a few breaths. Gilda bore down on Fluttershy with a gaze that blazed with deadly ice. The gentle rain did not stop. Fluttershy’s mane was growing heavy with water, but the rain rolled off Gilda’s feathers, collecting in droplets and then falling easily away.
Fluttershy wilted under Gilda's glare, and tears started to gather in her eyes. "But she really did! Dashie loved you!” Fluttershy thought she might cry, but she could tell she wasn’t the only one. “She always used to tell me about--”
“Say another word and I’ll kill you,” Gilda hissed, visibly trembling with rage. “What Dashie and I... We were just... just friends! There... was nothing...” She choked on the word as she broke down into shuddering sobs. “Nothing.”
Fluttershy didn’t even think twice before trotting up alongside Gilda. “It’s okay to be sad,” she crooned as if comforting a sick animal. “You can talk to me about it and I promise I won’t judge you for anything you say.” Her eyes, full of concern, opened wide as she tried to catch Gilda’s gaze.
She didn’t succeed at that. Instead, she was nearly swept off her feet as Gilda suddenly unfolded a wing and used it to pull Fluttershy close. Gilda smelled like sweat and tears, and the warmth of her body made almost made Fluttershy forget the fact that they were still standing out in the rain.
“Don’t you think Rainbow would understand if you would just talk to her?” Fluttershy looked up again from her position at Gilda’s side.
“No.” The response was immediate and dripping with bitterness. “She wouldn’t get it. She thought everything about us was perfectly normal. Had no idea what it was like for me... what I was going through.”
Fluttershy felt a small pressure against her sides as Gilda held her closer. The calm in Gilda's voice sounded forced. “Griffons aren’t supposed to be like that.” Fluttershy felt the massive wing draped over her gently stroke the nape of her back. "My parents hate ponies. You should've seen it, when they found out."
“Dashie was lucky,” Fluttershy murmured. There was so much that she wanted to say: that there was nothing wrong with Gilda or her inclinations, that there would still be so many more chances for her, that someday Dash would be able to greet her again as a friend, with a clean slate and with an open heart. She also wanted to tell Gilda how beautiful she was--dangerous and beautiful, graceful and powerful.
She didn’t get the chance. A gentle, yet insistent pull at her mane dragged a gasp from her chest as Gilda forced her to stare into those piercingly golden eyes that could hide nothing, not from Fluttershy. She saw a desperate gleam, and felt the pain and tormented desire behind them. Fluttershy wanted nothing more than to answer Gilda’s desire with the kind of affection that the frustrated, lonely griffoness burned for.
But this wasn’t about what she wanted. “I’m not Dash, you know,” she said, staring back with a sorrowful expression. “And I think you’re beautiful, but--”
“You too,” Gilda intoned, “And I know you’re not her, stupid.”
“This won’t help you move past--”
“Says you. Shut up and enjoy it.” Gilda breathed these words into Fluttershy’s ear, trying not to ruin whatever it was that she saw in this moment.
“But why? This isn't right, this isn't going to help...”
“I guess you don't get it after all.” Gilda released Fluttershy’s mane and looked away. “You have no idea. Guess I shouldn't have expected you to understand.”
That wasn’t true. Of course she understood. She understood everything. “I’m just afraid that this is only because of-”
“You came to be all nice to me after I screamed at you and your friends. You tried to help me even after I told you I would kill you if you didn't back off. You said I was beautiful." A terrible look, like nausea, passed briefly over Gilda's face as she said that. "You know how many ponies have told me that?” Gilda didn't pause for long on that question. "I bet you actually do. The answer's one. Only one."
Again only the rain spoke. Then, finally: "I guess I should get going, but... thank you. Fluttershy, right? I mean it. Thank you.”
Gilda suddenly stiffened with surprise as Fluttershy leaned forward with a lunge-like motion to kiss Gilda near her beak, where a pony's cheek would be. “I just want you to be happy,” the little pegasus said, almost in a whisper. "You deserve that. I always thought you did."
Their warm side-by-side contact was momentarily broken as the griffoness circled around to face Fluttershy head-on. In another moment, Fluttershy felt a sharp nip at her neck, then a warm, sensuous breath travelling from her ear down to her shoulder. She let allowed herself a tiny, whimpering sigh when a set of solid claws drew a line from the back of her head down to her left wing, which quivered in anticipation. Another claw traced along her side, tickling her around the cutie mark.
“W-wait,” Fluttershy murmured as she felt Gilda’s breath against the side of her neck again. “We’re right on the road...”
“Yeah.” Gilda’s reply had a deferential tone to it. Without a mask of apathy or anger, she didn’t even sound recognizable as the callous huntress from earlier that day. “All right. I’ll show you a trick.”
The world blurred as Gilda positioned herself behind Fluttershy, clutched her body with all four limbs, and took to the sky with an enormously powerful flap of her wings. Fluttershy’s entire body stiffened with fear and nausea as she felt herself wrenched up and away from the ground with dizzying speed. It took only a few soaring moments before they pierced the rainclouds and broke into glaring sunlight. Fluttershy was dumped unceremoniously onto her back on the grey cloud cover. She shivered as the high-altitude breeze tickled her underbelly. She started to roll to her side, then yelped softly as Gilda's weight came down on her midsection.
When Fluttershy's eyes found Gilda’s again, there was an intensity in those yellow orbs that sent a tingle across her skin. Gilda hovered over her, one claw reaching down to grab Fluttershy's mane. A lesser mare might have been afraid for her safety, but there was no malice in the predator pinning her to that cloud. Gilda’s expression might have looked aggressive, but the hunger driving her was of a different, more desperate kind.
“You’re a really strong flyer,” Fluttershy cooed, trying to stay calm despite her quickening breath. “I never--”
“That wasn’t the trick.” Gilda pulled Fluttershy’s mane again as she leaned down to nuzzle with her, solid feathers prickling against damp fur. Fluttershy opened her mouth to ask what the trick was, but what came out was a gasp when Gilda’s talons raked suddenly across her cutie mark, sharply enough to draw out a gasp but not hard enough to cut. Three tiny claw-pricks rested with against Fluttershy's exposed flesh. Gilda released her fistful of mane and nuzzled into Fluttershy again, using her free claw to steady herself against the cloud.
Fluttershy made a sound like a whimper as the rounded backside of a single talon,started to play and fondle at her most private area with impossible gentleness. Gilda’s face twitched, her confidence returning at the sight of the pony squirming in her claws. “Bet you never had an Equine do this to you,” she said in a dark, sultry growl. The business end of another claw found Fluttershy’s now moist entrance and paused there. “You want it?” She murmured, still hovering to look Fluttershy right in the eyes. The little pegasus whimpered again, but nodded without hesitation.
Gilda’s claws weren’t razor sharp--she wasn’t the sort to spend effort maintaining them--so Fluttershy only felt just the right kind of pain as the digit poised at her entrance started to dip into her upturned sex. Another of Gilda’s claws found her nub and stroked at it expertly with the curved flat of the talon. Fluttershy's always wide eyes opened even further with wonder as she clutched her forelegs tightly into her chest, quivering uncontrollably thanks to Gilda's expertise.
In Fluttershy's eyes, Gilda was frightening and beautiful, a huntress with a body that at looked like all business and no pleasure, but hid so much more. A griffoness made of muscle and grace, carrying her natural weapons with confidence and not a drop of malice. The flesh-tearing beak that scratched sweetly at Shy’s neck, the bladed claw pressing ever deeper into her glistening vag, and the low, menacing rumble that marked Gilda’s own arousal- Fluttershy saw everything, understood everything, and tears welled up in her eyes. Combined with her tiny gasps of pleasure, it seemed like she might start to sob.
“You all right?” Gilda murmured, though she didn’t stop, and again Fluttershy nodded quickly. She couldn’t say what she had realized: That this was what Rainbow Dash must have felt like in Gilda’s capable claws. She winced as her slit involuntarily contracted around the tip of the talon probing at her. A triumphant look passed over Gilda’s face, and she pulled her claw carefully out of Flutters’ warm folds. A pair of massive white wings briefly cast their shade over the cloud they were resting on as Gilda turned 180 degrees in the air so that Fluttershy’s view became of brown fur, and pink flesh. The evidence of Gilda’s desire stared her lewdly in the face, and the smell was overpowering.
As Gilda lowered her rear, offering herself, she also dipped her feathered head and nuzzled between Fluttershy’s rear legs. Fluttershy let out a sudden sigh of surprised pleasure at the feeling of feathers and beak against her loins, her lips nearly brushing against the ‘lips’ in front of her. Gilda muttered something Fluttershy couldn’t hear--but she felt hot breath, maddeningly wonderful. Gilda surely had felt the same a moment ago--and suddenly Gilda dropped her dripping-wet pussy directly onto Fluttershy’s face.
Fluttershy opened her mouth obligingly to lap at Gilda’s sex, drinking from Gilda’s slit with breathless obedience. Griffon arousal was smeared across her face, gathering on her lips where it mixed with her saliva. She could see nothing past the beautiful, muscular pair of flanks in front of her, but she felt claw-points drag across the insides her rear legs, forcefully spreading them to allow Gilda space to work her magic. First a hot, lustful breath, then the sharp prick of beak pressing just slightly too hard against soft flesh, and finally the ecstacy of a skilled tongue squirming against her most sensitive area. Fluttershy moaned out loud into Gilda’s vag, and she was answered by a squawking sound just as lewd. Gilda worked a claw into Fluttershy’s vagina again, much more easily than before, and this time she wasn’t shy about probing and scratching at that pegasus pussy from the inside.
The strange, slightly painful stimulation drove Fluttershy steadily closer to the edge as Gilda worked at her, drawing tears from her eyes and fluid of a different kind from her lower anatomy. Fluttershy clutched Gilda’s head between her legs, mewling in pleasure and craning her neck upwards to attack her partner's mound with renewed vigor. She came, wonderfully, letting out a long, vocal shudder while still chin-deep in griffon pussy. Gilda’s own efforts lost their seasoned focus and became the frenzied fumbling of a copulating animal as she let out her own breathy screech. She muffled Fluttershy’s shuddering screams with her wet folds, rubbing her nethers against her partner’s face with mindless furor. Her claws dug into Fluttershy’s flanks, eliciting another unrestrained scream.
Fluttershy was not an experienced lover like Gilda, but she knew what came next. After too little time spent basking in each other’s body heat, sweat matting fur and feathers alike, chests rising and falling in slow, asynchronous waves, Gilda dismounted Fluttershy and rolled onto her back on the cloud, side by side with the pegasus she'd carried with her up to the clouds. They hadn’t noticed, busy as they had been, but the sun was starting to retreat. The sky was fading to a pallette of yellow-orange, coloring the dark clouds various shades of pink and purple. The shadows that their bodies cast against each other were growing longer and deeper. It was that hazy time just before dusk--the sun was sinking into not-quite-sunset.
“Hate to say it,” Gilda murmured, folding her talons behind her head as she stared up at the brightly colored firmament, “but you still can’t say anything about this.”
“I would never,” Fluttershy replied, a bit dreamily. “I’m just glad to have had this. With you.” She nuzzled into Gilda’s neck feathers again and closed her eyes, trying to fall asleep cuddled up against Gilda. She knew that when she awoke, it would be because of her head being gently lifted so that Gilda could escape from under it-- and Fluttershy intended to pretend to sleep through such a well-intentioned act. Maybe, thought Fluttershy, Gilda would peck her on the cheek before leaving for her homeland, perhaps never to be seen by Dashie or her friends again.
Gilda’s heartbeat, despite their physical exertion mere minutes ago, was steady. Her plumed chest rose and fell evenly, as if time might pass more slowly if her breath was in no hurry to expend itself. Fluttershy heard a peace in Gilda’s chest that wasn’t there before, and that was all she needed to fall asleep, bathed in fading sunlight and clutched in a griffoness’ claws.
