There was a gentle knocking on the door of Fluttershy's cottage. Someone had come to visit.
Fluttershy's head sprang up to meet the sound as she emitted the tiniest of squeals. She had not been expecting a guest, certainly not at this hour, and that rabbit would not put itself to sleep...
...but it might be some poor dear at the door, needing a place to stay for the night or perhaps a bandage or two secured around a wing, and she couldn't turn away someone like that. She'd have to answer it.
Fluttershy turned the knob slowly and opened the door a crack, peering out to see who had come. The night's cold darkness blinded her at first, contrasting fiercely against the cozy light inside, and the shadowed figure standing there was hardly visible through the thick black.
She widened the gap between the night and her home, and the stranger came into light. She had been half right in thinking of an injured bird: this was no pony, certainly, and it had two wings and a sharply curved beak that curled down its muzzle, but the faint rustle of a tail beating the ground told her that this was no bird.
"Fluttershy."
She flinched slightly at the sound of her name, not expecting it to resonate so loudly through the house. But the low, harsh voice of the bird-thing made its identity clear. It stepped forward, nudging the doorway wider with a crest of hair sprayed feathers, and the yellow talons scratched the threshold of the cottage. Light reached the rest of the creature's body, revealing a muscled ripple of fur and the large paws of a lion.
It was Gilda.
"I, er—" the griffon cut her statement short, taking a step further into the house. "I came to apologize, Fluttershy, for being so rude to you."
"O-o-oh," she stammered, "u-um, okay, apology accepted—"
"Don't be silly," the griffon said brusquely, shoving her way further past the door. "I've still not properly apologized. Mind if I come in?"
"N-no, not at all." Fluttershy flattened her ears as Gilda entered, extending a wing to close the door gently. "Um.
