The morning glory of Equestria. Oh how Rainbow loved to feel its warm rays on her wings and cyan feathers. Nothing ever felt better. In fact, she couldn’t wait to get out there and spend the day flying through the sky. Soaring through that blue yonder was something that not everpony could experience. And boy was she thankful for that.
Smiling softly to herself, Rainbow trotted to her front door. Time was wasting, and her wings ached to spread out and glide down to her beloved town. Nothing that a good buck of her hind legs could solve. Turning around and facing her door with ready hooves, the pegasus gave a great kick to the center of her cloud door. When she did, her eyes opened wide.
It wasn’t the fact that the door didn’t make a creaking sound that irked her, but rather the fact that she’d heard a pony hiss and grunt at the door smacking them. When she turned around, her jaw finally gaped in utter surprise at her door’s victim.
“Gilda!?” Rainbow squawked aloud as she tried to keep herself from collapsing into a gawking heap. Sure enough, her surprise guest was none other than the griffon that she’d told to buzz of a while back. G. “What in the wide, wide world of Equestria are you doing here?!”
“H-Hey, Dash…” Gilda raised her claw and gave a labored wave, her face cock-eyed with pain and a slight daze. Dash cringed as she stepped into the doorframe and inspected her. Bucking doors on a Thursday was probably the worst idea now. “I uh… Heard you were competing in the Equestria Games…”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. How does she know? Then it clicked. The Griffons from the Gryphus Kingdom were also in the Games.
“I wanted to bring you something, Dash…” Gilda shook the daze off and presented Dash with a pennant flag tied to a sturdy birch twig. It’s frayed edges showed that time had tested this flag’s will to keep itself together. The faded colors of red, blue and yellow were a sure-fire sign of that. And the twig which it’s been lashed onto had long since dried out and lost it’s bark.
“Why are you bringing me this old thing?” Rainbow stood firm on her cloudhome. Gilda sighed softly and shoved the flag into her flight buddy’s chest. “What-?”
“Because your friend thinks that a hero like you deserves to keep the keepsake.” Gilda slicked her feathers down and looked away, saddened that Dash didn’t even know what it was on first sight. “I can’t stay long Dash. The boat back to Gryphus leaves in a few hours, and I’ve gotta be in Baltimare before that.”
With a gentle push-off and a pained look on her face, Gilda unfurled her wings and began to lift herself away. Times sure could change how people looked back on things, even the faded and the frayed.
The flag had long fallen in front of Dash’s hooves as she stared at the only Griffon she ever knew. She was leaving her again, on her own will too. Rainbow looked down at the flag she’d left. Stars and clouds dotted the outer edges of the triangular piece, some of eaten away due to the time-frilled fabric. A blue stripe and more clouds accented the center of it, followed by some generic flying fillies and colts. And there, in the middle of the cloud of ponies, was a drawing of a griffon. A drawing that couldn’t have been done by a claw. It’s running edges and wobbly lines could only come from one pony.
“G!” Rainbow called out. Gilda had only gotten so far from the cloudhome on depressed wings. It was no surprise to Dash though. “Wait!”
Gilda slowed to a hover and waited for Rainbow. Her demeanor hadn’t changed one bit since she’d turned away from the possibility of failure. Sure enough, her old pegasus pal was in front of her, the flag in her hoof.
“You’re not leaving here without this, are you?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow as the flag fluttered in the light breeze of their wingbeats. “This is something that was meant for you, and only you.”
“What?” Gilda looked to Dash with a hint of surprise in her expression. Rainbow smiled a little and brought her hoof to cup her claw. Soft blushes ensued.
“The griffon in the middle of the ponies is you, remember?” The flag fluttered again as Gilda looked at the hastily drawn half-eagle, half-lion character in the sea of fillies and colts. Memories of the camp soon started to creep into her mind. The names she was called for being different. The misery the first day of camp was. And when Rainbow Dash was the one to volunteer and be her flying buddy. “Nobody liked you, and I ponied up because no one gets left behind.”
“What are you trying to say, Dash?” Gilda scoffed to hide her choke. The feeling of victory as she and Rainbow out-flew every pony in that camp was a feat like no other, but it wasn’t worth tears.
“I’m gonna have to do it again.” Dash put the flag into Gilda’s claw and tightened her talons onto the dried-out branch. The smile was bigger than before, and her sincerity was plastered in every crevice of her muzzle. “You keep this, G. You’ve earned it.”
Then Rainbow hugged her, her hooves doing their best to wrap around the griffon’s naturally large chest. “Come on Dash, you know hugs are lame…” Gilda shook her head as her own limbs wrapped around her dear gal pal. The flag fluttered a lot more above Rainbow’s flapping wings, and it proudly displayed the out-of-place character that had all the right to be there. “Come on…”
“Sorry. I just wanted to get my point across.” Rainbow chuckled and let go of her, backing away to give Gilda the flying room she needed. And then, that infallible smile began to spread cheek to cheek. “Last one to Baltimare is a gnarly dragon egg?”
“You. Are. On!” Gilda wrapped her tail around her friend’s gift and took off after Rainbow, who was already leaving a slew of rainbow pigment behind her. The griffon smiled to herself, remembering their best flying sessions.
“Just like old times, huh?”
