Reconciliation

Chapter 3: Honesty I

A dusty kitchen with a dim light, dull tile floors spotted with dirt. A griffon woman sat at the small, rotting, wooden table reading a newspaper. The silence would occasionally be broken by the soft rattle of gunshots in the distance.

Little Gilda stared up out the window at a gray sky and a massive, dilapidated concrete wall looming over the tiny house. Crows sat perched upon the wall squawking at each other. She liked the birds. She wanted to fly to the top of the wall, to see all of Gryphus from the highest point in her little world, but she knew she couldn’t. At least, her parents always said so. On the other side of that wall lay West Gryphus: part of the Principality of Equestria.

All of a sudden a raven landed in the window sill. Gilda nearly jumped back in shock of the majestic creature’s sudden entrance. It looked up at her, its head cocked to the side. Little Gilda mimicked the motion out of her own instinct and curiosity. “Hi, I’m Gilda, what’s your name?”

The raven had no response. It merely flew to a ledge on the wall, looking down at her. Suddenly, there was a loud knock at the door. She heard a male griffon’s voice “Raus hier, du Schlampe!” Not her dad’s voice. She didn’t understand all the words. Grown-up talk. But they wanted someone outside?

Her mother stood and made her way to the door. Little Gilda began to follow, watching from the table. The house was so small that the front door led directly into the kitchen area. She heard flapping behind her, and looked back to see the raven perched on the window sill, cocking its head again. Her mother opened the door, and three large griffons in dark green military uniform stood there.

Little Gilda was frightened. Her mother always told her to never, never talk to these griffons. The lead Griffon, the one with the hat instead of a helmet, spoke. “Frau Streit, Ihre Tage das Schmuggelns sind vorüber!.”

Her mother shook her head, telling them she had no idea what they were talking about. The officer began to yell in gryphonic, Little Gilda had absolutely no idea what he was saying. Her mother yelled something back, and one of the other griffons hit her with a gun.

“Mommy!” Little Gilda yelled as she ran over. She saw the leader of the trio draw a pistol, aiming it right at her as she ran then a loud explosion and red filled her senses.

§

Sunlight filled the room as Gilda shot up from her bed, panting. She fucking hated Gryphus. Getting up from her bed, she lumbered to window, where she could see the pony town in the distance.

She took a deep breath, looking down at them. She used to hate ponies in their entirety. They were the ones who had let Gryphus become like that. Now… now she wasn’t sure what to feel about it. War was an ugly thing, but its end was to achieve peace, right? At least that’s what they were taught in school at Cloudsdale.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a deep, masculine voice behind her. “You been sleepin’ all right?”

She spun her head around to see a large, red, male stallion standing in the doorway. Must be Big Macintosh… Gilda noted. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Upon further examination of the stallion before her, she noted a small cast wrapped around Big Mac’s hind leg.

The larger pony nervously scratched his mane, “Erm… Ah’m not exactly fit to be workin’ the fields today,” he said as he glanced down at the cast on his legs, “but Ah’d be glad t’ show ya ‘round town.”

Gilda shrugged. There goes the dilemma of solving what to do for the day.

“Unless y’all had somethin’ else planned.” Big Mac said plainly.

“Nah, I’ve got nothing going on. I’m off work for the week. Not like they really need me there, anyway.”

Big Mac walked out of the room, gesturing for her to follow behind.

§

“So how well did you know Dash?” Gilda asked. They were walking through the Ponyville streets now, and everything seemed normal. It completely contradicted the depressing mood of the town the day prior. The skies were still mostly clear, but she could see the occasional weather pony tending to a cloud in motion.

“Reckon not too much. She an’ AJ never really started talkin’ till Twilight showed up.” He looked up at a weather pony moving positioning a cloud in the sky before shifting his attention back to the griffon at his side. “She was a good mare, Ah know that much. Prob’ly the best darn weather mare Ah’ve seen.”

Gilda grunted. She didn’t have much to say about, she’d never seen her weather work before. Doesn’t really know her, I know he’s just trying to help but it doesn’t seem like─”

“It don’t seem like Ah’m sayin’ the right things, don’t it?”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” Gilda nonchalantly admitted. What the hell? How’d he know that?

They continued walking on ahead, Big Macintosh simply staring forward as he walked. “Y’all wanna talk about somethin’ other than Rainbow for the time bein’. dontcha?”

“Yeah, sure.” Gilda scanned around, desperately looking for something to refocus the conversation. She blurted the first thing that came to mind. “What happened to your leg?”

“‘scuse me?”

“Uh…” Shit! Change the subject! “Dash said there’s lots of timberwolves in the Everfree, so I was wondering if─”

The towering earth pony cut her off with laughter. “Mmmnope. Just hurt it applebuckin’. Happens when ya get older. You hungry? Ah figure you could use some breakfast. And Ah haven’t eaten lunch.”

They were approaching a café, anyway, and while Gilda herself wasn’t very hungry, she agreed to it.

It was funny. They went in, they sat, they ordered, and Big Mac hadn’t said a word about the café itself. In fact, that wasn’t the only thing Gilda found odd about the situation.

“Alright, what’s really going on here?”

The cumbersome Earth Pony scanned over their surroundings plainly. “‘nother nice spring day thanks to the weather team.”

“No, you haven’t shown me around town, not really. We went in a straight line from the barn to the café. We passed by several things that should be landmarks like the town hall, that statue of some random pony, a place that for some reason sells quills and sofas… what’s going on?” Gilda asked, somewhat irritated by the pony before her.

Big Macintosh stared her plainly in the eyes, taking a deep breath. “Ah figured y’all needed my two cents on what happened last week with Rainbow.”

Gilda raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh… Look, maybe I don’t really wanna talk about it?” It was true. After last night, she didn’t want to think about─

‘Your friend? Coward’.

Fuck off… I don’t need─

“Ah’ve been in a similar situation,” Big Macintosh averted his gaze, looking down at the table. It seemed he’d lost his previously held confidence by trying to find the right words. Gilda shook the thoughts from her head, focusing on the pony.

She cut him off, “Died in an accident, right? I think I remember Dash telling me something about that, I’m pretty sure she said it was you and AppleJack’s-"

“Wasn’t an accident.” Big Macintosh took a deep breath, looking back up at Gilda. “Pa did the same as Rainbow did. Hung himself right in the barn.”

Wow. That was all Gilda could think. But, that only answered one, did…? “Did your mom end up doing the same?”

Big Mac shook his head. “She died in labor, deliverin’ AppleBloom. We ain’t told her ‘cause we don’t want her blamin’ herself.”

Oh… At least she doesn’t have that burden. Gilda looked away, scratching the wood of the table with her talon. Rest of us aren’t so lucky.

The farm pony straightened up, placing his hooves on the table. “Ah know it ain’t somethin’ ya wanna talk about. But Ah know that y’all gotta know you can’t go on blamin’ yourself about what happened. Feelin’ guilty’s one thing, but you gotta be honest with yourself.”

“And what would you know about blaming yourself for it!?” Gilda burst. She stopped herself. What the hell am I doing? she asked herself. “I… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean-”

The dejected farm pony was taken aback for a moment at Gilda’s words, not expecting her to lash out. He then shook his head slightly and cleared his throat. “Ah forgive ya. Like Ah said, Ah was in yer situation once. Ma died after Pa, but after he died Ah overheard her sayin’ to Granny that he was stressin’ over havin’ too many children to feed the whole family; wouldn’ta been enough money.”

“So you blamed yourself, because you were one of his kids and you added to that amount?”

“Eeyup.”

“But why not blame either of your sisters?” That sounded harsh. She needed to think fast, “I mean, you were the firstborn so…”

“He gave AJ his stetson, said in his note it was belongin’ to her. An’ AppleBloom… Ah couldn’t blame her. Part o’ me wanted to, but Ah couldn’t.”

To Gilda that… made absolutely no sense. She was the foal on the way that set him over the edge. “Why not? I mean, I know it sounds cruel, but with her being the ‘one too many’...”

“Ah think, deep down, Ah always knew the honest truth. Suicide’s only got one truth.”

“And what’s that?”

“That… that don’t really matter at the moment, it’s subjective. What’s important is in my case, Ah realized Ah was the man of the family now. Don’t matter who or what happened, Ah’ll always look out for AJ an’ AppleBloom. And y’all should just keep lookin’ forward, too.” Big Mac’s gaze shifted to that of the clock tower on town hall. He nonchalantly stood up. “Ah’ve gotta get back to the barn. See ya round?”

Well that certainly was sudden. “Uh… sure.” Wait a minute, Rainbow Dash had said something about the Apples… “Hold on a sec, so are you the quiet one, or is that AppleBloom?”

Big Mac simply shook his head, giving a light chuckle. “Ah only say what’s needin’ to be said.”

§

Gilda sat slouched in a chair in the Apple Family’s living room. The only noises being the tick-tock of an old clock, and Granny Smith rocking back and forth on her chair. Gilda regarded the old mare with a look, observing the most elderly pony she’d seen in all her years. She’s probably old enough to remember the domain wars.

The implications of such would be endless. Would she feel guilty? Sympathetic? Xenophobic? It was not like the old mare was avoiding conversation, but more so seemed to know that her new guest didn’t want to talk right now. Or knew that Big Macintosh had already talked. She’s probably seen shit like this dozens of times…

The griffon’s thoughts were interrupted when she heard voices from outside. Two fillies, one with the same country accent as the apples and another with the seemingly universal Equestrian accent.

The other filly, the one with the normal accent, spoke first. “I just wish we could do something for Scootaloo…”

“Ah know, but Ah dunno what it’ll take for her to get out of that house. Ah wish we could reach her up there. How else are we gonna get her down?”

The other filly sounded completely defeated, “Can she even hear us? I just wish she’d say something...”

“We’ll think of somethin’ tomorrow. Maybe get Twilight t’ help us. Okay, Sweetie Belle?”

“Okay, AppleBloom…”

The front door opened, and in walked the yellow-coated filly which Gilda assumed to be Applebloom. The filly didn’t say a word, nor did she really acknowledge the griffon’s presence. Instead, she merely walked directly towards the staircase, presumably to her room.

“It’s a real shame…” muttered the old earth pony. Gilda looked, surprised that she finally spoke.

“Yeah, you’re telling me.” Gilda remarked.

Granny Smith simply continued to look down at her knitting as she spoke, “That Scootaloo filly’s one of AppleBloom’s closest friends, an’ she looked at Rainbow Dash like the biggest hero in Equestria.”

“Huh.” In her more recent visits before her death, Rainbow had mentioned a filly named Scootaloo once or twice.

“What’s the ‘huh’ about?”

“I just never knew she had ponies that looked up to her like that…” I guess there’s a lot I didn’t know. Did we really not talk for that long? How much really happened with Dash in that whole time?

The old mare slowed down her rocking, putting down her sewing needles. “You two had some rough patches in your friendship.

Is every Apple psychic? Or is that just me? “How would you know?”

“You don’t think an old mare like me don’t hear things through the grapevine?”

Gilda grunted in response, flicking her tail. She raised an eyebrow as she noticed Granny Smith begin to smile.

“I have a feeling Scootaloo doesn’t know that. And I think she needs the right thing to hear. Times like these it feels like nopony y’know knows the right thing to say.

“You’re damn right about that.”

“No cussing.” said the old mare, suddenly serious. She chuckled, getting back to her knitting and rocking. “Only old codgers like me seen enough to cuss.”

Gilda herself couldn’t help but chuckle too. “My old man used to say the same thing.”

“Hm…” Granny Smith seemed to think to herself, rocking back and forth and paying attention to her work. “You were born in Gryphus?”

“East Gryphus.” Gilda stated flatly. It was by instinct; she hated that place, and she couldn’t help but feel it was their fault.

“My husband fought in Gryphus, during the domain wars…”

“Oh?”

There was silence for a moment as Granny still continued her work: knitting and knitting away. “Celestia tried her best for you.”

Guess she knew. “Her best wasn’t good enough.”

“She knows that. We all know that, child. But we can’t upset the peace in the Principality.”

“So when Gryphus under IronClaw tries exerting his force over the Zebras and Saddle Arabia, he needs to be stopped, but when Stalliongrad is starving us, it’s a matter of ‘not upsetting peace’?”

“Don’t ask me, child. I’m no politician, and I don’t know the answer to that. Nopony really knows the answer to the hard problems anyway. But you’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

Yeah, much bigger things…