Shadows

"You are such a flip flop! Cool one minute, lame the next! When you get over these lame-os, you know where to find me." Gilda stomped out of the door, the party pausing until she had completely vacated. At any rate, a few fluttering feathers were left in her wake, the golden glare of her presence fading away.

"Who does she think she is? She thinks she can get away with pranking me? I'll show her, I'll show the-" She cut herself off, her talons scratching deep furrows in the dirt she stood upon. Her frustration still not worked out to her tastes, she let out a shriek and began her journey back.

"Should've known better than to try and visit her. Should've just given up when that Pink one came after me. What is her problem anyway?" Gilda fumed a little more, occupying her gaze with her mutilation of the little dirt path out of Ponyville.

"Wait. What was I doing before I got here? I was never that good of friends with Dash!" She paused from her deconstruction to try and fathom exactly what brought her here. She let out a slight yelp as another voice joined her.

"As such is those who are pawns of fate, you were thrown onto this path years ago. If it were not for Death's interference, I'm afraid that you would be even worse off. You would feel the pain of losing a friend, not just the embarrassment and confusion you must be experiencing." Gilda looked up. Another griffon sat there, his crimson feathers warping the light around them. His black beak caught her eye, and the far too large pupils took up the majority of his eye sockets. His hindquarters were black, and his tail the same, except for a tip of crimson.

"Who are you? What are you talking about!" Gilda paused for a moment, her breathing quickening as she realized she couldn't move her eyes from the new griffon. She put on false bravado, panic beginning to set in as similarities between parts of griffon folklore and what she was experiencing began to occur to her. "I'm nobody's pawn! I am my own griffon!"

"Then tell me, my little griffon, how did you arrive here?" There was an odd ethereal hint to his voice. It was infuriating, and despite it occurring to Gilda that it was designed to be that way, she fell for the bait.

"I don't need to answer you, freak!" She was planning on going on a bit further and give the griffon a piece of her mind, but she suddenly found herself unable to open her mouth.

"Tut, tut. A sharp tongue will cut your throat. Such a beautiful creature you are and such a cruel fate awaits you. I give you one chance. Do you go back on your lonely path or do you become something greater?" Gilda looked onto her prospects for life. Then she took it at face value. Was the being really going to let her go if she said no? The answer became obvious.

"I accept." There was an odd flash of light, and then nothing. There was nobody left on the path.

And Gilda awoke in a world that defied explanation. Odd irregular forms decorated the walls, crystal spires jutted out a unpredictable intervals. A myriad of colors, like those on a soap bubble painted this abstract wall. And in the center, there sat some odd thing, it's bipedal and clothed appearance as odd as the world itself.

"Gilda! So glad for you to wake up again! Grace me with your intolerable wit, why don't you? The summit of the gods does not wait for any mortal, nor does it wait for me." Gilda blinked a few times. The bipedal thing spoke? That was new.

"What are you? Where's that freak griffon from before?" The bipedal thing morphed, the body liquifying and reforming into the previous griffon. Gilda watched, slightly nauseated. How does that even work?

"Oh Gilda, my poor little gal. You are going to be my avatar. Isn't that swell?"

"Avatar? What are you getting on about?" The red griffon flew over next her, the crimson feathers literally alight. The feather's fire leapt from him to her, catching her alight in their brilliance.

"Gilda, you'll know it when it happens."