Old wounds (2016 version)
“Dash!!! HEEEEEELP!!!!! I’m-I’m…”
The Griffon tried in vain to cry for help but any voice she could muster came out as a weak whisper. She tried grasping with her free talon along a small ledge, as the cyclops clawed up the Abysmal Abyss.
“So this is where you hang out, Griffon.”
If I make it out alive with the idol, I’m gonna rally the griffons to ban both alliteration AND puns.
The monster got closer and closer to her, growling with hunger, and lashed at the idol she was holding. She tried to say something along the lines of “Wait how can YOU get outta this abyss?” but like before, her voice wouldn’t work.
“Just before you die, griffon, I’d like you to know, YOU COME IN COLD, YOU’RE COVERED IN BLOO….”
Gilda suddenly found herself back in her her friend’s guest room, half-asleep and drooling, with “Life and Death” blaring in her ears.
“Ughhhhhadthatdreamagain.”
Gilda groggily lifted her head from her pillow as she heard the same lines of the song over and over again.
“Issomeonecallinme?”
She felt around her nightstand for phone, trying not to accidentally press the red button again.
BEEEEP!
“*yawn*Whoissit!”
“Hello there Gilda, how’s my sis doing, did I wake you?”
“Whaddayouthink.”
“Sorry.”
“It’sallriiight whatyacallinmefor?”
“I just want to see how you are holding up. After all you know what today is, right?”
Gilda rubbed her eyes “The flower thing?”
“It’s June.”
“Did the raptors make the finals?”
“I….don’t know what that is.”
“Owkay I givveup.”
“*sigh* Fine, today’s the day mom disappeared after taking that job from the government two years ago.”
Two years ago.
“MAAAAAAAAAA, I’M HOME!!!!!”
The door of the house was swung open with enough force to kill an elephant.
“In case you wanna know, Ms. Glimmer was a bitch, Coach Whistle made me run a bunch of laps, Pinkie was irritating, and we had mashed potato bowls for lunch again.”
She threw her backpack on the ground with a slam the entire griffonstone district could hear.
“SO DON’T BUG ME!!!”
“Actually, Gilda, I want to tell you something.”
“I didn’t do it.” Gilda turned around to face her mother, she was a fairly old woman, somewhere in her mid-40’s, with a dark skin tone reminiscent of the frosting on a maple bar you would find at the county fair, while she had a slightly thicker hispanic accent than her daughter, it was mostly just came up when she was speaking her name.
“Gilda you’re not in trouble…..yet.”
“Fine, whadddaya want.”
“Look, while you were in school, I got off the phone with some of my colleagues, they told me that Prime Minister Theissian is interested in having me oversee the construction of financial and trade centers within the middle east.”
Gilda stared at her mother blankly.
“Aren’t you excited.”
No response
“I mean this could be a big opportunity for us.”
Gilda rolled her eyes. “Uggggggghhhhhh are you reading from cue cards or something.”
“GILDA!!!!!” Gilda’s mother realized she had raised her voice. “Look, I know you’ve been in a bad mood since dad died and you lost touch with Beau--”
“Dash.”
“Look, I get that they meant a lot to you, but can’t you be a little more happy for me? For us?”
Gilda stared at her mother for what seemed like forever. Gilda then blew a raspberry. “I’m happy you're finally getting out of my face, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Yeah, Iknowww, whynya callin me about it.”
“Just wanted to know how you’re holding up. You know with Beau, and her father, plus you have a new...”
“You know about that? Dearlord, you’re worse than Pinkie.”
“The party girl?”
“Yes. That one.”
“Ok, just wanted to know how my favorite sister is holding up.”
“I’m your only sister.”
“Still.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, Lola, but sometimes you really creep me out.”
“Don’t you want to....”
Gilda rolled her eyes“I’ll talk to you later, but do your cell phone company a favor and stop calling me every 5 seconds.”
*beep*
Gilda set her phone back on the table and sat up on her bed, stretching her arms and arching her back, shaking off the remaining feelings of grogginess.
*knock knock knock*
“Who is it.”
“It’s Blake. Me and Dash are making breakfast before she leaves for camp today, you dressed yet?”
“Oh, shit, NO, don’t come in yet.” Realizing it was almost 9:00 and she was still in her birthday suit, she quickly swiped a bra hanging on her dresser and put it on, which was hard cause securing one of those things isn’t a time-efficient task. She then put on her other articles of clothing with equal amounts of haste, nearly forgetting to put her panties on and putting on two different-colored socks. After possibly poking her eye out putting her contacts in, and losing one of them, she decided to wear her glasses even though the lenses on them were practically 5 centimeters thick. She then grabbed the blue-and-yellow convenience store uniform and a Toronto Blue Jays cap as well.
“Hey would you mind asking Dash if she wants to…”
...before realizing the thing had two large holes on the sides.
“Nevermind!” Although she swore those holes weren’t there before, she shrugged it off. That hat had probably been around before she was born. And it was a bit stupid to hassle her friend over an old hat. Gilda then opened her door, buttoning up her shirt and rubbing her eyes as she went to the kitchen.
“Hey, how’s my best friend doin?’” she said as she handed her friend a plate of scrambled eggs with sausage and pancakes as well as enough syrup to fill a small lake.
“I’m here, aren’t I.”
Dash laughed hysterically at that remark. While Gilda just chuckled as she rubbed her eye.
“Man, I still can’t believe you have those.”
“Yah, Lola keeps buying me pairs in case I lose a contact lens.”
“The one who lives in Manchester? Isn’t that a bit excessive?”
“Can’t fault her for caring about me, especially after what happened with my parents. Besides, she herself loses her contacts every other week.” Gilda chuckled a little bit at that notion.
“Oh, right isn’t today…”
“Don’t remind me.”
Blake decided to chime in. “Gilda, if you….”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now. I already have a lot on my plate with Dash heading off to camp, my first day at Melissa’s, and not to be rude, but are you dating again today?”
“Gilda!”
“It’s fine, Dash.” Blake assured, after all, it wasn’t THAT rude
“Yeah yeah yeah, I know, you wouldn’t ask me if you didn’t care, blah, blah, blah.”D
“Gilda…” Dash burted
“I know, *sigh* look, my relationship with my mom was...complicated, I-I’d rather not talk about it in the middle of everything, I-I’ll talk about it when I am more comfortable.”
“OK, I understand.” Blake looked around at the clock, realizing they didn’t have any time to talk more about it anyway. “So, are ya gonna came with us and drop off Dash at the school?”
“Oh, right, just a sec, gotta rinse off the my dishes”
“So you’re not even gonna TRY and support yourself?”
“Gilda, you know I am trying my best here.”
“Well, when you are only home after school for 20 minutes, people are gonna get the wrong idea.”
“Gilda, you know why that is.”
“STILL”
“Gilda, I already told you I’m going to be halfway around the world in half a year anyway. You need to learn to support yourself.”
“I am NOT taking that job at the boring bakery, and I ain’t goin’ anywhere NEAR Grandpa Gruff.”
“Gilda you have to support…”
“Don’t whine about me needing to support myself, you barely do it yourself!”
“Gilda…”
“I’m going into my room, do NOT follow me!!!” She pulled out a lighter and a pack of cigarettes out of her jacket, discreetly hiding them from her mother.
“Ya got the Blue Jays hat, right?”
“Wha-what?” Dash’s question broke her train of thought.
“The old Jay’s cap my dad gave me, I kind of need…”
“Oh, oh, oh, sorry. I found it in my closet this morning, it has a couple holes on the side.”
“Holes? G, I-”
“Don’t worry about it, this hat has been around since before either of us were born anyway, uh…” Gilda turned around and opened the the trunk of the SUV and found a baseball cap that she had probably bought from a souvenir stand or something. “Here, wear this.”
“Uh, gilda, I’m pretty sure Tor…”
“Look, I know it’s misspelled, at this point I’m pretty sure that was kind of the idea.”
“Gilds, look, about…”
“One of these days, it's gonna fall apart when you touch it. I’ll buy you a new Jays hat at some point if you want. Now,” her expression changed from somewhat flustered to that a more genuine expression “...can Blake and I have a hug before you go?”
Dash sighed and then promptly wrapped her arms around her old friend in a crushing embrace.
“See you in three weeks.” She then decided to let her friend breathe.
“You sure you’ll be fine with these, for lack of a better word, ‘dweebs’?”
“Gilda you do NOT…”
Dash laughed “It’s ok dad, she’s just joking, Spitfire does that all the time with the soccer team.”
“Not sure she’s supposed to,” Blake muttered under his breath.
“What?”
“Nothin’.”
“Yeah, Gilda…” She turned around and pat her old friend on the shoulder “I think I’ll manage.” Her father then gave his daughter warm hug...
“See ya in three weeks.”
...followed by a small kiss on the forehead.
“Daaad!!!!! That’s super embarrassing!!!!”
“Ok!” Rainblade finally let go of his daughter as the bus pulled up. “See ya soon.”
“Byyyyyyyyyye”
Melissa’s One-stop was a fairly cramped and shabby-looking building on the outskirts of Toronto, the accompanying “gas station” being nothing more than three pumps and a trashcan adjacent to the main building. The building itself was filled with nothing more than a handful of shelves of old sweets and snacks, a microwave at the end of the counter and a couple drink fridges and a unisex restroom at the other ends of the building. A tv hung above the door. Her boss, Melissa, was a perky brunette woman in a blue version of her uniform and sounded like one of those funny animal character in one of those shows you watch in the early morning that’s supposed to teach you about science.
Being a small, cramped store outside of Toronto, the workday was pretty slow aside from some parents and families picking up sunflower seeds and the like before heading out into one of the several interchangeable campsites along the great lakes region. Fortunately Melissa let her and her other three coworkers switch between the counter and outside the store in intervals. Sure, picking up the trash lackeys and punks driving by the suburban areas throw at the store every 20 minutes isn’t anyone’s idea of fun, but at least she was doing something.
“Soooooo….”
Gilda looked behind her to see her coworker, a woman about a year and a half younger than her. She was wearing a uniform similar to Gilda’s and had a pale-tan skin with white and silver hair. She also spoke with a much thicker spanish accent than Gilda did.
“Sorry, how rude of me. Name’s Cinnamon Cocoa” Cinnamon pointed to her name tag which read “Cindy ‘Cinamon’ Cocoa”
God, why do half the people in this town have the most ridiculous nicknames.
“Well, heheh, nice to meet you, Cindy” After her introduction there as an awkward silence as Ginda continued picking up trash and sweeping while Cindy was busy trying to figure out how to hook up the power washer.
Just as she got the washer working, Cindy decided to break the silence. “Sooooo, uh, where ya from?”
The question was a bit probing but she couldn't fault Cindy for making small talk through her tedious shift. Gilda just bit her lip.
“Oh, all over. My grandmother grew up in Mexico City, my sister and the aunts and uncles on my mom’s side live in England, where my grandfather grew up. The weirdos on my father’s side lives over in Saskatoon or somethin’.”
“Weirdos?”
“Just trust me on that.”
“Ok, what about your parents?”
“My father died around my junior year in high school, mom had to….” Gilda froze as she replayed the memories of her mother in her head.
“You mean my sister’s LIVING there now?”
“It was more her decision than mine, Gilda. You have to understand, you don’t know how long I could be gone, and you both need to support yourselves.”
Gilda gritted her teeth. “I thought the whole point of this job is so you don’t HAVE to send us all off to another country?”
“Gilda, open you eyes! In one month I’ll be halfway across the planet, and you are gonna be graduating high school in a few more. At least you’re old enough now that I don’t have to take you with me, so you won’t miss the rest of school and you can graduate with your friends. But after that, you’ll need to support yourself somehow. The government isn’t gonna give us money for the rest of our lives, and what if something were to happen to me?”
“That’s what life insurance is for,” Gilda growled.
“Gilda!”
“I’m starting to think you just want us out of your face!”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me, bitch! Most every night me and Lola come home to an empty house. My sister had to take two jobs to help finish law school, and we only ever see you once a week, and every time we do, you try to control everything we do in our fucking lives.”
“Well, what did you want me to do?”
“At least TRY to bond with us! Go to our games, cook us dinner, do something normal moms do instead of pursuing this crazy construction job.”
“Gilda, I’m sorry.”
Gilda clenched her fists trying with every fiber of her being not to kill her right now. “TOO LATE FOR THAT.” She angrily smacked her mother with a force powerful enough to actually knock her back.
Even back then she immediately regretted it, but she was so blinded by her anger that all she could do was ran up the stairs to her room so she can pack her bags and leave that stupid house for good.
“Are you okay?”
Gilda immediately snapped back to reality at the voice of her perky boss, realizing she was strangling her broom while recalling those memories. She immediately stopped and turned to her boss.
“Oh, yeah I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Gilda turned and realized that Cindy had finally finished working on the power washer.
“Cindy was just about to clean the sidewalks.”
“Oh, right, got that, thanks, Ms. Morgan.” They both promptly went inside while Cindy sprayed down the areas around the building
Near the end of her shift, Gilda found herself back behind the counter. Most families leaving for a family campouts and road trips and the like had already left earlier and now most people coming in were there just bratty kids wanting to use the bathroom or something like that. She suspected she’d need the power washer for that sooner or later. So Gilda had no choice but to watch the tv set up in front of her, playing the most boring news stories imaginable seemingly on a loop.
“In world news, we have just received word regarding the American and Canadian workers kidnapped by various Qatari extrimests nearly two years ago…”
With the exception of that.
Gilda stared aimlessly up at her RV, bouncing her stress ball on the door in front of her. She wasn’t feeling like doing much else at that moment other than trying to see if she could make a dent in the metal.
You come in cold, you’re covered in bloo…
“Fucking a….” she muttered.
Beeeeeeeep
“Hello?”
“Did you see the news?”
“Ugh, you again?”
“Yes, it’s me. I’m your sister, I care about you.”
“Hold on-didn’t mom send you across the atlantic ocean a month ago?”
“Yeah.”
Gilda rolled her eyes “Why did you have to listen to her.”
“About what?”
“Her making you move with aunt Gina in Manchester.”
“Why?”
“Cause she’s a bitch who wants us out of the house.”
“Oh my god! Gilda I love you, but your attitude can attract flies.”
“Well, it’s the truth, Lola.”
“Maybe from your perspective!”
“The hell are you saying?”
“Pretty sure mom said it a billion times, but she was doing what was best for us. It would be hard for anyone to support themselves after their husband dies. Mom spent so much time at her construction job to get that government contract so we could finally restore our house and I wouldn’t have to work all the time to put myself through law school.”
“She never did anything like that for me.”
“You never told her.”
“Still decidin’.” Gilda heart sank at the realization that she hadn’t told her sister she actually dropped out of high school. However, she didn’t want to outright tell her sister that, even if it was mostly because of Mrs. Glimmer holding her back from her blue-collar lifestyle. (And some not-so-subtle nudging from Billy.)
“Anyway, mom never really outright SAID that she loved you, but, trust me when I say that she did, and still does.”
“If she does so much for yo---us then why did you leave and move in with Gina ‘across the pond’ as you people refer to it?”
Lola briefly chuckled at Gilda’s remark before reverting back to a more serious attitude “Look the middle east is a scary place in general. Even if you're there diplomatically, there’s a risk of getting kidnapped, killed, and many other things that I refuse to describe out loud. by some extremist, and even the government in some cases. I just wanted some security in case something happened to mom.”
“Like what?”
“Like what’s going on right now!!”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s what I wanted to call you about in the first place.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I was hoping you knew, but...the government had just lost contact with the abroad workers in Qatar, including mom.”
“Are you saying…”
“Our mom is either dead or she has been kidnapped and….”
Lola didn’t have to finish the sentence. She knew exactly what people in the middle east would do to her mother.
“Talk to you later, Lola.”
“Bu-”
Gilda hastily hung up and the immediately broke down crying
*Shut up shut up don’t wanna...*
“Oh goddamnit, not another one of them…” As Gilda had finally finished her shift for the day at Melissa’s, she was finally allowed to answer cell phone calls without Melissa getting mad at her (not that she would be distracted from anything), and promptly fished her phone out of her pocket to see who was annoying her this time.
When she read the phone number, it felt suspicious. It was a long number with a strange country code. Consider she got hammered with calls from Lola and the rest of her relatives overseas she was used to a lot of different European telephone numbers but this didn’t look like any of them. She figure she might as well answer out of curiosity if nothing else. Maybe Lola had gotten herself lost in Romania or some backwater Balkin state or something.
“God, good thing I have a decent international plan.” *beeeep* “Hello?” Gilda froze in place as she heard the voice on the other end.
“Hello, Gilda.”
“M-mom”
“Hello there, sweetie.”
“Sweetie? You haven’t called me that in, like ever.” Gilda felt as if she was about to have a heart attack in fear if what was going to happen to her mother.
“I feel you need to be called that at least once.”
Gilda tried to laugh but it just came out as a strangled cough. “Mom, that’s… that’s… does this mean they found you? Are you coming home now?”
“Gilda, I don’t have much time here--”
“But mom, I-I.” Gilda struggled with her words a bit. “I-I actually hit you, like some bad soap opera, I yelled at you, called you names, and actually convinced myself tha-that you HATED me. I was awful to you, ar-aren’t you gonna do anything?”
Silence.
“Come on, do something, berate me yell at me, tell me I’m a shitbag!”
Long Pause.
“It’s just so good to hear your voice again.”
“But mom....”
“No matter what you have done, you are my daughter, and I love you.”
‘Mom, what’s--”
“And you are forgiven.”
All Gilda could hear was a gun of some kind being loaded before her line cut out.
*beeeeeeeep*
Gilda nearly dropped her phone in shock “My god.”
Author's Note
so, yeah here, something LEAGUES more depressing than my other fics, i may add a bonus chapter later, but i really wanna write a CMC fic to get my mind off this.
just so you know the dream sequence is inspired by theories by the brony notion
also If you are wondering about Gilda's RV, Lightening Dust stole it.
No, seriously.
also special thanks to the always reliable and rarely sticky Nightwalker for his editing work, MJP out
