As a gryphon flew off into the sky, three ponies remained behind in the Cutie Mark Crusader clubhouse. Each of the three were disappointed at how Gabby truly hadn’t gotten her Cutie Mark. Even though Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo had known from the start it was nigh upon impossible that a gryphon would get a Cutie Mark for the first time in recorded history, failure still stung.
“Sooo,” Apple Bloom drawled, as she turned to Scootaloo. “What is your idea?”
“Well—” Scootaloo started, only to stop, her jaw hanging slightly open, eyes wide. It was clear she had come upon an epiphany, achieving a look of actualisation. Then Scootaloo let out a soft giggle. “I had an idea, but now that I’ve thought about it, maybe there’s something else we can try, if Twilight will allow it…”
With a hint of nerves in her gait, Gabby slinked into the Cutie Mark Crusader’s clubhouse. She found herself anxious, but she knew there was nothing to worry about. The Cutie Mark Crusaders had been friendly ponies, and they had barely batted an eye when they found out she had lied about getting a Cutie Mark. If anything, Gabby thought herself the most affected: she would be feeling shame about that tall tale for some time.
At least she’d be able to leave Ponyville with a clean conscience. “I know you all tried your very best, but I guess griffons and cutie marks just don't mix.” She brought one of her claws up to her chest. “Maybe... I don't even have a special purpose,” Gabby said.
“Hang on a second,” Scootaloo interrupted. “We were racking our brains trying to figure out your destiny, until we remembered how every time you did something new, you tried to help everypony around you.”
Sweetie Belle added, “Even us. How did it feel when you showed up with that fake mark, and the three of us thought we'd actually helped you?”
Gabby stopped to consider what the two ponies were saying. It didn’t take her long to come to a conclusion. “Well, I was really glad I helped you feel happier.”
Scootaloo pointed her hoof out at Gabby. “So maybe helping is your thing! You might even say it's your purpose!”
The gryphon paused. That couldn’t have been her purpose, right? “But helping just feels good. I-It couldn't have anything to do with what I'm supposed to do with my life, right?” She capped off by rubbing her head.
“Gabby, finding your special purpose doesn't have to be about being good at something. It's about feeling good about something inside,” said Scootaloo. Then the pegasus pony looked over at a table. Gabby saw a box on the table that wasn’t there before. “We have two options, Gabby,” Scootaloo continued. “The second thing we can do is in that box over there, which we’ll give you if the first falls through. But the first thing isn’t something that we can just try, Gabby. It’s something you have to be willing to do.”
“Huh? What do you mean?” Gabby asked, confused.
Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom fidgeted. It was a slightly unusual idea, but since Scootaloo had been the one to come up with it, they continued to let her talk.
Scootaloo took a deep breath. “We were working off a false idea to start, Gabby. We weren’t sure a gryphon could get a Cutie Mark, and maybe it isn’t possible. But then I remembered something from a few years ago, and I asked Princess Twilight Sparkle if she could revise the spell for this purpose. I still can’t guarantee it’ll work, but it has a higher chance of success than anything we’ve tried before.”
“So Gabby, how would you like to become a pony for a few days?”
“I originally found this spell in an old spellbook from the Castle of the Two Sisters, you know! I got to try it out for the first time on myself and my friends a few years back when we were helping some breezies back to their home after they got blown off-course, and there weren’t any repercussions from the spell at the time, though we had to plead with Fluttershy to come back because she looked sorely like she wanted to stay there, and the portal was just about to close, though of course I want to check in with you every day just in case, because we never tested the spell for longer than a few hours, and it’ll be my magic sustaining you so I need to recharge it on occasion, and I don’t know if you’ll actually get a Cutie Mark or not, and this is the first gryphon-to-pony use of the spell, and ooooh, that reminds me, Rainbow Dash wanted to be turned into a gryphon too, maybe she—”
For the first time in living memory, Gabby had found somebody more enthusiastic than she was, in this event a pony instead of another gryphon. She turned to Scootaloo. “Is she always like this?”
Spike, who had been introduced to Gabby as Twilight’s little dragon companion and number one assistant, shook his head as he interjected, “No, not always. She’s like this when she discovers a new spell or when she’s working on magic. You should’ve heard when she initially heard you got your Cutie Mark. She was depressed when Scootaloo told her the truth, but now she’s hyped up again. But no, normally she’s a lot more relaxed.”
“If anything, she’s more like Pinkie Pie is now,” Scootaloo said. “I don’t remember her breathing any time in the last few minutes.”
“—and if this works, it’ll just be the best thing ever!” Twilight practically squealed with energy, finally turning back to Gabby and Scootaloo. “Are you ready for this, Gabby?!”
Gabby thought it over one last time. When Scootaloo had popped the question, she had thought it ridiculous. How could she turn into a pony? But she didn’t think the Crusaders were lying when they mentioned how a few years ago, one of the Princesses of the land had used a spell to turn six ponies into breezies. Then Scootaloo had said how Twilight was certain she could revise the spell.
For a few moments, Gabby had felt sick over the notion. Turn into a pony, even temporarily? Gabby had been born as a gryphon, and she would die as a gryphon. The concept of turning into another species was so incredibly alien, she couldn’t even fathom the idea.
But then it had wormed her way into her head, and Gabby found herself entertaining the notion. For having met and known the Cutie Mark Crusaders for only a few hours, she was already impressed by them. The three ponies had taken time out of their day to help her, a fledgling gryphon from a foreign land they didn’t even know. Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were three paragons of their race, and Gabby only wished her fellow gryphons could be so helpful to one another as they were.
So if she could be more like one of them for a few days, she’d do it.
“Yes, I’m absolutely ready, so lay it on me!” Gabby said enthusiastically, puffing out her chest and raising a talon at the ceiling.
The princess looked slightly taken aback, but then she licked the side of her lip. “OK Gabby, get ready. Once again, this is going to feel a little funny,” Twilight warned her. Her horn lit up. Gabby felt a little tingle around her body, and suddenly Twilight shot a magical beam at her.
Gabby held her front claws out. To her utter fascination, she watched her claws retract into her body, and flatter hooves pushed back out, all without a single hint of pain. Gabby crossed her eyes as her beak was next, first flattening out and then elongating into a muzzle. She looked over to her sides, watching as her wings reformed, going from the wider breadth and span of a gryphon's wings to the shorter breadth of a pegasus'. Behind her, Gabby’s tail was changing from a feline tail to that of an equine.
Finally, to complete the process, the floor rushed up at her as she shrank nearly a full foot. Then Gabby nearly met the floor for real this time as she clumsily stumbled, trying to adjust to the change in her centre of gravity. It was a near thing that she caught herself, unused to the hoof.
“Well, you turned into a pegasus,” Twilight observed. “I’m not too surprised by that. How do you feel, Gabby?” Twilight levitated a magic in her grip, hovering it in front of Gabby for the gryphon-turned-pony to see herself and compare.
It was strange looking at what Gabby knew to be herself, and yet what decidedly was not herself. The pony that greeted her back in the mirror shared her colours, with a blueish-grey coat and slate grey mane and tail. Gabby raised a hoof to her muzzle. So did the pony in the mirror.
She had once heard a saying that the eyes were the windows to the soul. Gabby wasn’t certain of the wisdom to that saying, but her eyes were the same.
For about a minute, Gabby felt introspective. This wasn’t how she had imagined the day to go. Certainly, she had thought she would get her Cutie Mark. However, that had ended in heartbreak, only for Scootaloo to come up with one last suggestion.
Wait, my Cutie Mark…
A world of possibilities opened up in front of her. “Woohoo!” Gabby hollered. “I’m gonna get my Cutie Mark!” She quickly grabbed Scootaloo, Spike and Princess Twilight Sparkle into her new limbs for a giant embrace.
“Wa—” Twilight tried to speak, only to find herself crushed by the neo-pony’s strong grip. “That’s not how it works…” She weakly tried to whisper as Gabby ran off outdoors with Scootaloo still in her grip. Twilight rubbed her chest. “She’s a pegasus, but with as strong a hug I would have thought her to be the next Maud Pie.”
“Hoo boy,” was all Spike could have to say.
“Did it work? Did it work? It did!” Apple Bloom said with noticeable glee as she and Sweetie Belle met Scootaloo and Gabby at the castle entrance.
“It did! I’m a pony now, woo-hoo!” Gabby said, sweeping up the three members of the Cutie Mark Crusaders in yet another group hug.
“Urk!” Came the cry of the three fillies in unison.
“But Gabby, you have to remember that we still can’t guarantee you’ll get a Cutie Mark,” Sweetie Belle said as she was set back down on the ground.
“Yeah, even Twi wasn’t sure. We don’t even understand how Cutie Mark magic works, just that it does and that it represents your calling in life,” Apple Bloom added. “It might not come to a gryphon magically turned into a pony.”
Gabby sagged, wings folding in at her side as she was reminded of the conditional ‘but’ that had come with Scootaloo’s second-last idea. She scolded herself. The Crusaders have done everything they could to help you Gabby, you can’t give up now! Gabby’s wings flew open again. “Right!” She declared, pointing her hoof up at the sky. The action didn’t quite feel the same as a single talon from a gryphon claw, but her energy came across all the same. “Then I’ll just have to try and try doing things again!”
She took to the skies and hovered above the roofs, frantically beating her wings as she looked around, peering with her new hoof at Ponyville from roof level. “Look out world, because Gabby is ready to help you again!”
Scootaloo looked at Gabby. She felt a little bit of envy for the new pegasus, being able to fly so soon after becoming a pegasus. Scootaloo shook off the longing, and instead peered across the street, where one of the owners of the local pastry shop was taking her foals out for a walk. Ms. Cake was clearly having a difficult time of it, too. “Right, and I think I know where we can start.”
“So let’s see, we helped Ms. Cake look after her foals for an hour so she could have a much-needed break, we packed a picnic basket and laid out a blanket for Cranky Doodle and Matilda Donkey and Time Turner and Roseluck for their double date, we helped Muffins deliver the package of extra-extra-extra-large hair combs to Stephen Magnet, and went fishing with my dad for a little,” Sweetie Belle said she and Scootaloo retired to the lawn outside their Clubhouse. “Anything else?”
“No, I’m pooped,” Scootaloo said, falling onto her back and looking at the clouds. “It’s been awhile since we had a day like this. He, Sweetie, did we ever try getting our Cutie Mark in cloud watching?”
Sweetie Belle giggled as she followed Scootaloo’s lead and flopped onto the ground as well. “That was one of the first things we ever tried, silly.”
“Oh yeah, now I remember,” Scootaloo said, with a goofy smile. “I still don’t know how Apple Bloom managed to get all that tree sap on her from cloud watching.”
“Alright Crusaders! Who’s ready to do something else?!” Gabby asked as she came back into view with Apple Bloom, the two having left to grab the quartet a freshly-baked apple pie. The Apple family had been taken off-guard by her being turned into a pony. However, Applejack had turned out to be exquisitely familiar with the species-transformation spell, being one of those turned into a Breezie by Twilight Sparkle. From there, they had eased up, and Gabby and Apple Bloom had received their pie. “Oooh, cloud-watching? That looks fun!”
Gabby and Apple Bloom sat down, and doled out the pre-sliced quarters of the pie to each pony. Gabby took a bite of the pie. The first texture to hit her new pony tongue was the soft dough, still hot from being freshly baked in the oven. The mixture of apples, cinnamon, brown sugar and butter were next to melt on her tongue, and she leaned back onto the grass as well, feeling like she had just died and gone to heaven. The sweet, gooey taste was so overwhelming that Gabby felt herself tearing up in joy.
“You like mah family pie?” Apple Bloom asked, her country tang becoming more exaggerated as she saw an opportunity to play up the Apple family cooking.
“Yes, oh goodness, yes,” Gabby said. She licked her muzzle for the bits of sugar and cinnamon spice that had dripped out. The tongue and muzzle felt weird compared to her old beak, but she would adapt.
“Say Gabby, were you planning on flying back home right away tonight, or have you got a place to stay?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“Princess Twilight said I could stay at her place as long as I wanted,” Gabby said, having thought of that when she was at the castle.
She wrinkled her muzzle up at that, and then wrinkled her muzzle even more as she realised how weird a sensation that was. Gabby wasn’t needed back at her job for a few days. Being here, Gabby felt in friendly claws. Instead of being snapped at every time she tried to help another gryphon, the ponies of Ponyville genuinely appreciated her efforts. That stallion on the bridge had looked forlorn, but the hug Gabby had given him had cheered him up and turned his day around.
Gabby took another bite of the pie. But she also knew there was no chance of her staying here forever. Griffonstone was many things, and there were ways it could never measure up to Ponyville, but it was also home. Gilda had made the first steps, and now Greta was showing signs as well of becoming friendlier. No, Gabby knew she would return to Griffonstone. It was like her brief time here in Ponyville had revitalised her, and lifted her spirits back up when there had been a hint of it flagging.
She took one last bite of pie and swallowed it. She looked at her empty hoof, that of a pony. It was the oddest experience of her life, but Gabby didn’t regret taking the step, temporary as it would be. “You know what, girls?” She asked. “I’ve enjoyed my time with you today. Seriously, I mean it.”
“Silly,” Scootaloo said, turning around onto her side to face Gabby. “We all knew that already.”
Gabby smiled, enjoying the contortions of her new mouth to make the expression. “Yes! Even when I change back into a gryphon and return to Griffonstone, I’ll make certain to visit often! But even if I don’t get a Cutie Mark, I still loved today, and I’ll love, love, love the next few days I’m here with you! I’ve enjoyed helping you all. You were right, Scootaloo!” Gabby said, suddenly hopping up onto all four hooves. “My special purpose is all about what makes me feel good inside, and helping others is what makes me feel great!”
She felt a slight tingling on her sides, but didn’t budge.
Apple Bloom was the first to notice. “Gabby...it’s…”
“It’s? It’s what?” Gabby asked as Apple Bloom trailed off.
“It’s your Cutie Mark,” Sweetie Belle pointed out.
Gabby froze. Her heart stopped in her chest as she heard four words she had waited to hear all day, and had never expected to come only as the result of a topsy-turvy turn of events. Briefly, her mind entertained the possibility Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were pulling a prank on her.
But her friends wouldn’t make a cruel joke about such a thing. Slowly, Gabby turned her head to look at her thigh.
“What does it mean, though?” she asked.
“I think it’s supposed to represent how you want to bring joy to everypony, everyones’ hearts,” Scootaloo corrected herself of the ponyism. “And how you’re the first gryphon to get her Cutie Mark, however tough it was to get.”
“That’s—” Gabby choked off with a soft sob as she looked at her Cutie Mark. One of the most beautiful things I ever heard, yes! Her Cutie Mark was a gryphon’s claw shaking the hoof of a pony.
Then, like a spring that had been compressed, Gabby shot off in the sky, her wings beating angrily. “Woohoo, I got my Cutie Mark!” She screamed for all the world to know.
Down below on the ground, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom turned to Scootaloo. “Congratulations, Scootaloo, you did it. It was a mad idea I never would’ve thought of, but it worked!” Apple Bloom said.
“The Cutie Mark Crusaders did it again!” Sweetie Belle said, and she turned to Scootaloo. "You're amazing, Scoots! Even though things looked bleak, you still found a way to help Gabby in the end."
Scootaloo simply looked down at the ground, sighing in relief. “Thanks, girls.” She looked back up with a smile, happy for Gabby.
There was one more tricky step left: to see if Gabby’s Cutie Mark remained even when turning back into a gryphon. Regardless of if it did, the fact remained Gabby still had gotten it, no matter how convoluted the series of events leading there. And if not, then Scootaloo could always carve a new set of emblems to match the Mark Gabby had gotten.
Fortunately, it turned out that Gabby’s Cutie Mark didremain even after Twilight Sparkle reversed the spell and changed Gabby back into a gryphon. The Cutie Mark Crusaders even managed to stop Twilight from getting too obsessed with documenting Gabriella ‘Gabby’, the first gryphon known to ever get a Cutie Mark. Though they had put the Want-It-Need-It incident behind them, Apple Bloom had found it effective to stop Twilight from going overboard. The princess had instead settled for a few hours of interviews with the Crusaders and Gabby.
“Woo-hoo! Best party ever!” Gabby declared as she downed another glass of punch. “Wow, I can’t believe you ponies have a party this big every time somepony gets her Cutie Mark!”
“You should have seen ours, I think Pinkie knocked herself out literally putting it on since it was a shared Cuteceañera for the three of us,” Sweetie Belle chuckled.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders and Gabby had finally broken away from the party, which had started off as a celebration of Gabby’s achievement and since turned into a large-scale party in its own right, with all the ponies now breaking off and talking and playing games. Scootaloo braced herself, having waited to be able to get a moment alone with Gabby. “Gabby, we have something to give you,” she said, pulling out a box.
“Wait, what? You guys already gave me all I needed!” Gabby said, pointing at the Cutie Mark on her sides. “This and the memories of the few days I’ve spent with you were the best gift ever!”
“Yes, we know that,” Scootaloo said, nodding. “But a few days back, when you came to our clubhouse, I asked if you wanted to become a pony, right? But if you hadn’t, or if you had and you never got your Mark, we went and made these for you.” She opened the box up pulled out a couple of emblems, and handed them over to Gabby.
Gabby took them in her claws, and looked them over. “These are—” She stopped, words failing her.
“We were gonna give them to you, but then Scootaloo came up with her turning-into-a-pony idea,” said Apple Bloom. “One that looks like it turned out for the best.”
“We carved it to mark the moment we all figured out what you should do with your life,” said Scootaloo. “Obviously, they weren’t like what your actual mark was, but we want you to keep them.”
The gryphon turned them over again. Then she looked at the three fillies, then their flanks, then back to the emblems in her claws: the emblems with its design of a trophy inside a multi-pointed star inside of a shield mark. “But they look just like your Cutie Marks! No, you mean—”
Scootaloo nodded. “Yes. We talked it over and decided. Gabby, we’re making you our very first gryphon member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders!”
This time, the three fillies anticipated the tight gryphon hug, and managed to sneak in a breath of air before Gabby swept them up in her embrace again. “I can’t believe it! This is the best week ever! First I make some good friends, then I get my Cutie Mark, then you girls throw a party for me, and now you make me a Cutie Mark Crusader? How can it get any better? Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I’m a Cutie Mark Crusader, I’m a Cutie Mark Crusader,” she sang out loud as she put the three fillies on the ground, dancing around on her back paws.
Then Gabby turned around with a sad smile on her face. “But I’m going to have to go back to Griffonstone today.”
Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom bowed their heads. Yes, that was the truth. Theirs had been a dynamic, fly-by-night relationship, and it was a friendship none of them would forget. “Just promise us one thing before you leave, Gabby,” said Scootaloo.
“What’s that?” Gabby asked, once again enthusiastic. For her Cutie Mark Crusader friends, she would do anything in her power.
“Come back soon!” The three ponies said as one.
“You’re a Crusader now, after all! Birds of a feather flock together and all that,” said Scootaloo. “Crusaders forever?”
“Crusaders forever!”
Author's Note
If you liked, then please leave an upvote!
Because gosh darn, once I had the ingenious idea of using the spell from It Ain't Easy Being Breezies, it was too good not to write it. And yes, Twilight never says it can't be done for other species. She just says 'not a chance' with an eyeroll when Rainbow asks about being turned into a gryphon at the end, so the reverse could also be possible...
There's a little bit of identity and introspection on Gabby's part about being turned into a pony. However, this fic is meant to be light-hearted so while it makes side glances at the notion, it deliberately doesn't explore it too hard. A very slight bit of envy on Scootaloo's part over flying, but the actual episode drops a few hints about that too, so it's not that out of place.
Anyways, you may have seen in the cover page synopsis this fic was written as part of a '28 fics in 28 days' challenge. That challenge is something I came up with for myself to actually write and publish stuff, especially since I had a large list of 50+ story ideas. In my blog post, I say:
Some of my ideas are pretty well designed to be short and self-contained. That is not the case with others, but quite honestly, getting out a premise with a few thousand words to flesh it out is better than leaving the premise as a 20-word sentence idea on my document list. However, if I have something that takes off, then I would seriously entertain fleshing out something like that to a bigger story.
That's up to you, my dear readers. In this case, fleshing out would probably be into the 10k-20k range.
