Chapters ~Gilda the Griffin~ Chapter One - A Photo Finished
~Ponyville~
I close the door behind me, slowly looking around my room, still messy. It's how I liked it, felt just like... home. I went over to the bed and took out the photo frame; the one I kept hidden for so long, from so many. It was the only picture I had of my family. I glanced at it, then went over to my desk without taking my eyes off the picture, slowly sitting down on a small cushion in front of my desk. I traced the outlines of the photo, remembering each and everyone in it's gold leafed frame.
I had to thank Griffin, one of these days. He gave me so much, more than I could ever hope to give back to him. He saved me, we became friends... well... more than friends... he was one of the only few people that really... understood how I felt. With him, he had given me a chance to find out about my father. At first, I felt dead when I found out about... no, It's best not to think about it anymore. I still had to thank him, at least once, for everything. I wanted to do something special for him.
I placed the picture frame on my desk, laying my beak in my crossed arms on the desk, taking a long look at the picture, stretching out a talon to stroke the embroidery of the frame. I slid one talon over my mother's face. She had a beautiful smile, one that no matter what mood you were in, when you saw her smile, you couldn't help but smile with her. I missed that smile...
'Dammit... Why am I always sentimental about this kind of crap...' I thought to myself as I wiped away a stray tear from my eye. Looking at the picture again, I thought about how I would never see that face again. The face, the smile, the loving gaze. When I got hurt, when I was sad...
... when I was escaping the warren that had imprisoned me for over a year...
The door suddenly opened, I immediately clutched the frame to my chest. I heard a familiar voice.
"Hey Gilda, you coming?" Griffin asked. He scared me half to death. I craned my neck over my shoulder.
"In a minute..." Dammit, why doesn't he ever knock first, "... just cleaning some stuff up." I smile, hoping that he bought it. He leaned to the left, trying to look at the picture.
'No, Not yet, I can't let him see it.'
"Hey..." Oh no, he saw it, "What's that?" I clutched it closer and closer to my chest. I had to think of something fast.
"It's nothing... just a little... memento." I turn around, hiding the picture behind my back and giving a nervous smile.
"Oh... alright..." He said warily, cocking his head to the side, "Hey... you feeling okay?" I realized I was blushing. Slowly I reached behind me and slid open the drawer on my desk.
"Nah, I'm good." I say, waving a claw to him. I gulped, hoping he bought it...
"Alright," His look slowly turned back to normal, "Well, I'm heading out. I gotta do a bit of shopping anyways. Meet you at the train station?" He turned around, keeping his eyes on me.
"Take your time..." I slip the picture into my desk and lean on it to slide it shut. "I'll be a while."
"Alright," He turns his head around to leave, then peeks back, "Remember, 4 'o clock."
"Pssh, like I could forget," I scoff and roll my eyes. He smiles and shuts the door behind him. I breathe out, realizing that I was holding my breath. After hearing the outer door close, I turn back around and pull open the drawer again.
'Maybe I should tell him about the picture...' I look at it again, 'No way, then everyone else would think I'm a clingy dweeb like the other... ponies...' Trixie, there's a name I won't soon forget. I remember when Griffin first asked me whether we should have busted her out of jail in the first place.
'I guess I am a bit of a dweeb, if I fell for HIM...' I look at a newspaper clipping of our concert in Canterlot, 'Him and all the weird, alien stuff that he does...' I quickly erased the thought from my mind.
'He's not THAT big of a dweeb, just a tolerable amount, borderline. Yeah, nothing's wrong with that. He comes from a place with bitching music like that, a look that says he could take on the world. That completely offsets the part of him that is a dweeb...' I start to smile as I look at a poster of our short lived band, made by the paparazzi, no less. 'Completely, it's like that part of him's not even there.'
'He probably knows that I was lying to him back there, that something really was wrong with me... and I was just too afraid to say it.' I take the picture back out, slowly my memories of when I was young seep back to me, reminding me of what happened several years ago that tore my family apart...
~Gilda the Griffin~ Chapter Two - A Chance to Fly
"Mama, Papa, is it my turn to fly yet?" I asked, hopping up and down on our cloud nest in the sky as Mom and Dad came back from catching dinner. My mom looked at my dad with a smile, but he had a look of pure worry on his. He huddled close to mom.
"I don't know, Gilda's only 7 years old, and she only just started learning how to glide a week ago..." he whispered. My dad's words made my heart sink, so heavy I thought I would fall through the cloud.
"Please, oh PLEASE! I'm turning eight tomorrow!" I begged, looking up at my dad with longing eyes. I whimpered, hoping to sway my dad's decision. He looked at mom, then back to me after a few seconds and broke out in a loving smile.
"Alright, Goldie, tomorrow, when you turn eight, we'll let you fly with us. Call it your birthday present," he said, winking at me. I burst into joy, dancing around on the cloud, the sun was setting across the afternoon horizon.
"THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!" Mom caught me mid air while I was bouncing.
"Now, sweetheart, let's get you to bed. We wouldn't want you too tired to fly now would you..." she said, hugging me then carrying me into our nest and tucking me into bed, touching my nose as she pulled the covers over my feathers. I yawned and slowly drifted off to sleep as my mother sang me a lullaby:
Hush now little griffin, rest among the stars.
Let your dreams carry you to lands near and far.
Though you may fear the darkness of night.
The song that I sing, Will let you take flight...
Her voice was like that of mockingbirds singing sweetly in the summer breeze. She stroked the feathers on my head as she sang, cooing and calming me to a restful sleep.
The moon is your lantern, The stars are your friends,
Guiding you back to your lining
When night turns to day and dreams end at dawn
Wake to the daylight that's shining
That night, I dreamed of flying through the stars, meeting an entire flock of golden griffins, waving at me as my wings lifted me above the clouds. It felt wonderful, the wings flowing past the current of air, the clouds flow past my feathers like the spray of the sea. I flew amongst the golden griffins, feeling their mighty wing beats flap as if with a massive pulse, carrying me along with it. I flew above the crowd doing the barrel rolls and loop-de-loops I saw the Wonderbolts do once. It felt just like magic...
I woke up the melodious singing of mom as she conducted the chorus of birds that fluttered among the clouds. I jumped out from underneath the covers as I remembered what day it was.
"IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!" I shouted, bursting out of my bed, scaring the birds, "Oops... sorry..." My mother just shook her head and smiled. Dad landed shortly afterward, carrying breakfast for the whole family.
"YAY! Haddock!" I shouted happily, running for the fish, "Thanks Dad!"
"Don't mention it, it is your birthday after all," he said with a smile, "It's not much, but I hope you enjoy it." His words echoed in my mind...
We were far from the Equestrian border, in the lands of the Dominion. It was dangerous to go on land, or even the sea to fish. There was always the constant fear of being captured by diamond dogs and sold into slavery. I was too young to know what slavery was, let alone worry about it. Even so, I wasn't a stranger to being hungry. Some nights I had wondered why mom and dad came back empty handed from an entire day of fishing. Later I realized why.
Our family was fortunate to be close to the ocean rather than some of the other griffins on land. Many griffins were scratching a living by eating... unnaturally. Mom and Dad had decided to start a food life line, fishing for enough food for the other griffins we lived near and transporting the fish to their homes, risking their lives to help others, coming home too exhausted to eat themselves. When I found out that they were doing this, I couldn't help but feel proud of them, and hoped that I could be as strong enough to help them.
After thinking about all those times when I saw them go to bed hungry, I pushed the fish towards them.
"I want you to have it, I'm not hungry..." I said, smiling, although haddock was my favorite fish, I could survive not eating it for one morning. They looked hungrier than I did. Dad looked at the fish, then at me.
"Goldie, what's wrong?" He asked looking at me, worried, "Are you sick?"
"No, no, I'm fine, I'm just not hungry at the moment. You have it." They looked at each other in shock, then back to me, finally understanding.
"I see... anxious to fly aren't you." They misunderstood completely of course, but I was happy nonetheless.
"How about we split it then, smaller portions mean we'll finish faster." He cut the haddock into 3 sections, one for each of us. Mom and Dad lifted their sections, "Bon Appetite."
After we ate, we took perching positions at the edge of the nest, priming our wings.
"Remember Gilda, stay very close to us, keep your tail behind you, and your wings out," mom reminded me. To be honest, out of both of them, mom was the better flier. Dad always joked about how if I ever grew up to fly like mom, we'd have to tow him with a rope just for him to keep up with us.
To be safe, they tied a rope to me that linked me to them in case I fell, but I knew that I could do it. I just have to remember the dream, soaring through the air with a flap of my wings, then cruising to a glide.
"Alright, here we go!" Dad said, nudging me to start, "Happy Birthday, Goldie." I looked back at him and smiled, a tear in my eye. I spread my wings, crouching low for take off, then sprung off with my back legs, aided with a powerful flap of my wings to send me into the air for the very first time. Taking off felt even better now that I knew that everything was real: floating through the wind, swimming through the clouds. It was just like in the dream, just like everything I had hoped for.
We flew together, just the three of us, one flying next to the other, a chain of three griffins flying in sync through the air, and for the first time in my life: I felt free. Griffins were always meant to fly, we were built to fly, and we loved every thrilling, fascinating, fleeting second of flying through the air, able to fly up to the stars if we wanted to, and down to feel the cool spray of the sea on our fur and feathers.
We swooped down low and dragged our back paws through the rolling ocean waves, the fresh, salty breeze filling our noses with all the scents of all the wildlife of the crisp blue ocean. This was magic, this was freedom, this was home.
We turned around, headed towards our nest again. I was slightly saddened, it all went by so fast, like the entire day simply passed us by in less than a minute. I wanted to fly some more, but I felt my wings start to become tired. If I could, I would fly until my wings fell off, if that could happen. We saw our cloud nest in sight. Mom and Dad looked at me, both about to ask the same question.
"Did you have fun?" They both said with a smile, their feathers a slight yellowish cream color from the sunset. I opened my beak to answer, to describe how wonderful it felt to fly for real for the first time, then...
*BOOM*
~Gilda the Griffin~ Chapter Three - A Caged Bird
"MOMMY!" I cried at the top of my lungs as I watched her and dad dragged away in nets that had been shot at us. I tried so hard to reach for my parents, but they were out cold. Our captors were tall, black, bulky diamond dogs, all wearing armor and one having a belt with lots of jars in their holsters. The entire moment was a blur, only to be recalled later in my nightmares. My dad's wing was gone, the stubbed remains of it bleeding.
"NOOOOOO!" I cried, trying to claw my way towards them. All of a sudden, I felt something smash on my head. Then... darkness...
When I woke up, I was in shackles, cowering in the corner of a room, crowded to suffocation with other griffins, some younger than me, others old enough to be my grandparents. I saw no sign of mom and dad. Thoughts swam through my mind, my body shivering from cold and panic.
'W-w-w-where's mommy...' I wanted her to be there, somewhere in the crowd, so so she could hold me and make me feel better, so she could hug me, shield my eyes within her bosom, stroking my feathers so I could fall asleep again, and wake up in my bed again like this was a nightmare that I wanted to escape from.
"MOMMY!!!" I sat there in the corner, my only refuge from the chaos around me, "DADDY!!!" I scoured the faces of the other griffins, looking for the two faces I had known all my life. Tears welled up in my eyes, I curled up in a ball, wanted to wake up like it was just a dream. It had to be a dream, this couldn't be happening to me.
The door to the room everyone resided in opened, and a large, black diamond dog walked in, overextended jaw drooling with saliva. I winced and cowered in fear when he looked at me. He squinted his yellow eyes and pointed at me.
"You, Move now. With me..." I merely sat there, frozen with absolute terror. He pointed his spear at me, "MOVE!" With hesitation I obeyed, the diamond dog leading me to another cavern, wet and damp, moss lining the dirt walls. At the very end was another room, and the most beautiful sight I had seen that day.
"MOMMY!!! DADDY!!!" I ran to them, handcuffed and dirty. I could only lean into them, for they two had been tied up. I looked back at the diamond dog that had lead me to my parents, who now had a look of sadness and pity.
"This best I do..." he said before turning around and closing the rotting wooden door behind him. I started to shiver, curled up next to my parents, wondering what he meant by the best he could do. We huddled up together, hoping to get some sleep and maybe think of a way out of the trouble we were in...
We were forced to struggle in the mines, finding almost no reprieve from the back breaking labor thrust upon us. The crowded work areas were unbearable, griffins and diamond dogs alike were pressed up against each other like fish in a barrel. The stale air clogged our lungs with dust from the digging, causing many of the 'new arrivals' to cough violently, including me. I was hitched with the hauling crew, made to carry gems throughout much of the warren and back again; my paws and talons sore, my breathing heavy and exhausted, my wings aching because of the badly fitting harness.
We were often separated, sent to work in different parts of the warren, beaten and whipped when we disobeyed or complained. I cried every time I was lashed when I fell, exhausted on the dirt floor. After the grueling day, we were left with a piece of bread for each of us. By the end of the month, we were malnourished, fatigued, and strung to our breaking point. The only thing that kept us going was that we still had each other, as well as the other griffins and diamond dogs that sympathized with us.
Each and every day was the same, go in, work until you drop, get out. There was never any news except what the foreman tells you: an occasional cave in, earth quake, rock slide, flooding. No words were said about those that died, no tears save for a few. The pain and misery of working in the mines made us dull to all else. My cries fell on deaf ears when I complained of thirst, exhaustion, or illness. Everyone was in the same boat: the slaves couldn't revolt, or they'd die trying, the diamond dogs couldn't help, otherwise they'd be sent to the hauling crew like the rest of us. Some pockets of griffins actually did revolt with the help of some of the diamond dogs, but they were easily suppressed by the rest of the warren's massive numbers.
I made a friend in the warrens, Her name was Chime, she was a lot younger than me, kept under care until she was old enough to work. She lost her parents in a bushfire, her wings were singed permanently, meaning that her chances of ever flying were shot down before she even got a chance. I stopped by her room at the end of the day so that we could talk together before I went back to our room for the night.
"Chime?" I asked her one day.
"Yeah?"
"You could... live with us too. I mean, if you wanted..." I smiled at her, "I've always wanted a little sister..." Her eyes widened.
"YOU MEAN IT?!"
"Yeah, as soon as mom and dad find a way out of here, we could take you with us and you could live with us in our old nest." She beamed at me with excitement. "If we can get a few gems to take with us, we could probably make it to Cloudsdale to see the Wonderbolts!"
"What are Wonderbolts?" she asked, cocking her head to the side.
"The BEST fliers in Equestria, well next to mom and dad of course..."
We kept on thinking of ways to escape, but nothing seemed to work, security was just to tight. If it wasn't the guards, it was trying to get through the warrens without getting lost, and even then, there would be a chance of getting caught in the condemned part of the warrens. By the 6th month, it seemed hopeless to the point where I thought that I would be spending my entire life like this, never to see the sun, the moon, the sky, or the clouds that I longed to fly through again. Chime shared my feelings, wondering if she'd ever get to see grass again. It made me feel how much I took the beautiful things I saw everyday for granted. Now, all I saw was dirt and stone...
...that is, until the night before my ninth birthday. My parents had dug a tunnel secretly for the past year, until they finally managed to connect it to a tunnel that led straight to the surface. They told me that tonight, we were finally leaving, and that we could finally be free again. We had planned to steal some of the gems that they had dug up, sell them to get to Equestria, then move to Cloudsdale, just Mom, Dad, Chime, and me. It would be the best birthday present I could ask for, to finally be free again, to fly high up in the sky with my family.
Except everything went wrong. The night before, my parents could only find the key to my shackles, I wanted to stay with them so bad, I couldn't leave them, they were everything to me.
"Why aren't you coming with?" I asked, tears flowing into my eyes.
"We'll be out soon, I promise, Goldie." my dad said, reassuring me in our room as he turned the key to my shackles, my wrists finally free of the iron chains that weighed me down.
"We'll be fine Gilda, just go, hurry." Mom said, her voice trembling.
"What about Chime?" I asked them, my thought racing to my friend, who had now become like a sister to me.
"We'll take care of her as best we can, now go, before they find you." My mom commanded, "Go, live, and..." She choked on the words as tears trickled down her sad face, "...Happy Birthday, Gilda." she wished, handing my a piece of paper before pushing me into the tunnel before sealing it behind me with a boulder. I crawled for what seemed like hours, through the dark, damp tunnel to freedom.
I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard something right above my head, a small hole being my window to the room above. What I saw horrified me, my dad, beaten, bloody, feathers torn from his skin, revealing it raw and tattered. I hear growling above my head.
"WHERE IS THE DAUGHTER!!!" I heard a gruff voice say right above my head.
"I Don't KNOW!" He said, putting on a brave face, when he was clearly weak and weary.
"WHERE IS HER!" The other voice said. "One Chance..." I crept backwards, seeing one of the voices come into view, a jet black diamond dog, carrying a large sword.
"FOR THE LAST TIME, I DON'T KNOW!" The sword came down, slicing his wing off with a wretched squelch. I nearly threw up when I saw him, writhing in pain. I was frozen stiff out of fear. I watched from my lonely peephole as he was dragged away, passed out from the pain. After a few moments, silently sobbing to myself, I continued to crawl forward, blindingly into whatever horrors awaited me next. I kept crawling and crawling, fighting back the tears and the sight of dad bleeding, just wanting it to finally end, half expecting to find myself bound in chains again.
But what I found instead was the calm, blue light of the moon, showing through a small hole in the cavern ceiling, just beneath the surface. Unknowingly, I had passed into an abandoned branch of the mine, one long since harvested of all its gems.
I was happy and sad all at once . I had made it to the surface, to freedom at last. I crawled to the spot where the moon shown and curled up under it, basking in its caressing glow. I looked down at my matted feathers, rubbing them to remove the months of caked on dirt, preening them at last in the fresh cool air of the moon. I curled up into a little ball, finding warmth and comfort in the moonlight. I started to scratch the soft dirt with my small claws, making a rough picture of a cake on it, complete with lines for candles. I sniffled and rubbed away my tears, pretending that mom, dad, and chime were there with me.
"Make a wish, Gilda..."
"Happy Birthday, Gilda," I said to myself, pretending that it was the soft, angelic voice of my mother. I look at the piece of pare mom gave me. It was a photograph: me, mom, and dad, all together again...
"Happy Birthday... to... me...."
