The alarm from her phone woke her, a slow metal song that never failed to at least get her to move. Probably the only thing that could get her to move some days.
With a groan, she rolled to her side and reached over, swiping a thumb over the screen. It quelled the song and gave her a second of dead silence that sat within her room, a thick, strangling blanket.
Turning that thought away, she flipped her legs over the edge of the bed and rose. She ran a pale finger between the two curtains that obscured the single window and peeked out.
Grey. Overcast. The kind of weather that made her bed even more tempting than it was when she first woke up. But she reluctantly pushed the thought aside and instead headed across her cluttered bedroom, mindful of the jeans and undershirts that littered the ground. She made a mental note to pick up when she got home, the same sort of mental note she always thought when she woke up and the same sort of mental note she never properly followed through with, and stepped across the hall and into the bathroom, where a hot shower awaited her.
Once she finished, going through the motions like a automaton of putting on her clothes, she ran a hand across the fogged mirror and took stock of herself.
Her hair was perfect, white down to the nape of her neck, with purple tips at her longer fringe. She brought a finger up to tuck it behind an ear, then took to eyeliner, which she put on in spades, almost as much as the violet eyeshadow she donned above her golden eyes, which stared back at her, as if daring her to give her lip.
When none came, she tossed her mascara back into a drawer and went into the hall.
Tromping downstairs, she called, “Hey Ma,” out of habit, before remembering that her mom was out of town on a business trip. As usual. In fact, she could see the note she left, still folded up and placed on the kitchen countertop.
Gilda, I'm going to Cloudsdale for my annual meeting—fun!—there should be stew in the fridge, and I left some money on the counter top if you wanted to eat out sometime this week with a friend!
Gilda had read the note three days ago and for three days the money had sat on the counter. And on the counter it'd sit for three days more, if she could help it.
Money was tight. Even with her dad working sixty hours a week and her mom picking up tabs at the diner, money was like the string on an instrument. Pull too hard and it'd snap. So she left the cash there and, whenever they were to get back, Gilda would sneak it into her ma's purse. It was win-win in her eyes.
She made her way to the kitchen and dug into the fridge. She took a gallon of milk and cracked open the top. After a glance to her side to verify that she was well and true alone, she took a few deep mouthfuls of milk before screwing the lid on once more and heading towards the door leading into the garage. Despite her dull morning, there still sparked some brief flicker of a smile to her as she took sight of her baby leaned up against the wall.
Her bike was, as her dad had put it almost five years ago, “A damn fine piece of hardware”, and it was said in such a degree of proud sincerity that Gilda was fit to burst in those days. She took her hand forward and ran it along its frame. A frame that, in years prior, had been smooth but now had more than a few scuffs and nicks from constant use. A quick check of the garage door and she was off, racing down the road.
The streets were empty as she made her way downtown. The grey overcast and early hours made sure of it. Gilda didn't mind. It gave her a chance to collect her thoughts.
As she pulled up to a stop sign between Sylvester and Clint she reached into her coat pocket and put on her headphones. A quick swipe at her phone and her ears became assaulted by music, drowning out her thoughts and drowning out the lack of noise the morning held.
She was late. Like usual. Though this time there was a silver lining. The sub was too busy trying to keep track of the class; Gilda was able to slip to her desk while the substitute teacher ineffectively stammered out a quiet call to the others to keep quiet while he took attendance.
“If it isn’t Super herself,” the man that sat behind her addressed, giving a small tap to the back of her seat with a foot. “So glad you decided to grace us with your presence.”
“Shut up, Capper,” Gilda growled out, keeping her view straight ahead. He chuckled.
“What's wrong, Suuuper?” Capper purred, flicking her jacket with a finger. “Get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”
“Call me that again and I'll—“ she began, turning around in her seat, her fist raised. A silence fell upon the room as Gilda realized how loud her voice had been. A blush of heat appeared at her brow and she turned, wordlessly facing forward once more.
“Ms. Gilda?” the substitute muttered out, glancing up from a set of notes he read. Probably an attendance list, if she had to guess. “I don't appreciate the disruption.”
“He started it,” she replied hotly. “He's lucky I didn't finish it too.”
Capper feigned ignorance, giving an exaggerated press of a hand to his chest and looking shocked, perhaps even appalled at her words.
“Why, I'd never do that to you,” he replied, then, added, with a sly grin, “Suuuper.”
“That's it!” she screamed, snapping around and throwing herself at the man.
Detention. If the day was a race, then detention was the red flag before the finish line. Stop, pull over, wait for life to start to kick into gear again.
Today's was no exception.
She couldn't totally pin the blame on Capper. But she sure could try to. If he hadn't said so much shit she wouldn't have felt the need to punch his jaw and send him to the nurse and she wouldn’t be stuck in the classroom staring out onto the parking lot. Most of the other students had left already, leaving the lot speckled and dotted with cars as the window she stared through was dotted with spots of rain. From the front of the class there came a sigh. Gilda glanced over and observed the teacher in charge of detention close a book and look over at her. He gave a small adjustment of his monocle and a quick run of a finger through his pencil-thin mustache.
“Well,” he began, his posh accent rubbing Gilda the wrong way as it always did. “Let’s hear it, then.”
She gave a glance about the room, as if there might have been another less visible student he was actually speaking to. When this turned out not to be the case, she opened her mouth, letting out a small grunt in confusion and then asked, “Have what?”
“Why, your reason for being here, of course.” He reached to the corner of his desk and unscrewed a thermos. He poured some of its contents out as the scent of coffee wafted through the room.
“I’m sure you heard. Beat up a dweeb that was hassling me.” She flashed a toothy smile his way.
He sipped as his drink, seemingly indifferent to the reply as he read over a stack of papers. “You do realize you were left off incredibly gentle, yes? Most fights like that lead to suspension.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “What’s it matter? At least suspension would net me a few weeks at the house.”
The teacher made no comment at that, he continued his journey through the paperwork that sat in an organized pile atop his precise desktop.
“And how did he ‘hassle’ you?”
Gilda narrowed her brow. “The hell you wanna know?”
“Because I'm a teacher and you're a student,” he replied, his tone and words even, without judgement to them. Some ways it made Gilda madder, other ways it calmed her down. In a swirl of emotions she let out a frustrated tsk of annoyance.
“When did this school care about students, huh?” she snapped, avoiding the question. “We're not Canterlot, we don't get the chances they do. Did you hear they had an entire set of olympian games there?”
“Mmm,” he grunted, making a mark on a stack of his papers. “And numerous injuries, from what the Canterlot Chronicles said about the incident.”
“At least they had a chance to do something,” Gilda replied, coming up to a half-stand and putting a hand down hard upon her desk. “All we get is second rate! Second rate food, second rate equipment in the gym, second rate textbooks, second rate teachers, and second rate students!”
Fancy kept his composure, electing to keep his answer simple. “You're not second rate, Gilda.”
“Don't give me that shit, I'm a super,” she snapped.
“A... super?” he repeated, raising a brow and finally looking up from his paperwork.
Gilda muttered under her breath.
“Come again?”
“I said a super senior,” she snapped, halfway to yelling. “There, are you happy? He knew that I didn't get to graduate last year because of my grades.”
“And you're ashamed of this,” he replied, his tone still infuriatingly calm and collected. She stood despite it being detention and paced.
“Yes! No! I-I don't know, ok?” Gilda grit her teeth. “I don't know why I even bother talking. It's stupid. Whole thing is stupid. All these dweebs and geeks and freaks do nothing but piss me off.”
The man's nose twitched, making the thin mustache under it shake. “I see,” he stated. “That doesn't excuse hitting him, even if it was a subject you're sensitive over.”
“I'm not sensitive,” she replied with a sneer and a huff. “I just needed to let him know who the top dog of this kennel is. He's not in charge. I am.”
“Do you feel in charge?”
She scoffed, taking a seat again. She leaned back, letting the chair rest on its two back legs. “Well I'm not the one nursing a sore jaw.”
“No. But you are the one in detention again.”
“Lay off my case. I'm sure you don't give this kind of lip to any of the other pieces of shit at this shitty school.”
“Language.”
“Sorry,” she replied, then realized she apologized and offered a surly glare at being tricked.
“And I do give 'lip' to every student here.” He seemed satisfied with the papers now and reached down behind the desk, producing a briefcase, which he opened and neatly stacked the papers into. “Because you all have so much potential. You just ignore it.”
“I don't have anything like that in me,” Gilda replied crossly. “I'm just going through this.”
“You need something else. Something that will wake you up, Ms. Gilda. Slipping into routine can be a dangerous thing, after all.” He sighed again and reached now into his wallet. Pulling out a card he snapped his fingers to the side and launched it across the room like a miniature Frisbee. Gilda reacted without thinking, catching it and then looked down at its plainness.
“'Fancy's Ring. Home of the most hard-earned purses in Canterlot'?” Gilda read, then looked up at him with an expression bordering on unreadable “Eh? Is this some sort of joke?”
“Am I laughing, Gilda?”
“That doesn't mean anything, maybe you have a poker face.”
“I can assure you if I were good at poker, I wouldn't have found myself making the wrong bets.”
Gilda scoffed without humor. “Fine then. What the hell is this for?”
He rose from his seat and wheeled the chair into the desk. “I'll make a deal with you. I'll let you out of detention early if you meet me there.”
She gave a wary look his direction. “You're not planning something weird, are you?”
“Gilda, please. I'm not the sort to engage in such actions.”
She gave a small brush of her hand. “You can't tell anymore who is what.” She stood and rounded her way past the desk. “But it gets me out of class. If you try anything, though, I've got a switchblade.”
“I'll pretend I didn't hear that, Ms. Gilda.”
“Why?” She flashed her teeth in a smirk that was predatory. “Scare you?”
“No,” he replied plainly, his tone and posture so direct and filled with purpose that it gave her pause, her smirking retort caught like a bubble of air in her throat. “School policy, even with it being far more lax than Canterlot's, states that blades are to be no longer than three inches in blade length, and must open manually, ergo gravity knives, balisongs, and the aforementioned switchblade are illegal within school grounds in the same way a pistol would be, Ms. Gilda.” He reached behind him, putting on a tweed jacket that he had resting upon the back of his chair. “So we will speak no more of it. I just trust you won't bring it again?”
Gilda once more was caught off guard. She flinched a bit, then added a small, “yeah, sure,” in agreement.
Fancypants offered a curt nod in acceptance of her word and adjusted the cuff of the jacket as he spoke. “Good. Now do you need directions to the address on the card?”
Gilda looked it over one again. She shook her head after a beat.
“No, it's fairly close to where my house is, but past the train tracks.”
He turned, heading towards the door.
“I'll be there shortly, I need to make a deposit at the bank before they close. Please wait for me there.”
Gilda rotated the card in her palm across her fingers before pocketing it proper.
“Fine, I guess. See you around, teach.”
She made her way across the train tracks.
The tracks always felt like a barrier to her, between her life and what everyone else seemed to do. On one side, her side, things felt dirty. Dirty laundry, dirty politics, dirty people and dirty streets. But on the other side of the tracks, Canterlot was pristine. Even the rainclouds had seemed to get the memo; the rain had lightened up, going from a cold, sickly sort to a gentle mist that could be refreshing, given the right circumstances.
It was the kind of place that made Gilda sick.
She trudged her way through regardless, ignoring the glances her coat and piercings gave—though the consideration of giving them the bird hit her like a sack of bricks more than once as she traveled down the streets, taking a left, then a right four more blocks down.
A boutique window caught her eye. Or, rather, a display dress.
While she wasn't the girly sort, the way the black accentuated the mannequin’s features, giving off a 'look, but don't touch,' vibe spoke to her. It reminded her of maybe something like a peregrine. The bird could be trained. It could be taught, it could be loyal as any dog, but you gave it respect, and if you didn't get it, it'd dig into your arm so hard it'd scrape bone with its talons.
She thought of marching right in there and speaking to the violet-haired woman at the counter and asking, no, demanding she take a closer look at it, but as Gilda looked towards the feet of the mannequin, her bravado left instantly. The clothing set cost her money. Not just a chump change, but the type of money she could eat off of for a month if she played her cards right and cut down to a single meal. There was no way she'd ever pay for clothes like that, and she marched away from the window, frustrated at the reflection of herself that briefly caught her eye as she stomped off.
It looked sad.
She had found Fancypants’ area of business a few more blocks down from the boutique, and, as the business card had proclaimed earlier, Fancy's Ring looked to be in good shape. A building that had seen years of use, but also years of care: multiple paint jobs layered over one-another, a few small rough patches at the edges of the wooden sign, and the small flickering fluorescent light of an open sign in the window.
“This better be good,” Gilda muttered under her breath, twisting the front door's handle and stepping inside.
It was an open area, with several punching bags in a row nearby the wall, and a large ring set dead center within the room. At the edge of the ring sat Fancypants, who ate delicately upon a sandwich, a napkin tucked at the neckline of his shirt as he took small practiced bites upon his meal. He reached to his side and produced a small pepper shaker, which he applied to the sandwich.
“Ah. I had wondered if you would show,” he took another bite of his sandwich and ran his hands over his napkin. Finished, he stood up and looked her over. “Been to a place like this before?”
“Not really,” she admitted.
“Ah.” He adjusted his glasses, pushing them up the bridge of his nose. “I grew up with the ring. Some of my earliest memories were beside the ring, watching my uncle practice.” He moved towards the side of the ring and crouched, reaching to the ground. “When I got old enough, I took an interest in the gentleman's sport myself.” Fancypants came back up with two palm sized pads that had a spot for his hands. He donned them and approached her. “I found the focus pads helped relief a lot of stress, myself.”
Gilda crossed her arms, observing him as he held his hands out to her and assumed a more rigid posture.
“Go ahead,” he encouraged. Gilda scoffed.
“I know how to throw a punch. It's what I went to detention for.”
“No,” he corrected, still keeping that same prepared posture, his tone uncompromising. “You went to detention because you let your emotions get the better of you. I'm offering a chance to vent.”
A harsh glare was his response, she stiffened visibly and clenched a fist.
“Don't act like you know me,” Gilda growled. Despite her words, she snapped a fist forward, striking hard on the pad.
“Good form,” he remarked, her barbed words paid no mind. She struck again, a hard hook, then another haymaker.
“Mind your footing,” he instructed.
“Don't tell me what—“ she began crossly, only for him to shift his footing, turning his arms free and letting her follow through on her swing. The inertia took her forward and she stumbled, landing on the ground with a grunt. She was up in a second and snapped a fist forward. Fancypants tilted his head, reflexively dodging the strike aimed at his head, the gesture instinctive, without thought.
“What, you had me come here to look fucking stupid?!” she screamed at him, her composure now gone in total. She broke away from him and snapped a foot towards the ring, hitting hard against it, the pain shooting up her leg, but she paid it no mind even as her foot began to numb.
“I had you come here because I thought you would listen. Take a deep breath. Calm down. Do at least that for me.”
Gilda brushed past him, heading for the door. She put a hand on the knob then shut her eyes and held her breath, counted to five. Counted to ten. Then exhaled and turned back to look at him.
“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the edge of the ring. Gilda obliged warily, the stomping of her feet an obvious indication of her displeasure, before she hopped up and sat down, waiting for him to speak again. Which he did, after a moment of unstrapping the boxing pads and resting them under the crook of an arm.
“I'm speaking bluntly: I know what you feel right now. But you need to calm down and bite your tongue. How things happen to be now is not what they need to be in a few years time.”
Though her gut instinct was to call him a liar, Gilda actually did follow some of his advice and held back, instead of immediately calling him out, she spoke cautiously.
“How would you know how I feel?”
“I was born and raised in San Franciscolt.”
Gilda was silent. Eventually she raised a brow. “So?”
“Skid Row San Franciscolt. The poorest neighborhood in the area, with some of the worst apartments imaginable.” He sat down next to Gilda and tossed the pads onto the mat. “Mother died of kidney failure due to excessive alcoholism. Father worked two jobs to get me through school. Something I didn't appreciate enough at the time.”
Gilda subconsciously winced at the mention of two jobs. That was more or less what her mom was having to pull, with the hours she worked just to keep status quo. Fancypants continued.
“I was, I suppose you could say, a hooligan. I ran with a bad crowd and was tried twice as a minor regarding assault cases.” He offered a thin-lipped smile her direction. “Some might have deserved the beating, but it was something in retrospect I regret.”
“So, that's what this is? Straighten up and fly right? Scare tactics?” Gilda questioned. Fancypants shook his head.
“Hardly scare tactics. I simply found an outlet for my aggressive tendencies in my youth, and it allowed me to not get into so much trouble. I even made a bit of a name of myself in the minor league. Skid Row Sweetheart, they called me, due to having a very flushed complexion at my cheeks in my youth.”
Gilda considered it before she shook her head and rested her arms on the ring's ropes.
“Sure. I guess sometimes I get pissed,” she admitted. “And it's by people doing something really stupid. But there's more to that.” Her first instinct was to clamp down and not talk more, but she ignored her own mental thoughts on the matter and continued to speak.
“It's like... when you get stuck in mud while driving, and you know you're gassing the engine, but you don't get any traction, all you do is make a mess of the area.” She nodded, mainly to herself. “That's how I feel. Like... there should be more.” Embarrassed, she glanced away, though after a moment's time, she spoke once more.
“I've been having these weird dreams lately,” Gilda quietly muttered out. “Dreams where I can see something. Like I'm flying in a place that's not here.” She took a rope in her hand and squeezed it. “Some days it feels like it's so true that I could reach out while I’m sleeping and run my hand through my own hair. Then other days I wake up and it feels like there's this,” Gilda gestured up and down her line of sight, “Like I'm here, but everything I'm watching is separated by a sheet of plastic. I feel numb. The only emotion that really seems to knock me out of that distance is when I feel pissed off.”
“Flying, hmm?” he questioned after the room had time to settle for a bit.
“Yeah. I can see my own wings. I feel happy there. Like that's actually where I belong, and the world is trying to correct itself.”
Fancypants was silent for a time. “Well, I'm not one to speak to regarding analyzing dreams, but it sounds like you're wanting escapism. You should take a moment to do something out of the ordinary. Coming here was a good start, at least. Starting is the hardest part. Anyone can say they'll do something. But actually being committed enough to begin is typically different.”
“I guess.” She sighed and hopped off the mat. “Look. I'm glad you sat down and drug me here, but I think I'm justified in being a bit cautious. Talking advice is great, but taking advice like this all at once is a bit too much. So...” She glanced at Fancypants. “So thanks on that.”
Fancypants nodded. “Yes. I think it's more than fair to offer at least a little guidance. Will I see you tomorrow?”
Gilda buried her hands in her pockets and rocked on the balls of her feet. After a time, she flashed a small smirk, the gesture clearly far less practiced than her scowl, and shrugged.
“You know what? I might be around.”
Fancypants took that as a good enough sign. He gave her a nod as she turned and stepped back outside.
It was the same street, the same stretch of worn down buildings, and the same tracks Gilda crossed every day. But today? Today there was a break in the routine.
