"I think we should tell your parents we're dating."
Gilda suddenly looked up from Project Sunflower across at her roommate.
"Why?"
"Well, ya know... We already told mine. I think we should head over to your parents place, maybe stay for dinner."
Gilda quietly looked back at her book, seeing how long she could go without replying. She figured this was a long time coming, but she could delay it for a few more minutes. Dash patiently waited a good two seconds before finally clearing her throat and speaking up again.
"Gilda?"
"I'd really rather not."
"Why not?"
"It's nothing personal to you, I just... I haven't seen them for a while. Since they dropped me off at flight school, really."
"You haven't even sent them a letter?"
"There's kind of a reason for that. We... Don't exactly get along very well."
She saw Dash scrunch her muzzle out of the corner of her eye. She loved it when she did that.
"Why not?"
"It's a long story."
"You can tell me. Look, if you don't want to go, we don't have to. I'm just saying, if this relationship does go somewhere, they're going to have to know."
"Why?"
"Because you're their daughter. They care about you, and should know these things."
Gilda didn't correct her. As aloof as she pretended to be, she was seriously considering it. On one hand, it only seemed fair, since Gilda had talked to Dash's presents. They had been a little nervous around the Apex predator their daughter was dating, but were overall happy for the both of them. On the other hand... If Gilda's parents didn't take it well, Dash could very well be seriously injured. Her grip on the book tightened, and she became very aware of her roommates eyes boring into her, seeming to singe and curl her feathers off.
"Alright. We'll go see them. But you need to promise me you'll stay close. We don't live in the safest of towns."
"I will. I'm sure we'll be fine, Gilda."
"Mm-hmm."
"I love you."
She sighed.
"I love you too."
---*---
Dash wasn't sure what she had been expecting by Gilda's brief description of her home town. Certainly not bodies lying in the streets, but she was still unnerved by how empty the place seemed. Every house seemed abandoned and moth-eaten, but she could still see movement through the windows, even if it was just blinds being closed as they flew by. Above all else, she just felt... Sad. She wondered how Gildas parents had ever been able to afford Flight School. She wondered if they had hated her enough to put every penny they had into getting rid of her.
Gilda was beyond used to the streets she had grown up in, but flying alongside a newbie spiked her awareness of how terrible it was. If she stuck her tongue out for a second, she would probably catch seven STDs from the air alone. She also began reconsidering taking a prey animal into a town where police and EMTs were practically non-existent. A part of her reminded her that they were well beyond that, and the safety of the girl closest to her was now in her class.
Gilda glided onto the front lawn of yet another brown, crumbling shape that could maybe be called a house if you squinted. Dash cautiously landed next to her, and they walked up the overgrown path to her childhood home. When they reached the front step, Gilda spent a minute staring stonily at the door before taking a deep breath and ringing the doorbell, moving in front of Dash and subconciously raising a wing to protect her from whatever came through that door.
Nothing happened. They waited for what seemed like an eternity, neither speaking a word, but noone seemed to be home. Dash heard her girlfriend breath a faint sigh of relief, and she dipped her head, smiling slightly.
"Nobody's home. I'm sorry I took you out all this way, but there's really nothing else to do in Griffinstone, so I'm afraid we're going to have to cut this little excursion sho-"
A branch snapped behind them, and Dash whipped around to see a shape lunging at her before she was suddenly engulfed in darkness. Warm, wet walls constricted around her, pushing her into a dark tunnel, and it occured to her that she was being swallowed. This was not an ideal start.
"Dad! Drop it! Now!"
She heard the Gryphon, apparently Gilda's dad, try to say something around her before swallowing her down some more. The sounds of their argument grew fainter as she slid into a more open area, and she felt a burning liquid begin to erode at her fur. She bit her lip and put up with it, silently urging Gilda to keep talking as she squirmed and stretched to get more comfortable in his stomachs tight space.
After several more uncomfortably long, slimy, burning seconds in the cramped pouch, she was pushed back up and fell ungracefully to the pavement between the two of them. Gilda pulled her up and into her fur, trying to wipe Dash off while glaring at her dad.
"This is my friend, Dad. I didn't bring her all the way out here to get killed."
"Then why did you bring her all the way out here?"
Dash pulled herself away from Gilda's chest fluff and turned to look at him. He had roughly the same color palete as his daughter, with several purple streaks running down the feathers on his neck. The most noticable thing about him was how big he was compared to them, and she wondered how big Gryphons could grow.
"She's a friend, from flight camp. Not that you would know, since you basically left me there for four years. I'm going to be graduating pretty soon, and I had my sixteenth birthday last month. Do any of these things matter to you?"
They glared at each other, and Dash suddenly wished she was back in his stomach. Finally, he smiled and pulled her in for a hug, nuzzling her while she grimaced, making no move to escape.
"They do. I've missed you, and so has your Mom. How have you been?"
"Pretty good, now that I can look at myself in a mirror every morning and not hate myself."
"Aw, don't be like that. Let's go inside, it's almost dinnertime."
He tousled her feathers some more, and led her in, leaving Dash to walk in after them with no greeting.
---*---
Dinner was a chicken corpse. Raw. Dash wasn't sure if she could eat it without getting sick, but she was not going to complain about that, and she was mostly happy that it wasn't a pony, or her.
That was the only thing she could be happy about for that hour or so, given that the air would be suffocating her if it were any thicker, despite Gilda's dad's attempt to lighten the mood with jokes and reminiscings about his daughter's childhood. He had offered a half-hearted apology about eating her at Gilda's insistence, and had barely talked to her since then. Gilda had only talked when a question was asked, and kept her answers curt and brief while staring at the table. It was impossible for Dash to have an opinion on Gilda's mom, as she never spoke a word and only served and ate the food. Dash thought she heard a baby cry faintly upstairs at one point, but she couldn't be sure.
Only when they were all nearly finished with their meal, and Dash was actually beginning to get excited at the prospect of leaving did he finally turn to her and speak up.
"So, what's your name? Rainbow?"
"Yes sir."
"Pony names never made sense to me. Always something about parties or pastries or rainbows. Then again, I've never had to think much about ponies outside whether they taste better cooked or raw!"
He laughed as if he had told a very good joke.
"Yes sir."
"Oh, lighten up. Kids can never take jokes nowadays. Speaking of which, I hope you can wriggle a little more next time, it feels good when your prey's desperate to escape. It's why I always swallow them whole."
"I'll try next time."
"Anyway, you two met at Flight Camp?"
"Yes sir."
"I knew sending her there would be good for her. We needed to toughen her up a little. Just because my wife gave birth to a girl doesn't mean we can't raise a man!"
"Is that what you call it? Toughening me up?"
Gilda suddenly spoke up from the other end of the table, keeping her eyes trained on the table. Her dad turned to her, raising an eyebrow.
"Is something wrong, dear?"
"You don't get to call me that anymore. You lost the right to treat me as your daughter when you abandoned me in another country. People there were ruthless, I wouldn't have made it if it weren't for Dash."
"Oh, cmon. You just had to learn to fight back. Once you-"
"Is that what I had to do? Fight back? You should've told me sooner, I would've torn your beak off years ago."
His gaze grew stony, and he put down the chicken leg he had been holding. Dash suddenly realized why the table had been so interesting to her girlfriend, and decided to admire it.
"Listen here, I am your father. I will not be-"
"Then fucking act like it."
"You do not get to interrupt me, and if you take that tone of voice with me again-"
"You'll abandon me? That's the only thing I can thank you for."
"You can thank me for raising you for twelve years, and giving you a home and food."
"Those are basic things a parent should do. You don't get a trophy for doing the bare minimum, and you certainly don't get my respect. I grew up thinking negligence and abuse were normal, and it took Dash and her parents to make me realize that I could be a fuckin person; I don't have to just be useful, or an object to do chores for you, I can be a person who matters. When I realized that, I nearly melted, because I had never even considered happiness as an option for me. You want a medal? Go to whatever government we have left and boast about how strong your bloodline is, see if they'll give you a job so you don't have to sit around and beat mom all day."
The table was silent. Not a word was spoken, and for the first time since she met her, Gilda's mom seemed genuinely scared. Finally, he spoke again, quietly and emphasizing each syllable.
"You are going to go to your room, and you are-"
"I don't live here anymore, Dad. You gave up the only power you had, and if you try to beat me again I will use the gifts you have given me to personally slice your face off and wear it on Nightmare Night to convince an entire generation of kids that you're the Boogeyman."
"Then why did you come back? And why did you bring a pony with you?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe it's because I have a big, LESBIAN CRUSH ON HER!"
Suddenly every cricket dropped dead outside and the room was quiet once again. The spectrum of fear to anger formed a Mobius strip around the table. If a Bat Pony was anywhere within a 500 yard radius her ears would be able to hear forbidden syllables spoken by the gods of the Farthest Ring. It sounded like Black Bolt was singing a rock opera. It was Fucking Quiet. Finally Gilda spoke up,
"Dash, please go outside and wait for me. I'll be with you in a minute."
"Yes ma'am."
---*---
Gilda closed the door behind her and sat on the steps next to Dash, sighing.
"I had a... talk with my parents. Long story short, we can spend a lot more time together now."
"I'm so sorry, Gil."
"Eh, I'll be fine. Cutting out toxic people is good for you, right?"
"Of... course..."
They stayed silent. It seemed a lot of that was going around lately.
"I guess I'm gonna have to find somewhere to live after I graduate in a month."
"I can help you find a house. Away from Griffinstone. I think I'm gonna find a place in Ponyville, maybe we can keep being roommates?"
"Yeah. I think I'd really like that."
"I love you, Gil."
"I love you too, Dash."
Author's Note
I'm wondering if I should mark this as AU, after all, it diverts from continuity. W/e.
