On most days, Princess Twilight's Castle of Friendship was a place of warmth, sanctuary, and peace. This, however, was not one of those days. Today, it was fraught with tension and disharmony.
Princess Ember and Gilda had chosen to meet at the Castle to settle a diplomatic dispute between the Dragonlands and Griffonstone. Judging by the din of shouting, it was safe to infer that negotiations were not going well.
Still, Twilight and her friends decided the best course of action was not to intervene given how recalcitrant and stubborn both parties involved were.
Meanwhile, inside the map room, the fierce debate raged on.
“You wanna know what I think, Princess?” Gilda sneered, venom emanating from her tone.
“Go ahead and let it out,” Ember scoffed. “It’s not like you’ve been shy about speaking what’s on your mind already.”
“It’s nonsense, Ember!” Gilda exclaimed, slamming her talons against the table. “It’s your brand of nonsense, from top to bottom.”
“No,” Ember protested. She rose from her seat and sighed in aggravation. “See, this right here is your problem. You can never see the big picture. You can’t see any picture outside of your own.”
“What I’m talking about is something primal,” Gilda continued, raising the volume of her voice. “None of this gish gallop that you’re proposing. No, I’m talking savagery. Pure brutal animal instinct.”
“And that seems to win out with you every time, doesn’t it?” Ember marched towards Gilda, slightly towering over the griffon as she straightened her posture and got right in her face. “You know, we’ve all evolved as creatures, Gilda.”
The griffon scoffed, turning around and walking in the direction opposite Ember. “We’ve evolved into a bunch of namby-pamby, self-analyzing dweebs who could never hope to muster up the guts and the aggression to do what needs to be done.”
Ember trailed after Gilda as she stormed off, her frustration percolating. “We’re bigger, we’re stronger, and we’re smarter!” she refuted. “Plus there’s a little thing called ‘Teamwork.’ You know, the thing that ponies seem to talk about almost as much as they talk about the Magic of Friendship?”
“Friendship doesn’t enter the equation here!” Gilda scowled. “Rainbow Dash is my friend. Only she gets to play that card. And since she’s not here, I suggest you tread softly.”
Another scoff emerged from Ember, who casually dismissed the petty threat before picking up where she left off. “Not to mention, you’re relying on the superstitious terror of your so-called ‘pure aggressors’.”
“I could respect your argument more if you were just honest.”
“Honest about what, exactly?”
“You just want it to be the way you want it to be,” Gilda stated, pointing a claw at Ember’s chest. “Admit it!”
“It’s not about what I want!” roared Ember, her vexation reached a boiling point as she took flight; or rather, she merely ascended a few feet, her leathery wings flapping loudly while she hovered above Gilda.
Never one to back down from a challenge, the griffon followed Ember’s ascent and met her in midair.
The pair exchanged vicious scowls. But whatever insults they were about to trade next were interrupted when they heard someone opening the door. Both Gilda and Ember turned their heads to see who had entered.
“Sorry, ladies,” Spike interjected. The little dragon flapped his wings as he met the pair at eye level. “I just had to ask… is this something we should all be discussing?” he probed while Gallus and Smolder peered their heads inside the room.
After a long pause, Ember eventually broke the silence by answering: “No.”
“Are you sure?” Spike asked, looking at Gilda and then back to Ember. “If you’re both having trouble working things out, we can always postpone and pick up later. Besides, I really don’t want to resort to the nuclear option by dragging Starlight into this.”
The bickering duo exchanged glances with each other and descended to ground level, returning to their seats at the map table.
“Come on, you two,” the younger dragon insisted. “Surely there’s a way you two can negotiate this treaty peacefully.”
“Negotiations?” Ember asked, shooting Spike a bewildered glare as if he had asked her the dumbest question she’d ever heard.
“We settled our negotiations hours ago,” added Gilda.
“Then, what were you two discussing?”
Another pocket of awkward silence followd as Ember and Gilda exchanged somewhat embarrassed looks.
“Whatever it is, it just sounds a little serious.”
“Well, it's mostly… theoretical,” Ember sighed.
“We were just working out a theory,” Gilda clarified. “A very important theory.”
“A theory about what, exactly?”
They exhaled, cogitating how to best explain what they were actually arguing about.
“Okay, if cave mares and space ponies got into a fight, who would win?” Gilda and Ember intently looked at Spike, waiting for the young dragon to weigh in on the debate.
“Oh,” he responded, his tone rife with confusion as well as disappointment. “And you two have been yelling at each other for 40 minutes about this?”
The lack of responses from Gilda and Ember was enough of an answer for Spike. The latter looked away, still slightly embarrassed by how juvenile the discussion sounded when it was said out loud. Conversely, Gilda stared intently at the drake, still demanding an answer.
Though Spike’s query was directed at his guests, the tone almost made it sound like he was also asking himself. It were as if he needed confirmation that there was no actual crisis, no threat of an imminent war between Griffons and Dragons.
When Spike was finally done mulling it over, he broke the awkward silence with another question. “Do the space ponies or cave mares have weapons?”
“No!” Gilda and Ember exclaimed simultaneously. It was the first thing the two agreed on seemingly all day.
“Hmmm,” the little dragon pondered, suddenly invested in ths silly argument. After thinking about it long and hard enough, Spike spoke up.
“New plan: we need to ask the others to weigh in on this.”
