Mountains were great places for thinking, but clouds were far more comfortable, especially for a brooding griffon. Gilda had some serious brooding to be done, for her day could not have been any more damaging to her ego, her image, and more importantly, her friendship with Rainbow Dash. Even as the sun began to sink into the horizon by the power of the all-mighty master race among ponies, the griffon could do nothing but brood while she attempted to make sense of the day's earlier events.

---

A few weeks back, Gilda had received in the form of a letter yet another invitation from Rainbow Dash for her to come visit Ponyville, and catch up on old times. Gilda had been unenthusiastic at the mere mention of the small town, but the prospective of taking a break from her constant training for the Valkyries, an elite group of griffon fliers comparable to the Wonderbolts as far as prestige and ability goes, was what had really deterred her from making the trip all the way to Equestria prior to this invitation. Only the best were even considered for recruits, and out of that small bunch, only the very best would hold up to standard enough to be inducted.

For reasons Gilda now had to question, she dropped her training regime and took seven days out of her schedule to fly straight to Ponyville, with as few breaks as she could manage, visit and play around with Dash for a day, and then make the long trip back to the Griffon Kingdom with what time remained, again taking as few breaks as she could manage. Because of this, she had hoped to capitalize on every moment that she had with Dash, especially with the promise of some flying time with just the two of them.

Everything begun rather nicely, starting with the largely uneventful trip to Ponyville. Gilda managed to push herself to the point in which she only had to break once in Fillydelphia for dinner before finally arriving in the general proximity, a large mountain and the city of Canterlot a major landmark that she was in the right general area.

Gilda could hardly find the place on the map before some pegasus from Cloudsdale had pointed it out to her, describing a large windmill and a tree library as two aerial landmarks to look out for. How was a griffon supposed to spot a library made out of a literal tree from the sky? It would look just like an ordinary tree from above, or at least that was the impression that Gilda originally had.

To her pleasant surprise though, with her acute vision even in the dark, she had been able to make out the unnatural internal lighting of a distinctly larger than usual tree in the middle of what looked to be a small town. Assuming that to be the library earlier mentioned, from there Gilda expanded her search out, doing a distanced fly-by of the many cloud homes until she at last spotted one that fit Dash's description of her place.

Classical styled columns, check, flowing rainbow run-off, check, and a large domed tower that served as the primary residence. Check. Although she fell asleep outside thanks to the softness of the cloud and the warm, temperate weather, the four or five hours of sleep was welcome relief, though it was abruptly interrupted by the shrill cry of the future pink mare interloper.

"Rise and shine Rainbow Dash! It's a brand new day and we have a lot of pranking-"

Gilda was peering over the side of the cloud and looking towards the source of the sound in a heartbeat, still half asleep as her senses tuned in on this disturbance. She focused in on the speaker, a pink pony with what appeared to be some sort of mask on her face.

If first impressions meant anything anymore, Gilda and this pony were doomed from the very start to not get along. A party kazoo was hung from the mare's mouth, the "mask" turned out to be some dorky shades and an obnoxious nose from some costume shop. Balloons was her cutie mark, and her mane was some sort of curly, poofy mess that spoke of unpredictable outbursts and a potential to spazz at the slightest twitch.

In short, the most uncool dork with four legs that Gilda had ever seen to actually have the nerve to speak Dash's name as if she knew her on a first name basis. As far as Gilda knew at the time, Dash would never associate herself with such a dweeb unless she was putting them to shame. The Dash she knew would have probably beaten her to the punch in sending the pony on her way. Gilda was a only a mere moment from dismissing this monstrosity when Rainbow Dash actually greeted the pony, as if she did know her on a first name basis.

"Morning Pinks!" No sooner had Rainbow Dash stated that did she swiftly fly down towards the pony, a wide grin and an excitement that defied belief. Gilda could not comprehend. Rainbow Dash knows this pony? Like, actually knows this pony? Maybe Dash was just opening with something friendly because the pony was a complete stranger. After all, the name "pinks" could refer to the pony's coat coloration.

With the target of her visit on the ground, Gilda followed shortly afterwards, though made sure to keep her distance, expecting at any moment the pink pony to get her feelings hurt.

"Gilda, this is my gal pal, Pinkie Pie."

Gal pal? As in, acquaintance? Gilda let out what she would describe as a cry of disbelief. Okay, so Dash was familiar with this Pinkie Pie. Maybe the pink pony was far cooler than she looked. Not intending on actually addressing Pinkie even still at this point, Gilda only glanced at her briefly before sending her attention elsewheres, as if she was addressing some absent audience unseen to all but herself. "Hey, what's up?"

Though Pinkie seemed to be shocked, awed even, at her mere presence, and she no longer wore that ridiculous getup on her face, Gilda still awaited to hear something redeeming that might would allow her to put two and two together and figure this pony out.

"Pinkie, this is my griffon friend, Gilda." Okay, so at least Dash made it clear that Gilda was not just some gal pal, that the two of them were actual friends. Though it seemed kind of obvious that Gilda was her "griffon friend". After all, it should be common knowledge what a griffon was, even in a land predominately pony populated.

"What's a griffon?"

What's a griffon? What's a griffon? Dash's response to that question did not matter, but the fact that the pink pony had to even ask that question, hanging around with a cool pegasus like Dash, was clear evidence that supported that Gilda's first impression on the pony was correct. That pony had to go before she cramped their style and ruined everything, but if Dash was clearly unwilling to do so, then it was up to Gilda to make sure her visit was not interfered with by the interloper who did not recognize a griffon when she saw one, nor know when to bug off.

---

Gilda's efforts were rewarded with shame, depravity, and a stormy retreat from a party supposedly thrown in her honor. And of course, what looked to be the closing door for her friendship with Dash. And yet, here she was, here in the evening, resting and brooding atop the tower Dash called home. What was she even doing here now? Clearly the pegasus had no intentions on ditching her lame friends for any length of time, and Gilda was normally not the reasoning type.

Gilda angrily looked at the pool of rainbow closer to the bottom of the tower, her eyes attempting to ignite the runoff with her frustration alone. "This blows." She flicked a bit of cloud with her talons and watches the tuft slowly descend for a few seconds before becoming a drop of water. Gilda's scowl returned as this reminded her of how swiftly things had turned from bad to worse.

The flapping of wings and the loud, angry snort of a pony turned Gilda's attention skyward. Rainbow Dash, right on cue really. The pegasus had apparently noticed the griffon atop her home and had decided to Gilda rose to her feet and flew upwards while Dash prepared a large, flat cloud for the two to sit upon.

Once both stood atop the center of the cloud, the two merely stood there, looking at each other as if one or the other was going to speak first. For the first few minutes, no words passed; Dash looked angry. Her wings were all folded up against her sides, her frown and furrowed eyebrows were sharp, and her gaze seemed to seek out Gilda's very soul, or at least some part of her mind that would make sense. Gilda returned the expression, but made sure that her eyes were also narrowed so that there would be no mistaking the object of her attention. She was not here to apologize either.

The sun finished setting before the two actually spoke, and perhaps it was the light in her eyes that had caused Dash to lose focus of her objective earlier, whatever it had been, and caused her to only stare at Gilda for the past few minutes. They stood just within arm's reach of each other, face-to-face; they were not too close nor too far from each other. All Gilda knew was that when the stars came out and the crescent moon hung overhead, the tension began to thaw with the changing temperature. They both knew that this needed to be settled, so rather than drag out the inevitable, Dash began speaking first.

"What are you doing here?" Dash straightened out her eyebrows, as if her concentration was no longer needed, but maintained her otherwise upset demeanor. "I thought this flip-flop was too lame to hang out with." Accompanying this was Dash flexing her wings in agitation, the insult likely gnawing at her for the slight bit of truth in it. Whether she admitted it to herself or not though, Gilda had no intentions on letting it end there.

"I'm here because I came to see you today, not that stupid pink pony." Gilda practically growled between these responses, the mere thought of the day's events coming back to her in full raging force. " That annoying mare purposely set me up, you know that!" Gilda jabbed her talon at Dash's chest, but the mare merely brushed it away, shaking her head. Dash still didn't believe that, it seemed.

"Pinkie Pie threw that party to try to lighten you up, not set you up to fail. Besides, you didn't need any help looking like a complete jerk. You are a jerk, and it took meeting my new friends for you to finally show your true colors."

"I'm the jerk?" Gilda dug her talons into the cloud, her anger, along with some other, much more painful emotion, beginning to well back up in her chest. That other emotion, even without acknowledgment, still seared her insides more than the fury coursing through her veins. "Dash, I fly here from halfway across the world, putting on hold my training for the Valkyries mind you, just so that we could catch up on old times, and you practically show me the door after I was attacked back there at that party. If anypony here was the jerk, it was you, you traitor."

Dash drew back in disgust, perhaps also in anger at the accusation turned around that suggested that she had betrayed whatever loyalty she owed Gilda. She stomped her hoof to the cloud and more rapidly flapped at her wings to show her agitation, her gaze never leaving Gilda's. "You treated Pinkie Pie like she was some sort of bad guy. She gave us some space, threw you a party, and even refrained from pulling all that many pranks on you. You acted like some sort of victim when the whole time you were the one trying to instigate a fight. And telling me to leave my friend's party which had been thrown in your honor just because you made yourself look like an idiot? What is wrong with you?"

"With me?" Gilda threw her talons into the air in surrender and stood up on her hind legs, feinting guilt. "I am completely in the wrong for trying to make good use of the limited time that I have with my best friend and at the same time maintain some level of dignity. Tar and pluck me while you're at it for trying to make the best of a crap scene."

Now it was Dash's turn to jab her hoof right onto Gilda's chest, though it was with enough force to nearly cause the griffon to lose her two-footed balance and fall to her back. She remained standing however, but only as she began to come back down to all fours.

"I get that you wanted to have some fun with me, but what you did back there speaks volumes more about your intent-"

What had originally been intended to be a slapping away of Dash's extended appendage as retaliation turned into a grasping motion, a vice-like grip and a pulling motion yanking the pony forwards towards Gilda, bringing the two face to face. They were so close that they could have bitten each other without craning their necks at this point, could have very well breathed the same air as each other, fish and apple breath respectively between Gilda and Dash giving a hint of the previous meal of the exhaler.

Gilda's retort thus did not need to be any greater in volume than an indoor voice, and so she could instead focus on using tone to try to get through Dash's thick skull the fault on the part of the interloper. "Hanging out here in Ponyville has made you kind of stupid hasn't it? That pink pony wants to play innocent in front of the crowd, but she set me up. She was there in the market-"

"As was, like, a tenth of all of Ponyville. I heard you yelled at Fluttershy for accidentally bumping into you. She tried to apologize, but you just roared at her in response like some wild animal. You definitely saw her coming your way, but just walked right into her anyways." Dash brought her head juts a bit more, the length of her muzzle braced against the length of Gilda's beak in what would normally be a rather unwarranted invasion of personal space. With Gilda having her right foreleg in her grasp though, it seemed only fair that Dash literally butt heads with her old friend.

"She was walking backwards in the middle of the street," Gilda retorted, the smell of Dash's apple breath reminding her clearly of the Marketplace incident. "I don't care if she was guiding Princess Celestia herself, you don't just walk backwards through a busy street and not look where you're going. And if you are gonna do some stupid shit like that, you at least have the spine to stand your ground when rightfully confronted by your carelessness. From what I've seen, most of your new friends are-"

"Are what?" Dash practically challenged Gilda to finish that sentence as she pressed ever harder against Gilda's head. "What are they?"

Gilda was not well known for turning down challenges. She would ensure to speak the first sentence slowly, to make sure every syllable was properly enunciated for effect. "Lame."

From there, Gilda returned to a more natural pace of speech, but she made sure to include the disdain that accompanied the thought of Dash's new friends. "They have no competitive spirit, no backbone, hardly even fit to breathe the same air as the likes of us." Gilda both shoved forward and released Dash at the same time. "That's what they are."

Dash did not stumble back more than a few feet, acquiring her footing very swiftly after this forced distancing. She continued with her piercing gaze even as Gilda continue with a warning. "If you don't watch out, they will convert you too. If we were in Cloudsdale, you can bet that pathetic pony crowd wouldn't have made any of the cuts to the top."

"You have got it all wrong." Dash stated it firmly, plainly, and with a fiery gaze, wings outstretched in defiance. Generalizing all of Dash's friends to be like Fluttershy had apparently been a step in the wrong direction to proving the point that Gilda's actions were hardly harsh and unjustified. "Fluttershy is incredibly sensitive, but the rest of my friends would have bucked your face in for coming at them like that. Unlike you, they actually care about the feelings of other ponies around them-"

"And not being a pony means I don't count right?" Gilda snorted, some bits of smoke coming from her nose as a result. Was that what this was about? Dash taking the side of her new pony friends because they were ponies in a pony town? "Being humiliated and brushed off, all one after the other and in less than one hour, all by the pony I flew all the way here to see is completely all right with you as long as your other friends don't smell their own shit. What a joke."

Gilda turned away from Dash and walked a few feet towards an edge of the cloud, wrapping her wings about herself in a sort of self-embrace. Gilda's chest seemed to tighten, the back of her throat felt like lurching air, and her eyes were beginning to water as she sat down, peering over the edge of the cloud at the darkened cloud home below. Blinking away, she flicked her tail irritably at the silence that had filled the previous gap.

"I'll admit that I made a mistake going to that party, knowing damn well that it was nothing more than a setup. But I figured you at least would have my back. Instead, you just left me hanging out to dry."

Gilda briefly looked over her shoulder at Dash, seeing the mare beginning to relax her body posture at last, a sign of her somewhat giving way to the sincerity in Gilda's statement. Gilda then turned away again, angrily attempting to once again set afire the pool of rainbow that flowed towards the ground below with her gaze alone. Wanting to rid herself of the bitter taste of betrayal after a few moments of this staring, Gilda spat in the general direction of the pool below, managing to land her shot directly into the rainbow pool.

Dash sighed, a few flaps of her wings signaling that she was approaching from behind. She seemed to be approaching Gilda's left flank. "Gilda, you said that you were down for a good prank. Like I said back there, not all of them were meant for you. And some of those were truly just accidents."

Now here on the edge of the cloud, Dash sat down next to Gilda, though her body seemed to have some tension remaining in it, her wings once again tucked tightly about her person. Gilda turned her head away in rejection of eye contact, and so that the fringe signs of tears could not be spotted. Closing her eyes and then re-opening them, Gilda sighed, though she didn't even have the heart to really let out an angry breath within it.

"A good prank, yes, I enjoy. Not a series of pranks all aimed at humiliating me." Gilda refused to comply with the notion that it was all an accident, a coincidence. Pinkie had clearly set her up from the very start of that engagement with that buzzer trick. Pinkie knew that Dash had set all those pranks up as a gag for the party guests, and she had personally had a hand in maneuvering Gilda into each and every single one of them so that it would only appear as bad luck.

But maybe that was giving the pink pony quite the credit in hindsight. After all, that would have taken some level of cunning and, to some degree, composure to pull it off as well as she did. In hindsight, those pranks were not half bad, and seemed extremely well planned out considering the order of events that the party had scheduled. Or maybe her special talent involved pranks, party throwing, and being incredibly annoying, all while maintaining an air of innocence among the ones she calls friends.

Maybe that was why she had been so effective in humiliating her. Gilda had vastly underestimated the pony when they first met, but now, after having seen the pony in action, she saw Pinkie Pie in a far different light. She realized that there had been far more than what met the eye about the pony, and it was perhaps because of that that Dash could not see what was so malicious about what she so clearly did.

A few feathers at first, and then an entire wing brushed against Gilda's left side, causing the griffon to spread her own wings out, thoughts of conspiracy temporarily taking flight from her mind. With only a moment's more hesitation, she found her left wing over Dash's back, Dash's right wing at her back, and the distinct pulling that brought the two together in a half-wing embrace. It was strange being this close to Dash and still not directly looking at her, and even stranger that this gesture was actually making her feel a little better.

"I'm sorry that things worked out the way that they did. We can always try again later after this blows over. Next time Pinkie might can be a little more understanding of your ways, and you can try being a little nicer-"

"No, Dash. I'm sorry for calling your pranks lame, but it's not that simple." And just like that, the embrace felt icy all of a sudden, contrived and designed. The pink pony would never understand her nor her mannerisms, and if she could help it, she would never allow amends between Gilda and Dash. There could be no next time under those conditions, because that pink pony was an adversary on her own turf, and even if she were to bring the pony to her turf, Dash would never forgive Gilda for doing serious harm to her for as long as they were friends.

Gilda looked towards Dash, noticing a slight amount of watering in her eyes as well. The tightness in Gilda's chest changed to pain, but not the kind of sharp pain that would have one flying off to the hospital and coughing up fluid. It was the kind of pain that came with emotional ache, emotional distress. Unwilling to be restrained any longer, Gilda's eyes returned to their previously watery state, the griffon once again having to blink them away. Something had to give.

"When we started out at Flight Camp, we were just two kids looking to liven up the daily regimen of fly, train, eat, sleep, rinse, and repeat. To become the best, and have some fun on our way there. It's been nearly ten years now since the last day we saw each other face to face, with letters the only communication we have had since. We've walked very different paths since then. We have both changed since then. Our circles of friends would probably kill each other off if they were to be trapped in a single room together."

Here Gilda would laugh a little, though she noticed that Dash did not seem to share in her humor. "It's probably best that we accept that, and everything that goes along with it."

Gilda and Dash broke the wing hug almost without thinking, as if a cue had been given that the sentiment was doing more harm than good and needed to cease. Folding their wings back to their sides for a few seconds, Dash frowned and fervently blinked away tears.

"But, Gilda," Dash protested, flapping her wings in in stubborn resistance to resigning to end their relationship here. "We've grown apart, but that doesn't mean that we can't be friends. It would take some work on everyone's part, but I'm sure we could make it work-"

"Dash, stop. Just stop-"

"How about you stop!" Dash pushed Gilda further to the right, apparently the melancholy moment returning to hostility. "We could all be really good friends, but you just aren't willing to try. All you would need to do is be a bit nicer, and apologize to Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. Not that hard."

Gilda did not stumble very far, though her back was now dangerously close to the edge of the cloud. Gilda grasped a piece of cloud as she regained her footing and her temper, the condensed water returning to liquid state in her grip. When she then chucked it over the side of the cloud, it was more like flinging water than anything else. Now nearly a pony's length away from Dash, the cool breeze that had snuck in only fanned the increasing flames.

"I would rather be clipped of my wings than apologize to Pinkie Pie." Gilda spun fiercely towards Dash so that she could now face her, her anger beginning to replace her earlier anguish. "That pony is the reason we are even having this talk. Had she just butt out for a single day, we could have had our time together, I would have headed out in the morning, and she could have had you all to herself afterwards. But no, she was determined to ruin this occasion and separate us-"

"For the last time, Pinkie Pie did not set you up!" Dash insisted, wings flared out, her voice rising to near shout levels. Her legs were spread out as if she were preparing to charge forward. "It was all an accident, by dumb bad luck. She did not mean for you to blow it all out of proportion and falsely accuse her of things she didn't do. You did that on your own."

Gilda snorted, flicking her tail irritably. Pain replaced with passionate fire, and tenderness overcome by violent anger. "I did what any self-respecting griffon would do when under attack like that. I did not just turn the other cheek after that last straw, that last joke that she played directly on me. You believe what you want, but I will never stoop so low as to give her the pleasure of my tongue on her hooves while I apologize for being myself. The best don't grovel, nor do they seek the forgiveness of those less than them; that's something I learned back at Camp, and something that you seem to have forgotten-"

Gilda had barely gotten the words from her beak when in a flash of bright blue and a myriad of other colors, a cyan hoof struck her across the face. The strike was fast and forceful, sending her off of the cloud and plummeting below in a mild haze. Midnight blue and a few brighter than usual stars lit up Gilda's field of vision for a few minutes while she vainly flapped her wings in order to slow her descent and perhaps regain some of her bearings.

She landed on the front path of Dash's home with a pooft sound, the cloud being a far better place to land than the ground below it. Even though she landed on a cloud, the landing still hurt in more ways than one, the idea of Dash getting a sucker punch a kick to her already limping ego. Shaking her head clear, Gilda watched Dash land a few feet in front of her, fury present on her face while she looked down upon the griffon.

"The best also don't bully those they see as weaker than them, nor do they lie just to make themselves look good. If you can't see past your own issues, then maybe it is for the best that we part ways, because I don't need a liar and a bully for a friend."

Gilda rose to her feet, huffing and puffing in anger. She brought a talon to her open beak, wiping a few drops of blood off in the process. After a brief inspection of her talon, she noticed Dash lowering her head somewhat, as if she was expecting some sort of physical retaliation from Gilda. "Alright, fine. Unlike your friend Pinkie, I can take a hint."

Dash seemed startled, as evidenced from the shocked look on her face and her rising to a stand rather than crouch. Perhaps Dash had been expecting a fight. Maybe she wanted Gilda to attempt to let loose on her. Maybe she wanted a murder attempt from the griffon so that she could further heap onto the pile of wrongs that Gilda had supposedly committed in a single day.

Gilda was not going to give any of that to her. "She started it by butting into our time together, and I guess she wanted it finished with me leaving for good. Well, I guess she has me beat this round."

Gilda took to the air with a mighty leap, flapping her wings fervently to hover, looking at her former friend's scowl with a detached gaze. "When you see her for what she truly is, then just shoot me a letter. I'll gladly help you sort her out, and fly against you just like the old days. Till then, good luck."

And she meant it. For now, Dash was blind to the malice of Pinkie PIe and the wrong of the entire day's events. Dash was never the brightest pegasus around, and Gilda had never been the brightest griffon; Dash not comprehending, not believing really, the truth of the story was not entirely because Dash purposely put on blinders. She was simply ignorant to it, like Gilda had been when she first encountered Pinkie Pie.

But with time, Dash might would see the truth. She might would see Pinkie Pie for the conniving interloper she was today. Even Gilda had been tricked on first sight into thinking that she was just some dumb dweeb, and as a consequence, paid for her prejudice and carelessness with a childhood bond and large chunks of her dignity.

With this in mind, Gilda set off, heading upwards towards the starry sky. Before she flew too far, she heard the sound of wing flaps, which signaled that Dash flying after her. Though comparable in speeds, the cyan pegasus was still just a little bit faster, and as such easily intercepted her by cutting her off mid-flight. Gilda stopped flying forward, and merely watched the defiant Rainbow Dash stare her down, dead set on having the last word. "When you decide to let it go, and want to make amends. Just shoot me a letter, and I'll help you patch things up with Pinkie and Fluttershy. Till then, good luck to you too, Gilda."

And then Dash flew to the side, once again permitting Gilda a straight flight path onwards. It was no apology, but Gilda did not expect one, nor did she really want one. Their old friendship she knew and held dear was gone, with only a parting challenge to see who would remain stubborn the longest the only token of remembrance that she could take home with her. Gilda proceeded to fly on ahead, the conversation concluded, the visit over, with now all that remained to look forward to was the long flight home.

And yet, though that door had been closed, it had not been sealed off for good. And that, oddly enough, was very satisfying to Gilda. It was a long flight home from here, and it would no doubt be a long time before she returned to Ponyville much less Equestria. She had just closed the door to one of her oldest friendships, and though that weighed her body down much like dead weights tied to her talons, she was uplifted by that simple fact confirmed by their parting words to each other. That fact alone brought both a small smile and a steady stream of tears as she flew through the night sky, wanting nothing more than the day of revelation to quickly come.

For Gilda could not wait for the time when they could re-open the door to their friendship again in good spirits.