Author's Notes:

Hey everyone, thanks so much for waiting for so long. I've finally finished this chapter and as a reward for your patience, I have a very special extra chapter for you all.

“Yeah, I know it's hard, but preening is important! If you don't do it, not only will your flight suck, but you can get all types of wing diseases!” Gilda scowled slightly as I attempted to straighten some feathers that she told me were called “Primaries”.

“I know, it's just really weird, OK? I've never even seen anyone do it before and it’s really weird!” I said, mouth tasting vaguely of feathers. I yelped in pain a bit as I pulled one a little too hard.

“No, don't just pull, twist and pull! You don't want to pull it out if it's not broken!” She groaned, clearly getting a little impatient.

“This is my first time, gimme a break. It's not as easy as it looks. Well, I guess it is for you, but it's not as easy for me. I'm not even completely used to this weird beak thingy-”

“It's just called a beak.”

“I wasn't born with one! I… could you help me? Please?”

Gilda rolled her eyes and then smiled softly at me. She was making a good effort to not let small things like this get to her. I could tell that acting brash and angry was how she used to treat others a lot, so seeing this change in her really did mean a lot to me. It was even better that she was doing this in part for me. She leant forward and began working on my wing with her beak, clutching feathers lightly and then both twisting and sliding along the feather until it was flush straight with my wing again. She gripped on a small feather that looked quite ragged and pulled quickly, plucking it free before spitting it out. She had told me previously the importance of getting rid of damaged feathers and I knew that it was necessary, even if it hurt a bit. Luckily, it was a kind of satisfying pain, sort of like removing an old bandage or popping a pimple, so I didn't mind her doing it. Gilda pulled at another that was much more sensitive than the other and I yelped in pain.

“Ah, quit your complaining, it'll be over in a minute.”

“Sorry.”

“You wanna know something, Sky?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Preening someone else isn't something we usually do in Griffon culture.”

“O-oh, sorry, I-”

“You didn't let me finish. It's not something we usually do, unless… You're intimate with that Griffon.”

“Oh.” I smiled nervously and turned away so that Gilda couldn't see my cheeks turn bright red.

She chuckled and continued to work away at my wings. It took quite a while to finish it, but after about an hour of combined work on my wings, it was finally finished. I spread my wings out and flapped them a couple of times, smiling at how pristine they looked. I'd never seen wings like this before! I glanced over at Gilda and saw her smiling slightly, but I also saw a little bit of sadness in her eyes.

“Is everything ok?” I asked, closing my wings and walking closer to her.

“Yeah, it's… Just…” She trailed off, looking for what to say before settling on just holding out her clearly damaged wing and wincing in pain a bit.

“Oh gosh, I'm so sorry.”

“Heh, no worries. I'm just glad to help, especially when you have no idea what you're doing.” She grinned, but I could tell this was affecting her more than she let on. I walked closer to her, her smile fading as I got closer.

“Wh-what?” She stammered.

“You know what, Gilda. I can tell that something's wrong.”

“I… I'm sorry, Sky. Flying is just… very important to me, ya know? It's a huge part of my life and if I wasn't a Griffon, I would have joined Dash with her dream of joining the wonderbolts, the greatest flying team in all Equestria!”

“Well from what I've heard, Dash doesn't deserve someone as awesome as you as a friend.”

“You know that isn't true, Sky. I treated Dash terribly. She was a great friend and I treated both her and her other friends like crap all because I was jealous. She didn't deserve me as a friend, it wasn't the other way around.”

“That's not true. You just need to show her that you've changed for the better, OK? It's been such a short time, but you have changed! You've admitted that you need to change and from what I've seen, that change has already started! If it hadn't started, then you wouldn't have been this nice to me, a total stranger!”

“I know… You're right. It doesn't stop me from being pissed off at myself though.”

“I know, being angry at yourself is fine, just please don't let that control your decisions. You've got… Me now. You can talk to me about your worries and stop bottling up your anger. I know from personal experience that bottling up your problems and never talking to anyone about it can only hurt you more.” I walked towards her and put a claw on her shoulder.

“Thanks, ya big dork.” Gilda said, wiping her eyes and smiling at me. She leant forward and placed a kiss on my cheek.

“You know, I'm really glad you dropped out of that tree. And I'm really glad that you look this hot as a Griffon. I'm just really… ” She bit her lip, trying to figure out what to say next.

“What's wrong? Remember what I said before about bottling it up?”

“Yeah… Ok, fine. I'm scared, alright? I'm scared of losing you. I'm scared you'll want to go back to being human, and I'm scared you'll want to be a guy again. I mean, you're totally hot like this, but it's not just that. I can't force myself to be attracted to guys, and if you went back to normal, I'd lose you.”

“Gilda, we've been through this! I don't have anything to go back to! My old life sucked!”

“What about your old friends? What about your old job? What about your old gender?”

“I hated my old job! I hardly had any friends and I'm not attached to my old gender. My life was monotony of “get up, eat, go to work, go home, eat, sleep” over and over and over. I don't want that life! If I can make myself a life here with you, then I'll be happy. If I can stay with the first person to treat me with any respect at all, then I don't need my old friends. I was always looking for an excuse to drop my old life and move on, and now I've got that chance. I'm not giving that up!”

I looked up at Gilda and saw that her eyes were watering and her lip trembling slightly. What I had said had clearly done something to her and I walked over to comfort the almost crying Griffon. I put an arm around her and hugged her close as she finally let out all the tears that she had been holding in. She sobbed quietly as I held her close, letting the tears soak into the feathers on my neck.

“It's OK, I'm sorry if I said something wrong, Gilda. I didn't mean to.”

“N-no, you did nothing wrong, S-Sky. I just… I feel so selfish, like I'm forcing you into staying by saying things like “I love you” and stuff like that. I dunno.”

“You're not forcing me. I was just as bitter and alone as you before I came here, and honestly, this is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Not only have I got a new start here, but I've also got someone amazing to stick by my side. I'm not letting go of such an amazing chance that easily.”

Gilda sniffed and raised her face to mine.

“Do you mean that?”

“Of course I do. I'm gonna confess something to you, Gilda.”

“What?”

“Before I came here… I kinda hated birds.”

“It's a good thing I'm not a bird then, right?”

“Well, I hated more than just birds. I hated most animals that weren't human.”

“Wait, does that mean you hated me?”

“No, not exactly. I was definitely surprised to see a creature that I had only thought of as a myth standing before me, but I kinda forgot about all my dislikes of animals when I changed. I started being… attracted to you.”

“Just like that?”

“That's how it seems. It's just some sought of weird irony that I spent my whole life disliking animals only to find myself indescribably attracted to one. I never properly thanked you for saving my life before, but I really am grateful. If you hadn't saved me, I never would have met you, I never would have turned into a Griffon and I never would have fallen… In love.”

She sniffed again and placed another light kiss on my cheek. I smiled back at her and returned the kiss before reluctantly letting Gilda pull away.

“Thanks, Sky. We'd best get a move on. I wanna make a little bit of ground before night time and we've already used up quite a bit of time preening your wings. Speaking of wings, did you wanna try flying any time soon?”

I looked up at the sky with a minor sense of dread, remembering my plummet from a few days back.

“Maybe when you get your flight back, I don't really want to fly up there all alone.”

“Fair enough. Now let's get a move on! I wanna get to Ponyville before I'm seventy!” Gilda turned and grinned at me before beginning to walk forward towards our goal with me following not far behind

It took us a total of four whole days since we originally set off, but we're finally here! We walked over the edge of one last hill and saw the expanse of cottage style houses beneath us. Gilda stopped at the top of the ridge and looked out over the town that we had spent so long trying to reach.

“Hey Gilda… You know you don't have to apologize to Dash, right?”

She sighed heavily and closed her eyes, breathing in the air of the countryside. When she opened them again, I saw that tears had formed.

“I have to prove it to her. I have to prove it to myself that I've changed. I'm not the cruel loner that left a few days ago.”

“I'll be with you the whole time, okay? You don't have to do it alone.”

“Thanks, Sky. For real. I don't think I would have realized my mistakes had you not dropped into my life out of nowhere.”

I smiled warmly and kissed her on the cheek, earning me a blush and a kiss back.

“Alright.” She breathed in before continuing. “Let's do this.”

As we walked through the town, we started getting all these weird looks. I couldn't tell if it was because these ponies had never seen a Griffon before or that they knew who Gilda was and were surprised she had the balls to come back. If word had spread all the way around town about what Gilda had done, then it was no surprise that these ponies would be apprehensive about two Griffons walking around. I looked to my side at Gilda who was wearing a blank face but I could tell that she was holding back a scowl. After a short walk through the town, we reached a clearing with no houses around for a few hundred meters. I looked over at Gilda, confused.

“Uhh, Gilda? Where's the house?”

She pursed her lips and looked upwards. I followed her eyes to a huge floating mansion with rainbow colored waterfalls pouring down the side.

“Holy shit! What is she, a millionaire? That house is incredible!”

“Nah, it's made out of cloud. Pegasus ponies can move clouds and stuff, so she probably made that herself.”

“Woah… Still, that is incredible. I've never seen anything like I before!”

“Yeah, well it's a problem for us.”

“Huh? Why?”

“I can't fly and you don't know how. There's no way for us to get up there.”

“Oh… crap.”

Gilda sighed and turned around.

“C’mon, there's more than one pony I gotta apologize to, and this one actually lives on the ground.”

We approached this massive store with candy themed decorations all over it. I gaped in awe at the extravagance that these ponies went into when designing their buildings, and this one was absolutely insane! A smell of baked treats wafted from the building, even through closed doors and I breathed in heavily, savoring the incredible smell.

“C’mon, stop gawking.” Gilda said from the entrance to the building and I rushed to catch up with her.

She pushed open the door and a bell tinkled as we went inside. Surprisingly, the store was empty, save a singular pink pony behind the register. As soon as we walked in, the pony gasped loudly and in a split second, was two centimeters away from my face.

“Hi!” She squeaked loudly. “My name’s Pinkie Pie and I've never met you before, so you must be a new friend! I love meeting new friends! I can't wait to throw you a “welcome to ponyville” party with cake and streamers and lollipops and-”

“Pinkie!” A voice shouted from behind us. “Get away from them!”

I turned around to see a purple pony with a glowing horn on her head. I opened my voice to speak only to be lifted up into the air and pushed out the doors of the store. I glanced over to see that Gilda was in the same predicament as me and was struggling against the force that held us.

“Twilight, wait!” She shouted, attempting to grasp the ponies attention.

“I don't want to hear it, Gilda! I'm not letting you hurt Pinkie any more!”

“Please, let me explain! I'm sorry!” As soon as those words left her mouth, we stopped and the purple pony who I could only assume was Twilight turned toward us.

“Wh-what?” She stammered with a dumbfounded look on her face.

“I came back to apologize! The Griffon you met a few days ago… That's not the real me! I'm better than that and I let my petty jealousy get the better of me. Please let us down, Twilight.”

The glow on Twilight’s horn lessened and we slowly dropped to the ground. Gilda groaned as she landed, the land clearly doing something to her hurt wings.

“Thank you.” Gilda said, brushing down her coat.

“I'm giving you the benefit of of the doubt here, Gilda. You better explain yourself. Who is this other Griffon with you?” She motioned toward me with a hoof.

“She's… A friend. Her name’s Sky. In fact, she's the biggest reason why I had the confidence to come back and apologize.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow and glanced to Gilda’s wing.

“What happened to your wing?”

“Well, I kinda… damaged it saving Sky. I caught her when she was falling and we smashed into the ground really fast.”

“But she has wings too, couldn't she have stopped herself from falling?”

“It's… Kind of a long story, but that's not the reason why I'm here! I truly am sorry and I know the way I acted was horrible and mean. I should have accepted that I wasn't Dash’s only friend anymore and used that as an opportunity to make new friends instead of try to take Dash away! I'm sorry!” Gilda shouted, out of breath after her mini rant.

Suddenly, a pink blur and then Gilda was almost knocked over in a hug from behind.

“I forgive you!” The pink pony who had Gilda in a vice like hug shouted.

“P - pinkie!” Twilight lifted her off of Gilda with her magic. “Gilda’s damaged her wings, the last thing she needs is a hug from you making it worse!”

“I'm sorry!” She said, struggling mid air like we had done not 30 seconds before. “I'm also sorry for being so silly before! I should have known that you'd just want to spend time with Dash after not seeing her for so long!”

“It's okay, Pinkie, I'm sorry too for being so cruel to you all. I just… I really need to apologize to Dash.”

“I'll go get her. Be right back.” Twilight lowered Pinkie Pie before her horn lit up up and she teleported away. Gilda had told me that this world was full of magical beings, and I'd already experienced quite a bit of it myself, but It still shocked me a bit to see teleportation in person.

As soon as she was gone, Pinkie appeared in front of me again.

“Hey! So what's your name? I told you mine before, my names Pinkie Pie, but I didn't get yours.” She blurted out without breathing once and grinned widely when she was done.

“Um, Sky.”

“Hi Um Sky! I can't wait to throw you one of my super duper Pinkie Pie Parties! (Patent pending). Oooh, and Gilda too! I gotta throw her a “Welcome Back to Ponyville” party! This is gonna be so great!”

I looked over at Gilda who just shrugged in response. I glanced up to the sky and saw a small dot flying towards us. I squinted to try and see what it was, but the glare from the sun wasn't helping at all. I tapped Gilda on the shoulder who turned, looked surprised and then sullen.

“That must be Dash.” She put glumly. “Here we go.”

After a few more seconds, the rainbow maned pegasus slammed down onto the ground with an angry scowl on her face and stomped toward Gilda. She stopped right in front of her with her nostrils flaring. Not two seconds after she arrived, there was a flash of purple light and twilight teleported in a few meters behind us.

“I'm sorry Gilda, I tried to stop her but-”

“You!” Rainbow shouted right in Gilda’s face. “Come to shout at my friends again, huh?”

Gilda returned the angry look and butted heads with the pony.

“You're one to talk about “shouting at friends.”. Or do you not think of me as a friend anymore? I'm back in Ponyville for two seconds and-”

“GILDA STOP!” I screamed over the two bickering girls.

“Gilda! You didn't come all this way back to antagonize Dash again, remember? And Dash, give Gilda the benefit of the doubt and listen to what she has to say, okay?” I was angry and panting, shooting a glare at both of them, who looked back, surprised that such a voice could come from someone like me.

Gilda rubbed the back of her neck and looked down guiltily, Dash doing the same after realizing her folly.

“Dash… I… I really did want to apologize. I realize now how selfish and jealous I was being and I definitely shouldn't have taken that anger out on your friends. They were just trying to be welcoming and friendly and all I did was throw that back in their faces. I'm sorry, Dash, will you forgive me?” Gilda looked up at Dash with what I could only describe was her version of puppy dog eyes.

“I accept your apology, Gil. I'm… really sorry stuff ended the way it did and… I'm sorry too. I should have known that you would want to spend a lot of time around me after not seeing me for so long and I should have asked Pinkie not to bother us.”

“Thanks, Dash. I still have to apologize to Fluttershy too. She didn't deserve to get shouted at either. I owe all of your friends an apology.”

“Fluttershy’s out of town at the moment, but she should be back in a few days.” Twilight answered for us, walking forward and joining us, clearly relieved that things were looking up.

“So…” Dash said awkwardly, eager to change the subject. “Who's hot stuff over here.” Dash “whispered” and motioned towards me. I blushed at the notion but stood silent.

“Oh, that's Sky. Long story short, I saved her from plummeting to her death and now we're… Together.”

“Ooh, you always were one to work quickly. Or is she a floozy?”

“Hey!” My cheeks must have been flush red by now. “I am not a floozy! I just happen to appreciate having my life saved, thank you very much.”

“Speaking of that, why didn't you just fly to safety?” Twilight asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Um…” I trailed off, thinking about how to word my response. “I'm not really from around here and when Gilda saved me, I wasn't exactly the same I am now. I was more like some sort of bipedal ape thingy called a human and I came from what I can only assume is an entirely different world from this one. When Gilda caught me, I landed In a patch of these blue leaves that Gilda called-”

“Poison Joke.” Twilight interrupted. “I had a feeling it had something to do with that plant.”

“Yeah, that stuff. I don't think Gilda was affected, cos she landed just outside the patch, but as you can see, it turned me into a Griffon. And a girl. Did I mention I wasn't a girl before?”

“No you didn't.” Twilight said with with a curious hint to her voice. “Hmm… Interesting. Well, I can go get Zecora to whip up some of the poison joke cure and we'll get you back to normal in-”

“No!” I exclaimed as shocked Twilight into stopping her sentence.

“Oh. Why not?” Twilight inquired.

“Because… Gilda isn't attracted to guys. I didn't have anything going for me in my old world and meeting Gilda has given me a new start. I wasn't overly attached to my dick, so that doesn't bother me either.”

“Well that's perfectly reasonable.” Twilight put bluntly and smiled. “I would still like to run some tests to see if I can confirm this whole “other world” theory of yours and that might involve curing you of the poison joke’s affects. Temporarily, of course!”

“Well, as long as it's only temporary. I've gotten pretty attached to this new body and I'd rather keep it and Gilda.”

“Me too.” Gilda stepped beside me and gave me a quick peck on the cheek.

“Never took you for the smoochy, lovey dovey type, Gil.” Dash “whispered” again and nudged Gilda, earning her a less than careful punch back.

After our meeting with Dash and the others, Gilda went off with Dash to have her wing checked out before going out for drinks while I went with Twilight to do some tests.

“So, Gil.” Dash said after a long drink of her milkshake. “What have you been up to since you dropped out of flight school? We didn't actually get a lot of time to catch up last time we talked, what with all that other stuff going on.”

Gilda chuckled and took a sip from her drink before answering.

“Well, I took a couple of weather jobs here and there, had a few other partners that didn't really last long. Honestly, I was just with them for the sake of being with someone.”

“Any other Griffons?”

“Nah, just ponies. Half of them were fascinated in my “exotic” body rather than actually attracted to me too. Unfortunately, finding other Griffons who are attracted to girls is kinda hard, seeing as it's not exactly accepted.”

“Yeah, I think you told me about that before. It's a good thing Sky wasn't originally a Griffon or she might have been raised on the same ideals as other Griffons.”

“Yeah…”

“Gil, I… I'm really glad you came back. I felt horrid for days after you left and kept thinking “What if I stood up for her?”, ya know? I feel like the worst friend ever for saying all those things to you and pulling all those pranks on you even though I could tell you were in a shitty mood.”

“No, Dash, you didn't do anything wrong. I was just jealous of the fact that you had friends that weren't me. If I wasn't being so rash and mean, then I probably wouldn't have reacted the way I did. That's all on me, not you at all.”

“It's not all on you. Both of us are hardly perfect and we’re both as hard headed. I'm just glad you came back. Thanks for giving me another chance.”

“No problem, Dash. I'm still totally gonna whoop your ass in a race when my wing is healed though.”

“You're on, Bird Brain.”

Meanwhile, over at Twilight’s library/home/study, I was sitting in a pool of this quite pleasant smelling mixture. I would have tried to enjoy it had I not known that soon it would be stripping me of the body I had only really just gotten used to in a few minutes.

“So how long does this usually take?” I asked from my seat in the cramped bath.

“Hmm, well when me and my friends were affected, it only took a few minutes, but your bodies response to the cure will either confirm or deny a particular theory I have about your kind.”

“And what is that theory?”

“The theory is, put simply, that humans are more susceptible to magic than other beings from this world. Having never been in contact with any magic before, it would be reasonable to guess that your body is affected more by magic, which explains why you were more greatly affected by the poison joke than other ponies and why the cure might take longer to work.”

Twilight pulled out a stopwatch with her magic and pressed a button on it.

“So the cure worked at about this time into our bath for the rest of us when we were affected, and if your changes start to revert any time soon, that would deny that theory. Another point to consider is the level of changes that happened to you. With my friends and I, the changes were much more simple, like Dash’s upside down wings and Fluttershy’s deeper voice. Your change, a complete and total species change, is much more drastic than what happened to us. This supports the “weaker to magic” theory even more.”

I nodded, having understood what Twilight was trying to describe.

“I want to thank you, by the way. It's not every day that you get the chance to inspect a being from a different world.”

“No problem, but don't get too attached. As soon as we're done here, I'm changing back.” I said and scratched an itch on the back of my neck.

“That's reasonable.” Twilight smiled and looked at her stopwatch again. “Hmm… three minutes in and no changes documented yet. Do you feel any different?”

“Not really.” I shrugged.

“Well, if you don't mind me asking a few questions about your world while we wait, that would be appreciated. Feel free to interrupt me if changes start, I can always ask you questions later.”

“Uh, sure. Not sure how much I can tell you, I wasn't exactly what you'd regard as “smart” in my world.”

“No problem, any information is great. So, number one, sentient beings. Any others besides humans?”

“Nope. Ponies on my world are nothing more than farm animals really.”

“Wow. OK, so what about Griffons?”

“Griffons are a myth on my world, someone probably found a bunch of jumbled bones and thought they were from a magical bird-lion thing. Probably don't exist at all.”

“Interesting. So what did you do for a living.”

“Uh, this might sound weird, but I worked at a place called a “zoo” where people came to see rare and exotic animals. It's kinda cruel, but I needed the cash and a friend set me up with that job.”

“We have zoo’s here too, just no sentient creatures are on display. They're more of an endangered animal reserve, with the tourism part there to raise money for taking care of the animals.”

“Yeah, I'd like to think that's how the zoo I worked at was, but unfortunately not.”

“Ah. I see. So what about romantic partners?”

“What about them?”

“Do you keep them for life? Do you have marriage ceremonies?”

“Uh, yeah. Or at least that's what I'd like to think. A lot of unfaithful people out there who sleep around.” I said just as an intense itch spread up my neck. I scratched at it in a futile attempt to relieve the itch, but it didn't do anything to help.

“What's wrong? Have the changes begun?”

“I think so… Maybe? I can't see my neck.”

Twilight stepped behind me and clicked the button on her stopwatch, confirming my fears.

“They definitely have started, and it took eight more minutes to start than it did for my friends and I.” She pulled out a notepad and quill before writing down something hastily.

“Try your best to describe your changes.”

“Uh, it's kinda ITCHY- Oh god.” I choked as my voice suddenly deepened.

“Continue.”

“Um, I can feel my hands starting to soften now, and the fur on my paws is… Oh god its going back inside me. Eww.”

Twilight circled me, marking down the changes as they turned up. After a short while, my hands and feet were back to normal and the fur was almost completely gone. My wings shrunk speedily until they were completely gone and my back was smooth again.

“Oh god this is freaky. I'm really glad I only have to do this one more time.”

Twilight nodded but didn't distract herself from her note taking.

“I can feel something happening to my groin now. It's almost like a bloating feeling, like reverse suction or something.”

I looked down at my groin and winced as my balls plopped out again and my clit grew out into a penis again. This whole experience was made even weirder by the fact that Twilight had her face uncomfortably close to my changing genitals. The feeling was so strange that I hadn't even noticed my face start to change back to be much more like a humans.

It took a while, but the changes were finally over. I looked myself up and down, kind of nonplussed by my returned form. It didn't feel weird per se, but it did remind me that Gilda wouldn't like to see me again like this, so neither did I.

“This is incredible!” Twilight exclaimed, writing away on her notepad. “I've never seen such advanced anatomy besides Ponies before! Opposable thumbs, mostly hairless besides head and pubic regions, sophisticated ears… I must say, your race is interesting to no end! Now I'm going to run a magical scan on you. That will tell me if there's any trace of dark magic, chaos magic or even possibly regular magic on you.”

As she finished, a purple glow engulfed both me and her horn, pulses of light flowing over me every few seconds. After a few minutes, the glow cut of and Twilight wrote something down with a frustrated look on her face.

“What's wrong?”

“Well it seems my fears have been confirmed. Besides the nature magic from the poison joke, there is no magic residue left on you, which means one of two things. The first being the magic residue has worn out, which is incredibly unlikely, or… You came here through a non magical random temporal rift, meaning a wormhole opened up randomly and sucked only you through. It is an extremely rare occurrence and only has it been documented to pull a living being through once before, who was unfortunately dead on arrival.”

“So… I'm stuck here?”

“I'm afraid so. Just as well you're happy with your form as a Griffon as Integrating with pony society as a human might prove to be more than a challenge.”

I let the fact settle a little. I mean, I was content with my body and with this new world that I was was a part of, but it did hit me kinda hard to know that I'd never be able to go back if I wanted to.

“I'm sorry, Sky. Would you like to go back to being a Griffon now? I'm done taking notes for the time being.”

“Yeah, I think I would. I'm sorry, Twilight. I didn't even really think about the fact that it would be impossible for me to return.”

“I can imagine how you must feel, but don't forget that you have friends here. I am willing to get to know you, and I'm sure that Rainbow and my other friends will be welcoming as well. It's not much of a consolation, but you and Gilda are more than welcome to take the spare room in my library until we can find a place for you to live.”

“Thanks, Twilight.” I wiped a tear out of my eye. “I'm just also worried about what Gilda wants to do now that she's here and her wing is healing properly. I don't know where she wants to go or if she'll still want to be with me, you know?”

“I'm sure that wherever she wants to go, she'll want you with her. I only knew Gilda for a short while, but the way she was acting around you definitely made me think that you were special to her. I doubt she'll give you up easily.” Twilight smiled warmly as her horn lit up, pulling a jar off of a nearby shelf filled with bright blue flowers.

“If you would like now, you can breath in some of the poison joke fumes again and we'll get you back to being a Griffon.”

“Thanks. Honestly, the sooner I'm out of this body, the better.”

After a few hours, the transformation begun again and I was back in my Griffon form. It stretched my wings out, happy to see that they had returned to me in a clean condition rather than being matted and twisted like last time.

There was a knock on the door before both Gilda and Rainbow Dash came barging in, regaling us with stories of their running race through the town. I smiled happily as Gilda told her story, happy to see that she and Dash had made up and were the best of friends again. I really did hope that Gilda wanted to stay here, at least for a while. It wasn't just because I liked this place, but Gilda seemed legitimately happy here. I hadn't seen her like this before and I didn't want it to stop.

“Then, Gilda jumped over this cart of cabbages, just skimming the top! You should have seen the ponies face when he saw one of his cabbages hit the ground, it was like his wife had died!”

“Yeah, well I would have won the race too, had you not flown to the finish!”

“Sounds like you're jealous, huh?”

“I am totally gonna whoop your ass when I can fly again.”

Gilda gave Dash a playful punch and chuckled before turning to me and Twilight.

“So, how'd your tests go?”

“Not too great.” Twilight said with a somber look on her face. “We found out that even if she wanted to, Sky can't return to her old world. She got here through a one way micro wormhole that only opened up for a split second. Or at least, that's the only logical explanation.”

“Ah, damn. Well, you seemed pretty set on staying as a Griffon, right?” Rainbow asked.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “As I said before, I wasn't really set on changing back in the first place, it's just a depressing thought that I can't go back even if I wanted to.”

“Oh well.” Gilda shrugged with a blank face before moving to my side.

“Oh yeah, Twilight’s also offered to let us stay in her spare room for the time being.” I added with a smile.

“Ah, thanks, Twi! I was wondering where we were gonna stay tonight, so that's sorted.” Gilda smiled at Twilight and put her foreleg around my shoulder.

“Speaking of that, it's getting pretty late, I'm just about ready to hit the hay. You?” I asked Gilda.

“Yep, sounds like a good idea. Can't wait to sleep on an actual bed again. Thanks again, Twi.”

“No problem, Gilda. I'd do it for any of my other friends.” She smiled warmly. “I'll show you your bedroom.”