Gilda avoided any drama on her way to her temporary home. She arrived and found a locked door. At the moment she would pick up the key, it dawned on her both Gary and Greta were still at work and she had no key to enter.

“Duh… Dumbass.” She landed her head against the door. “Guess I’ll have to wait.”

She huffed and sat on the porch, trying to to look as unfriendly as possible because she did not want anyone asking what she was doing there. And, of course, it happened within the first ten minutes. Because griffons were the most independent snoopers in the world.

An old griffon guy who had nothing to do with his time other than pestering the others walked up halfway the stone path to the porch. “Young lady, is there any reason you are sitting there?”

His dark brown and white under a green beret suffered with old age and he wore giant glasses in front of his brown eyes. As Gilda took an instant of mustering self-control before she responded, he stuffed his chest like an angry rooster.

“My friends live here and I’m staying with them. My house caught fire.” She did her best to be friendly, but she must have failed because the sound of her own voice almost worried her.

“Oh! Is that so?” He didn’t even try either. “How come I have never seen you here then?”

“I had my own house. Until it caught fire. Now I’m sitting here. Waiting for them to come back from work. Because I don’t have the key.” She fumed but controlled her impulses to tell him where he should go.

“So, you don’t work…” He squinted at her. “Do you?”

The better choice still was to control herself. She didn’t want to go back to see Judge Gracie. Ever again. She learned her lesson about snapping at griffons. She would keep her cool, and not snap at the old griffon.

“I asked you a question, young lady.” He glared from the distance. Like he had any sort of authority and she had an obligation to respond. But he likely wouldn’t leave if she didn’t answer.

“Sir…. I am not in my best of moods. Would you kindly leave me alone?” She seethed. “I’m waiting for my friends to come home from work so that I can go inside! I’m living with them.”

He hummed in an obnoxious and intentional way that almost made Gilda lose it. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you, young lady. I used to be on the Militia, you know? Don’t do anything dumb.”

She closed her fists and raised them to her chest, humming so she wouldn’t scream. But at least he left her alone. Fortunately, he didn’t bring the Local Militia. Crazy old waste of griffon.

“Geez, calm down, Gilda.” She sighed and whispered to herself, rubbing her forehead. “It’s just some old guy that has nothing to do with himself after he retired. He probably thinks he’s helping.”

Yeah… Just sit and wait. Avoiding all and problems she might attract by wandering aimlessly. They shouldn’t take too long anyways.

Damnit, her stomach started burning. She ate a good breakfast, yes. But lunchtime fast approached, and she might be left outside for hours until Greta or Gary came home. Should have thought it might happen, dumbass.

Minutes passed and not only she became hungrier and more frustrated, but also bored. She leaned on her side against the door groaning to herself and soon sleepiness creeped at her. Keeping her eyes open became hard and her thoughts fogged. Thank goodness she had her friends, because she really didn’t feel like going to one of the homeless shelters in the city, if they even worked anymore with the stupid coming war.

Yeah. She yawned. Greta and Gary were good friends. Heavy eyes closed slowly.

You have no friends in that place, My Child.

Hell yeah, she did! Greta, Gary. She could even include Goldina and the other nurses at the hospital. And that was without even mentioning Rainbow Dash! Surely, she could even count Dash’s friends.

When the war was ended and the Dawnbringer crowned the Traitor King, My Children were hunted and cornered by mobs of cowards. It started as soon as she left, and the Traitor King turned a blind eye. My Children became a scapegoat to be sacrificed to a mob of frustrated peasants in need of vengeance but too weak to wrestle control of their destinies. They hated you for your service to The Emperor, but above all they coveted your legendary beauty and feared the prowess I had given you.

Gilda should have startled awake. Someone else talked inside her head. But she didn’t. Instead, the soft darkness became a wooden room. Dim light filtered through the gaps between the planks in the floor above. The hot and damp air smelled of moldy straw. She was the oldest of the six griffon girls with her. The stories varied, but only she still had her enchanted sword. Commandment she had called it the day she earned it, years ago.

The others were near defenseless, young, not fully trained, nor touched by The Harpy, without a real weapon. She borne the responsibility of protecting them with the mission of taking them home.

A heavy thud roused her from her meditative slumber and elicited scared cries around her. Another followed and something crashed. Sunlight reinforced the light which filtered through the poorly placed planks above and hot desert air flooded in.

“There she is! She’s the one!” A theatrically angry male accused in a language she didn’t recognize, but still understood the words.

“Where are they? Where?!” Heavy steps shook the planks above their heads as a coarse male voice accused.

“There is no one else here, sir.” A weak and scared female voice said.

Those who surrendered were hanged in the central plazas of cities, much like the one where they build a statue to the Traitor King. Those who hid were hunted like animals. Loyal servants turned side as soon as the bleating mobs called their names as servants to The Emperor. Tax collectors and administrators saved their skins by sacrificing My Children. Most vile of treasons, yet those who followed the Traitor King spared the same ones who took their coin and oft their kin for tribute. All for the opportunity of torturing and murdering one of My Children. Those who provided any assistance were tried for treason and left to die in the desert.

“You’re lying!” The planks shook violently, and someone cried sharply at the sound of physical contact and collapsed to the floor above.

“You are animals!” The same female cried so hurtful. And then she cried again at the sharp sound of a slap.

“Take her to the plaza for judgement!” Another male barked. “And you find them! They are in here, somewhere!”

Heavy steps reverberated everywhere. Large objects dragged on the floor above, several glass objects broke, and metals clanged above them as someone was dragged outside, screaming.

Silently, with cold and calculated moves, Gilda’s body shifted. It felt different, stronger. Her joints seemed free and her mind more focused. She didn’t allow the noises disturb her, and instead focused on the fact that soon they would find the entrance and she had to do something about it.

She went from the center of the damp straw-covered room to the only dark wood door that led into it. There was nothing which could be moved into the way, so she became the only thing at the door. The others moved to the back of the room, as quickly as they dared, trying to not make a sound.

“Over here! This wall is false!” Someone laughed upstairs and several steps converged.

Gilda stood on her hindlegs. Decades of discipline and training made one of the hardest things a quadrupedal creature could do trivial. Her right forepaw reached for the sword magically held on her back and she drew it. Her left forepaw held lower under the downward-swept hilt, and she twisted her waist, raising her weapon and aiming the point forward. Faint yellow light emanated from the blade and lit its runes. Powerful spells moved magical energies and it vibrated and hummed as a furious lioness growling.

The stairs on the other side of the door creaked and someone tried it, but the rudimentary bolt locked it in place. She moved not a muscle.

“Nobody else, my ass…” Someone growled and chuckled on the other side. “Give me that hammer!”

A few seconds of silence passed before the door rattled with a bang and dust fell from it. One of her younger sisters whimpered behind her. The door rattled and banged again, fittings holding the bolt became loose. The third time, splinters exploded from it and the metal fittings flew from the door. It opened wide and violently to show a smugly grinning griffon of medium height, dark green fur, and white feathers with green highlights.

The last thing his blue eyes saw was the lusciously attractive female standing before him and the tip of her sword that pierced his left eye, his skull and his brain. Next to him stood a laughing youth of similar colors, barely old enough to be called an adult. His joyful expression turned to terror as she lunged and then pulled the sword back. The momentum freed her blade of the older griffon to come down at his forehead. It cracked open bone and cut to the base of his skull. Exposing blood-stained brain and a fountain of blood.

She pulled her blade free in the chaos of panicked peasants trying to distance themselves. One of them, a dumb-looking and fat green-gray griffon cried and fell down the stairs face-first into the straw on the floor. The tip of her sword cut the back of his neck and sent flying splinters of bone along with blood in one clean swing.

One step back, the sword before her, she sidestepped a burly male of piss-yellow coat and a big white head charging forward with his pitchfork. Her sword sliced clean past his neck and then came down crashing past an improvised shield made of the bottom of a barrel. It cut open the chest, flesh, bone, and viscera, of a white and gray male who fell dead to the side before the head landed on the filthy straw.

A soldier jumped down the stairs. He wore a mesh armor covered in clear bronze squares above his blue coat and his white head was protected under an olive shaped bronze helmet. He stood to fight with a proper shield and a short sword. He thrust his sword and she jumped back with a flap of her wings. He followed and predictably thrust again, but she spun past him, her sword cleaved through his exposed neck too and another head flew.

Something hit her back and she cried. Turning, she saw three of those dirty peasants spinning slings and wearing cheap leather armor. At her prime, she would have been able to summon the magical energies in her blood through her sword and rip them apart from a distance with magic alone. But things had changed, and her kind wasn’t as powerful as it once was. Still, she knew how to fight, and those peasants didn’t.

One of the clay bullets exploded on her blade when she intercepted it, the other missed and the third never let off his sling. With one mighty flap of her wings, she closed the distance faster than he could swear in panic and her sword stabbed him through the chest. The magical blade pierced through like he wore nothing and then she spun on her hindlegs, pulling her blade free to slash through the next one’s face.

In the middle of gurgling and bloody cries, she distanced herself a step from the door and a javelin somebody threw broke its tip against the hard dirt floor under the straw. The third peasant with the sling tried reaching for the javelin and she cut his paw off. He screamed at his cut off limb, but not for long: she slashed his throat open and sent him to the ground squirming in pain and panic.

Shouting and discussing came from the top of the stairs while two more armored soldiers came into the room and promptly assumed a proper fighting stance side by side.

“We’ll go easy on you if you drop that thing!” One of them said and the other distanced himself, as though they faced some stupid commoner who didn’t know what she was doing.

She could imagine just how many homes filled with scared citizens of the Emperor's cities they sacked and how many scared kitties they raped every time Grover's rebels won a siege thanks to the help from that filthy equine! Their cruelty to captured Swordmaidens such as herself. They still wore the same armor they wore during the war. Grover still used them to keep cities safe and under control.

She wondered for a second if their paragon of justice, The Dawnbringer, approved of their ‘justice’, and she knew very well the fate waiting for her and her sisters. But she would send as many of them as she could to the Scorch before they would lay their paws on her!

Her wrath fueled the sword’s magic and its magical gleam. It scared them. They raised their spears and shields, but she moved too fast. She spun past the first’s spear even before the thrust and her momentum brought her sword hard on his head. Bronze was no match for magical energies and steel from the imperial flashforges. The blade cut past bronze helmet, plumage, skin and bone. He fell, but the other rose his shield in time.

The bronze reinforced wood fared better, but his hand broke and he cried, falling back, against the wall. Before he knew, the tip of her sword pressed in between the bronze squares of his armor. His brown eyes pleaded for mercy too late, her sword already pierced through to his heart.

Before he roared, she had felt his presence behind her. She pulled back her sword and it spun in her paws, cutting upward past his groin and spilling his intestines. Another filthy peasant, he dropped his hammer and cried in pain and terror, all the strength he thought he had gone. The other by his side hadn’t even noticed what happened and attacked her with a cleaver.

She sidestepped and spun past him slashing his body in half by the waist, spraying blood on the next commoners that meant to attack her, with a piercing cry and bringing her sword to bear on them.

One of them pissed himself and collapsed on his launches, dropping his rusty sword. The one to his side let off the bolt from his crossbow but she intercepted it with her sword, moving like lightning. He tried protecting himself with his weapon, but her enchanted sword broke past the questionable metal and wood and cut his skull in half with bone splinters and blood to the wall behind him.

In the same swing her sword cut open the other's neck before he even tried using his dagger. Another collapsed, crying as a panicked child, and futilely grasping at his wound. The last cowered in the floor, next to the wall, covered in blood and urine.

“Mercy! Please!” He wailed as a waning cub, but she knew very well the kind of mercy to be had in that room and drove her blade through his heart.

“Drop that thing, you witch!” A peasant had grabbed one of her younger sisters and shielded himself with her, forcing her to sit in front of him, holding a knife to her neck.

Her name was Gharra, with green coat and white plumage on her head and her luscious fluffy chest. Lime on the tip of the feathers that made her crest, just like her eyes. Gilda, somehow, remembered teaching her sword drills and teaching her how to make a flower tea for her nerves when she prepared to meet the Emperor for the first time.

The filthy peasant wouldn’t ever understand and was surprised when her sword pierced thought her sister to his chest. He wouldn’t have them, and the others wouldn’t have Gharra.

You fought like a beast. You painted the floor and the walls in their filthy traitorous blood. But it was never meant to be a fair combat and your fate had been sealed.

From the top of the stairs, they threw bombs at her. They exploded with concussive force and threw her off-balance. Her senses dulled and a clay bullet exploded on her head. Clay dust and particles hurt her eyes and her head spun. One of her sisters cried, and before she could recover herself, strong paws grabbed her, and a heavy body threw her to the ground. She couldn’t see it, but something hard hit her head again.

When she came to herself again a big white and gray griffon held her to the straw on the floor. Spiteful gray eyes.

“We got you, fucking witch.” He gloated and spit fell on the feathers of her crest his heavy bronze and silk armor weighing on her. “Grab the others!”

They made a game of raping you and your sisters, like unthinking brutes, unbothered by the filthy straw or even the blood of their brethren. When they grew weary of your abused bodies, they tied you to poles and made a spectacle of killing you by the entrance to the city.

They tied her forelegs to the top of a pole and her hindlegs to the base, at the top of a wooden platform. Strapped her wings closed, and left her body stretched and exposed. Six poles side by side by the entrance of the city, within her walls and before a crowd of angry griffons. Straw and logs at the base, covered in tar. The crowds screamed whoops and insults at the broken creatures at their mercy or obscene comments at their exposed teats and genitalia.

They threw rotten fruits and animal feces. Worse than the repulsive smells and the pain in her broken paws and sore body was the humiliation and hopelessness before such a display of unbridled hatred over defenseless victims. Before the realization her fellow griffons had been reduced to animals by hatred.

It justified all the things that she had done which led to that point and the only thing she regretted was that the Emperor ultimately failed. Still, her loyalty remained, unfaltering even upon one of the worst deaths she could imagine and that she had never imposed on another.

Then a griffon came with a lit torch. One of her sisters cried at the sight. Barely an adult that had never laid on the Emperor’s bed. Never completed her training and never earned her sword, but she was one of them and that was all that mattered. She despaired and cried, wailed as a child would until her panic infected her sisters and they cried too.

A pony ran in front of the crowd. Gray in his luscious coat, with a white beard and mane from which poked his horn. Wore a blue cape and a tall, pointed hat, both adorned with stars, moons and noisy little bells which conflicted abhorrently with the situation he found himself in.

“Stop this madness!” He cried, angry enough his impetus surprised her, placing himself between the crowd, the executor, and the stakes. “What lust for misfortune and suffering! It will not bring back the dead nor erase the abuses you suffered! Kindness will! There should be no place for this in the new world anymore, much less under King Grover’s crown. He fought against the Emperor, despite all the odds, so you could live free! By mimicking it, you spit in the deaths of thousands of slaves that joined us and wanted nothing more than Grigor’s insanity to stop!”

Immediately someone cried in the middle of the throng. “They deserve worse! They murdered and tortured for the amusement of the Emperor!”

“They killed numberless of your own kind!” Another cried and the assembled griffons agreed noisily. “Why are you defending these monsters? They were Grigor’s whores, and his executioners!”

“Get that pony out of there!” Another faceless griffon in the crowd cried from the back and the ones in the front reached and dragged the old pony out of the way.

“King Grover will hear of this! Celestia will hear of this! Barbarians! All of you!” He cried, but no one paid attention, much less when they dragged him away.

None of the six prisoners begged for mercy, nevertheless. Even if there was any to be had, they would not want it. Even the youngest among them understood. They could despair and cry but would not beg.

Still, the mob laughed, and laughed. And laughed while the pony begged for some common sense. Like braying mules, they celebrated torturing Her Chosen and they forgot Her words.

With what energy her body still managed to conjure the wind to cry above them and all the pain she endured, she cried. “The Wheel of Time spins unstopping, and he who finds himself in power will find that he is thus powerless! Under the Sun and Moon, you have forgotten the harsh mountain where She has birthed your ancestors and hoofed blood runs in your veins!”

They booed and others laughed louder yet, the pony silenced, however and she could see the dejection in his eyes. The executioner laughed and carried on this task with cruel delight, walking in front of them and letting the flames touch the straw and tar. They caught on almost immediately and spread over the dark liquid, quickly rising and reaching at their limbs.

Wailing cries and sorrowful bawls overcame the laughter with the stench of burned fur while the condemned squirmed and fought helplessly against their restraints. The torment of the flames scorched the fur on her coat and burned into her muscles. They pulled tendons and became one with the smell of her flesh under the searing heat.

The fire in your veins burned hotter than the flames licking at your skin and lighted your wrath in sublime desire for revenge. You roared louder and fiercer than the flames.

“You followed the Traitor King and you forsworn the mighty for the meek in their promises of ease. You regale yourselves with their softness and you give in to their pliant beds! You follow leaders fat from their disgusting food and you pay them in the coins with the Dawnbringer’s face. You listen to her soothing words, and you share in her children’s drinks.”

They did not silence, but neither did you. Their laughter tainted in apprehension; your words drenched in fury, fueled by a ravenous hunger for vengeance and burned you hotter than the scorching heat.

“The Wheel of Time will spin unstopping and you will regret and cover yourselves in the ashes of birch trees. Sacrifice me and my sisters under Her sun and I will feast in the Stormy Eyrie, but when the Predator stalks the world again, you will share in their fear and I will rejoice, a captain of Her faithful at Allmother’s side!”

I held your heart in the cool rain from the mountains where your race was born and distanced the agony of the flames. A final gift, for my faithful chosen that never wavered. Your body expired to the fumes and burned away to the flames, but your soul remained cold as the Stormy Eyrie where I gave rise to your proud race.

Countless others before you, innumerable after you.

And they dared call us savages. The ones the Traitor King said were tired of subjugation. The ones who allied themselves to the Dawnbringer. The who who united the entire world against us. Yet, none came to your assistance when they used your body and burned you alive. Even in our grim defeat, I was the only one who heard your cries.

And here we are now, and I beckon you to me, for it is at my side you belong, to guide your race into a new Empire and bring reckoning upon those who had forsaken us. For not even several lifetimes and deaths erased the torment they inflicted upon you for serving My Favored Son.

Not Greta or Gary. They would never hurt her.

“Gilda?” She startled awake at the mention of her name and Greta’s paw recoiled. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you! You look… Are you okay?”

Her friend, next to her, carried a box on her back and had her saddlebags filled with stuff. She blinked. “Are… Are you sure you’re alright? Gilda?

“Ah, it was nothing…” Gilda shrugged off her concern with a gesture. “I was just having a dream. That is all. And uh… Waiting for you to open the door.”

She grinned and moved out of the way, trying not to look too awkward while waiting for Greta to open the door, despite the residual sensations from her dream that intruded on her mind. The heat. The smells. The laugher.

“Goodness!” Her friend gasped. “I’m sorry Gilda! I forgot you’d be locked outside!”

She waited while Greta took care of the lock. “Ah, it’s okay. I’m cool.”

What the hell was that?! That… That wasn’t normal! Like someone put thoughts into her head! Memories rushed back at the mere recollection of the dream. Vision. Whatever in the freaking heck that was! The smell of smoke intruded on the smells of grass and Greta’s perfume.

The screams and their laugher haunted her thoughts, the smell of sweat and his weight. Every pain and sensation. She took her paws to her beak and breathed in with a whimper.

Greta stared at her again. “Are you sure you’re okay? Did something go wrong in the Insurances Office? Gilda?”

She shook her head, but her eyes stung. Wetness slipped down her face. She spoke the best she could through a lump in her throat and a sob. She whipped the tears as fast and discreet as she could. “I’m okay. I… Ah. I just need some water. That is all.”

That was messed up! She had got to see Goldina and get a doctor tomorrow!

When Greta finally opened the door, she followed inside and did her best not to seem too distressed, making her way to the bathroom in the corridor and locking the door. Her reflection in the mirror showed nothing, but she smelled it. She felt it. Her coat dirty and disgusting. Fortunately, Greta’s house had a shower, one of those fancy magical showers that even heated the water. Not that she cared about it, she only wanted the water and the soap.

It took her several rinsings and almost an hour before she finally got her shaking and sobbing under control. The warm water helped, and so did the soft aroma of roses the soap left on her body. But most of all, the running water across her fur and feathers while she supported herself on the wall and let it shower on her head downward.

Someone knocked at the door and she startled. “Gilda? Do you need anything?”

“Uh… No. Thanks… Uh… I… I’ll get out in a minute.” She grimaced at her own broken voice.

“Alright. Uh… See you soon, then.”

Poor Greta. She worried for her. It felt nice, but it also made her feel like a weight. She shouldn’t make her wait too much. Hopefully, those freak visions, or hallucinations… Or whatever the heck they were, would be gone once the thunderstorm was done.

She grabbed a towel and dried herself off, but she couldn’t keep her mind from wandering, and speaking of worrying, she hoped Greta and Grizelda were okay. And that big girl from the insurance office too. Somehow, she doubted, though. Maybe she was just on edge.

You know very well what you saw.

Gilda held her beak again. She knew. That was her. Somehow. Fuck knew where, centuries ago, after the war King Grover and Celestia won to dethrone the Emperor. Except, that wasn’t the story she was taught! She didn’t even know how to process that information.

But she was calmer and didn’t feel dirty anymore. She couldn’t let Greta waiting forever either.

Once she was done and walked out the bathroom, Greta waited for her with some food. A pinkish juice, a large and short pie with slices already cut and served at two plates. And Greta next to the table in the dinning room. Sitting and with her paws by her chest, smiling though her eyes were as heavy with worry, as her voice.

“I got some pie for us. Hum. Milk jam pie from Manehattan and some guava juice! If you feel like it… And, and… How about a game?”

Gilda smiled. She really didn’t deserve Greta.

That was some of the most fun Gilda had in months. A simple card game with important creatures from the present and past. She didn’t know how she’d feel if she found her semblance in a card game but seeing Rainbow Dash trumped by Spitfire in intelligence made her giggle.

She also saw the pony from her dream but pretended she didn’t recognize him. Good stats, though.

The pie was one of the most delicious things she’d ever eaten. That thing certainly had been transferred via teleporter because it was the only way the thing got to Griffonstone, across the ocean, fresh. It must have costed a ridiculous sum of money.

Part of her resented the fact Greta had it so easy. She made her own money working with things she liked, while Gilda’s stupid scones barely kept her afloat when that whole mess of war began. She supposed that rather than felling entitled like a child she ought to be happy her friend shared it with her. Not to mention Gary worked as a public servant and had his salary guaranteed no matter what.

So, yeah… It was Gilda’s own fault she didn’t go to college and didn’t have any great skill sets like Dashie. Guess it was nice being a pony and being born with a set of skills one could turn into a job.

You were born a predator. A hunter. You still remember the smell of blood, talons tearing into flesh and the terror in their large eyes.

In reality, she supposed, there were no jobs the ponies could find which would not make her too dangerous.

The thing they fear the most is your occupation. You excelled at taking lives. One of those closest to the Emperor. One of his favorites, and one of My Chosen. You are wasting your time and you are waited in the ancient home of your race. There is nothing for you among the hooflickers anymore.

Gilda coughed and grinned at Greta while the other carefully examined the cards in her paws. “When does Gary come home?”

“Oh…” She replied absentmindedly, with a mischievous grin at her cards. “Sometimes he has to work late. Especially with these thunderstorms. Things go kinda crazy. A-ha!”

She slapped her Fluttershy card on the table. “I’m going for Kindness!”

Yeah… It should be cheating… Gilda scanned her cards and she had probably a lost round. The best she had was an Ocellus. The fuck was an Ocellus anyways? Looked like on oe fht new and improved changelings.

Then the door opened, and Gary came inside with a large basket on his back. “Oh! Hi Gilda! Hi, Greta.”

“Hi! Welcome home!” Greta ginned while Gilda got up from her seat.

“Let me help.” She grabbed the basket from his back, and it smelled awfully of blood. Like a lightning bolt shot through her body and she just stared at it, hopefully not too awkwardly when she noticed it. “What is in here?”

“I bought a whole chicken from the market. Since we have a guest.” He chuckled. “I suppose we should do something special.”

“Great idea!” Greta squealed and took the basket from Gilda. “Let’s get it ready for dinner! The we can eat the rest of the pie for dessert and play games the whole night!”

Gary chuckled again. “Calm down, Greta. We have to work tomorrow morning. Including Gilda.”

“Ah… We’ll work something out!” She insisted in her cheerfulness.

At least Gilda knew her way around the kitchen and actually helped. The three of them got the chicken seasoned, and it wasn’t ideal, but they didn’t want to wait until lunch next day to eat it. It didn’t matter because it tasted amazing anyway. Gilda refrained from eating too much, though. Too conscious of just how expensive the thing must have been. Greta talked without stop. Probably because of the wine. Yeah. Another hecking expensive stuff they showered her with, and she wouldn’t be able to afford it for herself.

She couldn’t help feeling just a little jealous they managed to make a nice living for them, and both worked with what they liked. Stupid war. Stupid Chancellor.

Your place is with royalty, My Child. Return to me and your life will be fulfilled.

“Ah…” Greta finally stopped talking about the recent trends in perfumes. “I’m gonna go get that pie for us!”

She stood and walked off, cheerfully murmuring a little song to herself and Gary smiled at Gilda. “How did things go in the insurance office?”

“Pretty well, actually!” She grinned. “They said my case gotta be reviewed, but they also said I’ll get some good cash. Soon!”

“Oh! That’s great!” He grinned too. “Er. Not that I want you to leave. It’s just… I’m glad! Already talked to my boss and said you were cool and got a bit unlucky. He was fine with it going through in a hurry. We got bigger fish to fry, you know!”

“Sounds great! Thanks Gary!” She grinned, and right at the same time Greta called for some help from the kitchen. Since Gilda was the guest, he gestured for her to stay and went himself. In fact, he stood before she could volunteer to help, and so, she simply waited at the table for the two of them to return, which didn’t take long. He brought the plates and small dessert forks while she brought the pie from the afternoon.

“We should do something fun!” Greta chirped after she served their slices. “Why don’t you tell us about the job you got, Gilda?”

“That is not fun, Greta…” Gary deadpanned at her so hard Gilda had to laugh.

“Of course, it is!” She insisted. “Gilda is gonna do great in anything. She’s so independent and clever!”

Wow. That was so awkward. “Uh… I don’t know about that, Greta. I mean… I’m kinda like a nurse, but not really. I mostly clean and change wounds that aren’t too complicated. I don’t help the doctors or anything. But I am thinking about going to nurse school after this is all done. I mean… My boss, Miss Goldina, is great.”

“Well, cleaning wounds and changing dressings is important too, right?” Greta grinned. “The important thing is you’re doing your best. It’s a shame that dumb judge won’t see it wasn’t your fault!”

“Well, it kinda was.” Gilda’s fingers drummed at the edge of the table. “I mean… You’re not supposed to punch griffons even if you are right.”

“I guess so.” Greta frowned a little and stared at Gary. “But don’t you think it’s wrong she’s the one being punished when she was just struggling and protecting her income?”

“Oh! Yeah! Sure! I mean, Gilda was more of a victim than anything.” He shrugged. “But I guess we have laws that protect minors for a reason.”

“See?” Then she gave Gilda a lewd grin. “Hey! Any hot guys working there?”

“Greta!” Garry cried.

“What? It’s a legitimate question!” She pouted. “I mean… Nurses, right?”

“Well, I worked on this hot guy from the Thunderpeak Militia…” Gilda grinned back, winking.

“Oooooh! Details!” She jumped on her seat.

“Do you girls need me to walk outside for a while?” He teased them, pointing a thumb at the door.

Gilda laughed more to herself. Geez. Talk about the wine going up to their heads.

Someone knocked at the door, and Gilda didn’t pay much attention since Gary stood and didn’t even say anything. He closed the door, going outside to talk to someone while the two of them kept talking about Gilda’s job. Mostly about the big guy from Thunderpeak.

It didn’t take long for Gary to return, and he didn’t look very happy.

“Who was it, Gary?” Greta giggled, all cheery.

“Ah… Nothing.” He just sat back on his place and gave them the most nervous and insincere grin she had ever seen. But maybe Gilda was on edge because Greta didn’t seem to notice it.

The conversation didn’t last much longer anyways. They all needed to sleep.

Next Chapter: Force of Nature Estimated time remaining: 31 Hours, 13 Minutes