“Find your human if he can. If not, I am sure he will be able to fend for himself, the spell that is doing all of this doesn’t seem inclined to let either party die.” Except for it not protecting from bullets. That, that right there was a flaw. Asshole. Your... wife thing just tried to kill me AND ALL YOU CAN SAY IS THAT I SHOULD FIND CALE?

Ugh... Right... I panted on the ground, my chest heaving. He was right, I needed to find Cale. It would be better then.

What? No it wouldn’t!!? We would just go back to fighting immediately. Not that it would be a bad thing to be stuck with him, but...

My eyes widened in intense disgust. No. No way in hell.

I was thinking of Cale in terms of a mating partner.

… Heat. Blaming it on the heat.

“I’m sorry, what the fuck just happened?” Ginny... or whoever spoke up. She was probably just talking about my near death experience. Yeah.

The pipsqueak, Ian or whatever... “...Ah’m thinken’ maybe Ah should fine Reid.” She spoke and ran off. Suddenly, I wasn’t feeling very good at all. Ugh... Just like my stomach had dropped out of me and I was trying to scoop my intestines back up like they were spaghetti. Oh...

“W-what....ever... Can I g-” I cut myself off and tried to hold in the sudden urge to vomit in my nausea. Ugh... When was the last time I had eaten? A day? Longer? I needed some meat... Er, right, there was something going on. “I...”

Interrupting Pinkie Pie, that is, she interrupted me, appeared with... bags. She looked incredibly pleased with herself that she had found bags. Good for her, I guess. “I just realized none of you have loot bags!” She chirped out. I was surprised that she wasn’t bouncing about.

Shining Sucker took his bag from from the Pinkie... goblin thing. Really. This was some sort of costume thing.

After awhile I decided to take the bag into my talons. “... Alright.” I must’ve looked pissed and or noxious.

Pinkie started talking again and I shut her out. Seriously. It wasn’t like she ever said annything of any importance.

Shining Dumbass broke me from my tuning out of outside distractions with all the subtlety of a sledghammer to the face.

“Well, let’s go, you can figure out your internal existential crisis while we are on the move Gilda, this is a military operation. No rest for the weak!” … Fuck you too, asshole.

“Gather as much candy as possible and... er... try not to grab onto Shiney too much. His wife’s right there.”... REALLY? DID YOU REALLY JUST MAKE THAT COMMENT? I managed to make myself puff up a little in anger, but I decided to not go after Pinkie with all the murderous force that a griffon could bear for fear of making her think up another inane heat based comment.

Murder psycho Cadence summed up my thoughts with a bit less rage. “...Pinkie...”

“...How did I get into this mess of lunatics...” And those were the words that I said. I followed after Shining asshole as well. ...Should I just refer to them by their real names? I was running out of nicknames at the time.

“It must have been fate!” … That was Pinkie. She... regrettably also followed me.

Fluttershy appeared from out of nowhere it seemed and picked up Ian and totally joined out group with a few empty headed reporters following after me. They probably took pictures of my sexy ass.

Cale would probably want those. I mean. SHIT. DAMMIT HEAT.

“....sooooooo. Um. Griffon, huh?” Ginny, who honestly was probably the only remotely cool member of the party... caravan... whatever I was in decided to start talking to me. For once, I almost felt guilty for giving the automatically gruff reply.

“Yeah. Griffon. Got any other smar- Any questions?”

“Fucking sweet.” That’s a good girl.

“Language! Fillies present!” Up yours, Pie.

“TWENTY! AH’M TWENTY!” Said the incredibly screwed over little pony.

“I mean, you must be a real badass, right? Fighting dragons and sh--stuff like that.” Truly, a mare after my own heart.

“Yeah. I guess!” Then reality kicked me in the face and my often abused self consciousness awoke. “Never fought a dragon.”

Something was tickling at my head. They... Dammit, I needed Cale for this. He was supposed to worry about shit, and I was supposed to be the one who actually did shit. They... They had to suspect me already and I was really just trying to make friends and graaaaaah... Thinking was hard all of a sudden...

“ARE YOU CALLING ME FAT?!” ...Thanks Pie for interrupting me.

Ian twenty year old filly person spoke. “Eeeeeeyup.”

“From the mouth of babes...”

“You do have a bit of pudge, but you pull it off quite well.”

Finally, I spoke up, realizing that I hadn’t in quite some time. “Look, you’re not fat, Portly Pie.”

Erishy spoke as well, nailing the fact that Pinkie was FAT.“I... Do you want a ride, Pinkie? I mean, I’ve carried Twilight before and that wasn’t too bad... You are skinnier than Twi after all...” HA! Totally lying.

“You know what? I’m WALKING.” What a drama queen.

“Excellent observation, Pinkie, you are walking. We all are walking. You also happen to be giving the entire caravan a great view of your painted posterior. Jackie, that your handiwork?” I didn’t give a damn who Jackie was, but I had a feeling that was the name of someone in the group I hadn't bothered to learn yet. And seriously, stop talking about asses. The only ass I was going to give a damn about was my own until this heat was through.

I facepalmed and most definitely did not look at Portly pie’s painted posterior presented presently. “... You guys are worse than the ranger was.”

Pinkie turned... pinker in embarrassment an scuttled her way to the back where she hopefully wouldn’t bother anyone ever again.

Princess Mi a very psychotic spoke her venom and added it to the equation. “Dear, don’t tease her.”

“She was quite twitchy actually.” Said Jackie.

“SO! Gilda! Would you like a funny hat?” Pinkie piped her pestilent voice.

For a brief moment, an errant thought attempted to take root in my head regarding whether or not I looked well without being painted. I suddenly wished that I wasn’t there as I clearly wasn’t a part of this group, nor should I have been at any point in time a part of the group. Then, realizing that I was just going to be depressed again, I blotted it out from my mind. “...Hat?”

“Halloween! Costumes!” Way to grammar, Pinks.

Shy, for once, rolled her initiative and walked up to the nearest door. “Um... Trick or treat?” What. Did I really just use the term roll for initiative? Ugh. I feel... dirty.

Of course, there was no answer.

Which is why I took over, walked over to the damn door and slammed my fist into it. There was no pain, since you know, I have proper fists.

Pinkie shoved me to the side and I took the time to exercise my will to not strangle her. Of course, the door opened long before she actually knocked, so she fell flat on her face in a display which made me almost beam in approval.

Oh. Also, some dweeb with a pony shirt answered the door. Pinkie was an elegant as ever with her incredible stupidity and merely said… “uh. hi. So …. um…”

“Is this heaven?” He looked like he had orgasmed. Seriously. He looked like the heavens were falling down upon him. Like he had been touched by the hands of GOD!

Ugh. I’m ridiculous.

“No, if it were heaven, we’d actually be coming in instead of mooching off candy.” Pinkie pie was even more ridiculous than I was.

And then the brony person saw me. His eyes lit up like a rare treat or something. Which was a little weird, because then he said my name.

Brony. Where did that word come from? I’d blame Cale, but that’s more or less cliche and token by this point.

“Dude, Gilda?” Why did he know my name? “Wow. you guys are amazing… and in my town, too… Just a sec…” He walked back into the house.

“Oh… this is so nice. Getting to meet new people.” Erishame said without a hint of nervousness, which was really against her character from what I could tell.

I was now decidedly uncomfortable about everything. I was missing something. “...I never understood how these people know about us.”

“I’ll explain later, just smile and wave for now.” That was rich. Since when did Pie ever do anything but ruin anything she tried to make better?

The … brony… came back with a huge supply of candy and gave it out a handful at a time to each pony before stopping in front of me. For me, he dumped the entire bowl into my bag. You know, because he apparently liked me or something. Whatever. “Don’t let the dweebs get you down.”

Pie better have a shell of an explanation.

I snapped out of my thoughts (again) and blinked. Then I looked at the bad. “Sure… Go on… being cool and stuff. Yeah.” I looked surprised.

We walked to the next house, the brony behind me waving us on.

“I should forewarn you, Gilda, you’re a... controversial character and some of the peeps may not like you at first. If that happens, let me do the talking.”

I paused, but kept following the group. “Character. There’s that word again.” What. I… I had… Character? I was…

I felt like I was forgetting something.

“Relative fictionality. Basically, from their viewpoint you’re a storybook character that hopped out of a book. But you’re real too, so don’t have an existential crisis, okay?” And then suddenly a huge wave of bile seemed to blast up from the back of my throat and my head spun as something tried to lash out against my head.

It happened in just a brief second. Just a second was all it took for me to lose my composure.

“Wait. So what did they see, exactly? In this, book thing?”

Pie… looked visibly uncomfortable. “Ah... technically, all the main characters are ponies....”

“They saw the one visit to ponyville gilda, but with me here... well the main reason why some of them get upset with you is because you yelled at me, which is stupid, I mean I was in your way and everything.” Oh fuck no. Nononono. No. No. No.

The world did NOT see one of my biggest failures in life. I refuse to believe that. No way. No how. Just no. No. No. No. A thousand times no. Nonono. God no. NO!

Pie. “Shy? Just...Nevermind, that works.”

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. I said something. “...” I turned away. “Let’s keep going.” I was surprised anyone could hear me.

“...a lot of them assumed you were, um... had a thing for Dash.” No. No. No. It wasn’t a thing. We were together, and then we weren’t, and nothing really changed. I didn’t understand what happened. Nono. No. I didn’t. No. No. No. Just no. Please no. Stop. Stop.

“Drop it.”

“...hey, they redeemed Nightmare Moon, you... probably... I’m making this worse, aren’t I.” No. I was not just compared to a genocidal lunatic tyrant. I was not just called a lesbian. No. No.

Please. Make it stop. Nono. No. NO!

No.

I was shoved in front of a door and I frantically tried to pull myself back together.

“For the record I fucking loved that episode and how you acted in it. Aside from the yelling at Shy thing.” … Ginny.

After awhile, I knocked on the door. Out came some weirdo who looking like he had been kicked in the face. He was wearing a shirt that said PAPA. That was that anti pony group, right?

“...and this is the part where we run!” Coward. Fucking Pie. Of course, she didn’t have anything to prove, did she? She didn’t have one of the worst moments of her entire life broadcasted to millions. No. She didn’t. Maybe she should just run the fuck away like a pony. Fucking ponies. I can see why griffons used to eat them. Useless. Useless.

I’m so useless.

“I’m a griffon. Fuck off.” I said it more to myself than to the person in front of me.

The man looked confused. “Yew... yer not ah pony?”

“Give me your candy and I will make sure no pony comes to your door. Fair deal?” WHAT THE FUCKING HELL?! SHATTER THE FUCKING EGGS. SHATTER THEM ALL. I WAS REALLY IN A WORLD THAT SAW FIT TO KNOW MY WEAKEST MOMENT?

Then he gave me candy. “Shoot, sounds good nuff fer me, yew griffuns ain’t bad as dem ponies.”

Gilda. Calm the hell down.

I didn’t care whether I said that or if Cale said that. I… I don’t recall what happened. I took the candy and then I was back to the group. It suddenly occured to me that I hated this group. Hated them. Always had. Just wanted to tear them limb from limb to try to stop the pain.

Oh… Dash. We were close and then I said something wrong. Then we were friends. I didn’t understand anymore than you did and all I can say is I’m sorry.

But I didn’t see you again, did I?

I’m so useless.

“There we go.”

“Go back to sleep.”

Useless.

Make it stop.

I think.

I.

Can't.

Breath.

No.

No.

No.

The moon is so bright sometimes I think I can see my soul in it. Sometimes I don't have one.