Metal bars.

It was as though I had just laid my head down and now I was back, a pause and fast forward during which I was unaware. Passed out. The world was a blur of metal bars that tore themselves apart and turned to waves through the distortion that was omnipresent in every segment of my reality. Reality... Another topic of confusion for the time being.

I was Gilda. It helped to remember that. Gilda.

My head hurt. Ached, memories were disjointed. Flawed, cracked, shot through with pain.

The air was cold and tasted of a dense and suffocating fear, seasoned with cynical delight. It was animalistic. There was the inkling of a thought, that I wasn’t supposed to know what that smelt like. But I found that there was a lack of impact or reaction from that part of my mind. A warning light without a label, to be dismissed until further notice.

After all, I had more important things to worry about. There was the faintest trace of urine to the fear. Numbing smells as well, as if the alcohol and chemicals could wipe clean whatever travesty had assuredly happened in this place.

I pressed my face against the metal bars, I would say I feel against them but I still have my pride. My beak could barely fit in between them, let alone the sides of my face. I came to notice a dull roar in the background of my hearing. Taloned fingers wrapped around these cold bars. The metal didn’t budge no matter how much I pushed or tugged. Those fingers ached by the end of it, deep imprints from how tightly I grabbed them engraved into the tough scaly hands I now possessed.

I stood up; the feathers on the top of my head brushed the ceiling. Big cage. I was in a cage. There goes my pride.

I was caged and everything smelled like death.

I took a step back and my rear leg, the one that had so recently acquired a bullet hole, clunked against the ground. Curiously this noise was not followed by the customary jolt of pain. I turned and looked at it, my neck being rather kind and allowing me to do so. My leg was wrapped in a cast. Hard cast. Plaster of some sort.

My leg was also numb enough that I could not feel my own talons run along the exposed fur as I slumped against the corner of the cage.

I was not in pain, this could only be considered as progress. The cage was temporary, even if I was meant to be a pet, I only had to play meek or sick until it was opened... Unless I was simply shot and disposed of.

I slammed my body against the cage bars, my eyes wild and panicked as my heart rate increased, I had never been claustrophobic, at least not to this degree, but my wings now battered against my prison in a frantic attempt to feel the wind, my claws scratching deep grooves against the wooden floor.

I must have alerted my captors of my alertness.

A light split into the gloom around me, making me stop for a moment to look for its source. A door had opened, showing me that I was in a concrete floored room with multiple cages around its edge, wood walls, and no windows. The one door now held an outline of a woman who vanished before reappearing, holding something.

“Hey, hey I have some food for you, calm, calm. We don’t want you breaking a wing.” The woman cooed, keeping her voice calm and level as she approached. Oddly, her voice did calm me, though I still backed into the darkened corner of the cage, heart racing and claws digging into the wood.

“It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you. This food is for you, it’s got some meds in it too, enough to keep your leg from hurting... Hope you can at least leave the cast alone, I don’t want to see what those claws can do to plaster.” She was just talking, not at me but to herself as she laid the raw meat just outside my cage and backed away.

I’m not really sure why, but she seemed lonely. It was an out of place observation for me and I quickly shoved it away so I could better deal with the situation in front of me. I carefully pushed myself away from the back of the cage, watching her closely. She had gotten me into the cage, or rather, she was outside of the cage and as such was to be treated like she had gotten me in there. She hadn’t let me out, after all. Another step, then another. The cage was about a pace or two in length, a wing length away from me if I was in the center.

At the edge of the cage I sank my talons into the meat and yanked it inside, staring down at it, then back at her.

“Go ahead, it’s for you.” She said, before smirking a bit. “You won’t even taste the painkillers. Go ahead. It’s okay.” Even when talking about the drugs, her voice was level and calm. It was almost offensive how much it felt like I was being talked down to. There was a moment of tension where I couldn’t decide whether she genuinely thought I was a stupid animal or whether she was just trying to keep me calm. Either way, the voice was as grating as it was soothing.

I sniffed the meat, almost poking my beak into it. It smelled like, well, meat. Nothing more, nothing less. I growled under my breath, then glared at her, opening my mouth.

“...” My voice was a rasp.

“Hey, no other... whatever you are here to scare off. No screeching. Eat, it’s fine.” She kept on in her terribly soothing voice.

I growled again and shoved another glare in her direction. Dumb animals don’t glare! Get the hint, Ms. Oblivious.

“I know you probably think I am some sort of threat or something. I’ll leave, just eat.” She said, slowly backing towards the door.

I shut my eyes tightly and silently cursed everything. I looked back at the meat and sighed, helping myself to a meal.

A short time later, the door opened again, and the woman peeked in. “Oh good! okay, so since the meds have probably kicked in, the light shouldn’t hurt your eyes.” She flipped on a light, illuminating the whole room in an old halogen yellow glow that popped and crackled as the bulbs warmed up.

I finally got to see my captor. She was puny, even for a recluse vet. Roughly four and a half feet tall, she had short cropped brown hair that looked like she cut it with a knife, and a perpetual smile. Her uniform showed that at some point in time she had been a park ranger, if not currently.

“That too bright?” She asked jokingly.

I shook my head. My eyes adjusted quickly enough, though the flickering light from the strip over head was almost nauseating. After adjusting, I looked up to realize she was staring at me in shock.

“Did... you just... no way. Can you understand me?” She asked breathlessly.

I rolled my eyes and nodded. Duh.

“Oh, oh! Crap, mythological creature shows up and I assume it’s just an animal! Um... Listen, I can’t let you out quite yet, but I am so sorry for this mix up. Do you have a name?”

I growled, and pointed at my throat. I had a distant flash of screaming, a memory half garbled.

“Right! You need water, something with your throat is messed up.” She ran from the room, leaving the door open, and returned a moment later with a large cup, water sloshing over the side. “I brought... A throat lozenge too, in case that’d help, but um... Do you promise not to claw me if I hold the cup for you?” She asked nervously, eying my talons.

Lozenge. What is a Lozenge? I blinked. I shrugged, looking at her. Nonverbal communication was not exactly my best talent, so I nodded.

She slowly approached and held out the cup, extending her hand into the cage a bit to let me lap up the water. Her hands shook just enough to make it difficult though.

I gently lapped at the water with as much poise and grace as I felt needed for the action.

Once the cup was about half full, it was pulled away and the vet held out a small candy-like object that smelled of honey. “Don’t swallow it. Keep it in your mouth... er... beak, and swallow the juice as it melts, it will coat your throat and reduce swelling.” She explained, waiting to see how I would remove it from her hand without destroying her hand as well.

I plucked it up in my beak, resisting the all too welcome temptation to see just how strong her fingers were. It tasted about like it smelled; sweet. I nodded at her, oddly wondering just what her story was.

There was also the issue of knowing where I was.

“That should help.” She said awkwardly, sitting cross legged a few feet from the cage as she watched me with the fascination of a biologist studying a new type of tree.

I stared back at her. She had the gaze of someone unused to seeing many new things. Tired wasn’t quite the right word to describe her, but energetic was also not the right word. I pointed at her.

“You need me to do something?” She asked quickly. “Are you still hungry?”

Scared, maybe. Or isolated. I pointed at her again. “...who...?” I rasped, then clutched at my throat.

“Oh! Who am I? Well... Thats not an interesting story.” she chuckled. “Well, my name is Trudy. Short for Gertrude. I am a park ranger, in this region I am the only full time park ranger. I grew up nearby, in a small town you probably haven’t heard of. I didn’t like the town, or living around people, so I found a piece of land for sale in the woods and built this with my savings. Luckily I had a job that was made easier by the move, not harder.” She explained. “I’m just a park ranger, nothing special here. You are a Griffin though, a mythical creature that shouldn’t be possible, much less intelligent and hobbling around the forest with a bullet hole in her leg.”

I blinked. She should look at herself in the mirror sometime if she thought I was impossible, and in what world was I supposed to be stupid? I shrugged at her, not wanting to make my throat hurt again.

We sat in awkward silence for a little longer, before she startled me and herself by speaking up “Oh! Do you know how to write?” She asked eagerly.

I carefully and calmly reached behind me and plucked out a feather from the back of a wing. It was sturdy enough. I pressed it against the ground, then paused, nodding.

“Oh wow, you write with a quill pen, I should have guessed that. Um... I have some cranberry juice that will work as ink, though a little runny. Let me get some paper.” She sprinted out of the room again. This time her return took quite a bit longer, and when she returned she had a bottle of deep red liquid, a sheaf of paper, and several other items.

“Okay, so this should work.” She poured some of the juice into a small bowl, then laid out the paper in a line to make it easy to use several pages at once, then she turned to me and bit her lower lip. “I... Have to let you out... But I have to put a collar on you. Is that okay?” She asked.

I twitched at the mention of the collar, my tail smashing into the cage with an audible thud. I shook my head hard.

“O...okay... but if you run away or attack me, I’ll have to shoot you instead of stunning you with the collar. I don’t like shooting.” She cautioned, and for the first time I noticed the small pistol on her hip.

I nodded, memories of my last tangle with something like that drifting through my head.

“So you won’t attack me? Promise?” She asked me.

I nodded again.

She took a deep breath and opened the cage, stepping back to put the paper between us as she eyed me like a dangerous animal.

I looked at her in an odd way. I realized I couldn’t quite categorize the mix of reproach and the slight feeling of fear from the weapon on her hip. I walked out all the same however.

“So... Can you write your name?” She asked curiously.

I nodded again. I felt a bit like a doll, just nodding without putting any real impact behind it. She just waited, looking between me and the paper. I dipped the feather in the juice and stared at the red for a second before calmly writing out my name. Gilda.

“That’s a beautiful name. It sounds like a human name, right? Where did you come from?” She rattled off, eager to find out more about me.

I wrote a little more. “Mountains. Griffon territory.”

“There is Griffin territory? Where?” She asked, confused.

I paused for a moment. “Where am I?”

“You are in a national forest in New York, in the United States.

“What’s a New York?”

“Um... Well, it is a state, like a region of land within a country.”

“What’s the country?”

“The United States. What country are you from?”

“Not from one.”

“Is there a country near Griffin territory? A landmark of some sort?”

“Next to Equestria.”

“Equestria... I’ve never heard of it. Sorry, but I have no idea where you are from. You can stay here until you are healed up though.” She said with an apologetic smile.

I actually tried to smile back for a second before an overwhelming surge of revulsion washed through me. Was I actually trying to be FRIENDLY? To some random person who had trapped me in a cage? Where were my survival instincts?

“Oh, you don’t look too good. Do you need more medicine?” I stared at her for a second. On one side of the issue, I could probably take her out. On the other side, she could probably hit me with more bullets and then I’d be even worse off.

“Medicine?”

“If you feel sick, I can give you something to calm your stomach. Pretty mild stuff, used for stomach aches in a lot of animals, safe for both birds and large felines.” She assured me.

“I’d like that.” Where the hell was Cale?

She nodded and gathered all the writing I had done so far, laying out more blank paper and leaving to the main room. Through the doorway I could see a wooden floor and a window. It was dark outside.

Cale?

There was no response. Typical. The one time I actually want to talk to some annoying idiot they aren’t even there to talk to.

Trudy returned with a pill and a glass of water. “Here you go.” she said, holding them out towards me, so I could take them.

I sniffed at the pill before placing them in my beak and following it quickly with the water. The pills were bitter, just like every other medicine.

“Let me know if you need anything. Can I take your picture for the records? I have to record every animal or... or person I treat.”

I nodded and she took out a small digital camera, taking a picture of me, as well as a close up of my leg. “That’s all I need. I have a guest bed you can sleep in if you don’t try to leave. You shouldn’t be going anywhere with that leg.”

I growled under my breath. I wanted to say something, anything.

“How is your throat feeling?” She interrupted.

“Like cut glass.” I scrawled on the new sheets of paper, realizing that candy stuff must have finished dissolving some time ago.

“I’m really sorry. rest is what you really need. Come, I’ll show you the bed.” She gestured, inviting me into the house proper.

I followed her cue and walked inside. The air was instantly warmer, and I could see a small fireplace set in one wall, heating the place. It was a plain cabin, with its few decorations being a Bear’s head on one wall, and several paintings hung on the opposite. In the middle, a couch faced the fireplace and behind the couch an old computer sat on a desk, next to a phone. The one door seemed unusually sturdy, and the windows looked to have bars on the outside.

“Upstairs is my room. The couch folds out into a bed.” She removed the cushions and pulled out the bed, replacing the cushions as pillows and throwing down several blankets. This put the bed comfortably close to the fireplace but still a few feet distant of the paving stones that surrounded it.

“I figure, trying to get upstairs would be a pain with your leg. If you knock on the wall or call out, I will come down and get you some more water, or food. Anything you need before I head upstairs?” She suddenly seemed very tired, as though she had been forcing herself to be upbeat the whole time.

I shook my head simply.

She nodded back and put her hat down on the table before dimming the lights to barely being on at all, and making her way up the wooden steps.

I stared at the bed for a moment in quiet trepidation of the serendipity that had led me here. I gently, and casually lay myself across the bed and tried to get comfortable. After a while, sleep came all too easily.