Two weeks passed since Griffin got the news that Gilda would be returning, and rather than coming to pick him up, she was going to stay. This is fantastic news! Griffin decided the best thing he could do would be to borrow as many books about babies and griffin anatomy as possible from the library, and spent most of his time cooped up reading them, in between his sessions of helping Rainbow Dash with clouds when she was feeling lazy, and putting in some extra hours over at Applejack's farm. Oh, what a fiasco that was. Twilight was convinced that they were doing 'very adult things' together, (her terminology, as bright as Spike may be, he is still a baby dragon, despite knowing all about that from reading books). Eventually, Applejack wound up spilling the beans that she had just been itchy and he had claws, and the reason behind her embarrassment. We all had a good laugh, she wrote a letter about honesty, Twilight wrote a letter about not jumping to conclusions, and that was it.

Since Griffin was spending a great deal of time in the library, Twilight was hard pressed to find time to herself. The constant company was starting to grate on her nerves, despite Griffin and Spike getting along rather well. It seems as though he's mostly gotten over his addiction, and Spike knows was glad to have another boy around, poor thing spending all his time stuck with mares, considering his potential male conversational partners in Ponyville consist of Big Mac, Snips and Snails, Mr. Cake, and an eccentric clock maker. Big Mac hardly speaks, Spike will get fat if he stays at Sugarcube Corner, the clockmaker is nice, though always rambling, while the pair of colts aren't good influences.

Speaking of rambling, there I go again. Back to the point. Twilight was hard pressed finding time to herself to relax, so I invited her on my weekly spa trip with Fluttershy.

"So, Rarity, how has it been living with Griffin?"

"Oh, simply wonderful. I expected him to be a crass ruffian, but he's been a perfect gentlecolt... err, bird. So polite, so helpful. Always cooking meals, even going so far as to help Sweetie Belle with her homework and keeping her out of trouble, with is a godsend if you ask me."

"So, he hasn't been any trouble? At all? I always thought he was kinda scary." Fluttershy added meekly.

"Well, I suppose he is, but then he isn't. I guess it's like how he hugged you when he dropped us all off after that fiasco on the ship when we tried catching him. He's a very nice person, he just has a hard time letting it out." She blushed at the memory.

"I was actually doing some research on the crystal empire. It turns out that wealthier families used to have griffin live-ins all the time. Griffins escaping from the poverty and warmongering of the Old Dominion would live with pony families. They were friends, guardians, babysitters, cooks, maids, everything. All around house servants, and everyone got along well. It's why there are crystalline statues of griffins there, and why most of the houses and architecture is bigger than in Equestria. Entire griffin families were living with ponies. It fell apart when Sombra took over and the griffins fled to escape slavery." Twilight explained.

"How interesting. Too bad the boutique isn't larger, I could have Griffin, Gilda, and the baby live with me."

We finished our time at the spa and left feeling refreshed. We headed back to the library just in time to find Griffin barrel out the door, almost hitting Twilight in the face with it. I didn't get a good look at his face, but by the way he took off into the sky, he was frantic, desperate. We entered to find that there were maps strewn about all over, and a rather large one laid out flat on a table with a certain location in the Old Dominion circled.

"Spike! What the heck happened?" Twilight nearly shouted at seeing her home in such a state of disarray.

"I don't know! I burped up a letter that was from Gilda, he read it and started freaking out."

"Where's the letter?" She demanded.

"Right here." The little dragon quickly passed it into her telekinetic grip. She unfurled it and began reading immediately, with the rest of us looking over her shoulder.

Hey... It's Gilda. Um, we're in a heap a trouble. And I mean deep shit. They were waiting. They outsmarted us damn it. You trusted me to handle this on my own, and I fucked up. I don't... I don't know what to do Griffin. I don't know what to do, there's too many of them, they're too well armed, too prepared. They've been planning this for a while... I don't know what to do. We're holed up in the ship but we're not going anywhere, and we can't stay here forever, our food supplies will run out in about a week. I... please figure something out. We're here...

"The paper looks like it got wet and dried out. Was she crying when she wrote this?" Fluttershy asked with a gasp.

"The map on the table came with the letter." Spike pointed out. As we four looked, we saw that marked in deep red was a location called 'Ancientwell'. I turned to look out the window, and saw a black speck moving rapidly towards Canterlot.

Author's Notes:

Dun dun DUUUUUUN. I know this was short, but I had to get back into the rhythm somehow, and I DID warn you that there'd be some shorter chapters on their way. Next couple should be regular length, and showing just exactly what happened with Gilda and the crew. But yeah, anyways, back into the plot.