Hunters and Tamers, Chapter 1

Hunters and Tamers

Chapter 1

Gilda the griffon never had a whole lot of luck. That's how she saw it at least. Things tended to just not exactly go her way. An observer might instead argue that it was all her fault. Luck had nothing to do with it, Gilda simply had a bad habit of always making exactly the wrong decisions. Of course Gilda would probably make that observer regret saying such a thing.

Half eagle, half lion, griffons were a race were proud, noble creatures. Strong, agile, fierce; they were natural born hunters. Gilda had all the pride of her race, but exactly none of the nobility; and while quite fast for a griffon and adequately strong and fierce, she wasn't perhaps the best example of the hunter's spirit.  She had always been a rogue, an outlier, a lone wolf. She was too caught up in herself to make many friends and too aggressively proud to even think of backing down. As a result, she became a bully and a trouble maker. Being sent to live amongst ponies at a Cloudsdale flight camp had been the harshest of punishments in her parents' eyes, but for her it was one of the better things that happened to her. Flying from cloud to cloud in the rainbow-filled skies of Equestria had been something of an awakening for her.

Now, even those memories had become somewhat blurred and murky. She had a love of flight, but a disdain of menial work. She lived a life without stability: no permanent residence, no steady job, just a lot of wandering and a lot of stealing and grasping at straws. If her continued failures affected her, she surely didn't show it--even when it ended up leading her deep into the heart of the Everfree Forest.

"Ha... Good work, Gilda. Finally lost 'em," Gilda spoke to herself, smirking at her apparent success. Back in FIllydelphia, the crafty griffon had set her eyes and eventually her talons upon some rather expensive looking jewelry. Then some dweeb had to come along, caught her in the act and blew the alarm. Before she knew it--and more importantly before she had secured her prize--she had a pack of three fully armored pegasus guardsponies hot on her trail.

Taking to the skies, she entered into the race of her life. Luckily she was good with races; flying was her strong suit. Unluckily perseverance was evidently the strong suit of her perusers. They chased her through the sky well past the point where most, be they pegasus or griffon, would be reeling from sore wings and showed no signs of letting up.

Eventually the chase brought Gilda to her current location. Everfree was one of the most feared places in Equestria, and for good reason. The guards likely figured being chased into Everfree was enough of a punishment for attempted thievery. Or perhaps they were just cowards. Gilda didn't care to postulate; she was just relieved that they were gone.

That said, the circumstances weren't exactly the best. Gilda detested Everfree for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it was one forest where a griffon was just as likely to be the hunted as she was to be the hunter. Perhaps more importantly though, Everfree was just far too close to Ponyville. Ponyville happened to be number one of Gilda's list of places to never return to ever, right above Cloudsdale which was right above her home town. Ponyville, to her, was, in its essence, betrayal.

It went without saying then that the griffon was quite eager to be rid of the unsettling wood. She moved quickly through the misshaped trees and dark shadows, hurriedly with little regard to the noise she made. Only on occasion did she look behind her, afraid she might find some terrible fanged beast she'd never heard of but perhaps even more afraid that she might find a certain rainbow-maned pegasus.

The ferocious howling of some huge beast could be heard from not much deeper in the wood, causing the griffon to pause. The sun was well on its way down; dark was settling in and the forest would soon go from unsafe to actively hostile. Flying straight up through the trees' canopies seemed like the smart thing to do, but Gilda's wings were tired, and she wasn't entirely convinced the guards from earlier weren't waiting for her to do just that.

She just had to chance it. She had to hope that, for once in her life, luck was actually on her side long enough for her to make it through this. She was sure she could make it through this and keep flying forward. She just needed to--!

A howl far, far louder than the last sounded, disrupting the griffon's train of thought. Gilda froze, her eyes darting around. This was close; too close for comfort. She backed up quickly as her eyes settled upon a single spot in the bushes which seemed to be moving.

"Who's there?!" she shouted.  "Show yourself already!" she added as the bushes rustled some more and something started to step forward.

"GRAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWR!" a harsh, deafening roar greeted the griffon, causing her to wince and fly up into a tree in fear for her life. A cough then sounded from below followed by a voice. "Oops. Sorry about that. Just now I was using my magic to mimic the calls of various creatures in this forest and I didn't realize the spell was still active..."

At the sound of the voice, Gilda decided to go ahead and looked downward, and found herself looking at a rather lame, dorky looking purple unicorn mare. Gilda felt as if she could die from embarrassment. She flew down from the tree and gave a huff as she faced the mare down.

"What's the big idea, pony? Trying to give me a heart attack, are you?" she shouted, leering at the pony violently.

"N-no... of course not," the pony started as she backed off, shaking her head. "I was just--!" the pony cut off suddenly. "Wait a second, I know you. You're Gilda!"

Gilda's anger gave way to a grimace as she suddenly recognized the pony in front of her. She had been there. She was one of Rainbow Dash's lame little friends. Ugh. Suddenly the griffon was disappointed it wasn't some horrible, gigantic monster in front of her instead.

"So, what if I am?" Gilda shouted, raising one of her talons and pointing it at the mare. "Doesn't have a thing to do with some lame-o pony like you!"

"That's more than fine with me," the purple unicorn shouted back with surprising force. "It's probably best for everypony if this is as close to Ponyville as a bully like you gets!"

"Don't go worrying your dweeb-pony head about that. I'm out of here, and I don't plan on coming back,"  the griffon scoffed. "Your lame little Ponyville, it's nothing but losers like you, Dash and that pink one. Why would I even be interested?" She gave a huff and turned around before continuing, "So you can forget this all even happened!"

With that, Gilda began to stomp away fiercely, thinking the encounter done. To her unending surprised, the pony called after her. "Wait!"

Gilda looked over her shoulder, glaring at the pony. "What could you possibly want?" she shouted.

"It's not really my concern," the pony said, rolling her eyes. "But I just thought you should know that this forest has been really dangerous lately. More so than usual. A still unknown creature has been on a rampage, which has been causing the rest of the wildlife to become on edge and considerably more vicious. That's why I was making beast calls. I'm trying to draw the offender out."

"And what's a lame little pony like you going to do about a beast fierce enough to disrupt a place like this?" Gilda said, laughing harshly.

"You shouldn't worry about that," the pony said with confidence. "I have a number of spells prepared for when I find it."

"Well good luck," Gilda said, rolling her eyes and giving another mocking laugh. "Hope the blasted thing doesn't eat you whole. Not that I would particularly care if it did."

Those cold words said, Gilda rushed off. She wasn't too worried by the pony's warning, but perhaps her steps through the forest were a little quicker and a little more tentative. Aside from the sense of freedom she had managed to maintain, her life didn't have that much going for it, but all the same she sure didn't want to die there in those woods.

That was her chief priority at first, at least. Concern for herself was where it started, but the more she mulled over the purple pony's warning the more she became angry. She was one of them; she was one of the "friends" who had caused Rainbow Dash to betray her. Just thinking about that made the griffon seethe with anger. It was possible for her to stay away from it all and convince herself she was completely over that rainbow pony, but it was all too apparent that this was just a game. Her mind just couldn't outrun or escape the fastest friend she had ever had, no matter how desperately she wanted to put it all behind her.

In the simplest sense, part of her still needed Dash's friendship. For that reason she couldn't help but resent these new "friends" of hers. Most of it was aimed at the abundantly annoying Pinkie, but the pony she had just run into was more than enough to set her off. Talking all tough and then showing concern for no good reason? That pony was the lamest. Her anger became more intense as she continued, until soon she was stomping along with little regard for her surroundings. It was all just infuriating. Though what should she really expect? Ponies as a species were weak, meek and useless. That was something Gilda should have learned a long time ago.

The griffon let out half a sigh before another loud roar sounded from just nearby. Gilda jumped, choking on the rest of her sigh. She coughed and trembled for a moment before her expression flattened and her eyes began to glare toward the area from which the roar had come. She rolled her eyes.

"Okay, pony, you can go ahead and cut it out!" she shouted. "I know it's you! You gave me that stupid little warning to get me all on edge, and now you're following me trying to give me a fright to get back at me!" She gave a harsh laugh. "I know your game. One of the oldest, lamest pranks you could pull, and it certainly ain't gonna work on this griffon!"

Huffing and stomping her talons to the ground, she stared the rustling bushes down as she waited for the pony to show herself, but nothing came. She stomped her talon fiercer and shouted. "I said, show yourself pony. You got a problem with me, why don't you say it to my face?" she shouted with all of her anger. "I'll show you who's better. I'll show you what a useless dweeb you are!"

She smirked as something started to emerge, but her beak fell open when it revealed itself to not be a pony. No, this was a bear... but not like any bear Gilda had seen before. It was eerily translucent, with fur resembling the night sky high above the trees. It was also massive; many times larger than a griffon. It greeted Gilda was a massive roar that she could feel through every inch of her body.

Gilda gave a muted screech, too afraid to even make much sound. She then turned around, and just flew as fast as she could. The immense bear chased her, it's bulking form allowing it to plow through the trees in its path with little effort. Gilda took seldom a moment to breathe as she attempted to flee the creature as it bounded toward her. As fast as she were, she had to navigate thick foliage and it didn't; it was gaining on her.

To make matters worse, Gilda had seemingly reached something of a dead end. Right ahead of her, she could see nothing but a cliff wall. Recognizing this, she started change her angle of flight and head upwards, but before she could do much, the bear stood and swung its giant claw at her, throwing her violently to the ground. She caught herself just before impact, and prevented serious injury, but now she was on the ground, completely cornered.  

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a small crevasse in the cliff that was just big enough for her to slip in. She jumped through it, convinced it was her last line of defense. She sunk back into the crevasse as the monstrous bear clawed at it, trying to get to her. The griffon panted heavily cowering as with each ferocious movement of claw the beast tore away more of her cover. She was just biding her time now; there was no escape. No one would know and no one would probably care, but she was going to die here today.

"There you are," a voice started suddenly, catching Gilda entirely off guard. She looked outward but could not see from whom this voice had come. "I don't know what's gotten into you now,  but that's about enough of this, okay? You shouldn't bully somepony just because you're bigger than them, you know that."

The bear turned its head away from Gilda and gave a ferocious roar in the sound of the voice.

"No, you listen, mister!'" the voice started, becoming considerably more fierce and intense. Gilda could see the bear's fearsome anger visibly give way. "This is absolutely no way for you to behave! What would your mother say if she saw you acting like this!"

The bear looked down and then gave a weaker, angry growl.

"I don't care if you are all scared of the monster. That doesn't make this okay!" the voice continued with the same intensity. "Besides Twilight, Zecora and I are all working super hard to fix all of that, so you don't need to worry. Everything will be back to normal soon."

The monstrous creature made some smaller grumbles as it looked back up at the other.

"I promise, it'll all be okay," the voice said, losing its stern edge and becoming gentle again. "Now be a good Ursa-wursa and run along now. Your mother will protect you, okay?"

The creature nodded its head  and then turned around. Gilda could hear and even feel it bounding off into the distance.

"You can come out now," the kind voice spoke. "He's kinda big and scary, but once you get to know him, he's really not all that different from a normal bear."

Gilda smiled, still in disbelief. She laughed and stepped ahead, grateful whoever was out there was there to save her feathers. "Whoa, how in all Equestria did you do that? I mean, that thing was crazy..." Gilda said as she pulled herself out from the crevasse, to find a pink-maned, yellow pegasus standing before her.

"Oh, it was nothing I'm just good with--!" the pony started still smiling off in the distance. Her head slowly turned toward Gilda, and when her eyes finally met hers the pony cut herself off entirely.

"Yeah?" Gilda started, tilting her head.

"Y-you....!" the pony yelped, lowering her head and beginning to step back. "I-I... er... uh..." she said before mumbling out something entirely unintelligible.

"Do, I know you... or...?" Gilda started, when suddenly it hit her. This pony had been there too! Wait, wasn't she that impossibly meek one who had bawled like a little foal when Gilda told her off? But that just didn't compute with the impressive feat the griffon had just witnessed. This couldn't be the same pony, could it?

"Well... bye..." the pony mumbled out shyly and then let out a small cry before flying off as fast as she could.

Gilda just stared ahead, feeling more than a little dumbfounded by it all. "Well... er... thanks..." she said, though the pony was far away by then and certainly couldn't hear it.

Stumbling ahead, Gilda could only shake her head in disbelief, lost as to how to feel about the whole matter, though definitely glad she had come away from it alive. She sighed and looked upward. Her left wing was in pretty good pain from contact with the bear's claw; she doubted she could fly very good with it. She was also tired and now disoriented, not entirely sure where she was. She sighed and shook her head. That strange yellow pegasus may have saved her from death's jaws, but she was not out of this horrible forest yet. Slowly she stumbled ahead, keeping close to the hope that she didn't run into whatever it was that had frightened the monster that had nearly just ended her.