Shadows Swarmed Belowby Jay Bear v2ChaptersIt's Not RealFalling TogetherTaking RisksWhy Can't I Breathe?Never Let GoCharybdisIt's Not Real1. We have every reason to be exhausted. The six of us stayed up way too late last night packing our canoes and then left Mount Aris at the break of dawn. We had to paddle for hours through a lagoon so muggy it made my feathers curl. By the time we reached Arbor Isle, the broiling sun had risen high above us. We trudged through miles of powdery dunes, our canoes and gear slung across our backs, without finding a single tree for shade, until we reached the isle’s seaward shore. Then we made camp through the afternoon, setting up tents and lean-tos, securing our chow, and digging a latrine. After all that work, we ought to collapse into one snoring pile of fur, feathers, and chitin. But we don’t. Instead, we are brimming with energy. Ocellus challenges us to hide-and-seek. Yona launches us into a game of truth-or-dare with yak rules. Silverstream gets us going in an old hippogriff sing-along. Smolder and I race each other across the dimming sky—I win. We are six young creatures possessed by the last manic spirits of summer vacation. Our vigor mellows only a little when the stars come out. Smolder starts a campfire, and soon the aroma of burnt wood calls the rest of us to settle down by its side. We sip cocoa and catch up on what we’ve all been doing over the break. Yona and Smolder stayed in Ponyville for a gemology project with Professor Rarity, while Ocellus got an assignment at the Royal Canterlot Library. I tell them about all the odd jobs I worked around Equestria, since I didn’t want to go back to Griffonstone. It gives me a chance to show off the muscles I built up, too. Silverstream mentions volunteer work in Klugetown and lets the conversation pass on. She’s been unusually quiet the whole day. At first I chalk it up to weariness, since she planned this entire weeklong trip and spent today making sure we were all cared for, but that doesn’t seem to be the whole story. She’s antsy, and she keeps an eye on everyone as we speak. Then I notice the copper case cradled in her lap. She drums it quietly. The conversation starts to die down. A minute passes where we only talk about how nice the fire is. Another passes where nothing at all is said. Yona lets out a yawn. Silverstream stops her drumming and asks, with a mischievous spark in her eye, “Does anyone want to tell some scary campfire tales?” That wakes us up. Yona starts with a creepy thriller about four yaks trapped far from home in the dead of winter, when the sun wouldn’t rise for weeks at a time. However, the night for these yaks seemed to stretch on and on, until they began to question if one of them was somehow responsible. Smolder tells a legend about a cult who worshipped powerful ancient beings living under the Dragon Lands’ volcanoes. A savvy young drake joined the cult, even though he didn’t believe them, because he planned to use the cultists as an army against his rivals. Her story ends with the drake coming snout-to-snout with the truth of the cult’s beliefs. Ocellus’s story is about a changeling queen whose hive had been destroyed. She led the survivors of her colony to a cliffside riddled with warrens and ordered them to pass through it. However, the tunnels narrowed and took on bizarre shapes. The queen’s changelings tried to adapt, but many of them pushed themselves too far and would never return to their natural shape. Finally the colony reached the other side. The queen turned around to see what had become of her subjects—and Ocellus showed us, shapeshifting into a writhing mass of worms and eyes. I tell them about King Gavin’s Scepter of Immortality. A gang of griffons broke into King Gavin’s tomb to rob it, but one of them secretly betrayed the others, one by one, through the course of their adventure. After he’d backstabbed the last of them, he reached the Scepter, only to find he was not alone in the tomb. The Scepter of Immortality had been working all along, but not in the way he had hoped. Sandbar goes with The Olden Pony story. I’ve heard it before. Silverstream has the last story of the night. An eerie quiet takes over while we wait for her. Reeds rustle in the cool, gentle wind. Waves lap at the pebbly beach. Our fire’s dwindled to more warmth than light, but the half moon catches the glint of her copper case as she begins. “You guys are going to love my story,” she says. “There’ll be monsters and heroes, dynasties and forbidden love, and mysteries all over. First, though…you’ve got to know some history about Arbor Isle.” Smolder groans. Ocellus perks up. “Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, Mount Aris had tons of mines and famous jewelers. Hippogriffs wanted to sell their jewelry all over the world, but their boats kept sinking right off the coast.” “Gee, if only there were some way you guys could have flown around,” I say. I flap my wings to give her a hint, but she doesn’t get it. “Sure, we invented airships eventually. Before then, nobody could figure out what was happening to the boats. The only clue was that some of them would show up wrecked on the shore, but there’d be no sign of their crews. The army started to think that there could be pirates hiding right here on Arbor Isle. Back before the trees were harvested, Arbor Isle had a forest more than dense enough to conceal a secret pirate base.” I turn away from the fire to double check the modern day Arbor Isle. No signs of trees or a secret pirate base. Actually, the only life besides us here seems to be reedy dune grass and some tiny crabs scuttling around the beach. There aren’t even crickets chirping. That must be why the night is eerily quiet. “A platoon of marines came to investigate the isle, and right away they realized it was totally silent. They thought it was a promising sign, like the pirates were really there and had hunted all the game. After searching through the whole day, though, they couldn’t find that hidden base. They called it a night and made camp. “One of the soldiers, named Turba, was a very light sleeper. Even the sound of a pin dropping would wake her unless she wore earplugs. Although the night was quiet, she had to share her tent with the platoon’s worst snorer, so she stuffed her ears before bed. “And that’s why any of them survived.” Silverstream leans in. Embers make her eyes glow red. “Late that night, Turba awoke with her tentmate’s hooves on her back. She leapt up, furious at him until she caught the vacant stare in his eyes. He didn’t seem to be in control of his body. His talons gouged into the side of the tent and pulled down mechanically, ripping the fabric part-way. They caught midway, but he kept pulling. The tent poles bent. He grabbed ahold of the tent fabric again and tugged, collapsing it on both of them. “Turba dug out of the mess. All around her, more tents were falling over. Marines were stumbling through the wreckage, every one of them as zombie-like as her tentmate. She spotted the platoon’s commander walking into the forest, followed by the marines who had left their tents. Turba thought she might have missed an order to march. She started to take out her earplugs, but stopped herself when she remembered her tentmate’s strange behavior. Maybe the pirates were working with a siren to put the platoon under a spell, she thought, so she pretended to also be under its effect and followed her tentmate. “The entire walk, she tried to think of where the pirates might be and how best to launch a counterattack. However, there were still no signs of any other creatures on the isle as they arrived at the seaward beach. Turba felt an awful foreboding. Marines stood motionless in ragged rows at the edge of the surf. Waves in the distance rollicked. A strange darkness teemed underneath the water. Although she still couldn’t hear anything, she felt a low rumbling coming up through her legs. Then she saw the first tentacle creep out of the water.” Silverstream stretches one of her arms upwards. “Turba jumped onto her tentmate, trying to shake sense into him, but without success. A second, and then a third tentacle emerged. The first tentacle reached the sand, aimed directly at their commander’s foreleg. She watched it wrap tight around him and pull back, dragging the ensnared commander towards the water. He didn’t move a muscle as the waves washed over his talons and then soaked his feathers. “She panicked. There were a dozen tentacles, each reaching for one of the marines. No one except her seemed aware of what was happening. She feared she’d have to watch her entire platoon drown. “Then she remembered her earplugs! It was the only difference between her and the other marines, so she clapped her talons around her tentmate’s ears. The tentmate didn’t react for a second, but then he pawed at Turba’s talons. Turba held tight. The tentmate swung his head, cried out in anger, began to leap about, and then all at once snapped out of the spell. He was confused, but he figured out what was happening quickly and covered his own ears. The two of them scrambled to gather leaves and litter to use as earplugs, first for the tentmate, and then for the other marines. When they got back to the beach, more marines had tentacles wrapped around them. However, the tentacles had slowed down at last. It was their chance to save their platoon! “It only took a few minutes, but they plugged the ears of every one of the marines. The spell broke on each of them, and they all began to fight back with claw and beak against the tentacles. Even the commander, whose head was below water by then, fought back and freed himself once they’d plugged his ears. Defeated, the monster let out one resounding shriek and slipped into the depths. “What the marines had found was a charybdis, a sea monster that lures land animals into the ocean with an irresistible song. The charybdis wraps its tentacles around its prey and holds them underwater until they drown. Then it can feast at its leisure.” Smolder pipes up. “How’s that scary? All you need are some earplugs and you’re safe.” “That’s what the hippogriffs thought too, but they didn’t know that the charybdis they’d found was basically a hatchling. If it’d been fully grown, its songs would have pierced even the strongest gauze, and its tentacles wouldn’t have released their grasp for anything short of a volcano. Earplugs worked at first, but soon enough boats were disappearing again. Once the first airships started flying, the queen of Mount Aris declared a ban on sailing on the open seas.” With a sip of her cocoa and a smack of her beak, Silverstream adds, “A ban that she declared would last for ten thousand years.” Yona fumbles her cup from the shock. “Why hippogriff queen make ban so long?” Coolly, Silverstream says, “Because a charybdis can live for millennia.” An uncomfortable pause follows. Ocellus scowls. Smolder sits upright, blinking. There’s something they know, but it’s buried too deep in their subconscious for them to realize it. Meanwhile, Silverstream continues her pinnacle of ease act. Suddenly, Sandbar’s fur stands on end. “Uhm, how long ago did you say they discovered the charybdis?” Silverstream taps a claw to her chin theatrically. “I guess it was about five hundred years ago. Maybe less.” I can see the number crunching they’re all doing—take a terrible sea monster that lives for thousands of years, minus out that it was young only five hundred years ago, and add the paltry hundred yards between us and the surf. As they each arrive at their gut punch of an answer, they involuntarily puff up and sit straight. I hold back a laugh. “Last time I checked,” I say, “none of us have been seduced and drowned by any sea monsters. Plus, you don’t really strike me as the kind of hippogriff to get a death wish over the summer. So we don’t have to worry about this charybdis, do we?” “Oh, that thing?” Silverstream blows a raspberry. “Long gone. We can go swimming later and check out its empty den.” Calm is just starting to return when Silverstream sets down her mug and says, “Yeah, it got scared off.” We freeze. Our eyes lock on her as she placidly admires the copper case in her talons. “What, exactly,” I ask, “can scare off an enormous sea monster that drowns its prey with incredibly strong tentacles?” Silverstream grins wickedly. “Ghosts!” Listening to Silverstream makes me think about my last night in Griffonstone, although I can’t tell why. Maybe the smell of charred wood just reminds me of my stuff burning. Griffonstone was all jagged cliffs and dead trees screwed into one gangly mess. The more gold you had, the higher up you lived in it, so of course I scratched out a camp in the dense evergreen forest around the base of town. My last day there was spent hunting squirrels. I laid a dozen traps around one of the taller pines and perched near its top to make squirrel calls. Squirrel calls were second nature by then—sometimes I’d even make them in my sleep—so I didn’t give it much thought. Instead, I mulled over my latest problem. Grampa Gruff would escort me to the School of Friendship the next morning, and I knew I couldn’t carry my stuff all the way there. I also knew that I’d need some bits when I got to Equestria. My stuff was a tarp lean-to, a wood-burning stove, a lidded cast iron pot that could be used as an oven, and some other basic necessities, all in good enough condition to sell. Easy fix. My problem was no one would buy them. And why would they? Word had gotten out that I’d be leaving Griffonstone soon. Any smart griffon knew they could wait and pick over what I left behind. Those vultures would be pawing through my valuables while I wore out my wings speeding towards Equestria and its pony queen of friendship. Probably laughing about pulling one over on me. Unless I didn’t leave anything for them. Sunset broke me out of my daydreams. I hopped out of the tree to collect my meager catch, one squirrel hanging from a strangulation trap, and ate it on my walk back to my camp. With a coolness I hadn’t thought possible, I pulled the lean-to out of the tree stump I hid it in, unrolled the tarp on the ground, and laid the poles and ropes for it on one edge of the tarp. Then I got out the stove and disassembled it. Its body was sturdy, but there were plenty of delicate pieces like pegs and handles that would warp in the center of a hot enough fire. The stove would be useable without them, but not easily. Those pieces I tossed onto the tarp, along with some nasty dried food. Altogether, they looked meager, so I gathered up some twigs and nettles to add to it. Finally, I rolled up the tarp, perched over it, and took flint and steel into my talons. It was funny. Setting fire to this stuff I’d busted my tail collecting felt awful, but letting other griffons steal it would feel worse. I didn’t have a choice. Yet I couldn’t bring down the flint. Which was when Gilda swooped in with a book in her talons. “You’ve got to be excited!” she said as soon as she landed. Gilda only talked in that chirpy way when she had something to say about friendship. “You get to go to the brand new School of Friendship, taught by Equestria’s own Princess of Friendship and her actual friends. Have I told you about Rainbow Dash? She’s the coolest…” Her eyes must have caught the flint and steel in my talons. “What are you doing?” “Burning my stuff.” “Why?” “Can’t take it with me.” She felt the bundle. “It’s not a bad tarp. Couldn’t somegriff else use it?” “I tried to sell all that, but no one’s buying.” “What about giving it to someone in need?” “I just said I tried to sell it, but no one’s buying—” Her eyes lit up, and I realized she had another friendship sermon for me. Gilda really tried to spread the whole friendship thing through Griffonstone, but she had never convinced anygriff besides Gabby and Greta. I’d at least sit through her sermons. It made her happy, and they weren’t the worst thing the world. Third worst, maybe, after small spaces and getting stung by a bugbear. “A gift is something that you give to a friend,” she said, “even though you don’t expect anything back. When your friend accepts the gift, it makes you feel better because you know your friend is better off. Gift-giving strengthens a relationship and can start new friendships. Here’s an example.” She showed me the book she’d been carrying. “This is my gift to you.” I had to squint to read the title in the moonlight. “Friendship is Magic: The Journal of the Elements of Harmony. Magic, huh? I doubt I’ll get much use out of a spellbook. You know these aren’t unicorn horns, right?” I tugged on my blue and yellow crest. “No, it’s not that kind of magic, it’s…” She made a vague gesture. “You’re smart, you’ll figure it out. The Elements of Harmony put this book out last year. It has all the friendship lessons your professors learned before they started the school.” Griffonstone’s hard-knock-based school system hadn’t prepared me for much, but I knew how to read between the lines. She was saying this Journal was a cheat sheet for all the exams. “Okay, I’m interested. What do you want for it?” I started to unwrap the tarp. “I’ll trade you…these poles and rope for it.” “No, it’s a gift, remember?” She sounded like she’d had this conversation before with somegriff else. “Fine, I’ll give you the whole lean-to, but that’s worth more than a book. The book and twenty gold coins.” “Gallus, I don’t want anything in exchange because you’re my friend… Wait, twenty gold coins for an old tarp? It’s worth ten, at most!” She hesitated and her eyes went wide. “Forget it. Just take the book. No charge.” She pushed it into my talons. The book rested in my grasp. Absent-mindedly, I ran my claws across the cover. I hadn’t held a lot of books by then, but none of them were like this: heavy yet delicate with pastel colors and gold foil. It felt valuable. Why didn’t she want anything for it? It was too good to be true. Gilda had never scammed me as far as I knew, even before she’d gotten on her friendship kick, but there had to be some catch this time. I shoved the book back to her. “On second thought, I’ll pass.” Her beak clacked like she was trying to think of something to say. Before she could finish her clacking, Grampa Gruff swooped in and greeted us in his nicest manner. “What are you two useless featherbrains yapping about?” No, really, that’s as nice as he gets. “Gilda wanted me to buy her book.” “I’m giving it to you. As a gift.” Grampa Gruff squawked. “Some gift giver you are. The boy’s gotta eat over there, and all you get him is some pony book?” “I dunno, it was pretty heavy,” I said. “I could probably knock out somepony and grab their pets.” I waggled my claws, still glistening with squirrel bits, to make sure they got my meaning. “And what’s all this crap?” He gestured over the tarp. “You told me you were going to sell everything.” “I tried selling it. No one’s buying,” I huffed. Grampa Gruff’s beak twisted in a strange, unreadable way. “So you need cash, boy?” “Yeah. Unless they’ve got money trees in Equestria.” For a second Grampa Gruff stood still, watching me without meeting my eye. He turned away and took a few paces towards Gilda. “I’ve got some Equestrian bits from when those two ponies showed up in town. Go get them for me, would ya?” “Why?” she asked. “The boy needs them.” Gilda reacted in a way I’d never seen before. Bug-eyed and beak agape, her gaze flicked between me and Grampa. “You mean he can just have them…as in a gift?” Grampa Gruff shrugged. “Not like I can use that pony money here.” “All right! I’m on it!” Gilda shot her wings out. “Where’d you put them?” “You expect me to remember that? Go look in the bakery. If you can’t find them there, I might have hid them in an old pan at my place. Or Godot might be holding onto them.” “That’s a lot of places they might be,” Gilda said. Her wings wavered a little, but stayed out. “Okay, I’ll find them. I’ll get Gabby to help me too. You and Gallus just wait here.” She jetted away. Being alone with Grampa Gruff unsettled, and not only because he had no problem pecking the daylights out of me if I messed up around him. His niceness right then put me edge. He was never exactly cruel to me, and he did keep me out of trouble in his own way, but he’d never acted like he’d actually listened to Gilda about friendship. Yet here he was, already figuring out this gift deal…or doing a great imitation of it. Grampa Gruff kept his eye on Gilda until she flew out of sight, and then looked back at me. He reached an arm under his wing and took out a leather purse. “Well, Gallus,” he said. I wondered if he’d forgotten my name until Gilda mentioned it. “My oven’s on the fritz, and I’ve seen you bake scones with your little camp stove, so I’ll make you a deal. Four pony bits for every dozen scones you bake me before sunrise.” My eyes fell to the pouch dangling from his claws. “Wait, didn’t you just send Gilda to find those?” For a geezer, Grampa Gruff could move quick when he wanted to. One second his beak snarled, the next he nearly ripped off my ear fluff. “Dumbass! I was getting her out of here. She’ll be busy for a few hours at least. Now get baking or I’ll find some other urchin to do it.” He let go. I put the stove back together and got the fire started, using strips of my tarp and the poles for fuel. So my stuff went up in smoke for his scones. At least I got some bits out of it. While the first batch baked, I asked him, “Have I ever thanked you for everything you’ve done for me?” His chest puffed out. “Not that I remember.” “Good.” I turned back to the fire. “So I don’t have to take it back now.” That got me another ear yank. At least I earned it that time. * * * I could laugh remembering all this. Look at this kid, so dumb he didn’t know what to do with a gift. Such a wimp he wouldn’t push back on some geezer walking all over him. No wonder he had to ditch his everything he knew, fly across the ocean, and sign up for a pony-run School of Friendship! That’s a lie. I could never laugh about it. I want to yank that kid’s ears and squawk in his face. Leave the stuff and get to school, dummy. Go make friends. Push back on Grampa Gruff. Save some cupcakes from a rampaging yak. And would it kill you to be less defensive? I guess it doesn’t matter. Look at me now, officially a rising second-year student at the School of Friendship. Flying paintings, nightmare caves, magic-stealing schemes, and even Princess Celestia’s terrible acting couldn’t stop me. I’m basically invincible! That’s another lie. I’ve got plenty of weaknesses. Acting like they don’t exist won’t make them go away. All right. First, I guess I have to talk about Sandbar. Falling Together2. Imagine the School of Friendship common room decorated for Hearth’s Warming Eve. Garlands and bows lit by strings of colored lights hung from the ceiling. Bells chimed merrily with every waft of air. A blazing fireplace boasting a massive wreath warmed the room. Mountains of presents surrounded an enormous pine tree festooned in red and gold. A brilliant heart crowned the entire scene. Now imagine all that covered in purple goo. I’d screwed up. No one could blame me for wanting to spend the winter with my classmates, but wrecking their holidays to do it? Yeah, I had to confess. Ponies are big on second chances so I doubted I’d get kicked out of school. The worst I expected was extra friendship lessons over the break. Friendship lessons like how to make a bunch of creatures hate you with one stupid mistake. Maybe that book Gilda gave me is right and friendship is magic because they didn’t hate me. They helped me clean. Yona and Smolder moved furniture around so I could get underneath, Silverstream and Sandbar rehung all the decorations that could be salvaged, and Ocellus shapeshifted into a mouse to find all the little corners the goo had slithered into. I scrubbed and mopped like crazy, trying to do it all myself, but they helped with the dirty work too. Ocellus eventually got tired from the shapeshifting and went to bed. Smolder called it quits soon after. An hour later, we found Yona sleep-pushing a sofa around, so we got her to go back to her room before she started sleep-smashing anything. Silverstream didn’t stick around much longer either. Which left me with Sandbar. And his stories. “…Then I remembered that if you wash wool the wrong way, it becomes felt!” His eyes went wide. “Yikes.” I swished a mop around a puddle of goo, trying to sop up the last of it. “So you accidentally turned your grandmother’s sweater into felt?” “Almost! Lucky for me, she’d used cotton yarn.” “That’s a relief.” I probably sounded sarcastic, but Sandbar’s stories had started to grow on me. They were kind of soothing, actually. I didn’t know why. It could have just been that I needed to hear about ponies being nice and things turning out okay, but the easy rhythm of Sandbar’s voice didn’t hurt. A tired nicker came out of him before I could ask for the next story. His eyes were half-lidded, and he was leaning on his broom. I roused him with a talon to his shoulder, startling him a little. “You look like you’re a few days past your bedtime.” He yawned and set down his broom. “I guess I should call it a night.” While he started walking towards the door, regret hit me. I had kind of hoped someone would stay up with me. Sandbar obviously needed to get some sleep, though, so I held back from saying anything. He got to the door and stopped. “Aren’t you tired too?” “Not really,” I said, although my paws were sore from standing upright to use the mop. “Besides, there’s a lot left to clean up.” “We can all help finish it in the morning.” That made me smile. By then, I’d learned what to do with a gift. “All right, all right. Give me a few minutes to put out the fire first.” I put away my mop and padded over to the fireplace. A few seconds passed while I broke up the logs with a poker before I realized Sandbar hadn’t left yet. I glanced up. His brows were furrowed and his ears were back in a worried look. “Promise you’ll call it a night after that?” “Yeah, of course.” I went back to the fire, which was already subsiding. It’d need some water to put it out all the way, though. Neither of us said anything. I tried to think of a joke or a tease to break the silence, maybe make him want to stay so he could deliver some sort of comeback, but he spoke first. “Okay. See you later.” He left. Fatigue hit me. My paws and back ached for relief.I flopped onto the floor, stretching my wings to take in as much warmth as I could, but I still shivered. Being alone had never felt like that. In Griffonstone, I’d prefer to be by myself rather than having to deal with other griffons. Even Gilda would get on my nerves after too long. At school, I’d occasionally get into a funk and need time to myself, but I never wanted my friends to be too far away. When I thought about what would happen if they really did leave me… Eugh! Quit your whining already. You got what you wanted out of this little stunt. Even if you had pissed them off for good, so what? Even though he was on the other side of the ocean, sometimes it was like I could hear Grampa Gruff’s voice keeping me out of trouble. The voice made a good point: I’d survived in Griffonstone by myself. Surviving as a grown-up would be easy if I had to leave. When. When these creatures get sick of you and boot you out. That I didn’t want to believe. My friends had stuck up for me through this screw-up. No way they’d just get sick of me. You think trashing some holiday knickknacks is the worst you can do? My mind raced with the terrible possibilities. I hugged myself and started to shake. “Hey, I, uh…” Sandbar said from the door. I swiveled around. A doofy smile played across his muzzle, and his ears partly covered his eyes. He might have been blushing. Two steaming mugs rested on a tray balanced on his back. “Since it’s so cold outside,” he started again, “I thought you might get cold after you put out the fire. From the cold. Like, if a window got opened, and cold air came in, so, uh…” He cleared his throat. “Would you like some hot cocoa?” My beak didn’t get into gear right away. Although the fire had died down, I felt a little overheated then, but I didn’t want him to go away. “Sure. Want a seat?” I gestured to the space next to me. His smile turned a little doofier as he walked towards me and sat close enough that I could feel his body heat. “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me,” he said as he slid a cocoa to me, “but what was it like growing up alone in Griffonstone? I bet you had to be brave all the time.” I snickered. He probably wouldn’t have called me brave if he knew how I spent my last night there. “Maybe later.” For a while, we were quiet. Drowsiness weighed on me, but Sandbar fidgeted with his mug. I thought he might calm down if I could get him talking again, and listening to him could perk me up. “Got any more stories?” He thought for a moment. “Well, there was the Hearth’s Warming when my sister and I got each others’ gifts—” “I remember that one, the tags were switched.” “How about…the time it was supposed to rain, but I forgot my umbrella—” “And the pegasi rescheduled because of parasprites.” The doofy smile disappeared. “Yeah.” He rubbed his front hooves together. Silence stretched out. I got close to asking him to retell the umbrella story, if only so he’d stick around, when his face lit up. “Has anyone ever told you the story of The Olden Pony?” “Nope, so I guess you have to.” A crooked grin stretched across his lips. “I have to warn you, it’s a scary story.” “Please,” I scoffed. “Nothing scares me.” Silverstream’s word, “Ghosts!” rings in my ears while she cracks open the copper case. Inside are four necklaces like hers. “Guess who’s going for a midnight swim!” she announces in a sing-song. “Normally I’d have to help you get into aquatic forms using my own necklace, but these are enchanted to work automatically. As long as one of the pearl fragments is close to your heart, you’ll transform whenever you get in deep enough water. You’ll be able to breathe underwater, and your aquatic forms will move, see, and hear better than if you went swimming normally.” Apparently our regular eyes and ears aren’t good enough for underwater. “This way we can all go to the charybdis den and see the ghosts! So who wants to go first?” She thrusts the open case in our direction. “Are these things going to make us all look like you?” Smolder asks. “Not that that’s a bad thing. I just want to know what I’m getting myself into.” “It works differently for every race. Ponies end up looking sort of like us, but you’ll turn into a cute pufferfish.” It takes Silverstream a second to realize what she just said. “Is that okay?” “That’s the one with the spines all over its body, right? I guess I can live with that.” Smolder blushes, which the others probably take as embarrassment, but it’s more likely she’s excited to have an excuse to be cute in public. Seeing her wearing a dainty princess dress is a sight I’ll never forget…or blab about to anyone else. “Yona and Gallus, you guys turn into…” An excited look springs to Silverstream’s face. She picks up one of the necklaces and holds it out to the two of us. “I just realized, this has never been tried on a griffon or yak. Ooh, we’re doing some science tonight!” Yona leers at the necklace, probably thinking something like, ‘yak body best body,’ but she doesn’t make a move. My patience breaks. I snag the necklace out of Silverstream’s talons and throw it over my head. “What’s the worst that could happen?” I say as I fly towards the water. The rest of the group follows, with Silverstream hastily passing out necklaces. A tease about Smolder’s imminent pufferfish-ification comes to mind, but I squash it. I’m not going to delay our trip when the shore’s so close and Silverstream promised us monster-killing ghosts. Ghosts aren’t real, I know. I’m just playing along with Silverstream’s campfire tale. I pitch down into the water. Cold washes over me, followed by swirling brilliance. There’s a sensation like when a leg that’s fallen asleep wakes up, except it’s all over my body. It stops almost as soon as it starts. The brilliance leaves with it. My wings are gone. A pair of fins feel like they’re pinned to the back of my head. I can sense water flowing through new tubes in my body, and with a little squeeze I can make a jet to move. My skull feels like it’s been pulled all the way to my paws, except I don’t have paws anymore. Instead, tendrils covered in rippling suckers stretch in front of me. Two of them are longer than the other eight. A squid. The crazy necklace turned me into a squid. At least I still have a beak. Yona splashes in. A swirling glow surrounds her and turns her into a kind of fish I don’t recognize. She’s a thick disc with fins like a gull’s wings reaching up and down her backside. Ocellus appears beside me, copying Silverstream’s seapony form. She says something, but her first words are a muddle. “—turned Yona into a sunfish!” Ocellus exclaims, her voice suddenly clear. My ears must have finished adapting. Yona flits around in a circle and says, “Yak body best on land.” Called it. “Maybe sunfish body okay for swimming.” Ocellus rolls towards me. “And, Gallus, it looks like you’re a giant squid.” “Really? I thought these were goldfish tentacles.” That gets some giggles from them. “Technically, your eight shorter limbs are arms.” Ocellus shimmers, and suddenly a teal and pink squid floats in front of me. She holds up her two longer limbs, both ending with a meaty, sucker-covered bulb. “A squid’s tentacles have these large clubs at their tips.” “Thanks, professor,” I say as she transforms back into a seapony shape. More splashes come when Silverstream, Smolder, and finally Sandbar join us. We six gather into a rough circle. “Which way to the ghosts?” I ask. She grins and drifts into deeper water. As we catch up, she begins speaking in her story-telling voice again. “Centuries went by. Knowledge of the charybdis turned to murky superstition, but the ban on sailing continued. The Mount Aris monarch became a figurehead, and a cabal of trading families rose to power. This story starts with two of those families, the Aurums and the Volares, trying to make an alliance. “The Aurums were a wealthy family of miners who needed airships to sell their gold and silver around the world, while the Volares were a family of airship traders who needed money to expand their fleet. After many moons of intense bargaining, the two families made a deal to share their resources. To seal the alliance, one of the Volares’ sons, named Calamus, would marry into the Aurum family.” While she talks, we glide along a seafloor covered with smooth pebbles. Silvery flashes in the distance could be fish darting away or glimmers of sinking trash. A fog far in front of us is speckled by hints of color. “Calamus was a defiant boy about our age. He prized freedom and true love, so he despised the entire idea of arranged marriages. He tried everything he could think of to get out of his own betrothal, from running away with a traveling circus to paying a friend to woo his fiancée, but none of his plans worked. Feeling defeated, he decided that he might as well enjoy freedom while he could, so he took up risky hobbies like sky racing. Then, a few months before the wedding, he crashed during a race! Although he survived, both of his wings were injured beyond hope of healing. “The Aurums almost called off the wedding. ‘Our beloved daughter won’t be stuck with a hippogriff who can’t even fly,’ they said.” Silverstream does a good impression of a stuffy aristocrat. “What they really wanted was a better deal, so the Volares convinced them to go back to the negotiating table. Meanwhile, Calamus grew depressed and wandered around Mount Aris aimlessly. One day, he made his way to a lagoon, where he saw a hippogriff swimming in the water. He fell in love with her instantly.” The fog in front of us parts, and what’s hiding behind it leaves my beak agape. Mountains of prickly bushes spattered red rise from the sandy floor, their tips of delicate green and pristine white stretching to the swaying navy blue ceiling above. Schools of fish swirl around us like pieces of a rainbow scattered into a whirlpool and dance with fronds of seagrass in the currents. A snaggle tooth eel pokes its head out of a crevice to flex its jaw at us. Ocellus matches its shape and flits closer, but the real eel vanishes when she gets within a few yards. I guess it’s skeptical about whether friendship is magic. Ocellus rejoins us and transforms back into a seapony. “This hippogriff was beautiful, but Calamus was attracted to her swimming more than anything else. It was taboo to even go into open water back then, and somegriff who ignored quaint traditions excited him. He couldn’t get her attention by shouting, so he started to jump up and down. Finally she noticed him and swam up to the shore. He started to talk, but instead of responding, she wrote a message in the sand: ‘I can’t hear you.’ She was completely deaf, and he didn’t know sign language. He left for home, totally dejected.” “That’s dumb,” Smolder says. “Couldn’t he just write in the sand like her?” “He could have, but he got discouraged. It felt like life kept throwing obstacles in his way.” “Hippogriff boy being jerk,” Yona snarls. “Not good making everything about own problems.” “Yeah, okay, that’s fair.” Silverstream seems a little nervous, but she continues. “His moodiness didn’t last too long, though. After…some introspection, he realized he had to change his ways. He found a book on sign language, taught himself the hippogriff sign alphabet, and went back to the lagoon. As soon as he got the swimmer’s attention again, he introduced himself and learned her name was Pelagica. Then he asked if she’d teach him to swim. “She was ecstatic! No one had ever asked to swim with her before. She taught him swimming while he learned more sign language on his own. He also began practicing with her. One moonlit night, Calamus had learned enough to share all of his feelings with Pelagica. With a bouquet of flowers clutched in his beak, he asked her to marry him. And Pelagica said yes! “The very next day, the Aurums and Volares made a new deal. Calamus’s arranged marriage was back on.” The edge of the reef appears without warning, as if it’s interrupted by an invisible wall just a few yards from us. Beyond it is a silt-coated floor littered with cracked bones. “Calamus galloped to his true love’s home on the outskirts of town. He explained, as best as he could, that he’d been betrothed to someone he didn’t love. His family couldn’t be convinced to call off the wedding, so the only option for him and Pelagica was to elope.” “What did Pelagica’s parents say?” Sandbar asks. Silverstream goes stiff for a fraction of a second. “Her family isn’t really part of this story.” Which means she didn’t have a family. I shrug it off. All of this stuff is made up, anyway. “Calamus was too recognizable for them to use airships. He’d learned that when he tried to run away with the circus. He and Pelagica decided instead they’d swim to Arbor Isle, build a raft on it, and sail away. All we know about the rest of that night comes from Coast Guard reports.” We leave the reef. A faint but vast blackness appears on the horizon. “A squad on patrol spotted something floating from Arbor Isle around midnight. They thought a dead tree had rolled into the water and ignored it. None of them suspected a raft. The decree banning sailing was still strictly enforced, so no hippogriff alive then had seen a boat on the open ocean. “The squad chatted to pass the time until one of them noticed that the driftwood had changed course. One of the soldiers had a telescope he used to watch for approaching airships. They took it out to examine the driftwood and saw a raft with two figures aboard: Calamus and Pelagica. He steered the rudder with the sails full, while Pelagica emphatically signed to him. He seemed totally oblivious to her. Despite the couple’s strange behavior, none of the soldiers suspected anything amiss, so they set out to arrest the two for violating the ancient decree. They had crossed over Arbor Isle when their commander heard the first notes of a song coming from the ocean. Luckily for them, he knew the legends well enough to understand the danger…and that they could do nothing except watch as shadows swarmed below the raft.” The water sounds wrong here. There were bubbles snapping and creatures swishing in the reef, a noise so engrossing I didn’t notice it. Now all that sound is gone. I hear only a faint, vacant thrumming from the gloom we swim towards. “The soldiers watched through the telescope from a safe distance. Incredibly, Pelagica’s signing began to affect Calamus. He started watching her, first just a glance, then long stares. Whenever his attention strayed, she’d regain it by crossing her arms over her heart, which meant ‘love.’ “His grip on the rudder loosened. With a cry, he leapt onto the sails and tore at them with his claws. The ripped sails collapsed, slowing the raft, while he stuffed shredded fabric into his ears. Even that wasn’t enough. The sound had to be overwhelming. His talons dropped to the floor of the raft, and he took a step towards the water. “Pelagica stopped him. She hugged him tight, and he didn’t move except to clutch at his ears. For what must have felt like an eternity to them, they huddled close, their raft adrift on the water. Then, all at once, he relaxed. A look of mystified relief crossed his face while Pelagica cradled him. “The soldiers heard the faint music end a few seconds later. Some of them prepared to fly out then, but their commander held them back. “Calamus and Pealgica were signing to each other when wavelets first crashed against the raft. Neither of them seemed to notice when their raft started to slowly turn and sway. Then, without warning, Calamus grew still. He must have seen it first. Pelagica shook him, but he pointed behind her, and she followed his gaze. White foam sprayed from the water. Their raft rocked, drawn by something that had appeared out of nowhere: a massive whirlpool. “She signed to him rapidly but he only shook his head in reply. Her wings sprang out. She took ahold of his arm. He pulled away and cradled his head. Slowly, he stretched his wings, revealing to her that they were ruined. He pointed to her, then to the sky, and turned away. “To his and the soldiers’ shock, Pelagica grabbed him around the barrel and took to the air. The raft shattered in the eddies, and its fragments disappeared into the black water beneath them. They hovered low, as she struggled to carry him, and began to fly away from the whirlpool’s extent. Confident that they’d escaped the peril, the two shared a kiss. “Then tentacles erupted from the water. “The charybdis had grown since it’d first appeared at Arbor Isle. Scores of tentacles, each a hundred yards tall, chased after them. Pelagica ducked and weaved, but carrying a second hippogriff slowed her down to a crawl. She rose laboriously while the charybdis’s limbs surrounded them like the bars of a cage. The bulging tips met high above and came crashing down. Just before they reached the pair, she veered away and slid between two tentacles. She kept flying as hard as she could, not daring to look back. “Which is why she didn’t see the last tentacle. The one that landed hard on her back and knocked them both into the water. “The soldiers caught only a fleeting glimpse of the two before the charybdis pulled them beneath the waves. Even then, they clung to each other and struggled to escape. In vain.” Silverstream slows down as we approach a cliff’s edge. The ground slopes up like an anthill, and I get the feeling this place has been dug out by something. As I focus on the distance, the other side of the canyon comes into focus. Not a cliff’s edge, then. The lip of a hole. So this is the charybdis’s pit, minus the sea monster itself. “Calamus’s and Pelagica’s bodies were never found,” Silverstream says. “They probably never had a chance after Calamus heard the charybdis’s song. It’s possible it was playing with them.” We’re all quiet out of respect, but Silverstream’s gaze darts around the five of us. It takes me a second to realize she hasn’t mentioned what I want to hear. “So, about those ghosts,” I say. “You know, the ones that scared off Mr. Grabby here.” Her eyes gleam at me. “I was just about to get to that. After Calamus’s death, the Aurums and Volares made a third deal, again to be sealed with an arranged marriage. No one ever saw the monster again, but on the night of the wedding, every hippogriff in Mount Aris heard the charybdis…when it cried out in pure terror.” Taking Risks3 “The Aurum and Volare families held the new wedding in an opulent cathedral near the peak of Mount Aris,” Silverstream continues. She floats in front of us with the enormous charybdis pit as her backdrop, giving her voice a subtle echo. We form a rough semi-circle around her. “It began with a procession of one hundred hippogriffs representing the business partners of the two families, followed by an hour-long sermon proclaiming the miracle of love. Then came a short memorial for Calamus. No mention was made of Pelagica. “After the memorial, the bride and groom were pushed to the altar to read their vows. Attendees may have heard or felt a low droning sound, but they would have dismissed it. Maybe a mine collapsing or a caravan rolling by, they’d have thought. However, as the vows continued, the droning turned into a rumble like tectonic plates shifting. “Alarms began to knell. Hippogriffs across Mount Aris stopped what they were doing, thinking it had to be an earthquake. The rumbling grew more and more intense until the tops of spires swayed. Thousands flew out of less sturdy buildings. Wedding guests at the cathedral ducked under the strongest-looking arches and clung to pews while dust rained from the ceiling. A minute passed, then two, impossibly long for an earthquake, but it only grew stronger. Suddenly, an ear-splitting sound shrieked throughout Mount Aris.” Silverstream sticks two front fins into her snout and puffs out her cheeks, but she produces only swirls of foam. She flashes us a chagrined grimace. “Uh…imagine that was a super high-pitched whistle.” She’s planned out this whole ghost story, I realize, and practiced it so that it’d be smooth despite our interruptions. She must have only practiced the whistle on land, though. Silverstream continues. “No one understood why, but the sound made everygriff’s hearts clutch in mortal terror. A few of the most daring hippogriffs overcame their fear and searched for the source of the scream. They didn’t have to search long. In the ocean past Arbor Isle, a geyser exploded. “With the first geyser, the whistle paused…and a second later, came back, but shriller. More geysers burst, sending white foam spraying into the sky. As each geyser receded, a new whistle began. Soon a bedlam of noises warbled through the air. One final geyser exploded, the rumbling ceased, and the unnatural fear that had seized everygriff broke. “The wedding was put off. Airships rushed to sea, where they found no sign of the charybdis. No gore, no torn tentacles, and no alluring music. Divers discovered this pit, the now-abandoned home to a massive creature, and the greatest minds of Mount Aris concluded that the charybdis was gone for good. Sailing became legal again. Hippogriffs began diving for pearls and undersea gems. The competition from the new trading and jewelry businesses drove both the Volares and Aurums into bankruptcy. Within a decade, the entire regime of trading families had collapsed, allowing a fair and compassionate ruler to come to power.” She does a corkscrew turn so she’s floating straight up and down. “One mystery remains, though. What happened to the charybdis? It had no predators, after all. At least, no natural predators.” Her eyes narrow to slits. A devious smile appears. “But, maybe, it had supernatural predators.” The notion simmers a moment. A prickly feeling tingles through me. “The divers who discovered the charybdis’s den reported strange sensations whenever they approached. Some felt a chill, even in the warmest days of summer. Others felt they were being watched. Exploration of the floor was impossible—this was all before Seaquestria’s magic pearl—but those who tried to reach the bottom said they had the sense of trespassing into another’s home. One diver, who knew sign language, left the den with the words, ‘leave our home,’ seared in her mind.” Silverstream floats aside, giving us a clear view of the uninterrupted blackness beyond. “Some believe that Calamus and Pelagica were avenged on the day of geysers. However, nothing known to hippogriffs could have faced the charybdis and won. The only explanation left is that their ghosts haunted it. What they did to drive it away, no one knows.” Her voice drops to a hush, drawing us closer. “But, tonight, we could ask them.” She sweeps her arms to the lip of the charybdis’s den and waves us forward. Smolder swims over first and lands on the lip, dimpling her pufferfish body against the ground. Ocellus perches herself a few yards away. Yona and Sandbar follow suit. I’m frozen. Not because of fear. If anything, I’m excited. Maybe ghosts aren’t real, but there really could be a force, or a creature, or something no one will ever understand in that pit. If there’s any hint of truth to what Silverstream said, this thing scared away a terrible sea monster and made a home in its den. Right now I feel this vanishingly thin sliver of belief—someone else might call it hope—that if I look over the edge, there’ll be something looking back. And it’s stupid. The only thing I’ll see is blackness. I know that. I’m only pretending there might be something else. But is it so terrible if I pretend a little longer? Silverstream’s expression changes. Doubts are emerging. She looks at the four already at the lip, who are spread out over ten yards, and then returns to me. Or, not me exactly: my squid arms. She sidles up to me and whispers, “I didn’t think this part through! Can you help me out?” “Help you out with what?” I whisper back. “Spooking them! When I give the signal, tap them all on the back. Thank you thank you thank you!” She flits away before I respond, leaving me with a weird, deflated feeling. So this whole story was building up to a prank. I didn’t even get a chance to let myself down. Then again, Silverstream asked me to be part of it. That counts for something, I guess. “Do you guys see anything?” she says when she gets back to them. “I—” Sandbar starts in a nervous tone, but Silverstream cuts him off. “Don’t worry, they might be a teensy bit shy. Let me try something.” She winks at me. I try to wink back, but apparently I don’t have eyelids. I sink to the floor and creep towards the edge. My body is flexible enough to make myself practically flat against the ground. “Calamus! Pelagica!” Silverstream calls into the pit. “We half-dozen creatures beckon thy heedfulness!” “Why are you talking like that?” Smolder asks. I duck to the side so she doesn’t see me when she looks up to Silverstream. “It’s Classical Hippogriffese, so they understand us.” Silverstream cups her muzzle. “Forsooth, wouldest thou favor us with a true account of thy ordeals against the charybdis?” They’re all still. I creep forward until I have arms behind Ocellus and Yona, and a tentacle at Smolder’s back. I also slide an arm over Sandbar. “Hearest me, oh aggrieved spirits, if thou truly be there!” Silverstream shouts theatrically. A few seconds pass in silence. Her shoulders slump. “Huh. Maybe it is all just a silly—” She gasps. Her eyes go wide. “Did you guys feel...that?” That’s my cue. I grab Smolder, Ocellus, and Yona, but swish the water near Sandbar. Smolder puffs out. Yona lets out a blast of bubbles. There’s a pastel-colored rock where Ocellus used to be. Sandbar looks like he actually fainted. And Silverstream is giddy. “Did we really get you guys? We totally got you, didn’t we? I knew that’d spook you! That was the coolest thing ever!” she hoots while swimming figure eights around our victims. “My mom used to tell Terramar and me that story all the time when we were little! Although in her version Calamus would spend long hours watching Pelagica from the shore without her knowing—” “Hippogriff boy jerk and creep?” Bubbles blow out of Yona’s nostrils. “In Yakyakistan, yaks make him take long walk over thin ice.” “Anyway, mom couldn’t take us out here while everyone was stuck in Seaquestria, so she said the lovers had disappeared in one of the shelters. She’d have Terramar and me go inside, but we had to stay as quiet and still as possible or else the ghosts would catch us.” Silverstream stops swimming. “Now that I think about it, she might have been getting us to practice staying safe if the Storm King invaded Seaquestria.” “Wait,” Sandbar says, “so the story is made up?” Her giddiness springs back. “Not all of it! There really was a charybdis that disappeared, and this really is its old den. The Aurums and Volares were real families, too. There are all sorts of different stories about Calamus and Pelagica, but they might be based on real hippogriffs.” “But I saw something down there,” Sandbar says. It’d be silent if the pit weren’t thrumming faintly. Silverstream and I exchange puzzled looks. “At first there was nothing,” he says, “but then these shadows appeared. Two of them, I think, and they started moving. Then these eerie blue flashes came, like eyes peering up.” “It might have been warm and cool currents mixing,” Ocellus offers. “The refraction index of water changes really quickly with temperature, so when hot and cold water mixes it causes a lot of distortions.” “What about the blue flashes?” he asks. Ocellus shrugs. “Those could have been moonlight reflecting off of a shiny rock. Water that deep will absorb red through green wavelengths of natural light, so everything down there would look blue and black.” Yona has been lingering between the two of them, but now she turns away from the pit in a huff. “Not shiny rocks. Yona see eyes too.” The prickly sense returns. “Ghost eyes?” I ask her. “No. Not ghosts. Yona not know what.” I float closer to her, maybe uncomfortably close. “How do you know they weren’t ghosts?” “Yona see ghosts before. Ghosts kind, teach Yona about ancestors. Eyes in big hole…” Her expression curdles. “Nasty. Scary.” “Wait, so yak ghosts don’t scare you? That’s got to be the lamest sort of ghosts.” “Yak ghosts not lame!” “Sure…” Yona slaps the ground but doesn’t say anything else. Smolder hasn’t spoken yet. I look around to find she’s drifted a few yards away. Her pufferfish quills are standing on end. “So what’d you see?” I ask her. “Nothing.” She deflates some. “Let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.” She flicks her back fin like that’s the end of the conversation, but I can’t resist the gibe anymore. Even if I risk crossing a line with her. “Gee, this scary pit sure has you acting like some dainty little princess.” Her scowl catches me off guard. “Why don’t you go in there if you’re so brave?” “Smolder, cut it out,” Sandbar says. He won’t even look at me. “We should go back to camp and get some sleep.” The others start murmuring their agreement, but I haven’t gotten a chance to look into the pit yet. There really could be something in there. As much as I tease them, Yona and Smolder wouldn’t get fooled by some shiny rocks and warm water. I jet over, lean my eye over the edge, and… Nothing. I wait for some movement down there, or a glint of spectral blue light. Even that creepy sense Smolder got or some yak ghost lessons about my ancestors would be fine. It won’t happen, though. No matter how long I wait and stare, it’ll still be an inky black nothing. What did I expect? Silverstream’s story was always going to be a letdown. Ghosts aren’t real. All of this is made up. I wish I could forget that, though. I wish I could believe. An idea takes ahold of me. “Hey, Silverstream.” There’s swishing when the five of them stop. “What’s up?” she chirrups. “You said we’d see ghosts. All of us.” I jab a tentacle into the pit. “So when’s it my turn?” Sandbar and I spent every day of winter break together. He liked telling me stories, especially “scary” ones, and I liked hearing them while we huddled around lanterns late into the night. Personally, I also appreciated a mobile radiator with a doofy grin and a gentle voice. On the first morning of spring semester, we met up to compare our class schedules in a window-filled room that Headmare Twilight called a “solarium.” During the day, the room would glow like the biggest gem on a crown. At night, if it was a new moon, it’d be so dark that wisps of the galaxy would appear. We thought it’d be toasty with all the sunlight streaming in, but that morning I could still see my breath in the air. “Wanna go somewhere a little warmer?” I offered. “I bet we could sneak into the walk-in freezer.” He glanced around the empty room. “This is okay. It’s nice and quiet.” A hint of a blush showed up on his cheeks. We sat down on a sofa that sat along one wall, its cushions stiff from lack of use and the cold. Sandbar slid a little closer to me than usual. I didn’t mind. Ponies instinctively herd together when they get cold, so it was natural for him. We pulled out our schedules and held them side by side. They couldn’t have been more different. We’d have one class together on Fridays, and another every other Tuesday. Not even our breaks between classes lined up. My first class started at eight in the morning, and his last class ended at five in the afternoon, so we’d barely get to see each other between breakfast and dinner. “I’ve got an idea,” Sandbar said when we’d put away our schedules. He rummaged through his saddlebags and pulled out a flyer. “The new assistant professors—” “We have new profs?” He looked uncertain, but it vanished a second later. “Cozy Glow said Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom were going to start teaching optional classes on weekends. One of them is a seminar about Hearts and Hooves Day. The two of us could sign up for it.” “Nah, sounds like I don’t have any of the right parts.” Sandbar didn’t always get my jokes, and at that moment he looked like he might ask if griffons really didn’t have hearts. “I’m guessing ponies don’t actually have a day celebrating two extremely particular anatomical features. How do you celebrate it?” “I, uh…” He shivered. “I never have. Last year, I tried to, though.” There was a holiday that some ponies didn’t celebrate, even if they tried? How intriguing. “There was a pegasus at my old school I had a crush on,” he continued. “Super athletic, in the Junior Wonderbolts, beautiful dusty blue coat, and totally fearless. I really, really wanted to be with this pony as much as possible. I even signed up to be a water fetcher for the Junior Wonderbolts to get closer.” I nodded along. I still didn’t know what it meant to have a crush on someone, but it sounded a little like finding another griffon to roost with. During the winter, griffons would pair off with somegriff they could put up with and build a nest to stay warm together. They’d go back to living alone after spring unless they had an egg. Then they’d be stuck in their nest through summer, and in autumn they’d fight over who had to keep the hatchling. Grampa Gruff’s voice butted in. Your parents were smart. They figured out that neither of them had to be stuck with their kid. I swallowed down a vinegary taste burning the back of my throat and let Sandbar continue. “About a week before Hearts and Hooves Day, a lot of colts and fillies were talking about what they wanted to do for dates. I felt like one of the only students without a special somepony. But I had my crush. So I decided that afternoon I’d ask out my crush at Junior Wonderbolts practice.” Sandbar swallowed. “I’d confess my true feelings. To him.” Sandbar locked his gaze on me like he’d just revealed the twist to one of his stories. I didn’t get it. Sure, I knew some creatures had strong feelings about roosting partners—or crushes—but like most griffons, I wasn’t picky about gender. “So what’d he say?” I asked. Sandbar’s face didn’t change, but his ears twitched up and relaxed. “I grabbed two bottles of water and went to where he usually landed during warmups. When I got there, he actually glanced down and waved! I was about to wave back, but this unicorn colt whooped at him. Seeing this new colt made me worried.” This story had taken a downer turn for Sandbar. Obviously his crush had met somepony already. I pursed the corners of my beak in sympathy. “The unicorn started shouting things like, ‘Watch your form!’ ‘Hold that left wing steady!’ ‘Easy on the bank!’ I figured he might be coaching my crush, so I felt better and ignored him. My crush was doing great that day, like he had extra energy. It got me so excited to talk to him. “He finished up in the air and landed near the unicorn. Then he waved me over! He wanted to see me! I trotted up and got right next to them, but before I said a word, he wrapped a foreleg around the unicorn. ‘Sandbar, meet my flight coach,’ he said.” “Oh!” I trilled, surprised by the happy ending. “Who was also his coltfriend.” Sandbar’s head sagged pitifully with the twist. “Aww. I’m sorry.” I gave him a wing squeeze. “But that means now you can have a crush on some other pony, right?” All of a sudden he pawed at the cushions so morosely. “Yeah, but…I’ve never felt the same way about another pony. It was more than imagining us hugging and…kissing. I’d have done anything just to see him smile. When I met his coltfriend, I was glad that he’d met somepony who made him happy. Even though it wasn’t me.” “Really? You should have challenged that unicorn to hoof-to-hoof combat, taught him a lesson for horning in on your boy.” That made him laugh. “Nah. They were talking about getting married after they graduated. I…I really am so happy for them.” He sniffled and wiped his nose, trying to disguise it as a shrug. “Besides, maybe you’re right. Maybe I am supposed to meet someone else.” A quiet second passed, and Sandbar glanced at me again. I wondered if he’d said something he hadn’t planned to. He chewed his lip. “Have you ever had a crush on someone?” I almost shot my beak off. There were griffons I’d fantasized about roosting with, although none of them would have settled for me, but having a crush sounded terrible. Who would give up everything they wanted for some other creature’s happiness? Sure, I liked when my friends were happy, but I wouldn’t make myself miserable for it. In a heartbeat, I imagined saying exactly that to him, and knew I’d be making fun of what he’d gone through. In a cruel way, though, not a way that’d cheer him up. My talon touched his foreleg, and I started to say something vague about griffons not having crushes, when Grampa Gruff’s voice made everything click. He told you he wanted someone athletic, fearless, blue, and with wings. Doesn’t that remind you of somegriff? My eyes met his, like two glimmering pools of water. Without a word I leaned in and kissed him. It was a little awkward. Griffon beaks and pony muzzles don’t exactly mesh. Even still, the hair on his snout sent trembles from my crest feathers to the tip of my tail. He made a startled gasp that faded into a contented whimper. His chest pressed against mine. I exhaled through my nostrils, rustling his lip bristle, and felt it tickle me back. The bell for first class couldn’t have picked a worse time to ring. We snapped apart. “I’ve got to—” I jerked my talon at the doorway. “Yeah, you should—” “But we’ll talk—” “Definitely, yeah, talk.” He got that irresistible, innocent smile. “Later.” I booked it out of the room, driven partly from the lingering thrill of our kiss, partly from my nerves about starting the semester. But mostly I didn’t want him to see me shaking. Why Can't I Breathe?4. Journaling has never been my thing, but I did keep track of what I learned being with Sandbar. Here’s a short list from the first month: Sandbar had a sixth sense about my mood. Sometimes memories about Griffonstone would bubble up and put me in a funk, but he seemed to know it even before me. Then he’d ask if I was okay until I admitted I wasn’t. Talking to Sandbar made my rough days pass a little faster. I still had them, but they weren’t as bad when I could share them with someone. How to kiss a pony. Getting a beak and muzzle to meet up took some trial and error, but Sandbar said he didn’t mind. I definitely didn’t either. Never, ever, ever go in an amusement park ride built my foals. We had signed up for that Hearts and Hooves Day seminar. The seminar would be “in the field,” which meant our first class met up at a bridge over the Ponyville River. Pink paper cutouts of hearts and horseshoes had been taped across its arch while red streamers wrapped its railings. Ice floated at the edge of the riverbanks. Crisp breezes got me all but hanging off Sandbar for warmth as we walked over. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo were whispering between themselves when we arrived. Other students, all ponies, stood in small herds chatting and stamping their hooves for warmth. It seemed we were waiting for the rest of the class to show up. Sandbar leaned to my ear. “Do you think they changed the class?” I shrugged. We’d told the fillies we were a couple during registration. They’d cooed and begged for all the cutesy details…and then confessed that they had no idea what to teach a couple. The first day was supposed to be about finding a special somepony and asking them out on a date. They said they’d figure it out for us, but from the way they were frantically whispering while the last of our classmates straggled over, I had my doubts. The fillies’ whispering ended. Apple Bloom galloped upriver, leaving Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo with us. Sweetie Belle started. “Welcome to Hearts and Hooves Day 101 everypony...and griffon! Today we will watch two young lovebirds on a romantic date.” I knew where this was going. “You can’t call them ‘lovebirds’!” Scootaloo said. “It could be offensive to a gri...to you know who.” She whispered the last of the sentence. “That’s not what ‘lovebird’ means. Besides, we can’t call them love-pony and love-half-bird-half-cat!” Scootaloo’s eyes bulged. “That’s even worse!” Sandbar was blushing and I had wrapped a talon over my eyes when I heard the creak from behind us. Apple Bloom was pulling a small row boat down the river. More paper cutouts decorated it, although they looked a lot more shoddy than the bridge’s. A box attached to belts and a long metal bar had been installed on its side. “Just call them love-creatures, okay?” “Fine,” Sweetie Belle sniffed. “Anyway, today’s date for our two young love-creatures will be a leisurely cruise down the Ponyville River. Are there any questions before they embark?” “So who’s going on this date?” I deadpanned. Sandbar snickered and nudged me onto the boat. As soon as we sat down, Apple Bloom appeared by our side to throw life jackets and belts around us, and then wrapped her forelegs around the metal bar. I put a talon up. “Don’t worry about—” She hopped backwards. The bar swung to our laps, stopping an inch from our hind legs. Breath caught in my throat. “Now y’all have nothing to be afraid of!” She trotted to the back. After a moment of sitting frozen, I reached out a claw and tried wiggling the bar. It had some give. The belts were buckled so they could be undone easily enough. And the sky stretched wide above me. Nothing to worry about. I loosened the straps on the life jacket to help chill out. With a surprisingly strong buck for a little pony, Apple Bloom sent the boat floating along with the slow river current. “Many dates start with introductions,” Sweetie Belle said as she juggled between walking backwards and magically shuffling index cards. “Then the couple may attempt small talk, as you can see here.” A clenched smile snapped onto Sandbar’s face. He rotated his head my way and said, “Uhm… How are your classes, Gallus?” “They’re all right. I’m in one right now that’s a little weird.” He lost the smile. “Same here.” Pencils scribbled against notepads. Sandbar’s hooves tapped against the bar. My heart jumped a little when it seemed like the bar might close more tightly. I felt chilly and puffed my feathers out. Ice crunched on the hull as the boat bounced off a bank. We silently floated into a bend. An off-white shed appeared from behind a building in town. Red letters were scrawled across its front. I tried to stand up to get a better view, but the bar and belts held me down. “Now the couple will settle into a warm, caring embrace,” Sweetie Belle said, “as they enter the Tunnel of Love.” My mouth went dry. “Are you okay?” Sandbar asked, his voice soft. No one back then knew I had a problem with being in small spaces. With a herd of our classmates watching and taking notes, I wasn’t about to reveal it to everypony. “Fine.” I clenched my jaw. “Just fine.” My eyes wouldn’t leave the oncoming tunnel. Blood rushed in my ears. An argument broke out between the fillies. Snippets about Cozy Glow and not testing animatronics filtered through. My grip tightened on the bar. Cold iron bit back. The narrow entrance, shorter than the fillies’ shoulders, loomed in front. No signs of ventilation. No exit. I needed air, but no matter how much I tried, I kept gasping— A tender hoof pressed against my claws. Beside me was Sandbar, his smile gentle and his eyes inviting. He exhaled, sending humid air washing across my beak, and I exhaled with him. Moments passed with our lungs empty. Our hearts were steady. His belly bulged, followed by his chest, as he inhaled over seconds. I matched his every move. We shared breaths and gazes as the blackness swallowed us. Shadows hid the side of his face. The river splashed cavernously. Woody scents wafted through the air. Sandbar’s hoof squeezed my talon, and I knew he’d hold me as long as I needed him to. “Thanks,” I said. His smile, even half in the dark, could have melted me. A hiss started. Low tones drawled out, sending my down standing on end. The notes congealed into a shambling melody caught somewhere between lullaby and dirge. Familiar, though. Actually recognizable. I began to place the song, something I’d heard around Ponyville before, but it was slowed way down, as if somepony—and three suspects came to mind—had set the wrong speed on a record player. Red bulbs flickered on under a quartet of dress mannequins holding musical instruments, their glow turning the mannequins into leering demons dancing in gloom and flame. Larger lamps hung above them, unlit. Presumably the mannequins would have looked normal if all the lights had been on. Doors slid open with a creak. A stream of blood poured from the ceiling. That took a second for me to get. The fillies must have meant to make it a romantically-lit waterfall, but the lights were too red and the water too frothy. The astringent odor of a rusty nail completed the effect. A cabinet squealed open, and a string of tiny pegasi dolls carrying bows and arrows coasted above us. Except they been tied up wrong and swung wildly from a fishing line. When the last one fell into the water inches from the boat, I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. Hearts and Hooves Day? This ride should have been the main attraction for Haunts and Horrors Night! And I couldn’t wait for the next grisly sight or sound. Being shackled to a boat in a cramped tunnel shouldn’t have been fun. It shouldn’t have been bearable. Instead of freaking out, though, I was holding back guffaws at the broken down contraptions and macabre results. I knew who I had to thank for calming me down enough to enjoy this bizarre cruise. Sandbar deserved to know how much he meant to me, so I leaned over to sneak a kiss onto his neck. I froze mid-lean. Sandbar’s eyes were the size of dinner plates. “Sandbar?” His teeth chattered. “I-it’s…” He pointed a foreleg to a painting hanging on a far wall. I could barely make out a picture of two young ponies kissing, but someone had added a reflective coat to their closed eyes. The broken lighting turned the glossy paint into wolf’s eyes in a dark forest. The painting hung above another narrow archway with shut doors. The tunnel was going to close in again, but I pushed the thought away. Sandbar needed me to be brave. “C’mon, dude. It’s only a painting.” A bang echoed. The painting flipped around. I glimpsed some wedding scene on the other side, but then Sandbar was squeezing the air out of me. My lungs didn’t work. Heartbeats pounded in my ears. The doors slithered open, but the arch’s sides were so close that the boat would never push through. This slapdash shed was going to collapse, I could see it, its whole weight would crush us. I don’t remember what happened next except in snapshots: slapping at the belts; breaking the rod pinning my legs; flying hard into the ceiling; clawing open a gap; slipping my head through; Sandbar shouting for me before I scrambled outside. By the time I could think again, I’d flown to a faraway tree and perched on a branch dotted with tiny green leaves. I rested my head against the trunk and gasped for air. Rugged bark pressed into my temple. My heart started to slow down, leaving me dizzy. Grampa Gruff’s voice chimed in. Don’t fall off. You already look like a big enough idiot. My claws dug into the branch. I started to wonder if I should even bother going back, but right then galloping hooves clattered up behind me. I girded myself for all the jeers a herd of ponies could throw at me. “Gallus?” Sandbar’s tender voice relaxed my grip. I turned around and found him alone on the ground. The tunnel was in sight behind a foothill, prominently featuring the hole I’d escape through, but I couldn’t see any of the other ponies. No telling what they thought of me. “What happened back there?” he asked. “Oh, I suddenly remembered I’m a griffon and needed to make a nest for us to roost in. Pass me some twigs, would ya?” Based on the way he half-frowned, he knew I was joking. He just didn’t think it was funny. I hopped out of the tree and landed next to him. “This isn’t a big deal or anything, but sometimes small spaces make me sort of nervous. Nothing to worry about.” I started walking back to the river, although I was a little unsteady on my talons and paws. He trotted up beside me. “That was more than sort of nervous. Are you sure you’re okay?” “Yeah,” I snapped. “You did punch a hole through the ceiling.” “You’re one to—” I stammered, remembering how he’d jumped on me. “That’s… It’s…” A heavy sigh slipped through my beak. The truth was I envied him. So what if he’d been startled by a dark hallway with a few broken gimmicks? He was fine now. He might have even had fun being spooked. Meanwhile, I’d be wobbling with each step for at least the next half-hour. If I’d had my freakout a week or two earlier I would have told him to forget it. By then he’d talked me through enough rough days that it was worth trying to share a little. “You’re right, I was more than sort of nervous. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.” His ears flicked back. “Do you get that way in tunnels only, or…” “Tunnels, closets, tents, pretty much whenever I feel trapped. Even that life jacket put me on edge. Anything like that can make me flip out.” “You didn’t flip out when we got into the tunnel.” “That’s…true.” Our short trip through the tunnel replayed in my mind. “I think having you there really helped me. You were relaxed, and I knew you were looking out for me. So I could relax.” I paused when I realized what I’d said. “That’s really weird, isn’t it? Calming down just because someone else is calm?” “That’s pretty normal, actually.” He sounded amused. “Feel up to giving that tunnel a second try with me?” “Ah, no. Let’s start out easy and work our way back up to death traps.” He thought for a few moments. “How about swing dancing? We’ll be close together, but if you start feeling cramped, you can just push me away for a few beats.” “Cool. What’s swing dancing?” “It’s like regular dancing, but with jazzy music. You switch places and sort of swing your partner out a lot.” I nodded. “And what’s regular dancing?” “…R-really?” “You said we’d see some ghosts. All of us. So when’s it my turn?” My question hangs in the water. Yona and Smolder are avoiding my eyes, and Sandbar’s turned away from me. Silverstream is in front of them, her ears flicking in thought, but it’s Ocellus who answers. “None of us really saw ghosts. It was all just tricks of the light and Silverstream’s story.” “Is that so, professor?” I say in a nasally voice. “Tricks of the light and spooky stories are all it takes to frighten a dragon and a yak?” Yona spurts some bubbles but doesn’t take the bait. Smolder is clearly done listening to me. “Fear is a very basic emotion,” Ocellus says, “and the fight-or-flight response is one of the core survival instincts that almost all animals have. When you encounter something that you can’t explain, your brain is really likely to perceive a threat, which triggers fear.” I roll my eyes, which I’m pleasantly surprised to find squids can do. “Whatever.” “That’s…how it usually works. Every creature is different, I guess.” Ocellus squints at me, disconcerted. Silverstream’s ears are done flicking. She pipes up with, “There are a few other stories about seeing Calamus’s and Pelagica’s ghosts. Couples who elope say they’ve seen them, and there was a musician who said they were her muse.” A moment goes by, and then her arm-fin snaps in a weird gesture. “Oh! And they’ve been spotted by hippogriffs who were freediving.” That’s an interesting word. Diving is a good way to catch a meal that’s not paying attention, although some creatures also say ‘diving’ when they mean jumping into water. Adding ‘free’ to it has to mean something, like adding ‘swing’ to ‘dancing.’ “What’s a freediver?” “It’s when you go deep underwater without turning into a seapony.” She glances at me, a squid-griffon. “Or, you know, turning into some aquatic form. Freediving was a huge deal before hippogriffs had the magic pearl because there was no way to breathe underwater. On land, you can probably hold your breath for a minute or two, but with training you can hold your breath underwater for five or ten minutes! A freediver can go looking for pearls, dig up clams, spear fish, explore shipwrecks…” She trails off, apparently lost in thought. “I’ve read about freediving,” Ocellus says. “Even without training, a lot of creatures autonomic reactions when they go into water. Their heart rate slows down and there’s less blood in their legs and tail, so their vital organs can keep working while their body uses less oxygen. It’s pretty dangerous, though. It can lead to blackouts, seizures, or permanent brain damage.” “A boy from Terramar’s school tried it once,” Silverstream says softly. Her face twists into a somber mask. “He wanted to impress a girl he was crushing on, so he turned himself into a hippogriff underwater, took off his necklace, and swam to a cave. Some of his friends were supposed to time him, but I guess they got distracted. Maybe they just didn’t think it’d be risky.” Some disgust, or possibly anger, appears as a curled tweak in her lips. “He passed out and had to go to the hospital for a week. Even after he went back to school, I heard he had a tough time in class because he can’t remember things as well as he used to.” “Sorry to hear that,” I mumble. Part of me wants to ask if the kid said anything about seeing ghosts, but Silverstream seems to be disturbed by this kid almost drowning himself. Maybe Silverstream was the girl he tried to impress. That thought shouldn’t bother me. This kid’s crush isn’t what got us talking about freediving, I recall. “You said freedivers see the ghosts.” Silverstream snaps out of her funk. “Oh, right! Remember how they had to have divers explore this den after the charybdis left? And how they all had creepy vibes from it? All of them were freediving. That’s why they couldn’t explore much, because each of them only had five or ten minutes of air.” She turns aside like she’s about to share some juicy gossip. “What I’ve heard is, since the charybdis drowned its prey, Calamus’s and Pelagica’s ghosts come out to freedivers when they’re about to run out of air.” Smolder lets out a yawn. “Can we go now? I think we’re all getting a little cranky.” She glances at me. Silverstream and Ocellus float towards her, Yona, and Sandbar. A few of them copy Smolder’s yawn and mutter about how tired they are. I take another look into the pit hoping something decided to show up, but there is still only vacant nothingness. Swishing sounds behind me signal that everyone else is calling it quits. Tonight I won’t be seeing any ghosts. What did you expect? Ghosts aren’t real. All of this crap is made up. I want to forget that. Water’s already pumping through me, pushing me away, but I wish there was any chance of seeing something from Silverstream’s story. Some hope that anyone can scare away the monsters hunting them. I just want a chance to believe, even if it’s only for a while. Say, for five or ten minutes. My tentacle wraps around the sliver of magic pearl that’s tied to my conic head. I make a dead stop a few yards from the pit and say, “Anyone want to find some ghosts with me?” The five of them stop mid-swim, but only Silverstream faces me. No one says a word. “C’mon, we just pop off our necklaces and sink, right? If ghosts are going to show up for anyone, it has to be for creatures freediving in the charybdis den. That’s, like, a double whammy of ghost bait.” “That’s not a good idea,” Ocellus says. “What if someone passed out? Even if you don’t drown, you could end up with a memory problem for the rest of your life like Terramar’s friend.” “Was that his deal?” I say wryly. “I must have forgot. Guess I don’t have much to lose, then!” “That’s not funny.” Silverstream sounds small. I should take back the wisecrack. Later, though. “Look, if you’re all too scared, I’ll just go by myself. Don’t worry, I’ll carry my necklace, so I can just toss it back on when I’m ready to go up.” One wave of my free arms pushes me over the den. I take a deep breath, and— Did you get hay for brains all of a sudden? Think this through, boy. Grampa Gruff’s voice makes me hesitate. How do I take a deep breath? Do I even have lungs as a squid? I’m about to back out, tell my friends I was kidding, when Sandbar speaks up. “Gallus…” He sounds like he’s on the verge of tears. “Please be care—” I snap off the necklace with a flash of light. Sandbar’s voice muddles into babbling tones. My vision blurs. Water soaks my down and fur. Air floods my lungs. My claws tighten around the necklace as I begin to sink. Never Let Go5. The edge of the charybdis’s den rises past me. I sink effortlessly. On the surface I could lie on my back and keep my beak above water, but the buoyancy is different down here. Drag on my wings slows me, so I tuck them in to drop faster. Cold shocks my skin. I hadn’t prepared for that. Summer is supposed to make seawater mild, but this pit feels like a column of freshly melted glaciers. I can’t hug myself for warmth because the necklace is in my talon and I don’t know how close it can get to my chest before it turns me back into a squid. My ears clog from the pressure, so I plug my nostrils with my free talon and puff air into my sinuses to reopen them. Almost as soon as I finish, they clog again. I try to force them open a second time, but they stay shut no matter how hard I blow. I give up. The pinching hurts, but Grampa Gruff had done worse. The bottom of the den wallops me when I land, shooting a jolt from my paws to my neck. Maybe I held myself too stiffly on the way down, or maybe I fell faster than I thought. I tap the ground with my paws. Hard, jagged rocks, though not sturdy. One plank wobbles when I put my weight on it, and the other rocks shift around easily. I can’t see anything. Looking around and blinking—it’s nice to have eyelids again—doesn’t change my view one bit. Thin trails of sparks glitter above me, but otherwise I’m surrounded by pitch blackness. If those ghosts show up, they better glow. For a second, I cram down every ounce of my skepticism into a tiny hole. Maybe they won’t glow, but they could reach out and touch me. My skin tingles with anticipation. What if ghosts were real? What if these ghosts were real? Two creatures so drawn together they refused to leave each other even when certain death came for them. Bound so closely that sharing a life together wasn’t enough, they had to share an eternity as spirits linked to this place. Fueled by something so fierce it scared away an invincible monster. A world with monsters lurking around every corner isn’t fair. Big or small, strong or wily, teeth bared or hiding under Cozy Glow’s ice blue curls, and those are just the ones you see. What I need are ghosts to drive away all of them. But I won’t get them. Silverstream told us a story some hippogriff made up long ago. None of it was real. Except the charybdis. I grasp the necklace in my talon. I’m not running out of breath yet, but staring into impenetrable murk is going to get boring. Then again, if I swim back up to the others after a minute they’ll probably think I got scared. Maybe I should come up with another reason to quit early. Apologizing to everyone, for example. I called Yona’s yak ghosts lame, didn’t I? I also crapped all over Ocellus for being smart and talked about Smolder’s dainty little princess moment. Plus I made fun of Silverstream’s brother’s friend. That was messed up. It’s not all my fault. I’ve been on edge since I got the first whiff of saltwater. I’ll be chill tomorrow. I still need to apologize to them. They’ll forgive me. What I said wasn’t enough to end our friendships. It wasn’t enough this time. Someday you’ll piss them off for good. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to force the voice out of my head, but I get distracted: it’s darker now that my eyes are closed. Opening my eyelids reveals the faintest patterns of midnight blues and blacks materializing as I slowly acclimate to the nearly lightless pit. Vague outlines of rocky shelves come together, while the floor remains too chaotic to make sense of. I look up. Black-tipped tentacles are sliding towards me. I swipe at them, miss—I swung too far, they’re inches away—and swipe again with my other talon. Contact, and they’re flimsy. I clamp down and rip them off— And feel a stabbing pain in my scalp, like when Grampa Gruff used to try to tear off my ears. I let go. The pain eases. There weren’t any tentacles, I’d grabbed my crest. It didn’t look anything like my feathers, though. Where’d my yellow tips go? Then I see my talons are solid black. They open wide and drift to my face. They should be bright orange-yellow. I can see the blue in my arm feathers, albeit dimly, but I can’t make sense of my colorless talons. There’s something I’m forgetting… I remember after a second: Ocellus said everything should look blue and black down here. Something about how deep water absorbs all the colors like red and green. My talons were orange-yellow, so that must be why they look black now. Probably the same thing happened to the yellow in my crest. I pause to marvel at them, flipping them palm up, and then palm down. A dull ache starts in my chest. It’s not enough that I have to put the necklace on right away— Wait. No. Dumbass! Where’s your necklace? It’d been in one of my talons. Why don’t I remember which one? They both clench, trying to feel for the thread, but it’s gone. I must have thrown it accidentally. You mean you threw it away when you got scared by your own crest. I can’t leave the necklace down here. How much harder is making up going to be if I also have to beg for help finding it? I kneel down and scrabble through the jagged pebbles on the ground. My eyes keep adjusting, but it’s never enough to look around. Loose piles scatter under my talons. I snatch at the pebbles, feeling each one and tossing it aside when it’s unfamiliar. Little clicks go off as each lands. Which way did I toss the necklace? Even if I knew, could I find feel my way to anything useful? I can’t tell which way I’m pointed now. Jitters pulse down my arms and into the rocks. Black puffs of silt rise and hover. It gets so cloudy with silt that even the shapes I saw earlier disappear. My heart flutters. I feel like puking. I bet those necklaces cost a fortune. The silt is floating down and my eyes have acclimated more, but I’m out of time. I’ve screwed up again. All I can do is hope Silverstream will forgive me for losing her necklace, after they all forgive me for being a massive jerk today. They probably went back to camp already. They got so tired of your crap they’ll tell you to fly home tonight. Could this smartass voice just shut up for once? Out of frustration, I kick at one of the boulders near me. My paw throbs on impact, but I deserve that. I still regret it. Before I can chew myself out for it any more, rumbles shake the water. A clattering sound echoes through the pit. Something lands on my other leg, hard. My paw flashes pure fire. I try to paddle up with my arms only, but each move sends more agony through my lower body. The silt keeps falling and my eyes keep adjusting. Now I can see what’s holding me down: a massive stone wedge has pinned my leg to the floor. ——— I didn’t regret a second of roosting with Sandbar. Really. I thought dancing meant a big group hopping around, like the six of us did in that play with Princess Celestia, but swing dancing was totally different. We had to stand on our hindlegs and hold each other up. Then, a band would start playing music, and we’d push each other around the floor to the beat. Swing dancing has all these different moves, and no one told us which ones to do, so I had to pick and get Sandbar to follow. Like he said, I could swing him away whenever I wanted, but there’s also a lot of moves about bringing your partner in closer. The more we danced, the more I liked those pull-him-closer moves. Also, Sandbar started surfing every few weeks. We’d take these long train rides out to the coast on a Saturday morning, and he’d spend the day riding his dusty blue surfboard. I flew around him and teased him since he stuck to waves that didn’t rise above his haunches. I bet he’d have been incredible on one of those monster waves. Staying in a hotel wasn’t an option, so we’d take midnight trains back to Ponyville and fall asleep leaning against each other. The smell of saltwater still makes me think of those trips. Then there was Cozy Glow’s whole plan. I don’t want to talk about that except to say that our teachers threw a huge party for the six of us in the common room. Professor Pinkie Pie went all out with it. Balloons coated the ceiling, a smorgasbord of treats and punch were spread out, and a DJ blasted tunes. Silverstream loved it and Yona went nuts of course, but Smolder, Ocellus, and Sandbar also had fun. When she calmed down a little, Silverstream told us about her idea for a summer trip with just the six of us. I suppose that turned into our expedition to Arbor Isle. The party spirit eluded me all night. I couldn’t figure out why. Sure, all the excitement of the past few days had worn me out, and the approach of finals week filled me with dread, but there was something more than that. For a long time, I coasted around the edges of the room. Sandbar caught my eye from across the room. We hadn’t spoken much since Cozy Glow had been captured. He looked lost for a moment, but then his adorable smile showed up. I expected him to charge towards me, but instead he trotted to the DJ. Which was when Grampa Gruff’s voice clued me in to was bothering me. Remember last time you were in here? Memories of purple goo splattered across Hearth’s Warming decorations flooded to mind. I hadn’t realized I’d been avoiding the place, but right then I almost felt trapped in that enormous room. I’d clung to the walls the whole night, which made it easy to slide out the door without anyone noticing. Swing dancing music began to play as I walked down the hallway. Most of the rest of the school was closed off, so I wound up in my dorm room. Posters of airshows I’d been to hung from each wall. Textbooks towered from one corner. A rug I’d bought on the Las Pegasus trip with Sandbar lay on the floor, one corner already torn off. A painted wooden crab we’d gotten in Baltimare, which had lost a leg when he showed it to Yona, leaned against my desk’s backboard. Photos dangled from tacks pinning them to a cork board. My talons gravitated to the photos. I brushed aside the snapshots of us hamming it up for the camera and dug to the one picture I’d kept from our big Hearth’s Warming dinner. The six of us were sitting around a table before we’d been served. Folded napkins, pristine plates, and orderly silverware lay in front of each of our smiling faces. I looked relieved in the photo, maybe a little timid, but that didn’t bother me as much as the trickle of purple goo hiding on the edge of the frame. Trying to wipe the smudge out of the photo didn’t do any good. Tapping came from the door. “Gallus?” The sound of his voice still made me breathe easy back then. I opened the door. He stood at the threshold, a shadow against the illuminated hallway, his only movements a tremor in his fetlocks. “I want to apologize,” he said. “Why?” I wrapped an arm around him and led him inside. The door closed, and his rump dropped to the stone floor. “Everything I said to Chancellor Neighsay. I didn’t mean any of it—” “Dude, I know. You were just making him think you were on his side.” I sat across from Sandbar and ran my claws through his mane, teasing the ends of his messy strands. “Did you know then?” My talon slipped out of his hair. The truth was, I’d sort of believed him then. Even after all the time we’d spent together, I really could believe that he’d turn on us. That he’d leave me in a heartbeat. Because that would have been the smart thing to do. “I wasn’t sure what to believe,” I said. He must have known what I really meant because he folded into me. He fit so perfectly into the curves of my body. I scooted back to give him room on the rug and clutched him to me, even though it was too hot to be that close. I didn’t care. He’d been so brave to rescue us. He didn’t deserve these doubts, so I’d hold him close until every one of them went away. For a long time, we laid in silence. Then he asked, “Have you ever told anyone you love them?” Of course I hadn’t. Griffons don’t say that kind of thing without drowning in sarcasm. “No,” I said. He tensed. No pony asks a question like that because they want to hear about the words griffons don’t say. I remembered him trotting away with Chancellor Neighsay, saying he didn’t want anything to do with creatures like me. And I remembered the fear that he was never coming back. Panic seized me. It didn’t matter what I felt. If I hurt him, he’d leave me forever. Remember when I said I didn’t regret a second of roosting with Sandbar? That was a lie. This is the part I regret. I leaned into his ear and whispered, “But I love you.” “I love you, too,” he whispered back. Charybdis6. I started skipping our swing dancing classes. We were both busy studying for finals, I told myself, so I wasn’t avoiding him. But I also started skipping our study sessions. Sandbar left a note on my door one day. He wrote that we should take an afternoon off to relax, maybe go paddleboarding at the lake. He asked what my plans were for the summer, whether I needed help packing up my room, if pony history made any more sense when I studied it by myself. I think that last one was his way of poking fun at me. I didn’t write back. After finals, we had a few days before they kicked us out of the dorms for summer, so to kill the time I found a good tree on the edge of campus and practiced pouncing on squirrels. Even with Ponyville squirrels being so lazy, I didn’t have any luck. Good thing I didn’t have to go back to Griffonstone. I think I went up there to figure out what to write back to Sandbar, but his sixth sense about me kicked in before I got anywhere. He showed up at the base of my tree one muggy morning while I was distracted watching a fat gray squirrel. “Hey, uh, do you want to come down a minute?” he asked. “Why don’t you come up?” The doofus actually put his forelegs around the trunk and tried to shimmy up. I had to float down to stop him. He reached for a hug when I landed, but stopped himself. “My parents are putting together a big dinner for the six of us.” “Cool.” “Yeah, they’re cool. I think you’d like them.” “I bet.” “Actually, they want to meet you. Maybe for brunch tomorrow.” He rubbed his forelegs together. “Or we could take that trip to the lake. My sis really wants to learn how to paddleboard, too.” His smile, even pained, beamed like the first sunrise of summer. It made my heart sink. “I don’t know.” A tear glistened in his eyes. I wanted so badly to brush it away, but he had to do it himself. “Do you have to fly back to Griffonstone soon?” “Nah. I’ve got a job in Dodge Junction.” His ears perked up with hope. He probably thought it’d be easier for us to visit each other over the break since I was staying in Equestria. “It’s only a few weeks, though,” I added. “I’m not sure where I’m going afterward.” “So do you want to meet my family before you go to Dodge Junction?” “Not really.” A squirrel chattered nearby. Probably sending out a warning about me to its squirrel buddies. Sandbar swallowed. “Do you want to meet them...ever?” I wish I had had the strength to say what I should have. To not make him fill in the blanks. “No.” He sniffled. “Because you’re breaking up with me.” “Yeah.” I should have said something else. One word wasn’t enough. “Was it something I…” His voice cracked. “Please tell me why.” I hadn’t sorted it out before then. All the time I spent with Sandbar had been incredible, from swing dancing and surfing to the calmness that came with holding him tight. I liked him everything about him. A lot. To the point that I got grouchy if I thought about him leaving me. So when he asked me then, I didn’t expect to come up with an answer so quickly. “Remember what I told you about griffons roosting?” He made a tiny nod. “It’s summer. Time to throw out the nest.” For a second, he didn’t react. He simply stared at me. “This isn’t how you treat someone you love—” “Please, don’t.” I didn’t have the energy keep listening. “Don’t say it. It’s not even real. It’s just hormones making you nice to someone so you can get what you want from them. It’s biology. They only call it ‘love’ to make it sound romantic.” “Y-you said…you loved me.” He shook with each word, “C’mon, dude. Don’t make me spell it out.” I could have flown away and left him to deal. But I’d messed up leading him on so long. If a final hug would help, I wanted to stay and offer it. Then he glared daggers at me. “Bullshit,” he spat. “That’s bullshit and you know it, Gallus.” * * * He didn’t need to make me feel any worse. He could have cried on my shoulder and I could have buried my beak into his mane. Held him one last time. We could have gone back to being friends. But, no, he had to yell at me, so I had to yell back at him until we ran out of shitty things to scream at each other. We told everyone it was amicable. No need to cancel the summer plans. Maybe we learned how to fake it from Cozy Glow. Now that I think about it, “Please be care—” is the first thing he’s said to me in months. I couldn’t even let him finish. The wedge—the iron weight crushing my leg, trapping me at the bottom of the ocean with one dwindling lungful of air—won’t move. I shove my talons underneath it, scrabbling for purchase. Stings flare across my claws as stones scrape against them. Using my free leg to push against the ground, I lift but slip instantly. The rock is too slick with algae to grip. I need help, need to call for help. The pit can’t be that deep, but if I try to yell I’ll just give up all the air I’ve got left. My lungs already burn like the time I swallowed a dragon’s tears pepper on a dare. Banging rocks together might make some noise— The rockslide! It was loud enough! My friends must have wondered what caused it. They’re probably swimming down right now. I turn my head up to find them— There’s nothing above except twisting ribbons of light. Even if they stuck around, your “friends” still think you’ve got the necklace. Grampa Gruff’s voice is right. I need to save myself. The rock is slick underneath, that’s why I couldn’t lift it. Could I slide my leg out? I lean down, gingerly tracing the outline of my trapped leg. Delicate twinges at my hip turn to sharp throbs at my knee, but fade into a fuzzy ache as I near the wedge. It’s a bad sign for ever using that paw again, but I’ll worry about it later. I wrap my talons around my leg and pull. Stars bloom. I let go, but my leg hasn’t moved an inch. I begin to feel around the floor, trying to find a rock I can use as lever so I can free my paw. No, you need to free YOURSELF. Your paw can stay. Bile rises in my throat. I’ve ripped open enough prey to know how easily flesh tears with a flick of the claw. Breaking bone is the hard part. It feels like I won’t have to worry about it this time. My vision tinges with red. I lean towards my trapped paw again. My talons tense—or, I think they do, they’ve turned numb and clumsy. I touch claws to leg, my arms shaking wildly. Shocks like electric currents sizzle across my shin. My arms jerk away, but I force them back. It won’t hurt as much if I do this quick, I tell myself. Not sure how much I believe it, but I gird myself anyway. Then I hear music. Drawn-out, arrhythmic tones devoid of any familiar melody trickle through the water. Out of the corner of my eye I see motion, a shadow swirling through the water. A second form follows it. They curl and twist through my field of view like spirits of two lovers. They’re real. They’ve come to save me. Ghosts aren’t real. No one’s coming save you. What else could they be? Not the charybdis, it’s dead. Or it went away and left a kid behind. A kid you woke up with your little temper tantrum. Now I understand the music, warped by the acoustics of this watery pit. The shadows are not ghosts but tentacles, probing the cavern to search for prey. To search for me. Any movement could draw its attention, but I can’t stay still. My lungs feel like they’re about to burst out of my chest. In a slow and smooth motion, I crouch into a kneeling potion. I have no choice now. My talons slither to my shin, my claws primed. I clench. I don’t even break skin before I let out a guttural moan. I can’t help it. For a second my vision goes black and my ears ring. All I can think about is the numbness now reaching to my hips and shoulders. I let go and unfold. Tension eases from my body. My sight returns in a series of growing halos. The ringing fades from my ears, replaced by a sloshing sound as one of the tentacles race towards me. I slash at it with both talons and snap my beak, but they fall short. The tentacle pauses just out of my reach. The second is to my side, further away. Lulling notes fill the water again. So this is how it goes. Trapped alone with an orphaned charybdis in its den, and every part of it is my own fault. I brought it here by being noisy. I invaded its home chasing made-up spectres. And I gave my friends every reason to leave me. But I’m going to earn another chance. If I can claw my way through this by myself, and drag whatever’s left of me to shore, then I’ll deserve that. When I do, I’ll throw myself at their claws and hooves and beg them to forgive me. Even if they don’t, I’ll tell them all what they mean to me. Yona. Smolder. Ocellus. Silverstream. And Sandbar. So, c’mon. C’mon. Come on! I’m right here! I’m easy pickings! COME ON! Why is it just floating there? What is it waiting for?! You really were a dumbass, Gramp Gruff’s voice says. Did you forget what Silverstream said? It wasn’t ever going to fight you. It’s been waiting for you to drown. My chest no longer aches. My trapped leg doesn’t sting. All my pain is gone, I realize, because there’s nothing but fuzzy numbness from my face to my tail. My muscles slacken and I sag. My vision goes black. The music dissipates into echos. My last sparks of consciousness dim like wisps of the galaxy at sunrise… When I feel water rushing at me. I spring, my talons and beak spread wide, and burrow in. Ribbons of muscle tauten against my claws. Warm fluid washes across my face. Blood teases my tongue. Flesh squirms against my embrace. I rip it apart. My beak snaps, my arms tear, my paw rakes, all in vicious circles digging through my shadowy attacker. Every strike is answered with squeals made distant by my dulled hearing. Something bats my side, tugs my arm, but I do not relent, even as a light flashes around me. Vigor fills me, but my talons go dead. I pummel with them instead—somehow, my arms are longer now, they wrap around—and sink my beak deeper. My vision comes back, sharper than it's ever been. There’s a dark figure frantically gesturing at my side. I can hear again. Silverstream’s voice cries for me to stop, to let go, while Sandbar moans pathetically from somewhere very close… No. No. It’s not him, no. I freeze. My jaw slackens. My arms and tentacles peel away. Please. Not him. Please. Please. A shadowy figure of a seapony appears in my grasp. Black plumes flow from the muzzle I used to so tenderly kiss, now mutilated by my beak. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no… Repeated denial fills my head with my own voice. Grampa Gruff’s rasp doesn’t have anything to say to me anymore. Sandbar sputters, and I reflexively cradle him. “I’m sorry,” I say, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He only whimpers. I try to rise, but one of my tentacles is still trapped under rock. I flex and relax to free it. It’s like squeezing a pincushion, but I make progress inch by inch. Why couldn’t I have torn it off when it was a paw and I had claws? Why did I throw myself into this pit? None of my useless apologies will heal Sandbar, but he has to know that I wish so much that we could trade places. If he swam down and got trapped, I’d save him without question. I’d take a thousand swung hooves to the face, crawl through miles of narrow tunnels, let my beak be torn away, if it would take away the pain I’ve caused him. I’d give anything to make him happy again. Everything starts to burble out, my words tripping over themselves, but an epiphany comes. The impossible turns inescapable. Made-up stories become real. I only need to say one word to him. “Sandbar, I love y—” His hoof presses against my beak, silencing me. My arms go slack. He’s drifting away from me, momentarily an earth pony, before Silverstream grabs him and turns him back into a seapony with her magic necklace. She rises silently through the clouds of viscera that flow from Sandbar. His necklace is stuck in my beak, keeping me as a squid. He wouldn’t let me finish. Maybe he meant to keep the necklace secure on me. Maybe he thought he was saving me from another lie. Or maybe he was only protecting himself from me. I am cruel, and Silverstream must carry Sandbar through the remnants of my cruelty. Soon I’ll pass through those clouds too, but I know now that they will follow me. I’ve made monsters I can never drive it away.
It's Not Real1. We have every reason to be exhausted. The six of us stayed up way too late last night packing our canoes and then left Mount Aris at the break of dawn. We had to paddle for hours through a lagoon so muggy it made my feathers curl. By the time we reached Arbor Isle, the broiling sun had risen high above us. We trudged through miles of powdery dunes, our canoes and gear slung across our backs, without finding a single tree for shade, until we reached the isle’s seaward shore. Then we made camp through the afternoon, setting up tents and lean-tos, securing our chow, and digging a latrine. After all that work, we ought to collapse into one snoring pile of fur, feathers, and chitin. But we don’t. Instead, we are brimming with energy. Ocellus challenges us to hide-and-seek. Yona launches us into a game of truth-or-dare with yak rules. Silverstream gets us going in an old hippogriff sing-along. Smolder and I race each other across the dimming sky—I win. We are six young creatures possessed by the last manic spirits of summer vacation. Our vigor mellows only a little when the stars come out. Smolder starts a campfire, and soon the aroma of burnt wood calls the rest of us to settle down by its side. We sip cocoa and catch up on what we’ve all been doing over the break. Yona and Smolder stayed in Ponyville for a gemology project with Professor Rarity, while Ocellus got an assignment at the Royal Canterlot Library. I tell them about all the odd jobs I worked around Equestria, since I didn’t want to go back to Griffonstone. It gives me a chance to show off the muscles I built up, too. Silverstream mentions volunteer work in Klugetown and lets the conversation pass on. She’s been unusually quiet the whole day. At first I chalk it up to weariness, since she planned this entire weeklong trip and spent today making sure we were all cared for, but that doesn’t seem to be the whole story. She’s antsy, and she keeps an eye on everyone as we speak. Then I notice the copper case cradled in her lap. She drums it quietly. The conversation starts to die down. A minute passes where we only talk about how nice the fire is. Another passes where nothing at all is said. Yona lets out a yawn. Silverstream stops her drumming and asks, with a mischievous spark in her eye, “Does anyone want to tell some scary campfire tales?” That wakes us up. Yona starts with a creepy thriller about four yaks trapped far from home in the dead of winter, when the sun wouldn’t rise for weeks at a time. However, the night for these yaks seemed to stretch on and on, until they began to question if one of them was somehow responsible. Smolder tells a legend about a cult who worshipped powerful ancient beings living under the Dragon Lands’ volcanoes. A savvy young drake joined the cult, even though he didn’t believe them, because he planned to use the cultists as an army against his rivals. Her story ends with the drake coming snout-to-snout with the truth of the cult’s beliefs. Ocellus’s story is about a changeling queen whose hive had been destroyed. She led the survivors of her colony to a cliffside riddled with warrens and ordered them to pass through it. However, the tunnels narrowed and took on bizarre shapes. The queen’s changelings tried to adapt, but many of them pushed themselves too far and would never return to their natural shape. Finally the colony reached the other side. The queen turned around to see what had become of her subjects—and Ocellus showed us, shapeshifting into a writhing mass of worms and eyes. I tell them about King Gavin’s Scepter of Immortality. A gang of griffons broke into King Gavin’s tomb to rob it, but one of them secretly betrayed the others, one by one, through the course of their adventure. After he’d backstabbed the last of them, he reached the Scepter, only to find he was not alone in the tomb. The Scepter of Immortality had been working all along, but not in the way he had hoped. Sandbar goes with The Olden Pony story. I’ve heard it before. Silverstream has the last story of the night. An eerie quiet takes over while we wait for her. Reeds rustle in the cool, gentle wind. Waves lap at the pebbly beach. Our fire’s dwindled to more warmth than light, but the half moon catches the glint of her copper case as she begins. “You guys are going to love my story,” she says. “There’ll be monsters and heroes, dynasties and forbidden love, and mysteries all over. First, though…you’ve got to know some history about Arbor Isle.” Smolder groans. Ocellus perks up. “Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, Mount Aris had tons of mines and famous jewelers. Hippogriffs wanted to sell their jewelry all over the world, but their boats kept sinking right off the coast.” “Gee, if only there were some way you guys could have flown around,” I say. I flap my wings to give her a hint, but she doesn’t get it. “Sure, we invented airships eventually. Before then, nobody could figure out what was happening to the boats. The only clue was that some of them would show up wrecked on the shore, but there’d be no sign of their crews. The army started to think that there could be pirates hiding right here on Arbor Isle. Back before the trees were harvested, Arbor Isle had a forest more than dense enough to conceal a secret pirate base.” I turn away from the fire to double check the modern day Arbor Isle. No signs of trees or a secret pirate base. Actually, the only life besides us here seems to be reedy dune grass and some tiny crabs scuttling around the beach. There aren’t even crickets chirping. That must be why the night is eerily quiet. “A platoon of marines came to investigate the isle, and right away they realized it was totally silent. They thought it was a promising sign, like the pirates were really there and had hunted all the game. After searching through the whole day, though, they couldn’t find that hidden base. They called it a night and made camp. “One of the soldiers, named Turba, was a very light sleeper. Even the sound of a pin dropping would wake her unless she wore earplugs. Although the night was quiet, she had to share her tent with the platoon’s worst snorer, so she stuffed her ears before bed. “And that’s why any of them survived.” Silverstream leans in. Embers make her eyes glow red. “Late that night, Turba awoke with her tentmate’s hooves on her back. She leapt up, furious at him until she caught the vacant stare in his eyes. He didn’t seem to be in control of his body. His talons gouged into the side of the tent and pulled down mechanically, ripping the fabric part-way. They caught midway, but he kept pulling. The tent poles bent. He grabbed ahold of the tent fabric again and tugged, collapsing it on both of them. “Turba dug out of the mess. All around her, more tents were falling over. Marines were stumbling through the wreckage, every one of them as zombie-like as her tentmate. She spotted the platoon’s commander walking into the forest, followed by the marines who had left their tents. Turba thought she might have missed an order to march. She started to take out her earplugs, but stopped herself when she remembered her tentmate’s strange behavior. Maybe the pirates were working with a siren to put the platoon under a spell, she thought, so she pretended to also be under its effect and followed her tentmate. “The entire walk, she tried to think of where the pirates might be and how best to launch a counterattack. However, there were still no signs of any other creatures on the isle as they arrived at the seaward beach. Turba felt an awful foreboding. Marines stood motionless in ragged rows at the edge of the surf. Waves in the distance rollicked. A strange darkness teemed underneath the water. Although she still couldn’t hear anything, she felt a low rumbling coming up through her legs. Then she saw the first tentacle creep out of the water.” Silverstream stretches one of her arms upwards. “Turba jumped onto her tentmate, trying to shake sense into him, but without success. A second, and then a third tentacle emerged. The first tentacle reached the sand, aimed directly at their commander’s foreleg. She watched it wrap tight around him and pull back, dragging the ensnared commander towards the water. He didn’t move a muscle as the waves washed over his talons and then soaked his feathers. “She panicked. There were a dozen tentacles, each reaching for one of the marines. No one except her seemed aware of what was happening. She feared she’d have to watch her entire platoon drown. “Then she remembered her earplugs! It was the only difference between her and the other marines, so she clapped her talons around her tentmate’s ears. The tentmate didn’t react for a second, but then he pawed at Turba’s talons. Turba held tight. The tentmate swung his head, cried out in anger, began to leap about, and then all at once snapped out of the spell. He was confused, but he figured out what was happening quickly and covered his own ears. The two of them scrambled to gather leaves and litter to use as earplugs, first for the tentmate, and then for the other marines. When they got back to the beach, more marines had tentacles wrapped around them. However, the tentacles had slowed down at last. It was their chance to save their platoon! “It only took a few minutes, but they plugged the ears of every one of the marines. The spell broke on each of them, and they all began to fight back with claw and beak against the tentacles. Even the commander, whose head was below water by then, fought back and freed himself once they’d plugged his ears. Defeated, the monster let out one resounding shriek and slipped into the depths. “What the marines had found was a charybdis, a sea monster that lures land animals into the ocean with an irresistible song. The charybdis wraps its tentacles around its prey and holds them underwater until they drown. Then it can feast at its leisure.” Smolder pipes up. “How’s that scary? All you need are some earplugs and you’re safe.” “That’s what the hippogriffs thought too, but they didn’t know that the charybdis they’d found was basically a hatchling. If it’d been fully grown, its songs would have pierced even the strongest gauze, and its tentacles wouldn’t have released their grasp for anything short of a volcano. Earplugs worked at first, but soon enough boats were disappearing again. Once the first airships started flying, the queen of Mount Aris declared a ban on sailing on the open seas.” With a sip of her cocoa and a smack of her beak, Silverstream adds, “A ban that she declared would last for ten thousand years.” Yona fumbles her cup from the shock. “Why hippogriff queen make ban so long?” Coolly, Silverstream says, “Because a charybdis can live for millennia.” An uncomfortable pause follows. Ocellus scowls. Smolder sits upright, blinking. There’s something they know, but it’s buried too deep in their subconscious for them to realize it. Meanwhile, Silverstream continues her pinnacle of ease act. Suddenly, Sandbar’s fur stands on end. “Uhm, how long ago did you say they discovered the charybdis?” Silverstream taps a claw to her chin theatrically. “I guess it was about five hundred years ago. Maybe less.” I can see the number crunching they’re all doing—take a terrible sea monster that lives for thousands of years, minus out that it was young only five hundred years ago, and add the paltry hundred yards between us and the surf. As they each arrive at their gut punch of an answer, they involuntarily puff up and sit straight. I hold back a laugh. “Last time I checked,” I say, “none of us have been seduced and drowned by any sea monsters. Plus, you don’t really strike me as the kind of hippogriff to get a death wish over the summer. So we don’t have to worry about this charybdis, do we?” “Oh, that thing?” Silverstream blows a raspberry. “Long gone. We can go swimming later and check out its empty den.” Calm is just starting to return when Silverstream sets down her mug and says, “Yeah, it got scared off.” We freeze. Our eyes lock on her as she placidly admires the copper case in her talons. “What, exactly,” I ask, “can scare off an enormous sea monster that drowns its prey with incredibly strong tentacles?” Silverstream grins wickedly. “Ghosts!” Listening to Silverstream makes me think about my last night in Griffonstone, although I can’t tell why. Maybe the smell of charred wood just reminds me of my stuff burning. Griffonstone was all jagged cliffs and dead trees screwed into one gangly mess. The more gold you had, the higher up you lived in it, so of course I scratched out a camp in the dense evergreen forest around the base of town. My last day there was spent hunting squirrels. I laid a dozen traps around one of the taller pines and perched near its top to make squirrel calls. Squirrel calls were second nature by then—sometimes I’d even make them in my sleep—so I didn’t give it much thought. Instead, I mulled over my latest problem. Grampa Gruff would escort me to the School of Friendship the next morning, and I knew I couldn’t carry my stuff all the way there. I also knew that I’d need some bits when I got to Equestria. My stuff was a tarp lean-to, a wood-burning stove, a lidded cast iron pot that could be used as an oven, and some other basic necessities, all in good enough condition to sell. Easy fix. My problem was no one would buy them. And why would they? Word had gotten out that I’d be leaving Griffonstone soon. Any smart griffon knew they could wait and pick over what I left behind. Those vultures would be pawing through my valuables while I wore out my wings speeding towards Equestria and its pony queen of friendship. Probably laughing about pulling one over on me. Unless I didn’t leave anything for them. Sunset broke me out of my daydreams. I hopped out of the tree to collect my meager catch, one squirrel hanging from a strangulation trap, and ate it on my walk back to my camp. With a coolness I hadn’t thought possible, I pulled the lean-to out of the tree stump I hid it in, unrolled the tarp on the ground, and laid the poles and ropes for it on one edge of the tarp. Then I got out the stove and disassembled it. Its body was sturdy, but there were plenty of delicate pieces like pegs and handles that would warp in the center of a hot enough fire. The stove would be useable without them, but not easily. Those pieces I tossed onto the tarp, along with some nasty dried food. Altogether, they looked meager, so I gathered up some twigs and nettles to add to it. Finally, I rolled up the tarp, perched over it, and took flint and steel into my talons. It was funny. Setting fire to this stuff I’d busted my tail collecting felt awful, but letting other griffons steal it would feel worse. I didn’t have a choice. Yet I couldn’t bring down the flint. Which was when Gilda swooped in with a book in her talons. “You’ve got to be excited!” she said as soon as she landed. Gilda only talked in that chirpy way when she had something to say about friendship. “You get to go to the brand new School of Friendship, taught by Equestria’s own Princess of Friendship and her actual friends. Have I told you about Rainbow Dash? She’s the coolest…” Her eyes must have caught the flint and steel in my talons. “What are you doing?” “Burning my stuff.” “Why?” “Can’t take it with me.” She felt the bundle. “It’s not a bad tarp. Couldn’t somegriff else use it?” “I tried to sell all that, but no one’s buying.” “What about giving it to someone in need?” “I just said I tried to sell it, but no one’s buying—” Her eyes lit up, and I realized she had another friendship sermon for me. Gilda really tried to spread the whole friendship thing through Griffonstone, but she had never convinced anygriff besides Gabby and Greta. I’d at least sit through her sermons. It made her happy, and they weren’t the worst thing the world. Third worst, maybe, after small spaces and getting stung by a bugbear. “A gift is something that you give to a friend,” she said, “even though you don’t expect anything back. When your friend accepts the gift, it makes you feel better because you know your friend is better off. Gift-giving strengthens a relationship and can start new friendships. Here’s an example.” She showed me the book she’d been carrying. “This is my gift to you.” I had to squint to read the title in the moonlight. “Friendship is Magic: The Journal of the Elements of Harmony. Magic, huh? I doubt I’ll get much use out of a spellbook. You know these aren’t unicorn horns, right?” I tugged on my blue and yellow crest. “No, it’s not that kind of magic, it’s…” She made a vague gesture. “You’re smart, you’ll figure it out. The Elements of Harmony put this book out last year. It has all the friendship lessons your professors learned before they started the school.” Griffonstone’s hard-knock-based school system hadn’t prepared me for much, but I knew how to read between the lines. She was saying this Journal was a cheat sheet for all the exams. “Okay, I’m interested. What do you want for it?” I started to unwrap the tarp. “I’ll trade you…these poles and rope for it.” “No, it’s a gift, remember?” She sounded like she’d had this conversation before with somegriff else. “Fine, I’ll give you the whole lean-to, but that’s worth more than a book. The book and twenty gold coins.” “Gallus, I don’t want anything in exchange because you’re my friend… Wait, twenty gold coins for an old tarp? It’s worth ten, at most!” She hesitated and her eyes went wide. “Forget it. Just take the book. No charge.” She pushed it into my talons. The book rested in my grasp. Absent-mindedly, I ran my claws across the cover. I hadn’t held a lot of books by then, but none of them were like this: heavy yet delicate with pastel colors and gold foil. It felt valuable. Why didn’t she want anything for it? It was too good to be true. Gilda had never scammed me as far as I knew, even before she’d gotten on her friendship kick, but there had to be some catch this time. I shoved the book back to her. “On second thought, I’ll pass.” Her beak clacked like she was trying to think of something to say. Before she could finish her clacking, Grampa Gruff swooped in and greeted us in his nicest manner. “What are you two useless featherbrains yapping about?” No, really, that’s as nice as he gets. “Gilda wanted me to buy her book.” “I’m giving it to you. As a gift.” Grampa Gruff squawked. “Some gift giver you are. The boy’s gotta eat over there, and all you get him is some pony book?” “I dunno, it was pretty heavy,” I said. “I could probably knock out somepony and grab their pets.” I waggled my claws, still glistening with squirrel bits, to make sure they got my meaning. “And what’s all this crap?” He gestured over the tarp. “You told me you were going to sell everything.” “I tried selling it. No one’s buying,” I huffed. Grampa Gruff’s beak twisted in a strange, unreadable way. “So you need cash, boy?” “Yeah. Unless they’ve got money trees in Equestria.” For a second Grampa Gruff stood still, watching me without meeting my eye. He turned away and took a few paces towards Gilda. “I’ve got some Equestrian bits from when those two ponies showed up in town. Go get them for me, would ya?” “Why?” she asked. “The boy needs them.” Gilda reacted in a way I’d never seen before. Bug-eyed and beak agape, her gaze flicked between me and Grampa. “You mean he can just have them…as in a gift?” Grampa Gruff shrugged. “Not like I can use that pony money here.” “All right! I’m on it!” Gilda shot her wings out. “Where’d you put them?” “You expect me to remember that? Go look in the bakery. If you can’t find them there, I might have hid them in an old pan at my place. Or Godot might be holding onto them.” “That’s a lot of places they might be,” Gilda said. Her wings wavered a little, but stayed out. “Okay, I’ll find them. I’ll get Gabby to help me too. You and Gallus just wait here.” She jetted away. Being alone with Grampa Gruff unsettled, and not only because he had no problem pecking the daylights out of me if I messed up around him. His niceness right then put me edge. He was never exactly cruel to me, and he did keep me out of trouble in his own way, but he’d never acted like he’d actually listened to Gilda about friendship. Yet here he was, already figuring out this gift deal…or doing a great imitation of it. Grampa Gruff kept his eye on Gilda until she flew out of sight, and then looked back at me. He reached an arm under his wing and took out a leather purse. “Well, Gallus,” he said. I wondered if he’d forgotten my name until Gilda mentioned it. “My oven’s on the fritz, and I’ve seen you bake scones with your little camp stove, so I’ll make you a deal. Four pony bits for every dozen scones you bake me before sunrise.” My eyes fell to the pouch dangling from his claws. “Wait, didn’t you just send Gilda to find those?” For a geezer, Grampa Gruff could move quick when he wanted to. One second his beak snarled, the next he nearly ripped off my ear fluff. “Dumbass! I was getting her out of here. She’ll be busy for a few hours at least. Now get baking or I’ll find some other urchin to do it.” He let go. I put the stove back together and got the fire started, using strips of my tarp and the poles for fuel. So my stuff went up in smoke for his scones. At least I got some bits out of it. While the first batch baked, I asked him, “Have I ever thanked you for everything you’ve done for me?” His chest puffed out. “Not that I remember.” “Good.” I turned back to the fire. “So I don’t have to take it back now.” That got me another ear yank. At least I earned it that time. * * * I could laugh remembering all this. Look at this kid, so dumb he didn’t know what to do with a gift. Such a wimp he wouldn’t push back on some geezer walking all over him. No wonder he had to ditch his everything he knew, fly across the ocean, and sign up for a pony-run School of Friendship! That’s a lie. I could never laugh about it. I want to yank that kid’s ears and squawk in his face. Leave the stuff and get to school, dummy. Go make friends. Push back on Grampa Gruff. Save some cupcakes from a rampaging yak. And would it kill you to be less defensive? I guess it doesn’t matter. Look at me now, officially a rising second-year student at the School of Friendship. Flying paintings, nightmare caves, magic-stealing schemes, and even Princess Celestia’s terrible acting couldn’t stop me. I’m basically invincible! That’s another lie. I’ve got plenty of weaknesses. Acting like they don’t exist won’t make them go away. All right. First, I guess I have to talk about Sandbar.
Falling Together2. Imagine the School of Friendship common room decorated for Hearth’s Warming Eve. Garlands and bows lit by strings of colored lights hung from the ceiling. Bells chimed merrily with every waft of air. A blazing fireplace boasting a massive wreath warmed the room. Mountains of presents surrounded an enormous pine tree festooned in red and gold. A brilliant heart crowned the entire scene. Now imagine all that covered in purple goo. I’d screwed up. No one could blame me for wanting to spend the winter with my classmates, but wrecking their holidays to do it? Yeah, I had to confess. Ponies are big on second chances so I doubted I’d get kicked out of school. The worst I expected was extra friendship lessons over the break. Friendship lessons like how to make a bunch of creatures hate you with one stupid mistake. Maybe that book Gilda gave me is right and friendship is magic because they didn’t hate me. They helped me clean. Yona and Smolder moved furniture around so I could get underneath, Silverstream and Sandbar rehung all the decorations that could be salvaged, and Ocellus shapeshifted into a mouse to find all the little corners the goo had slithered into. I scrubbed and mopped like crazy, trying to do it all myself, but they helped with the dirty work too. Ocellus eventually got tired from the shapeshifting and went to bed. Smolder called it quits soon after. An hour later, we found Yona sleep-pushing a sofa around, so we got her to go back to her room before she started sleep-smashing anything. Silverstream didn’t stick around much longer either. Which left me with Sandbar. And his stories. “…Then I remembered that if you wash wool the wrong way, it becomes felt!” His eyes went wide. “Yikes.” I swished a mop around a puddle of goo, trying to sop up the last of it. “So you accidentally turned your grandmother’s sweater into felt?” “Almost! Lucky for me, she’d used cotton yarn.” “That’s a relief.” I probably sounded sarcastic, but Sandbar’s stories had started to grow on me. They were kind of soothing, actually. I didn’t know why. It could have just been that I needed to hear about ponies being nice and things turning out okay, but the easy rhythm of Sandbar’s voice didn’t hurt. A tired nicker came out of him before I could ask for the next story. His eyes were half-lidded, and he was leaning on his broom. I roused him with a talon to his shoulder, startling him a little. “You look like you’re a few days past your bedtime.” He yawned and set down his broom. “I guess I should call it a night.” While he started walking towards the door, regret hit me. I had kind of hoped someone would stay up with me. Sandbar obviously needed to get some sleep, though, so I held back from saying anything. He got to the door and stopped. “Aren’t you tired too?” “Not really,” I said, although my paws were sore from standing upright to use the mop. “Besides, there’s a lot left to clean up.” “We can all help finish it in the morning.” That made me smile. By then, I’d learned what to do with a gift. “All right, all right. Give me a few minutes to put out the fire first.” I put away my mop and padded over to the fireplace. A few seconds passed while I broke up the logs with a poker before I realized Sandbar hadn’t left yet. I glanced up. His brows were furrowed and his ears were back in a worried look. “Promise you’ll call it a night after that?” “Yeah, of course.” I went back to the fire, which was already subsiding. It’d need some water to put it out all the way, though. Neither of us said anything. I tried to think of a joke or a tease to break the silence, maybe make him want to stay so he could deliver some sort of comeback, but he spoke first. “Okay. See you later.” He left. Fatigue hit me. My paws and back ached for relief.I flopped onto the floor, stretching my wings to take in as much warmth as I could, but I still shivered. Being alone had never felt like that. In Griffonstone, I’d prefer to be by myself rather than having to deal with other griffons. Even Gilda would get on my nerves after too long. At school, I’d occasionally get into a funk and need time to myself, but I never wanted my friends to be too far away. When I thought about what would happen if they really did leave me… Eugh! Quit your whining already. You got what you wanted out of this little stunt. Even if you had pissed them off for good, so what? Even though he was on the other side of the ocean, sometimes it was like I could hear Grampa Gruff’s voice keeping me out of trouble. The voice made a good point: I’d survived in Griffonstone by myself. Surviving as a grown-up would be easy if I had to leave. When. When these creatures get sick of you and boot you out. That I didn’t want to believe. My friends had stuck up for me through this screw-up. No way they’d just get sick of me. You think trashing some holiday knickknacks is the worst you can do? My mind raced with the terrible possibilities. I hugged myself and started to shake. “Hey, I, uh…” Sandbar said from the door. I swiveled around. A doofy smile played across his muzzle, and his ears partly covered his eyes. He might have been blushing. Two steaming mugs rested on a tray balanced on his back. “Since it’s so cold outside,” he started again, “I thought you might get cold after you put out the fire. From the cold. Like, if a window got opened, and cold air came in, so, uh…” He cleared his throat. “Would you like some hot cocoa?” My beak didn’t get into gear right away. Although the fire had died down, I felt a little overheated then, but I didn’t want him to go away. “Sure. Want a seat?” I gestured to the space next to me. His smile turned a little doofier as he walked towards me and sat close enough that I could feel his body heat. “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me,” he said as he slid a cocoa to me, “but what was it like growing up alone in Griffonstone? I bet you had to be brave all the time.” I snickered. He probably wouldn’t have called me brave if he knew how I spent my last night there. “Maybe later.” For a while, we were quiet. Drowsiness weighed on me, but Sandbar fidgeted with his mug. I thought he might calm down if I could get him talking again, and listening to him could perk me up. “Got any more stories?” He thought for a moment. “Well, there was the Hearth’s Warming when my sister and I got each others’ gifts—” “I remember that one, the tags were switched.” “How about…the time it was supposed to rain, but I forgot my umbrella—” “And the pegasi rescheduled because of parasprites.” The doofy smile disappeared. “Yeah.” He rubbed his front hooves together. Silence stretched out. I got close to asking him to retell the umbrella story, if only so he’d stick around, when his face lit up. “Has anyone ever told you the story of The Olden Pony?” “Nope, so I guess you have to.” A crooked grin stretched across his lips. “I have to warn you, it’s a scary story.” “Please,” I scoffed. “Nothing scares me.” Silverstream’s word, “Ghosts!” rings in my ears while she cracks open the copper case. Inside are four necklaces like hers. “Guess who’s going for a midnight swim!” she announces in a sing-song. “Normally I’d have to help you get into aquatic forms using my own necklace, but these are enchanted to work automatically. As long as one of the pearl fragments is close to your heart, you’ll transform whenever you get in deep enough water. You’ll be able to breathe underwater, and your aquatic forms will move, see, and hear better than if you went swimming normally.” Apparently our regular eyes and ears aren’t good enough for underwater. “This way we can all go to the charybdis den and see the ghosts! So who wants to go first?” She thrusts the open case in our direction. “Are these things going to make us all look like you?” Smolder asks. “Not that that’s a bad thing. I just want to know what I’m getting myself into.” “It works differently for every race. Ponies end up looking sort of like us, but you’ll turn into a cute pufferfish.” It takes Silverstream a second to realize what she just said. “Is that okay?” “That’s the one with the spines all over its body, right? I guess I can live with that.” Smolder blushes, which the others probably take as embarrassment, but it’s more likely she’s excited to have an excuse to be cute in public. Seeing her wearing a dainty princess dress is a sight I’ll never forget…or blab about to anyone else. “Yona and Gallus, you guys turn into…” An excited look springs to Silverstream’s face. She picks up one of the necklaces and holds it out to the two of us. “I just realized, this has never been tried on a griffon or yak. Ooh, we’re doing some science tonight!” Yona leers at the necklace, probably thinking something like, ‘yak body best body,’ but she doesn’t make a move. My patience breaks. I snag the necklace out of Silverstream’s talons and throw it over my head. “What’s the worst that could happen?” I say as I fly towards the water. The rest of the group follows, with Silverstream hastily passing out necklaces. A tease about Smolder’s imminent pufferfish-ification comes to mind, but I squash it. I’m not going to delay our trip when the shore’s so close and Silverstream promised us monster-killing ghosts. Ghosts aren’t real, I know. I’m just playing along with Silverstream’s campfire tale. I pitch down into the water. Cold washes over me, followed by swirling brilliance. There’s a sensation like when a leg that’s fallen asleep wakes up, except it’s all over my body. It stops almost as soon as it starts. The brilliance leaves with it. My wings are gone. A pair of fins feel like they’re pinned to the back of my head. I can sense water flowing through new tubes in my body, and with a little squeeze I can make a jet to move. My skull feels like it’s been pulled all the way to my paws, except I don’t have paws anymore. Instead, tendrils covered in rippling suckers stretch in front of me. Two of them are longer than the other eight. A squid. The crazy necklace turned me into a squid. At least I still have a beak. Yona splashes in. A swirling glow surrounds her and turns her into a kind of fish I don’t recognize. She’s a thick disc with fins like a gull’s wings reaching up and down her backside. Ocellus appears beside me, copying Silverstream’s seapony form. She says something, but her first words are a muddle. “—turned Yona into a sunfish!” Ocellus exclaims, her voice suddenly clear. My ears must have finished adapting. Yona flits around in a circle and says, “Yak body best on land.” Called it. “Maybe sunfish body okay for swimming.” Ocellus rolls towards me. “And, Gallus, it looks like you’re a giant squid.” “Really? I thought these were goldfish tentacles.” That gets some giggles from them. “Technically, your eight shorter limbs are arms.” Ocellus shimmers, and suddenly a teal and pink squid floats in front of me. She holds up her two longer limbs, both ending with a meaty, sucker-covered bulb. “A squid’s tentacles have these large clubs at their tips.” “Thanks, professor,” I say as she transforms back into a seapony shape. More splashes come when Silverstream, Smolder, and finally Sandbar join us. We six gather into a rough circle. “Which way to the ghosts?” I ask. She grins and drifts into deeper water. As we catch up, she begins speaking in her story-telling voice again. “Centuries went by. Knowledge of the charybdis turned to murky superstition, but the ban on sailing continued. The Mount Aris monarch became a figurehead, and a cabal of trading families rose to power. This story starts with two of those families, the Aurums and the Volares, trying to make an alliance. “The Aurums were a wealthy family of miners who needed airships to sell their gold and silver around the world, while the Volares were a family of airship traders who needed money to expand their fleet. After many moons of intense bargaining, the two families made a deal to share their resources. To seal the alliance, one of the Volares’ sons, named Calamus, would marry into the Aurum family.” While she talks, we glide along a seafloor covered with smooth pebbles. Silvery flashes in the distance could be fish darting away or glimmers of sinking trash. A fog far in front of us is speckled by hints of color. “Calamus was a defiant boy about our age. He prized freedom and true love, so he despised the entire idea of arranged marriages. He tried everything he could think of to get out of his own betrothal, from running away with a traveling circus to paying a friend to woo his fiancée, but none of his plans worked. Feeling defeated, he decided that he might as well enjoy freedom while he could, so he took up risky hobbies like sky racing. Then, a few months before the wedding, he crashed during a race! Although he survived, both of his wings were injured beyond hope of healing. “The Aurums almost called off the wedding. ‘Our beloved daughter won’t be stuck with a hippogriff who can’t even fly,’ they said.” Silverstream does a good impression of a stuffy aristocrat. “What they really wanted was a better deal, so the Volares convinced them to go back to the negotiating table. Meanwhile, Calamus grew depressed and wandered around Mount Aris aimlessly. One day, he made his way to a lagoon, where he saw a hippogriff swimming in the water. He fell in love with her instantly.” The fog in front of us parts, and what’s hiding behind it leaves my beak agape. Mountains of prickly bushes spattered red rise from the sandy floor, their tips of delicate green and pristine white stretching to the swaying navy blue ceiling above. Schools of fish swirl around us like pieces of a rainbow scattered into a whirlpool and dance with fronds of seagrass in the currents. A snaggle tooth eel pokes its head out of a crevice to flex its jaw at us. Ocellus matches its shape and flits closer, but the real eel vanishes when she gets within a few yards. I guess it’s skeptical about whether friendship is magic. Ocellus rejoins us and transforms back into a seapony. “This hippogriff was beautiful, but Calamus was attracted to her swimming more than anything else. It was taboo to even go into open water back then, and somegriff who ignored quaint traditions excited him. He couldn’t get her attention by shouting, so he started to jump up and down. Finally she noticed him and swam up to the shore. He started to talk, but instead of responding, she wrote a message in the sand: ‘I can’t hear you.’ She was completely deaf, and he didn’t know sign language. He left for home, totally dejected.” “That’s dumb,” Smolder says. “Couldn’t he just write in the sand like her?” “He could have, but he got discouraged. It felt like life kept throwing obstacles in his way.” “Hippogriff boy being jerk,” Yona snarls. “Not good making everything about own problems.” “Yeah, okay, that’s fair.” Silverstream seems a little nervous, but she continues. “His moodiness didn’t last too long, though. After…some introspection, he realized he had to change his ways. He found a book on sign language, taught himself the hippogriff sign alphabet, and went back to the lagoon. As soon as he got the swimmer’s attention again, he introduced himself and learned her name was Pelagica. Then he asked if she’d teach him to swim. “She was ecstatic! No one had ever asked to swim with her before. She taught him swimming while he learned more sign language on his own. He also began practicing with her. One moonlit night, Calamus had learned enough to share all of his feelings with Pelagica. With a bouquet of flowers clutched in his beak, he asked her to marry him. And Pelagica said yes! “The very next day, the Aurums and Volares made a new deal. Calamus’s arranged marriage was back on.” The edge of the reef appears without warning, as if it’s interrupted by an invisible wall just a few yards from us. Beyond it is a silt-coated floor littered with cracked bones. “Calamus galloped to his true love’s home on the outskirts of town. He explained, as best as he could, that he’d been betrothed to someone he didn’t love. His family couldn’t be convinced to call off the wedding, so the only option for him and Pelagica was to elope.” “What did Pelagica’s parents say?” Sandbar asks. Silverstream goes stiff for a fraction of a second. “Her family isn’t really part of this story.” Which means she didn’t have a family. I shrug it off. All of this stuff is made up, anyway. “Calamus was too recognizable for them to use airships. He’d learned that when he tried to run away with the circus. He and Pelagica decided instead they’d swim to Arbor Isle, build a raft on it, and sail away. All we know about the rest of that night comes from Coast Guard reports.” We leave the reef. A faint but vast blackness appears on the horizon. “A squad on patrol spotted something floating from Arbor Isle around midnight. They thought a dead tree had rolled into the water and ignored it. None of them suspected a raft. The decree banning sailing was still strictly enforced, so no hippogriff alive then had seen a boat on the open ocean. “The squad chatted to pass the time until one of them noticed that the driftwood had changed course. One of the soldiers had a telescope he used to watch for approaching airships. They took it out to examine the driftwood and saw a raft with two figures aboard: Calamus and Pelagica. He steered the rudder with the sails full, while Pelagica emphatically signed to him. He seemed totally oblivious to her. Despite the couple’s strange behavior, none of the soldiers suspected anything amiss, so they set out to arrest the two for violating the ancient decree. They had crossed over Arbor Isle when their commander heard the first notes of a song coming from the ocean. Luckily for them, he knew the legends well enough to understand the danger…and that they could do nothing except watch as shadows swarmed below the raft.” The water sounds wrong here. There were bubbles snapping and creatures swishing in the reef, a noise so engrossing I didn’t notice it. Now all that sound is gone. I hear only a faint, vacant thrumming from the gloom we swim towards. “The soldiers watched through the telescope from a safe distance. Incredibly, Pelagica’s signing began to affect Calamus. He started watching her, first just a glance, then long stares. Whenever his attention strayed, she’d regain it by crossing her arms over her heart, which meant ‘love.’ “His grip on the rudder loosened. With a cry, he leapt onto the sails and tore at them with his claws. The ripped sails collapsed, slowing the raft, while he stuffed shredded fabric into his ears. Even that wasn’t enough. The sound had to be overwhelming. His talons dropped to the floor of the raft, and he took a step towards the water. “Pelagica stopped him. She hugged him tight, and he didn’t move except to clutch at his ears. For what must have felt like an eternity to them, they huddled close, their raft adrift on the water. Then, all at once, he relaxed. A look of mystified relief crossed his face while Pelagica cradled him. “The soldiers heard the faint music end a few seconds later. Some of them prepared to fly out then, but their commander held them back. “Calamus and Pealgica were signing to each other when wavelets first crashed against the raft. Neither of them seemed to notice when their raft started to slowly turn and sway. Then, without warning, Calamus grew still. He must have seen it first. Pelagica shook him, but he pointed behind her, and she followed his gaze. White foam sprayed from the water. Their raft rocked, drawn by something that had appeared out of nowhere: a massive whirlpool. “She signed to him rapidly but he only shook his head in reply. Her wings sprang out. She took ahold of his arm. He pulled away and cradled his head. Slowly, he stretched his wings, revealing to her that they were ruined. He pointed to her, then to the sky, and turned away. “To his and the soldiers’ shock, Pelagica grabbed him around the barrel and took to the air. The raft shattered in the eddies, and its fragments disappeared into the black water beneath them. They hovered low, as she struggled to carry him, and began to fly away from the whirlpool’s extent. Confident that they’d escaped the peril, the two shared a kiss. “Then tentacles erupted from the water. “The charybdis had grown since it’d first appeared at Arbor Isle. Scores of tentacles, each a hundred yards tall, chased after them. Pelagica ducked and weaved, but carrying a second hippogriff slowed her down to a crawl. She rose laboriously while the charybdis’s limbs surrounded them like the bars of a cage. The bulging tips met high above and came crashing down. Just before they reached the pair, she veered away and slid between two tentacles. She kept flying as hard as she could, not daring to look back. “Which is why she didn’t see the last tentacle. The one that landed hard on her back and knocked them both into the water. “The soldiers caught only a fleeting glimpse of the two before the charybdis pulled them beneath the waves. Even then, they clung to each other and struggled to escape. In vain.” Silverstream slows down as we approach a cliff’s edge. The ground slopes up like an anthill, and I get the feeling this place has been dug out by something. As I focus on the distance, the other side of the canyon comes into focus. Not a cliff’s edge, then. The lip of a hole. So this is the charybdis’s pit, minus the sea monster itself. “Calamus’s and Pelagica’s bodies were never found,” Silverstream says. “They probably never had a chance after Calamus heard the charybdis’s song. It’s possible it was playing with them.” We’re all quiet out of respect, but Silverstream’s gaze darts around the five of us. It takes me a second to realize she hasn’t mentioned what I want to hear. “So, about those ghosts,” I say. “You know, the ones that scared off Mr. Grabby here.” Her eyes gleam at me. “I was just about to get to that. After Calamus’s death, the Aurums and Volares made a third deal, again to be sealed with an arranged marriage. No one ever saw the monster again, but on the night of the wedding, every hippogriff in Mount Aris heard the charybdis…when it cried out in pure terror.”
Taking Risks3 “The Aurum and Volare families held the new wedding in an opulent cathedral near the peak of Mount Aris,” Silverstream continues. She floats in front of us with the enormous charybdis pit as her backdrop, giving her voice a subtle echo. We form a rough semi-circle around her. “It began with a procession of one hundred hippogriffs representing the business partners of the two families, followed by an hour-long sermon proclaiming the miracle of love. Then came a short memorial for Calamus. No mention was made of Pelagica. “After the memorial, the bride and groom were pushed to the altar to read their vows. Attendees may have heard or felt a low droning sound, but they would have dismissed it. Maybe a mine collapsing or a caravan rolling by, they’d have thought. However, as the vows continued, the droning turned into a rumble like tectonic plates shifting. “Alarms began to knell. Hippogriffs across Mount Aris stopped what they were doing, thinking it had to be an earthquake. The rumbling grew more and more intense until the tops of spires swayed. Thousands flew out of less sturdy buildings. Wedding guests at the cathedral ducked under the strongest-looking arches and clung to pews while dust rained from the ceiling. A minute passed, then two, impossibly long for an earthquake, but it only grew stronger. Suddenly, an ear-splitting sound shrieked throughout Mount Aris.” Silverstream sticks two front fins into her snout and puffs out her cheeks, but she produces only swirls of foam. She flashes us a chagrined grimace. “Uh…imagine that was a super high-pitched whistle.” She’s planned out this whole ghost story, I realize, and practiced it so that it’d be smooth despite our interruptions. She must have only practiced the whistle on land, though. Silverstream continues. “No one understood why, but the sound made everygriff’s hearts clutch in mortal terror. A few of the most daring hippogriffs overcame their fear and searched for the source of the scream. They didn’t have to search long. In the ocean past Arbor Isle, a geyser exploded. “With the first geyser, the whistle paused…and a second later, came back, but shriller. More geysers burst, sending white foam spraying into the sky. As each geyser receded, a new whistle began. Soon a bedlam of noises warbled through the air. One final geyser exploded, the rumbling ceased, and the unnatural fear that had seized everygriff broke. “The wedding was put off. Airships rushed to sea, where they found no sign of the charybdis. No gore, no torn tentacles, and no alluring music. Divers discovered this pit, the now-abandoned home to a massive creature, and the greatest minds of Mount Aris concluded that the charybdis was gone for good. Sailing became legal again. Hippogriffs began diving for pearls and undersea gems. The competition from the new trading and jewelry businesses drove both the Volares and Aurums into bankruptcy. Within a decade, the entire regime of trading families had collapsed, allowing a fair and compassionate ruler to come to power.” She does a corkscrew turn so she’s floating straight up and down. “One mystery remains, though. What happened to the charybdis? It had no predators, after all. At least, no natural predators.” Her eyes narrow to slits. A devious smile appears. “But, maybe, it had supernatural predators.” The notion simmers a moment. A prickly feeling tingles through me. “The divers who discovered the charybdis’s den reported strange sensations whenever they approached. Some felt a chill, even in the warmest days of summer. Others felt they were being watched. Exploration of the floor was impossible—this was all before Seaquestria’s magic pearl—but those who tried to reach the bottom said they had the sense of trespassing into another’s home. One diver, who knew sign language, left the den with the words, ‘leave our home,’ seared in her mind.” Silverstream floats aside, giving us a clear view of the uninterrupted blackness beyond. “Some believe that Calamus and Pelagica were avenged on the day of geysers. However, nothing known to hippogriffs could have faced the charybdis and won. The only explanation left is that their ghosts haunted it. What they did to drive it away, no one knows.” Her voice drops to a hush, drawing us closer. “But, tonight, we could ask them.” She sweeps her arms to the lip of the charybdis’s den and waves us forward. Smolder swims over first and lands on the lip, dimpling her pufferfish body against the ground. Ocellus perches herself a few yards away. Yona and Sandbar follow suit. I’m frozen. Not because of fear. If anything, I’m excited. Maybe ghosts aren’t real, but there really could be a force, or a creature, or something no one will ever understand in that pit. If there’s any hint of truth to what Silverstream said, this thing scared away a terrible sea monster and made a home in its den. Right now I feel this vanishingly thin sliver of belief—someone else might call it hope—that if I look over the edge, there’ll be something looking back. And it’s stupid. The only thing I’ll see is blackness. I know that. I’m only pretending there might be something else. But is it so terrible if I pretend a little longer? Silverstream’s expression changes. Doubts are emerging. She looks at the four already at the lip, who are spread out over ten yards, and then returns to me. Or, not me exactly: my squid arms. She sidles up to me and whispers, “I didn’t think this part through! Can you help me out?” “Help you out with what?” I whisper back. “Spooking them! When I give the signal, tap them all on the back. Thank you thank you thank you!” She flits away before I respond, leaving me with a weird, deflated feeling. So this whole story was building up to a prank. I didn’t even get a chance to let myself down. Then again, Silverstream asked me to be part of it. That counts for something, I guess. “Do you guys see anything?” she says when she gets back to them. “I—” Sandbar starts in a nervous tone, but Silverstream cuts him off. “Don’t worry, they might be a teensy bit shy. Let me try something.” She winks at me. I try to wink back, but apparently I don’t have eyelids. I sink to the floor and creep towards the edge. My body is flexible enough to make myself practically flat against the ground. “Calamus! Pelagica!” Silverstream calls into the pit. “We half-dozen creatures beckon thy heedfulness!” “Why are you talking like that?” Smolder asks. I duck to the side so she doesn’t see me when she looks up to Silverstream. “It’s Classical Hippogriffese, so they understand us.” Silverstream cups her muzzle. “Forsooth, wouldest thou favor us with a true account of thy ordeals against the charybdis?” They’re all still. I creep forward until I have arms behind Ocellus and Yona, and a tentacle at Smolder’s back. I also slide an arm over Sandbar. “Hearest me, oh aggrieved spirits, if thou truly be there!” Silverstream shouts theatrically. A few seconds pass in silence. Her shoulders slump. “Huh. Maybe it is all just a silly—” She gasps. Her eyes go wide. “Did you guys feel...that?” That’s my cue. I grab Smolder, Ocellus, and Yona, but swish the water near Sandbar. Smolder puffs out. Yona lets out a blast of bubbles. There’s a pastel-colored rock where Ocellus used to be. Sandbar looks like he actually fainted. And Silverstream is giddy. “Did we really get you guys? We totally got you, didn’t we? I knew that’d spook you! That was the coolest thing ever!” she hoots while swimming figure eights around our victims. “My mom used to tell Terramar and me that story all the time when we were little! Although in her version Calamus would spend long hours watching Pelagica from the shore without her knowing—” “Hippogriff boy jerk and creep?” Bubbles blow out of Yona’s nostrils. “In Yakyakistan, yaks make him take long walk over thin ice.” “Anyway, mom couldn’t take us out here while everyone was stuck in Seaquestria, so she said the lovers had disappeared in one of the shelters. She’d have Terramar and me go inside, but we had to stay as quiet and still as possible or else the ghosts would catch us.” Silverstream stops swimming. “Now that I think about it, she might have been getting us to practice staying safe if the Storm King invaded Seaquestria.” “Wait,” Sandbar says, “so the story is made up?” Her giddiness springs back. “Not all of it! There really was a charybdis that disappeared, and this really is its old den. The Aurums and Volares were real families, too. There are all sorts of different stories about Calamus and Pelagica, but they might be based on real hippogriffs.” “But I saw something down there,” Sandbar says. It’d be silent if the pit weren’t thrumming faintly. Silverstream and I exchange puzzled looks. “At first there was nothing,” he says, “but then these shadows appeared. Two of them, I think, and they started moving. Then these eerie blue flashes came, like eyes peering up.” “It might have been warm and cool currents mixing,” Ocellus offers. “The refraction index of water changes really quickly with temperature, so when hot and cold water mixes it causes a lot of distortions.” “What about the blue flashes?” he asks. Ocellus shrugs. “Those could have been moonlight reflecting off of a shiny rock. Water that deep will absorb red through green wavelengths of natural light, so everything down there would look blue and black.” Yona has been lingering between the two of them, but now she turns away from the pit in a huff. “Not shiny rocks. Yona see eyes too.” The prickly sense returns. “Ghost eyes?” I ask her. “No. Not ghosts. Yona not know what.” I float closer to her, maybe uncomfortably close. “How do you know they weren’t ghosts?” “Yona see ghosts before. Ghosts kind, teach Yona about ancestors. Eyes in big hole…” Her expression curdles. “Nasty. Scary.” “Wait, so yak ghosts don’t scare you? That’s got to be the lamest sort of ghosts.” “Yak ghosts not lame!” “Sure…” Yona slaps the ground but doesn’t say anything else. Smolder hasn’t spoken yet. I look around to find she’s drifted a few yards away. Her pufferfish quills are standing on end. “So what’d you see?” I ask her. “Nothing.” She deflates some. “Let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.” She flicks her back fin like that’s the end of the conversation, but I can’t resist the gibe anymore. Even if I risk crossing a line with her. “Gee, this scary pit sure has you acting like some dainty little princess.” Her scowl catches me off guard. “Why don’t you go in there if you’re so brave?” “Smolder, cut it out,” Sandbar says. He won’t even look at me. “We should go back to camp and get some sleep.” The others start murmuring their agreement, but I haven’t gotten a chance to look into the pit yet. There really could be something in there. As much as I tease them, Yona and Smolder wouldn’t get fooled by some shiny rocks and warm water. I jet over, lean my eye over the edge, and… Nothing. I wait for some movement down there, or a glint of spectral blue light. Even that creepy sense Smolder got or some yak ghost lessons about my ancestors would be fine. It won’t happen, though. No matter how long I wait and stare, it’ll still be an inky black nothing. What did I expect? Silverstream’s story was always going to be a letdown. Ghosts aren’t real. All of this is made up. I wish I could forget that, though. I wish I could believe. An idea takes ahold of me. “Hey, Silverstream.” There’s swishing when the five of them stop. “What’s up?” she chirrups. “You said we’d see ghosts. All of us.” I jab a tentacle into the pit. “So when’s it my turn?” Sandbar and I spent every day of winter break together. He liked telling me stories, especially “scary” ones, and I liked hearing them while we huddled around lanterns late into the night. Personally, I also appreciated a mobile radiator with a doofy grin and a gentle voice. On the first morning of spring semester, we met up to compare our class schedules in a window-filled room that Headmare Twilight called a “solarium.” During the day, the room would glow like the biggest gem on a crown. At night, if it was a new moon, it’d be so dark that wisps of the galaxy would appear. We thought it’d be toasty with all the sunlight streaming in, but that morning I could still see my breath in the air. “Wanna go somewhere a little warmer?” I offered. “I bet we could sneak into the walk-in freezer.” He glanced around the empty room. “This is okay. It’s nice and quiet.” A hint of a blush showed up on his cheeks. We sat down on a sofa that sat along one wall, its cushions stiff from lack of use and the cold. Sandbar slid a little closer to me than usual. I didn’t mind. Ponies instinctively herd together when they get cold, so it was natural for him. We pulled out our schedules and held them side by side. They couldn’t have been more different. We’d have one class together on Fridays, and another every other Tuesday. Not even our breaks between classes lined up. My first class started at eight in the morning, and his last class ended at five in the afternoon, so we’d barely get to see each other between breakfast and dinner. “I’ve got an idea,” Sandbar said when we’d put away our schedules. He rummaged through his saddlebags and pulled out a flyer. “The new assistant professors—” “We have new profs?” He looked uncertain, but it vanished a second later. “Cozy Glow said Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom were going to start teaching optional classes on weekends. One of them is a seminar about Hearts and Hooves Day. The two of us could sign up for it.” “Nah, sounds like I don’t have any of the right parts.” Sandbar didn’t always get my jokes, and at that moment he looked like he might ask if griffons really didn’t have hearts. “I’m guessing ponies don’t actually have a day celebrating two extremely particular anatomical features. How do you celebrate it?” “I, uh…” He shivered. “I never have. Last year, I tried to, though.” There was a holiday that some ponies didn’t celebrate, even if they tried? How intriguing. “There was a pegasus at my old school I had a crush on,” he continued. “Super athletic, in the Junior Wonderbolts, beautiful dusty blue coat, and totally fearless. I really, really wanted to be with this pony as much as possible. I even signed up to be a water fetcher for the Junior Wonderbolts to get closer.” I nodded along. I still didn’t know what it meant to have a crush on someone, but it sounded a little like finding another griffon to roost with. During the winter, griffons would pair off with somegriff they could put up with and build a nest to stay warm together. They’d go back to living alone after spring unless they had an egg. Then they’d be stuck in their nest through summer, and in autumn they’d fight over who had to keep the hatchling. Grampa Gruff’s voice butted in. Your parents were smart. They figured out that neither of them had to be stuck with their kid. I swallowed down a vinegary taste burning the back of my throat and let Sandbar continue. “About a week before Hearts and Hooves Day, a lot of colts and fillies were talking about what they wanted to do for dates. I felt like one of the only students without a special somepony. But I had my crush. So I decided that afternoon I’d ask out my crush at Junior Wonderbolts practice.” Sandbar swallowed. “I’d confess my true feelings. To him.” Sandbar locked his gaze on me like he’d just revealed the twist to one of his stories. I didn’t get it. Sure, I knew some creatures had strong feelings about roosting partners—or crushes—but like most griffons, I wasn’t picky about gender. “So what’d he say?” I asked. Sandbar’s face didn’t change, but his ears twitched up and relaxed. “I grabbed two bottles of water and went to where he usually landed during warmups. When I got there, he actually glanced down and waved! I was about to wave back, but this unicorn colt whooped at him. Seeing this new colt made me worried.” This story had taken a downer turn for Sandbar. Obviously his crush had met somepony already. I pursed the corners of my beak in sympathy. “The unicorn started shouting things like, ‘Watch your form!’ ‘Hold that left wing steady!’ ‘Easy on the bank!’ I figured he might be coaching my crush, so I felt better and ignored him. My crush was doing great that day, like he had extra energy. It got me so excited to talk to him. “He finished up in the air and landed near the unicorn. Then he waved me over! He wanted to see me! I trotted up and got right next to them, but before I said a word, he wrapped a foreleg around the unicorn. ‘Sandbar, meet my flight coach,’ he said.” “Oh!” I trilled, surprised by the happy ending. “Who was also his coltfriend.” Sandbar’s head sagged pitifully with the twist. “Aww. I’m sorry.” I gave him a wing squeeze. “But that means now you can have a crush on some other pony, right?” All of a sudden he pawed at the cushions so morosely. “Yeah, but…I’ve never felt the same way about another pony. It was more than imagining us hugging and…kissing. I’d have done anything just to see him smile. When I met his coltfriend, I was glad that he’d met somepony who made him happy. Even though it wasn’t me.” “Really? You should have challenged that unicorn to hoof-to-hoof combat, taught him a lesson for horning in on your boy.” That made him laugh. “Nah. They were talking about getting married after they graduated. I…I really am so happy for them.” He sniffled and wiped his nose, trying to disguise it as a shrug. “Besides, maybe you’re right. Maybe I am supposed to meet someone else.” A quiet second passed, and Sandbar glanced at me again. I wondered if he’d said something he hadn’t planned to. He chewed his lip. “Have you ever had a crush on someone?” I almost shot my beak off. There were griffons I’d fantasized about roosting with, although none of them would have settled for me, but having a crush sounded terrible. Who would give up everything they wanted for some other creature’s happiness? Sure, I liked when my friends were happy, but I wouldn’t make myself miserable for it. In a heartbeat, I imagined saying exactly that to him, and knew I’d be making fun of what he’d gone through. In a cruel way, though, not a way that’d cheer him up. My talon touched his foreleg, and I started to say something vague about griffons not having crushes, when Grampa Gruff’s voice made everything click. He told you he wanted someone athletic, fearless, blue, and with wings. Doesn’t that remind you of somegriff? My eyes met his, like two glimmering pools of water. Without a word I leaned in and kissed him. It was a little awkward. Griffon beaks and pony muzzles don’t exactly mesh. Even still, the hair on his snout sent trembles from my crest feathers to the tip of my tail. He made a startled gasp that faded into a contented whimper. His chest pressed against mine. I exhaled through my nostrils, rustling his lip bristle, and felt it tickle me back. The bell for first class couldn’t have picked a worse time to ring. We snapped apart. “I’ve got to—” I jerked my talon at the doorway. “Yeah, you should—” “But we’ll talk—” “Definitely, yeah, talk.” He got that irresistible, innocent smile. “Later.” I booked it out of the room, driven partly from the lingering thrill of our kiss, partly from my nerves about starting the semester. But mostly I didn’t want him to see me shaking.
Why Can't I Breathe?4. Journaling has never been my thing, but I did keep track of what I learned being with Sandbar. Here’s a short list from the first month: Sandbar had a sixth sense about my mood. Sometimes memories about Griffonstone would bubble up and put me in a funk, but he seemed to know it even before me. Then he’d ask if I was okay until I admitted I wasn’t. Talking to Sandbar made my rough days pass a little faster. I still had them, but they weren’t as bad when I could share them with someone. How to kiss a pony. Getting a beak and muzzle to meet up took some trial and error, but Sandbar said he didn’t mind. I definitely didn’t either. Never, ever, ever go in an amusement park ride built my foals. We had signed up for that Hearts and Hooves Day seminar. The seminar would be “in the field,” which meant our first class met up at a bridge over the Ponyville River. Pink paper cutouts of hearts and horseshoes had been taped across its arch while red streamers wrapped its railings. Ice floated at the edge of the riverbanks. Crisp breezes got me all but hanging off Sandbar for warmth as we walked over. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo were whispering between themselves when we arrived. Other students, all ponies, stood in small herds chatting and stamping their hooves for warmth. It seemed we were waiting for the rest of the class to show up. Sandbar leaned to my ear. “Do you think they changed the class?” I shrugged. We’d told the fillies we were a couple during registration. They’d cooed and begged for all the cutesy details…and then confessed that they had no idea what to teach a couple. The first day was supposed to be about finding a special somepony and asking them out on a date. They said they’d figure it out for us, but from the way they were frantically whispering while the last of our classmates straggled over, I had my doubts. The fillies’ whispering ended. Apple Bloom galloped upriver, leaving Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo with us. Sweetie Belle started. “Welcome to Hearts and Hooves Day 101 everypony...and griffon! Today we will watch two young lovebirds on a romantic date.” I knew where this was going. “You can’t call them ‘lovebirds’!” Scootaloo said. “It could be offensive to a gri...to you know who.” She whispered the last of the sentence. “That’s not what ‘lovebird’ means. Besides, we can’t call them love-pony and love-half-bird-half-cat!” Scootaloo’s eyes bulged. “That’s even worse!” Sandbar was blushing and I had wrapped a talon over my eyes when I heard the creak from behind us. Apple Bloom was pulling a small row boat down the river. More paper cutouts decorated it, although they looked a lot more shoddy than the bridge’s. A box attached to belts and a long metal bar had been installed on its side. “Just call them love-creatures, okay?” “Fine,” Sweetie Belle sniffed. “Anyway, today’s date for our two young love-creatures will be a leisurely cruise down the Ponyville River. Are there any questions before they embark?” “So who’s going on this date?” I deadpanned. Sandbar snickered and nudged me onto the boat. As soon as we sat down, Apple Bloom appeared by our side to throw life jackets and belts around us, and then wrapped her forelegs around the metal bar. I put a talon up. “Don’t worry about—” She hopped backwards. The bar swung to our laps, stopping an inch from our hind legs. Breath caught in my throat. “Now y’all have nothing to be afraid of!” She trotted to the back. After a moment of sitting frozen, I reached out a claw and tried wiggling the bar. It had some give. The belts were buckled so they could be undone easily enough. And the sky stretched wide above me. Nothing to worry about. I loosened the straps on the life jacket to help chill out. With a surprisingly strong buck for a little pony, Apple Bloom sent the boat floating along with the slow river current. “Many dates start with introductions,” Sweetie Belle said as she juggled between walking backwards and magically shuffling index cards. “Then the couple may attempt small talk, as you can see here.” A clenched smile snapped onto Sandbar’s face. He rotated his head my way and said, “Uhm… How are your classes, Gallus?” “They’re all right. I’m in one right now that’s a little weird.” He lost the smile. “Same here.” Pencils scribbled against notepads. Sandbar’s hooves tapped against the bar. My heart jumped a little when it seemed like the bar might close more tightly. I felt chilly and puffed my feathers out. Ice crunched on the hull as the boat bounced off a bank. We silently floated into a bend. An off-white shed appeared from behind a building in town. Red letters were scrawled across its front. I tried to stand up to get a better view, but the bar and belts held me down. “Now the couple will settle into a warm, caring embrace,” Sweetie Belle said, “as they enter the Tunnel of Love.” My mouth went dry. “Are you okay?” Sandbar asked, his voice soft. No one back then knew I had a problem with being in small spaces. With a herd of our classmates watching and taking notes, I wasn’t about to reveal it to everypony. “Fine.” I clenched my jaw. “Just fine.” My eyes wouldn’t leave the oncoming tunnel. Blood rushed in my ears. An argument broke out between the fillies. Snippets about Cozy Glow and not testing animatronics filtered through. My grip tightened on the bar. Cold iron bit back. The narrow entrance, shorter than the fillies’ shoulders, loomed in front. No signs of ventilation. No exit. I needed air, but no matter how much I tried, I kept gasping— A tender hoof pressed against my claws. Beside me was Sandbar, his smile gentle and his eyes inviting. He exhaled, sending humid air washing across my beak, and I exhaled with him. Moments passed with our lungs empty. Our hearts were steady. His belly bulged, followed by his chest, as he inhaled over seconds. I matched his every move. We shared breaths and gazes as the blackness swallowed us. Shadows hid the side of his face. The river splashed cavernously. Woody scents wafted through the air. Sandbar’s hoof squeezed my talon, and I knew he’d hold me as long as I needed him to. “Thanks,” I said. His smile, even half in the dark, could have melted me. A hiss started. Low tones drawled out, sending my down standing on end. The notes congealed into a shambling melody caught somewhere between lullaby and dirge. Familiar, though. Actually recognizable. I began to place the song, something I’d heard around Ponyville before, but it was slowed way down, as if somepony—and three suspects came to mind—had set the wrong speed on a record player. Red bulbs flickered on under a quartet of dress mannequins holding musical instruments, their glow turning the mannequins into leering demons dancing in gloom and flame. Larger lamps hung above them, unlit. Presumably the mannequins would have looked normal if all the lights had been on. Doors slid open with a creak. A stream of blood poured from the ceiling. That took a second for me to get. The fillies must have meant to make it a romantically-lit waterfall, but the lights were too red and the water too frothy. The astringent odor of a rusty nail completed the effect. A cabinet squealed open, and a string of tiny pegasi dolls carrying bows and arrows coasted above us. Except they been tied up wrong and swung wildly from a fishing line. When the last one fell into the water inches from the boat, I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. Hearts and Hooves Day? This ride should have been the main attraction for Haunts and Horrors Night! And I couldn’t wait for the next grisly sight or sound. Being shackled to a boat in a cramped tunnel shouldn’t have been fun. It shouldn’t have been bearable. Instead of freaking out, though, I was holding back guffaws at the broken down contraptions and macabre results. I knew who I had to thank for calming me down enough to enjoy this bizarre cruise. Sandbar deserved to know how much he meant to me, so I leaned over to sneak a kiss onto his neck. I froze mid-lean. Sandbar’s eyes were the size of dinner plates. “Sandbar?” His teeth chattered. “I-it’s…” He pointed a foreleg to a painting hanging on a far wall. I could barely make out a picture of two young ponies kissing, but someone had added a reflective coat to their closed eyes. The broken lighting turned the glossy paint into wolf’s eyes in a dark forest. The painting hung above another narrow archway with shut doors. The tunnel was going to close in again, but I pushed the thought away. Sandbar needed me to be brave. “C’mon, dude. It’s only a painting.” A bang echoed. The painting flipped around. I glimpsed some wedding scene on the other side, but then Sandbar was squeezing the air out of me. My lungs didn’t work. Heartbeats pounded in my ears. The doors slithered open, but the arch’s sides were so close that the boat would never push through. This slapdash shed was going to collapse, I could see it, its whole weight would crush us. I don’t remember what happened next except in snapshots: slapping at the belts; breaking the rod pinning my legs; flying hard into the ceiling; clawing open a gap; slipping my head through; Sandbar shouting for me before I scrambled outside. By the time I could think again, I’d flown to a faraway tree and perched on a branch dotted with tiny green leaves. I rested my head against the trunk and gasped for air. Rugged bark pressed into my temple. My heart started to slow down, leaving me dizzy. Grampa Gruff’s voice chimed in. Don’t fall off. You already look like a big enough idiot. My claws dug into the branch. I started to wonder if I should even bother going back, but right then galloping hooves clattered up behind me. I girded myself for all the jeers a herd of ponies could throw at me. “Gallus?” Sandbar’s tender voice relaxed my grip. I turned around and found him alone on the ground. The tunnel was in sight behind a foothill, prominently featuring the hole I’d escape through, but I couldn’t see any of the other ponies. No telling what they thought of me. “What happened back there?” he asked. “Oh, I suddenly remembered I’m a griffon and needed to make a nest for us to roost in. Pass me some twigs, would ya?” Based on the way he half-frowned, he knew I was joking. He just didn’t think it was funny. I hopped out of the tree and landed next to him. “This isn’t a big deal or anything, but sometimes small spaces make me sort of nervous. Nothing to worry about.” I started walking back to the river, although I was a little unsteady on my talons and paws. He trotted up beside me. “That was more than sort of nervous. Are you sure you’re okay?” “Yeah,” I snapped. “You did punch a hole through the ceiling.” “You’re one to—” I stammered, remembering how he’d jumped on me. “That’s… It’s…” A heavy sigh slipped through my beak. The truth was I envied him. So what if he’d been startled by a dark hallway with a few broken gimmicks? He was fine now. He might have even had fun being spooked. Meanwhile, I’d be wobbling with each step for at least the next half-hour. If I’d had my freakout a week or two earlier I would have told him to forget it. By then he’d talked me through enough rough days that it was worth trying to share a little. “You’re right, I was more than sort of nervous. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.” His ears flicked back. “Do you get that way in tunnels only, or…” “Tunnels, closets, tents, pretty much whenever I feel trapped. Even that life jacket put me on edge. Anything like that can make me flip out.” “You didn’t flip out when we got into the tunnel.” “That’s…true.” Our short trip through the tunnel replayed in my mind. “I think having you there really helped me. You were relaxed, and I knew you were looking out for me. So I could relax.” I paused when I realized what I’d said. “That’s really weird, isn’t it? Calming down just because someone else is calm?” “That’s pretty normal, actually.” He sounded amused. “Feel up to giving that tunnel a second try with me?” “Ah, no. Let’s start out easy and work our way back up to death traps.” He thought for a few moments. “How about swing dancing? We’ll be close together, but if you start feeling cramped, you can just push me away for a few beats.” “Cool. What’s swing dancing?” “It’s like regular dancing, but with jazzy music. You switch places and sort of swing your partner out a lot.” I nodded. “And what’s regular dancing?” “…R-really?” “You said we’d see some ghosts. All of us. So when’s it my turn?” My question hangs in the water. Yona and Smolder are avoiding my eyes, and Sandbar’s turned away from me. Silverstream is in front of them, her ears flicking in thought, but it’s Ocellus who answers. “None of us really saw ghosts. It was all just tricks of the light and Silverstream’s story.” “Is that so, professor?” I say in a nasally voice. “Tricks of the light and spooky stories are all it takes to frighten a dragon and a yak?” Yona spurts some bubbles but doesn’t take the bait. Smolder is clearly done listening to me. “Fear is a very basic emotion,” Ocellus says, “and the fight-or-flight response is one of the core survival instincts that almost all animals have. When you encounter something that you can’t explain, your brain is really likely to perceive a threat, which triggers fear.” I roll my eyes, which I’m pleasantly surprised to find squids can do. “Whatever.” “That’s…how it usually works. Every creature is different, I guess.” Ocellus squints at me, disconcerted. Silverstream’s ears are done flicking. She pipes up with, “There are a few other stories about seeing Calamus’s and Pelagica’s ghosts. Couples who elope say they’ve seen them, and there was a musician who said they were her muse.” A moment goes by, and then her arm-fin snaps in a weird gesture. “Oh! And they’ve been spotted by hippogriffs who were freediving.” That’s an interesting word. Diving is a good way to catch a meal that’s not paying attention, although some creatures also say ‘diving’ when they mean jumping into water. Adding ‘free’ to it has to mean something, like adding ‘swing’ to ‘dancing.’ “What’s a freediver?” “It’s when you go deep underwater without turning into a seapony.” She glances at me, a squid-griffon. “Or, you know, turning into some aquatic form. Freediving was a huge deal before hippogriffs had the magic pearl because there was no way to breathe underwater. On land, you can probably hold your breath for a minute or two, but with training you can hold your breath underwater for five or ten minutes! A freediver can go looking for pearls, dig up clams, spear fish, explore shipwrecks…” She trails off, apparently lost in thought. “I’ve read about freediving,” Ocellus says. “Even without training, a lot of creatures autonomic reactions when they go into water. Their heart rate slows down and there’s less blood in their legs and tail, so their vital organs can keep working while their body uses less oxygen. It’s pretty dangerous, though. It can lead to blackouts, seizures, or permanent brain damage.” “A boy from Terramar’s school tried it once,” Silverstream says softly. Her face twists into a somber mask. “He wanted to impress a girl he was crushing on, so he turned himself into a hippogriff underwater, took off his necklace, and swam to a cave. Some of his friends were supposed to time him, but I guess they got distracted. Maybe they just didn’t think it’d be risky.” Some disgust, or possibly anger, appears as a curled tweak in her lips. “He passed out and had to go to the hospital for a week. Even after he went back to school, I heard he had a tough time in class because he can’t remember things as well as he used to.” “Sorry to hear that,” I mumble. Part of me wants to ask if the kid said anything about seeing ghosts, but Silverstream seems to be disturbed by this kid almost drowning himself. Maybe Silverstream was the girl he tried to impress. That thought shouldn’t bother me. This kid’s crush isn’t what got us talking about freediving, I recall. “You said freedivers see the ghosts.” Silverstream snaps out of her funk. “Oh, right! Remember how they had to have divers explore this den after the charybdis left? And how they all had creepy vibes from it? All of them were freediving. That’s why they couldn’t explore much, because each of them only had five or ten minutes of air.” She turns aside like she’s about to share some juicy gossip. “What I’ve heard is, since the charybdis drowned its prey, Calamus’s and Pelagica’s ghosts come out to freedivers when they’re about to run out of air.” Smolder lets out a yawn. “Can we go now? I think we’re all getting a little cranky.” She glances at me. Silverstream and Ocellus float towards her, Yona, and Sandbar. A few of them copy Smolder’s yawn and mutter about how tired they are. I take another look into the pit hoping something decided to show up, but there is still only vacant nothingness. Swishing sounds behind me signal that everyone else is calling it quits. Tonight I won’t be seeing any ghosts. What did you expect? Ghosts aren’t real. All of this crap is made up. I want to forget that. Water’s already pumping through me, pushing me away, but I wish there was any chance of seeing something from Silverstream’s story. Some hope that anyone can scare away the monsters hunting them. I just want a chance to believe, even if it’s only for a while. Say, for five or ten minutes. My tentacle wraps around the sliver of magic pearl that’s tied to my conic head. I make a dead stop a few yards from the pit and say, “Anyone want to find some ghosts with me?” The five of them stop mid-swim, but only Silverstream faces me. No one says a word. “C’mon, we just pop off our necklaces and sink, right? If ghosts are going to show up for anyone, it has to be for creatures freediving in the charybdis den. That’s, like, a double whammy of ghost bait.” “That’s not a good idea,” Ocellus says. “What if someone passed out? Even if you don’t drown, you could end up with a memory problem for the rest of your life like Terramar’s friend.” “Was that his deal?” I say wryly. “I must have forgot. Guess I don’t have much to lose, then!” “That’s not funny.” Silverstream sounds small. I should take back the wisecrack. Later, though. “Look, if you’re all too scared, I’ll just go by myself. Don’t worry, I’ll carry my necklace, so I can just toss it back on when I’m ready to go up.” One wave of my free arms pushes me over the den. I take a deep breath, and— Did you get hay for brains all of a sudden? Think this through, boy. Grampa Gruff’s voice makes me hesitate. How do I take a deep breath? Do I even have lungs as a squid? I’m about to back out, tell my friends I was kidding, when Sandbar speaks up. “Gallus…” He sounds like he’s on the verge of tears. “Please be care—” I snap off the necklace with a flash of light. Sandbar’s voice muddles into babbling tones. My vision blurs. Water soaks my down and fur. Air floods my lungs. My claws tighten around the necklace as I begin to sink.
Never Let Go5. The edge of the charybdis’s den rises past me. I sink effortlessly. On the surface I could lie on my back and keep my beak above water, but the buoyancy is different down here. Drag on my wings slows me, so I tuck them in to drop faster. Cold shocks my skin. I hadn’t prepared for that. Summer is supposed to make seawater mild, but this pit feels like a column of freshly melted glaciers. I can’t hug myself for warmth because the necklace is in my talon and I don’t know how close it can get to my chest before it turns me back into a squid. My ears clog from the pressure, so I plug my nostrils with my free talon and puff air into my sinuses to reopen them. Almost as soon as I finish, they clog again. I try to force them open a second time, but they stay shut no matter how hard I blow. I give up. The pinching hurts, but Grampa Gruff had done worse. The bottom of the den wallops me when I land, shooting a jolt from my paws to my neck. Maybe I held myself too stiffly on the way down, or maybe I fell faster than I thought. I tap the ground with my paws. Hard, jagged rocks, though not sturdy. One plank wobbles when I put my weight on it, and the other rocks shift around easily. I can’t see anything. Looking around and blinking—it’s nice to have eyelids again—doesn’t change my view one bit. Thin trails of sparks glitter above me, but otherwise I’m surrounded by pitch blackness. If those ghosts show up, they better glow. For a second, I cram down every ounce of my skepticism into a tiny hole. Maybe they won’t glow, but they could reach out and touch me. My skin tingles with anticipation. What if ghosts were real? What if these ghosts were real? Two creatures so drawn together they refused to leave each other even when certain death came for them. Bound so closely that sharing a life together wasn’t enough, they had to share an eternity as spirits linked to this place. Fueled by something so fierce it scared away an invincible monster. A world with monsters lurking around every corner isn’t fair. Big or small, strong or wily, teeth bared or hiding under Cozy Glow’s ice blue curls, and those are just the ones you see. What I need are ghosts to drive away all of them. But I won’t get them. Silverstream told us a story some hippogriff made up long ago. None of it was real. Except the charybdis. I grasp the necklace in my talon. I’m not running out of breath yet, but staring into impenetrable murk is going to get boring. Then again, if I swim back up to the others after a minute they’ll probably think I got scared. Maybe I should come up with another reason to quit early. Apologizing to everyone, for example. I called Yona’s yak ghosts lame, didn’t I? I also crapped all over Ocellus for being smart and talked about Smolder’s dainty little princess moment. Plus I made fun of Silverstream’s brother’s friend. That was messed up. It’s not all my fault. I’ve been on edge since I got the first whiff of saltwater. I’ll be chill tomorrow. I still need to apologize to them. They’ll forgive me. What I said wasn’t enough to end our friendships. It wasn’t enough this time. Someday you’ll piss them off for good. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to force the voice out of my head, but I get distracted: it’s darker now that my eyes are closed. Opening my eyelids reveals the faintest patterns of midnight blues and blacks materializing as I slowly acclimate to the nearly lightless pit. Vague outlines of rocky shelves come together, while the floor remains too chaotic to make sense of. I look up. Black-tipped tentacles are sliding towards me. I swipe at them, miss—I swung too far, they’re inches away—and swipe again with my other talon. Contact, and they’re flimsy. I clamp down and rip them off— And feel a stabbing pain in my scalp, like when Grampa Gruff used to try to tear off my ears. I let go. The pain eases. There weren’t any tentacles, I’d grabbed my crest. It didn’t look anything like my feathers, though. Where’d my yellow tips go? Then I see my talons are solid black. They open wide and drift to my face. They should be bright orange-yellow. I can see the blue in my arm feathers, albeit dimly, but I can’t make sense of my colorless talons. There’s something I’m forgetting… I remember after a second: Ocellus said everything should look blue and black down here. Something about how deep water absorbs all the colors like red and green. My talons were orange-yellow, so that must be why they look black now. Probably the same thing happened to the yellow in my crest. I pause to marvel at them, flipping them palm up, and then palm down. A dull ache starts in my chest. It’s not enough that I have to put the necklace on right away— Wait. No. Dumbass! Where’s your necklace? It’d been in one of my talons. Why don’t I remember which one? They both clench, trying to feel for the thread, but it’s gone. I must have thrown it accidentally. You mean you threw it away when you got scared by your own crest. I can’t leave the necklace down here. How much harder is making up going to be if I also have to beg for help finding it? I kneel down and scrabble through the jagged pebbles on the ground. My eyes keep adjusting, but it’s never enough to look around. Loose piles scatter under my talons. I snatch at the pebbles, feeling each one and tossing it aside when it’s unfamiliar. Little clicks go off as each lands. Which way did I toss the necklace? Even if I knew, could I find feel my way to anything useful? I can’t tell which way I’m pointed now. Jitters pulse down my arms and into the rocks. Black puffs of silt rise and hover. It gets so cloudy with silt that even the shapes I saw earlier disappear. My heart flutters. I feel like puking. I bet those necklaces cost a fortune. The silt is floating down and my eyes have acclimated more, but I’m out of time. I’ve screwed up again. All I can do is hope Silverstream will forgive me for losing her necklace, after they all forgive me for being a massive jerk today. They probably went back to camp already. They got so tired of your crap they’ll tell you to fly home tonight. Could this smartass voice just shut up for once? Out of frustration, I kick at one of the boulders near me. My paw throbs on impact, but I deserve that. I still regret it. Before I can chew myself out for it any more, rumbles shake the water. A clattering sound echoes through the pit. Something lands on my other leg, hard. My paw flashes pure fire. I try to paddle up with my arms only, but each move sends more agony through my lower body. The silt keeps falling and my eyes keep adjusting. Now I can see what’s holding me down: a massive stone wedge has pinned my leg to the floor. ——— I didn’t regret a second of roosting with Sandbar. Really. I thought dancing meant a big group hopping around, like the six of us did in that play with Princess Celestia, but swing dancing was totally different. We had to stand on our hindlegs and hold each other up. Then, a band would start playing music, and we’d push each other around the floor to the beat. Swing dancing has all these different moves, and no one told us which ones to do, so I had to pick and get Sandbar to follow. Like he said, I could swing him away whenever I wanted, but there’s also a lot of moves about bringing your partner in closer. The more we danced, the more I liked those pull-him-closer moves. Also, Sandbar started surfing every few weeks. We’d take these long train rides out to the coast on a Saturday morning, and he’d spend the day riding his dusty blue surfboard. I flew around him and teased him since he stuck to waves that didn’t rise above his haunches. I bet he’d have been incredible on one of those monster waves. Staying in a hotel wasn’t an option, so we’d take midnight trains back to Ponyville and fall asleep leaning against each other. The smell of saltwater still makes me think of those trips. Then there was Cozy Glow’s whole plan. I don’t want to talk about that except to say that our teachers threw a huge party for the six of us in the common room. Professor Pinkie Pie went all out with it. Balloons coated the ceiling, a smorgasbord of treats and punch were spread out, and a DJ blasted tunes. Silverstream loved it and Yona went nuts of course, but Smolder, Ocellus, and Sandbar also had fun. When she calmed down a little, Silverstream told us about her idea for a summer trip with just the six of us. I suppose that turned into our expedition to Arbor Isle. The party spirit eluded me all night. I couldn’t figure out why. Sure, all the excitement of the past few days had worn me out, and the approach of finals week filled me with dread, but there was something more than that. For a long time, I coasted around the edges of the room. Sandbar caught my eye from across the room. We hadn’t spoken much since Cozy Glow had been captured. He looked lost for a moment, but then his adorable smile showed up. I expected him to charge towards me, but instead he trotted to the DJ. Which was when Grampa Gruff’s voice clued me in to was bothering me. Remember last time you were in here? Memories of purple goo splattered across Hearth’s Warming decorations flooded to mind. I hadn’t realized I’d been avoiding the place, but right then I almost felt trapped in that enormous room. I’d clung to the walls the whole night, which made it easy to slide out the door without anyone noticing. Swing dancing music began to play as I walked down the hallway. Most of the rest of the school was closed off, so I wound up in my dorm room. Posters of airshows I’d been to hung from each wall. Textbooks towered from one corner. A rug I’d bought on the Las Pegasus trip with Sandbar lay on the floor, one corner already torn off. A painted wooden crab we’d gotten in Baltimare, which had lost a leg when he showed it to Yona, leaned against my desk’s backboard. Photos dangled from tacks pinning them to a cork board. My talons gravitated to the photos. I brushed aside the snapshots of us hamming it up for the camera and dug to the one picture I’d kept from our big Hearth’s Warming dinner. The six of us were sitting around a table before we’d been served. Folded napkins, pristine plates, and orderly silverware lay in front of each of our smiling faces. I looked relieved in the photo, maybe a little timid, but that didn’t bother me as much as the trickle of purple goo hiding on the edge of the frame. Trying to wipe the smudge out of the photo didn’t do any good. Tapping came from the door. “Gallus?” The sound of his voice still made me breathe easy back then. I opened the door. He stood at the threshold, a shadow against the illuminated hallway, his only movements a tremor in his fetlocks. “I want to apologize,” he said. “Why?” I wrapped an arm around him and led him inside. The door closed, and his rump dropped to the stone floor. “Everything I said to Chancellor Neighsay. I didn’t mean any of it—” “Dude, I know. You were just making him think you were on his side.” I sat across from Sandbar and ran my claws through his mane, teasing the ends of his messy strands. “Did you know then?” My talon slipped out of his hair. The truth was, I’d sort of believed him then. Even after all the time we’d spent together, I really could believe that he’d turn on us. That he’d leave me in a heartbeat. Because that would have been the smart thing to do. “I wasn’t sure what to believe,” I said. He must have known what I really meant because he folded into me. He fit so perfectly into the curves of my body. I scooted back to give him room on the rug and clutched him to me, even though it was too hot to be that close. I didn’t care. He’d been so brave to rescue us. He didn’t deserve these doubts, so I’d hold him close until every one of them went away. For a long time, we laid in silence. Then he asked, “Have you ever told anyone you love them?” Of course I hadn’t. Griffons don’t say that kind of thing without drowning in sarcasm. “No,” I said. He tensed. No pony asks a question like that because they want to hear about the words griffons don’t say. I remembered him trotting away with Chancellor Neighsay, saying he didn’t want anything to do with creatures like me. And I remembered the fear that he was never coming back. Panic seized me. It didn’t matter what I felt. If I hurt him, he’d leave me forever. Remember when I said I didn’t regret a second of roosting with Sandbar? That was a lie. This is the part I regret. I leaned into his ear and whispered, “But I love you.” “I love you, too,” he whispered back.
Charybdis6. I started skipping our swing dancing classes. We were both busy studying for finals, I told myself, so I wasn’t avoiding him. But I also started skipping our study sessions. Sandbar left a note on my door one day. He wrote that we should take an afternoon off to relax, maybe go paddleboarding at the lake. He asked what my plans were for the summer, whether I needed help packing up my room, if pony history made any more sense when I studied it by myself. I think that last one was his way of poking fun at me. I didn’t write back. After finals, we had a few days before they kicked us out of the dorms for summer, so to kill the time I found a good tree on the edge of campus and practiced pouncing on squirrels. Even with Ponyville squirrels being so lazy, I didn’t have any luck. Good thing I didn’t have to go back to Griffonstone. I think I went up there to figure out what to write back to Sandbar, but his sixth sense about me kicked in before I got anywhere. He showed up at the base of my tree one muggy morning while I was distracted watching a fat gray squirrel. “Hey, uh, do you want to come down a minute?” he asked. “Why don’t you come up?” The doofus actually put his forelegs around the trunk and tried to shimmy up. I had to float down to stop him. He reached for a hug when I landed, but stopped himself. “My parents are putting together a big dinner for the six of us.” “Cool.” “Yeah, they’re cool. I think you’d like them.” “I bet.” “Actually, they want to meet you. Maybe for brunch tomorrow.” He rubbed his forelegs together. “Or we could take that trip to the lake. My sis really wants to learn how to paddleboard, too.” His smile, even pained, beamed like the first sunrise of summer. It made my heart sink. “I don’t know.” A tear glistened in his eyes. I wanted so badly to brush it away, but he had to do it himself. “Do you have to fly back to Griffonstone soon?” “Nah. I’ve got a job in Dodge Junction.” His ears perked up with hope. He probably thought it’d be easier for us to visit each other over the break since I was staying in Equestria. “It’s only a few weeks, though,” I added. “I’m not sure where I’m going afterward.” “So do you want to meet my family before you go to Dodge Junction?” “Not really.” A squirrel chattered nearby. Probably sending out a warning about me to its squirrel buddies. Sandbar swallowed. “Do you want to meet them...ever?” I wish I had had the strength to say what I should have. To not make him fill in the blanks. “No.” He sniffled. “Because you’re breaking up with me.” “Yeah.” I should have said something else. One word wasn’t enough. “Was it something I…” His voice cracked. “Please tell me why.” I hadn’t sorted it out before then. All the time I spent with Sandbar had been incredible, from swing dancing and surfing to the calmness that came with holding him tight. I liked him everything about him. A lot. To the point that I got grouchy if I thought about him leaving me. So when he asked me then, I didn’t expect to come up with an answer so quickly. “Remember what I told you about griffons roosting?” He made a tiny nod. “It’s summer. Time to throw out the nest.” For a second, he didn’t react. He simply stared at me. “This isn’t how you treat someone you love—” “Please, don’t.” I didn’t have the energy keep listening. “Don’t say it. It’s not even real. It’s just hormones making you nice to someone so you can get what you want from them. It’s biology. They only call it ‘love’ to make it sound romantic.” “Y-you said…you loved me.” He shook with each word, “C’mon, dude. Don’t make me spell it out.” I could have flown away and left him to deal. But I’d messed up leading him on so long. If a final hug would help, I wanted to stay and offer it. Then he glared daggers at me. “Bullshit,” he spat. “That’s bullshit and you know it, Gallus.” * * * He didn’t need to make me feel any worse. He could have cried on my shoulder and I could have buried my beak into his mane. Held him one last time. We could have gone back to being friends. But, no, he had to yell at me, so I had to yell back at him until we ran out of shitty things to scream at each other. We told everyone it was amicable. No need to cancel the summer plans. Maybe we learned how to fake it from Cozy Glow. Now that I think about it, “Please be care—” is the first thing he’s said to me in months. I couldn’t even let him finish. The wedge—the iron weight crushing my leg, trapping me at the bottom of the ocean with one dwindling lungful of air—won’t move. I shove my talons underneath it, scrabbling for purchase. Stings flare across my claws as stones scrape against them. Using my free leg to push against the ground, I lift but slip instantly. The rock is too slick with algae to grip. I need help, need to call for help. The pit can’t be that deep, but if I try to yell I’ll just give up all the air I’ve got left. My lungs already burn like the time I swallowed a dragon’s tears pepper on a dare. Banging rocks together might make some noise— The rockslide! It was loud enough! My friends must have wondered what caused it. They’re probably swimming down right now. I turn my head up to find them— There’s nothing above except twisting ribbons of light. Even if they stuck around, your “friends” still think you’ve got the necklace. Grampa Gruff’s voice is right. I need to save myself. The rock is slick underneath, that’s why I couldn’t lift it. Could I slide my leg out? I lean down, gingerly tracing the outline of my trapped leg. Delicate twinges at my hip turn to sharp throbs at my knee, but fade into a fuzzy ache as I near the wedge. It’s a bad sign for ever using that paw again, but I’ll worry about it later. I wrap my talons around my leg and pull. Stars bloom. I let go, but my leg hasn’t moved an inch. I begin to feel around the floor, trying to find a rock I can use as lever so I can free my paw. No, you need to free YOURSELF. Your paw can stay. Bile rises in my throat. I’ve ripped open enough prey to know how easily flesh tears with a flick of the claw. Breaking bone is the hard part. It feels like I won’t have to worry about it this time. My vision tinges with red. I lean towards my trapped paw again. My talons tense—or, I think they do, they’ve turned numb and clumsy. I touch claws to leg, my arms shaking wildly. Shocks like electric currents sizzle across my shin. My arms jerk away, but I force them back. It won’t hurt as much if I do this quick, I tell myself. Not sure how much I believe it, but I gird myself anyway. Then I hear music. Drawn-out, arrhythmic tones devoid of any familiar melody trickle through the water. Out of the corner of my eye I see motion, a shadow swirling through the water. A second form follows it. They curl and twist through my field of view like spirits of two lovers. They’re real. They’ve come to save me. Ghosts aren’t real. No one’s coming save you. What else could they be? Not the charybdis, it’s dead. Or it went away and left a kid behind. A kid you woke up with your little temper tantrum. Now I understand the music, warped by the acoustics of this watery pit. The shadows are not ghosts but tentacles, probing the cavern to search for prey. To search for me. Any movement could draw its attention, but I can’t stay still. My lungs feel like they’re about to burst out of my chest. In a slow and smooth motion, I crouch into a kneeling potion. I have no choice now. My talons slither to my shin, my claws primed. I clench. I don’t even break skin before I let out a guttural moan. I can’t help it. For a second my vision goes black and my ears ring. All I can think about is the numbness now reaching to my hips and shoulders. I let go and unfold. Tension eases from my body. My sight returns in a series of growing halos. The ringing fades from my ears, replaced by a sloshing sound as one of the tentacles race towards me. I slash at it with both talons and snap my beak, but they fall short. The tentacle pauses just out of my reach. The second is to my side, further away. Lulling notes fill the water again. So this is how it goes. Trapped alone with an orphaned charybdis in its den, and every part of it is my own fault. I brought it here by being noisy. I invaded its home chasing made-up spectres. And I gave my friends every reason to leave me. But I’m going to earn another chance. If I can claw my way through this by myself, and drag whatever’s left of me to shore, then I’ll deserve that. When I do, I’ll throw myself at their claws and hooves and beg them to forgive me. Even if they don’t, I’ll tell them all what they mean to me. Yona. Smolder. Ocellus. Silverstream. And Sandbar. So, c’mon. C’mon. Come on! I’m right here! I’m easy pickings! COME ON! Why is it just floating there? What is it waiting for?! You really were a dumbass, Gramp Gruff’s voice says. Did you forget what Silverstream said? It wasn’t ever going to fight you. It’s been waiting for you to drown. My chest no longer aches. My trapped leg doesn’t sting. All my pain is gone, I realize, because there’s nothing but fuzzy numbness from my face to my tail. My muscles slacken and I sag. My vision goes black. The music dissipates into echos. My last sparks of consciousness dim like wisps of the galaxy at sunrise… When I feel water rushing at me. I spring, my talons and beak spread wide, and burrow in. Ribbons of muscle tauten against my claws. Warm fluid washes across my face. Blood teases my tongue. Flesh squirms against my embrace. I rip it apart. My beak snaps, my arms tear, my paw rakes, all in vicious circles digging through my shadowy attacker. Every strike is answered with squeals made distant by my dulled hearing. Something bats my side, tugs my arm, but I do not relent, even as a light flashes around me. Vigor fills me, but my talons go dead. I pummel with them instead—somehow, my arms are longer now, they wrap around—and sink my beak deeper. My vision comes back, sharper than it's ever been. There’s a dark figure frantically gesturing at my side. I can hear again. Silverstream’s voice cries for me to stop, to let go, while Sandbar moans pathetically from somewhere very close… No. No. It’s not him, no. I freeze. My jaw slackens. My arms and tentacles peel away. Please. Not him. Please. Please. A shadowy figure of a seapony appears in my grasp. Black plumes flow from the muzzle I used to so tenderly kiss, now mutilated by my beak. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no… Repeated denial fills my head with my own voice. Grampa Gruff’s rasp doesn’t have anything to say to me anymore. Sandbar sputters, and I reflexively cradle him. “I’m sorry,” I say, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He only whimpers. I try to rise, but one of my tentacles is still trapped under rock. I flex and relax to free it. It’s like squeezing a pincushion, but I make progress inch by inch. Why couldn’t I have torn it off when it was a paw and I had claws? Why did I throw myself into this pit? None of my useless apologies will heal Sandbar, but he has to know that I wish so much that we could trade places. If he swam down and got trapped, I’d save him without question. I’d take a thousand swung hooves to the face, crawl through miles of narrow tunnels, let my beak be torn away, if it would take away the pain I’ve caused him. I’d give anything to make him happy again. Everything starts to burble out, my words tripping over themselves, but an epiphany comes. The impossible turns inescapable. Made-up stories become real. I only need to say one word to him. “Sandbar, I love y—” His hoof presses against my beak, silencing me. My arms go slack. He’s drifting away from me, momentarily an earth pony, before Silverstream grabs him and turns him back into a seapony with her magic necklace. She rises silently through the clouds of viscera that flow from Sandbar. His necklace is stuck in my beak, keeping me as a squid. He wouldn’t let me finish. Maybe he meant to keep the necklace secure on me. Maybe he thought he was saving me from another lie. Or maybe he was only protecting himself from me. I am cruel, and Silverstream must carry Sandbar through the remnants of my cruelty. Soon I’ll pass through those clouds too, but I know now that they will follow me. I’ve made monsters I can never drive it away.
