Sandbar awoke with the sensation of vertigo as he was bounced off the mattress of his dorm room bed. As he rested still once again, he got his bearings and noticed Gallus sitting over his legs and in his red-and-gold headband and red scarf, his form stiff like a statue with the excitement rushing through him.
“Sandbar, get up!” he statically commanded. “Sandbar, come on, it’s Hearth’s Warming!”
“Uh…” Sandbar slithered himself up to sit straight on his haunches. “Gallus?”
“No, it’s Yona, genius! Yes, of course it’s Gallus! Come on, the rest of us are waiting with Professor Rainbow Dash to get to Headmare Twilight’s castle!”
“Sandbar, Gallus, let’s go!!” Smolder yelled, her voice clearly heard from all the way through the hall and down the stairs. “I probably have a gemstone as big as an Ursa Major waiting for me!”
“Yona want to open pony present too!” the gruff yak bellowed just as loudly.
Gallus yanked the covers off of Sandbar’s lower half and tossed them to the floor. “Well, you heard the ladies, let’s get a move on!”
“Right, okay!” Swinging to the left, he brought his back hooves to the ground and flung his upper half forward, landing on his front hooves and galloping toward a coatrack beside the bedroom door.
Gallus spun around to face his friend, watching as he pulled a red beanie onto his head and unraveled a green scarf from the hook. “Uh, hey, don’t you have a present to bring with?”
Sandbar let out a triumphant huff as he spun his scarf around his neck with a single swing of his arm. “I actually brought it over to Headmare Twilight’s yesterday! Didn’t want you peeking at it too soon. Come on!”
Gallus sat stumped for a moment before shrugging. “Eh, pretty smart move, actually.”
“Let’s go, guys!” Rainbow Dash’s voice shouted.
“Yep, we’re coming now!” Gallus jumped off Sandbar’s bed and flew out of the room with the colt galloping alongside.
Rainbow Dash pushed the front doors of Twilight’s castle open to allow her six students to spill themselves inside. Neither of them made it more than ten feet before what they saw in front of them brought them to a standstill. A Hearth’s Warming tree twice as big as the one in the school and twice as lavishly decorated. The size and majesty of it only served to make the Fire of Friendship on top of it look even brighter and hotter than the one they had on the school’s tree.
Scanning it from the top down, the students then saw as Applejack, Rarity, and Spike began sorting out the presents that had all been laid out underneath it. Despite the dozen or so gifts that had been set aside in a neat semicircle, there were even more that awaited to be paired with each other.
“Whoa,” the six creatures sighed at once.
“Isn’t Hearth’s Warming just the most wonderful time of the year?!” Pinkie Pie shrieked, riding in on a unicycle
Rainbow Dash looked to her earth pony friend sternly with her hooves on her hips. “Darn it, Pinkie Pie! We were supposed to wait until they got here!”
“Sorry, Rainbow Dash! It’s not like I couldn’t tell what it was anyway!”
“Oh, they’re here!” Fluttershy soared down from the second-level balcony and landed before her students. “Welcome, everycreature! Happy Hearth’s Warming!”
“Happy Hearth’s Warming, Professor Fluttershy!” each one sounded off in a cacophony of merriment.
“Yeah, Happy Hearth’s Warming!” Spike greeted. “Bet a lot of you are excited to be celebrating your first one, huh?”
The creatures nodded and spoke in different confirmations.
From around the hallway entrance behind the tree, Twilight trotted around, stopping in pleasant surprise to see that everyone had finally arrived. “Hey, you guys are here!”
“Headmare Twilight!” Sandbar exclaimed. “You still have my present to Gallus, right?”
“Mmhm! It’s in my bedroom. I’ll go get it now! Applejack, Rarity, if you don’t mind handing the students their presents!”
“On it, darling!” Rarity bid with a wave.
As Twilight flew away to the upper level where Fluttershy had come from, Rarity lifted up six boxes wrapped and tied in unique papers and ribbons off the floor in her magic, slowly pushing them through the air toward their intended recipients.
“Eeeheeheehee!” Silverstream couldn’t help but shake the box close to her ear, wanting to determine what she received from the sound it made getting knocked about inside. “Wait, didn’t Professor Rainbow Dash tell us to wait until everyone is here?”
“I mean,” Applejack slyly mentioned, “we are all here now. Besides, Twilight wanted all y’all to open your presents first, so go on, everycreature, get crackin’!”
“YEEEE!” Silverstream tossed her box behind her head and picked up what looked to be a softball-sized wad of wrapping paper one she had set on the floor before nearly shoving it in Sandbar’s face. “Come on, Sandbar, you have to open mine!”
“Aha,” the colt nervously chuckled, “I was going to anyway, but…”
As Sandbar tore into the haphazard wrapping, his friends crowded around him as they watched with bated breath as he got closer to what was hidden inside. Finally, he was able to pull a clamshell out from the center and open it with ease. Inside, Sandbar’s eyes widened as he saw a small pink turtle-shell carved from a shiny pink stone with a loop for a chain or rope on top.
“Silverstream…” Sandbar gasped. “This isn’t…”
“Yep! Auntie Novo had it made special and everything! Now you can visit me and my family up in Aris or down in Seaquestria whenever you like!”
“That’s so cool! Thank you so much, Silverstream!”
As the pony and hippogriff hugged each other, Yona let her saddlebag drop from her side, letting it fall to the floor with a heavy thud that vibrated the floor.
“Yona think wrapping would give away,” the yak said as she pushed it along toward Smolder.
The young dragoness laughed as she began to unbuckle the fuller of the two bags. “Then it sounds like you already know what I…”
She then pulled out a crudely cut diamond as big as her head whose luster nonetheless drew every eye in the room toward it, especially Spike, who licked his lips ravenously.
Smolder stared at her gift in disbelief. “Yona… where did you–”
“Prince Rutherford find shiny rock in mountains outside Yakyakistan not long ago!” she happily explained. “He not able to smash, so he nearly throw it away, but he ask Yona if I want dumb, shiny rock, and Yona say, ‘Yes, dragon friend would love rock very much!’”
“And love rock I do!” she giggled greedily before catching herself. “Hehe, sorry. Thanks again, Yona.”
“Pleasure is all Yona’s!”
Setting the diamond down, she patted it affectionately. “I’ll snack on you later!”
She then pushed a large box from behind her in front of Ocellus, the size of it making her back away and rub one foreleg against the other.
“Come on, Ocellus” Smolder egged, “it’s not quite as impressive as my gift.”
“Okay, if you say so…”
With magic charging on her horn, she gently peeled the tape off the wrapping and began to unfold it neatly, careful to not even make the tiniest knick in the paper. Smolder crossed her arms impatiently while her other four friends and the ponies surrounding them watched on contently. Finally, Ocellus was able to slide the white box out of the rectangular tube of paper and pull the top off. After setting the top aside, she pulled out the contents inside: an ornate pearl-coated teapot, three matching teacups and saucers, as well as two wide, short tins of loose-leaf tea.
“Oh, a… tea set?” Ocellus questioned.
“You don’t like it?” Smolder could hardly contain her excitement, earning some confused looks from the others. “Because I can keep it and get you something better if you like!”
“No, no!” Ocellus organized her gift back into her box and quickly shut the top back on. “It’s a very lovely gift, Smolder, it’s just that I wasn’t expecting such a gift from you, no offense.”
“I, aha…” Smolder blushed, hoping she didn’t reveal too much. “None taken.”
As Ocellus approached Smolder and gave the dragon a hug, Yona approached the two and nudged on of her horns into the changeling’s side. “Yona tired of waiting! What do Ocellus give to Yona on Hearth’s Warming?!”
“Oh, I uh…” As Ocellus was pushed off of Smolder, she peered around the yak to search among the mares behind her. “Applejack!”
“I got you, sugar!” Applejack trotted off to the left corner of the stairwell behind the tree, where a large black pillar with a ribbon wrapped and tied around it was set.
“It was a little big to bring with me, so I had it delivered here from the changeling hive.”
Yona looked over to Applejack as she pushed the stone along the floor with her head, the yak utterly baffled by what she was presumably being given. “But… Yona already gave friend big rock. What do I want with other big rock?”
“Why don’t you, uh…” Ocellus coyly hinted, “smash it and find out.”
“Wait, Ocellus want Yona to smash Hearth’s Warming present?” When she received a nod of approval from the changeling, Yona beamed and charged right at it. “Best Hearth’s Warming ever!”
Tucking her head down, Yona shattered the pillar effortlessly, the pieces scattering all along the floor. After a few moments of awkward silence, Yona pursed her lips in intrigue as the shards and larger pieces began to vibrate before they began to shoot out at the leftover stump. The others then watched with added amazement as the pillar began to rebuild itself with the broken pieces until it was whole once again. With a series of groans, the rock melded back into one piece, leaving no hint that it was ever smashed.
“That pillar is made with the rock from our hive,” Ocellus explained. “It allows us to form and reform the caverns at will, but I had Thorax enchant it so that it would reform whenever it was broken.”
“Ocellus mean…” Yona’s understanding began to overwhelm her. “…Yona… and other yaks… can smash black pillar whenever they want?”
“Whenever you want!”
Yona tackled Ocellus to the ground, smothering her with her belly. “You are best gift giver! Thank you, Ocellus!”
“No… problem!” Ocellus squeaked with the last of her breath.
“Hey, hey, hey, get off before you kill her!” Gallus slapped Yona on the rump on her way to Silverstream, making her jump off Ocellus and letting the changeling breathe. “Here you go, Silverstream. Hope you like it.”
Gallus lobbed a small, poorly wrapped-up box with small tears all over it at Silverstream, who caught it in her talons.
“Oh, Gallus,” she guffawed, “you shouldn’t have!”
“Well,” he sneered, “it is Hearth’s Warming, so yeah, I kind of did?”
With the rips in the paper, Silverstream very easily unveiled a small white jewelry box which she stared at with large, wondrous eyes. “Oh my gosh, Gallus! You got me a box!”
“I mean, I got you a silver chain to hang your pearl fro–”
“Thank you, Gallus!” The hippogriff threw herself at the griffon, wrapping her arms around him. “I’ll treasure it forever!”
“Yeah, sure!” Gallus choked as Silverstream’s hold got tighter. “I hope you do!”
Suddenly, Silverstream pushed herself off of Gallus, a looks of mild concern now on her face. “Wait a moment, didn’t Sandbar say that Twilight has your gift for Gallus?”
“Sorry, I’m coming!” Twilight flew down to join her other friends and the students, a scroll held in her magic.
Gallus frowned as he looked at what Twilight had, pointing at it lazily. “Sandbar, what is that?”
“It’s your present!” Sandbar said with great enthusiasm.
“Uh, not to be a buzzkill on Hearth’s Warming, but aren’t presents supposed to be wrapped up in bright colorful paper? That just looks like a regular old scroll!”
“It’s not just any regular old scroll!” Twilight enticed further, floating it toward the reluctant griffin. “Trust me when I say that Sandbar put a lot of time and effort into this present!”
Yona, Sandbar, Ocellus, and Smolder all looked to each other and grinned, knowing exactly what was coming. Gallus, the letter still held in front of him, rolled his eyes before snatching it from her magical grasp.
“Okay, fine!” Gallus pulled off the seal keeping it rolled up and began flattening it out. “It better be a deed to a cool new house or something…”
Gallus read the top of the paper, his eyes widening immediately upon spotting the first three words: “Form for Adoption.”
Sandbar breathed in through his teeth as he bit his lip, shooting his glances about the room as he tried to read everyone’s reactions at once. Gallus himself was now just skimming through the contract, his lips parting with every new word he was able to register. Reaching the bottom, he found three signatures, two he wasn’t able to recognize fully, and the sloppy, arthritic penmanship of Grampa Gruff he found all too familiar.
Gallus’s head slowly and involuntarily shook as he brought it back up to look into Sandbar’s eyes. “Sandbar… what is this?”
“Exactly what it looks like,” he responded, his voice now resigned and warmer.
“But… no… No, this can’t be right…”
“What’s not to be right?” Spike asked.
“I mean, I can read it out loud to you if you like,” Silverstream interjected, “but it’ll probably just sound the same from my voice as it did in your head.”
“Wait, hold on!” Gallus spun around to face his friends and his teachers. “You’re all in on this too?”
The ponies and other creatures nodded their heads once.
Rainbow Dash hovered herself toward the griffon. “Sandbar told Twilight and I about what you told him and your friends the morning after you made a mess of the school.”
Twilight then approached him and put her hoof on the base of his wing. “Sandbar recognized that even though your friends stayed to be with you over the holidays, you still wouldn’t have a family to return home to.”
Applejack then came forward. “And so he went to his folks that day and asked them about taking you in, and they were more than happy to.”
On cue, two grown ponies walked in from around the hallway behind the Hearth’s Warming tree, one of whom was a stallion with a slight-darker coat than his son’s and sported white-and-cyan-striped dreadlocks. The other was a yellow-coated mare with a messy pink-and-light-orange mane and tail. Riding her back was a baby filly with a matching coat to her fathers and a pink-and-mint-green hairstyle similar to her mother’s.
“Beachcomber, High Tide,” Gallus spoke to the father and then the mother. “You even brought Coral Currents here?”
“Sure thing, Blue,” Beachcomber responded in a chill, raspy voice, “but I’m sure you’d much prefer being called Gallus in our humble abode from now on.”
“Gally!” Coral Currents giggled as she reached for Gallus while still on her mother’s back, making the griffon recoil with melancholy.
“Looks like your new sis is supes ready to welcome you home too,” High Tide replied.
Gallus backed away, feeling cornered despite the ample space between him and Sandbar’s family.
“Guys, come on…” Gallus chuckled, the prospect of this being an elaborate, well-meaning prank giving him an odd solace. “It’s not like you can just sign a paper telling me I’m your kid now!”
“But of course,” Fluttershy spoke in. “Beachcomber and High Tide still had to go through the proper channels to make it legal, so Rainbow Dash accompanied them to Griffonstone to make the final arrangements.”
“Since Grampa Gruff is the closest thing you had to a guardian,” Rainbow Dash added, “he was the one who had to sign his parental rights away to Sandbar’s mom and dad, and if you could believe it, that was the hardest part!”
“Apparently,” Beachcomber laughed, “he didn’t want my son ponifying a griffon, but High Tide and I assured him that he’d more likely make a griffin out of Sandbar.”
“Not to mention…” Gallus suddenly found Pinkie Pie underneath him, making him leap up from his spot and land beside his friends as the adoption form fell from his grasp to land right on the pony’s face. “Grampa Gruff’s signature’s right there in black and white, clear as crystal! Well, I mean, it’s only black, and you certainly can’t see through it or anything…”
Now surrounded on both sides by his schoolmates, Gallus could only look forward as Sandbar approached him with an inviting, assuring smile, as Beachcomber, High Tide, and Corral Currents joined their son, Gallus’s eyes began to well with tears, the reality suddenly weighing down on him.
Sinking to his stomach, Gallus shut his eyes and covered them fully with his talons, unable to mask the water streaming down his cheeks and to the floor. “Sandbar, guys, please don’t do this to me… My own parents didn’t even want me in their family… How could you want me in yours?”
Sandbar sat in front of Gallus, his smile a bit tighter as his own eyes began to moisten. “Why wouldn’t I want such an awesome friend to be in my family? You’ve only stayed over at my place like, what, like four times since we enrolled at the school, and my parents and baby sister already like you just as much!”
“If it makes you feel any better,” High Tide said, “just imagine this as an even longer sleepover.”
“Except now,” Beachcomber added, coming forward to sit beside Sandbar and stroking Gallus’s face with his hoof, “you don’t have to worry about going back home, because you’ll already be home, Gallus.”
As Ocellus and Smolder leaned against each other and embraced eachother side-by-side as they continued watching, Yona bawled loudly as she pressed her face into Silverstream’s side, who opened up her wing and patted the yak’s head. The ponies, along with Spike, were far too touched and teary-eyed themselves to let themselves giggle at Yona’s comical reaction. Gallus managed to bring his head up, his tears still unable to stop flowing. After letting out a couple of sobs, he managed to wipe them as dry as he could off the backs of his talons.
“Does…” he said, “does this mean…”
“It means Beachcomber’s gonna’ be your dad,” Sandbar explained, “High Tide’s gonna’ be your mom, and Coral Current’s gonna’ be your lil sister! As for you and me, we’ll still be friends, you won’t have to worry about that. Just know that on top of that, you’ll also get to be my brother.”
Gallus’s crying stopped as Sandbar and Beachcomber both stood to their hooves, the griffon looking up to them with mounting hope and awe that their words and their sentiment was more genuine than anycreature had ever given him.
“So what do you say?” Sandbar reached his hoof to Gallus. “Welcome home, brother?”
Looking past Sandbar, Gallus could see the colt’s parents and sister clearly behind him; a portrait of a family that had deliberately made a hole just big enough for him to fill. Though the nagging thoughts of unworthiness and cynicism couldn’t leave the back of his mind, the hoof of one of his closest friends extended earnestly to him turned faith of love into certainty.
Halfway to standing up on all fours, Gallus could no longer help himself, pouncing into Sandbar and tackling him onto his back. As the griffon hugged him tight, he loudly wept into the young pony’s chest, a lifelong void finally closed up for him for the rest of his life.
“Haha…” Though smothered and pressed down to the floor by Gallus’s now familial hold, Sandbar managed to pat his new adopted brother’s back. “Happy first Hearth’s Warming, Gallus.”
Gallus let out a nearly incomprehensible wail that, even with it muffled into Sandbar’s coat, sounded like “thank you.” With Silverstream letting out a screeching cheer, her friends, their pony teachers, and Spike were compelled to break into applause and cheers of their own. Beachcomber and High Tide stood by each other and nestled the sides of their heads against each other. Suddenly, Pinkie Pie wedged herself between them from behind, the adoption form held in her teeth. Though surprised at first, the proud parents smiled in appreciation as they let Coral Currents grab the scroll and hug it close to her like a doll.
High Tide tensed up upon realizing something. “Oh shoot, we didn’t even make a Hearth’s Warming doll for him, did we?”
Beachcomber smiled and rested his head against his wife’s again, closing his eyes contently. “Already wrapped up and put under our tree.”
High Tide’s grin turned cheeky. “Oh, Beachy, you think of everything!”
As they relaxed themselves into their company once again, Sandbar and Gallus’s friends continued to clap as they watched them continue to hug each other tight as brothers for the very first time.
“Hehehe,” Smolder chuckled, “even I gotta’ admit, that gift was way better than mine.”
