The morning brought no more relief for Gallus than last night had. He’d woken up even stickier than he’d anticipated, with viscous residue mashing the fur along his belly and sheath. Grumbling, he flew out of bed and quickly stripped it of the sheets. Really, he hadn’t thought he’d made that big a mess last night. In fact, he was still sore from it. His entire pelvis ached. A part of him feared that, maybe, he could have done himself some harm. You couldn’t break your thing by jerking on it too hard, could you?

Falling back on the old griffon adage ‘you’re not hurt if you’re not bleeding’, he decided to suck it up, stuffing the sheets in atop the incriminating evidence. He didn’t know who did the laundry here, but he suspected that they were probably used to it. You couldn’t have hundreds of teenaged creatures in one school and not get some funky smelling sheets.

“Long night?” Sandbar asked as he emerged. Gallus glared back at him, his eyes bloodshot with dark circles around each. “Oooh... yeah, long night. You okay?”

“Of course. I’m the picture of joy. Isn’t it clear on my face?” he asked, making Sandbar wince.

“Whoo, early morning snark,” he replied, waving his hoof in front of his face as if Gallus had bad breath. “Well, if you need to talk, dude, I’m here to listen.”

The urge to make another caustic remark fought with the fact that Sandbar was probably the only guy here he could talk to. A truce was declared as Gallus sighed. “Yeah. I know. Thanks. I’m just... it’s a crappy morning.” He tried to stretch and winced. “I think I slept wrong. My back is all cramped up and I’m stiff!” He stretched one hind leg out and then the other. As for what he’d done last night, that wasn’t something you talked about. “I just need a shower is all.”

Sandbar nodded and together they walked down the hall to the showers for their business. The school had a large communal bathroom where most of the students got ready in the morning. Large windows ran from floor to ceiling, light flooding across the marble tile. One corner was dominated by a large, steaming pool for bathing, in which Silverstream was already lathering up, and waved joyously as they entered. Two walls of shower stalls ran along one wall, each one allowing three ponies to shower together. A second wall sported a dozen sinks and mirrors. Sandbar and Gallus usually shared a booth, so they could give each other’s hindquarters a scrub when needed. A row of toilets and sinks were tucked away in their own annex for a little more privacy.

Gallus went straight to a stall with Sandbar, passing Yona and Smolder doing their daily wash. Gallus stood in the hot stream, and let the heat wash away the ache. The warm cascade of water certainly helped, and Gallus used a long handled scrub brush to make sure any evidence was washed away rather than ask Sandbar for that assistance. By the time he finished, his mood had shifted up quite a bit.

He still couldn’t get that dumb mirror out of his head. Maybe it’d needed overnight to kick in? Well, what could a little more humiliation hurt? He got a towel and dried off. Immediately his plumage fluffed up in a disorganized mess of spikes and slicked back patches. He gave his reflection a level stare and swished his tail irritably. “This is not a good sign,” he informed himself. The feathers were a temporary thing. They’d lay down eventually.

Usually, things worked out, one way or another.

He limped his way out of the bathroom when there was a streak of red behind him, an explosion of pain stabbing right up his body from under his tail to his eyeballs, and a thunder of hooves as a colt yelled ‘tag!’ and raced off, leaving Gallus beak down on the ground, curled up, and now wishing things would work him back into bed. The laughter of the colt left Gallus contemplating if there was a friendship loophole for ponycide.

“Gallus? Are you okay?” asked a familiar voice, and he cracked an eye to see Smolder standing over him. “Tag?” Gallus nodded, doing all he could to nod without sobbing. “Crack your eggs?” Gallus squeezed his eyes shut and gave another little nod. “Need the nurse?” The nurse was only for getting out of class and throwing up. To be fair, he was pretty close but chewed it back in an effort to regain some dignity.

“More like a reset button on the last twenty four hours,” he muttered as the sharp stab from his crotch faded to a more agonized throbbing and merged with the ache in his hips. He forced himself to sit up and though he really wished for an ice pack, he wasn’t going to give Tag the satisfaction.

You had to bully carefully at the School of Friendship, and the red earth pony had found his niche. He ‘played’ with people he ‘wanted to be friends with’ as a ‘joke’. That often meant running behind people and ‘tagging’ them in the crotch with a well placed kick or hoof smack. They’d reported the colt more than once, but all it seemed to merit him was a lecture that he seemed to enjoy, and detentions that never bothered him.

“I keep telling you guys to tell Starlight. She’s not nearly as soft as Twilight is,” Smolder pointed out as he limped to the cafeteria. Gallus spotted the red colt with a knot of other boys, laughing and looking Gallus’s way. “You think saving Equestria from a power crazy filly gives you a ‘get out of detention for setting somepony’s mane on fire’ free card?”

“I wish,” Gallus said as they made their way over to their own table. He heard Tag let out a squalk, forehooves clutching his own privates as his eyes rolled, tongue hanging out. “I sooo wish...” he muttered.

Silverstream immediately broke off her talking with Yona, Sandbar, and Ocellus as they joined. “Hey Smolder! Hi, Gallus.” Immediately her brow furrowed. “Are you okay. You’re limping!”

“Gallus-” Smolder began.

“Just pulled a muscle! Last night. In my sleep,” he blurted, preferring that to admitting what’d happened. Smolder sighed, giving an eye roll.

“Oooh, I do that sometimes too. I’ll wake up and think I have fins and suddenly I’ll be all ‘Acccck! Two legs! Muscles, why you not work?” She cried out. “Or I’ll shape-shift in the middle of the night because I forgot to take off my necklace. Boy is that awkward,” she said with a light.

“Tell me about it,” Gallus said as he carefully took a seat. At least the surface was cool. Smolder walked over to get their breakfast trays.

“Okay. Well usually it’s because I’m having a swimming dream but once it happened while I dreamed the whole school flooded with pudding and I was going ‘ACK! Noooo! Can’t fly in pudding!’ But I could swim! So I changed in my dream and I must have changed in my sleep, because...” she trailed off.

“Because Yona’s friend’s fins smack Yona in face as Yona trying to sleep,” the yake stately flatley. “Not the first time.”

“Sorry, Yona,” Silverstream immediately apologized as Smolder arrived with muffins and started to pass them out.

“That fine. Yona forgive Silverstream because Silverstream is Yona’s friend,” and the yak nodded as if that was that and popped a whole vanilla muffin into her mouth, masticating furiously.

“So,” Sandbar said, keeping the conversation rolling. “What are we going to do about that alternative assignment, since the thing with the artifacts didn’t work out.”

“I’m not even sure all of those were artifacts! Did you look at some of the ones that weren’t on the Spelvenger hunt?” Gallus asked.

Oceullus didn’t munch a morning cupcake along with the others as she answered, “Well the call for artifacts were put out by Cozy, so she got a lot she didn’t need for her plan. Some of them weren’t even magical artifacts. Like Thorax sent a jar of jelly because it's a special changeling thing.”

“Really. What’s it taste like?” Silverstream asked as she buttered her muffin.

“Evil,” said Ocellus as Gallus said, “Mint.” That got him five looks and he blurted. “What? It was green. Like mint jelly. I certainly didn’t taste it!”

Ocellus leaned away from Gallus, her eyes narrowed in suspicion, for a few seconds before going on. “Good thing too. That was Chrysalis’s jelly. I can’t believe Thorax sent it. Of course he also sent a dozen other bits and pieces too. Fortunately, Knucklebocker’s Shell was magic enough to count. Or... unfortunately.” the Changeling pointed out.

“Why do you think she used those six and not others?” mused Smolder. “I mean, there was some cool stuff in there.” Gallus swallowed, wondering if Smolder had seen Gallus and that stupid mirror.

“What do you mean?” Gallus asked.

“Well there’s all those artifacts. Why did Cozy Glow encourage Twilight to use the six artifacts in the spellvenger hunt and not like, say, Starswirl’s Book?” Smolder wondered.

“I think she picked artifacts for geomagical effects,” Ocellus explained. That got a lot more blank looks and Ocellus sighed. “She wanted to drain the magic from all of Equestria, right?” The friends nodded slowly. “So she needed to pick artifacts that would let her draw that magic correctly. It was actually really advanced magic for a filly.”

“I’m still not convinced she wasn’t just a midget with a cutsey voice,” Sandbar said with a sad shake of his head.

“Well, I guess it’s lucky for us she didn’t use some of those others. Did you know that there was a mirror from Discord’s realm in it?” Ocellus said with a grin at the exact moment that Gallus was trying to swallow. The air in one pipe mixed with the muffins in another, leading both to erupt in a spray that left his coughing and gagging for air. And unfortunately, the person directly opposite him happened to be one hippogriff he desperately wanted to not cough muffin all over.

“Ah... ha...” Gallus murmured with a sickly grin as everyone stared. “Napkin?” he said as he offered his; a square of cloth woefully insufficient to clean off the gooey bits peppering her mane and feathers.

Silverstream blinked for a few moments, as if trying to process the correct response to being sprayed by your friend’s mouthful of food. “I’ll... be right back,” she replied, rising and flying for the girl’s bathroom. Gallus stretched out a claw towards her as she departed. Was she upset? Was she furious? Could he buy a hint?

Gallus pressed his face to the tabletop. “Kill me,” he groaned.

“Nah, dragons aren’t big on mercy,” Smolder retorted, patting him on the back. “Nice range and spray though.”

“You know... if you talked to Silverstream...” Ocellus began.

“What do you know about that dumb mirror? You said it was Discord’s?” Gallus asked in a valiant effort to get the subject off spraying Silverstream with his breakfast.

Ocellus sighed and shrugged. “I heard the professors talking about it. It wasn’t so much ‘Discord’s mirror’ as ‘a mirror found by Discord in his realm’ so they didn’t put it out. Apparently it has the power to grant your heart’s desire.” Ocellus tapped her hooves together. “Apparently, they thought putting something like that around lots of young creatures might not be the smartest move.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Gallus muttered. “Anyway, they didn’t have to worry. It was simply a weird fun house mirror. Nothing to it at all.”

“You messed with it?” Sandbar asked.

“Yup,” he said and then gushed to Ocellus. “And it didn’t grant my heart’s desire, so don’t worry.”

“What did pony desire?” Yona asked, cocking her head.

“I- You- She- It-” Gallus blustered before he took a deep breath. “Why to be the coolest griffon at in all of equestria, naturally. It came true too. See?” He gave the three the best smoulder he could pull off, waggling his brows.

“Yeah. Pretty sure you should get your money back,” Smolder snorted.

“Yona confused. Is something supposed to happen?” she asked Sandbar, who gave a shrug.

Ocellus gave a polite, if somewhat pitying, smile.

“Clearly the threats of chaotic realm spooky mirrors are overrated,” he grumbled as he held his head in his claws. The bell chimed just as Silverstream walked out of the bathroom, further robbing him of the chance to apologize for spraying her with his breakfast. Keeping his head down, he walked at the back of the group. Today was clearly not going to be his day. He was certain of it.

Hell was trying to make a dozen foals laugh. It wasn’t that he was opposed to babies in theory, but rather that he didn’t precisely know what to do when them. Sitting in the Ponyville daycare, with its bright yellow colors and garish red and blue smiling flowers, Gallus couldn’t help but feel a little resentment. Griffonstone child care was a pile of rocks and good aim. Nevertheless, the penalty for trespassing on the artifact room was to give baby ponies a laugh.

So Ocellus was transforming into a whole menagerie of cute and cuddly critters while Yona gave twelve a yak ride all at once. Smolder made smoke shapes, or maybe babies really liked fire. Silverstream twisted her face into bizarre expressions, crosseyed to tongue hanging out, punctuated with baby babble like she was fluent in foalist. Sandbar sat there and that was perfect hilarity for his dozen.

Gallus eyed his dozen and leaned in. “Look. Laugh and I’ll give you all cupcakes.”

The foals blinked at him, one emitting a long streamer of mucus from one nostril before he... she... it caught the dangler with a tongue and slurped it into their mouth. A second one fell asleep while the last one seemed more occupied by blocks than anything else.

“You just gotta do something silly,” Silverstream called out, giving an impression of a dog, sitting on her hind legs in a begging position..

Gallus was still really hurting from the Tag he’d gotten that morning. Of course, the last thing he wanted was to go into the nurse’s office and tell. You just didn’t do that and stay cool. Gallus inhaled deeply and cut loose. “Whobadubadurrbadooble!” he shouted, rocking his head back and forth as his eyes rolled in their sockets.

One woke. Twenty four eyes stared at him. Then in unison they began to bawl and shriek at the top of their lungs. Gallus slumped. “That’s it. I flunk,” he announced as he headed for the door. “I’m heading back to school.” There was a time to cut your losses, get an ice pack, some aspirin, and call it a day.

He was almost to the door when he felt hooves wrap around his hind leg. “Momma!” a yellow and maroon pegasi foal said as they hugged his foot.

“Wha... no I’m not. Get off!” he cried out, giving his leg a shake.

“Momma!” the foal insisted.

“I am not a momma! I am the opposite of a momma!” Gallus squalked. Of course, several of the crying foals found that hilarious! Maybe he’d get a D?

The daycare attendant trotted over. “Sorry about that. She’s very clingy,” the caretaker said, tugging the foal off of Gallus’s leg.

“Momma!” the foal cried, waving her hooves at Gallus as she was carried off.

“And needing some glasses too,” Gallus muttered as he left and started to fly back to the school. His mood was shot, and his whole body ached. Not ached. His bowels felt clenched up tight, and he’d spent almost half an hour in the toilet. Worse was just how much Tag’s tag had left him sore. Sure, a nut smack wasn’t the best thing ever, but usually after a few hours life moved on. His wasn’t.

All because of that stupid mirror. Okay, maybe not all of it, but that mirror had promised it’d make getting with Silverstream ‘easier’. How did getting kicked in the nuts count as easier? Or his voice cracking? Or choking on a muffin and spattering Silverstream with baked shrapnel? Unless Silverstream found pathetic hot, and a tiny shred of hope still remained that, somehow, she did, the mirror had done, at best, nothing and, at worst, made his life miserable.

As he flew back, sore, towards the school, he knew that he needed to have another little chat with that magic mirror before it was sent back wherever Discord lived. He flew down the hall to the classroom where the relics were stored, but this time the door was covered with giant glowing purple padlocks and chains. Gallus rubbed his beak as he hovered before the door. “Huh. Well not getting in this way, even if I had Ocellus.” The classroom windows were almost certainly locked too. If he had to scram, they’d be a quick exit, but how to get in? He thought for a moment, then his eyes dropped to one of the brass grates set in the hallway floor.

A very familiar terror gibbered in the back of his mind at the thought of trying to squeeze through a duct and getting stuck. But, he reminded himself, he’d already faced this fear once and gotten out when the tree of friendship tested He just had to do it one more time. Find the mirror, threaten it with a rock, and get it to fulfill his wish. All he wanted was for Silverstream to... something! He didn’t care what.

He moved into the adjacent classroom, Professor Applejack’s, but didn’t see a connecting vent. Then he moved through the classroom and entered Applejack’s supply closet full of hay bales and spotted it down near the floor. “Whew. I totally might have lost it if I’d had to go through the floor. He crouched down and peered through. Hah! The mirror still sat in the corner! He grabbed the vent and gave a hard pull. The grate scraped, then popped free. It was just big enough, he estimated, but if he could get his shoulders through he could get his body through. He stretched and slipped his arms through, then his head.

Twisting his body diagonal, he slipped his shoulders past the gap, scraping his fur. He clenched his jaw as he pushed his wings through, but once they popped through it was just a simple matter to pull his waist through and get to...

His hips connected solidly with the edges of the hole.

“Huh?” he blinked as he looked back at himself. That was strange. He pushed again, but he felt his pelvis catch on the edge and go no further. “What the hay!” He tried to back up... and his wing caught the edge. He pushed forward again, but no matter how he twisted, his hips were stuck. “Okay, this is not good!” He tried to twist his body this way and that, but neither his hips nor his wings allowed him more than a few inches of movement.

A little part of his brain was definitely freaking out. “Relax Gallus. You can find a way out of this. You just gotta relax. The hole isn’t going to magically close and squish you. As soon as you just,” he rammed his hips forward... and winced. “Or maybe...” he pulled back, hoping his wings would somehow magically invert and let him pull himself free. They didn’t. “Oh come on!” The gibbering terror was growing.

A thin, ethereal laugh filled the classroom and Gallus froze. The canvas tarp covering the mirror in the corner fluttered, and then with a hiss slid right off. He stared into the warped fun house reflection as he struggled. The stone around his waist seemed to undulate, and he looked down to check that he wasn’t being squished in two. Every time he looked the hole seemed fine, but the second he looked away he felt it jiggle like flan.

He turned back to the mysterious, warped mirror. All at once, the distorted image flattened into his own reflection. Inexplicably, he felt a pressure on his beak, and to his horror, his own mouth moved to speak. “Feeling frustrated?” his voice simpered in a babying voice. “Feeling stuck? Can’t go back? Can’t go forward?” The voice lowered a little. “Feeling... trapped?” Gallus gasped as he felt the stone press tight around his ribs, but when he stared, nothing had moved... had it?

Bafflement was the only thing keeping him from wetting himself right now. The only defense he could think of was to ask this... this thing... something to keep his mind off the sensation plaguing him. “Who are you? What are you?” Gallus demanded as he stared at his own reflection. It was like working his jaw against invisible hands manipulating it.

“Nothing important,” the Gallus in the mirror answered with a casual wave of his claw, and Gallus’s own limb mimicked the motion. “You, however, are far more interesting to me than I would be to you,” he murmured, giving a sneaky grin that felt all too comfortable on his face. Gallus doubted that a lot. “But perhaps you’d appreciate a show of good faith? Yes? You appreciate a good show?”

Gallus clenched his eyes shut, and the manipulating hands disappeared. Maybe if he kept them closed he could prevent the control? “Fine. Sure. Whatever.” No response. He cracked an eye and peeked at the mirror.

Instantly the control resumed, and his beak and brow smirked. Gallus watched in the reflection as the hole trapping him suddenly widened. Gallus glanced back... nothing had moved. Then he looked at the hole in the reflection and watched as he casually stepped out of it. As his hind legs stepped on the classroom floor, he looked back again, and to his astonishment the hole looked no different. “Huh? What? How?” He blustered before looking at the mirror again.

“Oh, that’s hardly important now, is it? Not compared to your problem,” the mirror Gallus chuckled.

Gallus had to admit that was the point of this visit. “Yeah. What was the deal? You told me you’d help me get with Silverstream,” he said with a frown, flying over to stand in front of the mirror.

“I did. Some things take time,” the mirror Gallus purred. “I could do things quicker, but that might be... unhealthy. And you wouldn’t want Twilight or Starlight to... interrupt things, would you?” Ugh, how did the mirror make him sound so... girly? And hot?

“Seriously? Can’t we just skip to the good part?” Gallus muttered with a roll of his eyes.

“Oh, you mean... this part?” Mirror Gallus said, and suddenly Silverstream stepped into view inside the mirror from the side. Gallus immediately stared around the room, but of course she hadn’t appeared. His eyes locked to her eyes, those blue eyes gazing at him in ways the real Silverstream never did. His chest tightened, his heart pounded, and his breath stilled. His eyes roamed along her pale rose body inside the mirror, and more than anything he wanted her with him. Her arm went around Gallus’s neck, holding him close. Gallus could feel the soft tickle of her feathers. The gentle scratch of her nails against his skin. He jerked back in alarm, but struck a row of desks behind him and could go no further.

“Hey! What are you– Don’t touch–” He yelped in surprise, but as the touching continued he slowly relaxed. He couldn’t help but groan, watching as his reflection turned and kissed her. Part of him wanted to fight this control, but a more base Gallus craved even a figment of tenderness. Gallus went limp, feeling his beak open and something bizarre stroking against his mouth. He’d never been kissed like this before... or kissed at all... but the more it went on the more he wanted it!. He closed his eyes reflexively, and staggered forward as the sensation cut off.

Opening them again, he saw silver stream kneeling at his side... her claws reaching down, stroking and manipulating his aching sack possessively with one claw and stroking along his sheathe with the other. He reared up on his hind legs, leaning back against the desk, bracing himself with his claws clenching the edge. His sheathe’s opening started to brim with bubbles of precum. Was it the mirror that was making his member ooze this much, or was he this hard for anything with Silverstream? A part of him, screaming caution, was getting silenced as he was gradually overwhelmed by the ghostly sensation of digits artfully teasing against his member as inch after inch emerged. As his breathing quickened, his traitorous knot began to slip out. Whatever was going on, this wasn’t normal... wasn’t... there had to be a catch. There had to be...

But he couldn’t stop himself from watching, allowing the reflection to continue. It didn’t take longer than a minute for his slick, dripping cock to push its way out into the air... only this time instead of his claw meeting it, it was caressed from tip to base again and again with passes of that soft, tantalizing tongue. Pathetic gasps as moans escaped him as he was assaulted by this unexpected attack.

His resistance crumbled, his hips beginning to pump instinctively forward. His fleshy knob slid out completely with a moist squish, leaving it bobbing in the air and exposed to the mirror’s manipulations. The knot at the base stiffened, ruffling back his sheathe. Gallus didn’t dare close his eyes as that beak carefully took his tip into her mouth and started to press it deeper into the back of her throat.

“Oh... yes...” he groaned, despite himself. The warm, slippery fluid crept down through his fur and down the inside of his thighs. He could feel the inside of her mouth, the movement of muscle in her throat against the back of his member. The slow bob of her head. He watched the motion of his cock disappearing into the illusory Silversteam’s mouth. His reflection kept moving his claws, touching a head that would vanish if he just closed his eyes.

“Is this what you want?” Mirror Gallus asked.

“Oh yeah,” Gallus murmured, the building pleasure tension threatening to blast through his loins with alarming intensity.

“More than anything?” Mirror Gallus teased. He could feel Silverstreams claws manipulating his sack, fondling it more and more.

“Ah, yes!” he gasped.

“And are you willing to give anything to be with her?” his reflection taunted himself. He could barely follow the question as his pelvic muscles began to throb.

“Yeah- huh? Wait–” Gallus choked. Of course this was the very moment his cock erupted in a stream of ivory. Only instead of going into a certain hippogriff’s beak, it shot out into the air and splattered across the crazy, warped surface. Gallus’s eyes clenched shut as his body unloaded, his arms gripping the desk behind him to keep from collapsing as his cock repeated shot out into the thin air. The clenching deep in his pelvis finally made him collapse onto all fours as his member unload every last drop from his body.

He lay there for a moment, focusing on breathing as he felt his entire body squirm from the force of his orgasm. It on and on, the tapering convulsions becoming exhausting as weakening gouts dully throbbed from the end of his member. He was going to die! To fucking–

Like that, it was over. His body withered, as if a year of his lifespan had been extracted out his dick. Compared to what he’d just done, last night’s wank might as well have been a wet dream. He felt muscles still working and squirming around in his gut and pelvis. He cracked an eye and saw his thighs were soaked with ropes of gleaming white and a trickle of fluid from his sheathe soaking his thighs. He dared look at the mirror, seeing its flat yet warped surface gleaming with his jizz.

Then he saw the drips disappear into the surface, the entire thing clean as if it had never happened. “Ehh?” he muttered and leaned forward, then, after a moment, tapped the mirror.

Nothing. Had anything happened at all? Well, something certainly had from the musk of his seed in the air and streaks on the floor, not to mention the goo staining the inside of his thighs. It still bubbled in a clear froth from his sheathe as his cock rapidly shrank in the cool air. “Am I losing my damned mind?” he muttered. He’d never been this ‘drippy’ before afterwards. Then again, he’d never been molested by a reflection of Silverstream before either.

He barely had enough presence of mind to use a corner of the canvas drape to try and clean, or at least smear around and obfuscate the spatters on the floor. Once it was more or less clean... cleanish... he couldn’t do anything about the smell... well, once it was as clean as it was going to get, he returned the canvas drape to the mirror and headed to the classroom windows, unlocking one and slipping out. If he was lucky it’d stay unlocked, in case he needed another visit in the middle of the night.

The sun was already setting. He made a beeline straight for the lake. With any luck, he could get cleaned up without any more awkward questions.

No... with any luck... he’d get to do this for real with Silverstream. Soon.

Author's Note

(New note: Went in and did some substantial edits. Sorry about that.)

****ATURHO NOTO**** ALT ENDING

His body withered, as if a year of his lifespan had been extracted out his dick.
GALLU DONE DED TO DIK

He lay there for a moment, focusing on breathing as he felt his entire body squirm from the force of his orgasm. It on and on, the tapering convulsions becoming exhausting as weakening gouts dully throbbed from the end of his member. He was going to die! To fucking–

Like that, it was over