Galling Tendency

Somehow, all of this had gone wrong. Instead of being elated that something that at least looked like Silverstream had blown him, he felt pathetic for being blown by a frigging mirror. Instead of feeling good for having busted the biggest nut he’d ever had, he felt empty and even in a bit of pain. He wondered if, maybe, he should just go to the nurse and tell Twilight or Starlight what he’d been doing. And they’d look disappointed in him, like everyone else did.

Nevermind what Silverstream would think of him if she ever found out.

After flying to the lake to wash off... god had he really cum that much? It was everywhere! His cock ached as much as his balls had all day. Perhaps worse. The sensible thought, in Ocellus’s voice, told him to go to the nurse. But simply trying to explain... how did you explain this? It was humiliating. He imagined the school nurse, or worse, Professor Gimmer, handing him a doll and asking him to show where the bad mirror touched him.

No nurse. No Professor Glimmer. No more mirror. When he finally got back it was post dinner with everyone starting to head to bed. He got to his bedroom door and opened it up–

The reek of pony and yak struck him like a hammer. He got a glance before he slammed the door shut. A horseshoe he’d overlooked hanging on the doorknob fell to the floor with a soft ping. Gallus ran down the hall before he realized he had no idea where he was going, then sat down with his back against the wall. Right now, that was the last thing he’d needed to walk into.

“Gallus?” Asked a familiar voice. Ocellus. He lifted his head, seeing her standing with Smolder. The dragon with her hands on her hips as she looked down at him. “What’s wrong?” the changeling asked with a worried smile.

“Yona’s in our room with Sandbar,” he said, and rubbed his face with a talon. “I missed the horseshoe.”

Ocellus blushed a little. “Horseshoe?” Smolder asked.

Gallus sighed, not really wanting to explain it. “Just a way to have some privacy.”

“Huh. I think the molt is way simpler. You’re old enough to do that sort of stuff, see yah!” Smolder said, taking a seat on his right. “Anyway, we know something’s up with you. Well, Ocellus says something is.”

“You’re kinda one big knot of emotions right now,” Ocellus said, sitting on his left. Smolder sighed and rolled her eyes a moment, but finally slid to the floor on his right. Gallus pulled his knees up and hugged them. Tilting his head back, he gazed up at the moon rising through the hall’s skylights. The silvery sphere cast the hallway in an ivory glow. Ocellus leaned over and rest her head on his shoulder as she went on, “I don’t know why. Only that it started yesterday.”

Gallus sighed. Might as well get this over with, like ripping off a bandaid. “Do you think Silverstream likes me?”

“Of course she does,” Ocellus answered at once.

“Like Yona likes Sandbar?” He amended, looking over at Ocellus.

“Er...” the changeling balked, chewing her bottom lip. “She really, really, really likes you... as a friend.”

“Is that what’s wrong? Terminal friend zone?” Smolder asked.

“No. Yes. Maybe!” he growled and clutched his ear tufts. “I want us to be a thing but I have no idea how to make us a thing because I don’t even know if the thing is even possible.”

“Talk. To. Her.” Smolder stated bluntly, holding out her hand and poking her palm with every word. “Seriously. That’s how Yona and Sandbar worked out. They talked. They talked some more. I assume there was some smashing involved. Now they’re a thing. That’s how this works. Mooning after her and sitting her sulking isn’t going to change it.”

“I’ll screw it up,” he muttered. “That seems to be all I ever do.”

“It might not be you, Gallus. Silverstream may not be in a place to have a thing with any creature,” Ocellus offered with a hopeful smile.

“Yeah. Isn’t she a princess or something?” Smolder asked.

“Well her cousin is, so... I think that makes her like a duchess or something,” Gallus said with a wave of his claw. He sighed, facepalming. “I know you’re right. You both are. I just... I’m terrified that I’m going to screw everything up and she won’t want to talk to me again.”

“Dude, right now you are screwing up. Unscrew down and go talk to her. At the least you’ll have tried,” Smolder offered.

“I know she takes a bath before bed,” Ocellus offered with a hopeful smile.

Gallus took a deep breath. The lake might have destroyed the evidence, but an actual bath couldn’t hurt. “Okay,” he muttered, rising to his feet. “I’ll go and talk. Who knows?”

“Right. Who knows?” Ocellus echoed brightly. Smolder smirked and shrugged. The pair rose along with him, and said goodnight. Gallus steeled himself and headed down the hall towards the bathroom while the pair left to their own room.

Sadly, the pair underestimated Gallus’s hearing as Smolder said, “Think he has a chance?”

“Nope, but it’s important to support your friends,” Ocellus answered. Gallus gave himself a point for not looking back at the pair. Tonight had been weird enough already. There was a part of him eager to do anything with Silverstream... the real Silverstream... but he couldn’t quite get the memories of that stupid mirror out of his head. It’d been so... so real...

The memory was going to make the bath difficult. What if something poked out?

Gallus rushed to the bathroom before his steel resolve rusted away completely. Even at this late hour, there were a few people washing up. Silverstream lounged in the large square bath in her seapony form. He took a deep breath and walked towards her, hopping into the pool right away. He hissed at the balmy water but focused on her on the far side of the pool. Silverstream waved a fin immediately. “Hey, Gallus! There you are. You left the daycare so fast I was worried. Are you okay?”

Nope. “Yeah. Sure. I just ate something bad,” he lied, trying to push the mirror from his mind as much as possible... though the sensations of that tongue... “I wanted to ask you a question, actually.”

“Sure!” She asked as she swam back and ‘sat’ on the ledge that ran the perimeter of the bath. “What’s up?”

A dozen questions bounced around in his head before he blurted, “Do sea ponies lay eggs?”

And then he died. Or wished he’d died. Why the heck was that what popped out of his beak?

“Sure!” she gushed. “I have a booklet in my room all about it.”

“You do?” he blinked and then relaxed. “Of course you do,” he said with a small smile. Of course now that he was on this topic... “So... uh... eggs. Yeah. How’s that work?”

“Well, it really is the only option! I mean, when you’re shapeshifting, even with magic, you want to get the young out as quickly as possible, and that means eggs,” she said brightly. Thank all the glittery gold in the world, she didn’t mention sex. “Of course, if you don’t lay them in time, the shells dissolve and then you have to have live birth, and that’s not fun at all. Not that laying eggs is a picnic,” she added with an eye roll.

Gallus couldn’t help himself. “Do... you?”

“Oh sure,” she went on with a wave of her fin. “Once month, give or take. Aren’t griffons the same? Smolder too, though she’s more on a three month cycle.” This was getting into a world he really didn’t want to know.

“I’m not exactly sure,” he confessed. “I mean, yeah, eggs, but I don’t know how often,” he said with a touch of guilt. “I know I was a live birth. Kinda why I’m an orphan,” he muttered.

She reached over and patted him on the back. “Yeah. Live birth is rough for hippogriffs too. Something goes wrong, it can get ugly. At least in seapony form we sorta... slip out? But that means being a seapony for months. Once the egg’s lodged inside you, transformations are dangerous.” At least she wasn’t smiling as she consoled him.

“And what do you do with them?” he asked, as he rubbed his beak. “I mean, they don’t hatch... right?” A little naive part of him had to wonder.

“Oh no, you need a boy for that,” she said, and Gallus’s loins remarked that he was a boy. “If they’re unfertilized, you can tell. They kinda only look white. If you wait too long and don’t lay them they get absorbed by the body. There’s some griffs that do that, saying it prevents brittle bones and stuff, but I don’t take the chance.” She gave a little shiver. “Things can get icky.”

“And what do you do with them? The unfertilized ones?” he asked, morbidly curious, and trying to keep the topic off things that would make him harden.

“Same thing you do with almost everything else your body pushes out that you don’t want to keep around. It goes in the toilet,” she said with a shrug.

“Seriously?” Gallus reeled as he nearly went cross eyed trying not to think of it and failing miserably. He thought of a gargantuan egg lodged in the plumbing. “But what if... I mean...” She gave him a concerned look. “I mean... it just seems... It’s your egg.”

“Well, yeah, but I trim my claws too, but I don’t get attached to the clippings.” She gave a dismissive wave of her fin. “You’d understand if you were a girl. It’s a thing that happens.”

“I guess,” he replied, rubbing the back of his head. It was one thing to have a vague idea and another for Silverstream to state it so matter of factly. A part of him was relieved she didn’t say something like ‘eat them scrambled. They’re a great source of protein.’ And worse, if she said it, she’d mean it.

At least the topic had settled his nerves somewhat. He gazed at her a moment, all finny and fantastic. Even as a seapony, she was beautiful. A part of him was glad she was in this form. If she’d been in her hippogriff from, he probably would have choked after the word ‘egg.’

“So... I was wondering something else. Do you... like... anyone?” he asked. His eyes traced along her sleek and glistening form. He felt things stirring down there and carefully obscured it with his tail.

“Well, yeah!” she answered with a grin. “There’s Yona and Smolder. Ocellus is a sweetie. There’s you and Sandbar. Oh! My mom and dad! Professor-”

“No no no!” he said, waving his claws before him. “I mean that you like–like. Like how Yona likes Sandbar.” Go down! Go down! Please go down. This was a mistake. He was at half mast as he felt the tip of his cock rubbing against his tail tuft... that wasn’t helping! There was a part of him that wanted to flee and deal with a boner.Easier than dealing with his feelings...

Silverstream blinked at him a moment and answered in a slightly less certain voice. “Well, yeah.”

“There is?” he asked, and a little part of him couldn’t help but beg ‘please be me!’ The fantasy of being Silver’s chosen was stirring all kinds of lewd thoughts. He mentally screamed furiously at those thoughts to get back into his sheathe. He felt his length in the hot water underneath him. Once the knot emerged and locked his sheathe back it’d be all over.

“Yona, Smolder, Ocellus, Sandbar, you, mom, dad...” she trailed off. “Is something wrong?”

Just trying not to freak you out by popping my knot while asking this. Gallus covered his face with a dripping claw. “Silverstream, you know that Yona and Sandbar are a thing, right?” He completely expected his knot to start doing its thing at this point and betray his feelings, but he’d managed to keep it at bay; a little miracle all of its own.

“Well, of course they are,” she answered, and he furrowed his brow in worry. “They’re friends.”

“They’re kinda a little more than friends, Silver,” Gallus pointed out, failing to keep the envious edge out of his words. “They’re dating.” To his amazement, the ominous erection was actually going down. “Like... sex.” He considered it a personal accomplishment that his penis was taking this topic so well.

“Oh,” she said, her eyes big and round. “Yona said she was going to smash with Sandbar.”

Gallus chuckled mirthlessly. “I think yaks use that word for way too many things.” He took a deep breath. “So... do you?”

Silverstream brought her tailfin up and hugged it, not unlike Gallus had been in the hall. Her pink eyes turned soft and distant, her voice dropping. “I was afraid you were going to ask me this too,” she said in a small voice as she looked away.

“Ask... what?”

“If I wanted to date you,” she said.

Well, that took care of the erection problem. His cock called a full retreat, fleeing back into the protection of his sheathe before he was exposed and routed. “Ah...” he said as he felt his heart being torn down inside his chest, like an anchor had been hooked inside him and was trying to pull him through the floor. “I guess the answer’s no?”

She shook her head. “I like you, Gallus. You’re a nice guy. But I don’t really like any boys here. It’s not really an option for me,” she said.

Nice guy. Somehow that cut even worse than if she said he was a jerk. “What do you mean?” he asked, hoping he didn’t actually sound as dead to her as he did to his own ears. What, wasn’t his nice good enough?

“I mean that someday Queen Novo is going to probably tell me who I’m going to marry and... that’ll be that,” she said with a half smile. “I mean, they’ll probably be nice. I doubt she’ll arrange me with a mean person. But... yeah...” she said as her eyes fell. “Sorry. I have to tell a lot of guys this.”

A lot. Silverstream was popular, but that was because she was awesome. Still, a part of Gallus wanted to take names to... do something. “But what about in the meantime?” he asked.

She shook her head. “It’s not even that. I... I don’t really like you like that. I don’t think of you like that. And it’s not because you’re not an awesome guy. I don’t really feel like that for any guy. Maybe it’s the marriage thing. Or maybe it’s... maybe it’s not you, it’s me and I’m the weird one.” She said as she bit her bottom lip.

“Wrong with you?” he asked in shock.

“Yeah. Like, I know I’m not the sharpest coral in the sea. What if there’s something wrong with me and I like... I can’t like someone like that?” she dropped her eyes to her fins. “Sorry.”

“Hey! Hey,” he reached out and took one of her fins. “Listen. There’s nothing wrong with you. You just haven’t met the right person yet,” he said, somehow finding the ability to smile in spite of the pain in his chest. It was worth the effort, though, as she mirrored his expression. “Listen. Just forget about it. If I’m a good friend, it’s better than nothing,” he lied, but right now a lie was easier than the truth.

And the truth was that weight in his gut was only getting tighter and heavier.

But if there was one thing he could do, it was pretend. Pretend to smile if it made her smile. Pretend to laugh to hear her laugh. Because that mattered more than the feelings that were twisting around his gut. He thought that being told no would somehow resolve things, but the only thing that was resolved was that he wished he hadn’t asked. That the mirror had given him some... something. A part of him wanted to fly in the window with a hammer and see if the mirror could do better, but his heart simply wasn’t in it. Better to be with her, let her wash his feathers in her stupid girly shampoo because he could complain about the fruity smell and not about her.

Some times, laughing totally hurt, but you kept it up because the alternatives were just so much worse...

She flashed back to her hippogriff form, looking at him with those adorable rose quartz colored eyes. “So, you’re okay?”

Well, he’d gotten through a bath with silverstream without his throbbing wang coming up to join the conversation, so he called that a win. “I’m fine,” he lied and chuckled. “We should do this more often. You’re fun to talk to.” Even if he couldn’t shake the image of her dropping a chicken egg into a toilet.

“Yeah!” she blurted. “I’d really like that. See you tomorrow!”

“Right. Tomorrow.” Gallus walked out with the glossiest feathers he’d never had before, smelling vaguely of strawberries and wishing that he’d been able to climb into bed and forget today ever started. After what he’d done with Silverstream’s reflection, he felt even more creeperish. Fortunately, this time when he got back to their bedroom, there was no sign of the horseshoe. Yona had probably gone back to her room. He walked in, head hanging low, trying to ignore the smell. At least Sandbar had opened a window. “Hey,” Sandbar said as he tossed a towel over his shoulder. “Did you take a bath?”

“Yes,” he replied flatly.

“I thought you hated baths,” Sandbar asked in confusion.

“I do,” he said as he flew over to his bunk and disappeared under the covers. He didn’t hear sandbar move, and finally he muttered, “I talked to Silverstream.”

“Woah,” his roommate murmured. “What’d she say?” Gallus turned his head and gave him the most dead eyed stare he could. “Oh. Wow. Ah. Guessing it was no, right?” The stare intensified. “Yeah. No. I’m sorry, dude.” Gallus turned his head away. “Wow. I’m really sorry, Dude, but at least this way you know, right? You can move on. Focus on meeting someone else. Right?”

“Sandbar?” Gallus croaked.

“Yeah, dude?”

“Can you... like... go away? I just want to be alone right now.”

He left. It was always easier for Gallus to cry alone.

Afterwards, he simply laid there, feeling sick. Maybe it was the mirror or getting twisted up before crashing and burning. Maybe it was because he could feel how shiny and smooth his plumage was after using her girl’s shampoo. He rolled on his back, feeling his entire abdomen feeling tight, but also ooky. Like something alarming were trying to roll about inside him. He couldn’t think of what he could have eaten to get that kind of feeling... nor explain why the ookiness ran from his gut all the way down the inside of his thighs. His hips hurt, but at least the soreness from Tag’s kick had finally worn off. It didn’t stop the dull ache in his loins, of course.

When Sandbar returned, he crawled into bed below. “Hey, tomorrows a new day. Try and make it better than today, Bird Bro.”

Gallus sighed. He really had no idea how he could make tomorrow worse. “Yeah,” he replied as noncommittally as he could, rolling on his back with his blanket up to his chin. After that mirror, he didn’t want to mess with himself. Finally, eventually, he went to sleep.

When dawn arrived the next day, he woke feeling like he’d been run over by a herd of Yaks. The soreness in his hips had gone away, but there was something off. He dropped down and took a step... and... yeah. His step felt different. His wings felt fine, but as he tried to walk his gait didn’t seem the same. He couldn’t put his claw on it.

Sandbar woke and gave him a questioning look as he merged out of his bed. “I’m fine,” Gallus lied, before Sandbar could ask. “Just stiff, I think.” He took a few steps and rubbed his throat.

“Right,” he said. There was no need for a shower this morning, so after hitting the toilets they made their way to the cafeteria. Yona, Silverstream, Ocellus, and Smolder were already there. They were laughing about something Yona was saying, her forehooves measuring something in front of her, and another round of laughter broke out. Silverstream looked up and spotted Gallus. Her laughter was cut short, a worried smile on her face. Then her brows knit together and she patted the seat beside her with a friendly friend zone smile of a friend to a friend. Friend like.

A part of him didn’t want to play along. Wanted to fly off in a huff that told them all he wasn’t okay with this. That it hurt and sucked and was Silverstreams fault for not liking nice guys so why be nice? But that part of him was stomped down by the urge to actually be kind and generous, and play nice. And maybe, just maybe, the ache inside him would subside and maybe, just maybe, something good would happen. So he put on a smile and joined his friends at their table.

“Hey, Gallus,” Smolder greeted as he sat next to Silverstream and then the dragon pointed at his plumage. “Why are your feathers all shiny?”

“Oh, no re-” he started to say, flushing as he tapped his claws together. “I mean, I- um-”

Silverstream jumped in. “Oh. He used my conditioner last night. It’s, like, the best thing for making your feathers glossy. You should really try it,” she offered. “It’s made out of sea slugs and it would do wonders on your scales.”

“Yeah. No. Dragons don’t do conditioner. Polish, but not conditioner,” the dragon corrected with a smile that got a laugh.

Gallus stretched for the salt. “Well it re–.” He cut off in time to see the tell tale red streak of colt. He managed to plant his butt on the chair as Tag missed his target and instead smashed the small of Gallus’s back. “Damn it, Tag!” he shouted, waving a fist at the departing, laughing colt.

“Are you okay?” Silverstream asked in alarm. She reached up to hold his shoulder, and that was all that kept him from pouncing on Tag and earning a detention.

“No. I love it when a pony keeps trying to use my nuts as a boxing bag!” he snapped, pressed a hand to the small of his back. It was starting to ache again. “Guess he smacked me pretty good,” he said as evenly as he could.

“You should tell professor Twilight about Tag. It’s not right what he’s doing,” Ocellus pointed out.

“I’m not going to tell. Clobber him if I catch him, maybe,” Gallus muttered. The professors weren’t going to fight his battles for him.

“Still, you should go to the nurse,” Ocellus said with a tap of her forehoof on his shoulder.

“Fine,” Gallus replied, “I’ll go to the nurse.” Partly because he didn’t like to admit to being hurt and the other to try to tie together some of his dignity. Of course, it would have been different if he was simply pretending to be sick to get out of class. That was always fair. But actually being sick was just a drag.

He limped his way down the hall to the nurse’s office. He really didn’t know what they could do besides give him an x-ray, some medicine, and an excuse to skip morning classes. He had to wait along with other sick colts and fillies, and was relieved when he got in to see the nurse.

It went about as well as he’d expected. A few concerned ‘hmms’ and ‘ahah’s before the pony admitted he didn’t know much about griffon physiology. The X ray magic was kinda neat; was that how his pelvic bones looked? It seemed like the image was stretched out or something.

Least he got a cherry lollipop out of it. It even tasted really good, which surprised him.

“Well?” Sandbar asked when he walked into Rainbow Dash’s class while she was supervising buckball teams.

“I’ll live,” Gallus muttered, to the snickers of other classmates. “What? He missed.”

“Dude, not gonna laugh at you. That’s super annoying. I dealt with him trying to smack me for a week.” Of course Sandbar smiled, but at least he seemed sincere. He grinned. “Maybe you’re so shiny you’re an easy target.”

“Ugh. I need to find some dirt to roll in,” he muttered. He was never going to use girl shampoo again if this was the effect. Still, eventually it was his turn at Buckball, and flying helped take his mind off of his problems. By the time the day was over, he felt a little better... even if he was still walking funny. He passed Tag, the red colt pointing at Gallus and then clutched his groin, his eyes rolling as his face twisted in mocking pain. “I got claws, Tag! See?” He raised his talons, but that only made the pegasi colt laugh harder.

When Gallus was finally in bed, he contemplated having a rub to deal with the edge, but his sheathe simply laid there like a sad sock against his belly. “Ugh,” he grumbled... but then his digits brushed against his nipples. Normally he didn’t pay they any mind. They were like elbows. You had them and... that was it. But as the fleshy yellow part of his claw rubbed against one, a zing went from the little nub straight to his brain. “Ah!” he was unable to silence before biting the sheet. Sandbar shifted in bed below him, but started snoring immediately.

Okay, this was getting weird. He ran his thumbs along the four nubs. What was going on? They shouldn’t feel so... zingy. Should they? Was this normal? A part of him thought of writing Grandpa Gruff, but that part died in the fires of mortification that raged at the thought of talking about any part of his body with his guardian. He poked and prodded the firm nubs, barely visible through the velvety fur that covered his belly and sheath. A few tugs and flicks of the nipples made his legs twitch. Honestly, if it was only this it wouldn’t be so bad, but no amount of playing with them could give him the three alarm raging boner he needed right now. The only product was a sticky emission of fluids matting his inner thighs as he tried valiantly to pump his sheathe.

He tried to think of Silverstream in the bath. A collage of images from their time together ran through his mind's eye, including the various bits that he’d peeked at from time to time. It wasn’t like she wore clothes. A little peeking was natural, right? He remembered her soft skin as she clung to him, fearing the Storm King’s return. Yet enticing as the memory was, he only got hard enough to get about halfway out of his sheathe before it stopped. Memories about the reflection Silverstream started to intrude, accompanied by the sensations of that tongue gliding along his member. No matter how he tried to imagine her, that stupid mirror barged in, and he couldn’t get further. As soon as his rubbing stopped, his penis slunk back inside.

“No joy,” he muttered, putting his hands above the sheets to stop him from fondling himself. Thinking about Silverstream had always worked for him before, but now... now it wasn’t. Was it the mirror? Was it him? Stress? What kind of healthy griffon boy couldn’t get off thinking of a cute hippogriff girl like her? Could anything be weirder?

“Okay, mirror, it’s time. You and me,” Gallus said as he slipped into the classroom three very frustrated days later. He hadn’t been able to get away from classes, homework assignments, his friends, or Silverstream to have his percussive heart to heart with the mirror. Three days of his penis not working right when he really needed it to work was damned well enough. He had all the motivation he needed and right now the seven years bad luck would be worth the frustration that raged inside him. He was so heavily in the friend zone that he would probably be a bridesmaid at whatever hippogriff lord Silverstream was forced to marry.

And don’t get him started on his stupid feathers. Even a few days after his bath with Silversteam, he was getting teased about his ‘shiny feathers’. It’d been even worse when Silverstream had tried sticking up for him about his feathers being pretty. Not that that hadn’t been awesome, but that, for some reason, he burst out crying after she did! What was the deal? The hug made up for it somewhat, but he hadn’t meant to cry like a baby just to get a cuddle. And then, ten minutes later, he was back to only being generally frustrated.

And that wasn’t the worst of it. His nipples weren’t simply sensitive now; they were puffy too. Puffy! Four small bumps protruding from the velvety fur. What kind of griffon had puffy nipples? It might have been different if he could get some relief from it, but instead all he was left with was this sense of frustration that made him want to scream!

And why couldn’t he? Because his cock had decided to take a vacation on the rare moments when he wanted to relieve some of the tension! Like his penis had given up the fight and was sulking in his sheathe. Oh, he could get it drippy in ten seconds flat, but he wasn’t able to get hard, even when focusing on the reflection’s damned molestation. He had to force his sheathe back and rub the half turgid end. It drove him nuts that he could have this much lubrication, get wound so close to popping... and still not have any... ‘grand finale’. It made no sense, given how sensitive he felt down there, but all that toying with himself and he could barely reach half mast. It made him want to scream, and not in the good way.

So now that it was lunch time. He pushed open the window, glad it was still unlocked, and entered the classroom... only to find it bare. The tables were returned to their original places and the mirror, that damned mirror, was no where to be seen. The hammer slipped out of his powerless grip, landing on the floor with a solid thump. His butt followed. With the mirror gone, how was he supposed to fix it?

He staggered through the school day almost in a daze until he finally got to his kindness class. Silverstream kept looking at him in worry, but he barely noticed. How had that mirror jinxed him? He needed help, but after that stupid reflection molested him, he was mortified to even mention it. He had one more hope, and then he’d go to Councilor Glimmer and... vomit this problem all over her and let her deal with it.

When class was over, he hung back. Fluttershy loaded up baby animals from her refuge and jumped in surprise as she realized he was still there. “Oh my, Gallus. Are you okay?” she asked, pressing a hoof to her chest. “Is something... I mean... are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He said, then coughed. “I was wondering, do you know where that mirror artifact went?”

“The mirror? Why do you want to know about that?”

Gallus’s left eyelid twitched. If he started sobbing now... He fell back on the last ditch excuse every student had at the School of Friendship: “Report! History report for Professor Sparkle!” Please believe me please believe me... “We have to do one on a magical artifact and I was interested in the mirror.”

She stared at him skeptically. “Oh, well, Discord took it back to his dimension,” she replied.

“Oh really. Well that’s great!” he lied, his jaw aching to maintain his grin. “Where’s that?”

“I have no idea. Apparently only the mailpony can find it because of his special talent. Otherwise, Discord has to come and get me,” she stated as she helped animals into their carrier.

“Oh,” he said, his last hope dwindling rapidly. “Can you call him... or write him... or is there a summoning spell?”

“I can certainly ask him to stop by and tell you all about it,” Fluttershy replied with a smile, adding food for each of the critters. “Is that all that’s bothering you?”

“Yeah...” Gallus started to say, turning for the door, and then whirling back. “No. I... what do you do when you like someone and they don’t like you? I mean... romantically.”

Fluttershy blushed but smiled. “Well, I’d say you keep being nice.” Kill me now. “Maybe they won’t ever feel the same for you, but you can at least have something together.” She gave a little shrug and a sad smile. “But sometimes it doesn’t work, and if it doesn’t, then you do your best not to hurt each other. Not everycreature works out.”

Gallus slumped a little but nodded. “Okay. Yeah. I get that.” I don’t LIKE it, but I get it. “Friendzone. Yay.”

“Well, is that better than ‘no friend zone’?” Fluttershy countered, though from her giggle, Gallus wondered if she knew what friend zone even meant. “Just give it time. These things work out one way or another.” Gallus fought with all his strength not to roll his eyes. Pony optimism. Sometimes things didn’t work out. He didn’t know if losing his friendship with Silverstream was something he could stand to lose...

“Okay,” he muttered, then sighed. “And I do need to talk to him. Discord. About his mirror,” he added in a rush.

“I’ll be sure to tell him,” she assured him, then hooked up the little cart and wheeled the baby critters out of the classroom. “ And don’t forget your homework for my class!” she called out in parting.

“I won’t...” he muttered, then blinked. Oh, crap. “Wait! We have homework?” he shouted as he flew after her. “Professor Fluttershy!” he wailed. “I wasn’t paying attention!”